What Are You Going To Do Now?
“So,” said Jules after Faith had explained her whole situation with Buffy, replacing 'chosen Slayers' with some made up gang shit and ‘body switching’ with ‘stealing her identity’. “You and this girl have… history.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“And now she’s dead.”
“As a doornail.”
“And you want to know why you're upset about it?” Jules made a face like she was fighting back a smile. Faith really didn't see what was so funny about the whole situation.
“Jules,” Faith scowled down at the basketball she was just holding because Jules had suggested they play horse while they talked, and then Faith had started talking about the day she met Buffy and completely forgotten they were even in the gym, “I told you what happened between us. I should be glad she’s dead, right?”
Jules' smile faded into a puzzled frown. She was about the closest thing Faith had to a therapist in this fucking craphole, since apparently murdering a guy wasn’t enough to warrant professional help. Not that Faith had wanted it, at first. But Jules had been training to be a psychologist before she was arrested (also for murder, what a coincidence) and she would sometimes help other prisoners work out their issues. For a price, of course. Faith was one of the few people who didn't have to pay, mostly because one day Jules came up to her, dragged her over to a leftover chair and table from visiting day (visiting day took place in the gym, which also happened to be where Jules had approached Faith first), sat her down, and said, “Talk.” By all accounts, Jules only ever did that for inmates she either liked or pitied. Faith wasn’t sure she wanted to know which category she fell into there.
“You have to have a lot of hate for someone to be glad they’re dead.” Jules finally said.
“I had plenty of hate for her.”
“Yeah, but you had other things, too. I mean, you didn’t hate her when you were friends, right?”
“I hated her a little bit.” Faith muttered. “Just in a normal friend way. Or, what I thought was a normal friend way. I never had friends before her, so it’s not like I knew you’re not s’posed to hate your friends.”
“Why’d you hate her?”
Faith made a face. She wasn’t really sure if she could explain to Jules why she had hated Buffy back then. She didn’t fully understand it herself. She knew it had something to do with the fact that Buffy had everything, and Faith had nothing, and even when she tried her hardest, Faith couldn’t get a leg up on the girl. Buffy had everything, and Faith had nothing, and that was how it always had to be. It was like it was a constant between the two of them. And it made their friendship seem very uneven. It wasn’t like Buffy knew that she was all Faith had, not consciously. But maybe it would have been better if she had. Maybe then, when things got messy, Faith wouldn't have felt so confident throwing Buffy to the wolves. Giles hadn't believed her, of course, but even if he did, Faith had known he would go easier on Buffy. He'd always had a soft spot for her. And Faith? Well, there was no one in the world that would go easy on Faith if she screwed up. Which is why she had learned to step carefully, and shield herself when she slipped.
“Tough subject. I get it. Girl friendships can be like that sometimes.” was all Jules said. Fuck, she didn't know the half of it.
“Great analysis, Freud.” Faith snapped, and Jules grinned.
“You want analysis? How about the tone you just used with me and a little phrase called ‘lashing out’? Sound familiar?”
“Fuck you.” Faith spat.
“Right back atcha, kid.”
After that, they stood at the side of the basketball court for a moment (the court was the only gym they had, except for a black-top outside), silent. Jules looked over at Faith. “So. What’re you gonna do now?”
Faith tried to dribble her basketball, failed, and watched as it bounced across the court. It was honestly impressive for someone as strong and naturally athletic as a Slayer to be as bad at basketball as Faith was.
“What do you mean?”
“Now that your friend, or enemy, or whatever you want to call her, is dead? What are you going to do?”
“Stay here. What else would I do?”
“I didn’t ask where you were gonna go.” Jules retorted. “Are you gonna do something about her death? I mean, you can’t go to her funeral, but you could call her friends, maybe? Talk to them? Might help you figure out all these feelings wrapped up in… what’s her name.”
“Buffy.”
“Right. Buffy.” Jules wrinkled her nose. “What kind of name is Buffy?”
“I can’t talk to her friends. They all hate me. And I’m not too crazy about them, either.” Faith argued, choosing not to acknowledge Jules’s jab about Buffy’s name. Not that she hadn’t asked herself the same question a thousand times. Seriously, she didn’t even have anything against Joyce, but why Buffy?
“Does she have any family that doesn’t hate you?”
Faith recalled a day a few years ago where she had held Buffy’s mother and sister captive in Joyce’s bedroom. They had all known Faith was luring Buffy into a trap. Even Joyce wouldn’t forgive her after that. “Nope.”
