Title: Consanguineus
Author: Batdz Angel (0/)
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of its characters. They are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. This is just a way to honor them.
Rated: PG-13 for some language.
Pairings: Mentions of Spike/Buffy, Faith/Buffy bond of some kind. Kind of an AU story...
Author's Note: Um...I was bored and I got to thinking? I'll go with that. First ever BtVS fic that I actually put up somewhere besides my LiveJournal...
She's holding a glass when she feels it. A punch to the gut, sharp and painful that makes the glass slip from suddenly numb fingers, and hug the floor. She feels her knees tremble and wants to laugh because when has she ever fucking trembled?
It's been six years since she's thought about the Hellmouth. Six years since she'd been given freedom and she'd walked away with a bag over one shoulder and twenty dollars in her pocket. A gift from a female guard who'd taken a shining to her in a motherly sort of way.
She slides to the floor, settling in the middle of the broken glass, staring at the wall. Her eyes are blank and she blinks as pain blooms in her breast, so much pain it makes her eyes water and mouth open in a gasp.
The front door opens. A voice calls, "Honey? I'm home!"
Footsteps and she doesn't see her fiancé pale and rush over to her or feel his hands grip her shoulders as he says her name with alarm. She doesn't feel him lift her up into his arms or carry her into the living room, settle her on the sofa. All she can see is a girl with golden-colored hair and gleaming hazel eyes that glitter like pieces of the glass embedded in her skin. All she can feel is a knife in her gut, twisting and a jarring pain as she lands in the bed of a truck, heading towards LA.
She blinks as she hears him moving in the kitchen and reality settles in. She looks around the living room, at the photos on the walls, the comfortable feel of the lines and colors.
She feels so cold.
"Honey?" her fiancé, Brian, stands in the living room entrance, his gray eyes full of concern. "Sweetie, you okay?"
"I need to make a phone call," she says. "Long distance."
"All right, sure," Brian reaches for the cordless phone. He hands it to her and she stares at it for a moment before dialing a number she hasn't needed in years.
A ring. Two. Then three.
Click.
"Hello?"
Cordelia.
She's crying.
Why is she crying?
"Is Angel there?"
"Um, he's indisposed at the moment. I can take a message..."
"I need to speak to Angel."
Calm. Cool. She won't break. She can't break.
A sigh. The sounds of the phone being passed. Then...
"Angel speaking."
For a moment, she feels young again, lost and confused and unsure of who she was. Wanting it to end in any way, shape, or form. For a moment, she remembers a rainy night in an alley and the fear and loathing inside of her.
"Angel?"
"Yes?"
"It's me, Angel."
Silence.
"Faith."
"Yeah," she says and the lump in her throat is too big but she swallows and says, "Angel?"
"Yes?"
"She's gone, isn't she?"
Silence again.
"Yes."
The tears fill her eyes but she doesn't let them fall. She tilts her chin up and asks, "How?"
"We just got the news a few minutes ago. Faith, where are you?"
"Someplace. It's not important."
"Do you...want to be invited?"
She says nothing for a moment and then says quietly, "Yeah. I do."
Angel tells her what he knows; that Willow called, saying that Buffy had been saving someone from a robbery of some kind and the person shot her point blank in the abdomen. Spike had been nearby and heard the shot, smelled Buffy's blood, and made his way towards her but he was too late...
She'd bled to death with Spike the last one to see her breathe.
Faith hears all this, files it away for later on when her brain can catch it and digest it properly...
A week later, she and Brian are on a flight to Los Angeles. She has explained what she can about her life before Brian, before her job as a teen guidance counselor...
She sees Angel at the airport and for a moment thinks that he hasn't changed but then remembers, he's a vampire, he won't ever change or die...
"Faith," Angel says, his brown eyes haunted.
"Angel," she replies as Brian comes up behind her. Introductions are given and soon she is sitting in a car with Brian by her side, holding her hand, giving her strength.
A day later, she is sitting in that same car after a night in an unfamiliar bed, the pain in her abdomen a throb. She sees the sign and her stomach hurts.
As she waits at the cemetery, she feels Brian look around uncomfortably and then she sees a shock of red hair.
Willow.
It isn't the Willow she remembers; no, this Willow is confident and power flickers from her in waves. Dressed in a black blouse and slacks, she stands with a woman who has ash-blonde hair and soft grey eyes and curves. The woman wears a black dress to her knees, hair pulled into a simple plait.
And beside her is Dawn.
Dawn, who doesn't really exist. Dawn, who Faith remembers teaching how to apply lipliner properly in the small amount of time before all of it went to hell. Dawn who has become a gorgeous girl with long legs and large hazel eyes like Buffy's.
Dawn, who is staring at her with surprise.
"Faith?" she says and Faith allows herself to nod. And her arms are full of a weeping, sobbing young woman and she has tears in her eyes as well as she sinks to the grass. She sees Brian look away and thanks him for it mentally because he has always said he loves her strength and now, she isn't going to be strong.
No, she isn't going to be strong.
She wipes her eyes, sees that Xander is standing there. He stares at her for a moment and she stares right back because she knows he hates her. She hates herself.
"Faith," he says like she's gum on his shoe. "You're here. Why?"
She doesn't answer merely looks past him to see a man. White-blonde hair, chiseled face, and wearing an expression of pain on his face so deep the ache in her stomach becomes a full-blown punch...
She walks past Dawn and Xander, away from Brian towards him and stops. He looks up at her and his eyes are a piercing sapphire that cuts into her so deep that she almost forgets how to breathe.
"What did she say?" she asks and he blinks those eyes slowly before swallowing.
"She said," he tries, coughs. "Said she was happy it was me. Said it would've been hard to keep it up, bein' alive for so long. Said..."
He is crying, soft ripples of water sliding down those cheekbones and Faith wonders if Buffy finally let herself love him as much as he loved her. If she pressed her cotton candy mouth to those cheekbones and let herself go...
She touches his face, lifts his chin, and says, "I'm glad it was you too. She...she said she loved you."
His eyes widen and she smiles through her own tears, adding, "Call it a Slayer thing. I just know Spike."
He looks away.
They don't speak for the rest of the funeral.
Buffy is lying in the casket, hands folded over her breast, wearing a simple blue dress that shows how beautiful she is. Faith stares at the body because it isn't Buffy. Buffy is alive with love and joy and hope and making snippy comments about the vampires and life in general. Buffy isn't in there anymore...
She goes up to the casket, presses a kiss to her brow and whispers, "Hey B."
She can hear her in her head, smiling and say, "Hey F."
"I'm sorry," she says as the tears slide down her face. "I'm so sorry Buffy. God, it should've been me. I ran away, something I'm good at, you know? I'm sorry Buffy..."
She cries harder then she's ever thought is possible and feels Dawn slip up beside her, pressing something into her hand. She looks at the girl and the girl says, "When you first came to town, Buffy had these made."
She looks down at the object. It's a slender silver-gold chain with a circle at the end. She lifts it up and see the one word scrawled on there.
Sisters.
And she looks down at her sister and says goodbye. Sees Spike touch her cheek gently and whisper, "Till the end of the world..." and walks away from the Hellmouth for a second time, chain around her neck, and Brian at her side.
And she never has Slayer powers again but she doesn't care. She has a child, a little girl named Elizabeth who has clear hazel eyes and smiles a lot and she looks up at the sky sometimes to say thank you because after all...
Her sister's guarding over her little girl now.
FIN