Chapter 9
Seven phone calls. She wanted the dark warlocks and their gytrash, the shades and the blue-eyed borogoves. She turned to Roxelana as she dialled; she would have the two vampire clans that Roxelana had made one and her own after Damien's death as well. The receptionist picked up – she started yelling until she got put through. Bring her also the muddly Bohemian and the rigamort, the understudies and the bodyguards. She hung up and found herself regretting the decision to slay the eye-eating keratitans.
They should've agreed to the terms and conditions, goddamn.
The shortest hour of her life followed. Hardly time to hone the sword, the daggers, the stakes she would be taking. But she must have been counting wrong, because somehow it was seven o'clock, time to go, and she realised all of a sudden that for the last ten minutes she'd just been filing her nails. Waiting.
She lurched into motion. Out the door, down the stairs, into the evening cool.
Roxelana was at her side in a moment, the lightest touch on her arm. "Sixty-four," she said.
A glance around, and yes, unearthly blue eyes glinted back. Street lights flashed on metal. She caught the reek of the rigamort, rotted but undying; heard a soft, chilling whine from where the warlocks stood; felt a coldness in her lungs that spoke of death.
They're all here, she knew. Or as many as I'll ever get at that short notice.
She recalled Buffy's words. A hundred or so demons altogether, according to Buffy. Good odds, according to Faith. She could feel the ghost of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth.
Alright.
Onward, downward. Down to the hellmouth. A manhole that didn't lead to sewers. A corridor too narrow for her liking, and too dark. And always downward.
When the tunnel opened at last, they stepped out on to a ledge she knew too well.
Even from here, it was easy to see that the hellmouth had been lit up with torches, and it was far from silent. She didn't like the rumbling sound, so like distant thunder, or the unmistakeable crunching of footfalls.
She motioned the demons behind her to stop, and slid forward on her stomach. A slithering sound on her left let her know that Roxelana was only a few feet away, creeping forward with her.
They peered over the edge, into the cavernous underground space that housed the hellmouth.
–:::–
"Fuck." Faith mumbled.
"I concur." said Roxelana.
They had heard the crunching of feet, yes. But it was the crunching of thousands, not hundreds. Thousands of demons, troll-like and armoured, some with spears, others with axes or swords or maces, and near the rear, archers. But none of that mattered; they might have had no weapons at all and they would still have won. Thousands.
A hundred or so? Faith wondered in dismay. Where the hell did they all come from? How could B be so wrong? Might as well have just opened the goddamn hellmouth–
Roxelana nudged her and pointed.
It was small and shone darkly: a portal, on the other side of the cavern.
Faith shook her head. "There's no way. No way we'll get them to just walk back through, and we can't make them. Not with sixty-four."
Roxelana nodded, then: "Ring her."
"No." Faith said.
Roxelana tore her gaze away from the amassed demons to look at Faith's face. "Excuse me? Since when did you have a death wish?"
"There's no time." Faith replied, keeping her expression carefully blank, and pretending not to notice Roxelana's scrutiny. "You wanna split, then split. The way I see it, all we gotta do is seal up all the exits outta here. Could take them days to dig out, and we'll have back-up by then." She glanced around. "If I remember right, there's only seven ways out."
"Only seven." Roxelana snorted. "You are unbelievable, baby." Then she dove down and snatched the phone out of Faith's pocket. "If you won't, I will."
Faith turned on her, furious. Then seemed to remember the odds they were facing, and how necessary it was to not injure her own side.
"Fine. Whatever." she muttered.
Roxelana made her way quickly back up the tunnel, to the manhole they had entered by, and waited impatiently as the phone reconnected to its network service.
"Faith?" Buffy's voice floated down the line.
"Not so much, Slayer," Roxelana replied.
"What? Is she hurt? Why are you ringing me?" Buffy exploded with concern.
"She's fine. For now." Roxelana let the implications of this sink in before continuing. "We're about to die though, if you don't help us. Turns out Leicester's going for the world after all, and we massively underestimated the number of demons backing him. Ballpark figure – five thousand? Probably more. You have to help her," she finished. "Please."
