Chapter Text
Faith sat alone in the yard, doing her best to send “don’t talk to me” vibes at everyone in the vicinity. Generally these days, she was doing a bit better, but today, she felt like if someone talked to her, she might fall of the “no murder” wagon. She hadn’t slept well.
It wasn’t like Faith wasn’t used to nightmares; she was a slayer, after all. Nightmares came with the territory. Not only that, she had enough bad memories to fuel her nightmares even if she managed to live to old age. But this one was different. It had that creepy, too-real feeling to it. And, it had been about Buffy.
Faith was walking down a dark hallway, knife in hand. The walls were cracked and peeling. They looked like they would tumble if she breathed on them wrong. “Buffy?” Faith called in a whisper, although she didn’t know why she expected the other slayer to be there. There was just something in her gut telling her that she was meant to be looking for her. When she found Buffy, she’d know what was going on.
Faith turned a corner, and found herself standing on nothing. The hallway was gone, replaced by blank space. She turned and looked behind her. Nothing there, either. Great. Faith took an experimental step forward. The nothing seemed solid enough. She might as well keep going. Faith inched forward into the abyss. She squinted, then picked up her pace. There was someone up ahead, like a light cutting through the darkness. Faith grinned. Buffy was facing away from her, her sundress rippling in an unfelt wind. “Buffy!” Faith shouted “Hey, B!” She was almost there. Buffy started to turn, and Faith could picture the smile on her face, the easy way she would wave. Then, she slumped forward like she had been punched. Faith faltered “Buffy?” She watched helplessly as Buffy’s body was pulled upwards then slammed down like a rag doll. The darkness cleared, and Faith saw the thing holding Buffy. Its massive talons circled her easily, blood red against her pale skin. Its mouth dripped a putrid green substance and as it leered, Faith could see its teeth, each one as large as her head. “No.” She said weakly. She tried to run forward, but she couldn’t move. “Buffy!”
Buffy’s head lolled towards her, moving separately from her body. Her face was frozen in terror. “Faith” she choked “Help me.”
“I can’t move.” Faith shouted. She felt a lump of fear forming in her throat. Buffy’s jaw clicked wordlessly.
“You…” she managed to gasp “You need to… help me.”
“I’m trying!” The monster started to retreat into the darkness, taking Buffy with it.
“Come help me.”
“Buffy!”
Faith shivered, although the air was warm. She couldn’t shake the image of Buffy’s broken body being pulled away from her. She ran a hand through her hair and took a breath. It was just a dream, she told herself. Just a dream.
“Are you sure about that?” Faith jumped. Somehow, someone had managed to sit down right next to her without her noticing. The someone in question giggled as Faith scrambled to regain her composure. Her nose was upturned and wrinkled, the skin around it splotched red and pink, clashing brilliantly with her choppy red hair. She watched Faith out of bulbous, watery eyes. She wore the bland prison uniform, but Faith had never seen her before. Faith clenched her fists, ready to pounce.
“Easy, tiger,” the woman said breezily “No need to cause a scene. I’m just here to pass on a message.”
“Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she smiled cheekily at Faith. “Like hell it doesn’t” Faith muttered, but the woman ignored her, continuing “What matters is that dream you had.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Hon, who do you think gave it to you?”
“What?”
The woman shrugged “Call it a little preview for the next act.” Faith stared at her. She grinned, and her puffy face seemed to stretch itself thin. Her eyes glinted yellow. Faith didn’t need more than that.
She lunged, her hand on the strange woman’s throat before she could even react. Faith pinned her to the ground and sat on top of her, squeezing her throat slightly. She heard someone shout behind her, but she didn’t care.
“Been a while since I’ve had a good tussle,” Faith said, grinning “I’m trying to be good, see. But, something tells me you’re not human, and, well,” she pushed down rapidly with her hand, causing the woman to splutter, her eyes bulging even more than before “there’s nothing in the rules saying I can’t still hurt you .”
Faith raised her other hand in a fist, ready to bring it down on this thing’s face, but the woman below her just laughed. It was a harsh, wheezing sound. Faith made the mistake of looking into her eyes. She felt like she was falling. She saw the demon from her dream, the old Sunnydale highschool, now burned out shell, and then Buffy. Helpless, broken, dying.”
“No.” Faith scrambled away from the woman, who wheezed with laughter on the floor. “What was that?”
