Smashed
Sunnydale was the stupidest town Faith had ever lived in. ‘Regret’ wasn’t quite the right word for what she was feeling as she walked to the Sunnydale Natural History Museum, but she was certainly questioning her decision to stay. She could be in England, far away from all this bullshit by now. Or she could be back in Cleveland, though probably not back at that gas station job. Instead, she was hiking across town because the crappy tv in the crappy motel lobby had reported a man being frozen solid. Right out of a goddamn comic book. Why the hell did Sunnydale even have a Natural History Museum, anyways?
The museum in question was, rather predictably, swarming with people (and cops, though Faith didn’t fully count them as ‘people’). Faith hung back, silently scanning the front of the museum for any other entrance. Her gaze snagged on a familiar couple standing off to the side of the entrance. They seemed to be having some kind of argument, and Faith, through a combination of curiosity and caution, moved to investigate.
“As a team, we could,” Spike was saying to Buffy as the two of them walked the perimeter of the museum.
“Yeah, that never ends well, does it?”
“It ended well the other night.” Spike answered, a hint of a cocky smile on his face. Buffy stiffened. In perhaps her kindest act yet, Faith stepped into view before the argument could get any uglier.
Both heads turned to her. Spike narrowed his eyes, but Faith could have sworn Buffy looked relieved.
“Oh, good, the whole gang’s here.” Spike muttered sullenly. “You Slayers have terrible timing, you know that?”
“Yeah? Why’s that?” Faith remembered what Buffy had told her a few nights ago in the Bronze, and she was willing to bet that was what Spike was talking about. And as much as she wanted to see the two of them argue about it, as much as it amused her that the high and mighty Buffy, the one-true-love Buffy, had stuck her tongue down another vampire’s throat, she didn’t really want to see her hurt. Which sucked for her, because seeing Buffy hurt used to be one of her favorite pastimes.
Spike narrowed his eyes at her even further, but didn’t respond. He just turned, looked at Buffy, and said, “You may be willing to forget what happened, but I’m not.”
Buffy met his gaze, a familiar, steely determination in her eyes. “Get out of here, Spike.” she said, in a tone that Faith knew meant ‘fuck off, or else’.
Spike turned and stalked off, at which point Buffy turned to Faith. “I can handle Spike. I don’t need you to save me from him.”
Faith shrugged. “Wasn’t tryin’ to save you, B. I was just lookin’ for a good show.”
Buffy studied Faith for a moment, but either couldn’t find any indication she was lying, or didn’t care to, because after a moment she turned back to the crime scene, all business. “Do you have any idea what happened here?”
“Besides the guy being frozen solid? No clue.”
Buffy shook her head. “It’s weird, right? I mean, it has to be some kind of demon, because no human could freeze a guy like that. But why?”
“Demon museum thief. Definitely a new one.” Faith agreed.
“Do you think he'll live?" asked Buffy, presumably referring to the frozen security guard.
"I'm not a doctor."
Buffy scowled. "Never mind. We're gonna have to figure out what did this, so meet us at the Magic Box tomorrow, okay?"
“You got it, B.” Faith winked at her. Buffy looked annoyed, though Faith was pleased to see it was her normal kind of annoyance.
Buffy left after that, apparently too soured by her conversation with Spike to stay. But Faith's heart was racing, and she knew she would get shitty sleep no matter what she did, so she opted to do some investigating, instead.
She couldn’t get into the museum legally, but she wasn’t sure illegally was an option for her, either. She was only good at breaking into places when it was the kind of loud, I-don’t-care break-in that let her shatter the window, trip the alarm, and run. That wouldn’t work here, with higher security and cops already swarming the place.
Faith lingered at the edge of the crowd, pretending to watch the EMTs awkwardly load the frozen man into the ambulance. She listened vaguely to the chatter of the police, who watched the scene warily. One of them mentioned a diamond being stolen.
She considered what Buffy had said about the case being weird. Then she considered the last case she had worked where the demon’s motive seemed ‘weird’. A bank robbery. In the mind of a thief, Faith thought that museum diamond heist was only a step or two up from bank robbery. And hiring a demon for a museum heist… Well, it wasn’t something that would be unheard of in Sunnydale. In fact, Faith knew just the boys who would do something like that.
She found the house she was looking for after getting lost only once (Sunnydale was harder to navigate than she remembered, especially in the dark). No lights were on inside. Warren and his mother were probably asleep.
