Chapter Five.
The taste of sorry still sat sluggish in Buffy’s mouth as she carried herself wearily up the steps from the basement. The words had crept out unknowingly. Whispers which had ached to have the space to be spoken so many times in the last four years. Not that she hadn’t ever given them voice before - there had been times. Private times. Times when she had sought solitude away from the world in the void that was always welcoming in Faith’s hospital room. But she had never thought that she would have opportunity to say them to an awake Faith. That she would want to say them to such a hateful Faith.
Such a hateful face.
She had felt paralysed when Faith had first taken her into her grasp, the shock of the slam making her eyes squint in pain, the metal bars caressing skin that had just moments before felt the gentleness of a different caress. It was the words that had frozen her though, not the action. Such bitterness, such anger, so many things that no other person had ever had the power to touch her with. Faith had always touched her. Always known where her secret buttons were located, always known how to push to provoke a reaction.
Sorry.
Buffy could bet that wasn’t the expected reaction. She was still clinging tight to the defence of whack-job, it could be used to explain so much. Perhaps the way she had let Faith’s ineffectual strength hold her such an inanimate prisoner… as if the weakness was begging Buffy to stay still. Maybe the way she had kept quiet instead of shouting Faith down with words of her own, so many accusations to be levelled, so much of her own pain that could be turned, sharpened and directed at Faith. Yet she had stayed still, barely daring to breathe in case she missed a moment of it, her ears open and hearing, giving path to each one of Faith’s hate filled words.
It made a change from her own words of condemnation. Almost refreshing to be hearing it from the source, instead of imagining the way that it would go. At least she knew now the way that it would be… no easy forgiveness to wipe away a situation that had, even at best, never been easy. Even when it *was* easy, it had never been easy.
Too many guards. Too many defences.
“Buffy, are you okay?”
Fresh guards in place as she looked up into the concerned eyes of her watcher. “Peachy. You?”
She tried to shrug him off as his hands reached her face, as they caressed along that cheek, the one that had bore the touch of Faith, of metal. “This doesn’t look too bad.”
“I said it’s fine.”
He sighed as she pushed him away, yet she didn’t even hear him, couldn’t be worried about soothing concerns which meant nothing to her. She had a whole big list full of more pressing concerns. “Angel?”
Passing her glance quickly across her friends, to settle on… well, wasn’t that another little mind boggler? The day before yesterday and she was planning a cookie baking session with this guy, and now her mind was already beginning to question his friendship?
Angel caught her glance. He knew her well enough to know that she was about to start asking for answers. Answers he couldn’t give in truth, that he would have to hope he could make believable enough to be good enough. His head motioning towards the office, waiting for her to walk before he followed close behind.
“So you wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”
Buffy barely waited for the door to close to launch an all out attack. No time to prepare a method, just knowing that everything about this felt wrong. She knew about Wolfram and Hart, had heard from Angel himself what they stood for, the kind of things that they represented. Evil. And she couldn’t believe it.
Couldn’t believe that he was staring at her without words, that he wasn’t already trying to defend what was going on. “Nothing?! You haven’t got anything to say?!”
She watched him cloak himself in that air of aloofness that had always managed to irritate her, the way he was able to pull back, to remain detached.
“Buffy, this has got nothing to do with anything that’s going on. I don’t have to explain…”
“Yes you do! You can’t… god, you can’t do this and expect me to just stand back and say nothing. Wolfram and Hart, Angel… what about the things you told me…”
“I know what I told you, I know what they are. All of us do, and all of us have made this decision. Together.” He took a step closer to her, making his way into space where he had always been welcomed, not able to hide the slighted look as she shoved him violently away. “Bu…”
“No! When were you gonna tell me Angel? Did it slip your mind before, didn’t it rate as important?”
“It isn’t your business. I only came to bring the amulet.”
Buffy wanted so much to accept the words which came in the voice that had always held reason, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t find reasoning for this. For any of it. “My business isn’t evil law firms, so I guess you have a point.”
