Skipping stones, we know the price now
Any sin will do
How much further, if you can spin
How much further, if you are smooth
Are you on fire From the years?
What would you give for your
Kid Fears?
-- Indigo Girls
It was with no jerk that Faith woke this time. Her eyes opened slowly, bringing her stumbling into consciousness with tears ready. waiting to spill out. Her entire being ached with loss so much that it overrode all instincts to fight through the disorientation and identify where she was. She didn't make a sound, she didn't will the tears away. She couldn't have mustered up the strength even if she'd wanted to. They fell one by one, silently, dropping off the bridge of her nose, soaking her pillow.
That last image of Cheerio, smiling sadly at her before he sent her away with all his worldly possessions, had been one she'd historically drawn upon only in her darkest of days. Completely preserved over the years, unmarred by mental embellishment or perspective, she could call it up perfectly every time like a screen capture of a movie. Even though her eyes were open she could see it in the darkness. hear his whispered goodbye in every rustle of wind, every sound that the early morning called up.
And fuck.it hurt. It hurt like hell.
If she could have defined a point in her life when she remembered feeling such a strong connection with anyone, it would have begun with him. Cheerio - a homeless man who she'd never really known - had taught her how to love.
And in the same fucking day, he'd taught her never to love again.
She remembered Doug's face when she ran home for the last time, his comment when he saw her - blood-soaked and sobbing. The satisfaction. the evil satisfaction he had gained.
"Well I see that's that fuckin problem dealt with."
Faith shuddered. Even at eight years old she had understood from the moment she had arrived. She had pieced it all together. Social services had come knocking on their door, and Doug, fearing he'd lose his share in the profits, had gone after the source. That was what Cheerio had meant.
He had died for her.
He had been beaten to death, for her.
For an eight year old, the world could have ended and it would have felt infinitely better.
For Faith, now, even the prospect of feeling better practically spelled the end of the world.
"Buffy?"
"Huh.." Buffy slurred. Angel's voice, mixed with the cool bench surface pressing against her left cheek gave her enough focus to pull her away from the dream - images fading into the background as the kitchen materialized in front of her.
The kitchen? Since when was she in the kitchen?
Slowly, groggily, she sat up, disentangling her fingers from the material of her shirt, relaxing the pressure she was exerting against the spot just above her heart.
She blinked once, twice.
Then, instinctively she looked down, just to ensure it was still there.
And in the next instant the images rushed back at her in a great, rolling wave and she quickly covered her face with her hands, clenching her teeth. "Ouch" She hissed. "Ow."
"Buffy what's wrong?" She felt his hand on her shoulder, firm, yet caring. "Are you hurt?"
Buffy wanted to hate him for it. She wanted to grab him and scream at him that of course she wasn't hurt. She wasn't the one who needed the help, or the comforting. The one who needed all the help was upstairs, alone. What were they doing?
What were they doing!?
All of Buffy's own memories. the mother who loved her, the friends she had, her memories of birthday parties that were so full of laughter and fun... now seemed so.. insulting. Faith had never known what a birthday party was. All that time she hadn't even known when her birthday was. The way she had found out.beaten and molested with her own mother's blessing.
And that old, harmless, homeless man... who had cared so deeply for her. tried to protect her to the very end. had been killed barely two days later.
Another piece to the puzzle - that memory, just as Buffy had been joined with Faith's mind, of a little girl in utter agony. The items spread around her must have been from the man's garbage bag. Buffy must have seen her just after she'd walked away.
It was all so. surreal. So painful that Buffy felt only numbness.
She shivered.
"How did I get here?" She asked, deliberately avoiding Angel's question.
He didn't pursue it. "You..." He paused, trying to find the best explanation before settling on the simplest. "-passed out."
"Oh." She then made a deliberate show of looking around. "And.the kitchen? Comfy."
"Faith is upstairs." Angel said quietly.
"Oh."
