Passing Time
by Lowdeen
Rating: R
Disclaimer: The characters and show all belong to Joss Whedon, Fox,
and Mutant Enemy. The story contains love between two women, so if
such things offend you, don't read it and upset yourself.
Spoilers: Up to and including the fourth season.
Author's Notes: I thought I could take a break from writing but the
Twilight Zone Marathon convinced me otherwise so the following is
what formed in my fevered brain. (No connection to my previous series)
Her name was Faith. Surnames are irrelevant to this particular story so I won't burden you with unnecessary details. She was eighteen but had already tried suicide once already by provoking someone who had every right to want her dead. For reasons not entirely in her control, it didn't go nearly as well as planned. Lustrous brown hair framed a face that easily turned heads from both genders. A slight quirk of the eyebrow or a wickedly inviting smile were usually the only assets she needed to reel anyone in. Her slim, tapered body concealed a raw strength that couldn't be measured in terms of muscle or sinew but an intangible something that would be regarded in some circles as supernatural. But none of these basic tenets from her hard lived life were basic anymore. At least not to her, for you see, Faith no longer recalled these facts. Aside from her name, she had absolutely no recollection or memory from her past. In point of fact, as far as she was concerned, she had no past.
Under normal circumstances, this situation would disconcert anyone but that didn't even take into consideration where she was at the moment. Wandering down a long dusty road that was well and truly in the middle of nowhere, Faith had absolutely no idea how she came to be here or where exactly here was. She continued walking not because she knew her destination but simply because there wasn't much else she could do. Faith walked for what seemed like miles on end without so much as passing another human being and aside from regularly spaced telephone poles breaking up the monotony, there were no indications of civilization. The landscape was nothing more than flat land covered liberally by dry brown grass that came up to her knees. As Faith continued trekking through the bruised road that stood out like a scar against its surroundings, she thanked herself or whoever had decided to dress her in a white tank top that day. The black jeans though, she could've done without. She eventually came upon a signpost that told her she was now entering "Sayersville." That was it. No mention of what state it was in, the population size or any other pertinent information. Just the words, "You are now entering Sayersville." Unable to control her frustration, Faith struck out with a tightly balled fist that smashed the pathetically terse sign into several good sized chunks of firewood. When the realization of what she just did drifted through, she attributed her phenomenal strength to the age and state of the sign. So deluded, she walked into the edges of town a few minutes later.
Weathered homes that had seen better days lined the road as tiny yards abutted each other. Rundown American cars could be seen in several of the driveways but what struck Faith first like a fastball to the head was the complete absence of any of the town's residents. None of the neighborhood's rugrats were outside idling the summer day away as demanded by the rituals of youth. Nobody was around. There were no sounds other than the rustling from the trees and the chirping of some birds. Faith walked up to the first house on her left and knocked loudly, rattled by the lack of any human activity. She pounded until the door almost gave way but no one answered. Bounding over to the adjacent house, she did the same thing and received exactly the same response which was to say, squat. Faith knocked on several houses before giving up and venting a full throated yell that bordered close to hysteria. Was everyone at church or something? This thought calmed her somewhat. Maybe they were gathered for some kind of town meeting. Thus assured that the world hadn't gone crazy or her for that matter, she made her way into the heart of town which wasn't very far from where she was since it didn't seem to be a very big hub of civilization. On a good day and if she were feeling in a charitable mood, she'd call it dinky. At the moment, if asked, she'd refer to it as two-bit. Rounding a corner, she spotted a diner at the far right of the street. Faith broke out into a run. Now she was getting somewhere. There had to be someone in this joint but as she rushed into the establishment, she was greeted with the gut wrenching sight of no one. Not one patron or waitress or short order cook. A soft country refrain floated into her ears from the jukebox nearby as she slumped over onto one of the stools at the counter. Digging the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, Faith tried desperately to remember what had happened to her to bring her to this forsaken place.
Since freaking out at that moment wouldn't be the brightest idea in the world, she decided to occupy herself momentarily by getting something to eat behind the counter. Faith couldn't remember the last time she had eaten or even what she liked to eat but that didn't deter her from grabbing a plate and a huge slice of chocolate cake. After wolfing down the sizeable portion, she poured herself a cup of coffee which someone had thoughtfully left brewing in its pot, giving her hope that whoever had brewed it was still close by. If the residents of Sayersville wanted to play hide and seek, she'd just have to try harder to find them, Faith thought with growing determination. Leaving the little diner, she wandered around the rest of the town, passing a hardware store, a grocery store, and a small movie theater without running into anyone.
By the time she arrived at the other end of town, she was seriously starting to suspect that, for some reason or another, its inhabitants had chosen that particular day to abandon it. What other explanation could there be. She had searched high and low, finding no signs of life, not even of the small pet variety and she'd started to get even more weirded out because it looked like the residents had all left en masse in the middle of whatever activity they were engaged in at the time. Hence she found TV's that were left on, laundry in baskets waiting to be hung, half-drunken iced tea pitchers that still had water droplets condensing on the glasses. Faith sat down wearily on the step of someone's porch, watching as the summer sun slowly made its descent below the horizon. It was a beautiful sight entirely lost on the lone figure who gazed on the fiery display with an expression filled with despair.
The sudden ringing coming from inside the house snapped her from her reverie and nearly made her jump two feet in the air at the same time. Rushing to the front door, she was not surprised to find it unlocked. The yokels around here seemed to have a problem with locking up. So much the better for her. The ringing grated on her nerves after nearly a whole day spent in serene silence. Faith eagerly picked up the telephone that looked as if it dated back to the Carter administration and greeted the caller with an overly loud "Hello?" Adjusting her tone, she tried again, this time in a much softer voice but she still received no answer in response. They hadn't hung up, that much Faith knew for damn sure because she didn't hear a dial tone.
"Look whoever this is. I need help all right? This sounds crazy but I think I have amnesia or something and there's like nobody in this goddamn town....Hello? I know you're there, I can hear you breathing!" This was a blatant bluff since she really couldn't hear anything at all but she needed the bastard to answer. Unfortunately, the only sound she winded up hearing after a sufficiently pregnant pause was the dial tone as whoever was on the other end of the line hung up.
"Fucker!" She yelled, slamming the receiver down with enough force to crack the plastic. She tried to tell herself to calm down but it seemed like everyone was conspiring to give her a mental breakdown. Picking up the receiver again after a few moments, she was glad it hadn't broken entirely. She really had to watch it she thought to herself, objects in this town were more fragile than they appeared. Dialing the operator, she waited through nearly forty rings before resignedly hanging up. There goes that brilliant idea she thought walking back out to the porch. By that time, it had grown considerably darker and the lamp posts sporadically lining the street were on. She tried to cheer herself up by reasoning it was only this town that was devoid of human life. The rest of the world wasn't like this freak inducing place. In fact, the more she thought on it, the more she saw the need to get her butt away from this place. As fast as possible. And since Faith didn't see any other form of transportation handy, she used her legs to carry her out of the deserted town.
Passing by the eerily dark houses standing like mute sentinels on either side of the street, a cold shiver ran down the back of her neck signaling either one of two things. One, that it was all starting to get to her or two, someone was watching her. Actually, it was probably a combination of both scenarios. She was positive someone or something was boring a hole in her head. The feeling was too strong to ignore but that didn't mean she was going to stick around to "investigate" her mysterious stalker. Breaking into a dead run, Faith didn't stop until she was well out of the town limits. Unaccountably, she found herself not at all winded or sweaty by her improvised escape but shrugged it off as a product of her good health. She must have been a marathon runner or something, that was all. The important thing though was that she was out of that creepy, little town and already feeling better for it. The mood didn't last long however since before she could take one more step forward, someone else stepped out from behind a knarled tree a few feet ahead, blocking her intended path.
She wasn't entirely sure how to react but the startled yelp she just emitted wasn't on her top five list. She'd just come out of a town where she'd spent an entire afternoon trying to find someone, anyone and the minute she leaves said town, someone finds her. Looking closely in the dim moonlight at the person in front of her, she made out straight blonde hair that reached past the shoulders, a slim, petite figure clothed in, of all things, a pastel dress. She didn't know why that fact made her want to break out in chuckles but she suppressed the urge with a supreme effort of will. It didn't look like this girl could be dangerous so Faith relaxed somewhat, trying to appear non-threatening herself.
"Hi. Maybe you can help me. I was just in that town back there and--" "I know." The blonde cut her off before Faith could finish and continued speaking in a clipped tone. "Do you know who you are?"
"Kind of a strange question to ask a total stranger, don't you think?" Faith tried to ask it jokingly, all the while gauging the other girl's reaction. What she saw dismayed her as the already cold expression on her face grew even more so with a harder edge. Faith haltingly asked, "Do you know? Who I am?"
"Yeah." That single word, filled with such loathing and bitterness, seemed to surprise both of them and as Faith watched with growing trepidation, the blonde looked away as if to compose herself. "I know who you are." The statement was uttered so softly that Faith took an involuntarily step forward before being stopped dead in her tracks by the withering gaze thrown her way. "And don't think for a second I'll forget."
"Who are you?" Asked Faith more confused than ever by the cryptic responses. "Did I...What did I do to you?" For she was sure now there had to have been some kind of history between them for the blonde to dredge up this kind of hostility. But she was the only person Faith had seen for far too long and had the added bonus of knowing her past which helped her swallow the remarks while ignoring the harsh taste for the most part.
"What didn't you do?" She asked in the same tone but Faith was spared the necessity to answer when the blonde abruptly turned around and started heading down the road, away from Sayersville. Not really sure what else to do and not wanting to part company with this person just yet despite the attitude, Faith followed at a relatively safe distance. To say that she was confused wouldn't describe the half of what she was feeling. But as she continued to trail after the other figure, frustration took the stage and refused to get off. After several minutes stewing in the unfairness of all the shit that came down on her, for no good reason as far as she could discern, she ran ahead and stopped right in front of ...damn, she still didn't even know her name. "Look, I have no idea what I did to you. I don't even know who I am and if you could just tell me something...anything. Can we start off with the simple stuff like names. My name's Faith, that's about all I remember. And yours would be..."
It seemed from the continued silence that the blonde wouldn't answer but eventually "Buffy" made it past her lips.
When the news came down to the perpetually demon infested town of Sunnydale, California, its unofficially sanctioned protector and all around superhero cum college student was not happy. And she chose to break a few objects and bash a few others to show her utter lack of happiness to the entire world or whoever was unlucky enough to be around at the time. The unlucky witnesses to her tantrum happened to be her best friend Willow and her watcher Giles. And if the Brit didn't approve of her display, at least he could understand it. Having just been told that the state judicial system deemed it right to release your worse enemy with nary a slap on the wrist in the form of community service and mandatory visits to the psychologist could put a damper on anyone's day. But did she really need to smash half his tea set to show her discontent, he thought looking sadly at the broken china.
The blonde gave a sheepish look at the destruction she had wrought but she hadn't finished ranting yet. Not by a long shot; there was much ranting still left in her.
"How could they do this?! She KILLED two people, emphasis on the kill. And what do they do?" It wasn't entirely clear what Buffy meant by "they". Maybe it was the judge or the jury or the lawyers. Heck, maybe it was everybody and everything rolled into one big morass of goo but the vehemence behind her voice and the wild-eyed nature of her expression made it clear that she thought "they" must all walk around with their heads up their asses 24/7. "They let her go, that's what they do!" She announced grandly as if her two spectators hadn't already heard.
"I know Buffy. It's...an unfortunate state of affairs but let's not lose our heads over it. I'm sure she's not the same Faith that left Sunnydale. She did turn herself in to the authorities, after all. Maybe we should have more faith in her, no pun intended."
Buffy shot him a look like he'd suddenly sprouted an extra head which he might as well have in her opinion for suggesting such a ludicrous idea. "Giles, tell me you're joking and what I heard was all in my head. You can't possibly believe that...Look, she had her chance. Over and over again, I gave her second chances and everytime, I get screwed over for it. This time will be no different only I'm not going to give her that chance. We'll do things my way." And Giles knew not to argue because no amount of talk would dissuade her from her intended plan.
