Faith

The slayers slowly walked home, each lost in their own thoughts. Faith was feeling pretty good about everything. She had a great night with Buffy, maybe made things a little better with Xander and had avoided fighting with Willow. Tomorrow she was finally going to be able to take care of Tara, once she did that, she thought she'd be able to stop worrying about what was going to happen. She'd be able to relax and just live in the normal hell of being a slayer on the Hellmouth. She's lost in her thoughts and doesn't immediately notice that Buffy has stopped walking, or that her emotions have shifted in a less than pleasant direction.

"Can you tell me more about this witch? What's so important about her, anyway?"

"I don't know that much about her. I only spent a few minutes with her."

Buffy was quiet, and Faith could sense how upset Buffy suddenly was.

"There must be something more to her. You wouldn't have gone through all the trouble you did to find her if there wasn't more. Willow is going to be furious with both of us if she ever figures out that I tricked her into helping you."

Faith sighed, "I don't want to mess anything up for you and Red, but I couldn't find her on my own. Helping Tara was the only thing besides dealing with the Mayor that I could actually do. That's the only reason I want to help her."

Buffy still didn't seem too convinced, "What did you two do during the few minutes you spent together?"

"We just talked, she explained some things to me about our slayer connection." Faith was struggling with the shift from the happiness she was feeling a few minutes ago to the anger she was feeling now from Buffy. It caused her to drop her defenses.

"You mean the slayer connection that you still claim doesn't exist?" Buffy grinned, and Faith knew she was busted. At least the admission seemed to make Buffy a little less angry.

"Yeah.. that slayer connection." Faith groaned and ran her hand through her hair. "She explained to me how I could tap into it, that we could feel each other's emotions through it." Oh god, why did I tell her that? I didn't have to tell her that!

"That's how you knew to help me that night after I sent Angel away." Buffy frowned and wrapped her arms around herself. Faith guessed that she was starting to put more and more things together.

"I could feel how much you were hurting."

"Can we send emotions through it?" Buffy's eyes narrowed, a slight edge to her voice.

Faith sighed, "yeah. But I swear I only did that to you once. When I first came back, I was so freaked out. I just needed you to be calm."

"Just that one time?"

Faith nodded, hoping that Buffy wouldn't dig into this too much more.

"But.. does that mean.." Buffy's frown deepened, and she ran off into the woods. Faith immediately chased after her. It took Faith a few minutes to find her. Buffy was standing amongst the trees, with her hands covering her face.

"What are you doing? Why did you run away?" Buffy turned to face Faith, tears in her eyes. "Why are you crying? What happened?" Faith could barely come to terms with how much it hurt her to see Buffy crying. There was nothing she wouldn't do to make those tears go away.

"This whole time you've been able to feel my emotions. That's why you're so different. I've been manipulating you."

"You haven't been." Faith started pacing in front of Buffy, "Ok, maybe you have been, but not like you think. It's not a bad thing."

"How can it not be a bad thing? I've been controlling you and making you do things you didn't want to do!"

Faith grinned and shook her head, "You didn't make me do anything I didn't want to do. I didn't get your lazy ass a soda the other night, did I?"

"I wasn't being lazy! I was wounded!"

"You mean that tiny scrape on your elbow?" Faith smirked.

"It wasn't tiny, and this so isn't the point!"

Faith's grin dropped, and she looked away. "I know.. I was just hoping to avoid having to explain this." Faith shifted nervously, "Things went really bad for me after.. the accident. I was given this second chance and didn't want to make the same mistakes - so I sort of used your emotions as a guide. You didn't do anything wrong. You couldn't have known what was going on."

"I knew something was going on," Buffy pouted, still feeling guilty.

"Yeah, maybe. But I knew exactly what was happening. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

Buffy shrugged her shoulders, "this is still weird. I don't know how I feel about it. I don't like that you changed for me."

"Easy there, princess! I didn't change for you. I mean, I know you're great and all that, but I changed for me. I didn't like who I was becoming."

Buffy rolled her eyes, "I'm not a princess!"