It wasn't a good idea for her to go into the house while he was asleep. She was already wanted by Sunnydale PD, and even if she wasn't, who knows what could happen? What if he attacked her? Faith knew she could control herself; she wasn't an animal. But there was always a chance that he could hit her, and she might hit back a little bit harder than she intended. Slayer strength was funny like that.
She wouldn’t hurt him on purpose. But Allan Finch hadn’t been on purpose, either. And if she had thought things through that night… well, she’d probably be a hell of a lot better off right now. So Faith slunk back into the shadows, back to her motel room, swearing that she would deal with them once the day dawned and once she was sure she could manage to pull her punches.
…
Faith walked into the Magic Box late the next morning. Or at least, she assumed she was late. Buffy hadn’t given her a time, but when she showed up, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Buffy were already assembled. Giles, obviously, was absent, as was Willow’s girlfriend Tara. Well, there went her two allies.
Willow and Xander were each reading separate copies of the newspaper. Willow slowly looked up from her paper as Faith entered. Xander pointedly ignored her.
“The paper says he’s still unconscious.” Xander observed calmly from his paper. Behind him, pulling books off the shelf with a frown on her face, Anya huffed.
“Anya?” Xander turned to look at her, still pointedly ignoring Faith. Buffy, who seemed to be the only one who cared to acknowledge that Faith was there, gestured for Faith to take a seat. Faith sat in between Buffy and Willow. Willow bristled, but said nothing.
“The book I wanted, Giles took it with him.” Anya complained, frowning.
At the mention of Giles's name, the room grew quiet. All eyes went to Buffy: poor, fragile Buffy, who they needed to check with before even acknowledging Giles's existence.
Buffy stared at the table. She either didn't notice, or didn't want to notice, everyone's attention.
“Should we call him?” she asked, sounding distinctly uncomfortable with that prospect.
Faith shifted in her chair, sensing that an emotional moment was about to happen. She knew that it would, because Buffy and her friends were always having emotional moments, but that didn’t make it less weird for her.
“It’s fine,” said Willow, with a subtle frown towards Faith. “We’ll do it another way.” She bent over, rifling through a bag she had stashed under the table. Xander visibly tensed.
“I don’t think-” Buffy started, eyes widening in fear. Willow pulled out a laptop, and everyone relaxed.
“Back to basics.” Xander remarked approvingly. Beside him, Anya set a few books down on the table.
“That’s great, Will. I haven’t seen you do that in a long time.” said Buffy. Willow gave her a vague smile, hovered her palms over keyboard, and filled the room with a warm golden glow. Faith didn't have a computer, but she was pretty sure that was not how you used them.
Buffy frowned, leaned over to Xander, and murmured something. The two of them exchanged uncomfortable looks. Anya walked back over to the bookshelf, a faint, pinched expression reminiscent of disapproval on her face. Faith was gathering that Anya was the hardest of them to read, probably because she didn’t seem to have much of a reaction to most things.
Willow raised her head, eyes pointed at the ceiling. “This is faster.” she said by way of explanation.
“Creepier, too.” Faith remarked. Xander started to agree, then seemed to remember who he was agreeing with and stopped.
“Okay,” said Willow, ignoring Faith, “Internal police report.”
Xander and Buffy exchanged another look.
“Is it about the diamond that was stolen?” Faith asked, leaning against the table. “Because you didn’t need a spell to learn about that one, Red.”
Buffy, Xander, and Anya all looked at Faith with expressions ranging from surprise to approval. Willow’s brows furrowed. “It was on loan from the British Museum. They’re withholding information to smoke out the criminals. Oh! It’s pretty.” She pulled her hands off the keyboard and looked back at her friends. “There was a picture.”
“Is it a supernatural diamond?” Buffy asked uncertainly. “Does it have healing powers?”
“Maybe it’s cursed.” Anya suggested matter-of-factly. Faith noticed that most things she said were matter-of fact. “Diamonds are excellent for cursing.”
“We’ll keep checking, shall we?” said Willow, repositioning her hands over the laptop keyboard. Xander started to formulate one of his lame excuses, but Faith reached out, placed her hand on Willow’s, and pulled them away from the keyboard. Willow’s eyes snapped to hers, and she snatched her hands out of Faith’s grasp. Everyone in the room tensed again.
“You don’t need to do that.” said Faith, withdrawing her hands and carefully placing them on the table. “The diamond’s not special. 'Least, I don’t think it is. But it's expensive, and I bet the three idiots that had a demon rob that bank liked that."
