Chapter 28:
Faith knocked on the door to Buffy's borrowed bedroom – not that she'd actually been sleeping there – but she was currently using it to hide out. "B?" she called through the wooden door.
"I'm not here," she heard the blonde's reply.
Faith pushed open the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. She found Buffy on the bed, her face down in a pillow.
"You can't hide from him forever, you know," the brunette said, quietly closing the door behind her.
Buffy didn't look up. She remained on the bed with her face buried in the top pillow. "I can try," came the muffled reply.
"You need to talk to him." Faith sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's not healthy to keep all this shit bottled up."
Buffy finally looked up, her hair wild and disheveled from being mashed on the pillow top. "I think it would be even more unhealthy if we talked."
Faith couldn't help the smirk that seemed to naturally find its way to her lips. "How did he find out anyway?"
Buffy's eyes perceptibly narrowed. "It's your fault."
"How exactly?" Faith asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Your eggs and bacon scheme to get into my pants," Buffy noted glumly.
Faith shook her head, still not connecting the dots.
"Kate doesn't eat eggs," the Chosen One stated.
The revelation shocked the brunette. "She doesn't? Shit. And here I thought I was a good girlfriend."
The elder woman snorted. "Yeah. Besides that whole…you cheating on her with me," Buffy unnecessarily pointed out.
"Hey!" Faith exclaimed. "I thought you were her," she said defensively.
Buffy clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Yeah, for like a minute," she scoffed.
Faith scowled. "Whatever. Stop changing the subject," she protested. "You and Angel need to talk this thing out."
Buffy sighed and her entire body heaved. "I don't know what there is to talk about."
"You guys banged so much you created another universe," Faith pointed out, not unkindly. "I think you need to talk."
Buffy dropped her head back onto the pillow. "Fine," she conceded with a growl. "I guess it's about time I start tackling my 'To Do' list anyway," she noted somberly.
Faith looked suddenly uncomfortable. "This probably isn't the right moment to tell ya this, but Kate is awake and stable enough to have visitors."
"So you're leaving me," Buffy stated flatly.
Faith's eyes shifted in their sockets. "Uh, you can come along if you want?"
"No," Buffy sighed. "I can't keep avoiding Angel," she regretfully admitted. "You'll be back in a couple hours though, right?"
"That's the plan," the other slayer noted. "Unless the flower shop takes forever."
Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Flower shop?"
"Yeah," Faith nodded. "I'm gonna stop by one in town before I get there. Pick up some daisies."
"Daisies?"
"Kate told me once she thought daisies were the friendliest flower," the brunette stated absent-mindedly. She looked over at the alarm clock near Buffy's bedside. "Shit," she cursed, noticing how late in the day it had become. Visiting hours weren't going to be much longer by the time she did her errands and made it back to London. "I gotta get going. Call if you need me, okay?"
Faith leaned over and gave the blonde woman a quick peck on the lips. She hopped up from the bed and rushed out of the room without looking back.
Buffy stared in wonder after Faith through the open door, almost expecting the brunette to reappear and comment on the unannounced kissed. When she didn't, Buffy rolled off the bed to once again close herself in her room.
"So this is what I've become," Buffy grumbled to herself. "An afterthought while she races off to save the day with daisies."
The Chosen One flopped back down on her bed like a petulant teenager. She knew she was behaving childish, but she didn't care. Faith had rejected her advances earlier that morning. And now she kissed her like they were an old, married couple before rushing off to the bedside of her injured ex-girlfriend.
She had the strangest urge to run after Faith and fiercely kiss her until she was the only blonde on Faith's radar. But she didn't know if that was just her naturally competitive nature pushing her into action or something else all together.
"What am I doing?" she called out to no one in particular.
She couldn't deny that she was attracted to the dark-haired woman. Anyone with eyes could observe how devastatingly attractive the younger slayer was. And Buffy had two of those.
But beyond that, she didn't know what was going on between the two of them. Faith had admitted her feelings for the blonde – and Kate's choice of body shape was evidence of Faith's obvious attraction for her.
