AN – Sorry for the long delay. Life actually physically manifested itself and punched me in the gut. Okay, not really, but that's what it felt like.
Also, an anon asked why Giles decided to send Xander to take Faith's place instead of Anya. I can think of a few reasons, the best one being that Giles thinks that Anya does a barely adequate job of passing herself off as human as it is. God only knows how badly she'd mess things up attempting to imitate Faith in a women's prison.
The more honest answer is that the idea simply didn't cross my mind. C:
The Fire in Her Eyes by Imrryr
Act 1 - Chapter 4
…
"Oh! The good times when we were so unhappy."
- Alexandre Dumas, Le Chevalier d'Harmental
…
Sunnydale. May 3rd, 2000.
...
When she awoke to the vague sensation of warm light shining on her face, Faith half-expected to hear the buzzer announcing the unlocking of her cell, but it never came; there was no chattering of prisoners, no guards yelling, 'Lehane, wake your ass up!' Nope, nothing more than the chirping of birds and the gentle hum of the refrigerator.
Opening her eyes, Faith's brow crinkled as she rolled onto her back. Neatly arranged furniture without a hint of dust, a glass cabinet filled with art books, its top lined with candles, and a painting of some generic landscape on the far wall; welcome to the world of Buffy Summers.
She blinked and for a split-second wondered if maybe the last several months had all been a very bad and elaborate dream, but the feel of the magical necklace resting heavily on her skin said otherwise.
Faith huffed and struggled to get comfortable again, shutting her eyes only to open them a few seconds later and curse to herself. Every morning after breakfast - if you could call it that - she'd take a long run in the prison yard, trying to burn off some of that energy that always seemed to course through her limbs, but she wasn't about to go outside now; this was where Buffy left her, and this was where she would stay, lest the girl freak out and assume she was off hatching some nefarious plot.
So, she was stuck here, with the barren, cramped isolation of a concrete prison cell replaced with the idealized picture of suburban life that was Joyce's living room. Faith looked down at the necklace resting just above her breast, still glowing faintly with its own light; one prison cell for another.
And fuck, maybe it didn't quite reach Fresh Prince of Bel-Air levels of swankness, but really, this was how people lived in TV shows, not in real life. Her mom's place back in Boston had been much more with the empty beer cans and cigarette smoke and less about the freshly dusted furniture and scent of pine-sol. For Faith, home meant trash all over the place, appliances that didn't work, and creepy as fuck visitors she tried to avoid whenever possible.
With a huff, she rolled over and searched blindly for the remote. The next half-hour was spent watching an old as shit Bob Barker host The Price is Right. Figured Joyce wouldn't have cable. What the hell did she even do with her free time?
When Buffy finally came down, she slumped groggily into a nearby chair with an array of textbooks piled around her, evidently there for the long haul. There was a very strong temptation for Faith to point out that if she hadn't tried to escape, or strangle Buffy in her bed – not that she could even do either of those things - it wasn't likely she would start something now, but no. Fuck it. She went back to channel surfing.
Channel 11: Soap-opera.
*click*
Channel 12: Static.
*click*
Channel 13: The exact same soap-opera that was on channel 11.
*click*
*bzzt*
The entire room went dark. A power failure. Faith and Buffy sighed in unison. It was going to be a long day.
Buffy couldn't remember an experience as long and awkward as this one. Without power, she sat silently in her chair, relying on the sun for the light she needed as she struggled with one of the three essays that had to be finished by the time classes started up again… whenever that was. Meanwhile, Faith quickly grew antsy, and after taking history's longest shower, spent some time wandering around the living room, getting so bored she even spent time looking through mom's collection of books.
Every little shuffle and sigh grated on her like nails on a chalkboard, but Buffy held her tongue. There was nothing for Faith to do, and she was tired of fighting with her.
Behavioral modernity, cultural universals, Blombos Cave… the scribbled words in her notebook ran together into one incomprehensible blob. It was a shame she was stuck with a high-school dropout for company. Willow would probably know something about late human evolution. Why did she have to leave her anthropology notes back in her dorm? And, ugh, why was Faith fiddling with the blinds?
