Chapter 5
With Willow’s words echoing in her head, Faith finally removed her hands from the pale ones that had been holding them so tenderly up till now. A little distance was needed to settle her suddenly racing pulse. The redhead frowned at the loss of contact between them. Seeing Faith pull away from her like that didn’t sit well with the Wicca, made her feel anxious for when she might next get to touch the slayer again. Willow wondered why the hell that would be her immediate response to the loss of contact between them, before stamping down on that particular line of thought with her stylish yet practical pair of internal boots. Willow had a feeling she wasn’t ready for where that thought process might take her.
Instead she softened her gaze as much as she could, forcing the frown lines away with a hesitant smile, secretly urging the slayer to look at her properly again and tell her. Tell her everything.
The dark woman shifted under Willow’s gaze, even if she couldn’t meet it head on in that moment. Wondering what kind of diversion she could come up with to get the Wicca off this particular path she was determined to walk down, soon realising the futility of that thought process with a deep resigned sigh of her own. A deal is a deal after all Faith thought, mentally berating herself for making such a bargain with the redhead in the first place. And the slayer was never one to go back on a deal, you just didn’t do that where Faith came from and expect to see another dawn, so yeh, a deal is a deal. But damn it if it didn’t feel daunting now that she had to fulfil her side of things.
She wasn’t sure Willow was ready for her confession, but that wasn’t it really. Faith realised that she wasn’t ready for it herself. She needed more time. She needed time to just fucking breathe. She needed to not be in this shitty diner opposite a beautiful woman whom she could feel herself want to open up to, as if that was a thing Faith actually did. She needed to not be thinking all these weird thoughts about the past and all the shit that happened in Sunnydale when she lived there. She needed to not be wondering about the Scoobies and how they let Willow get so lost they almost couldn’t save her and why that made Faith so fucking angry with them, because god she’s sure she would have tried to save her if she’d been there, and what the hell? What did that even mean anyway?
Faith blew out a breath of frustration at her own jumbled thoughts, knowing that actually what she really needed was another cigarette. She reached for the discarded pack of Marlboros in front of her, rolling one around in her fingers before finally placing it to her lips, taking long deep drags when she lit it up. The ritual was comforting to her but probably annoyed the hell out of Willow, Faith thought. Ready to smirk in her superior way at the Wicca as she finally looked back up to green eyes. Only the smirk never appeared when she saw such open compassion gazing back at her. As if the redhead knew exactly what Faith was struggling with and why she was playing for time by smoking another pointless cigarette, and for once not minding the habit in the least.
Fuck it, let’s do this the dark slayer told herself.
But of course, it had to be on her own terms. And that meant getting back to being her typical, ‘don’t give a shit’ self, and not the Faith that actually admitted to having feelings and who up till now had done a bang up job of expressing them.
“You want me to show you mine, huh Red?”
It was an effortlessly teasing smile that fell across the slayer’s face when Willow’s pale cheeks flashed red, and her compassionate gaze was replaced by something a little on the panicked side. Good, that was what Faith was aiming for, the Wicca couldn’t hold every card after all, that just wouldn’t be fair. (Faith ignored the thought that flashed through her mind that questioned why Willow flushed such a becoming shade of red at her words, because, yeh, hadn’t she already decided not to go down that road tonight?)
Her victory at wrong footing the Wicca was short lived though. Willow reined in whatever thoughts had caused her to blush in the first place (thoughts that were so inappropriate in a greasy diner with a woman who wasn’t the dark haired ‘slayer’ she was supposed to be into currently, and fuck who was Willow trying to kid here?) and levelled her stern green eyes at the dark woman before her once again.
“No Faith. I want you tell me why the change of heart? Why the hero trip back to Sunnydale with me?”
“You complaining I’m here Red?”
“No, of course not. I’m just curious to know what makes a rogue slayer with appalling dress sense like you…”
“Hey!” Faith protested.
“My turn to finish I think. What makes badass Faith go Clark Kent all of a sudden?”
Willow raised her eyebrows in challenge, daring the slayer with a look to come back with another smart remark (and secretly hoping she might come back with a teasing one).
But Faith was past that now. She didn’t have the energy to fight it any longer. Something in the Wicca’s demeanour had scratched the surface of Faith’s well protected, well-guarded emotions and tugged at what was inside. Maybe it had happened during the redhead’s story, maybe before that when they were driving, when she used Willow’s real name for the first time. Heck maybe it was back in LA when they worked together for the first time kind of ever in order to save Angel. Whenever the fuck it happened didn’t really matter now anyway, Faith had let herself open up a little in the Wicca’s presence, and it was only fair for her to know why.
