Until It Sleeps: Chapter 2

What I've felt What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never free
Never me
So I dub thee Unforgiven

-Metallica

"Hungry?"

"Huh?" Faith blinked away from her thoughts and rubbed her eyes at the stinging that followed. She'd been staring again, obviously. She shrugged. "Sure." Her voice cracked in the way it does when a person hasn't used it in a while. In Faith's case, since about 5 o'clock that evening.

Angel glanced at her from his position behind the wheel, as if to ensure the word came from her. He'd only half-expected an answer. Having tried to initiate light conversation through various meaningless comments, and failing miserably every time, Angel had simply given up. That was the problem with meaningless comments, he reasoned. Anything more and you're trying too hard. Anything less and you'd be talking about the weather.

"We'll stop at the next gas station and grab something."

"Noooo problemo." Faith returned her gaze out of the car window - watching the road markers whiz by, white streaks on an inky road. They were comforting in their regularity. Faith needed regularity. It was the only regularity she would find for the next little while, she knew.

In prison her room-mate had asked her how she did it. Faith kept to herself for the rest of her stay, but not for want of provoking. Twice a day for almost 18 months it seemed that someone was willing to pick a fight with her. The most she would do was look at them, and that happened rarely. All that time, she had only bitten once - having become the centre of attention for one of the longer-standing residents. For Faith all it had taken was a snatch and a sharp twist, and Jack had been on her back in the prison hospital for a week with a dislocated elbow and spiral fracture to her humerus.

So the question was posed to her, the night before her parole hearing. `How do you do it? Shut off and not let it bother you like that?'

Faith kept her answer short, simple - a true reflection of who she was at the time.

`It gets easier the more you practice.' She had answered with a shrug.

People were mistaken in thinking a person who shut themselves off felt the blissful pull of nothing. Where emotions otherwise would be, there was no vacuum. No clean, empty room. Instead, what stood in its place was sour, corrosive; a pathogen that permeated the soul like rust on iron. And like the latter, if left unchecked there was an awful amount of structural damage that could be caused, before even being noticed.

Without care, it would disintegrate altogether.

Faith had lots of practice in prison. More than enough practice in life.. but since getting out, she'd been trying not to practice too much.

Sometimes though, you had to do what instinct forced you to do, before you flew apart.

On a parallel line of thought, Angel set his jaw. Sometimes, you also have to ask the question regardless of the answer you know you'll receive, if for no other reason than to show that you care.

"You alright?"

"You know me Big Guy. Five by Five."

That was the one and only conversation - if you could call it a conversation - Angel and Faith had before the familiar "Welcome to Sunnydale" flashed past them. Faith unconsciously flinched away from the window, her head snapping forward, her hair following so as to hide the expression on her face.

It was a very small movement but Angel caught it. He knew.

She was tired, and not just because they'd been driving through the night. Since embarking on their drive, she'd felt an enormous oppressive weight descend onto her shoulders. So many different things, so many people - Buffy, The Mayor, Angel, Willow, Xander, Tara, Alan Finch.

So many names.

The acid in Faith's stomach began to boil. The nothingness inside her was starting to fill.

"We're going to stay at a Motel tonight." Angel said. He chewed at his lower lip, then continued. "Buffy is going to meet us there."

Faith chuckled, a hollow, empty sound. "They sure don't waste time."

"They're-"

"Desperate, I know. I get it." Faith yawned. Then in a moment that seemed a complete splice of time, she turned to him. "It's just... seeing her again, y'know? Seeing them all again... like nothing's changed."

Angel nodded. A part of him was relieved that the Faith he knew was still with him.

"Things have changed. A lot has changed." He said. "There's a lot of hurt on all sides, and not a lot of forgiveness. I don't want you to expect things to be the way they were. They've asked you to come, but. they don't want you there. It's not going to be pleasant... But-"

Faith flashed him a sad smile. "Protect the innocent, right?" She said softly, "Fight the fight?"

A neon sign appeared out of the darkness.

"Something like that."

