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Hope
Crisis of Faith IX
by Mary Borsellino
Email: thebitterone@hotmail.com
Rating: PG / PG-13
Series: Crisis of Faith
Summary: Crossed wires and a battle for hope.
Notes: http://crisisoffaith.cjb.net has a short explination of why I wrote this series the way I did. I like feedback.
Archive: Eterniata, UCSL, anywhere else ask.
Disclaimer: Yeah, that.
"Beyond my hopes there are no reasons."
- Tales of a scorched earth, The Smashing Pumpkins.
~~~
The sun warmed her right down into the marrow of her bones, Buffy was sure of it. Sometimes over the past year she had feared that a layer of ice was thickening around her. She'd become harder, and when that revelation had first come to her she'd been too frozen to care. It was just a part of growing up, right?
She'd been selfish through adolescence, and becoming the the Slayer, with everyone telling her she was so important, One Girl In All The World, hadn't really dissuaded her of her self-centered attitude.
But lately it had stopped being simple immature selfishness and mutated into adult coldness.
Apathy was not a solution to life. It held the problems at bay for a little while, but they'd always come back. She was doing her best to thaw, and luckily she had the best people in the world to help her. And other life changes that had made happiness easier.
Lying on the grass, she could feel every layer of flesh and bone in her body warming. Melting. Buffy totally got those cultures that worshipped the sun. Everything was ok when the sun was out.
Rolling onto her side, Buffy watched Angel as he slept in the sun. This was love distilled into its purest form - a sunny afternoon with nothing to do but doze on the grass, the feeling of perfect, warm, human skin under her fingertips as she traced the line of his nose.
Buffy understood Faith utterly, which is why she'd forgiven the other girl in the end. She understood the power that came from slaying, the rush of knowing you controlled the power of death, had a birthright to it.
This feeling, though, was even more intense. Under her fingertips was absolute life. Angel was an entirely other person to herself, yet he gave her total power over him. Buffy Summers was now owner of something more precious, and in some ways more truly hers, then death. She owned life.
And Angel owned hers in return.
Of course, life wasn't exactly perfect for Buffy at that moment, but when had it ever been? Willow was better, at least. She barely left Giles' house for anything, but she was almost herself again. Her and Tara were having a weird... thing. Buffy didn't know quite what other terms to think of it in. She supposed that if the weird thing had been with Oz she would have called it a weird relationshippy thing, but no matter how cool she could make herself be about that whole Will/Tara thing, she couldn't bring herself to think of it as a relationshippy thing, weird or otherwise.
Xander and Anya were on the rocks too, but it didn't worry Buffy in the same way. She knew they'd work it out, one way or the other. Actually, Buffy's hopes continued to be secretly that Anya would win their ongoing argument. It would be cute if they had a kid, even if they were really young. She'd dig being aunty Buffy.
Then there were those absent, Faith and Lindsey. Buffy hoped they were happy. Love could be a very screwy thing at times. In her group of Scoobies alone there was every different level of workable young adult relationship. The very happy, like her and Angel, the pretty stable, like Xander and Anya, and the rocky and uncertain, like Willow and Tara. Not to mention the happily and not-so-happily single locals, like Wes and Giles and Cordy.
But nothing else in the world mattered right now anyway, save for the sky above her as blue as God and the man next to her as warm as the sun.
~~~
"I wanna get married in Vegas." Faith said after about twenty minutes of silence. They were sitting around the hotel room, Dawn was flicking through a teen magazine, Faith was painting her fingernails and Lindsey was leafing through a novel without actually reading it. Just a lazy afternoon. They'd been in this city a few days, the weather was nice and there were enough things open at night to make stopping worth it.
"Because you want to experience the cheesiest place on earth or because you want to be joined in a lifelong union with another person?" Dawn asked, not looking up.
"I've seen Vegas before, it's not as cheesy as people think... well, it is, but nothing particularly special. I wanna get married there because it would be fun, and weddings should be a happy occasion, right? I don't do solemn that well." Faith held her hand out to look at her manicuring skills. It looked ok, but she knew it would chip in a few hours.