"Why should I believe you? You could just as easily have gone back to your evil vampire ways and sold her out. For all I know, Faith could be dead and I could be walking into an ambush." Buffy replied. "If you need help so badly, why isn't it Faith ringing me?"
"You are as unbelievable as she is." said Roxelana. "For fuck's sake." She inhaled deeply. "This has nothing to do with me. In fact, I blame you. The both of you. I told Faith to ring you. She said there wasn't time. She meant she'd had to fight to keep you away from this battle, and now that she actually needs the help, she feels bad asking you for it."
"Don't be ridiculous. She isn't that – " Stupid? Stubborn? Buffy searched vainly for a description that Faith didn't fit. "She just wouldn't, OK? Not if she was really going to die. She would want me there."
"How long have you two been out of contact?" Roxelana demanded. "Don't you know anything? Did she tell you she left that old Watcher so she could find her own way? Did you swallow it?"
"What are you saying?" Buffy asked coldly.
"She stopped working for Rupert Giles to be alone. She's been cutting herself off. Don't you understand what killing Genevieve Savidge meant to her? It wasn't her first kill, but it was the first person she killed that she knew and liked. And it was a complete accident. That's what haunts her most; that she kills people by accident; that just by being around her, people die. That's why she ran away, don't you see? Don't you see how perfectly she arranged everything? Working with demons instead of people. Because if we die, if I die, that's one less demon to worry about. It's a blessing, not a curse. And it's one less guilt trip for my Slayer."
"And again we come back to the question of, why the hell should I believe you?" Buffy replied, telling herself that Roxelana was always a vampire first, always soulless, and never to be trusted.
"We can always come back to that question if you're pigheaded enough!" Roxelana snapped. "The answer is she dreams. The answer is I share her bed, and I wake up when she talks in her sleep. The answer is you just haven't been there to hold her when she wakes up at 4am. Don't ever tell me that you know her better than I do. She won't ring you, because she can't stand for you to get hurt. Just fucking believe it already. She doesn't think straight. Not when it comes to you."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Protect her."
"Twenty minutes?" said Roxelana dismissively. "Don't bother then. We'll be dead in ten. But hey, I'll be the dust pile protecting her corpse if it's any consolation."
But the line had already gone dead.
Roxelana pocketed the phone and sped back to Faith.
Faith was just finishing briefing de facto group leaders.
"… and we'll leave this one right here until last: we'll leave through here. Kill as many as you have to, but remember that killing is not our objective. The exits are all that matter. Alright."
There was something savage about her smile.
"Let's go, team."
She drew her sword and began making her way to the edge of the precipice. All around her, last preparations were being made. The vampires donned their undead faces; the borogoves peeled the skin back from their claws; hellhounds were unchained.
"You're splitting us six ways?" Roxelana muttered, jogging along at Faith's elbow.
"Gotta capitalise on speed. We never had the numbers anyway." Faith said. "Odds making you nervous, huh?"
Roxelana grinned and took out her throwing knives. "So long as I'm in your sixth, I can deal."
Then they were flinging themselves off the ledge, down a twenty-foot drop, hurtling into a wall of demons. At their backs, whooping howls and battle screams rent the air, chasing their descent.
Somehow, it didn't surprise Roxelana that Faith hadn't asked about the conversation with Buffy.
–:::–
The rumbling sound, like distant thunder, was growing steadily louder. Roxelana put it out of her mind; it made no difference, they had enough to deal with. The demons would kill them sooner than any mystery sound.
Their sixth had reached an exit. They were holding their ground while one of the warlocks set about transmuting dynamite from rock. There had been thirteen of them when they left the ledge, but they'd lost five on the way, and another two keeping the demons away from the warlock. Roxelana herself was wounded, and the shade at her side was losing its usual almost-corporeal shadowy texture, and spending longer and longer periods of time being see-through and airy. Roxelana knew that wasn't healthy.
