Author: Jacqui.
Rating: PG.
Spoilers: Season Six.
Pairing: Buffy and Faith discussions, take from them what you will.
Disclaimer: So not mine, or they wouldn't have been forced here
in the first place. Joss and co. own all that matter.
Feedback: Ooh, yes please.
Author's Note: I know the ending sucks. This thing has been sitting
on my computer for months and I want it off. So there. It's
unfinished, I realise this. But it's the only resolution you're gonna
get. Unless I get inundated with lots of worshipful feedback begging
for more (Me, egotistical, no. Why do you ask?).
Distribution: You want it, just ask.

One thing that catches her attention is the resounding echo of their footsteps along the abandoned hallway. Click, click, click. It is a very lonely sound. Buffy tries to imagine hearing that sound every day, each footstep hammering into your brain. She does not like the suggestion of this feeling, so she buries it deep. Something she has become quite expert at this year.

Every sound is amplified, striking nothing but tiled floors and marbled walls. She has not, not even once, over the past years imagined how it must be like being in here. Previously, any thought given to the matter, has been centered on how deserved it was. She has not, not even once, tried to think about that famed `other side'.

Next to her, the weathered warden walks passively, seeming not to care that this is a momentous step for Buffy, which she doesn't. This is just another day in her life, another day on the job. Buffy wonders if it has occurred to her that this is a prisoner who gets so few visitors, if any at all.

It has not yet occurred to Buffy, but it will later, that many prisoners in this section of the jail do not get any visitors. Very few actually get regular contact with people from the outside. This is, she will soon learn, the section whose very inmates have given up on themselves. Not the most violent, not the ones who have committed the most heinous of crimes, but the prisoners who no longer care and are no longer cared for by anyone.

They are, by their very nature, the most dangerous of prisoners. For there is nothing to compel them to follow the rules, no incentives to stop them from snapping. There is, for many of them, no hope of release. Nobody is counting down the days for them, nobody is keeping their room the way they like it.

Buffy looks at the walls carefully, studies the marks on the floor, trying to distance herself from the actual place. Deep down, if she cared to look, which she doesn't, she knows that she's not far from being here, she knows how very close it could have been.

The keys jangle loudly and Buffy is surprised by the amount of keys that are on the actual key ring. In other circumstances, it would have been comical, but today it is nothing more than a reminder of just how many locks this building is made of.

In the middle of the room stands a table, with two chairs facing each other. There is, on the other side of the room, another door, strong, metal, its little window heavily marred by bars. Buffy can see the face of a male guard standing there. Watching.

Sitting on one of the chairs, her ankles chained to the legs and connected to her wrists, also in chains, is Faith. She has, Buffy thinks in a moment of odd concern, lost weight and she hunches over in a way that Buffy does not ever remember seeing her do before. Then she turns around.

The shock on Faith's face is obvious, as is the sudden tightening of her body, the instinctive preparation for an attack, the sudden collection of guilt. It is Faith's eyes that hold Buffy's attention, for she sees pain, remorse, a touch of fear and, surprisingly, genuine emotion and concern.

"You were expecting someone else?"

Faith's mouth slackens and this is the only response she can muster for several seconds, then she shakes her head. It is not, Buffy understands, a negation, just an attempt to collect thoughts. She watches as Faith gestures to the empty chair opposite her, she hears the door behind her close with a definite finality.

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

This is a moment that changes everything. There are so few in each lifetime, Buffy thinks, and surely she has used up her share. A sly tooth of thought pierces her brain and it almost makes her laugh out loud with a spray of bitterness that shocks her.

This is a new lifetime.

"Shoulda known it would be you, B." Faith watches her as she sits with an intensity that borders on uncomfortable. "I knew you were gonna come sooner or later."

Although the words are simple, they are offered and interpreted as a peace offering. An awkward gesture that is slightly endearing. Faith is making an attempt and Buffy knows she has to accept this, just as she knows it will be all she gets for the moment. She also knows it is all she deserves. Buffy makes her face intentionally blank, trying desperately to fight her built up instincts of fighting the woman sitting in front of her.

"It might have been Angel."

A look of pain crosses Faith's face, leaving it with only an echo of sadness.

"No." She whispers. "He stopped coming over a year ago."

