Title: Shades of Gray
Author: Jane McCartney
E-mail: janemccartney@bol.com.br
Disclaimer: the characters from Buffy aren't mine, yadda, yadda, yadda. Seriously, do I look like I'm making some money with this story? I think the people who actually have Buffy-TVS are busy enough to care and look broken authors of fan fictions to sue.
Acknowledgments: To Stairway Man, who write great AU fics and is my dear beta-reader, and all my reviewers. Lova ya all, guys.
Summary: To every action, there's an earned consequence. Faith was hiding a secret that may bring life-twisting consequences to Xander.
***
All my life, I always thought there was this natural order, you know? The way things are meant to be.
Like that the good guys always win; that you die when your time has come, or because you've granted it. That there's always a happy ending, even if it's for someone else.
Buffy tells me I can't know if it's mine. Damn it, even I know perfectly well it could've been any stupid jerk in Sunnydale. And if we're talking about statistics, the chances are that it's just not mine, plain and simple.
So I should just get over it, cool off and keep on livin' without giving it too much thought. Yeah, yeah. Get on with my life? Now why didn't I think about that before? Oh, right. I live on the damn Hellmouth.
There's an old saying which says that, in order for a person to find fulfillment, there are three things you've gotta do in your life: write a book, plant a tree and have a child. And then, you're likely to become a role model for one of those precious few that actually achieves the so- called American Dream, and thus be a happy, complete person.
And if you succeed at that, maybe you'll even get Mel Gibson to be paid twenty million dollars to play you in a movie - and have some big-breasted model, maybe the Penthouse Playmate of the month, be a mind-blowing one- night stand. If you're lucky enough, maybe she'll even marry you.
When I was ten years old, my teacher asked the class to write a story, at least two pages, front and back, as homework during Thanksgiving. Everyone whined about having to do school things while on holidays, but I actually liked the idea.
To tell you the truth, it was a welcome excuse to not participate in the Harris family's pitiful efforts to be thankful for anything. Usually, my mother cooked a baked chicken - my father used to tell her he'd "no way in hell pay for turkey if all the damn birds taste the same" - and my folks had an official excuse to drink all night.
"Don't bug your mother, you little brat; I pay enough damn taxes so ya could have some brainy cutie to teach you in school that we should celebrate the frickin' holidays. So show some goddamn respect for your country!"
That was the answer I got, when I asked if Mom really had to drink that much. My father heard it - lucky me. Respect? Respect, my ass. It was all about the booze; but then again, 'daddy' never really bothered to hide it anyway.
Well, like that's news anyway. I should have learned by then to keep my big mouth shut. I think I still have the scars of his belt on my back.
Anyway, for the assignment I wrote some comic-booky tale about a super- strong chick that fought some wicked nasties after sunset. I know, I know, I thought about it straightaway after the whole discovery of the "guys who were in a thundering need of a facial" thing.
The only difference is that I don't think Buffy wears tight red spandex to get her job done, and I'm way sure she isn't a former hooker who was given her powers by having sex with a scientist who'd had a nuclear accident earlier in the afternoon.
Believe me, a guy can have a pretty screwed-up imagination from reading all those comic books.
It's not exactly like writing a book, I know, but I remember the teacher said it was, despite the overwhelming sex and violence, a pretty imaginative job. And she told me it was the best essay of the class - 'cause Willow was sick and missed school that week, if you're wondering.
I still remember that after all these years 'cause it was one of those few, rare moments when a schoolteacher ever said anything good about me. And unless I'm thinkin' about a potential publication with some witty material about what Sunnydale's night life is really all about, I bet that's pretty much the closest I'll ever get to New York Times best-seller list.
So... one down, two to go.
Plant a tree? When I was younger I tripped on my way home when I was coming back from the supermarket to my house, and I let some beans fall in our garden. It rained for two nights, and the match was made.
There was this little plant that had grown, and I started to water it regularly, till the day I first forgot 'cause I was playing video games in Jesse's house and then came the second day when I was with Willow, and then I just forgot about it completely. It died shortly after, but if school homework counts as a book, that'll do for the second item department.
Ya know what's most funny about life in Sunnydale? The wild cards just don't stop coming. Breaks? You can wait for them, pal, 'cause they aren't coming anytime soon. Buffy says I can't know if it's mine, and knowing Faith, I don't need Slay-gal to tell me that.
But then again... it's like the last piece of the puzzle. For the first time, it seems so simple somehow. Faith always seemed a messed-up kind of girl. Willow never liked her. She was wild, and it didn't take a genius to realize that even from the start, she was just barely hanging in there. But, for the oddest reason, sometimes I wondered if there was something, something else besides that night with Buffy in the alley, that had set her off to head for the dark side of the Force after all.
"I could make you scream. I could make you die."
