Until It Sleeps: Chapter 11

So tell me why you've chosen me
Don't want your grip
Don't want your greed
I'll tear you open, make you gone
No more will you hurt anyone
And the fear still shakes me
So hold me Until it sleeps

- Metallica

As soon as Buffy's foot left the last step she was on a rampage. Funny thing was, she didn't even know why. Seventeen steps ago she was still in shock, still reeling from the image of Faith cowering from her, from her own conjured images of Faith's inherent death- wish that was obvious now, yet something she mistook at the time for something. evil.

Despite all the healing, despite the help exchanged, there was still that undercurrent of misunderstanding from both sides, that always threatened them. Always marched them down the path to self- combustion. Buffy didn't know what it was like to be Faith, and Faith didn't know what it was like to be anything else.

Both too proud. Both too independent. Both too stubborn.

Buffy remembered the night they had broken into the weapons shop. She remembered `Want. Take. Have'. God, she would have done anything for her then. She remembered the tingle up her spine as Faith had breathed the words to her. The way her eyes flittered along the length of the crossbow, then along the length of her. Which one. Which one did she want? Which one could she have?

She could have taken either, that night. For a few brief moments, she even did. At the Bronze, just dancing. Just the two of them. Buffy had never felt anything like it, and the connection scared her. It was like a magnet - utterly undefinable but full of this attractive force that just seemed to have no end. When they spoke it was never for long enough. When they were together it was never close enough.

They drew closer, but so close they polarised. Suddenly they were flying apart from each other with just as much fury. Just as much intensity. They hated each other with the same passion that had brought them together. Where they once couldn't speak for long enough they couldn't cut each other deep enough. They couldn't hurt each other fiercely enough. They couldn't betray each other enough, to make it count.

So Buffy killed Faith to destroy her.

And Faith didn't die to spite her.

Yet here she was - years later - changed, reformed, here when she was asked. Helping when it counted, despite all their history, despite all their hurt. Looking out for the people who couldn't look after themselves. The innocent. The vulnerable.

And in doing so she had become that which she'd come to save. Buffy had seen it, only minutes before. Vulnerable and unsure, terrified and alone, recoiling from her attacker, and all Buffy could do was remember her from back then. Remember the fights and the lies and the betrayal . it was all she could think about. It was all she could comprehend. It was her reference point, always close to the forefront. `Now' Faith to Buffy was no different to `then' Faith. She wouldn't let her be any different. It wouldn't matter how much she had changed. Damnit, she was always going to be that girl who brought Buffy's life to bear. Who offered her everything in one instant then snatched it away the next.

Right now, Buffy couldn't decide if she was angry with herself because she felt for Faith, or if she was angry at herself because she didn't feel enough. She certainly didn't do enough. She sure as hell didn't know enough.

So instead she tore into the lounge room like a hurricane. a contained hurricane at that, churning and whirling up its own fury. It's own steam. Had Faith not been upstairs in full slayer-hearing of anything spoken or acted upon above 8 decibels, Buffy would have raged. She would have stomped. She would have thrown something. She would have been level 5, serious storm damage capable of ripping a house apart and depositing it inside out and back to front in some remote village on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

Only Tara, Willow and Giles remained, each at various stages of tidying. When Buffy's thunderous face marched its way toward them, all three stopped. Willow and Giles inched back. Tara, however, stared directly into the eye of the storm, and asked the question.

"How's Faith?"

"Not great!" Buffy whispered in a foreboding sing-song. "Not fantastic. Messed up, actually."

Giles nodded slowly. The turbulence inside Buffy spiked. He was always so. goddamn knowing. He always knew everything! Nothing was new to Giles. Nothing was original. Nobody said or did anything that was outside his expectations. Why couldn't he, just for once, behave surprised?

She growled deep inside her throat and pointed at him.

"I've had enough!" She snarled, only too acutely aware of the slayer hearing that could have been tuned in. She didn't need to raise her voice. The tempest brewing on her face and in her eyes spoke volumes. "I'm pulling the plug. I'm telling her what's going on."