She slammed the book shut and grabbed another one. When her thoughts weren't occupied by Faith, they turned to Adam. What was he up to? It might've helped if she had Willow's laptop with her. Perhaps there was something there her friend had overlooked? It wasn't likely, but to be honest, it was more likely than her finishing this assignment anytime this century.
"Hey, B?"
Buffy looked up from her sea of papers to find Faith staring intently out of one of the small windows in the front door. She grunted in response, but Faith still beckoned her over.
When she finally peeked between the living room blinds, Buffy immediately noticed the camouflaged jeep parked outside. Behind the wheel was a man in shades, dressed in a blue military uniform of some kind. Interesting. The thought struck her that maybe her mom was dating a soldier half her age, but no, because seriously, eww.
Faith raised an eyebrow in question, but Buffy was too busy frowning at the image in her head.
They observed together in silence for a while. The jeep never moved and the driver gave no sign that he'd noticed them either. Faith tried to ask her if she recognized the man, but Buffy held up a hand to shut her up. The woman's expression turned dark, dangerous even, but she only crossed her arms.
Finally having enough, Buffy approached the door and was surprised at the way Faith recoiled from her. For a long moment, they stared at each other. Again, annoying doubts surfaced at the genuinely frightened look in those brown eyes staring widely back at her, but Buffy pushed it all from her mind. Adam was the priority here. And Faith? Faith couldn't be trusted. She needed to remember that.
When they stepped out onto the porch, the jeep casually pulled away from the curb like its driver hadn't just been spying on them for God knew how long. Faith stared at her expectantly and sighed at Buffy's continued silent treatment. "Who do you think that was?" she asked.
Buffy would've preferred to keep her hours long streak of not speaking to Faith intact, but it would be pretty damn stupid to keep her in the dark when there were far more dangerous things than a rogue slayer running around out there. "I don't know," she admitted. "The Initiative knows about me. Or maybe it was someone working for Adam, like Spike was."
Wrinkles formed on Faith's forehead. "He didn't look like a demon to me. He looked more like he belonged in the Matrix."
She almost laughed. Almost. "One of the Initiative's soldiers allowed Adam to make modifications to him. He grafted demon parts onto his body." Had it not been for all the grafting done on his head, Lieutenant Forrest could've looked as human as anyone.
"Gross."
Buffy nodded. Gross didn't begin to describe it.
"Guess it could also be a demon in disguise, now that you mention it," Faith said. "I mean, if you guys can make Xander look like me, I guess anything's possible."
She shook her head. Any more speculating and she would lose it. "Well, whoever he was, I hope he wasn't practicing for the World's Most Subtle Stakeout Competition."
"You think Adam's about to start something?"
"Maybe. Or maybe the military is?" Buffy wasn't sure which possibility was worse.
Just last night they had seen plenty of hungry vamps roaming the streets of Sunnydale. It was worrisome that even that many had escaped that underground facility. Three days ago, in their final act, Buffy and Giles had bombed the elevator shaft that led up to Lowell House. Riley's friends were pretty foolish to just leave all those explosives unguarded in the broom closet.
If Adam was still alive down there – and it was a near certainty - then he was busy creating new monsters from all the parts Buffy, the demons, and the Initiative left behind. Could he do that without power? Wouldn't an underground lab have a power source of its own or something? Adam had one, after all. Ugh… she didn't know a damn thing.
Either way, whether it was one powerful demon, or a hundred, was the army really going to be able to stop Adam should he decide to take a stroll outside the compound?
She shook her head. Life was so much easier when it was just her versus the bad guy, not her versus the bad guy, versus the government. "Maybe we should take a look around."
"I'm down with that," Faith said, rocking on the balls of her feet. Buffy blinked. There was a bit of the old Faith in her now, a bit that actually didn't hurt to think about, and now was an opportune time to put some of that energy to good use. Besides, if they could somehow sneak onto campus, she might be able grab Willow's laptop along with all the useful intel it contained.
