Animatus

Notes: Thanks for the reviews, keep them coming!

Previously:

She was a Slayer; it was her duty to protect innocents. Yet, she always seemed to fail in that respect. Tears stung at her eyes as she thought of Anya, and all of the other people in her life that she had failed. Instead of blinking them away, Faith let them fall silently down her cheeks, until she was sobbing into her hands. She knew that she had to be strong, if not for herself, for Liz and the other people that she was starting to consider her friends in such a trying time. But, for the moment, she allowed herself to be weak.

Chapter Fourteen: Culmination:

The rain was pouring down in steady sheets, soaking Faith's clothes through to her skin. Wrapping her arms tightly around her body, she shivered absently as she trudged home from school. Usually, she and Christy would walk to and from school together, but that afternoon, her girlfriend had to stay behind for detention, though the circumstances surrounding her punishment were mostly Faith's fault. Some boys had been taunting Faith at lunch. Unable to hold her temper in check any longer, she punched one of them in the face. Christy had walked into the cafeteria just in time to see it happen. Rushing over to Faith's side, she knocked the boy down as he was trying to stand again.

Unfortunately, the principal walked into the cafeteria at that moment as well and saw Christy pushing a student with a broken nose. Assuming that she had caused the fight, he punished her instead of Faith. The dark haired girl had tried to speak up for her girlfriend's defense, but Christy had silenced her, knowing that Faith could not have afforded another detention. She was skating on thin ice as it was, having caused more fights than she could remember. The boys did not care which girl was punished, so long as someone paid for their friend's injury and Christy was awarded detentions for the week as a result. Faith kicked a soda can down the sidewalk, sighing deeply. She knew that Christy was worried about her temper. She knew that it was not right to lash out at people with little to no provocation, but she could not seem to stop herself from resorting to violence to solve her problems.

Her apartment building finally came into view. Pulling open the front door, she slipped inside of the building, happy to be free from the rain. December had just begun, marking the halfway point of her and Christy's first year of high school. However, December also brought in the cold and Faith was starting to feel it. Her mother's apartment was on the third floor and Faith tiredly began the walk up the flight of stairs, ignoring the flickering light bulb illuminating the stairwell, which cast uneasy shadows on the ground. The stairwell smelled of urine and another substance that Faith could not identify. Blocking out the smells, she focused on placing one foot in front of the other. She always hated this part of her walk home.

When she had left school, she knew that she still had several blocks to walk until she would reach her building. During that time, she could pretend that she was walking to anywhere else in the city. Even when she finally reached the building, she still believed that she had the option to pass it by and continue on her way to somewhere else. However, once she had stepped onto the first stair, she had to accept the fact that she was trapped in a life that she mostly despised. She hoped that her mother was not home. The apartment was not as bad when she was alone in it. She finally reached the third floor and opened the door leading to the hallway. Another flickering light bulb greeted her. Sighing, she stood in the doorway. She could see her door just down the hall.

She forcibly had to propel her feet forward. Reaching her door, she shoved her key in the lock and turned it. The door slipped open and she walked into the dingy, tiny apartment. The television was turned on, but the screen was blue. Glancing down at the stained sofa, she noticed that her mother's latest boyfriend was sitting on it, clad in boxers and a ripped, white t-shirt. He was staring into space, but when he heard the door close behind Faith, he turned to look back at her. "Hey, kiddo," he said distantly.

"Dave," Faith nodded. He was not as bad as the other men that her mother had brought home. He was a junkie too, but he left Faith alone, for which she was grateful.

"Your mother's in the bathroom," Dave replied.

"Good for her," Faith muttered, moving over to her bedroom, which was little bigger than a walk-in closet, but it had a window and a window meant freedom. Throwing her book bag onto her mattress, which rested unceremoniously on the floor, she walked over to the window and leaned her forehead against the glass.

"We got some good stuff," Dave's voice called to her from the living room. "If you want some."

"No, thanks," Faith called back disgustedly. The rain streaked down her window like mascara lined tear stains. "How long has she been in there?" Faith asked after several, long minutes had passed and her mother had yet to emerge from the bathroom.

"I don't know," Dave said, shrugging. Faith walked back out into the living room, eyeing the bathroom door suspiciously.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Faith questioned.

"I lost track of time," Dave replied defensively. "I was watching TV."

Faith glanced back and forth between the disheveled man sitting in front of her and the blue screen television. "What were you watching, Dave?" She asked amusedly.

"I don't remember," he snapped back. "It was something interesting though."

