Who Is She?
by Slayer Tash
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own them Joss does on both counts of the shows.
Notes: This story started after a conversation with Sub T and a little
begging from Sub T. I guess this would officially have to be the first Buffy/Dollhouse
Cross over. Not in depth of course as we have only seen a promo trailer....
We haven't seen Faith in months. She had been working with Giles since we all went to different parts of the globe but then she just fell off the face of the earth. I don't know how true that is considering I am looking at her right now. It doesn't exactly look like her but the tingles I am getting up and down my spine confirm it for me.
She is dressed in a yellow sundress and a blue cardigan…her hair is pulled up on one side and she looks upset, like on the verge of tears upset.
I decide to risk it and make my way towards her "Are you okay?"
She looks at me, her eyes filled with tears "I-I'm not sure."
"You look shaken up."
"I am…I'm looking for my sister…I had her traced to that…that warehouse over there." She points to a dilapidated looking place "And while I was in there this cop showed up…saying he had pictures of me and that I was the one that went missing. I tried to tell him it was my sister but then we just got ambushed by all these people. He helped me get out but I haven't seen him come out yet."
"Your sister?"
She nods.
"Who are you?"
"I am." She stops talking and it looks like she is thinking "I am…I don't know."
I have never in my life been inclined to believe Faith but something tells me that she isn't playing with me this time around.
"You don't know?"
She shakes her head, the tears that had kinda vanished while she was explaining seems to be back.
"Do you know who I am?"
Another shake of the head.
"How long have you been looking for your sister?"
"I don't know!" She starts crying.
I put my arm around her in some attempt at giving her comfort. It was already hard enough cause it is Faith we are talking about here but we are on a deserted street in the shitty part of LA .
I let her cry for a bit before attempting to find out something… anything.
"I don't suppose you know where you are staying, or if you live here in LA."
"Nope."
"Is there anything in your purse?"
She looks down at it, surprised she was holding it. She opens it has a look inside then drops it. Seriously I need to find out what her drama is.
I bend down and pick up her bag. I see why she dropped it there is a .38 Magnum in it and nothing else.
"What are you playing at Faith?" I say to her.
"Who's Faith?" She frowns.
"You are and you know it. Now tell me what the hell are you playing at?"
"I am looking for my sister!"
"How can you know that you are looking for your sister but not know your own name?"
"I don't know."
"What is the last thing you remember?"
"Walking in to the warehouse to find my sister."
"You don't know how you got there?"
"I don't."
"You don't know your name?"
"No." She sighs "Look I know this sounds crazy but I have no idea why I am here."
"Or in those clothes?"
She looks down at what she is wearing "What is wrong with my clothes?"
"Well it is something I would wear and that would have to be the most least thing we have in common."
"We have things in common?"
"Yeah…look of what you said about the warehouse is true I don't think we should be hanging out in the open like this…I have somewhere safe I can take you."
"Uh…."
"You can trust me."
"I can?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
Now I know this isn't Faith playing a game, Faith not playing a game wouldn't go anywhere with me and Faith trying to fuck with me wouldn't go anywhere with me.
"I have a car just around the corner" I tell her and head that way.
She falls in to step beside me "I know why I am in the crappy part of LA at 3pm on a Saturday but why are you?"
I am here because Angel sent me to try and locate a nest of Inchlet Demons that had been messing with some thing of his that he got courtesy of Wolfram and Hart and he gets kinda snippy about his things. I just don't think it is something I can explain to her.
"I was running an errand for a friend when I saw you all in trouble. I stopped to see if I can help."
"Thank you." She says.
We reach the car that is on loan from Angel and I unlock it. She gets in the passenger side and me obviously the driver's side. I start up the car and prepare for what is going to be the strangest car trip I think I have ever had.
Angel is pacing in front of me. Giles is pacing behind me. Willow is sitting on Angel's chair tapping away on her laptop and Xander is sitting on the couch with 'Faith'.
"Why is everyone freaking out?" She asks.
"If you are who we think you are and if the people who tool you are the people I think they are then the freaking out is warranted" Angel explains to her.
"People took me?"
"4 months ago you fell off the face of the earth. You were meant to be coming back from a mission Giles sent you on. You never came back. Not until just now."
"Mission?"
"You worked with us" I tell her "We did missions. We are based all over the world."
"Again I say mission?"
"I think we should verify who she is before we divulge that information" Giles whispers to me so only I can hear.
"How do you plan to do that?" She says from her spot on the couch.
"Well if she heard that I think that is all the verification we need." I say as she gets up off the couch "We think you are a slayer, a slayer named Faith Lehane. You have been a slayer for the last 10 years. You came from Boston to Sunnydale, you stayed in Sunnydale helping me…helping us fight vampires and demons you did that for some time before heading up to LA. You spent a few years here before you went back to Sunnydale to help us stop the world from ending…any of this sounding familiar?"
"Nope but I think you are crazier than what I am."
"It is the truth. We have photos of you….we have your things, Giles has your things."
"If all this is true do you know what happened to me?"
"Yes" Angel states speaking up "An organization called the 'Dollhouse' they operate here in LA. They take in volunteers who will work for them for an undisclosed amount of time and at the end of it get paid out a huge lump sum of money in exchange for their silence."
"So what was I volunteering for?"
"There isn't much information on them. They pay a lot of money to protect themselves. I do know that they have what they call actives and they are programmed to do jobs, once the task is completed they go back to I guess the headquarters where their memory is wiped and they wait until they are needed for the next job."
"How do I know that this isn't a job right now?"
"Why would we tell you this?" Xander says.
"Well if my memory can be wiped I guess it doesn't matter what I am told cause I will conveniently forget it when these fuckers decide to play god with my life."
"Everyone that works for them are volunteers. When they sign on with the Dollhouse they basically give them control of their lives for whatever time period they have signed on for."
"Would that be something the version of me you all know would do?"
I try to stop the snort that comes out.
"What does the snort mean?"
"Faith running off and leaving a mess behind her…no that isn't something the version of you we know would do" I answer her sarcastically.
"That is hardly fair Buffy" Giles says jumping to her defense. Something he did a lot before she vanished "When she left…it wasn't just her fault and you know that."
"I do know that, I also know she took off and left me alone to deal with things."
"Were you and her screwing…the other me?"
I shoot her a look and she puts her hands up in the air.
"Relax it was just a question. I may not know a god damned thing about anything before earlier today but I pick up this vibe around you. I can't explain, I don't understand it but we are connected somehow."
"I am a slayer too. We are both slayers, the first two to be in existence together when normally there is only one."
"Uh Kendra" Xander says.
"Right…but Kendra and I were nothing like Faith and I. Faith and I were different."
"Cause you were screwing?"
"What is it with the screwing?" I ask her.
She shrugs her shoulders "This Faith girl gets under your skin….you can't say her name without your left eye twitching."
Xander lets out a laugh.
"What?" I ask him.
"Remember when I had the twitch?"
"That some kinda disease?" Faith says with a grin on her face and I notice Giles, Angel and Willow each hide a laugh.
"Yeah she is Faith" Xander confirms what I have been feeling since the second I saw her running out of that warehouse.
The meeting kinda wraps up after that. It is just me, Angel and Faith left in his office.
"Do we have some kind of plan?" Faith asks "I am sure these guys won't just let an active…that's what I am right?"
We nod.
"Well I am sure these guys won't just let one go missing…they have tracers planted on me somewhere."
"We have scramblers in place."
"What does that mean?"
"It is a security measure in case anyone tries to tag one of the slayers to get to us from the inside. It is a machine that scrambles any type of tracking or tracing device."
"Are you guys going to do tests on me?" She looks scared.
"No."
"What do you want to do?" I ask her.
"Uh I wouldn't mind getting a shower maybe some fresh clothes some that aren't so Buffy like." She flashes a grin at me.
"I was gong to ask if Laura Ashley threw up on you" Angel says.
"Who's Laura Ashley?" She says with a cute frown on her face.
"Never mind. Feel free to use my place for whatever you need. I will get some clothes that are more you sent up right away."
"Your place? Did you and I screw?"
"No…you haven't screwed anyone in this office."
Wrong! I think in my head.
"Buffy could you take Faith….can I call you that?"
She shrugs "I have no idea on what you are supposed to call me so go for it."
"Buffy?"
"Yep. I am on it. Maybe I will just take Faith to my room. Might be easier for her to shower with girly products available."
"Good idea." He says.
Faith follows me out of the office and we make our way to the elevators that will take us to an area Angel has had made into bedrooms for people to stay in. Normally when I come back to LA I just stay in a hotel but since Faith disappeared security was stepped up and we weren't to stay anywhere without the kind of security Angel had set up.
We get in and I select the floor we need.
"So we screwed huh?"
"Yeah then you vanished."
"Was it that bad?"
"I think confusing may have been the word when it comes to us and the screwing. Our interaction with each other has always been…."
"Wiggy?" She offers.
"Yeah wicked wiggy…we have some kind of history let me tell you, not all of it as good as the screwing…can I please stop calling it screwing?"
