Chapter Fifty-Four

It's been a week since I last saw Faith. A week. This should be normal by now, but after spending the night in her motel room bed, even knowing she'd be gone in the morning, it was the best sleep that I've had in a long time. The long walk home gave me some time to think about what to do next and as soon as I got home, I told Giles what Faith had told me about Andrew and his cousin hiring Faith as some kind of a bodyguard while Josh grabbed the book and ran.

After some researching-hacking private records all thanks to Willow, we found out who Andrew and his cousin are. Andrew is Tucker's younger brother. As soon as I found out that little tidbit of information, I found it pretty hard to believe what Faith had said about those two not playing on the side of evil. After we found two addresses they were believed to be living at, I took a few of the potentials with me only to find out that both houses were rentals and that Andrew Wells and his cousin Josh hadn't lived in either house in months.

I haven't had much luck in finding Faith either. After that night and waking up alone with all her clothes gone, there was no sign of her anywhere around town. Even Anya told me she hadn't been to the Magic Box since I chased her off that day. It hasn't stopped me from looking for her while out on patrol, hitting all the cemeteries quickly in hopes of running into her.

"Morning, Buffster! I brought copious amounts of caffeine and sugary treats!" Xander says as he comes in the back door into the kitchen. "A little bird with red hair told me you ran out of coffee last night."

"Thanks," I smile at him as I take one of the coffee's he brought out of the tray. "Are you going to work today?"

"Sure am. Dawn need a lift to school?"

"If you don't mind? She's already running late. She's been staying up too late with the girls."

"Having sexy slumber party fun?" Xander asks and laughs until I shoot him a warning glare.

"You mention anything like that again and believe me when I tell you that I will tell Anya you are having fantasies about young potential slayers frolicking about in skimpy nighties and having pillow fights and making out with each other."

"Hey, easy!" Xander says as he holds his hands up. "I'm just a man. I'm allowed a little harmless fantasizing once in a while."

"Not when my little sister is involved because hand up if I say ew?"

"What are we talking about that's ew?" Dawn asks as she strolls into the kitchen.

"Nothing, Dawn. Grab some breakfast. You're already late for school. Xander is going to drive you," I say to her and she rolls her eyes. "And stop staying up all night with the girls! You have responsibilities and that right now is going to school every day and on time."

That earns me yet another eye roll from Dawn, but I don't push the issue. When she and Xander leave, I take my coffee with me out on to the front porch, avoiding the chaos that happens in the morning when the girls start to wake up.

I'm getting frustrated with everything that's been going on and I'm not talking about what's been going on with Faith either. Roman hasn't showed his face and we still can't seem to find him anywhere. Selwyn has been in touch with Willow and Giles nearly every day, either with news that there's been a lead or to say they haven't heard anything on that particular day. How is it that Roman has managed to ruin our lives again and again and hasn't shown his face around here in months?!

Aside from Spike going bat-shit crazy while he was in the school basement, telling me that it was the First who appeared to him many times in many forms, and aside from that night Faith had me follow Spike who turned out to be the First, nobody else has had an encounter with it. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and I know it'll happen sooner or later.

The same beat up pick-up truck that picked Faith up at her motel that night comes to a stop in front of the house. I set my coffee down on the ledge and stand there, watching as the guy with tattoos hops out of the truck and grabs a duffel bag out of the back. He has sunglasses on and he's smiling just a little as he walks up the front path and stops before he reaches the steps.

"You're Buffy?"

"I am," I reply and he nods and tosses the duffel bag on the porch. "What's this?"

"Figured you people would have better use for it than my lame-brain cousin," he replies and shrugs a little. "It's a book. Ancient. Andrew got himself into a bit of trouble last night."

"Trouble?"

"A lot of trouble. Doubt he realizes what he's got himself mixed up in. I can't track Faith down, but she mentioned you a few times. Figured I'd stop by."

"Josh, right?" I ask him and he nods, casually slipping his sunglasses off. "What kind of trouble is Andrew in?"

"He killed his best friend."

"Don't you think you should go to the police about-"

"He killed him on the Hellmouth Seal. Tried to open it," Josh says quickly and my eyes go wide at that. "I can't locate him either. Things are getting bad around here. Makes me wish I stayed in LA instead of coming here to help that loser."

"He tried to open the seal?"

"Don't know if it worked. He was a mess when he stopped by my place last night, rambling on and on about how some ghost forced him to do it. Just thought since your a Slayer, you oughta know what's happened."

