Renewed Faith
"The strong can still be good." ~ Guilford Dudley, "Lady Jane"
Part 1:
She knocked on the door, still trying to adjust to using Giles’ house as a base of operations. She had been here numerous times, of course, but now, knowing that she would never again walk into the library and catch him with his head in a book, she was inexplicably saddened.
"Buffy, hi. Come in" he said. She smiled when she saw the yellowed volume he was holding in one hand. Demons might rise, and the world might nearly fall apart, but Giles would always have his books. The thought was oddly comforting.
"Reporting for training as ordered." she said with a mock salute, and plopped herself on the nearest sofa.
"Buffy, I need not remind you that even though the Mayor is gone, there are still demons which will require your attention. If you are not too terribly busy," said her Watcher in a huff.
"Giles, joking mode," she said with a defensive frown. "You do remember jokes...they’re those things that keep you from having that look on your face that you have right now," she added with a small grin.
"I- I’m sorry. It’s just that there’s been so much to deal with lately. The police investigation of the explosion, Wesley’s departure, finding the correct incantations for the sealing of the Hellmouth..." Giles muttered something under his breath but all Buffy could make out, even with her supersenstive hearing, was "bloody inconvient".
"What do you mean sealing the Hellmouth? The Hellmouth is already sealed. We blew it to smithereens, remember? It’s full of snake parts."
Giles shook his head distractedly. "The hellmouth is more than a physical entity - it’s a nexus between our world and the demon dimension. The entrance was destroyed by the explosion but the portal is still there, and it may have actually weakened somewhat. We shall need to reinforce the barrier by ritual."
"And I thought we were on vacation from ritual." said Buffy.
She was about to ask him about said ritual when there was a knock on the door. Willow poked her head from around the corner and said "All right if I come in? I heard voices.."
"Yes, yes, come in," said the former Watcher, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Ever since they had adopted his house as a meeting place, it seemed Buffy and her friends dropped in here just as much as they did at the library. He had thought they would be getting ready for their respective college plans but, with the typical procrastination of youth, they were all out to have a good time until at least mid-August.
"We were about to begin a training regimen. Is there something wrong, Willow?" said Giles.
"Um, no. Just having a problem with um...something."
"Which one?" said Giles suspiciously.
"Not anything dangerous," said Willow nervously. Though she had nothing to hide, she was always defensive around him when it came to spells. She knew that he was hell-bent on keeping her safe, most likely from herself, and as such he was often far more overprotective than she thought he ought to be with regard to her forays into the black arts.
"More Amy stuff. This new spell has to work, Giles. I’ve gotta get her deratted before freshman orientation!" she lamented. Giles and Buffy exchanged looks, both wondering how Willow had managed to secure admission of a rodent to UC Sunnydale. Giles decided he’d have to have a talk with his young apprentice regarding her hacking skills.
"Anyway, I need to check an ingredient list in the Chronicles of Darius. You have a copy, right?" she said with a cajoling smile.
The former librarian sighed. "Top bookshelf in the corner. No, the next one. On the left, I believe." The redhead gave a small whoop of triumph and was immediately lost to her studies as she curled up in an armchair and continued her research.
"Well now that we’ve lost Willow, what are we doing today?" said Buffy, glancing at her friend with affectionate amusement.
"I thought we would continue your perception training, especially in light of-excuse me for a moment." Giles was interrupted by the phone ringing, which he answered in the den in the next room.
Buffy keened her ears and steeled herself, as she always did, for bad news, but at Giles’ easy laugh and bantering tone it was clear that the phone call was from an old friend. She sat in silence for a few minutes, and then, bored, turned her attention to Willow and tried to engage her friend in conversation.
"So, have you bought your stuff for the dorm room yet?"
"Mmmnnn..."
"I’ll take that as a..yes?"
"Mmm-mmmm..." she said, slightly shaking her head.
"Did I tell you that my mom is buying me a car at the end of the
summer?"
"Hmmm..."
"Did I tell you that the Master is back, we’re eloping, and I’m going to be managing his budding career in B-grade horror films?"
Something about this struck Willow as slightly odd and she finally raised her head. "I’m sorry, what?"
