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The smell of burning tobacco still reminds Faith of home, in all the good and bad ways possible.
Faith hadn’t smoked much, before prison. Her parents had both smoked like chimneys, but then again so had her aunts, her uncles, her nana. Every adult in her life had spent her childhood with one hand aloft, cigarette perched between two fingers. Every memory of her family is stained in a tawny Marlboro haze.
She remembers being very young, on a rare sober morning with her mother. First grade, probably, or somewhere around there. It was going to be picture day at school, and they had crowded into that tiny bathroom in their old Southie apartment. Mom fussing over her hair, lit cigarette between her fingers, until the moment the burning tip had caught the edge of Faith's ear. Faith had cried and her mom had apologized, brushed the tears away with gentle hands. But, Faith had kept crying — it had hurt, she was only little, hadn't yet learned how to swallow that kind of pain— and mom had gotten mad, cuffed her on the temple with the heel of her palm. If you don’t cut that out, I’ll give you something to really cry about.
For a long time, that memory swam up to the front of her mind every time she watched her mom light up. It had been enough, for a while, to deter her from wanting anything to do with the stuff.
But well, Faith was never really any good at staying away from things that were bad for her.
And then, well—
Murder two. Twenty-five to life. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
The thing is, she’s not in prison anymore. And it’s a filthy habit, besides. She knows how bad it can get — the hacking coughs, the yellow fingers, the oxygen tanks. Maybe Slayer healing can offset some of the worst effects, for a while. But everyone’s got to pay the piper eventually, right? She knows that better than anyone.
Rolling the cigarette over between her fingers, Faith thinks, maybe I oughta quit.
And then the back door swings open, screeching on its hinges. Footsteps. Tap, tap, tap.
“Okay. So both of you smoke, huh?”
Buffy.
Figures that the backyard wasn’t really far enough away to avoid Buffy. Faith had thought she’d be caught up with her friends and Spike fussing over her, still trying to figure out how to reverse the memory wipe spell she got hit with last night. None of them have come out and said it, at least not yet, but Faith can’t help but get the feeling they all blame her for it. She and B had been out patrolling together when it happened.
Faith slips the butt into her mouth, cupping her palms around the cigarette while she flicks the lighter into action.
Maybe she oughta quit. But then again, there’s a lot of things she oughta do, right? And most of them, she figures, can wait until after the apocalypse. It’s not like the adverse effects of cigarettes are gonna get to her before the Turok-Han.
“What do you mean ‘both of you?’” Faith asks around a drag, not turning to look back at Buffy. She can feel her hovering a few steps away. Feel the weight of her gaze on the back of Faith’s neck.
“You and that… Spike? The leather jacket guy in the basement,” Buffy clarifies. “Vampire, I guess. And me, a slayer. God, it’s all so cliche. I thought it was a joke, at first.”
Faith laughs, shaking her head. Well, she wasn’t gonna be the one to say it.
“Am I a smoker?” Buffy takes a few steps down the porch stairs, leans against the railing across from Faith and waits.
“Nah,” Faith shakes her head, glancing up at Buffy from her step. “Don’t think so.”
It’s tripping her out, talking to a version of this woman who looks and speaks exactly like the person she’s known for years, but who doesn’t know the first thing about Faith, in turn. There’s an openness to Buffy now that wasn’t possible with them a day ago. Even though Buffy told her she was glad Faith came, even though Buffy’s accepting her help, letting her stick around, they hadn’t yet figured out how to behave around each other, how to look each other in the eye without feeling the echo of some old hurt. And now Buffy’s here, curious, unguarded, asking Faith to tell her about herself. Something feels fucked up about that. Like Buffy — the version with her memories of Faith intact — wouldn’t choose to do this on her own. Like Faith hasn’t earned it yet.
“So, this is just my type then, huh?” Buffy asks wryly, glancing up at the stars with a shake of her head.
Faith’s heart does a stupid little kick inside her chest. Tha-thump. “What do you mean?”
“Leather jackets, brooding, high-risk for lung cancer?” Buffy lists. “That’s what I’m into?”
Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
Faith takes another drag off the cigarette, to buy herself some time to respond. She tries to ignore Buffy’s staring as she pulls her knees up, draping her arms over them and shrugging. She ashes the cigarette, watches the cherry brighten and then dim in the dark, like the slow blink of an eye.