"Are you sure this is wise?" Giles asked yet again. And yet again, Buffy had to put on the false bravado she'd employed so often over the years. In the constant battle against monsters who could be stronger, faster or more cunning than you, every bit of confidence helps even if it's manufactured. In this particular case, the monster went by the name of Faith and even though they were pretty much on par in terms of skill, Buffy still found herself desperately trying to fit into the suit of armor that, for some reason, felt more like a burden than the protection she so craved. This was the right thing to do she reassured herself again and again. So what if the guilt seemed to hang like a pall over her conscience...she'd get over it.
"Buffy, are you all right?" Giles asked with a hint of concern when she failed to answer.
"What? I'm fine," she snapped, immediately regretting her tone of voice. "I'm sorry Giles. But I know this is what needs to be done. It's for the best. Willow and Tara have already zapped her memory clean and put her outside a town called Sayersville. I'm going there right now. If Riley shows up looking for me, can you just tell him I'll be back soon?"
"Yes, of course. But Buffy, what do you intend to do with Faith now?"
She hesitated before speaking because she didn't know herself. "I'll play it by ear but the main thing is I'll be able to keep an eye on her at all times." At least she hoped that would be the case. When Faith had still been in that coma, Buffy had secretly wished that when the other slayer woke up, she would do so with no memory of the past, thus giving them a clean slate to start over. It was a selfish wish, yes but had it been true, it would've made things so much easier to deal with. Now that Faith was out again, Buffy had another chance to fulfill her wish and she did so. Whether it was the right thing to do or not, she honestly couldn't say. It seemed, with Faith, she never could.
The slayer found herself outside the edge of town shortly after dusk had settled trying to decide whether to go in or not but her decision was made for her by the approach of the lone figure walking towards her location. Taken aback by the imminent meeting that would take place, Buffy did something that would've been considered comical if not for the graveness of the situation. She hid behind a tree alongside the road. Why exactly was she hiding? This was her idea after all and meeting up with Faith was going to be in the plan somewhere along the way. It was just more sudden than she'd anticipated. For some reason, Faith got under her skin like nobody ever did but after taking a calming breath, Buffy stepped away from her hiding place, directly in front of a very startled slayer. The moment she laid eyes on the brunette, she could feel the bitterness rushing to the fore. Unable and unwilling to stop the emotion, Buffy let it carry her through her first meeting with Faith since LA. Perhaps not the best attitude to adopt, it was nevertheless what her instincts demanded. The conversation went by in a blur as she concentrated more on Faith's appearance than to the actual words spoken between them. The younger girl was looking none the worse from her short stint in the pen. Aside from a few dirty smudges on her clothes and body, she looked exactly as Buffy remembered and that included the pleading look in her eyes. That look tugged at something she didn't want to analyze any further so she turned around and headed back up the road, having no doubt that the other girl would follow. Faith didn't disappoint, trailing after her and keeping silent for the first few minutes. Buffy could feel her fuming even when she couldn't see her so she wasn't surprised when Faith suddenly jogged up to her and demanded to know what was going on. Maybe demanded wasn't the right word, persuaded described it more aptly. So Buffy relented and gave her name to the expectantly waiting girl.
"Buffy"
At first Faith thought she was being played for the fool but when the other girl didn't laugh, she thought better of it. Whoever would name their kid Buffy was a real sadistic individual indeed. Maybe it was short for something. At least, she hoped it was short for something. "Good," Faith said, nodding her head in what she hoped was an encouraging manner. "Good. Now we're getting somewhere. So...Buffy, about that town back there--"
"We don't have time for this." She interrupted before Faith could get the words out. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt but don't even think about taking advantage. We're doing this my way."
Faith was sorely tempted to argue the point but choked down her retort, not wishing to alienate her companion any further. "Fine, your way it is."
"Fine." They each tried to stare the other down with neither having much success. This was great Buffy thought sarcastically. They'd barely been together for half an hour and they'd already fallen back into the same old rut. Not an encouraging note to start on but she honestly had no idea what else to do. On the one hand, she had to make it clear who was in charge and on the other hand...On the other hand, she didn't want them to start down the same path that had proved so disastrous in the past. "This isn't getting us anywhere is it?" She asked, her expression softening ever so slightly. Faith couldn't help but agree wholeheartedly with the assessment. "Whatever you've got against me, let's just try to put that aside for now, okay? There's something real freaky about that town I just came from."
"What about it?"
"For one thing, I just spent the entire day there without seeing anyone. Not one person, not one dog or cat or anything. And the weirdest thing about it is that it looks like it was abandoned right before I got there. Coffee was still brewing, clothes were still in the washer, all kinds of weird shit like that. So, do you know anything about it?"
Buffy's confused frown indicated this was the first time she'd been made aware of the situation and the slayer immediately switched to business mode which was second nature by now. And because her business happened to be slaying made her just that much more qualified to investigate this mystery. Allowing Faith to lead her back into town, she couldn't deny that it did creep her out. The empty houses and lack of life weren't situations she was used to. Usually by now, a couple of vamps would've come out of the woodwork and provided her with some diversion but the only things that popped out were innocuous shadows.
"You see what I'm saying?" Faith asked, breaking the silence. "And it's been like this all day."
Buffy glanced around the empty street murmuring in agreement. Could Willow's spell have done this by accident? If so, it was imperative that she contact her friend and relay this strange turn of events. "Let me call a friend of mine. She might be able to help."
Faith caught her arm before she could head into one of the houses. "The phones might not work either. I tried calling the operator today and got nothing."
"Let's try anyway." Buffy said, pulling the other girl along. She pushed open the front door of the nearest house which had conveniently been left slightly ajar and it opened with a sufficiently ominous creaking. "If this were some horror movie, there'd probably be some psycho freak with a knife or something waiting for us to walk in so he can slaughter us in an over the top gruesome display of carnage."
"That's the right attitude, B," Faith said, keeping her full attention on the dark interior. "Nothing like a good outlook to see you through the tough situations in life."
Buffy whipped her head around to stare unbelievingly at the other girl. "What did you just call me?"
"What?"
Only one person had ever addressed her like that and hearing it all of a sudden caused her no amount of disquiet. She realized Faith probably didn't understand the painful memories that had been dredged up by that single letter uttered so casually. "It's nothing. Just...reminded me of something. Can you get the lights?" Buffy tried the phone after Faith tracked down the light switch and, true to form, wasn't able to reach anybody. "We'll have to get out of this town. We can't do anything here."
"Fine by me. After you." Faith made an exaggerated bow that somehow irked and amused the blonde at the same time. She tried to put on a stern expression but couldn't quite succeed in the face of the younger girl's now chastened look. "I'm growing on you, aren't I?" The brunette couldn't help but ask as she followed in the other girl's wake.
"Like a fungus," Buffy replied, continuing to make her way out of town. The animosity she felt for Faith was still there but it was getting harder and harder for her to maintain it the longer she spent in the other's company. Maybe it was just as well. A blank slate was exactly what she was searching for when she thought up this plan and a blank slate was exactly what she had to work with.
They walked in silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts until Buffy suddenly fell down, followed shortly by Faith who had been a step or two behind her.
"What was that?" Buffy asked jumping up immediately.
"I don't know, I think I walked into something," Faith replied, getting up more slowly. She extended her arms out in front of her, and sure enough, could feel resistance even though, if what her eyes told her were true, there wasn't anything in front of her. "Can you feel that?" She asked incredulously.
Buffy imitated her actions and felt something smooth against her palm. Sliding her hand sideways in the hope that it was just that particular place which was blocked off, she walked a couple of steps to her right only to feel the obstruction still in front of her. Faith walked the other way, occasionally poking and kicking to no avail. Whatever it was refused to give or break. She walked back to the blonde who had a sizeable pebble in her hand. Trying to toss it over as high as she could to measure the extent of the barrier, Buffy discovered some rather bad news. The rock was hurled at least thirty feet in the air but still bounced off the invisible surface to land back on their side.
Buffy glanced over at Faith who had a stunned expression on her face. "Come on. We'll see how far this thing stretches."
By the end of the night, they had ascertained two things. The "Wall" as they so termed it, stretched all the way around the town and there was no way to get through. They tried smashing, bashing, and battering with no luck. Finally, an exhausted and bewildered Faith dropped down inelegantly on the ground, resting her back against the Wall. At least it was good for something, she thought ruefully. She could tell Buffy was about to open her mouth, probably to chastise her but instead, the older girl dropped down next to her with a weary sigh. They both watched in captivated silence as the sun made its slow journey above the horizon, signaling the dawn of a new day. It was Faith who broke the silence first. "We're trapped aren't we?" She asked, afraid of the answer.
Buffy looked over at a girl more accustomed to donning the tough girl act for most of her life but who now wore an expression of openness and vulnerability that made her want to reach over and comfort her. "For awhile...but my friends know where I am so don't worry. They'll get us out of here."
Faith let a small smile play at the corners of her lips before abruptly changing topics. "Tell me about yourself?"
"What do you want to know?" Buffy carefully asked.
"Anything," she said with a shrug, bringing her knees to her chest and settling in.
Faith was about the last person on earth to whom Buffy thought she'd be relating her life story but that was exactly what she ended up doing. And by the time she was finished, Faith ended up knowing more about her than she ever had before. Buffy didn't even gloss over the slayer aspect although she did neglect to add the fact that the brunette was one herself.
"Well, aren't you going to say something?" The blonde asked after her revelation.
"Like what?" Faith teasingly grinned.
"About what I just said," Buffy replied in a mock exasperated tone.
"Considering what I've just been through, and seeing as it's only day one, I think I can deal with your superhero, slayer of demons status." Buffy scrutinized her closely before Faith relented and said in all seriousness, "I believe you. I don't really know why I believe you but it sounds...right. Do you know what I mean?"
The blonde nodded slowly, unsure how to take this news. Was Faith remembering and if so, how would it affect the plan. She really should have listened when Willow laid out the details of the spell but it was too late now to do anything about it. "Enough talking for now. I think it's time to get some rest. I'm sure you must be as tired as I am. We passed a nice enough house back there. Let's get some sleep." She helped Faith up, a simple enough gesture that nonetheless showed the dramatic change in their relationship that had developed in only a few short hours. When she first set eyes on Faith earlier in the day, Buffy had been dubious they could even co-exist in the same space. Now, although they weren't the best of friends, they were at least warming up to each other.
She should have been asleep but Faith couldn't have been farther from that desired state as she rearranged her body yet again. She had tossed and turned since settling into bed almost an hour before. Her mind just wouldn't quiet down. Despite what she'd told Buffy, the new information did surprise her more than she let on. And even though, in the end, she didn't doubt the veracity of the statements, she wasn't entirely comfortable with them either. In addition to absorbing the truly freaky happenstances that had occurred already, she now had to deal with the fact that her new companion was some sort of super monster hunter. This didn't even include pondering the question of why Buffy had been so hostile to her when they first met. As far as she was concerned, that had been their first and only meeting but they obviously had a history, and a bitter one at that. Why couldn't she remember anything? What had happened between them to elicit that response? And strangely enough, the answers mattered to her not because she was hot to know her own life story but because she wanted things to be okay between Buffy and herself. She didn't know why that was so important to her, only that it was. It was certainly a strange sensation to know without a doubt what you wanted and not know why.
In the bedroom next to Faith's, Buffy was equally awake, listening to the restless frustrations next door. She had her own questions keeping her from slumber, not the least of which was why she was trapped in this town and trapped so completely with Faith of all people.. Hardly what she'd had in mind when she woke up that morning but surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. For one thing, Faith wasn't acting like the psychopathic murderer she once was. In fact, she was downright likeable which was a disquieting thought in and of itself. She heard the squeaking of bedsprings in the adjacent room followed by the soft patter of footsteps that stopped outside her door. She expected Faith to do something, either to come in or to move on but she did neither. Finally, after several minutes had passed, Buffy called out "Faith?"
"...Yeah?"
"You want to come in?"
"Yeah, sure. If you insist," she flippantly remarked, pushing the door open. She stood there awkwardly for a moment until Buffy scooted over and invited her to sit down.
"I couldn't get to sleep," Faith said in way of explanation for her late night visit. "I hope I'm not bothering you."
"You're not bothering me. What's the matter?" Buffy propped her head up one hand as she rested on her side, looking at Faith's dark silhouette lean against the headboard. She observed a momentary droop to the other girl's head as she replied "I've just got too many things running through my mind and it feels like I'm walking through smoke, you know. I look behind me and I see nothing. I look ahead of me and I see nothing."
