Adjustment – Part XX
Angel stood silently in the doorframe for several moments just looking idly at his surroundings. Even though there was a minimum of things in the room that belonged to Faith it still had a sense of being her room. It just seemed like somewhere she had been and where she had lived. Angel made a mental note that that sense of her presence was probably why Xander was in here now and why it seemed like he tried to never leave.
"What do you want?" Xander asked standing from the bed and placing the pictures carefully on the edge of the table that the television set stood. Angel ignored the question and continued looking nonchalantly around him. He walked around the room slowly – his silence causing Xander to become a combination of irritated and anxious. "What's going on? Faith came to you… is everything okay? Is she okay?" He began to ask his questions more quickly as the idea that something happened to Faith entered his mind. Seeing her in the pictures had made him feel like she was that much closer to him and now the thought that she might have been ripped away tormented him. He pushed her away needing desperately to avoid that feeling of loss and he was slowly realizing that this torment he was currently going through – this constant longing and ache for her – might just match the feeling he was trying to avoid. He wanted to disconnect himself from her and all of the emotions she instilled within him – but he couldn't shake the effect she made on him. Seeing the change in himself, and more so, the change in her during their time together was something he couldn't ignore.
He knew Faith in her darkest time and he had been the reason for the happiest moments of her life. He had been one of the first victims of her rage after the beginning of her downward spiral and he was one of the first to bring her out of it. He had looked deeply into her eyes and into her soul when she hovered above him choking the life out of him as well as when she hovered above him whispering to him how much she needed and loved him. He had seen her soul overtaken by evil and anger and then slowly emancipated into a glowing love. And what killed him was that that radiating feeling of love was just for him. That emotion that had changed her entirely was something he had instilled within her. But the emotion he instilled in her was ripped away by him while he still had the ability to live in a world she had given him.
Angel walked slowly around the room just trying to collect his thoughts while maintaining his composure. He had just bridled all of the emotions within him that had taken flight inside of him as soon as Faith had began telling him why she was so destroyed but then he glanced down at the pictures on the table. The slow pace he had maintained walking around the room for several minutes came to a sudden halt completely rapt by the emotions captured in the picture.
Xander clearly protested immediately walking back over to the table taking a defensive posture. Angel ignored him and picked up the small stack of pictures and began looking at them. The first was the one that grabbed his attention – it was the same picture that grabbed Xander of both of them sleeping together so contently on the couch wrapped in each other's arms. The pictures captivated many amazing moments between the two – each picture never failing to capture the intense love between them. Even in the pictures, the happiness felt by Faith was so obvious it was almost painful to look at. Some of the other pictures were situations such as one of both of them in the kitchen – Xander sitting at the table and Faith standing behind him bending down and hugging him from behind and leaning her head against the side of his. The next picture was taken just moments after that one when Xander turned his head more towards her and the two kissed each other lovingly with Faith still hugging him.
Angel continued to flip through the pictures in silence. The next was the two of them sitting on the couch watching a football game. The television screen was in the picture and the green field and the heavily padded blobs made it obvious. Xander was sitting regularly on the couch with his feet on the floor and Faith was sitting sideways with her feet on the couch and her knees bent above Xander's. She was sitting next to him with her legs going over his and her head leaning on his chest with his arms wrapped around her. Flipping to another picture was almost painful for Angel – the pictures just did too good of a job of showing the relationship and what a tragedy the current situation was.
The next picture was in the kitchen again with Xander sitting in a chair and Faith was sitting on his lap facing the opposite direction so she was face to face with him. She was holding a small piece of candy – one Angel assumed to be an M&M or a Skittle – and she was delicately putting it in his mouth. The smiles spread across both of their faces were brilliant and amazing. The next picture was Faith sitting on top of the counter and Xander standing directly in front of her. Her feet hung by either of his hips and her arms laid limply down his chest. The picture might not have been quite as moving as the rest if within the picture you couldn't see that there were clearly a slew of other people in the kitchen. Angel flipped to the next picture and it revealed the first sleeping one.
"Can I just ask you question?" Angel finally asked – the tone of his voice made it obvious that he was struggling to maintain his composure. He took his silence as admission and Angel asked, "are you stupid or are you just fucking retarded!?"
"Whoa," Xander warned.
"Are you? I'm not kidding, it's a serious question," Angel yelled. "Did you look at these? Hell, you don't even have to have seen these – you lived them! How did you just throw this away?" Angel stopped himself and took a deep breath trying to regain his control.
"Is this why you came here? Did you come here to punish me for what I did?"
"Unfortunately, no. People are punished for crimes… murder, for example, but people who just destroy people they claim to love and leave them to die, no, those people don't get punished at all."
"Yeah, gee, I'm just loving this– everyone just assumes that I'm not upset about this at all…"
"Xander, I'll give you the same advice I gave Faith a few years ago – first off, if you want sympathy or at least some respectful response, leave off the gee. You might want to drop the attitude too – the defensiveness doesn't work. I would think you'd know that first hand by now," Angel held up the pictures, "seems like you've had some first hand experience with people who use that method… seems like you got around it and she learned something."
"Yeah," Xander muttered in a tone that showed he definitely heard what Angel was trying to say.
"Unfortunately, though, anything she might have learned she's going to automatically discard.
"Angel, what was your point in coming all the way out here anyway?"
"The whole way over here I was actually trying to figure that out… the look on Faith's face when I mentioned your name fuzzed my spine. Seeing how incredibly devastated she is, I guess… well, I figured the only way I would be able to have any compassion towards your side of the story would be to hear it face to face. I wanted to give you that opportunity."
"You know, you've got a real attitude, Angel. What makes you think I care what you think-"
"Xander, I'm the one who has to look at that girl cry over you. Unless you want me asking her what the hell she was thinking, I suggest you start pleading your case."
"Is she okay?" Angel thought through the question wanting to give an honest answer and not just a run of the mill generic one.
"To be honest, no. She's going through a lot right now and she doesn't really know how to handle it. And truth be told, either do I… I don't know the whole story so I'm not really any help yet. Hence me being here instead of there."
"You're here, and definitely not there… what's up?" Buffy asked walking into the room.
"Buffy," he greeted. "How are you?"
"A little irritated that you came to my house and didn't even say hi to me yet," she answered.
"Sorry, I just came to talk to Xander… I mean, I didn't see you, and umm…"
"Smooth," Xander mocked. "You could just say you're here about Faith not about her…"
"Figures," Buffy answered, anger rushing through her features immediately. "Should've figured that one out as soon as I found you in here with Xander before you even mentioned me and-"
"Buffy, I didn't mean to upset you, I just-"
"Sure, you didn't mean to upset me because you didn't even think I existed! Why is it that you're always so-"
"Do you want to go for a walk? Why don't we go see everyone, then go for a walk. A short one…" He glanced down at his watch then added, "Xander, I'll come back in to see you before I go," he added as he walked out of the door with Buffy.
"Can't wait," he muttered under his breath. The last thing he needed was Angel chaffing his ass on top of everyone else. No one understood… the person that understood the most out of all of them was Faith! He wasn't sure if that was the way it should be or not. He sat back down on the bed trying to sort through his thoughts and all that he could muster were some memories. The first of which was a typical asshole day of his that looking back on it now pissed him off to no end! It was one of the more eventful asshole days when Faith had really opened up to him and he had really started to shut down and close her out.
************(flash-back until denoted by this line)****************
Faith woke up to the alarm blaring with this obnoxious beeping sound. She turned it off completely unaware of why it was set in the first place. She assumed one of them must've just hit a button that set it instead of the radio button or something. She looked over at the time reading seven o'clock and groaned rolling back over to Xander. He had been a jerk the night before not being affectionate in any sense of the word and whenever she touch him or lean on him he'd roll over away from her touch. He'd been going through a tough couple of days and she figured it was just the effects of whatever it was that was making him so irritable. We all have our bad days… his just happened to come consecutively.
He was still asleep, undisturbed by the noisy alarm, but he still had his back turned to her. Using the alarm as sort of a test she could tell he was definitely asleep so there was a very small chance he would resist holding her now. She grinned to herself, ignoring the aching feeling inside of her that this was the only way she could really be close to him right now. She moved over on the bed and pressed her body softly against his draping her arms around him. He was out cold and didn't budge.
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"I can't believe you just turned it off!"
"How many times do you want me to say I'm sorry?"
"I completely missed my entire interview… do you have any idea how bad that looks?"
"If you had told me anything about a job interview, I would've woken you up, but you didn't even mention it to me."
"Usually if an alarm goes off it's for a reason, Faith."
"I didn't want to wake you up if I had just pressed a button by accident during the day or something… next time I'll just wake you up and not think about you."
"If you were thinking about me then you would've woken me up!"
"If you ever were thinking about me anymore you would've thought to mention to me that you were looking for a job! Granted I'm not as experienced as you are in the whole relationship thing but I'd think that you getting a job is something that should be mentioned! The only reason I can see you not mentioning it is because the only reason you're getting it is so you can get away from me for a few more hours a day."
"That's not true."
"It sure seems like it is."
"Faith, stop it," he answered, his tone falling out of argumentative and into more of a soothing sound. "Why are you being like this?"
"How do you want me to be? You wake up yelling at me, you don't talk to me all day and you won't touch me when we go to sleep. What am I supposed to act like?"
He felt like a complete ass. He knew he wasn't treating her nicely or fair in any way. They had gone from him trying to get her to trust him and just when things were really good he freaked out. It was the only way he could find any logic in it. When things got good they were better then anything he'd ever felt before – even with Anya. And feeling like he was surpassing what he had with Anya, he freaked out. Nothing was allowed to be better than that, right? And instead of having the courage to have things better he chose the messed up brain path – he made it worse. He unintentionally made her feel like she had done something wrong when really it was just his way of shutting down and freaking out on unfamiliar ground. Who was he to do that – all of this was unfamiliar ground for her and she wasn't subjecting him to this bullshit! What right did he have? He began to really hate himself for what he was turning into for her and it was what led him to finally picking his decision to end it. Things with her were so amazing – when everything was right it was above and beyond what he could've ever hoped for with Anya and it scared him. If losing Anya felt the way it did – what would it feel like to lose this? Psychologically that's probably why he made things worse between them before ending it to convince himself that it wouldn't hurt as much to lose her. The brain is a funny funny thing.
She left the room after getting dressed and returned with two cups of coffee and a movie container. She placed her coffee down on top of the television and brought his over to him on the bed. She sat down right in front of him on the bed and handed it to him. He took it,
"Thanks."
"I picked up a really good movie yesterday. Maybe we could watch it later," she added with a smile. Lately she had been trying anything to spend time with him – a movie would be perfect, there would be no chance for fighting or anything.
"What movie?"
"'Soul Survivors', it's pretty cool."
"Sounds like a sappy love story."
"Not really," she commented, "it's got a love story baseline but that's not really what it's all about… there's a lot more to it."
"Sounds like you really like it," he added with a smile. She nodded and returned the smile,
"Yeah, it's pretty wicked. So we'll watch it tonight?" He nodded,
"Yeah." She leaned over towards him on the bed and kissed him softly. He hesitated and she immediately pulled back searching his eyes for some sort of explanation.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered. He leaned towards her and placed a soft kiss on her cheek – it was soft and somewhat affectionate but very quick. As soon as his lips touched her they were already retreating. She forced a smile even though everything inside of her hurt – she felt like he was disgusted to even touch her with the way he was acting.
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"Alright, let's go," Faith called over to Xander in the kitchen.
"Wait, where are we going?"