"Sure."
"I don't know what word will describe what we shared, it wasn't making love and it wasn't just sex either."
"I think I understand what you mean. We have a wiggy history and the being intimate came out of the blue."
"Yeah, the time we were together before that we tried to kill each other."
"So was most of our time leaning towards the killing or the groiny action?"
"More the killing side of things…although you loved discussing groiny action with me…groiny action with other people."
"I was a shit head?"
"At times yeah but so was I."
"I think we would be wicked hot together."
"Trust me we were" I say as the elevator dings announcing we had reached our floor.
The doors open and she steps out "Well here is hoping I can get my memory back…something tells me it will be worth it just for our little experience." She flashes the trademark Faith grin and I forget to breathe.
Faith is back...I think.
She is wandering around the apartment I have been using for the last few weeks. Angel is organizing to have some of her clothes sent up as soon as possible and as soon as they arrive she said she was going to jump in the shower. I have offered her drinks both soft and alcoholic and also food but she says she doesn't feel like either.
There has been little glimpses that make me wonder if this is in fact Faith. Like the not wanting a drink or food. I don't think there was ever a time that food or drink I have offered her has not been taken up. Also she took off her little jackety shrug thing and her tattoo…so not there but the little sub conscious scratching thing she always seemed to do with it while she was thinking is still there.
I still get the tingles. The tingles I have gotten since the night we met, the tingles that go off the Richter scale whenever we are near each other.
"This is us yeah?" Her raspy voice breaks me out of my thoughts.
I look over and she is holding a photo of her and I. "Yeah, that was taken about 3 days before you vanished."
"We look pretty cozy." She says as she puts it back down.
"We kinda were" I make my way over and look at it myself. She was sitting on my lap and I had my arms wrapped around her we were both looking at the camera with big grins on our faces. We had put my digital camera on the timer setting to pose for it.
"So how long were we going out?"
"It was never official really. We have always had a shaky relationship and one night we just ended up together after I had said that every time I saw you I had an urge that was either fight or…or… fuck but fight always seemed to win out and I always wanted the other F part to win out. You grabbed me, you kissed me and we gave in to the other F part for about 6 weeks. One night there was a huge battle and we got separated. I was pretty beat up…Angel found me… brought me back to his apartment and was cleaning me up…you walked in… you started yelling about how could I and how could he and then took off…next time I saw you was earlier today."
"I went off because he was cleaning you up?"
I nodded "Angel and I used to date…when I first moved to Sunnydale he was my first love and I guess when you saw him kneeling in front of me and holding my hand you just…I guess you thought…"
"You were bumping uglies?"
"For lack of a better word, yes. I had a cut on my hand than he was cleaning out and I didn't even get a chance to explain it to you."
"So I was a hot head?"
I smile "At times yeah. I don't blame you for jumping to conclusions though. If I had walked in and seen you like that with an ex then I would have gotten my noise out of joint too…especially after the kinda fight we all faced that night."
"And Angel said before that I hadn't screwed anyone in the office before…he doesn't know about us?"
"He does but nobody else does. The night you went off he kinda guessed it and I told him about us. The others don't know and Angel isn't one to interfere in your business so that is why he didn't mention it?"
"Why don't they know?"
"We wanted to keep it to ourselves…we didn't want to define what we had and we didn't want them asking us to define what we had every 2 minutes."
"So what is the deal with the slayer bit of us?" She says changing the subject abruptly.
I explain to her about being called and the definition of slayer and the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of us now. Just as it comes to a close her clothes arrive and she jumps in to the shower.
Having her so close to me and not being able to talk to her or touch her or just be with her like we used to is painful. We may have only been a cohesive us for 6 weeks but it was the best 6 weeks of my life. The last 8 years with her were washed away in one night. You would think that sleeping together would make it even more awkward but it didn't. It just made all the pieces fall together.
Flashback
I am lying in her arms and it feels right. I feel safe, I feel warm, I feel happy, I feel content, I feel wanted, I feel amazingly sated and I feel loved I don't know how to explain the last one but I do. I feel it. I feel all those things and it is such a relief to finally be allowed to feel them. I have denied this for so long and to not have to deny it feels…pretty much like the euphoric feeling I got as I came a few minutes ago.
"You should be sleeping after a ride like that yo." Rumbles from below me.
I look up at her reluctantly moving my head from her chest "Are you tired?"
"A little yeah." She yawns for emphasis.
"You can sleep if you like, I would prefer to bask if that is okay."
"Of course it is, knock me a little kiss first though."
I deliberately and purposefully drag my body up hers for our lips to meet. It is sweet and soft and much to my dismay short. She pulls back with a small smile and then closes her eyes. I rest myself back on her chest and my breathing soon falls in to time with hers as I join her in the land of nod.
"Uh Buffy do you mind if I take you up on that offer to eat?" Pulls me from the day dream.
"Huh?" I say.
"Eat…I'd like to eat."
"Sure" I say kinda squeaky and I clear my throat "What would you like?"
"Whatever you've got." She says without a hint of Faith about it.
Man I miss the innuendo. I get up of the couch and head into the kitchen. I scrounge around in the cupboards and all I can find is microwave popcorn. I pull out the box and hold it out for her to see.
"Excellent." She grins and takes it from me and goes about putting it in the microwave.
"So you remember your love of microwave popcorn and how to use said microwave but nothing else?"
"It's strange." She says facing me "The things I remember are fucking crazy…well not remember as much as just do them or know them without a second thought."
"Like what?"
"Well I know I trust you. I don't even have to question it even now in my not knowing who I am phase I know that you are safe. I know that you know me better than anyone else…probably even better than me at times…I know that right now I couldn't give two fucks about the popcorn…alls I wanna do is throw you up against the counter and have my way with you."
I smile…I even consider letting her do just that but I know I can't. Not like this, not when it isn't really her.
"I know right now that you are thinking you can't do that, that you feel like you are taking advantage of me."
"I would be."
"Even if I want it?" She raises he eyebrow in such a Faith like way.
"Yes" I say with a sigh and walk out of the kitchen before I let myself do something completely stupid.
"Buffy." She calls out after me.
I ignore her and make my way to my bedroom.
"Buffy!" She is right behind me.
"Don't Faith, just don't."
Her hands are on my hips "Tell me why not."
"Faith" I breathe.
He lips are on my neck "Tell me why not." She whispers in my ear.
"You aren't her….you aren't my Faith" I say and she lets go of me and I walk the rest of the way in to my room closing the door behind me. I lay on my bed and cry…and cry…and cry…for the first time since she left. It took her coming back for me to realize what I had lost.
Flashback
This is torture, pure torture…I guess some habits with Faith and I die hard. She is taunting me...keeping me here and not letting it come to an end that I so desperately want.
My muscles twitch as her lips leave whisper soft kisses over my stomach, so soft that I think it is my imagination making me think she is kissing me because it is what I want so badly.
Soft caresses from her fingers are contradicting the pain her hands inflict to the undead and demons nightly.
I sigh in frustration and I silently berate myself because it makes her grin and remove her lips completely.
She lifts herself from my body and I feel the cold instantly.
I would grab her hips and keep her there…fuck I would pull her against me but the last time I touched her it led to the current torture.
"Faith" I breathe out "Faith please" I beg a little hoping she will relent just a little.
"Please what?" She rasps out hovering over me making sure we aren't touching in anyway.
"Please stop teasing me."
"Am I teasing you?" She smiles.
"You know you are."
"Do I?"
"YES! Stop messing about and just do it already."
"Do what?"
"It."
"I don't know what it is B…What if my it is totally different from your it?"
"It isn't!" More frustration.
"Well tell me just so I can make sure, please B." She asks so softly.
I don't want to say fuck me because despite her teasing it hasn't been leading up to a fuck, it has been leading up to something softer, something tender.
"Well first of all I want to be able to touch you, this lying here with you so close and not able to touch hurts."
"It hurts?"
"Yes, whenever I am not touching you it hurts."
She smirks "Look at you being all girly with me."
"News flash, I am a girl."
"I know, it's why I like ya."
"Please let me touch you."
She looks like she is thinking "I guess that would be okay."
"You won't do what you did last time I touched you?"
"I promise."
My hands shakily take grip on her hips and she lets out the softest of moans as my fingers graze the flesh of her ass.
"Is there more?" She breathes out "Or is that the it?"
"There's more."
"There iiiiiiiissssssssssss…oh fuck B."
Yeah I ruined the little game she had going on there by using my grip on her hips to pull her against me.
"Shit B, you are so wet."
"Well you have been teasing me for a few hours now Faith."
"I am a stupid, stupid woman." She says as her hand disappears between us.
I moan out in to the room as the back of her fingers brush my clit a few times as she spreads our lips.
My grip tightens on her hips as I feel her clit touch mine and my breath hitches in my throat as she starts to move.
"Fai-aith" I lock my legs around her waist and lift my head so we can kiss.
Her tongue plunges in to my mouth in time with her hips.
