Animatus

Notes: Thanks for the reviews. Keep them coming!

Previously:

"Everybody, listen up," Faith instructed. "We've found two armored vans. For the rest of today, we're going to load up all of our gear. We'll be leaving the Bronze tomorrow morning." She heard a collective sigh of relief and continued. "Everyone should to bring all of the food and supplies to the back, except what we'll need during the night."

Chapter Twenty-Four: Love and Darkness:

Though Faith had not wandered far from her Watcher's house, as she had promised, she still had found a plethora of vampires stalking the streets of Boston. The restlessness that constantly plagued her, the drive of the Slayer to be moving always and fighting always, was finally satiated and her contented muscles rested underneath her skin. Dawn was only a few hours away and the sky was starting to change. The darkness gave way to a murky blue. The moon was starting to sink, tracing its lazy way down towards the horizon. Though she had spent the night hunting vampires, she would need only a couple of hours of sleep before she would be ready to fight Kakistos when the sun had ridden higher in the sky.

The house that she shared with Kate loomed closer as she walked down the street. Though the light was shining outside of the front door to welcome her home, Faith slowed her pace until she had stopped and was standing in the middle of the road, gazing intently at the house. Something felt wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. Cautiously pulling her stake out of the waistband of her jeans, she strode forward. The gates leading to the house were closed and locked, which momentarily caused Faith to believe that everything inside of the house was secure, but as she peered through the metal bars of the gates, she could see that the front door of the house was slightly ajar.

Shoving her key into the lock, she twisted it, and opened the gates. Running up the sidewalk leading to the front door, she paused when she reached the stoop. Closing her eyes briefly, she inhaled deeply, and slowly exhaled, allowing the fear to drain from her mind. Then she pushed open the door. The house was dark inside, but she could smell blood. Glancing down, she noticed a puddle of red liquid staining the carpet in front of the door. Stepping into the foyer, she closed the door behind her, and flipped on the lights. "Kate?" She called.

An overwhelming silence greeted her as her words echoed through the house and died. "Kate, if you're in here, you gotta let me know," she tried again, panic gripping her heart. Swiftly moving through each room in the house, she eventually found herself standing in the foyer again, alone and terrified. Kneeling down, she lightly ran her fingers over the blood staining the carpet in front of the door. When she removed them, her fingertips were sticky and red. She knew that the blood was Kate's. Wiping her hand on her jeans, she stood with determination set on her face. She knew who had taken her Watcher. Kakistos had known that there was a Slayer in Boston. Faith was starting to realize that he knew much more than that.

As she stood, contemplating her next move, her fingers curled up until tight fists. Her knuckles whitened from the pressure of her fingers pressing down on her skin and, through the haze that had settled on her mind, she noticed that blood was seeping out of little cuts on her palms. When the sun rose, she would find Kakistos, and she would kill him. She wondered if Kate was still alive, but she imagined that the vampire would not allow the Watcher to be killed until Faith had arrived and had seen the damage that they had inflicted upon her. Moving over to the training room, she grabbed a duffel bag and began shoving weapons into it. Kate had not decided on a plan, but Faith had decided on hers. The sun was her greatest ally and she would use it to her advantage.

………………………………..

Faith stood alone by the two outfitted armored vans, inspecting the work that her small band of survivors had done during the day. James, the electrician, had mounted stage lights on the tops of the vans. Faith hoped that when they were forced to travel at night, the lights would prevent the zombies from coming too close to the vans. They had also cut two holes in the tops of the vehicles that were large enough for a person with a gun to fit through in case they needed to fight away the walking dead during their exodus from Sunnydale. Their food and supplies had been loaded into the backs of the vans. Everyone was ready to leave. The rest of the group was eating dinner on the second level of the Bronze, but Faith could feel nothing in the pit of her stomach but doubt and fear and she thought that her body would rebel against anything that she tried to put into it.

