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Chapter Twenty-Three: Chinese Takeout on the Green Floor

April 2008

April Fools Day jokes litter the newspaper in Giles’ hands.

Dr Mellor smiles wryly when he sees you looking. “You’re no’ the firs’ parent to give me that look today- I keep thinking I should be makin’ something oop justa make people stop doonit.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s natural.” He holds up the vial of blood the nurse has just drawn and frowns. You’re not entirely sure what it is he can see- you’ve seen far too much blood and it all just seems the same. Though there was green blood once… and Rosy’s certainly isn’t green. “I’ll have a fresh round o’ blood cultures done but I’m not loikin’ the readings from the pulse oximeter.”

“So you now have to diagnose why?” Many diagnoses but nothing total and nothing absolute.

Another day and another round of tests. They hook her up to higher oxygen supply and those flat heart monitor pads that make the machine beep even louder.

You sit with Faith and Satsu in the family room while The Room gets cleaned. Satsu smirks at you over the top of the only magazine in the place. The walls are a dull orange and you run out of ‘safe’ small talk pretty soon. “How’s Kennedy?”

Faith snorts, “I… wouldn’t know. Haven’t spoken in a while.”

“Why?” You blurt out. Across from you (and acting as your foot rest) Satsu shakes her head, smirking away.

“She said some pretty bad stuff about you. We kinda had a huge…” Faith motions vaguely upwards, “I broke her nose.”

“Ah.”

It’s well known that the only person who can hurt Faith (other than you) is Kennedy. But then that’s the way it goes right? The only ones who can hurt you are those who you let see the real you- your truest part. Because they’re meant to keep it safe, hold that little flame and nurture it. And the first time someone doesn’t, the first time it’s stamped out under careless feet, makes it that much harder to ever open up again.

Parents have a lot to answer for.

“It’s ok, I said some stuff about Red and she… snapped a couple of my fingers so it’s really kinda fair.”

“Ah.”

Faith chuckles, she’s sitting in the chair beside you and when she slides down her head accidentally rests on your shoulder. She doesn’t move it so you don’t.

Satsu waits and watches, holding her tongue until Faith is fully asleep.

“Huh… do you think Angelina is really pregnant or it’s just another rumour? I hope she is, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in the world looked like her? Except then I guess it wouldn’t really be so special- we’d be a ridiculously good-looking race and have absolutely no idea. We’d just go about our attractive daily lives not notice- Oh wait.” She frowns, rechecking the front cover. “This is from two years ago. Obviously then she was pregnant. Fortunately for the world.”

“Fortunately for us.” You wait for her to continue but instead she just stares vaguely at the door of the tiny room. “Sassy? Is there something you’re trying to tell me? Perhaps a weird, unrequited crush on Angelina Jolie’s womb?”

The look she gives you is more ‘how did you get there?’ than guilty blush. “No. I just think she has a very pretty daughter.”

You snort, “So the crush is on Shiloh? Because, I hate to tell you, but that’s even weirder. And probably illegal in every country and every universe, unless it’s a universe where bad things are good and good things are bad.”

“It’s not Shiloh.”

“Zahara? No, wait, are you re-coming out to me? Is it Maddox? Pax? Brad?”

She smiles, for the first time in a while. It makes her look cute, sweet, pretty and somehow, at the same time, beautiful. “You’re an idiot.”

“I try.”

Satsu sighs again, she’s avoiding your eyes and you don’t quite understand why. Normally she’s horribly blunt with you- one of those best friends who will quite happy tell you which clothes make you look fat. “I just…” Maybe it’s Faith? It’s not as if she’s easy to be around for people who don’t know her too well; all that energy and confidence can be a little off-putting. “It’s… I just don’t want you… Faith is going to leave again, you know that right? I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

You scoff (but quietly so as not to wake Faith), “I’m sorry but are you not the one who found Faith and sent her here?”

She shakes her head, “Yes. For Rose.”

“Fuck off, Satsu.” You hiss. You don’t want Faith to be here so the two of you can get back together! Rose needs her family. “I don’t need your stupid jealousy right now, ok? What I need is for someone to be here with me. No one knows what I’m going through except Faith.”

It’s weird but you’ve never actually seen Satsu angry before. “Right, of course, because the time she’s spent with Rose since you two split up- equalling, oh I don’t know, two whole minutes- is completely on a par with the months I spent with you while you were pregnant, the way I took you in when you decided to leave her and the parenting I’ve been doing ever since!”

Faith stirs slightly, shifting so her face is snuggled right into your shoulder. You panic that she might wake up, “Keep your voice down.”