"What else do you know?" I ask him and he now looks a bit uncomfortable. "You can't just show up and drop all that on me like that."

"That book?" Josh says as he points to the bag near my feet. "Pretty sure it'll have some answers for you. I'm skipping out of town for a little while. If Faith comes around, let her know?"

I nod. Josh slips his sunglasses back on and turns and heads back to his truck. I wait until he drives off before I pick the bag up and head inside. Giles and Willow are sitting in the dining room which has been turned into research central lately. Books piled just about everywhere, none of them helping us out in any way or form as of late. I pull the big heavy ancient book out of the bag and put it on the table in front of Giles.

"What is this?"

"A book," I say, rolling my eyes as I take a seat next to Willow. "This is the book that Faith went to get with Josh last week."

"Good lord, this text is well over a thousand years old," Giles says in fascination as he carefully flips through the delicate pages of the book. "If not even older. There are some scriptures in here that premeditates language itself, even Sumerian."

"We might have a problem," I say to him and he looks over at me, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. "Josh told me that Andrew got himself in a lot of trouble. Giles, how bad is it if someone tries to open the Hellmouth Seal by killing another person?"

Giles is silent and his face goes white. Not good. He takes a few deep breaths as he runs his hands over the open book in front of him. I turn to look at Willow and she's staring hard at Giles, waiting for an answer.

"Did he say if anything has come out of the Seal?" Giles asks after a few very long minutes.

"He didn't say."

"We need to find out if Andrew succeeded in opening the Seal and if anything has come out of it. This is very dangerous and with the Seal activated, this could be disastrous for the entire town."

"I'll go," I say as I stand up and Giles clears his throat in disapproval. "What? We need to find out, don't we? We'll deal with this and everything will be fine. Well, not fine but-"

"Buffy?" Giles says calmly and I sigh. "I don't want you going down there alone."

"Will?" I look over at her and she shrugs. "Come with me?"

"I-I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Fine," I say and step away from the table. "I'll bring one of the girls with me."

"Buffy," Giles says in a stern tone. "You aren't taking one of the girls with you. They are not nearly well-trained enough to deal with whatever could be down there and-"

"Well, I can't go with Faith because nobody has any idea where the hell she is right now!"

I try to stay calm but with the way Giles is being right now and with Willow not saying a word, it's driving me crazy. I head for the front door and grab my jacket, slipping it on quickly and ignoring Giles as he tells me not to go. I head out the front door, slamming it behind me and start the long walk to the school.

Josh said that a ghost had made Andrew kill his best friend on the Seal. A ghost? More like the First. So many questions are running through my mind right now. Who did the First appear as to Andrew to convince him? I don't even know this guy or what he even looks like, but what I do know is I want to find him and seriously hurt him for being so careless and stupid.

By the time I get to the school, the second period bell has just finished ringing. The hallways are empty and quiet when I walk through the front doors. When I hear a door open as I walk past the office, I start thinking that maybe walking in the front doors wasn't such a brilliant idea.

"Buffy?" Robin Wood calls out and I stop, rolling my eyes before I turn to face him, fake smile and all. "What are you doing here?"

"Business," I reply quickly. "Slayer business."

"I see," he says with a slight nod. "Slayer business during school hours?"

"If it's a problem-"

"No," he says as he takes a few steps towards me. "It's not a problem, but I do not want my students being put in any kind of danger because you have slayer business to deal with."

"We think the Seal might've been opened or partially opened," I say quietly and his eyes go wide as he crosses his arms over his chest. "I need to find out if it is or not."

"But we don't know where the Seal is, exactly."

"No, but I'm going to find out."

Robin sighs and looks down the hallway as a door opens. He points to the student that's obviously late for class and motions for him to get a move on. I turn and start walking towards the basement door with Robin right behind me.

"Let me come with you," he says and I shrug as I open the door. "That was locked."

"Oh. Oops?"

I smirk as he rolls his eyes and we head down to the basement. We search for hours until Robin stops in front of a door we haven't checked yet. I motion for him to get out of the way and he steps aside. I try the handle and it opens and I step inside the room. The floor is dirt unlike the rest of the basement which is cement. The seal is uncovered and I can feel the energy coming off it stronger than ever before.

"Wow," Robin says under his breath as he steps into the room. "And here I thought I checked every room down here."

"Maybe the walls move?" I reply with a shrug and I stand there next to him, staring down at the uncovered Seal. "Impressive."

"It is, except for that body," he motions to the body lying off to the side on the Seal.