“So, I repeat. What are you gonna do?”
Faith shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You ought to figure it out,” was all Jules said. Then, some other inmate across the gym flagged her down, and she gave Faith a little pat on the shoulder that Faith tried very hard not to stiffen for, and jogged off. For a moment, Faith just stood there, glaring at Jules’s retreating back, then at the basketball she had accidentally sent careening across the gym. But eventually she sighed in defeat, and shuffled back to her cell. Her cellmate, a tiny woman named Meg who was covered in badly done prison tattoos, normally only came to their shared cell to sleep, so Faith doubted she would see her until after dinner. It gave her plenty of time to climb up onto her bunk and think.
Buffy was dead. That was a fact, and Faith was done letting it get to her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t upset about it. There couldn't any feelings involved, not anymore. Who cares what Jules had said? She had to put her feelings back into that box, because she needed to think about this logically. Angel always said she let her emotions get in the way of things. Jules, too. She hated them both for it, but it didn't matter, because for now, they were right.
If Buffy was dead, there was no Slayer guarding the Hellmouth. And even though Buffy's friends probably wouldn’t want Faith there, wasn’t it her duty? Then again, there was no one telling her to come back. And if she did, she’d be risking the wrath of the Council, and Sunnydale PD, because no doubt she’d have to break out if she wanted to go to Sunnydale. And even if she did go, then what? She’d go back to the same motel she used to stay in, do the same thing she had done before, except without Buffy this time? Up until Allan Finch, Buffy had been the only thing making Sunnydale bearable. Now that she was dead, it would feel like walking through a town of ghosts.
The alternative was staying in prison, pretending she didn’t even know Buffy was dead until something happened. Maybe an apocalypse, where the Scoobies needed a Slayer badly enough to come begging at her cell door. If that happened, Faith thought, those fuckers better come visit her in person. She wasn’t breaking herself out of jail because of a phone call.
Besides, the whole point of her turning herself in was to make amends. Had she made up for what she had done yet? All the people she’d hurt? Would it be better for her to go to Sunnydale and try to protect people, to be the Slayer Buffy would have wanted her to be, rather than hide in the prison? Buffy would want someone to protect her friends. Faith wasn’t sure she was up to the job. Previous interactions with the Slayerettes indicated she mostly wanted to strangle them.
She had more than wanted to, actually. She had fantasized about it. She had considered it, which was scarier than just the vague ‘wanting’ to hurt them. Maybe going back to Sunnydale would just be letting another monster out of the cage.
At dinner, Faith sat alone, picking at her meal. Jules came over to check on her, but Faith couldn’t remember what they talked about. She flinched whenever Jules so much as moved. Jules’s hair was the same color Buffy’s had been. It was hard to look at someone she considered something akin to a friend, and see Buffy’s face. Buffy, everywhere. Corrupting her. Saving her.
By the end of dinner, she had realized that she couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t keep fighting this battle, trying to make amends to be good the way Buffy would have wanted. She wanted to make things right. That was true. But for years, ever since she’d met the other Slayer, she had been striving for this bar that was impossible to reach. To be as good as Buffy, as caring and kind and fucking perfect as little Miss Prom Queen herself. In the end, did it matter? Faith was alive, and Buffy was dead, so who really came out on top? Maybe Faith’s old philosophy wasn’t so bad, after all.
No. That wasn’t true. Her old philosophy was what got Allan Finch killed, and Faith didn’t want to do that again. She didn’t want to be the girl who killed Allan Finch. But she didn’t want to be the girl Buffy had always wanted her to be, either. She wanted to be herself. And she wanted to be a Slayer, whatever that entailed. It was stupid, really. Whoever had made the Slayers made it so they were called young. Faith had been a teenager when she was first called. But she wasn’t anymore. Three years after being called, and she was finally ready for the responsibility.
Maybe it was time for her to make amends in a different way. To try and live up to her destiny, whatever that may be. Maybe she’d end up being killed by some vampire in an alley a month later. At least she would have tried. At least she could save some lives, wash the blood off her hands instead of letting it dry and flake off, bit by bit.
It wouldn’t be easy. Faith knew that; she wasn’t stupid. But maybe Buffy’s death was the push she needed. It was time for her to start being the one and only Slayer. One girl in all the world, and all that crap Giles used to go on about. Besides, she didn’t have to go back to Sunnydale to be a Slayer again. Didn’t Cleveland have a Hellmouth, too?