Faith

Faith frowned and dropped onto the bed. She couldn't decide what the right thing to do was. She also seemed to have a sense that Buffy could tell when she was lying. She hoped that would also mean that Buffy would know when she was being honest. Why did I ask her to let me stay with her? She was going to leave, and I wouldn't have to tell her anything. I could have just disappeared. Nobody would have even cared.

She scrubbed her face with her hands, thinking that if she did it hard enough that this would all be over. It didn't work. Buffy was still standing there, hands on her hips, waiting not so patiently for Faith to say something.

"I don't suppose there's any chance that you can trust me? That there are things that I can't tell you about right now?" Faith asked with very little hope that Buffy would agree to this request.

Buffy paused, seeming to consider how much she could trust Faith. "Just tell me why you are so different."

Faith absently rubbed her stomach, frowning in confusion when she felt the remains of a wound that should not be there. Without thinking, she lifted her shirt to check, not understanding how she could be feeling a scar from an injury that she hadn't yet received.

"What is that?" Buffy asked and moved closer.

"Shit. I didn't think..." Faith frowned again and pulled her shirt down before Buffy could reach her.

"What happened? When did you get stabbed?" Buffy reached out for Faith again, but Faith pulled away.

Faith jumped from the bed and moved as far away from Buffy as she could. The angry memories assaulting her. She had decided that she would pretend none of those things had happened. Since the Mayor was gone, there was no reason to remember. She could start over, be the person that doesn't screw everything up. But how could she do that now? The scar was still there. How could she ever forget what she had done? What she had driven Buffy to do? It didn't even happen. It will never happen now!

She took several calming breaths. Moving past that awful night on the rooftop, thinking about all that had happened after.

She had given in. She wanted the Buffy that cared about her, the one that would let her touch, hold and kiss her. The Buffy that made her feel whole. She knew this Buffy wasn't hers, but she could be. It burned Faith that she wanted this. Wanting things wasn't a problem for her, she could want and take things, but wanting Buffy was different. Wanting someone to care about her, opening herself up to be hurt, it was terrifying, and it made her angry that she couldn't stop wanting it.

"Faith? Please, tell me what happened?" Buffy's voice was soft, and her hand was on Faith's shoulder. The contact made Faith shudder. She pulled away from it.

"Three months from now." She finally answers.

"What?"

"In three months I almost die. Then I'm giving a chance to go back and try to fix all the awful stuff that happened. I was sure they would send me back further than today, but I came back just after I staked Finch."

"But... I don't... "

"Look, it doesn't matter. I'm here now, and the Mayor is toast. So everything will be fine." Nothing will be fine. How can I convince her that things will be OK when I know that they won't? Now that she knows, there's no way she's going to let this go. I'm going to have to tell her everything or just run away.

Faith was freaking out, inching closer to the door. She knew she couldn't keep anything from Buffy if she asked direct questions. She considered herself a master liar, but the only one she had been good at tricking was herself. It would be so easy just to leave. She wasn't needed here. She didn't know anything that could help them.

The conflict of wanting to stay and needing to leave was starting to make her feel insane. She had almost reached the door when suddenly Buffy was in front of her preventing her escape.

"Ok," Buffy whispers.

"What do you mean, Ok?"

"I mean, I'll let this go for now. Just don't leave. We'll talk with Giles, and we'll see what happens."

"Thank you." Faith was wary. This seemed too easy. Buffy never let anything go, she wanted to believe that it would work out though. She had to try.

"Now let's get your stuff and get you out of this awful place."

"Don't you need to check with your mom first?"

"I'm sure it will be fine."

Buffy

"So, what do you think?" Buffy asked Giles with a raised eyebrow.

Faith had just finished explaining to Giles what had happened. Showing him the Mayor's files. Before he can answer a noise in the main library freezes them all. The slayers run out of Giles office to see an ashen Wesley had just bumped into the table.

"I guess you heard all that?" Faith asked, frowning, and dropping into a chair and slumping down.

"I must contact the council. They need to know about this murder." Wesley's words were completely pompous, and Buffy struggled to keep her response at all controlled.

"It wasn't murder! It was an accident, and the guy was evil!" Buffy is shouting at Wesley, and he backs away.

"Accident or not, a slayer killed a human. There must be consequences for her actions." Wesley crossed his arms. His head held high. Buffy desperately wanted to smash the smugness off of his face.

"She was sent back here for a reason. If the council takes her away, she won't be able to do whatever she came here to do." Buffy argues getting more and more agitated.

"Maybe she's already done it. Whatever the Mayor was planning to do has already been prevented."

Faith said nothing in her defense, she only sat in the chair and stared at the floor. Faith hadn't explained what happened with the council the first time, but Buffy imagined that it was not good.

"If you do this, you will lose us both. I will quit." Buffy says with authority, and Faith finally looks up.

