Faith – Part Two

"So?" Sam said to Buffy the next day.

"So what?" Had she missed the rest of his sentence? It had been a long twenty four hours, what with Dean being healed by Roy the preacher, the hospital visit, Dean's suspicions.

"So what do you think? About this whole thing, I mean? About what Dean said?"

She looked troubled. "I guess...I guess I think he's right. This whole situation is dodgier than a demon in a sun dress."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, that faith healer guy heals Dean, and some place else another guy dies of a heart attack – his exact same illness. That's way too much of a coincidence, right?"

Sam chewed on his lip uneasily. "Let's just see what they have to say at his place of death."

"But that's another thing," she commented. "This heart attack dies victim dies at his local pool, which according to his family, he visits all the time. That would indicate that he's relatively healthy."

He didn't want to admit it, but Sam knew that Buffy had a point. "I guess. Maybe. Did you speak to Dean or Faith about any of this?"

"God, no. Dean's feeling way too bad about this as it is. And Faith seemed so happy when she bumped into Noah at the hospital and he asked her out for coffee that I didn't want to put a downer on her."

"Yeah, you're right. Come on, we'd better hurry before the pool closes."

Dean left Roy the reverend's house after their meeting, his head swimming with a boatload of new information. Roy had had cancer, and yet had somehow miraculously been brought back from the brink of death. And now Roy was performing all these other 'miracles' himself. Dean would bet his Impala that there was really something darker going on here.

He was surprised out of his thoughts when he almost bumped into Faith on the steps outside of Roy's home. She stood with Noah, a little smile on her face as he chatted animatedly to her.

"Hey there," he greeted when they spotted him. "What are you guys doing here?"

"My mom's meeting me here any minute so Faith said she'd walk me over," Noah explained.

Dean nodded distractedly, his thoughts already heading back towards Roy.

Seconds later, Noah's mother arrived with the young girl she had been with yesterday. She greeted Dean and Faith politely and introduced the girl as Noah's little sister. "Come on, bumpkin," she said to Noah, causing him to blush in embarrassment. "Let's go and talk to Roy."

Noah nodded and touched Faith's hand – an intimate gesture that made Dean smile because of how obviously happy it made Faith. "I'll see you later?

"Maybe you will," she replied mysteriously. "Maybe you won't."

"I totally will." His gin was cheeky as he turned to follow his mother up the porch steps.

Before Faith had a chance to leave, Roy's wife was out of the house and denying Noah and his mother entry.

"But he was allowed in to see Roy," Noah's mother said accusingly, pointing down towards Dean. "What makeshim so special? Why is it that he gets preferential treatment over Noah?"

"Mom, please..."

"Now now, Mrs Pritchard," Roy's wife interrupted calmly. "You know as well as I that Roy favours nobody. He simply does as God desires-"

"Well, why doesn't God desire to spare my son? Why does he pass over someone so good and kind, time and time again?"

Rooted to the spot, Faith furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of Noah's mother's words, her heart beginning to beat uncomfortably as they sunk in. Why had it never occurred to her before to ask what exactly it was Noah was doing here?

"I'm sorry," the reverend's wife announced in a very final way. "All I can advise is that you keep on coming along to Roy's services, and to pray." And then she left them standing there to walk back up and in to her house.

After almost a minute of silence, Faith moved over to Noah, who was looking sad and let down, and touched his elbow lightly. "Noah, I don't understand. What's going on?"

He shrugged, looking at her shoulder instead of into her eyes. "It's nothing, really..."

"His heart is weak," his mother put in. "It's failing. The doctor says that in less than a year he'll be...he'll be-"

"Mom, please. It's okay. You don't have to-"

"How/, Noah? How is this okay? How is this fair? That my little boy gets passed right on by while strangers like this man here are healed." She looked Dean up and down in disgust. "What makes your heart any more deserving than his."

Dean opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for words. "I'm so sorry."

Noah shook his head and clapped him on his shoulder. "Don't be, man." He turned to a pale faced Faith, who was watching him with a horrified expression. "See you around."

He never asked her for her number.

As he watched them walk away, Dean ran a frustrated hand through is hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes. "This freakin' blows, man. It should have been him up on that stage with Roy last night, not me. His mom's right. He deserves it more than me."

Faith didn't even hear him speak, not over the sound of her heart breaking a little bit at a time with every step Noah took away from her.

Even once his figure had disappeared and she could no longer see him, she still didn't look away.

