Heaven
Faith was back. Back in Sunnydale, back in a crappy motel room, sitting alone in the middle of the night. Just like old times.
She had arrived just before sundown, and considered patrolling in one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries, but opted for getting a good night’s sleep instead. If she were braver, maybe she would have admitted she didn’t want to patrol because after a long day of travel, the last thing she wanted was to run into one of the Scoobies. Or worse, walk around seeing nothing, no vampires, no other people, no one but the ghosts of her past.
So she had paced her motel room until her legs got tired. Then she sat down on the musty covers of the bed, trying not to think about how dirty the bed cover was. A few months with her own apartment and she’d gone soft. This was her life, she reminded herself. Dirty motel rooms and musty blankets with mysterious stains. People like her were lucky to get that much, and she ought to remember that. That even a motel was better than being on the street, or in prison.
Apparently, her body had known that was enough for her, that it had to be, because ten minutes later she was sprawled across the dirty bedcover, completely unconscious.
She knew she was having another Slayer dream when she woke up in a white--well, void wasn’t completely the right word, but that’s what it looked like at first. She was alone. Or at least, she thought she was alone, until she saw a slim, blonde figure standing in the distance, stark against the expanse of white in a morose black dress. She wasn’t sure how far Buffy was. Distance seemed like it was hard to gauge in the void--room, whatever--but it only took her a couple of steps before she was at the blonde’s back.
Once Faith had reached her, Buffy turned. She moved with an ethereal grace, a slow and deliberate way that Buffy had never moved in life. In a lot of ways, this Buffy didn't match the one Faith had known, which scared her even more. She hadn’t spoken to Buffy in years, not since she had turned herself in. She remembered hearing Buffy--along with some other blonde (Angel really had a type)--arguing with him at the police station in Los Angeles. She remembered the things Buffy had said to her after she’d fled to LA. She was right to be angry. Faith knew that. She hadn’t been able to look at herself in the mirror for months after what she’d done. But to not be able to escape Buffy’s condemnation, even in her dreams… Faith wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it.
Buffy didn’t look angry, which was perhaps the most surprising thing about the dream. She just offered Faith a soft, sad smile, and extended a hand. Faith looked around, and watched as the white expanse around them dissolved into a beautiful meadow, with grass as soft and light as feathers beneath Faith’s feet.
“B,” Faith began cautiously, “Where are we?”
Buffy, apparently tired of waiting, took Faith by the hand, and led her through the meadow. “This isn’t a sex dream, is it?” Faith asked nervously, more as an attempt to break the tension than anything else. “I thought I left these behind after you stabbed me in the gut.”
Buffy guided Faith to the edge of the meadow. There was a great distance between wherever they were up above and the ground below. With a meaningful look towards Faith, Buffy looked down over the edge. Faith followed suit.
They were looking down at a cemetery. It was dark, and they were too far away for Faith to make out the name on any of the gravestones, but she figured out pretty quickly which one Buffy was trying to show her. Around Buffy's own grave sat Willow and Xander, plus Willow’s girlfriend and another blonde girl Faith vaguely recognized. They were all sitting in a circle, with a vase of some kind in the center. Willow sat at the head of the group, directly in front of the vase. They were going to start the spell. Faith had to stop it, she knew, but for a moment she thought she would rather stay in the dream.
Faith looked around the meadow. It was peaceful here. Beautiful. Was this where Buffy was now that she was dead? It certainly wasn’t Hell. But of course it wasn’t. Of course Buffy, of all people, Queen of Morality herself, would end up in Heaven, and a girl like her was lucky that she could even visit. She felt a familiar old rage rise up in her. As that intimately recognizeable sense of jealousy overtook her, the meadow darkened. Thunder sounded in the distance. The grass beneath Faith's feet quivered. Buffy whipped her head around towards the rumbling, dark clouds that were approaching. Then she looked back at Faith, her expression soft, and quietly said, “I fought for this. I died for this. And now you’re going to take it away from me?” The clouds pulled closer.
Faith took a deep breath, and looked back at the grave. She swallowed. She still had work to do, and a lot of it. But Buffy was done. She had been dead for months. She was happy. And even though a part of Faith screamed and raged at the idea that Buffy got to be at peace when Faith was still at war, with herself and with the world around her, she knew what needed to be done. After everything that she had done to Buffy, she should at least let the other Slayer have this. Stop one spell, and they could both move on. She looked at Buffy. The storm clouds faded away. Crisp, warm sunlight shone on them both.