"Faith...it's going to be all right."
"How do you know that?" She asked plaintively, craving reassurance. Buffy was sorely tempted to spill the beans and tell the girl that the person responsible for her current state was lying in the bed next to her but something held her tongue. Instead of the truth, a reassurance rolled off her tongue. "I just do. You have to trust me."
"But I do, B. I do," Faith stated emphatically, moving to lie down on her side so that she was facing Buffy. "I'm just afraid you don't trust me."
"Faith..." And that's when Buffy found herself reaching over and wrapping the other girl up in a hug. Faith tensed at the first touch but it only took her a few seconds to lose herself in the strength and warmth awaiting her in those arms. The blonde slayer held her charge even after the steady breathing indicated she had fallen asleep. What had she gotten herself into? That had been the perfect opportunity to explain what she had done and why but the words just refused to come out. What was she afraid of? Pulling the sleeping girl in even more closely, she breathed deeply, absorbing Faith's scent. Before drifting off, she vowed to tell the brunette the whole truth when the next opportunity presented itself.
Faith was the first to wake up, prodded from sleep by the early rays of the morning sun streaming through the window on the opposite side of the room. She found herself in the unfamiliar situation of being held in someone else's arms but of course, it was only a foreign sensation because she couldn't recall any other time she'd woken up wrapped in a loose hug. Maybe this happened to her alot, who knew? But she had a distinct feeling that if it did, it never involved the girl sleeping peacefully next to her. A shame really she thought wistfully. This would be a perfect way to wake up each morning. She spent the next several minutes just soaking up the pleasurable atmosphere and it was her stomach that finally persuaded her to engage in other, more mundane activities. Not wanting to disturb the blonde, she slowly extricated herself from her grasp, amazed at her own limberness and agility. Even so, it still took a painstaking few minutes to completely free herself. Once that was done, she moved over to the other room to retrieve her pants and shoes.
Buffy woke up when the sun's rays found her, right between the eyes. Grumbling a few words better off not mentioned, she petulantly tossed the covers over her head, burrowing into the soft retreat she'd built around herself. It took her a few groggy moments but she finally noticed that something was missing. On further thought, she amended that to someone. Tossing the covers off her head, she squinted her eyes from the room's brightness and confirmed that, yes, Faith was gone. She wasn't sure whether to castigate herself for ever falling for the brunette's innocent, doe eyed act or whether to believe that the other girl had just gone off for something mundane like breakfast. Torn between these two warring factions of her mind, she quickly dressed and went in search of the missing girl.
Faith was just about to dig into the large pile of pancakes, eggs and bacon on the various plates laid out in front of her when the door to the diner swung open to reveal an agitated slayer.
"Great timing," she said by way of greeting. "You're just in time for breakfast. Come on, grab a few more plates and we'll finish this bad boy up in no time."
Buffy just stood there for a moment, gathering her composure. "I missed you this morning." She thought about that statement for a second before hurriedly amending it. "I mean, cause you weren't there and...I thought you would be there but you weren't. You're here, but you know that already--"
"It's way too early in the morning for me to try and decipher what you just said, B so I'm not even gonna try. Come on, the food's getting cold." Faith walked out from behind the counter, beckoning the blonde over to one of the stools.
"When did you learn how to cook?" Buffy asked, sitting down.
"Beats me but isn't it great that I can?" And the blonde couldn't agree more as she started putting away the food along with copious amounts of coffee at an astonishing rate surpassed only by the girl sitting next to her.
"You know, this isn't so bad," Faith pointed out in between inhaling strips of bacon. "We can cook ourselves anything we want and not even have to pay for it."
Buffy grunted in way of reply as she continued shoveling forkfuls of eggs into her mouth. So the feeding frenzy continued until every dish lay bare and every stomach was duly satisfied.
"So you missed me, huh?" Faith asked suddenly, causing Buffy to whip her head around so fast, she almost suffered a neck injury. It seemed that the extent of her vocabulary had also been reduced to monosyllabic mutterings punctuated now and again by a hand gesture since that was the only things coming out of her mouth. Thankfully, Faith stepped in before she turned completely into a puddle of unintelligible goo. "Cause I didn't mean to alarm you, I just couldn't control my stomach. Either I went with it or it was gonna go without me....What did you think had happened to me?" She asked looking earnestly in the slayer's eyes.
Buffy was ashamed of the suspicions she had harbored at Faith's initial disappearance but it wasn't like they were totally unfounded either. Based on the other girl's track record and the fact she still hadn't ascertained how much Faith remembered or if she remembered at all, Buffy decided to handle the question with kid gloves. "I don't know. That's why I was worried."
"For me or by me?" Faith asked still studying her companion with a serious gaze.
"Both. If you want to know the truth, I--"
The sudden shrill ringing of the phone interrupted their conversation causing both women to look up with a jolt. They both turned to the phone hanging on the wall, each staring with astonished expressions etched on their faces. Buffy finally shook herself out of her paralysis and walked over, picking up the phone mid-ring.
"...Hello?" She looked over at Faith who was slowly walking towards her. "Hello? Is anybody there?" She was about to shrug at Faith's questioning look but a sound on the other end of the line stopped her cold. It almost sounded as if a rather heavy book had just been dropped on a wooden table.
"Get out." A low and guttural voice issued forth from the receiver. "Get out now."
"We'd love to but this town seems intent on keeping us here. If you have any suggestions on exactly how we can 'get out', I'd love to hear them." Buffy's retort seemed to go over the head of whoever she was talking to because he just kept on talking as if she hadn't ever opened her mouth. "You shouldn't be here. I won't let you be here." The sudden click of the dial tone ended the conversation for good, prompting her to slowly hang up.
"Well, what did he say?" Faith eagerly asked.
"Something along the lines of get out or I'll throw you out."
"Doesn't he know that 'out' is where we'd like to be too?"
"Didn't seem to register with him." The mood had dipped to somber silence all of a sudden as they each mulled over the ramifications of the mysterious caller's warning/threat.
"Well, I'm not worried," Faith declared confidently after a few moments.
"Why's that?" The blonde asked, amused at the cocksure attitude her companion was sporting.
Faith grinned as if the answer were so obvious, it was standing right in front of them...which it was, in a way. "I have you and you're used to beating up the bad guys and saving the innocent, right?" "So, I'm like some kind of human shield to you?"
The brunette gently chided her with a barely suppressed chuckle, "Slayer shield my petite friend. Slayer shield. Worth a dozen human ones any day."
Buffy threw a soft punch at Faith's arm which made the other girl throw up her own hands in quick surrender. "Save that for the baddies slugger. How would it look to your adoring public if you beat up a poor, defenseless girl?"
"It's a good thing there is no public around here, adoring or otherwise now isn't it?"
Faith swiveled her head in an exaggerated fashion from left to right in an effort to search out said public which made Buffy burst out in a fit of laughter, in turn prompting Faith to beam broadly at a job well done. If that didn't alleviate the tension, nothing would.
"Tell me again why she picked this town?" Riley asked, squinting into the brightly lit horizon.
Willow spoke up as she trailed behind Giles and Riley. "It was pretty arbitrary. Buffy did the whole closing her eyes and pointing at a map procedure of picking. She said the main thing was, it was out in the middle of nowhere so in case the spell didn't work properly, there was less of a chance of anyone getting hurt."
Riley glanced back with a frown creasing his features. "But what about the townspeople? They could be hurt."
"I...We...didn't think of that possibility," Willow stammered with a look on her face like she had been totally taken by surprise, "She should have told me," he continued, turning back around. "Why didn't she tell me?"
Giles cleared his throat like he was so prone to doing during awkward moments but he didn't answer Riley's question. The best he could come up with was that Buffy didn't want to see the young man get hurt in case anything went wrong but Riley didn't seem all that receptive to explanations right then even though he was the one to pose the question in the first place. Since Buffy had failed to call in last night to apprise them of the situation as had been agreed upon before she'd left, the little group of three were currently headed towards Sayersville. Riley was told what happened on the way there and he'd been pissed off ever since. Who knew what that rogue slayer had done to his girlfriend, he thought angrily. If he had gone with her, at least he could have watched her back but instead, he'd been left out of the loop as if he were a mewling, little boy who couldn't take care of himself, let alone protect Buffy. The resentment and outrage ate at him all the way to the town's limits where they ran across a shattered sign causing all three to shudder and mentally prepare for the worse.
Buffy stopped short as soon as they stepped out of the diner.
"What's the matter?" Faith asked.
"Do you hear that?" She cocked her head, intently listening for the sound to repeat itself. Faith followed suit, straining to hear as well. She was about to say no, she didn't hear anything when something did catch her attention. It sounded like raised voices that were too far away to decipher. "That way," Buffy said, catching Faith's hand in her own and running towards the source of the disturbance.
Faith eventually caught sight of people in the distance doing, what seemed to her, a miming performance. That perception was probably due to the invisible Wall they had their palms pressed against but, even from here, she could tell that the angry and shocked expressions on their faces weren't due to the barrier. As she and Buffy closed the distance between them, she could tell those expressions were caused solely by her presence. Faith's suspicions were confirmed soon enough when one of them, the red headed girl, shouted angrily at her. "What did you do?" followed moments later by a more concerned, "Buffy, are you all right? What did she do to you?" Faith wasn't sure if they were selectively blind or just chose to ignore the fact that she was as trapped as their friend and holding her hand to boot.
"Willow, Faith didn't do anything to me. I don't know what happened but we both got trapped in here. I think there's an outside possibility that your spell might have something to do with it. The entire town's residents have disappeared as well so I need you guys to go back to Sunnydale and do some research. Anything you can come up with on deserted towns, invisible force fields, and stuff like that."
"I'm not just going to leave you here," Riley protested, looking pointedly in Faith's direction.
"And I don't want you to leave but you won't be much help to me here." In the end, Riley agreed to go back even though he didn't look too happy about the decision.
"Willow, I need to speak to you alone for a minute." Buffy released Faith's hand which she had still been holding absently up until then. Giving the brunette a reassuring smile, she moved off to the side to talk in private with the red headed witch, leaving Faith to awkwardly stand there, an unwilling subject of the wary glances thrown her way by the remaining two men in the group.
"Buffy, are you sure you're going to be all right by yourself?" Willow asked as soon as they were more or less alone.
"I think so. There's been some creep calling on the phone threatening us to get out of this town but aside from that, everything's been quiet. I need to ask you about that spell though. Do you think Faith can remember anything from her past because she's started to call me B again and I don't know if she does remember and she's just not telling me or if it's just a coincidence."
Willow thought about the question for a second before responding in the negative. "She can't remember anything Buffy. That was the whole point of the spell. The only way she can get her memory back is if I reverse it. Only then will she regain her old memories in addition to her new ones."
"Okay, I just needed to clear that up."
"So she hasn't been giving you any trouble?" Willow asked in an almost disappointed tone of voice.
The slayer looked at her friend closely before replying. "No, she's actually been pretty good company so far."
It had been a couple of minutes since Buffy and the other girl had wandered off and Faith was starting to think that it was the longest few minutes in recorded history. She didn't appreciate the cold , suspicious looks cast her way by the two guys on the other side of the Wall. What was their problem anyway she thought, staring down the older one with the glasses. From what she could tell, it might very well be their fault she and Buffy were stuck in this ghost town in the first place and they were looking at her as if she was the source of every problem in the world. She was about to tell them off when Buffy walked back towards her and, for some odd reason, she didn't see the need to vent anymore. She was starting to believe that her blonde friend had a calming effect on her. How else to explain the sudden mellowing out?
"It's decided then," Buffy declared, standing in front of the group. "You'll go back and...we'll stay here. On second thought, that's not much of a decision, that's more like a forced non-choice." "Do be careful Buffy. We still don't have a clear idea of what we're dealing with here," Giles warned before stepping aside to let Riley say his good-byes.
A small smile appeared on Buffy's face that mirrored Riley's own as the two of them moved as close to each other as possible considering they really couldn't touch one another.
"I'm going to be back as soon as I can," he said. The promise etched in his eyes as well as his words were good as gold.
"I know you will," she said, looking up into his eyes with absolute trust.
"I love you Buffy."
"I love you too Riley."