She hisses under her breath angrily. “I’ve done all of that and… I’m not asking you for some kind of reward, or even real recognition I just want you to listen to yourself once in a while. Every time Faith is here it’s… it’s like you have tunnel vision, you can’t see anything but her. And maybe this is just my jealousy speaking but when my best doesn’t even come close to Faith’s worst…?” It looks for a second as if Satsu might yell and cry but instead she just gets quieter, “What am I supposed to feel?”

“I didn’t ask you for any of that. I didn’t ask you to do those things and I don’t think you’re any less than Faith. Faith drives me crazy! She’s always spinning from one thing to the other and I can never-”

“See!? Exactly. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I ask how I’m supposed to feel and you start talking about Faith!”

You stare coldly, your voice hard and low as warning, “Faith is a big part of my life, Sass, and she’s a big part of Rose’s.”

“Then why do this to me? Why did you bring me into this when you knew how I felt about you?” She whispers, “Why let me fall in love with your daughter?”

“I…”

Except you have nothing else to add to that. Truly, nothing.

Eventually she shoots up from her chair across the room, ‘calmly walking away’ at record-breaking pace.

Damn.

You’re pretty sure Faith is awake and has been for some time. Oddly she’s being polite and continuing the sleeping ruse- she even makes those little ‘sleepy noises’ and stretches when you nudge her awake.

“W’as goin’ on?”

“I think they’re probably done now. We should go back and see Rose.”

The nurses are just wheeling the cot back into the room when you get there. Rose is sleeping off the sedation so you take the chance to look around. You hadn’t realised quite how dirty the room had become. It’s probably best not to think about the dirty cups and used tissues that had littered the floor. Because, ew! Big EW!

Faith shifts uncomfortably, her back seized up after sleeping in the chair. Bruiser pops her head out of the front of Faith’s jacket and then, seeing it’s just you, burrows back inside.

“You ok?”

“Y-” It comes out choked and she coughs, frowning in disgust, “Yeah. Man, my breath stinks.”

“Want a mint?” You pass over one of the many, many sticks of gum on the bedside table.

Faith chews quietly for a while, sinking into the armchair by the bed. She studies Rose’s face and then yours- looking at the similarities. “She looks like you.” ‘more than me’.

“Weird, isn’t it?” There’s some deep breathing and calming of your pounding heart before you’re able to continue. “I sometimes wish she looked more like you- when you’re gone. I… I had her because I wanted something to fill that Faith shaped-hole but then when she was born… it’s like my heart built an annexe all for her and there was still that space.”

You expect her to get angry- point out that you’re the one who sent her away- but instead she just shrugs. “I didn’t think I could ever love anyone as much as I love you. But now I’d trade you for just another year of her life.” She kisses the tiny hand in hers and holds it in the path of her tears.

“I’d trade you for a month.”

The two of you chuckle, slipping back into comfortable silence. You move around the bed to wrap your arms around her from behind the chair and rest your aching head against her strong shoulder. She takes one of your hands in her free one and kisses it too. “Epic love in perspective, huh?”

“Your rational side scares me.” You raise your head so she can twist to see you’re joking.

“Dude, me too! The other day I spent grocery money on actual food! Not a single jar of marshmallow whip!”

“You do have an unnatural love for the stuff. Oh! So does Rose! And she loves Chris Rock and… she has dimples. See? Totally your daughter.”

She sniggers, “You let her watch Chris Rock shows?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘let’ so much as; she saw an episode of ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ once and then bugged me for ‘Kissock’ every time I turned on the TV. So yeah, I caved, and bought her Chris Rock DVDs.”

“There is not even a hope of our daughter being normal is there? Aside from the gay mommies, possible slayer powers and your mini-genes.”

You shake your head sadly, “I’m more worried about her inheriting your smart ass.”

It’s not until the twenty-fourth day, having stared at Faith across the hospital bed for three days, you realise her wrists are about as thin as your daughter’s. You’ve yet to see her eat.

“When- when was the last time you had a meal?”

She jumps, not expecting the croaky sound from your disused throat. “I don’t know. You?”

“Dunno… think they deliver pizza to a hospital?”

“Can’t use our phones.”

Satsu hasn’t come back since your ‘argument’. Not that you blame her. She’s still wafting around the cafeteria and family room but hasn’t come close. Normally she’d be the one to fetch the food. There’s always Xander but he’s… either ‘helping Leah’s team find a stump’ or ‘buying full-fat ice cream at the dump’. Scottish accents are confusing. And Dawn… ok, you have no idea what Dawn is doing.

Faith’s stomach rumbles. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

A plan forms out of the murky, sleep-deprived haze that is your mind. “Lend me your phone- if I hang out the window I’m not technically ‘in’ the hospital, right?”

“Right.”

You make an order and wait. She finger-combs through Bruiser’s hair as you do. Time stretches on and you think too much.