"Everyone wants sandwiches from the deli – I offered to go get them…"
"Yeah," he answered almost blankly.
"Figured you might want to come with me…" she clarified, quickly becoming uncomfortable with the situation since everyone was standing around them in the kitchen. "You're tired… that's fine, I'll be back in a few minutes," she covered. Xander was almost relieved that she covered for him until he met eyes with Giles and saw that the cover hadn't worked on everyone and Giles was furious. Faith had already grabbed the keys and started walking towards the door to the kitchen when he finally added,
"I'll go grab my coat."
"Okay," she answered, "I'll wait for you in the car." The tone of her voice was gut-wrenching. It left Giles speechless but not quite glare-less. He had sensed the change in Xander's attitude and he understood the psychology behind it. It was a complete insecurity issue and unfortunately Faith was the one who suffered from it. He still knew how good they were for each other but if this sort of thing kept occurring he was beginning to get doubts.
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"So are those two last sandwiches to stay or to go?" The woman behind the deli counter asked kindly. She loved seeing these two kids together – it reminded her of when she was young. Her husband was working behind the counter with her, it was a family business they had taken on from his father. Looking at the young woman amazed her – she was so beautiful and strong looking but very down to earth and the young man had presence and an unusual sense of confidence. She liked them as soon as they walked through the door, but she had also sensed the tension between the two of them. She happened to be looking out the deli's window when they had gotten out of their truck. The girl got out of the passenger side before the boy was out and she waited happily for him on the sidewalk but when he got out of the car he didn't even glance up at her really, he just started walking and she followed. The two had great chemistry together – she had seen them together for about a five minutes and she could tell, but she could also tell they were going through a rough him. In response to her question the two of them answered simultaneously,
"To stay."
"To go," Xander stated. He turned to Faith wondering why she wanted to stay, "why would we stay?"
"I don't know, I just figured we could sit down together for a few minutes… the rest of the sandwiches are all cold, so it wouldn't ruin them."
"That's just more work for this lady," he defended.
"Oh no," the woman answered, "It's no trouble at all. Why don't you two go sit right on down and I'll bring them out to you once Toni has them together. Please, please sit down," she encouraged. She was a nice Italian woman who seemed to have a good feel for people. She sympathized with Faith – noticing clearly that all she was trying to do was to slow down all of the bustling activity life throws at a person and spend some down time with someone she loved.
"Thank you," Xander answered politely before leading the way to a table. They grabbed two soda's out of the fridge before sitting at a table closest to where they ordered the food.
"Is everything okay?" Faith asked as she sat across from him.
"Yeah, everything's fine, why?"
"You just seem off…"
"I'm fine."
"Are you lying?" she asked jokingly.
"You calling me a liar?" he asked not taking it nearly as jokingly as she had intended it to be.
"No, relax… I'm just saying you seem like everything isn't fine."
"It's fine, okay?"
"Okay," she answered. With that Toni came up to the table and placed down two sandwiches: A Chicken Cutlet Parm for Faith and a Cheese-Steak for Xander. They thanked him and his wife came out a few moments later with the bag full of sandwiches to go back to the house. She was also thanked and for several minutes that was the last heard of their voices.
Two men walked into the deli, obviously regulars as they referred to the man and his wife by their first name and were referred back to by there's. They ordered their 'regulars' and while they waited for them to be ready they talked. Since there was no conversation going on at their table, Xander was completely focused on what they were talking about as a reason not to talk and Faith just in turn ended up eavesdropping as well.
'So you finally decided to tie the fucking knot, huh buddy?'
'Yeah, I know… I figured I love her so why not, right? If you really love a girl you should marry her – show her how much she means to you…'
'You got it, I always say, there's only two reasons a guy doesn't marry a chick he's banging – he either doesn't love her as much as he tells her he does or he's already got a wife and he's just got her on the side.' Both of them laughed and got their sandwiches leaving the deli.
Xander had finished his sandwich and Faith was only half way through hers. She noticed how stiff Xander had become listening to the guys talk about marriage. It hit a nerve with her too but knowing it was such a soft subject for him she avoided even letting her facial expressions show she heard them. She was quickly becoming full from the sandwich and she began to just pick at the melted mozzarella cheese on the top when Xander jumped in,
"Don't eat that."
"What?" she asked with a smile figuring she had heard him wrong.
"You don't need to eat that," he repeated, becoming even ruder the second time instead of more polite.
"Okay…" she answered a little taken aback and suddenly feeling like maybe he really did think she was looking disgusting lately.
"So are you done?" he asked hurriedly. She figured what the two guys had said made him really uncomfortably so she agreed,
"Yeah, I guess I am." She was kind of pissed about what he had said and it came out in her tone even though she was trying to be understanding.
"Well if you're not we can stay, I was just asking."
"No, it's fine. I'm done. We can go."
"Fine," he answered now seeming angry that she was agreeing that they could go even though she wasn't done – even though he had pushed her to be done.
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She walked into the bedroom after taking a shower. She had just trained with Kennedy for a few hours feeling like she had some pent up energy inside. Kennedy said it wasn't energy it was anger but either way, she spent an entire hour at the bag. It proved to be a little too long since after she was done and she unwrapped her hands they were both bruised and starting to swell. After her shower she was excited to watch the movie and have some alone time with Xander – she hoped he would stop acting the way he had been. It was tough for him – she understood that, but she couldn't help make it better if he just blocked her out. She wished she was as good as he was with her: when she was so closed to him he opened her up and made her trust him and allow herself to love him. She wished she could do the same for him but by his resistance and evasive behavior around her she figured she wasn't good at it at all.
He was sitting on the bed with the remote control flipping through the channels. The movie was on the small table next to where he was sitting. She had left it on the bed so it was obvious that he had to have moved it there when he sat down. She climbed into bed and asked,
"What do you want to watch?"
"I'll find something," he muttered. He was sitting there without a shirt on so she sat up and rubbed his back and shoulder as best she could with him sitting against the bed. She figured he would turn and she could rub them for him but she got absolutely no response from him. He continued to intently watch the television as he flipped through channels. After a minute or so of absolutely no reaction on his part she stopped and lay down as far to the other side of the bed as she could get. She faced away from him and without a word just tried to go to sleep as quickly as possible. She had her jaw clenched tightly trying to stop all of the thoughts flying around in her head pointing all of the obvious signs that she wanted so desperately to ignore and have disappear.
*******************************************
Xander sat there on the bed trying to figure out why he had done everything he had done. He wasn't doing it because he knew Angel would be back in trying to get his defense to bring back to Faith in some way – he was doing it because he felt like if he didn't justify himself soon, at least to himself, he was going to just die. Why was she so tolerant of him?
It did make sense though. For someone who seemed so quick to judge and to act, she knew when someone reached out for her. It had been something she hadn't trusted herself enough to deal with earlier in her life, Buffy for example, but once she was out of prison all she wanted was to be able to trust that feeling. She needed him and both of them knew it.
********************(flash back)***********************
Xander woke up from a deep sleep not quite sure why. Faith was still asleep next to him and the sky was still dark. But then he looked over at her again – it kind of scared him how sensitive he had become to her. For a guy who could probably sleep through an apocalypse if he wasn't an integral part of stopping them, the fact that Faith's breathing had changed while she was sleeping had taken him out of a dead sleep. He looked over at her, still somewhat groggy, and noticed she was breathing in a broken and hastened rhythm with the muscles in her face beginning to tense. A thin layer of sweat began to form around her face and Xander watched warily hating that she went through this so often.
Then, just what he had been prepared for, she opened her eyes in a panic and sat up quickly, gasping for air. Through each pant small muttered phrases or words could almost be deciphered as small, 'no's and 'stop' and 'it's not real' but she was close to hysterical.
"Faith?"
"Don't touch me," she spat, quickly scrambling out of the blankets to get off of the bed. Because of her state it took much more struggle to become untangled then if she had normally woken up. Xander noticed the look on her face and how the sweat was now beading up on her arms, back, and chest.
"Baby, hey, it's me… relax," he soothed carefully coming out from under the blankets on the other side of the bed watching her every move. Granted she was panicking because of how helpless she felt but he knew full well that if she so much as pushed him he'd be in the hospital for a few days.
"Where the fuck are my clothes? Where are my clothes?" she thought out loud in a panic, realizing she was only in her underwear and a bra. Xander was trying to keep himself from panicking – whenever she had woken up before all she needed was to know he was there but this time it was definitely different and he wasn't completely sure how to deal with it.
"Here," he answered picking up a stray tee-shirt on the floor almost in as much of a panic to find it as she was. She looked up at him now for really the first time since she woke up and he couldn't help but notice how gorgeous she looked. She was standing in front of the window with the moon shining softly behind her and lighting up random part of her face and body.
Xander slowly walked up to her with the shirt in hand.
"Baby, it's okay… it was just a dream." Seeing the expression on her face; one that was still extremely tense but it lost the sense of panic and fear it had before, he walked all the way up to her and touched her arm feeling the anxious sweat under his hand. "Look at me," he added softly, touching the edge of her jaw, "it's okay." She nodded softly then in an almost awkward, insecure way, she pulled herself close to him. They stood there for several minutes with her resting her face against his chest and him with his arms wrapped around her waiting for her to get hold of her breathing.
"What happened? What was the dream about?" He asked once she was calmer. She was still far from calm but by comparison she was much better. She shook her head,
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It'll make you feel better. What happened?" he pushed knowing there were certain things she had to be able to talk to him about otherwise they'd get nowhere.
"I… I just told him to stop and… and I said no but he didn't care, and…" Xander quickly caught on knowing what nightmare it was.
"Okay," he soothed, trying to keep the lump that was welling up in his throat from creeping high enough so that it could be heard in his tone. "Look at me," he said softly, "that's never going to happen to you again, you know that right?"
"Yeah," she agreed, "but I can't stop myself from remembering it."
"You seem to have a lot of those," he added in a tone that was a strange cross between sad and jovial. He wanted to add some levity and it was amusing that something so sad actually contained more levity than the current situation. She smiled knowing he was just trying to make her feel better any way he could. It amazed her how he could deal with her bazaar behaviors sometimes.
"I'm really sorry," she explained, "I really freaked out there… it's just… it hasn't happened in a while and… I hate feeling that helpless, and when I remember it, it just feels way too real. And I really freaked out…"
"It's okay," he soothed resting his forehead against hers, looking deeply into her rich eyes. He held her closely but didn't motion to kiss her knowing it was probably too intimate to follow directly after what her dream was about. That was definitely one of those quirky attributes he had learned to anticipate.
"Why don't you go back to bed?" she offered seeing him try and stealthily hide a yawn. "I'm just going to walk around for a little while or something…"
"No," he answered as though her suggestion was ridiculous.
Holding her loosely around her waist he walked over to the side of the bed that was against the wall and sat down. She followed him and he sat with his legs stretched out and leaned lazily against the wall. She sat on his lap with her legs draped over the side of his onto the bed and her head rested on his shoulder with her arm lazily holding his waist. He held her with one hand around her back and across her waist using the thumb on that hand to slowly caress her stomach and the other hand slowly stroked her arm.
Thinking they were going to just sit there quietly, which was completely fine by her since having him hold her like this was something she hadn't even dared to dream about ever experiencing, she was surprised to hear him start whispering softly. She didn't think this could feel any better than sitting here and having him softly stroke her, but he proved her wrong once again.