Faith watched the display from not too far away but what she saw so far made her want to look away. It wasn't that it was nauseating, which it was, but it was more the fact that Buffy looked real happy and she looked real happy because of someone else. That cheesed her off. _She_ wanted to be the center of Buffy's undivided attention, _she_ wanted to be the one to put that smile on the other girl's face and up until that moment, she had been the one. Her ruminations were cut short when the lovebirds finally finished and all three of them left, leaving Buffy and herself alone once again. There was a bit of silence that followed as Buffy watched the little group leave while Faith watched her watch the little group leave.
"Huh?' The brunette asked, unaware that she had been addressed.
"I said, are you all right?" Buffy reiterated, already sure that she wasn't. The older girl had turned around to find Faith staring intently at her. Somewhat disconcerting in and of itself but what she was really taken by surprise at was the barely concealed desire written across her friend's face.
"As fine as I ever was," she lightly replied. "The better question would be, what do you want to do for the rest of the day?" Buffy smiled, relieved that what she saw had to have been a trick of the light. It was too ludicrous to even contemplate otherwise. "I'm sure with our combined brain power, we can come up with something sufficiently fun to pass the time."
The rest of the afternoon passed without incident and as Buffy had promised, it was fun as well. They basically just goofed around the entire day which was fine as far as Faith was concerned. There wasn't anyone else she'd rather goof around with than Buffy, and the longer the time she spent with her friend, the more the bitter taste caused by what she'd witnessed earlier, retreated. The picture of Buffy and Riley together was still in the back of her mind like an uninvited houseguest but it was becoming less intrusive as the hours wore on.
They didn't know what time it was since all the clocks in town had enigmatically stopped on 5:25 PM, give or take a few minutes. But since the sun was nearly set, Buffy could safely hazard the guess that it was late. They found themselves back at the Wall again with Faith lying on her back, lazily tossing pebbles off the transparent surface while Buffy leaned casually back against the barrier with a questioning look on her face.
"You don't like my skirt?" The blonde asked, the hurt already creeping into her voice.
"No, I mean yes, I mean..." Faith forcefully stopped herself before digging a bigger hole than the one she had already reserved for herself. She honestly didn't know how the subject of their conversation had turned to this particular topic and why it was she couldn't just keep her mouth shut on her friend's clothing tastes. In a fit of desperation, she blurted out, "You look great in anything." Immediately regretting her choice of words as soon as they flew out of her mouth, Faith wished for nothing but to take them back. Taking in the inscrutable expression on the blonde's face, she begged, "Please stop me before I say anything else."
Buffy didn't answer as she continued to peer closely down at the brunette. "Faith? I'm going to ask you something and I want you to answer me truthfully."
The other girl audibly gulped much to her own chagrin but nodded nonetheless as Buffy kneeled down next to her. The older slayer looked like she had something important on her mind but didn't quite know how to voice it. Finally, she seemed to come to some sort of decision. "Do you remember anything past these last two days?"
"No, I don't. Whenever I try, it comes in all fuzzy and distorted like I'm watching a scrambled cable channel or something."
"Have you thought about how you just suddenly forgot everything and lost your memory?"
"I don't know. I just assumed that I had an accident, you know, bumped my head. Isn't that how people get amnesia in Hollywood?"
"Yeah, about that....what if I told you that your memory loss wasn't an accident?"
Faith frowned at Buffy's unusual line of questioning. "What are you saying, B?"
It was Buffy's turn to swallow now. She couldn't keep up the charade anymore; to keep looking into the other girl's eyes knowing what she'd been put through was initiated by a rash decision based on a lingering desire for vengeance. "I don't know how to say this without totally blowing everything apart."
"Just say it." Faith was getting more agitated the more Buffy drew out what she had to say.
"I did it," the blonde stated, wavering between looking directly into Faith's eyes and somewhere over her shoulder. "Actually, I had Willow do it, as a spell. That's why I was worried it hadn't gone right and it had somehow gotten us trapped in this town."
"That's why you were worried," Faith mumbled, eyes glazing over. "But it turns out that the spell probably wasn't responsible for this," she pointed behind her at the invisible barrier. "Faith, I need you to know that these last two days I've spent with you...I wouldn't trade them for the world." Buffy reached out for the other girl's hand and immediately grew concerned at how cold it was, especially since it was such a warm night.
"I need to...I have to...Don't follow me..." Faith stammered as she quickly scrambled to an upright position. She gave Buffy a cursory glance before walking at a fast clip back into town. The blonde watched the retreating figure for a few hesitating moments before hurriedly getting up and trailing after her.
Faith started off walking but somewhere along the way, found herself running as her feet hit the ground propelling her further and further away. In the back of her mind, she wondered why the town seemed a whole lot larger than she remembered but then she didn't really trust her mind anymore. Not after what she'd been told. Turning sharply into an alley, she stopped short in the middle trying to catch her breath which was coming in short and ragged. She slumped to the ground, feeling incredibly tired all of a sudden. In fact, she could barely find the strength to lift her hands to wipe the sweat from her eyes. By now, she could tell that something was seriously awry. She was struggling just to breath and finding it hard to keep her eyes focused. She spent several minutes on the verge of passing out so it wasn't until she heard her name being called that she knew she had company.
"B?" She labored,, trying to push the words out and looking towards the dark shadow walking towards her. "Something's...wrong."
"You finally noticed?" The figure moved to stand right in front of the seated girl and when Faith looked up, all she saw was a blurry, black outline with Buffy's voice. "Took you long enough to figure it out. I would've pegged you for a smarter girl than that."
Faith tried to reach up and touch her friend but got her hand slapped away for the trouble.
"You ran off before I could tell you why I did what I did. There's always an explanation behind everything and you didn't give me a chance to tell you mine...But that's all right, just don't run off again, 'kay?"
Buffy kneeled, bringing her face in close. "You were a bad, bad girl Faith and I think you've figured that out already, didn't you?" Faith couldn't say a word but her eyes told the whole story as tears threatened to spill over. Buffy was almost straddling her without actually touching and her words were biting into her like bitter cold needles.
"Do you want me to tell you exactly what you did? Do you want me to tell you why I could never love you because of what you did?"
Faith immediately jerked her head up at the question, trying to look into the other girl's eyes but it was just too dark and her own eyes still refused to focus.
"Didn't think I knew? I'm not blind, I see the way you look at me. But it isn't going to happen. It wasn't going to happen then and it sure as hell isn't going to happen now. You have no one, Faith. The closest person you ever had was me and now you don't even have that." Buffy rose to her feet, not even deigning to bestow a further glance on the other girl before walking away.
Buffy didn't know how she managed it considering the size of the town but the fact was undeniable, she had lost track of the brunette, completely and utterly. She had Faith in her sights before the other girl turned a corner and poof, she was gone, except without the poofing sound. Unable to reconcile the disappearance with the dead end she found at the end of the alley, she called out loudly for her missing friend. She called five or six times without getting any kind of a response. As she was backing slowly out of the alley, Buffy bumped into something behind her and before she knew what had happened, two arms were wrapped securely around her torso.
"Cool it, B. It's only me." The words drifted into her ear, chilling her with its familiarity.
"Faith? What are you doing?"
The low chuckle reverberated through them both and when it finally subsided, Faith pulled her in even closer causing her to squirm painfully in her grasp but the other girl's arms refused to loosen. "You must have jogged something loose in the old noggin because I remember now. Every little thing. And you know the first thing I'm going to do now that I'm the old me? Come on, guess."
The news came as a shock to her, not only because Willow had sworn that it couldn't possibly happen but she'd grown to think of Faith as a friend again. Her silence prompted her captor to continue talking. "I remember the incredible amount of hatred you carried for me only two days ago. Where did it go honey? I can't believe you fell for my Little Miss Innocent act so completely. What do I have to do? Mutilate some of your friends to get you back on the ball?"
"I'll kill you first," Buffy instantly replied.
"That's it, B. You know what? Since I'm such a good sport, I'll give you first crack." A hard punch delivered to the kidneys dropped Buffy to the ground. "Find me if you can," she said in a sing-song voice. By the time the blonde slayer struggled to her feet, Faith was gone and a renewed hatred burned inside her own gut.
Like the morning before, the sun again made its presence known but, this time, Faith wasn't nearly so comfortable. Instead of being curled up in a comfy bed with the slayer of her dreams, she woke on the hard, cold ground unfurling from the fetal position she'd adopted during the night. Rubbing the kink from her neck and the circulation back into her legs, she tried to recall what had brought her to this undesirable state only to regret the decision an instant later when it all came rushing back. She had to wonder how things could change so drastically within the span of a day. As she picked herself off the ground, she couldn't help but feel the loneliness already starting to set in, more biting than it had been originally when she first wandered into this town. Straightening up and moving out of the alley, she hesitated at its opening. What was she going to do now she thought disconsolately. She still couldn't get out of this stupid town but neither could she stay, not when Buffy was here too. She didn't even want to think about the other girl much less see her and, considering the rather one sided conversation that took place yesterday, the feeling was probably mutual.
Easing out into the street, she teetered on the monumental decision of going either left or right but before she could go anywhere, the sensation of someone watching her returned in full force. It was so strong that the hair along her arms tingled as every last one stood on end. Before she had time to think or analyze the feeling further, her body spun around of its own accord while her arm shot out, snagging something out of the air. She fell back a couple of steps when she realized the sheer magnitude of what she'd just done. The shaft of an arrow was tightly gripped in one white knuckled hand, its point only inches from her body before being caught. Her breath came in shallow gulps as she looked down the street and saw Buffy nocking another arrow, calm as you please. Turning around, she took off at a dead run, letting her feet guide her through the twists and turns of narrow side streets, backyards, and houses. She didn't stop until she tripped over a garden knome that she could've sworn wasn't there a moment before. Hurriedly jumping back to her feet, she leapt over the porch railing and charged through the unlocked front door of one of the many nondescript houses that were in such popular demand in Sayersville. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, she put her hands on her knees, coughing slightly, her mind racing a mile a minute. She had shot at her---Buffy had shot at her. That single thought circled endlessly around her head, refusing to relinquish its shock value. Only an instinctive need to survive roused her out of that frozen state. Moving deliberately through the house, she wasn't sure what she was looking for until she ran across the rack of knives in the kitchen. If she was going down, someone was going down with her, she grimly thought.
Buffy spent that entire night hunting for Faith without any success. But she did run across the house of a former sports enthusiast. Stock full of baseball bats, fishing rods, every sort of ball imaginable, and a professional archery set, it was a verifiable male sanctuary. The archery set was what interested her most though. Taking the bow and a quiver full of arrows, she left the house to continue her search. As she roamed the town, Buffy found that she had to continually focus on her hatred in order to stop her mind from wandering over to the harrowing darkness edging in around the peripheral of her consciousness; that place where anguish waged a war against despondency and neither was giving ground. Again and again, the same question kept rearing its head: how had it happened? Not only how Faith had gotten her memory back but how could she herself have gotten so close to the younger girl again in so short a time? She wanted to bury her head in the ground and forget about everything yet, at the same time, she wanted to bury her fist into Faith's face just to stop the girl from repeating the cycle of violence that had brought them there in the first place. Clutching the bow tighter in her grasp as she spotted movement further up the street, she carefully nocked an arrow and aimed. It could all end here. Faith didn't see her, she was sure of that and if she aimed in the right place...she closed her eyes and let it fly.
By the time she opened them back again, her arrow was caught and Faith was staring at her. But instead of the taunting expression she expected to see, there was nothing but shock. Why was she surprised? It wasn't like they hadn't done this before, trying to kill each other that is. As she tried to figure out Faith's new angle, her body was on auto-pilot, already nocking another arrow, preparing to aim. However, Faith didn't oblige, taking off without a backward glance. Buffy ran after her, picking up the discarded arrow that the other girl had dropped in her haste. She tracked her all the way across town to a house that could only be described as a clone of its neighbors. Jogging up to the front door, she debated whether to go the stealthy route or the more direct one. Not possessing more than a dollop's worth of patience at that particular moment, she kicked in the door and proceeded to enter only to dive out of the way when the business end of a knife hurtled towards her head.
Faith couldn't believe it. When that knife left her hand, it was supposed to pierce something non-vital, but at the last moment, it slipped, going straight for Buffy's head. An apology probably wouldn't have helped either considering the murderous expression on the blonde's face when she picked herself up but she couldn't help but try anyway. "I didn't mean to do that."