She clipped her tones, offered him some ice to douse any of the fire that had remained constant over the years. Baking season was over. Cookies were not on the menu. “I can’t support you in this. As long as you know that you’re doing this without my support.”
And he stepped further back. Maybe accepting what she was saying, knowing that he couldn’t offer stories of forgotten sons to make it all make sense. “I don’t remember asking for your support.”
So off the cuff. So little weight attached to the final nail in the coffin.
“You bastard.”
Taking Buffy’s blow without a retort. He had nothing he could say.
It made the office tense with silence for what felt like an age, Buffy’s eyes refusing to meet his, to bring herself to even look at him. She knew so well that good and evil existed in a place that mixed intrinsically with grey, but to her there was no grey here, just huge flashing neon signs, illuminating red for danger. Evil all of the way.
Angel watched her, studied her for reaction as she dug her hands into the chair behind the desk. Watching the straining of knuckles, realising just how close she was to breaking. “Do you want to talk about Faith?”
Knuckles straining harder. His voice finding the weariness of two hundred plus years as he looked to find any words which could build something of a bridge. “You won’t ever understand what’s going on here Buffy, and I’ll never be able to give you the answers that you need; but don’t cut me out of this. You brought Faith here for a reason, let me help. You know that I’m qualified.”
Incredulous. Those were the eyes that finally rose to greet him. Incredulous with a side of heart breaking. “You’re qualified for what exactly?”
Still so far from understanding. “You’re head of an evil empire Angel, you think that Faith needs that, you really think that *that* is gonna be any good to her?”
“I wasn’t talking about that.”
“Well I was! I am!” She broke her spot by the chair to find footfalls on the floor. More spirals around the track, more pointless steps which didn’t take her any closer to anything. “I thought you were the beacon. You were the shining light, my goodness, god… how wrong did I turn out to be?”
“I’m still…”
“No. No you’re not. If you do this Angel, if you work with them, then that’s it for us. Forever. Do you understand that?”
Angel had known that this reaction was always going to be on the cards when Buffy heard about Wolfram and Hart. He had hoped that he would have time to do good, before she found out the bad. Now that she knew, all he could do was give her space, hope that down the line she would find the acceptance to bring him back into her heart. Until then, he still had to force the important issue. The issue that resided in his basement.
“And Faith?”
“That’s it?”
He shrugged. It was hard to keep aloof as you lost your girl. Hard to make words.
“This is all so screwed up. We shouldn’t have come here…”
“No. You did the right thing. We have the room here for the slayers, for everyone. We can take care of Faith here.”
He kept it measured, he kept business tones for a situation that teetered on a knife edge of tension. He could see the hardness enveloping her eyes, could smell the power as it tainted the air around her skin. He knew not to provoke that emotion.
“I don’t want to be here.”
“Do you have anywhere else to be?”
Buffy felt the tears so close again. Her mind not able to keep count anymore of what was lost, what was found. She felt like she was losing her sanity, she knew that if she couldn’t just close her eyes and crash sometime soon, somewhere peaceful, then her sanity would remain only a fond memory in the distance. She pulled it back. She fought for a rod of steel for her shoulders that Giles would be proud of. So used to laying her feelings aside, to take care of business. It was almost a comfort, the familiarity of the action.
“You’re right. We don’t have anywhere else to go. We’ll stay here, at least until we can sort something out.”
“And Faith?”
She wanted to scoff. It was supposed to be her that was locked in the obsessive throes of affected and interested concern. She swallowed the Valley-gal reply of Obsessive, much? And instead remembered the rod and the steel. “Faith isn’t your responsibility. You don’t need to worry about her.”
“I can help her.”
“You think I trust you?”
“This isn’t about you, Buffy. This is my city, and why you are in it we play by my rules. Faith is my guest now, and I’ll do all that I can to help her get past the darkness. I don’t need your permission, and you’ve already made it clear that I don’t have your support.”
He left it open. He baited her to deny it, to find a place where they could be a team again. She found only anger. Quiet seething anger.
