Finding Her Way Home
by rebelrsr
Chapter 40
[reviews]
Disclaimer: All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and lots of people in expensive suits. I'm not making any money here, just trying to create a happier Buffyverse for my favorite characters.
Spoilers, etc.: Pretty much everything after the Gift.
A/N: Character thoughts are enclosed by **. Flashbacks are enclosed by //. Thanks to Ivy for the preread and Zigpal and Lilly for the beta and encouragement! I couldn't do it without you.
Archiving: By permission only.
A/N2: I'm mixing parts of S6 and S7 with very little regard to canon. For purposes of the fic, Dawn is over the age of consent *wink*.
"Just a Slayer," Faith echoed disbelievingly. "This time, you're the one who ain't paying attention. B's more than just a Slayer. She's the oldest one ever. As far as I'm concerned, that makes her the best — even before you look at how she fights." She stopped there, hesitating to share more.
An exasperated sigh sounded in her ear. "Talk to me, Faith. I really want to know. You obviously think Buffy is better than you. I want to know why. Why hasn't your Slayer gone after her? Why are you so content to let her lead?"
"What do you want to know first?" Faith kept her eyes closed. She didn't want to look at Kirstan; she didn't want to see the disgust and disdain as she told her story.
"Take them one at a time, Faith." The arms holding her tightened. "Why is Buffy better than you? Why are you the second best Slayer in your head?"
Faith huddled against Kirstan. Ignoring the first question, she chose what she considered the more important issue. She had to get Kirstan to understand the truth about her. Voice rough yet firm, Faith outlined her time in Sunnydale.
"I left Boston right after the thing with Kakistos. Headed for Sunnydale and the Great Buffy Summers. I thought...I don't know. I thought she could help me. It didn't work out that way." Faith felt the old bitterness and alienation knot her stomach. Skimming over the details, she ground out, "I wasn't good enough for them, and they let me know it every day." The words poured from her lips, harsh and angry. "The only thing I was good enough for was backing up Buffy. The Golden Girl."
Kirstan didn't say anything.
Wishing she could stop, Faith went on. "Buffy had everything. Everything," she repeated explosively. Everything she didn't have. "Willow and Xander, Giles, a mother." Faith bit her lip, tasting blood. Joyce... "You know what I had?" she asked raggedly.
"What, little girl? What did you have?" Kirstan's words were soft and encouraging.
"Some crappy room at the local flea bag motel. That's it." A sob broke free, tearing at her throat. "I got to 'borrow' Giles for a while, and Mrs. Summers invited me over for dinner once."
Fingers combed through her hair. "It sounds like they tried to let you in."
"No, they fucking didn't!" Jerking against Kirstan's hold, Faith tried to get up. She couldn't. Kirstan was too strong...or maybe she really wanted to finally say this. "I was a fucking tool." Faith was shaking, sobs building up inside. "I was a way to keep Buffy alive. That's all. I got invited over for dinner at the Homestead. Mrs. S and B...all smiles and full plates. And every time Joyce looked at me, I could see it in her eyes. I was there to replace Buffy. I was there so Buffy could get out of the business. I was there to save them both from Buffy's Calling." By the end, she was shouting, the words echoing in the large space.
"So you didn't have any support. Buffy and her friends treated you like something less than human," Kirstan summed up.
"Yeah," Faith said bitterly. "Pure Southie white trash."
"You hated them," Kirstan commented accurately. "Buffy most of all. That makes sense. You were the Slayer, though. The Line ran through you. Buffy was done; her time was over. Why did you play second fiddle? My Slayer would have wanted to take over, prove our dominance. You? You sat back and you took it. You never tried to knock Buffy off that pedestal."
Dropping her head to Kirstan's shoulder, Faith mumbled, "I did go after her." The fight on the roof was still so clear. The hate in Buffy's eyes as they traded blows and insults. Her own fear...The sudden realization that she wanted Buffy to kill her.
"And?" Kirstan wasn't going to let it go.
"And I lost. Big." Faith tensed against the phantom knife slicing through her abdomen. Sweat beaded her hairline, and she trembled against Kirstan. "I almost made Buffy a killer like me."
Kirstan stroked warm hands up and down her back. "Take your time, little girl, and tell me the whole story."
Laughing reluctantly, Faith told Kirstan, "That would take a while. I'll give you the Readers Digest version." Nervously opening and closing her hands, she started, "I got tired of playing by the rules." That wasn't right. "I got tired of Buffy always playing by the rules," Faith corrected. "She needed to cross the line, play on the wild side. So I took her out, and I showed her how to live my kind of life."
A ghostly echo of shattering glass filled her mind, and shadows of her and Buffy slipped into the sporting goods store.
"We were riding the rush," Faith forced herself to go on. The images continued to roll in her mind — Buffy laughing at something she'd said then turning serious as the vampires appeared in front of them. A trickle of the excitement from that long ago fight sped up her heart beat. "Two Slayers, on top of the world...and then I fucked up. I staked a vamp that wasn't a vamp. He was human. Deputy Mayor Allen Finch." Nausea surged and the copper smell of blood invaded her senses. She could feel that blood pouring over her hands.
When she fell silent, Kirstan rocked them for a few minutes. "You do know you aren't the only Slayer to make that mistake?"