And there it was - the surprise, the confusion. The concern.

"Buffy, you can't."

Buffy would have revelled in it, were it not for the fact that she was too busy trying to force aside that strange feeling she had encountered earlier. The one that told her Faith was asleep again. Asleep and dreaming. Her eyes flashed.

"The hell I can't!" She snapped. "Do none of you realise what is happening to her!?" Her eyes darted across to Willow, then Tara, who stood utterly mute in front of her. "Because she sure as hell doesn't. All she's got are all these really. horrible. memories flashing around in her head and she doesn't even know why!" She flung her arms wide. "She is being destroyed from the inside by this thing and we're not even giving her a fighting chance to stand up for herself!"

Tara and Willow moved together and each took half a step away from the fuming force in front of them. Giles, however, squared his shoulders and closed the last book on the desk.

"I'm afraid it's more complicated than that-"

"How?" Buffy let her arms fall back down to her sides. "How Giles? Have I been missing for the last four weeks? Did we suddenly hit the information jackpot in the last.." She made a show of looking at her watch. "..Ten minutes?"

"Yes." Came a voice from behind her.

Buffy spun around to the source, and like a beam from a lighthouse her fury redirected itself wherever her eyes landed. Angel stood just outside the room, his hair wet and dots of rain on his black coat.

"It's vital to all of us, including Faith," He continued, taking a step inside. "That she doesn't know what's happening."

Buffy gaped. She couldn't believe she was hearing this. She wouldn't believe it. Not from Angel - the champion of lost souls. The protector of the hunted. She narrowed her eyes.

"How are we supposed to stop it?" Willow asked gently.

Angel's eyes rested on Buffy for a fraction of a second, then darted away.

"We don't."

In the next instant the thunder simply melted away from Buffy's face, leaving stark, open-mouthed outrage. "What!?" Her eyes flashed and she advanced on him. "Coming from you?" She stopped barely an inch from his chest and glared upwards. "What is wrong with you?"

Angel sighed. "Believe me Buffy, I'm not happy about this either, but it's the only chance we have." He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and folded it over one of his arms, but when it was clear Buffy wasn't going to move from her position he raised his eyebrows. "Can I come in?"

She didn't respond - merely stepping away from him, glaring at the carpet so intently it almost should have been smoking. What the hell was he talking about? leave it?

"Angel." Giles said, stepping out from the desk. "How did you go?"

Angel pursed his lips and lowered himself slowly onto the couch, draping the coat between his knees. He stared at the coffee table for a moment, then looked up.

"Faith's it." He said.

Had they really thought about it, all of them would have realised how unsurprising that news was. They practically knew it, from the moment Giles had relayed the news that Faith had been attacked. However, there was something about the finality of hearing the words - of truly knowing, that made it so much more difficult. It indicated a picture far bigger than the life of one person. Bigger than the lives of the eighteen people already dead. This was bigger than all of them.

Giles' shoulders immediately slumped. Willow and Tara exchanged another glance, and Willow looked away, shaking her head. Buffy, her back still to the room, still trying to formulate some understanding of the situation, turned around.

"Everyone's jumpy out there. They know something's coming."

She heard the carefully-veiled uncertainty in his voice. She also knew who he was talking about when he said `everyone'. Slowly, she moved from behind the couch and dropped down into the seat that Faith had occupied only a couple of hours ago.

`Everyone' to Angel meant demons. Vampires. Undead. All those types who found living near the Hellmouth prime real-estate; not too far from home, and an all-you-can-eat buffet just across the road.

Faith was it.

"Angel." Buffy said carefully, "What about Faith?"

Angel cast her a sideways glance. "I know." He said softly. Linking his fingers together he bit down on his lower lip. "It doesn't' get any prettier." He sighed. "We have one chance - slim at best - to kill Ammitus and save Faith."

