Title: Old Friends and New Places
Summary: Faith meets someone she knew a long time ago and makes a decision
Story Notes: The story takes place during Sanctuary assuming that the time period between Faith running off the roof and showing up again is a little longer.
Disclaimer: I do not own Faith and Buffyverse. Josh owns them all.
The bus station. Again. She sure seemed to spend a lot of time here. Arriving. Going away. And, worst of all, standing still.
Faith sighed and leaned against the wall, waiting for her bus that was due in one hour. New York.
She wondered absentmindedly if there would be anything 'new' for her there. Probably not.
The Slayer on the run once more closed her eyes and for a moment just wished that Angel hadn't stopped in that alley. That she wouldn't have to deal with this. That she wouldn't have to be here, to think, to wait...
To remember.
Faith sighed again and picked up her bag. While Angel and... Buffy had been occupied with the Watchers she had run inside, snatched it and fled. There was nothing of hers in there; of course, everything was stolen from various people, but she couldn't afford to dwell on that right now.
With the bag strapped on her shoulder Faith started walking around the station with no other purpose than to keep moving. Standing still was slowly becoming some kind of phobia for her. She had been still for eight months, after all. Besides, people were less likely to notice her if she didn't stand too long in one place. Somebody could have seen the photos of a crazy, murderous, very dangerous girl. Someone probably had, so she had to be very careful.
This place was full of people. Some were in a hurry, some were waiting, some were meeting their families.
No one had ever met her in a bus station.
She had always felt so alone when stepping out of a bus and seeing so many people, and knowing that none of them was there to meet her.
But that way down memory lane wasn't gonna get her anywhere Faith thought, so she got a tighter hold on her shoulder bag and kept on walking.
A tall, bulky male form caught her attention for a moment, and Faith accidentally bumped into somebody.
The sudden flash of anger surprised even her. She wanted to shove the figure touching her, to hit it, to pummel its face in the ground...
She didn't do any of those things.
The young, blonde, good-looking man dressed in jeans and a loose t-shirt had grabbed Faith's shoulder on reflex to steady himself. Now he was looking at her with blue eyes and apologizing, not realizing that just a moment ago he had been very close to losing his life.
"I'm really sorry, are you OK? I wasn't watching where I was going..."
The man's eyes suddenly narrowed as if he was trying to remember something, and fear ran through Faith's body. He's seen the photos, she thought frantically, he knows I'm a criminal and he's gonna call for help, and I have to kill him, right now, quickly, and that's what I wanted just now, but I don't want it anymore, God, please, I don't want to...
"Faith?"
His voice was unsure, he was still looking at her inquisitively but there was no fear or anger, or terror in his voice.
"Who are you?" she asked trying to keep her voice from trembling. How the Hell did he know her name?
"Faith! Oh God, it's really you!"
This time he wasn't questioning. The strange thing was that he seemed happy about it. About seeing her.
Huh, guess there's a first time for everything.
Faith's face must have been speaking clearly about her confusion because the young man laughed.
"You really don't remember? It's me, Lenny! We used to live together!"
The rogue Slayer's mouth hung open. Lenny? Her short-time boyfriend drug-addict Lenny? The guy who had introduced her to the needle? This clean young man with new-looking clothes and a short hair-cut was Lenny who always wore torn jeans and kept his hair long and dirty thinking it made him look cool?
"No way!" she breathed. Lenny just smiled.
"Hey, I've changed a little since you last saw me. God! When you disappeared we all thought you were dead or something. Where were you, anyway?"
A woman approaching her in a dark alleyway, learning of a destiny, fighting lessons, an order not to see any people she had known before, power filling her with a rush no drugs could give her, killing demons, Kakistos, fleeing, mind-numbing terror, Sunnydale, Buffy, the Mayor, the roof, hospital...
Memories flashed before her eyes but instead of falling on the ground and screaming and crying like she wanted to Faith just shrugged.
"Here and there. Moving around, you know?"
Lenny nodded, then looked around.
"There was a coffee shop here somewhere. My bus is running late so I gotta wait at least two hours. You in a hurry or what?"
She only hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.
"Nah, I've got time."
Lenny grinned.
"So what are we waiting for? My treat."