"So you weren't aiming for my head?" Came the sarcastic question.
"Actually I was aiming for something fleshier, like your arm, your side, or your ass if all else failed. What the fuck is the matter with you anyway? So you want nothing to do with me, fine, I can deal with that. But you shoot at me? How fucked up are you?"
Buffy was shocked speechless for a moment at the question but finally let loose at the indignity of the charge. "I'm fucked up? You're one to talk considering your picture's in the dictionary under 'psycho fucked up slayer'. And run it by me again. Who threatened to mutilate my friends if I didn't get on the ball? Yup, that's right. You!"
Faith held up her hands in hopes of preventing anymore outbursts that made absolutely no sense to her. "Hold up, okay? Did you get into someone's private stash cause you damn sure hallucinated that crap."
"You're telling me you didn't say that?" Buffy asked incredulously.
"I'm telling you, whatever you heard or think you heard, I didn't say it."
Buffy wanted to believe her and was more than a little pissed off at herself for wanting that. "How many times do you think you can play me, Faith before I wizen up?"
"I'm not playing you!" Faith shouted in frustration. "What's it going to take for you to believe me? For Christ's sake, you nearly impaled me on an arrow. Don't you think I'm taking a chance in trusting you too?"
Seeing the validity of her point, Buffy slowly relaxed from her battle-ready stance. "I guess we need to talk," she finally suggested.
"Guess so."
Neither made a move to do so as they alternated between keeping a close eye on each other and looking at anything else but each other. "This isn't going to work if one of us doesn't start talking soon," Buffy said wryly after a good ten minutes had passed in complete silence. She sighed before continuing, "Yesterday, when I was looking for you after you ran off, you...or someone that sounded exactly like you, told me that you had gotten your memory back and then you threatened to kill me and my friends...sound familiar?"
"No, but tell me if this rings a bell. After I took off, you tracked me down and told me that I screwed up so bad in the past that you couldn't have anything to do with me anymore. And then, this morning, you shot an arrow at my back."
"I didn't say that to you yesterday," Buffy protested after mutely accepting guilt for the second part of the statement.
"Then assuming we're both telling the truth, someone's playing both of us for fools."
"Are we accepting bets on our anonymous phone caller?" After dropping the bow she'd still been holding up up to that point, Buffy moved to step in front of Faith. "Sorry I shot at you. It's just that..."
"Yeah, I know. That's why I threw that knife at you." A soft grin slowly formed on the brunette's face. "So I guess I should get rid of these," she continued, going about the task of pulling out a knife from the waistband at her back, one from both her boots, and a paring knife from between her breasts, although how she managed to put it there in the first place was beyond Buffy's comprehension.
Shaking her head in bemusement, the blonde led the way into the living room, plopping down with a hard thud on the sofa. Faith followed suit, putting her legs onto the coffee table.
"I'm so tired," Buffy mumbled, her eyes already closing and her mind half way to dreamland. A sleepless night in combination with the adrenaline rush earlier had sapped her of whatever reserves she had and at that moment, she could barely stop from tipping over. Faith, on the other hand, wasn't tired at all. She'd slept the night before and, even though it wasn't four star accommodations, she felt pretty well rested. That didn't mean she had any intention of getting up though. Nope, she was perfectly happy sitting right there. At what other time could she openly stare at Buffy without trepidation? No need for sidelong glances and veiled looks. That's right, Faith thought to herself, I'm a pretty happy girl. And after all that's happened, it was a truly miraculous thought. A good fifteen minutes passed in which Faith spent happily engaged in this activity when a thought suddenly hit her like a Mac truck. In their earlier standoff, Buffy had called her a...psycho fucking slayer. She was a slayer? The revelation should have come as a surprise and it was but not in the 'Holy cow, look at me Ma' kinda way. It was more along the lines of 'Hmmm...that's interesting, now let's move on' kind of a deal. She wasn't sure if it was due to the spell or some quirk in her nature but she found accepting the bizarre and weird relatively easy. So what had she learned in the past two days? That Buffy and herself were slayers, that Buffy's friend cast a spell on her, that vampires and magic do exist, that elements thought only to exist in ghost stories were more real than people liked to admit? Okay, that was fine with her, she could deal. But when it came to other more personal truths that were being discovered along the way? Those she was having a tougher time getting a handle on.
Personal truth #1: If she wasn't in love with Buffy, she was damn sure close to it. Which really sucked considering Buffy not only had a boyfriend but seemed straighter than the arrows she was shooting. Although, there were times when she could've sworn there was something happening between them that was definitely not platonic.
Personal truth #2: She had been Evil's right hand whore before she lost her memory. That had been made abundantly clear to her by Buffy and her friends. If their initial meetings were any indication, she must've really been good at being a badass. You don't elicit the kind of reaction she did by being a girl scout and helping old ladies across the street.
Personal Truth #3: ...She hadn't gotten that far yet It had only been two days after all and numbers one and two were going to give her enough problems as it was.
As Faith mulled over these points, Buffy, who had been perilously close to tipping over when she went to sleep, did just that. And as luck would have it, she slumped right into Faith's waiting arms. By that time, Personal Truth #1 was being tattooed into her heart. To hold the other girl in her arms was to taste heaven and she would take full advantage of it because heaven was some half formed ethereal realm, this was real.
Buffy woke to a most luxuriating feeling of being held. She basked in the warmth and love that hit her like lapping waves, slowly washing away whatever tension still existed in her mind and her body. Nuzzling into the soft skin resting underneath her body, her hands wandered unbidden across exposed flesh and not until she'd made it to a distinctively shaped mound of flesh did she finally realize that it wasn't Riley she was feeling up. Opening her eyes and sitting up slightly, the first sight that greeted her still groggy mind was that of the face of a reddening brunette.
Faith cleared her throat in the ensuing silence. "Nice dream?" She blithely asked while at the same time trying to force some air back into her oxygen starved lungs.
"I'm sorry," Buffy started, already pulling away with a flustered look about her. Not really knowing what else to say since it wasn't everyday this sort of thing happened, she repeated the sentiment despite the inherent lameness of it. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, don't worry about it," Faith waved the whole incident off with a cavalier gesture, attempting to put the other girl at ease. "Stuff happens." Inside though, she was hardly so nonchalant. She was burning up in fact and every second spent in Buffy's vicinity only heightened the feeling. Moving to stand up with the intention of taking a walk to cool off, she was instead pulled back down by an insistent and oblivious blonde.
"Faith, I know stuff happens but I also want you to know that...I didn't mean anything by that. I just don't want things to be awkward between us."
Faith looked away momentarily, muttering "Of course not. And it's not going to be." There wasn't anything like cold reality to temper ones rising passions. Staring right into Buffy's eyes, she stated with an assurance she didn't particularly feel, "Everything between us is going to be fine, B. A little groping isn't going to break us...I hope not anyway." Buffy nodded her head as if the matter were resolved which couldn't have been farther from the truth, at least in Faith's view. But what was she going to do, yell at the top of her lungs that she wouldn't mind it at all if Buffy kept on groping her? That was a surefire way to make sure the only friend she had would run screaming into the night. If not running than at least coming at her with an arrow again.
"Faith? You all right?" The question snapped her out of her melancholy thoughts. Aiming what she hoped was an easy smile at Buffy, she suggested they go get something to eat. Hopefully, this mundane activity would take both of their minds off the earlier incident, at least for a little while.
"Where are they?" Riley muttered to himself in frustration. They'd circled the entire town, yelling out for the slayers and gotten no response whatsoever. Two days had passed since they'd been here last. Two agonizingly long and worry-filled days that grew ever more so with the information they'd managed to dig up about the eventful history of Sayersville. In the face of his own helplessness, he punched the invisible barrier as hard as he could which really didn't do any damage aside from that done to his own hand, as far as he could tell.
Giles took off his glasses to wipe the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. "I don't think that's going to work," he said testily, annoyed at the impulsive display while at the same time wishing he could've done it first.
"Well, what would you suggest?" Riley fired back, almost immediately closing his eyes in contrition. "We're both worried," he said stating the obvious.
"They could be asleep," Giles replied, turning his searching eyes back to the town that laid enticingly close within hand's reach. "Or they might be somewhere where they just can't hear us. Let's just wait awhile and call them again, shall we?"
Riley mutely accepted the suggestion, imitating Giles' posture and staring pensively into the barricaded compound.
Faith sat with her back against the wall, her eyes darting every which way, her senses on heightened alert to any shadows playing across the room. The feeling that something was staring at her was, by now, a familiar companion. It'd been like this for God knows how many hours. Unable to move because the fear in her gut held her glued to that spot, all she could do was sit and wait. Something in this town was coming for her. She believed it with absolute conviction. Her body was a knot of tension just waiting for the right provocation to strike out. From time to time, she had to remind herself to breath but even so, she took shallow breaths, afraid that even the tiniest rustle or noise she made would give her away or prevent her from picking up a sneak attack.
The intense, sudden prickling along her spine made her quickly stand up, backing as far into the wall behind her as she could, which wasn't but a millimeter more. She looked around, seeing nothing, but the rest of her senses screamed to her that there was something else in the room. A cold breeze nipped at her shoulders even though there weren't any windows in the room and the door was closed. A moment of eerie silence passed until it was shattered by a creaking, almost as if something heavy was walking towards her on the wooden floor. Looking frantically around with a wild eyed expression, she started taking swings at the air. If she could've seen herself then from a different perspective, she would've wondered what had brought her to this situation, trying like a madwoman to hit a foe that might or might not be there at all. How had it progressed to this point, you might ask. She really had no clue. Yesterday, she had turned her back for five seconds---FIVE SECONDS!---when she turned back around, she was alone. Buffy was gone; she'd just disappeared. She tried looking around for the other girl but was soon forced to stop due to the increasing sense of fear filling her up inside. And it kept rising until the only thing she could do was sit down in that damn room, waiting for her fear to come find her.
Buffy sat with her back against the wall, one knee pulled up to her chest, staring uncomprehendingly into space. Unlike her fellow slayer, she felt no fear. In fact, she felt absolutely nothing at all. She'd been mulling it over for well on a couple of hours already. It made no sense at all. And it still didn't. As far as she could figure it, she'd...disappeared. Even now, she could barely wrap her mind around that fact but it was undeniable. Faith had freaked when she turned around and didn't see her, calling her name over and over again. Of course, she'd been standing right in front of the brunette and, at the time, had wondered if she was the butt of a juvenile joke. No such luck though as Faith grew increasingly agitated, running around the house and eventually most of the town, screaming her name.
At first, Buffy had tried to lay a calming hand on the girl but when her hands went right through Faith's body, all thoughts of jokes, practical or otherwise, flew right out the window. She'd spent the next few minutes paralyzed, eyes steadfastly fixed on her own two hands. Hands that looked solid enough but had already been proven insubstantial. She finally tore her horrified gaze away, hoping that it'd only been some kind of fluke that'd worn off by now. Hesitatingly reaching out for a book on the nearby desk, she tried picking it up only to find that it hadn't been a fluke, and if it was, it was an awfully long-lasting fluke. It was an odd sensation really, to not be able to touch or feel...to be invisible. She spent the rest of the day and the next watching Faith slowly come apart at the seams, unable to do a thing to prevent the collapse. She watched as the other girl began jumping at shadows, her behavior becoming more and more erratic until finally, she just sat down. And that had been her position for the last few hours. Sitting in that shuttered room, eyes darting around as if the next unguarded moment would bring unimaginable terror. She couldn't blame her though. With all that'd happened and continued to happen, who could blame her for being alert. Only problem was, this was more than simple vigilance. One look into those haunted eyes could have told anyone as much.
She was puzzling over just how she managed to comfortably walk through walls and yet, not fall through the floor when Faith suddenly jumped up. Buffy watched in mild interest when the other girl started taking swings at the air around her for no apparent reason. She supposed she should be concerned but all she felt was detached indifference. Somewhere along the way, in the time between yesterday and today, that ability to empathize had long since been drained clean out of her. It started off a slow process, she hadn't even been aware of it until it was too late. And now, she sat watching, a part of her wishing she felt...something, although the memory of ever feeling anything was becoming fuzzier by the second. Not for the first time, she idly wondered if invisibility wasn't all that had befallen her because not only was she invisible, she was feeling hollowed out as well.