Buffy laughed at the hopelessness of it. "Nevermind. It’s nothing. Hey Giles, we need to do something about Will’s-"
Her voice died in her throat as she saw the expression on Giles’ face as he walked back into the living room. She didn’t understand, a second ago things had been fine. "What? What is it?" she said, trying to ignore the pit that was forming in her stomach.
"Buffy..." he said, with an infinite sadness that frightened her.
"Just tell me," Why was it they could never go more than a week or so without some sort of tragedy? The Hellmouth was closed, the Mayor was dead, what else could have possibly happened?
"That- That was an old friend of mine at Oxford. He’s not with the Council but he has a close enough ear to their proceedings. Buffy-" his voice caught in his throat. God that she should find out like this. It was not supposed to happen this way, he had taken every precaution. He took a deep breath and said softly, "A new slayer has been called."
"Oh. Well gosh Giles, that’s not like the end of the world. Geez, you’d think—" The words were scarcely out of her mouth when their implications smashed into her psyche and ripped away the hope she had tried so hard to cultivate over the past few weeks.
"No...Oh no..." she stared at the floor shaking her head, tears falling on the thick brown carpet as fast as they formed. Before Giles could say anything, she was out the door and running down the street.
"Buffy, wait!!!" Willow yelled at the open front door.
"I’ll go. Stay here in case she comes back." Said Giles, and took off for Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. She stood in the extended-care wing, looking at the bed, wincing at the sterility of the crisp sheets and paper-covered pillow. She had checked with three different nurses, and they had all confirmed that the former occupant of room 125B had been laid to rest several days earlier. She tried to push back the thought that nobody was with the slayer when she died, in spite of her unspoken promise to Faith not to let that happen.
Since Faith’s ‘accident’, she and Giles were Faith’s only visitors. Xander refused to come with her, never saying why but always managing to be ‘too busy’, and Willow still held a surprising amount of bitterness towards Buffy’s former slaying partner. Oz had told her that, though she would never say it, Willow resented the continued intrusion of Faith on Buffy’s time. She saw it as a betrayal, albeit a small one, that Buffy would still find the time to visit someone who had caused all of them so much pain, when the era of the Scooby gang had so few days before it came to the end, as so many of them went their separate ways.
She probably would have given in to the wishes of her friends and refrained from making those visits, had it not been for Giles. Somehow he had known that it would be vital for Buffy to be able to look back after Faith’s death and know that she had spent time with her in her last days. The grief she felt over not being there at the very end would have been magnified a thousand times over not being there at all. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected he had given her friends strict orders against giving any vocal inclination that they disapproved.
She reached out and brushed the thin blanket with a hand, as if to confirm with all of her senses that what she had been told was the truth. Then she made her way back to the reception area for one more piece of information.
After searching the hospital, Giles finally found his charge sitting in front of a headstone in Sunnydale Cemetery, holding her knees up to her chest and staring at the ground, her grief palpable despite the fact that he could not see her face.
He said nothing, just sat down next to her and read the marker in front of them.
Faith Wilkins
Beloved Daughter
December 4, 1982- June 3, 1999
"I’m so sorry, Buffy." He said after a few minutes of silence. "The hospital was supposed to keep us informed, but there was a mistake. The ...arrangements... were already taken care of, so there was no need to contact anyone."
"She’s been here almost a week, and we didn’t even know." Said the slayer in a broken voice. "_I_ didn’t even know. I was her friend."
"I know."
"No, you don’t know!" she said angrily. "I was her friend and I killed her."
"Buffy, I know you feel guilty about Faith’s death. But you must weigh that guilt against the number lives you saved in the process."
"It’s different this time," said the slayer in a quiet voice, still staring at the headstone. "I didn’t kill a demon this time, Giles. I killed a person, and not by accident." She turned and faced her watcher with a determined look.
"That’s not supposed to be the deal. I’m not supposed to save lives by killing people. I’m supposed to kill vampires...demons... everything that lives under the bed or hides in dark closets..." she sat in silence for a moment and Giles wondered if she was going to continue.
"I can do what I have to because I know it’s right. Willow calls it a ‘good fight’. Or at least she used to. There was never anything to feel guilty about - either I killed them or people died."
