Until It Sleeps: Chapter 9
I would like to visit you for a while
Get away and out of this city
Maybe I shouldn't have called
But someone had to be the first to break
We can go sit on your back porch, relax
Talk about anything, it don't matter
I'll be courageous if you can pretend
That you've forgiven me
- Darren Hayes
Right now, in Faith's eyes, everything was fairly well fucked up.
In the last 36 hours she'd agreed to go back to the one place she couldn't even have talked about a week previously, she'd met back up with the `jolly' little gang of troopers after years of trying to hide from them, she'd been attacked by an evil invincible demon, she'd had her left arm sliced open and a weird-ass tattoo burned into her temple, and now she was stuck, alone, in a cab. With Buffy.
Less than three feet between them.
And it would have been even less than that, were Faith not pressed into the passenger door so hard she practically melded with the chassis. She thanked herself inwardly that she'd picked the right side. She'd be having a little more trouble with a bandage, nineteen stitches and a whole lotta pain in her way.
Had a person asked a week ago what Faith wanted most out of her `redemption', she would have painted a picture much like this. She would have smiled, and described a scene where she was back in Sunnydale, fighting side by side with Buffy and the gang, leading the charge against the Hellmouth. The fact was, her relationship with Xander, Buffy, Giles, Willow and even Cordelia, though tempestuous at best, was the closest thing she had to a stable family. Naturally, she reasoned, she would want that back, regardless of the amount of water under the bridge.
Now however, as she sat in silence picking at a thread on her jeans, Faith couldn't have wished to be further away. She had come face to face with the water, and it was turbulent and high and full of dangerous debris. No bridge could be built over it, she was sure of that. Had she delved into her memory a little further than yesterday, she would have remembered it.
Just goes to show what you don't see when you're not looking too deep.
The warm comfort floating around her subconscious was making her uncomfortable. Funny, how alien and wrong something can feel when your entire life to date has been lived at the opposite end of the spectrum. Each time she felt it she pulled away from it, and shrank further away from the figure to her left.
Internally, Faith was turning into a heavyweight World Title Fight. In the blue corner was the part of her that drew from connection she and Buffy had - the one that craved proximity, that wanted to joke, laugh, fight, talk, cry, love and be loved and just be everything Buffy wanted. In the red corner was the hurt and the mistrust and the rejection and the enforced solitude and the attitude that had driven her away.
But further into the murkiness of Faith's mind was the real power. There lay the voice that whispered throughout the fight - taunting, teasing - speaking of how Faith wasn't good enough and never would be. Never for Buffy. Never for any of them. She was a murderer, nothing more. Nameless, faceless. lost.
It was that voice that always lay in the back of her mind, telling her that her `promotion' to Slayer was the universe's way of completing a job meant to have been finished long ago - somewhere in the moments between her being born and taking her first breath - which hadn't been because some higher power was late. Or forgot. Or was too drunk to notice she wasn't supposed to live any longer than that.
After all, what better way of getting rid of a pyromaniac than locking them in a warehouse full of fireworks with a lighter and an unlimited supply of gasoline?
Each time she survived a battle the voice would say `well that was lucky' or `fate's not paying attention again'. Each time she slipped further and further into the darkness it would say `you may as well, there's no other purpose for you'. It was that voice that was the automatic shrug in her shoulders and the `who cares' on her lips.
Unbeknownst to Faith, it was that voice that Ammitus had heard, and he himself had begun to speak through. And the blue corner was losing. Badly.
Faith closed her eyes, trying to block out the silhouette of her. Trying, just for a moment, to pretend she was alone.
Buffy? Oh. God.-
You didn't think I was going to find you, did you?
She advanced on Faith, who could do nothing but cower further and further back on the bed, eyes daring to look up only fractions of a second at a time before returning to the floor.
"Buffy let's talk." Angel's voice, ever calm sounded from behind Buffy and she spun around.
"Oh I don't think talking is in order right now."
"Faith needs help" He said simply. Faith could feel their eyes on her, so she turned her shoulder into their line of sight and hid behind the hair that had fallen forward over her face.
"Help?" Buffy snapped. "Do you have any idea what she did to me?"
"Yes."
Faith?
"Do you care?"
"She wants to change. She has a chance to-"
"No. No chance. Jail."
"Do you think that'd help?"
".Buffy?"
Buffy turned, her lips twisted in rage and her eyes burning,. Faith stood before her terrified, but resolved. This is where it would start. This is where she wanted it fixed most. Here, with B.
"I'm so s-"
But Buffy cut her off. "You apologise to me," She snarled, her voice shaking with pure hatred. "I will beat you to death"
Faith? You okay?
Faith felt like a child again, trembling, unsure. An old pain, starting from a space somewhere around her middle, began to spread out through her body - twisting, churning with loathing. She tilted her head, spreading her arms wide. Maybe this would help make it right. Maybe this would do it.
".Go ahead."
Something touched Faith's hand, and she flinched away, staring at blank space where the contact had come from. Her left arm had started to ache. What was going on?
Faith. Hey, Faith, we're here
There it was again, but the pressure was firmer, more like a squeeze, on her arm. This time Faith wrenched her hand away and the momentum carried her arm into the air, until it hit an invisible barrier. She cried out as pain shot through her wrist and arm, her eyes snapped open and she found herself staring at the back of a car seat. in..
"Faith we're still in the cab." Buffy's voice was soft and calm, and momentarily sounded foreign to Faith's ears, after what she had just heard. "We're here." Faith blinked harder, took another look around her and shook her head. Buffy's door was open and she was standing on the road, bent over with her head still in the cab. "You okay?"
The cab. The cab. The hospital, the cab.