How could two days have changed everything so much?
She remembered his last smile, the one before he had walked with a skip in his step from the cemeteries of Sunnydale. And now that, like everything else, was buried in rubble. Nothing but dust.
“Just stay out of my way.”
They were the only words that Buffy could seek to find. A warning. A threat. A barely concealed statement of detest. Her body tensing more with each step from the room, culminating in a slam that shook the door on its hinges. A warning to each of her friends to let her pass without comment.
Xander sat in idleness, his finger finding the flick again as he observed Faith on the grainy screen in front of him. He’d offered up his services as lookout, almost drawn to watch the slayer unravelling, as if it was some second rate, yet absolutely addictive, reality TV show. It just shocked him how different she looked now, made him sigh a sound of wonder as he considered how much fear she had provoked in them in the past.
He was a man now, and his man sized boots were not shaking in fear. His head was merely shaking in regret.
“Hey, any change?”
He smiled a look up as Willow and Kennedy came into view. Their hands wrapped in happy togetherness, their eyes finding smiles that reached out for everyone.
“No such luck Wills. She still seems intent to break through the bars. You think she would’ve figured it out by now.”
“Yeah. She never was that bright.”
“Sure, but compared to you, we’re all morons.”
Willow shrugged her shoulder as she let go of her girlfriend’s hand to take a step closer. Witnessing for herself the way that Faith was trying to tear ineffectual strips from the bars of her cage. “Is that all she’s been doing?”
“Oh no, she did this big session of kicks as well. She rested. For like five seconds.” It was his turn to shrug his shoulders now. “I guess she’s getting some stamina back.”
“She doesn’t look all that special. You guys sure she was a big bad?”
Kennedy had already taken the time to study the screen which showed them Faith. Trying to reconcile the image with the words that Andrew had spoken, with the tales that Willow had told her to bring her up to speed. “She looks kinda…” mimicking the Xander flicks to the screen, poking at the view. “…pathetic. Pretty weak.”
“Right. Don’t let her hear you saying that kinda thing. She doesn’t like insults, does she Will?”
“Nope. Though Kennedy is right. It is hard to remember what she was, when she’s looking like she is. I should do a glamour thing, return her to her snarly days.”
“Or we could just keep putting Buffy down there, and let her find her own way back.”
Xander’s easy words had returned the room to silence. The two old friends worrying silently about Buffy, about how this was going to affect Buffy, about how it was going to affect all of them. And Kennedy, silent only because she was still studying Faith, still watching that unabated anger slammed repeatedly against the bars of the cage.
“Have you thought that maybe letting her out, might calm her down a little?”
“Huh?”
“Well, from a slayer point of view, if anyone locked me in a cage, I’d be pissed as hell. From a person point of view, gotta think the reaction’s the same.”
“We can’t let her out.”
“Why not?”
Xander stepped up, patting Willow affectionately on the arm as he passed her by. “Okay, I can see that your sweetie pie here must have missed out some of the relevant details concerning our little psycho slayer. She’s dangerous. She kills people. She enjoys it. Therefore, cage.”
“How do you know she still kills people, I thought you said it had been four years?”
“Four nice, non-psycho years Ken. I’m not desperate to return to that, and I doubt that Willow is either.”
He looked for her nod of agreement, smiling when it came. “Anyway, you little newbies shouldn’t be worrying about this. This is an old problem, us Scoobs will take care of it, you don’t need to worry.”
Xander tried to offer the smile to Kennedy as well, trying to bring his best friend’s new girlfriend, into the fold. The smile wasn’t returned.
“But she’s a slayer. She’s one of us. Not a Scooby.”
“Kennedy, I told you before, you shouldn’t get involved.”
“Why? Because Buffy thinks so? Because you say so?” The slayer puffed out her chest, breathed in her power. “I think keeping slayers in cages is bullshit. There’s enough of us here to keep a firm grip on her…” Finger pointing steadily to the screen, to Faith. “…that’s just messed up. Sorry Willow, but that’s my take on it.”