In moments like the one that she was experiencing, she desperately wished that her Watcher was still alive. Kate always had trusted in her and always had believed in her. Even though Faith had failed her in the end, she knew that Kate did not blame her. She had seen acceptance, love, and pride in her Watcher's eyes when Kakistos had killed her. That moment repeated itself on a perpetual loop through the dark haired Slayer's mind. Everything had fallen apart for her in a matter of seconds. The life that she had been building had been stripped away and replaced by cold nights on the road with a grumbling stomach and a dull ache in her heart that never vanished, even now. Though she had saved many people during her time as the Slayer, she only could remember the faces of the people whom she had failed – Christy, Kate, Anya, and Liz.

"You look deep in thought," Buffy stated, appearing through the doorway that led from the stage to the enclosed loading bay.

"Scary, huh?" Faith joked, smiling back at her girlfriend. But Buffy could see that her smile was tinged with sadness.

"You okay?" She asked concernedly, resting her hand reassuringly on Faith's shoulder.

"Five by five," Faith replied predictably.

"You ever gonna let me in?" Buffy asked. Where Faith had thought that her tone would be accusatory, it was only resigned.

Faith sighed and kicked at the ground, moving away from the blonde Slayer. "It's hard, you know?" She asked softly.

"I know," Buffy nodded. "But you don't have to hide from me."

"Do you really think that this is going to work?" Faith asked, looking over at her doubtfully.

"You don't think that it will?" Buffy returned.

"I don't know," Faith shrugged. "I've never been good at making plans."

"This is a good plan, Faith," Buffy replied confidently. "It's the same one I would have made."

"Why did they have to put me in charge, anyway?" Faith grumbled. "It should've been you."

"No," Buffy shook her head and closed the distance between them. "It's supposed to be you, Faith. This is your destiny. You have to accept it. The more you fight against it, the harder it will be."

"Sometimes I think that I'm still in the coma," Faith said, smiling slightly. "Like this is all some sick dream that my subconscious has created to let me off the hook for all of the horrible things that I've done. My own little redemption fantasy."

"I hate to break it to you," Buffy responded, "but this is all very real."

"I don't know," Faith argued lightly, "never in a million years did I think you would love me."

"Well, if your mind was going to create a nice, little fantasy world where we could be together, why did it have to include the zombies?" Buffy joked.

"That's a good point," Faith laughed. "You would think I would have left them out."

"I do love you, Faith," Buffy said seriously. "I think I always did, even if I didn't realize it."

Instead of replying, Faith pulled the blonde Slayer to her, letting her lips crash into the other girl's. They moaned in unison as their tongues met and dueled, fighting for dominance. Faith suddenly found herself moving backwards until her back met the wall. Before she knew what was happening, Buffy had lifted off her tank top, thrown it to the floor, and was trailing a path with her tongue up Faith's stomach and to her bra clad breasts. Faith closed her eyes, relishing the feel of Buffy's velvet tongue, and the sensations flowing through her body – the warmth spreading through her belly and down between her legs. Tangling her hand in Buffy's hair, she guided the blonde Slayer's lips back up to her own.

"You're still wearing way too many clothes," Buffy commented as she took Faith's lower lip with her teeth and gently sucked on it.

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Faith asked as Buffy lowered her lips to the younger girl's neck and began nibbling at the sensitive skin behind her ear.

"You don't want to?" Buffy asked, arching an eyebrow as she pulled away to look at Faith, knowing full well that Faith wanted to ravage her with every particle of her being.

"I ain't saying that," Faith quickly recovered.

"Then what are you saying?" Buffy asked.

"I just want to make sure you know what you're doing," Faith replied weakly.

Buffy smiled devilishly and lowered her lips to Faith's neck again, sucking on her pulse point. Faith moaned, feeling her knees weaken amidst a flood of warmth. "I know exactly what I'm doing," Buffy whispered into her ear. Nuzzling Faith's neck, she added, "I want to show you how much I love you."

For a moment, Faith thought that her heart actually had stopped beating in her chest as Buffy's words echoed in her ears. She had wanted the blonde Slayer from the first time that she had seen her. Something about Buffy had called to her, whispered to her in ways that she could not understand. Though her desire initially only had been sexual, the more time she had spent with the older girl, the more she had realized that her feelings had been growing much deeper. Even though she had betrayed Buffy, she had still loved her. When she had seen Buffy again for the first time after waking from her coma, all of those feelings had resurfaced, bubbling up inside of her like a volcano about to explode.

