(September cont)
The Slayer with me. Hard to believe concept, ain't it? As hard to believe as being told that vampires are actually real perhaps. And yet there she is, on my bed doing what she's been doing for the best part of the night, sleeping. I'm not sure that it's as believable as vampires and other things that go bump in the night but it is the truth. The Slayer with me. She is in my room, beneath my covers, wearing my clothes, and she let me lead her there. The Slayer with me. She didn't want to be anywhere else when all the fighting was done. Between us and the bad guys, between me and Army Boy, between her and me. When that all ended she chose to be with me. So yeh maybe it's hard to believe, and don't think that I didn't have questions about it when things were quiet and we were finally on safer ground. But I have something I can cling on to now, should this turn into everything else in my life and burst into flames when the sun catches it full in the face now it's morning again.
The Slayer with me, that's what I have.
For however long it's gonna last I don't want to go into again. I just smile each time I look over to her in my bed. I remember what it was like feeling happy when I first picked up this book and started writing hours ago now. I remember what it was like, sitting and watching her for like an hour or more, just as she drifted off to an exhausted sleep that I'm surprised my body hasn't insisted I fall into as well. I've been too busy watching over her, protecting her. Making sure everything was going to be all right, like I promised her in the Magic Box when she wasn't even conscious. And now it's all drawing to a close. I actually see the end of this thing that's been between us for months now. Perhaps it has always been there between us, ever since I first turned up in Sunnyhell when she was still in high school and I was a badass chick always looking for a fight. This thing between me and B that took her fist in my face to bring it to the surface and tell me what I probably knew deep down about myself, and about the other slayer, all along. This thing that's been my hidden, painful secret all these months and no longer is. It can never go back to being that now. Being just mine to brood over, get angry about, be jealous because of it, and all the other stuff that's happened to me this year. It's no longer hidden. No longer just me and it against the world.
I let her in last night. I let her in on the secret. The secret I've held for only her to listen to all this time. And she had some secrets of her own, but more on that later.
We didn't make the fastest time back to the motel, but the walk back was thankfully un-interrupted. With the exit of Form Guy I'm guessing the Big Bads are laying low for a while, and well, that suited me and B late last night. Walking the few blocks away from the nice part of town to my place, the Slayer still in my arms 'cause I didn't want to let her go now I had her so close, and I think, or at least I'm gonna hope, that B didn't want it to change either. Once or twice she winced with pain, and I stopped us both for a moment so she could feel comfortable again. Slayer Healing ability was working its mojo though, and even if there is still some way to go for her to heal completely, as I think it will for my face to look pretty again, by the time we made it back here B was cringing less.
There was an awkward moment when I needed to get the keys to my room out of my jacket but I didn't want to let B go, on account she felt so good so close to me and also I didn't know how stable she was feeling herself, to be standing up on her own. I thought about just kicking the door in, 'cause hell, not like that has never happened in this shitty place before, but B made the decision for both of us when I came to a stop, and she ever so gently pulled her arms back from my neck. I figured she wanted letting down so I did just that. Settling my hands around her waist, guiding her to the ground, watching closely for signs of her fainting or something.
She looked exhausted, fuck we both were. But in B I could still see that thing that makes her stand out on a crowded dance floor. That thing that reaches all the way down to the end of a college corridor, when one of you is just hanging around, hoping to catch a glimpse. That thing that smiles at you in the Magic Box when everyone else is there vying for her attention too, and she makes you feel as though you are the most important thing in her world. Just by a look she has, a smile, a set way she has of talking to you, listening to you. Despite all the shit we've been through recently, and the long hard battle we'd fought that night, B still has the ability to make my heart beat a million times faster than it should, and for me to just get lost in being near her.
I'm staring at her, not moving my hands from her waist, or making any effort to actually get my door open, 'cause I still can't get over everything that has led the two of us slayers to this particular moment in time. To be standing so close outside my motel room having survived the fight of our lives not once that night, but twice. To finally not have anything we had to look over our shoulder for, or get in the way of the two of us again. To finally be alone together after so much has gone wrong for me and B, well it all just stopped me in my tracks and I couldn't move. The world was just made up of the two of us, and as many times as I've said that before it never felt as real or as true as it did standing outside my door in the very early hours of this morning. I just didn't know how to break free from that moment and I don't think I really wanted to.