"How?" Willow asked, before Buffy could. Buffy was still struggling to understand how Angel's comment about things not getting any prettier tied in with having a chance to save Faith

"It was hard for me to even get an idea of who we were up against. Hardly anybody is talking." He leaned back. "It's a force to be reckoned with. It revels in people's torment. For the most part it exists outside our plane, which is why we can't touch it out here." He bit down on his lower lip, drawing it into his mouth for a moment before letting it go. "It's been around for a long time. It's had no real enemies, nothing that's even come close to it." Another glance to Buffy. "Ammitus all self-assured, and equally. perverse."

Buffy blinked. She hated that word.

"It's been said that, if the "show" is good enough-"

"The show?" Buffy repeated, perhaps a little venomously, moving forward in her seat.

"Buffy, that's how he sees it." Angel said quietly. "He likes to watch the dreams he is creating. Especially just before-" The side of his mouth twitched uncomfortably "-he takes the soul with him."

"What, watches them!?" Buffy hissed with disgust. "That' "

"Ammitus is pure evil, Buffy." Tara shifted on her feet. "Vile would be well within its realm of possibility."

"While it is watching," Angel continued. "It is the only time, before it rises and destroys everything in its path-" He lowered his voice "-and believe me, it does. destroy everything-" Buffy saw Willow wince at Angel's subtle reference to the possibility of their impending demise. Angel either seemed to not notice, or choose to ignore it. "-that it is vulnerable. It's the only time it coexists same plane as the person it is hunting. It can be hurt. Hopefully killed." He raised both his eyebrows and hunched his shoulders briefly. "The moment Faith knows why she's having these dreams, Ammitus will just simply wait. It won't come out, which is the only chance we have to kill it."

Buffy shook her head. "But. how can Faith kill it if she doesn't know it's going to be there?"

"Faith can't kill it."

"Okay." Buffy held up her hands, impatience seeping off her tongue once more. "Okay now you're just talking in tongues. You're telling me we can't tell her about Ammitus because otherwise it won't show up in her head, in her dreams, which is the only time it can be killed.." She turned her head to the side but kept her eyes on Angel. "But Faith isn't the one doing the killing. Am I missing something here?"

"Ammitus wouldn't appear until the point where Faith wouldn't have the strength to fight back. That's why it is so careful about the dreams and how it orders them."

"I'm still not following."

Willow immediately straightened. "I am." Her eyes darted to Giles, then Angel, then back to Giles, who nodded slowly. "Buffy, remember when Glory took Dawn, and you. you know."

"Lost it?" Buffy shrugged, pretending it was old news, but the reference still stung. It certainly was one of the weaker times in her life. "You had to get inside my head and-" She stopped. "Willow you can't be serious!" She said incredulously. "You had a hard enough time with me, you couldn't go in there-"

"Oh no." Willow vehemently shook her head. "Me in Faith's head? No thank-you." Willow shuddered, made a face, then shuddered again. "I'd rather.. go. after Ammitus myself with a...a feather duster.". Tara glanced at her sceptically, mouthing `feather duster?'. Willow shrugged. "Besides," She continued. "She wouldn't let me in, and I'm no match for Ammitus in someone else's head. It's too much of the physical."

"So. who." She began, then her confusion dissolved. Her mind. her heart recoiled in fear. "No.." She murmured, shaking her head "No. you can't be serious?"

Angel nodded. "There needs to be an established connection to-"

"Angel have you been asleep for the last few years!?" Her eyes pleaded with him. "There is no connection any more!"

"Keep it down." Giles said suddenly, interjecting with his own level of concern. "She might hear you."

Buffy looked at him like he was stupid. "She's asleep. She won't hear a thing unless someone tries to wake her up." She held up her hands. "But that's not going to be me because she might be right at the point where I stab her again and. y'know. she might forget not to retaliate."

"How do you know she's asleep?" Tara asked carefully.

"I just-" Buffy snapped, then stopped mid-sentence. "No." She said. "I know what you're doing. No. This? This isn't a connection. Not a good one-" She stared down at Angel's boots, and furrowed her eyebrows deeply. "Not a. life-saving one." Buffy looked up at him again, her head once again shaking, almost of its own accord. "We're always fighting. Angel. You scratch under the surface and we're always trying to kill each other."

