Chapter four.
The four Scoobies had stood in silence while contemplating the small screen which showed them Faith. A grainy picture, a TV show, nothing which felt quite real. No sound to be heard, because she was making no sound. No movement to be seen, because she remained completely still. How they had left her.
Xander had been the one to switch on the monitoring equipment. His curiosity leading him to press the button, breaking through the discussion of the hospital escape, through Giles’ quiet rebuke at Willow’s easy use of magic.
“It was just a little mind bending Giles! No worse than in Sunnydale, no different than pretending to be agents for Interpol!”
“That’s beside the point. You mustn’t get used to relying on magic again, you know how…”
“Buffy, tell him!”
Oh yes. Xander had removed his gaze from the unwelcome confrontation in front of him, to look for welcome distractions behind him. Drawn to the small TV, fingers moving idly to see what was on.
“Uh… guys?”
Not sure at first. His mind not quite believing that not only did Angel have a cage in his basement, he also had that cage wired up to CCTV. It fed him images disturbing… thoughts he wasn’t comfortable thinking. “Seriously, guys, what’s this?”
Invoking the silence as they had turned to see. As they had witnessed. Here she was. There she was. Welcome Faith.
“Oh. They still have the cameras!”
“You knew about the cameras! Why are there cameras?!”
Xander’s voice was unwittingly pleading. His new thoughts much less comfortable than even his previous thoughts. He didn’t want Willow playing Mistress of the Dungeon with Angel. He refused to believe it. “Will..?”
Imploring that she put him out of his misery.
“They had cameras to watch Angelus. From before. I forgot all about them, I guess they might come in handy now though.”
Willow *had* forgotten about them. Her recent visit to re-ensoul Angel had been so fleeting, due to commitments in Sunnydale, that paying great attention to the details surrounding her, hadn’t been paramount. She remembered now though. Looking at the fallen form of the fallen slayer on that same grainy screen. Maybe wishing that it would be as easy to tame all the darkness on show this time around.
“Any idea when she’ll be joining us Wills?” Xander leant closer to the screen, flicking at the image of Faith, absently wondering if it would wake her. “Did you set a specific time?”
“I’m not an alarm clock.”
“Even still, I’m assuming you set some kind of parameter on the spell that you used?”
The displeasure was evident in Giles’ tone, in the stern gaze that met Willow’s resolute one. He didn’t mean to seem so reproachful, he knew that she was doing what had to be done to ensure they had managed to leave the hospital unchallenged, but he couldn’t suffocate the worry that encased him whenever he thought of Willow with such power. He had worked so hard with her to learn the balance, he had great faith and trust in her, yet still he worried like an over protective father whenever she touched that source. He couldn’t help himself.
“What spell was it?” He could soften the tone though. He could swap reproachful for concern. Letting his eyes wrinkle with a smile so that she knew he was just being him.
She wouldn’t have it any other way. “An old Druid incantation, I found it in one of your books! I’ve been waiting forever to try that one out…”
Buffy stayed staring at the screen in front of them, the only member of the gang not to be caring about which spell it was that Willow had used. There was a sleep spell, she knew that much, she had even stood by Willow’s side as she had *explained* to the nurses that she was Faith’s doctor, that she had to move her to a more private facility. What did it matter the origin of the power..? Especially when Buffy was still caught up in the shock of coming round from *that* dream and learning what she had missed.
Faith woke up. And she hadn’t greeted her.
Just one more thing to add to the list of things that she had always meant to do in regards to Faith. One more thing to fall by the wayside. There were so many of these things that she couldn’t even think to name them all. She knew where to begin; she knew better about friendship now, she knew better about how to offer that friendship. She knew better about responsibility. Not just responsibility for actions, but responsibility for feelings. For forcing action.
“How long..?” Deciding she was better off not knowing too much more. Better off focusing on the now. How she felt now.
“It’s not specific, but it’s not very strong either.”
So how was she feeling now?
“Is she… can she dream?”
