Chapter Sixty

Wishes
Faith & Buffy

A/N Again I am omitting the fact Robin and Faith got together, because why? Like why is it there? The show was just about to end. Logic. Same with Anya's death, it doesn't make sense, so is going. Uh, I'm watching Much ado about nothing so sorry for the Shakespeare talk.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2003

Faith sat on the edge of her bed, well Buffy's bed, but Buffy wasn't here, was she? So now it was Faith's, lots of things were Faith's now - the power, the control, the leadership. And it didn't feel how she thought it would, it was all she'd ever wanted but there was something missing. Buffy was missing - they'd always done things together back in the old days. But there'd always been a good slayer and a bad slayer, good Buffy, bad Faith. But in the beginning, when it just the two of them - before Wesley, before the mess, right at the start when they'd shared everything. They were different, sure, but they worked together, they were a team. Faith wanted that back, she'd had years to think about it, to think about being alone. To be alone. And she wanted more, it occurred to her that she wanted Buffy back as a friend, as a teammate, the only other person on the planet who understood being a slayer who wasn't already dead.

She'd decided to not wait up, Andrew would tell them what they found out at the church, and she was tired. A build up of energy burst inside her, the firecracker was spent. He visited her - the First, wearing another skin of th dead. Richard Wilkins III, if her father hadn't left when she was seven, he wouldn't have played a vital role in her life but he had and that's the way things pan out. She trusted him, valued his input until that one day when she woke up to find he was gone and she wasn't even at the funeral. She didn't care for his dying words now, the First could fake a voice, a smile, a body, but not the soul. Not that part of the person that we loved so dearly, no that part is gone and no evil can summon it all will.

She sat and took a deep breath, the aloneness was catching, she didn't feel like sleeping, but there was a tiredness that made her eyes want to shut out the world. She lay into the covers with her clothes on, the worry and loss and pressure of being the official captain of this sinking boat was weighing her further and further into the mattress. Her eyes softly shutting as she blocked out the world because it was too much to be in it. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

The next morning Faith was up before Dawn, preparing and cross checking the weapons as the grateful sleep had woken her too soon with nerves. She wanted to be a good leader, not to prove she was better than Buffy, but to prove to Buffy she was capable. She wanted their friendship to fix - to mend. And she wasn't going to do that by being arrogant. She spoke to Giles, telling him to gather the girls in the living room early so they could get a head start on the day, and find out what Andrew and Spike found at the church the night before. Only trouble was Spike had left to go God knows where and she wasn't sure what time Xander would be back, she presumed early because he was prudent and knew they needed him.

They all sat around the living room in similar places, everyone seemed to have a spot by now, even with the growing numbers they fitted into the room like sardines as Andrew began to speak. He told of the church and its markings, the ruins upon the walls and the secrets Caleb had been hiding. Faith told him it was good and ordered that they march once again on the vineyard, attacking from the base and catching the Caleb evil off his guard. Then she sat weary eyed in the house as they planned to march the attack, she was much ready and therefore almost standing. Xander and Anya had returned but an hour before and trying to hide their relationship smothered their giggles. But they were like children and so noticed by those around them.

She prepared them and lead the line down the path, Spike was still missing but with Giles at the back they walked into certain doom. Xander and Anya stayed back at the house with Willow, Tara, Dawn and Andrew, Faith trusted Giles to be at her aid, he'd always been kind to her even when she probably didn't deserve it. They walked into the tunnels with optimism, stakes warming the palms of potentials, Faith carrying a large metal axe with prolific prongs and the weight feeling strong in her hands. They walked in swift darkness, Faith leading the soldiers into battle, each girl following her command as they strolled deeper and deeper into the cave.

Kennedy walked out in front, followed quickly by Vi, there was something sitting the corner, a box in the black. Torchlight doth scorn the edges so wilder a complexion of wood as the artificial light ruined the ruin. They stopped walking and stared, eyes fixated, pupils dilating, not moving as Faith pushed through the crowd. Maybe this was the hidden gem, the thing of Andrew's so described that Caleb was protecting. Her fingers twitching over the latch, she noticed the lock not budging and pulled it so. Slayer strength beating the ordinary as the chest was flung open. Eyes reeling back in horror as the demon light came into view.

A countdown of too short a time began to tick, the red numbers flickering and changing every second until Faith yelled out. "GET DOWN, ALL OF YOU!" Her screams could be heard as the building fell around them, concrete rubble and iron came crashing down around their ears as the time ran out and the bomb sounded. A sharp ringing in their ears as humble bodies scrambled around for shelter, protection - whatever was there. It was an end. A defeat no one had been expecting and now it was falling on them that this was real. Real injury, real death, real war and pain and muster. Faith knew it, she always had, but now it was time to teach it to those who needed to fight.

