Until It Sleeps: Chapter 13

You spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty
Oh and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight.

- Sarah McLachlan

Barely half an hour had passed since Faith's disappearance and the house was already unnaturally abuzz with activity. Unnaturally only because it was abuzz at 3am. All the lights downstairs and in the upstairs hallway were on, and Giles, Willow, Angel and Tara all moved cautiously around, as if the very air would shatter if they spoke too loudly.

Xander emerged from upstairs yawning and scratching a hard-to-reach spot between his shoulder blades. He ran a hand quickly over his scruffy hair to improve his `just-out-of-bed' appearance and frowned.

"What's going on?" He asked.

Buffy's faced was drawn tight, and her eyes were strained. "Faith's gone." She said.

"Surprise surprise." Xander's arm fell back down to his side. "Well, there goes the world." He shook his head even before Buffy had a chance to glare at him and blew out a loud breath. "What time - when did she go?"

"About half an hour ago." Buffy said. "She'd. just woken up from a nightmare and totally. flipped out. Xander-" Her eyes pleaded with him. "Can you just. put a lid on the `I told you so's?" She wiped a hand over her face. "I don't think I could deal with that right now."

"This changes things a little." Giles suddenly said, having paced backward and forward in thoughtful silence up to now. He frowned, looked across at Willow and pursed his lips. "Does Faith need to be present in order for us to begin?"

Buffy's eyes widened. "Begin? Begin.." She bunched up her shoulders as if her following word would be `what?'.

Willow didn't so much as glance in Buffy's direction, and nodded. "They've shared dreams before over distances. be done, yes."

"What, now!?"

This time Giles turned to Buffy. "If we don't know where she is, we're blind." He looked across at Angel. "This is happening awfully quickly."

Angel nodded carefully. "I know. Faith has a lot of... history." He pursed his lips. "Maybe Ammitus is playing also on Buffy's relationship with her, I'm not quite sure."

"It would make sense." Willow said. "I mean. Buffy's hatred for Faith-"

"I don't hate Faith." Buffy snapped harshly.

"Okay...you..." Willow thought for a minute, then her eyes brightened. "..strongly dislike her and don't trust her as far as Xander could throw her?"

"I could so throw her further than I could trust her!" Xander exclaimed, scowling at Willow like a spoiled child. "But thank you for the vote of confidence in my physical prowess."

Willow caught a nervous glance from Tara at the brewing storm and raised her voice. "Uh...well what I meant was we all feel the same about Faith, Buffy, but... you- you know... Ammitus found your head first."

"Either way-" Giles interrupted. "-we need to do something about it now or we might lose our only hope of saving them both. Do you have everything you need?" He asked Willow and Tara.

They both nodded.

Buffy shook her head.

The room ignored her.

"It's all been prepared." Tara offered, standing up and gesturing towards the stairs. "I'll go get it."

Buffy's shoulders sagged, and she ran a hand through her hair. "Someone remind me again why I agreed to this?" She asked, then held the hand up before anyone had a chance to answer her. "That was a rhetorical question, by the way."

Tara returned, a pouch in one hand and a jar of what looked like sand in the other. Buffy raised an eyebrow at both items but said nothing. After this long, she had learned never to ask because the answer never sounded attractive. There was something about standing in a circle of powdered newt droppings that could really spoil a person's day.

"We'll need to...uh, move the table." Willow said, glancing between Giles and Xander.

"Oh, so now I'm chosen for my superior physical capability." Xander mumbled. He wasn't granted a response, which Buffy knew he wouldn't have been expecting, and helped Giles move the coffee table to the back of the room.

"Ohhkay." Willow said, taking the jar from Tara and popping it open. She dipped her hand into it, whispering an incantation under her breath as she slowly withdrew a pinch of the powdery substance and tossed it onto the rug.

Tara waited three tosses, then joined in, opening the pouch she held and circled Willow, pouring the brownish-red and equally powdery contents in a tight circle around her, her own lips silently moving with different words.

Then they both stopped, closing their eyes, moving closer and chanting together, under their breath so Buffy couldn't hear. Buffy asked herself for the hundredth time whether what she was doing was the right thing. Spying on Faith's secrets, her dreams. It was wrong. She turned to Angel, her eyes asking, pleading with him to tell her there was another way. There was something else they could be doing to stop this.

"Buffy." Willow said, without opening her eyes. "Step into the circle."