"I just-" Angel frowned uncomfortably. He looked almost guilty, glancing away for a moment as if second-guessing himself. "I didn't think it was a good idea-"
Buffy shook her head, cutting him off with a wave of her hand. ""Oh no.It's fine."
"You don't mind that-"
"No!" She cut him off again. "Not at all. Faith. and me. dreaming all dark and disturbing, not a good mix. So-" She said, turning the conversation to the safer realms of `greater implication'. "Did Willow and Tara come up with anything else that would help us against Ammitus?" She drummed her fingers against the bench top. "I still don't know what I'm supposed to do when he shows up."
Angel nodded. Buffy leaned her head forward, waiting for some form of verbal follow-up, but upon receiving none she raised both her eyebrows and slid her palm across the bench towards him.
"Yes to finding more about Ammitus, or yes to how do I kill him?"
He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly in apology. "We still don't know how best to kill him." He clarified. "But Tara and Willow have both had experience in traveling through the Ethereal plane, and they're going to try and find the Accountant."
She blinked. "Tara and Willow. are going to try and find the Accountant."
"Yes."
"Who is somewhere.in a great, expansive, otherworldly plane."
"Yes."
"According to a two thousand-year-old rumour."
"We don't have a lot of choices, Buffy." Angel lifted his hand and scratched the base of his neck. "Anya has no reason to believe the rumours are false."
Okay. 5am. She was being deliberately argumentative. Buffy passed her own hand wearily over her face.
"I know." She sighed. "It just sounds like trying to find a needle in a haystack."
"It is." He said. "Except the needle is microscopic and the universe is the haystack." Then quickly, he added "I'm confident they'll find him. I'm just not sure how long it will take them."
The same picture of the old man's sad face flashed in front of Buffy's eyes. She winced.
"We only have six days before this thing hits the fan." She murmured. "I don't even know if Faith has six days."
Funny, she thought to herself. Even when she tried to think of the bigger picture, it all seemed to come back to Faith.
"What is she seeing?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
And there it was again - the question. Inviting her to share a burden that wasn't hers. For a moment, Buffy rationalized that perhaps Angel already knew - that his relationship with Faith would have extended to some, if not all of her past. She looked up at him expectantly, searching for the glimmer of that would sit behind his pupils.that would tell her he had seen it too.
But all she saw was a soft concern, one that comes from a good friend who wants to know, but doesn't.
She dropped her eyes, and shook her head.
"Angel, this doesn't feel right." She whispered. "I can't do this. I shouldn't be seeing these things."
There was no sign of disappointment, or surprise she didn't answer his question. Just a small nod..
"Why?" He asked softly. "Because of the past?"
"Yes because of the past." Buffy's eyebrows flicked upwards. "You can't exactly call our history `sharing caring'."
"Not sharing, no."
She furrowed her eyebrows at his omission of the second word. "Or caring, Angel."
"I'm not sure about that."
What would have normally disintegrated into a shouting match fizzled at the soft expelling of a sigh from Buffy's lips. "We hated each other. We tried to kill each other. Several times." She shook her head. "Have you forgotten?"
"No, I haven't forgotten." Angel said, resting his fingertips on Buffy's arm.
"Then-" She waved her hand in a random pattern, indicating for Angel to `join the dots' himself.
"Did you care about Faith?"
Uh. wrong dots.
"Of course I did." She said. "Until she decided to betray us and destroy the world."
"Really?"
Frustration flashed across Buffy's face. "You were there Angel. You saw what she tried to do."
"That's not what I meant." His fingers slipped away. Buffy looked up at him, momentarily confused. Then she nodded.
"Did I stop caring about her." She closed her eyes, the hurt still fresh in her heart.
Someone had once told her that you could never truly hate a person you hadn't once cared about. They were the only ones who could truly hurt you - take your insides and twist them around until you couldn't breathe with the pain of it all. Faith had done that to Buffy. so many times over.it had bombarded her pillar of trust, pulling it down into dusty rubble at her feet.