But something broke me from the spell I always fall under in the Slayer's presence, and as usual what she broke it with just brought on a whole heap of other thoughts that could be as equally paralysing if I let them.
It was just her hand on my cheek brushing the skin gently where it was all scarred and bloody from my fight with Army Boy. Cupping my face with her unusually warm hand and rubbing her thumb gently back and forth. A caress the Slayer will never know how long I've dreamed of feeling from her.
"I'm sorry."
She whispers as she stops her hand, drawing it away from me, only to bring it to her waist and take hold of my left hand that's resting there. I let her hold my hand. My larger one in her small, the fingers entwining as if we've always been this close with one another.
"Me too."
I reply realising there were a lot of apologies to make between us. A lot of things that needed forgiving. She took the first step just then. Seeing how hurt I was, all in her name. Perhaps she felt a little guilty, or like she owed me something. I don't think it was really that though, not now I think about it with a more rational, awake mind, that I'm refusing to let go down the paranoid, pessimistic route it so loves to stalk usually. I think B was sorry for hurting me back at the docks that night, and in the Bronze when Army Boy came along and interrupted our dance. Maybe she was sorry for everything that has happened between us but knows there is no way to make up for it all. And like me when I have some making up to do she didn't know really how to start, but knew saying the words I choke on time and time again was a good a place as any.
She smiles a half grin at me, the pain of her fall still set behind her eyes a little, which snaps me back to action getting the door open. Not realising it until I'm actually walking into my room how our hands are still entwined, and the Slayer is simply following me inside, letting me lead her in.
Didn't think in a million years I'd ever see that happen you know? The Slayer letting me lead her into my pigsty of a room, who flipped the world upside down?
I can't help looking at our entwined fingers and I know I'm back to being staring, distant slayer again, bringing us to a stop just inside the room. It's like I'm looking at something that doesn't belong to me. A gift that I never thought I'd receive. My mind wants to argue that I don't deserve it and my heart wants to ignore all the questions I have, about how the Slayer and me got to this point, and just skip to the part where the story ends with 'and they lived happily ever after'.
Fuck it, I'm not one for fairytales, everyone knows that. My idea of a horror movie is sitting through Sleeping Frickin' Beauty, but for once, why can't I accept something as simple and as small a gesture as B's hand in mine, and not go down a path that is going to screw things up?
Well it ain't really me is it? To take the easy way out when there is a much harder way of doing things.
"Faith." I hear her voice, and it's like it's as distant and faint as back in the Magic Box when I was in the midst of some serious pain. "Faith, are you okay?"
It brings me back though, from where ever the place is my head goes when it gets overcrowded with the thoughts in there.
"What?" Gotta think. Think of something to say that's sounds better than…
"…What the fuck is happening?"
Shit did I just say that out loud?
B's hand twitches in mine and I know I've said something I shouldn't have. Something that I didn't actually want to say, 'cause really now she's here with me and everything is finally quiet, do I really need to be asking why? No, I don't. But something has cut off my brain from my mouth. And it's also making my eyes do the frowny thing, so the Slayer not only twitches her hand she yanks it away from me and draws back a little.
Shit I wish I could pull a Red and take that back so she never heard me in the first place. B looks lost again, lost and hurt. Her dirty blonde hair with patches of blood. Scars and scratches to her face. Bruises on her knuckles, and a rip in her jeans. And here's me, adding insult to crap loads of injury by wondering why the hell this is all happening? Why now? What has happened to change things? What makes this okay, her in my room, me leading her there?
What does she…
What does she…
…say it Faith, you know that's the real question you want answering. The one question you will never believe the answer to. No matter if she tells you a thousand times. No matter if she tells you just once.
What does she see in me?
How can she see anything in me that is worth her time? Her smile, her words, her affection.
Her love.