"Right," Faith shook her head as she walked over to the closed bathroom door. Knocking on it firmly, she waited. "Mom?" She asked. "What're you doing in there?" Silence greeted her. "Are you sure that she's in there?" Faith asked. "She didn't go out while you were watching TV?"

"I don't think so," Dave said, looking back at her.

"Hey," Faith called, knocking on the door again. "I'm going to open the door, okay?" She asked, waiting several moments before reaching down and gripping the doorknob tightly. Turning it, she pushed the door open. "Shit," she muttered as the room became revealed to her. Her mother was lying unconscious on the floor with a needle resting on the tile next to her arm.

"Is she okay?" Dave asked.

"Mom?" Faith asked, moving forward. "How much of this shit did you give her?" Faith asked, kneeling down beside her mother. Reaching out to touch the older woman's arm, she pulled away the second her fingers touched her skin. "Fuck."

"What?" Dave asked, rising to his feet and walking over to the bathroom.

"She's cold," Faith murmured.

"What do you mean?" Dave questioned, pausing in the doorway.

"She's dead," Faith said. "She overdosed, you jackass. How much did you give her?"

"I didn't give her anything," Dave replied defensively, backing away from the bathroom. "She gave it to me. I don't know how much she took."

"We have to call the police," Faith muttered, rising to her feet.

"Oh, hell no," Dave shook his head. "We can't call the police."

"We have to," Faith said incredulously. "She's dead."

"If the police come here and find our stash, they're gonna arrest me. I can't afford that," Dave said, disappearing into the bedroom that he had shared with Faith's mother. He reemerged several minutes later clad in jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, and a jacket. He had a duffle bag thrown over his arm. Faith watched disbelievingly as he crossed the living room in four long strides and reached the front door.

"Where are you going?" She asked anxiously.

"I've gotta get out of here," Dave replied shakily. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to Faith, flashing her a guilty, lopsided smile. "I'm sorry, kiddo," he whispered. Pulling the door open, he disappeared into the hallway, leaving Faith standing alone in the apartment with the body of her dead mother.

………………………………

"So, what's the plan, sir?" One of the soldiers asked, looking to Riley uncertainly.

"Like I said before, we'll wait a couple of days, just to give our boys some more time to find us. Then we'll have to leave," Riley replied. "We can't wait here forever."

"Where are we going to go?" Another man asked.

"I'm not sure yet," Riley admitted. "What's the situation here?"

"Well, the phones are down," the third soldier began. "The power's out, obviously. We have enough food and water to last us awhile."

"Plus, with the guns and ammunition we took from the civilians," another continued, "we have enough weapons to withstand an attack."

"There are almost twenty people here though, sir," the first man to speak interrupted. "We can't just walk through the town; we're too big of a group."

"I agree," Riley nodded. "We'd be too big of a target. We're going to have to split up."

"What do you mean?" One of them asked.

"We'll have to do recon in the town. Try to find some school buses. Then we'll split the group up into two," Riley instructed. "Two soldiers to each bus and we'll try to rendezvous somewhere outside of town before picking an ultimate destination."

"Sir?" one of the soldiers asked anxiously. "What do you think it's like out there?"

Riley smiled grimly. "It doesn't matter," he replied. "We have to lead these people. They're looking up to us. Whatever has happened out in the world, we have to be strong."

"Of course, sir," he nodded.

"What about those two girls?" Another soldier asked. "The two civilians."

"Buffy and Faith?" Riley asked. The man nodded.

"I don't know what to do about them," he sighed. "They could cause trouble."

"We'll keep an eye on them, sir," one of the men suggested. "We've hidden the guns; they won't be able to find them."

Riley nodded, dismissing them with a flick of his wrist. The men wandered off, taking up their positions around the Bronze. "They don't need guns to be a problem," he muttered.

…………………..

Faith opened the door to the back room of the Bronze and walked into the main room of the dance club. She could see the sun beginning to sink back down towards the horizon and she wondered for how long she had been sitting by herself, crying in the dark. She looked up to the second level of the club and saw Giles and Joyce talking by the railing. The soldiers were wandering around, watching everyone suspiciously. Willow and Tara were sitting by the bar, talking lowly, and holding hands. Faith smiled slightly, watching the couple laugh intimately. She could tell that Tara was a good person. Even though Willow had not welcomed her with opened arms, Faith was happy that the red haired witch had found someone to love, though she wondered what had happened between her and Oz.