She was puzzling over just how she managed to comfortably walk through walls and yet, not fall through the floor when Faith suddenly jumped up. Buffy watched in mild interest when the other girl started taking swings at the air around her for no apparent reason. She supposed she should be concerned but all she felt was detached indifference. Somewhere along the way, in the time between yesterday and today, that ability to empathize had long since been drained clean out of her. It started off a slow process, she hadn't even been aware of it until it was too late. And now, she sat watching, a part of her wishing she felt...something, although the memory of ever feeling anything was becoming fuzzier by the second. Not for the first time, she idly wondered if invisibility wasn't all that had befallen her because not only was she invisible, she was feeling hollowed out as well. She spared a dispassionate glance up when Faith suddenly flew out the door and followed only out of a perverse compulsion to see what the other girl would do. On her way out, she felt a cold breeze blow across her arm but didn't even miss a step, attributing it to the quirks of a drafty, old house. What she didn't take into consideration was the fact that the house was neither old nor drafty but, given her current condition, it was an understandable oversight.
Faith ran outside, hoping that she could outrun whatever was hounding her but she could still hear the pounding of footsteps beating a path right behind her. Turning a sharp corner, she barreled down the street, completely forgetting the pesky, little force field that had kept her confined for so many days. As a result, she crashed headlong into the barrier, dropping like a sack of wet laundry. She made a valiant effort to get back up but to no avail as she slowly slipped from consciousness. The last thought she had was that she wouldn't be waking back up again.
Buffy slowed to a stop next to Faith's crumpled form and crouching, she almost reached out a hand before remembering her immaterial status. She didn't really know why she was there. It wasn't as if she cared one way or the other whether the other girl recovered or not. Commonsense would say yeah, she'd wake up, she was a slayer after all. That wasn't the motivating factor for Buffy's decision to stay. No, the only reason was that there wasn't anywhere else she cared to be at the moment and, even if there were, she didn't feel like walking over to it. Lifting her head to the afternoon sun, she closed her eyes, trying to absorb its warmth into the hollow spot growing inside her soul. Lulled nearly to a trancelike state, she didn't hear the rapid approach of footsteps until Giles and Riley were almost upon her.
"What's going on? Where's Buffy?" Riley ground out in frustration, palms flat against the barrier he'd quickly grown to detest.
Giles stared in equal agitation at the still form on the ground, thankful that the girl still appeared alive. Running a hand through his hair, he muttered, "I wish I knew." He now regretted more than ever that he'd let Buffy implement her plan. He knew it would lead to more trouble than they'd anticipate, just not this much. But he hadn't been able to dissuade the headstrong young woman, especially since he couldn't come up with any alternatives they could have used.
"Buffy? Buffy!" Riley continued to yell out, eyes scanning for any signs of movement coming from the town.
Buffy herself was becoming annoyed with the yelling. She was standing right next to them and just because they couldn't hear or see her didn't mean they should shout so loud that she had to cover her ears with her hands so as not to go deaf. Fortunately, Faith picked just that moment to wake, saving her the trouble of moving to a quieter spot.
"Faith? Are you all right?" Giles was the first to notice the faint stirrings.
The brunette blinked slowly a couple of times before staggering to her feet, only to grab her head at the momentary dizziness that lingered from her collision. But as soon as it passed, her eyes widened considerably as her head swiveled behind her. "It's still here," she whispered in a terrified hush. "It's here. Do you feel it?"
"What's here?" Giles asked in a confused tone.
"IT!" she tersely reiterated. "Why won't it just leave me alone? Help me," she cried, turning back to the two men.
Riley looked around, finally giving up and barking at Faith, "There's nothing here. Just tell us where Buffy is."
At the mention of the blonde slayer's name, Faith seemed to physically deflate, her face falling. "I don't know," she replied in a low murmur.
Before Riley could angrily interject again, Giles interrupted and, in a gentle voice meant to calm the girl down, he asked, "Faith? Please tell us what happened to the two of you."
Faith took a shuddering breath. "I turned around...and she was just...gone." She turned a beseeching glance to her audience. "I looked for her but I couldn't--and then, I felt it coming for me. It's here! You have to help me." Again, Faith looked behind her with a panicked expression. No matter how hard she tried, the fear wouldn't abate. In fact, it seemed to grow stronger the more she tried resisting its grip. She wasn't behaving rationally. She knew that but knowing and acting were two completely different propositions.
"Faith, we're trying to get you both out of this trap but it'll take time. I need for you to try and stay calm in the meantime."
"You're not the one stuck in here!" Faith shouted, her nerves, already shot full of holes, were clear to breaking. She threw a sudden punch at Giles' face and would've done some major damage if not for the Wall that stood between them. That didn't stop her from repeatedly striking out again and again though, stopping only when the sound of bloody, wet flesh bounced off her own ears.
Buffy, who had been watching intently the entire time felt the first faint stirrings of concern igniting in her heart. But it was gone as fast as it had appeared, much as Faith was now gone, running off with a slightly disgusted look on her face mixed with the ever present stink of fear that seemed to accompany her like a shadow. Turning back to Giles and Riley, she caught their shared look of unease.
"What do we do now?" Riley asked, always more comfortable taking orders than giving them.
"She won't be able to help herself let alone us," Giles observed pensively. "We don't know what's happened to Buffy and we're still no closer to knowing how to save them. All we've been able to do so far is dig up some sordid history about this town. Bloody hell, we might as well be backed into a corner."
"We'll get them out," the determination in Riley's voice hinted at a far greater faith than he actually felt. "We have to, for Buffy."
Buffy would've been touched upon hearing the assertion if she weren't already preoccupied with something more intriguing. A thought had slowly been percolating in her mind as the drama had unfolded before her. If she was invisible and she could pass through things...Walking straight ahead where the Wall should have been, Buffy passed through to the other side unhindered. She was free. The thought snuck up on her but the excited shouts from Riley and Giles reinforced what she already felt because, the whole gamut of emotions raced through her mind, as if making up for lost time.
After the initial fervor had passed, Giles asked rather pointedly, "What happened to you? And to Faith?"
Still trying to adjust to the sudden change, Buffy took a moment before answering. "I just disappeared all of a sudden. That's how I walked through the Wall. And Faith...I'm not sure what's going on with her. She's unraveling. We have to help her before she hurts herself."
"Too late for that," Riley muttered under his breath.
Ignoring the comment, Buffy asked, "What did you learn about this town?"
Giles went into lecture mode, explaining how Sayersville had been an ordinary town up until the mid-60's when an epidemic broke out, eventually killing most of its residents. The entire town had been put under quarantine. What happened to cause the epidemic or what occurred in that town during said epidemic were still fuzzy and under investigation by the government. It was never reported in the news, however, that there was a force field surrounding the town, physically preventing anybody from entering or leaving. For all intents and purposes, Sayersville was still under quarantine at the present time, its status unrevoked. The few people who had come through the ordeal couldn't enlighten the situation any further, aside from telling everybody that it had started as suddenly as it had ended and the time in between had been a waking nightmare to live through.
"So do you have any ideas how to get her out?" Buffy asked after Giles had finished.
"Unfortunately, we're still working on that," he replied rather sheepishly.
"That's not good enough," she retorted sharply. "Did you see her just now? If she's not out of there soon, she's going to die."
Heaving a sigh, Giles dejectedly replied, "Yes, I know that."
The trio set up camp that night. Fortunately, Riley had had the foresight to bring along some equipment as well as food so they could stay there comfortably for the next few days if necessary. They also had a direct link to Willow via cell phone, relaying the good news to her about Buffy. After the momentary jubilation though, she had reported that the rest of the group still hadn't found a means of penetrating the barrier whereby they could rescue Faith as well. Digesting the bad news, Buffy turned over the phone to Giles and then went to stand outside the Wall. It was ironic how, for the past few days, she had stood exactly like this on the other side, staring at the outside world and wishing she were free. Now, here she was, wish fulfilled, staring balefully back to that prison wishing just the opposite.To be free but to be free without Faith wasn't something she desired , she had learned. Maybe she should have phrased her wish more carefully. Feeling a pair of arms encircle her waist, she leaned back gratefully. They didn't say anything, just stood there, looking into a deserted town. Deserted, save for one person...Faith, please be safe, she prayed silently into the night.
If you were to ask Faith right then if she felt safe, she'd laugh in your face and then spit in it for good measure, assuming she even heard you that is. Because, right then, at that moment, and for countless moments before, she'd heard nothing but the voices conjured in her own mind. They weren't discernable either, more like mumblings and half-spoken words that made no sense when pieced together. But if there were a silver lining in the gray storm clouds hovering above her head like a bad rendering of a cartoon, it was that she no longer felt the fear dining slowly on her insides. She no longer felt overwhelmed and threatened by every shadow, rustle, or noise. No longer felt that something was out there, waiting to pull her guts out and play with them like a child with his favorite toy. All of that was great news if it weren't for the damn voices that popped up in its place. She'd ignore 'em if she could but it's kinda hard when it's your own mind you're trying to shut out.
Her hand still throbbed painfully from her earlier encounter with the Wall. Losing to an inanimate object that couldn't even hit back, that was just depressing really. Trying to stay sane in the face of this new obstacle that somebody somewhere deemed funny enough to thrust in her face, she almost didn't notice the light in the sky until it almost swallowed up the entire night sky, turning dark to light. Shielding her eyes from the brightness, Faith waited for it to pass from blinding to bearable.
"What WAS that?" The slayer asked after the bright flash had disappeared.
"Looked like one of those films the military used to show about the hydrogen bomb, except if it was the bomb, we'd all be dead right now." Riley stumbled forward, still seeing spots dancing in front of his eyes.
"Riley!" He stopped at Buffy's warning shout but it was already too late. He'd inadvertently stepped across that invisible line separating Sayersville from the outside world. He surprised himself and everyone else not by running back but by running back to the other side without incident.
"How did you do that?" Giles asked astounded.
Buffy hedged forward, her right arm held in front, feeling for what wasn't there anymore. "It's gone," she said with surprise. Looking back at her two companions with a determined look, she stated in no uncertain terms her intention of going back in there and retrieving her fellow slayer.
"It's too dangerous, it might be a trap," Riley warned, placing a hand on her shoulder as if that could stop her if she really wanted to go.
"I don't care if it's a trap. I'm not going to leave her in there alone."
"Buffy--"
"No. This might be the only chance she has and I'm not going to give up on her again. Quickly shaking his hand off, she ran into town before they could dissuade her further.
Riley instantly took off after her and Giles was sorely tempted to do the same but he knew he was of more of help to them right where he was. Sometimes, he mused, being the mature adult isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Buffy shouted Faith's name as she ran all over town, acutely aware that Riley was trailing a pace or two behind her.
"Right here, B." Faith staggered from her spot behind a building, nearly running into Buffy in the process.
"Faith!" The blonde stopped just in time to avoid what would've been a nasty collision, instead going to the other girl's side to support her swaying friend. "We have to go now. The barrier's down but we don't know for how long."
Riley took a position on Faith's other side and, together, the three of them took off for their freedom, simultaneously hoping that this wasn't some kind of nasty joke that would bite them as soon as their hopes were high enough.
"How's the hand?"
Faith couldn't help but smile at the sound of a voice she never thought she'd get to hear again. "Already healed," she said, turning around from contemplating the town that, on first glance resembled all the other small towns dotting America's landscape. "I can't believe we're finally free of that mousetrap."
"Believe it Faith." Buffy moved closer, unable to keep the giddy smile from her face. "We did it. We survived. We beat it."
Faith's hand involuntarily reached up to cup Buffy's face. "I...Thanks for saving me." She'd almost said something she would have surely regretted but the momentary lapse was just that--- momentary.
"I wasn't about to leave you there, all alone." Buffy was finding it hard to focus suddenly. She was staring deeply into faith's eyes, losing herself in its warm, chocolaty depths, her hand automatically covering Faith's own.
"*Ahem*"
They both looked up at the interruption to find Riley standing there with an inscrutable expression on his face. "We should pack up and go," he said tersely before turning back around and walking to their makeshift camp.
Removing her hand, Buffy gave a forced smile and went after her boyfriend.