“Where are they?” she asked. Buffy shook her head, once again falling silent, but her eyes drifted back to the vision of her grave. Faith looked, too. There was a mausoleum behind them, and thank God, she recognized it. She nodded, and looked back at Buffy. “I’m sorry.” she said, and it was barely more than a whisper because she was too weak, too cowardly to say it with her chest. The meadow faded. Buffy did, too, and the last thing Faith saw before she woke up were Buffy's beseeching green eyes.
…
Faith woke up and started running. She wasn’t even sure if she had remembered to close the door to her motel room. Not like it mattered, anyways. She didn’t have anything worth stealing.
She had thought she remembered the way to Restfield Cemetery, but apparently not because she took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a brawl with three demons. The streets of Sunnydale were chaotic, even for a Hellmouth. There were demons everywhere, rioting and looting. The streets were scattered with broken glass and illuminated by dozens of small fires raging across town. The demons--ugly things with pointed teeth, flat noses, and sunken red eyes--didn’t go down easy, either. Of course they were all dressed in leather, which bothered Faith only because that was her look, and she didn’t enjoy it being poached by a pack of ugly demon biker wannabes.
After finally killing the demons, she raced on, trying not to think about the blood coating her hands. The only times she had blood on her hands was when she did bad things, blood like Allan Finch, blood like Lester Worth, blood like all the people she’d beaten and punched because she thought she was better than them, that she was above them somehow-
No, she had to focus. She just had to get to the cemetery and stop Buffy’s friends. Willow was her main target. She had been sitting at the head of the group, and Faith was betting with the girl’s experience in witchcraft and general stubbornness, this whole thing was her idea.
She reached the cemetery at the same time a group of demon bikers did, because of course she did. Things could never be easy, could they? One of them rounded on her, fangs bared. “I fucking hate Sunnydale,” Faith said as she attacked.
The demon lunged. She dodged. Faith pulled a knife from her boot. The demon lunged again, and Faith hit the ground and rolled away. She was at his back now, and plunged the knife into it. The demon roared. Across the cemetery, Faith heard shouts and saw a flash of red hair. She turned to the group of demons.
“Wish I could stay and chat, but I have more important things to do.” Then, she was sprinting through the cemetery, dodging headstones and crypts as she raced towards the section where Buffy was buried. Willow was doing some kind of freaky witch thing where her head bent backwards, so she didn’t seem to notice Faith, but the others did. Xander grabbed her by the arm and said something to her. The blonde Faith couldn't quite place scrambled to her feet and got behind Xander, while Willow's girlfriend grabbed her arm. But Willow wasn’t snapping out of it, and Faith knew enough about magic to know what she needed to do. She stopped, kicked a nearby headstone hard enough to chip a piece of stone off of it, and hurled the stone at the vase. Direct hit.
Willow snapped out of it then, a snarl on her face as she turned to look in Faith's direction. Behind her, Faith heard the thundering footsteps of the demons. She didn’t have time to see what happened to Buffy’s friends as she turned away from them. She heard shouts of “Willow, we have to go!” and “Never mind the crazy girl! Let’s get out of here!”
“You bitch!” Faith heard Willow yell, her voice drawing further away. She had been right. Red was the one who was all gung-ho on resurrecting Buffy. Well, breaking the weird magical vase had clearly stopped the spell, hopefully in time to keep Buffy dead. Faith knew that Buffy’s friends wouldn’t understand. It almost wasn’t worth telling them what she had dreamt. They wouldn’t believe her, and even if they did, they wouldn’t think it was a good enough explanation to let Buffy stay dead. Idiots.
Faith was still running on enough adrenaline from her mad sprint to the cemetery that she made quick work of the demons. It was the usual dance: they tried to lunge at her, use their strength against her, but she was strong too, and a hell of a lot more flexible. Dodge, roll, dodge, stab, move on.
And she did intend to move on, maybe patrol the city to see if there were any other demons lurking around. Later, she would deal with the fact that Buffy was still dead, and it was Faith's fault. But for now, she needed a fight.
As she headed towards the wrought iron archway marking the cemetery’s exit, she heard a sound. A faint scratching sound. She thought she must be imaginging things at first, until it changed from a faint scratching into a desperate, loud pounding. Faith knew that sound well. All Slayers did. It was the sound of something trying to claw its way out of a grave.
Was it a vampire? Faith desperately wanted it to be a vampire, and she scanned the cemetery for a hand breaking through the grave dirt, hoping against hope that she was wrong about what she thought that sound actually was. Her eyes finally anded on the source of the sound. Oh, shit.