This doesn't shock Buffy as much as she thought it would. It hurts, though. There is a moment of awkward silence, in which the two women try to sneak glances at each other, try to think up something to say. They are both painfully aware of the guards that stand at each door. The eyes that watch.

"How is it?" Buffy finally makes a gesture, waving her arms in a general motion around the room. "In here, I mean."

"It's okay." Faith shrugs. "It's hard. But I'm harder, dammit."

This statement strikes Buffy as incredibly sad. It is this that makes all the hardness finally melt away.

"I'm sorry."

Faith widens her eyes, she has been expecting a confrontation, perhaps the usual exchange of hurtful remarks. Her brain is still searching for the reason for Buffy's visit. At first, she suspected Buffy was looking to clear her conscience, make an obligatory visit, claim you care, you tried.

"You're sorry? You?" She fights not to let a little hysterical giggle escape. "Just so we're clear, you're Buffy and I'm Faith, right?"

"I'm sorry." Buffy's tiny little voice tries again. "For not understanding, for not trying harder."

It is this moment that Faith begins to understand that this is more than an attempt to bring her over to the `good' side, this is more than a frontal attack, a wave of blame. Buffy is honestly trying to make a bridge. It almost hurts to think about, for Faith knows now, she's had time to think about it, the damage that she has done to Buffy, the sacrifices that Buffy made for her.

For the first time that day, indeed, for the first time in years, Buffy and Faith meet each other's eyes. There has been, they both discover with a little shock, incredible pain introduced into the other's life, pain that has marked their gaze.

It seems a lifetime ago, that night at the Bronze, when they first met. Those all too brief months in which they had both reveled in the thought of each other's friendship, before jealousy and competition and the loss of trust marred their relationship. How innocent they'd both been.

The moment passes, neither woman particularly wanting the onrush of emotion, and Faith attempts to bring the mood a little higher.

"The food sucks here, B." A tentative smile crosses her face and she leans back in the chair. "You wouldn't believe the things I'd do for a plate of your mom's fries."

Buffy tries to hide the flinch that crosses her face, she tries hard.

"What?" Faith is immediately on alert. "What I say?"

"She's dead." Buffy's hands are working on each other, clenching, twisting, desperate for something to do. She fidgets when she's avoiding issues, when she doesn't want to reveal pain, this is a trait that Faith remembers in Buffy. "My mom. She… last year…"

"Oh god, B." Faith wants to say she's sorry, but the last thing she wants to do is sound trite and insincere. A moment from the past flashes across her brain, an angry Buffy, warning what she'd do to Faith if she apologized. She knows it's going to take more than words to make up to Buffy all the damage she has caused. "What about Dawn?"

Again, a flinch, but it passes too quickly to decipher. Faith begins to realize, truly comprehend, how much she is missing in here. Time has been a vague concept, a vague passing of meals and outdoor exercises, sleepless nights and confrontations. Marks on the wall, the passing of cell mates, the transfer to solitary, the slow seepage of her soul, the torturous rebuilding. This has been a personal journey for Faith, she has begun to use her time wisely.

There are nights when she does not sleep, lying on the slender bunk, staring at the ceiling, listening to the ugly sounds of the jail at night. It is preferable, almost welcome, compared to the ugly sounds and sights of her dreams, the memories she fears. There are so many faces to atone for, so many wrongs that can never be righted.

If any thought at all has been given to the daily passing of their lives, Faith has assumed a gentle continuation of the normal regime. The scoobies, Giles, Buffy, a plethora of monsters to be fought and vanquished. There has never been, in Faith's thoughts, true struggle and pain. For what, as has so long been her way of thinking, does not come easily to Buffy?

"Dawn's… fine." Buffy raises a hand as if to stop the conversation, but she continues to speak. "It's harder some days, but we're taking each day as it comes."

In a moment of uncharacteristic girlishness, Buffy leans forward, smiling.

"She had her first kiss a few months ago."

"Baby D?" Faith lets a rush of air whistle through her lips. She's honestly surprised, but she can't help tease Buffy just a little. "She's old enough to be kissing? Better keep an eye on her, if she's anything like her sister."