***
Ten minutes later Faith was wolfing down a plateful of donuts, occasionally stopping to flush them down with a sip of hot coffee. OK, not the best choice in the given situation, she thought, but beggars can't be choosers.
"So, what about Linda?"
Lenny sighed and took a bite of his own donut.
"The wrong client. Her pimp - Manny, remember him? - he found her beaten bloody. Died in the hospital. They never found him."
Faith took her time to digest this. Linda had been an okay chick, always able to come up with a joke even when there had been nothing funny around. Her end was sad but not unexpected.
"And Manny?"
"In jail. When Linda died he started dealing. Wasn't very good at it, tried to sell a whole lot of stuff to a cop. He's still got a few years."
The donut suddenly wasn't as good as it had seemed to be. Faith hadn't really liked Manny; he had always tried to talk her into working for him, that sleazy scum. But it was strangely unsettling how all the people she had known on the streets were now gone one way or the other. OD, jail, drunken fights, bodies found with neck wounds...
She had been very close to becoming one of them. A body in the morgue with a nametag on her toe. Or a girl in a mug shot.
Faith quickly brushed the thought away, picked up her coffee and asked Lenny:
"And what happened to you? A rich uncle or something?"
Lenny smiled and put down the cup he was holding.
"No. Death."
Faith almost spluttered the coffee she had just drank all over the table. Coughing she frantically looked around, searching for a weapon. Damn, she must really be slacking. He hadn't felt like a vampire at all. There was a stake in her bag...
But his next words calmed her down.
"One day I woke up in a hospital. Overdose. The doctor said I'd flatlined for a few seconds."
Lenny had grown serious and was now playing with a spoon, twisting it around in his fingers. His voice was very quiet.
"I looked at life with whole new eyes, you know? Things I'd done, people I'd met... I realized that I had nothing to show except some needle marks on my arms and a few dirty twenty-dollar bills in my pocket. Nothing that matters. No one that cares."
Faith gritted her teeth. That feeling wasn't alien to her. Every morning she woke up with it.
Lenny was still looking down at his coffee as he continued:
"I decided that I couldn't live like that anymore. I mean my mother was a Catholic. A bitch, a crack-whore, always drunk, but Catholic. In her language it meant that she did horrible things but felt bad afterwards. Until the next bottle. Anyway, there I was, lying in that bed, and all I could think was - if I'd died, I'd have gone to Hell."
He fell silent for a moment, obviously deep in his thoughts.
Faith was feeling very uncomfortable. Too much of what he said sounded familiar. It sounded exactly like that little voice in the back of her mind that she didn't like to listen to.
She might have accepted the fact that what she had done was wrong and that she was responsible for it, but she still couldn't force herself to think what would happen next. The consequences.
If she'd succeeded in her suicidal quest she would have gone to Hell. She had no doubt of that.
Lenny finally looked up and smiled.
"So I went and did something about it. A full rehab. It was hard as Hell, no pun intended, but I made it. Completely clean now. I got a job, finished high school and went to college. Not full time studies, of course, but still counts. And I've got a girlfriend. We're thinking of getting married."
He looked so smug and proud of himself, and Faith wanted to hit him. Hard. She wanted to kill him so he wouldn't be so damn...happy.
She was sorry for Linda, Anita, Jay, even that asshole Manny, but she wasn't shocked at the news of their sorry, miserable lives and deaths. You lived like that, you knew you weren't gonna live to see your grandchildren. It was expected for kids like them - like Faith - to end their lives lonely and desperate. It made things a little easier for her - knowing that other people were like that too. People who were lonely and dirty and guilty and not happy.
But Lenny was happy. Lenny was working, studying and getting married.
She wanted to show him how little it mattered. Just a quick flick of her wrist, and it would all be gone.
And she would be just a little bit dirtier.
Just as Faith thought this he looked at her with deep sadness in his eyes and said:
"I'm sorry, Faith. For what I did to you. For the drugs and..."
He trailed off and looked down again.
Faith sat stunned, all thoughts of murder forgotten.
No one had ever apologized to her. Ever. And she didn't even expect it anymore. The realization of everything being her own fault had only been consciously formed in her head after her short trip to Buffyland but the thought had been there for a long time. A crazy murderous bitch who had screwed up everything good in her life didn't deserve apologies.
