Your Winter
by tainted_blood_chylde
Rating: PG
Faith walked quietly into her foster parents house, God she was tired. Not to mention pretty shaken. Tina had went on a head to class to see if she could catch the Professor and ask about her coursework. The phone was ringing.
"Hello?" Faith asked as she picked up.
"Hey Dear. Are you alright?" Janice asked. Faith smiled at the sound of her comforting voice. The Michels had always been good to her, and Janice, aka Mom, always made her feel better.
"Yeah, I'm gonna be okay, the guy said it was some kind of scorpian, probably got loose from someone's house around the area, there's a couple of punks who collect lizards and things. Police said they would look into it" Faith assured her.
"Oh baby, I wish we could be there. But another flight back would take about twelve hours and your father is cursing about the prices" Janice said despairingly.
"It's Ok, really you two enjoy your holiday. I'm working too much to really dwell on it, and Chris is here to look after me" Faith replied.
"Well as long as you're certain, there's no food in the house, but you can find $50 in the little cat vase by the phone. Use it to get some take out" Janice told her.
"Ok, thanks Mom" Faith smiled. "I'll talk to you both when you get home."
"Bye Dear" she said before the line went dead.
"WOW! You would NOT believe the day I've had" Michelle said as she came into the living room, flicking her long hair free from rain.
"What are you doing here?" Faith said.
"Mom told me to look after you, make sure there's no more dizzy spells or demon insects or anything" she smiled.
"Take out, want some?" Faith asked. Her older foster sister was never one to actually one to notice when she wasn't actually wanted, but Faith was glad of the company.
"Sure, but you go have a bath first. You look dead" she smiled before flouncing off into the kitchen.
"Great.. dead girls talkin to me in my sleep, media stalkers, demon bugs and now her, God give me a break" she muttered under her breath as she did as Michelle told her and walked upstairs.
Dawn shifted warily through the school bus, the few remaining survivors were all sprawled on different chairs. She ached. Her whole body hurt, so did her soul. Just like the last time Buffy had died. It was just so hard to believe she'd lost her again. Fucking Powers that be! She hated them! Why give her back only to have her torn away again. Anya was dead.. Giles was missing. Only Kendra and Xander were with her. It was too much....
She opened up the necklace Buffy had given her as she settled down into a chair beside Isabelle. The locket had a picture of her mother and Buffy inside. She couldn't breathe... tears started pouring from her eyes. But she refused to sob. She needed to be a tower. She needed to be a stone. The Slayers were counting on her for direction. Caleb was still out there. The first wasn't finished with them. Not to mention the god damned reporters...
Curling up and wrapping the blanket around herself she couldn't hold it off any longer and sobbed herself to sleep.
Faith climbed the stairs behind Chris slowly.
"Why can't you just buy one of those cute little pensioner bungalows down the street from my house?" she moaned. "I mean, this whole aspiring artist/living in a lofty penthouse in desperate need of a renovation thing was cute when we first met… a huge turn on in a-my-sister-would-hate-it kinda way.. but the retro bachelor lifestyle loses its sexiness when your wounded girlfriend just wants to go to sleep as quickly as possible."
"Oh Faithy do shut up! I just wish Richard would think so sweetly for me!" Michelle chirped as she carried the Chinese and followed the pair into the flat.
"Well I keep saying about us maybe, you know…" Chris said as he stopped in front of the door with the keys in his hands and looked Faith seriously in the eye.
"Uh… can we have this talk another time?" she smiled awkwardly as she noticed her sister peeking her head in interest over the top of the food cartons.
"Sure.. we will talk later" he said as he opened the door. Faith walked on into the apartment and headed for the bedroom.
"Still can't believe that thing showed up in the apartment.. they still can't tell what it is" Michelle said as she walked into the kitchenette area.
"Well that thing is the reason I'm taking the night off to be here with you two, so what movie did you get out?" Chris asked as he unpacked the beers.
"Slumber Party Massacre 1, 2 and 3 and the Devils Nightmare" Michelle smiled gleefully.
"You really think all that gore is appropriate, haven't we seen enough of that for one year?" Faith said as she pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself.
"That's why I thought it would be a good idea to get them.. give you a chance to laugh about cute little blonde things being shredded to bits so you can stop being so serious about the ones you deal with everyday" Michelle replied, pouting slightly.
"It's fine" Chris said a he opened his beer and gathered up his pizza before settling himself in front of the telly.
Faith started into the kitchen and saw Michelle starting to eat her barbeque sauce covered ribs. Her stomach turned slightly.
"Know what baby? I'm just going to head onto bed.." she smiled before retreating into the bedroom.
"You sure?" he asked eyebrows raised looking at her in concern.
"Definitely, it's just with all the excitement over the past few days, I don't really feel up to watching cute little blonde things being ripped to pieces. I see enough of the aftermath at work" she said offering him a weak smile.
"Goody! More Salsa wings for me then!" Michelle said as she pressed play on the VCR.
Retreating to the bedroom Faith quickly stripped off and crawled into bed. She was exhausted. There hadn't been any other strange incidents since she met up with Chris. Were it not for Tina staying with Argento and Maxine having that gig at the Rat Dive, she would happily have stayed at home. But Meredith insisted that she stay with someone to avoid any complications from the "scorpian" sting.
So she wound up with Michelle, her fellow Foster Care adoptee into the Michels Family. Pretty much because Meredith had her attorney boyfriend over and she didn't need Michelle being a pain in the ass. Chris was working in an hour, so she needed supervision, thank god there was three bedrooms. She couldn't handle anymore trauma today.
Her mind kept playing over the sight of the bodies she'd been working on. They seemed so familiar, she just couldn't remember how.
Sighing she pulled the blankets over herself and drifted of to sleep.
"HA!" Buffy Shouted as she delivered a punch to Faith's head.
Disorented Faith recieved the blow and it sent her hurtling to the floor.
"Whoops, you ok?" Buffy asked as she went to help her up.
"Where the hell am I?" Faith demanded.
"Ok, I think I might have broken the Faith" Buffy said pulling a face and looking worriedly at Giles.
Faith stood up, she was at THAT school she saw on the news, the one with the massacres in it. 30 girls, all butchered and dismembered for no reason. Yet here she was looking at most of the faces of the girls she KNEW were dead. She had processed their remains and carried out postmortems with David.
It was happening again, she was asleep.
"This is a Dream" Faith said out loud.
"You're right, and now we need your help" a tall black woman covered in bandages.. no wait they were bandages, it was her clothes??
Something very weird was going on....
...to be continued...