And Buffy had hated her for it. So much so it consumed her until she had tried to take Faith's life.
But even still, when she found out Faith was out of prison, underneath the fear and concern was still something soft. something warm that felt, at the very least, happy for her.
It was only now that Buffy was giving that part of her more voice.
"No." She whispered, finally opening her eyes and blinking through a sheen of tears. "No I didn't."
"Then you're wrong, Buffy." One corner of Angel's mouth turned up in a faint, lop-sided smile. "Of all people, you're the only one who could be seeing this."
Buffy made a face "Nobody should be seeing this." She snapped. "There's nobody right to see this. Angel.if Faith finds out- " She shook her head, glancing at the ceiling. "-it won't matter. With who she is. all she's seen-" Her eyes darted back to Angel. "I couldn't imagine how it would feel to know someone had been in my head watching all the time."
"Buffy I won't lie to you." Angel placed his other palm against the bench, tensing up his body in an external show of his sudden discomfort at the suggestion. "I hope she never finds out." Then he let out a short breath and shifted his weight. "But we don't know enough to be sure she won't."
"Come to my funeral?"
Angel laughed softly, and took a step back.
"I'm going to see how the others are going." He said, as he moved towards the frame dividing the kitchen from the lounge room.
Buffy didn't need to ask again. The truth was, nobody really knew what would happen. That had been the attraction of Faith for so long - the unpredictable streak in her that left everybody guessing. However, there was little doubt in anybody's mind that if and when Faith did find out, the storm, in whatever form it took, would be utterly ferocious.
Angel paused.
"Don't forget, Buffy." He said, turning his head only slightly - enough perhaps that she would appear in his peripheral vision.. "- that she cares about you too."
Chapter 18
Blackened is the end
Winter it will send
Throwing all you see Into obscurity
Death of Mother Earth
Never a rebirth
Evolution's end
Never will it mend
Never
-- Metallica
So many forks. So many choices, so many decisions.
How could it have gone wrong like this?
Practiced fingertips ran softly over the beam of a small set of ornate scales, stopping at one of the pulleys that hung from the left end. They closed carefully over the thread that wound through it and pulled, a breath held on intake as expert eyes slid across to the small bowl on the right side of the scales, watching, gauging the distance, measuring rise or fall.
The bowl lowered.
The breath released, fingers falling away as a pair of shoulders slumped forward again.
Not enough.
Eyes rose, staring forward into endless darkness, searching for answers yet again, as those fingers traced over the very familiar surface of a wooden table that hadn't been left once, since it had been created.
As usual the darkness yielded no answers. An old lamp, hanging, suspended by nothing above the right side of the table continued to burn its soft yellow light, as it always had. The wooden chair creaked with each movement, as it always did.
Eyes and fingers returned to the scales, determined. Resolute. As they always were.
There must have been a way. There must be a way.
I have found her
Fingers paused, eyes widened at a voice that until now, had become a distant memory, and a painful one at that.
"How did you find me?"
A chuckle, deep from the pits of hell, assaulted the Accountant's ears from all directions. That was the way of things here - sound didn't travel in the neat lines that it did in the mortal realm. Thoughts remained unspoken. Here, neither applied.
His fingers automatically sought out the table's surface, finding stability in the imperfections he knew so well.
That is not important. I have found her. You must release me
A growl of disgust sounded from the depths of the Accountant's throat. "I will do no such thing." He hissed.
You will have no choice. You are bound, as am I.
Still, the Accountant didn't look up. "She is not with you now." He said.
A matter of time The thought was filled with extreme confidence, and evil arrogance. She will come
"I hope beyond all hope, Ammitus." His fingertips pressed into the tabletop. "That she kills you."
This time, the laugh was full-blown, resonating everywhere inside and out of the Accountant's manipulated space. The Accountant didn't so much as flinch. He simply moved his hands to the base of the scales and pulled them toward him.