She shifted uneasily in her chair.
"You don't have to. I mean, I've done some things you can't even..." she trailed off.
Lenny shook his head.
"Doesn't matter. Come on, I even apologized to Marquez for flooding his toilet, and that guy was the king of drugs 'round there!"
Faith smiled almost involuntary at his little attempt at humour. She remembered the greasy little man who had always smelled of garlic and kept the drug-market in his hands.
But then her smile faded.
Faith had never been much for opening up. She was an "attack now, talk later" kind of girl. Of course, after her attacks there was usually no one around to do the talking part with, but that had always slipped her mind.
She had talked to Angel, and it had felt so weird. To finally talk to someone, and he had understood and not laughed as she had been afraid he would.
So maybe it was okay to talk. And Lenny...She knew Lenny. He would understand. He had been in her place and now he was doing better. Maybe he knew the cure.
"Lenny," Faith started, hesitated a bit but continued. "Lenny, I've done some terrible things. I've reached a...very dark place. Worse than death. And now I don't want to do it anymore, I want to make it all better but I don't know how. I..."
She bit her lip, looked down, and spoke again:
"I hurt some people. Bad. And I don't think 'sorry' will cut it. They hate me, and I can't blame them. I thought that I should go away so I couldn't hurt them anymore 'cause I do it even if I don't want to but... Do you think I should do it? Run away?"
Faith fell silent and didn't lift her eyes from the last donut on her plate. She hadn't even known what she would say until her words had left her mouth but it was true. She was having doubts. As far as she could remember, Faith had always tried to solve her problems by fleeing but...so far it hadn't done her much good. And this time it was important, she couldn't let herself screw it up, Angel believed in her, she wanted to be redeemed, but how could she if Angel had been attacked twice just because she had been around...
"I think you know the answer."
Her thoughts interrupted, Faith looked up and found Lenny smiling at her He reached across the table and took her hands in both of his.
"Running away is always tempting. When I woke up and saw this new world I tried to shut that tiny voice out. Except that it wasn't tiny anymore, it was screaming at me, and I wanted to go anywhere to escape it."
He sighed, and an unpleasant memory clouded his eyes.
"I spent the worst time of my life in that clinic. I even tried to escape a few times. But it was necessary. It healed me."
He suddenly gave a short laugh and shook his head.
"Just listen to me. I'm talking like a damn priest!"
Faith quirked an eyebrow.
"Yep, you sure are. So, what's next? Gonna ask me to get baptised?"
Lenny laughed again, let go of her hands and leaned back in his chair.
"Guess I'm just too eager to help you. It's no every day that I run into old girlfriends who ask for my advice instead of trying to beat me up."
He went serious again.
"But it's true. That place became my sanctuary. I remembered every person I had ever hurt. The withdrawals were awful, I kept seeing ghosts. Yours was there too. Marquez paid me for every client I got him. Some of them died. I had time to deal with it. And," he sighed and crossed his arms in front of himself, "I couldn't hurt anyone else."
Faith stared at him for a long moment. Sanctuary. Could a place she feared become her sanctuary? It kind of made sense.
A small smile appeared on her lips.
"Tell me, do the cops of L.A. pay you for clients too?"
Lenny laughed. She knew he had understood the real question, and he didn't deny anything.
"I saw your photos on TV. Didn't recognize you immediately. It's been so many years."
Faith slowly shook her head smiling all the time.
"You were my boyfriend for three months and you didn't immediately recognize me. Gee, guess it wasn't such a big love after all."
He shrugged.
"We were both too high at the time to love. I'm actually surprised you remembered me."
She didn't argue. She just stood, picked up her bag and extended her arm across the table. Lenny didn't hesitate. He took her hand and held it in his own. And strangely, after their talk, after he had helped her make the right decision, this simple gesture was what almost made her fall in love with him. There was no feeling more humiliating and, well, familiar to her than that of being rejected. Not this time, though.
"Thanks, Lenny. It was cool running into you."
He grinned.
"Hey, the same here. You need some money?"
Faith shook her head.
"No. I won't be needing it where I'm heading."
With that, she turned around and left the coffee shop.
She walked slowly, watching the buildings and people.
It was probably Faith's last walk in many years. She wanted to savour it.