She didn’t wait for her girlfriend’s reply, she didn’t need to. Kennedy had heard the tales, had seen the proof of a girl gone rogue, and she wasn’t so impressed, wasn’t so terrified by what she saw. Her back was turned then, her feet finding a path to the garden, going to train with Giles. With the other slayers. All slayers together.
Willow had stayed staring at the screen long after Kennedy had left, relieving Xander from his duty, forcing herself to bear witness to all of the rage and pain kept caged up beneath them. She couldn’t agree with the opinion of her girlfriend, there was no way that Faith could be set free in the state that she was in. No way. Even looking at her now, all hunched up in the corner, head depressed down between her legs, Willow could still sense the danger in her pose. Could still remember the destruction that had always paved the way for Faith.
“What are you thinking, huh?”
Words never meant to be heard, just voicing her wonder. Fingers not flicking the screen, but tracing those hunched up shoulders, jumping in her seat as Xander’s voice broke through her deep concentration.
“Caressing the prisoner, is that like a butch fantasy thing?”
Her fingers flying, as if scorched, from the screen. “Xander! I thought you were resting. What time is it?”
“Dinner time. The sun’s gone down, the slayers have flown the coop, and I’ve got a big ol’ hankering for pizza. Care to join me?”
“The slayers have gone?”
“Giles took them out to get their bearings. Didn’t Kennedy tell you?”
She didn’t need to answer, she just shook her head. No. Kennedy hadn’t told her anything, not since she had shared her opinion on how they were handling Faith.
“Oh. I guess they left pretty quick.”
“Don’t worry Xander, I know that she’s pissed at me.” Willow offered him a small smile, a tired smile, patted the space next to her on the desk. “She just doesn’t understand. She wasn’t there.”
“Right.”
Xander took the proffered seat, allowing his glance to slowly flick the way of Faith. A gentle sigh easing him to sitting as he realised she wasn’t fighting anymore, she wasn’t screaming, she wasn’t trying to rip herself free from the cage. “She been like that long?”
“A while. Probably storing up energy for the second round.”
“Yeah.” His words coming stilted from his lips. “Do you think that Kennedy had a point?”
The silence that grabbed hold of Willow’s throat spoke a world of no. Her head shaking, her eyes spread open in obvious disbelief.
“Just hear me out Wills, think about it for a minute…”
“No! No thinking. You’ve seen her Xander, you know what she tried at the hospital. If we don’t keep her locked up, then she’s gonna go rage crazy on Buffy. I won’t allow that.”
“I think the Buffster can handle her.”
Thoughts like these had been plaguing the soft hearted man all evening. Putting aside the fears of yesteryears, to try and view things from a different angle. From Faith’s angle. Letting each of her words echo in his ears, watching as every fist she smashed against the bars made her cry out in pain.
And he finally understood Buffy’s words about monsters.
He never had before, had always been the first to trumpet out nonsense when Buffy had questioned what had happened with Faith. It wasn’t the same. Faith was a killer. Buffy was just neutralising a threat. He had never had to drive a knife into Faith’s gut, had never had to have his palms coated in the reality of her blood.
This time though, this time he had helped to carry her lifeless form in from the car, had smiled a satisfied smile when the doors to the cage had clunked firmly closed. Yep. They had put the monster in her cage. So why did it all feel so wrong?
“I don’t believe this… you really think we should let her out? Give her free rein to act on all of her pretty little revenge fantasies?”
“I didn’t say that. I just think that this might not be the best way to bring her back to the fold.”
“She doesn’t want back to the fold! She was never *in* the fold!”
Willow had risen from her seat in defiance of Xander’s words. It wasn’t that she hadn’t taken her own view from Faith’s side of the fence, she just thought they were being far too quick to dismiss the things that Faith was capable of doing. “This is crazy… she’s dangerous Xander, dangerous.”
He backed down, stepped away from the confrontation. His hands offered up in gentle supplication. “Hey, ease off the gas there girly. I’m not making an argument, just stating a case. There must be better options, better ways of handling this.”