Willow rested her eyes on a friend that did not look rested. Her curiosity obvious in the tone of her voice, gently questioning. “Dreams? Why the interest?”
Silence. More staring.
“Buffy?”
But she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t stop those dreams from invading her system. The first so peace packed with heaven sent perfection, the second so torturously terrifying as to assure her that hell truly existed, and with demons so much more fierce than even the First Evil could ever hope to produce.
Existing in that hell, existing in the body that had so joyously pursued Faith; it horrified her. Feeling the pain, all of that fear, remembering the way that she had played with that. And she knew. She realised. She was Faith’s demon.
She felt sick. She felt guilt.
The hand to the arm shocked her back to face front, refocusing a gaze onto Xander’s one good eye, finding her voice for all of them. “There was a dream… in the hospital. We shared a dream.”
“Hey, you never said!”
“Sorry Will, slipped my mind.” Yep. Slipped her mind to drip down into her soul. So much more damage it could do there.
“Was this a slayer dream Buffy, do you remember details?”
Details? Everyone of them.
“Vague. Hell’s fire. Eternal torment. Nothing specific.”
She hoped that had covered it, until Giles countered her vague. “Still, it throws up certain pertinent questions. This could be Faith’s way of trying to re-establish a connection…”
“And I thought the chair was her way of trying to re-establish a connection. My bad.”
“Will…”
“No Buffy. I told you, if she tries the funny, I don’t play nice.”
Giles wanted to reduce the slump that still sat so obvious in the un-straight shoulders of his slayer. Derailing the move to an argument over Faith. Bringing it back to the details, the safe bits. “Did it feel like you were summoned there, was it similar to before…”
“I… she…” Buffy not wanting to give details. Unwilling to share the start of the dreamscape, to talk about smoothing pillows and meeting gazes, about comics by the bedside. “…we were just there.”
“And it was… unpleasant in it’s nature?”
The feeling still ripping a void through her core, emptying out the good stuff to settle on the bad. Fists that clenched to hold tight to a knife, hands that thrust in unwelcome reminder of taking life. Human life. Faith’s life.
It was too much. “It was unpleasant. Can we move on now?”
Slayer steel. Slayer power. No one willing to disagree.
“When’s Angel gonna be here.” A pause. Buffy’s eyes relaxing to settle on Giles, to reach a safe subject. “Where *is* Angel.”
Not having a clue.
“Right.” Her watcher the man with the uneasy answers. “It seems there’s been a certain change in Angel’s circumstances since we spoke to him last.”
“I spoke to him in a time frame of hours ago, how much can have changed?”
For now she smiled a little.
“I… it seems that perhaps he didn’t offer you all of the information when he visited. I assume he didn’t give you the origin of the amulet?”
The smile dampening of it’s own will. A shake of the head.
“I’m not sure of the details completely, I assume that Angel will wish to fill you in on…”
“Giles, can we please cut the crap?”
Again Xander was wanting to pull his gaze away from the unwelcome confrontation. From the tension flowing so fast between slayer and watcher. There was no chance though. He had heard the tale from Angel’s mouth, had sat back stunned on his haunches as Giles had conversed in short depth about all that had occurred. He blurted it out without thought to soften the blow. “Angel’s gone all Senator Palpatine.”
“He’s having palpitations?”
Rendering Buffy too confused to wonder if that was even possible.
“More like, the bringer of order and justice, turned head of an evil empire. Star Wars 101... Tell me you understand?”
“Giles?” She watched him and waited. Not smiling through the glasses routine, nothing familiar easing the fear of the unfamiliar that arose with Xander’s words. “Translate?”
“It’s, well, it pains me to say it Buffy, but it’s remarkably like Xander just stated. For some reason, Angel Investigations is moving to Wolfram and Hart…”
“Is this a joke?”
“No, unfortunately there appears to be little reason for cheer. You really need to speak to Angel.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I do.” One more thing. Join the list. Take a number. Roll up. Show starts. And the ride just never stops. “I’ll be with Faith.”