Mistake. That was the heart of the problem. "Now, sure. At the time, all I knew was that the Council wanted to 'rehabilitate' me and my new Watcher thought I was out of control and a murderer." Wesley's disapproving face replaced the sight of the darkened alley in her mind.
"So you hit first and asked questions later?" Kirstan didn't sound shocked.
"Yeah." Faith's lips twisted in a bitter smile. "I didn't care. That's what I kept telling everybody — including myself. I was a Slayer. One human was jack against all the vamps and demons I killed."
Silence descended in the Training Barn as they both absorbed that sentiment.
"Finch was one." Kirstan's voice broke the stillness. "You said two earlier. Who was the second, and why?"
Faith stiffened. No. No way was she talking about the professor.
"Tell me, Faith," Kirstan ordered. "You've been running from this for years. I don't know the story; we don't have any history. Tell me what happened."
The tears started up again, burning a path down Faith's cheeks. "After...after I got away from the Council guys, I tried to run. Leave Sunnydale and Slaying. B found me. She talked me into staying, but..." The memory was so real in her mind that Faith could smell the salt in the air and hear the slap of the waves against the dock. Regret filled her. "I wasn't coming back to be her backup. I wanted to hurt her, hurt all of them. And I was so fucking tired of being second best. I cut a deal with the newest power broker — the Mayor — and went undercover as a Recovering Slayer."
She felt Kirstan's chest expand on a deep breath. "Why did he need a Slayer? How did he even know what one was?"
Right for the jugular. Wincing, Faith tried to burrow into Kirstan. "The Mayor wanted to be a demon." It sounded far less terrible than it had actually been. "I wasn't even good at the spy business, though. The Gang found out what I was doing eventually. Figured out what the Boss was up to." Her muscles cramped from the tension and her words picked up speed. She couldn't keep telling this. She had to just get to the point. Skipping the play by play, Faith confessed, "There was this old guy at the college. He knew something, or the Boss thought he did."
"You killed him to keep him quiet." Kirstan's hands continued to stroke over Faith's back. "How did you feel? After you killed him?"
Stomach churning, Faith swallowed back the rush of bile. "Amazing. Powerful." The truth filled her with soul-destroying shame now.
"And your Slayer?" The soft voice poked and prodded at the memories as Kirstan forced Faith to confront the past.
"Went crazy." Not even Angel knew this part. He'd never asked about how she'd felt after the murder. "Every second, all I heard was howling in my head." Little by little, that primal voice had pushed her to the edge. "By the time me and B squared off, I wanted her to kill me."
Lips pressed against the top of her bent head. "She didn't."
They'd come full circle. Faith slowly pulled away from Kirstan. "No. She came fucking close, though. Stuck a knife in my gut." This time, there was no imaginary blade cutting into her. "I wouldn't let her do it. I jumped off the roof."
***
"Of course," Buffy said immediately. "Why didn't we think of that? An opening to Hell right under our alma mater."
Giles simply looked at her, blue eyes red rimmed and steady.
Flushing, Buffy dropped her eyes. "Sorry, Giles," she mumbled. "Why do you think it's the school?"
"Beside the fact I remember those shelves and the boxes of student records from my time there, we have all forgotten that there is in fact a gateway to Hell beneath the school." Giles' voice was wry. "All of our books and treatises...we have made the search far more complex than needed."
Buffy rubbed the back of her neck. "We know where. We know how — Spike's blood. Any takers on when?" She felt the first glimmer of excitement under the strain. They were finally getting answers. Soon, the sitting would be over and the doing would start.
"Soon." Drew grinned her almost-Willow grin. "The First needs the Turok Han. They're his shock troops. Since he doesn't have form, he isn't much of a threat beyond head games."
A theatrical sigh sounded from Drew's left. "Idiots. You're all idiots," Anya announced.
Buffy saw Drew blush brightly at the criticism.
"How many Potentials are there, Giles? A hundred? Two? More?" Anya demanded, not actually giving him a chance to answer. "How many are here?"
Buffy didn't know the answer to any of those questions. When she glanced at Giles, she didn't want to know the answers.
"Perhaps a dozen," Giles finally answered. He moved away long enough to appropriate a nearby chair. Dragging it back to their location, he sat down. "There should easily have been a hundred times that, along with their Watchers."
***
"Where...where are the rest?" Willow rapidly did the math. Twelve Potentials out of over a thousand.
Giles' smile wasn't reassuring. "I believe Anya was attempting to say the First is already a threat, even without the Turok Han."
"Maybe they're just having trouble getting here," Willow tried desperately. They couldn't have lost so many. They'd been trying to protect the Potentials; if Giles was right, they'd failed.
Buffy gripped her hand. "No, Will. There aren't any more. Just the ones already here." Lifting their joined hands, she brushed her lips across Willow's knuckles. "You know it. We all know it, no matter how much we want to pretend."
"Then we have to stop the First before he opens the Seal," Drew said. "How do we do that?" Willow heard the undercurrent of panic in her voice. Her sister wasn't dealing well with the new information. "We don't even know when the ritual will be."
"We don't have to know." Avoiding Buffy's eyes, Willow went on, "The First is using Spike to help open the Seal." Help wasn't the right word, but Willow didn't expand on that. "All we have to do is find Spike."