Take a Number
Part 2
A/N: Sorry for the wait…I was suspended because of a story I posted over two years ago. -sigh-
Disclaimer: Everything is owned by persons who are not me. Joss and Mutant Enemy, to give a few examples.
"You are?" Faith asked. She tried to inconspicuously search him for any weaponry he might have on him, something she had missed before. There was nothing. "What's the plan, chief?"
Giles held up an arm and pulled back his sleeve. Faith watched closely, expecting something amazing, magical, at the very least medieval. But no…he was checking his watch.
"Any minute now," he murmured, sliding his jacket sleeve back down to his wrist. Faith raised her eyebrows.
"Huh?"
"Hello Rupert." They both jumped and turned to see a slender woman with bright blue hair standing behind them, looking at them as though they only mildly interested her.
"Myrna, hello," Giles smiled, relieved. Faith stared at both of them for just a second before turning to Myrna.
"Who the hell are you and what is up with that crazy-ass hair color?"
"Faith!" Giles was scandalized, "please try to be polite. I spent a great deal of time tracking Myrna down."
"Oh please. With that hair, how hard can she be to," Faith turned back and discovered the woman had vanished, "find."
"It's all right, Rupert." Faith spun around. Myrna was now on the other side of the room, walking towards them. Faith looked to Giles, completely lost. She had seen plenty of strange things in her lifetime…it was part of the Slayer package. But she had never seen anything like this before.
"This is Mistress Myrna," Giles explained, "She's a portal specialist. She's agreed to create a portal that will take us outside." Myrna nodded and began to wander throughout the room.
"She can do that?" Faith asked, incredulous, "Just make a portal out of nothing?"
"Well, no. No one can do that. Myrna is extraordinarily gifted at finding 'hot spots'."
"Good nightclubs?"
"Dimensional hot spots," he clarified, "places mystical energy is very high. That's why we chose this room to meet in. Myrna was able to sense a hot spot here before I entered." That made a sliver of sense.
"Here we are!" Myrna called from near the door. Giles smiled broadly at Faith and led the way over.
"Thank you so much, Myrna," Giles said.
"Not a problem, Rupert. Now, please keep your hands and feet inside the portal, we wouldn't want them to end up in another dimension, now would we?" She laughed but Faith did not.
"Is there a chance that might happen? Cause I'm pretty attached to my appendages." Myrna did not reply. She simply disappeared and reappeared several feet away.
"Well, best be off," Giles said. With a small smile he stepped forward. He vanished as well…but he did not reappear.
"I'm suddenly not liking this plan," Faith began but Myrna appeared behind her and gave her a gentle push. It wasn't enough to knock the Slayer over, but she did lose her balance and stumble forward. And that was all she needed to do.
Myrna nodded at the empty room, then she too was gone.
Faith wandered along a stone pathway into the garden at the center of the coven's estate. Giles had told her Willow would be in the garden, then muttered something about talking to Althenea and left her standing alone on the driveway. But she was used to sudden departures.
Rounding a corner, she was able to see beyond a hedge that had been obscuring her vision. Willow was seated on an ornately carved bench, head to her chest and hands in her lap.
"Hey Red!" Willow didn't budge. Faith reached the bench and slid next to her, "Giles got me. He told me you had a wigfest back in SunnyD." She finally looked up. Her face was streaked with harsh red tearstains.
"If you call abusing the dark powers, extremely messily murdering a man, attempting to murder two other guys, threatening Dawn, beating on Buffy, wrecking the Magic Box, torturing Giles, blasting Xander and trying to destroy the world a 'wigfest', then yeah. It was definitely a festival of the wig."
"Calm down, girl. Abuse, murder, threats, destruction, torture…it's all part of the Faith experience. You trying to relive my greatest hits?" Willow snorted with laughter despite herself, but sobered up again in an instant.
"I've discovered an unhealthy fondness for hitting," she said mournfully. Faith shook her head. Here was one girl strongly resisting good cheer.
"What do you say we get out of here?" Faith suggested, "We'll get coffee and you can spill all your troubles."