"I love you so much… I would never let anyone ever hurt you… I love you… you're so gorgeous and beautiful… I don't know how I ever lived without you… I love you so much… I wish I could hold you forever and…" The soft phrases continued for hours never losing their genuine romantic quality. Even after she managed to drift back into a light sleep, which she never thought would be possible for at least a few days after her dream, he continued softly repeating how he felt and how much he cared about her.
As soon as he had started him amorous chant she seemed to melt deeper into his arms basking in the warmth it made her feel. She had honestly never felt loved before and to know that he loved her that much and that what he was saying actually meant something was almost more than she could handle. Practically being able to see weight lifted off of her shoulders as he spoke to her brought a feeling inside of him that was hard to describe. He felt proud and powerful and needed – and the feelings that circulated inside of him that are beyond words made him sure of just how much he meant every word that left his lips that night.
He was so swept away by the tingling emotions inside of him, it felt like he blinked and the sun was filling the room. He watched her slowly open her eyes as the sun teased them softly. This is how he liked to see her wake up – smiling. She smiled up into his face and almost immediately lifted her lips to his and kissed him softly but for several long moments.
"I need you so much," she admitted lovingly. He kissed her forehead gently,
"I love you."
********************************************
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"So I still don't understand why you didn't come say hello to me," Buffy pushed after nagging on the subject for the last twenty minutes.
"Buffy, what do you want me to tell you? I came because I needed to talk to Xander… I was a little preoccupied and…"
"Wait a minute," she said cutting him off sharply, "basically you're saying you came for Faith so you didn't even think of me."
"Buffy, you don't understand. I'm a little stressed about this whole thing and I'm sorry if I didn't think of you first, but-"
"So now I'm just some chick you had and forgot about-"
"Buffy, just stop it!" He yelled suddenly. "I'd like to think that the girl I fell so deeply in love with could have an ounce of compassion or at least understanding for someone who they are so close with like you are to Faith."
"Me and Faith – close? Are you on drugs?" she snapped with disgust.
"Sorry," he answered angrily, "didn't know you were into denying your past now," he mocked knowing the duality of the phrase would get to her.
"We're not close," she repeated rigidly.
"Fine. But you used to be."
"Until she went insane and took up the hobby of killing people! Not to mention the game she made up of mind-fucking Buffy!"
"Is that what really bothers you? The fact that maybe someone could beat you – and I'm not even talking about by strength. I'm talking about the fact that she could play with you and-"
"She manipulates everything around her and it drives me crazy that she can't be trusted and that I was stupid enough to try! But no, what really bothers me is definitely the list of dead people."
"I don't want to get into this right now. Frankly, it doesn't really matter how you feel right now, but I just thought you'd understand what she's going through right now."
"Why because you broke my heart?"
"Can you, for one second, realize this isn't about you?" Buffy stood there silently for several long moments staring at him in disbelief. "Buffy, whether you believe me or just think that I'm being played, I know how much she's hurting right now. I hate to bring it to your attention, but I know Faith a little better than you do, and it's not because I'm special or anything like that, it's because I wanted to." She tried to cut him off but he continued talking steadily, "and when she's begging for the pain to stop, not because she's scared, but just because it's been years since it started and she's just too tired and broken to keep on pushing through it, I need to know the whole story. I came to talk to Xander to find out what happened and why he did what he did because if I have to watch this break someone who I think is one of the strongest people I've ever met, I want to know why."
His voice held steady and when he brought his words to an end Buffy was left without anything to say. She glared at him angrily and the feeling of hurt and pain that she was always a victim to whenever Angel and Faith were involved pushed her to immediately exit the kitchen. Angel watched her walk out of the room without another word until he saw Kennedy walk down the hallway with a veneer proving she wasn't exactly happy about Faith's absence.
"Kennedy," he called walking into the hall. She stopped and turned to look at him,
"What are you doing here? Is Faith with you?" The second question was asked with much more hope and enthusiasm. Angel's blank expression sent her smile into immediate retreat and a cold, indifferent expression that could only be beat by the one in which it was taught by, took over her features.
"No, umm… I came to speak with Xander."
"I can lend you a knife if you want," she joked in a tone that should be mistaken as serious.
"You girls both have a thing for blades," he noted, "dangerous obsession. I came because… well, Faith, she's… I needed to talk to Xander."
"What do you expect him to say? 'Gee, I'm a wimp who couldn't handle having someone who loved me that much so I decided the best thing to do is crush the only thing she had to keep her going'?"
"I was hoping he could give me some sort of reason…"
"She's not doing well, is she?"
"She's a strong person, Kennedy."
"I know she is," she answered, "it's what amazed me about her. She's one of the strongest people I know, but when I saw what he did to her and how it reduced her to nothing – he left her there begging him not to leave her – and to see someone so strong be brought to that just goes to show how much she loved him. I saw it with my own eyes what it did to her and I know she's not handling it well."
"Honestly, it's a hard call. I'm not sure whether to think of her standing there with a smile saying everything's fine is handling it well or if it's really bad. And I don't know whether to say her feeling defeated and used is her handling it well either. I honestly don't know… the first way is what she started with – being in denial about the whole thing and pretending it would just go away. The second, I don't know, maybe it's healthier but it's really hard to see someone like her so broken by something, especially when it was something that I encouraged her to take the chance with."
"We all encouraged it… she was *so* happy with him. I mean, granted I haven't known her as long as you all did but I met her as soon as she came back to Sunnydale. Repentance whatever… she was a hardcore bitch. She was cool with all the SIT's and everything but you could tell – and I'm sorry if I start to sound all poetic-like – but there was this raging animal inside of her that you could see deep in her eyes that she had tied real short on a leash and every time a subject came up that hit a nerve you could see it in her eyes but she would just shorten the leash again and wouldn't let anything out."
"Like a wolf…" Angel muttered in agreement.
"Exactly! She wasn't doing anything wrong while she was there but you could tell there was just so much more to her than she was letting out. Even when you'd watch her fight there were so many times when you just wanted to scream, 'let it go,' but she always kept it down whether it meant this fight was going to be her last because of it or not. She wasn't going to even give that wolf a chance to get away, even if it was the difference between dying and living.
"But when her and Xander were together – I don't know – it wasn't like the wolf was gone, because, I might sound crazy but, that's part of her whether she wants it to be or not, but when they were together it seemed like the wolf that was constantly pulling against it's chains and growling and gnashing it's teeth desperately trying to just get hold of anything it could, you'd see the two of them together and it was like it was lying down at her feet like a submissive puppy. You could see how relieved she was that she didn't have to wrap the chain leash around her knuckles and constantly hold it back – she just got to watch it lie there happy and content. Wow, listen to me fucking talk like I'm making sense…"
"You make more sense than you think," Angel assured her. "When she first came into Sunnydale a bunch of years back, you could kind of think of it like she had that wolf following her around, checking her out. She'd ignore it like an annoying stray dog but when she'd get bored she mess with it a little bit – dodge corners and cut back to be behind it, make some noise and see if it'd flinch. As annoying as it might seem, she thought it was pretty cool. It looked big and powerful and mean but so tempting. As things started to get bad in Sunnydale she figured that wolf had been there before anyone so why not take the temptation – she figured she only needed a taste and then when she was done she'd just toss the dog out and be done with it.
"That wolf took her over like it was an entire pack – it reeled her in and wouldn't let her go. Before she realized it was a bad thing that wolf was sleeping at the end of her bed… it knew it had a home and it was there to stay. When she came to me in L.A. after she woke up from her coma and she wanted to fight me, threatening to kill me… it was like she was just standing with that wolf and all of a sudden it jumped up and started gnashing it's teeth in her face. It wasn't as cool when it was wanting to rip her apart. She thought the only way to get away from it was to make me kill her… I had to show her how to harness it and subdue it. She fought with it – she struggled with it – sometimes it won but often enough it was like she was standing there holding it just far enough away so it couldn't bite her.
"Like you said, when her and Xander were together it was subdued and domesticated. It liked where it was and it was willing to take food from someone's hand rather than hunt to live. I think that's part of why this whole thing is so hard for her – she came to me and that dog got kicked and what worries me is there's only so far you're going to be able to stretch your hand out before it snaps at it."
"Faith has a dog?" Andrew asked with both confusion and excitement as he walked into the hallway. Kennedy rolled her eyes in frustration,
"No!"
"O-k-a-y," he answered, "nearest exit away from the angry Slayer…" and he quickly did so.
"Wow, we definitely had a whole conversation about a wolf that doesn't even exist," Kennedy noted with a little disbelief.
"Sometimes thinking about people as complicated as Faith in terms of non-existent dog's kind of helps," Angel joked softly.
"I feel kind of bad… I don't really know why I feel this way, but… I mean, I understand why she left and everything but…"
"You're angry," Angel concluded for her.
"Kind of, yeah… it's stupid and selfish and-"
"It's okay. Hey, I'll let you in on a little tidbit," he added with a soft smile, "at the top of Faith's list for getting angry, not to mention the top of Buffy's is someone leaving her. It's both of their top fears and the reason the two of them don't get along, they're both still angry at the other because they feel like they got dumped. They feel like the other one left them… neither of them can handle that. It's okay if it makes you angry too… and hey, it's the same thing that this is all about – Xander left her… he couldn't have done anything worse to her. It's feels like an act of complete betrayal and indifference."
"Yeah," she answered pensively. "Is that really why the two of them are so vicious to each other?"
"Deep down inside, they both feel dumped by the other." The words he said seemed to almost echo through the hallway and it wasn't just Kennedy that they sunk into… Angel heard his own words of reason almost as though some else were saying them to him.
------------------
Buffy walked into a bedroom and closed the door behind her. She looked around and noticed it must been Robin's room, which was actually good because he was at the other house with Dawn and Willow getting some essentials together – she had been overly excited to move in and forgot some important things like towels… who thought about towels!?
She sat down on the bed unsure of what exactly she was mad about. If it was Angel that she was so furious with, then why couldn't she stop thinking about Faith? She hated her – the manipulation, the lies, the deceit… with her came nothing but pain.
When she met her it was an instant clash. But it wasn't a pure clash – it was part hate but part attraction. She wasn't one who had ever been attracted to a girl, but there was just something about Faith that seduced her. It was hard to explain, but it taught her something – seduction isn't always completely sexual. Everything about Faith seduced her – the way she talked, the way she walked, how she dressed, what she did, her personality, her past, her everything.
*She could remember feeling this feeling inside of her that she just didn't understand – it didn't feel sexual but it made her feel needy and maybe even overly confident. It was a strange combinations of confusing emotions that she didn't understand and didn't even believe were real until they pushed her to do things she never thought she'd ever do.
Her and Faith were in her bedroom back in Sunnydale after a night of heavy slaying. There had been major vamp activity and it was already past two a.m. before they had gotten back to her house. Joyce had stayed up waiting for Buffy and seeing she was with Faith invited them both in and offered Faith some hot chocolate. They both accepted and once Joyce was finished making it she went straight to bed exhausted. The two of them went up to Buffy's room ready to crash after a long night. Faith hopped onto the edge of the bed nonchalantly. Buffy walked over to her closet in the corner of her room,
'Hey, do you need anything to sleep in?'
'It's almost three, this ain't sleeping, it's crashing. Don't need to change to crash.' Buffy nodded and smiled in response,
'So three's the cut off?'
'Quantity isn't always quality, but I don't like to leave anybody out,' she joked.
'That's not what I meant,' Buffy answered with a giggle. 'You're sick.'
'Way I see it, you've gotta be a little sick if you're going to risk your life and go poke things that are trying to kill you with a stumpy stick.'
'Good point.'
'Love the pun, B.'
'No, I didn't mean-' she defended but both of them were laughing before she could.