Five years ago you sat on a roof with her, looking over the dying days of Sunnydale, utterly unable to contemplate a future with her. She smelt that night of sex- Robin Wood’s- and disappointment- yours. You couldn’t imagine any kind of a future back then, certainly not one that involved the two of you, a daughter and a dog.

Only, that’s not entirely how it is now, is it?

It’s not the happy little family scene that you wish it to be, that you once (briefly) hoped it might turn into. Faith isn’t who you want her to be, she’s not the illusion you fell in love with, or- or maybe it wasn’t so much an ‘illusion’ as a young, young girl and now you are changed and she… is not. Her mind moves backwards and forwards, one day the perfect mother, lover, slayer and friend- yet never all at once, never more than two. God, you want her so bad, you want to break free of this spell, this lethargy that makes you leave her cause- to tear through the veil and scream of your love to her just as you wish to scream for your baby.

Your heart breaks to look at your two broken, perfect girls.

And there’s not a thing you can do to fix them.

“Faith?”

“Yeah?” She smiles, open and lovely.

“Do you ever think about when we were kids?”

You watch her fingers trace the grain of the chair’s wooden arms and then up to her lips. “I think about the first time you kissed me, a lot. I think about the first time I wanted you to- kinda the first time I met ya too so that one’s taken care of.”

“Did you ever imagine things about your future? Our future?”

“Honestly? Until I met you I thought I’d be dead by eighteen. And I really didn’t mind.” She leans over to kiss Rose. “You made my life worth living, B. You gave me Rose.”

The air doesn’t move, the electric beeps don’t stop and you’re not magically transported somewhere else. It’s stale, noisy and still unmistakably a hospital room in which your baby is slowly… dying. But with Faith here it feels manageable, it feels like something you can cope with, something you can fight.

“Buffy?”

Wha-? Henry stands in the doorway, a plastic bag full of containers in one hand and the most hideous stuffed-animal you’ve ever seen in the other.

“Sorry it took so long, I’m pretty sure there’s only one Chinese takeaway in the whole of Scotland- no one seemed to understand what I was saying.” The smell of takeaway fills the room, making Faith salivate. You take the food from him before Faith can snatch it away.

“You didn’t have to go far, did you?”

He shakes his pretty brown head, “I was staying in Edinburgh anyway, and it was really only the drive up here.”

“Thank you so much!” Faith grunts her own thanks around a mouthful of noodles.

Henry stares oddly at her, obviously wondering how it’s possible for a human to put away food at such a pace. “That’s… alright- you’d be surprised how many places are open at three in the morning. Apparently Edinburgh is the City That Merely Dozes.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Faith!” She rolls her eyes, “I’m sorry about her. She’s rarely around people who can’t bench-press three times their own weight.”

You slap a hand over her mouth before she can show off about just how much she can do… and before you’ve properly thought through the consequences.

“Ew! Faith that’s disgusting!”

Poor Henry watches on as you wipe off the goo. On your top. Wow, having a baby really does make you gross.

“I’m…” Henry coughs, “I’d better get back to my Aunt. I’m glad you’re…” ok? Because you’re really, really not. “I- I’ll… Goodbye.” He places the ugly toy on the end of the bed.

“Bye!” You wave. With the slimy hand. He practically runs away. “You’ve got a skill for alienating people, you know that?”

She doesn’t care so you steal her favourite egg rolls just to piss her off. “Who’s the toff?”

You’re momentarily stunned by her grasp of British slang. “Hmm? Oh. His name’s Henry- his aunt donates to the school. I was having a meeting with them when the hospital phoned. I think he lives in London normally.”

“So not a boyfriend?”

“Not a boyfriend.” You reply, before realising that watching a brawl might be the most fun you’ve had in a while. “You can still hit him though.”

It’s been a long time since you’ve punched something. Not so long since you’ve wanted to. Every time someone touches your baby you want to tear your hair out, kill them, destroy their whole world. You know that this is a hospital, that they’re trained professionals and not really trying to hurt her but the urge to punch them is overwhelming!

God damn those beautiful, beautiful, life-saving people!

“Nah, I’m souped-up enough as it is.” Faith chuckles self-deprecatingly and runs a hand across her scraped-back hair. “God this food is good, I forgot food could be good.”

You roll your eyes and raise an eyebrow to her bony form. “Well why don’t you try eating some sometime then?”

Excuse me?!” She mock-gasps, “What about you? You lost all that Yummy Mummy lovely rounded…ness.”

“You mean ‘fat’?”

“’Plump’,” She corrects, “And I liked you that way.”

There’s a reply tripping off the tip of your tongue, almost out there but the machines get there first; blaring out and screaming! A light is blinking somewhere. Faith shoots up from her chair, food from her lap spilling all over the green lino. Green. The floor is green! Why didn’t you notice this before?! WHY?!