"And what makes you think that the situation with Faith was any different?" said Giles.
"She wasn’t a demon! She still had a chance, still had a choice. Even there, at the end. But I didn’t let her make it. There might have been another way, and I didn’t let her make it."
"What if it would have made no difference?" said Giles.
"I can’t believe that," said Buffy.
"Why, so you can continue to torture yourself?" he said in a gentle voice.
"You know, Faith probably felt this way. A- at first, I mean. Guilty. And then she got herself over it. Maybe a little too over it. Till she just didn’t care at all anymore." She took a deep breath, and in a small, desperate voice, added, "What if that happens to me?"
"Impossible," he said with quiet determination. He wrapped an arm around her and she leaned into his embrace, too comforted by the gesture to wonder about the rare display of affection.
"Faith’s greatest strength was her self-reliance, but as you know, it was also her greatest weakness. Having family and friends that cared about her was the one thing that had always eluded her. It’s the reason she loved your life, Buffy. " His slayer’s head snapped up at this and she looked at him as if hearing the information for the first time.
"You may walk a fine line on occasion, but, unlike Faith, you will always have people that love you to pull you back should you ever need it. Your mother, your friends...and the last time I checked, I wasn’t going anywhere in the near future," he said with his familiar quirky grin.
"Promise?" she said, her voice light but with a seriousness in her eyes he had seldom seen.
He had a thousand questions to ask in light of the seriousness of the request, and a million more things to tell, but instead he said simply, "Promise."
Buffy smiled at the moment, strengthened by his presence as much as one little word. She knew he meant it, and she was glad, but in her heart she wondered if it would be enough.
Part 2:
He had thought that after their talk in the graveyard, she had been able to put the past behind her. But she obviously hadn’t, and Giles was concerned. It was the second time in two weeks she had arrived for training with either several nasty bruises or a heavy bandage. She was "off her game", as she would have put it had she not been in denial about the source of her continual mishaps. She had made him promise not to mention her wrist fracture to her mother, who had been out of town for several days. By the time she returned, Buffy’s super healing ability had done its work. He knew he had to do something, but not what. He had even considered calling Angel to clandestinely keep an eye on her until he could figure out what to do. He had picked up the emergency number in his desk drawer on several occasions, but he couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. He knew the old wounds he would open up for Angel, and for Buffy as well should she find out Angel was keeping an eye on her. Instead, he had tried to get her to talk to him about her problems several times. Either they were interrupted, or she couldn’t quite bring herself to break through whatever it was that was holding her back. She just gave him a sad, heart-breaking smile and said there was nothing he could do.
*****
She had killed two vampires, and had only two left, but she was, impossibly, losing. She couldn’t seem to find an opening for Mr. Pointy, and just when she thought she might get one, the other came at her and suddenly she was on the defensive, just trying to avoid becoming a meal. Finally, she managed to stun the first one with a roundhouse kick to its face, and she threw the other against a stone wall on the perimeter of the park, which she promptly staked, wincing as the full weight of the vampire was momentarily supported by her newly-healed wrist. At the same time, she pulled a second stake out of her jacket with her left hand and held it at the ready as the second, recovering vampire rushed at her from her left side. In a matter of seconds she was dusting off her clothes and scanning the park for any further foes. She walked over to where her gear lay, cursing Giles’ insistence that she have something more substantial than a stake with her, in light of her recent injury. The crossbow was still on the table but several arrows had been scattered on the ground, and she knelt down to pick them up, becoming lost in thought. She never saw the third vampire that had been following her actions from a nearby copse of trees. Nor did she notice it’s attempt to sneak up behind her, or the broken tree branch that seemed to leap from the ground of its own accord. When she finally stood up and turned around to head home, there was just the faintest of breezes and a slight tinge of gray on the green grass at her feet.
*****
It had been several weeks since Faith’s death, and in spite of Giles’ growing objections, Buffy had continued her nightly patrols, downplaying her near-misses and doing her best to cover up the physical evidence when she was particularly unlucky. The stress had begun to take its toll, however, and everyone was beginning to take much more notice. It was all she could do now to fight off Willow and Xander’s continued insistence that they accompany her on her patrols. She was grateful for their offer but she knew full well that it would only add to their concerns.