**BANG**
I sit up with a jolt and look around. We are in one of Angel's research rooms.
"Ah Buffy you are with us" Giles says.
"Of…of course I am." My voice comes out all high and scratchy.
I hear a soft chuckle to my left coming from Faith. I want to shoot her a look that could kill but I know as soon as my eyes meet hers she is going to know I had been thinking about.
"I beg to differ Buffy. You have been sitting there with a far off look in your face for some time now" Wesley chimes in.
"Maybe if you had something interesting to say I wouldn't have been… spaced out."
"If you hadn't have been spaced out you would have heard the information Angel was able to obtain on the Dollhouse."
"Oh…right. So something important then?"
Giles is clucking his tongue and Wesley is cleaning his glasses so I know I missed out big info.
"Relax British dudes, meeting is over, I can fill her in so your panties don't bunch" Faith tells them.
"Very well." They both say and leave the room but not before giving me those stock standard disapproving glares.
"Must have been good where you were." She says.
"Pardon?" I say paying the table great interest.
"I said it must have been good where you were." She whispers in my ear "They may not have been able to pick up on it but it seems my super senses were."
"Su-super sense?" Damn when did I borrow Mickey Mouse's voice?
"Yeah, heightened senses. Super hearing…your breathing was kinda hitchy and ragged at times then kicks in the super smelling...lets me know your panties are in a whole different kinda mess compared to Giles and Wesley's."
I look at her "What was the news?"
"Apparently I am one of the best operatives this Dollhouse has, my name is…was Echo and they are going crazy trying to find me."
"Do you remember anything yet? In general not just from that place."
"Bits and pieces here and there…learnt some things I won't forget."
"Like what?" I ask watching her nostrils flare.
"How I affect you. How being this close to me right now is killing you, how the rolling waves of emotion coming off you right now have me all kindsa excited."
"Rolling waves of emotion?"
"Uh huh your hornies are hitting me square in the chest right now and I have to let you know that I feel it too."
"You know we can't." My voice comes out strained.
"I know that when I am near you I hum…I know that when I am near you the mess in my head goes away and it all seems so clear. All that matters to me is you and fuck the memory loss…you is all I need to know."
I don't know why but for some reason a cheesy Linda Ronstadt song pops in to my head.
"Faith…Echo…We-"
"Faith…it is Faith."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Faith…Faith please." She says taking a line right out of my head "Or how about Fai-aith." All the bravado that was missing the last couple of days is on full show here right now. It makes me wary.
I get up out of my chair "I don't know what you are talking about" I say then leave the room as quickly as possible.
I made my way straight to Angel's office with a theory. Maybe Faith… Echo was on a mission right now. Maybe someone who wanted to infiltrate us or Wolfram and Hart had hired her through this Dollhouse place.
I explained that to him.
"How do you explain the fact she looks like Faith?"
"If this place is as state of the art as you think then plastic surgery is a possibility or maybe they really are dolls. There was a guy in Sunnydale he built robots that were freakishly real looking."
"You mean the Buffybot? I met her once when you were…away and I knew the second I saw it that it wasn't you."
"Of course you knew it wasn't me. I was dead."
"My point was that I knew it wasn't you because I couldn't sense your slayer essence. Faith or whoever we have reeks of it. She gives me those little gut pains I get whenever I am near a slayer and I am sure you are getting the tingle as well."
"I get all that but…cant they manufacture all that? Make her exactly what the client's request?"
"From what I gather yes but I don't think they can fake that feeling."
"Why not? If we can infiltrate them then they can surely do the same to us."
"You're right." He sighs.
What? Wait back the truck up "Huh I am?"
"Yeah, everything you have brought to me is totally plausible."
"There are other things as well."
"Such as?"
"Well when she first got here totally not Faith like at all and we discussed that then since we discussed that I have noticed more Faith like things popping up. How she talks, how she walks."
"What about how she is with you?"
"Even that has changed. She gave me this speech before I came up here saying that I was the only thing that mattered to her. That when she was near me the confusing stuff in her head went away."
"That is plausible. She knows about you two right?"
"Yeah" I sighed.
"Did she seem phased by it at all?"
"No."
"Are you?"
I shrugged "I want it to be her so much Angel. So much."
"I do too...of course in a totally different way that you do."
"It isn't just about the way we were before she went. I miss her as a person as well. Once we stopped trying to kill each other we became good friends."
"I'm sure a little of it is about the other stuff."
I won't answer that. Talking with my ex about another lover that way is just freaky.
"So what are you going to do?"
I shrugged my shoulders "I don't know honestly…the longer I spend with her the more my head hurts. It is just a constant battle as to whether it is her or not. I want 5 minutes without a headache."
"I might see if she wants to participate in a few tests."
"What kind of tests?"
"Some memory tests…might even see what she says about a blood test. There is one way to get our proof for sure."
"Right a blood test. Why didn't we think of that sooner?"
"I guess we thought it would be simpler than this."
"Also memory tests. Will they hurt?"
"Not at all. I think we may even test her reflexes and her strength. All the kinds of tests we give to the new slayers we find."
"Angel what do we do if this is a mission she has been sent on?"
"We treat her like any other person that tries to bring us down."
"What if this is our Faith being controlled to take us down?"
"She volunteered for the program Buffy. She knew she might have to do things like this."
"How do we know she volunteered? When she left that night she was pretty upset. They could have totally taken advantage of her and her state of mind."
"I hope to find all that out before we have to take any drastic action."
"You had better" I tell him before I leave his office and head to the gym.
I need to workout a few things…nothing like kicking and punching inanimate objects to clear a girls head.
The workout helped a little, I was feeling much better, then I walk in to my apartment and I am surrounded by her again. When I used to walk in the door and she was there it was such a comforting feeling now it scares me a little. We did grow close during our six weeks together but there was still so much I didn't know about her…now…well now she doesn't really know who she is, we don't really know who she is.
That makes me sad because the chances I had to get to know Faith seem gone. The more we talk about this Dollhouse the more I feel that the woman I have in my place belongs with them and not here with us, here with me.
Movement in her room catches me as I make my way to my room to shower. I stop and peek through the door, she is doing a Tai Chi routine. One very similar to what Angel taught me, however her movements seem more fluid than mine. Her eyes flutter open and she focuses on me.
"Hey." She says standing properly.
"Hi, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's cool. I felt you walk in I wasn't really concentrating anyway."
"Did Angel talk to you?"
"Yeah…blood is drawn and an appointment booked with a hypno-therapist for tomorrow morning."
"Are you okay with that?"
She shrugs her shoulders "I know I want answers and if this brings them then go team I guess."
"Team and other stuff aside…are you okay with this?"
"Yep. I have this feeling inside…it's all anxious and it feels like it is hard to breathe at times. It is such a fucked up feeling, I know I don't like that feeling but then you walk in and I'm not anxious anymore. I get our hum and I can breathe."
Somehow I find myself in her room standing toe to toe with her.
"I know what you have said. That we can't but allow all the voices in your head to stop just feel me the way I feel you. Just feel."
"I want to just feel but what if these tests come back and you aren't her?"
"Do I feel like I'm not her?" She says before pressing her lips to mine.
HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL…
She pulls back from me "So?"
"Uh…I think…we need to try a few more…a few different types but so far the just pressing of the lips together…good job."
She smiles at me as she puts her arms around me and I give her a small smile before covering her mouth with my own. I slide my hands into her hair at the same time I slide my tongue in to her mouth and I am reacquainted with her tongue, her talented tongue and when I say HER tongue I mean it. I know these lips, I know this mouth and I for sure know this tongue…it has caused a religious experience or two and that isn't something you forget.
The ringing of my apartment phone pulls us apart, slightly panting.
"Timing…why does this always happen to us?" She sighs.
I smile a little…people really did have sucky timing when it came to us and our moments. People were always calling or knocking on the door or walking in on us.
"I am serious if it isn't the phone then it's someone at the door or someone walking in on us trying to get a quickie in before dinner."
"Well to be fair we were kinda in the kitchen at the time."
"Doesn't matter they should have seen the look on my face when I followed you in there. It gave them all fair warning what I was going in there for."
"You remember?" I play with the hair at the base of her neck.
She pauses and I swear I can see the thought process going on behind her eyes.
"Uh yeah…The scoobies had all just kinda arrived out of the blue. We were planning on a romantic night in which meant ordering Chinese and watching some girly show on TV…well you watching some girly show and me copping a feel but they showed up and when the Chinese arrived you went in to the kitchen to get plates and crap and I followed you…we somehow ended up with our pants down around our ankles a few seconds short of coming when Willow walks in spoiling the party."
"We somehow ended up with our pants down around our ankles?"
"I swear B your clothes just fall off when I am around."
My heart catches in my throat, she called me B.
"You okay?"
I nod slowly.
"You sure? Not spacing out on me like ya did earlier?"
"N-n-no…you called me B."
"You prefer I use my other name for ya?"
"No" I smile and feel my cheeks heating up.
"Well what?"