“Okay Red, you wanna know what changed me?”
The redhead nodded and Faith took in a deep breath. Steeling herself for what she would say next.
“Well like you, it all started with a cute blonde chick.”
Faith smiled a little to take away any remembered pain her words might bring, and all Willow can do is return it because sure, the dark slayer was going to do this her way. She simply shook her head, a little exasperated by the brunette but unwilling to interrupt all the same. Willow sat back in her bench, and waited.
“Buffy Summers – she’s something ain’t she? Kinda hits you when you first meet her. I mean you know that, right? You know that there’s something special about the girl the minute you start up a conversation. And I don’t mean the whole Chosen One shit, ‘cause no one ever pegged me for anything other than a bitch with a mean right hook. I’m talking about that thing B has that no one else comes close to. That thing that floors you the second you realise what it is. When you know your life has changed, and it ain’t never gonna change back.”
Faith paused, finding it harder than she thought she would. She looked at the redhead opposite her, a vague understanding showing in her eyes. And why shouldn’t there be? Hell, B had altered Willow’s life pretty much irrevocably too. Bet when she met the ex-cheerleading slayer in high school she didn’t expect to try and kill her one day, Faith thought absently. She looked again to Willow, who wasn’t offering her anything other than her thoughtful green eyes.
“You’re not going to help me out here, are you?” the slayer asked, knowing what the answer would be.
“Nuh-uh.” Willow replied. “This is the Faith Story Hour, remember. Besides, you’re going to be glad you told me once it’s over.”
Faith wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, because that would mean there is still some remnants of the old Faith hanging around. Red could go shove her little Miss-know-it-all smile, the slayer thought. Only it was more of a compassionate smile than that, had something of the ‘I know what you’re going through’ about it. When Faith made to scowl at the Wicca, the dark haired woman just couldn’t pull it off, and amazingly she could feel those sharp fine needles sting her eyes again.
“I wasn’t expecting it.” Faith finally continued. “Being chosen, coming to Sunnydale, meeting all you guys. And I really wasn’t expecting to meet B. At least not expecting what I’d feel when I met B.”
Her voice trailed off, her gaze unfocused, seeing something long passed and remembering it all as if it had only just happened. Faith shook her head at the memory forcefully bringing herself back to the present, offering Willow an apologetic smile for growing so distant in the first place.
“I still don’t know how it all happened, you know? How it went from the two of us slaying together, to her trying to slay me. Almost succeeding slaying me,” Faith absently ran her hand over her stomach, where her tight black vest hid the three-inch scar B had left her with.
“I know you all thought I’d gone psycho, hell maybe you all thought I was psycho before the Mayor ever came along, but I swear it didn’t start out that way. And I tried to do everything I could to reverse things and be the slayer you all wanted to see. Be more like her, but…but she wouldn’t let me. She just couldn’t accept that…us…what we’d done...she just wouldn’t. I knew I should stop. I knew there were huge amounts of pain going around and I was causing most of them, but I just couldn’t stop…because she...she wouldn’t…she…”
It happened slowly. Against the slayer’s will tears started falling from her eyes because her commands of not letting that happen weren’t being listened to. She blinked furiously trying to make them stop. Her heart was pounding as if she’d gone into battle with a thousand demons. The emotions she’d kept bottled up for years started to spring forth and Faith wasn’t sure how to deal with them.
“Just say it, Faith.”
Willow’s soothing voice jerked the brunette back to the here and now, just as she’d been able to do for the redhead when her emotions had gotten the best of her. The Wicca nodded encouragement, almost whispering a second time.
“Just say it.”
Faith looked into Willow’s compassionate green eyes, finding understanding there. Of course Willow would be the one to already know, or at least suspect what she was about to say. Faith found herself relieved at the knowledge, another deep breath, another catch of tears before they turned into sobs and she found the strength to finish what she started.
“She wouldn’t love me. I wanted her to, and god knows she knew I loved her, but she wouldn’t love me.”
Faith finally let the tears fall gently down her flushed cheeks. Her hands were shaking slightly and her breath was still doing the catching thing in her throat, but she knew the worst of it was over. She felt surprisingly okay and marvelled a little at that feeling, because deep down she feared that something terrible would happen to her if she ever confessed her love for Buffy Summers to another living person.
Because something terrible had happened the first time she’d confessed it.
