All characters presented in this story are borrowed without permission under various fair use acts. I make no money off of this story, so don't come after me. Go after someone else who has money. May I suggest the banks?
After a happy reunion with a shaken, but unharmed Willow, Buffy put her foot down and dragged everyone back to Revello drive, so she could finally get some answers without news of fresh disaster happening.
"Everyone, welcome to my lovely home. Coffee and soda will be out momentarily, and tea will follow shortly. Now everyone sit down, and if you try to leave before we finish this discussion, I'll break your legs! Isn't that fun?" Xander couldn't decide what was scarier, the words Buffy was saying, or the manic grin on her face as she said them. Rather than dwell on that, he looked around at the gathered folk. Oz was sitting next to Willow on the loveseat, giving her hugs and comfort, and she was visibly calmer than she had been when they walked in. Xander shook his head, the zen master strikes again. Marston and Giles were going over some notes that they'd had on them, Faith had dropped her feet in his lap and was kicking back, but he could see the tension in her body, and Buffy and Joy-Mrs. Summers had just walked back in, carrying drinks and snacks.
"Ok, we are going to discuss this weird…thing going on between me and Faith, and we are going to share all information we have, and then we are going to talk about any other strange supernatural stuff going on, and then I'm going to bed because I'm getting a headache."
Giles stood, stiffly, and took off his glasses to polish them. This immediately focused the attention of the entire room on him, as they all knew by now that he did that as a stall when he was nervous about important information.
"Well, um, Buffy, it-ah-it seems that, well, somehow, um, there is an-ah, well…"
"Giles…" Buffy's growl was low and menacing.
"Oh for God's sake. The Slayer spirit inhabiting both of you has never been split before, and is trying to either eliminate the copy, or, well, to 'become one'." Elliott stuttered slightly over the last part, but managed to deliver it with a straight face.
The reaction around the room was varied. Oz raised an eyebrow, Willow did her impression of a tomato, Giles tried to polish a hole in his glasses, Joyce covered her mouth in shock, Cordelia didn't budge from her perma-snark face, Xander's eyes looked like dinner plates, Faith looked vaguely ill, and Buffy…
…well, Buffy had apparently short circuited. If one stared at her long enough, they might even see the smoke coming out of her ears. Or perhaps not. Regardless, she wasn't really able to process this information.
"Luckily, while Ms. Rosenberg should have informed us of her findings before, her solo research has paid off. She found the beginnings of a solution that doesn't involve isolation or locking you two in a room and not opening it until the noise dies down."
Faith looked slightly relieved, Xander's eyes were still bigger than his head, and Buffy OS 2.1 was still frozen.
"We are working on completing the ritual that Ms. Rosenberg started, and it seems as though the books we liberated from Spike may be of assistance here. We should have a workable ritual by the end of the week, so until then, keep your distance from each other. After we perform the ritual, you should be safe around each other, without any strange things passing though your minds. Aside from teenaged thoughts, which will never be classified as 'normal'." Elliott finished.
Buffy apparently rebooted at that point, and responded with a frown, followed by a thoughtful look, followed by another frown for the crack about teenagers. But her vengeance was derailed by her mother offering a new round of drinks, and she was eventually sidetracked by the discussion on the ritual to loosen the connection between the two Slayers.
"Why not just break the connection entirely? Wouldn't that be safer?" the diminutive blond asked.
"Well, um, Buffy, yes, it would be safer from the standpoint of you not killing each other, but it might also rob one or both of you of your connection to the Slayer, or banish the connection entirely, so we decided to not to do that." Giles explained.
"…I like your way. I'm going to sit over here and try not to screw up any important rituals that could doom humanity."
The next few days seemed to fly by, with nothing of interest happening aside from some transfer student trying to hassle Cordelia and getting the brush off, and having similar luck with Buffy as well. She eventually seemed to strike up a friendship with one of the girls from the track team, but since she wasn't involved in any supernatural nastiness, the Scoobies ignored her. On Thursday after school they gathered in the library to find that Mr. Marston, Giles and Willow, with some input from Oz, managed to assemble a ritual to make the Slayers safe around each other. It would take place on Saturday night, under the new moon, after each of the magically-aware Scoobies had a chance to review their notes.
Buffy, Cordelia and Xander were on patrol for the night, with Oz manning the radio at Revello, so Marston volunteered to drive Faith home so she could work out and get her annoying homework out of the way. The Bostonian admitted, if only to herself, that she missed hanging around with the whole gang, but a few days of isolation wouldn't kill her.
She was shaken from her reverie by Marston. "Ms. Lehane, Faith, I just wanted to say that while you have certain rough edges, I have come to greatly admire how you handle your duties as a Slayer, and that I believe you are the ideal, not envisioned by the stuffed upper crust back in jolly old, but actually what a Slayer should be."
Faith colored slightly and looked away at the unsolicited compliment. "Jeez, thanks E-M. I'm just doin' my best, y'know?"
"Indeed." Was all she heard before a searing heat stabbed into her neck with a crackling noise, and blackness flowed over her eyes.
Faith awoke to a bucket of water to the face and a sledgehammer to her gut. She opened her mouth to gasp, and her eyes followed as she inhaled water. She was under water! She tried to swim, but found her arms and legs restrained, and her rapidly fading strength wasn't enough to break free. Her lungs screamed for air uselessly as she thrashed about, and the cold was lulling her to sleep. She tried, she really did, but it wasn't enough, and she felt herself slipping away into darkness…
AN: DUN DUN DUN! I have to admit, I'm not thrilled with this chapter, hence why it took so long to make it here, but I'm writing again, and the next one is already started, so don't hate me (for the delay, at least. Do it for a good reason if you must.) Next chapter out soon (later on this month soon, not before the heat death of the universe soon).
Please review, or don't. I'm not a cop.