Night Falls

Notes: I start school again tomorrow, so I may not be able to update as frequently, but I should be able to at least once a week.

Previously:

"What about the vineyard?" Spike asked.

"Sleep, coffee, then vineyard," Hailey muttered. Entering the house, they paused and surveyed the damage in the living room again.

Faith shook her head and muttered, "Buffy's gonna kill us."

Chapter Forty-Five:

Saturday morning passed into Saturday afternoon before Faith or Hailey stirred from their sleep. Hailey awoke suddenly, after rolling from the couch in the living room, where she had crashed the night before, to the debris-strewn floor. "Ow," she muttered, rubbing the side of her face and picking some splinters from her hair. Her head was pounding and the light pouring in from the windows seemed to pierce her eyes with deadly flames. Pulling herself to her feet, she stumbled into the kitchen, and plugged in the coffee machine. Several minutes later, as Hailey was watching the coffee drip agonizingly slowly into the pot, Faith walked into the kitchen yawning and stretching.

"Sleep well?" Faith joked.

"Not really," Hailey replied.

"We thought about moving you for a minute, but you just seemed so comfortable lying on those pieces of the coffee table that we left you there," Faith teased.

"Thanks," Hailey laughed. "How do you do it, anyway?" She asked.

"Do what?" Faith questioned.

"You drank as much as I did, but you're perfectly fine," Hailey said.

"I can handle my liquor," Faith replied, smiling cockily.

"Hey," Hailey shot back, "I can handle my liquor too."

"Really, Sheriff?" Faith said. "Because it seems to me that you're the one gazing at the coffee pot like it's your salvation."

"I just like coffee," Hailey grumbled.

"Well," Faith said, "once you've drunk enough to resemble something vaguely human, we'll go check out the vineyard. I'm eager to see if Caleb was hiding anything there."

"You really think he was?" Hailey questioned, pouring herself a cup of steaming, black liquid.

"I do," Faith nodded. "I don't know what is was, but there was something about that place."

"Other than it being creepy?" Hailey asked, taking a sip of her coffee. It burned going down her throat and it tasted like sludge, but already she could feel herself awakening.

"I get that you don't really want to go back there," Faith said sympathetically. "I can go alone if you want."

"No way in hell am I letting you go there alone," Hailey said emphatically.

"Are you sure?" Faith asked.

"It's just a place," Hailey said lowly.

"When are the others getting back?" The younger Slayer changed topics as she leaned against the counter with a bemused expression and watched Hailey down her coffee.

"Sometime this evening," Hailey replied. "Giles didn't want to keep them out there too long."

"Probably smart," Faith commented. "Seeing as to how the battle is here and all. When does the Coven get in?"

"Tomorrow morning," Hailey stated. "So sometime between now and then we have to convince Buffy, Giles, and Willow that turning all of the Potentials into Slayers is a good thing."

"Exploring the vineyard sounds like a piece of cake compared to that," Faith muttered. Hailey downed the rest of her coffee and placed the mug in the sink. "Ready?" Faith asked.

"No time like the present," Hailey commented. Faith nodded and walked out of the kitchen to load up on weapons in case they ran into trouble. Hailey hesitated a moment before following her. "It's just a place," she whispered to herself as she let her feet follow the other Slayer.

…………………………

Faith pushed open the front doors of the vineyard. Sunlight streamed in behind her, illuminating the dirty floor ahead of her. An overwhelming silence greeted her ears. "I don't think anyone is here," she whispered over to Hailey. Hailey nodded distractedly and walked ahead of the younger Slayer, gazing around distantly. She vaguely remembered Caleb dragging her through that room. She looked down at the floor, expecting to see a trail of blood leading to the stairs, but the floor was clean. "You okay?" Faith asked, glancing over at her friend concernedly.

"Yeah," Hailey replied honestly. "But I'm not going down there," she said, pointing to the stairs that led to the rooms in which Caleb had tortured her. She never wanted to see those rooms again.

"I don't think we have to," Faith responded. "There were only two rooms down there. Neither led anywhere else."

"So what are we looking for then?" Hailey asked.

"Other stair cases," Faith suggested. "Trap doors. Hidden passages. Anything that Caleb could have hidden something in."

"What about the wine barrels?" Hailey said, nodding to the barrel of wine stacked in the corner of the room.