“She’s crashing! Get the crash cart!”

The floor is fucking green!

You sat on a green lino floor and you saw spilt chocolate and you WATCHED as your baby almost died! You can’t do this again! YOU CAN’T WATCH HER DIE! You can’t let it happen to this baby too! You CAN’T! YOU CAN’T!

NOT NOW NOT EVER NOT- Not… no. Just no.

Because last time only one and a half people might have died; Faith and the part of her inside you. But now it’s three. If Rosy dies then all three of you do. And it’s all of you, not just the little bit inside you that loves her because… because you love her with all you are, every molecule of your being. There isn’t a part of you that wouldn’t shrivel up and die if she didn’t make it.

And you know it’s the same for Faith.

You’re not eighteen, you’re not watching the doctors crowd your girlfriend, using machines to make her breathe. You’re twenty-seven and that’s your daughter they’re using the baby defibrillator on!

You can’t save her! You can’t help her! You can’t fight this!

“Clear!”

All you can do is clutch helplessly to Faith, scream into her shoulder as they shout, shout awful, awful things! They stick a metal thing down her throat and use the balloon thing and the thing-thing and the- where THE FUCK is Satsu?! She knows this stuff! She should be writing it down!

Where’s Xander?! Where’s Dawn?! Where’s Giles?! WHERE’S YOUR MOMMY?!

Faith body-slams you into the wall to keep grasping hands away from the people who are just trying to do their damn jobs!

“Baby, baby, stop! Stop it!” You fight harder, your fingernails leaving paths all the way down her neck. “Bumble Bee!” She catches both of your hands in one of hers and holds them to the wall. With the other she wrenches up your chin so you’re looking her straight in the eyes, with nowhere else to go. “Look at me, Bumble Bee, just look at me. Don’t think of anything else, just look at me. Keep looking. Good girl, keep looking.”

The beeping starts again steadily, everyone else breaths a sigh of relief.

You stare at Faith.

Who’s to say if you look back over it’ll really be ok?

“Thank you.”

It takes a moment for you to realise what it is she’s thanking you for. She wanted to concentrate on you. She wanted to stare into your eyes. She wanted to be the strong one. “You’re welcome.”

Rose is still out of it but you both rush over anyway and bathe her in kisses.

The medical staff work around you, taking out the breathing tube and replacing it with an oxygen mask. She throws up without waking up. Her skin has turned a sickly yellow and her nails a cold blue. They swab her side and use big needles, pushing tubes into her tiny body and hooking them up to yet more machines.

“B? What’s…?”

You shake your head, you don’t know. There’s a shake and then a spluttering from behind the mask. Rose tries to roll toward Faith, fighting against all her mechanical appendages. You try to coax her back. “Baby, don’t pull, stay still.”

She doesn’t listen to you, instead her chubby little hand grasps at the air just past your shoulder.

“Fay-Fay… want Fay-Fay…”

“I’m here sweetheart, I’m here.” Faith’s two hands wrap around Rose’s tiny one. “Ssh, baby, just rest.”

Again, and of course, Rose refuses to go along with what she’s told. She never pays heed to anything you say. If you tell her not to touch the hot pipes she will anyway- just in case you’re wrong. Her mind works twice as yours, she’s desperate to learn everything, soaks up the world around her- sometimes when you’re talking she gets this look in her eyes as if she’s taking every word from your mouth and analysing it. She’s difficult but rewarding. Just like her mother.

Rosy again slips back into unconsciousness and you help an orderly clean up the mess of Chinese food. It looks like blood on the green floor. Faith mistakes your shudder as being cold and wraps a blanket around you.

It’s only once the room has emptied to just you three that it finally hits… your baby almost died.

Faith shakes her head, “She can’t die, B, I can’t loose the one person who loves me no matter what.”

“I love you no matter what.”

“Uh…” She scoffs, “I think we’ve proved you don’t. After all, you’re the one who kicked me out.”

Kuh! With good reason! “Because you were turning into a psychopath! You broke every mirror in the house!”

Instead of arguing she only shrugs, “You’re just proving my point.”

You growl and sigh at the same time. “What if it’s genetic?!”

“Huh?”

You stare back, just as confused. It hadn’t even occurred to you before. Of course, of course that’s the answer! It’s her! “What if what she’s got runs in your family, Faith? How would I know? You never tell me anything!”

“You’ve never asked!” Her fingernails dig in to your upper arm.

“Bullshit!” You smack her hand away, “I ask about your family all the time! I might not come out and just say it but that’s because I know you won’t answer!”

Faith grips both your arms, once, hard, then turns away and punches her own palm. Your jaw aches in relief. “I don’t know, ok? I don’t know anything about my family! Just because I met them doesn’t mean I knew them!”