'Whatever,' Faith teased with a grin. Buffy walked over from the corner of the room to the bed right in front of Faith. Faith was sitting with one leg bent, sitting on that foot and the other leg hung loosely off the edge of the bed. She was leaning back on her arms which were planted behind her back on the bed. Buffy walked up to her so that her knees were touching the bed. Faith looked up at her with a sort of confused but challenging look. She remained completely still not wanting to infer anything since she wasn't sure what Buffy was doing or what she wanted to do.
Before she could think of anything to do or say Buffy leaned down towards her putting one of her hands on the bed for balance and the other against Faith's face as she met her lips. She kissed her softly and smoothly surprised by how easily Faith was able to compensate for the inexperienced, jagged motion of her lips and make them glide and flow. Buffy followed the firm yet extremely sensitive lead that Faith gave even if Buffy was the one initiating the kiss and holding her. It was just as Buffy thought it might be except with more softness than she ever thought Faith could offer. Not that she thought about kissing her at all – or that much anyway… it was a weird reaction that she had towards Faith – she didn't understand it, and it didn't seem sexual, but it somehow led her to want to do what she was doing.
Even though moving in to kiss her had taken an extreme amount of courage she still found herself too intimidated to do anything but a soft closed mouth kiss. She didn't even know she wanted to kiss her but now that she was here she wanted it so badly. Faith went along with the kiss, well… there wasn't really any reason she saw not to. B was hot and it had been a really long time since anyone had kissed her so softly. Buffy slowly pulled away from the kiss and looked down at Faith who was still sitting on the bed, unchanged except that now she was holding her lower lip gently between her teeth as she looked up.
Without any known cause, other than presumably the same that caused the first kiss, Buffy lowered her lips back down to Faith's running her hand, that had been on her face, through her hair. Buffy kissed her more firmly than the first time and she couldn't believe the sensation that ran through her body when Faith pulled her lip between her teeth as she had previously been doing with her own. As she released her lip she kept her mouth slightly ajar and Buffy slid her tongue hesitantly in. She was praised for the move as Faith met her tongue with her own and smoothly massaged it. Feeling as though something had taken over her senses and her entire body, Buffy slid her hand from Faith's hair down the side of her face and continued down until she met her breast, which she held gently in her hand as she continued to kiss her better than she ever thought a kiss could feel.
She would've stayed there caressing her lips if she didn't need a breath of air – she lifted her head away slowly and all of a sudden she was bombarded with emotions like doubt, guilt, and regret. Faith looked up at her with a soft smile but there was a hint of indifference in her expression.
'I'm so sorry,' Buffy stammered as she backed away rigidly.
'B, relax,' she answered nonchalantly, running her hand through her hair to fix it.
'I didn't mean that… I didn't mean to do that…' she stammered. She was in such a state she did even notice Faith's jaw tighten. Might've been the softest kiss in a long time but it was just as meaningless. 'I shouldn't have… we shouldn't… I don't… I'm… I…'
'I'm that good, huh? Leave you speechless?' Faith kidded, covering up how angry she was getting.
'Faith!' Buffy scolded, almost in a panic. 'I don't know why I did that and-'
'B, it's okay… really.'
'I'm not gay – I've never…'
'Buffy,' Faith stated firmly as she stood up and walked over to her, 'you-' Buffy cut her off and began stammering again,
'I never… I don't know why I did that, and you let me. Why did you let me?' Faith rolled her eyes and picked her jacket up off of the bed and put it on. She let her continue trying to speak for several more moments than finally cut in,
'Buffy, it's chill. Just relax, alright? I'll leave, you can make up some excuse for yourself that you like, believe it, and just forget about all of it.'
'But… you-'
'Don't worry your little head about it – I'm five by five.' With that Faith let herself out of the room and out of the house. She had planned on staying the night and crashing, but she could tell Buffy would probably have a heart attack if she stayed five more minutes. The girl had issues – not that she could talk, but she did.
The next day Buffy met with the whole gang in the library – Faith was there and she immediately got nervous that it would be awkward. She thought it should be… after all, they had kissed. She both feared and looked forward to how it would pan out. No normal person would be able to just act like they had before and she found herself curious as to how Faith was going to act. She figured it would be best if she didn't predetermine how she was going to act – make it seem like she hadn't thought about this since the moment after it happened. But about five minutes into the untraditional meeting they were having she was infuriated by how unaffected Faith was acting. She thought it would be impossible for someone to act exactly the same and yet, there was Faith, sitting there as though they hadn't even gone over to her house after patrol last night. She swallowed down the anger figuring this was the best way – this was what she wanted – but there was some anger building up. She knew it was strange but she felt betrayed…*
"Buffy?" Angel asked walking into the room cautiously. She jumped with surprise as he walked into the room snapping her out of her daydream. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you…"
"No, it's alright… I just didn't hear you coming in. I guess I was just thinking…"
"About what?"
"I don't know," she lied.
"Okay," he answered making it clear that he knew she just wasn't telling him. "I'm sorry," he added oddly.
"For what?"
"As much as I know how hard it was for Faith to come back to Sunnydale, I have to give you credit too. It couldn't have been easy on you either."
"It wasn't." He nodded thoughtfully,
"It's kind of funny, you two are either side by side and inseparable or you can't be anywhere near each other."
"What's funny about that?" she asked rigidly, immediately jumping to the defense. He shrugged, knowing he came back to talk to her again to try and calm things down, not jump back into another argument.
"When she came to L.A. I got really worried… I thought something had happened between you two."
"So you immediately jumped to that conclusion?" she asked, her attitude still showing she wasn't giving him a free inch.
"She was really upset. I didn't think anyone else could get her that way," he explained truthfully. His words took a few moments for her to digest and once she did it was like a rock in her stomach. She nodded and couldn't help but agree,
"She was upset, wasn't she?"
"Very." He waited several moments before adding, "it wasn't that long ago since you were begging me to help her… not to mention asking if there was anything you could do to help…" His tone was non-confrontational or threatening, but she immediately reverted back to a defensive stance.
"She's hurt a lot of people since then… including me."
"She's also saved a lot of people too."
"That doesn't make it just balance out!"
"Why does it seem to balance out for everyone else?" he asked, his tone becoming slightly more aggravated.
"Like who?" she asked outright angrily.
"Willow, Anya, Spike, and me."
"Had that list right on the tip of your tongue, didn't you?"
"You treat all of us on such a different level then you do for Faith and I think I can safely say, most people on that list have done more damage than Faith."
"I don't want to get into this right now."
"Okay," he accepted so easily that it almost annoyed her more. "Well, I'm going to say goodbye now since I'm just going to go see Xander and be out of here."
"Fine," she answered shortly. He took a moment to maintain his composure figuring it was a good warm-up for Xander,
"Good bye, Buffy." Without another word he walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
-------------
Xander sat on her bed staring at the door both anticipating and dreading Angel's return. He had so many reasons for everything but just as many regrets. He couldn't even lie to himself – he missed her. Waking up in the morning to her curled up against him… nothing could beat that. Looking at her working during the day acting all tough, like she doesn't need anything in the world except when she'd look over at him and he could tell just from the way she looked at him that it was just a front and that she needed him more than her next breath. He was needed. Ask as many psychoanalysts as you might like – they'll all say it goes straight back to a persons childhood. That was a complete priority for him – being needed. And having Faith need him was triple points because she didn't need anybody and she wanted to need him.
Angel walked into the room quietly without a knock but wasn't at all surprised to see Xander sitting there waiting for him.
"So why did you do it?"
"Because I thought it was the right thing to do," he answered firmly.
"So right off the bat you thought it was the right thing to do," he stated suspiciously, "you thought about all of the reasons and the consequences – for everybody – and it was the right thing to do."
"I had doubts and questions and grapples and it seemed like the harder path to take and nine times out of ten the harder solution seems to be the right one.
"See, this is what I'm not understanding," Angel cut in losing his patience for what seemed like no reason. "And this is ignoring the fact that you basically left the fate of your lover up to an odds ratio you made up in your head! What happened that made everything need to change? I mean, come on Xander, did things just get too good and comfortable that you needed to mix it up a little bit?"
"I love Anya."
"Do you love Faith?"
"I don't know what that feeling was."
"You look at those pictures and you tell me you didn't love her!'
"I'm not sure and that doubt leads me to believe that I might not."
"You doubted your love for Anya," he stated firmly, "and so you left her. You left her at the alter! She's dead and you're still in love with her! If we're basing this all on your feeling of doubt – that feeling of doubt is what brought the first person you doubted forward to ruin what you had with the second and make you doubt that!"
"Faith was different!"
"Why?" Angel asked firmly. "Why was she different?" he asked after a few moments of silence.
"It's just different."
"It was better, wasn't it?"
"You have no right to make that judgment!"
"Obviously I do by how defensive you're getting. Being with Faith was better – but you couldn't let it be better because it wasn't the first love. But here's the mind fuck, Xander – Faith was the first. She was the very first and I'm not only talking about your first experience. She was the first person who offered to need you. Sure, Faith's the last person to blatantly say she needs you and I'm sure that first time with her, even then when she was the way she was, sure before and after she probably treated you like garbage. But I bet during you realized just how much she wanted to need you. And even now, I can just by the way you're looking at me, you know she needed you. You felt needed – that's why you went to her that night… that night that I had to save you. You went there because you thought she needed you – you felt like she needed you and you liked it. She made you feel needed! Faith was the first woman you fell in love with and even though you let yourself forget that – it was better with her."
"It was different," Xander stated rigidly.
"How was it different?" Angel challenged back almost in a roar. After not receiving an answer he added, "Being with Faith was better. You loved her more. The fact that you can't even admit that to me proves to me more than you'll ever know."
"I couldn't lie to her!" he screamed finally exploding in a surge of emotion. "How could I keep her thinking that she was the only person on my mind when Anya was all I could think about?"
"You lost someone you love, Xander, it's a hard thing to deal with," he stated not without recognizing the double meaning. "It baffles me that you're an amazing enough person to have helped Faith through as much as you clearly did but at the same time, you didn't have the strength to believe that she could help you through your trouble too."
"I felt like I was using her to just distract myself from what I was really feeling."
"Xander, I'll tell you something that you need to believe comes from deep inside my soul. When I saw you two together… when I look at you two in those pictures… Xander, Faith is not a stupid girl. If she were, she would not have lasted this long with all she's been through. Do you really think that she'd not only allow but fall in love with a guy who was using her? You're going through something that is so hard to deal with but you messed up not thinking that she could help you through it. If you let her in on the problems you're having and trying to deal with – that feeling you have of using her, it's only because you weren't open with how you were feeling."
"So I fucked up is what that all comes out to!" he snapped angrily.
"There's a lot of things in life that we have to go through that hurt. This wasn't one of those things that you had to deal with. You could just be happy with her… it's okay to be happy, as strange as that concept may seem to you."
Angel stopped taking a deep breath. He looked over at Xander and saw the constrained breath and the stressed expression he tried to hold to keep himself from falling apart.
"Xander," he began in a much softer tone, "I understand how much pain you're in over Anya, I really do. But… if I understand it as well as I claim to, what does that say for how well Faith would've understood it?"
Struggling to swallow, Xander didn't even attempt to respond. All he could see through his eye was an image of Faith huddled miserably on the floor drowning her misery with several of her favored vessels. Using Angel's comparison in his head – if he was standing her this upset and unnerved, how must she feel? Angel saw the pensive stare Xander held strictly fixed on the corner of the room and in a few silent steps he exited the bedroom.