"Is that an abstract though or are you thinking of somebody specific to marry?" Lindsey asked, closing the book and looking over at Faith. She looked back. The question had been light, but the glance they exchanged wasn't jokey.
"Like who?"
Lindsey knew that tone in her voice. A little scared, like she couldn't decide if she wanted him to pursue the thought or not.
"Do you want to marry me in Vegas?" he asked.
"That a proposal?"
"That depends. Is the answer yes?"
"I'm not going to answer a question you haven't really asked. Was it a proposal?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I now pronounce you man and wife. God, you two are like porcupines, afraid to get too close in case somebody gets hurt. You love each other. Get married in Vegas, don't get married in Vegas. It won't make a difference either way. You're still gonna be in love."
Faith laughed. "Aren't you a little young for a shrink, Dawn?" then, her smile fading from a grin to a small, nervous look of happiness, she turned to Lindsey. "If it was a proposal, which I'm still not clear on, then I suppose my answer, which I'm only giving if it actually was a question at all, is yes."
~~~
Her phone was ringing when they got back to the house. A cheery yellow post-it-note on the fridge informed them that Joyce was out with a bunch of people from the gallery. There had been a time when Buffy had been of the opinion that for adults to have a life was to upset the natural order of things, but right now she had so much joy in her she wanted nothing but happiness for everyone in the world.
She grabbed the ringing telephone, her cheeks flushed from hours out in the heat and the silly, galloping run Angel had forced her to adopt so that a race home would be evenly matched. She'd still won.
"Hello?" she was keeping one eye on Angel now as he opened the freezer compartment. Somehow, though, it seemed inevitable that he would put an ice cube down her shirt. She loved him even more for it, because texture and temperature and shocked amusement were three of the best things about being young. The fact that ice felt cold her her proved she wasn't frozen herself, it proved how melted her heart was.
"Buffy?" Tara sounded hesitant. Tara always sounded hesitant.
"Hey Tara, what's up?" Angel, true to Buffy's suspicions, was approaching her with three cubes in his hand.
"I know Willow's over at Mr Giles', but she won't return my calls. Has she said anything to you, about me?"
Buffy tried to listen, she really did, but Angel was trying to put the ice down her clothing as she was fighting him off with her free hand, holding the handset in place with her chin and using both arms to push him away with a chastising smile.
"No, Tara, she hasn't. Why not go round and see what's up?"
"I think I will. Thanks, Buffy."
Hanging the phone up, Buffy grabbed some ice cubes herself and chased Angel with them.
"I'll get you, you're so dead!" she laughed, feeling warm all the way down to the marrow of her bones.
~~~
"No, Tara, it's not you." Willow said. It was a half-truth, because she was feeling rather apprehensive about her entire relationship, but not an outright lie. She had bigger things preying on her mind. "I just need time out from the world, ok?"
"Is there anything I can do?" Tara was looking at her with that expression that was so serious and so kind Willow wanted to freeze time and just stare at it forever.
"Give me space." It hurt Willow to say it, because she did love the blonde girl. But she had no energy to devote to the issues that needed resolving between them. "Just for a little while."
"Please don't push me away. I want to be here for you."
"I can't deal with this. I can't deal with us. Tara, if you care about me, let me be alone for a while."
Tara nodded, not meeting Willow's eyes. "Yes, I'll leave you alone. Sorry I came over." She stood up and walked to the front door. "I'll see you later, Willow."
"No, don't be like that. Tara..." The door clicked shut behind her. Willow sighed. She'd call her tomorrow and patch things up. She just couldn't deal with it right now.
~~~
"So what are we going to do first?" Xander asked. He was wiping his chin, because he'd been sloppy again. Angelus would punish him. He stopped wiping his chin, hoping that his retribution would be swift in coming and lingering in going.
"I want a pony." Willow piped up. Xander smiled. They'd just arrived in Sunnydale, and it was going to be a fun visit.
"I've got a suggestion." Oz smiled, an evil, decadent expression, what had been laconic in life becoming lazy and reptile in death.
"What is it?" Angelus was watching Xander, fixated on the way the younger vampire was darting his tongue out to touch the blood on his lower lip. "Xander, if you don't clean your face you'll get punished, you know that."