“The future, baby.”
“It can’t-”
“Any day now.” The woman crowed. “They’re coming, and the slayer won’t be able to stop ‘em.” Faith looked at her in horror.
“Why did you show me that?”
She shrugged “I’m just a psychic. I take the visions where they’re supposed to go. All I know is you have to get to the slayer, and get to the school, and you don’t have much time.”
“Can I stop it?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Faith didn’t think after that. She didn’t need to, her body took over. She shoved past the guard who had come to see what was going on and pushed through the crowd that had formed before breaking into a run. From there, it was too easy. She ran, only hitting when she had to, ripped through the fence like it was putty, and made a break for the highway. Sirens wailed behind her.
Heading across the empty highway. Faith considered her options. She could likely take the guards, but she was sure by this point they had called in back up, and that wouldn’t end well on either side. If she ran now, she would make it pretty far, but they’d catch her before she got anywhere near Sunnydale. Her thoughts were interrupted by the screech of brakes. A car came screeching towards her, and before she could move, it had sent her rolling forward. Ow. She groaned and started to peel herself off the asphalt.
“Oh, oh god, I’m so… I didn’t even see you. Please say you’re alright.” Faith heard the door open, and a middle aged man kneeled next to her. “Jesus, I’m so sorry.” She felt her lip. It had split, but nothing that wouldn’t heal by tomorrow.
“You alone?”
“What?” The man took her elbow as she stood, trying to help her up. Faith shrugged him off and looked at the car. It was empty. She could work with this. The man was staring at her prison clothes. “Who are-”
“The cops will be here any minute, tell ‘em I said hi.” With that, Faith punched him, and he crumpled to the ground. Faith jumped in the driver’s seat, checked that the keys were still in the ignition, and roared away.
+ + +
Buffy transferred all of her grocery bags to her left hand, freeing her right to rummage through her purse for her keys. “Come on,” she muttered. She reminded herself, for the hundredth time, that she needed to clean out her purse. It was becoming impossible to find anything in it. Faintly beyond the door, she heard the phone begin to ring. She sped up her search.
“I’m coming!” She told the phone, “Just hang on a sec!” It ignored her and continued to ring. Finally, she felt the metal ridges of her house key. “Yes!” As she pulled on the keys, the purse dislodged from her shoulder and slipped to the ground. She let go of the groceries to catch it. Something landed with an unpleasant “splat”. Buffy winced. “Eggs,” she said “Those were the eggs.” The phone continued to ring.
“Just a second!” Buffy shouted through the door. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see an old man walking his dog give her a look. She smiled and waved, and he hurried on.
“Way to go, Buffy,” she muttered to herself, unlocking the door and picking up the grocery bags “That looked perfectly sane.” She closed the door behind her with her elbow and trucked the groceries into the kitchen. Grabbing a towel off the counter to get the egg off of her hands, she picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Buffy.” Buffy stopped wiping her hands. One word in that voice, and all the chaos in her day seemed to freeze. She wasn’t sure how he could still do that. Even with everything going on around her- Glory, Dawn, her Mom, Riley… hearing him still made her feel calm. Buffy leaned against the wall.
“Angel,” she whispered. Then, in a stronger voice “What’s wrong?”
“Does something have to be wrong for us to talk?”
“Generally speaking. You only seem to call me when there’s an apocalypse.” Angel chuckled on the other end of the line, and Buffy smiled. Cradling the phone with her shoulder, she moved around the kitchen, cleaning up the mess that the eggs had caused and putting the surviving groceries away.
“So, what’s up? Demons? End of days? Vague and spooky evil?”
“Not exactly. Look, Buffy, I just got a call from a contact-”
“That’s never good.”
“Buffy, Faith got out.”
Buffy stumbled, grabbing the counter to steady herself. “What?”
“Two days ago.” He didn’t say anything else, letting her turn his words over in her head.
“I thought they had given her…”
“Twenty-five to life.”
“So, what, she’s out early on good behavior?”
“She overpowered the guards, made it onto the highway, and stole a car.”
“Have they found her?” Buffy could tell in the silence that followed that he was shaking his head, in the absent way he often did when he forgot that he was on the phone.
“She ditched the car on the side of the road about ten miles out from the prison.”
“I thought you said she was getting better.”
“She was- she is.”