She was just finishing her last sweep of the cemetary and taking her well-worn shortcut home through the park when she heard a familiar voice calling out behind her.
"Hey Slayer! Wait up!" said Whistler, who was leaning against a ramada pole. As she glanced in his direction, he gave her a chivalrous tip of his hat.
"What are you doing here?" she asked suspiciously. Then she was struck by a thought and momentary panic. "Angel?"
"Is fine. No worries there, really." He said, in an honest attempt to reassure her. "Actually, I’m having kind of a problem"
"_You’re_ having a problem. What kind of problem? And what do you expect me to do about it? And while we’re at it, where the heck were you when Sunnydale was on the verge of total destruction?" she said in a hostile tone that conveyed her opinion most succinctly.
"Sorry kiddo. That’s your job, not mine."
She was about to yell at him for his obvious apathy, but realizing that it would do nothing but prolong his visit, said only "Right. So what do you want?"
"Well ya see, I got this trainee. Lots of potential, but there’s some unfinished business to tend to. It’s kind of getting in the way."
"And you think I can help because...," she said, annoyed.
"Well, you are the unfinished business."
"Let me get this straight," she said angrily. "You came all the way back to Sunnydale so I could make nice with some demon that you’ve ...what - adopted? Who is it? Balthazar? Acathla? Makita? Just what I need, another frigging snake. Not that I care. Sorry, but I’ve gotta motor. Tell your demon I said good riddance." She said, and began to storm off.
"Awww come on, B. Be a pal," said a too-familiar voice that appeared to come from out of nowhere.
Buffy stopped in her tracks, dropped her gear, and looked around in confusion. "Hunh?" Then, turning to Whistler with a horrified look, she said, "What is this?"
"Hi Girlfriend." Said the disembodied voice.
"Faith?" said Buffy in barely a whisper.
"In the flesh... well not really flesh but.... Um, Whistler could you give me a hand here?"
A figure began to materialize from where the voice had been a moment before. Like the development of a 3-dimensional piece of film, Faith’s transparent form suddenly came into focus.
"Oh my God" whispered Buffy, still in shock. "I thought you were dead."
"She is" said Whistler, appraising his charge. "Give her a break, she’s kind of new at this."
"I got the voice down okay, but the body thing is still kind of hard," said Faith, who looked exactly as Buffy had seen her the day she came to the apartment. No bruises, no scars, not even-
Buffy unconsciously looked down at—and through—Faith’s stomach and gasped as she realized what she was doing.
"Oh God..." Tears streamed unbidden as a part of her mind wondered why she was openly grieving so much for someone who a few weeks ago would have killed her without a thought. There was so much she wanted to say, but she could only stare and slowly drown in the sea of guilt into which she was rapidly sinking.
"Well, I’ll leave you two alone," said Whistler, as he began to walk out of the park.
"Whistler?" said Faith, calling after her new mentor expectantly.
The demon stopped and turned back around. "Now wait a minute. I’m not supposed to-"
"Come on, its for a good cause." Said Faith.
He thought about it a moment, took one look at Buffy, and sighed. "All right. One hour, then we gotta go." He waved his hand in Faith’s direction and promptly disappeared.
The effect was instantaneous. Faith’s visible but ethereal form solidified. She walked over to the grieving Slayer and put an arm around her, giving her a reproachful, but sympathetic smile.
"None of that, Supergirl. Come on. We have to talk."
They made their way over to a merry go round and sat down on its edge. Buffy stared at Faith and sat down like an automaton, still too stunned to believe what she was seeing was real. Faith turned towards her and gave her a look very much like the one in Buffy’s vision in the hospital.
"You gotta let it go."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," said Buffy, ignoring the pit that was forming in her stomach.
"Yes you do. " Faith wiped away a lingering tear from Buffy’s cheek, and she scowled as she noticed the last remnants of a scar that ran down Buffy’s right forearm. "You got too much heart, B. Did I ever tell you that?"
"Yeah I think you mentioned it once or twice," said Buffy, remembering some heated arguments in the last days before their friendship was irrevocably torn.