In the light of day, Faith looked a little better than she had last night; or less tired, at least. The bags under her eyes were less pronounced, but she was still too thin, and her skin too colorless. It reminded her of the way Faith had looked after her coma. Again, Buffy shook her head, but for a different reason entirely. "All right, let's go," she said. "But remember," Buffy paused, attempting her best Giles impersonation, "if you see Adam, for the love of God, do not engage him."
Faith jumped off the porch and on to the front walk, her face breaking into a familiar dimpled grin as she looked over her shoulder, "Whatever you say, Blondie."
Buffy did smile that time, ruefully. Faith was all energy and enthusiasm once more. For a brief moment it was like no time had passed since those distant nights when they went slaying together, and to her surprise, she didn't feel that familiar anger at Faith's presence anymore. Instead, there was only a sense of loss. In Tara, Willow had found someone who understood her in a way that no one else did. Why couldn't Buffy have that? Why did Faith have to turn against her and ruin her only chance?
Suddenly, she felt sick to her stomach.
As quickly as it appeared, Faith's cheerfulness vanished. Her questioning eyes were so expressive now, not guarded like they always used to be. There was such a sadness in them, like she knew what Buffy felt. It only made that sense of loss even more profound. "B?"
Buffy dipped her head. "Let's go," she said softly.
"These are my only pair of boots, I'll have you know," Faith said as she dropped into the thankfully mostly dry, but still moldy and highly unpleasant smelling sewer.
"Feel free to send the bill to the council, if you want," Buffy said as she dropped down behind her.
Faith huffed as the blonde took the lead, lighting the way with a tiny pocket flashlight. "So, any idea where we're going?"
"Stevenson Hall."
"Oh, good," Faith grumbled to herself, that told her a whole fucking lot.
"My dorm room," Buffy continued as they carefully treaded around the foul water pooled at this confluence of drains. "I'd like to get my hands on Willow's laptop. With all those demons we saw last night, there has to be another way out. No way would they've gotten passed all those troops topside."
'Topside?' Faith mouthed to herself. "Uh huh. But wouldn't the army already know all the exits?"
"Maybe... maybe not. There were a lot of things that even Colonel McNamara didn't know about. He had no idea that lab 314 existed, for one thing."
'Must not have been much of a commander,' Faith thought. At least the Mayor had always taken pains to know everything that was going on in his town. In fact, he was the reason these sewer lines were so large; they allowed his minions to travel without being detected. "Okay. So who did know?"
"Professor Walsh," Buffy said with a sigh. "She got turned into a zombie though."
Faith snorted. A zombie. "Right. How about you start from the beginning?"
So, as they walked, Buffy filled her in on all the little facts about the Initiative that Giles hadn't bothered to mention the previous night; the number of troops and scientists stationed there, a rough idea of the weapons they had at their disposal, and a list of all the varying types of demons that had been locked up just before everything went to hell.
Then there was the touchy subject of Buffy's brief stint with them. Faith kept her mouth shut, but the whole idea of joining a secret military organization sounded pretty stupid to her. Sure, Buffy was a goody-two-shoes who would probably jump off a cliff if someone told her it was the right thing to do, but it was still shocking that she went along with it. Considering how even her best friends reacted to Angel when he came back from Hell, it seemed pretty foolish to put your lot in with a bunch of strangers with guns that might hold very different opinions than yours when it came to who was a threat and who wasn't. Sex with Riley couldn't have been that good. Faith knew all about that.
She must really love the guy to put up with that shit.
Faith sent a small stone sailing over Buffy's shoulder, quickly apologizing when the woman stopped to glare at her.
They proceeded in silence until they finally turned the next corner, only to find the way blocked by an avalanche of dirt and concrete. Buffy shook her head at the colossal mass ahead of her. Perhaps dynamiting the elevator shaft hadn't been such a brilliant idea after all. The blonde kicked a fallen lump of concrete and sighed.
