Night Falls

Notes: I'm not sure why everything in the last chapter was underlined, but I fixed it. Sorry if that was annoying, I know it annoyed the hell out of me.

Previously:

"Are you really?" Kennedy asked, stepping closer until she was practically invading Willow's personal space. The witch did not move.

"Yes," Willow said softly.

"I don't believe you," Kennedy replied, looking Willow deeply in the eyes before she leaned forward and kissed her.

Chapter Thirty-Two:

The snow was falling in white, puffy flakes. Faith watched them fall like confetti from heaven as she sat on a wooden crate in an alley in the outskirts of Boston, where the bums lived and the factories billowed smoke twenty-four hours a day. There was always a rotten, stale smell in the air that Faith could not quite identify, but it made her feel nauseous. One of the bums had lit a fire in a trashcan near her and she could feel its warmth floating in the air. She shivered and ducked her head, letting her hair fall like a shield in front of her face. She had stolen a jacket from a department store to hide the blood that was covering her shirt. She could still feel it on her hands, slick and wet. But it wasn't her blood; it was Kate's.

"Kakistos," she whispered. The name left a bitter, acidic taste in her mouth. The cloven footed vampire had killed her Watcher, the only person she had truly loved in any real sense. She liked to think that she had loved her mother because she imagined that a person who could not love her own mother must have been a very terrible person, but she could not lie to herself. She had hated the woman who brought her into the world almost as much as she had hated God for creating her in the first place.

Not all of the blood on her hands was Kate's, however; some of it belonged to the beast himself. Bits of flesh, runny puss from his popped eye, and his dark, sticky blood covered her right hand. Faith could feel something rising up in her throat and found herself silently gagging. Her stomach wanted to rebel against her body, expunge all of the images running through her mind in a violent heave. But she would not let Kakistos win. Swallowing the vomit down, she grimaced and set her jaw. Kate had talked about another Slayer living in California, a blonde girl who had been called before her but somehow had not died, even though Faith had been called in her place. She did not know anything else about that girl, but a name – Buffy Summers.

"Summer," Faith muttered to herself. The girl's name conjured thoughts of oppressive summer days when the air was so thick walking outside was like swimming in pollution. Still, she loved summer. When it was summertime, the city was hers, day and night. She never went home. Faith had never been to California, but she thought that it would be nice, almost like a golden land of beauty and sunshine. She would go to California and find the other Slayer. Maybe once she got there, she could finally stop running.

………………………………….

Faith watched Buffy sleep in a serene stillness that belied the violence of which she was capable. Her eyes fluttered underneath her eyelids as images danced before them in an endless series of dreams. Faith wondered of what she was dreaming. Maybe it was she, but then, maybe it was another nightmare produced by the Powers that Be to warn them of the coming danger. But Faith hoped that Buffy was dreaming of something good – something that would make her smile in the morning and wish that she could have stayed in the dream for another hour.

Faith was propping herself up on her elbow, running her other hand up and down Buffy's arm, letting her fingers memorize the skin beneath them. She had never known perfection, but Faith imagined that if anything could be perfect, it would be Buffy. She knew that the golden haired Slayer was flawed; everyone had flaws. Everyone committed sins and wrought some form of evil onto the world. But Faith knew that only good lived in Buffy's heart, unlike her own. When Faith reminisced about her previous times in Sunnydale, she could scarcely believe the life she was living. Buffy had fallen in love with her somehow and everyday Faith was afraid that she would wake up to find out that it had all been a dream.

Still, even if it was a dream, at least it was a good one. The moon was shining in through the window in pale slivers of light. Faith remembered looking up at that moon in Boston the day she left for California. The moon had been full and round then, like the chubby face of an angel. Buffy stirred in her sleep, rolling over to face Faith, who could feel the older girl's breath tickling the skin of her neck. She smiled and settled down on the pillow next her. The world was going to end and they would probably die trying to stop it; but for the night, Faith was going to pretend that she was in a dream world where nothing bad ever happened and she and Buffy were free.

…………………………..

Hailey stood at the kitchen sink with her palms resting on the counter, staring intently out of the window. Kennedy and Willow were kissing outside in the moonlight. She thought that she would be angry about seeing her girlfriend kissing another woman, but she felt oddly devoid of emotion. She watched as one would watch a tragedy unfolding on a stage – a spectator. At any moment, she expected Willow and Kennedy to turn and face the audience, bowing at the wild applause that they would receive. But maybe if the play continued, Willow would push Kennedy away and defend her relationship with Hailey. However, the longer Hailey stood watching, the more she realized that Willow was not pushing the other girl away; in fact, she was responding to her.