"Seriously, look at you. You’re falling apart. Keep this up and you’re gonna give ‘vampire slayer’ a whole new meaning." She paused a moment, remembering the earlier close call in the park, and gave the blonde slayer an thoughtful look. "I thought, you know, that you’d work this out with someone. With Giles maybe..."
"Giles can’t help me," she said, with a voice chilling in its neutrality.
"I know he can’t. That’s why I’m here."
The admission snapped Buffy out of her detachment and she looked Faith in the eye for the first time. "What? Is that your job now, dispensing forgiveness?" She tried to wrap her mind around that concept but instead all she could see was an ornate dagger, covered in the blood of a slayer.
"Hey look. I’m not here to do the Touched By An Angel thing. I’m way past that. All I know is, Whistler fought tooth and nail to get me this probation deal. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing to earn back my frequent flier miles, but this ain’t it. I’m only here to do one last thing and then I’m history."
"And that would be..."
"To save you from yourself."
Buffy gave a grim chuckle. "Me and myself are getting along fine, thank you very much. Guess you can go now."
Faith turned to look up at the stars and said, "The guilt eats you up. You try to push it away, or bury it, but its always there." Then, turning to look at the slayer, she added, "You’re not meant for that kind of burden, B. It’s not in you... Trust me. I know."
"You know nothing!" she yelled in a choked voice. "Okay, so you’ve killed people. But don’t you dare compare what we did, Faith, don’t you dare compare what we are ..."
Faith in her newfound arrangement had mellowed out considerably, and she had expected Buffy to feel at least somewhat guilty about her death, it was after all why Whistler had brought her back to Sunnydale in
the first place. But the idea that Buffy was so lost in her own righteousness brought out her fighting spirit, and she prepared for another verbal assault. "Now just a minute, little miss Muffet-"
"No! Let me finish." Said Buffy, through hollowed eyes. "I know you killed the mayor’s flunky... and- and that volcano guy.. and I don’t know who else. And I don’t WANT to know. But do you honestly think that compares?" she was openly crying now, her words being carried on the breath of stifled sobs. " You didn’t know them. You didn’t fight with them, save their lives, have them save yours." Her words dwindled to no more than a whisper that was barely heard even by the ears of a Slayer " You didn’t spend half your life trying to deal with what you were...only to find somebody just like you, who actually understood you... and you didn’t kill them in cold blood."
"You didn’t give me a chance, B." said Faith, in a tone of quiet absolution.
"It could have been different. We might have been able to work it out, if... if Angel-" she was still torn, the guilt over Faith’s death making the wounds even deeper, knowing that she would do it all over again if it meant saving Angel.
"Stop blaming yourself. It was the Mayor’s plan, for me to keep you busy while the Ascension was going on. Don’t you see? He knew you had your limits, that you’d try to find a way to deal with me that wouldn’t involve one of us killing the other, and he wanted you dead. Human weakness, B." she smiled as Buffy’s eyes met hers in dawning comprehension. "He knew the only thing that would bring you to my doorstep in a blood rage was blinding hate."
"Angel," said Buffy.
"I didn’t know about the slayer’s blood thing," she said in a surprised voice. "He figured you’d come at me for revenge, not for a cure. You have to understand, Buffy. I mean really understand." She gave Buffy a piercing look. "He set you up to do exactly what you did. The boss just figured that I’d be the one coming out on top." She gave a small chuckle. "He always did have too much faith in me..."
"But why?" She didn’t need an explanation for Faith’s betrayal. Though it was heartbreaking, Faith’s reasons had become painfully obvious over time. What Buffy didn’t understand, however, was the change of heart.
"I guess the dark side wasn’t all it was cracked up to be," she said with a shrug.
"Not an answer," said Buffy, smiling through reddened eyes at Faith’s typical evasiveness.
"Best I can do. Guess it worked though, right?" she said, glancing around.
"Yeah," said Buffy. "It worked. Wish you would have been there... on our side, I mean."
"I was.. in my own way."
The vision that rushed back to her brought with it not only her guilt but an extreme sense of loss that she could no longer hold in. Buffy burst into tears.