Heaving a soft sigh, Faith turned around and returned to contemplating the ever silent town, only this time, there was a creeping sadness laying behind her eyes that would never go away unless she stopped feeling how she felt about someone who was already taken. But, for the life of her, she couldn't see herself feeling any other way.
Taking a shower, brewing some tea, getting some sleep, and sitting on the couch was what Faith, Giles, Buffy and Riley each did respectively as soon as they got back to Sunnydale, and more precisely, to Giles' apartment. Each derived some small bit of comfort from the normality of the routine and the surroundings. Faith, of course, had the impediment of memory loss to prevent her from deriving much of anything. However, the soothing spray of hot water did wash away some of the tension and horror she'd lived through in the short span of time she could recall. By the time she stepped out of the shower, her skin had acquired a rosy glow. Standing in front of the mirror on the medicine cabinet, she seriously looked at herself for the first time. Assuming a critical stance, she would say she had a pretty face but the more she looked, the more she recognized that that single feature wasn't what defined her. Gazing into a reflection of her own eyes, she didn't have to look very hard to see the burden they carried. Even when she couldn't remember, some part of her did and refused to give up that knowledge, imprinting her past just underneath a thin veneer for all the world to see, even her. Do I even want to remember, she asked herself aloud. She rested her forehead against the mirror's cool surface when it refused to answer, choosing not to delve too deeply into a part of herself that was as strange to her as the surface of the moon.
By the time Buffy finally emerged from the bedroom, the group of three had run out of conversation a long time ago. Moving over to Riley's side, she asked, "Why's it so quiet in here? I feel like I'm in the cemetery, right before the vamps attack."
"We've run out of things to say about the weather," Faith answered dryly from her seat on the couch. Before Buffy showed up, she was really starting to get annoyed at the stares she was getting from both men. At least Giles tried to limit his to subtle glances. Riley was a whole different matter. He out and out stared at her as if she were a class below human. She'd probably respect him more if he just came right out and said what was on his mind but she had a pretty good idea what that might be. If it came out in the open and Buffy were forced to choose, she had no doubt who would be left out in the cold.
"Faith?" Buffy looked as if she were having a difficult time saying what she had to say. "Some of our friends are going to come over later. It might be awkward and maybe a little hostile at first but I'm sure they'll come around and accept you like we have." This didn't sound good at all. If any of these "friends" acted like Giles and Riley, she'd rather shoot herself in the foot than go through a meeting with them. But Buffy was turning those imploring eyes on her and she just couldn't let her down. Nodding her willingness to play along, at least for the time being, she was rewarded with a relieved smile from Buffy. I mean, really, she thought, how hard could this be.
It was hard, it was very hard. She wasn't used to the loathing and she wasn't used to the disgust. She had to laugh at herself now to ever think that Giles and Riley were bad. Willow and Xander made them look like they were in the bush leagues. If she were the queasy sort, she would've bolted a long time ago. She saw through a dim haze that they'd started arguing again. It seemed to be a conversational norm for them. This time, as with many others already, was a heated exchange carried on between Xander, Willow, and Buffy. If she couldn't repeat the dialogue verbatim, it was only because they were each shouting on top of each other. Shaking her head sadly, she knew she shouldn't be here. Not only was everybody against it but she honestly had no compulsion to make friends with these people. Only Buffy stood up for her. Only Buffy defended her. But she could see the toll that was being taken by the blonde. To stand up to all of those dissenting voices wasn't easy, especially when they're those of your best friends. Making up her mind, Faith resolutely walked out the door.
It was only the muted closing of the door that made Buffy turn around. At first, she didn't notice anything wrong until she realized that someone was missing. Hurrying to go after Faith, she threw a warning glance back to those who had started to come with her. "Don't...just don't." She walked out the door without a backward glance. She thought it would go better than this. Faith wasn't the same person she was before. Why couldn't they see that? But all they saw was the tattered remains of leftover hurt and pain. The only way they would be satisfied is if blood were spilt but she swore to herself that wasn't going to happen again. Closing the distance, she reached out a hand, grabbing Faith's arm, refusing to let the other girl go.
"Why are you doing this?" Faith asked, still not turning around.
"They'll come around--"
"No they won't. You're fooling yourself if you think they'll wish for anything but my quick death. It's better for everybody if I just go, Buffy. Out of sight, out of mind."
"Not mine," Buffy stated adamantly, walking to stand in front of Faith who almost broke down at the unswerving support.
"Don't you see it's not just them. I don't want to be a part of their stupid group any more than they want to see me join."
"So what are you going to do, run away?"
"Seems like a good solution to me."
"You can't do that."
"Why do you care what happens? You weren't too thrilled with me either that first day."
"But I spent time with you and if they spend time with you too, they'll start to see you the way I do."
"And what way is that?"
Buffy paused before taking hold of both of Faith's hands. "You're a good person. You're smart, funny, compassionate, and I don't understand how anybody in their right mind wouldn't want to be your friend." Pulling Faith into a hug that was returned in full, she continued, "I'm sure glad I am."
After a contented moment, Faith muttered, "I just don't want to see you fighting with your friends."
Buffy closed her eyes briefly at the unexpected warmth that rose within her as Faith's breath fluttered down her neck. "Let me worry about that," she replied, instinctively tightening her hold. She wasn't sure how long they stood like that but when they finally parted, Buffy had the distinct impression that something in their relationship had changed. It was as if pieces were finally falling back into place after a long hiatus apart. And Faith must have felt it too because she turned an enigmatic smile on her before leading the way back.
Depending on how you looked at it, the next couple of days were either jarringly good or abysmally bad. At the very least, both Willow and Xander were toning down their dislike for Faith, their verbal assaults limited to a minimum and other more mundane facts of life were settling into their appropriate niches. Giles had agreed to put Faith up in his spare bedroom so she didn't have to live in some godawful motel. It'd been awkward at first but as the two spent more time together, they learned that the other wasn't as bad as they would have thought. So everything was looking up except for one important factor. It seemed that the only time the two slayers got to see each other anymore was when they went out patrolling each night. Buffy's days were occupied entirely with spending "quality" time with Riley. Faith hardly saw her biggest proponent and if not for the mandatory patrols, she doubted they'd have seen each other more than once that entire week. Hard as she tried, Faith couldn't help but feel abandoned and she recognized that only Buffy alone had the power to make her feel that way. A large part of her resented how easily the blonde seemed to be able to move her attention from one person to another. When those eyes found you, you felt like you were the center of her world. When she moved on, she ripped a large part of you with her and you never felt warm again until she noticed you once more. It became an addiction and Faith was starting to go into withdrawal.
Buffy was definitely getting back into the groove of things; the groove she'd been dancing to before Sayersville, before Faith came back. And that entailed spending time, all her time, with Riley. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that everything was still the same but she was disappointed each and every time she opened them back up again and realized life wasn't that easy. It was a messy, tangled affair at best and it didn't always work out how you thought it would. She thought she'd finally found someone she could spend the rest of her life with, short as that might be. She thought it'd be a great change of pace to finally date a "normal" guy that wouldn't turn homicidal or psychopathic at the drop of a hat. But somewhere along the line, she'd revised those thoughts. For the last week or so, she'd tried making it work, refusing to give up on a relationship that still meant so much to her. But she knew, and Riley was suspecting that their relationship was coming to an end. There was a distance yawning between them that only grew wider and steeper the more they pushed themselves towards each other. The moment it officially came to an end was ordinary enough. Riley turned to her, their eyes met, and even unspoken, they knew. They did speak, of course. Just as a formality and before they parted to go their separate ways, Riley made a comment about Faith that made little sense to Buffy. It was something along the lines of "I hope she knows what she has." Before she could ask him to elaborate, he was already walking away. Mulling it over as she walked to Giles' apartment, she couldn't help but feel saddened by the end of something she'd always look back at as a special time in her life.
Riley was probably one of the nicest people you could ever hope to come across but what they had just wasn't enough to sustain much more than a friendship now which begged the question of how it had progressed to this. It wasn't that long ago that they were so in love that the rest of the world faded away when they were together. What had happened?
So what had happened? Not only had Buffy not been around lately but the nightmares were leaving her spent. Waking up in a cold sweat, still reeling from snippets of half-remembered images and cries were becoming commonplace to her. She had no idea what went on when she closed her eyes, surrendering to inevitable slumber but whatever happens causes her to wake up abruptly in the middle of the night, trembling from trying to hold in the scream at the back of her throat. It'd become so bad that Faith was afraid to go to sleep anymore. That's right, she was afraid. She hadn't slept well for the last five days. When the rest of Sunnydale's population, human and otherwise, were going off to their respective beds or crypts, she was chugging mugs of coffee, walking aimlessly around town because she didn't want Giles becoming suspicious. But the worst part was that she knew she couldn't keep this up much longer. Even a slayer had to sleep sometime. Stumbling over the curb in the sidewalk, she gave herself another couple of hours before she either gave in or passed out. Whichever way, she'd be asleep and the nightmares would start all over again. She was already shaking at the grim prospect.
Buffy arrived at Giles' apartment and the first words out of her mouth weren't "Hi Giles" or "How are you doing Giles?" No, the first question from her mouth was "Where's Faith?"
Heaving a self-pitying sigh, Giles replied, "Hello, Buffy. It's good to see you too. Faith is out."
"Where?"
"I'm not sure."
"How long has she been gone?"
"Several hours."
"And she didn't say where she was going?"
"No matter how you phrase the question, the answer is still no. I don't know where she's gone...Actually, if you do see her, you might want to talk to her. From the little I've see of her this week, she doesn't look well. And since she seems to relate to you the best..."
"She's sick? Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" Buffy asked accusingly.
"I didn't say she was sick, merely that she seems preoccupied and tired."
"Sorry, it's just that I want to know when there's anything wrong with her. She's my responsibility."
"It's good that she has someone that cares for her so."
Buffy returned the gentle smile from her watcher but her mind was a thousand miles away. She was torn between waiting here for Faith or going out in search of her, convinced that Faith needed her. Not willing to wait around, Buffy said her good-byes to Giles and headed out the door. Not more than five minutes later, Faith walked in the door. Actually 'walked' was an inappropriate term for the lurching movement she employed. Unaware or downright ignoring Giles' concern, she somehow managed to get to her bedroom and on top of the bed before passing out.
She knew as soon as it started that she was dreaming again. It had that not quite real, fuzzy around the edges quality to everything like Vaseline was smeared everywhere. Innocent enough at the start, she was just standing in a room whose familiarity nagged at her. She knew she should recognize it but it was like grabbing at smoke as the answers eluded her whenever she got too close. And that's when the dream took a downward spiral. Images and sounds popping up and going by too fast to follow, only the barest impressions: screams, shouts, blood everywhere. And she couldn't close her eyes to shut it out cuz when was the last time you've blinked in a dream? Exactly. Faith could only hope that she'd wake up soon but she knew she wouldn't.
As with every other time, when she finally did wake, it was on the verge of a scream. Funny how she didn't feel at all rested. Maybe it was the nightmares that scared her shitless all night long. Getting up with the intention of brewing some more coffee for what would probably turn out to be another infomercial watching night, she uncharacteristically stumbled over a chair, illustrating yet again how not herself she was feeling. Unfortunately, the chair happened to be occupied by a sleeping slayer at the time which the jolt promptly woke up.
"What? Faith?" Buffy called out, squinting into the dark.
"Yeah, B. Hold on." Turning on the lights, they both screwed up their eyes at the sudden brightness but once Buffy managed to focus her vision, she let out an audible grasp.
Buffy cleaned her up as best she could. She didn't take a hands on approach, rather, instructing Faith to take a shower and change into some clean clothes that weren't soaked through with sweat. Giles hadn't been overstating matters when he said the brunette looked tired. Gaunt and pale could've been added to the list as well. How she failed to notice Faith's condition even though she saw her every night....it was just that she had focused so much on Riley and their relationship, or lack thereof, that all other details escaped her. It was a lame excuse now that she had hindsight on her side but it was nevertheless, the truth.
When Faith walked out of the bathroom door with her eyes half closed, Buffy instantly went to her side, supporting her friend and ignoring the weak protests for self-sufficiency. When they were comfortably seated on the living room couch, Buffy asked in all seriousness when exactly Faith was planning on telling her about her problem.
Faith looked away to stare blankly at the closed TV set before bitterly replying. "You've seen me every night for the last week and I've looked just like this each and every time. So the question here is, what made you notice this time? Did Giles say something?"