"I know him," I say as I walk around to see the face. "That's Jonathan! Oh my god," I gasp and shake my head slowly. Robin looks at me, waiting for me to explain. "I went to school with him," I explain. "Not much of a story with him. I had no idea he was getting himself into this mess."

"We should get rid of the body," Robin says as he crouches down to examine the Seal a little closer. "It's not open," he says as he stands back up. "If it was open, we'd know."

"Because it wouldn't be closed?" I ask and he laughs. "It needs blood to be opened, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but apparently this boy wasn't enough of a sacrifice."

"Robin?"

"Yes?"

"How much do you know about Hellmouth's? Like lets say, this one in particular?"

"This one? Not much other than it is located here in Sunnydale and apparently right under my office. But what I do know is that each Hellmouth in the world requires blood to be opened and some require the blood to be spilled with an object, a weapon of sorts that has been forged to act as a key to opening the Hellmouth. Whoever killed this boy has it."

I'm starting to wonder if I made the wrong choice in excluding Robin Wood from our problems. I didn't trust him before and I still don't. Faith nearly killed him and I threatened him that night I came for Spike. He doesn't even seem like that threat bothered him, not with the way he's been with me this morning. He wants to help, he came here to help and I declined his offer to help us. We're getting nowhere with the First and with Roman and now that the Seal has been uncovered, I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to bring a new player into the game.

Robin tells me he'll deal with Jonathan's body tonight and that he'll cover the Seal once he's done. I thank him for offering to do this, but he shrugs it off like it's nothing. I don't want to ask him for his help until I've talked to Giles and Willow about this first. Bringing in a new player into this game might not be a great idea, but then again I've been wrong about things before. I know too that we're in over our heads in this game and that things are going to get worse-way worse-before they get better.


I'm out on patrol alone tonight, but I know that Spike is nearby, following me, stalking me just as he has been since I left the house. I don't want to call him out, not yet. I'm not in the mood to deal with him right now.

Giles had asked me earlier not to go out on patrol tonight. He didn't say why, he just asked me to stay in for the night. Of course I didn't listen to him. I needed to get out of the house. The girls are loud and annoying and if Kennedy asks me one more time to take her out on patrol with me I'm liable to snap. There's something about that girl that grates on my nerves, but she is quick and strong for a potential slayer and I know even though she makes some rash decisions when we train, she's got her head straight and her priorities are to eliminate the threat by any means possible and as quickly as she can.

I spent nearly the entire afternoon with Giles, Willow, and Tara. We went over the book that Josh has brought me this morning, trying to make sense of some of the pages. Giles had to spend hours translating and got as far as getting one single passage, a small one and it turned out to be irrelevant to the kind of information we are really looking for. What we did find out was that the First Evil always sought out someone, a human to do its bidding and dirty work that the Harbingers can't do.

There are no references to whether the First Evil has tried to rise in the past and once we learned that, I was the one who was the least surprised. Of course the First hasn't tried to rise since it was banished from this world and from being able to take corporeal form. If it had, we wouldn't be here. I know that much.

What we need to find in that book that Andrew and Josh paid Faith to get is answers on how to stop the First from going further, how to kill it. I'm just so tired of this, this waiting game we're playing. I want Roman to show his face and even though I can't kill him, I still can hurt him. Maybe not hurt him as much as I want, but enough.

I stop walking when I hear footsteps nearby. I reach for my stake but stop when I sense that it's not a vampire. It's Faith.

"Hey," she says as she steps out from behind one of the tall tombstones.

"Hey. Where've you been?"

"Around. Been looking for me?"

"Not particularly."

She smiles a sad smile before she pulls a cigarette out of her worn jean jacket pocket. She pats her other pockets before she pulls out a lighter. I try not to stare but I can't help it. She looks tired, dirty, and hungry. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess she hasn't been staying in that motel or anywhere else. Where has she been anyway?

"What?" Faith asks as she leans against the tombstone. "Say whatever you wanna say to me right now, B."

"What do you want me to say, Faith? I'm willing to be that you already know what I'm going to say to you and are going to refuse to give me any answers here."

"Been squatting in the woods," she says with a slight shrug. "Figured nobody would find me there. Too bad Spike wandered past earlier."

"Spike?"

"Talked me outta hiding from you," she continues and she sighs as she turns to look up at the night sky. "Said I'm being stupid."

"I definitely agree with him on that."

"Of course you do," she laughs and it's not a bitter laugh nor a sarcastic one. I smile at her, unable to help myself. "Been through a lot, you know? Didn't think it'd take this long to clear my head. Still ain't all that clear. Some days I think it's never gonna end and that I'm never gonna forgive myself."

