No More Tears On My Pillow
by Freakysplatterz
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: As lovely as she is and as many times as I've written her as my
main character, Faith is still not my property. *I weep silently*
(Ahem).....Neither is Buffy.
Note: I have no claim on the title. It's a song by Mya. And I guess you can say
that this fic is what would have happened had "Barred" never been. And please
don't ask what's the motivation or reason why I wrote this thing. I was
thinking about Faith while writing on the next chapter of a fic and then there
were these thoughts running through my head and I just wrote.... Might be a bit
of a boring read.
Feedback: I'd like some.
A soothing warm breeze wafted up the stairwell to apartment 308. It ruffled the flowing white curtains and crept silently into the room. Tickling the over-turned bedspreads before reaching the heels of the occupant. It whispered over her hairless legs, inching up the baggy shorts she wore, feathering her exposed stomach, making the muscles twitch with the caress. Its presence fully acknowledged when it delicately swayed dark locks. Venturing back out again but carrying with it...the exhaust of cigarette smoke and defeat. The rank, hot, scalding smell of complete and utter...defeat.
Bitter tears slid from her dark eyes, but no emotion rang in her heart. They merely fell from her eyes. She didn't understand them...why they fell. How could she still be able to cry when she felt absolutely nothing in her? Perhaps it was just a way to remind her that she should cry. That how much she disputed the fact, had the evidence piled against her to further prove her point, she was human. Humans cried. Ashes fell from her cigarette before she took the last available pull and tossed the rest out the window, watching with unreadable eyes as it descended into the blackness below, sending the smoke up in a cloud above her head. She sighed and walked back into the room, aimlessly letting her eyes roam. She hadn't come far in her life. After serving 5 years in prison, an then three years of real life again, she had this small, cramped, dusty apartment to show for her 27 years of life. But it was hers.
The tears continued to fall slowly from her eyes. She didn't bother to wipe them away.
Taking a seat on the bed, she fell backwards and stared up at the ceiling. A perfect example of her life. It was sticky looking and a disgusting brown. She'd lived that disgust. A Father that thought it better to beat and fuck her rather than protect and love her. A Mother that could barely tolerate her presence and didn't acknowledge her as anything more than a mistake. A tragic mistake. A mistake. That's exactly what she was born to be. She figured that out after lights out the first night in prison. Had it beaten into her when the guards came into her cell and properly introduced her to what lock-down meant. She deserved it. The cum riddled blood that dripped down her legs, she deserved it. But under all the disgust on the ceiling, there was a beautiful whiteness, a clear beauty. Her apparent talents for art didn't matter to Marcus and Olivia, the two that brought her into this world, and left her to fend for themselves.
The tears started to sting her eyes, so she turned on her side, not blinking.
And then some Higher Powers saw it fit to send her Catherine Trousson. Watcher Catherine Trousson. She came with her ideals of Good and Bad. Came with her tale of demons and monsters, vampires. Came with her long history of a special girl chosen in all the world to beat back the forces of darkness, to save the world. She told the tale of the Slayer and how Faith had the potential to be that girl. To be the Chosen One.
The tears ran more freely now, and an inkling of emotion tickled at her barren heart.
The Watcher gave her hope and something that she truly never had experienced in her life. Catherine gave her love. A pure and untainted love. Kakistos took that love and made it complete and utter pain. The only demon that made her feel useless again. Made her feel just as she felt when her Father pulled out of her body. Weak and pathetic. So she ran. She left this woman, the only person who cared for her, to run away in fear like a pathetic little weakling.
She could taste the bitterness of her memories in her tears as they fell on her lips.
And lets not forget that town called Sunnydale. That small town that stripped her to her bones and laid her out to bleed. Hometown of that blonde that made her feel that the biggest mother-fuckin' mistake in God's eyes was without a doubt Faith Magda De Lione. Elizabeth "Buffy" Anne Summers and her crew of Executioners. She didn't have a chance. What was the point of being called, being pulled from the bleak existence that was her former life and given this great gift, a gift of Redemption, to be a Slayer, if you were constantly reminded of why you weren't supposed to have it? Why it was unnatural, essentially making the idea of your existence unnatural. Shunned and left alone. She was used to it. After all, what they were doing was no different than Mother Dear's cold shoulder. In an odd way it was almost comforting, to know that she was right to have no expectations of anyone. They didn't expect or want anything of her and she damn sure felt the same.