It was stupid. Stupider than stupid! It was...dumb! Just plain dumb. But even though she'd only known Noah a day she'd been all about ready to admit to herself that he'd been making her feel all...different. Within a minute of meeting him he'd made her feel pretty. Hell, she'd felt girly for the very first time since she'd worn that stupid dress for the mayor back in Sunnydale, instead of simply hot and slutty like every other guy she'd ever met had made her feel.

And then when she'd spent some more time with him today she'd thought that maybe – and God this was not her style – just maybe, given enough time, she could even fall for him. She'd gone and met the one guy that was the furthest possible from her usual type, and she really and truly believed that she could fall for him.

But the only thing Noah didn't have was time.

As if he could read her thoughts, she felt Dean place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Sam and Buffy had already returned to the motel by the time Dean had managed to bundle Faith in the car and bring her back. Once inside, she went straight into the bathroom and didn't return, and so Dean took the opportunity to fill Sam and Buffy in.

"What about you guys? Did you find anything out?" His heart sunk when neither of them could quite look him in the eye.

"Dean, I'm sorry," Sam answered.

"Why? What did you learn?"

His brother sighed. "Marshall Hall – the man who died of the heart attack – died at precisely four seventeen pm."

Dean blinked. "That's the exact time I was healed.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "So uh...Buffy and I did a bit of research and we managed to put together a list of all the people Roy healed this past year. We cross checked them with the local obits and" Sam was looking slightly horrified at this point. "every time he's healed someone, another person has died of the exact same thing that the person he healed was suffering from."

"So...he heals someone dying of a brain tumour, and at that exact same moment someone else dies of a brain tumour?"

"Exactly."

Dean nodded slowly, comprehension dawning on his face. "It's the reaper."

"What?"

"The reaper. Man, it all makes sense now! Roy is using the reaper to heal these people. Trading a life for a life. I should have guessed it when I saw the old man on stage."

Sam stood up and began to pace. "Yeah, you're right. That does make sense. Reaper's are the only things I know that can give and take life like that."

Dean's face dropped, and he turned to face his brother. "So Marshall Hall died just so I could live?"

"Don't do this to yourself, Dean," Sam argued, recognizing the haunted look in Dean's eyes. "It's more than likely that he would have died anyway. If Roy hadn't of picked you, he would have just picked someone else."

"We never should have come here. I knew this was bogus the moment I stepped foot in that damned field. We should have just left when I said."

"Dean, I really am sorry."

"Someone is dead because of me, Sam. Dead! Jesus, I...I have to get out of here." He yanked up the jacket he'd only just dropped minutes before and slammed out of the room.

Sam dropped his head into his hands and groaned. "Maybe I should go after him."

"It's okay, I'll go," Buffy said, rubbing his back comfortingly as she passed him on her way out of the room.

To Buffy's relief, Dean hadn't taken the Impala, and she could still see him as he stalked down the street. "Dean!"

Hearing her call, he slowed down so that she could catch up to him. "What?"

"I just wanted to see if you're okay." She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. "Which is totally stupid of me because I can see you're obviously not okay. But I just...wanted to be here for you."

"Well...thanks. But I'm fine. I just needed some space."

Her face dropped. "Oh. Right, sure. Sorry. I'll just head on back to the motel."

He quickly grasped her elbow to stop her as she turned to leave. "I didn't mean from you. I never need space from you. I always want you in my...space."

"Oh, good." Her face broke out into a luminous smile of relief.

Dean slid an arm around her waist to pull her firmly to him and they continued to walk.

"You know," Buffy began. "I think I get it now."

"Get what?"

"Well, I don't know if you know, but...I kinda died-"

"I know," Dean interrupted. He really didn't need the agony of hearing that story again.

"Yeah, I thought you might have. Anyway, when I died, I went to heaven. My friends thought I was in hell so they brought me back to life, and when they eventually found out the truth, they were sorry, but they weren't sorry I was alive, if that makes any sense at all. And I could never understand how they could be happy that I had to come back and live in a world full of suffering and demons instead of in heaven."

"And now you think differently?"

"And now I'm so sorry that that man is dead, but I'm so happy that you're alive. It's just such a grey area."

He nodded in understanding.

Buffy paused, halting them both from walking and turned to face him, reaching up to cradle his face in her hands. "But his death is not your fault, you have to see that. I hate to see you blaming yourself like this."

Not having any kind of answer that he knew would satisfy her, Dean instead leaned down and kissed her. He pulled away when a passing motorist whooped at them out of is window. "Come on," he commanded. "Let's get back and get this show on the road."

Faith exited the motel room and took a large gulp of air, relieved to finally be out of there.

She felt so conflicted – on one hand she was glad they had discovered the source of the deaths in the reaper so that they could stop Roy and finish up the case, and on the other she was kind of devastated because that meant that Noah would never get the chance to be healed.