“So, the breakup must have been pretty bad then, I’m guessing,” Buffy says, in that tone that she uses when she wants to sound casual about something she’s been obsessing over.
Faith raises her eyebrows, glancing over at Buffy. “As far as I know, you’re still together. As much as you ever were, anyway — I never really got all the details.”
Of all the things that have changed, this has stayed exactly as Faith remembers. Buffy doesn’t talk to Faith about her life. Especially not her boyfriends. Not any more than she absolutely has to.
“No, not me and Spike,” Buffy says, pushing off the railing and crossing the gap between them to sit down next to Faith. She’s so close Faith can smell that stupid, fruity body-spray she loves. Cherry blossoms. She’s so close Faith can’t help but feel a pang of regret about it, the way the ashtray smell of her bad habit is going to smother that nice, clean scent. “Me and you.”
Faith chokes, acrid smoke burning her nostrils. “What?”
“Look, I already know it must have ended pretty ugly. It must have been really bad if everyone here treats you like a bomb about to go off,” Buffy says, frowning thoughtfully. “And, I mean, you've been pretty desperate not to be around me since you brought me back last night. Every time I try to talk to you, you bolt."
Faith winces, "Sorry. I just—"
“Did we cheat on each other?” Buffy asks, sounding frustrated, genuinely puzzled.
"We didn't cheat on each other," Faith says, though oddly enough it feels like half a lie. But no way is she opening that can of worms right now. Besides, the real point she's gotta make is, "We never dated."
"What, friends with benefits?" Buffy asks. "That seems… sordid."
"No," Faith says, pushing her hands through her hair, miserably. How the fuck is this her life?
"So we were sleeping together without even being friends?" Buffy's aghast, looking at Faith like this insane imaginary scenario is somehow her fault.
"No! Christ, B, we never had sex!" It's only when she hears the abrupt crash of glass from inside that Faith realizes she's been shouting.
"That doesn't make any sense. Don't lie, okay? I know you've been gone but no one will tell me why. Do you know how frustrating it is, being around all these people who know everything about me when I can’t remember anything about myself?” The words pick up steam as she goes, faster and more emphatic, until she’s practically begging by the end. Faith aches to hear her that desperate, reminded too much of the times Buffy had tried to get through to her after Alan Finch. “The whole ongoing apocalypse, evil cult leader with an army of demons hunting you and magically stealing your memories thing makes it pretty obvious my life is kind of fucked up and complicated, but I’m tired of everyone walking on eggshells, trying to protect me from the facts of my own life. I have a right to know.”
“Hey, I’m not lying to you,” Faith snaps, feeling annoyed by the accusation, thrown by the assumption and weirded out by Buffy cursing at her. Her heart is pounding. She leans down and stubs the cigarette out on the side of her boot, too distracted to smoke. “We were never together.”
“But you were in the box," Buffy says, voice taut and frustrated, as if Faith was the one who wouldn't stop saying insane nonsense
“What the fuck does that even mean?" Faith sputters.
"We thought it would help jog my memories, if I looked through the stuff in my room," Buffy explains. "Dawn got all the photo albums and we looked through them together and it was nice. Kind of sad. A little scary, to see myself with all these people and not be able to remember how I feel about them, what we were doing in the photos, any of it."
"Okay," Faith says, when Buffy pauses.
"So we kept looking and then under my bed there was this old shoebox and it had all these pictures inside. This broody, sad looking guy in a trench coat. A big, clean-cut guy in fatigues," Buffy says, tilting her head up to look Faith in the eye. She braces herself for the words she knows are coming next. "And you."
Oh.
“Here,” Buffy says, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans and producing a few photographs. Faith reaches out instinctively to take them before catching herself and jerking her hands away.
“Buffy wouldn’t— You wouldn’t,” Faith fumbles for her words. Fuck. “These were private. I don’t think you wanted me to—”
“Oh come on,” Buffy sighs and shoves the photos into Faith’s hands.
There’s only two. Faith’s not sure if there’s more up in the shoebox, but the idea of asking is too embarrassing so she swallows back the question.
The first is a photostrip from one of those stupid little booths at the mall. Faith and Buffy squeezed in close, shoulders bumping here, arms around each other there, making stupid faces at the camera. There’s one, right before the end where Faith is looking into the camera, tongue out, fingers pointed up into a metal salute, bringing her best Gene Simmons to bear. And instead of matching her energy, Buffy’s head is turned, gaze locked on Faith’s face, and she’s smiling. They’d done this twice. Faith had kept the second strip of photos — she doesn’t know whatever happened to them. Probably thrown out by the mayor’s goons after she’d taken that swan dive off the roof.