She spotted Liz grabbing a water bottle from the cooler by the stage. She started to walk forward, intending to spend some time with the younger girl, when someone grabbed her by the arm from behind, opened the door leading to the back room of the Bronze, and pushed her inside. "What the hell," Faith muttered when the door clicked closed behind her. The room was nearly pitch black inside, but Faith knew that her attacker had entered the room behind her. She could not see the person's face, but knew that he or she was standing directly in front of her.

"Don't say anything," Buffy warned.

"B?" Faith asked in confusion, instantly recognizing the energy pouring off of the blonde girl. "Why did you push me in here?"

"Would you just shut up for a minute, please?" Buffy demanded exasperatedly.

"Okay," Faith said resignedly, easing the tension out of her muscles when she realized that she was not, in fact, under attack.

"I have to talk to you," Buffy said.

"We can't talk out there?" Faith asked, motioning towards the door. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness again and, finally, she could see Buffy's face. Her emerald eyes were sparkling in the darkness.

"No," Buffy shook her head quickly. "It's not safe out there."

"What're you talking about?" Faith asked in confusion.

"Riley took all of the guns," Buffy said.

"What?" Faith demanded.

"He said that they weren't safe in civilian hands," Buffy muttered angrily.

"But we're not exactly civilians," Faith countered.

"I know!" Buffy exclaimed. "I tried to remind him of that, but he wouldn't hear it."

"Why are you telling me this?" Faith asked.

"I know that he means well, but I truly believe that he's going to get all of us killed," Buffy explained.

"And this relates to me how?" Faith inquired.

"We have to take the power back," Buffy said.

"We can't do that," Faith shook her head.

"Why not?" Buffy demanded.

"They have the guns, remember? We may be Slayers and we may be able to kick all of their asses, but it only takes one bullet to kill a Slayer," Faith explained impatiently.

"You're scared," Buffy stated.

"Of course I'm scared," Faith snapped. "They're desperate and they have guns. I've never been a very big fan of guns, particularly in the hands of twitchy, anxious soldiers."

"So what do you think that we should do?" Buffy asked resignedly.

"Wait," Faith said. "They're gonna screw up eventually. When they do, we'll have a far easier time convincing all of those people out there to follow us."

"What if their screwing up gets people killed?" Buffy asked.

"I hate to break it to you," Faith said sarcastically, "but we're not all gonna survive this. You know that. It's nice to think that we'll ride out of here to safety, that the world really isn't a broken and devastated place, but it's not true."

"I know," Buffy admitted, wrapping her arms around herself.

"You know," Faith said, "I was kinda in the middle of something when you pushed me in here."

"Really?" Buffy asked sarcastically. "It looked like you were just standing there to me."

"Did you want anything else?" Faith asked impatiently, pushing past the blonde Slayer.

"Yes!" Buffy answered before she could stop the word from escaping.

Faith sighed and turned back to face the older girl. "What?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Buffy said sheepishly.

"We're talking," Faith pointed out. "We've been talking. You haven't made your point yet?"

"God, you're so frustrating sometimes," Buffy muttered.

"I'm frustrating?" Faith asked incredulously. "What about you?"

"What about me?" Buffy demanded.

"Nothing," Faith said, shaking her head. "I don't want to get into a fight with you."

"Me neither," Buffy said softly.

"So what else did you want to talk to me about?" Faith asked.

Buffy stepped forward, her eyes gleaming in the dark with an emotion that Faith could not recognize. "I broke up with Riley," she stated.

Despite her internal rejoicing, as Faith had grown to dislike the soldier, she tried to sound as sympathetic as she could. "I'm sorry," she managed to choke out, hoping that she sounded convincing.

"I'm not so sure that I am," Buffy whispered. She continued to move forward until she was standing directly in front of Faith.

Faith could feel an energy pouring off of the blonde Slayer that was quite different from the usual awareness she had of the other girl's presence. "Are you okay?" She asked lowly.

"Five by five," Buffy replied with a lopsided smile.

Faith laughed. "You stole my line."

"Faith," Buffy said, her face turning seriously. "Could you close your eyes for a minute?"

"Why?" Faith asked in confusion.

"Please?" Buffy asked.

Faith rolled her eyes and sighed. "Okay," she agreed. "But you're acting a little weird, even for you," she said, closing her eyes. "This better not end with me having something dirty written on my face."

"I know that I'm acting weird," Buffy admitted. "But the only way I'm gonna have the courage to do this is if you can't see me."

"Do what?" Faith asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, which Buffy found to be completely adorable.

"This," the blonde Slayer said as she moved one step closer, placed her hands on Faith's shoulders, leaned forward on the tips of her toes, and pressed her lips into the younger girl's in a heavy kiss laced with years of desire.