Title: Still
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing: Faith/Robin
Spoilers: Everything and anything.
Summary: She's spent most of the last few years running…
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Change in the air" challenge - written in honour of the announcement of DB Woodside as a guest to a convention to which I am going in October…re-commence happy dancing
***
The sun is sinking over the ocean, the heat of an early California summer's day being replaced by the chill of evening, but Faith doesn't move, continuing to sit, staring out at the ocean. A light breeze ruffles her hair, carries with it a scent that's at once familiar and strange, a scent that she can't quite place at first.
But still she doesn't move, because it feels as if she's spent most of the last few years running.
When she failed at her Cruciamentum, when her first Watcher was killed by Kakistos, she ran to Sunnydale, to Buffy, hoping that with another Slayer, she'd find the strength to face her demons.
When that hadn't worked, when she'd thought that she'd never fit in with the Scooby Gang, she ran to the Mayor, and for a time, she thought she'd found what she'd been searching for.
But it hadn't lasted, and when she came out of her coma, after she'd once more run roughshod over Buffy's life, she'd run again, run to LA.
Angel had been the first person to ever believe in her, the first one who'd let her believe that there was a possibility of redemption, even for people like her. She'd turned herself in, done her time in jail - though she could have escaped at any time, as Wesley knew, and helped her prove - and all because she wanted to prove that she could change, that she could be better than she was.
She'd still be in jail now had Angelus not been let loose, and once she'd escaped, once everything was back to normal, or as normal as normal got, she knew that she couldn't go back there, nor could she stay in LA. So she was on the run again, an escaped felon on her way back to the scene of her worst crimes, with only the best friend of her worst enemy for comfort.
Sunnydale was the place she'd had to be, what with The First doing its thing, she knew that, but while she put a brave face on things, she hadn't been looking forward to it. She knew how the Scoobies would look at her, what they thought of her, and she hadn't been wrong, not at first.
But then she'd fought alongside them, at Buffy's side, and things, surprisingly enough, had begun to change.
The Potentials had put her in charge.
The Scoobies, less Buffy, had accepted it.
So when The First showed up, telling her that everyone would never think of her as anything other than a killer, she'd known, deep down, that it wasn't true, even if she was afraid that it might be.
That had been the time that Robin had found her, had talked to her. Had done quiet a bit more than talk to her, and her skin ripples with gooseflesh now at the memory of his touch. Later, she'd done what she always did, pushed him away, but he hadn't gone easy, had pushed all the right buttons to keep her interested, had promised her that when everything was over, he was going to surprise her.
Wonder of wonders, he'd kept that promise; not by not dying on her, but by sticking around, by not leaving. By proving that he wasn't like every other guy that she'd ever been with, by giving them a chance at a real relationship.
He's here now, his shadow falling over her announcing his presence. She glances up at him, but doesn't otherwise move, save to give him a small smile. He looks like he might want to say something, but thinks better of it, instead sitting down on the sand beside her oh so carefully, the wound he received during the fall of Sunnydale healing nicely, but still limiting his movements.
Once sitting, he reaches out, takes her hand in his, and her gaze falls to their entwined fingers, the warmth of his palm travelling through her body, but intensifying her gooseflesh rather than banishing it. She shifts slightly, moving towards him so that her body is pressed against his, and closes her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.
As she does so, she thinks about where she is; on a beach in California, on a rest stop as she and the rest of the Slayers and the Scooby Gang travel around the coast, looking for more Slayers. She's not the crazy one any more, she's an equal, someone who can be trusted. She's beginning to think that they consider her a friend, and right now, she's sitting with someone who sees her as more than that, a man she thinks she could very easily fall in love with.
She lets her head fall against his shoulder, eyes still closed, inhaling once more the scent she noticed just before he sat down beside her. She thought it was his scent; a mixture of soap and cologne and something that's just Robin, but now she realises that it's more than that.
It's the smell of change.
It smells good.