She will not. I have been watching There was a pause, then a sick intake of breath that sounded like a soul being ripped from its body. You should see it. It is.Beautiful
"You disgust me."
Ammitus chuckled again.
I am your creation. Do not forget.
"I am not afraid of you."
Then you are a fool It hissed. I will return before solstice, and you will die
And then it was gone.
The Accountant stared down at his scales, eyes traversing the intricate pulley system, the decorated framework and bowls. He could still feel her breath against his ear, her whispered plea that he understand, that she see who she was. what she was. The touch of her lips against his, the ghosts of her caresses.
She had been a slayer. She had lived to hunt. She'd been trained to kill. The scales had already been balanced against her, but he'd come so close. so close to finding a way around...
And Ammitus, Ammitus had destroyed it all.
NO!
There are no exceptions, master.
Damn you, Ammitus.. DAMN you! You KNEW I was trying
What I knew is that you were getting pathetic and weak. It is not my function to save souls. Nor is it yours. You should do well to remember that.
No more! No more! I will use you no more!
It couldn't be, surely. It couldn't have found the key. He had never considered it possible. But. if it were true.the balance of power would be thrown so far into chaos the repercussions were immense - Ethereal and mortal realms alike.
The Accountant made a decision.
One hand firmly on the base of his scales, he flattened his other palm against the table, and rose from his chair for the first time since he had created this place.
He would find the slayer. He would find her and kill her himself.
I'm so tired of being here
Supressed by all my childish fears
If you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
Your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much
That time cannot erase
-- Evanescence
Chapter 19
It was something that, despite all the signs to the contrary, Buffy had never even considered - at least not on a superficial level. She chewed on it, long after Angel had left the room, staring down at her interlaced fingers.
It was the truth.
But yet again, the truth failed to explain the past.
There was no explanation for how much they had hurt each other. Buffy had spent too long intellectualizing.so long rationalizing why Faith had always been evil.always been bad. To be presented with anything contradictory was at best confusing, and at worst? Incriminating.
She had cared about Faith, but been afraid at the strength of her feelings - the connection that had drawn them so close together. She hadn't been able to define it in a context she was comfortable with, so she had run from it, just as Faith had tried to run with it. They had run. They had both run. They had run in the wrong directions.
"Buffy?"
Buffy glanced up, finding Willow leaning up against the doorframe, eyes flitting around the room - the posture of someone who wasn't sure they should really be there.
"Will." Buffy said, then attempted a weary smile. "Thought you and Tara were out chasing the Accountant person."
"Not yet." Willow said softly. "Still have a few. things. you know. spell things." She took a breath and attempted to continue. "To organize, that is."
"Ah."
Willow's eyes darted down to the tiles, then up to the bench. "How are you doing?"
"Sick of hearing that question." Buffy snorted and shook her head, "I'm not the one living these things." She said, staring back down at her fingers. "I'm not the one who's lived this. I'm just..a bystander."
Willow didn't respond straight away - in fact it was long enough that Buffy could have been forgiven for believing she had left the room. Eventually, however, her voice cut across the settled silence - ever uncertain.
"I'm not going to ask what, Buffy. but. how bad.you know.?"
"Bad." Buffy whispered, still not looking up, remembering the little girl, walking away from her old, homeless friend and protector, knowing what was about to happen. "Willow you have no idea how bad."
Buffy's eyes lingered a fraction longer, then slowly lifted, to find her friend watching her carefully.
"It doesn't excuse what she did." Willow said, determined. Resolute. As if she was saying this to remind Buffy of a past she might have forgotten.
As if she needed to.
Buffy shook her head immediately. "No-" She agreed. "No. I know Wills. It doesn't excuse all the things Faith did."
Another pause, then Willow's expression softened.
".But it helps to explain it?"