He would die.

She looked down at the address written on the palm of her hand and began to walk, ending up standing in front of one of the nicer hotels in town. Before she could talk herself out of it, she entered and took the lift up to the third floor. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the first door on the left.

"Faith!" Noah seemed surprised to see her there when he answered. "Hi. Um...how did you know where I was staying? And in what room?"

She shrugged and kicked her boot against the carpeted floor. "I know a thing or two about hacking."

He smirked and held the door open wide for her to come in. "That's hot."

She stepped inside the room and stood in the centre, rubbing her hands against her leather pants awkwardly. "I don't know why I'm here. I guess I just-"

"Look, if you're here about the heart thing, there's really no-"

"-wanted to see you."

"Oh." He paused, watching her for a moment with shining eyes. And then he stepped forwards and kissed her.

Making love to Noah had been a completely new and amazing experience for Faith. For starters, it had been making love, instead of just pure hot sex. And it had been slow and soft and tender and passionate and afterwards, while he held her in his arms, she felt the embarrassing sting of tears in her eyes.

"What are you thinking?" he asked her, stroking her hair as she laid her head upon his bare chest.

She smiled sadly and placed a kiss on his belly button. "I'm thinking that I could really fall in love with you."

He wrapped his arms tighter around her. "I think I already did."

Buffy glanced up from the dagger she was sharpening as Faith re-entered the motel room an hour later, looking pink cheeked and gloriously happy. She lifted an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side as she studied her friend. "You look different."

Faith blushed, her eyes quickly darting around the room to make sure they were alone. "Dude...I think I just lost my virginity."

Buffy, Faith, Sam and Dean drove back to Roy's tent of healing later that night, a sense of foreboding in the air amongst them as they prepared to find some way to stop Roy before he could heal someone else – a two sided coin, because whether they let him continue his work or not, somebody was always going to die.

Once parked up, they climbed out of the car and stood in a huddle as they made their plans.

"I think the only way Roy could be controlling the reaper is by using some kind of a spell," Sam advised. "Which means he must have a spell book. I'll head on over to his house to look for it."

"Good idea," Dean agreed. "Faith, you go with him. Buffy can come with-"

"No," Faith protested. "I'll come with you. Buffy can go with Sam."

Dean eyed Faith carefully. "Okay. But you can't let him distract you. We have a job to do here."

"I won't, I promise." She didn't even have to ask who he was talking about.

Buffy and Sam waited impatiently until Roy and his wife left their home for the tent before sneaking in via the back door and Sam' very handy lock picking skills.

Sam – as observant as ever – quickly spotted the dustless book on the bookshelf, and he called out triumphantly to Buffy when he discovered the small spell book hidden inside.

Pieces of the puzzle began to come together as they glanced through it.

"Call Dean," Buffy instructed. "Let him know that Roy chooses victims he believes are immoral, and make sure he stops him from healing anybody while we find the protester. We can't let him kill another innocent man."

"Was that Sam?" Faith asked Dean as he snapped his cell phone shut. She grimaced apologetically to the woman who turned around to glare at where they were standing at the back of the tent.

He nodded. "Yep. They know who the next victim is."

"Who?"

"The guy protesting outside."

"The one handing out leaflets?"

"Yuh huh. The only one out of these folks with their head screwed on tight."

"Right. So what do we do?"

"We need to find a way to stop Roy from healing anyone."

Faith shrugged an rolled back her shoulders. "No problem. We'll just cause a little havoc, probably get chased out of here by a bunch of people who wanna gut us. Same old, same old. So what-"

"Noah." The sound of the name coming from Roy punctured Faith right through her heart, and stopped her speaking mid-sentence. "Noah Pritchard. Come on up here my good man. It's your time, son."

The tent was filled with he sound of happy cheers and applause.

Frozen in her place, Faith could only watch as Noah broke out into a shocked, ecstatic grin, lighting up his whole face. He looked around the room disbelievingly before catching her eye. 'I love you,' he mouthed, before standing up.

Spotting this, Dean felt his heart die a little for Faith, who deserved this love so bad. "I'm sorry," he said. "But we can't let this happen.

"I know." Her voice shook a little.

Noah made sure to take the long way around the tent towards the stage so that he could pass by Faith, and she grabbed at his arm as he went by.

"Noah, you can't go up there," she whispered.

He laughed and shook his head, assuming that she was joking. "Babe, don't be crazy." He placed a quick kiss on her lips. "It worked for your friend, right?" He was gone before she had time to further protest.

"Damn. What are we gonna do now?" Dean hissed.