I want her to say it. I want her to tell me what it is she sees as she looks at me. And yet it's not a question I can ever ask her, and it certainly wasn't the question that came running out of my mouth a second time, when B turned away from me after probably deciding I'd gone psycho on her again.
"What the fuck is happening B?"
"You really want to do this now Faith?" Her voice is low, she sounds tired. She doesn't look back at me so I don't know what her eyes are saying, but her voice is telling me this could get ugly if one of us lets it.
Will I? Do I want to do this now?
Fuck, no time like the present.
"I don't know B, I've kinda been through a lot the past 48 hours. Having a bit of a hard time processing it all. So why don't you help me out?"
I wasn't being sarcastic or spiteful as I spoke. I was probably not the gentle, caring sharing slayer B woke up to in the Magic Box either. I was somewhere in the middle, as that's where I felt in myself. In the middle of one of those emotional tornadoes again, waiting to see which way the wind would take this weighty tension that had filled my room. Damn it I wish she'd turn around instead of forging her way over to the window. I see her steady herself on the low table at the foot of the poor excuse of a curtain I got hanging up, and that part of my brain that actually makes sense sometimes, tells me to just shut the fuck up and go over there and hold her and just accept this. Only in my life things have never come that easy to me. Most of the time I've had to wring the frickin' breath out of living just to get where I am now. Accept this? I wish I could.
"You think you've been through a lot?" She doesn't turn around, but her voice is a little stronger than the low of before. A little hard edged too.
Don't overreact I tell myself, though you just know there was a big part of me that wanted to.
"Well yeh. Let's see, I've been electrocuted, kicked to shit. Almost ended up a super vamp's main course not to mention be crushed under a warehouse. And before all this I was nursing one nuclear hangover, that I'm sure now I've finally stopped moving is gonna come back and finish me off completely. So yeh I'd call that a lot."
Was that overreacting? Well maybe just a touch.
A part of me is distant from all this. Somewhere inside my head it hears my stupid words come out of my stupid mouth and that part of me doesn't like what she hears, just as much as B is probably thinking she could do without hearing it too. It's the part of me that wants to ignore the questions and the tension and skip a few pages till it gets to the good parts. The part that is wondering, just like the Slayer must be, how the hell things could have changed so quickly? From the touchy goodness of outside my door to this stand-off in the near dark of my room, neither of us reaching for the light switch so we're bathed in the shining full moon beaming in through my window. Both of us pulling on that hard shield of protection we wear every day around each other, me doing my best to keep it firmly in place forever with the questions I have. Leaving the Slayer with little choice but to turn away from me, take in deep breaths I hear catch in her throat. Like when you run hard and fast and come to a sudden stop because shit, someone blocked off the road you were running down. And you look around for another way to run, breathing hard and deep, forcing air into your lungs while you can 'cause you know as soon as you see a way out, as soon as you see that opening, you're gone man. Won't see you for dust. And whoever blocked your way with a stupid question that could have waited till morning, well that jerk that blocked your way, you don't even need to give them a second glance as you speed past them. Nice try bitch, didn't even slow me down see?
Yeh I see B. I see you over there by the window, doing the controlling breath thing. And I see that you're still hurt, 'cause you're holding on to that table and you're not letting go. And I see myself, reflected in the mirror that you haven't noticed is right by you on the table. I look pretty messed up, just like you do. And I look as lost as you did when you pulled your hand away from me moments ago. I want to make this right. That's what goes through my head right then as I see the both of us, looking so lost, so beaten. That part of me that knows it doesn't really matter, the answers to the questions I have. Who gives a fuck, right? I have you, you're here, you're no-where else right now. I should have been satisfied with just that, 'cause honestly B? It's all I've ever wanted. You have to know that. I need to make this right so I can let you know that.
Shit how did this happen?
I'm about to speak again. I take a step closer to B so I can see her more clearly in the mirror. I want this to come out right, it has to come out right. But then she beats me to it. Seems as though the Slayer has been silent that night long enough. And all I could do was stand still and listen.
"And what about what I've been through, Faith?"