A tower of blue flame erupted on the other side of the cavern.
"The Bohemian got one of the exits," Roxelana called. Hearing no reply, she glanced over at Faith and saw that she had been bowled over, her sword knocked away. The demon who had felled her had also lost its weapon, but seemed to have decided it would just pound Faith to death. The demon knelt over her, its colossal knees weighing down her arms, and swung.
Roxelana threw her last knife.
It caught the demon in the neck, between helmet and shoulder-plate, and it collapsed in death throes.
But already other demons were crowding past, swarming over Faith – and Faith wasn't moving, dazed, because the punch had connected with the side of her head before the knife reached the demon's neck.
Roxelana was already running to her. But it meant she had to take her eyes off the demons she had been fighting, and in seconds a spiked mace had crashed into her knee, splintering muscle and cartilage and bone. Roxelana screamed and lost her balance.
And the demons were on Faith, and Roxelana was dragging herself forward on her hands, and it couldn't end like this! She forced herself to stand on her good leg, but she'd never get there in time, and she drew her spare sword, god, hadn't she said she didn't like these odds? A demon swung an axe. Faith's throat was horribly exposed.
Roxelana didn't make it in time.
Buffy did.
–:::–
"Not an apocalypse, huh?" Buffy said, as she kicked the axe-wielding demon's head away and helped Faith to her feet.
"Just had to say 'I told you so', didn't you, B." Faith got out in between pants, massaging the side of her head.
"I don't believe those were my exact words." Buffy grinned.
Trudy and Chazza landed, separating Buffy and Faith.
"When this is done, we are having a hell of a talk," Chazza muttered to Faith. "The Dark Slayer in my kitchen, crying over her vampire fiancé. I'm still in shock."
"No hard feelings, yo. I'm just a hell of an actress," Faith puffed.
"Knew you weren't no crybaby," Trudy smirked, round-housing a demon.
"Hey, any more of you guys coming?" Roxelana asked, "Don't get me wrong, it's comforting to have a whole three extra Slayers on our team, but it doesn't change the fact we're all still going to die."
"Super-witch is on it." Trudy replied.
"Only problem is we don't have the exact coordinates of this place." Buffy explained. "Will'll teleport them as close to here as she can – but I think a tactical retreat is necessary. So we can regroup with the Slayers being teleported in."
"OK. Sounds better than dying, right, Faith?" Roxelana paused, listening for the reply she wanted, and almost lost her head to a demon with a sword. "Faith?" she ducked under the demon's swing, stepped up behind him and twisted his head sideways until she heard the soft pop that told her his neck had broken. "Faith!" she sought her out desperately.
"There!" It was Chazza. Roxelana looked in the direction she was pointing.
–:::–
"I have to say it, Rubix." Faith panted: it had been hard work climbing up to the ledge Leicester was watching the battle from. "I'm impressed. For real. I didn't think you had it in you. This is a hell of an army."
Leicester grinned. "I'm so glad I don't have to pretend to give a damn about what you say anymore."
"Asshole." Faith laughed. "Wanna tell me how you did it, before I stake you? Have your moment in the evil genius spotlight?"
"It was a pretty awesome plan." Leicester admitted with a shrug. "It goes like this. I found a hell dimension, one of many that I visited. Its distinguishing feature, the thing that made it ideal for my plans, was its population. Killing machines, but intellectually under-developed. That means stupid, Faith. I know you have trouble with the big words. Stupid, and therefore controllable."
"So you brainwashed them into coming here?" Faith ignored his patronising tone.
"I destroyed their world." Leicester replied. "Well, not me personally, but a group of warlocks who I threatened to kill if they chose not to cooperate. Needless to say, they cooperated."
"So – you promised them this world? And they listened?"
"It isn't as though they know I'm the destroyer of their world. I'm their saviour, their messiah, their God. Why shouldn't they listen? I promised them this world would be theirs if they would just fight for it."
