Memory Lane
by lemons
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the clothes on my back and my student
loan. I make no profit from this or my student loan would be paid off
by now.
Feedback: Please, oh, please!
Since Faith had arrived with Willow to the Summers' home or Command Central as Dawnie liked to call it, she hadn't really had any time to herself. There always seemed to be someone around. She was forever waiting in line for the shower, or to eat, and she couldn't even go on patrol alone. Buffy had made it pretty clear that she wanted everyone to go out in pairs and her pair was usually that pansy, Andrew, if they went out at all.
Faith was beginning to feel like she had never broken out of prison. Worse yet, she was actually being treated no better emotionally than she had been while locked up. At least she had been able to earn the respect of the other prisoners over time. But she knew that would never happen after all the history between her and the Scoobies. And Andrew, the little prick, had made sure all the potentials knew her story as well.
So here she was exposed and vulnerable for all of them to take jabs at her. And boy did they ever. Dawnie would glare daggers at her each time she would enter a room. Xander simply ignored her as if she wasn't even there. The potentials all looked at her like she would snap any second. Willow had been pretty decent what with them having the whole killer thing in common, but even Red tended to shy away from one on one conversation with her. And something was definitely up with Giles. You could feel the tension when he and Buffy were in a room together.
The only one talking to her for the most part was Spike. He was nice enough, but she couldn't get over that he had been somewhere she would never be, in Buffy Summers' bed. Although, to hear him tell it a proper bed never really mattered much in their encounters. They had talked long into the night in the basement about both of their relationships with the blonde slayer.
Spike tended to wax a bit more poetic than Faith, but to her credit Faith seemed to be more emotionally open than ever before. She felt a kinship with him. Not just because they had both been bad, but also because they loved the same woman. Spike made no pretense about Buffy's returning those feelings. And Faith never even thought Buffy would ever feel anything other than hate toward her. So each night that's where Faith ended up, down in the basement commiserating with the only other member of the Buffy Summers' Unattainable Love Club. She thought she might call Angel and see if he wanted to be a satellite member, but he had enough on his hands with what was happening in L.A. Then, of course, there was always the beef stick, but farm boy seemed to have been the only one with a healthy bone in his body and had moved on with his life.
Faith wasn't sure if she should envy Riley for getting over Buffy or think he was a fool for letting her slip through his hands. She could only imagine what it must have been like to be with Buffy. She would give anything just to kiss the older slayer without getting slapped. As it was she was lucky if she got a half smile or a look in the eyes from her.
So imagine her surprise when Buffy asked her to go patrolling with her the next evening. They had just finished one of Andrew and Dawn's dinner specialties and were left feeling slightly bloated, when Buffy pulled Faith aside. She never actually looked at the younger slayer directly when she said she wanted Faith to accompany her on a late sweep. Faith had been stunned but readily accepted the invite. Maybe she and Buffy could clear the air between them. Faith was cautious and hopeful all at the same time.
The slayers gathered their gear and headed out on patrol without a word or glance to each other. They quickly dispatched several vamps as they hit their first cemetery. By the time they had reached the third cemetery Faith was beginning to lose hope that Buffy would say anything at all to her during their time together. She knew that nothing she had done previously would warrant Buffy having anything to do with her. But the little girl inside of her still wanted to be special to Buffy. They were a part of each other Faith felt. She wanted to make amends in the worst way and all she needed was for Buffy to give her that little window to jump through.
By the time they hit the fifth cemetery Faith had grown agitated and disheartened. She thought maybe Buffy was using this patrol as a torture device. Surely the older slayer knew how important redemption was to Faith. Hell, she had gone to prison just because the blonde had told her to.
Finally, at the sixth cemetery Buffy hopped up onto a crypt and looked Faith dead in the eyes. She motioned with her hand for Faith to come sit beside her. As Faith did, Buffy finally gave her the opportunity she had been looking for all night.
"So, Faith, I think we need to talk…"
"Yeah, B, I guess I knew this was comin'." Faith sat down beside the older girl. She was scared of the conversation ahead of her, but she knew they needed to clear the air if they were going to beat that sadistic wanna be preacher. She began to bounce her heels against the crypt in a rare display of nervousness.
Now that Buffy had opened up the discussion she wasn't sure how to proceed. She had so much anger still toward Faith. She knew they needed to be a united front to lead the pack into battle, but she wasn't sure if she could get over being victimized by someone she had trusted so much. Since coming back to life Faith had crossed the blonde's mind quite often. The whole time she was meeting clandestinely with Spike in her mind she was playing out her relationship with the younger slayer.
Of course, that would the little relationship that couldn't. Nothing had actually ever happened between them, but Buffy had wanted it to. She thought that Faith had wanted the same, but with her turning all evil Buffy had realized that she was wrong. And now here they were, sitting on a crypt, next to the Hellmouth, facing an apocolypse neither was sure they would be able to stop.