Summary: Faith meets someone she knew a long time ago and makes a decision
Story Notes: The story takes place during Sanctuary assuming that the time period between Faith running off the roof and showing up again is a little longer.
Disclaimer: I do not own Faith and Buffyverse. Josh owns them all.
The bus station. Again. She sure seemed to spend a lot of time here. Arriving. Going away. And, worst of all, standing still.
Faith sighed and leaned against the wall, waiting for her bus that was due in one hour. New York.
She wondered absentmindedly if there would be anything 'new' for her there. Probably not.
The Slayer on the run once more closed her eyes and for a moment just wished that Angel hadn't stopped in that alley. That she wouldn't have to deal with this. That she wouldn't have to be here, to think, to wait...
To remember.
Faith sighed again and picked up her bag. While Angel and... Buffy had been occupied with the Watchers she had run inside, snatched it and fled. There was nothing of hers in there; of course, everything was stolen from various people, but she couldn't afford to dwell on that right now.
With the bag strapped on her shoulder Faith started walking around the station with no other purpose than to keep moving. Standing still was slowly becoming some kind of phobia for her. She had been still for eight months, after all. Besides, people were less likely to notice her if she didn't stand too long in one place. Somebody could have seen the photos of a crazy, murderous, very dangerous girl. Someone probably had, so she had to be very careful.
This place was full of people. Some were in a hurry, some were waiting, some were meeting their families.
No one had ever met her in a bus station.
She had always felt so alone when stepping out of a bus and seeing so many people, and knowing that none of them was there to meet her.
But that way down memory lane wasn't gonna get her anywhere Faith thought, so she got a tighter hold on her shoulder bag and kept on walking.
A tall, bulky male form caught her attention for a moment, and Faith accidentally bumped into somebody.
The sudden flash of anger surprised even her. She wanted to shove the figure touching her, to hit it, to pummel its face in the ground...
She didn't do any of those things.
The young, blonde, good-looking man dressed in jeans and a loose t-shirt had grabbed Faith's shoulder on reflex to steady himself. Now he was looking at her with blue eyes and apologizing, not realizing that just a moment ago he had been very close to losing his life.
"I'm really sorry, are you OK? I wasn't watching where I was going..."
The man's eyes suddenly narrowed as if he was trying to remember something, and fear ran through Faith's body. He's seen the photos, she thought frantically, he knows I'm a criminal and he's gonna call for help, and I have to kill him, right now, quickly, and that's what I wanted just now, but I don't want it anymore, God, please, I don't want to...
"Faith?"
His voice was unsure, he was still looking at her inquisitively but there was no fear or anger, or terror in his voice.
"Who are you?" she asked trying to keep her voice from trembling. How the Hell did he know her name?
"Faith! Oh God, it's really you!"
This time he wasn't questioning. The strange thing was that he seemed happy about it. About seeing her.
Huh, guess there's a first time for everything.
Faith's face must have been speaking clearly about her confusion because the young man laughed.
"You really don't remember? It's me, Lenny! We used to live together!"
The rogue Slayer's mouth hung open. Lenny? Her short-time boyfriend drug-addict Lenny? The guy who had introduced her to the needle? This clean young man with new-looking clothes and a short hair-cut was Lenny who always wore torn jeans and kept his hair long and dirty thinking it made him look cool?
"No way!" she breathed. Lenny just smiled.
"Hey, I've changed a little since you last saw me. God! When you disappeared we all thought you were dead or something. Where were you, anyway?"
A woman approaching her in a dark alleyway, learning of a destiny, fighting lessons, an order not to see any people she had known before, power filling her with a rush no drugs could give her, killing demons, Kakistos, fleeing, mind-numbing terror, Sunnydale, Buffy, the Mayor, the roof, hospital...
Memories flashed before her eyes but instead of falling on the ground and screaming and crying like she wanted to Faith just shrugged.
"Here and there. Moving around, you know?"
Lenny nodded, then looked around.
"There was a coffee shop here somewhere. My bus is running late so I gotta wait at least two hours. You in a hurry or what?"
She only hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.
"Nah, I've got time."
Lenny grinned.
"So what are we waiting for? My treat."
