Chapter Text
All this time I watched my woman
Drowning in a pool of tears
And I've seen a lot of good folk die...- David Allen Coe
There is a moment between asleep and awake; a timeless eternity where she is sufficiently aware of reality, yet still blissfully mired in dreams. The warm body that lies beside her is lush and ample, less wired with muscle, and if she were to open her eyes she would find the hair strewn about her pillow not the black of raven's wings but the color of wheat and honey. Sometimes she is more conscious of her error, sometimes more guilty. But always the inevitable realization is accompanied by a complex rush of emotions. For always there is that which is seen, and that which is not seen.
Willow knows not to feel bad about these moments.
Sometimes it helps.
**
"Sassy eggs."
"You say something?"
"Huh?" Willow looks up from her plate with a frown. "Just...trying to remember. Stuff."
She doesn't realize how much dread the inevitable inquiry has dredged up, until the quirk of the Slayer's smile dissipates her worry.
"Hope it's the good stuff."
Willow returns the smile with growing confidence. "Right now? I'm trying to remember this."
"Perfect moment?" Faith glances at the other tables and their assortment of whitebread professionals. This morning's venue is the open-air patio of a small bistro, within sight of their New York hotel. "Little crowded for my taste."
"You'd rather be antisocial networking?" Willow is careful to keep the teasing tone light. "Or were you wanting more privacy for some other reason?"
"Maybe." Faith allows a brief smirk before returning her attention to the rapidly vanishing kitchen-sink omelette.
Willow looks on, admiring. Faith is a woman with hearty appetites, the unashamed manner in which she wolfs down breakfast much like how she applies herself to all things: Namely, with gusto to spare. Some night, Willow really has to pull out that Barry White CD she's been saving.
"I don't know how you can shovel down that much food and look graceful doing it."
"Uh..." Faith's self-consciousness resurfaces. "'Cause I'm not trying?"
Willow takes pity and looks away. "Did you get ahold of Dana?"
"Went to voicemail." Faith shrugs, affecting indifference. "Dawn's probably got her in therapy right now anyway."
"She really sounded that bad?" Willow tries to stay focused on the problem before her, which is Faith. Not that Faith is a problem.
"Hard to say." The Slayer finishes the last bite, setting down her fork with a light clank. Willow finds herself floundering.
"You want to talk about something else?"
"Like what?"
"What do we usually talk about?"
It's an honest question, genuine curiosity. Still, it causes Faith to do her own brief gaping fish impression.
"Uh..." The Slayer clears her throat. "We don't. Much," she hastily amends.
"That's not true --"
"Not saying it's a bad thing," Faith continues.
"So it's a comfortable silence."
"Yeah, well --"
"It's comfortable." Willow reaches over and quickly, discreetly squeezes the other woman's fist. She sometimes resents having to repress like a Bible belter, but Faith's reactions to PDA are notoriously mercurial. "If it wasn't, I'd say."
Faith appears somewhat mollified. "I know it's been a while since we did that whole mind walk. I mean, I know I said it was cheating, but --"
"Water under the bridge." Willow waves this off, hoping her smile doesn't seem artificial. Faith remains skeptical.
"You sure?"
"I don't need to read your mind to know how you feel." Willow doesn't watch for a reaction, casually going back to her own breakfast. "Or how I feel."
She's paying more attention to the strangers around them than the one sitting across the table. But when they get up to leave, the Slayer's arm lingers a moment about her waist, and inside Willow smiles. Quiet closeness in the midst of a crowd; nothing real but the woman beside her, the empty air beneath their feet.
Life is good.
"So," she offers, taking advantage of the opportunity for hand holding. "Any thoughts on where next?"
She feels herself pulled to a halt, as Faith fails to respond. Or move.
"Sorry," Willow mutters as she disengages. Or tries to. The Slayer gazes across the street at a shabby, nondescript newsstand.
"What is it?" Willow squints, failing to discern anything. "Geez. I really need to have my eyes..."
Faith lets go, pulls out her cell and heads for the hotel, double time. Willow watches her retreating back, torn on whether to follow when something catches her eye.
Luckily there's a break in traffic. She dashes across the lanes, clutching her laptop bag to her chest. The closer she gets, the more familiar the building appears until it looms in her sight on the front page of the Los Angeles Times:
HISTORICAL LANDMARK FALLS TO RED TAPE
Her hand does not tremble as it reaches out.
The Hyperion Hotel, long vacant until recent renovations by an unnamed private consortium, was tragically destroyed yesterday in a bureaucratic mixup. The Department of Public Works is so far unable to explain how the building was mistakenly marked for demolition. Thankfully no lives appear to have been lost...
She doesn't hear the vendor as she throws money at him; turning and running after Faith. The Slayer has reached the end of the block, standing on the street corner, pacing back and forth as she clutches the phone. Willow can make out snatches of a one-sided conversation that ends abruptly when Faith snaps the phone shut and breaks into a sprint, leaving her in the dust.
There is more than enough time between there and the hotel for all kinds of thoughts, none of them good. How this is getting to be a habit; how her childhood asthma is not being helped by it. How she'd been hoping to talk to her grandmother again before they left.
How ill-equipped she feels, of a sudden, to deal with the unknown abyss that looms underneath.
She enters their room, breathless, to find what she more or less expected: Faith furiously packing, hurling items this way and that as she wrestles clothes into submission.
"Meeting my ass!" The Slayer shuts her suitcase, forcing the lock closed. The abused luggage strains at the seams, but holds. "Where's my sword?"
Willow manages to squeeze something out between wheezes. "Which one?"
"Not the museum piece, the good one! Jesus, I knew we shouldn'ta picked up all this crap --"
Willow staggers into the bathroom. She can hear Faith fall silent in the background as she splashes her face and gulps down precious fluids.
When she emerges, the Slayer is waiting. Willow feels the chill in her belly spread further still. The look in Faith's eye brings to mind nothing less than General Buffy, in those fateful days before the fall of Sunnydale.
"Port us." Faith slings her backpack over one shoulder, hefting her sword in the opposite hand.
"Did you talk to Buffy --"
Faith's grip on the sword tightens to white. "Now."
"Give me a minute." She's no calmer than before. Still, it's amazing how much easier it is to fake it when you can breathe. "Less shortcut, less pain for both of us. Okay?"
Faith nods, a spastic, jerking motion as Willow sinks to the floor in a lotus and closes her eyes, taking hold of her fear.
"Don't suppose you ever read A Wrinkle In Time?"
Faith doesn't answer.
"Try to relax." Already Willow sounds distracted to herself. "When it happens, it'll be quick."
"Just lock the last chevron, okay?"
Willow turns and regards Faith with something like surprise. "You're a fan of the 'gate?"
"Carter." Faith's game face slips a notch. "Blonde. Geek."
As mystical energy spirals through her, Willow muses briefly on the rental of air force dress blues.
Her breath slows, and then the beat of her heart. Fast food, instant oatmeal meditation, but a nod's as good as a wink. Don't think about what might have happened to Angel; why Buffy won't answer the phone.
She is the most powerful witch in the hemisphere. With a Slayer at her side, who can stand against them?
Her awareness expands like sonar. Encompassing the room, the city, the universe...
Faith raises her sword.
A bubble pops.
The room is empty.