All eyes were suddenly on Faith, and not in a way that made her feel particularly comfortable. Faith looked over at Buffy. “I told you about them.” she said, mostly to get the heat off herself. “You didn’t tell everyone else?”
Buffy furrowed her brow for a moment, thinking hard. Her eyes suddenly went wide, and she looked at Faith. “That was right before Angel called. I completely forgot…”
“Forgot what?” Xander demanded. “What are we missing here?”
Faith filled the four of them in on her encounter with the three losers. She explained her logic: she wasn’t sure if there was a demon that had freezing powers, but if there was, Warren and his duo of dweebs had probably hired it, just like they did the demon at the bank.
“Warren. I’ve never liked that guy.” Xander muttered, though both Buffy and Anya made faces that indicated otherwise.
“Who were the other boys with Warren?” Willow asked. Faith could tell it was killing her to have to ask Faith for information.
“One of ‘em was blond and whiny. Real scared-looking dude. Didn’t catch his name. The other was short, dark hair, kind of a nasally voice… I don’t remember his name. I think it started with a J?”
“Was it Jonathan?” asked Buffy in a low voice.
“Think so. I wouldn't worry about him, though.”
“So who would you worry about?” asked Anya. Everyone looked at her with expressions that indicated she had said something wrong.
“What? She said she wasn’t worried about him. That implies that there is someone she’s worried about. Am I wrong?”
Xander opened his mouth to say something, but Faith cut him off. “She's not wrong. It's their leader. Warren."
Anya looked triumphantly over at Xander. Buffy gave Faith a puzzled look.
“Warren? He's a creep, sure, but he’s human. What’s he gonna do to two Slayers?”
As predicted, Faith hadn’t slept well the night prior. She had been thinking about her previous encounter with the nerd squad, about the way Warren had looked at her. Buffy was right. Warren was an ordinary, commonplace man. There was nothing special about him. But Faith, unlike Buffy, recognized how dangerous that was.
“B,” Faith began cautiously, each word deliberate and clear. “How many men like Warren do you know?”
Buffy eyed her cautiously. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t understand, because you’re a Slayer first. Guys like Warren have never scared you. You can defend yourself. But I know guys like Warren. I’ve seen ‘em, with my mom, with me, with the other girls in the prison. You don’t know what a guy like that will do when he’s cornered. And yeah, we can take him. I’d have to tie both arms behind my back for it to be a fair fight. But we can’t kill him. And he’ll kill us if he gets the chance. Or, if it’s not one of us, it’s one of the others, someone who doesn’t have fast healing and super strength and all that Slayer shit.”
“I don’t think he’s a killer.” said Buffy.
“You’ve never met a guy like him before. He thinks he’s owed the world, B, and he’ll do anything to take it. If someone like Dawn, or Tara, or Anya gets caught in the crossfire, he won’t care. The only one of us he would see as human enough to feel guilt over is Xander.”
“Why me?” Xander asked. Faith just stared at him. Was he really this stupid?
“Faith’s right.” Anya piped up, because Willow and Buffy were still looking dubious. “It’s always the smart ones you have to look out for. The brutes, sure, they’ll cheat. But the nerds? Whew, I had a hell of a time coming up with punishments for what they did."
She said all of this in her same, matter-of-fact voice, like it was a completely normal thing to say. Faith smirked. Xander gave his girlfriend an alarmed look.
Buffy sighed. “Fine. I don’t know what we can do about it, but we’ll keep an eye on him.”
“That’s all I’m sayin’ we should do.”
...
They didn’t take Willow, Anya, or Xander, because they didn’t really need them. Honestly, they didn’t really need two Slayers, either, but Buffy wasn’t going to sit this one out, and neither was Faith. So the two of them trekked back down to the Mears residence, with Faith in the lead.
Buffy was silent for most of the walk. She was clearly thinking about something, but she didn’t give Faith any indication what it was until they reached the neighborhood Warren lived in, at which point she turned to Faith and said, “What did you mean when you said I’m a Slayer first?”
Faith, startled that they were still having this conversation, paused.
“I dunno, B. You aren’t like the rest of us. Not even me. Things don’t get to you. People don’t get to you. You’re a girl, and you look like a girl, but you don’t have to deal with things the way other girls do.”
“Neither do you.” said Buffy, frowning.
“I wasn’t always the Slayer.”
“Neither was I.”
“It’s different. When you weren’t the Slayer, you were a teenage girl. You had parents that protected you, a roof over your head, all that crap. Life wasn’t like that for me. Life for me was a string of guys like Warren, guys who saw my mom as a way to get what they wanted and me as an obstacle at best, and a toy at worst.”