Buffy can't do anything for a moment, but plaster a polite smile over her face, hiding her true thoughts. The jibe, a little too close to home, sends Buffy's thoughts whirring. Dawn in the back of that car, with a vampire, the things that could have happened. Herself with Angel, with Spike and even, if she let herself admit it, with Dracula. That strange attraction, the brief and all too quick vanquish of death, that desperate need to feel.

"Nothing serious." She forces herself to say, dreading the reaction her truth will inevitably bring. This truth thing, Buffy tells herself wryly, gets harder and harder. But she has promised herself that this will not be a wasted trip. There is so much between her and Faith, between her and the world, that she must either do this or die. "Besides, I had to stake the guy before it got too serious."

Faith does not disappoint. Her eyes widen in shock, a flash of concern and anger, then settle into a comical silence, with nothing but the twist of her eyebrows to convey her amusement, the slightest curve of her lip to suggest the comments she could make.

"Jesus." A conciliatory nod towards Buffy. "Our lives are fucked up, aren't they?"

A sudden burst of laughter. It's too loud and the following silence is awkward. Buffy reigns herself in.

"Well, both of mine are."

Faith smiles along with Buffy, but it's not reflected in her eyes. She's slightly puzzled by the comment, her skin is prickling at the too loud voice, the erratic, hyper movements that Buffy is making, the almost hysterical quality of everything.

"What's going on, B?"

"What?" Buffy splays her hands, palms upwards. She knows, even before Faith quirks an eyebrow, before the stubborn set of her jaw, that Faith will not let this die down. There has always been a visceral connection between the two, the ability to get underneath the skin and find the most sensitive nerves. She sighs.

"How do you do it?" She asks, not quite meeting Faith in the eye. "Live in here and not go crazy?"

A slight hardness enters Faith's posture, instinctual.

"I've never been crazy."

"I know, I know." Buffy's voice is rushed, apologetic, trying to brush away the implication. "What I mean is, how do you feel? I mean, the things you did, they made you feel alive, didn't they? That's why you did them?"

Faith sits, transfixed, there's a glassy quality to Buffy now. She leaning forward in her seat, talking so fast that Faith has seen more than one fleck of spittle fly across the table. Buffy's hands are still now, gripping each other so tightly that her knuckles are bleached white.

"You had to do them or you'd just melt away, float off, dissolve? It was like breathing, wasn't it? The cost, the consequences, they were nothing compared to the ability to feel. That's why, isn't it?"

"Buffy!"

At the sound of Faith's voice, Buffy snaps out of her agitated state, she seems almost confused as to what she is doing here. Her hands extricate themselves from each other and she clasps the ends of the chair arms. Tightly.

"Yes." The words come out of Faith as if being pulled from her with great pain. "Yes and yes. A thousand fucking yeses, B. That's why I came here, that's why I made them take me in. Everyone's safer with me in here. Don't you get it? I did nothing but hurt everyone, especially you. Everyone is better of with me in here."

Buffy looks at her for the longest moment, forcing Faith to catch her breath at the longing that she sees buried in Buffy's eyes.

"I wasn't, Faith. I wasn't safe. I died."

Faith is silent long enough to study the anticipation in Buffy's gaze, she sees the slight tremor that shakes Buffy, though she tries to hide it. Buffy almost stops breathing. By this, Faith knows that the declaration is not only true, but more serious than she wants to realize.

"Yeah." Faith juts her chin out, ever so slightly, looking at Buffy through the lids of her eyes. It's almost subconscious, this change of posture, a defense she has built up since childhood. "But only for a second, right? Like the drowning thing?"

She laughs, hollowly, at the space that is left when Buffy says nothing.

"Right?" It's a little too desperate.

"Yeah." Buffy smiles. A small, tight smile. "Nothing big."

It's familiar, this game of forced deceit. Faith has played the follower for so long, that Buffy is once again forced into the role of leader, of guide, of responsibility. She feels a weight descending on her shoulders, making her slide down a bit further into her chair. Protect the ones at home, protect the ones who care, never let them know.

A slice of bitterness cuts through Buffy's head as she is, once again, reminded of the fact that the only person she has been truly able connect with wasn't even a person. How utterly fitting, she thinks, how well deserved.

It's been a waste of time, she tells herself, this trip. There's nothing that Faith can do, nothing that any of them can do. It's unfair to expect someone else to fix her problems. In a flash, so intense it hurts, Buffy comes to the conclusion that Spike is all she deserves.