But did Buffy want a relationship with Faith? Did she want Faith to be her girlfriend? And if she did, what did that mean for her living situation? Would they stay in England? Would Faith give up Giles' multiple homes for a cramped apartment in San Francisco?
Buffy made a disgruntled noise. She didn't know what she was doing anymore or what to do next. The only thing she did know, however, was that she badly needed to shower.
Hefting herself off the bed once more, Buffy catatonically trudged over to her wardrobe. She opened the top drawer and there, lying on top of her bras and underwear, was the file folder she'd taken from Quentin Travers' basement of horrors. In all the excitement and confusion of the young day, she'd nearly forgotten she'd stashed it in her dresser drawer to examine later.
She hadn't exactly known what she was supposed to be looking for as she'd quickly riffled through the file cabinets in the basement laboratory. But her curiosity had gotten the best of her when she'd seen this particular file. Because why in the world would Travers be keeping a folder with her name on it?
Buffy turned back to the double bed, showering momentarily forgotten. She lay on her stomach and flipped the aging file folder open, flat on the bed. A thick stack of meticulously typed pages glared back at her.
"Ugh, I hate reading," she groaned aloud.
The only people she knew who actually liked reading were Willow and Angel. And she was currently hiding from Angel, and Willow was thousands of miles away. She flipped through the top few pages, once again unsure of what she was looking for. Research had never been a strength of hers. Strength was her strength. She tried to understand what the pages and pages of type-written text indicated, but it was too technical, too scientific to make any sense to her.
She sighed once again. Another dead end for now. Buffy closed the folder to avoid bringing on an unnecessary migraine or inferiority complex. When she got back to San Francisco, she'd have to ask Willow to look over the details in the files to make sure there was nothing left they needed to worry about when it came to Quentin Travers and his plot to control the slayer line.
Buffy placed the folder back in the top drawer of her wardrobe.
"Should have let him fry," she murmured in a melancholy way.
Buffy stepped into the steaming hot shower and audibly sighed when the scalding water hit her bare skin. The plumbing and fixtures in Giles' country home were out-of-date, but thankfully that didn't affect the water temperature. The farmhouse seemed to have an unlimited supply of hot water.
Buffy closed her eyes and let the warm water fall over her face. The past few weeks, minus a few speed bumps, had felt like a vacation. Faith had been nothing but attentive to her needs, jumping through hoops to make her feel comfortable in a foreign place. She'd even reluctantly gone along with Buffy's decision to hide her identity from Angel. It had been confusing to see that side of Faith – someone so caring and thoughtful – and that more than anything else, currently played on her mind.
She could accept that she was physically attracted to Faith. But this England trip had made her realize that she didn't really know Faith. She wasn't the girl who'd shown up in Sunnydale so many years ago. She wasn't the girl who'd switched bodies with her. She wasn't even the girl who'd broken out of prison to help Angel get his soul back and who'd been at Buffy's side in their defeat of The First.
So much time had passed between each chapter of re-introduction into each other's lives. It was as though Faith was multiple people sharing the same body inside of Buffy's memories. And oh what a body it was. Chiseled collarbone. Flat stomach. Thin, but defined arms. That little swimmer's V that poked out the top of low-riding yoga pants.
Buffy caught herself when her hands had gone from innocently soaping up her body to something more intimate.
She turned the hot water dial to lower the temperature of the water. If she wanted to get images of Faith's body out of her head and make it through this shower, she was going to need a very cold shower.
The blonde slayer padded down the wooden staircase toward the ground floor. Freshly showered, her hair still slightly damp, she realized her interrupted breakfast of eggs and bacon wasn't going to be enough to satisfy her hunger that early afternoon.
She bounced into the kitchen with a slight spring in her step. She was feeling much better after her long shower. She stopped in the threshold, however, when she recognized Angel's lumbering form standing in the center of the room.
A small smirk spread across Angel's lips. "I knew it was just a matter of time before you got hungry and came down again," he said smugly.