"Hey... against the rules, remember?" said Faith, trying to push down the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.
"Working on it..." Buffy sniffled, took a moment to compose herself, and continued. "Giles says that until me, there have never been two slayers at the same time. When I met Kendra it was like- like meeting a sister I didn’t know I had. We were really different, sure, but we were alike in every way that mattered. When I ran into the library, and found her...well, I can’t tell you what that feels like. You lost your Watcher, so you have some idea, but its more than that. It’s like losing a piece of yourself. Angel tricked me, and before I could get back, Dru had slit her throat. I felt like I failed her, but at the same time I had no control over what happened."
"B, it’s okay, really..." Faith knew where she was going and though she was touched, she was afraid to let Buffy continue knowing the pain it would cause her.
"But you.... God..." she choked on her self recrimination. "_I_ was in charge of that one, not Dru, not Spike, not Angel. Me. Sure I can tell myself I was saving the world. I can run the replay through my head a million times, but it doesn’t help. We had fun, Faith." She said, pronouncing the word as if it were the ultimate sin.
"Yeah," she said softly, "yeah we did."
"Slaying was always something I did. It wasn’t something I never really shared with anyone, except for that little while when Kendra was here. But to her it was a sacred duty. It wasn’t supposed to be a kick. We didn’t trash vampire dens and then hit Denny’s for the breakfast buffet," she said with a nostalgic smile that almost reached her eyes. "Course I didn’t ditch chem, either."
"Hey, gotta live a little."
"Well thanks to that stunt you pulled with the Zhe Sisters, I’m living a lot..." Her words unintentionally broke the frivolous mood they had fallen into and she fell back into her grief as easily as if it was a second skin.
"I’m so sorry," she whispered, weeping softly. "I didn’t want you to die."
"I know. It’s okay," said Faith, who gathered her old friend in a hug. She could feel Whistler’s presence nearby and knew that he was only staying away out of etiquette. They had to go soon.
"Time’s up. I’m sorry, B" she said, meaning it more than the slayer in her arms would ever know.
"I’m gonna miss you, you know," said Buffy.
"Same here sister. But who knows, I might be around."
Buffy smiled and said "Pay me a visit."
"Count on it." And with that, Faith walked off in the direction of her new mentor, still holding Buffy’s left hand until her arm was outstretched and she was out of reach.
*****
Epilogue
"It’s done?"
"It’s done."
"And?"
"She’s gonna be okay. She asked about you, you know."
"She would." He tried to push away the feelings that were always there, waiting to come to the surface at even the mention of her name.
"You were right, though. She was in bad shape when we found her. Don’t know what that watcher of hers was thinking, lettin’ her go out like that."
"She wouldn’t go to him. Not for this. She wouldn’t go to anyone." /Except maybe me..../ he thought.
"Gotta hand it to you, you were right on the money with that one."
"And Faith?"
"She’s a stubborn one. Reminds me of someone else I once mentored." He held up his hands in mock defense against the glare he received from his companion. "You owe me big time for that, by the way."
"Yeah and I’m sure you’ll find a way to collect. But Buffy’s really okay?" He had to be sure. He couldn’t put the past behind him until he knew there was nothing left to worry about. Nothing that Giles and the rest couldn’t handle, anyway.
"It’s gonna take time, but I think she’s gonna get over it."
"Good. But what if-"
"Faith’s gonna keep an eye on her for awhile...on the sly, of course, just to be sure."
"You sure that’s a good idea?" He knew the former slayer was playing for a different league these days, but he was still suspicious when it came to Buffy’s safety.
"You think I’d let anything happen to your golden girl? Please. I’d never hear the end of it." Whistler ducked as a wadded up piece of paper came flying in his direction. "Hey!"
"Just tell me you’ll check up on her personally, that’s all I want to know."
"Aye, mon capitan. Consider it done. And now I gotta go... Faith’s meeting with her guild members this afternoon and I’ve gotta figure out a way to keep her from insulting the whole bloody lot of them..."
"Good luck," he said with a chuckle, knowing the odds against Whistler’s success.
"Oh and Whistler?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"Anytime, Angel. Anytime."
The End