Angel nodded seriously, shattering Buffy's last minute hopes of salvation.

Taking a deep breath, she shot a quick glance at Giles, then crossed the distance to the two witches, forcing the implications of what she was about to do into the dark, untouched and untouchable areas of her mind. Again without opening their eyes both Willow and Tara took half a step backward, outside of the circle, leaving exactly enough room for Buffy to stand between them.

"Step inside Buffy." Willow repeated.

The moment Buffy entered it she felt the magic, pulsing around her with its own ethereal viscosity. It was times like these that she understood how exciting it could be to command such power. She could understand how someone could become addicted to it, be corrupted by it.

"Close your eyes." Tara whispered.

Buffy's eyes slid closed, until there was nothing but darkness and their voices. Almost immediately, like a cobra being teased from a basket with a lilting flute, the voices stirred a cold, dark yet enticingly uncontrolled presence that Buffy recognized straight away.

It was the one she felt every time she was close to Faith.

The chanting increased in volume, and in turn the presence amplified. It swirled around Buffy's subconscious, moving away from the place she had come to accept their connection to be, and began to settle in the more prevalent sections of her mind. Places where she could almost touch the darkness. Like it had form itself. Like Ammitus itself was knocking on her own mind's door.

For an instant, she saw the flash of a child's face, screaming, crying, calling out for help, a garbage bag open in front of her. Crumpled sketches... drawings laid out in a circle - a boat, a bird, a cat. In her fist she grasped the tattered remains of another drawing, in the same hand, of an older man and a child, sitting on a step, smiling.

Buffy gasped. The cries escalated, louder and louder, overwhelming loss and loneliness echoing in her mind until she could barely think herself.

And was that... a box of Cheerios?

"Stop." She whispered. "I can't."

Willow opened her eyes. Tara increased her chanting to match Willow's disconnection. "Just.. concentrate on the things you know. Let Faith into your mind, but don't let her take over your mind."

Buffy squeezed her own eyes shut. "..Please don't make me do this."

But Willow and Tara linked hands, both eyebrows furrowing, concentrating harder. Buffy pushed the sound away, but jerked bolt- upright as the feeling of strangers hands roaming her body tingled up and down her spine.

"Oh God."

Terror, grief, abandonment, fear all flowed through her like a giant jolt of emotional lightning. Tara and Willow changed pitch, tilting their heads in concentration.

And the guilt. God, the guilt.

She'd been so alone.

Then suddenly, Willow and Tara's voice stopped dead, and as intensely as it had started the influx of emotions vanished, giving way to a vague, only slightly painful background radiation. Buffy raised a shaky hand to her head.

" it go?" Willow asked tentatively. Tara still had her eyes closed.

Buffy swallowed heavily. If she concentrated hard enough she could have sworn she could feel blood all over her. Something about a snapped neck?

"I think. you know I think it worked." She said shakily, looking up at Willow who was watching her with a concerned expression. Behind her Tara placed a gentle hand on Buffy's shoulder and she flinched, turning her head and offering an apologetic smile. "Sorry, just a little jumpy." She said, side-stepping away from them. "You know? I... think I'm going to get a glass of water."

Without waiting for a response Buffy left the lounge room, her face troubled. She walked evenly through the kitchen, almost on autopilot around the bench, opened the cupboard above the stove and pulled out a glass. One step to the right, fridge. Open door, pull out chilled filtered water, pour into glass, replace.

And that was where autopilot ended.

Buffy slumped onto the bar stool, her arms forming a protective circle around her glass of water and her shoulders hunched. She was trying desperately to make sense of it. The fury in which Faith had woken startled even her. Although she had felt the unease before Faith had woken, she hadn't experience enough to recognise it as such, and had still been half asleep when Faith had stumbled past her bed.

In the bathroom. she had been white as a ghost. As if she had seen a ghost. Her features were drawn and haunted and terrified to the point that the body had kicked in on instinct and shown self- defence, rather than fear.

And Faith had run from it. Again.

And in the darker, more holistic picture, their one chance at finding and killing Ammitus was running only a few feet behind.

It was done. The connection was well and truly established. And now, she sat back...and waited? What? Went and grabbed her popcorn and diet coke and settled in for the show?

Buffy wondered if those things she'd seen only minutes before was a glimpse of what Faith had seen. That thought alone sent a jolting shudder through her body. Of course they had been.