I run my hands up and down her sides "You called me B."
The euphoria of her calling me B and remembering things is short lived. The phone ringing was Angel and it looks like that the people that lost Faith know we have her and want her back badly. Like really badly. One of the LA slayers Cody was on patrol last night got beaten badly by someone called Sierra. We were now in a conference room with Wes getting a rundown on it all. We being Faith and I.
"She tells me that the girl who attacked her was trying to fight off a vampire but with no success, Cody stepped in and dusted the vamp, when she turned to check on the girl she was attacked by her. Said she held her up against a wall threatening to kill her if she didn't tell her where Echo was. Cody has no idea you are here with us" Wes explains as he looks at Faith "So of course had no idea on what she was going on about. I guess the beating stopped when this Sierra realized she knew nothing."
"Is she okay?" Faith asks softly.
"A lot of soft tissue injuries and bruising, her slayer healing will take care of it in a couple of days."
"Do we know how ruthless these people are?" I ask.
"Why?" Wesley questions me.
"Well how long before they stop hurting slayers and starting doing worse. They might start taking them or…or even killing them until we give in to what they want."
"I don't want anymore girls to get hurt or killed" Faith says…again with the quiet.
"Could we meet with them?" I suggest.
"I doubt Angel will allow it."
"Well I think he should consider it. We don't want anymore girls hurt and we can't stop patrols because then innocents get hurt. We don't have to have Faith with us, we just have to meet with them and see if they are willing to let us keep her."
"Keep me? What am I some kind of prize?" She says with a clipped tone.
"Not how I meant it."
"I doubt Angel will be keen on the idea of meeting with them because he is trying to find ways to undo her memory wipe."
"He may not need to!" I tell him standing up "Before she remembered stuff all on her own."
"What kind of things?"
"Personal stuff." She answers as I sit back down beside her.
"Anything of importance?"
"To me yes…I don't really want to discuss it with you."
"You discussed it with Buffy."
"It involved her. It involved her and it involved me and that's who needs to know about it…the what was remembered not the remembering."
I look at her...she is really upset. I guess we are doing a lot of talking at her rather than with her.
"What do you want to do?" I ask her.
"Pardon?"
"Well this effects you and a lot of people are talking at you and on your behalf without even speaking to you about it first. What do you think we should do?"
"Deny that you have me."
"They have witnesses that saw you leave with Buffy."
"I may have left with her doesn't mean I arrived with her…they don't know that I arrived with her right?"
"As far as I am aware."
"Well then I will talk to them. Tell them I did pick her up but when I stopped at a light or something she just jumped out of the car and took off and that I tried looking for her but had no luck and ever since then we too have been looking for her. I think we also deny knowledge of knowing who they are. Maybe we don't approach them at all…wait for them to come to me."
"How do we do that?"
"Well if they were able to find Cody then I am sure finding me…the girl that last saw Faith will be approached as well."
"Make yourself bait so to speak" Wes says as if he is pondering my idea.
"What is to stop them taking you like they took me?" Faith says.
"Well we think you volunteered for their program" I explain to her.
"I volunteered for a place that beats up girls for info?"
"We think. We don't know for sure. It is why Angel has a team working on undoing the memory wipe."
"I was so mad at you that I handed myself over to a place like that?" She asks me.
"Trust me it is one of the safest things you have done after getting mad at Buffy and we don't even know exactly what you have done there."
"Thanks Wes" I scold him.
"Well it's the truth."
"A truth she doesn't remember."
"What if I don't want any of this? What if I don't want to remember? I obviously allowed them to do this to me for a reason."
"Angel has reason to believe that the volunteers at the time of signing on with this facility do not know that their memories will be wiped. They sign on to the allure of a big paycheck at the end of their time with them."
"Yeah but everyday people ain't gonna just walk in to a place that offers them cash and not ask what they have to do. They could be making these people do anything to anyone and no amount of cash would have me allowing people to make me their puppet."
"Faith a slayer is no different than a puppet. You did what the council asked of you because of a calling."
"I think they are two different worlds though Wesley. I was fighting demons and vampires…things that want to hurt innocent people, stop the world and these people used me as a pawn in their stupid games… selling me to the highest bidder to do their dirty work…selling me to their highest bidder so he could have a date at a wedding…they programmed me to be in love with someone…they took away my ability to be human…I have a feeling even though I don't remember much about me I would have never have signed on for that. Never."
She had tears falling down her face.
"I think that is enough for now" I tell Wesley.
"We haven't resolved anything yet Buffy."
"Don't contact them. I will patrol tonight and see if I am approached. Make sure there is a team backing me up in case things head where they did last night."
"What if Angel doesn't approve?"
"I don't care if Angel approves or not. I am trying to buy us time, trying to buy Faith time. She has been messed with enough and if she is remembering on her own then it should stay that way."
"What if she doesn't remember fast enough?"
"What is remembering fast enough? Just back off Wes. We are all talking at her and making decisions for her and it isn't right…it makes us no better than them."
He doesn't answer me, he just sits in his seat running his hand through his hair.
I face Faith "you had enough?"
"For a lifetime." She says wiping her eyes.
"Come on I have a pint of Peanut Butter and Chocolate Ice Cream in my freezer that has our names on it."
"Sounds delicious." She gets up out of her chair and follows me out of the conference room.
I don't know why I suggested cracking open the ice cream. It always makes me talk way too much. I filled Faith in on her Buffy and Faith history. She didn't want anything held back so she got the entire history including my realizations of how stupid I was during those years. She took it quite well considering.
I think her head is swimming with so much information right now though that the processing of my trip down memory lane may take a few days and in a few days time we may be in for an old school Faith freak out of epic proportions.
I have decided I need to just slow down. I have been going at such a hectic pace the last few days that I am getting ahead of myself, not explaining myself properly and making plans that put me in danger and that honestly don't make any sense at all.
Also the way this Dollhouse reacted doesn't make sense either. When I decided to stop being action girl and started thinking about things I kinda saw that them attacking a slayer was kind of a strange thing to do. It totally put them out in the open and to attack a random slayer who has no idea about them just seemed suss to me.
I went to Giles and talked to him about it. I was tired of talking to Angel and Wes about everything. I told him that I thought this other doll attacking Cody was them trying to call us out. Get us to make the next move, get me to make the next move just like I had planned to do. He shocked me by actually agreeing with me. So me being bait was put on hold till we knew more. I also wanted to see if this hypno therapy they had Faith slated in for would help her.
Giles also apologized for the other morning when I was off in lusty dream world. See the bang that pulled me from that delicious daydream was him dropping the demon codex on the table. He said it was for my own good as he was scared that any second I was going to start humping Faith's leg. Another thing more awkward than talking about that with Angel is talking about it with Giles. So I quickly told him that I promised Faith I would wait for her after her appointment and had to go. He told me to be careful and to not do anything until we knew for sure who she was. I thanked him and gave him a hug and invited him up to my apartment for dinner then left.
So I have been pacing the hall for a good 10 minutes now waiting for Faith while recapping my thoughts. I don't know what kind of help I will be but I still want to be there for her. If she remembers stuff….like even the pre Sunnydale stuff she may not be in a safe frame of mind. I don't know much of it but what I did learn was that it was hard for her. Some of the things she told me…well they just made me love her more.
Soft voices and a door opening stops me mid pace. I turn and face the general direction and wait. She steps out in to the hallway and I notice her eyes are red and puffy and she has a handful of tissues. She says goodbye and closes the door behind her.
"Heya B." She says giving me a small smile.
"Hey, so here I am like I said."
"I can see. How did your chat with Giles go?"
"Oh you know cup of tea, cluck cluck cluck, tweed and a little more tea."
She laughed softly.
"No it went really well. He actually agreed with me on some things."
"Like going out to face those people is like asking for trouble."
"Yep. I was all gung ho girl instead of stop and think girl."
"Yeah being a gung ho girl isn't always a good plan." She says softly.
"I didn't mean…I wasn't referring to you."
"Chill B. I know."
"Anyway I don't want to talk about that. How are you doing? How are you feeling?"
"Uh I don't know just yet. Can I give you a rain check on the answer?"
"Of course. So how would you feel about a little sparring. I know being cooped up in my apartment and in this building in meetings all the time must be driving you mad."
"It is. I think sparring sounds excellent."
Sparring went well. We managed to get a good couple of hours of training in. It was amazing at how focused she was and what things she had learnt since we last sparred…then again last time we sparred it was more about it being foreplay than the actual sparring.
I was also surprised because I assumed that after the hypno therapy session her mind might be elsewhere but she was all about the task at hand. I had only ever seen her concentrate that much, focus that much when it came to sex.
I feel kind of guilty for thinking that. Then again I guess I have always been guilty of pigeon holing her. I guess it became habit over time. Denying how I felt…letting her be the get some get gone girl in my mind.