"You don't have to do this for me. I'm not worth it." Buffy shook her head at Faith's response. Buffy didn't understand why, but she needed to protect Faith from the council.

"Perhaps if she recounts everything would have happened, I could consider not calling them." Wesley offers.

"She's not doing that either." Buffy moves closer to Wesley, doing her best not to throttle him. "Decide now. Do you want two slayers or zero slayers?"

"Will you agree to a more rigorous training schedule? More supervision?" Wesley asks Buffy and not Faith. Buffy opens her mouth to start to argue more with Wesley but changes her mind.

"Faith? What do you think?"

Faith looks a little shocked at being asked for her opinion. "Just call them, I'll do whatever they want me to do."

"Are you sure? What if they decide to take you back to England?"

Faith looks at Wesley and shrugs, "I don't think that they will. I'm cooperating." Faith looked defeated, and it made Buffy's heart ache. Maybe I shouldn't have made her tell Giles anything. We could have figured this out together.

"Quite right, I'm sure it will be fine as long as Faith continues to cooperate fully. They may have questions about her time travel." Wesley responds, regaining his composure.

"Do they need to know about her time travel? Since the accident occurred before she was returned, it's not exactly relevant. " Giles finally enters the conversation. Buffy breathes a sigh of relief at his support.

"I suppose not," Wesley stammers and shies away from Buffy's furious glare. Buffy started to calm and back away from the terrified watcher. She really wanted an excuse to quit the council. She hadn't forgiven them for what they had done to her and generally found them to be pretty worthless. She had every intention of quitting if they did decide to do anything to Faith.

"You guys can read through all those files Faith found. We're going to go." She tugged Faith out of the chair and led them out of the library.

Joyce

Joyce is watching Faith move around the kitchen and reflecting on the past few weeks. She didn't know the whole story of what had happened and didn't at all understand why Buffy suddenly wanted the younger slayer to live with them. It seemed to her that Buffy didn't understand it either.

Joyce couldn't figure Faith out at all, for the first week she had been stand-offish and barely able to look at Joyce. But now, she seemed more and more comfortable every day. Starting to seem more like the girl she was when they first met, brash, and full of confidence. Her posture and demeanor seemed to vary greatly, especially when Buffy was around.

She also noticed a change in her daughter, she seemed lighter, like maybe she wasn't carrying such a heavy burden anymore. She hadn't heard much mention of Angel lately, which she was very grateful for. She could never understand that relationship and hoped that it would be over soon. If not, she planned to try to talk some sense into Angel.

Even if you could get passed the whole him being a vampire thing... which Joyce was not doing a great job of - their enormous age difference was also a serious problem. It had taken a lot to wring the truth of what happened between them out of Buffy. Finding out that her 17-year-old daughter had slept with either a 28-year-old man or a 200-year-old vampire - had been very challenging for her to accept.

Finding out that her daughter was the slayer was a difficult pill to swallow, but she was doing her best. She couldn't help but have pride in the fact that Buffy had saved not only the Sunnydale locals but the entire world. Still, she wanted her daughter to have a normal life One with some semblance of a normal future. At least the potential for growing older and having a family. In her opinion, Angel couldn't possibly offer her those things. She didn't even know if it was biologically possible and really didn't want to find out.

Joyce was very hopeful that the growing friendship between the two slayers would mean good things for both of them. She still held out hope that Faith would take over for Buffy and that her daughter could have a normal life. Just having Faith around should mean a greater chance for Buffy's survival. On top of her somewhat selfish reasons for allowing Faith to stay, she had found that she genuinely did like the girl. She was witty and compassionate. She also seemed to have a maturity to her that didn't at all fit with how she tried to carry herself.

Joyce knew from the Christmas they had spent together that there was a lot more to Faith than she wanted anyone to see. It was one of the reasons she so readily agreed to let her stay.

"You don't have to do that, you know." Joyce finally broke her silence.

"I know, but I like to. And since you won't let me pay rent, it's the least I can do." Faith had been moving around the kitchen efficiently, preparing breakfast for everyone.

"It is appreciated," Joyce smiles at the apparent gratitude Faith has for her comment. That's another thing that had slowly been changing. Whenever she would say anything nice to Faith, the girl would seem to struggle. Almost as if she was expecting something awful to come immediately after. Slowly it seemed Faith was beginning to believe that Joyce actually did like her and wasn't going to hurt her. Looking at the young girl, a thought occurs to Joyce.

"When is your birthday?"

Faith's look of horror at the question makes her worry, "Why are you asking about that?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if that awful council was going to try the same thing on you that they did with Buffy on her 18th birthday."

"What did they do to her?"

"Hmmm.. something smells good." Buffy bounces into the kitchen and grabs a cup of coffee, apparently not noticing the look of shock on her mother's or Faith's face.

"You never told Faith about your birthday?"