Angel stood silently in the doorframe for several moments just looking idly at his surroundings. Even though there was a minimum of things in the room that belonged to Faith it still had a sense of being her room. It just seemed like somewhere she had been and where she had lived. Angel made a mental note that that sense of her presence was probably why Xander was in here now and why it seemed like he tried to never leave.
"What do you want?" Xander asked standing from the bed and placing the pictures carefully on the edge of the table that the television set stood. Angel ignored the question and continued looking nonchalantly around him. He walked around the room slowly – his silence causing Xander to become a combination of irritated and anxious. "What's going on? Faith came to you… is everything okay? Is she okay?" He began to ask his questions more quickly as the idea that something happened to Faith entered his mind. Seeing her in the pictures had made him feel like she was that much closer to him and now the thought that she might have been ripped away tormented him. He pushed her away needing desperately to avoid that feeling of loss and he was slowly realizing that this torment he was currently going through – this constant longing and ache for her – might just match the feeling he was trying to avoid. He wanted to disconnect himself from her and all of the emotions she instilled within him – but he couldn't shake the effect she made on him. Seeing the change in himself, and more so, the change in her during their time together was something he couldn't ignore.
He knew Faith in her darkest time and he had been the reason for the happiest moments of her life. He had been one of the first victims of her rage after the beginning of her downward spiral and he was one of the first to bring her out of it. He had looked deeply into her eyes and into her soul when she hovered above him choking the life out of him as well as when she hovered above him whispering to him how much she needed and loved him. He had seen her soul overtaken by evil and anger and then slowly emancipated into a glowing love. And what killed him was that that radiating feeling of love was just for him. That emotion that had changed her entirely was something he had instilled within her. But the emotion he instilled in her was ripped away by him while he still had the ability to live in a world she had given him.
Angel walked slowly around the room just trying to collect his thoughts while maintaining his composure. He had just bridled all of the emotions within him that had taken flight inside of him as soon as Faith had began telling him why she was so destroyed but then he glanced down at the pictures on the table. The slow pace he had maintained walking around the room for several minutes came to a sudden halt completely rapt by the emotions captured in the picture.
Xander clearly protested immediately walking back over to the table taking a defensive posture. Angel ignored him and picked up the small stack of pictures and began looking at them. The first was the one that grabbed his attention – it was the same picture that grabbed Xander of both of them sleeping together so contently on the couch wrapped in each other's arms. The pictures captivated many amazing moments between the two – each picture never failing to capture the intense love between them. Even in the pictures, the happiness felt by Faith was so obvious it was almost painful to look at. Some of the other pictures were situations such as one of both of them in the kitchen – Xander sitting at the table and Faith standing behind him bending down and hugging him from behind and leaning her head against the side of his. The next picture was taken just moments after that one when Xander turned his head more towards her and the two kissed each other lovingly with Faith still hugging him.
Angel continued to flip through the pictures in silence. The next was the two of them sitting on the couch watching a football game. The television screen was in the picture and the green field and the heavily padded blobs made it obvious. Xander was sitting regularly on the couch with his feet on the floor and Faith was sitting sideways with her feet on the couch and her knees bent above Xander's. She was sitting next to him with her legs going over his and her head leaning on his chest with his arms wrapped around her. Flipping to another picture was almost painful for Angel – the pictures just did too good of a job of showing the relationship and what a tragedy the current situation was.
The next picture was in the kitchen again with Xander sitting in a chair and Faith was sitting on his lap facing the opposite direction so she was face to face with him. She was holding a small piece of candy – one Angel assumed to be an M&M or a Skittle – and she was delicately putting it in his mouth. The smiles spread across both of their faces were brilliant and amazing. The next picture was Faith sitting on top of the counter and Xander standing directly in front of her. Her feet hung by either of his hips and her arms laid limply down his chest. The picture might not have been quite as moving as the rest if within the picture you couldn't see that there were clearly a slew of other people in the kitchen. Angel flipped to the next picture and it revealed the first sleeping one.
"Can I just ask you question?" Angel finally asked – the tone of his voice made it obvious that he was struggling to maintain his composure. He took his silence as admission and Angel asked, "are you stupid or are you just fucking retarded!?"
"Whoa," Xander warned.
"Are you? I'm not kidding, it's a serious question," Angel yelled. "Did you look at these? Hell, you don't even have to have seen these – you lived them! How did you just throw this away?" Angel stopped himself and took a deep breath trying to regain his control.
"Is this why you came here? Did you come here to punish me for what I did?"
"Unfortunately, no. People are punished for crimes… murder, for example, but people who just destroy people they claim to love and leave them to die, no, those people don't get punished at all."
"Yeah, gee, I'm just loving this– everyone just assumes that I'm not upset about this at all…"
"Xander, I'll give you the same advice I gave Faith a few years ago – first off, if you want sympathy or at least some respectful response, leave off the gee. You might want to drop the attitude too – the defensiveness doesn't work. I would think you'd know that first hand by now," Angel held up the pictures, "seems like you've had some first hand experience with people who use that method… seems like you got around it and she learned something."
"Yeah," Xander muttered in a tone that showed he definitely heard what Angel was trying to say.
"Unfortunately, though, anything she might have learned she's going to automatically discard.
"Angel, what was your point in coming all the way out here anyway?"
"The whole way over here I was actually trying to figure that out… the look on Faith's face when I mentioned your name fuzzed my spine. Seeing how incredibly devastated she is, I guess… well, I figured the only way I would be able to have any compassion towards your side of the story would be to hear it face to face. I wanted to give you that opportunity."
"You know, you've got a real attitude, Angel. What makes you think I care what you think-"
"Xander, I'm the one who has to look at that girl cry over you. Unless you want me asking her what the hell she was thinking, I suggest you start pleading your case."
"Is she okay?" Angel thought through the question wanting to give an honest answer and not just a run of the mill generic one.
"To be honest, no. She's going through a lot right now and she doesn't really know how to handle it. And truth be told, either do I… I don't know the whole story so I'm not really any help yet. Hence me being here instead of there."
"You're here, and definitely not there… what's up?" Buffy asked walking into the room.
"Buffy," he greeted. "How are you?"
"A little irritated that you came to my house and didn't even say hi to me yet," she answered.
"Sorry, I just came to talk to Xander… I mean, I didn't see you, and umm…"
"Smooth," Xander mocked. "You could just say you're here about Faith not about her…"
"Figures," Buffy answered, anger rushing through her features immediately. "Should've figured that one out as soon as I found you in here with Xander before you even mentioned me and-"
"Buffy, I didn't mean to upset you, I just-"
"Sure, you didn't mean to upset me because you didn't even think I existed! Why is it that you're always so-"
"Do you want to go for a walk? Why don't we go see everyone, then go for a walk. A short one…" He glanced down at his watch then added, "Xander, I'll come back in to see you before I go," he added as he walked out of the door with Buffy.
"Can't wait," he muttered under his breath. The last thing he needed was Angel chaffing his ass on top of everyone else. No one understood… the person that understood the most out of all of them was Faith! He wasn't sure if that was the way it should be or not. He sat back down on the bed trying to sort through his thoughts and all that he could muster were some memories. The first of which was a typical asshole day of his that looking back on it now pissed him off to no end! It was one of the more eventful asshole days when Faith had really opened up to him and he had really started to shut down and close her out.
************(flash-back until denoted by this line)****************
Faith woke up to the alarm blaring with this obnoxious beeping sound. She turned it off completely unaware of why it was set in the first place. She assumed one of them must've just hit a button that set it instead of the radio button or something. She looked over at the time reading seven o'clock and groaned rolling back over to Xander. He had been a jerk the night before not being affectionate in any sense of the word and whenever she touch him or lean on him he'd roll over away from her touch. He'd been going through a tough couple of days and she figured it was just the effects of whatever it was that was making him so irritable. We all have our bad days… his just happened to come consecutively.
He was still asleep, undisturbed by the noisy alarm, but he still had his back turned to her. Using the alarm as sort of a test she could tell he was definitely asleep so there was a very small chance he would resist holding her now. She grinned to herself, ignoring the aching feeling inside of her that this was the only way she could really be close to him right now. She moved over on the bed and pressed her body softly against his draping her arms around him. He was out cold and didn't budge.
---------
"I can't believe you just turned it off!"
"How many times do you want me to say I'm sorry?"
"I completely missed my entire interview… do you have any idea how bad that looks?"
"If you had told me anything about a job interview, I would've woken you up, but you didn't even mention it to me."
"Usually if an alarm goes off it's for a reason, Faith."
"I didn't want to wake you up if I had just pressed a button by accident during the day or something… next time I'll just wake you up and not think about you."
"If you were thinking about me then you would've woken me up!"
"If you ever were thinking about me anymore you would've thought to mention to me that you were looking for a job! Granted I'm not as experienced as you are in the whole relationship thing but I'd think that you getting a job is something that should be mentioned! The only reason I can see you not mentioning it is because the only reason you're getting it is so you can get away from me for a few more hours a day."
"That's not true."
"It sure seems like it is."
"Faith, stop it," he answered, his tone falling out of argumentative and into more of a soothing sound. "Why are you being like this?"
"How do you want me to be? You wake up yelling at me, you don't talk to me all day and you won't touch me when we go to sleep. What am I supposed to act like?"
He felt like a complete ass. He knew he wasn't treating her nicely or fair in any way. They had gone from him trying to get her to trust him and just when things were really good he freaked out. It was the only way he could find any logic in it. When things got good they were better then anything he'd ever felt before – even with Anya. And feeling like he was surpassing what he had with Anya, he freaked out. Nothing was allowed to be better than that, right? And instead of having the courage to have things better he chose the messed up brain path – he made it worse. He unintentionally made her feel like she had done something wrong when really it was just his way of shutting down and freaking out on unfamiliar ground. Who was he to do that – all of this was unfamiliar ground for her and she wasn't subjecting him to this bullshit! What right did he have? He began to really hate himself for what he was turning into for her and it was what led him to finally picking his decision to end it. Things with her were so amazing – when everything was right it was above and beyond what he could've ever hoped for with Anya and it scared him. If losing Anya felt the way it did – what would it feel like to lose this? Psychologically that's probably why he made things worse between them before ending it to convince himself that it wouldn't hurt as much to lose her. The brain is a funny funny thing.
She left the room after getting dressed and returned with two cups of coffee and a movie container. She placed her coffee down on top of the television and brought his over to him on the bed. She sat down right in front of him on the bed and handed it to him. He took it,
"Thanks."
"I picked up a really good movie yesterday. Maybe we could watch it later," she added with a smile. Lately she had been trying anything to spend time with him – a movie would be perfect, there would be no chance for fighting or anything.
"What movie?"
"'Soul Survivors', it's pretty cool."
"Sounds like a sappy love story."
"Not really," she commented, "it's got a love story baseline but that's not really what it's all about… there's a lot more to it."
"Sounds like you really like it," he added with a smile. She nodded and returned the smile,
"Yeah, it's pretty wicked. So we'll watch it tonight?" He nodded,
"Yeah." She leaned over towards him on the bed and kissed him softly. He hesitated and she immediately pulled back searching his eyes for some sort of explanation.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered. He leaned towards her and placed a soft kiss on her cheek – it was soft and somewhat affectionate but very quick. As soon as his lips touched her they were already retreating. She forced a smile even though everything inside of her hurt – she felt like he was disgusted to even touch her with the way he was acting.
--------
"Alright, let's go," Faith called over to Xander in the kitchen.
"Wait, where are we going?"