She didn’t care for the looks, or the glances, or the Willow words which called her softly back. What was the point in making no sense upstairs, when she could make so much less sense down below?
Faith wouldn’t wake alone again. Faith wouldn’t attack her again.
Faith was behind bars.
It was cold down here in the basement, with nothing but the memories to keep her company. No other’s shoulders to lean her weight upon, because no one else could even begin to understand what it was that she was going through. Heck, Buffy herself barely had a clue what she was going through. Why she was feeling like this.
She could not deny to herself that she had often thought of Faith over the last four years; a different Faith, the kind of Faith that might have existed if things had been different. But even so, she still knew that this level of, what… interest? Concern? Affectedness..?
Was affectedness a word? Was it the right word? Affection..?
Affect. She *knew* that this affect was all wrong.
This absolute determined need to watch over the sleeping Faith, this unquenchable thirst to have all of her words flowing fast down a path that sounded like defence.
Buffy was not stupid. Even with one thousand, four hundred and fifty nine days to smother her righteousness with a deep sense of guilt, she still understood that not everything was defendable. Not everything that Faith had done could be boiled down and softened by cause and effect. Something’s just were.
And sometimes she still thought of the Faith that had become. Her memory twisting in the same way that Faith’s sneer had twisted so tight on her face, burning with contempt, every angle covered by the reminder of the pain. Oh yes. Because nothing had cut deeper than that first sight of betrayal, the first time Faith had spat in the face of every single one of the principles that Buffy held dear. Good over evil. Such a hard line to tow?
All of those days, all of those nights, and Buffy still couldn’t find a defence for that one. Couldn’t excuse the inexcusable. No matter the condemnation she had welcomed into her heart for the outcome, her spirit refused outright to accept that lures or pushes, any motivation, could deserve action as hurtful and soul destroying as betrayal.
They were the Chosen Two. And that was the kind of partnership that was made not to be broken.
That Faith *had* broken. Right..?
A wry smile settled on her lips as she pulled herself up from the stairs. She had argued this around in her head so many times, that she was sure the devil’s advocate had set up shop there. One minute she could put everything down to the lure, the next she could put everything down to the push… and right now she just wanted to put everything down.
For a moment then, as Faith’s hollow breath’s echoed all around her, she had convinced herself that the righteous side was winning the argument; it often did. Only then her eyes had settled again on a broken form and her own breathing had become hollow, the wry smile had settled. No side was winning the argument, except for the side which felt so god damn affected.
And was that every side?
And could she please stop thinking and concentrate! Not caring that concentrating often led to thinking, just caring that she wanted to have something to say when Faith awoke. Something non-threatening, yet something which said so much more than Hello. Welcome back. Oh, and by the way..? You were gone for four years.
It drove the smile down in favour of a frown, because she knew better that there was no easy way of phrasing that little piece of information. It sounded pretty whack to her own ears, and she had been here for the whole of the four years. Not counting when she wasn’t here. And that was even more whack. God. If her head span much quicker she could call herself a whack job. A whacko. Wanting not much more than to whack her head hard against the nearest surface of resistance.
She focused her eyes and realised that that would be the bars of the cage, the bars she had seemingly, without thought, wrapped her hands hard around. Testing the strength. Wondering if Willow’s extra bonds of magic would keep the might of a pissed slayer firmly locked inside. They felt strong enough to her hands, but then, she wasn’t pissed. She was just a whack job.
A thought which kept the circles mapped out as her feet paced the claustrophobic space of the basement. Gaze flicking furtively up to the camera, before falling once more upon the still form of Faith. Each step wondering if the bars were strong enough to keep out a slayer who was spiralling close to madness.
She hated patience. She hated this waiting. She wanted actions, reactions, cause and effect. She wanted answers.
She wanted Faith to defend the indefensible. To take the betrayal and make it hurt less, to assure that it was never her heart that had turned so traitorous, that it had never run that deep. A mistake. A hiccup. Something like regret.