Buffy considered this. Then she said, “I guess that's why Giles told me to be nice to you."
Faith scoffed. “Well, that’s awfully nice of the old tightass, but I can take care of myself. 'Sides, I doubt he even knows about that shit."
“That's not what I meant. When Giles talked to me, he told me that you failed me, but that we had failed you, too. He said that I needed to give you another chance, because a lot of what you are is what we made you.”
He had said something similar in the coffee shop. It hadn’t sounded so outlandish coming out of his mouth.
“It’s whatever, B. You didn’t fail me. I can handle my own shit.”
“You were seventeen, and you had no one.” said Buffy, in a tone that she had never used before. A tone that indicated she knew what it was like to have no one.
They reached the house. Faith, unwilling to continue this conversation, gestured to it. “This is it.”
Buffy took the hint.
“Should we knock, or-?”
“I got it. His mom might recognize me.”
Faith knocked on the door. The same woman who had answered last time opened it. She did, in fact, seem to recognize Faith. Her lips thinned, but she opened the door wider. “Warren’s downstairs.”
“Thanks.” Faith muttered as she brushed by Mrs. Mears.
“You have a lovely home.” Buffy tried as she followed Faith towards the basement.
“Thank you.” The woman smiled at Buffy with a lot more sincerity than she had smiled at Faith. Faith felt a prickle of jealousy in knowing that she would never be the kind of girl parents were impressed with. She ignored it, and led Buffy to the basement.
The three boys were sitting on the raised concrete in their bean bag chairs, just like they had been the first time she came. This time, they were playing video games together. The short one, Jonathan, was grinning freely. The blond one’s brows were knitted together in concentration and determination. And Warren, sitting in between the two boys, clearly beating them both.
The blond one saw them first. He sighed, tossed his controller to the ground in defeat, and propped his face in his hands. The gesture forced him to turn his head, and he caught a glimpse of Faith out of the corner of his eye. He straightened, punching Warren’s bean bag to get his attention.
Warren and Jonathan both looked over at Faith. Then they looked over at Buffy. All three of the boys made the same face, somewhere between shocked and afraid.
“Hi, guys.” said Buffy in her dangerous voice, the one she only used on humans when she was threatening them. “Don’t let us interrupt.”
The blond one’s hand twitched towards his controller, as if he were fighting the urge to listen to her. Though he seemed to catch himself in time, Warren still smacked him on the arm. Then he drew himself up, trying to look imposing as he held Buffy’s stare. He didn’t acknowledge Faith at all.
“How did you find us, Slayer?”
Buffy looked around the basement. “Well, you work out of your mom’s basement, so it wasn’t hard. Plus, she showed me.” She gestured to Faith.
The blond one looked at Faith with a childishly annoyed expression. “What’s your deal?” he asked, though it came out as more of a whine.
“My deal?” Faith repeated incredulously. “My ‘deal’ is that I already killed one demon you idiots hired, and now there’s another one running around. My ‘deal’ is that neither of you know what the hell you’re messing with, and you’re gonna end up dead or worse.”
“So, what?” asked Jonathan, trying and barely failing to sound unimpressed. “You’re the bad cop?”
Faith looked at the three boys. She looked at Buffy. Buffy nodded.
“I’m the fucking Slayer.”
This surprised them. They exchanged curious looks. Warren leaned forward, an easy, oily smile already on his lips.
“I thought there could only be one of you.”
“You thought wrong,” said Buffy. Her eyes were narrowed in an expression that meant she was watching Warren carefully.
The blond one leaned closer to Warren and said in a loud stage whisper, “This kind of messes up our plan, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Warren snapped. Buffy looked over at the blond one. “Okay, I know who Warren and Jonathan are, but who are you? Because I’ve never seen you before, and I usually like to get names before I kick a person’s ass.”
Jonathan snickered. Warren, still doing his best to look threatening, fought a smirk. The blond boy huffed angrily. “I’m Andrew." Buffy shook her head.
Remember? Tucker’s brother?”
“Oh, Tucker’s brother!” Buffy cried. Andrew huffed another annoyed sigh.
“Now that we’ve got introductions out of the way, can we get to kicking the shit out of them for information?” Faith asked.
“Right.”
“Wait,” Warren cried, abruptly shifting from intimidating to begging. “Maybe we can help each other. You tell us something we want to know, and we tell you what you want to know.”
Buffy and Faith exchanged glances. “What do you want to know?” Buffy asked. Faith would have preferred to just rough them up.
