Faith

Faith climbs out of the tunnel and is immediately dismayed by what she sees. She had never visited the UC Sunnydale campus, but she's sure it wouldn't have been littered with demolished buildings. She thought it would be morning, but the sky is covered in hazy darkness, it looks completely unnatural. Reaching out with her senses, she can't identify any demons in the area, but she quickly becomes aware of a group of soldiers following her every movement at a distance.

Did they really think they could follow me? I guess they've never met a slayer. They wouldn't know what we were capable of. She heads towards the woods and runs full speed for several minutes. As soon as she was alone, she searched through all the gear they gave her. Quickly discarding anything electronic that might have a tracker in it. She wasn't really worried about being followed, but she wasn't going to make it easy for them either.

Now, where should I go? I don't have any idea what I'm looking for out here. I don't even know anyone who might still be alive. Her first stop is to her old apartment, the one the mayor had set up. Almost all the houses and buildings she's passed are burned out husks, she is surprised that her building is still standing and left mostly untouched by the carnage that has destroyed everything else.

"I kept it standing for you. I knew you'd eventually find your way back."

Faith turns to see Mayor Richard Wilkins III standing behind her. His large, goofy grin plastered to his face. That grin always warmed her heart before, now all it did was make her angry. Scowling, she turns away. It's just the first, trying to fuck with me. I won't fall for it.

"You must have questions."

"Sure, I have questions. But you aren't him." Why am I even acknowledging him? He can't do anything but annoy me.

"No, I'm not him. But I do have all his memories. I know everything he knew."

He's lying. They didn't say anything about the first having dead people's memories. But there's probably a lot they didn't say. Still, there's nothing good that can come of talking to him. Nothing he can say is going to make what happened any different. Faith scowls, her determination renewed to ignore anything the First had to say.

"I didn't know the cure for the poison was slayer blood."

He's a liar. I will not give him the satisfaction of responding to him.

"I just asked someone to bring me vampire poison. I had no idea what the cure would be. I was truly devastated to hear what happened between you two girls. I can't believe she tried to kill you!" He chuckles lightly, and she cringes from the sound. "Goes to show you never really know what a person is capable of. Though it seems you've found a way to forgive each other." He grins down at her, and it turns her insides, "I don't think she's good enough for you, but I do want you to be happy."

Faith continues to ignore him. Walking through her now empty apartment, picturing the brutal fight the two slayers had. For the first time, each of them going all out, truly trying to kill the other. She steps through the broken window to stand out on the roof. The roof where she and Buffy fought only a few days ago. She absently runs her hand over her stomach, feeling the permanent reminder of that fight. It was almost completely healed and not at all sensitive to the touch, but there would always be a faint scar.

What am I doing out here? It's been three years, even if it's only been a few days. Buffy is probably right. Nobody cares about what I did. There's so much worse stuff going on. I should just go back, help her end whatever this is. Faith frowns, looking over the edge of the roof. Remembering what it was like to fall off of it. As fucked up as it is, she's the only one I can trust now. Faith still can't admit how much she really does want to go back. If she lets herself focus on their connection, she can almost feel a slight tugging, pulling her back towards the initiative.

"The thing with trapping you in another dimension.. that was just a little misunderstanding. You were supposed to be by my side. They were only meant to capture Buffy." The Mayor looks sincere, and Faith has to fight hard to not accept his response as true.

"The guy who took me knew exactly who I was." Faith is fiercely staring at the apparition of the mayor. She knows it's not him, but maybe it was true that he had all the same memories.

Wilkins frowns and for a moment Faith believes that he really was upset about this news. "I don't know how that could have happened, my instructions were clear. They were just supposed to hold her there, I didn't want to risk another slayer being called."

"Does that somehow make what happened, OK? That you didn't mean to steal three years of my life? That you didn't mean to get me stabbed? Cause it doesn't make any of it OK. Not a single bit of it."

"I never meant to hurt you, and I don't want to hurt you now. You're still special to me. You have important things to do."

"Whatever, just leave me alone."

Faith stalks off, passing through the apparition of the long dead mayor. I'm going back. There's nothing for me out here. She climbs down the steps of her apartment building, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of her now that she's made her decision.

"Faithy? Is that really you?"

"Oh god, not again. Can't you just fuck off already? I'm not listening to you!" Faith groans and heads back in the direction of the initiative.

"I think you've got me confused with someone else."

Faith takes a closer look at who is standing before her. Her senses are tingling, telling her that there really is a vampire standing in front of her. Did he call me Faithy? Angel never called me that. Is this Angelus? "My mistake, I thought you were that first jackass. What are you doing out here?" She watches his body language, gaining more confidence that it was indeed Angelus she was talking to. It caused her pain to know that Buffy would be upset to find out about this.