She remembers the mall trip, though. They’d gotten into a fight, after this. Right before they left, when Faith had tugged Buffy over by the fountains, pulled a stupid little charm bracelet out of her pants pocket. She’d lifted it from one of the stores they’d been in, had stupidly told Buffy the truth when she’d asked about it. Christ, Buffy had nearly blown a gasket. She’d lectured and Faith had gotten so mad that she'd tossed the bracelet into the water and stormed off.
She’d been surprised enough by the sound of splashing to stop. Had looked back to see Buffy fishing the bracelet out of the fountain and then had noticed the pair of security guards heading toward them. She didn’t even think, reaching out and grabbing Buffy by the wrist and running out of the mall with her, laughing until her lungs hurt.
It’s not that I didn’t want it, Buffy had explained, when they were clear. She’d been holding her wrist out, and Faith was trying not to let her hands shake as she slipped the hook through the delicate clasp. I just want you to stop being so reckless. I don’t want you to get in trouble.
God.
Faith shuffles the second photo to the front, hastily. She sees herself and Buffy sitting cross legged on the floor. There’s a Christmas tree in the background, a mug of cocoa on the low coffee table next to them. Joyce had been behind the camera. It had been the time they’d invited Faith over for Christmas. Buffy had ditched her for most of the night and Faith knows it was probably as awkward for Joyce as it had been for her, but the older woman had never let her know it. She’d kept Faith occupied with making popcorn balls and It’s A Wonderful Life and a polite stream of commentary about how glad she was that Buffy wasn’t quite so alone in her calling anymore.
Right. And how did you pay her back for all that kindness, exactly? Faith asks herself, bitterly. Now Joyce was dead. Another thing Faith couldn’t ever put right.
"So if we never dated," Buffy’s voice interrupts Faith’s brooding, "if that was never what we were to each other, then why are you in my box of exes? What happened with us?"
"I…" God really has a twisted sense of humor, putting Faith through this. Making her explain herself years later, just after she'd finally been convinced that the hatchet could stay buried. There’s no way to really explain it, is there? Without saying something that will make Buffy hate her again, memories or no. Best to go light on the details. "We were friends. But I had some problems and I got into some trouble and we fought. You tried to help me and I spit in your face. And in the end I had fucked up so bad there was nothing left for me to do but get away from you.”
“That’s why you were gone,” Buffy fills in.
Faith nods, a sharp, jerky motion. Shit. She’s got to say it, doesn’t she? “I was in prison.”
Faith pauses, fists clenched tight enough to make her knuckles ache, heart pounding in her ears. Her whole body is coiled, tensed. It’s taking everything in her not to run, to just bolt from the conversation by getting as far as physically possible from Buffy as she can. The only reason she doesn’t is because, memories or no, she knows Buffy. No way she’d let Faith off the hook that easy.
“So that’s it,” Buffy sounds disappointed enough for Faith to feel reflexively, humiliatingly guilty. She fights back the urge to apologize.
“That’s it,” Faith says, handing the pictures back. She glances hopefully at the door to the house, praying for one of those famously inconvenient Scooby interruptions, but no shadow darkens the door.
“That’s sad,” Buffy says, stroking her thumb down the edge of the Christmas photo.
Suddenly, there’s a lump in Faith’s throat she’s got to swallow past. “Yeah, well.”
“That explains a lot,” Buffy admits, tucking the photos away again. She clears her throat, glancing up at Faith and then quickly away again, chewing her lip. “But not everything. Not why every time I look at you there’s this…”
Silence pools between them. There’s crickets in the yard, chirping away, and the distant sound of the girls making dinner in the kitchen in the house, the low buzz of the neighbor’s TV next door, and then just this — Buffy’s breathing, Faith’s thundering heartbeat.
“This what?” She shouldn’t be asking. She shouldn’t torture herself like this. When Buffy gets her memories back, she’ll hate Faith for this moment, for asking for whatever secret thing Buffy in this state doesn’t know she should hold back from Faith. But she can’t help herself. She’s got to know.
Buffy glances over at her, slowly. She reaches out, presses a palm over the curve of Faith’s knee, to still her bouncing leg. “I’m supposed to be with Spike, right?”