Then the anger came. Hailey felt it start to boil in the pit of her stomach. Her muscles clenched and she wanted to lash out at anything and everything. She wanted to break the world. A bitter taste filled her mouth and she realized that she had bit through the inside of her lip. Blood spilled into her mouth and nearly choked her. Backing away from the window, she walked out of the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked as Hailey pushed open the door and stopped in front of her with a fiery look in her eyes. Dawn squinted at her and said, "Are you bleeding."

"Yeah," Hailey replied, her eyes focusing as if she had been shaken out of a daze.

"Well, what happened?" Dawn prodded, sensing that something was terribly wrong with the older girl. Hailey smiled, blood evident on her lips.

"Nothing," she replied slowly. "I'm going out for a while. Don't wait up."

"What should I tell Willow when she asks where you are?" Dawn shouted after Hailey as she mechanically walked down the hall and to the front door. She paused with her hand on the doorknob and glanced back at Dawn.

"I don't think she's going to ask," Hailey replied and opened the door, disappearing into the night.

Dawn watched her go with concern. Turning away, she entered the kitchen and grabbed a glass out of one of the cabinets. Moving over to the sink, she filled the glass with water. She raised it to her lips and let the water fill her mouth. Glancing out of the window, she suddenly coughed, water spurting out of her mouth like a geyser. "Oh, shit," she muttered when she saw Kennedy and Willow.

…………………………

"Stop," Willow managed to say, breaking away from Kennedy.

"Do you really want me to?" Kennedy asked, her voice low and her face flushed with desire.

"Yes," Willow said forcefully. "I'm with Hailey."

"Right now, you're with me," Kennedy said. "It's not like you weren't into that."

"I can't do this," Willow whispered. "I love her."

"You could love me," Kennedy whispered back. "Just give me a chance."

"No," Willow said, taking two steps backwards towards the house. "I can't be with you the way you want."

"Then just be with me," Kennedy said, taking a step forward.

"I'm sorry," Willow replied as she turned and walked back into the house, leaving Kennedy standing outside.

"What the hell were you doing?" Dawn demanded. Willow jumped, surprised to see the younger girl standing beside the sink.

"Kennedy kissed me," Willow admitted.

"Really?" Dawn replied sarcastically. "It looked to me like you were enjoying it."

"I pushed her away," Willow defended.

"How long did it take you to do that?" Dawn questioned angrily.

"She caught me by surprise," Willow said heatedly. "I didn't know what was happening. I don't understand why you're getting so angry."

"Because I'm not the only one who saw you," Dawn said gravely.

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, her face turning paler than usual.

"Hailey saw you. She walked out. I don't know where she went, but it's not safe for any of us out there right now," Dawn replied.

"Shit," Willow hissed, rubbing her forehead with her hand to ward away the headache she knew would start pounding through her brain.

"What should we do?" Dawn asked.

"I'll get Buffy. We need to find her," Willow said.

"I don't think she's going to want to be found!" Dawn called after Willow as she ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

………………………………..

The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon as Hailey sat down on a park bench, leaned forward, and rubbed her temples. A plastic bag crinkled between her fingers as she did and Hailey could feel the powder in it grating against her skin. She felt empty. She had spent the night drinking in a dive off of Main Street, a bar where no one she knew in Sunnydale ever went. No one had come looking for her there. She had bought the drugs without thinking, almost as if the exchange was second nature to her. But once she had the package in her hand, she realized what she had done. Now she sat on the bench debating whether to snort it or throw it down a sewer.

She knew that once she started again, she would be unable to stop. But she also knew that the pain that was crashing into her over and over again would never cease unless she made it stop. She should never have fallen in love again. Everything had been fine before she came to Sunnydale. She was happy, or, at least, she was not miserable. But then Willow had walked into her life and she wanted nothing more than to be with the red haired witch. That had been a mistake. Opening her heart up to another person again had been a mistake. "And now I'm about to make another," she whispered to herself as she propped her elbows up on her knees and stared at the bag.

She had made up her mind what to do when her Slayer senses, to which she was still getting accustomed, began to scream in her mind. Something was coming – something bad. She stood, letting the bag slip from her fingers, and prepared to fight when a loud pop resounded through the air. For a moment, she could not hear anything. Then a deep pain, far more real than the pain she had been feeling, rammed through her shoulder. She stumbled forward and reached up, touching the blistered, broken skin where a bullet had shot through her body. Blood collected on her shirt and began to drip down onto her fingers.

"Look what I've found," a familiar voice said from behind her. Hailey slowly turned, falling backwards onto the grass, and saw Caleb walking up to her with a gun in his hand. "Don't you worry now, little girl, that wound isn't fatal," he said. "But I did smother that bullet with poison, so you're going to feel a little disoriented for a while, until I've got you chained up where I want you."

"What…," Hailey muttered, her tongue becoming thick and heavy, and her vision blurring over.

"Don't try to talk, honey, you're just going to make it worse," Caleb said, kneeling down in front of her. "You and me, I think we're going to have lots of fun."