Now I can tell you one thing, every kid who grows up the way I did has a special something, a sort of intuition - and that is, you can instantly recognize one of your own. I'm sure that she never told anyone about her family, like I never told her or anyone about mine. Not even Willow.
Of course all the loud fights and the expansive gossip-channel of a one- Starbucks city like Sunnydale was a pretty good tip, but they never really knew. At least... not all the juicy details of the scars, visits to hospitals, constant yelling, waking up and running to give your mother a good morning kiss and finding her passed out in a pool of puke in the living room.
It's just something you learn to live with. It's normal, run-of-the-mill routine for you, and you feel ashamed to share with anyone else. It's personal. You don't want your best friend pitying you 'cause when you were five, your father promised you ice cream if you lied to the suspicious doctor that your mother's bruise was from falling down the stairs.
And that your broken hand wasn't on account of your daddy beat you when you didn't wash the dishes, but 'cause you fell off your bicycle. Just a normal kids kind of thing.
Faith didn't need to tell me, like I didn't need to tell her. We just knew, it was that simple. There were no quiet conversations about the abuse, no heartbreaking hugs of two survivors that knew only the other could understand their pain. Just the occasional knowing glances, shared in the most unexpected moments; and them mostly by accident, like bumping into her on a patrol night, or in the library for instance.
And if there's one thing that's like carved in stone, it's that there's nothing people like me and Faith fear more than becoming that nightmare to your own child.
Well, maybe I'm just paranoid, or putting my own fears to explain her erratic behavior. Maybe she's just some crackpot, or maybe she was just born evil through and through.
But then again, the only thing I can see is the missing piece of the puzzle.
" I want. I take. I have."
There's just one thing I can't understand: why didn't she try to get rid of it? I mean, money wouldn't have been a problem to her and I understand why she thought she couldn't confide in anyone, back then.
And even if Mayor Wilkins wouldn't help her with arranging a meeting with some dead presidents, she could easily have robbed the first poor bastard she crossed paths with on the street; come on, after murder, some petty larceny wouldn't be a major conscience problem. Just like that, get together the right amount of cash to go to LA and do it quick and clean.
Abort our unborn child.
But she didn't do it. Maybe, just maybe, that was the one line Faith wasn't yet completely won over to cross. Killing your own child.
Okay, maybe it's just me trying to convince myself, but for some reason things are so much clearer to me right now.
When the doctors found out and finally told us, you can imagine what a shocker that was to everybody. Add in the "Angel leaving town" thing for some extra drama, and Buffy was shattered for days over almost killing that baby in her last battle with Faith.
After the dust settled, calculations began to be made, and dates figured out. I never thought I could ever beat Willow in math; but, well, I was the one it initially dawned upon, about who could be the father.
Yeah, I was the first to realize, but not the one to voice it out loud. It was as if I just had entered the Twilight Zone, and everything had gone completely blank.
"Don't worry, I'll steer you 'round the curves."
My own fear of being a parent, Faith's comatose state and the idea of the woman who'd tried to kill me and my friends more than once being the mother of my child? It all hit me point-blank like a freight train, even when I never let my exterior show it when we found out.
I know I can't be sure if it's mine, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out Faith was with other some boy toy of hers around the same date. But then again... I just feel it. It's like I just know, and there's no point discussing it.
The biggest irony is that I may get to fulfill the three basic things you need to be a great person, after all. I just don't think that my case can be used as anyone's role model, though.
The doctors don't know if Faith will ever be able to pull out of her coma, but the Council has already planned on having a whole special team of medics to investigate our favorite rogue Slayer's condition. And, supposedly secretly, put a team of nurses and doctors on the inside to supervise Faith's pregnancy.
Giles says they'll probably take my son, or my daughter, to England and then they'll decide what to do next. They won't let us know a thing about the pre-natal tests, or even if it's a boy or a girl.
Willow managed to hack the date of the scheduled cesarean though, and the plan is we're gonna swoop into the hospital and make sure they don't take my child away. I don't know what the heck we'll do later, or if we'll even succeed. Hell, I don't even know if I want to deliberately risk my possible newborn infant's life like that in the first place.
In all my life, I always thought there was a natural order, the way things are meant to be. An order that says the good guys always win, that you die when your time has come, or because you give up your life for the cause. That there's always a happy ending, even if it's for someone else.
I guess I just never really thought about how many shades of gray can exist out there.
***
AN: I don't remember precisely when Zeppo was aired, and if it's possible for Faith to be pregnant in Graduation Day and nobody notice still. When does a pregnant woman start to grow her belly, three months? Well, if it's, and if the timing's correct, let's just say Faith was wearing less tight clothes in the last two weeks before she was stabbed.
I don't intend a sequel, but I've some ideas. Please tell me what you thought about this piece with all the juicy, ego-widening reviews! Okay, okay, or maybe the (snif!) flames - as long as it's constructive, I'm taking them all!