Faith frowned in thought. They'd tried the overland route already and between the smoldering ruins of Lowell House and all the soldiers milling around campus, the scene resembled the ending of a Schwarzenegger movie. The temptation was there to simply bite her tongue and follow B back home in silence just as Buffy no doubt wanted, but Faith wanted to be useful, even if she got blindly rebuffed a hundred times for it. "Um, what was on the laptop anyway?"
"Schematics on the Initiative's base. I thought maybe there would be something we missed. Another way in." She tapped the concrete mass with her foot once more. "There's got to be one somewhere. Call it a gut feeling."
That was something Faith could relate to. As a slayer, it paid to listen to your gut.
"Why?" Buffy asked. "Do you know something?"
"Well, the Bo-," she caught herself, "er, the Mayor, he had all these detailed maps of the sewers in his office. They might still be there."
It surprised her when Buffy's tone didn't instantly turn bitter. "Did he ever mention the Initiative?"
Faith shrugged, finally meeting Buffy's gaze. "Not to me, no, but he kept a lot of secrets. He might've known something."
"So, City Hall, huh? I doubt we could just ask the new mayor to let us in."
Faith shook her head. "I know a better way."
Buffy tossed her the flashlight.
…
Traveling through the sewers brought back a lot of unpleasant memories. Absently running a hand along the brick wall, she recalled walking side by side with one of the Mayor's vampire lackeys down this very same tunnel many months ago. That was on the night she poisoned Angel. She let her hand drop back to her side.
The big guy would probably say she wasn't ready to be out here, that it was too soon, the memories too fresh in her mind.
Another turn. Her flashlight did little to dispel the gloom in this place. Angel would be right. Faith smiled to herself at the thought. Back in prison, there were a number of super-creepy and overly earnest girls who had found God. Faith wondered how they'd react if they learned that her conscience had taken the form of a two-hundred year old vampire who called himself Angel.
Before long, they came to a portion of wall marked only by a single missing brick at chest level.
Buffy huffed impatiently, probably irritated that this bit of sewer looked exactly like every other bit.
Passing the flashlight to her, Faith pressed a hand against the hole in the wall. It wasn't a hole at all. It was actually as solid as the rest the bricks. "Let's see if he changed the password."
A faint red light began to shine from the bricks themselves, forming a sigil, the same one the Mayor used to seal his private documents. Buffy stepped back, her posture rigid. Solemnly, Faith repeated the words she hadn't spoken in almost a year. "Maskelli. Maskello. Ton Thalassemon." The words echoed from the darkness surrounding them. With every breath, her heart beat faster and faster as those tingles that told her something was wrong grew more and more pronounced. She ignored it, as she'd always done while in the Mayor's service. "Rouse yourselves, demons who live here and prepare the way." Her hair began whipping in a wind that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Arech rexithon. Daimon aphithiton!"
In an instant, the wind died, the bricks vanished, and before them stood a long hallway strewn with cobwebs and dimly lit by magical torches.
Buffy was outraged, "What the hell was that?!"
"The password," Faith said, struggling to remain standing. "I forgot. It's a lot harder to get in than it is to get out. A security measure against demonic attack." Faith was immune because she was human, or rather, almost immune. Despite the filth, she leaned heavily against the wall, attempting to catch her breath.
"It felt evil."
Faith had to agree; it almost certainly was. She desperately wanted a shower now. She felt dirty, and it had nothing to do with their current location. "Never bothered to find out what the words meant. Some demon-corrupted version of Greek, I think he said."
"When this is over, I'm having Willow destroy that… that, whatever that was," Buffy grumbled, gesturing at the wall that was no longer there.
"No argument here."
With the flashlight, Buffy cautiously inspected the passageway while Faith pretended to find her feet fascinating. A murderous expression was in B's eyes and she felt like a fool for even suggesting they come here. This went way beyond opening up old wounds; it was opening them up, pouring salt into them, and then letting Buffy walk all over her broken body in a pair of four inch stilettos. "Come on," she finally said gruffly.