It reminded me of the day I found her near that warehouse. I immediately put up my walls and acted like she was bad Faith trying to pull a swifty on me. Acted like the 6 weeks before she took off never happened. I guess I thought if she was acting that way then why shouldn't I? I am such an asshole at times, she was acting that way because she had no idea who she was, she still has no idea who she was. I don't blame her for taking off the way she did. I always assumed the worst of her even when it wasn't warranted.
"Faith" I say quietly from my spot on the mats then look at her sitting across from me.
"Yeah?"
"I have to apologise."
"For?" She quirks an eyebrow and I smile a little. Her confused face is so cute.
"A lot of things…I don't even think I should apologise now, I should wait until you are you again."
"Why?"
"You will get mad at me. You will think me apologizing to you now is taking the easy way out because you don't remember a lot of things."
"So just owe me an apology. I will collect once the upstairs is back up and running."
"Okay."
We go back to sitting in silence again just as my mind starts to wander she starts talking.
"So you know me pretty well then?"
I shrug "I know our pattern."
"Pattern?"
"Yeah. I don't know if pattern is a good way to describe it. We reacted a lot to each other. We always seemed angry at each other, always mad about something the other did. I think I was always angry with you because it was easier to deal with."
"Easier to deal with? What else was there to deal with?"
"The lust, the desire."
"You felt them?"
"The second your eyes locked with mine that very first night."
"Why did you deny it?"
"Uh the aforementioned easier to deal with. You were on my turf, you were spunky, you were forward, you were turning my insides to mush and there is one thing I did better than kicking ass and that was denying the blatantly obvious…ignoring it too. I became pretty good at denying and ignoring."
"You think if you didn't deny it or ignore it you and I would have turned out differently?"
"I don't think either of us will ever know. I asked you that a while ago and you said that all that mattered was that we got there eventually."
It goes quiet again. I don't let my mind wander this time. I have a feeling she is going to tell me something, something big, maybe something she remembered.
"I was angry with you. So god damned angry. I had opened up to you that morning knowing that we were going in to battle but also because we had built up trust. I know for you to be with me that way meant you trusted me and I thought it was about time that I showed you that I trusted you too. After that battle all I wanted to do was break down in your arms…give you everything I had and when I found you…it was with him. I saw how he was looking at you…I didn't just walk in and fly off the handle. I stood and watched and while I knew you didn't feel that way about him anymore I knew he would always have this hold on you, he would have a part of you that I never would…my fucked up brain went in to over drive. Telling me that you would never feel the same, that I should just take off before it got too hard so that is what I did. I yelled and ranted and put on a great show then took off. I didn't go back for my things because I knew you would be waiting for me with excuses and apologies and I didn't want to hear them. That my version of the truth was right and always would be right till I saw you…I knew that as soon as I saw you then I would be fucked."
I don't say anything. I keep as still as possible, scared that the slightest move will spook her and the sharing would be over.
"That is what I remembered. That and this wicked chair with blue lights…it was like a massage chair but not…like it was built for me. The arm rests, the head rest…I fit in the chair perfectly. It was like the ultimate home theatre chair with what looked like speakers that come out around my head but I don't think that is what it was…I think it was part of this other place, this Dollhouse. I remember always falling asleep in this chair and when I would wake up in it I was confused…not remembering why I was in the chair or that I had fallen asleep."
She looks at me, like right at me, expecting an answer or maybe some validation.
"Well we don't have any chairs with blue lights…not that I am aware of and it took me a week and a half to get a couch from Angel when I first moved in to that apartment upstairs."
She chuckles softly "In charge of a multi billion dollar corporation and he won't spring for a $500 couch?"
"Yeah…such a cheap skate except for when it comes to himself of course. Why does he need Gucci loafers when he ends up in the sewers most nights anyway?"
"The one thing I never got about him. 'Oh I am so tortured, I am so broody but here I am in a cashmere v neck and wrinkle free chinos'. Toughen up soul bitch."
I laugh. I had forgotten her other nick name for him. She always referred to him as Soul Boy but behind his back especially when she was pissed at him he was Soul Bitch.
"You remember that nick name."
"Yeah…these little bits come to me right as I am talking. Kinda strange. Sometimes I feel like I should be swearing more to as I talk and not saying words properly like ya know instead of you know or aight instead of alright…did I used to think I was some kind of gangsta before I took off?"
"Yep…you and Gunn loved to kick it gangsta style" I answer with a smile.
"Gunn?"
"Tall, bald man that has been coming in and out of some of our meetings with papers for Angel or Wes."
"Oh right. He and I were tight?"
"Yep. He called you-"
"Vanilla Ice." She says with a grin.
I hear the door to the gym open and look up and see a group of slayers with Kennedy and Chao Ann.
I get up off the mat and extend my hand to Faith, she takes it and I help her up. Our fingers lacing together naturally.
"Sorry" Kennedy says coming over "I didn't know you guys were in here."
"It's fine, we were just shooting the breeze" I answer.
She looks down at our hands "Uh did I interrupt something?"
"Memory lane" Faith answers "Sorry do I know you? All of you?"
"You know me. I'm Kennedy and you know Chao Ann." She says pointing at her.
"She still can't speak English?" Faith asks.
Kennedy gives her a strange look.
"I remember bits and pieces and generally not until I say them. It's kinda strange."
"So is you and Buffy holding hands." She folds her arms across her chest.
"Not to us" I say "We will leave you guys to your training" I tell her and Faith and I begin leaving.
"Good to have you back Faith" Kennedy says as we reach the door.
"I think it is good to be back Special K." She calls back as we walk out it.
The next few days pass us by quite uneventfully. Faith has been seeing the hypno therapist daily and she is always quiet for a few hours afterwards so we have a standing sparring appointment straight after her sessions. The flirty, pushing my limits Faith has been MIA since these appointments. It is strange and off putting because even when we were together the flirty, pushing my limits Faith was still there.
I love the sparring because I know how it was between us before she left and I just hope that one day after a sparring session or even after a visit with the doctor she would remember how most of our training sessions would end. And while we have only been doing it for 4 days and I am bored with her slowly slowly approach to everything I can't help but feel frustrated with the lack of responses I am getting. I am not even getting eyebrow wiggles or inappropriate comments.
I had just walked off totally frustrated and angry. I had shouted a very tension filled "I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE" and left her standing there bewildered on the mats while I made my way to the change rooms to cool off in the showers.
I had literally ripped my clothes off me swearing and cursing under my breath. Not at Faith but mainly at my stupidity. When she had been totally willing and flirty with me I pushed her away and now we were entering the friend zone and while that isn't a bad place to be I don't want to be there. I want to be where we were all those months ago.
I stand under the spray and let my frustrated tears mingle with the water, a few strangled sobs escaped my throat. I put my hands in front of me against the shower wall and hang my head between my arms and just allow myself to cry.
"B?" I can feel her behind me.
"Just go Faith" I say controlling my voice.
"You are upset."
"Yeah I am so please just leave me alone" I stand up.
She is right behind me now "No."
"Faith please" I breathe out as I feel her press against my back. She is naked…which is a good thing because we are in the shower. And cause I want to fuck her.
"Please what?" She asks placing kisses on my shoulder.
I lean back in to her "Please" I say again, hoping that there won't be a need to say more.
Her hands slide around me and run over my stomach "This?"
"Yes" I breathe.
She slides her hands up my body cupping my breasts "This?"
"Yes" I moan.
She takes my nipples between her fingers, pulling on them and tweaking them while her mouth sucked on my neck.
What started in the shower ended up in my bedroom. Softly and slowly making love over and over again. Finally feeling whole again.
Even now in the afterglow as I kiss over her skin it just feels right. I push myself up and look at her. She smiles at me and pushes some of my hair behind my ear. I turn my head and kiss her palm.
"Mmmmm Faith" I purr.
She puts her hands on my hips and pulls me flush against her and I notice something flash in her eyes "I think you'll find the name is Echo."
"What…what did you say?"
Her eyes flash again "Hmmm?"
"What did you just say?" I move off her and the bed taking the sheet with me.
"Uh the leg numbing thing?"
"No, after that."
"Uh….nothing." She frowns "What's wrong?"
"You just said…you said…when I said…Echo."
"Echo?"
"You don't remember?"
"I don't remember a lot of stuff B. Could ya be more specific?"
"Just now! I said what did you JUST say implying JUST now."
"Hey you need to chill out." She gets up and starts putting her clothes back on.
"Chill out…CHILL OUT?"
"Yeah." She looks at me "Chill and tell me what the fuck you mean!"
Okay with a statement like that I know I have Faith back…for now at least.
"You just said that your name was Echo."
"I said that?"
"Yeah…I was all nuzzly and said Mmmm Faith and you kinda went blank and said 'I think you'll find the name is Echo' hence the me not chilling out."
"I so did not say that."
"You think I would lie about something like that?"
"I'd fucking hope not." She sits on the side of the bed "I said that?"
"Yeah."
She puts her head in her hands "I fucking hate this B."
"This?"
"Not knowing…feeling and knowing some things but not others…the fact that I just felt so complete and now I feel so fucking lost." Her voice cracks a little on the last few words.
