Disclaimer: Not mine. sigh
Author's Note: Many, many thanks to everyone who left a review. I'm so pleased, and grateful to you for taking the time to let me know what you thought.
A/N 2: When I began, I had only the idea of Buffy reacting to Angel's death in my head, but after I finished it, Xander walked in, and demanded he be heard as well. I hope to follow with Willow, and Giles, but my confidence is a little shaky after writing this chapter. Faith was extremely hard for me to write, and I'm not sure I got the characterization right, so we'll see.
Chapter Three: Faith
She leaves the alley, walking quickly, and with determination. She doesn't have a destination, only a desire to get away.
She understands B's grief, but is unnerved by it, too. Displays of emotion have always made her uncomfortable. She has never known how to react, and she despises that helplessness.
So she walks.
Life had always been unforgiving, and cruel, so she had treated it in kind. Not expecting much, and giving less—until he had come along. He had given so much of himself to save her—even crossing Buffy—and she understood how much it had cost him.
Glimpses of him rise up within her. The way his eyes reflected her own pain; how by simply taking her hand in his own he was able to quiet the storm within her; how he made her feel for the first time in her life as if she could finally rely on something. There was no question that he would stand by her side. He was Angel.
She had jumped at the chance to return the favor when Wesley had come for her last year. At last she could actually do something to prove she had changed, and to show Angel that she cared about someone—about him—and was willing to do whatever it took to save him.
There had been no time afterward. She had been pulled back to Sunnydale too quickly. She supposed it had been for the best—she was never one for speeches, or great declarations. That had always been B's forte.
She wishes now she had said something, anything to let him know what he had meant to her. To tell him that she did comprehend the enormity of the act of one person reaching out to save another.
She stops walking as regret threatens to overwhelm her. Tears fall unbidden down her cheeks. She reaches without thought to wipe them away, and then stops herself. To let her pride override her sorrow would feel like a betrayal of him.
Perhaps by allowing herself to mourn openly, she might express what she had never spoken aloud.
Her tears flow faster as she allows emotion to overtake her, and her control to crumble. She sits in grass laden with morning dew uncaring of the stares she is drawing from early-morning commuters.
She cries.
Her friend is gone.