"So killing you won't put an end to all this." Faith muttered. "Couldn't you have just told me that at the start, instead of wasting my time with your psycho-babble?"
She turned away.
Leicester snickered. "You're just going to walk away? You think I'm going to let you do that?"
"What?" Faith snapped, "You wanna piece of me? You wanna make your name? Take a goddamn shot, you son of a bitch, this Slayer's dying for a fight!"
"Dying is right." Leicester snapped his fingers.
And suddenly Faith couldn't move. Because there were demons all over her, pinning her to the spot, like weights on her legs and feet, like chains on her arms and neck.
"Asshole." This time Faith couldn't quite bring herself to laugh. "Are you so fucking scared of me you need to hold me down to kill me? You call yourself a vampire? Man are people gonna laugh at you when this gets out."
Leicester ignored her and went to a small shelf near the back of the ledge. He took down a crossbow. It was fitted with an arrow, an arrow that lacked a metal barb – its wooden point was honed to razor sharpness.
"I always wanted to stake a Slayer." Leicester said. "Just for the irony. Just for a laugh."
He raised the crossbow and sighted down the shaft. Faith strained at the demons, clinging to her like dead weight, and felt them shift a little. If she just had a few more seconds – sometimes she detested her enhanced Slayer senses; her eyes, showing her in minute detail how Leicester's fingers squeezed the trigger, telling her there would never be enough time. She closed her eyes. She didn't want to know.
Damn. I wish it wasn't like this.
And then her enhanced ears heard the stake whistling through the air. Heard it thud in flesh.
Faith felt the demons' hold on her loosen, and she flung them away from her, automatically, without thought. Maybe they'd thought she was dead. But I feel great.
Then Faith opened her eyes and wished she'd died.
"No." she said.
There was a sword in Leicester's chest. There was a stake in Roxelana's.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Faith screamed helplessly.
"No time to think, baby. I just did it." Roxelana said, looking back over her shoulder at Faith.
And then Faith was covered in dust and Roxelana was gone. The stake clattered to the ground.
And all she could do was shake and blink and think Oh, God, Roxy. Roxy. God.
Then she had to move, because the fight was far from over, and some of the dust – her dust – got in Faith's eyes, at least that's what it must have been, because suddenly she was crying.
It wasn't love but it wasn't nothing.
She didn't know what else to think. Tried to cry the dust out of her eye, cry Roxy out of her mind. And tried to run, because there was Buffy, not yet outnumbered but getting close.
This is all my fault. How could I have trusted Leicester?
Faith jumped off the ledge and into the thick of the fighting.
–:::–
The rumbling sound was no longer as far-off as it had been.
But Faith didn't have time to wonder what it was. They were four exits down, three to go.
Buffy was with her. It was funny how when they fought, with each other or with others, they found a kind of harmony together. Somehow the harmony just didn't translate into peace.
"Faith! They're bringing their archers up front," Buffy's voice called, breathless.
"Doesn't matter so long as we keep moving. If it gets bad, there's always those rocky bits – you know?"
"Outcroppings?"
"Sure. Those. They're all over this place. And kinda like a shield."
They noticed the absence of sound at the same time. The thunderous rumbling had stopped.
It was replaced an instant later by the soft roar of fire, a fire that came hurtling across the ceiling of the cavern and exploded against the exit that Faith had planned would be their getaway.
When the smoke and dust of debris cleared, there was no longer an exit.
"What, are they on our side now?" Faith wondered.
"I'm thinking it's more of a snake-without-a-head issue." Buffy muttered. "They've figured out we're making for the exits. So they're demolishing them, and killing us at the same time. What the hell was that anyway?"
"Flaming catapult." Faith said. "And that is one big-ass motherfucker."
Buffy followed her gaze, had to remind herself to breathe.
"Faith. We need to get out of here. Like now."
"Want to get your people?"
"I think they know." The rumbling had started up again. "Faith, they're turning it! They're turning it to the exit behind us!"