“People who are better don’t break out of prison.” Buffy winced at the coldness in her voice. Angel was silent.
“I’m going to find her,” he said gently, and she tried not to hate him for that placating tone. “I just thought you should know, in case…”
“In case?”
“It looked like she was heading towards Sunnydale.” Buffy closed her eyes and let that news sink in.
“Oh.” She said blandly.
“I could be wrong.”
“Yeah.” Buffy felt numb. She looked around the messy kitchen. She had tried to keep up with it while Joyce had been recovering in the hospital, but the dishes were piling up, and the trash was full to bursting. Buffy laughed bitterly “Man, this week just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said, and he sounded like he meant it. “If you needed, I could…” He trailed off, and Buffy wondered how that sentence could possibly have ended. You could what? She wanted to ask, Come back? She let the silence hang. It still hurt, sometimes, knowing that things with him were over. It hurt especially now, with the sting of losing Riley still so fresh. But she let the ache in her chest pass. What they had had been special, but it had ended, and Buffy was okay with that. No, really. She smiled and shook her head.
“Thanks for the offer,” she said, though he hadn’t really offered anything. “But I’m alright. You should look for her. I’ll let you know if she turns up here.”
“Go easy on her, won’t you? She’s been through a lot.” Buffy bit back a retort, and instead settled for a simple “Fine.” before hurriedly ending the call. When she had said her final goodbyes, Buffy set the phone back in its cradle and leaned her head against the wall, letting herself take a minute to breathe. Faith was out. Not only that, but Faith was coming here . Why? And why now? Leave it to Faith to stage a jailbreak at the worst possible time. She tried not to think about the last time they had met. Or the time before that. Or the time before that. Buffy’s mind drifted unbidden to the image of Faith standing on the rooftop, clutching her side, her hands slick with the same blood that covered the blade in Buffy’s hand. She pressed her palms to her eyes, willing the image away. There had been a time when they had been close. Friends, even. There had been a time when Buffy would have trusted Faith with her life. It had been a wild, heady feeling, being the “chosen two”. It had been nice, sharing her destiny. Until it had all gone wrong.
Buffy had been so angry last time they had seen each other ( for good reason she thought bitterly, but she put that thought aside). She had hated Faith for stealing her body, and hated Angel even more for forgiving her. Well, not just for forgiving her. The more Buffy thought about it afterwards, the more she realized that really, she hated Angel for doing the thing that Buffy couldn’t, that she felt like maybe she should. Secretly, she hated herself a bit for the way that she had raged against Faith, cringed at that memory of herself more than at the thought of Faith or Angel, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on that. She shook the memories out of her head, focused on what needed to be done. It was always easier to let herself fall into plans and actions. She didn’t like getting stuck in thought. She busied herself with the dishes, making a list in her head as she did.
She had to call Giles. That was number one. He had already been planning a trip to the council to try and get information on Glory, maybe he could… Buffy didn’t like the idea of the council knowing about Faith. As much as they had hurt each other, Buffy couldn’t quite hate her, and she definitely didn’t want to put her at the mercy of Quentin Travers. Still, Giles could help, and he would get the word out to the others. Then, she’d check in on Joyce in the hospital. Last time, Faith had gone for her family. It had only been to lure Buffy in, and something in her doubted that the other slayer would do it again. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check, and she needed to visit Joyce today anyway. The doctors thought that she would be able to come home tomorrow, but Buffy could tell that even the short visit had her mom feeling restless. She hated hospitals almost as much as Buffy herself. After that, Dawn had to be picked up from school, and the house had to be cleaned in anticipation of Joyce’s return (Buffy had been meaning to do that. Really.) and dinner had to be made, and then maybe they could meet up at the magic box to figure out what they were supposed to do if Faith showed up. Then there was patrolling, making sure Dawn did her homework, checking with Willow about the anti-Glory wards she had put up, and…
The hairs on the back of Buffy’s neck stood on end, even before she heard the knock on the door. There was a swooping sensation in her gut, and she knew. She wondered briefly if she should call Giles now, but the knock came again. It was gentle, almost timid. Buffy sighed. It’s not like Faith was a vampire; the door wouldn’t hold her out if she wanted in. And that didn’t seem like the knock of someone on a revenge mission. She steeled herself and went to the door. “Faith,” she said as she opened it. “Why are you here?”