At first Buffy was uncertain of the nature of Willow's question. But slowly, Willow's mouth turned up in a tiny, understanding smile, and Buffy felt a small, unexpected sob escape from the depths of her throat she caught silently with a hand against her mouth.
"Yes." She whispered, swallowing past the growing lump in her throat. "God Wills. it does. It really does."
Willow nodded slowly. "Does it help you?" She asked.
Buffy heard all the questions hidden in that superficial version. It spoke of all the misunderstanding, the need for forgiveness, the lack of resolution. Willow had known Buffy's side of things , but now, perhaps, they were beginning to see Faith's.
She smiled.
"Yes I think it does."
"You and Faith." Willow rubbed her thumb against her palm absently. "There's an..energy between the two of you."
Buffy nodded. "I know."
Willow frowned, and there it was again - nervous discomfort - shifting uncomfortably on her feet, eyes darting around the room. Buffy's eyebrows flicked downward.
"Wills?"
"I just-" She began, glancing up at the ceiling. "-I guess I just. would you ever, you know."
"Act on it?" Buffy asked. Willow nodded. Buffy knew she had always joked with her about this topic, but also knew Willow would never have seriously entertained the possibility. She shrugged. "I feel. an intensity around Faith I've never felt with anyone." She continued, thoughtfully. "I've wondered more than once what would happen if I actually went with it and didn't-" Her own memory threw up the recollection of Faith and her dancing that last night at the Bronze. Unconsciously, her tongue darted out to lick her lips. "If I didn't, you know-"
Suddenly, another shiver passed down Buffy's spine. Her eyes widened in surprise even as her waking vision blurred and flickered.
"I have to go." She murmured, flattening her palms against the bench and pushing herself up out of her stool.
"Buffy?" Willow's voice cut through the semi-reality. Buffy shook her head.
"I have to go."
The feeling of a vision darkening weighed so heavily in Buffy's eyes she was convinced for the last few seconds before she reached her bedroom door, that she was going blind. Her fingers fumbled for the doorknob and found them, clumsily, noisily turning it. As soon as the door had opened Buffy was seeking her out - looking for the figure, searching for confirmation she was still with them.
Faith was curled up again on the cot, this time facing away from the wall - towards her. It seemed strange she would find Faith this way - Buffy wondered if perhaps Angel had hinted that she would be sleeping alone tonight. Faith normally be turned, hiding herself. Concealing the truth. The light that spilled into the room from the corridor had cast a soft illumination onto Faith's features, softening them and making them look as peaceful as Buffy could remember ever seeing them. She felt her mouth turn instantly dry.
Want.
Take.
Have.
"If I didn't. think so much." She breathed, absently and very belatedly finished her own sentence, even though Willow wasn't with her. "I would."
As she stared, she couldn't help Angel's question creeping into her mind, and her resigned answer. It had been so hard to answer him then, a floor below, with all the past and the pain stuffed in the distance between them. Now, contrary to Buffy's logic and sense of emotional reason the closer she was to Faith, the easier it was to feel. if she just closed her eyes for a moment.
But there was that girl. That girl, heartbroken, kneeling by the old man's body, staring resolutely at his battered, almost unrecognizable face...just staring as if that would somehow make him open his eyes.
It occurred to Buffy, that she had never seen Faith cry. Not once, not one tear. With all they had seen, with all they had done, together and to each other, she had never seen it.
"It's just some old homeless guy, kid."
Buffy turned. Another man - no older than 35 - with dark, scraggly hair and broad shoulders was crouching beside her, long coat wrapped around him and gun held loosely in his hand. His head was tilted slightly to the side, a mixture of surprise and confusion on his face. Buffy understood that well. After all, what child would be around such horror?
"Nobody'll miss `im." He said. It sounded like comforting a child was not something he was experienced in - the words tumbled out of his mouth with little feeling, little sincerity attached to them.
"My name is Faith." And Buffy saw the girl's eyes immediately fill with tears. saw the crease that appeared between her eyebrows, her mouth open just a fraction, watched those small shoulders sag.