As they approached the motel, Angel slowed, flicking the car indicator on. As it was so late there was little sign of life, save for the lights illuminating each door and the cars parked in the lot.

And a lone figure leaning against the bonnet of one of them, a leather jacket pulled tightly across her body, breath steaming in the night.

Time resumed, as did Faith when she caught a flash of blonde hair in the car headlights. Had she been honest with herself, Faith would have realised she had felt the other slayer there before they'd even pulled in. But she had no desire to tap into the comfort of it.

"Gotcha." She said simply.

Angel pulled the car up in a spare parking space and cut the engine. The air in the car was filled with a sort of static - a little preserved time capsule of LA - ready to evaporate into the vastness of Sunnydale as soon as they opened the door. For a second, neither Faith nor Angel seemed confident in being the first to let it go.

In the next second, Faith shrugged. "Well, here goes nothing."

With her air of impervious confidence she pushed open the door of the car and stepped out, closing it - a little loudly - behind her. The night was cold - much colder than she had ever remembered in LA. Each breath turned to steam the instant it left her mouth. The familiar scent of Sunnydale assaulted her nose and she shivered, pulling her own burgundy leather coat around herself, thankful she was wearing jeans and her black boots. Tonight, in LA, she would have been wearing a tank top and shorts.

As Angel quietly left the car himself Faith took a few steps backward and forward, raising her arms up in a deliberate stretch, arcing her body left and right. She knew she was under the close eye of the figure by the car. She didn't even need to look to know.

Calculatedly casual.

She let Angel make the first move. Still ironing the kinks out of a body that had been idle for far longer than a slayer's body should, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he walked slowly towards the other figure.

Soft words were exchanged, then they slid their arms around each other in a gentle, caring embrace. Faith couldn't help but feel the corrosive feeling increase within her, and she balled her hands into fists, relishing the feeling of her nails digging into her own palm.

Somehow, in Faith's ideal world, she imagined herself presented to all the people she'd hurt, cured of all her ills like someone would present an old battered car fully restored, shiny, new hubcaps and with a new V8 engine to boot. They would marvel at her, smile at her, and welcome her in. It would be as easy as that. She wouldn't need to ask, they wouldn't need to say a thing.

Now, on this cold December night, on the crest of yet another potential apocalypse, a couple of years later and with nothing to show but the word of a vampire, she was reuniting with one of them at a Motel. And not just anyone - Buffy. Buffy. Faith looked down at herself. She didn't own any new clothes, new makeup, new anything. Same face. Same person.

Not exactly the start she had in mind.

More words, and a key was handed to Angel, which he took, scanning the doors to find the correct one. He nodded, then his eyes fell on her.

She detached herself further.

Ah well.

Shit happens.

Slowly, deliberately Faith stepped off the gravel and onto the decking. Her boots clicking against the wood as she approached them suddenly seemed to be the only sound in the night. Angel nodded very carefully - perhaps in a silent vote of confidence for the dark slayer. Faith didn't know. Until she was barely 8 feet away he was positioned directly between them, but then he stood aside - revealing them finally to each other.

Faith slowed.

Buffy looked up.

It was a moment that could define itself - like this small exchange was the only reason that little pinch of time was created. Faith's skin began to crawl - itching with... something unknown. Buffy looked older. More... weathered, but still the same. Her hair was perhaps a little shorter. Tied back a little tighter. She wore a black leather jacket, a white shirt and jeans. The boots Faith remembered. The rest... well, Angel said things had changed.

Three years of heavy experience weighed on Buffy's features.

"Hey Buffy." Faith broke the silence. Always the one. Always the one to make the first move. She grinned. "Long time."

"Faith." Buffy's voice was strained. Tired. "Thanks... for coming."

Ooo.. Faith thought. That woulda hurt.

"No sweat, B." She replied lightly. Buffy flinched at the name, only just enough for Faith to notice. "Any chance to fight the good fight, y'know."

Faith caught Angel wince and turn away. Buffy opened her mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. She looked up at Angel.

"Let's get inside. We've got a lot to-" She glanced at Faith "-Talk about."