And the sick part of it all was that she absolutely hated the Bitch, but loved the Blonde. As if she could really separate her into two different identities. Make it that much easier for herself. Love or hate, Buffy got to her, got to her like no one had before, not even Catherine. She desperately wanted to compromise the First. But once again...yet always it seemed...she was denied. You can't really force someone to feel, no matter how desperately you clung to the hope. They had to feel for themselves. And then that night happened. The night that she had taken the life of a human. Spilled mortal blood. A disgust rose up in her throat and threatened to choke her. Feelings of nausea rose up in her, and then to turn to her Heart and see the sickening in her eyes. It hurt. And Faith....she couldn't stand it..so she retreated into herself and let her emotions...all of her bottled emotions, the despair and pain of her childhood, the fear, and the fresh pain of rejection make her choices. Choices that would change her life.
She chose to go to the dark side to escape the pain. She chose to go to Mayor Wilkins. And from then on, it was her against the world. But.....it couldn't last for long. She got played again. A fake alliance with the bane of her pain. The demon that was standing in the way, in her head, of completion. Angel...alter ego of the Scourge of Europe...Angelus. She hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Angelus, but she surmised that even in his evilness, she would have liked him better. He'd played her. The Blonde had played her. She felt like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, who hadn't played her yet?
Her shoulders began to shake and her heart to ache. She was barely holding back the urge to whimper.
So many things happened after that. She became the hunted. Done things in the name of her new "Daddy." She hadn't actually come out and said the word, but that's what she felt. He was the type of Father that she wished she had for so long. One that loved her for her, not for her blossoming young body. Wilkins filled a hole inside her. Where once Catherine throbbed, and where Buffy could have thrived, Wilkins owned. All the while, she was aware of the Blonde at her back. Sniffing at her trails and biting at her heels. And she got her show-down. Attempting to take out the vampire, brought them at the moment. Where emotions were particularly high and the stakes were at their highest. She knew it would be one of them that would go down.
Standing on the edge of that cliff, her own knife stuck inside, warm blood dripping from her, she realized that it was her. As it should have been. She was wanting to die this time. Maybe then she could have some peace. Stop the hurting, stop the pain, stop the rejection. Stop it all. She felt the up-draft of air from the alley but she didn't look down. She stared instead at the blonde, her Heart, her Killer.
Her hand absently caressed the still visible scar. Feeling the rough skin, still able to feel the pain. Her tears hurt.
Seven months of absolutly nothing but her own self-imprisoned Hell. She'd lived every wrong move, every bad moment, every failure during those seven months. When she woke, she had such hate in her that she was beyond being afraid of herself. A gift from the late Mayor, a couple of body switches later and she had hit her low. She couldn't really tell the motivation behind what she had done, only that there was a pain inside her and another emotion that drove her. What that other emotion was, she couldn't figure out. It hurt her to feel it...but it also made her fearful of not feeling it. Her ultimate low came quickly after that. What she'd done to her former Watcher. It was inexcusable. Never had she gotten that out of touch, but she had.
She closed her eyes and rolled over, cushioning her head on her pillow. The feelings ran rampant inside her. It all came crashing through her. Her silence, her nothing, shattered in a rainfall of tears. She remembered what she had felt when she had begged Angel to kill her. It all burst from inside her. Her screaming wail echoed in the room and caught the night air. Her heart hurt, her soul ached for all she had done and all she had experienced. Her redemption hadn't started in jail, it hadn't started when she was released 5 years later or when she had started to patch things up with the others. It hadn't even started when she had been nearly beaten to death by the Blonde after asking for forgiveness. It was starting now. Starting when she could cry. Cry and rid herself of the disgust she felt, the pain inside her, the anger that still seethed within. It was starting when she could look back upon it all and cry, feel for it.
A soothing warm breeze wafted up the stairwell to apartment 308. It ruffled the the curtains and climbed to the bed that cradled the keening figure. It licked at her wounds, and cooled her fevered emotions. It caressed her dark locks gently, and whisper kissed her moist cheeks. Completing its task it swirled about the room, gathering the heartfelt emotions and the smell of guilt, carrying it away and leaving behind the perfume of hope.
The tears slowly trickled down her cheeks and then stopped all together. She whipped at the few remaining drops and then snuggled down for the night, pulling the covers over her body. The wet pillow remained under her head. It was like a new beginning for her as well as an ending. Now she could really get on with her life, get her forgiveness this time.
She closed her blood-shot eyes and drifted into a gentle sleep. Many things had been realized tonight for her and many things buried had been unearthed. She would never truly be over what had happened, but she could be comforted with knowing this.
There would be no more tears on her pillow.