Even so many years younger Buffy knew that face - the one that spoke her pain.. Shouted to the world how much, how fiercely she was hurting.
If it was listening.
"An' he wasn't some old homeless guy. His name was Cheerio."
Tears formed in Buffy's eyes despite herself. This was a side she had truly never seen of Faith. This little girl. her emotions were so plain to see, so raw. Hurt, betrayal, fear. so easy to pick - so clear. Not concealed by walls or defensive barriers, just. there. But then.
Buffy watched the girl's face pause, her fingers unwinding from the material of Cheerio's tattered jacket. Finally, inch by inch she turned her head, her lips curling into a snarl until she was staring right through Buffy - through her to the man behind. Buffy could clearly see the bruise that covered the left side of her face. She knew it was the one given to her by Doug on her Birthday.
Faith's face flickered, then she blinked, all the remaining tears dropping onto the pavement by her worn sneakers.
Oh no.
"Hey Faith. Hey." Buffy murmured to the air - realising too late she was trying to coax something out of nothing. It was too late Too long ago.
So she simply continued to watch, as those few moments passed in seemingly slow motion, endlessly drawn out over the seconds it would have taken that last tear to fall from a small girl's cheek to the concrete. That last tear - taking with it the last of her love, the last of her trust, from the deepest parts of her inexperienced heart and lost soul, all bundled up into a tiny droplet of salt and water, worth everything in the air, but nothing more than added moisture the moment it hit the ground. A lost life scattered in a droplet with the rest of the rain.
And nothing more came. From anywhere. Only the coldest, emptiest expression was left.
"Oh Faith.." Buffy murmured, one hand instinctively reaching out toward her. Her fingertips passed clean through the image of Faith's younger self, unable to comfort, unable to care. "..Faith."
This must have been it. This must have been the day love and compassion were completely overrun. The day the old Faith had died, and the Faith that Buffy knew - cold, hard, driven by anger and hatred - rose to the surface.
God. she'd been so young.
Out of nowhere the air seemed to become intensely cold, causing a shiver to shoot down Buffy's spine.
Then it contracted, warped, realigned and suddenly, crouched before her, scared and alone and unsure was Faith. older Faith. Her Faith - the one she knew -staring through Buffy, desolate, alone, bruised and bloody.
What the-?
"You should've killed `em." She growled, nearly inhumanly. The sound reverberated in Buffy's mind and reminded her of a time she was standing in Faith's apartment, asking her how Angel was. How she had shot him...hurt him. How she was waiting for him to die...
Buffy hadn't been expecting this. Not here. Not then. Not this Faith.
Killing's for scum
Buffy froze.
It was a voice that commanded absolute terror in every syllable.
Her head snapped around before she had given it an order to, as her eyes what had originally been a shadow cast by the east building swirled into a formless blackness.
Ammitus.
You hate it, don't you slayer?
Buffy swallowed hard, hoping beyond hopes that Willow and Tara had done their work with the invisibility spell.
You hate what you are
She heard Faith whimper, and saw her flinch away out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly invisibility didn't matter. Her instinct became to rise up and confront Ammitus. She wanted to throw everything and more at the evil it represented. rip it to shreds for all the things it was doing.drive it away, destroy it.
But she knew that now was not the time. Now couldn't be the time. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know how.
Fuck it, she didn't know.
Buffy?
By the time Buffy turned fully around, Faith had disappeared. The gutter, the concrete and the rain all began to fade into the background and Buffy found herself having to step heavily to one side to stop her from toppling over entirely. Carpet met her bare feet, and the sight of a silhouette, drawn up on her cot, bundled up against the wall.
"Buffy what are you doing?" Faith's hoarse voice rose from her own shadow, her eyes shining softly with...
Were they...?
No, she had never see Faith cry. Not once, not one tear.
Which made it so much harder to look at her now.
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