"Hey," Buffy said, her voice soft and concerned. "Are you okay?"

Faith shook her head slightly, willing herself to respond. Smiling down at the blonde Slayer, she nodded. "I love you, B," she whispered, the words easily falling from her lips. Buffy smiled, pressing her lips against Faith's as she allowed her hands to roam over the younger girl's warm, toned body, building anticipation inside of the former rogue Slayer as she lowered her hands to undo the zipper of her jeans. "More than you'll ever know."

………………………………

When Faith fell asleep that night, her unconscious mind was plagued by an utter darkness broken only by nightmares that weaved horrible images through her sleeping eyes. Again, she found herself lying on a road, looking up at the sky. Smoke billowed from places that she could not see and when she stood, she was staring at a chain link fence that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction. She felt more tired than she had ever felt, as if exhaustion had taken form and shape inside of her. Her limbs ached from fatigue, perhaps from running, for she could still feel little electric shocks running up and down her legs from the pounding of her feet against the concrete of the road. The smoke drifted into her eyes, stinging them, until she felt tears threatening to tumble down her cheeks.

She looked directly in front of her and saw Buffy standing on the other side of the fence. Her hands were clenching the metal. Her heart dropped when she saw blood streaming in rivers down from her fingertips to the road. A glistening, ghastly wound stretched across the older girl's arm. "You're hurt," Faith heard herself say, though the words seemed far away. A chaos of noise seemed to surround them. Buffy opened her mouth to speak, but Faith could not hear the words. A single tear traced its way down the blonde Slayer's cheek. She reached out for Faith. When Faith moved to take her hand, someone pulled her backwards.

"No," she heard firmly in her ear. "You can't." Then she was running. Her feet were pounding into the ground once more. They had escaped, but to what? Smoke surrounded her and her ears echoed from an explosion. But her memory was muddled and she did not know what had exploded, or what was happening around her. The road stretched out in front of her for miles, empty and desolate. She had entered a new world and had left everything that she had ever loved behind.

The images faded and darkness fell again in her mind. The darkness remained until an hour before dawn when a new image took shape. It built slowly before her eyes, a murky darkness that resembled the stillness of her mind, but the darkness was different. It was living and breathing. Another sense of fatigue clung to her muscles, not a physical exhaustion, but an emotional emptiness. Suddenly she was aware that she was falling. However, she was not falling rapidly; instead, she was falling a very controlled fall. She could feel something slipping through her fingertips, something rough that seemed to burn her skin. The darkness gave way to a dim light and she realized that she was surrounded by metal walls.

She wanted to cry out and call for help, but when she opened her mouth to speak, no words emerged. An oppressive heat clung to her skin, covering her with a layer of sweat. But she found that she did not care about the physical discomfort. Nothing seemed to penetrate her. She was lost and alone. She was aware that there were other people below her, falling at the same measured rate, but their presence brought her no relief. She was completely numb, except for a small spark that lingered in her heart, calling her to violence. Red passed before her eyes, the red of blood and anger, and she felt the inexorable urge to seek vengeance for a crime against her that she could not name or remember, if that crime had occurred at all. She wanted to rage. She wanted to rage against the Powers that Be, God, fate, or whatever controlled the universe and she realized that she was descending into hell to do it.

As the sun rose over the horizon, bringing forth a new day, Faith's eyes slowly opened to the world. She was staring up at the ceiling of the Bronze. Buffy was curled up next to her, her arm lying across her stomach, and her fingers grazing the scar that reminded them both of their anger. The sunlight was streaming in through the windows, a soft, golden glow that afforded Faith no warmth. She wanted to stretch, but she did not want to disturb the Slayer sleeping next to her. Smiling a little, she rested her chin on the top of Buffy's head. Her heart welled up with a love that she had not felt in years and she knew that she was exactly where she belonged – at Buffy's side. But the reality of their situation soon crashed into her, breaking the hold that happiness had claimed on her heart. Faith sighed, realizing that today they would leave Sunnydale and never return.