She finds my eyes in the reflection of the mirror, a look of steely determination in her own gaze as she continues to talk, and I swallow the all too familiar lump in my throat, willing myself not to jump to any conclusions about where this might be going.
"Did you think you have the monopoly on pain just 'cause you wear black a lot? You stand there and you bitch about one night being particularly rough on you, well what about me Faith? What about what I've been through? The Good Slayer, who never breaks the rules, who never steps outside the box while you go running around town, doing things your own way. Not answering to anyone 'cause you're not the slayer everyone watches. You're not the slayer everyone expects to be perfect, to be on their side. With the decision made. With a plan in her head and the guts to carry it out. You can do what you like. See who you like and it doesn't matter. No one gives a fuck who you sleep with, you don't second guess who it is you are bringing to your bed 'cause chances are you know they aren't going to burst into flames in the daytime."
She pauses for a second. I'm guessing that particular thought was a little too much on the accurate side and for a moment she remembered all the pain she's felt, being in love before.
And I'm just adding to the pain right? Shit B let me speak and make it okay again.
But I don't get the chance, the Slayer is on a roll and I force myself to not interrupt.
"You don't have to try and do the right thing all the time. No-one expects that from you, but everyone expects that from me. Everyone watches me and everyone expects me to keep them safe. Expects me to do the right thing. So the right thing is being happy, bright blonde Buffy, with the dependable steady boyfriend, and the ability to avert every apocalypse that comes knocking, without even smudging my makeup. It's living up to everyone's expectations, even if their expectations are dulling everything inside me.
They wanted safe after the first time, so I gave them safe. For a whole frickin' year I have given them safe, and it's killing me, and no-one can see it. You say you've been through a lot, I beat you hands down Faith."
Her breath is beginning to hitch in her throat again, like tears are threatening the strong resolve I can see reflected in her eyes. But I know she has more to say, I can see that in her eyes too.
"I have everyone around me fooled. Hell I've been fooling them so much for so long I think I almost fooled myself. Until you…"
She finally stops. I'm stood behind her, my gaze she's been holding in the reflection of the mirror finally gets too much for her. She lets her tired eyes drop down, avoiding me.
I don't notice myself do it, but I move toward her. I don't know what I'm going to do when I reach her, but there is something willing my body to do that, reach out to her and hold on. To say that I understood everything she had just told me would be an understatement of Xander proportion stupidity. Nor would it be the truth if I said I knew that was how she felt, about herself, about her being the Slayer I mean. I always thought she liked the Good Slayer/Bad Slayer rep we had. Show's what I know I guess. Right then though I just wanted to be close to her, and I also wanted her to finish what she stopped herself from saying.
I gently reach out placing my hand on her back. I'm quite close to her, she must have heard me come up behind her, even if she didn't see it 'cause her head is still downcast. I see her shoulders tense with a deep breath she takes in feeling my hand on her back, but I don't move the touch, and she eventually lets the tension ease out of her.
"Until I what?"
I'm looking at her down turned face in the mirror, willing her to look back up to me. I want to see her eyes when she says it. I want to know that she's telling the truth. I want to see the moment on her face, when she faces this thing that exists between her and me honestly for the first time.
For once I get what I want. There are tears brimming over the edge of her emerald eyes, I always knew B would cry when it came down to this moment between us. But hell it's not like I've held back the tears that night, so I give her an encouraging nod and let her finish.
"Until you told me that you love me. I knew I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I knew I couldn't fool anyone else any longer. I don't want to fool anyone any longer."
A few tears fall down her cheek, and I fight the urge to wipe them away as that would mean turning the Slayer around, and right then it was like she wanted to keep at least a little safe distance between us.
The urge to not interrupt her though was harder to resist.
"Fool them about what?"
"About you, how you make me feel," she paused again. I thought I was going to explode, my heart was beating so fast.
Please B, just tell me.
"How you make me feel alive when all Riley did was make me feel like I simply existed. I can't fool myself anymore. I won't lie to myself and pretend that I could ever love him when it's you…" she faltered again.