Stupid! Goddamn stupid! You can see symptoms without knowing what they are fucking symptomatic of!

When your mother had those headaches you… you didn’t… you waited, just like you did with Rose. You waited until Monday. Twenty-Four days ago. Faith wouldn’t have waited, Faith should have known!

“Yes it does!”

“Fine! Fine!” She takes you by the shoulders and squashes you down into the armchair, thrusting her face close to yours. “I know my mom preferred blunt to sharp and hated Christmas- oddly, I don’t think that’s very helpful right now! Neither is her love of Jack or ability to sit back and watch as her boyfriends-” Young Faith stops her. “Why am I telling you things you already know?” She tears herself away, snatching at her hair. “So you can just fuck right off, ok?”

Rose whines in distress, a pitiful whimper. “Fay-Fay… Bee-Bee…!”

You both jump.

“Don’t yell in front of the baby!”

Faith gapes, “You’re yelling!”

“I’m not-! Oh…” The room lurches. The lights blink out. Was the floor always that close?

You wake up in a hospital bed eighteen hours later, feeling anything but rested. There’s a drip in your arm and you almost do the movie-cliché thing of pulling it out and wandering off before you remember you’ve done that before and the damn thing hurts! You’re clean, even your matted hair has been washed.

Your teeth, however, haven’t. They taste of sick and old Chinese food.

A nurse passes just as the clock ticks to eight pm and comes into the room when you call (the supposedly handy call-button having gone mysteriously missing). “Miss Summers, you’re awake.”

“I know.”

She stares at you strangely.

“Can you please take this thing out of my arm and give me back my clothes? I have to get back to my daughter.”

A guilty look crosses her face and the metal rail twists under your grip. If they’ve left you sleeping while something happened you’ll-! “I’m afraid your clothes had to be burnt. We ran them through the hospital wash twice but nothing helped. Your… uh…” She fiddles uncomfortably and makes funny motions on her shoulders. “Brunette.”

“Dawn? My sister?”

“No, she’s more of a…” Her hands move to make the same motions just below her breasts.

“Faith? With the dark brown hair- Faith?”

“Yes!” She smiles in relief, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t remember her name and we had a workshop the other week about the correct way to address same-sex parents- normally we just say ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’- but the two of you are broken up so I couldn’t say ‘wife’ and… goodness, that doesn’t matter now.” She pulls out the IV needle while you’re busy trying to work out what she’s talking about. “Well, Faith left you a set of clothes. She said that they’re hers so they might not fit.”

“That’s ok.” You take the proffered pile with a smile, “Thank you. How’s Rose?”

The nurse helps you dress, making you sit down for as long as possible in case you get dizzy again. “No change I’m afraid, though she hasn’t got worse either which is a good sign. Now she’s stabilised there’s more that can be done for her.” She tugs the jeans up over your hips and then crouches to roll up the bottoms. “The doctors were considering putting her on a ventilator rather than just the oxygen but that’s been held off now unless she gets worse over night.”

There’s a college sweater on the pile- Yale- and you laugh, knowing Faith added it for that reason. “I’m not laughing about the ventilator!” You quickly add, “I’m just…”

“Sometimes when we’ve had bad news for a while it looses it’s impact?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

The lights are dimmed in the corridor. Those rooms with open doors show dark rooms and sleeping forms. Rose’s room is no different; the glow from a single light on the side table cloaks your girls. Faith’s propped up against the open side of the cot. Her dark hair is spread out against the fluffy purple quilt. She’s completely out of it- doesn’t even stir when you lay a blanket over her. Underneath her open hand Rosy tosses and groans.

You soften down your little girl’s fluffy curls and whisper in her ear, “You’re brave and brilliant and I love you.” A tingle rises in your chest when you turn to Faith’s slumbering form. “I love you too.”

Your lips itch to kiss her as well.

“I love you and I can say it over and over again but at some point… it’s not going to make a difference- and we’ve reached that… or- or, at least, I think we have. And I’m not saying that’s not true, I do love you, but- but… it scares me. I don’t know if what I love is the core or the shell. I…” For a second it looks like she’s rousing but instead she just nuzzles her face into the bed. “I love that you count down the days to Christmas starting at a hundred. I love that you don’t even notice how beautiful you are.” Just ‘hot’- never anything as pure as ‘beautiful’. “I want that to be you- not just a symptom. So, it is?”

She doesn’t reply (but then, you don’t expect or want her to) so you go back to staring at her and resisting that kiss.

“Just because we’re right for each other doesn’t mean we’re right right now...” Too many ‘rights’ when it’s just so wrong. “I can’t stand to watch you destroy yourself.” You run your hand through her silky hair, “I love you too much for that.”