Buffy groaned, but stood her ground. "Foiled again by my appetite."
"Why did you hide your identity from me?" Angel countered, pulling no punches now that the blonde slayer was standing in front of him. He wasn't going to waste anymore time or let Buffy run away again. "Why pretend to be Kate?"
Buffy ducked her head and couldn't bring herself to look at Angel. "Because it was easier," she regretfully mumbled. "Everything happened so fast. I was determined for such a long time to defeat Twilight, and then when he turned out to be you, I guess I was so relieved that…"
"…that you had sex in space with me?" Angel finished for her.
Buffy blushed. "Something like that."
"So you were just embarrassed about the sex?" the unaging vampire questioned. "That's why you pretended to be Kate."
Buffy nodded. "That. And Giles."
Angel swallowed hard, and Buffy could see the muscles in his jaw working.
"Listen, Angel. I know that it wasn't you who killed him," Buffy started with emotion. "I know that it was Twilight possessing you. I couldn't blame you for Giles' death anymore than I could blame you for the things Angelus did when I was in high school."
Angel's dark eyes flashed. "But…" He knew there had to be a "but."
Buffy sighed. "But…I also can't look at you without seeing Giles. I can't be around you right now." She took a brave step forward and took Angel's hands into her own. Her voice dropped to a low whisper. "I can't touch you without remembering that it was these hands that killed Giles."
Both Angel and Buffy were silent as they stared at the smaller blonde's hands engulfed by the souled vampire's larger hands.
A strange look fluttered over Angel's face and he pulled away. "You…you kissed Faith to avoid me. And I'm pretty sure there was some groping going on, too."
Buffy made an uncomfortable noise in the back of her throat. "I, uh, it's…complicated. Angel –"
"Kiss me," the ageless man interrupted.
Buffy took an unconscious step backwards. "What?"
"Kiss me, Buffy," Angel repeated. "If you can kiss me and tell me you feel nothing for me, then I'll be able to move on."
"Angel, no." Buffy shook her head. "I honestly don't think anything will come from that other than the confirmation that this just won't work between us."
"Buffy, we have something special," Angel urged. "There's an undeniable bond that always leads us back to each other."
"I know. It's called love," Buffy agreed.
"Yes, exactly."
"No…I didn't mean it like that," the blonde self-corrected with a grimace. "What I mean is that it's the same kind of love that brings me back to Dawn, Willow, Xander, and anyone else I care about."
A shadow seemed to cross over Angel's chiseled features. "So us making love to the point of creating another universe doesn't amount to anything to you?" he demanded. "You don't feel like some greater power out there has it written down that we're meant to be?"
Buffy took a deep breath. "Do you want the truth?"
"Always."
The blonde swallowed hard. "If you would have asked a very young and naïve me years ago if that thought would make me swoon, I would have said yes," she started slowly and honestly. "But I'm not that girl anymore, Angel. And I haven't felt what she felt in a very long time. So I have to say…" Buffy took another deep breath. "…I don't want us to be etched in stone."
Ignoring the blonde's bold speech, Angel made a bold move of his own. He captured the smaller woman around her waist and tilted his head down for a searing, crushing kiss. Buffy stiffened and made a noise against the vampire's moving mouth.
When he finally realized that the smaller woman wasn't kissing him back, Angel pulled away, but continued to hold onto the small-bodied woman.
"I still want to move on," Buffy murmured after an awkward beat.
Angel dropped his head. "I'm just out of practice," he mumbled lamely.
A small smile crept onto Buffy's face. "Nice try."
The souled vampire released his hold on Buffy – literally and symbolically.
"So now what?" he sighed. He raked his fingers through his tousled hair.
Buffy shrugged. "I honestly don't know."
The blonde slayer walked out of the kitchen, her hunger forgotten. She was surprised when she felt a hand tighten around her elbow as she was spun into an adjacent room.
"What are you doing kissing him?" a voice hissed in her ear.