I make my way over and kneel between her legs. She looks in to my eyes and I see how she feels. I see her eyes glistening with tears as she looks everywhere but at me.
"Faith."
"Yeah."
"You think maybe…maybe we shouldn't have…have been intimate?"
That gets her looking at me "What?"
"What we just did, should we maybe not have?"
"Was it…bad?"
"No, it was amazing, delicious, hot, saucy, orgasmic…just…has it messed with you?"
"Messed with me?"
"We are still finding out things and for us to be doing something like this. Maybe it's rushed."
"Did it feel rushed?"
"Not at all, it felt right."
"It felt like I was coming home." She says softly "I know I am not one for grand gestures or pretty words but being with you, in you, under you, beside you…any fucking way you can imagine feels like home. And while I don't remember I know that you have always felt that way cause this feeling…I know this feeling."
"You do?"
She nods "I don't know how many times I have to tell you the same thing."
"Once you start to remember you will understand why."
"Stubborn?"
"As a mule."
She laughs softly and suddenly I don't feel as scared as I did 5 minutes ago.
Meeting time again. Faith was off with the therapist for another hypno session. I kinda want to be closer to her than the 3 floors we are apart right now but apparently this meeting is important.
"I have gained Intel from inside the Dollhouse" Angel starts.
"How?" Giles asks.
"A cleaner that works for them…saved him from a horrible death he is one of my informants. I have a few of them at each place that comes up on Wolfram and Harts radar."
"What does he have to say for himself?" Kennedy pipes up.
"There is panic about Echo. She was sent on a mission…a mission inside a mission but they are scared that she won't be successful."
"Mission inside a mission?"
"Well she has one personality, makes it look like she is doing one thing when in fact she has been put there for a totally different reason that won't become clear until she is quite deep in to the mission."
"Are we the mission?" I ask.
"Not that I am aware of. There is this FBI agent that has been sniffing around them for years…he says the word is Echo was sent to kill him."
"They use human beings to kill people?"
"They use them for all kinds of things Buffy. If the person is willing to pay the price for the Doll then they get them."
"What kind of things is Echo used for?"
"She is generally the muscle. She is one of the best assassins they have ever had."
"Assassin" I say softly "They program her to kill?"
"Yep."
The room goes silent.
"Did she know what she was signing on for?"
"I doubt it. Knowing the frame of mind she was in when she did it all…I would say she just wanted to escape."
"Her frame of mind?" Giles asks.
"When she left…they last time we saw her…she was angry and most likely very upset. While she had come a long way over the last few years she was still vulnerable with some things."
"Like Buffy" Kennedy says a little too meanly for my liking.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I ask her.
"Nothing." She scoffs.
"I think it is something…something that maybe we need to discuss. I mean you think it is important enough to scoff at."
"I scoff at everything you do."
"Ken, this isn't helping" Willow says to her quietly.
"And what she did to Faith was? She basically pushed them in to their arms Willow. Did you know that they were fucking? Did you know that after we risked our asses yet again for her she ended up in Angel's arms when she should have been in Faith's?"
"That isn't what happened" I say standing up "What she saw isn't what she thought she saw."
"Of course not…it happens how you see it and no other way. Faith was in love with you and you didn't fucking deserve it!"
"I am in love with her too! And I swear it didn't happen how she thinks it did. I know what she saw drove her to them. It plays on my mind every single second since I found her."
"Uh…you love Faith? I knew about the girl on girl stuff but you love her?" Willow asks.
"Yeah, kinda always have. I know that sounds stupid and cliché but I have always loved Faith…even when you guys thought we hated each other…only she did hate me."
"Yeah cause your head was stuck up your ass."
"Kennedy!"
"It's true…it was…wait you know about the girl or girl?"
"We shared an apartment Buffy."
"Oh. All that aside what she saw was Angel cleaning my hand. It got sliced open at the start of the fight by the end of it there was a lot of muck and gunk in it and he was cleaning it out before it closed up. She walked in to see him holding my hand and kinda kneeling in front of me but that was to clean my hand. She just went off yelling and swearing at us then actually took off. I went after her. I spent the rest of the night and day looking for her around all her usual hang outs. I spent the next few weeks at her place just waiting for her to come back but she never did."
"Cleaning your hand…right. No wonder she took off I don't believe that bullshit either."
"She didn't even let us explain and if you don't believe then take a look at my hand, look at the scar" I stalk over to her and shove my hand in her face.
She is silent for a few seconds as she takes in jagged reddish purple scar that start at the bottom of my palm and goes up between my thumb and forefinger.
"Can we stop this talk about why she went and who loves who? I want to know what Angel has found out."
"Me too" Faith says as she walks in to the meeting.
"Faith, Hello" Giles says.
"Hey G." She sits beside him.
"Right so…we continue" Angel states "My contact tells me that they have never had a Doll not come back from a mission. They are programmed to automatically head back once their mission is complete. It is like a pull, they don't know what they are doing or why but they know they have to go there."
"Why don't I feel that?" Faith asks as I take my seat which is across from her.
"We aren't sure. We are kind of flying blind here. We have limited information about this organization."
"Why don't we ask this FBI agent that seems to be on their scent" Willow suggests.
"We are looking in to that possibility but we don't want to risk Faith in anyway" Angel answers.
"There are so many lose ends, so many unanswered questions, so much we don't know. We have second hand information and I am sure Faith feels like she has a lot of people talking at her. A lot of information being thrown at her…at all of us."
"What are you saying Giles?" I ask.
"I don't know…I am at a loss here."
"Maybe we stop speculating then. Maybe we stop having these meetings where a lot of shit gets thrown around. Call me in when you guys actually know something…know what the fuck you are talking about" Faith says standing up.
"Faith" Angel says to her.
"What?" She snaps at him.
"I know this is hard for you, I know what it is like to be two people in one body."
"You know fuck all Angel! You know both people inside you! You remember both people inside you. I don't know who I am, who I am supposed to be. I am remembering such small bits of information that are fucking useless. Giles is right I have most of you talking at me telling me shit that just confuses me even more. The more I listen to you people the more I see why the fuck I took off in the first place."
"You don't mean that" Angel says.
"The hell I don't! I mean every fucking word."
"You don't know what you are saying."
"Angel would you shut up and listen to her" I say "Stop pretending to know what she is going through and just fucking listen to her."
Faith looks at me and she just looks so lost so I get up and make my way over to her. I take her hands in mine "You okay?"
"It's too much B."
"Okay. I think that is enough for today" I tell the rest of the room "I think we just need to give Faith space."
"Do you include yourself in that we?" Kennedy says.
"Yeah I do."
"I don't need space from you" Faith whispers in my ear.
"Trust me it is easier if I tell her what she wants to hear."
"I'll see you upstairs yeah?" She whispers.
"Yeah" I say softly to her aching to kiss her before she goes.
She leans in and kisses my cheek "Thanks B."
"Anything for you" I tell her and kiss her cheek in return and then she is gone.
I turn back to the table.
"You think getting that close to her is a good idea?" Giles asks.
"I need to be that close Giles."
"For her or for you."
I swear to god if I hear one more fucking thing come out of Kennedy's mouth I am going to make sure she can't open her mouth for a very long time.
"Angel…you know she appreciates what you are doing for her…just hearing we think this and we think that is very confusing for her."
"It's confusing for us too."
"That doesn't matter. Right now all that matters is her and how she feels."
"How she feels between your legs."
"Kennedy shut up. If you want to help that is great but right now all you are doing is being a giant pain in the ass. Fighting me isn't going to help. You don't know the first thing about Faith and I so from now on if you wanna talk it better be about helping her if you don't then you know where the door is."
She looks to Willow for support and when she doesn't get it she storms out of the meeting room.
"Angel keep doing whatever it is you and your team are doing next time you call Faith in though it better be on facts not what if's."
He nods in response.
"Great" I say "Now if you'll excuse me I want to see how Faith's appointment went."
When I get back up to my apartment I find her sitting on my kitchen counter eating the Oreo cereal straight from the box.
"Hey" I say as I close the door behind me.
"Hey."
I walk in to the kitchen "Want a bowl?"
"Nope." She puts the box down as I go and stand between her legs.
"Tense."
"Yeah. I don't mean to be rude…but I do. Does that make sense?"
"It does. I am not going to even pretend I know how you feel right now."
"It is kinda hard to explain cause I don't even know myself how I feel."
"You don't have to explain anything to me at all."
"Does it count that if I knew what to say then I would only wanna say it to you?"
"It does."
She looks like she wants to say something but decides against it.
"I am not gonna rush you or push you. I am just gonna be here okay?"
She nods.
I bury my head in her neck and feel her arms come up around me and what she has been saying to me finally makes sense because leading up to this moment we are sharing right now it all felt harsh and loud and not one thing made sense but here in her arms it all makes sense…
I have finally figured it out.