Author: Jane McCartney
E-mail: janemccartney@bol.com.br
Disclaimer: the characters from Buffy aren't mine, yadda, yadda, yadda. Seriously, do I look like I'm making some money with this story? I think the people who actually have Buffy-TVS are busy enough to care and look broken authors of fan fictions to sue.
Acknowledgments: To Stairway Man, who write great AU fics and is my dear beta-reader, and all my reviewers. Lova ya all, guys.
Summary: To every action, there's an earned consequence. Faith was hiding a secret that may bring life-twisting consequences to Xander.
***
All my life, I always thought there was this natural order, you know? The way things are meant to be.
Like that the good guys always win; that you die when your time has come, or because you've granted it. That there's always a happy ending, even if it's for someone else.
Buffy tells me I can't know if it's mine. Damn it, even I know perfectly well it could've been any stupid jerk in Sunnydale. And if we're talking about statistics, the chances are that it's just not mine, plain and simple.
So I should just get over it, cool off and keep on livin' without giving it too much thought. Yeah, yeah. Get on with my life? Now why didn't I think about that before? Oh, right. I live on the damn Hellmouth.
There's an old saying which says that, in order for a person to find fulfillment, there are three things you've gotta do in your life: write a book, plant a tree and have a child. And then, you're likely to become a role model for one of those precious few that actually achieves the so- called American Dream, and thus be a happy, complete person.
And if you succeed at that, maybe you'll even get Mel Gibson to be paid twenty million dollars to play you in a movie - and have some big-breasted model, maybe the Penthouse Playmate of the month, be a mind-blowing one- night stand. If you're lucky enough, maybe she'll even marry you.
When I was ten years old, my teacher asked the class to write a story, at least two pages, front and back, as homework during Thanksgiving. Everyone whined about having to do school things while on holidays, but I actually liked the idea.
To tell you the truth, it was a welcome excuse to not participate in the Harris family's pitiful efforts to be thankful for anything. Usually, my mother cooked a baked chicken - my father used to tell her he'd "no way in hell pay for turkey if all the damn birds taste the same" - and my folks had an official excuse to drink all night.
"Don't bug your mother, you little brat; I pay enough damn taxes so ya could have some brainy cutie to teach you in school that we should celebrate the frickin' holidays. So show some goddamn respect for your country!"
That was the answer I got, when I asked if Mom really had to drink that much. My father heard it - lucky me. Respect? Respect, my ass. It was all about the booze; but then again, 'daddy' never really bothered to hide it anyway.
Well, like that's news anyway. I should have learned by then to keep my big mouth shut. I think I still have the scars of his belt on my back.
Anyway, for the assignment I wrote some comic-booky tale about a super- strong chick that fought some wicked nasties after sunset. I know, I know, I thought about it straightaway after the whole discovery of the "guys who were in a thundering need of a facial" thing.
The only difference is that I don't think Buffy wears tight red spandex to get her job done, and I'm way sure she isn't a former hooker who was given her powers by having sex with a scientist who'd had a nuclear accident earlier in the afternoon.
Believe me, a guy can have a pretty screwed-up imagination from reading all those comic books.
It's not exactly like writing a book, I know, but I remember the teacher said it was, despite the overwhelming sex and violence, a pretty imaginative job. And she told me it was the best essay of the class - 'cause Willow was sick and missed school that week, if you're wondering.
I still remember that after all these years 'cause it was one of those few, rare moments when a schoolteacher ever said anything good about me. And unless I'm thinkin' about a potential publication with some witty material about what Sunnydale's night life is really all about, I bet that's pretty much the closest I'll ever get to New York Times best-seller list.
So... one down, two to go.
Plant a tree? When I was younger I tripped on my way home when I was coming back from the supermarket to my house, and I let some beans fall in our garden. It rained for two nights, and the match was made.
There was this little plant that had grown, and I started to water it regularly, till the day I first forgot 'cause I was playing video games in Jesse's house and then came the second day when I was with Willow, and then I just forgot about it completely. It died shortly after, but if school homework counts as a book, that'll do for the second item department.
Ya know what's most funny about life in Sunnydale? The wild cards just don't stop coming. Breaks? You can wait for them, pal, 'cause they aren't coming anytime soon. Buffy says I can't know if it's mine, and knowing Faith, I don't need Slay-gal to tell me that.
But then again... it's like the last piece of the puzzle. For the first time, it seems so simple somehow. Faith always seemed a messed-up kind of girl. Willow never liked her. She was wild, and it didn't take a genius to realize that even from the start, she was just barely hanging in there. But, for the oddest reason, sometimes I wondered if there was something, something else besides that night with Buffy in the alley, that had set her off to head for the dark side of the Force after all.
"I could make you scream. I could make you die."