Resigned, Faith pushed herself off the wall. A door that opened at the behest of demons. A sewer that reeked of death. She couldn't help but think that the world would be a better place if everything the Mayor touched was simply wiped off the face of the Earth.
…
After they ascended the stairs to the mayor's office, the door shut solidly behind them, leaving not so much as a crease in the wall to mark its presence. Oddly, even under the faint glow of the yellow emergency lights, it was clear that the room hadn't changed to any great degree. Mayor Wilkins' desk was still where it had always been, as was the flag, and the wall of filing cabinets. However, pushed all to one side were a number of crates, boxes, and statues that were in various stages of being packed up.
Faith peeked under a sheet that only half-covered the largest of the statues and frowned at what she saw. She could understand why the new mayor was getting rid of this one. Few people really had the stomach for sharing space with an eight foot statue of Ahnkalazik the All-Devouring on a daily basis. A shame really; the Mayor had said that the demon's eight heads and unconventional genitalia made for an excellent conversation starter at parties.
Buffy was unimpressed by all of this, so Faith quickly directed her to the most promising cabinets and before long they'd managed to fish out a number of promising maps. Just as she started trying to decipher them however, Buffy looked up worriedly at the sound of heavy boots echoing down the hallway. She hurriedly switched off her flashlight and gestured at the invisible door they had entered from. Faith shook her head. There wasn't time to open it again, even if she had the strength to do so.
Buffy frowned, then bolted for the adjacent secretary's office, maps in hand, just as the footsteps stopped, Faith right on her heels.
The door flew open and the two slayers found themselves face to face with a soldier.
It was a woman, and a very attractive one at that; tall, blue eyed, with her blonde hair in a pony-tail. Buffy and Faith both froze when she held up her rifle, but after getting a good look at them she slowly lowered it. "Didn't you hear the call? Public buildings are being evacuated."
It was amazing just how quickly Buffy could transform from a stalker of the undead, feared by vamps around the world, and into a ditzy valley girl. She did that thing where she twirled a lock of her long blonde hair around her finger and scrunched her brow as though the simple act of holding a conversation was taking all her reserves of brain power. "Evacuated?" she said, sounding like she'd never heard the word before in her life.
"Gas leak, from the earthquake."
"Like, oh my god! Really?"
It was all Faith could do to keep a straight face and the soldier's expression was equally dubious to say the least. She scanned the room with the light from her gun. Fortunately, there were two desks with computers in this cramped space. "You two work here or something?"
Buffy nodded, pointing to herself and Faith. "Secretaries."
Again, that dubious look. "Uh huh, and you're here because?"
Snatching up some of her jumbled collection of stolen maps and papers, Buffy squeaked, "I left my notes for class here!"
'Whoa,' Faith thought. 'Tone it down a notch, girl.'
The soldier inched backward and Faith felt the need to come to the rescue, "Uh yeah, sorry, my friend is a little excitable, but she's definitely gonna fail without those notes."
Buffy glared at her, but the soldier misread it and nodded at Faith. "This is your office then?" she asked.
"Yep," Faith said with a nod, but she stepped back from the desk she'd been leaning on when she finally got a good look at it. The computer was completely covered in heart-shaped stickers and there were several small framed photographs of some generic looking college guy, complete with letterman jacket, all arranged in a neat row. "Um," she pointed to Buffy, "this one's hers."
The soldier grinned. "No doubt."
Finally, Buffy finished restacking her papers into some semblance of order and smiled nervously at the woman.
"Very well," the soldier said, shaking her head. "I'll escort you out."
…
"So, you a college student?" she asked as they descended the dimly lit stairs.
Faith nodded, not entirely sure why she piling up more lies on top of the last one. It was a tough habit to break, but after giving it some thought, it was probably better to keep lying than admit to a member of the armed forces that she was supposed to be in prison serving twenty-five to life.
"Thought so. Secretary work doesn't seem your style."