"What kind of punishment?" Xander asked, a dark smile on his face.
"I'll make you watch Steel Magnolias three times in a row with no breaks."
Xander scowled. "Well that's not fun. I want a fun punishment."
"What's your suggestion, wolfie?" Willow asked.
"There's a bitch I want to see put down. Name of Tara."
~~~
Cordelia was at Giles' as soon as she humanly could be, the vision she'd just had making the inside of her skull feel dirty, bloodsoaked. The front door was open and Willow was sitting outside.
"This is not really happening." she said, looking up at Cordelia. "It's not supposed to happen like this. She had something secret, something she never told me. I'm never going to know. This can't happen."
She wasn't crying, her voice was flat.
"Willow..." Cordy didn't know what to say. There was nothing she could say.
"She used to do this thing where she'd buy bright pebbles, like you put in fish tanks, and drop one into the fountain on Castor street every day for good luck. It was so endearing. I love her so much and she didn't know, thought I was angry. It can't end like this."
Still no tears came. The shell-shock was too great. Willow had pushed Tara away because she had too much pain to deal with. Now that pain was increased threefold and there was no room in her head for emotions.
"Have you ever had a really good hot chocolate?" Cordelia asked. "I'll teach you how to make them. You've got to melt dark chocolate in boiling milk, and then add honey. It's worth the effort. Come on, we'll walk to the store and get supplies. You've never tasted anything like it."
Willow looked puzzled for a moment, as if she didn't speak the right language to understand. Then she nodded.
"Ok. Distraction works for me. Just until this feels real." Stumbled a little as she stood. "Thanks, Cordelia."
"For what?"
"The flakey act. I need it right now."
"Act? Please. If I could act this well don't you think I'd be famous by now?"
~~~
Ring ring.
"Hello?"
"Buffy? Is Willow holding up ok?"
"How'd you know about it?" Buffy sounded wary.
"I've got a friend who gets visions. She had one about what's her name. Tara."
"Willow's doing about as well as you'd expect. Actually, not as badly as I thought she would. I guess grief loses its edge when you have so much in such a short space of time."
"B, your tone of voice is wicked cold. What did I do?"
"It was Angelus, Faith. You know, the vampire that your boyfriend claims to have dusted? The one who has a reputation for systematically killing everyone dear to a person and has now gone through two of the people most significant to Willow?"
The world ended. Right there, easy as that. Nobody but one person in the world knew it was over, but it was. Faith could feel it ending. All the bright shine tarnishing away, the colors bleeding out to grey. The world ended. Lindsey was a bad guy.
"No, there's gotta be some mistake."
"No mistake."
"I'll be there in a few hours. Don't do anything until I get there."
"How exactly do you plan to do that? You're hardly close by." Buffy's voice was still snappish, but not directed at Faith. She mustn't have know about Lindsey, because Faith was no actress and Buffy could hear the real despair in the second Slayer's voice.
"Won't be the first time I've ridden in a cargo hold." Faith pointed out. "Promise you'll wait for me? It's my fight, B, don't take it away from me."
"I'll wait." Buffy promised. "Faith, wait... what about Lindsey?"
"That's my fight too. I'll take care of it."
The line went dead.
~~~
//Don't take anything, you won't need anything. Just walk out the door and take the car to the airport. Don't look at him or you'll have to do something about him and you can't/won't. Shoes, need shoes. Next to Dawn's by the door. Dawn...//
Faith broke out of her half-stunned daze. She couldn't just leave. She'd be leaving the kid in danger.
"Dawn, we're going now." Faith said woodenly, looking out the window at the small patch of sky outside. Evening. Everything would be over by morning, and then she would go buy enough smack to kill even a healthy vampire Slayer, and finish it once and for all. But before she could do that she had to make sure Dawn was all right, and kill Angelus. She had to do that.
"Faith?" Lindsey asked. "What's up?"
"Don't say a word." she didn't look at him. Couldn't look at him. "Or I'll kill you. I don't want to kill you." //Please don't make me kill you.//
"What on earth are you talking about?" he actually sounded confused. Better actor then she was, then.
