Dawn watched Faith dig into the Mega Slam breakfast she'd ordered and felt slightly sick.
"How can you eat like that?" she asked.
"Slayer metabolism," Faith said, slathering butter on a piece of toast.
"So not what I meant," Dawn said.
"I never pass up a chance to eat," Faith said, and Dawn knew that was the end of that conversation. She poked at her own, much smaller, breakfast for a few minutes, listening to the bustle around them and thinking. Faith had been quiet since they'd left the hospital the night before, but Dawn had been exhausted and only thinking of her bed until she'd gotten an almost embarrassing ten hours of sleep. She'd wanted to head straight back to Xander when she woke up, but Faith had insisted on grabbing breakfast first.
"Back at the hospital, you said that Xander told you he wasn't going to Africa to...to off himself," she said. "And you said that you'd believed him...now you don't?"
Faith put down her fork and looked at Dawn. "It's not that I don't believe him now," she said. "It's just...it's hard to watch someone you care about in as much pain as Xander was. You want to help, even when you know you can't." After Dawn just stared at her for a few moments, she shrugged. "I had to sit through a lot of therapy sessions in prison."
Dawn thought about reaching out and patting Faith's hand, but decided that they didn't do that. "He seemed a lot better...before he fell asleep, I mean. Much more like himself than...than after Sunnydale."
"He could have just been putting on an everything's-all-right Xander face," Faith said. "He does that a lot." She went back to her food, but Dawn could tell she really wanted to know what Dawn thought.
"I can tell the difference by now," Dawn said. "He really, really did seem better."
Faith sighed. "Good," she said.
Dawn studied her. "Can I ask you a question?"
Faith quirked an eyebrow at her, but said, "Sure."
"Did you and Xander ever talk about...you know...the year with the Mayor?"
Faith snorted. "You mean when I tried to kill him? 'Course. When Giles first asked us to work together, I knew I couldn't put it off any more. Hardest thing I've ever had to do, though, and that includes turning myself in in the first place."
"Really?" Dawn said.
"Yeah," Faith said. She stared down at her plate, which by this time had just a few smears left on it. "Promise not to laugh?"
"Promise," Dawn said, almost in shock. Faith cared about what she thought?
"One of my favorite fantasies in prison was what would have happened if I'd taken Xander up on his offer," Faith said. "Friendship. Real friendship. You have no idea, Dawn, what that would have meant to me then, if I'd let myself believe in it."
"Would have?" Dawn asked.
Faith jumped up, throwing a few bills down on the table. "C'mon, lets get back to Xander."
But right before she reached the door, Dawn caught up to her and put a hand on her arm. "Why didn't you go to Africa with him?" she asked.
Faith gave her a small, bleak smile. "He didn't want me to," she said.