Willow didn’t know what to say or even if this was a time where words were needed. What she wanted to do was reach out again and take Faith’s shaking hands in her own and sooth the tears that were still falling in slow tracks across her cheeks. But the slayer had just put herself totally on the line and the Wicca didn’t know how’d she feel about physical contact after such a thing or what reaction she’d have if she offered some empty sounding words of comfort, or tell her that it didn’t exactly come as a huge surprise to hear Faith had been jonesing for Buffy back in the day.
Lots of things had begun to fall into place for Willow as Faith began her confession. About the love/hate relationship between the two slayers. Faith’s crossover to the dark side as Xander always called it. The way Buffy would practically have a coronary each time the dark slayer’s name was mentioned back then. Her cold ruthless feelings towards Faith at the end when Angel needed saving.
She always suspected something had happened between the two slayers back then, something beyond the awfulness of that night. Because no way does one slayer go off the deep end and join forces with a megalomaniac town official with decidedly dodgy associations with the demon world just because they make a mistake. Even as terrible as that mistake was, it couldn’t have been all that had driven Faith away. So what did?
The dark slayer read the question in Willow’s green orbs and although she didn’t exactly want to carry on down this painful path that included all kinds of weird shit like tears and emotions, Faith knew Willow was right when she said she’d feel better once it was over. And she wanted it over now.
“It happened that same night. That night I killed Finch. I knew I was spiralling down, out of control. Just like when I was a kid back in Boston, finding trouble even when I didn’t go looking for it. This time though, there was someone finding trouble with me, and it just made my feelings stronger for her. But we both know that B is really a good little girl at heart. That badass attitude she displayed for a while never really suited her, right?”
Faith paused, absently wiping her palm across her face, rubbing the tears away as she ruefully smiled to herself at the remembrance of a time when Buffy tried to be bad.
Willow looked at Faith wondering what she would make of the new and improved Buffy they brought back from the grave a year ago. The one that had taken command of a bunch of scared, pretty much useless teenagers, and turned them into an army. That was pretty badass if you asked her. But Willow realised that soon enough Faith could make of Buffy what she wants for herself, because soon they would see each other again. Her and Faith were on their way to Sunnydale after all and there was no way she was going to be able to keep the two slayers apart once they got there, because hello, that was the whole point of this road trip. And why did Willow suddenly want to keep the slayers apart anyway? This was starting to get complicated.
“She came over to the motel, afterwards.” Faith began, breaking Willow out of her freefalling thoughts, thank goodness. “Freaking out. Just as a slayer should be over a human casualty. Just like I should have been. And I guess I was somewhere, deep down, freaking out that is, but I just couldn’t show it. I was in shock or denial or something, ‘cause my brain wasn’t listening to her, and my body was having all sorts of weird shit happening to it. Like shaking and my breath was all short and patchy, and my heart was pounding. All that though could have been down to B being in my room, because fuck man. When she was close it was like I couldn’t breathe, but in a good way. You remember that feeling don’t you? With Tara, I mean.”
Willow could only nod, remembering all too well how it felt to be in the same room as her lost love.
“Well, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be feeling at that point. It was all so fucking confusing and she was ranting and babbling and I just needed her to not be so close and I needed her to stop yelling at me and…and it seemed the only way to get B calmed down was to do something as equally out there as kill a guy…so…so I kissed her. And she kissed me back.”
Faith’s voice went quiet again, an awed reverent inflection to her tone Willow had never heard from her before. Like kissing Buffy Summers was the best thing that had ever happened in her life and she still couldn’t quite believe it had happened in the first place.
“She kissed you back?” Willow didn’t know why she was asking that. Why there was a spark of something that felt horribly like jealously when Faith nodded her head and started to smile that stupid, sexy know-it-all smirk she always hated seeing in high school.
“Yes, she did. And I ain’t telling you what else she did that night so don’t even think about asking.”
Faith sounded more like her old self, even if her teasing words didn’t carry quite as much venom to them. She could finally see the end of the tunnel she’d driven herself into and like Willow had promised there was a glimmer of light there at the end.
“What about in the morning?” Willow enquired softly, tamping down on those ridiculous jealous feelings as she did so.
“In the morning it wasn’t me doing the ‘get some, get gone’ act, put it like that. And it really felt like she left me no choice but to go all homicidal on her life, on her friends.” Faith offered an apologetic shrug of her shoulders with that, but Willow didn’t even acknowledge it. They were so beyond the ‘you tried to kill me’ part of their relationship now, whatever relationship it was they were forming in this crappy diner in the middle of nowhere was another question entirely.