It felt different this time. She wasn’t being pursued from sleep with rips to her skin and words coated in revenge, she was being lifted slowly… like floating. An effervescent feeling which bubbled along her limbs in a kind of psychedelic bout of pins and needles. If she knew her mind she’d consider it kinda trippy; even in her non knowing state of mind, she felt something like a smile lift the corners of her mouth. It felt good. It felt odd.
Her tongue tracing the lifting lips and thinking of strawberries. Wondering absently if the cat had got the cream.
“Faith..?”
A whisper settling in her ears to provide a soundtrack to an awakening. Her awakening. Letting the fizz tickle her arms and legs into stretching, letting her body succumb to the need to move. To exist.
“Faith..?” Lips lifting further, arms wanting to reach out and find the comfort in that voice. “Are you awake..?”
Maybe offer comfort to the hesitancy in the tone.
Comfort?
And her eyes slammed open on the memory.
‘Even I know that’s a fucked up metaphor for comfort, B.’
The same words sent to send the world crashing down.
She remembered the violence as her body twisted to find the right way up, not caring if muscles still screamed out resistance, just needing the protection of the right direction, needing to face her. To find her. Defend and attack.
“Faith, wait, it’s okay… I’m not gonna… it isn’t…”
Eyes finding sight through the obstruction of bars, little strips which tore at the image of Buffy, words which tore at something even more sacred, which ripped right through to her core. “…just relax. Just… deep breaths.”
Damn fucking right deep breaths! The deepest. Whole lungfuls which fed the hate she kept close, inflating her heart with all she remembered, all she’d forgot.
“You.”
Stated with venom. With lips that had settled into something so much scarier than a smile, a leering perversity which crawled across Buffy’s skin in ways which even the meanest of vamps could never hope to reproduce. It erased all thoughts, all un-stated arguments which cited defence. It left only feelings.
Buffy’s feet pinned now as she withered under the penetrating force of Faith’s wicked glare. So much hate. Leading her to wonder if a gaze that sharp could rip holes through her skin.
Andrew watched the screen with barely contained excitement, his mind already writing the script, creating a turn of phrase;
Two warriors, one arena. Iron bars the only thing separating the power wielded for both the dark and the light…
He leant closer to hear the words, his shoulders hunching, a frown appearing as he heard only silence. His fingers moving to find sound, to offer a voice to the fantasies which slid through his mind.
“Whatcha doing Andrew..?”
Willow’s lilting tones making him jump fast from his seat, making him look guiltily towards the door to the office which housed Mr Giles and the vampire. “I was just watching. Mr Giles told me to watch.”
He tried to return the easy smile that the witch was offering him, tried to act surprised as he noticed a frown creasing her features as she looked towards the screen. “Oh! Wow… looks like she woke up. Mr Giles..?!”
His whining voice letting Willow know that this wasn’t such a sudden event.
“How long?”
“She… uh…” Andrew looked pleadingly towards the office again. “Mr Giles..?!”
“Andrew, don’t make me threaten you with amphibian features. How long has she been awake?”
The face of the irritated watcher broke through any threat, the door opening to see what the distraction was. What was so pressing to break through his deep discussion with Angel; He wanted to speak to Buffy, Giles did not think that now was the right time. The discussion had been very deep.
“What is it Andrew?”
“Faith just woke up and Willow’s threatening to turn me into a toad again!”
He looked almost pityingly at the boy. Turning his eyes slowly to face the screen, easing back to Willow. “Perhaps you could put us all out of our misery and carry out the threat?”
Patting Andrew out of his way, settling closer to look at the show before him. “How long has she been awake?”
“She just woke up! This minute…”
“Right. What happened?”
The two slayers still stood trapped in a wordless exchange through the bars of a cage. Everything spoken, that needed to be said, in the looks which could never be held back by anything as meaningless as bars. Buffy wanted to speak, wanted to make something meaningful out of every thought which had plagued the minutes since Faith’s return, yet her thoughts had been replaced by feelings, and her feelings dictated that she stay still. That she make no move. Her mouth simply venturing on the same word again.