"Kate?" It took Buffy a millisecond to register that she was looking at the frozen shape-shifter and not looking into a mirror. "What are you doing here?"
The shifter looked down at her body. She was propped up with the aid of two crutches and her ribcage was bandaged beneath her loose-fitting v-neck. "I'm healing."
"Shouldn't you be healing at a hospital?" Buffy observed. "When we left you, you looked like a tenderized piece of meat."
"Don't make a thing out of it," Kate waved her hand. "More importantly, why were you just kissing Angel?"
"I wasn't!" Buffy sputtered. "…You…he…"
Kate abruptly released her hold on Buffy's arm as though jolted by an electric current. "Holy shit."
"What?" Buffy demanded crossly.
Buffy visage blinked back at her. "You're actually in love with her," Kate said in wonder.
Buffy's hazel-green eyes widened. "What? With who?"
"With Faith, duh," the shape-shifter drawled, rolling her eyes. "I saw it."
If possible, Buffy's eyes widened even more in a momentary panic. "What did you see?" she hissed. "You can hardly walk!"
"Not with my eyes, Buffy," Kate scoffed. "With my mind. My, uh…special ability, remember?"
"I thought you lost your magic."
"I've apparently lost my ability to shift," Kate said sourly. "But not my gift to see what it is that you want."
"What I want? I don't know what I want!" Buffy proclaimed.
"Your subconscious seems to know," Kate noted. "And it's in the shape of one very shapely brunette slayer.
The Chosen One emphatically shook her head. "Your magic is broken."
"I'm never wrong about this stuff," the shape-shifter stubbornly protested. "I make my livelihood with my gift."
Kate looked back in the direction of the kitchen where she'd observed Angel kiss the blonde slayer. She hadn't meant to pry. She'd just walked in unannounced and witnessed the vampire's dramatic embrace.
"Buffy…. " It was Kate's voice that said her name, but her own visage stared hard at her. "Don't lead Faith on if you can't leave your past behind."
The front door opened and Faith struggled over the threshold holding multiple shopping bags from department stores and a pharmacy. When she saw the slayer and shifter standing next to each other, a guilty look crossed her face. She dropped the bags on the ground.
"Um. So…."
Luckily she had paid attention to what Kate was wearing otherwise she'd have no idea who was who – besides the obvious crutches and the still discolored bruising on Kate's face. "I guess you've heard the news."
Buffy gave the brunette slayer a stony look and slowly folded her arms across her chest. "That Kate is now staying with us?"
"Well, I just figured that since Angel knows you're you," Faith apologetically reasoned, "and Kate needs a place where she can get better and the care center provides only temporary…"
Buffy held up her hands to stop Faith before she boarded the babble train. "It's okay. It's not my house anyway, so I don't know why you're so concerned about what I think."
Faith's dark eyes dropped to the floor. "I'm just gonna bring these bags up and get a room ready for Kate," she murmured. She looked back up at Kate. "I'll be right back to help you up the stairs."
"I'm not an invalid, Faith," Kate chided. "They wouldn't have released me to your care if I were in dire condition."
"Well I don't know," Faith scowled. "You don't have slayer strength and stuff."
Kate raised a Buffy eyebrow. "Stuff?"
"Lay off," Faith frowned. "I just want to make sure you're okay."
Kate nodded her thanks and watched the Boston slayer haul her things up the staircase to the second floor.
"So you guys went shopping?" Buffy questioned icily.
Kate turned her gaze away from Faith's retreating form to confront the other slayer. "Don't start that jealousy bit with me, Buffy."
The blonde slayer snorted. "As if."
"Hey," the shifter admonished, "it's not my fault I needed new clothes. You and I don't normally wear the same size."
"So I should blame Quentin Travers then that you're stuck wearing my face and my body?" Buffy demanded, miffed by the shape-shifter's attitude.
"Him. Or your friend Willow." Kate made a face as though the name left a bitter taste in her mouth. "By the way, Buffy…you might want to call your friend and find out what she's been up to."
TBC