"I don't know…" Willow frowned and looked down at her lap, "I should stay here and heal."
"You're never going to heal just sitting here moping…trust me," Faith held out her hand. Willow stared at it for a moment before small smile blossomed on her face. She clasped Faith's hand with her own and allowed the Slayer to pull her up off the bench.
Willow took a sip from her steaming cup and looked out over the small pond they had walked to. She had barely said a word the entire outing, besides to order her coffee.
"Faith?"
"What?" The other girl jogged over, almost spilling her own coffee.
"Why are you here?" Willow asked, not taking her eyes off the water.
"What?"
"When you went bad and started killing people-"
"Think you could be a little blunter?" Faith raised her eyebrows. Willow ignored her.
"When you went bad, none of us cared. We didn't help you. So why are you trying to help me?"
"Well…" Faith stretched and sighed, "I suppose because I always told myself I didn't want any help. That people didn't understand me. But now…I've seen the error of my ways," she smirked at the corniness of that statement but continued, "Sometimes you don't need help. Sometimes people don't understand you. But sometimes you just aren't letting them."
"Philosophical."
"Yeah, you have a lot of time to be philosophical in prison."
"When Giles brought me here, I thought I was going to be killed. Or at least locked up in a magical dungeon for all eternity. Instead, I'm being coddled. Why?"
"People care about you, Red. Now, why don't you tell Auntie Faith all about it?" Willow was silent for a few minutes, and Faith figured she had decided not to share. But she was wrong.
"Everything was right. It all should have been perfect," Willow said, sounding strangely detached, "Tara was always all I ever wanted. She made me feel like I was the greatest thing in the whole world. And then she was gone. In an instant everything was gone. All because of some stupid, egotistical little man. And he didn't even mean to shoot her. It was an accident. She was dead…and it meant nothing.
"So I decided to show him how it felt," she laughed dryly, her smile so filled with pain it was more of a grimace, "and I did. Goddess, did I show him. But it still meant nothing. So I decided to punish the other two. Maybe they didn't kill her, but they didn't stop him." She paused to take a long breath and Faith, for one of the few times she could remember, refrained from commenting. This was something Willow had to get out. Any interruption might make her box up again. And the suffering would continue.
"They all tried to stop me. Keep me from crossing line after line. But I wasn't going to let them get in my way. They had nothing to do with her death. They had cared about her, just like I did. But they hadn't saved her, had they? No one rescued Tara. Buffy didn't save her. Xander didn't save her. Anya didn't, Giles definitely didn't. But what hurt most of all? Do you know what, Faith?" Faith was pretty sure she did.
"You didn't save her," she whispered under her breath.
"I didn't," Willow shook her head, staring at the waves lapping at the edges of the pond, "Then I took the magick from Giles and I could hear it. The screaming. The screams of humanity's pain. I could hear every man, woman and child on this planet screeching in agony. It was deafening. Too much. Couldn't handle it. I would stop it. I would stop all the pain. And it would be so much better. It would all be so much better. We're a lot alike," she said suddenly. Faith was jolted out of her 'listening mode' very abruptly.
"What now? You and me?" She snorted, "Sorry girlfriend, but we couldn't be more different."
"I think I understand you, Faith."
"Get in line, Red, and take a number. More people than I can count think they can "understand" me. Never true."
"We want the exact same thing," Willow persisted.
"And what might that be?" Faith asked teasingly.
"We want to be loved. We want to belong. But somehow, things always seem to come out wrong for us." Faith was, for the first time in her entire life, completely and utterly speechless. She too turned to look out over the lake, turning Willow's words over and over in her head. Suddenly, Willow's head snapped to face her.
"Faith?"
"Yeah?" She turned back too and Willow blushed.
"I…well, I'm really glad you came." She reached out her hand and Faith happily took it and squeezed.
"Me too."
That's all for now! I didn't want to have a huge blocky speech, but it just kind of wrote itself that way. Please review, and don't be afraid to criticize, I always want to improve!