Feeling like she might actually shatter inside, Faith watched as Roy lowered his hands towards Noah.

Just one more minute. She could wait just one more minute and then Noah would be healed and he wouldn't die and they could be together.

Just one more minute and she would knowingly be responsible for the death of another man. And she'd been responsible for enough of them already.

Turning, she kicked hard at one of the poles holding up the tent, snapping it clean in half. Just as she'd hoped, the whole side of the tent began to fall, creating chaos within. People jumped up out of their chairs and hurried towards the exit, shrieking. Over their heads, she watched Roy stop what he was doing to be escorted outside.

And she watched as Noah's face went from hopeful, to anguished.

As Faith hurried out of the tent, Dean guessed that she must be off to find Noah, and so he let her go. The tent – only half collapsed – had stopped falling now, but it had done the trick and stopped the service.

"Did it work?" Dean asked Sam, once he had called him.

Out at the far end of the parking lot, Sam took a look at the protester, who seemed calmer and less afraid as Buffy checked him over. "Yeah, I think so. He's not dead, anyway. What happened?"

"Sam!"

He glanced up at the sound of Buffy's scared yell. The protester was on his knees, clutching at his heart and gasping.

"Dean, it didn't work!" he cried into the phone. "It didn't work! Roy must not be the one controlling the reaper! You have to do something!"

Dean span around desperately and ran a hand through his hair. "Do what? If it's not Roy then hell if I know-"

The preacher's wife was still in the tent. In the corner. Chanting.

"Well, lookey here..."

Faith cursed, frustration coursing through her when she was unable to find Noah anywhere amongst the crowd that had gathered outside the tent. "Oh man," she exclaimed with a sigh, spotting Dean being escorted out of the tent by a couple of pissed off looking policemen. She stepped over just in time to hear Roy's wife declare that she wouldn't be pressing charges against Dean, and to ominously announce that the Lord would deal with him instead. "What the hell happened after I left?" Faith demanded, once they were alone.

"I found out she's the one controlling the reaper," he hissed. "Not Roy."

"Damn! Now there's a twist in the tale! Did you manage to stop her? Is the protester okay? Tell me I didn't kick that pole down for nothing."

"I think so. I'll have to check with Sam to be sure. But..."

"But what?" she asked, wondering why he hadn't finished his sentence. With a churning stomach, she noticed him looking somewhere over her shoulder and turned slowly.

"Noah..."

"You knocked that pole down?" Noah demanded, looking betrayed. "You did that?"

"I'm sorry, Noah...I had to."

"I don't understand. That was probably the only chance I was ever gonna get to get better. I...I thought you loved me? Faith...I don't want to die."

She stepped towards him, her arms reaching out of their own accord. Her heart splintered when he took a step away from her. Dropping her arms, she shoved her hands into her back pockets. "Roy isn't a healer, Noah. I can't explain it to you, but he isn't what he says he is."

"But he healed your friend. He healed Dean. Why couldn't you let him heal me too?"

"You wouldn't want this. Not if you really knew."

He shook his head, his disappointment in her blaring out like a light. "Look, I have to go. My mom and my sister are waiting, and they're both real upset. I...Goodbye, Faith. I just...I hope everything goes well for you. I really do."

For the second time, Faith had to watch him walk away from her with a broken heart. Dean put his arm around her. "I'm real sorry."

"Don't be," she answered, leaning her head on his shoulder. "It had to be done. I wish...I wish...I just wish."

"I know."

"That's great," Dean said down the phone, after learning from Sam that the protester was safe. "At least one thing is good around here. We'll meet you back at the car, okay?...Yeah, bye."

He glanced around for Faith, who was still seated on the bench he had left her on a couple of minutes before, looking lost.

"And this time we'll do it privately, so there are no interruptions. Just us and family." Dean looked up at the sound of Roy the reverend's voice, spotting him not too far away talking to Noah's mother. "I give you my word, Mrs Pritchard, I will heal your son. Just like the Lord has demanded."

Dean groaned. It wasn't over. He should have know it wouldn't be that simple. He shot a quick peak at Faith to make sure she hadn't overheard, and then redialled Sam.

Buffy knocked on the motel bathroom door, unsurprised when it went ignored. Nervously, she turned the knob, relieved to find the door unlocked. "Faith," she called out, her voice gentle.

Her stomach tied itself up into knots when she spotted her best friend, sat fully clothed in the empty bathtub, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth. Startled, she looked up at the sound of Buffy's voice, and Buffy was distressed to see that her cheeks were stained with tear tracks.

She'd never seen her cry before, not in all the time she'd known her.

Swallowing tears of her own, she climbed in the bathtub behind Faith and wrapped her arms around her.