Trudy and Chazza had reappeared, diving for the exit, a narrow slit in the rock face. Buffy and Faith were on their heels a second later.
Why aren't the demons chasing us? The thought had barely formed in Faith's mind when a hail of arrows fell on them.
Chazza took an arrow in the arm, another in the shoulder, but she was close to the exit and all it took was Trudy, stumbling into her, losing her balance because she'd taken an arrow through her ankle, to force both of them through.
Faith felt an arrow skim her neck. She didn't care. They were close, that was all that mattered.
Until an arrow punched through Buffy's calf, followed by a second through the back of her knee.
Faith knew the moment Buffy stumbled; her footsteps at her side were all she'd been listening for.
She swept Buffy up, glimpsed the second flight of arrows, shimmering above them. It was almost beautiful. But she knew better, and ran for one of the rocky bits. Outcroppings.
She hunched down, catching her breath, listening to the clang of arrowheads hitting rock. Buffy stared up at her, eyes glazing over with pain.
"You're bleeding," Buffy whispered, touching her neck. The realisation seemed to give Buffy new vigour, because she began to look around them for a fallen rock that they could use for a shield. The exit was ten feet away, but there were hundreds of arrows trained on them. Buffy didn't want to leave it to chance.
And then the rumbling stopped.
Buffy went frantic. They had to get out now, now, now. They'd never be able to fight their way through this army of demons, not with her leg. They wouldn't be able to make it to the last exit, on the other side of the hellmouth. She could feel her throat closing up with panic as she scrabbled around for something, anything.
Faith watched her disinterestedly. She had patrolled the hellmouth countless times. She knew Buffy wouldn't find anything of use. She glanced around, saw the rows of archers, the giant flaming catapult being loaded, the exit ten feet away.
It came to her that she knew exactly what this was. A Fork.
And it was as simple as that.
She found herself with a hand on Buffy's shoulder, pulling Buffy back into her embrace, and then she was on her feet.
Run.
Maybe time slowed down. All Faith knew was that running ten feet should never have felt so long. She was vaguely aware of Buffy's mouth, open in a silent scream. She didn't have to hear to know what Buffy must be saying. Maybe Giles would explain about Forks to her one day, Faith thought idly.
The first arrow almost didn't hurt. It scratched past her cheek, close, but not close enough. But the second fell in the soft place between her neck and shoulder, the third in her lower back, and those, man, those hurt like a mother bitch.
She noted the soft roar that filled the air, and noticed, detachedly, that her lips were bleeding where she was biting down on them.
She was at the mouth of the exit when the fireball hit.
–:::–
"Faith!" a torch flickered to life and Buffy's face loomed in front of her, her skin incredibly pale, as she whispered, "Shit. What the hell were you thinking?"
"I didn't think," Faith said, then cursed softly. Because suddenly what Roxelana had said made a very different kind of sense. I didn't know you felt like this. I didn't know not-thinking meant thinking faster than you ever thought before, feeling more than you ever felt before – damn, Roxy, how could you pretend it was all just sex?
"Stupid!" said Buffy, and there were tears in her eyes.
"So what?" said Faith. The world around Buffy's face was spinning and she knew she wasn't going to be conscious for much longer.
"Let's not be Slayers," she said, "just for a second, B. Forget there're demons and Slayers, forget this whole insane world we live in. Let's be ordinary people. Human."
Buffy had already opened her mouth to protest, to hush her, afraid that she was losing her mind now that she was so close to death. But then she looked deeper into Faith's eyes, and saw that they had never been so lucid, so calm or sane. "OK," she said.
Faith sighed, almost relaxed.
"Good," she said, " 'cause that's the only way we'd ever work."
"What?" Buffy asked, because this sounded like the conversation she'd been wanting to have, the conversation that had fallen apart every time she'd come close to starting it.
"B," Faith said seriously, "I could've loved you. I wanted to love you."
"Oh Faith," Because the words were killing her.
"We could've been good. Better than good."
"Shut up, Faith," Buffy said desperately. "Don't say how it could've been–"
"I'm dead, B. There's no coming back from this."