"You said you'd killed Angelus. How did he manage to kill two of Buffy's friends, then?" Faith asked, turning. She'd looked at him now, so she'd have to stake him. But he was so beautiful and gentle and smart. He'd never tried to hurt her... no. These were the kinds of thoughts that kept getting Buffy into strife with Angelus.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Dawn!" Faith called again. There was no answer.
"She found a nest of ducklings out the back, she's looking at them." Lindsey said, stepping in closer to her and trying to touch her arm. "Faith, calm down."
Her eyes widening in a kind of resigned, heartbroken dread, Faith looked at Lindsey. Then she ran for the door.
//I'm only doing this because I need to get to Sunnydale and it would take too much time to fight him that's the only reason otherwise I'd beat the daylights out of him and dust him he's killed Dawn she was so cute a little too young for a shrink she would've been there when we got married in Vegas of course he was a bad guy and why should you be surprised you know like attracts like and you're rotten to the core and you know the only reason you didn't kill him is because you love him so much and shut up shut up shut up go kill Angelus and get some heroin and just drift off to sleep like a long wonderful coma with no dreams.//
~~~
The hours passed slowly. Buffy and Giles stood in the courtyard outside his door, waiting for Faith. It was dark. The others were all hidden, huddled together in the tunnel behind the Bus station, the main haunt for street kids. They knew it worked as a dwelling place, and therefore safe from vampires, because Spike had grumbled about it on several occasions. Giles was going to join them soon enough. Xander and Angel had of course protested loudly at not being allowed to fight, but Buffy had ordered them to stay with the others, pleading that Willow couldn't afford to lose three more friends.
Finally, Faith arrived. Her face was dirty from exhaust, two clean tracks the only outward sign of her dead heart. She'd deny to her final breath that they were tearstains, and Buffy and Giles had more important things to worry about anyway.
"I think I know where he is." Buffy said in place of greeting. "The graveyard closest to my campus. That's where they found... that's where he's trying to draw us."
"So it's a trap." Faith wasn't in the mood to die. She was in the mood to kill.
"It's where he is. He's a trap in himself anyway."
A woman in her early forties came over to where they were grouped. She seemed rather nervous around them. Not surprisingly, for they made a strange group.
"Rupert Giles?" she asked. He nodded. "I have a phone call for you."
"All right." he said, puzzled, following her into her house next door to his. The two Slayers continued talking.
"You ready to go?" Faith asked Buffy.
"Ready as I'll ever be."
"Don't worry, I'm going to win."
"How can you be so sure?"
Faith looked up at the swollen midnight moon. "I've got nothing left to lose."
Buffy nodded. "Ok then. Let's go." They began to run in the direction of the graveyard.
"Girls, wait!" Giles called, a hundred feet back down the street near his house. Faith looked back towards him, her breath misting in the air.
"Screw that. Wasted enough time already." she kept running.
"Faith!" Buffy called, trying to decide which way to go. After a moment's deliberation she ran back towards Giles.
~~~
"It was Lindsey." Giles told her. He was looking through one of his books, urgently seeking some fragment of obscure, arcane knowledge. "He's tried to call here for hours but the phone has been dead. He swears he killed Angelus, Buffy."
"And you believed him? Giles, Faith is going to face down with the big bad right now and you called me back for that?" Buffy's thoughts focused for a second into the fact Lindsey was still alive. Faith hadn't killed him, but Buffy didn't think that meant that Faith had gone evil. Sometimes you just didn't have the strength to kill someone.
"He then said that he was very sorry about Xander and Tara."
Buffy was seriously confused by that. "Huh? Xander? He's hiding with everyone else."
"Yes, exactly. Apparently Faith saw a very much undead Xander not too long ago. When she called to offer her sympathies to Willow, it must have been because she thought Xander had been killed, not Oz."
"This could all be a distraction, you know that?" Buffy's energy level was rising. She wanted to be in the thick of a battle with Faith, not talking about things that were irrelevant.