I think I am forgetting. There are bits of things that have happened over the last week or so that keep coming back to me here and there that aren't linking up. Faith remembered Willow walking in on her and I and that happened but in our meeting a couple of days ago I was surprised that Willow knew about Faith and I. I clearly remember her walking in on us. She went in to babble overload then spent the next few days avoiding us. Why is that something I wouldn't remember?
And when I try to remember everything it feels like some kind of dream. Really hazy around the edges and not just with the her walking in on us memory. The meetings are very dream like when I recall them as well. You know like if you are asleep or on the verge of sleep and you think you hear something so you kinda sit up in bed and listen out for more noises and when you don't hear them your brain tells you it must have been part of the falling asleep dream/feeling and you accept it. That is what all this feels like. While they are happening it feels so real but now looking back it feels like a dream.
Everything seems topsy turvey. I thought I had it all figured out. That it didn't matter if Faith remembered or not. I was with her, she was with me and that was all that mattered but now that also feels like a dream. Now I feel like I don't understand a god damned thing. There are holes all over the place…I am sure if you took my brain out of my head it would resemble Swiss cheese.
Then again I could just be thinking way too much. Since I said that they should stop cornering Faith so much with tiny, tiny bits of information they have done just that. It has been 2 and a half days of being cooped up inside this apartment or the gym. We can't go outside as we can't risk her being seen. I could go out at anytime I suppose but I don't really want to be too far away from her, there is also the risk that if part of my theory about this Dollhouse is right they could be waiting to approach me or attack me and if I have a Swiss cheese like brain then me leaving, not such a good idea.
The being cooped up is starting to get to us. I have tried to keep my distance which is strange considering I was all for the getting close with her but again…seems like a dream, a really hot, sexy wet dream but a dream none the less. She can sense something is up with me but just like I am not going to push her, she isn't going to push me. She is still going to her hypno therapy sessions each day but she tells me that she doesn't remember anything. She just keeps telling the Doctor the same thing after each session, like her memory is on a loop of some kind.
That is another thing that gets me thinking. Thinking things like it isn't her. That she is this Echo and is here on some kind of mission. If they can program her to do all these kinds of things, if they have the technology to control a human mind like that then I am sure they have technology that can make her exactly like the person she was, right down to the supernatural link she shares with us. If they are a player in the game that worries Wolfram and Hart then I doubt they are doing anything in half measures.
The sad thing is the more I think about it the more it seems like us being fucked with is the most logical explanation. Faith was stubborn with what she gave out and who she gave it to but this…it seems too controlled. It feels all too controlled. We got so far with research then the leads dried up or things happen that I can't make sense of. It gave us a little to make us think we are on the right track then we were on a cold trail. I have been in this business a long time and while most wild goose chases are planned to confuse us it always came to a logical conclusion in the normal amount of time. That even with the holes we were able to link it up. This time no matter how hard we tried we were unable to find the link.
I told them not to involve her unless they have something concrete so I am now out of the loop as I refuse to be too far away from her. We are unsure if they have any leads or any new information but have to assume they don't cause if they did we would be getting told.
I know I need to talk to someone about what I feel with the forgetting. I want to talk to Faith but I know I can't. Not when I am not sure on what is exactly happening. Not when she isn't sure of who she is, what she is, what we are.
I have been sitting on my bed for the last hour going over everything in my head trying to make it less fuzzy, trying to make it match up, trying to summon up the courage to go and talk to Giles…why do I need courage? Part of me knows for sure that there is a great possibility we are getting fucked up the ass by something and as soon as it comes true the woman who is back in my life will be gone forever. And the selfish part of me doesn't give a crap if I never get her back fully just keep her here with me on the blurred edged of some kind of reality because she will be here with me and that is all I ever wanted. A life with Faith.
I hear the door to my apartment open and close and the familiar hum of Faith being near returns. Making me happy, making me confused. I tune in to my slayer senses just to tune everything else out because I made my head hurt a lot.
I can see her, her head is stuck in the fridge, she is trying to decide whether she should have a beer or a Pepsi. She decides on neither and she shuts the fridge door kinda hard but kinda not at the same time. She runs her hands through her hair more in frustration than anything else. She is restless for sure it is coming off her in waves.
"B?"
I open my eyes and get ready to answer her.
"That is cheating you know." She says appearing in the doorway of my bedroom.
"What is?"
"Using the link to see what I am doing and how I am feeing."
"I don't need the slayer link to know how you are feeling, it is hitting me square in the chest."
"You are cheating and you know it."
I give her a little shrug and she walks all the way in to my room and plops down on to the bed beside me dramatically sprawling herself out on her back.
"Any luck in therapy today?" I turn and face her.
"Same old loop." She says placing her hands over her face "Someone is fucking with me and I don't like it."
"Tell me about it" I sigh.
"That is rhetorical right?" She moves her hands to look at me.
"Yep. How many times can we go over the same thing before we go completely loopy?"
"Isn't that the definition of insanity?"
I shrug again.
"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result… definition of insanity."
I can think of doing one thing over and over again and always expecting the same result I think looking her up and down.
"And what's that?" She smiles.
"What's what?" I ask.
"The thing you are thinking of doing over and over to get the same result." She says sitting up.
"I said that out loud?"
"Yep." She moves closer to me.
Damn…Damn, Damn, Damn. This is so not fair!
"Is it the same thing I am thinking?" She asks.
"Uh I don't know. What are you thinking?"
"That the only thing I want us to be doing over and over involves less clothes than this…in fact no clothes at all." She whispers in my ear.
I breathe in at the feeling of her so close, so willing.
"Do…do you think we…we should?"
"I know we should." She says before pressing her lips to my neck.
"Faith" I pull back.
"B I have been cooped up in this room for days this close to you and I have behaved. I am frustrated beyond all reasoning with the lack of progress, I am frustrated at the holes in my brain and I am frustrated at the lack of being able to feel like me again and there is one thing that always makes me feel like me and that is you. Being close to you, being able to be as close to you as humanly possible always makes it feel better, makes it feel real. Gives me clarity." She explains while removing my top and bra.
"You always said that." Making my hands react the same way hers are.
"Said what?" She asks undoing my belt buckle.
"That everything always seemed so clear after you came" I move on the bed so I am on my back and she moves between my legs after flicking her shoes off.
"I said that?"
"Uh huh" I lift my hips so she can remove my jeans…and panties.
"I must have been pretty smart."
"Replace smart with horny."
She grins "The way we fucked everything became so clear we must have been nearly invisible."
"Invisible but noisy."
She kneels between my legs completely naked "So am I invisible now?"
I breathe in "Nope…but everything else is. All I can see is you."
She pushes my thighs apart "All I can see is you."
Now I know this sounds strange considering I am naked but how she is looking at me makes me feel completely naked. I am completely open to her and in more ways than one which she finds out as she slides two fingers inside me. I arch up in to her.
"Did you always get this wet for me?" She asks.
"Only ever for you" I manage to groan out.
"For me?"
"For you."
She removes her fingers and I go to protest but she rubs her slick fingers over both of my nipples, silencing any complaints I may have had but in a complete contradiction in a matter of seconds I am praising her for her decision as she sucks my right nipple in to her mouth.
For hours we played and teased. We each had turns taking each other to the brink. Showing each other exactly what we felt but now as I straddle her lap and grind my pussy against hers nothing else matters.
There is no Dollhouse, there is no memory loss, there is no her running away and leaving me, there is no me denying what we have, what we should have always had. There are just two sweat slicked bodies moving as one with one objective in mind.
Clarity.
Banging on my apartment door is waking me up way before I am actually ready to wake up. I choose to ignore it and snuggle in to Faith. As I roll on to her side of the bed I feel that it is empty and cold.
I sit up and look around my room. Any remnants of what Faith and I did last night gone…well apart from me and my nakedness. I get up and grab my robe and quickly throw it on and answer the banging.
"About time" Willow says.
"What's wrong?"
"Giles has called an emergency meeting."
"About?"
"He didn't say, just said I had to come and get you for the meeting. Ken and I are thinking a breakthrough with this whole Faith/Echo drama."
"Let me get dressed and I will make my way down."
"Okay I will see you two down there then." She says and heads off down the hall.
"Right, the two of us" I say and head back in to my apartment.
I quickly dress and make my way downstairs. When I walk in to the conference room there are pensive faces on everyone. Everyone being Giles, Wesley, Willow and Kennedy.
"So big breakthrough?" I ask hopefully closing the door behind me.
"I think you should sit down Buffy."
I do as Giles says.
"Now I am sure you noticed the lack of Faith this morning."
"Yeah, I checked her room before I headed down here but she was nowhere to be found. I thought she may already be down here" I think I get away with that tiny white lie about checking her room.
"I'm afraid not" Giles sighs.
"Where is Angel?" I ask "Shouldn't here be here for this?"
"We aren't sure exactly where he is, or Faith for that matter. All we have is surveillance tape from earlier this morning" Wesley says "I arrived for my normal 9 am patrol update with Angel to find his office empty and signs of a struggle."
My heart drop faster than that elevator drop ride at Universal Studios.
"I think we should watch" Wesley says and points a remote at the giant screen that adorns the wall.
