YELLOW BRICK ROAD
By: Lisette (lisette@chaletian.co.uk)
Rating: PG-13 so far - might change later on.
Distribution: Want, take, have. Just e-mail me first.
Summary: Faith is released from prison - but there's a catch.
Feedback: God, please.
Angel, Buffy, the whole lot, belong to JW, Mutant Enemy, and anyone else who officially owns them. I don't. Big surprise.
Okay, a few notes. Firstly, I haven't seen any of season 3 yet, though I know vaguely what happens. So, definitely after "Billy", and Fred and Gunn are getting with the happy, but "WITW" never happened.
Please, please review - I need to know what people think! I have a fragile ego and it needs bolstering! Thanks to everyone who has already reviewed - you have made me a happy person!
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Chapter Thirty-Two - Flashing Before Her Eyes
It was cold and her shoulder hurt.
Her shoulder hurt and it was cold.
Stuck in a freezing ice box, these were the two thoughts dominating Faith's mind. LA was not really the kind of place in which one dressed for the colder elements, and Faith was regretting the fact that on leaving for Wolfram & Hart than morning, she hadn't worn something different - say a fur coat and a thermal vest. Instead, there she was, clad only in her trademark leather trousers and thin t-shirt. She was, moreover, not wearing a bra, the lack of which she had felt keenly when she had woken in her current position. She could hear the men in the other room quite clearly, which surprised her, and what she had heard had scared her. Sex for her had always been a game, or, more usually a tool. She had always been in control; men were pawns as she screwed with them - with their heads as well as their pricks, though with a lot of men the two were pretty much interchangeable.
She gave up battering the door. It didn't seem to be doing any good, and the cold was getting to her. She sat against the wall, knees up to her chest with her arms wrapped round them. She knew she should get up, move, anything to keep the blissful numbness from creeping into her body and soul. Her mind drifted, and she was back in her past.
The first time Faith had sex was with a quarterback for her high school football team. He was seventeen, a big man in town. His father was the mayor, his mother the president of the Ladies' Association, and Steve himself was class president and would be off to college in the autumn. And Faith - she had been fourteen and white trash. Her father had walked out years ago, and her mother had embraced the concept of the liquor bottle. Small towns were not forgiving of those who did not conform to their ideals, and Faith had learned early that just wanting to conform was never quite enough. She had been young, and if she hadn't been "in love" with Steve, she had certainly had a crush on him. And then, one day, a Tuesday, the miracle had happened. Steve had come up to her after school and asked her if she wanted to go get some ice cream with him. She had been so excited, but too wary to show it. A calm shrug, then she had tilted her head, and uttered a cool, "Okay."
The ice cream had been swell. But afterwards Faith discovered exactly why he had asked her. She also discovered a whole lot of other stuff. Such as, you couldn't live in a trailer and wear cheap shorts and old sneakers and have breasts and not have slept with at least one member of the football team. Such as, men didn't give a fuck about the women they screwed. Such as, it didn't matter how virtuous you were, or how much you tried to be good, if you didn't look the part, and have the money, then you just didn't count.
Such as, a quarterback with a small brain and wedding tackle to match couldn't keep his mouth shut. Within a week, the church ladies were looking at her like she was dirt, the other high school girls were whispering behind their hands and giggling when she walked past, the other jocks were lining up for a taste of what golden boy Stevie had got.
Then she had become the slayer, and at last freedom beckoned. Her watcher had come for her, and although at first she had believed him to be some psycho pervert, she had soon learned her error. And if he hadn't really cared about her so much as the way she could wield a stake, that didn't matter, because he didn't treat her like dirt, and didn't try to sleep with her. And things got better. But then he died. And so Faith came to Sunnydale…
Sunnydale. The best of times, the worst of times. All in one small, Californian town. She had met Buffy, the other slayer, and Buffy's friends. They were all so open, and, initially, so non-judgmental. Hey, who were they to judge? They had seen enough weirdness that she must seem positively normal.
And then it all went wrong.
Faith could pinpoint the exact moment it happened. It wasn't when she killed the mayor's aide. Not then, but afterwards. She had been so shocked, she couldn't think. She just ran. Ran to the motel room, and though about running further. But she couldn't leave Sunnydale, not now. So she ran another way. Her conscience, all the good that was left inside her ran far back into the depths of her mind, leaving nothing but a cold bitch who had nothing left. Of course, every so often the goodness tried to re-emerge. When Angel made a connection with her. When she had taken Buffy's place - no, when she had been Buffy, when people had loved and respected her as they did Buffy. And when she had broken down in Angel's arms after…
A commotion broke into Faith's dazed mind, and she grasped it eagerly, anxious to avoid thinking about what she had done to Wesley. She clung to the wall, raising herself shakily, her hands almost numb with the cold. She rubbed them together, knowing that she would have to defend herself at some point, knowing that she couldn't die here, like a rack of meat hung out to dry.
The floor seemed to shift under her feet, and she fell against the wall again, unsteady. An earthquake? Always a possibility in this part of the world.
"Great!" she muttered under her breath. "I can get squashed like a bug, or freeze to death, or get violently mauled by a buncha thugs. And it looks like we have a winner," she added, her tone reckless, as the door handle began to turn.