Faith nods. Even through the denim of her jeans, Buffy’s hand feels white-hot against her.
“Then why is it that every time I look at you there’s this… pull,” She says, finally, squeezing Faith’s knee. Her voice when she speaks again is a murmur so soft that even Faith’s slayer hearing is barely enough to catch it. “Don’t you feel it?”
Of course Faith does. That electricity between them, that hum of their slayer connection, not dulled or blunted for the time spent apart or the memories missing between them. If anything, it’s stronger now, without Buffy tamping it down.
“It’s not what you think,” Faith croaks. She clears her throat. She should pull her leg away from Buffy’s touch. She doesn’t do it. “There’s only supposed to be one slayer. It’s a fluke that we’re here at the same time. I don't think we were ever meant to feel… to be connected like that, while we're alive. A misfire of the magical legacy variety, that’s all. No more, no less.”
“There’s a house full of people in there that love me,” Buffy says, abruptly.
Faith knows. Even now, even after everything, making peace, trying to do better, there’s part of Faith that wants to hate her for it — having so much love, all the time. Coming by it so naturally, so effortlessly. Never knowing what it’s like to go without, to ache for a thing you’ve never had. She bites her lip raw and nods, instead of speaking.
“I know it, because I can see it — the way they talk to me, the way they look at me, how scared they are about what’s happened,” Buffy continues. “It’s the end of the world and they’re here because they love me. My best friends and a guy who’s basically my dad and my little sister and my boyfriend. But I look at them and I can’t feel anything for anyone, except…”
She should shut up. She should walk away. Instead, Faith prompts, “Except…?”
“There’s Dawn,” Buffy says, a hand floating absently up towards her chest and hovering there, for just a moment, before she drops it again. “I just… I feel her. Like she’s a part of me. Something good. And I want to keep her safe.”
“She’s your little sister,” Faith says.
“Well, what about you?” Buffy says. “Every time we’re in the same room I feel this… it’s like this buzzing. Like this hum on the inside and when you’re around there’s this echo, this other layer. Don’t you—?”
It’s insane, hearing Buffy say it outloud like this. She wants to tell her to shut up, she’s breaking the rules, this is the kind of thing they’d always known better than to talk about.
“I told you,” Faith snaps, feeling cagey, tired of the conversation. “It’s just the slayer thing.”
Buffy opens her mouth to reply, but Faith can’t take anymore. She shoots to her feet, slaps her palms onto her thighs in a way she meant to be casual but probably looks as awkward as she feels. “Alright. Time to head out.”
“Wait,” Buffy frowns, standing up after her.
Faith doesn’t. She turns on her heel, takes a few backwards steps toward the edge of the yard. Out of habit, she reaches a hand into her jacket, feels for the stakes she’d kept stashed there, then down to her hip, for the knife in its holster. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but all that talk made me really feel like I’ve gotta go kill something.”
“Is there a right way to take that?” Buffy calls after her, following her across the lawn.
Faith shrugs. “You better get back inside. Someone must be looking for you by now.”
“Probably,” Buffy says, catching up. “Let me go with you.”
Faith shakes her head. “No way. No one in that house is gonna be happy with you running off like this.” With me, she doesn’t add.
“I know, it’s… suffocating,” Buffy admits, voice low, like she’s afraid of being overheard. “You're’ the only person here who doesn’t act like you need me to be something I can’t remember how to be right now. And I know they mean well, but they’ve had me cooped up all day and I need to get out. I need to move. Take me with you.”
Her hand has curled into Faith's jacket. A tether.
“It’s dangerous for you out there like this,” Faith says, wishing her voice came out stronger.
“Good thing I’ve got you to look out for me, then,” Buffy counters. “Look, I still know how to fight. You saw that last night.”
It’s true — they’d gotten separated by Caleb’s goons last night, after Buffy got hit with that spell. When Faith found her, she’d been holding her own against a group of demons so well that Faith hadn’t realized anything was wrong until the fighting was over and Buffy thanked her for the help and asked who she was.
“I’m never gonna hear the end of this,” Faith mutters sourly, jerking her head towards the edge of the yard, pulling out of Buffy’s grip. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s go.”
Mercifully, Buffy doesn’t keep up the chatter as they go. In fact, as soon as they nail their first vamp — newly risen, as many of the vamps left in Sunny D seem to be, all the demons with any good sense are getting out of Dodge fast — the tension between them fades to vapor, carried off on the wind.