Faith smiled easily as she kept in step behind Buffy who seemed a little annoyed, though what else was new? "Yeah," she drawled. "Not enough action."
The soldier smirked back. "I bet." She had that confident sort of look that Faith had always been attracted to. It was the same look Buffy had when she slayed.
Once on the ground floor, they exited through some double doors to find themselves outside on a sunny plaza facing the city's main street. At the center of this open space stood a giant stone sundial, probably fifteen feet tall, another construction of Mayor Wilkins. He said that time-sensitive rituals were better done by the sundial than by your watch. The unholy demons of the infinite planes of Hell appreciated it when you went the extra mile, and they were old school like that.
Like the rest of Sunnydale, the plaza was dead quiet and the only people milling around in the afternoon sun were soldiers, all dressed in camo just like their escort. Yellow police tape sealed off the building, but City Hall was nowhere near as tightly locked down as the college had been.
"So, what's your major?"
Buffy was still occasionally meeting Faith's gaze with that same damn look of irritation. "Um, history," she said after some thought, and hey, it was kind of true. There were probably history majors at UCSD who didn't think about the past half as much as Faith had in the past four months.
"Oh, cool," the soldier said, eyes brightening. "I love history."
"Yeah," Faith said, nodding. "You can learn a lot from the mistakes of the past."
Buffy just huffed and shook her head as the soldier hummed in agreement.
Once they were outside the perimeter, Buffy obviously wanted to keep right on going, but Faith stopped, mostly because she had an unexplainable urge to annoy B just a little. She'd always had that urge for some reason. Besides, soldier-chick was totally easy on the eyes.
"Thanks for the escort," she said, smiling and tilting her head to the side in a way that tended to get her anything she wanted - to her left, Buffy was rolling her eyes - well, okay, almost anything. But hey, Faith couldn't help it if G.I. Jane here liked what she saw.
With a grin of her own, the soldier ripped out a slip of paper from a tiny notepad, scribbled something on it and handed it to her.
Faith's smile widened. 'Katherine 595-8063.' The soldier winked and paused long enough to visibly check her out with an appreciative nod, then waved goodbye and returned to her post, putting a bit of sway in her step as she walked.
Buffy couldn't have looked more exasperated if she tried. "Did that woman just give you her number?"
There was zero chance she'd ever call her, but Faith slipped the note into her pocket anyway. "Guess I've still got it," she said with a shrug.
...
Tomorrow would be the big day, a long awaited opportunity to finally do something useful and not fuck things up for once. Faith wanted to be well-rested, to bring her A-game and all that shit, so of course she was outside on the Summers' back porch because she couldn't fucking sleep.
Buffy had given her the serious stink-eye when she found her out here a few minutes ago, but there wasn't anything she could really do about it. Besides, the power was still out, and Faith would be damned if she was going to sit around in the living room while Buffy did her homework by candlelight, especially after B went through all those maps and found a fat load of nothing useful.
At least out here it was a warm, clear, and moonless night, with only the slightest of breezes to tickle the skin. Her head was fucking killing her though. She hadn't had a smoke in almost two days.
Lying back in the wooden patio chair, her head resting against a towel she'd swiped from Buffy's bathroom, Faith was content to watch the stars drift by. Vamps didn't worry her too much. The nice thing about slayer senses was how they worked for you even when you were sleeping; something she'd learned all too well on her long trip across the country – from Boston to Sunnydale - spending the night under bridges and other places she'd just as soon forget about. The creatures of the night would never get the drop on her.
Dimly, she felt, more than heard, the glass door slide open. Without even looking over her shoulder she knew it wasn't Buffy.
"Faith?"
"Hey, Mrs. S."
To her surprise, the other chair began scraping heavily against the porch as Joyce made to join her in stargazing. Not that Joyce was bad company exactly, but aside from the awkwardness of hanging out with a woman she'd once held a knife to, her presence kind of ruined the whole night of solitude and self-pity she had been planning on. "It's not safe out here, you know?"