*The dreamlands* Africa, the world without shrimp, around 2300BC

She strolled with a patience, her hair wild and tangled like a dog's. Her face painted in white chalk from the crushed rock and desert. She was an outcast, a nobelong, a spirit tainted with a breath of demon blood and detached from her humanity. It barely writhed within her anymore, she'd become a shell of her title. The Slayer. And she was the first, the worst for living, the worst for loving, but the best at being stone. She was strong as oxen and bold, bright with spirit because she had to. There was no choice. Being chosen implies the choice was taken out of your own hands long before you were even aware such a choice existed. It was the workers of the villages, not Powers, not good forces, and not demons, not the Old Ones, they were human. Moral as they come and out of choices. The shadow men worked her into their protégé, she was no good a humble human, and they stole her away. Tied her to a rock and swept the darkness into her, sewing the roots into her bones. I am warrior, fighter, slayer, human and demon, we are one in the same. Take it, take your freedom because you cannot save me, I am gone. Take it. The voice of Sineya beckoned, pulling Buffy deeper into sleep and deeper into her calling for it.

Then they made it, from iron and silver, painted over and over in different colours, resting at brown, leather brown. It was a weapon, polished blade with wood and splintering handle that it was fit for her. And those that would come after. She was the Slayer. And this was her weapon, the weapon that protects, imbued with the essences of the innocent it wielded the power to fight the forces of darkness. It was what the First Slayer used to kill the Old Ones, and use their power against them, wield the fateful weapon against them. It was a scythe shape at one end, a wooden stake embedded in the other as it glistened in the light. It was my light in a dark world, reflecting what I needed to see in perfect clarity, take it. Use it now. You know where to find it. I am the slayer and you are the slayer, we alone shall wield the power of the scythe, the weapon of the slayers. Created for us, made in metal for us to take and ruin. We are the strong, this is what you need now slayer. Take it, take it and it's yours. You know where to go.

Then flashes, she was pointing, no words escaping her lips as her body was ripped away into the blackness. The deep orange of desert sun stripped away to the dark wood of the vineyard. Caleb stood with his feet hip width apart and his hands cradled as his fingers linked by his waist. His lips curled into a deep creasing smirk, a grin that contained enough evil to come alive with a field of bats, that grin would be the death of him as Buffy herself charged at the preacher. She twisted and turned him in the prophecy, defeating him swiftly and firing at all cylinders to run through the image of the First, mirroring her picture as Buffy ran for the wall. Tucked behind a veil there it sat. Like the sword in the stone the picture changed. Buffy was wielding the scythe high above her head, it's red paint coppering as she felt a smile grace her own lips as she saw her friends ally themselves to her once more. Be careful slayer, take it at your will, but do not abandon them, you need them. They are your kin and you will need each of their strengths.

Buffy woke a little startled, but the dream was clear. She was still warm, wrapped in Spike's arms like he was pastrami around a pig's belly. He was a comforting body amongst her living flesh and she was grateful for her company but the dream was clear enough. She appeared in smoke and mirrors, with her warning and her advice. Caleb was hiding something, Buffy was right! She'd known they'd only crowed the vineyard if there was something there they definitely didn't want the slayer army to get a hold of. She left a small scribbled note on the pillow and left Spike sleeping, his eyes closed restfully and it looked for the first time in his short life and long death, that he could be truly happy, it's a good job he doesn't have a gypsy curse eh? Buffy thought to herself as she descended the town for the vineyard, a destiny awaiting her. The dream had been real to her, a prophetic dream by nature but its actions revealed a way forward. Finally the leads of a plan formed in her mind and she knew where she had to be.

Spike, what you said to me last night was sweet. You knew what I needed to hear. But now I've gone, I had a dream, the first slayer, she showed me what's at the vineyard, I've gone to go get it. It's a weapon, we'll need it in the final battle against the First. Go back to the house, don't come after me.

He sighed as the note sat between his nimble fingers like a rolled out cigarette. The paper was scratchy but it didn't matter, even after the night they'd shared, and the closeness. Buffy was still all shop-talk, he figured she always would be. Slowly as he rolled back into consciousness his body crumpled like the paper in his hand and he sighed another breath and gazed out the window, almost mid-afternoon sun, somehow he'd missed most of the day if Buffy had gotten up early. A day he'd lost to a peaceful sleep was worth it. But now he had the note. Sitting up in the bed her took a look at the doorframe, and there she was, twiddling her thumbs like she'd been staring at him for hours, waiting for him to notice her. She was slightly smirking behind cold eyes and for a moment he second guessed his instincts and she was but a shell to him. And he wasn't going to pretend he didn't know the First had come back to haunting him.