He smiled wickedly, "I'm looking for you."

"Oh really, and what do you want with me? Are you going to try and help me redeem myself again?"

Angelus laughs at this idea. "No, definitely no plans for any redemption from me. I just heard the slayers had been restored to this dimension and I had to see for myself. I was hoping I'd find you out here on your own."

"You've found me."

"I have." He looks her up and down appraisingly grinning, she wants to shrink away from his gaze, but she keeps her body relaxed. "Doesn't seem like you've aged at all."

"It's only been a few days for me."

He pursed his lips and crossed his arms across his chest. "Can I assume that since you are out here on your own, that you and Buffy are still enemies?"

Faith has to resist smiling. He could not be more wrong about that, but I don't think he needs to know just yet. "She did just try to kill me. Kinda hard to just let that go." She shrugged, hoping to appear relaxed and unconcerned.

"Then maybe we can help each other out."

"What exactly do you have in mind? Angelus." She watches him carefully as she says the name.

A wide grin breaks out on his face, "guess you're not quite as dumb as everyone seems to think."

Buffy

Buffy watches Tara comfort Willow and tries to piece together everything that's just happened.

Willow is still exhausted and can barely sit up. Buffy needs to know what's going on, "Where's Giles?"

"Giles?" Willow frowns. "He's not here."

"Who was that when you brought us here then? It sure looked like Giles."

"I thought it'd be better if you saw a friendly face when you arrived."

"Where is he? Is he ok?"

"We don't know exactly. I do know that he's still alive." Willow gasps a little and falls back into the couch.

Ok, so she's lying to me, but why? How am I going to find out what's going on here? Maybe the Army guys will tell me something. I wish Faith was here, at least I'd have someone with me that I could trust. I can't believe I just thought of Faith as someone I could trust. We were just trying to kill each other. Buffy frowns and shakes her head. This is all too much.

"She needs rest, I'm going to take her back to bed." Tara says, beginning to help Willow to her feet.

Buffy frowns but nods. She has so many more questions, but she can see that Willow is worn out and guesses that she probably won't tell her the truth anyway. She watches as Tara helps Willow out of the conference room. She returns to her room and flops down on the bed. Hoping that sleep will find her, doing her best not to think about Faith and how stupid it was to let her leave.

Faith

"How much do you know about what's going on?" Angelus asks as they return to his stronghold.

"First Evil opened the Hellmouth, demons running free, almost all humans killed or imprisoned."

"Is that what they told you? That the First Evil opened the Hellmouth?"

"It's not true?" Why would Willow lie? I knew something was off with her but was too weirded out to make sense of it. When she let me out of the compound, she had a strange smirk, like she was glad that I was leaving. I just figured it was because she still hated me and expected me to die out here, maybe it was something else. Fear that Willow might hurt Buffy briefly assaults her, she pauses for a moment and looks back in the direction of the initiative. She still planned to go back, she just needed to find out more before she did. Sighing, she buried her fear for Buffy and continued to follow Angelus.

The pair reaches the mansion that used to be Angel's home. It now looks much different, all the windows are covered in steel plating, and demons and humans are guarding the area. Memories of the last time she was here haunt her. Angel and Buffy tricking her into thinking she'd turned Angel, chaining Buffy to the wall. Her steps faltered as she warred with herself to focus on now.

"What is going on here?"

"Let's get inside. There's someone who you'd probably be more likely to believe than me."

Upon entering, Faith is shocked to see a small army inside. There is a mix of humans and demons all seeming to be living together and preparing for war. She's even more shocked when she sees a familiar face. "Giles? What..."

"Hello, Faith, I'm so relieved that you've been returned to us." He smiles and moves towards her with open arms. She's too shocked to react to the hug he's wrapped her in.

"How are you here? I just saw you... with Willow."

He frowns and backs away from her. "There is much I need to tell you about Willow and her army. They are not exactly what they appear to be." He pauses as if deciding what to say next. Finally, he sighs, "It was Willow's doing, opening the Hellmouth and releasing the First Evil onto the world."

"Do you expect me to believe that?" He looks like Giles, and I don't sense vampire or demon on him. Though there are a lot of other monsters in here, could be messing with my senses.

"It wasn't intentional. She did it trying to return Buffy to our dimension. The outcome was still the same."

"Let's say I believe you, which I don't… why are you two working together? You do realize that's Angelus?"

"Its sort of an enemy of my enemy is my friend situation," Angelus responds.

"We want to put things right, close the Hellmouth and save what few humans are left. Now that the slayers have returned we might have a chance." Giles answers, frowning. "We think that you, in particular, are the answer to our problems."

"Me? What do you expect me to do?" They can't seriously think that I can do anything about all this.

"We expect you to kill Willow."