"Good a place as any to start," Faith replied. Moving over to the barrels, she grabbed a metal bar lying on the floor, and swung it at the nearest barrel. A flood of wine gushed out at her feet. Once it was empty, she and Hailey peered inside of it.

"Nothing," Hailey muttered. Faith broke open the rest of the barrels. The bittersweet smell of vine filled Hailey's nostrils and the floor ran red from the juice of the crushed grapes. The barrels were all empty.

"That was useless," Faith said as she threw the metal bar back onto the floor. It clanged loudly.

"Waste of good wine too," Hailey added as an afterthought. "Spike would be so upset."

"What's that?" Faith asked suddenly, moving forward, and leaning over one of the barrels.

"What?" Hailey asked, moving closer.

"I think it's a door," Faith said. "Help me move this barrel." Together, the two Slayers moved the now empty wine barrel across the floor. A door stood before them, which had been hidden from view due to age and the obstruction of the barrels. But the wine barrels shifted in the course of Faith's beating them with the bar, thus allowing the Slayers to see the door.

Faith cautiously walked towards it with Hailey trailing behind her. Pushing it open she saw a staircase laid bare before her. "Can you see anything?" Hailey asked.

"Stairs," Faith replied breathlessly.

"Beyond that?"

"Nothing," she said. Faith stepped forward into the black and disappeared from view. Sighing heavily, Hailey steeled her resolve and walked forward into the dark. Though her Slayer senses allowed her to see well enough at night, she could see nothing in the pitch black of the staircase. She heard Faith moving ahead of her. Groping the walls, she carefully picked her way down the stairs, afraid that the old wood would collapse under her weight at any moment. Finally, she saw a dim light forming ahead of her and the outline of Faith's body became apparent.

"We're near the bottom," Faith said softly.

"What's that light?" Hailey asked.

"Torches," Faith replied. Faith's feet hit the cold stone of the floor below. A passageway opened before them, lined with steadily burning torches.

"Someone must have been down here recently to light them," Hailey noted.

"Let's hope that whoever it was isn't still here," Faith said. They crept down the passage, listening intently for any sound that would betray another person in the tunnel with them. However, they heard nothing. Hailey felt nothing out of the ordinary, until she saw another door ahead of them at the end of the tunnel. A humming noise seemed to build in her mind. Her fingers tingled.

"Do you feel that?" She asked.

"Yeah," Faith replied. "I don't understand…"

"It doesn't feel evil," Hailey finished. They reached the door and Faith threw it open hastily. The room that they entered was empty, save for torches lining the walls and an altar resting in the center. Upon the altar, a weapon laid.

"What is that?" Faith asked as she and Hailey walked up to it. They stopped several feet from the altar and stared at the weapon in awe. The buzzing in their minds seemed to be coming from it. It felt powerful. Though it was lying in the den of the enemy, Faith was sure that the weapon was meant for them.

"I don't know," Hailey replied. "But it belongs to us."

Faith reached forward and pulled the weapon from its resting place. It was cold to the touch and surprisingly light. She gripped the handle firmly with her hand and gazed at it in admiration. "It's a beautiful weapon," she said. The wooden handle was long and pointed at the end to form a stake. Above the leather grip, cold, hard steel ran to form a blade that curved out in the middle. The blade looked sharper than any blade Faith had before handled.

"I think this is going to redeem us a bit with the others," Hailey smiled.

"Oh yeah," Faith agreed. "Buffy is going to love this thing."

"If she can ever pry it out of your hands," Hailey teased.

"Why did Caleb have this?" Faith wondered aloud. "Was he planning to use it? If so, why didn't he? He had plenty of opportunities."

"I don't think this was meant for him to use," Hailey said, reaching out, and touching the blade. It was freezing to the touch and she shivered.

"Let's get out of here," Faith suggested. "Something tells me that when the First realizes that this thing has been left unguarded, it's going to send its boys to retrieve it."

"Where did all of the Bringers go, anyway?" Hailey questioned.

"Maybe they freaked when they found out that Caleb was dead," Faith suggested.

"Or maybe something else is going on," Hailey replied. They quickly fled from the vineyard, careful to hide their new weapon from sight. It seemed to warm instantly upon seeing the sun. The metal of the blade glinted blindingly in their eyes. The humming had lessened in Hailey's mind, now that they possessed the weapon. But she still felt keenly aware of its presence.