"I don't really know where to start Faith, but I think it's important that we, I don't know, work some of this stuff out before we can lead anyone," Buffy stated simply.
"You're the leader, B, not me. I'm just a little muscle along for the ride." And Buffy knew that was how Faith had always felt. Never the leader always the one led around or astray, whatever the case may be. Had Buffy ever really listened to any of Faith's advice on slaying? Or even let her take the lead on anything. Sure, maybe, she indulged the younger girl, but she never took her seriously as a slayer. Buffy was THE slayer and that had been the end of the discussion.
"Faith, I know this is hard, for both of us, but I want to do it right this time. I need you to be with me on this. If you aren't then we will lose." The seriousness of Buffy's plea caused Faith to raise her head and look at her counterpart. She hadn't thought Buffy would admit to needing anyone, let alone her evil sidekick. Wait, she wasn't even the evil sidekick anymore, that was Willow, the creepy ass Wicca who tried to end the world.
So what was Faith, how did she fit into this band of buggered? Angel was the ex-evil vampire with a soul looking for redemption, so no luck for her there. And Spike, well he had a soul and all, but he would always be a pansy poet at heart. And there was no way she was going to try writing verse and being a ponce. She couldn't be the heart of the group that would always be Xander. So she really couldn't see a place for herself at all.
"B, I came to fight. Once we kick the ass of this TV movie demon of the week, I am outta here, so whatever you say goes, cool?" Faith said this with her usual bit of cocksureness that she could fall back on whenever in doubt.
"No, it isn't cool. God!" Buffy retorted, the pitch in her voice rising as she spoke, "I need you to be a slayer, like you were born to be. Don't you get it? For once, I am asking you to embrace your destiny. Be who you were meant to be Faith!" She refused to let the younger girl off this time. They had both grown so much over recent years she couldn't make the same mistakes and lose her shot with Faith again. The girl had to know that even though Buffy was still angry, the blonde believed in who Faith had become. She could see the violence in Faith's temperament was gone. She wasn't as tightly wound as when they were teenagers. The bottom line was Buffy needed Faith. The question left unanswered was did Faith still need Buffy?
"How can you ask me to be something I'm not. I'm not you, Buffy, and I never will be," Faith whispered to the wind. "I will never be good like you. I'm not all sugar and spice. I will always be puppy dog's tails, y'know."
"So, that's it, you aren't me. That's your answer. That is such a fucking cop out Faith. You do know that don't you?" Buffy was challenging the girl now. "I don't want you to be me." As she finished the sentences she jumped off the crypt turning to face the other girl. "I only want you to be you. Please Faith, I know you can do this. I believe in you."
"Oh, that's rich, B. You believe in me, since when? Since you told me you would kick my ass if I apologized. Huh? Since you visited me so times in prison? Not once, B. You forgot about me! You had all your little groupies and your fuck buddies and left me to rot. So now I am supposed to believe you. You didn't believe in me then and you surely don't now. Just let me do my thing and I will be out of your life for good."
Faith didn't want to be saying these things to Buffy, but she had held everything in for so long. It just seemed to flow out of her and onto the older slayer. She wanted to tell Buffy how much it would mean to her if she really did believe in her. That everything in her life up to this point would be worth it, if only what she was saying were true.
"I don't want you out of my life. I need you, Faith."
"I will do whatever you tell me to, but I won't take shit from you, B. Don't tell me you care after all this time. Let's just keep this honest, okay?"
Buffy looked into Faith's eyes, she didn't see the normal hardness behind the brunette's eyes that had been there in the past. She saw an uncertainty and vulnerability. She knew Faith wanted to believe her. Buffy just needed to give her a reason.
"Faith, I do need you. More importantly than that I want you here. I am sorry I didn't come see you. It was just so hard to think about the past. I just wanted to walk away and forget that you had ever existed. But I couldn't. Everything I did, every time I would laugh or cry you were there in my head. Below the surface of everything I did." The girls had maintained eye contact the whole time Buffy had been talking. The older girl reached out and held the younger's hands in her own and spoke with a pleading tone. "When Willow brought you through the door I didn't even have to turn around to know you were there. I knew when you reached the outskirts of Sunnydale. I felt it, you can feel it too, right?"
Faith slowly shook her head to the affirmative. "Faith, I feel you, always. I feel you in here." She brought the younger slayer's hand to rest upon her own heart. "You are in me and I can't let you go this time. I won't. So please talk to me, share everything with me. Because I so want to share my life with you."