"Everyone wants sandwiches from the deli – I offered to go get them…"
"Yeah," he answered almost blankly.
"Figured you might want to come with me…" she clarified, quickly becoming uncomfortable with the situation since everyone was standing around them in the kitchen. "You're tired… that's fine, I'll be back in a few minutes," she covered. Xander was almost relieved that she covered for him until he met eyes with Giles and saw that the cover hadn't worked on everyone and Giles was furious. Faith had already grabbed the keys and started walking towards the door to the kitchen when he finally added,
"I'll go grab my coat."
"Okay," she answered, "I'll wait for you in the car." The tone of her voice was gut-wrenching. It left Giles speechless but not quite glare-less. He had sensed the change in Xander's attitude and he understood the psychology behind it. It was a complete insecurity issue and unfortunately Faith was the one who suffered from it. He still knew how good they were for each other but if this sort of thing kept occurring he was beginning to get doubts.
------
"So are those two last sandwiches to stay or to go?" The woman behind the deli counter asked kindly. She loved seeing these two kids together – it reminded her of when she was young. Her husband was working behind the counter with her, it was a family business they had taken on from his father. Looking at the young woman amazed her – she was so beautiful and strong looking but very down to earth and the young man had presence and an unusual sense of confidence. She liked them as soon as they walked through the door, but she had also sensed the tension between the two of them. She happened to be looking out the deli's window when they had gotten out of their truck. The girl got out of the passenger side before the boy was out and she waited happily for him on the sidewalk but when he got out of the car he didn't even glance up at her really, he just started walking and she followed. The two had great chemistry together – she had seen them together for about a five minutes and she could tell, but she could also tell they were going through a rough him. In response to her question the two of them answered simultaneously,
"To stay."
"To go," Xander stated. He turned to Faith wondering why she wanted to stay, "why would we stay?"
"I don't know, I just figured we could sit down together for a few minutes… the rest of the sandwiches are all cold, so it wouldn't ruin them."
"That's just more work for this lady," he defended.
"Oh no," the woman answered, "It's no trouble at all. Why don't you two go sit right on down and I'll bring them out to you once Toni has them together. Please, please sit down," she encouraged. She was a nice Italian woman who seemed to have a good feel for people. She sympathized with Faith – noticing clearly that all she was trying to do was to slow down all of the bustling activity life throws at a person and spend some down time with someone she loved.
"Thank you," Xander answered politely before leading the way to a table. They grabbed two soda's out of the fridge before sitting at a table closest to where they ordered the food.
"Is everything okay?" Faith asked as she sat across from him.
"Yeah, everything's fine, why?"
"You just seem off…"
"I'm fine."
"Are you lying?" she asked jokingly.
"You calling me a liar?" he asked not taking it nearly as jokingly as she had intended it to be.
"No, relax… I'm just saying you seem like everything isn't fine."
"It's fine, okay?"
"Okay," she answered. With that Toni came up to the table and placed down two sandwiches: A Chicken Cutlet Parm for Faith and a Cheese-Steak for Xander. They thanked him and his wife came out a few moments later with the bag full of sandwiches to go back to the house. She was also thanked and for several minutes that was the last heard of their voices.
Two men walked into the deli, obviously regulars as they referred to the man and his wife by their first name and were referred back to by there's. They ordered their 'regulars' and while they waited for them to be ready they talked. Since there was no conversation going on at their table, Xander was completely focused on what they were talking about as a reason not to talk and Faith just in turn ended up eavesdropping as well.
'So you finally decided to tie the fucking knot, huh buddy?'
'Yeah, I know… I figured I love her so why not, right? If you really love a girl you should marry her – show her how much she means to you…'
'You got it, I always say, there's only two reasons a guy doesn't marry a chick he's banging – he either doesn't love her as much as he tells her he does or he's already got a wife and he's just got her on the side.' Both of them laughed and got their sandwiches leaving the deli.
Xander had finished his sandwich and Faith was only half way through hers. She noticed how stiff Xander had become listening to the guys talk about marriage. It hit a nerve with her too but knowing it was such a soft subject for him she avoided even letting her facial expressions show she heard them. She was quickly becoming full from the sandwich and she began to just pick at the melted mozzarella cheese on the top when Xander jumped in,
"Don't eat that."
"What?" she asked with a smile figuring she had heard him wrong.
"You don't need to eat that," he repeated, becoming even ruder the second time instead of more polite.
"Okay…" she answered a little taken aback and suddenly feeling like maybe he really did think she was looking disgusting lately.
"So are you done?" he asked hurriedly. She figured what the two guys had said made him really uncomfortably so she agreed,
"Yeah, I guess I am." She was kind of pissed about what he had said and it came out in her tone even though she was trying to be understanding.
"Well if you're not we can stay, I was just asking."
"No, it's fine. I'm done. We can go."
"Fine," he answered now seeming angry that she was agreeing that they could go even though she wasn't done – even though he had pushed her to be done.
------
She walked into the bedroom after taking a shower. She had just trained with Kennedy for a few hours feeling like she had some pent up energy inside. Kennedy said it wasn't energy it was anger but either way, she spent an entire hour at the bag. It proved to be a little too long since after she was done and she unwrapped her hands they were both bruised and starting to swell. After her shower she was excited to watch the movie and have some alone time with Xander – she hoped he would stop acting the way he had been. It was tough for him – she understood that, but she couldn't help make it better if he just blocked her out. She wished she was as good as he was with her: when she was so closed to him he opened her up and made her trust him and allow herself to love him. She wished she could do the same for him but by his resistance and evasive behavior around her she figured she wasn't good at it at all.
He was sitting on the bed with the remote control flipping through the channels. The movie was on the small table next to where he was sitting. She had left it on the bed so it was obvious that he had to have moved it there when he sat down. She climbed into bed and asked,
"What do you want to watch?"
"I'll find something," he muttered. He was sitting there without a shirt on so she sat up and rubbed his back and shoulder as best she could with him sitting against the bed. She figured he would turn and she could rub them for him but she got absolutely no response from him. He continued to intently watch the television as he flipped through channels. After a minute or so of absolutely no reaction on his part she stopped and lay down as far to the other side of the bed as she could get. She faced away from him and without a word just tried to go to sleep as quickly as possible. She had her jaw clenched tightly trying to stop all of the thoughts flying around in her head pointing all of the obvious signs that she wanted so desperately to ignore and have disappear.
*******************************************
Xander sat there on the bed trying to figure out why he had done everything he had done. He wasn't doing it because he knew Angel would be back in trying to get his defense to bring back to Faith in some way – he was doing it because he felt like if he didn't justify himself soon, at least to himself, he was going to just die. Why was she so tolerant of him?
It did make sense though. For someone who seemed so quick to judge and to act, she knew when someone reached out for her. It had been something she hadn't trusted herself enough to deal with earlier in her life, Buffy for example, but once she was out of prison all she wanted was to be able to trust that feeling. She needed him and both of them knew it.
********************(flash back)***********************
Xander woke up from a deep sleep not quite sure why. Faith was still asleep next to him and the sky was still dark. But then he looked over at her again – it kind of scared him how sensitive he had become to her. For a guy who could probably sleep through an apocalypse if he wasn't an integral part of stopping them, the fact that Faith's breathing had changed while she was sleeping had taken him out of a dead sleep. He looked over at her, still somewhat groggy, and noticed she was breathing in a broken and hastened rhythm with the muscles in her face beginning to tense. A thin layer of sweat began to form around her face and Xander watched warily hating that she went through this so often.
Then, just what he had been prepared for, she opened her eyes in a panic and sat up quickly, gasping for air. Through each pant small muttered phrases or words could almost be deciphered as small, 'no's and 'stop' and 'it's not real' but she was close to hysterical.
"Faith?"
"Don't touch me," she spat, quickly scrambling out of the blankets to get off of the bed. Because of her state it took much more struggle to become untangled then if she had normally woken up. Xander noticed the look on her face and how the sweat was now beading up on her arms, back, and chest.
"Baby, hey, it's me… relax," he soothed carefully coming out from under the blankets on the other side of the bed watching her every move. Granted she was panicking because of how helpless she felt but he knew full well that if she so much as pushed him he'd be in the hospital for a few days.
"Where the fuck are my clothes? Where are my clothes?" she thought out loud in a panic, realizing she was only in her underwear and a bra. Xander was trying to keep himself from panicking – whenever she had woken up before all she needed was to know he was there but this time it was definitely different and he wasn't completely sure how to deal with it.
"Here," he answered picking up a stray tee-shirt on the floor almost in as much of a panic to find it as she was. She looked up at him now for really the first time since she woke up and he couldn't help but notice how gorgeous she looked. She was standing in front of the window with the moon shining softly behind her and lighting up random part of her face and body.
Xander slowly walked up to her with the shirt in hand.
"Baby, it's okay… it was just a dream." Seeing the expression on her face; one that was still extremely tense but it lost the sense of panic and fear it had before, he walked all the way up to her and touched her arm feeling the anxious sweat under his hand. "Look at me," he added softly, touching the edge of her jaw, "it's okay." She nodded softly then in an almost awkward, insecure way, she pulled herself close to him. They stood there for several minutes with her resting her face against his chest and him with his arms wrapped around her waiting for her to get hold of her breathing.
"What happened? What was the dream about?" He asked once she was calmer. She was still far from calm but by comparison she was much better. She shook her head,
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It'll make you feel better. What happened?" he pushed knowing there were certain things she had to be able to talk to him about otherwise they'd get nowhere.
"I… I just told him to stop and… and I said no but he didn't care, and…" Xander quickly caught on knowing what nightmare it was.
"Okay," he soothed, trying to keep the lump that was welling up in his throat from creeping high enough so that it could be heard in his tone. "Look at me," he said softly, "that's never going to happen to you again, you know that right?"
"Yeah," she agreed, "but I can't stop myself from remembering it."
"You seem to have a lot of those," he added in a tone that was a strange cross between sad and jovial. He wanted to add some levity and it was amusing that something so sad actually contained more levity than the current situation. She smiled knowing he was just trying to make her feel better any way he could. It amazed her how he could deal with her bazaar behaviors sometimes.
"I'm really sorry," she explained, "I really freaked out there… it's just… it hasn't happened in a while and… I hate feeling that helpless, and when I remember it, it just feels way too real. And I really freaked out…"
"It's okay," he soothed resting his forehead against hers, looking deeply into her rich eyes. He held her closely but didn't motion to kiss her knowing it was probably too intimate to follow directly after what her dream was about. That was definitely one of those quirky attributes he had learned to anticipate.
"Why don't you go back to bed?" she offered seeing him try and stealthily hide a yawn. "I'm just going to walk around for a little while or something…"
"No," he answered as though her suggestion was ridiculous.
Holding her loosely around her waist he walked over to the side of the bed that was against the wall and sat down. She followed him and he sat with his legs stretched out and leaned lazily against the wall. She sat on his lap with her legs draped over the side of his onto the bed and her head rested on his shoulder with her arm lazily holding his waist. He held her with one hand around her back and across her waist using the thumb on that hand to slowly caress her stomach and the other hand slowly stroked her arm.
Thinking they were going to just sit there quietly, which was completely fine by her since having him hold her like this was something she hadn't even dared to dream about ever experiencing, she was surprised to hear him start whispering softly. She didn't think this could feel any better than sitting here and having him softly stroke her, but he proved her wrong once again.