Joyce rested her hands on her stomach as she looked over at her, "I could say the same to you."
Faith chuckled as she made a futile attempt to get more comfortable. She tapped her forehead, "But I can sense 'em coming."
"Is that a slayer power?"
"Mmhmm."
Joyce hmm'd in response, and for a while they just sat there observing the night sky together. Faith didn't really know any constellations, but she did recognize the Big Dipper hanging upside down just over the row of trees on the far side of the yard. From this angle it looked more like a kite, or maybe a road sign that had been hit by a truck.
"Why are you sitting out here, if you don't mind my asking?"
"It's a nice night," Faith said with a shrug. And that was true enough. Sure, she was only out here because there was nothing else to do, and because it kept her away from Buffy, but whatever.
Joyce looked back up at the sky and seemed to agree. "I never took you for someone who would appreciate such things."
Again Faith shrugged. An old memory was playing in her head, something she hadn't thought about in years. "When I was a kid – eleven or twelve years old, I guess - I was hiding from my mom on the roof of our house, and I was lookin' up at the sky, just like this, 'cept in Boston the night sky just looks kinda yellowish-brown, you know? You couldn't really see shi-, er, um, anything, you know? Then, all of sudden, there was this power failure." The memory grew more vivid by the second. She could feel the cold and hear the growing chatter of neighbors. "I stayed where I was, and the longer I watched, the brighter the stars got. It was amazing. You could see the Milky Way arching over everything, and shooting stars and stuff. It was like that all night long, and I stayed up there the whole time, just watching."
"Next day, I went to the library and read everything I could about space and stuff. Most of it I didn't understand, but I liked the pictures."
Dimly, Faith was aware that she'd just shared more about herself in the past sixty seconds with Buffy's mom than she had in the past twelve months with Buffy, Giles, Angel, even the Mayor. "Wasn't sure if I wanted to be an astronaut, or an astronomer, or whatever. I just wanted to be something." 'I just wanted to get away,' she nearly added.
Faith didn't need to look over at Joyce to see the question written on her face. 'What the hell happened? How'd you go from a dreamy-eyed little kid to a cold-blooded murderer?'
"Mom never believed me when I said I went to the library. She'd wouldn't even go with me to get a card. And, I dunno, after a few months of all the shit goin' on at school and at home, I just sort of forgot about that stuff." The vastness of the universe took a back seat to an empty stomach.
"What was she like?"
Faith frowned. She hated questions like that. The last thing she wanted was people looking at her and thinking, 'Poor Faith. She's had such a rough life. No wonder she's such a fuckup.' That's certainly how the prison shrink looked at her. Hell, practically every girl in the place had the same damn story. "Mom had good days and bad. If you could keep her away from the hard stuff she was usually all right."
"What did she do for a living?"
Faith sighed, accidentally letting some of her anger show. "Look, if we're gonna talk, can it be about something else?"
Joyce was silent for a long moment, but the questions didn't stop, "What was it like when you became a slayer?"
'Better.' Faith's expression brightened a little. "Oh, that was pretty awesome. I mean, fighting vamps and stuff out on the street, it was like being a superhero. Had a watcher too, she was..." Faith paused. How long had it been since she last thought of her? "She was cool."
Evidently, Joyce had some idea of what became of her watcher because she let that subject drop too. Thank God.
"Do you ever think of going back to Boston?"
"Fu-," she caught herself. "No. There's nothing for me there. It's all right - don't get me wrong - even if the weather in L.A. puts it to shame, but no. Not a chance. There's nothing for me there." Too many memories. Too many old wounds that didn't need reopening. Being in Sunnydale was bad enough.
Faith thought about the friends she used to have there. Some of them had harder childhoods than hers by a fucking long shot. She knew a girl who ended up pregnant at fifteen and a kid who needed reconstructive surgery on his face after his dad found out he was gay. Faith didn't know which possibility was worse, that her old friends were all gone, or that they were still there, stuck in the same old ruts – the drinking, the drugs, the abusive relationships – that they'd been in when she left.