"Yeah. Sure." Faith said quickly. She unfastened her seat belt and swung open the cab door, easing herself out. ."Must've dozed off." She said casually, rolling her shoulders. "All that demon fighting you know."
Buffy paid and thanked the cab driver, then turned and headed for the house. "What happened to hungry and horny?" She called flippantly over her shoulder.
"'fraid you've got Sister Faith tonight, B." Faith answered with a half-smile while desperately struggling to rid herself of the fragmented images in her head. "No sex, no supper."
Faith heard Buffy's laugh, but it didn't do anything to calm her. She realised now why she was so bothered. That was the last time Buffy saw her. Then. in Angel's bedroom. On the rooftop. All that hate, that disgust. Was it still in there now?
Of course it was. Why should she expect any different?
"Faith?"
Faith looked up. Buffy was standing in the doorway, facing her.
"I think I'm gonna hang back here a sec, B. Chill out."
"No. No you're not." Buffy said firmly.
No. No chances. Jail.
Faith cringed and instantly her eyes dropped to the grass. Okay, yeah. It was a dumb idea, especially with that thing out there. Desperate. Desperately dumb.
Buffy moved down a step. "Come into the kitchen. I want to check your stitches - see if you blew any in the cab."
"It's fine, B." Faith resisted the impulse to step away from her by focusing her attention on the light scattering through the trees, spilling onto Buffy's lawn. "Hardly feel a thing." She echoed the same words she had said to the doctor.
If only it worked as well on Buffy as the rest of the medical profession.
"Relax Faith." She said, gentler this time. "If I know Giles, he'll have beaten the others into shape while we were away. They shouldn't give you any more trouble. Come on." She accentuated it this time by jerking her head in the direction of the door.
Unable to formulate an argument against it, Faith followed, silently wishing Angel would hurry the hell up and get back there.
Buffy had artistically avoided leading Faith through the living room where she knew the rest of them were. Now it was drawing closer to midnight, Willow had taken the initiative to send Dawn to bed. Despite all Dawn's protestations to the contrary, school was just one of those things that was utterly non-optional... and as Willow had pointed out, would continue to be so regardless of how likely it was the world would end.
No longer requiring the necessary verbal dancing and abstract reasoning that comes with having a young teenager in the same room, the conversations and the research had begun in earnest, but with Faith rapidly advancing to the title of `lab rat', Buffy didn't believe participating in the conversation was a particularly good idea.
Reason number two for taking her into the kitchen.
As much as Faith was trying to hide it, Buffy had noticed a darkness growing across her features that had already begun when she walked out of the emergency ward with Angel. Buffy wasn't sure, but she guessed the dreams had started there. A small panic began to rise from her stomach at the speed of it all, but she pushed it aside. This was Faith. Faith was. a slayer.
Watching Faith standing in her kitchen, slowly take in her surroundings, registering familiarity in every corner still seemed surreal to Buffy - almost like Faith had been simply superimposed into her line of sight and wasn't actually there. Faith's clear discomfort added to the illusion. The way her shoulders were pulled up slightly, the way she never looked up for long. At the very least, by the time Buffy spoke she would have been exceptionally familiar with the tiles.
"You should eat something." She said.
At first, Buffy thought Faith was simply ignoring her as the comment itself didn't stop her kitchen survey. She was about to make it again when Faith shrugged.
"Nah, not hungry." She straightened all of a sudden and blew out a tense breath. "I should be. training. or, over-" She waved her hand in the vague direction of the lounge room. "-there, thinking or, researching or whatever the hell it is they do."
"Not tonight, Faith." Buffy shook her head. "Tonight you should be eating, and resting."
The sound of an open palm smacking the kitchen bench reverberated throughout the lower level of the house. Unconsciously, Willow's eyes lifted to the ceiling, hoping the noise hadn't woken Dawn.
"Just who the fuck died and made you my mo-" Faith stopped mid- sentence, her mouth still open as if her brain had tripped over the word itself. Buffy, who had called on all her inner reserves not to jump a mile high, watched Faith battle with it, then finally give up and snarl, turning away. "Just forget it."
Wordlessly, Buffy opened a cupboard and brought out a square vacuum- sealed folded bag. She could have bitten on that comment, but experience and a few more years had taught her that retorts like that were less about the person they're aimed at, and more about the person they're coming from. Even if that person was Faith. Perhaps especially so.
Placing the bag in the microwave, Buffy started the timer, then leaned back against the fridge with her arms crossed, waiting.
Pop
Faith's eyes darted up.
"Angel worded me up before you guys left." She said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "He said you were a fiend."
Faith seemed not to notice she had just had the imperial rug pulled out from under her, she simply stared directly at the timer. Besides, by the time the smell of buttered microwave popcorn filled the kitchen, Faith's stomach had well and truly given her away.
"Man I could knock back a tonne of that stuff." Faith laughed. "On my first day out, y'know." She paused for a second to ensure Buffy knew what she meant and that she didn't need to explain herself any further. "I got back to Angel's and he had. bought me-" Measuring with her hands, Faith depicted a box somewhere of the order of two feet long by one foot wide, by one foot high. "-this huge, factory box of it. I went through over half in like. two days."
Buffy was thankful the conversation had been drawn away from the direction it was otherwise heading, and allowed herself a wider smile. The microwave beeped loudly indicating the end of its cycle, and Buffy couldn't help but chuckle at the look of pure anticipation on Faith's face.
Pulling out a bowl, she opened the microwave again and, after a moment's thought, deposited the popcorn - bag and all - in it, and slid it across the countertop to Faith.
"Enjoy your feast, slayer." She said wryly.
"Oh, but I will. slayer." Faith responded, in kind.
And for the briefest of instants, the air in the kitchen became charged, but the static wasn't enough for them to notice.
Yet.