“Faith?”
The word that invoked awe. Trying to invoke some kind of response in the one that wore the word. Uttering silence again as she watched her make her move. So stilted; as if checking that her legs worked before she moved them, her face losing the snarl for just a second as she winced out something that looked like pain.
Fingers wrapping tight around the cage as Faith reached her target, as she got as close to her prey as this place would allow.
“Where the fuck am I?”
Knuckles straining as much as her voice. Bars which wouldn’t move for Buffy, having no chance of shifting under the force of the four year forgotten slayer.
“Fai…”
“I know my fucking name, now where the hell am I?!”
Nothing forgiving in her glance. Nothing welcoming. Nothing at all except for the same rage and the same hate. Four years forgotten, maybe, yet everything remembered now. Still so fresh, as fresh as if just yesterday she had faced Buffy on the roof, as fresh as if her hand was still pushing her own knife back through her skin. Gutting her. Killing her…
“Where am I!?” So much ferociousness ripping harsh from her throat.
She could feel the walls of the cell closing in on her, the bars hard in her hand letting her know she was imprisoned. Cornered. Captured. Knowing nothing else except Buffy. That she was the one responsible. For this. For the hole which still ripped raw through flesh and tendons, which still taunted her with the feeling of weak.
“We need to talk.”
The air around her body cooling as the clamminess of sweat tickled a path down her neck. So tense. So tight.
“Faith…”
Something stirring. Every single time those lips whispered her name. Lies, deceit, death. “…you need to listen to me.”
Not listening. Not moving. The tension in her body coiling tighter around each of her limbs, waste filled muscles screaming from the stabbing pain of being held so rigid. So hard.
Unbreakable. She wouldn’t break.
“I’m not going to hurt you…”
Gut churning.
“…this isn’t about hurting you.”
Buffy dared herself to take a step forward. Faith wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking. Her eyes lost to Buffy, a void which showed nothing except the reflection of her cage. All imprisoned. All held back.
Her feet moving in wary steps to bring herself closer, not thinking of what things to say, what words to make it better, just wanting to fill that void. To take some of the torment away, to destroy some of Faith’s demons. “Things have changed Faith, everything has changed.”
No response. “You…” God. She what? “…that night.”
*That* night.
“After you fell, there was… they… you were in the hospital Faith.”
Was that too matter of fact?
Not that it mattered, because still the view remained the same. Except closer. Buffy not realising that wary steps had become steps all bold. Never meaning to deliver herself into space this near, yet her body taking actions that her mind would never dare to think through. To give sane thought to. Wanting so badly to touch. Maybe a reaffirmation that the presence was real. That before her again stood Faith. Same girl. Same woman. Same air of tattered indifference lending a detachment to her pose. An emptiness in her eyes.
It made Buffy push on. “They didn’t know if you would wake up. They said that you never would… that it was fruitless to want it.” Yet she had wanted it so badly. So many different reasons to want so badly. “Four years Faith. It’s been four years…”
The damp walls of the basement would have coated her sobs if she could let them break free. If she could finally pour tears over all of the bloody wounds of the past. They were not her wounds to wear though, and she would never rub salt into the injuries that she had inflicted. Holding her breath instead.
No quirky smile to soften the moment, no perky words to reduce anything to mean something less. It had been four years. It was a touch she was aching for.
Her eyes frozen as Faith’s gaze slid across the bars of imprisonment to reach her face. Feeling a silent tear dare to break ranks when she realised that fingers were following eyes. That Faith’s hand was crossing the bridge between them to make contact, to reignite that feeling. A gasp.
Was that her gasp? Eyelids closing to push the silent tear free, to stand unmoving, yet not unmoved, as fingertips touched a cheek which had waited so many months to feel again. So many years.
“B?”
A whisper, an invitation. Feeling the shake in the hand as it caressed slowly across her skin, across her jaw line, mapping any change. Across a neck which bore the scar hidden beneath skin, to the clothes which sat battle weary, years of fighting kept encased beneath cotton.