"I love you so much… I would never let anyone ever hurt you… I love you… you're so gorgeous and beautiful… I don't know how I ever lived without you… I love you so much… I wish I could hold you forever and…" The soft phrases continued for hours never losing their genuine romantic quality. Even after she managed to drift back into a light sleep, which she never thought would be possible for at least a few days after her dream, he continued softly repeating how he felt and how much he cared about her.
As soon as he had started him amorous chant she seemed to melt deeper into his arms basking in the warmth it made her feel. She had honestly never felt loved before and to know that he loved her that much and that what he was saying actually meant something was almost more than she could handle. Practically being able to see weight lifted off of her shoulders as he spoke to her brought a feeling inside of him that was hard to describe. He felt proud and powerful and needed – and the feelings that circulated inside of him that are beyond words made him sure of just how much he meant every word that left his lips that night.
He was so swept away by the tingling emotions inside of him, it felt like he blinked and the sun was filling the room. He watched her slowly open her eyes as the sun teased them softly. This is how he liked to see her wake up – smiling. She smiled up into his face and almost immediately lifted her lips to his and kissed him softly but for several long moments.
"I need you so much," she admitted lovingly. He kissed her forehead gently,
"I love you."
********************************************
--------------------------
"So I still don't understand why you didn't come say hello to me," Buffy pushed after nagging on the subject for the last twenty minutes.
"Buffy, what do you want me to tell you? I came because I needed to talk to Xander… I was a little preoccupied and…"
"Wait a minute," she said cutting him off sharply, "basically you're saying you came for Faith so you didn't even think of me."
"Buffy, you don't understand. I'm a little stressed about this whole thing and I'm sorry if I didn't think of you first, but-"
"So now I'm just some chick you had and forgot about-"
"Buffy, just stop it!" He yelled suddenly. "I'd like to think that the girl I fell so deeply in love with could have an ounce of compassion or at least understanding for someone who they are so close with like you are to Faith."
"Me and Faith – close? Are you on drugs?" she snapped with disgust.
"Sorry," he answered angrily, "didn't know you were into denying your past now," he mocked knowing the duality of the phrase would get to her.
"We're not close," she repeated rigidly.
"Fine. But you used to be."
"Until she went insane and took up the hobby of killing people! Not to mention the game she made up of mind-fucking Buffy!"
"Is that what really bothers you? The fact that maybe someone could beat you – and I'm not even talking about by strength. I'm talking about the fact that she could play with you and-"
"She manipulates everything around her and it drives me crazy that she can't be trusted and that I was stupid enough to try! But no, what really bothers me is definitely the list of dead people."
"I don't want to get into this right now. Frankly, it doesn't really matter how you feel right now, but I just thought you'd understand what she's going through right now."
"Why because you broke my heart?"
"Can you, for one second, realize this isn't about you?" Buffy stood there silently for several long moments staring at him in disbelief. "Buffy, whether you believe me or just think that I'm being played, I know how much she's hurting right now. I hate to bring it to your attention, but I know Faith a little better than you do, and it's not because I'm special or anything like that, it's because I wanted to." She tried to cut him off but he continued talking steadily, "and when she's begging for the pain to stop, not because she's scared, but just because it's been years since it started and she's just too tired and broken to keep on pushing through it, I need to know the whole story. I came to talk to Xander to find out what happened and why he did what he did because if I have to watch this break someone who I think is one of the strongest people I've ever met, I want to know why."
His voice held steady and when he brought his words to an end Buffy was left without anything to say. She glared at him angrily and the feeling of hurt and pain that she was always a victim to whenever Angel and Faith were involved pushed her to immediately exit the kitchen. Angel watched her walk out of the room without another word until he saw Kennedy walk down the hallway with a veneer proving she wasn't exactly happy about Faith's absence.
"Kennedy," he called walking into the hall. She stopped and turned to look at him,
"What are you doing here? Is Faith with you?" The second question was asked with much more hope and enthusiasm. Angel's blank expression sent her smile into immediate retreat and a cold, indifferent expression that could only be beat by the one in which it was taught by, took over her features.
"No, umm… I came to speak with Xander."
"I can lend you a knife if you want," she joked in a tone that should be mistaken as serious.
"You girls both have a thing for blades," he noted, "dangerous obsession. I came because… well, Faith, she's… I needed to talk to Xander."
"What do you expect him to say? 'Gee, I'm a wimp who couldn't handle having someone who loved me that much so I decided the best thing to do is crush the only thing she had to keep her going'?"
"I was hoping he could give me some sort of reason…"
"She's not doing well, is she?"
"She's a strong person, Kennedy."
"I know she is," she answered, "it's what amazed me about her. She's one of the strongest people I know, but when I saw what he did to her and how it reduced her to nothing – he left her there begging him not to leave her – and to see someone so strong be brought to that just goes to show how much she loved him. I saw it with my own eyes what it did to her and I know she's not handling it well."
"Honestly, it's a hard call. I'm not sure whether to think of her standing there with a smile saying everything's fine is handling it well or if it's really bad. And I don't know whether to say her feeling defeated and used is her handling it well either. I honestly don't know… the first way is what she started with – being in denial about the whole thing and pretending it would just go away. The second, I don't know, maybe it's healthier but it's really hard to see someone like her so broken by something, especially when it was something that I encouraged her to take the chance with."
"We all encouraged it… she was *so* happy with him. I mean, granted I haven't known her as long as you all did but I met her as soon as she came back to Sunnydale. Repentance whatever… she was a hardcore bitch. She was cool with all the SIT's and everything but you could tell – and I'm sorry if I start to sound all poetic-like – but there was this raging animal inside of her that you could see deep in her eyes that she had tied real short on a leash and every time a subject came up that hit a nerve you could see it in her eyes but she would just shorten the leash again and wouldn't let anything out."
"Like a wolf…" Angel muttered in agreement.
"Exactly! She wasn't doing anything wrong while she was there but you could tell there was just so much more to her than she was letting out. Even when you'd watch her fight there were so many times when you just wanted to scream, 'let it go,' but she always kept it down whether it meant this fight was going to be her last because of it or not. She wasn't going to even give that wolf a chance to get away, even if it was the difference between dying and living.
"But when her and Xander were together – I don't know – it wasn't like the wolf was gone, because, I might sound crazy but, that's part of her whether she wants it to be or not, but when they were together it seemed like the wolf that was constantly pulling against it's chains and growling and gnashing it's teeth desperately trying to just get hold of anything it could, you'd see the two of them together and it was like it was lying down at her feet like a submissive puppy. You could see how relieved she was that she didn't have to wrap the chain leash around her knuckles and constantly hold it back – she just got to watch it lie there happy and content. Wow, listen to me fucking talk like I'm making sense…"
"You make more sense than you think," Angel assured her. "When she first came into Sunnydale a bunch of years back, you could kind of think of it like she had that wolf following her around, checking her out. She'd ignore it like an annoying stray dog but when she'd get bored she mess with it a little bit – dodge corners and cut back to be behind it, make some noise and see if it'd flinch. As annoying as it might seem, she thought it was pretty cool. It looked big and powerful and mean but so tempting. As things started to get bad in Sunnydale she figured that wolf had been there before anyone so why not take the temptation – she figured she only needed a taste and then when she was done she'd just toss the dog out and be done with it.
"That wolf took her over like it was an entire pack – it reeled her in and wouldn't let her go. Before she realized it was a bad thing that wolf was sleeping at the end of her bed… it knew it had a home and it was there to stay. When she came to me in L.A. after she woke up from her coma and she wanted to fight me, threatening to kill me… it was like she was just standing with that wolf and all of a sudden it jumped up and started gnashing it's teeth in her face. It wasn't as cool when it was wanting to rip her apart. She thought the only way to get away from it was to make me kill her… I had to show her how to harness it and subdue it. She fought with it – she struggled with it – sometimes it won but often enough it was like she was standing there holding it just far enough away so it couldn't bite her.
"Like you said, when her and Xander were together it was subdued and domesticated. It liked where it was and it was willing to take food from someone's hand rather than hunt to live. I think that's part of why this whole thing is so hard for her – she came to me and that dog got kicked and what worries me is there's only so far you're going to be able to stretch your hand out before it snaps at it."
"Faith has a dog?" Andrew asked with both confusion and excitement as he walked into the hallway. Kennedy rolled her eyes in frustration,
"No!"
"O-k-a-y," he answered, "nearest exit away from the angry Slayer…" and he quickly did so.
"Wow, we definitely had a whole conversation about a wolf that doesn't even exist," Kennedy noted with a little disbelief.
"Sometimes thinking about people as complicated as Faith in terms of non-existent dog's kind of helps," Angel joked softly.
"I feel kind of bad… I don't really know why I feel this way, but… I mean, I understand why she left and everything but…"
"You're angry," Angel concluded for her.
"Kind of, yeah… it's stupid and selfish and-"
"It's okay. Hey, I'll let you in on a little tidbit," he added with a soft smile, "at the top of Faith's list for getting angry, not to mention the top of Buffy's is someone leaving her. It's both of their top fears and the reason the two of them don't get along, they're both still angry at the other because they feel like they got dumped. They feel like the other one left them… neither of them can handle that. It's okay if it makes you angry too… and hey, it's the same thing that this is all about – Xander left her… he couldn't have done anything worse to her. It's feels like an act of complete betrayal and indifference."
"Yeah," she answered pensively. "Is that really why the two of them are so vicious to each other?"
"Deep down inside, they both feel dumped by the other." The words he said seemed to almost echo through the hallway and it wasn't just Kennedy that they sunk into… Angel heard his own words of reason almost as though some else were saying them to him.
------------------
Buffy walked into a bedroom and closed the door behind her. She looked around and noticed it must been Robin's room, which was actually good because he was at the other house with Dawn and Willow getting some essentials together – she had been overly excited to move in and forgot some important things like towels… who thought about towels!?
She sat down on the bed unsure of what exactly she was mad about. If it was Angel that she was so furious with, then why couldn't she stop thinking about Faith? She hated her – the manipulation, the lies, the deceit… with her came nothing but pain.
When she met her it was an instant clash. But it wasn't a pure clash – it was part hate but part attraction. She wasn't one who had ever been attracted to a girl, but there was just something about Faith that seduced her. It was hard to explain, but it taught her something – seduction isn't always completely sexual. Everything about Faith seduced her – the way she talked, the way she walked, how she dressed, what she did, her personality, her past, her everything.
*She could remember feeling this feeling inside of her that she just didn't understand – it didn't feel sexual but it made her feel needy and maybe even overly confident. It was a strange combinations of confusing emotions that she didn't understand and didn't even believe were real until they pushed her to do things she never thought she'd ever do.
Her and Faith were in her bedroom back in Sunnydale after a night of heavy slaying. There had been major vamp activity and it was already past two a.m. before they had gotten back to her house. Joyce had stayed up waiting for Buffy and seeing she was with Faith invited them both in and offered Faith some hot chocolate. They both accepted and once Joyce was finished making it she went straight to bed exhausted. The two of them went up to Buffy's room ready to crash after a long night. Faith hopped onto the edge of the bed nonchalantly. Buffy walked over to her closet in the corner of her room,
'Hey, do you need anything to sleep in?'
'It's almost three, this ain't sleeping, it's crashing. Don't need to change to crash.' Buffy nodded and smiled in response,
'So three's the cut off?'
'Quantity isn't always quality, but I don't like to leave anybody out,' she joked.
'That's not what I meant,' Buffy answered with a giggle. 'You're sick.'
'Way I see it, you've gotta be a little sick if you're going to risk your life and go poke things that are trying to kill you with a stumpy stick.'
'Good point.'
'Love the pun, B.'
'No, I didn't mean-' she defended but both of them were laughing before she could.