"It's the only way, Buffy." He said softly. "And regardless of its nature - and I don't believe it is as bad as you say it is - your connection with Faith is the only thing we have."

"But it's all guesswork and assumption!" Buffy said, rising out of her seat. "It's assuming I can get into Faith's mind in the first place,-"

"-we can do that for you." Willow and Tara answered in unison.

Buffy's head snapped around. "Well so what if you can?" She retorted hotly. "We're assuming number one, she won't see me and figure it out, number two, Ammitus will be there, and number three, it'll wait for me to show up!"

Angel lowered his gaze. "Ammitus will be there." He said. "For it, Faith's life is a show well worth watching." He looked up at Buffy, clearly saddened by the thought. "And she won't see you - we'll see to that. But you're right - Ammitus won't wait for you." He paused. "You have to wait for Ammitus."

Buffy's eyes widened. "No. No!" She said, backing away and shaking her head. "No. Do you know how. how wrong that is?" She stood up sharply, pacing across the carpet to the opposite wall. "Angel." She looked across at the others. "Giles. you can't. it's wrong."

Angel glanced across at Giles and tucked his hands back under his coat. "Faith told me once she shared a dream with you, where you were both in it but-"

"She was in a coma!" Buffy said, her voice rising in pitch. "And we were in her apartment! And that was the first time! The last time I was in Faith's head I-. we." She closed her eyes and remembered the grave. The knife. ".it wasn't Happy Valley." Opening her eyes again she jolted the image out of her mind sharply. "Besides-" She continued. "We're not talking about sitting around discussing the latest bedspread patterns in Vogue magazine. What you're talking about is giving me a backstage pass to the `Faith's Top Ten Most Horrible Life Experiences' show!"

"Buffy It's not like that-" Giles attempted, poorly, to cast his vote. Buffy simply railroaded him with a glare.

"What if that were your head!?" She snapped, then spun around to the couch. "Angel, what if it were yours?"

She could tell by his expression, the lines on his forehead, the way his eyes darkened long enough for her to see the truth in them, that Angel understood. Angel had always been very private about his life. Not even Buffy knew the true extent of the things he had seen. things he had done. But she saw, in those few seconds, that he understood everything about what going forward with this plan meant. What it meant for Buffy, yes, but most importantly, he understood what it would mean for Faith.

Buffy wasn't just picking up her diary and reading a couple of more intimate pages. Buffy would see. She would hear. she would feel it all.

"It's the only way." He murmured. "It really is."

Buffy's heart sank.

Angel closed his eyes, and Buffy watched the emotions playing across his face. He raised a hand, and drew his thumb and forefinger lightly across his eyes, then opened them again.

"If there were any other option, Buffy, we'd be doing it. Believe me."

"If Faith finds out." Buffy breathed. "If Faith finds out I've been in her head she'll." she trailed off. It was time to stop. Time to stop forcing the `now' Faith into the `then' Faith mould. The decision revealed the truth - that Buffy didn't know. She had no idea how Faith would react. Not now.

But Angel knew. He knew it and he said it with his final comment - the one before the plan was set in motion. The one before not one of the five of them had anything more to say.

"I hope she doesn't, Buffy." He said quietly. "I really hope she doesn't."

Buffy climbed the stairs back to her room, her heart impossibly heavier than it had been on her way down. She stopped at the same place - the wall just before the door - and leaned against it. Bracing herself for more lies. More deceit. Bracing herself for Faith. Knowing what she was being asked to do.

Angel's words echoed in her head. It was the only way, wasn't it? Of course it was. For Angel to suggest something.. like this... he just wouldn't.

She had seen Faith's relationship with Angel. it was something... different. Something she hadn't seen, certainly not from Faith anyway. There wasn't an attraction, or a clearly defined friendship, but there was. a reliance. From both sides. Buffy knew about that - she had it with Angel for a long time. It was the sort of thing that had unavoidably arisen from the number of times they had saved each others' lives.