Faith sniffed and welcomed the comfort gladly. "I know it's dumb, but I thought that maybe God was giving Noah to me because he was finally forgiving me," she said hoarsely. "I should have known that it's never going to happen."

"I'm sorry," was all Buffy could think of to say. "I'm so, so sorry."

"So Roy probably has absolutely no idea what his wife is doing, does he?" Buffy asked Dean in a hushed voice an hour later, after she had finally gotten Faith tucked into one of the motel beds and asleep.

"Nope. The poor guy really does believe he's casting miracles."

"What are we gonna do now?"

"Well...we know how she's doing the mojo now we've got the spell-book you and Sam found. But she'll need to be using an alter for this kind of work, so Sam's gonna go find that while I destroy the cross I saw her wearing."

"I should stay here with Faith. She really doesn't need to have to stop this twice."

"That's a good idea."

"Good luck."

"Poor Roy," Buffy mused out loud the following morning. "He's so innocent in all of this, and now he's lost his wife, his ability to heal, his followers, his whole purpose in life.

"I know," Dean agreed. "I mean, nothing about this situation was right, but the guy deserves better. He's a good man."

Faith entered the room and the pair hushed up. "You all done packing?"

They nodded in reply and Dean handed her a cup of coffee. "Yeah, we're packed up and ready to go. Are you?"

"Yep. I just wanna get the hell outta this town as fast as we can."

There was a knock at the door, and Buffy rose to answer it, a secretive smile on her lips.

Faith's heart skipped an entire beat when Noah entered the room, standing awkwardly in the centre, just like she had done in his.

"Uh...hey," he said.

"Hi," she replied quietly. "How did you know where I was staying?"

"I might know a little something about hacking, too."

"Really?"

"Nah. But, uh...Buffy called me. She said you guys were leaving town today and I...I guess I just wanted to stop by and say goodbye."

Grabbing a hold of the back of their shirts, Buffy began to drag Sam and Dean out of the room. "We're just going to go and grab some food for the road."

"Yeah, because we like the...um...food," Sam added pathetically, earning a snort from Dean before the three disappeared.

"Smooth," Noah commented, moving over to sit on one of the beds.

"They do try."

He shrugged. "I like them."

"Yeah, me too. Listen, Noah, it's not that I'm not happy to see you or anything, because...well you have no idea. But what are you doing here? I thought you'd be glad I'm leaving."

He sighed and looked down at his shoes. "I went back so see Roy last night. He was going to heal me."

"Oh..." Surprised at the revelation, Faith sat down next to him. "And?"

"Nothing." He shook his head in disbelief. "He managed to heal all those other people and with me there was just nothing. It didn't work."

She reached out to touch his hand, but her cowardice won out and she withdrew at the last second. "I'm so sorry, Noah. I know how much you really believed in him."

"No. I mean, yes, I did believe in him. But no, don't be sorry for me. It made me see things clearly. Finally."

"Like what?"

"Like how death is really nothing to be afraid of."

She blinked in surprise. "Really?"

Scooting a little closer to her, he nodded. "Yeah. I realized that even though I'm still young, I've lived a totally great life. I got to travel a while, see some amazing things. I have an awesomely supportive family...I finally fell in love for the first time."

A lonely tear escaped from the corner of Faith's eye, and Noah leaned forward to kiss it away.

"I'd better go," he told her. "We're leaving tomorrow and I've got a bunch of packing to do." He stood up and made his way over towards the door.

"Wait," she called after him, standing up.

He turned around and looked at her questioningly.

"Noah, I...I...God, this is harder than it looks in the movies. Noah, I love you. In a way that I've never loved anyone before. Not in my whole life.

He sucked in a breath and strode forwards, taking her face between his hands and pressing a hard kiss on her lips. "Then I guess there really is such a thing as miracles."

Pressing her forehead against his, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly to stop the onslaught of tears that she knew was coming. "I'll pray for you," she promised. "Every day and every night I'll pray for you."

"Wherever you are, wherever you go, know that as long as I live I'll be doing the same for you. I'll pray for you, and I'll dream about you."

Faith didn't open her eyes when she felt him pull away. She didn't open them when she heard his footsteps on the wooden floor. And she didn't open them when she heard the click of the door as he walked out of the room, out of her life.

Forever.

Dean eyed Faith in the mirror of his car as he prepared to drive them away. She was curled up in the back seat, looking more miserable than he had ever seen her. "You know, we could always hang around another day if-"

"No," she interrupted. "Let's just leave here. I just want to leave."

He nodded, and as the car began to move out of town, they all knew that it would be a long time before any of them spoke.