Angel's office comes up and he is sitting at his desk. I assume he is anyway, he doesn't show up on film but I can see a pen writing in a file of some sort. There is a loud bang and then Faith makes her way in to view and when I say makes her way I mean jumps over the desk and holds him against the wall with a stake poised over I assume his heart in one move. One Move!
"Faith?" I hear his scared voice say.
"What the fuck did you assholes do to me?" She yells.
"What do you mean?" Is his answer.
"Don't play stupid…this stake is NOT for show."
"I honestly don't know what you are talking about Faith."
"I can hold you up here all day you undead piece of shit and I know oxygen ain't a problem for you but if you don't start talking soon I might have to get my wooden friend here to give you some friendly persuasion."
"I am serious Faith, I don't know what you are talking about. We should sit and talk."
"Talk? Talk?" She laughs evilly "You wanna talk do ya Soul Bitch." She makes a move and it looks like she has just pulled him back and thrown him against the wall.
"What should we talk about Angel? About how you are still in love with B despite the bullshit you feed everyone…or how about something a little more in depth? About how you staged that night I took off. How you planed everything down to the last fucking second to screw me over so you could hand deliver me to the Dollhouse yourself."
"Faith I honestly don't know what you are talking about."
"STOP CALING ME FAITH!" She shouts and throws Angel against the wall again.
I notice the stake move and I hear Angel cry out.
"Are you gonna stop fucking around Soul Boy? Are ya?"
She quickly moves as if she is dodging something and throws two left hooks and a right uppercut, the stake falling to the ground in the process of what I assume is a struggle between them. She seems to take control again though. This time straddling him on the ground from what I can see.
"Make no mistake this is gonna end one way Angel and it is up to you to decide how quickly it happens either way you end up a pile of dust blowing in the breeze."
I breathe in my eyes glued to the screen.
"I hope you decide to make it last longer."
"Still in to the torture huh?"
"Nope cause once I hear what I wanna from you, I got a nice little story to tell ya. So good in fact that once I am done dusting you I think I am gonna call up one of the studios that are just down the road cause the shit I know would make an excellent fuckin screen play."
She moves and it looks like she has hold of his head or hair.
"So what's it gonna be? Ya gonna talk or ya gonna die?"
"No matter what I do I am dust so you can sit there and spout your bullshit and threaten me all you want. I am not talking."
"Figures. I don't mind doing the talking for both of us cause I know what happened but if I get it wrong please feel free at any time to chime in and correct me."
"Don't count on it."
She raises the hand that is holding on to something and we hear a loud crack. Another assumption for sure but that was Angel's head being smashed against the marble floor.
"Uh uh uh, don't flake out on me now Angel that was just a love tap." She slaps the side of his face softly a few times "There's my souled vampire! My savior…tell me oh savior why did you fight so hard to save me? You coulda just let me hand myself back in and I would be quite content in my little 6 x 4 concrete home away from home for the next 30 years but you had to clear my record. Or how about first time around when I asked ya to kill me…that was a great day all you had to do was slide your hands around my neck instead of my back… break my neck instead of saving it. Why Angel? Why did you save me if years down the track all you are going to do is hand me over to some top secret organization that likes to fuck with people's minds? A place that whores human beings out to the highest bidder. Do you know what I have been doing for the last 4 months…who I've been doing?"
I cringe at the last statement.
"Most recently it's been B…the last 12 hours…holy shit that girl has stamina…of course you wouldn't know, you didn't stick around after the first poke to find out. So it makes me wonder…why do ya get your panties in such a bunch? You know you can't have her, you know you can't ever be with her…yeah, yeah, yeah we all know about that prophecy that you will be human again that has come to light but cast your mind back…you left her. You decided that she should have the life that you couldn't give her. So here is B happy as fuckin Larry living her life large and you can't fuckin stand it. Sure I get it with Riley and that fucktard Spike…they were just well who cares what they were but she and I….sorry she and Faith they were in love. And you couldn't stand it. You couldn't live with seeing her so happy again. It took her fucking ages dude! Fucking ages to find that one person you set her free to find and what do you do? You rip that person out of her life and set it up to make it look like they did it all on their own. That they took off all irrational and pissed off and signed their life away."
"Stop" I said wiping away tears "Stop it now Giles."
The screen froze.
"Have you already seen this?" I ask him.
"Not in its entirety. Wesley and I watched maybe the first 10 seconds then we called the meeting. I didn't know…we didn't know it would go this way."
"Could I…do I…I want to watch the rest alone" I say softly.
"You think that is wise Buffy?" Willow asks.
"Yeah I do."
Everyone but Giles silently leaves the room.
"Buffy do you really think you should be watching this alone?"
"If this is going where I think it is I would honestly prefer it."
"If you need me I shan't be too far away."
"Thanks Giles."
He squeezes my shoulder then leaves.
I take a few deep breaths and grab a glass of water and scull it down then press play again.
"You totally fooled her, you totally fooled me. I bet when I showed up a week or two ago it shoved a super sized spanner up your undead ass."
"You gonna quit your yapping anytime soon?"
"Nope."
"I thought you said you were done with torture."
She laughs "Ya know I forgot what a funny mother fucker you can be at times."
Her right arm goes up and slams the stake down.
I wince as I hear him cry out.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk…you got blood all over my stake." She takes it out of where ever she put it and I hear him grunt.
That came out a lot more sexual than it should and I so shouldn't be going there.
"Now where was I?"
"Boring me to death." He answers.
"Right, right. So I show up and what do you do? You act all noble. You are a champion after all and ya did save me all those times. You tell B you are doin all ya can to get my memory back and you have all these contacts that can help infiltrate this place. You vow to never rest till you find out exactly what happened to me…but ya already know so you spin your bullshit to the Scoobs knowing that I have no idea why I am here and will just pretty much go along with whatever lies I am fed. Buying yourself time to find out why and how I got back here…the one place you worked so fucking hard to get me out of."
She shifts around on top of him "Seems those little sessions with the hypnotherapist totally screwed up with my programming on this mission which is just what you wanted but thanks to B and a moment of clarity seems my mission came flooding back to me." She chuckles to herself "Flooding…B always did get my juices flowing and it seems like she has this thing for moments in the sack…she gives you a happy and your true self is revealed. She gave me a happy…well actually I think it was about 7 happys maybe 8…not sure if the shower after number 3 counts but I digress…she gives me a happy and whatta ya know my true self is revealed. Only it isn't my true self it is a form of me planted in my brain cause you fucking sold me off to those fuckers all cause you still have a hard on for Buffy."
"You know you could have just given me the cliff notes version of all that…or no version at all cause I did it and I know why I did it."
"I needed a dramatic lead up to the kick ass finale…plus I am sure when Wes comes in for his 9 am meeting and sees the signs of a struggle he will go straight to the surveillance tape to find out what happened to their precious cloaked crusader."
"So what is the twist?"
"Well I love this, I really do. Fuck what I was gonna show the Hollywood execs earlier, I think what I am about to share with you IS the story my man. I want them to film it and show it every Christmas it is that fucking good. So would you prefer I give you the cliff notes version on this?"
"I was past caring what you did or said a long time ago."
There goes that stake again and there he is crying out in pain again but this time I don't cringe, this time I am begging her to make it hurt just a little bit more.
"Oh don't say that, I want them to mourn the champion they all knew and loved in the appropriate way. It is what you deserve after all."
"Just send me to hell already...or have you already done it and this is where I am right now. I couldn't think of anything worse for my eternal damnation."
"Nope not in hell yet Soul Bitch…I think when you go to hell…I hope when you go to hell that they have me and B fucking each other senseless on a loop and your eyes are held open with toothpicks and I hope they have the sound turned up so loud that all you hear for the rest of eternity is how good we gave it to each other, how much we loved each other."
"Seriously can this be over with like now?"
"Just a minute, as you will see on the loop in hell I didn't like to hurry the all important climax. When you took me to that facility didn't you ever think that maybe just maybe one day one of the many people you have pissed off over time would be searching for yet another way to end you? Didn't you ever wonder that a day like today would be on the cards?"
"I never thought about you more than I had to."
"Well that is a shame…actually it ain't I think this is what would be called poetic justice. The place that you used to try and get rid of me is now being paid to get rid of you."
"You know if you were going to kill me I think you would have done it already."
"I am gonna kill you don't worry about that. I just wanted you to know all this before you went…that Buffy will know what you did… to me…to her. And for what? You won't be able to touch her, you won't be able to kiss her, you won't be able to hold her in your arms and tell her that you love her…you took that away from me so now I have great pleasure in taking it away from you."
She doesn't raise her arm and stake him violently, there isn't some great battle just the sound of a vampire turning to dust as she adjusts the stake that must have been mere millimeters away from his heart and the sobs that escape my throat as I hear my first love in Angel die and see my true love Faith leave my life…again.
Just as I am about to turn off the TV I see her pull out a phone.
"Mission complete. Echo returning to base."
...continued in Who Am I?...