"Yeah, you kinda are. But it works for you." Faith smirked, and she could feel Buffy relaxing.

"Do you think Tara can teach me how to open the connection?"

"I'm not sure, she'll be younger now. She might not know as much as she did." Faith thought Buffy was going to be more than a little upset when she finally did figure out how to open the connection. She hoped Tara would help them get some control over the connection, so Buffy wouldn't understand how powerful it had been for Faith all this time.

"Wait, what do you mean younger, I thought you only met her around graduation?"

Shit. Fuck. Damn it! Faith groaned at her stupidity. She paced more frantically for a few moments and then dropped to the ground, leaning against a tree and lightly knocking her head against it.

"Faith?"

She leaned forward and closed her eyes. "Not being able to lie to you is extremely annoying."

"Faith!"

"OK, so… we met Tara three years from now."

"What!?"

"We got trapped in some kind of other dimension, where time moves differently. When we were finally pulled out, three years had passed, that's when we met Tara."

"How have you never mentioned this before?"

"We weren't there that long, and I didn't know anything that was going on anyway. Nothing that happened then - matters now."

Buffy glared at her disapprovingly, "you do remember from two seconds ago that I can tell when you're lying, right?"

Faith groaned again, "ok, so maybe it matters. But only because I was sent back to stop it. The things that happen don't matter."

"Does this girl start an apocalypse or something? I thought you said she was a good witch?"

"She is a good witch. It's not her fault that bad things happen. Bad things just happen because of her."

Please, please stop asking about this. Faith silently chants in her head, unable to make eye contact with Buffy while she waits to see what the angry blonde slayer says next. She's relieved when she can tell Buffy is calming, she's definitely still agitated, but Faith believes she's going to let things go, for now at least.

"Were we.. friends in the future? Did I trust you?"

"Yeah, we were friends, and yeah, you trusted me."

Buffy was silent for a while, "Do you think that's why I trust you now?"

"You trust me now?" Faith asks, truly surprised.

"You don't think I trust you? Why else would I keep letting you get away with not telling me things?"

"Oh.. yeah. Guess I was just too busy being grateful that you didn't keep asking me about things to think about why."

Faith could feel Buffy staring at her. She couldn't bring herself to meet the angry glare that she was sure was there. With all the things she had just confessed, she was sure Buffy would realize she was insane and decide to ditch her as soon as possible.

The voices in her head are drowning out the emotions that Buffy was sending her. Shit, she's probably going to think I did something to her. Some kind of magic to make her trust me. Faith began squeezing her left thigh, digging in deeper and deeper with every passing moment. I knew this wouldn't work, I don't belong here, I'm going to help Tara, and then I can leave. B won't want me here now. She might not even want to help me with Tara. Why do I always have to screw everything up!? She was so sure that everything was ruined that she was barely aware of what Buffy was actually feeling at the moment.

"Faith? I do, you know."

"What?" Buffy's voice startled her, and she looked up, the grip on her thigh starting to relax.

"Trust you." Buffy moved closer and offered her hand to Faith, helping her to stand.

The voices in Faith's head started to wither away, barely a whisper now. The caring, loving emotions from Buffy were once again making it through to Faith's awareness. The slayers walked home in silence. Faith was beginning to feel her confidence return and her hope that after tomorrow, all of her worries about the future would be over.

As much as Faith had tried, no one would let them take their car without a license. Luckily, Giles had agreed to take them on the 3-hour drive to meet with Tara. She and Giles had been getting closer and closer, she began to feel like he cared about her almost as much as he cared about Buffy. It was a long quiet drive, Faith sat in the back and tried to figure out what she was going to tell Tara to get her to stay away.

Making their way up the long driveway to the farmhouse, they can already hear yelling, and they haven't even gotten out of the car yet. A blonde girl runs from the house, tears streaming down her face. She doesn't see the slayers at first. She stops dead in her tracks as she sees them exit the vehicle.

"Was someone hurting you in there?" Faith asks, jumping out of the car and moving quickly towards Tara.

