Title: Unrecognized
Author: mispel
E-mail: mispel9yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Summary: What if Faith got to stay in Buffy's body. Season 4.
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing
Feedback: Any comments would be welcome
How come they didn't know? She jumped a mile when they touched her. She didn't know what they were talking about half the time. She wore the wrong lipstick. None of it mattered. She was golden.
If that's how it was, then great - she could relax, put her feet up, drop her act a little. Say the wrong things, and Willow still slipped her arm through hers and chattered at her like they were bestest friends. Xander still joked and sometimes looked at her with a special, lovesick gleam. Giles still lectured and fussed. Joyce acted glad to see her. Riley said he loved her.
Was it any big surprise she didn't need the mirror to remind her whose face she was wearing? She didn't jump at the sound of her own voice any more. She turned right away at the sound of her name. Buffy's name. That's what she meant. Buffy's name.
It was their fault if she was losing it. If they thought she was Buffy then who the hell else could she be. She had the seal of approval of her nearest and dearest, those who knew her best and remembered her birthday and knew her favorite color and which shoes gave her the blisters. They couldn't be wrong.
Maybe the spell was wearing off, and Faith was gone and she was herself, Buffy back in her own body. Or maybe it was just her imagination that she had been Faith once.
Sure, she still had all of Faith's memories. She liked to beat the vamps into a pulp before she staked them. And sometimes the things Faith would say came out of her mouth. Then she didn't recognize all those people in her family album. Or where she was standing when the pictures were taken. Where they used to live. What her father was like. Maybe it would take time for the spell to reverse itself all the way.
They didn't welcome her back. They never noticed that she was gone, replaced by someone like Faith. How could they betray her like that? They took Faith for her. They were supposed to know. But they never looking under the surface. Like she was a box they never thought to open.
But it was OK now, not five by five. Just OK. Things were fine. There were just a few debris, things Faith had left behind. Bad memories, ugly impulses, old fears and needs. But they were just stains left behind when Faith's dirty fingers touched her stuff. There was no Faith.
She was Buffy. So what if she couldn't remember things. No one else was Buffy.
Somewhere there was a dead body of a girl some watchers had dumped from a van. That sure as hell wasn't Buffy.
The end