Buffy felt the guilt again, tearing her apart, pulling at her morality, tying it in a knot and forcing it to look back on itself, to judge itself. Take a look in the mirror, Buffy? Were you really that righteous?

Her fingers rested on the doorhandle for a moment before she found the strength to turn it. As the door opened, Buffy's eyes were automatically seeking her. Looking for reassurance that she was still with them. Faith had fallen asleep again, her knees drawn tightly to her chest and her arms wrapped around herself. Buffy frowned. She hadn't even used the blankets.

Angel had known, before Buffy could even fathom the purpose of Ammitus' choice. There had been no question in Angel's mind the demon would be after Faith. There were clearly parts of her life she must have shared with him.

Parts she would have never meant for Buffy to know.

And even beyond that. parts she wouldn't have wanted anyone to know.

Faith cried out, muffled screams and whimpers, like a child's. Buffy crossed the short distance to the bed, her fingers finding the blanket folded at the foot of the mattress, drawing it out, pulling it over Faith's legs, not daring to cover any more for fear she would wake up feeling trapped. smothered. Slowly, carefully so as not to make noise Buffy sat down on the edge of the bed.

She was facing away from Buffy - toward the wall - but her dark hair splayed across the pillow behind her head, rather than covering her face like it so often did. not letting her hide...not letting her conceal herself from the world. Faith's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her mouth twitching between scowls and silent sobs. Deep lines were etched across her forehead.

There was no peace with Faith tonight.

Buffy was reminded of all those times she'd seen Dawn sleeping, how innocent, how peaceful she looked. She'd never seen that expression on Faith's face. Not even when she was in a coma. Even unconscious, hooked up to life-preserving machines that pumped artificial life into her, that fought the fight for her, she had that crease between her eyebrows, as if she were in a constant state of unrest.

Unbidden tears sprang to Buffy's eyes as the sheer weight of everything descended upon her shoulders. She had been jealous of Faith's expressiveness, her inhibitions. She had been uncomfortable with the intensity of their bond. Had she given it more thought. taken more time. she would have seen the same fear in Faith, having tried once to get into Faith's mind, and being met with solid resistance.

But instead of fighting on she gave up, she just pushed back - stepping away. Shutting the doors.

Everything Faith was - everything Faith now tried so hard to fight against seemed to gain more shape in Buffy's mind. How could she have judged? How could she have been the judge of a life she didn't know, couldn't imagine... couldn't even begin to imagine?

How could she have tried to take that life?

Unconsciously, Buffy's eyes wandered down to Faith's abdomen, where she knew the scar lay; concealed always by clothing and yet still as clear as the night she had caused it.

Another cry, and Buffy's eyes snapped back to Faith's face, her hand immediately reaching for the fabric of Faith's black tank top. She knew better than to make any gestures more sudden or more overt than that. She had no intention of waking Faith this time.

"Faith.." Buffy whispered, lightly running her fingers from the back of Faith's hand to her elbow. Faith's restlessness didn't ease - nor did she expect it to. Her breathing was still erratic, her face still reflecting the horrors she was witnessing behind her eyelids. But for an instant, that connection Buffy had run so hard from had reversed, and she was hit with the sudden, overwhelming need to understand Faith. To help her. To be there for her, just as Angel had.

Tilting her head, Buffy moved her hand to Faith's cheek and brushed it gently with the back of her fingers.

"Faith." She said again, for no other reason than to hear the name leave her lips with no hint of spite, no anger, no disgust. Her fingertips ran slowly over the creases in Faith's forehead, gently, so important not to wake her. So important not to let her see.

Reality closed in on Buffy with a stifling force, pushing at her freshly unearthed link with her fellow slayer. It yanked her away, coldly, harshly, reminding her of all the things she was going to do. All the things she was going to see. The past. the mind she was going to violate, because she had to.

Because she had to.

Buffy took a deep breath, letting it out very slowly before she stood up from the cot and stepped away.

"I'm sorry."