The large side, the righteous side, the side which Willow had urged to take caution; that side was screaming at Buffy. Downright, red alert, sound the freaking beepers, screaming. Step back. Guard up. Retreat, retreat!!
The side which sat frozen though, the small side, that was the side dictating the pace to her. To stand and to feel. To offer up without resistance, to make no threat.
The side which felt the smash the hardest as Faith had slammed her forward into bars, against her prison, fingers wrapping tight in a fist around her clothes, breath snarling out words which made up for the strength that was missing from her grasp.
It still hurt.
The roughness of metal grazing across the smoothness of her cheek. Yet she didn’t step back. Didn’t pull away.
“You think you can fucking fool me again?! You think I *need* to listen to a fucking word you have to say?! You gutted me Blondie, you fucking gutted me…”
“Willow, no! I don’t think your intervention is the type needed here. I will…”
“No Giles.” Angel spoke up from his place watching the screen, his eyes and ears both perked to catch every word, every insinuation, every deep down cry from Faith’s broken soul. “You’re not strong enough to deal with this. With Faith. I’ll go.”
There was no argument as he left them, because too much focus was directed still at the show unfolding before their eyes. At Buffy held with ease against the cage, at Faith’s face contorting with such twisted anger as she screamed words into her ears.
“Why isn’t the Buffster moving?”
Xander wondered it aloud. Everybody heard. Nobody had an answer.
Faith’s throat was raw from the effort of so many words, so much volume, her hands tired from clenching, her legs aching from standing. It was just… again… so much of the same. So much confusion, so much not knowing, so much being a pawn in the fucked up game of life.
So tired of it all.
“Let me out of this fucking cage.”
Not much strength left to shout. Not much will left. Four years? Four fucking years? Was that…
No.
Bullshit. She tried to clench harder to squeeze the source, wishing her hands had a grip around that neck so fucking slender, around skin so fucking smooth.
The feeling that caressed her own skin at that moment was a different kind of awakening, a different memory of senses. Fizzing. Buzzing. Trickling through each of her limbs, calling forth a never forgotten power. Her power. Slayer power. Her head drawn away from Buffy, her eyes flying to catch sight of a vampire.
No.
“Faith, let go of her.”
His steady slow steps down the stairs making her spring back away from the bars. Away from Buffy. The walls not far enough away from the monster that strode into the room. Pushing back.
“Buffy, are you okay?”
Faith’s hands were sliding to her stomach as if she could claw away her wound, make herself strong again. Fear returning, panic insisting that her breaths catch tight in her throat, yet still fall fast from her lips.
“I’m… fine. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Buffy spoke with the choke that sat in her own throat. Her own confusion blanketing the situation in a surreal bubble that threatened to burst with her at the centre. She could see the fear in Faith, could see that desperate need which just a minute ago was vowing to reap revenge with death, now straining with futility to sink into the walls. And words.
“You are not feeding me to him.” Spoken like a plea.
Four years gone, but not understanding.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to do it. Buffy did know though, that this was not the way. She could feel the anger, the fear, the desperation which flowed so fast from the now cowering Faith. And god, could she blame her?
They had locked her in a cage, faced her with the person who did this to her, and now the vampire who was gonna drain her blood dry had just walked into the room.
Welcome back Faith.
Buffy stepped slowly away from the bars, slowly away from Faith. Her eyes switching to catch Angel, to motion with her head that they needed to back off. To retreat. Watching as he left, counting the steps until he had reached the top.
It was the hardest thing in the world to turn away. To show her back. But she knew that it was the only way. That what she was doing was nothing more than terrifying Faith. She had shared the dream, she had seen the scenes, had held the knife which done the damage.
Where the words came from she didn’t know. Why she said them she would always know. Maybe one day realise. They were the whispers of her heart.
“I’m sorry Faith.”
So sorry. For then? For now?
For everything.
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