“Love you too…” She mumbles sleepily, turning away from the light.

A tear rolls down your cheek, and then another, and another, until you’re silently sobbing into your hand, crouched in the corner. Like a pyramid of melting ice your emotions spill over. Faith, Rosy and the general uselessness of life.

Either you’re not as quiet as you thought or being hunched over like that finally does get too painful- Faith rouses and stares around in confusion.

The tears don’t stop.

“B?”

It hurts, God it hurts! The whole damn thing feels like a ginormous weight on your heart, dragging you down from the inside. You want to scream and cuss and beat your fists against the ground until it cracks! But you can’t, because you shouldn’t disturb Rosy and no matter how strong you are she needs to not be disturbed. It’s the same, the same damn thing, you’re strong, a superhero, yet you can’t save the people you love- you couldn’t save your mother or Faith or Angel or your family and now… now your little girl is going to pay the price too!

It’s not fair! It’s not fucking fair! She’s a baby, just a tiny, tiny baby.

If the world wants to punish you so badly then why doesn’t it just do it, just hurt you- tear your heart straight out instead of doing it piece by piece?

“Buffy?”

When you don’t move she moves for you, coming forward to pick you up off the floor. Then wordlessly, without more than a quick look, she wraps the spare quilt (the one from home) around you and begins to clear the room. First the day’s rubbish is cleared then the camp bed unfolded and dressed. Finally she plugs in a wall-mounted nightlight that Giles sent over and turns off the one beside Rose.

In the dim half-light she comes to you and slowly, delicately, like you’ll break further with a heavier touch, peels off your clothes.

The too-big jeans make a noise when they hit they ground. As does the hoodie, gently dragged away until it uncovers a chest damp with tears. They pour and pool in the dents behind your collarbones.

She mops them away and guides you towards the low bed, crouching to turn back the covers and ease you in between. Your hand grips hers and refuses to let go. In just a tank and panties you tug until she relents and settles her chest on you, her lower half still on the floor. The secure crush is reassuring, calming even, and you clutch her tightly to you, feeling her heart beat.

“Please,” You whisper, “Please don’t go.”

“I’ll just be on the chair.”

“No.”

There’s a question in her eyes but you don’t care. Instead you reach one-handed and tug off her clothes the best you can- not gently and with reverence the way she did for you but by yanking and tearing. She moves back a fraction, to try and help, but you don’t let her. “B, stop, let me.”

You watch with sore and streaming eyes as in the gloom she lifts her arms over her head and pulls off what’s left of her torn sweater and top. Her tracksuit bottoms fall once she releases the string and you’re again reminded of how little she’s been eating. And that she doesn’t wear underwear (except for a long vest, this is Scotland after all). You’ve seen it all before though, right?

She slides in next to you, her legs tangling with yours in the small bed and warming you slightly. “You’re cold as ice.”

“I know.”

There’s a moment of awkward ‘what to do with the arm underneath you’ before she sits you up slightly and slides beneath, settling you back on top. Your forehead rests upon the pillow next to her, your breath fluttering past her ear as hers sends shivers down your spine. Her top has ridden up until you feel the slight scratch of her pubic hair against your leg. You’re very glad that it’s dark enough for her to only see your features and not your blush.

She only tells you secrets in the dark, but sex is always with the light on- just in case she forgets who you are. The faint orange glow from the tiny nightlight and Slayer vision means you can see the shape of her fine. But the rest of the room is pitch black. So you’re not really sure what this counts as.

“Thank you for letting me stay.”

“You have just as much right as I do.”

Her hands run up and down your spine, making you shiver- she knows that’s sensitive for you.

You turn your face and she does the same until you’re breathing the same air and sinking into her eyes. “I missed you.” Your lips brush hers as you speak. When she mumbles her reply her lips hold yours and talk around.

“We don’t have to do this.”

But by now you’re far too gone, too intoxicated in her scent and her feel and her. Again.

You don’t reply and she doesn’t speak- not with words anyway, just with hands and mouths, touches and strokes, kisses and nips. Until you cry out, silently, your throat clutching at the noise and dampening it down. Not to be shared.

When she comes back down she kisses away your tears and clutches you close, cooing away your fears. The dreams roll that night, like soft velvet across your subconscious. You wake in her arms, sticky and sore and too hot. But for one little moment, before Dawn’s face comes into view, those actually seem like good things.

“I don’t know if I should be disgusted or pleased.”

It’s raining, which, to be honest, is kind of what it does in Scotland, but hard enough to batter against the window and wake Faith up. “Wha…? Dawn?”

“You need to get dressed. Both of you. Willow is coming up.”

She turns around but doesn’t leave.

Faith smiles at you secretly and little bubbles pop in your stomach.