“How long have there been two Slayers?”
“Five years.” Buffy eyed the trio carefully. “What kind of demon did you hire to freeze that security guard?”
“We didn’t use a demon.” Warren answered smugly. He was clearly pleased that they thought it was a demon.
“What did you use, then?”
“A question for a question.”
“Why haven’t I--I mean, we--heard of you before?” Jonathan asked Faith. Faith looked at him, delighted to finally have a question to answer. She sensed that Buffy was trying to limit her interaction with the boys so she didn’t scare them too much. But she wanted them scared, and she was just tense enough to need that release.
With a flash of teeth, Faith responded, “Because I stopped being the kind of Slayer Buffy is the second I stuck a knife into a man’s gut.”
All three of them paled. One of them--their faces were blurring together at this point, and Faith didn’t particularly care which was which--opened his mouth for another question. But Faith was sick of playing around. She took a step forward, hand on her stake.
“What, are you gonna kill us with a piece of wood?” Warren scoffed, noting the way she was holding the stake.
“Why not? That’s how I did it before.”
Warren studied her, trying to figure out if she was bluffing or not. Faith, not willing to give him enough time to figure it out on his own, said, “You think this is a game? That B and I are superheroes, and you’re some kind of epic villains? You’re not. We fight evil, and the three of you aren’t anywhere near as bad as you have to be to even be considered a threat. Which isn’t a big deal for B, because if you’re not that threatening, she just won’t touch you. Won’t even bother. But me? I don’t like thorns in my side. And I know a hell of a lot better way to get rid of them than she does.”
Andrew and Jonathan looked sufficiently terrified. Faith was willing to bet that, if it was up to them, they would back off. But Warren, though he looked unnerved, looked equally angry. She could practically feel the rage boiling in him, rage at being put down when he was so clearly above her. She flicked her eyes to Buffy, then back to Warren. Buffy wasn’t terribly observant when it came to people, but then again, Faith hadn’t always been that way, either. Buffy took a long, thoughtful look at Warren, and then looked back at Faith. She hadn’t objected to Faith’s big, scary speech, which either meant she knew it was a bluff, or that she was way worse off than Faith thought. Either way, it wasn’t a discussion they needed to have here.
“Tell us what we want to know, and no one gets hurt.” It wasn’t Faith’s best line, but after her monologue, it was all she had.
“We’re not mugging them.” Buffy muttered, though she didn’t stop Faith. Faith knew Buffy well enough to know that Buffy did enjoy the violence and threats. Faith was just the one who enjoyed it more.
“We’re mugging them a little bit.” Faith said back. Warren gave each of the boys warning looks.
“You can't have the diamond. We need it!” Andrew cried, though neither Faith nor Buffy had asked for the diamond.
“For what?” Buffy demanded. She stepped forward, just enough so that she was behind Faith’s shoulder. Faith realized with a thrill that Buffy was backing her up.
“We’re not going to tell you.” said Warren, eyes narrow and full of hate. Threats apparently didn't work very well on him. So Faith, fed up with trying to be nice, itching just for once to be stupid and violnt, walked forward, grabbed him by the back of the head, and drove his face into her bent knee.
Blood sprayed everywhere, mostly onto Faith, but a little bit onto Andrew and Jonathan. She hated to admit it, but it felt good. Buffy watched her, brows tight with disapproval, but said nothing.
“You gonna tell me now?”
Warren glared at her from behind a bloody (probably broken) nose. Faith started for him again. Andrew blurted out, “We’re making an invisibility ray!”
Faith stopped and stared at him. “An invisibility ray.” she repeated disbelievingly.
“Yeah.” Andrew cast a worried look at Warren, whose hateful stare was now on him. “It’s gonna be just like the freeze ray we made to get the security guard out of the way.”
“What do you dorks need an invisibility ray for?”
The three of them exchanged looks that Faith couldn’t quite interpret, but seemed to be closer to mischievous teenage boy looks than sinister villain looks. Buffy, who apparently could interpret this look (presumably, Faith thought, from spending so much time with Xander) cried, “Oh my god! You guys are idiots!”
“Hey!” cried Jonathan. Faith was pretty sure she’d had a similar conversation with them the first time she’d confronted them.
“Let’s get outta here, B.” Faith said to the other Slayer. “We can’t do anything else about these losers now.”
The three of them looked comforted by this, until halfway up the stairs when Faith paused. "The three of you need to back the fuck off." she said. Her voice was low, but she knew they could hear her. "Because the next time I come down to this musty basement, it’s gonna be to kill the three of you.”