"There's no one?"
Her thoughts turned darker. "There were people in Southie who looked at me like I was a stain on their shoe. It's like that everywhere you go really; people size you up and the only thing going through their minds is, how can this chick be useful to me?" She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. "And once they get what they want, they don't give a shit about what happens to you. Foster parents? They just want their check. Teachers? They just want to not be hassled. The guy on the street? He just wants a good time. They think you're a lost cause anyway, so why bother worrying about it? Why bother treating you like a person? Look at what happened to her parents. Look at how she dresses. Look at the punks she hangs out with. She's probably doing drugs anyway. She's probably shoplifting something right now."
A familiar anger burned inside of her. She remembered the dead looks in her foster-parents' eyes. The way the cops stood around completely helpless when her mom would call them on her abusive boyfriend of the week. The way passing women would sneer at her and pull their children closer like she was a criminal.
A fucking criminal. She clenched her fists. "And you know what the worst part of it is? All those people back home, the ones who used me, the ones who thought I would never amount to nothing. They were right the whole time! They were fucking right."
Joyce gasped. "Faith…"
She had to shut her eyes to steady her breathing - something she'd learned in prison - slow, steady breaths from her diaphragm, always through the nose, just like the shrink had told her. The hard part was visualizing something positive, something happy to cancel out her dark thoughts. Usually, she drew a blank at that part, but when she opened her eyes this time, there were ten-thousand stars still twinkling down at her. It was a strangely comforting sight, and slowly, she was able press all her rage back down where it couldn't hurt anyone.
Again, the night sky triggered a long-forgotten memory. "You know, I even went to a planetarium show once? It was the only time my mom ever managed to scrounge up enough money to let me go on a field trip. So, they had this big-ass projector to light up the ceiling, right?"
Her eyes were a little watery, but though Joyce seemed more than a little surprised by the sudden one-eighty in the conversation, she nodded.
"Well, they showed how the constellations change over time, 'cuz all the stars are moving in their own directions, you know? Totally blew my mind as a kid. You look at the stars all your life, and you think they've always been where they are now, that they never change, but they really do. They're moving all the time, you just can't see it." Faith snorted. "Sometimes I feel like that too. Like I've changed, am changing, but no one notices."
Joyce's eyes were still locked intently on hers. "Buffy might be a little stubborn at times, but she has a big heart. Just give her time. It's only been, what, four months?"
"Yeah," Faith breathed, her shoulders slumping. It was stupid of her to expect forgiveness so soon. This wasn't like a year ago when she would get a craving for something and just went out and indulged herself. No, forgiveness didn't work like that. It had to be earned. Except, sadly, she had no hope in Hell of ever affording Buffy's price.
"At least you two have been able to go on your patrols without killing each other," Joyce offered.
Faith laughed. "Yeah. But it was touch and go for a while."
Joyce smiled a little sadly.
"It just feels like I'm banging my head against a wall with her."
"I had to raise her, I know the feeling."
Faith smiled.
Over their heads, the stars continued their slow journey across the sky. Mercifully, Joyce didn't push any further, though Faith could see in her eyes that she wanted to. They just watched the heavens for a long time in silence. How the woman was able to stand being so close to her, Faith didn't know. She didn't dare think about it.
Eventually though, Joyce yawned and pushed herself up. "Well, I'd better turn in. Do you want anything from the kitchen?"
Faith chuckled and shook her head. She'd already eaten like five meals today. "Nah. But thanks." Keeping her eyes skyward, she waited until the glass door slide open. "Oh, and Mrs. S? Don't tell anyone I said all that stuff."
The smile on Joyce's face was practically audible, "I wouldn't dream of it. But -"
It was clear what the woman was going to say. Faith couldn't imagine ever wanting to talk even more about her past… but it was nice to know that maybe she could if she wanted to. "Yeah, I know. And thanks."
"Anytime," Joyce said, and shut the door gently behind her.