Your mind bitch-slaps you. This is Faith. Faith! Faith; the girl who can’t make a decision or keep a promise to save her life!

“Don’t even go there.” Dawn growls, once Faith has slinked out to use the bathroom. “You’re lucky Willow has the look of something important to say else I’d sit you down and have a long, long talk with you young lady.”

“Do we have to do this?” You cringe.

“Dissect exactly what happened to your brain to make you fumble with Faith? Yes.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Buffy, you… smell like something I’m embarrassed to say I recognise.”

You flush. “I thought you liked Faith?”

“I do,” She sighs, shaking her head with your mother’s look, “I just don’t like ‘Buffy and Faith’- you’re worse when you’re together.”

Hideous child! “We’re better when we’re together!” She turns away again as you slide out of the bed and pull on your clothes- though more from annoyance than modesty.

“Oh please, don’t listen to Kennedy.”

You gape, “I thought you liked Kennedy?”

“I did, until she made a pass at Leah.” The Yale sweatshirt hangs off her finger for a full minute before you realise and give up searching for it.

“Well, unless there’s something I really don’t know about, you’re just her best friend, other people are allowed to ask her out.”

Dawn glares lightning bolts at you, “I’m not jealous, I’m affronted!”

“Again; just the best friend.” You pull the hair tie out of your sister’s hair while she’s too busy being affronted.

“I’m insulted she didn’t ask me.”

“Right, because that makes more sense.” There are fifty thousand tangles in your hair. The band almost gets stuck. “And- is there something you’re not telling me?”

Her shiny hair swishes as she spins around to glower, “I’m not gay!”

“Whatever you want to believe.”

She pretends to pour and whine, “I’m just lonely.” Unfortunately the whining is real and hurts your ears.

“Shut up, I have go see Willow.”

Baby Slayer wiggles when you stroke her face but doesn’t wake. Dawn shifts awkwardly, “She hasn’t… she’s been asleep or- unconscious since… you argued. I’ll wait with her, you go talk to Willow.”

You join Faith down the hall, staring in utter confusion at the coloured lines on the floor.

“These… lead to something, right?”

“Yeah… Hopefully Willow” You consider the red, then the teal, then the blue then the… “What kind of a colour is taupe? I’ve always felt too stupid to ask.”

Faith contemplates as if it’s a complex mathematical equation, “Uh, either a grey or a brown. I think the one in the middle is sandy taupe.”

“No, that’s yellow.”

When hope comes it’s so totally unexpected it takes a full ten minutes before the two of you are mobilised.

You’re still bickering over what level of warm undertone stops a taupe being a yellow when suddenly Willow is in front of you, the first time you’d seen her in a month, with a look of hope that you definitely hadn’t seen in that long. “I know what it is! She’s going to be ok!” As quickly as she came she’s gone, racing off past you and down to Rose.

“B?” Faith murmurs, stirring from her stupor. “Did she just…?”

Your eyes follow hers along the corridor. Five minutes. “I think so.”

Six minutes. “Does that mean…?”

“I don’t know.”

The two of you walk slowly, so slowly back to your daughter. Seven minutes. You stare at Rose, her tiny white face and the early bags under her eyes.

“Buffy? Faith? Did Willow not…?”

“Xander.” Faith tries out his name as if to check he’s real. He came from behind and you begin to doubt. She stares at Rose again, hard enough that you almost think she’s trying to see through her.

“Faith,” Eight minutes. “You’re not hallucinating.”

A slow smile spreads over her face. “Wow.” Then she frowns and turns back to Rose. “Shit.”

“It’s going to be ok now though.”

Nine minutes. “Right. Really?”

Willow giggles devilishly and almost jumps up and down happily, “Really really- I can totally fix this!”

Faith sticks out a finger. You mini-high-five it. Ten minutes.

“Xander, I want everyone gathered in here for quarter past. Willow, run me through what you’ve got.”

She sits you both down and describes, in great detail, how, ever since Rose was born she’d felt something was ‘off’ with her aura (but couldn’t see because ‘hello, not Tara!’). Since the rush into hospital twenty five days ago she’d put her best five researchers on the case and they’d worked day and night trying to crack through the encrypted layers of whatever it is surrounding your daughter. Willow had been scared to tell you before, not wanting to be wrong.

But then they’d caught a thread of the magical cage that had sunk it’s claws into Rose and metaphorically tugged, or- or not so metaphorically, more; magically.

Which is how, five days later, you come to be standing in a dark, dank cave somewhere in Peru facing off against the demon leader who tried to kill your baby. ‘Tried’ because that’s exactly what he did- he poisoned ‘The Original Two’ from afar while you were pregnant but you body fought him off without you noticing more than an increase in morning sickness. Bodies don’t have the mercy of souls however and yours pushed every strand of toxin away from you and into her tiny body. Only having twice the slayer genes had saved her.