They left the house without Warren’s mother seeing, which was good considering Faith was covered in her son’s blood, and though Faith was still itching for a fight, she didn’t feel like beating up an innocent woman was the way to go.
They reached the street. Faith said, “I need a drink.”
Buffy arched an eyebrow. “It’s the middle of the day.”
Shrug. “Didn’t ask you to join me, did I?”
But Buffy apparently took this as an invitation, because she thought hard for a second, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.” And since Faith (even though she definitely had not invited Buffy) cared a lot more about getting drunk than who she was drinking with, she agreed, and the two girls headed to the Bronze.
What followed was a lot of “I’m only going to have one drink” from Buffy, though by Faith’s count she downed at least three. Buffy wasn’t a fun drunk, which was disappointing, but Faith at least managed to coax her to dance. Then Buffy watched, bored, as Faith hustled a few more college guys at pool. Finally, around sundown, Buffy slid off the bar stool she was sitting on.
“We need to go patrol.” she mumbled. She took a step towards the door and tripped. It was a small trip, and she caught herself, but Faith still noticed it.
“That’s the problem with day drinking.” Faith muttered to herself. “When you have a night job.”
Buffy took another step. She didn’t stagger this time, but she put a hand to her head. “Ooh. Maybe take a night off patrol.”
Faith grinned. She liked seeing Buffy like this. “C’mon, lets go somewhere else. We can go back to my place.”
Buffy screwed up her face. “You mean your motel?”
“Fine. Where do you wanna go?”
Buffy shrugged, sat back down on the barstool, and ordered another drink. Her face was flushed, eyes brighter than usual. Faith had never seen Buffy drunk before. It suited her far better than it had a right to. There was still that same sorrow weighing on her, but it seemed a little lighter now. Faith felt a familiar, almost nostalgic flutter in her chest as she watched Buffy talk to the bartender. She realized what it meant a second later. Oh, no. Not again.
“We should probably head out.” said Faith, putting Buffy’s newly ordered drink to the side. Buffy pouted. Faith slid off her own barstool with a surprisingly sober grace (she hadn’t spent her teen years drinking for nothing) and helped Buffy off her own.
They walked home mostly in silence, which was Faith’s preference. Her heart was still pounding from that moment in the bar. Today had been great. Better than she expected. Better than she could have asked for in a day spent mostly with Buffy Summers. But it also reminded her of that one day three years ago, when they were both wild and when Faith’s heart was pounding every time Buffy did something, and when she had thought maybe the night could end the way she wanted, instead of with her covered in another man’s blood-
But that wasn't going to happen again. Not if Faith could help it.
The two of them reached Revello Drive. Buffy, who even while drunk was apparently emotionally intelligent enough to recognize when Faith wanted quiet, turned.
“Thanks for helping today.” she said. There was so much unsaid in her voice, so much that Faith couldn’t parse out. Her heart pounded faster.
“No problem.”
Buffy cast a look at the house, then over at Faith. She dragged a hand down her face. The dim street lights made her look so tired. She didn’t seem drunk anymore, though Faith knew she couldn’t have sobered up just on the walk home.
“I don’t want to go back in there.” she said. She pressed her lips together as she said it, her voice wavering. Faith was never very good at comforting, so she said the only thing she could think of.
“Why not?”
Buffy shrugged. She didn’t meet Faith’s gaze. The other Slayer knew why, and so did Buffy. But neither of them said it.
“That bad, huh?”
“It never ends.” Buffy’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “And today was one of the first times I’ve felt a little better. Like ever since I came back, I just keep getting hit over and over again, and there’s no chance for me to get up or hit back. But today was like a timeout. Like I got to take a break. And now I just have to go back in there and get hit again. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“So don’t.”
Whether Faith intended it as reverse psychology or not, it worked. “I have to,” Buffy insisted wearily. “For Dawn. If it weren’t for her…”
There were a thousand endings to that sentence, and Faith heard them all in Buffy’s voice. This was not something that could be fixed by a day of drinking and pool. This wasn’t something that was going to go away easily. But Buffy was the strongest, most determined, most pig-headed person she knew. If there was anyone who could come back from this, it was her.
And maybe Buffy saw that in Faith’s eyes, because she straightened a little bit. Took a deep breath. She turned to go inside, but before she did, paused and took one last look at Faith.
“The weirdest part about being back,” she said, “Is that the person who tried to kill me is the only one I feel like is really there for me.”