"Faith, I told you-"

"B? Can I just say what I gotta say without you butting in?" Faith asks me calmly and I can tell that it's a struggle for her to stay so calm right now. "This is something I gotta deal with and I feel like such an idiot for saying the shit I said to you, during the spell and after. Nothing I can do or say to make it right. Apologizing seems pointless. You've already forgiven me like it all never happened."

"Of course I've forgiven you, Faith. I love you. Nothing is going to-"

"Change that. Yeah, I know. Kinda had this whole big talk with Spike earlier. He opened my eyes, made me realize that I don't gotta deal with this on my own when I got someone like you who loves me regardless of the shit I said to you and the things I've done."

I don't say a word. I'm on the verge of tears, happy tears, but I don't want to let them fall, not until she's finished with whatever it is she has to say to me right now. Faith shakes her head a little and takes a long drag of her cigarette before tossing it to the ground and crushing it out with the heel of her boot. She walks over to me and stops when she's just a few inches from me.

"Call me slow or whatever, but while I was out in the woods I got to thinking that maybe this is what they wanted. Maybe they wanted us so distracted with what's going on between us that we're not completely in the game Roman and the First are playing with us. And we need to be."

The first word that comes to mind is 'duh' but I don't say it. She doesn't give me a chance to since her lips are on mine and she's kissing me hard and deep. Yet before I can get into the kiss, she pulls back and breathes out heavily, shaking her head and laughing a little as she takes a few steps back away from me.

"Kinda feeling a bit gross right now," she says as she looks down at herself.

"Oh."

"Could use a nice hot shower. Ya think those girls staying at the house used up all the hot water yet?"

"It's almost midnight so unless they decided to shower at night instead of in the morning, there's definitely hot water."

"Cool."

I smile at her but she digs her hands into the front pocket of her dirty jeans. "Faith? Last week at your motel, you told me you don't deserve me. Why do you think that?"

"I was fucked up that night, B. Plus I was in pain and pretty buzzed so it got me saying things that I've had in my head the past little while and it's kind of hard just to let those thoughts go. But tell me something, yeah?" Faith sucks in a shaky breath. "Do I deserve you, B?"

"You do."

"Do I really? Am I even good enough for you?"

"You are good enough for me, Faith. I don't know how to convince you of that, but you are. You are a big part of my life and lately it's felt like there has been a big part of me that's missing since you've been gone. Those few times after the spell was broken and you left, when we saw each other, all I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were."

"Wanted? Ya still don't want that?"

"Of course I do, but..." I trail off and try to stay calm, try not to let the tears that are building up fall. "We can't just go back to what we had and we both know that. Everything has changed and while I still feel the same way about you, it's all different now and we just can't-"

"Go back to where we left off," she finishes for me. She frowns but nods her head. "I get it. Didn't think it'd be that easy. So where does that leave us then?"

"It all depends on what you want. What do you want, Faith?"

"I want you," she replies quickly. "When you told me you missed me last week, I wanted to say it back. Didn't, but I'm saying it now. I miss you so fucking much, Buffy. So much that it hurts to keep staying away from you."

"Then don't do it anymore. Don't stay away. Don't run and hide. Come home."

It almost looks like she's about to cry as I pull her close and wrap my arms around her. I know we can't go back to where we were or pick up where we left off and that is going to make things hard between us for a little while. I know she probably is thinking that we're going to make love tonight once we're back home and as much as I want to-and god do I ever want to-but doing that now, after everything we've been through, isn't a good idea.

I step back and reach for her hand, smiling a little when she intertwines her fingers through mine. I don't say a word while we walk home and neither does she. She does tense a little when I head up to the front door and she gives my hand a little squeeze before I can unlock the door.

"It'll be all right," I whisper. "Let's just go inside and you can have a shower and we'll talk, okay?"

"Sure."

I let go of her hand and unlock the door, relieved to see that the girls camped out in the living room are fast asleep. We move up the stairs quietly and I walk her to the bathroom door, mouthing for her to meet me in the basement when she's done.

The basement will give us the privacy we need to talk things out tonight. With six girls in my-our room right now and it being well after midnight, I can't exactly kick them out because Faith is home now.

"Is Faith home?" Dawn asks sleepily as I walk past her bedroom. I nod my head with a little smile and she smiles right back at me. "Good. She's where she needs to be. Here. With you. With us."

And she is. For good, I hope, because I definitely do not want to go through losing her like that ever again.