***
Ten minutes later Faith was wolfing down a plateful of donuts, occasionally stopping to flush them down with a sip of hot coffee. OK, not the best choice in the given situation, she thought, but beggars can't be choosers.
"So, what about Linda?"
Lenny sighed and took a bite of his own donut.
"The wrong client. Her pimp - Manny, remember him? - he found her beaten bloody. Died in the hospital. They never found him."
Faith took her time to digest this. Linda had been an okay chick, always able to come up with a joke even when there had been nothing funny around. Her end was sad but not unexpected.
"And Manny?"
"In jail. When Linda died he started dealing. Wasn't very good at it, tried to sell a whole lot of stuff to a cop. He's still got a few years."
The donut suddenly wasn't as good as it had seemed to be. Faith hadn't really liked Manny; he had always tried to talk her into working for him, that sleazy scum. But it was strangely unsettling how all the people she had known on the streets were now gone one way or the other. OD, jail, drunken fights, bodies found with neck wounds...
She had been very close to becoming one of them. A body in the morgue with a nametag on her toe. Or a girl in a mug shot.
Faith quickly brushed the thought away, picked up her coffee and asked Lenny:
"And what happened to you? A rich uncle or something?"
Lenny smiled and put down the cup he was holding.
"No. Death."
Faith almost spluttered the coffee she had just drank all over the table. Coughing she frantically looked around, searching for a weapon. Damn, she must really be slacking. He hadn't felt like a vampire at all. There was a stake in her bag...
But his next words calmed her down.
"One day I woke up in a hospital. Overdose. The doctor said I'd flatlined for a few seconds."
Lenny had grown serious and was now playing with a spoon, twisting it around in his fingers. His voice was very quiet.
"I looked at life with whole new eyes, you know? Things I'd done, people I'd met... I realized that I had nothing to show except some needle marks on my arms and a few dirty twenty-dollar bills in my pocket. Nothing that matters. No one that cares."
Faith gritted her teeth. That feeling wasn't alien to her. Every morning she woke up with it.
Lenny was still looking down at his coffee as he continued:
"I decided that I couldn't live like that anymore. I mean my mother was a Catholic. A bitch, a crack-whore, always drunk, but Catholic. In her language it meant that she did horrible things but felt bad afterwards. Until the next bottle. Anyway, there I was, lying in that bed, and all I could think was - if I'd died, I'd have gone to Hell."
He fell silent for a moment, obviously deep in his thoughts.
Faith was feeling very uncomfortable. Too much of what he said sounded familiar. It sounded exactly like that little voice in the back of her mind that she didn't like to listen to.
She might have accepted the fact that what she had done was wrong and that she was responsible for it, but she still couldn't force herself to think what would happen next. The consequences.
If she'd succeeded in her suicidal quest she would have gone to Hell. She had no doubt of that.
Lenny finally looked up and smiled.
"So I went and did something about it. A full rehab. It was hard as Hell, no pun intended, but I made it. Completely clean now. I got a job, finished high school and went to college. Not full time studies, of course, but still counts. And I've got a girlfriend. We're thinking of getting married."
He looked so smug and proud of himself, and Faith wanted to hit him. Hard. She wanted to kill him so he wouldn't be so damn...happy.
She was sorry for Linda, Anita, Jay, even that asshole Manny, but she wasn't shocked at the news of their sorry, miserable lives and deaths. You lived like that, you knew you weren't gonna live to see your grandchildren. It was expected for kids like them - like Faith - to end their lives lonely and desperate. It made things a little easier for her - knowing that other people were like that too. People who were lonely and dirty and guilty and not happy.
But Lenny was happy. Lenny was working, studying and getting married.
She wanted to show him how little it mattered. Just a quick flick of her wrist, and it would all be gone.
And she would be just a little bit dirtier.
Just as Faith thought this he looked at her with deep sadness in his eyes and said:
"I'm sorry, Faith. For what I did to you. For the drugs and..."
He trailed off and looked down again.
Faith sat stunned, all thoughts of murder forgotten.
No one had ever apologized to her. Ever. And she didn't even expect it anymore. The realization of everything being her own fault had only been consciously formed in her head after her short trip to Buffyland but the thought had been there for a long time. A crazy murderous bitch who had screwed up everything good in her life didn't deserve apologies.