"Buffy."

Her eyes darted up, finding Angel in the doorway in front of her. Immediately her resolve cracked, and her face crumpled for an instant before she quickly regained control, knowing in her heart that her relationship with Angel was no longer that which it used to be.

"Angel..."

"I know." He said solemnly. He turned his head, staring behind him and then back at Buffy. "What happened?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I just... she woke from a nightmare and I found her throwing up in the bathroom. I tried to help her and she flipped out on me."

Angel sighed. "She's not ready Buffy."

Buffy stared at him for a moment. "What, to face what she's facing? I know that!" She snapped. "But she has no choice!"

"I wasn't referring to that." Angel said quietly.

"Oh."

"I meant she's not ready to accept you."

"Oh."

"...or your friendship."

This time, Buffy paused in earnest. She looked up at him, momentarily confused, then her face calmed and she nodded very slightly. She knew what Angel meant.

She had wanted to comfort Faith. She had wanted to make things easier for her, to help her... but it was too late for that. It had been too long gone since she had cast Faith aside with little more than a half-glance and shown blatantly that she was utterly disinterested in her side of the story... that there was nothing she could say or do that would change anything - that she would always be evil, always be bad.

There was so much healing to do now, that providing Faith any physical or emotional comfort seemed a bit contradictory. Especially considering all the physical...all the emotional damage they had caused each other.

Buffy tilted her head. "I thought you would have gone after her." She said.

"I will." He answered her, nodding. "But I know Faith needs her time. Ammitus will be concentrating on her now. He won't be out roaming." He took a few more steps into the kitchen, stopping opposite Buffy. "I wanted to make sure the spell worked..," He paused, glanced at the ceiling and back down again, looking slightly uncomfortable. "..and that you were okay."

Buffy sighed. "I just...don't know what to be around her." She said softly. The girl's face flashed into her mind, then vanished again. "We're either fighting, or running." She lowered her head. "All the time."

"It was never going to be easy, Buffy. You said that to me yourself."

"I know, but." She stared intently at her glass. "-seeing her here. Having her here. part of me feels like she never left, you know?" She flicked her eyebrows up and looked back at him. "Part of me is glad to have her back, and the other part is. still expecting her to ride in on Ammitus' back and destroy us all."

"Do you forgive her?" Angel asked.

Buffy blinked. "What?"

"Do you forgive her...for what she did."

"I-uh." Buffy closed her eyes. Images of her in her apartment, laughing off a murder - a death she caused...her with Angel, taunting Buffy as she was held, chained against a wall...images of Graduation - Faith's instrumental part in it all, and images of Angel himself, dying and in insurmountable pain all flitted across her mind. Then... her mother... Her body... Riley... Buffy looked up at Angel, her forehead creasing. "There's just so much."

"What would you say to her?" He asked. "If you had the chance to."

"God...I'd.." Buffy lowered her head again. "I guess I'd want to make her understand all the hurt she caused.."

"She understands. She sent herself to jail, Buffy."

"So what!?" Buffy shouted, slapping her hand down on the counter. The water rippled in her glass. "She spends a couple of years in an institution and comes out all squeaky clean!? Suddenly all her victims sit around and say `oh, Faith is out of prison. Let's forget about the things she did and invite her around to our place for tea and cookies!'?" She punctuated her last word with an insincere clap of her hands, and rose from her stool, gesturing at Angel. "Angel after everything she did.. everything she did to you!?" She shook her head. "How can you stand there and pretend it never happened?"

"I know it happened."

"And so do I!" Tears pricked Buffy's eyes. "But the difference is I remember the feelings. I remember how much it all hurt!"

"And you want to make her hurt too?"

"YES!" Then as if listening to that opinion for the first time, paused, lowering back down onto the stool. "No. I mean-"

Suddenly, out of nowhere Buffy's consciousness split in two. In one part of her mind she was arguing with Angel, and in the other she was...standing on a rooftop...watching a fight. The kitchen was warm, but the rooftop was cold, and the combination was wreaking havoc on her brain. Buffy's frown deepened and she pulled her head back. Angel stared at her, concerned.

"Buffy?"

"Uh...I think." She swallowed, shaking her head as if trying to dislodge one of the realities.

Angel reached across the counter and placed a hand on her arm. "Close your eyes." He said. "It'll be easier." She did, and she leaned into the counter, steadying herself as the rooftop reality took over her senses.