"I'm sorry." She says it again, this time her lip trembles. "I'm going."

"You sit." Faith's voice is nearing anger. For so long she had trained her sense to spot a weakness and lunge, now she no longer feels the need to attack. But the instinct is still there. "You sit down and you tell me what the hell is going on. And Buffy? Don't lie to me."

"It's so loud. Do you remember how loud it is out there?"

"B? What are you talking about?"

"Remember the story I told you about Angel? When I killed him? Gods, I loved him then, more than I thought possible. But I still did it. I took that sword and I killed him. It hurt, I can't tell you how much it hurt. I don't know if I'd do it now. Screw the world, right? What the hell has it ever done for me?"

Faith doesn't move, but on the inside, she feels a slap against her face. She has never heard Buffy talk like this, never been witness to this bitterness.

"They took my mom, Faith, they took her. They gave me a sister who wasn't real and made it hurt so much just to see her frown, let alone anything else. Then they told me she wasn't real. They wanted me to kill her, kill my own sister, a part of me.

"I couldn't do it. I didn't want to. I have had everything taken from me. Everything I cared about and I just couldn't live like that anymore."

"Tell me, Buffy."

"I died, Faith, they wanted to take Dawn and I wouldn't let them. I sacrificed myself to save her. Do you know how much it hurt? When my body hit that portal? When hundreds of lightning bolts were frying my insides and draining every last ounce of blood I had? I've never felt that before. But do you know something? I felt it!"

There is a triumph in that last sentence that seemed out of place. Faith blinks, trying to absorb what Buffy is telling her. She watches as Buffy seems to center herself, breathing in and collecting an energy from somewhere inside. Buffy's eyes look straight at her.

"Do you believe in heaven, Faith?"

"What, you mean like God and shit?" Faith's upper lip curls into a bitter snarl. "Fuck that, B, there ain't no such animal."

"Not God, Faith. I don't…" Buffy leans her head to the right, stretching her neck, as if reaching for the right word to say. "… know about religion or gods or devils. I mean, like, do you believe in rewards? That there's something waiting for us, something better than here?"

There's a silence in the air and Buffy watches as Faith looks down at her hands, watches as Faith's hands twitch just a little.

"I don't know, B, but I guess it doesn't really matter for me, does it?"

"I went to Heaven." And Buffy can see the wave of confusion, she can see the momentary urge to make some sarcastic comment, it dances over Faith's face. She waits. The expressions pass and in their wake lies a concern mixed with denial. "All good girls, right?"

"What?" It's all she can blurt out and Faith wants to reach out and take it back, say something else, something worthy of the revelation she senses Buffy is trying to make.

"I was dead for three months, Faith, I was buried and I had…" Buffy pauses to think about this. "… still have I guess, I haven't gone back, a headstone. They… they bought me back."

It's almost a reflex, that spiteful voice inside her head that shrieks, of course, Buffy defeats even death. And then Faith lets the bitterness of Buffy's voice seep into her brain and she thinks about that. They.

"You didn't…" How strange, Faith thinks, this trying to be delicate. "… want…?"

Buffy smiles, a vague and vacant little shimmer over her mouth. Her eyes are clouded and she loses herself in a memory, or the chasing of a memory.

"I didn't want. I didn't feel. It was beyond that, it was…" Buffy searches for the right word. "warmth, serendipity, bliss? I don't know. I just know I was there and now I'm not."

Faith leans forward, putting forth an eagerness she doesn't exactly feel, trying to hide the fear that comes with the question.

"And you want to go back?"

"I…" Buffy is struggling, she's trying to form her words before they've even become thoughts. "I don't think so. No, I know so. I don't want to. Not anymore. I did."

Another silence, then Faith leans forward.

"What was it like?"

Hunger. That's what Faith's expression reminds Buffy of. Yearning.

"Soft."

The word could describe itself as Buffy whispers it. She thinks that the sound of her voice is a perfect mirror for the expression she read in Faith just before. And it does surprise her, how much she still wants to go back, how easy it would be if she was ever offered the choice. Because she has come so far, has anchored herself so deeply into this world again that she doesn't want to think how distant and unreal she was when she first came back.