"No.." Her voice is weak, and the bruise forming on her cheek quickly proves her words a lie.

"Tara! Get your ass back in here!" A man appears in the doorway, shaking his clenched fist.

"Change of plans, B." Faith puts herself between the witch and the angry man. "Do you have any stuff in there you care about?"

"A few things." Tara shrugs, her voice barely a whisper.

"Ok, let's go get your stuff and get the hell out of here." Faith starts to make her way to the front door.

"What.. no.. I can't." Tara stammers and starts to back away.

"Yes, you can. We're going to help you." Faith motions to Tara, and hopes she won't take much more convincing.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Faith, that's Buffy. We'll explain more once we get you safe."

"You aren't taking her anywhere." The man stands with his arms folded over his chest.

"You're 18 by now, right?" Tara nods. "Pretty sure that means you can't tell her what to do anymore." Faith calls to the man, pushing past him, keeping herself protectively between Tara and her father.

Tara freezes once they get to her room. "This is crazy. I can't just go with you. I don't even know who you are."

"Look at me. Really look at me." Faith suggests, Tara frowns and looks at her feet. "Maybe you don't like to do it, but I'm telling you to read my aura or whatever it is that you do." Tara still refuses to look up at Faith. Spotting the crystal she remembers Tara using to show them their auras before, Faith grabs it and holds it up. "Do you need this?"

Tara's eyes widen in shock, "H-how.."

"I can explain later. We just have to get out of here." She can hear the sound of a shotgun being cocked and then the sound of Buffy very likely bending that shotgun into a pretzel. "Are you ok down there, B?"

"Five by five." Buffy's voice calls up the stairs and Faith chuckles.

"One thing…" Faith whispers, hoping Buffy can't hear her, "when you do finally see us… don't tell her how connected we are. I'm not ready for her to know."

Tara gives her a strange look, but nods. Faith could only hope the girl would trust her enough to cooperate.

"Grab your stuff, and let's go." Tara finally starts moving. Five minutes later, the three women are out of the house and heading back to the car.

"She's a demon you know, she's got evil inside of her!" The man calls out from the porch.

Tara freezes and turns back to her family. "He's right. It's not safe. I have to go back."

"No - you don't. He's lying. There is no demon in you."

"What? How do you know I'm not?"

"I just do. Now come on."

The trio piles into the car and begin their trek to Sunnydale. Faith and Buffy in the back seat, Tara in the passengers.

"Tara - this is Giles. He's our... friend? What the hell are you now, anyway?"

Giles glares at Faith but doesn't get a chance to respond before Tara speaks.

"Why are you helping me?" Tara is nervously shifting around in the seat, looking as if she's considering jumping out of the car at any moment.

"She's from the future!" Buffy offers excitedly.

"B!" Faith hisses, this so wasn't the plan. But now the plan was ruined, so it didn't matter anyway.

"What do you mean you're from the future?" Tara's nervous stuttering makes Faith uneasy. Tara had been completely confident in their brief interactions, it made her wonder what else Willow had done to the poor girl.

"Some bad things happened, I got a chance to come back and try to fix those things. One of the things was that you get into trouble. So I'm going to try and help make sure that doesn't happen."

"Oh… but…"

"Have you read our auras yet?" Faith hoped that if Tara could read them that she'd see enough to trust her and hopefully let this go for now.

Tara nervously shakes her head, "I'm not very good at it."

Faith sighs. "Just try. Please."

Tara nods and lets out a gasp. "What are you?"

"We're vampire slayers." Buffy immediately answered, and Faith tried not to wince.

"You're made of magic!" Tara exclaims, making a weird squeaking sound.

"Yeah, we kinda are." Faith grins back at her. The witch's excitement was infectious, and Faith started to feel a little more confident about what they were doing.

"I thought there was only supposed to be one slayer?"

"I kinda died for a little bit. All better now, though." Buffy grinned at Tara, who was turned in her seat to face the slayers.

"Where are you taking me?"