He appealed to soft Willow, kindergarten Willow, all the compassion that he could muster slipped inside his gentle gaze. He wasn’t saying that they should set her free to rape and pillage, he was just suggesting that there were maybe other ways to handle this, without acting like the monster that they all feared.
He didn’t even know if she was a monster anymore. He just knew that they had locked her in a cage.
“Okay.” Willow could never deny much of anything to Xander Harris when he beseeched her with that puppy dog look. All cute and kindness, the things she had always loved. “Tomorrow we’ll have a meeting and discuss the best thing to do. The best way to go. Maybe Angel has some ideas… maybe…”
“Maybe Buff won’t want Angel being a part of it.”
“Won’t want Angel being a part of what?”
Timing perfect. Buffy’s eyes narrowing on the guilty looks of her two flustered friends. “Guys?”
“We were just saying Buff, maybe the cage isn’t the best way to go… if we want Faith, if we want her to, I don’t know… get better?” Xander offered a nervous glance Willow’s way, carrying on when she gave him a slight nod of the head. “Maybe locking her down there is gonna make her more…”
“Pissed?”
The smile that lit Buffy’s face was unexpected, causing confusion in the small circle, a pause offered for her to continue. “Look, I’m not totally dumb, I thought you two had figured that out already?”
The pause extending as neither of them spoke an answer.
“I know that the cage isn’t gonna work out, I get that, I got that earlier today. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“So what do we do?”
“That’s where I dumb down again. I haven’t got a clue. I’ll try and talk to her again tomorrow, try and get her to listen… until then, I need to go slay.”
“You’re going slaying? Now?”
“Sure. I’ve slept, I’m rested, I’m raring to go.” She slipped the scythe out from behind her back, the glint in her eye only deepening, the smile on her lips lifting further. “I haven’t had nearly enough time to play with this yet. Maybe I’ll bump into Angel.”
Now she had gob smacked her friends. Their heads turning, questioning glances being thrown her way. “Joke?”
“Right. Are you sure you should be going out. You seem a little…”
“I’m fine. Good to go. Believe me Xander, I can’t stay here. If I stay here I’m gonna end up down there again, and I need to think first. I need to figure out a way to reach her.”
They could accept that. They knew Buffy well enough to know that this was sometimes the way she chose to deal. Rehearsing her lines in front of a vamp, working out her frustrations until nothing remained except dust.
“Will you guys keep an eye on her, make sure she gets food?”
“Sure. We’re getting pizza, I’ll slide it through the bars.”
“Play nice Wills. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that she tossed the scythe high in the air and caught it on the turn. Showing them her back, an easy tune whistled from her smiling lips as she quickly left the building.
“Okay. That was way too weird. Why with the happy?”
Willow didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. Knew all too well. Buffy was always affected one way or another by Faith, she always had been. Years ago, the years in between, and now again. “Her arch nemesis is back in the game, maybe she’s just excited.”
It sounded viable.
“Does she always whistle her way into battle, did I miss that?”
“Hi ho, hi ho. She’s a dedicated slayer.”
“I’m telling her you called her a dwarf.”
The silliness slipped easily over the lifelong friends. There wasn’t ever any situation that they couldn’t find a smile for. Even when Xander had talked Willow down from destroying the world, he had done it with a smile. She caught his eye now, flashed him something like devilment. “You do that Xander Harris, and I’ll tell her that you moan her name in your sleep!”
“I do not!”
“Uh-huh. Never?”
She laughed as he coloured, poking him in the ribs to deepen his agony. “Come on, let’s get this pizza ordered. I’ll go get Dawn, you slide the slices to Faith.”
“Me?! You said you were doing it.”
“I lied.”
Her chuckle reverberated through reception as she left to hunt out the younger Summers sister. Xander left shaking his head, his gaze unwittingly searching out the screen again.
She still looked like she was resting. Maybe he could slide the slices without even waking her. Cos no matter what his conscience said, no matter what his heart said, he had no idea what he would even begin to say to Faith.
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