"But it could be our key to ending this once and for all." Giles said sharply. "If Xander and Vampire Xander exist at the same time it means that these vampires are not from our world. Assuming that Lindsey is telling the truth, Angelus must have been brought back from hell."
"Whoopee. Not the first time something like this has happened."
"But I know how to make it the last." Giles paused on a yellowed page of the antique book and skimmed the words, still talking to Buffy. "Have you ever wondered why vampires collapse into dust?"
"Well, I thought it would be something to do with them being dead." Buffy hazarded. "Ok, I have no idea."
"It's because the demons that animate the corpses are from another dimension. You can paste them into this one but they're never truly part of it. Here." Giles tore the page out of the book and handed it to Buffy without a moment's hesitation. She took it silently, aware now of how Very Important what he was saying must be. "Chant this over his remains, and pour Holy Water. It will consecrate the ground and prevent his spirit's return to this world."
"That everything?"
"Yes."
"If Angelus has a posse with him, you should get to the others and warn them."
"I have to wait here for a little longer. Lindsey followed Faith here as soon as he couldn't get in contact with us. It was pure luck that he called my neighbor by accident when dialing here again."
"Well, a little luck could be helpful right now." Buffy looked at the paper again, then shoved it into her pocket. "You sure you're gonna trust him?"
"He gave us information that may end this once and for all. I have to trust him."
"Well, I'm going now. Wish me luck." Buffy suddenly looked very afraid. Giles couldn't remember the last time she'd been so unnerved before a fight.
"Good luck."
~~~
"Giles. Glad you could make it." Xander said by way of greeting. The atmosphere was tense and dark, nobody speaking much. In their own ways, they were all praying.
"Oh look, born-again-bad-again-born-again boy." Cordelia said, noticing Lindsey walk through the entrance behind Giles. "Who's your friend?"
"I'm Dawn." the girl said, sitting down beside Xander, who had given himself door duty. It beat sitting around feeling afraid. He could watch the door and be afraid.
"There's a distinct possibility that your double will show up, Xander. Faith saw him around the same time of Oz's death."
A small sound in Willow's throat caught at the sound of Oz's name. She was doing ok though, clutching a stake so hard her knuckles were white.
"Will mine? I think she might have been the one who - " Willow's eyes blinked down and she took a deep breath. "Killed Oz. Possibly Tara, I don't know."
Cordelia put her hand over Willow's comfortingly.
"I don't know." Giles admitted. "All we can do is wait and see."
~~~
The conversation with Giles had taken longer then Buffy had thought, the fight was already over by the time she got there. Not the outcome they'd wanted, but it was over.
Buffy glanced over at Faith, flicking her eyes over the bloodied crumple that was lying in a way that was just wrong, unmoving and bent at unnatural angles. Nothing left to lose.
"Hey there Summergirl. I notice you're admiring my handiwork there. She was fighting pretty damn great, but got stuck with my dagger oh, eight or ten times at the end. Rather unfortunate, although it could have been more poetic if I'd gotten my hands on her own knife. Still, it was not without some sort of beauty. Not to mention that as we speak my murder - that's the word for a collective of crows, but I feel it's appropriate in this context – my murder of beauties are ripping your friends limb from limb and writhing in their blood." Angelus smiled. This night was immensely enjoyable. Two whole Slayers, all for him.
"My friends will dust your murder of uglies and then spit on their ashes." Buffy said through gritted teeth. Faith had fought with nothing left to lose, and she still couldn't win.
As if Angelus knew what she was thinking, he smirked. "Faith couldn't beat me. What do you have that she didn't?"
Looking at her opponent with her lover's face and a killer's mind, Buffy knew what she had that Faith hadn't.
"Hope."
That made him laugh, the worst sound Buffy had ever heard.
"This is why I'm gonna miss talking to you when I've peeled your skin off and fed it to some plague rats."
"Where have you been recently, like in the last couple hundred years? No plague in Sunnydale." She hated this, chatting before a fight. Usually, anyway. Now she planned, predicted. She knew how he'd fight, but in the time since his last opportunity to see her style, she'd done a whole lot of growing up. This was a battle she could win. Had to in.
