Other World: Faith POV, Sunnydale. THE FINAL FINAL FINAL CHAPTER EVER. The break in the story was where it was originally going to end. Then someone told me they would do unpleasant and mean things to me. So I amended it somewhat. :P

Once again, Faith found herself at the cemetery. She'd been going less often now, only five times in the past two months, but sometimes she needed to stop and think, to breathe, and she now associated the gravestone as her thinking spot.

"You shouldn't do this to yourself," Willow had said, restraining her with a hug. "Therein lies the road to crazy."

"I'm five by five," Faith had assured her. "Feeling better. Just … need time out. S'all."

She really did feel fine, at least at that moment. Her friends – no – her family – were annoying as hell with their over-concern, but sometimes it made Faith realise just how much she was loved. Tara, Willow, Xan, Anya, Giles, Voirrey – all supported her when she needed it. All of them backed her up, helped keep her on the straight and narrow.

She found it hard to handle this realisation at times. It was that feeling, the okay, content feeling, which sent her to the stone, to crouch once again before Buffy's name.

"Hey, B," she said. "Not been in a while. But that's prob a good thing. Getting busy. Evil never likes to rest, yunno. Giles is thinking of enrolling Willow in some official witch coven thing – shes wicked good with magic now. Tara is ..." She sighed, thinking of Tara's scarred face, "Better. Refuses to have all the scars removed. Dunno why." Faith paused, gathering her thoughts, focusing her breathing.

"V was panicky 'bout me. Like, really losing it. Only found out why the other day. She told me she had a daughter. Lost her. Always thought it was weird how much attention V put on me, how out of her way she went to make sure I was a good Slayer. Hated it at first. But … shit. Never knew."

Faith's previous neutral mood retreated in place of a funny sensation stirring in her stomach again. She fought to control it. She never liked to talk so openly, not in front of anybody. But a dead person's gravestone – somehow, those personal laws became circumvented.

"I wish you could have lived." She pressed fingers against the name, stroking it. "Here. Sure, bet there's many other crazy Buffys out there. But my one? My Buffy? You and the other one who came here …?" The words stopped. She sighed. She felt sad, then. Not grief, not despair, just a creeping sadness at the knowledge she would never know Buffy. Not the one here, six feet under earth, or the one who came from afar, and sacrificed herself barely a month or so in.

The sheer weight of that sacrifice loomed on Faith's mind.

She was meant to live, the Inner Slayer said. That was always what was meant to happen.

Faith nodded, steeled herself. "Then let her live on."

Standing straight, she looked down at the grave one final time. "I'll remember her. We all will." With a shoulder stretch, she began to walk off and into the summer day.

She didn't get very far. A strange ball of energy formed in Faith's stomach, intensifying. The feeling came out of nowhere. She hadn't seen anyone else nearby, so she whirled around in confusion, searching. Couldn't be a vampire, too much daylight – definitely something supernatural – that was the energy she reacted to. Demon? Somehow that didn't feel right, either.

Muffled thumps came from ahead and beneath. Faith pinpointed exactly where in a second. The earth under Buffy's gravestone. More thumps came, irregular, scattered. Then a voice, faint, so faint, but scooped up by Faith's advanced hearing.

"Help!" The stress in the voice was evident. The thumps became frantic, then silent. Faith strained to hear anything else. She rested her ear against the earth, barely breathing as she listened. Something thrashed wildly within her chest, almost painful. A presence wavered inside Faith, tentative. A Connection.

That did it. Not considering the logic, the danger behind it, Faith dug her hands into the earth, tearing away at the grass and soil. Cemetery soil was spongy and crumbly, but it still took a lot of effort.

"Hang on! I can hear you! I'm getting you out!"

"Help!" This time, the voice consisted of a mix of hope and panic. "You can hear me?"

"That's what I just said! Digging you out!"

" … I don't know how I ended up here." The sobs beneath penetrated Faith's heart.

"Me either!" It had to be, it sounded just like her, maybe a little less mature, but Faith recognised that accent, that timbre of voice from anywhere.

Fifteen or so minutes later, guided by their shouting conversation from where the trapped occupant varied from panic to relief to panic again, as well as sarcastic, off the wall remarks – Faith's hands breached the soil, scraping wood. Dirt piles heaped up on either side of the makeshift pit she'd dug, not quite big enough to reveal the whole coffin, but enough for her to rip at the top half nail by nail, fingers becoming raw and bloody as she yanked it apart.

Inside the coffin emerged a bewildered, dirt-ridden Buffy, from where the soil had seeped in through the holes she had punched through in her desperation. Her knuckles were skinned, bleeding, but curled upward to display her palms as Faith reached down. She rose out of the soil like a dolphin breaking water, the particles tumbling around her.

Helping the blonde out was awkward, clumsy, but when they both clambered over the sides of the hole, and sank into a huddled, dirtied ball, Buffy rested her head on Faith's shoulder for a moment, dazed and disorientated. Then she coughed, glanced around, obviously confused, before settling eyes on Faith. Tear streaks made clean lines down her dirt-caked face.

"I … don't know who you are, but … thanks. For getting me out."

Faith stared at Buffy for a moment, jaw agape. "You don't know me?"

Buffy shook her head. "No. Sorry."

Faith raised hands to her mouth. It was impossible. It couldn't be.

Could it?

"I – I need … I want to go home." Buffy rubbed her eyes, hands shaking, the shock kicking in full time now. "I – I don't understand … what happened ..."

"Hey, hey. It's okay," Faith said, awkwardly, never really the best of people to comfort others. She tried patting the blonde on the back. Her mind worked double time, playing feverishly with the idea it presented her. Is she really …?

Buffy's eyes snapped open wide. "The Master! Oh God. I – I need to go -"

"The Master is dead. He's not your problem, anymore." Yes! She is! She really is! Triumph and delight coursed through Faith. She didn't care how or why – but somehow, miraculously – Buffy – the Buffy of this world - was no longer dead.

Told you things have a way of fixing themselves. The Inner Slayer sounded pretty smug.

Faith had heard the words many times in the past four months, but had never even contemplated this possibility. That a person who was not meant to die could come back.

Now the blonde squinted at Faith in wary suspicion. "You know about the Master?"

"Yeah. I'm a Slayer, like you. You can sense it, right?"

Buffy was silent a long moment, her expression slowly transitioning to suspicion, to blank shock to fear. "T-the Master. H-he killed me, didn't he?"

"Hey, don't think 'bout that right now. Dunno where your mom is. But I can take you to Giles. Shall I do that?"

Buffy shrugged, helplessly, her brain still processing, overloaded by the news. She didn't even seem to consider or wonder too much into how or why Faith knew about these things. She was lost, helpless, scared and uncomprehending.

Faith supported her around the waist, because the blonde couldn't walk upright without her limbs giving out on her, wobbling like jelly.

Together, they began the short journey to Giles' home.

If things couldn't be the same, maybe they could start over again.