Slowly taking her hand away from Buffy's heart, Faith looked into the older girl's eyes. "B, if you would have said that to me a few years ago, it might have made a difference, but now it can't." Buffy's face fell and she realized that cracking Faith's façade was going to be harder than she had imagined.
"Why, why can't it make a difference? What is stopping you? Why can't we finally just be? I love you, Faith, and to me that is all that matters." She tried to convey the seriousness of her words by maintaining eye contact with the younger slayer. "I want you and I will fight for you this time."
"Do you really want to know what's stopping me, B?" Faith's voice had turned cold. She was steeling herself for what she was about to say. She didn't want to hurt the blonde again, but she knew there were more important things at stake now. It was a hard lesson to learn, it took years in prison for her to see it and now that she had, she was not going to let Buffy or herself off the hook.
Buffy simply nodded at the girl to continue. "You. You are the one stopping me, B. You set the rules for this game and I am just playing by them."
"Huh? What are you talking about Faith? This isn't a game I love you. I want to share my world with you, don't you want that?"
"It doesn't matter what I want in here," said Faith motioning toward her heart. "The only thing that matters is the mission. You said so yourself, right? Everything that we do has to revolve around defeating the First. This is about saving the world, not falling in love. So, B, you see it doesn't much matter if you love me or that I am still in love with you. The only thing that matters is saving the world. For once I get to really be the good guy and I can't let you complicate this. I have to protect you from yourself."
"I get that we need to stay focused Faith, but that doesn't mean I can stop loving you." Buffy had begun to plead with Faith to let her in. She needed to be whole and the only way that would happen is if she was with Faith. The full realization of what the younger girl had said finally hit the older slayer. "Wait, you're still in love with me. Then how can you walk away from me, from us? We've wasted too long dancing around each other. Please let me in." She was running out of energy to fight. She had been fighting for seven years and all she wanted now was to feel complete. Her completeness was standing in front of her with a stony expression and arms folded against her emotional assault.
"I wish I could, B. But I have to think, no we have to think, about the lives of every person involved in this fight. Do you even know the names of those young girls who follow you blindly? What about Xander and Red? Can you risk them losing more than just an eye and their innocence? And I know you are angry with Giles, but he loves you and wants to do right by you. You have shut everyone out to win this fight. You set the tone don't change it now that you have decided that you love me."
Faith didn't want to be saying these things. All her heart wanted was to fall into Buffy and to let go of all the hate and anger she had felt over her life. She wanted to be complete, too, but not if it meant the end of the world. She hadn't redeemed herself yet.
"But, Faith, I love you. I don't know if I can do this without you." Buffy had begun to sound like a confused little girl. This conversation was not going the way she envisioned. She thought she would confess her love and Faith would just fall into her arms. She knew the younger girl loved her so why weren't they kissing passionately now?
"B, sometimes love just isn't enough. And more important things have to be dealt with first. Yes, I love you, but no, I cannot be with you. Get that through your head. I will not be with you. As much as it pains me to say it this time you don't get what you want. It hurts me as much, if not more, than it hurts you to say it."
"You don't look like you're hurting. It sounds more like you practiced this little speech in the mirror a few hundred times."
"Goddamn, B! The whole time I was in jail all I thought about was how much I had hurt you. How I had betrayed your trust and could never be worthy of your love. Every day I tried harder to be a better person for myself, but most of all for you. Can't you see this is my shot? I get to be the good guy this time. If we work together we might just win, but not if we do all that fuzzy in love shit! This is my chance to be worthy of you, just let me earn it! I have to earn it before I can even think about what being your love would be like!" Faith had finally spilled what all of her evasiveness toward a relationship with the blonde slayer was about. She felt better, but wasn't sure what the other girl's reaction would be. She loved Buffy more than she loved herself and just needed to feel that she was her equal. She knew Buffy was laying everything she ever wanted at her feet, but she couldn't take it until she proved to herself that she deserved it.
She got it now. Faith wanted to be her knight in shining armor and she was getting in the younger girl's way. Faith was right, sometimes Buffy couldn't get her way. Because sometimes it had to be Faith's way. And if Faith wanted to prove to herself that she could be with Buffy on fair footing then Buffy had only one choice.
"Fine, Faith, if that is how it is I can wait." The resolve in her voice made Faith shiver. She figured Buffy would think her feelings were immature or childish even. She never thought the older slayer would be willing to wait for her.
Buffy smiled at Faith with a twinkle in her eye that hadn't been there for three years.
"Come on, Faith, we gotta get back to the mission. Besides, I think Andrew was going to try his hand at crepes and I don't want to miss that." Faith couldn't believe Buffy would just drop the subject like that. "Oh, and Faith, I know you will be worth the wait."
The seductiveness in Buffy's tone made Faith's toes curl. The younger slayer thought that proving herself might be more fun than she thought.