"But there will be." Angelus smiled again. "So, Buffy, you have hope. You had Faith, but I guess I took care of that." Buffy had to contain the desperate need to punch him hard as she could. How dare he kill someone as complex as Faith, good and evil and sweat and blood and love and poison all in one, and then just smirk about it? "So that's two graces, what's the third? Faith, hope... is it charity or purity? I'm so bad at pop quizzes. Oh well, you grew up into such a bitch charity isn't even a possibility, and purity was never something you had in spades."
Buffy ignored him, or at least as much as she could. It was true, though, wasn't it? She wasn't going to win this fight because it was her birthright, or because it was the right thing to do. Her fire was a selfish one. She was fighting for tomorrow, a future that wasn't simply the blank potential of 'I wanna grow up' but actually had definition, edges to the shape. She had gone through too much pain in her young life to let her recent happiness go so easily.
Buffy was going to win because she had everything left to lose.
~~~
"Hey Willow, you in there?" a singsong voice called from outside. "Come on, come out and play. Don't you miss me?" Oz laughed. "Come on Willow, I know you're lonely in there."
"You can have lots of friends with us." A second voice joined the first. A darker, silkier version of Willow's own. The girl began to tremble.
"Oh Goddess." she whispered. "They're going to kill us."
"No." Angel shook his head. "They can't get in here, and if they do, we'll protect you, Willow. I give you my word."
"Hey Xander." A third voice from outside. "Invite me in. Don't you wanna see what an ass-kicking vampire you make?"
"There's only the three of them out there." Giles whispered. "Angelus is fighting Buffy and Faith at the graveyard."
"Willow." Oz again. The hair on the back of Cordelia's neck stood up. He sounded so predatory, cold and lethal. "You let me die. The least you can do is invite me in."
"Don't listen to him Wills. It's not Oz." Xander said. She nodded.
"I know."
"If you don't come out and fight." Vampire Willow's voice. "We'll go find some little children and crack them open. Is Lindsey in there? Angelus says you hate it when they hurt the little ones."
"I'm going out to fight. You all stay here." Angel said, his jaw set and his eyes glittering.
"You'll be slaughtered." Anya objected.
"I can't let them hurt children."
"Then I'm going too." she said, getting to her feet.
"Me as well." Xander stood next to his girlfriend. Willow stood up as well.
"We're all going. We don't deserve to live anyway, if we don't try."
~~~
She charged, but Angelus sidestepped. Good. She'd planned on that. Dropping low, she kicked one leg out in a sweep behind her and felt it connect with his ankles. Buffy used the few seconds before he regained his footing to make a break for it, darting behind a fallen tree a short way off and stamping her foot down on the dead branches. A supply of extra stakes if she needed them.
Angelus caught up with her and hit her hard on the shoulder, as she spun the other fist came up and made contact with her jaw. Buffy brought her elbow back and pushed it into his ribcage, kicking out and knocking him off his feet again. She pulled the stake from the waistband of her pants, there were three others hidden in her clothing. Angelus kicked up, gracelessly but effectively, sending her flying back. She landed badly, jarring her back, but got up to her feet. He was laughing.
"God you're funny, Buff. So full of righteous anger."
"In an hour I plan to be full of celebratory champagne." Buffy charged again and spun, her foot connecting with his head in a satisfying thump.
~~~
They broke off into small groups, and any annoyance Xander had held previously at the huge number of Scoobies in town was gone. There might actually be enough of them to kill the vampires.
Willow wasn't fighting, none of them expected her to. She hung back and watched as Xander, Anya, Giles and Dawn grouped around Vampire Xander, Angel, Cordelia and Wesley at Oz, and Lindsey by himself at Evil Willow, because as a vampire he was evenly matched against her.
They killed Vampire Xander relatively easily, attacking all at once and overwhelming him simply by the ratio of four to one. Dawn was the one to actually drive the stake home, and she looked rather proud of herself.
~~~
Angelus headbutted at Buffy, but she ducked and punched into his stomach. His palms connected with her shoulders and he shoved her back, planting a leg either side of her and sitting on the tops of her legs, pinning her down and punching her in the face so hard she saw stars.