"It's me?" My voice is just a whisper, urging the Slayer to say it.
In the glass of the mirror I see a small smile play hopeful like on B's face. Her tears are still falling but they're the gentle happy kind of tears I've seen on her face before, when she's glad something big has finally come to an end.
"It's you who I want to be with. It's always been you."
Oh my god she said it. She actually put it into words. And I know that she kinda put it into words earlier on in the warehouse with the whole 'I love you Faith' thing but she was barely alive then. And well I didn't really believe her, 'cause B would never actually come out with something like that. Just like it sounds weird me coming out with shit like that. And my brain is running too fast here, and I am shaking slightly, and I know I need to do something right now so B doesn't wig out on me, but I really can't form the words, any words, in my head.
"Do you want to be with me?"
Huh? Are you kidding B?
Oh right, head thinks, mouth speaks.
"You even have to ask?"
Well that sounded better.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore."
Her voice is so quiet her eyes releasing the last of the tears down her cheeks, and this time I can't not turn her around and wipe them away. I do it gently 'cause of all the pain inside her, and in me if I'm honest. When she's turned to face me her head drops down again in that shy gesture which looks more familiar on T-T-Tara than the Slayer, I have to hook a finger underneath her chin so I can see the tears I so want to wipe away.
"You can be sure of this B." I wipe the salty trail being careful of the bruises. "I want to be with you. I've wanted it so long I don't know when I went from not wanting it. Wanting you."
She looks up, blinking her beautiful emerald eyes at me, unable to speak. B has probably never heard me say so much about my feelings, at least in one sentence before. It's understandable she didn't exactly know how to respond right away.
I gave her a helping hand to figure out the appropriate reaction.
"There's something else." I whisper. "Can I kiss you?"
That got the Slayer's vocal chords working again.
"You even have to ask?" She actually managed a smirk when she said my words back to me, though it's short lived and replaced immediately with this honesty in her expression that literally takes my breath away. That expression leaves me in no doubt what the Slayer wants.
"I had to ask." I don't know why I'm explaining when really I should be meshing my lips with the Slayer's right now. But explaining it seemed important, B realised that too.
"You've never asked before." As she points that out to me I reach for one of the hands she's been leaning on behind her, so I have something I can pull her to me with, just so she knows there will be kissage soon. Right after I say what I need to say.
"I never told you I love you before."
There isn't much she can say to that. And I don't want her to say anything to that, not just yet. All there was right then for me and the Slayer was the closeness of our bodies. The soft and tender way she reached up and put a stray strand of my hair behind my ear so it wouldn't get in the way now. The hand she let me hold and bring up around my neck so I could leave it resting there, a comforting weight, and both my hands were free to bring them up to her face. To cup her beautiful, rounded cheeks and hold her inches away from me. The feeling of her breath, short and ragged and needy on my face, as I closed the last of the distance between us, pressing my warm lips to hers for the first time. Not that it was the first time. But well, it sort of felt like it kind of was.
Our first kiss.
The first time I knew that when my lips touched B's, she wanted them to stay there as much as I never wanted them to leave.
It was soft and shy at first, not exactly chaste 'cause hey, it's still me doing the kissing, but it wasn't like any kiss I'd had before. The feeling of her soft lips moving slowly against mine, her hand on my neck curling a little, her nails scratching the skin as I kissed her a little deeper. Pouring all the pent up feelings, and emotions and goddamn love I've had for her all these months in to this one moment between us.
A moment I can't do justice to here and now. Words are so inadequate sometimes.
Especially mine.
Fuck it Faith girl, what do really want to say?
It was not five by five.
It was more than that.
It was perfect.
And it was just the beginning.
The End
(Author's end note: Firstly a big thank you to all who have reviewed, favourited and been following Faith's Journal, it's been a fun ride and I've loved your company along the way. This was a tricky ending to write, and I'm not entirely sure it's a proper end, but I've got to put Faith's Journal down now, at least for a little while. So please don't hate me for leaving things there. They got their happy ending... FYI there was one version where they didn't, but I think this ending is better. Mx)