Buffy's blood ran as cold as the night air the moment she felt the concrete under her feet. She'd recognise this place anywhere.

"That's mine!"

"You're about to get it back."

Buffy pulled her robe tighter around her, glancing left and right, then back at the two figures across the way, watching them throwing kicks and punches at speeds only capable of slayers. She advanced on them until she could see the fear in Faith's eyes, and the utter, controlled hatred in her own.

Realisation shot through her like fire, and instantly Buffy knew. she knew there was nothing she could say now that could possibly hurt Faith more than she had this night.

This night Buffy told her in no uncertain terms that she was hopeless, that she would never be anything more than evil. She would never be anything more than the scum of the Earth. There was no future for her. There would be no future for her. And what's more, nobody cared enough to come out and save her, because they all agreed.

"Man, I'm gonna miss this." She heard Faith say.

Buffy's eyes widened as her counterpart swung at Faith with that knife.

"No!" She cried out, lunging towards them. But there was no way she could stop it. She was close enough to feel the knife slide into Faith. She saw the blood, Faith's blood pause almost suspended near the wound and then spill out, over the blade, over Buffy's hands.

And she heard the words spoken loudly in those hands, the curses pouring out of the blade into Faith's heart. Heard the accusations screamed, over and over again in her own eyes.

Here Faith, take this knife and look at yourself. See what I think of your life? See what importance I place on your existence? Now Faith, now look at it. Watch your life...your existence ebb away like I think it should. I've killed you Faith. I am so right and you are so wrong and you will die tonight and the world will be free of your evil.

And she saw Faith's reflection in the blade. How desolate, how much desperation was written on that face. How much sorrow. How much relief. For an instant, she saw the little girl.

Tears pricked Buffy's eyes. Oh God.. what had she done?

"No Faith.." She choked, spinning around, turning her back on her own disgusted glare. Pain flitted across Faith's features as she bent over, clutching her stomach. Automatically Buffy reached up to the dark face before her. She was desperate to smooth the pain away. take it all away. "Faith I'm so sorry..."

But Buffy's fingers passed directly through her as if she were a ghost, unable to connect. Unable to comfort.

"You did it-" She murmured. And that smile, that small, sad smile.

Buffy's heart contracted painfully in her chest. Her hand darted to her mouth, catching the first sob as it escaped. "I know I did." She said softly, reaching back towards Faith's cheek with her other hand. She knew she wouldn't be able to touch her but somehow she hoped the proximity would soothe the pain. "I know.."

It didn't.

Faith took a step backward and shoved her attacker away, hands pushing unseen through Buffy's body, leaving the attacker on the ground behind them and Buffy barely inches from her face.

"You killed me."

She watched Faith's face change, harden and grow cold. Watched her steel herself for the last few feet, the small climb to the edge of the rooftop. Buffy could see the injury overwhelming her now, in a way she hadn't been able to see from the ground.

"Still won't help your boy though." She said.

Then she saw another change - one she had surely missed the first time. Buffy stepped closer towards her.

The smile...the smile was back. "Should've been there B-" She murmured, "-Quite a ride."

And as she watched her fall away from the roof - fall to the truck below, sealing her fate for at least another 8 months, Buffy thought she understood. That was Faith's way of saying she should have seen her life, should have been in her shoes. Should have known that she'd never get the better of her. Never Faith. Faith always had the last word.

"I will be there Faith." She promised the darkness "We'll find a way."

"Buffy?"

Buffy's eyes snapped open and she sat upright, taking a moment to absorb her surroundings. Angel was still standing in front of her, concern marking his face, his hand resting just to the left of Buffy's, just out of reach.

"You okay?"

Buffy nodded. The tears still felt fresh in her eyes - the image of Faith falling away replaced with the memory of her running towards the edge of the roof, watching the truck disappear down the road with Faith's broken body on the back of it. She remembered the feelings she had in those moments. She remembered the realisation of what she had done. She remembered the sadness, the fear of what not having Faith's body meant for Angel, and she remembered feeling the guilt. That guilt that she still carried with her, though glossed over a hundred times with all those things Faith had done.. to her.

"Yeah," She murmured. "I was. she was dreaming about the night I. you know." She flashed a weak smile that faded instantly. "Angel." She stood up and stepped away from her stool. "We have to find her."