Buffy didn't bother denying the accusation. It was all true anyway. "I know I've been preoccupied..." The look from Faith could best be described as droll with the barest tinge of resentment. "But Riley and I have had to work some things out. That doesn't mean I don't care about what's going on with my friends. I'm here now, Faith. What's going on?"
Faith bit her lower lip in a newly acquired nervous gesture that Buffy had never witnessed on the other girl before. "Nightmares...I've been having them whenever I go to sleep so I try not to...sleep that is."
"What are they about?"
Faith shrugged helplessly. "I just know that I never want to go through it again. Every time I go to sleep, I'd rather die. And every time I wake up, I might as well be."
"We'll find a way to stop them."
Faith absently nodded her head, making Buffy wonder if she was heard at all. Kissing Faith's forehead to emphasize the point, Buffy promised again before going off to wake Giles.
A few minutes passed before Faith dimly wondered why Buffy was taking so long in getting back. Did Giles sleep that soundly or had they both forgotten about her already? Trying to collect her thoughts was comparable to building a house of cards on an unsteady table. Just when you thought you had a good base, the damn thing would come tumbling down, mocking you in the face of your frustration. As she tried once again to organize a coherent thought from the jumbled mess in her head while simultaneously fighting the weariness enveloping her like a shroud, a cold whisper of air brushed by her neck, giving her a decided jolt and snapping her awake. Just as suddenly, the TV she'd been staring at so vacantly up to that point flickered on, ultimately coalescing into a picture of a woman...a woman slamming her own head against a brick wall...repeatedly. As disturbing as the image was, Faith couldn't pull her attention away, eyes glued to the display, weariness forgotten.
The scene continued shifting time and again, to a man shoving a gun into his mouth and proceeding to blow his head off, to another man, crying hysterically as he started to rip his own hair out, to a child running wildly through the streets, finally collapsing from sheer exhaustion. The images just kept coming, and Faith inured as she was by violence, couldn't help but feel the first twinge of nausea welling up in the back of her throat. Much to her relieve, the TV eventually shut off but the damage was already done. The pictures she'd been shown would be indelibly branded on her brain for the rest of her life, rearing its head at the most unexpected moments to haunt her with its visceral imprints. She knew then what she'd been having nightmares about, what had been keeping her awake for five days straight. The people might be different from one dream to the next, but the desperation and the dripping trail of sanity they left in their wake was unmistakable. These were the inhabitants of Sayersville, or more appropriately, their ghosts. Buffy and Giles chose that moment to come in, blithely unaware of the breakthrough Faith had just experienced.
Giles was the first to speak. "Buffy filled me in on what you've been going through. I've heard of cases where someone who went through a traumatic experience---"
"Don't psychobabble me, I know what I've been having," Faith interrupted, finally snapping out of her stupor. "It's too bad you missed the show guys. Should've seen it, would've changed your life."
"Faith, you're not making sense," Buffy said with concern.
"You think I can help that? I've slept a total of five hours this whole friggin' week. My body contains more coffee than Starbucks and I just saw 'Good Morning Sayersville' on television--of course I'm not going to make sense!" The outburst seemed to drain whatever energy had suffused her earlier, leaving her slouched over on the couch.
"What did you see on the television?" Giles asked, latching onto the last part of her statement while Buffy went to sit down next to her. Faith spaced out again, no doubt replaying what she'd seen in her mind and from the looks of it, it wasn't too much fun. "Faith?" Giles prompted again, looking to Buffy for help when the other girl still refused to respond. Buffy shook her head helplessly when she too failed in her attempts to get through. Their initial jubilation from breaking free of Sayersville had proven very short lived indeed for whatever had kept them there in the first place had evidently followed them home.
Sometime, during the latter part of the night, Faith's mind slowly emerged from its self-imposed isolation. Blearily looking around, she found Buffy resting on the couch next to her, apparently having fallen asleep. Looking at the blonde then, Faith was once again struck by a single overwhelming thought that always seemed to creep up on her in the more introspective moments of her life. She was totally and undeniably in love with this girl, someone who probably wouldn't or couldn't return those feelings. But what was she supposed to do though? Turn off her feelings like a running faucet? Uh-uh, didn't work that way. As she argued with herself, her hand involuntarily started to reach over to run through those blonde tresses. Staying her hand barely an inch from its intended destination, she snapped it back, frustrated at the lack of control she had, partly because all things Buffy tended to do that to her but mostly cause of the toll of too many sleepless nights combined with the nightmare playing like a marathon in her head.
By now, she'd finally figured out what it was all about. It wasn't fantastical horrors fashioned from the recesses of her mind like she'd first thought, but rather, the individual death scenes of every single resident of Sayersville who hadn't made it through alive. And even though Sayersville was a small town, having to witness every one of its resident's deaths was certainly not a swift affair. If these images continued to haunt her, she doubted she'd end up faring any better than the people she dreamed of. A faint moan from Buffy turned her attention from those morbid thoughts and Faith was once again tempted to touch the sleeping blonde. The desperate need for physical contact overrode her self-control and before she could stop herself again, she had hold of Buffy's hand. As soon as they touched, she felt like she could breathe again after nearly drowning in a constant state of fear. I could watch her all night, she thought to herself. And that's exactly what she ended up doing.
Buffy endured the strange look she got from the uniformed attendant once he heard who she was here to see. The same look had graced the features of the receptionist she'd talked to just moments before. She could practically see him mentally shrug after the initial surprise, leading her through a series of stained green corridors to finally stop in front of a nondescript metal door with a small window through which one could peer inside.
"She has her good days and her bad days," he said glancing in. "You're lucky. She seems to be in a good one today."
Buffy craned her neck, looking in as well. What she saw was something most people only got to see from a movie or a news expose. A thin woman sat, rocking back and forth in the corner of a small padded cell, clad in a straitjacket. Her shoulder length hair was streaked with gray, her face blank and emotionless, her lips forming silent words only she alone could hear. "How do you know this is a good day?" Buffy asked, observing the bleak scene.
"For one thing, you don't see her banging her head against the wall and screaming at the top of her lungs, do you? Times like this, she's in her own little world...You mind if I ask you why you want to see her for? It's just that since she's been here, nobody's come to visit her. Going on fifteen years now."
"I think she might be able to help me with a question I have."
"Oh, I don't think so, Miss." He wearily shook his head. "She ain't said nothing to nobody in all that time either. Just sits there when she's not screaming, muttering to herself like you see right now."
Buffy's heart dropped at his words. This was the last option they had. Everything else they'd tried so far had either turned out to be a dead end or a red herring. And while they were chasing useless leads around, Faith was slowly dying, already so far gone that she didn't even respond most of the time when addressed.
The attendant seemed not to notice the effect his words had as he continued, "She's really a strange case from what I've heard. Survived some kind of epidemic only to end up like this. If she had a choice, I think she would have rather died along with everybody else in that town. The doctor's chalk it up to post traumatic stress or some shit like that but if you ask me, that's a load of bull."
"Why do you say that?"
"Cause I got a feeling what's haunting her ain't from the past, but that's just my opinion. So you still want to speak to her?"
"Might as well try," Buffy replied as he unlocked the door, assuring her that he would be right outside if she needed anything. She approached the seated figure deliberately, not wanting to startle her unnecessarily. "Hi, my name is Buffy," she started off, crouching down. "I'm hoping you might be able to help me with something." She received no response or acknowledgment that she'd even heard but Buffy continued on nonetheless. "My friend and I were trapped in Sayersville for a couple of days but, even though we got out, she's in pretty bad shape. She keeps having nightmares about what happened to the people that died in there. Please, if you know anything that could help us..." She desperately searched the other woman's eyes for any sign that there might actually be a human being in there somewhere and just when she was resigned to leaving this place empty- handed, those eyes finally began to focus. The muttering stopped, the rocking as well.
"Why did you go there? S'nothing good happen there," she said, forming the words painstakingly, as if trying to master a foreign language.
"We didn't know," Buffy lamented, feeling the guilt run over. It was her plan after all. She had picked that town and if anything happened to Faith it would ultimately be her fault.
"I know who did this to all of us. They think I don't hear them but I do. They visited me once a long time ago, wanted to see their handiwork. They said their chemical agent worked like a whiz."
"Who are they?" Buffy asked urgently, but the other woman's face had assumed an expressionless mask again and no amount of questioning or prodding would bring her around this time. Banging on the window, she caught the attendant's attention and was promptly let out.
"Are you sure nobody's visited her all this time besides me?" She asked as soon as the door opened.
"No, nobody. But she was in another institution before she came over here. You might want to check over there." After noting this new information, she thanked him before taking her leave. He watched her go out the door before walking over to the telephone and making a call.
"How did it go?" The disembodied voice of her watcher asked through the phone.
"I may have a lead. The nurse at the other institution she stayed at remembers that she only had two visitors in her entire stay there. Their names are Scott Havershaw and William Henry. Have Willow do a check on them. I'm taking the next bus back tonight..." Buffy hesitated before asking the question she dreaded to know the answer to, mainly because it never seemed to be good news. "How's Faith doing?"
She received nearly the identical response she'd expected. "A little worse than before...She's declining rapidly."
"Tell her...tell her I'll be back as soon as I can," she begged, knowing that by now, Faith might not even hear the reassurance or if she did, she might not care one way or the other. After Giles promised that he would, she hung up the phone and sat there, trying to fight the helpless feeling crawling around the edges of her mind. A sharp rap at the door startled her from her inner turmoil, prompting her to walk over and open it to reveal a suited man. Thinning brown hair topped an ordinary looking face with no distinguishing characteristics other than its utter plainness.
"Miss Summers? Can you follow me please?"
"What? Do I know you?"
"No, but it's our impression that you'd like to know what happened to your friend. Am I correct in that assumption?"
Buffy's eyes lit up with a dangerous glint. "What do you know about her?"
"If you'll just follow me, everything will be explained."
Already in desperate straits, she warily allowed him to lead her to a dark blue sedan in the parking lot of the motel. He opened the back door for her, motioning her to get in. As soon as she did so, the door closed with a solid thud behind her.
"Miss Summers, good of you to join me." A voice from the seat next to her said in subdued tones.
"First of all, how do you even know me? And second of all, what do you know about Faith?" She asked, getting right down to the point. "You popped up on our radar a little while ago and we've been monitoring your progress ever since. Same goes for your friend. As for who we are, suffice it to say that the less you know, the better it is for everyone involved." The portly old gentleman adjusted his position as if uncomfortable in his too-tight suit, offering an apologetically weak smile to Buffy. "You have to know that what I'm about to tell you is classified information. If anything I say here is repeated outside of the confines of this car, I can promise you there will be repercussions. That's not a threat, it's a fact." He waited for the slayer to nod in understanding before continuing. "The whole thing started some thirty four years ago as a scientific experiment of a new chemical warfare agent. Somehow or other, the material was introduced into a town...Sayersville, and it spread like wild fire. It eventually infected everybody in that town within a few hours and nearly everyone of them died in the next few days. Unfortunately, an antidote hadn't been developed yet. Isn't that always the case? Kill first, cure later?" He looked morose, his gaze turning inward as he lamented over some private pain. "Anyway, the whole town was quarantined and the ones responsible for the outbreak stood by, comparing notes on how well their bottled death worked and how fortunate it was that they had human subjects while the screams and yells from inside the town continued for three days. And that's what happened Miss Summers. Not the whole sordid mess but the essential basics. And you might as well know that Havershaw and Henry have already passed on so don't waste your time trying to track them down. The best you can hope for your friend now is a quick end."
"No, that can't be it." Buffy shook her head emphatically, refusing to believe that there was nothing more she could do for Faith. "How do you know she can't be helped? There has to be something you're not telling me. How could she have been exposed to that chemical when it was released more than thirty years ago and, if she was, how come I seem to be fine?"
"It's not the chemical that's killing her, I can assure you of that. But whatever's got her in its grips also killed Havershaw and Henry. They died within a few hours of each other half a world apart two years ago. We still haven't determined what caused them to die but they were both horrible deaths. Even with all they've done, I wouldn't wish the way they died on my worst enemy."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because, I have a feeling that you would've found out one way or another and, at least in this way, there won't be as many bodies piled up by the roadside. We have observed you and we are quite impressed by what you've done so far. Call this