The bastard hadn’t even known you were pregnant, had just assumed that when you didn’t die it was because the poison wasn’t strong enough. So he’d sent more towards you- what he thought was you. In actuality, what he had done was send more along the same line- but the link, the poison, the person, was no longer inside you.

He has spent two and a half years killing your child. Yet, when his evil, hunking, red body turns and you finally see his face, you’re not angry. You’re happy.

You can kill this, you can fight this, you can even beat him into a pulp and have said glutinous liquid express-delivered to another dimension should you so choose. There has never been a fight before that you’ve been so sure of winning. You are a mama bear and someone hurt your cub. That someone is going to die. Preferably painfully.

“Slayer!”

“That’s my… job description, don’t wear it out- I’m not very good at searching through the wanted ads.”

The demon stares at you blankly.

“Wow, they really didn’t check your CV closely enough when they promoted you to chief, did they?”

Faith laughs at your attempted banter. “I fucking love you, B.” Her hair is caked in demon blood and stuck to her grin. It’s odd that you find her attractive right now.

“While it’s good to know I’ve got a fan- less loving, more chopping!”

She swings her axe around and decapitates two demons in one go. You wish for a second that you were blind so it wouldn’t be quite as obvious… Faith laughs a little too loudly and her eyes look at everything and nothing at once. She fights too rabidly and without watching her own back.

“Tell me, what do I have to do? Do I need you to do some kind of a chant or will killing you stop it?”

“You will never kill me slayer!” He boasts, beating on his chest.

“Death it is then!” One of his minions tackles you from the side and then his master is upon you, punches hitting your back and head. You spin with a kick to shoot him back against the wall. He bounces then comes towards you, his oversized, rock-like head smashing into yours. Your use your sword like a fist, thrusting over and over again.

The blood flies and still he laughs. You beat him back with feet and blades and aggression until you’re still standing and he isn’t. He kicks and writhes, putting you down twice before you finally sink your blade into his heart.

It’s quiet except for two streams of heavy breathing. You drag the sword from the corpse and spin to check on Faith.

She’s doubled over, breathing hard and clutching her bleeding shoulder.

“Faith?” For a split-second, when she looks up at you, a hope blossoms in your heart. Maybe you’ve killed more than just the demon, maybe you’ve saved your daughter and your wife.

Not that she’s still, technically, your wife- or ever was.

“Are you ok?”

Her smile tells you she knows- she gets that hope too. But life isn’t that kind. Or easy. “I’m still me, B. No sword in the gut’s gonna cure me- ‘less it’s my gut.”

You pull her to her feet, mainly to glare at her. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Sorry.” Blood pools on the ground beneath her but not enough to be worrisome. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“So, still you?”

She sighs and pulls you close, “Nothin’s gonna change me Babe, ‘cept you.” Mushy smiles all round. “I’m working on it, ‘k?”

“Come back soon.”

The last threads holding your top up finally snap under Faith’s wandering fingers. “I will if you strip more often.”

“We have a sick child to get back to so I’m gonna have to give you a rain check on that.”

The smiles die when you get back to the hospital. Willow assures you that the curse has been lifted yet there’s no change in her vitals.

Faith sinks down onto the camp bed, refusing the nurses’ requests to fix her cut cheek. “It’s just a bump.” You tell them and drop to lie along side her.

She holds your hand tight and paints a picture with words. Faith tells you all her plans for Rose, how she’s going to be a famous doctor and find the cures for at least ten diseases. She’ll stand in front of huge seminars, filled with fabulously brainy people and they’ll all marvel at her confidence and brilliance. Her husband will be something fabulous too but he’ll adore her, be absolutely doting and they’ll fill their house with healthy, happy children.

You lie and talk. For hours.

“B,” she sighs, the next day, when you almost-maybe-try-to-accidentally-kiss-her, “We both know things are gonna change but this is the way it has to be. For now.”

Rose wakes the next day, delirious with a fever. Faith had been sat across from you, attempting to teach you “Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird” in sign language- which you apparently ‘suck’ at. Both Willow and the doctors look for the cause but nothing seems to have happened. The fire rages for three days, during which time her other symptoms dissolve away. Her skin is flushed but not yellow, her heart starts to pump fiercely and the oxygen mask is no longer necessary.

On the thirty-fourth day the fever breaks, you mop her brow and cry silent tears into her hair. Faith chews the candy Xander brought and tries to hide her goofy grin. The happy tears give her away.

Children are born every day and yet you can’t replace them- you shouldn’t have to.

“Ro-Ro better? Go home?”

You nod like a silly idiot, grinning ear to ear, “Rose and Buffy, go home, promise.”

The drum skin loosens.


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