'Whatever,' Faith teased with a grin. Buffy walked over from the corner of the room to the bed right in front of Faith. Faith was sitting with one leg bent, sitting on that foot and the other leg hung loosely off the edge of the bed. She was leaning back on her arms which were planted behind her back on the bed. Buffy walked up to her so that her knees were touching the bed. Faith looked up at her with a sort of confused but challenging look. She remained completely still not wanting to infer anything since she wasn't sure what Buffy was doing or what she wanted to do.
Before she could think of anything to do or say Buffy leaned down towards her putting one of her hands on the bed for balance and the other against Faith's face as she met her lips. She kissed her softly and smoothly surprised by how easily Faith was able to compensate for the inexperienced, jagged motion of her lips and make them glide and flow. Buffy followed the firm yet extremely sensitive lead that Faith gave even if Buffy was the one initiating the kiss and holding her. It was just as Buffy thought it might be except with more softness than she ever thought Faith could offer. Not that she thought about kissing her at all – or that much anyway… it was a weird reaction that she had towards Faith – she didn't understand it, and it didn't seem sexual, but it somehow led her to want to do what she was doing.
Even though moving in to kiss her had taken an extreme amount of courage she still found herself too intimidated to do anything but a soft closed mouth kiss. She didn't even know she wanted to kiss her but now that she was here she wanted it so badly. Faith went along with the kiss, well… there wasn't really any reason she saw not to. B was hot and it had been a really long time since anyone had kissed her so softly. Buffy slowly pulled away from the kiss and looked down at Faith who was still sitting on the bed, unchanged except that now she was holding her lower lip gently between her teeth as she looked up.
Without any known cause, other than presumably the same that caused the first kiss, Buffy lowered her lips back down to Faith's running her hand, that had been on her face, through her hair. Buffy kissed her more firmly than the first time and she couldn't believe the sensation that ran through her body when Faith pulled her lip between her teeth as she had previously been doing with her own. As she released her lip she kept her mouth slightly ajar and Buffy slid her tongue hesitantly in. She was praised for the move as Faith met her tongue with her own and smoothly massaged it. Feeling as though something had taken over her senses and her entire body, Buffy slid her hand from Faith's hair down the side of her face and continued down until she met her breast, which she held gently in her hand as she continued to kiss her better than she ever thought a kiss could feel.
She would've stayed there caressing her lips if she didn't need a breath of air – she lifted her head away slowly and all of a sudden she was bombarded with emotions like doubt, guilt, and regret. Faith looked up at her with a soft smile but there was a hint of indifference in her expression.
'I'm so sorry,' Buffy stammered as she backed away rigidly.
'B, relax,' she answered nonchalantly, running her hand through her hair to fix it.
'I didn't mean that… I didn't mean to do that…' she stammered. She was in such a state she did even notice Faith's jaw tighten. Might've been the softest kiss in a long time but it was just as meaningless. 'I shouldn't have… we shouldn't… I don't… I'm… I…'
'I'm that good, huh? Leave you speechless?' Faith kidded, covering up how angry she was getting.
'Faith!' Buffy scolded, almost in a panic. 'I don't know why I did that and-'
'B, it's okay… really.'
'I'm not gay – I've never…'
'Buffy,' Faith stated firmly as she stood up and walked over to her, 'you-' Buffy cut her off and began stammering again,
'I never… I don't know why I did that, and you let me. Why did you let me?' Faith rolled her eyes and picked her jacket up off of the bed and put it on. She let her continue trying to speak for several more moments than finally cut in,
'Buffy, it's chill. Just relax, alright? I'll leave, you can make up some excuse for yourself that you like, believe it, and just forget about all of it.'
'But… you-'
'Don't worry your little head about it – I'm five by five.' With that Faith let herself out of the room and out of the house. She had planned on staying the night and crashing, but she could tell Buffy would probably have a heart attack if she stayed five more minutes. The girl had issues – not that she could talk, but she did.
The next day Buffy met with the whole gang in the library – Faith was there and she immediately got nervous that it would be awkward. She thought it should be… after all, they had kissed. She both feared and looked forward to how it would pan out. No normal person would be able to just act like they had before and she found herself curious as to how Faith was going to act. She figured it would be best if she didn't predetermine how she was going to act – make it seem like she hadn't thought about this since the moment after it happened. But about five minutes into the untraditional meeting they were having she was infuriated by how unaffected Faith was acting. She thought it would be impossible for someone to act exactly the same and yet, there was Faith, sitting there as though they hadn't even gone over to her house after patrol last night. She swallowed down the anger figuring this was the best way – this was what she wanted – but there was some anger building up. She knew it was strange but she felt betrayed…*
"Buffy?" Angel asked walking into the room cautiously. She jumped with surprise as he walked into the room snapping her out of her daydream. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you…"
"No, it's alright… I just didn't hear you coming in. I guess I was just thinking…"
"About what?"
"I don't know," she lied.
"Okay," he answered making it clear that he knew she just wasn't telling him. "I'm sorry," he added oddly.
"For what?"
"As much as I know how hard it was for Faith to come back to Sunnydale, I have to give you credit too. It couldn't have been easy on you either."
"It wasn't." He nodded thoughtfully,
"It's kind of funny, you two are either side by side and inseparable or you can't be anywhere near each other."
"What's funny about that?" she asked rigidly, immediately jumping to the defense. He shrugged, knowing he came back to talk to her again to try and calm things down, not jump back into another argument.
"When she came to L.A. I got really worried… I thought something had happened between you two."
"So you immediately jumped to that conclusion?" she asked, her attitude still showing she wasn't giving him a free inch.
"She was really upset. I didn't think anyone else could get her that way," he explained truthfully. His words took a few moments for her to digest and once she did it was like a rock in her stomach. She nodded and couldn't help but agree,
"She was upset, wasn't she?"
"Very." He waited several moments before adding, "it wasn't that long ago since you were begging me to help her… not to mention asking if there was anything you could do to help…" His tone was non-confrontational or threatening, but she immediately reverted back to a defensive stance.
"She's hurt a lot of people since then… including me."
"She's also saved a lot of people too."
"That doesn't make it just balance out!"
"Why does it seem to balance out for everyone else?" he asked, his tone becoming slightly more aggravated.
"Like who?" she asked outright angrily.
"Willow, Anya, Spike, and me."
"Had that list right on the tip of your tongue, didn't you?"
"You treat all of us on such a different level then you do for Faith and I think I can safely say, most people on that list have done more damage than Faith."
"I don't want to get into this right now."
"Okay," he accepted so easily that it almost annoyed her more. "Well, I'm going to say goodbye now since I'm just going to go see Xander and be out of here."
"Fine," she answered shortly. He took a moment to maintain his composure figuring it was a good warm-up for Xander,
"Good bye, Buffy." Without another word he walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
-------------
Xander sat on her bed staring at the door both anticipating and dreading Angel's return. He had so many reasons for everything but just as many regrets. He couldn't even lie to himself – he missed her. Waking up in the morning to her curled up against him… nothing could beat that. Looking at her working during the day acting all tough, like she doesn't need anything in the world except when she'd look over at him and he could tell just from the way she looked at him that it was just a front and that she needed him more than her next breath. He was needed. Ask as many psychoanalysts as you might like – they'll all say it goes straight back to a persons childhood. That was a complete priority for him – being needed. And having Faith need him was triple points because she didn't need anybody and she wanted to need him.
Angel walked into the room quietly without a knock but wasn't at all surprised to see Xander sitting there waiting for him.
"So why did you do it?"
"Because I thought it was the right thing to do," he answered firmly.
"So right off the bat you thought it was the right thing to do," he stated suspiciously, "you thought about all of the reasons and the consequences – for everybody – and it was the right thing to do."
"I had doubts and questions and grapples and it seemed like the harder path to take and nine times out of ten the harder solution seems to be the right one.
"See, this is what I'm not understanding," Angel cut in losing his patience for what seemed like no reason. "And this is ignoring the fact that you basically left the fate of your lover up to an odds ratio you made up in your head! What happened that made everything need to change? I mean, come on Xander, did things just get too good and comfortable that you needed to mix it up a little bit?"
"I love Anya."
"Do you love Faith?"
"I don't know what that feeling was."
"You look at those pictures and you tell me you didn't love her!'
"I'm not sure and that doubt leads me to believe that I might not."
"You doubted your love for Anya," he stated firmly, "and so you left her. You left her at the alter! She's dead and you're still in love with her! If we're basing this all on your feeling of doubt – that feeling of doubt is what brought the first person you doubted forward to ruin what you had with the second and make you doubt that!"
"Faith was different!"
"Why?" Angel asked firmly. "Why was she different?" he asked after a few moments of silence.
"It's just different."
"It was better, wasn't it?"
"You have no right to make that judgment!"
"Obviously I do by how defensive you're getting. Being with Faith was better – but you couldn't let it be better because it wasn't the first love. But here's the mind fuck, Xander – Faith was the first. She was the very first and I'm not only talking about your first experience. She was the first person who offered to need you. Sure, Faith's the last person to blatantly say she needs you and I'm sure that first time with her, even then when she was the way she was, sure before and after she probably treated you like garbage. But I bet during you realized just how much she wanted to need you. And even now, I can just by the way you're looking at me, you know she needed you. You felt needed – that's why you went to her that night… that night that I had to save you. You went there because you thought she needed you – you felt like she needed you and you liked it. She made you feel needed! Faith was the first woman you fell in love with and even though you let yourself forget that – it was better with her."
"It was different," Xander stated rigidly.
"How was it different?" Angel challenged back almost in a roar. After not receiving an answer he added, "Being with Faith was better. You loved her more. The fact that you can't even admit that to me proves to me more than you'll ever know."
"I couldn't lie to her!" he screamed finally exploding in a surge of emotion. "How could I keep her thinking that she was the only person on my mind when Anya was all I could think about?"
"You lost someone you love, Xander, it's a hard thing to deal with," he stated not without recognizing the double meaning. "It baffles me that you're an amazing enough person to have helped Faith through as much as you clearly did but at the same time, you didn't have the strength to believe that she could help you through your trouble too."
"I felt like I was using her to just distract myself from what I was really feeling."
"Xander, I'll tell you something that you need to believe comes from deep inside my soul. When I saw you two together… when I look at you two in those pictures… Xander, Faith is not a stupid girl. If she were, she would not have lasted this long with all she's been through. Do you really think that she'd not only allow but fall in love with a guy who was using her? You're going through something that is so hard to deal with but you messed up not thinking that she could help you through it. If you let her in on the problems you're having and trying to deal with – that feeling you have of using her, it's only because you weren't open with how you were feeling."
"So I fucked up is what that all comes out to!" he snapped angrily.
"There's a lot of things in life that we have to go through that hurt. This wasn't one of those things that you had to deal with. You could just be happy with her… it's okay to be happy, as strange as that concept may seem to you."
Angel stopped taking a deep breath. He looked over at Xander and saw the constrained breath and the stressed expression he tried to hold to keep himself from falling apart.
"Xander," he began in a much softer tone, "I understand how much pain you're in over Anya, I really do. But… if I understand it as well as I claim to, what does that say for how well Faith would've understood it?"
Struggling to swallow, Xander didn't even attempt to respond. All he could see through his eye was an image of Faith huddled miserably on the floor drowning her misery with several of her favored vessels. Using Angel's comparison in his head – if he was standing her this upset and unnerved, how must she feel? Angel saw the pensive stare Xander held strictly fixed on the corner of the room and in a few silent steps he exited the bedroom.