This has always been what they were good at. It had always been easiest between them when they just shut up and slayed. Can’t say something stupid and wreck everything when you’re too busy putting a stake through a heart, a knife through a neck, your boot in some bloodsucker’s face.
And B’s doing good — better than even Faith expected. She might not remember becoming a Slayer, but she still knows how to make a vamp dead, no problem. For both of their sakes, Faith knows she shouldn’t let herself get distracted, but it’s a little hard not to watch Buffy work, not to be a little in awe of her right now.
It’s not that Faith doubts Buffy’s recent amnesiac status, not at all. Even if she had, for some reason, that last conversation, with Buffy just putting everything on the table, all that talk about their connection would have proved it. But there’s so much in her body, in the way she moves, in the choices she makes while fighting, that’s just pure, classic Buffy in a way that almost makes Faith forget what’s happened.
“What?” Buffy asks, just as the vamp at the end of her stake poofs into dust.
Faith jumps, grimacing as she realizes she’s just been leaning on a headstone, watching. She opens her mouth to answer only for Buffy to shout, “Down!” and leap across the distance between them.
Faith lands hard, with Buffy’s body covering hers, and looks up just in time to see the headstone she’d been leaning on dripping with something green and sizzling ominously. Jesus, what the fuck melts stone?
Buffy rolls to an elbow, glancing toward the treeline, and Faith follows her line of sight to where a rippling, fleshy demon is emerging, hobbling towards them on three awkward limbs.
“What the hell is that thing?” Faith asks.
“Oh come on,” Buffy whines, springing to her feet and tugging Faith up after her. “I was really counting on you to know that.”
“What do I look like, some kind of demon encyclopedia?” Faith gripes, dodging another spray of toxic goo. “You see me prancing around a high school library with a cup of tea?”
“Stop referencing things you know I won’t understand!” Buffy yells, launching herself off a mausoleum and dragging a knife across the demon’s back as Faith distracts it. “Amnesia Girl, remember?”
In the end, they learn four things about the demon:
1) Ugly
2) Spits acid
3) Can be killed by knives
4) Its blood? Also acid. Which means that if it flees to an abandoned factory and you take it out on an already-rickety catwalk its corpse will melt right through the metal. Go figure.
Faith’s a little further back, which gives her the perfect view of everything about to go wrong. The way the metal gives and the catwalk tilts, the way Buffy, exhausted and distracted, loses her balance, arms pinwheeling, the knife in her grip going flying.
Faith barely has time to reach out, yanking Buffy back to a more stable platform. She lands on her back again, with Buffy pressed up against Faith’s chest, her shoulder jammed up against Faith's nose.
“Fuck,” Faith exhales, heart thumping. The fall probably wouldn’t have killed her, as much as it would have hurt, but getting all her skin burned off probably would have finished the job.
“You saved my life,” Buffy says, breathless, making no move to get off of Faith.
“Yeah,” Faith pants.
“I saved yours earlier,” Buffy points out. Finally, she rolls over, still half on top of Faith, but facing her now. “So we’re even?”
Faith laughs, shaking her head, giddy from the adrenaline. “Not even close.”
Buffy grins down at her and she’s so close that Faith can see the sheen of sweat on her forehead, the way the fine blonde strands along her hairline are plastered against her skin. She can smell that sweat over the faint lingering floral scent from before.
She can feel it, through the throb of the Slayer bond, and in the tightening of Buffy’s fingers around the lapels of Faith’s jacket, the moment things shift.
It’s in the way Faith swallows hard and watches Buffy’s blown out eyes zero in on the movement. The way Buffy shifts subtly, and Faith shivers at the feeling of Buffy’s weight moving over her hips.
There’s blood on Buffy’s lip and Faith wants to lean up and taste it. The air hums between them, and Faith can feel Buffy’s desire like a physical presence in the room, drawing Faith up, poised to meet Buffy when she leans down and—
“No,” Faith snaps, rolling out from under Buffy and pointing a finger at her, as if scolding a bad dog. It feels absurd. This whole thing is surreal. Fuck.
The really fucked up thing is, as much as Faith is committed to the redemption thing, to being a better person, part of her can’t help but be tempted anyway. And there’s the certainty, weighing heavy in her gut like a stone, that at a different point in her life, she would already have crossed that space between them, taken what Buffy is so cluelessly offering her.