Faith paused, unsure for a moment, "Yeah.. guess we need to figure that out. We weren't actually planning on taking you anywhere… but you can't stay with those people."

"She can stay with us until we figure something out." Buffy offers.

"I'm going to UC Sunnydale in a couple of weeks for the summer semester," Tara says and Faith groans.

"Any chance of you going to some other school?"

"No… it's all set up. It was a lot of work to arrange without my family knowing about it."

"I think you'll like my friend Willow. We're both starting at UC Sunnydale in the fall, and she's a witch." Faith's insides clenched at the mention of Willow. Everything was quickly falling apart.

"Another witch!" Tara's eyes filled with excitement.

"Yeah, and her boyfriend is a werewolf. Our lives are kinda complicated." Faith offers, hoping there was still some chance to keep the witches from getting too close.

"A werewolf!"

"Don't worry. Oz isn't a bad werewolf. We lock him up whenever it's a full moon. He's never hurt anyone."

"Oh.. ok."

Buffy

Buffy notices that Faith is suddenly extremely tense and muttering to herself. "Giles? Can you pull over for a minute? I think I saw something that we should go check out."

She meets her former watcher's eyes in the mirror and silently pleads with him to stop. He looks over at Faith and nods, pulling over, "Faith? Let's go check it out." Faith doesn't even seem to notice that Buffy is talking to her. Buffy pushes her out the door and climbs out after her.

"What? Why did we stop? What are we doing out here?" Faith asks once she finally seems to be aware of anything.

"What happened? I thought you would be happy about helping Tara?"

"I am."

"You're bleeding." Buffy points at Faith's thigh. Faith had somehow managed to dig so hard into her leg that she broke the skin. It was barely visible in the dark material of her jeans, but Buffy knew it was there.

"Shit." Faith tries to wipe it away and turns to head back to the car.

"Please, talk to me." Buffy reaches for her hand and pulls her back. Her heart is breaking as she sees the pain in Faith's eyes.

Faith hangs her head, "it was going to be over. I'd get Tara to stay away from Sunnydale and then it would be over. But now it's not over, and it might even be worse now. But there's no choice, she can't stay there, and there's nowhere else to send her."

"You were trying to keep her away? Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I just thought it would be easier not to." Buffy wants to scream in frustration at Faith. If she had just told me the plan, maybe I could have helped. Not that we had a choice. I just wish I knew what was going to happen and why she was so upset.

"You're not alone with this. Let me help you."

"It's too late. There's no point."

"How can it be too late? She's fine, and we can stop whatever it was from happening together."

"I don't even know what happened or when. How can we stop it?"

Buffy wraps her arms around Faith and pulls her close, the younger slayer's head is hung low, and she leans into Buffy's shoulder. "We just will, we'll stop it like we stop everything else. Together."

Faith doesn't seem to be listening. Buffy grabs her face, makes her look into her eyes. "You have to believe that we can fix this. You were sent back for a reason. You've already completely changed my life for the better. You will change hers for the better too."

"Are you sure your life is better?" Faith asks, and Buffy is shocked at the vulnerability she sees in Faith.

"You haven't told me much, but I get the feeling we weren't friends at this point before. The fact that we are now, definitely makes my life better. I can't even imagine my life without you in it." Buffy searches Faith's eyes, wishing she had access to the slayer connection so she could tell what Faith was feeling. All she could do was send Faith all the love and support she felt.

It seemed to be working, Faith's posture was improving. She backed away from Buffy and rolled her shoulders, turning back into the Faith that she showed everyone else.

"Ok, you're right. I have time. It's not too late."

"WE have time. I'm not even asking you to tell me anything, just let me help you. Let me take some of the pressure."

"Right, we have time." Faith nodded and turned to head back to the car.

"Were you going to leave after helping Tara?" Buffy's voice was soft as she asked, her heart racing as she waited to see what Faith would say. Faith didn't immediately respond, "is that what you meant by it would be over? You wouldn't have to stick around Sunnydale anymore?"

Faith finally turned around to look Buffy in the eyes, "The only way I'll ever leave, is if you want me to."