Chapter 21

The One Where Sex Might Happen

(But Doesn't)

Faith pulls this little face when she takes her pills that, I can't help it, makes me smile. Perhaps the fact it feels like every pill she takes is the teensiest little victory for me adds to the pleasure that gives me, who knows?

But smile I do, and do so behind the relative safety of my mug of coffee.

She takes a wary spoonful of cereal. It seems to get the tick of approval. It's the first solidish food she has eaten for a few days, and the first I have actually witnessed her eat since she reappeared from her coma. Who knows what she was eating before she staggered into my bar?

She chews slow and mechanically, then stops and looks up.

"Somethin' amusing you, your highness?"

"Mmm hmmm." I sip my coffee. She smirks, then returns to chewing. "Man, I feel like a construction truck took a dump on me."

"Question." I say. "Honest answer."

"That's the deal. Honest or silent."

"Scale of one to ten. How well do you feel?"

"Nine point five" She says. I stare dubiously. "But see, this bitch usually goes all the way up to fifty, baby." She leans on her elbow and sighs. "I hate this. I hate feeling weak. It's not… I don't want to be weak again. I was done with weak."

"It's temporary."

"But what if it ain't?" Say says, clearly distressed. "Lex, what if… like… it's like… brain damage or nerve damage of somethin' like that? I need to be strong. I have to be."

She looks down at what she is doing, which, is jabbing the end of the spoon at the table. Her face is flushed and tears are coming to her eyes. I don't see any fall, because I am kneeling beside her chair in an instant, holding her to my chest as she lets out a cry and loudly gasps in air. No, I don't see her tears, but I feel them in her shakes.

There are words, but they are lost in her grief. I hear vague things in the sounds, things like "she" and "over and over", and "he's gone." and "nobody ever". But I give up on finding a meaning in all of it. I just know she is terrified, and that is enough.

"Nothin' is in control and nothin' you do matters." She whimpers. "I hate this. I hate them." I hold her until the storm in her subsides, until she turns and hooks her arms around my shoulders and buries her face into me and cries herself out.

I don't like people seeing me cry, so I assume the same of her. Because it is a weakness in my eyes. And Faith hates to feel weak.


She is sleeping now. Fitful and pained. I see her brow scrunch and I soothe it away with my fingers. I moved us back to the bed an hour ago, but she has only been asleep for the past fifteen or so minutes. She stared off into space, running images over in her mind aimnd shaking her head at them, denying them or denouncing them. But she didn't speak. The sleep seems little mercy to me. Whatever haunts her does so in there too. I have some ideas of what, or who, but honestly? What do I know of Faith, really. I barely know myself.

I ease myself off the bed, and go to the bathroom. Flipping the seat lid, I sit down and sigh as the swift stream comes out of me, yawning and rolling my neck.

I muse on when this wasn't natural for me, and wonder when exactly it became so. I mean, there was a period where I would rock up to the toilet bowl and stand there, eye bleary with sleep, reaching for something that was no longer there, then rapidly cycle through confusion, disorientation, frustration and then self chastising. Oh, then peeing. I got there eventually.

I mean, there must have been a moment when it clicked over in my brain. The past months have been a blur of denial and avoidance, but, I guess, I have been moving slowly towards… somewhere. Or someone.

Faith calls me Lexi. And the weird thing is have started to call myself that too. Alexandra and Alex have been psuedothingies… nom be prunes or… oh, aliases. A twist on my former name, but not my name, not me.

I think of the dumb dream I had and the belaboured point. I had referred to Xander as just that… Xander, another person.

I am not Xander. Not anymore. I am Lexi now. I am happier being Lexi than I ever was as Xander, and I have a feeling I have only just begun exploring what that means. And, like does that mean, in some ways, kinda sorta, that I was always Lexi?

Either way it has ruined reruns of Legend, that's for sure.

Mega body issues? Maybe I just have a major brain issue.

Okay Lexi. List? Tissue, wipe front to back), flush, shower, wash up the dishes, denial, deal with problematic growing feelings for yet another Slayer, and hopefully, a solid night of distracting work without any fights to the death. Easy.

Shit.

Okay. New list.

Flush, Shower, go buy toilet paper…


Main Street isn't busy today, a few folk hurriedly going about their day. I notice the fall has really taken a hold, and that one tree by the coffee store has turned a vibrant rusty gold.

I have a jumbo pack of T.P under one arm as I stand, gazing into the window of this clothing shop I must have walked past a thousand times but never noticed. The clothing is all on the goth side, heavy on leather pants and big boots. Huh. I always wondered where the vampires got all that stuff from. I also note the wood panel taped up over the broken corner of the window and am starting to figure out how Faith got her clothes too.

I can't help but wonder what vampire Lexi would look like. It isn't hard, to be honest, extrapolating what I know of vamp Willow and vamp Jessie. She would be dressed in that outfit there; the one on the back, second in from the… oh, sorry, it's sort of a black blouse with a plunging v that goes… and now I am back to thinking about Mia Sara again.

And then my thoughts turn, as they oft do of late, to Faith. A vampire Faith would be, well, exactly the same as she was. Of all of us, the leap for her would only mean a minor change in dentistry. She already has these adorable little points to her canines that…

I growl at myself.

Sush, Penfold. I know how far gone I am. My doom is inevitable.

Maybe Vampire Lexi should take the wheel after all. At least she would be confident enough to wear that. Oooh, and maybe that one too. And pair it with… oh.

Faith will need some new clothes when she goes. And she will go. And I am certain that, as brave a face as I can put on it, it's just gonna destroy me.

U saved me. I save U.

That's where the story ends. Faith goes and Lexi remains.

Alone.