She can hear the echo of that old self in her head now, reasoning out why it would be fine. Because it’s not like she’d have to force Buffy, right? If she’s the one asking, if she’s the one who wants it? If she got her memories back and decided it was a mistake, then it would be one she made herself. And, fuck, they’re up against The First Evil — they could all be dead tomorrow. Would it be so bad to have this one thing, this tiny taste of something she’s always wanted? Is she really gonna spend the rest of her life knowing Buffy practically offered herself up on a silver platter and Faith said ‘no thanks?’
Yes, apparently.
Faith shoots to her feet, making a beeline for the stairs that lead back down to the factory floor, desperate to put some distance between them. “We’re not doing that.”
She glances over her shoulder when she hears Buffy follow and expects to see her looking contrite. Expects to hear her stammer out an apology, an excuse, or to lash out and blame the whole thing on Faith.
She doesn’t expect for her to squint down at Faith in the dim light and say, “You’re scared.”
“Fuck, yes, of course I am,” Faith exclaims, leaping the rest of the way down the stairs, boots clapping satisfyingly against the concrete floor.
“Of me?” Buffy asks, plainly, following with an annoyingly graceful leap.
Yes, of Buffy.
Of herself, too. Of how close she'd come to slipping, in the moment.
She just can’t believe Buffy tried it. Never thought Buffy would ever actually admit it— that she wanted Faith that way, at least on some level. Back before everything had gone wrong there had been so many moments, sharp and electric when they’d been all keyed up from Slaying together, or softer, achier ones when they’d been alone, comfortable in each other’s company, when Faith had felt certain that Buffy felt it too.
She’d made dumb, desperate jokes, had found ways to put her hands on Buffy’s body when they sparred or walked alone together, had done everything short of asking her — could I ever do anything to make you touch me the way you want to touch him? And nothing had worked. Nothing had made Buffy cross that final line, take that last step towards her.
She’d hated her for it, then. In the years after, she’d half-convinced herself it had all been in her head — projection, the shrinks had called it. And now here was proof she had been right. Vindication. And, more surprisingly, confirmation that somehow even now, Buffy still felt it too. At least on some level.
Too bad there was no way she could enjoy it, like this. Grabbing a miserable handful of her hair and tugging, Faith says,“You’re gonna kick my ass for this when you remember who I am.”
“Was it really that bad between us?” Buffy sounds annoyed Then, she hesitates, voice softening. “I don’t… I think I’d feel it. If I hated you.”
“Well, clearly you’re wrong,” Faith snaps, heart still pounding, stomach churning with nerves.
“You’re the only person in the world like me,” Buffy says and Faith stops in her tracks, looking back up at Buffy over her shoulder. “You’re here helping me, despite whatever messed up history we've got. And you felt it too — I know you did. You almost kissed me. And it’s the only thing I’ve felt all day that’s made any sense. So, you can’t just tell me I’m wrong — that this isn’t supposed to mean something to me.”
The only person in the world like me.
There had been a time in her life when all Faith wanted was to hear this from Buffy’s mouth. There’s a bitter irony in the fact that she’s only hearing it now, when Buffy doesn’t even understand what it means to say so.
“It doesn’t mean nothing,” Faith admits, tensing cautiously when Buffy takes another step towards her, but standing her ground. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t… If it didn’t matter to me, what happened to you. If I didn’t wanna help.”
“But…?”
“But when you’re… you again—”
“I’m me right now.”
“When you have your memories back,” Faith amends, rolling her eyes. “When you remember all the shit I put you through, when you remember about the guy waiting for you back at home, you won’t want that from me anymore. You’ll hate that you ever did.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Buffy says. God, this girl is stubborn as hell. Faith wishes she didn’t like it so much. “But, okay. This is a ‘no.’ I get it.”
Good. Crisis averted. Faith just has to keep her mouth shut and get them both back home safe. They trudge out of the factory in silence, both sore and exhausted now that the rush of slaying is fading.
“I couldn’t,” Faith says, stupid, torn up, ressurecting the conversation when she should just let it stay dead. It’s just— Buffy needs to know, now and for when she’s back to her old self, that Faith is trying to do this for the right reasons. “Not like this, B. You see how fucked up that would be, right?”