She shifted uneasily in her chair.
"You don't have to. I mean, I've done some things you can't even..." she trailed off.
Lenny shook his head.
"Doesn't matter. Come on, I even apologized to Marquez for flooding his toilet, and that guy was the king of drugs 'round there!"
Faith smiled almost involuntary at his little attempt at humour. She remembered the greasy little man who had always smelled of garlic and kept the drug-market in his hands.
But then her smile faded.
Faith had never been much for opening up. She was an "attack now, talk later" kind of girl. Of course, after her attacks there was usually no one around to do the talking part with, but that had always slipped her mind.
She had talked to Angel, and it had felt so weird. To finally talk to someone, and he had understood and not laughed as she had been afraid he would.
So maybe it was okay to talk. And Lenny...She knew Lenny. He would understand. He had been in her place and now he was doing better. Maybe he knew the cure.
"Lenny," Faith started, hesitated a bit but continued. "Lenny, I've done some terrible things. I've reached a...very dark place. Worse than death. And now I don't want to do it anymore, I want to make it all better but I don't know how. I..."
She bit her lip, looked down, and spoke again:
"I hurt some people. Bad. And I don't think 'sorry' will cut it. They hate me, and I can't blame them. I thought that I should go away so I couldn't hurt them anymore 'cause I do it even if I don't want to but... Do you think I should do it? Run away?"
Faith fell silent and didn't lift her eyes from the last donut on her plate. She hadn't even known what she would say until her words had left her mouth but it was true. She was having doubts. As far as she could remember, Faith had always tried to solve her problems by fleeing but...so far it hadn't done her much good. And this time it was important, she couldn't let herself screw it up, Angel believed in her, she wanted to be redeemed, but how could she if Angel had been attacked twice just because she had been around...
"I think you know the answer."
Her thoughts interrupted, Faith looked up and found Lenny smiling at her He reached across the table and took her hands in both of his.
"Running away is always tempting. When I woke up and saw this new world I tried to shut that tiny voice out. Except that it wasn't tiny anymore, it was screaming at me, and I wanted to go anywhere to escape it."
He sighed, and an unpleasant memory clouded his eyes.
"I spent the worst time of my life in that clinic. I even tried to escape a few times. But it was necessary. It healed me."
He suddenly gave a short laugh and shook his head.
"Just listen to me. I'm talking like a damn priest!"
Faith quirked an eyebrow.
"Yep, you sure are. So, what's next? Gonna ask me to get baptised?"
Lenny laughed again, let go of her hands and leaned back in his chair.
"Guess I'm just too eager to help you. It's no every day that I run into old girlfriends who ask for my advice instead of trying to beat me up."
He went serious again.
"But it's true. That place became my sanctuary. I remembered every person I had ever hurt. The withdrawals were awful, I kept seeing ghosts. Yours was there too. Marquez paid me for every client I got him. Some of them died. I had time to deal with it. And," he sighed and crossed his arms in front of himself, "I couldn't hurt anyone else."
Faith stared at him for a long moment. Sanctuary. Could a place she feared become her sanctuary? It kind of made sense.
A small smile appeared on her lips.
"Tell me, do the cops of L.A. pay you for clients too?"
Lenny laughed. She knew he had understood the real question, and he didn't deny anything.
"I saw your photos on TV. Didn't recognize you immediately. It's been so many years."
Faith slowly shook her head smiling all the time.
"You were my boyfriend for three months and you didn't immediately recognize me. Gee, guess it wasn't such a big love after all."
He shrugged.
"We were both too high at the time to love. I'm actually surprised you remembered me."
She didn't argue. She just stood, picked up her bag and extended her arm across the table. Lenny didn't hesitate. He took her hand and held it in his own. And strangely, after their talk, after he had helped her make the right decision, this simple gesture was what almost made her fall in love with him. There was no feeling more humiliating and, well, familiar to her than that of being rejected. Not this time, though.
"Thanks, Lenny. It was cool running into you."
He grinned.
"Hey, the same here. You need some money?"
Faith shook her head.
"No. I won't be needing it where I'm heading."
With that, she turned around and left the coffee shop.
She walked slowly, watching the buildings and people.
It was probably Faith's last walk in many years. She wanted to savour it.