"Giles and Wesley will know more about it," Faith said confidently. "It has to be mystical."

"I know," Hailey agreed. "I've never felt anything like it before. It's almost like the thing's alive."

Faith looked warily down at the weapon in her hand, upon hearing Hailey's words. "Well, let's hope not," she said, "that would be kinda creepy."

………………………………

When the rest of the Scooby Gang arrived back from the desert later that evening, they found Hailey, Spike, and Faith sitting in the remnants of the living room, staring at the weapon curiously. "What the hell happened to my living room?" Buffy blurted out upon seeing the ravaged state of the room.

"Do you want the long or short version of the story?" Faith asked.

"The short version," Buffy said, standing with her hands angrily on her hips. Xander glanced around the room and whistled. Willow, Giles, and Wesley lingered in the doorway of the living room while the others filed up the stairs either to sleep off their day of training in the desert or to start the line for the shower to wash off the sand.

"Caleb came, Hailey killed him, we buried him, went to the vineyard, and found this," Faith said, pointing to the weapon.

"Are you okay?" Willow asked, looking concernedly at Hailey. Hailey smiled crookedly back at her and nodded.

"You know," Giles said, breaking into the conversation, "I couldn't help but notice that my car wasn't in the driveway. Where is it?"

"That's a good question," Spike said jokingly.

"We're not really sure," Hailey elaborated.

"It may have been stolen," Faith finished.

"What do you mean?" Giles asked gravely, removing his glasses, and furiously wiping them with his shirt.

"Well, after we buried Caleb, we went to the pub," Spike said.

"We may or may not have locked the car," Faith added.

"After a couple of hours, we were all pretty drunk, and when we left to go home, we couldn't find the car anywhere," Hailey said apologetically. "But we'll find it."

"Yeah," Spike said. "I'll ask around. Someone's gotta know something about it. Although, you two should probably lay low for a couple of days."

"Why should you two lay low?" Willow asked suspiciously, glancing back and forth between Hailey and Faith.

"While we were walking home, some police officers saw us. They recognized me from the prison break," Faith explained. "We couldn't very well let them arrest us, so we knocked them out and ran."

"You've got to be kidding me," Buffy said in disbelief, shaking her head.

"But," Hailey interrupted. "Look at the shiny, new weapon. Isn't it cool?"

"What is it?" Willow asked, gazing at it warily.

"It's a scythe," Wesley said. "I'll have to do some more in depth research to find out more about this particular one."

"Get on that," Buffy instructed. "You said you found it at the vineyard?"

"Yeah," Faith confirmed.

"I want to know more about it before we use it, if it's been in the hands of the enemy," Buffy said. Wesley nodded and moved into the room, removing the scythe. Hailey and Faith both almost jumped up to stop him, but restrained themselves. Giles followed the younger Watcher out of the room, grumbling about his missing sports car.

"I can't believe all of the trouble you three got into," Buffy admonished. "We were only gone for one day."

"It wasn't all our fault," Faith said defensively. "There were extenuating circumstances."

"So, how was the desert anyway?" Hailey said, changing the topic.

"Hot," Willow said dryly.

"I think we made some progress with the girls," Buffy added optimistically.

"That's good," Faith replied, rising to her feet. "I wanted to talk to you about the girls…in private," she said to Buffy. Hailey watched the other two Slayers leave. Faith shot her a look as she walked out of the room and Hailey knew that Faith meant to talk to Buffy about the spell to transform the Potentials into Slayers.

"We need to talk as well," Hailey said, more gravely than she intended.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked anxiously. She had been worried about Hailey the entire time that she was in the desert. She did not know if leaving her lover so soon after their reconciliation was such a good idea. She feared that Hailey would develop second thoughts in her absence.

Hailey smiled and walked over to Willow, gently pressing a kiss onto her lips. "I've missed doing that," she whispered, closing her eyes, and resting her forehead on Willow's.

"That's what you wanted to talk to me about?" Willow teased, sensing that their conversation was not going to be about their relationship.

"Not exactly," Hailey laughed. She opened her eyes and gazed into Willow's intently. She knew that Willow trusted her explicitly. She also knew that Willow would not react well to her asking the witch to perform such a powerful spell. "Let's go upstairs, okay?" She said softly. "I need to ask you to do something for me and you're not going to like it."