“I… yeah,” Buffy admits. She doesn’t apologize, though — the girl Faith had known really is still in there. “I guess it’s just… It’s hard. I feel like a balloon from a party that got let go of, and I’m by myself, floating on the wind, and I can see all the other little party balloons still in a cluster without me and I want to be with them but there’s no way to control where I’m going. There’s nothing to keep me in place.”
Untethered, out of control, alone — those are feelings Faith knows pretty well. Cautiously, she lets her knuckles brush against Buffy’s. Something she still wouldn’t have done yesterday, but the kind of touch she thinks even Buffy at her angriest and most embarrassed would forgive her for.
“You’re not by yourself,” Faith says, gruffly. “And you’re never gonna be.”
Instead of looking relieved, like Faith had hoped, Buffy winces. “I know I should be grateful that they care so much, but everyone keeps acting like I’m made of glass.”
“Is that so bad?” Faith challenges. “You said it yourself. They’re just trying to look after you.”
“I know,” Buffy says, softly. “It just… makes me feel guilty. It’s hard to feel like I deserve it, like this. They all… they all expect so much,” Buffy admits, the words spilling out feverish and quiet, like a secret she hates herself for keeping. “And I can tell it hurts them that I can’t just… make myself remember, make myself feel the way I should.”
Part of Faith wants to shake her. To get her to stop, to explain that it’s not Faith, it’s never been Faith, who Buffy goes to for comfort. That nearly anyone else inside that house could do this better for her. Another part of Faith is desperately, shamefully hungry for more of this — more of Buffy’s weakness, more of her truth, more of her trust, more of that softness in her eyes when she peers at Faith through the darkness.
The rest of her just hopes Buffy won’t hold all this against her when she’s back to her old self.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do if I end up stuck like this.”
“Keep going,” Faith says, on a shrug. “Make new memories. Win the big fight. You’d get your life back, one way or another — those friends of yours, that little sister, none of them would give up on you.”
“You really believe that?” Buffy asks. “That it’ll be that easy?”
“I didn’t say anything about easy,” Faith says, quickly. “Something about the mystical calling to be a soldier in the eternal war against darkness kinda makes us Slayer types allergic to easy. But I said you could do it. That it’s possible.”
“And I won’t be doing it alone?” Buffy fills in, vaguely sarcastic.
“Just ‘cause it’s kinda, y’know, corny, doesn’t mean it’s not true, B,” Faith admits. “Shit, I’m bad at this peptalk stuff. You really gotta go to your little Scooby Gang for this. You guys have the market pretty cornered on dramatic speeches. It’s a little disgusting.”
“You’re right. You do suck at this,” Buffy says, but she looks less upset. That’s a win.
“Hey,” Faith shrugs. “That’s how it’s always been. You’re the quippy one. I’m the hot one.”
“What? I’m hot,” Buffy huffs, crossing her arms.
“Sure, yeah, in a J Crew catalog kind of way,” Faith teases, knocking Buffy with her shoulder. “I’m sure there’s a lot of guys into that sort of thing and probably only some of them are gonna end up in jail for white collar crimes.”
“I’m starting to see why we didn’t get along,” Buffy deadpans. “You’re such an ass.”
“There you go,” Faith snorts. “Sounding more like your old self already.”
Buffy laughs too and just like that, the tension between them melts away. The silence of the walk home doesn’t feel quite so dangerous.
Now, finally able to relax, Faith feels even more wrung out than before. “Christ, I need a cigarette.”
She reaches into the crumpled softpack in the inside pocket of her jacket and taps one out into her palm.
“Think you might have a problem,” Buffy notes, quietly. She’s watching Faith too carefully again, gaze so intent it makes Faith’s neck feel hot, but at least this time she’s keeping her distance.
“Girlfriend, you don’t know the half of it.” A cloud of white smoke carries the words off into the night. She slows to a top at the corner of Revello Drive, hesitating. “Hey.”
“Hmm?” Buffy looks up at her.
“You tired?” Faith asks, flexing her hands. “I’ll walk you the rest of the way home, but I think I’m gonna give it another go. See if I can find that guy Caleb had with him last night, the one who put the whammy on you.”
“By yourself?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be careful.”
“That doesn’t seem to be your reputation,” Buffy points out. “Even I know that.”
“People change.” Faith shifts on her feet, uncomfortably. “So? Coming or not?”
“Yeah,” Buffy says. “Lead the way.”
Faith does.