“She had the power to stop me, you know? And I don’t mean with a knife. She could have saved all of us a lot of pain if she’d only…if she’d only just…fuck it…if she’d only…” Faith still choked on the words that sounded alien coming from her mouth. Words that carried so much remembered pain perhaps they would always be too much for her to say.
“If she’d only loved you.” So Willow helped her out in saying them for her.
A sharp pang of pity hit the Wicca so hard it was like being punched in the stomach. A sensation she actually knew felt less sickening than what she was experiencing right now. She thought of all the mess left in Faith’s wake, and how it might have been avoided if her best friend could have just found the courage to return the dark slayer’s love for her. Like she can find the courage to do almost everything else in her life. Even sacrifice herself. She could manage that, but not try and love the beautiful woman sat opposite the redhead now. Tear stained cheeks not diminishing her strength. The pained look in eyes such a deep chocolate brown Willow thought she was going to drown in them not taking away any of the power she held as a slayer, as a woman.
Willow sighed thinking that sometimes, most of the time, life didn’t make any sense at all.
“So there you have it Red.”
Faith offered. She was leaning back on her bench, slowly lighting another cigarette, looking tired but relieved. Unmistakeable red rings around her eyes that would be gone soon enough and no one would ever suspect that Faith, the badass slayer, could have cried over a broken heart.
“There I have what?” Willow asked, confused for a moment as she tried to drag her thoughts back from could haves and might have beens.
“My story, my confession. The little piece of me you wanted so you’d know I’m not the stone cold bitch you always thought I was.”
The slayer was acting a little testy. Opening up about Buffy and realising in a couple of hours she’d be face to face with her old…she wanted to call her lover, but that didn’t sound right. It was only one night after all, did that even qualify? So yes, Faith was definitely beginning to feel the beginnings of a bad mood coming on.
“You know that’s not the reason why I asked,” Willow, smartly ignoring the appearance of the old Faith which now they’d shared so much together just didn’t ring true to her anymore, responded with as equal bite to her voice, though softened her tone when her next thought occurred to her.
And I don’t understand something.” Her fair brows arched in a puzzled frown, Faith was sufficiently intrigued to respond.
“What don’t you understand Red?” Only slightly sarcastic with her tone, the slayer thought she’d explained things pretty well for her.
“Well I get that it was Buffy that made you go…grrr!” She made a growling noise in the back of her throat and scowled, trying to look menacing. “And I can understand how that could happen, after all she’s got this habit of doing that to the people she sleeps…er has relations with…” The Wicca corrected herself, ignoring the harsh stare she was receiving from the slayer for her efforts. “But I still don’t understand what made you change and want to come back to make amends. And I’m sorry to be Repeato Girl over it, but it’s just that there are so many of us seeking redemption now, it’s getting to be like a club motto. And everyone’s got their reasons, what with Angel’s curse and you know, him killing A LOT of people when he was Angelus making it hard to just go, no biggie, and then there’s Spike and his obsession with Buff…er butt…buttery popcorn…” (sheesh, that was close Willow thought) “…and there’s Andrew. Though I’m not convinced he is really seeking redemption and is actually hanging around ‘cause he has a crush on Xander. And then there’s little old me who guess what? Almost destroying the world kinda leaves you with a lot of making up to do. So that leaves you. Good slayer gone bad slayer then gone good slayer again.”
Willow finished with a shrug of her shoulders. Like all that was a totally obvious explanation and made sense, even though Faith was staring at her with a slightly incredulous look to her face, her cigarette smoked down to the filter whilst the Wicca went off on her crazy tangent.
Faith had forgotten that Willow could do babble as well as B could.
“Who the fuck is Andrew?”
Her rough voice asked, hoping that if she gave the Wicca enough time she’d figure the whole thing out for herself. She was beyond exhausted now with talking about her feelings, and really, all she wanted to do was punch something or someone really hard, preferably in the face. Because that was something she knew how to do and she knew it always made her feel better once she’d done it.
“Oh he’s like this über-geek that killed his best friend and tried to take over the world. But not in that order. Now he lives with us and makes pies.” Willow frowned, there was probably a better explanation for Andrew, but heck if she could think of it right then.
“Okay,” Faith drew the word out, thinking a lot had changed since she had left Sunnydale.
“Tell me again why I’m headed back to Insane Central?” She commented, more of a throw away remark than an actual question.
Willow shook her head in response.
“No Faith, you tell me.”
Faith, resigned to the fact that Willow always got what she asked for, nodded her head and readied herself once again to open up her heart. But afterwards she was definitely going to punch something.