~~~
"You wouldn't kill one of your own kind." Willow hissed at Lindsey, they both had game faces on. He punched, she dodged.
"I killed Angelus." His well-timed kick connected. Willow didn't fight back, she was sure that Lindsey wouldn't kill her, she'd make him see the truth.
"Now he's back. What's the point, if it nothing really changes?" she brought her elbow up but he was expecting it and dodged, punching at her again and sending her stumbling. He seized the chance. The sharp wood went in easily and with little resistance.
"You simply wouldn't understand." Lindsey told her as she crumbled.
~~~
Angelus was choking Buffy, she needed to breath but his hands on her throat meant she couldn't. Her eyes rolled back and she went limp. He stood, looking down at her light hair on the dark soil.
"Such a pity that the good die young." Angelus said, kicking Buffy's unmoving ribs and turning to walk off. He'd go join his murder - he really did like that expression - and help them finish off all the others.
Buffy's eyes sprung open and she jumped to her feet, the second stake in her pocket being pulled out and hurled as hard as she could throw at Angelus' back. He turned at the movement and for a split second she thought it would hit him harmlessly on the shoulder. But he didn't turn fast enough to save himself, and the wood hit his heart straight and true.
~~~
Willow and Xander, or at least the vampire versions of them, had been easy to kill. At the same time they were being taken care of, however, Oz was fighting as well, and proving a much harder adversary.
He'd evened the odds by breaking Cordelia's arm and knocking Wesley unconscious as soon as possible. With them out of the way, it was simple enough to fight Angel down. It seemed sort of ironic, really, the good human who was once a bad vampire being killed by the bad vampire who was once a good human.
"I bet it's really pissing you off right now that all your fighting was for nothing." Oz said, preparing to bring the small axe he was holding down on Angel and finish him off. Then, his triumphant look crumbled, literally, and he was nothing but dust and ashes.
Willow stood just behind where Oz had been, looking down at the pointed weapon in her hands. It rolled out of her limp fingers and clattered against the ground. It began to rain.
~~~
With the threat gone, time ceased to function in the same way. Less a series of images, more a continuous spectrum. Buffy couldn't believe it was over. He was gone. Not dormant under a soul, not in another city. Gone, and she didn't have to trust someone else for the knowledge. Methodically, carefully, Buffy poured the Holy Water over the ground, where it mingled with the first heavy droplets of another storm. Chanted the words, reciting the binding spell with singleminded intensity.
Then that was finished, and she still couldn't believe it was over. The ground was damp from its impromptu consecration, discolored with strange dust. Buffy stepped out of the small space now bound with magic and closed her eyes, a small sob escaping as she tried to stop shaking. It was over. It didn't feel real. He'd hurt her, and the ones she loved. Tried to end the world. Broken her body and heart. Killed people she cared about. All that was over. Faith had been wrong, this had always been Buffy's fight. She'd killed him. He was gone. Forever and ever, by the grace of God.
She spat on the ground. "Amen."
Now it felt finished.
~~~
Faith's face, hair and clothing were coated with thick, sticky blood. Her expression wasn't peaceful in the least, as if she'd raged, raged against the dying of the light to the very last moment. Buffy linked her fingers with Faith's cold ones. The rain was splattering down on them, washing the blood and ashes away so that new things could grow.
She'd been inside this skin, thanks to one of Faith's many, many attempts to sabotage her life completely. But it was all forgotten, or at least forgiven.
"Get some, get gone, huh?" Buffy said quietly. "Hope you had fun on your wild ride, F." she squeezed the chilled palm.
Faintly, so faintly anyone but a Slayer wouldn't have noticed, Faith squeezed back.
~~~
"How is she?"
Late morning, two days since the final battle. Willow and Buffy were engaged in one of their more surreal pastimes, browsing through the rubble of their former highschool. Willow, who had spoken, was playing with the yellow and maroon strips of a semi-charred cheerleader pompom.
"Well, if you listen to her, she's fine. I believe her words were the always vague five by five. The doctors say a month and a half, so if you factor in her healing speed, we're talking a week or two."