"I wish…"

Faith immediately blushes, cutting herself off in an instant. How foolish, even now, to let her defenses fall so far. She wants to take it back, possibly ignore the blunder, but it's too late and Buffy is looking at her with understanding. Perhaps a little pity and that's what hurts. She can't stand the pity, never could.

"You will." Two words and Buffy says them with utter confidence that it almost makes Faith breathless.

"How can you know, B? How can you be so sure? Look at who I am, look at what I've done."

Buffy shakes her head. Faith bristles, just a little, it's as if Buffy's trying to explain something to a dim child. How the hell can she dare to act so superior?

"I don't think it's about keeping score, it's not about how many ticks you have in the `good' column and in the `bad' column. It's about the overall. Nobody's keeping score, Faith."

"How the hell do you know?"

"Because I felt it. When I was there, I knew everyone I cared about was safe, that they'd all be safe eventually. I didn't have to worry, I felt that."

They meet each other's eyes again. A smile grows on Faith's lips, slowly, testing the waters. It's mirrored in the question that grows in her eyes, but isn't spoken. She's not sure if she can ask the question, despite the emotion that's already been shed. She's not sure if she can take a harsh blow to her psyche right now.

"Yes, Faith, that means you, too."

A rush of air that Faith hadn't realized she was holding. It's getting too heated in here, emotionally, for her taste. She needs to tone it down before she does something completely absurd and embarrassing like cry.

"How's the gang? Still all scooby like and shit?"

Okay, Buffy thinks, that ends that line of conversation. She can almost hear the emotional bricks being laid down between them. She wonders at the breadth of feelings that they've both crossed just in the past hour. Giles would be so proud.

"They're… fine."

"They're… fine?" Faith drawls out the word, hesitatingly, completing a pretty fair imitation of Buffy's reluctance. "I don't think so, B. What's up?"

Buffy sighs, deep, drawing from some reserve she hopes she still has.

"Giles moved back to England when I died. He visits now and then, but he's essentially gone. Willow got dangerously addicted to magic and when Tara was killed she went crazy with grief and nearly ended the world. Xander left Anya at the altar, she's a vengeance demon again, Xander seriously wants to kill Spike, for what he did to Anya and what he did to m…"

And she stops, just like that, in the middle of her speech. Faith bites her lip, already having tried to stop herself making loud exclamations as Buffy listed each item off as casually as if she were reading a shopping list.

"Spike?" Even after the day, Buffy still can't hide the flinch in her face. Faith pounces on it. "William the Bloody? What did he do?"

"He, uh, he slept with Anya."

"No." Faith narrows her eyes. "You were going to say `me'. What did he do to you, Buffy?"

She can't meet Faith's eyes. Buffy looks everywhere but Faith's eyes. The walls, the ceiling, the floor.

"He, uh…" Buffy breathes in and let out the next sentence in one rapid breath. "… we were sleeping together and when I tried to end it he tried to rape me, but I stopped him and now he's left town and we don't know where he is. So, you don't like the food in here, huh?"

"Jesus, Buffy." Faith feels her fist tighten. "Forget Xander, I'll kill the fucker myself."

"Don't, Faith." Buffy closes her eyes and tries not show the bitterness on her face. "Don't. Okay? If he shows himself, it's my fight."

Faith raises her eyebrows and wags her head, once, twice, to show her complete disgust at Buffy's attitude, but her acceptance of it, nonetheless. She tries another tactic.

"You were sleeping with him? What the hell is it with you and vamps, B?"

"He was there, okay? He was there and he understood."

Faith gots, probably more than she wants to.

"And they weren't?"

"They wanted to be."

"But they just couldn't understand."

"He saw the blood on my hands, Faith, he saw it and he knew what it meant."

Faith waits a second, maybe two, before Buffy meets her eye and then she deals the harshest blow she's dealt all year.

"I had blood on my hands, once, too."

A flash, painful and clear hits Buffy and she cringes, but she doesn't retaliate. It's a fair call. The night is suddenly clear to her and she can almost smell the slight scent of sweat that they'd both worked up with their eager slaying, could almost taste the saliva she'd had in her mouth at the time, anticipating the ribs they'd been planning to get. Could feel herself distancing herself from Faith at that moment.

"I didn't know, Faith, not then. I didn't know."

And Faith smiles. Large. Genuine.

"But now you do."

END.