Now I can tell you one thing, every kid who grows up the way I did has a special something, a sort of intuition - and that is, you can instantly recognize one of your own. I'm sure that she never told anyone about her family, like I never told her or anyone about mine. Not even Willow.
Of course all the loud fights and the expansive gossip-channel of a one- Starbucks city like Sunnydale was a pretty good tip, but they never really knew. At least... not all the juicy details of the scars, visits to hospitals, constant yelling, waking up and running to give your mother a good morning kiss and finding her passed out in a pool of puke in the living room.
It's just something you learn to live with. It's normal, run-of-the-mill routine for you, and you feel ashamed to share with anyone else. It's personal. You don't want your best friend pitying you 'cause when you were five, your father promised you ice cream if you lied to the suspicious doctor that your mother's bruise was from falling down the stairs.
And that your broken hand wasn't on account of your daddy beat you when you didn't wash the dishes, but 'cause you fell off your bicycle. Just a normal kids kind of thing.
Faith didn't need to tell me, like I didn't need to tell her. We just knew, it was that simple. There were no quiet conversations about the abuse, no heartbreaking hugs of two survivors that knew only the other could understand their pain. Just the occasional knowing glances, shared in the most unexpected moments; and them mostly by accident, like bumping into her on a patrol night, or in the library for instance.
And if there's one thing that's like carved in stone, it's that there's nothing people like me and Faith fear more than becoming that nightmare to your own child.
Well, maybe I'm just paranoid, or putting my own fears to explain her erratic behavior. Maybe she's just some crackpot, or maybe she was just born evil through and through.
But then again, the only thing I can see is the missing piece of the puzzle.
" I want. I take. I have."
There's just one thing I can't understand: why didn't she try to get rid of it? I mean, money wouldn't have been a problem to her and I understand why she thought she couldn't confide in anyone, back then.
And even if Mayor Wilkins wouldn't help her with arranging a meeting with some dead presidents, she could easily have robbed the first poor bastard she crossed paths with on the street; come on, after murder, some petty larceny wouldn't be a major conscience problem. Just like that, get together the right amount of cash to go to LA and do it quick and clean.
Abort our unborn child.
But she didn't do it. Maybe, just maybe, that was the one line Faith wasn't yet completely won over to cross. Killing your own child.
Okay, maybe it's just me trying to convince myself, but for some reason things are so much clearer to me right now.
When the doctors found out and finally told us, you can imagine what a shocker that was to everybody. Add in the "Angel leaving town" thing for some extra drama, and Buffy was shattered for days over almost killing that baby in her last battle with Faith.
After the dust settled, calculations began to be made, and dates figured out. I never thought I could ever beat Willow in math; but, well, I was the one it initially dawned upon, about who could be the father.
Yeah, I was the first to realize, but not the one to voice it out loud. It was as if I just had entered the Twilight Zone, and everything had gone completely blank.
"Don't worry, I'll steer you 'round the curves."
My own fear of being a parent, Faith's comatose state and the idea of the woman who'd tried to kill me and my friends more than once being the mother of my child? It all hit me point-blank like a freight train, even when I never let my exterior show it when we found out.
I know I can't be sure if it's mine, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out Faith was with other some boy toy of hers around the same date. But then again... I just feel it. It's like I just know, and there's no point discussing it.
The biggest irony is that I may get to fulfill the three basic things you need to be a great person, after all. I just don't think that my case can be used as anyone's role model, though.
The doctors don't know if Faith will ever be able to pull out of her coma, but the Council has already planned on having a whole special team of medics to investigate our favorite rogue Slayer's condition. And, supposedly secretly, put a team of nurses and doctors on the inside to supervise Faith's pregnancy.
Giles says they'll probably take my son, or my daughter, to England and then they'll decide what to do next. They won't let us know a thing about the pre-natal tests, or even if it's a boy or a girl.
Willow managed to hack the date of the scheduled cesarean though, and the plan is we're gonna swoop into the hospital and make sure they don't take my child away. I don't know what the heck we'll do later, or if we'll even succeed. Hell, I don't even know if I want to deliberately risk my possible newborn infant's life like that in the first place.
In all my life, I always thought there was a natural order, the way things are meant to be. An order that says the good guys always win, that you die when your time has come, or because you give up your life for the cause. That there's always a happy ending, even if it's for someone else.
I guess I just never really thought about how many shades of gray can exist out there.
***
AN: I don't remember precisely when Zeppo was aired, and if it's possible for Faith to be pregnant in Graduation Day and nobody notice still. When does a pregnant woman start to grow her belly, three months? Well, if it's, and if the timing's correct, let's just say Faith was wearing less tight clothes in the last two weeks before she was stabbed.
I don't intend a sequel, but I've some ideas. Please tell me what you thought about this piece with all the juicy, ego-widening reviews! Okay, okay, or maybe the (snif!) flames - as long as it's constructive, I'm taking them all!