Buffy blinked the tears back. "I know. But don't tell me you could've loved me. Don't tell me we could've been good. I love you, I have since we were in LA. And we were hell of amazing together in LA."
"B–" Faith started coughing.
"Faith, tell me you love me."
Faith met her eyes steadily. "Fuck the words, B. Words are just air, and love could never be that simple. Or what the hell does love mean to you?"
"God, I don't know." Buffy muttered. Oddly, the question made her think of Roxelana. "Love is dying so the person you love can live?"
"How the fuck should I know?" Faith said. But Buffy felt sick.
"I thought you were going to forget about being a Slayer and be honest with me for once," she said softly.
"This is honesty. People don't know jack about love, they just feel it."
"You didn't need to say 'I love you' like this!"
"How else?" and it felt like she'd spoken the words out loud, but maybe it was only her thoughts, louder than usual as they clamoured to be heard in her dying brain.
How else could I make you believe it, how else could I prove it was real? Love is more than sex, more than words, more than a simple 'I love you'.
And how else could I prove it to myself? I didn't even know until I had to die for you to live. Not for sure.
Now you know. Now I know.
I love you.
Buffy was holding her so close she felt it when Faith's heart came to a shuddering stop, heard her last breath sighing out of her mouth.
For a long time she couldn't move. Didn't believe she would ever move again.
–:::–
They say your life flashes before your eyes as you die.
This didn't happen for Faith. For Faith there was just one scene.
In it, she was standing, staring at the wall of a motel room, alone. Or not quite alone. Because Faith wasn't really staring at the wall, she was staring at the photograph pinned there. She'd pinned it there herself, at eye-level.
She'd pinned it on a multitude of motel walls, and stared at it an infinity of times. Maybe that was why this was the scene that replayed itself as Faith died.
Faith knew what was coming next as her memory-self sighed. Felt herself tense up, all confrontational and guarded, the way she did in real life whenever she saw that face. Then felt the slumping of her squared shoulders, the conscious uncurling of her fists. Because there was no fighting this.
And then Faith spoke.
"I want you." she said simply. "And not just your body. I want all of you. Everything." And she hated the way her voice got so soft and low: intense – obsessive. It scared her how much it mattered. "I'm not asking for anything, I never would. I just – I owe it to you. I owe it to myself. There's no time just to wait for some accident to happen for me to find out how you feel, and there's no point wishing for things just to be how I want. So I had to tell you. I think–" even now she stumbled over the words. "I could love you. I mean potentially, one day. In the future. And maybe even right now. And I know we fight all the time, I know the idea of us being an us isn't logical. Well, I don't care shit for logical. I fight you, sure. I always will. No one pisses me off the way you do." Faith sighed, because it felt like everything was coming out wrong. It always felt that way. "The stuff you say – it matters, it matters to me, yo. Other people, they trash me and I can walk on by. You, though – you I gotta fight. I can't stand when you hate me." She stopped again, conflicted. But it was just a photograph, so she made herself carry on. "All I know is, I can't not say something. I need to know how you feel. Because I don't want to run away from you. I want to try and love you."
The photograph stared back at her, smile unwavering. And Faith wanted, as she had always wanted in the days just after LA, to have that smile directed at her for real.
This time when she reached for the phone her hand didn't shake and falter. This time she managed to dial the whole number without losing her nerve halfway through. She stared at the photograph as she listened to the line ring. She'd never got this far before.
The phone on the other end of the line was picked up on the third ring.
Faith took a deep breath – it felt like the last one she would ever take, like she was about to jump off a springboard and into the terrible unknown – and started speaking again.
"I want you." she said simply. And after that she couldn't stop.
And the words didn't sound crass or inappropriate this time, and she managed to say everything without hanging up in awkward embarrassment, and the silence on the other end of the line didn't hurt as much as she had expected.
And then the silence ended.
"Dumbass." Buffy said. "I love you."
And Faith's heart stopped.
The End