"I'm glad she's ok." Willow caught Buffy's expression. "No, really. All right, so I'm not her number one fan. I'm glad she's ok for Lindsey's sake. Nobody deserves to lose somebody they care about."
Buffy couldn't say anything to that, so she just rubbed Willow's back and kept one arm around her shoulders, a comforting half-hug.
Still winding the burnt ribbons around her knuckles, a plait of skin and not-quite red and gold, Willow kept talking.
"Rupert's thinking of going back to England for a year or two. Teaching."
"Wow." Buffy raised her eyebrows, trying to envisage a Sunnydale without Giles, even if only for twelve months.
"He wants me to come with him." Willow's voice was soft, her eyes fixed on what her hands were doing.
Buffy was silent for a moment. "Wow." She managed finally. "Will, is there some Lolita, 'the Graduate', Xander-with-the-bug-lady-revisited thing going on that I've missed?"
That got a faint smile out of the redhead. "No, there's no thing. I don't think I'll be thinging for a while, I can't risk caring about somebody yet. But there's a possibility of a future thing. And I kind of need that. I can transfer to Oxford, they allowed me to use my acceptance from senior." Willow looked up, trying to keep her brave smile in place. She looked so exhausted, so much older then the girl Buffy had become best friends with. "I need to be some other place for a while."
"Then I say go, and I hope you have a wonderful time. With tea and crumpets and other englishy treats."
"Really?"
"Well, I'll miss you like crazy, of course. But I'll expect an email at least once a week, and phonecalls at all the important holidays. I just want what's best for you."
Willow rested her head on Buffy's shoulder as they sat in the ruined courtyard, the midday sun a warm reminder of the hope that kept them alive, and a future that might actually involve their scarred hearts healing.
~~~
Faith's body was healing fine. The doctor, who had just done her rounds, was very pleased with the progress. Lindsey, employing every drop of his single-minded lawyer talents, wanted to know what was making his lover so depressed.
"If she doesn't wish to divulge information given in confidence, then I can't tell you either." The doctor said apologetically, trying to walk away. She had other patients to check on.
"She's my fiancé. I have a right to know." Lindsey grabbed her elbow, holding her in place.
"No, you don't." she snapped. "Now let me go."
Lindsey did something then that he hadn't done that often in his life. He relied on somebody else.
"Please."
She paused and turned back around. Sometimes being a doctor at Sunnydale general was not unlike being a Slayer, holding back the darkness and fighting the good fight. Too often, though, it was just playing cleanup, no way to fix the damage.
"I'm telling you this because I don't think she realises how much she needs you right now. Faith had a miscarriage."
~~~
"You know, don't you?" Faith's bed was in the upright position, so she could sit up. She didn't like lying down. Or hospital gowns, hence the black satin pajamas.
"Yes." Lindsey nodded. "Were you planning to tell me?" he'd stayed with her since she'd been brought by ambulance, the first person she'd seen when they'd revived her. When she'd been a little stronger, he'd explained what had happened, that he wasn't one of the bad guys. She'd cried a little, although she swore that was from the pain. It hadn't taken her much time to begin demanding stronger drugs, complaining about being fed through a drip because her stomach was injured. She wouldn't have let Lindsey leave if he'd wanted to, but that wasn't important since he didn't want to be anywhere but there.
Faith shrugged one shoulder. "I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know I was, it must've been just before you... because vampires can't. It was your only chance." she looked away, out the window. The blinds were half-closed, throwing the room into slanted shadows.
"It doesn't matter." Lindsey sat next to the bed and took her hand in his. "Nothing matters but you being all right."
"The dagger cut my uterus, so even if I wasn't gonna spend my life with someone who can't have kids, they're not gonna be on the agenda." Faith sounded calm about the whole thing, but Lindsey feared it was just numb apathy. "I never even wanted them until I couldn't. Least I know I'll have the Slayer deal to pass on someday. I'm not totally useless."
"You never were."
"Lind?"
"Yes?"
"We're gonna be ok, aren't we? Whatever happens?"
"Whatever crisis comes, we'll face it." he leant over and kissed her beautiful, full lips. They were cool and dry. "Together."
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