Buffy's smile drops completely, "well... no... I didn't think there was any way they would do that to her after what happened." Buffy stammers out her response, clearly making it up on the spot. Joyce often wonders how she never realized that Buffy was up to something all those years when she was such a terrible liar.

Joyce puts her hands on her hips, restraining herself from pointing out how unlikely she thought it was that Buffy even thought about telling her. "Maybe you should."

Buffy very guiltily stares into her coffee cup as she explains, "It's called the Cruciamentum. On a slayer's 18th birthday, their watcher takes away their powers and then forces them to fight a vampire." Buffy explains quietly, unable to look at Faith as she speaks.

"Giles took away your powers?" Faith asks, her voice is unnervingly even.

"Yeah, and I didn't know what was happening. I just thought I was no longer the slayer."

"How could he do that to you?"

"I still don't know. Things went really bad with the test. The vampire killed the council guys who were watching him, and he kidnapped my mom. When Giles found out how wrong things went, he finally explained what was going on with the test. But it was too late, and I had to rescue my mom. So I went through with the test and just barely managed to defeat the vampire."

"That must have been terrifying."

"It was," Buffy finally looks up at Faith. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I promise I would never have let them do that to you."

"It's cool."

"Faith, maybe you should put that down," Joyce comments quietly. Joyce had been distracted by Buffy's entry, but now realizes that Faith had tensed up before her daughter had appeared.

Faith looks down at her hand and drops the knife that she had begun digging into the cutting board with. She bolted out of the kitchen and up the stairs before either Summers could try to stop her.

"I can't believe I didn't tell her." Buffy slumps into her chair and frowns.

"She might be upset about more than just that. She seemed very nervous when I asked about her birthday. Do you know why that would be?"

"I don't have any idea. I don't even know how old she is."

"You should go talk to her."

Buffy

Buffy runs up the stairs and knocks on Faith's door. It had been left slightly open, and when she knocked, it opened the rest of the way. Faith was sitting on the edge of the bed, her two bags worth of belongings sitting beside her. This didn't immediately worry Buffy since she knew that Faith hadn't ever unpacked in the first place.

"I'm so sorry I never told you."

"It's cool. We're five by five."

"It's not cool at all. I hurt you, and I'm sorry, you don't have to forgive me, but you can admit that I hurt you." Buffy was desperately trying to connect with Faith. In the past month, she had been trying to find ways to get closer to the other slayer, and growing increasingly frustrated at her failure to do so.

Faith only shrugged her shoulders and looked at the floor. "Don't you have to go to school?"

"It can wait. I wanted to make sure you're ok."

"I'm OK."

"No, you're not." Buffy moved to sit beside Faith on the bed. "Tell me what's going on?"

Faith looked over at Buffy, "it was just another reminder that I don't belong here. That I'm fooling myself staying here with you and trying to pretend…"

"Pretend what?"

"I'm just going to go." Faith stood up and tried to grab her bags, Buffy reached for her hand and held it tightly.

"Please stay. I really like having you here, and so does my mother. Please?" Since the incident with the deputy mayor, Buffy had figured out that Faith would do pretty much anything Buffy directly asked her to do. She didn't understand why, and she tried not to take advantage of it, but she needed Faith to stay. Deciding to push her luck, "and you should unpack. This is your home now. You should spread out and enjoy it." She gave Faith what she hoped was a charming smile.

"OK, thanks." Faith mumbled and dropped back onto the bed, pulling her hand out of Buffy's.

Faith still didn't seem to have recovered from what was bothering her. Even though it seemed like she wasn't going to leave, Buffy wasn't ready to let this go. She hated to see Faith suffering.

"Can you please just drop this? I'm not upset with you for not telling me what the council did. It totally sucks that they did that to you. But I get why you wouldn't have bothered to tell me. It's not like I asked questions about what was going on when I wasn't around."

They sit in silence for a moment. Buffy has no idea what to say. Finally, Faith sighs. "I freaked out because your mom asked about my birthday."

"Why would that freak you out?"

"Because… I don't know when it is."

Buffy's mouth dropped in shock. "Oh. Maybe Wesley knows? The council might have records on you."

"Yeah, maybe. Doesn't matter, it just kind of surprised me." Faith finally seemed to be relaxing slightly. Her slumped shoulders held a little higher. Buffy guessed that Faith hadn't even understood why she was so upset until she admitted it out loud.

"Thank you for talking to me. I really want things to be better between us than they were." Buffy wanted to reach out and comfort Faith, but the few times she had done that it had felt awkward.

"I want that too. Now you better go to school before you get into trouble." Faith grinned, and Buffy felt immensely better. Not everything that just happened made sense to her, but she felt like she and Faith had finally started to form a real friendship. Where it would be ok to make mistakes, they could talk through what was bothering them and come out stronger after.

"I'll see you later for training?"

Faith nodded, and Buffy headed out of the room.