|
|
On Impermanence: Faith
by Dale Edmonds
Email: dale@oggham.com
Web: http://www.oggham.com/slash/works/
Pairing: F/A, F/L, subtext
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Yadda, yadda
Summary: One quote, multiple stories.
Notes: Inspired by Jessica Walker's Sense Memory, several short pieces with
various characters. Many, many thanks to Livia, who gave wonderful critical
beta. I'll be posting one part each day. Thanks to everyone who's enjoyed it
so far. This one's for Te for inspiring me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Impermanence
If we lived forever, if the dews of Adashino never vanished, if the
crematory smoke on Toribeyama never faded, men would hardly feel the pity of
things. The beauty of life is in its impermanence. Man lives the longest of
all living things... and even one year lived peacefully seems very long. Yet
for such as love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of
one night.
Kenko Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (1330-1332)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bells ring and Faith thinks "Vespers." It's a private joke. Angel smiled
when she told him, the sudden sweetness of it silencing her for a moment.
She'd reached out and traced his lips and then - she shakes her head. Not
the right time to be thinking about that. She's learnt to be disciplined.
Pure of mind and spirit, if not body, here in the Penal Institute for Women.
Bells ring again, and down the corridor she can hear footsteps. Off to
chapel. Exercise rooms and the library, really, but it's all ritual. Guards
instead of priests, solitary confinement instead of self-flagellation.
Novices and mother superiors, exiles seeking a state of grace. She likes
that expression. Whispers it to herself. A state of grace, that's what she
hopes to find in this nunnery. Along with her Angel.
Not surprisingly, he has a thing for convents, so she now has a stack of
Catholic histories on her bookshelf. An old rosary that he taught her how to
use. Click clack of the beads when she's trying to calm down, looking at her
little sandalwood buddha, the seashells and the photographs. Cordelia,
Wesley. Lindsey and Darla, for Angel. Candle for Finch, another for Lee.
Mary Suzkin, the woman she left in critical at the hospital. All the others.
Light the candles, sit and pray every night. One unlit. She hasn't forgiven
Buffy yet.
She lets her mind wander while she moves through her tai-chi. Lets it go
back while her arms flow through the air. Buffy with the sunlight in her
hair. Dancing, hands slipping all over. Swaying in the Bronze bathroom,
pushing their way into a stall, up against the wall. Effortlessly holding
each other up, and really, who else can a Slayer screw but another Slayer?
Or a vamp with a soul. Nothing human can keep up with them. She heard about
Riley from Wolfram & Hart. Offered the info to Angel and didn't see him for
two weeks. So she keeps that to herself, turns it over in her head while
she's exercising. As much of a Slayer as the military could create, and
still, she bets, still not enough for her B.
No-one's enough for her B. Abruptly her leg begins to shake and she halts.
Ungainly, awkwardly frozen with her arms above her head, her legs
half-crooked. She wants to hit something so she forces herself to breathe.
In, out. In, out. Finish the pose. Bend, bow, release.
Guard's been waiting while she worked out. It's Johnny, the guy with way too
much cheer for jail. Probably helps that she's wearing nothing but her
underwear for this. He pushes himself up from the wall he's been leaning on,
slots the mail through the bars. "Parcel of books getting checked. Want some
cigarettes?"
She nods and he slides a pack on top of her mail. With a lighter. How
thoughtful. "How much they paying you, Johnny?" He laughs and she grins.
"Not enough, eh." Lindsey's got to justify his expenses. So she doesn't get
satellite, but hell, it's the little touches. She can see Lindsey writing a
memo on that. He's the kind of man who doesn't need a woman to tell him what
flowers to get. Pot of marigolds, little earrings in her birthstone. Notes
of encouragement, a new CD every now and then. Aside from being evil, he's
pretty damn sweet.
She lights two and passes one to Johnny. Sorts through her mail while she
listens to the prison gossip. Fatal knifing in Block D. Another werewolf
being brought in. Damn commission investigating corruption. Drugs are
getting worse, someone managed to smuggle in crack. She shakes her head when
he offers her some. St John's Wort is about as doped as she gets these days.
Mail's good. A letter from Joyce, full of photographs. Sunnydale newspapers,
a week's worth bundled up. A postcards from a half-demon who was in the cell
across from her. Elly's made it to Texas, ends it with a wish-you-were-here.
Copy of the secret memo Wesley sends to the Watcher's Council, which she
then hands over to Angel. Note from Lindsey, a Dilbert strip on lawyers
clipped to it.
Bells ring again and she waves bye to Johnny. She's picked up the social
graces, even learnt to eat with a knife and fork. Knives and forks, the
whole fucking spread on white linen. Birthday treat from Lindsey. Had to
resist the temptation to stab Lilah who smirked when she fumbled with the
damn lobster clips. Sitting in an empty cell with catering staff running in
and out, candles hiding the graffiti on the walls, Brahms playing softly.
Nice. It'd been a nice way to turn twenty. Better than B.'s, which had left
her gasping for breath, laughing as hard as Lindsey who'd snorted champagne
out of his nose, and that had left the two of them sprawled on the floor,
Lilah stiff-lipped. Lindsey kissing her goodbye, and she'd whispered "Angel
came by", slipped his hand down her skirt to where she was still wet, still
Angel. Lilah scowling at them, unable to figure out why Lindsey was licking
his fingers. Stupid bitch.
Peace, she reminded herself. Everyone's worth something. Lilah's probably
got inner qualities. Not just a vapid, petty cow.
She's working on it.
Every day, she wakes up, Cell 43, Special Units, Block F, St Belle Vue Penal
Institution for Women, California. Prisoner WX8742. Wakes up and thinks, is
this the day I choose?
A phone call to Wolfram & Hart. To Angel Investigations.
Some days, she thinks she'll just bend the bars back and walk out. She's
pretty sure she's strong enough. Walk out and walk away from L.A.. Do a Wes
and be a Rogue Demon Hunter. She daydreams about him forgiving her, the two
of them riding off into the sunset, dressed in matching leather. Watcher and
Slayer, the way they were meant to be.
Or she could catch a bus back to Sunnydale. Find B., and she has no idea
what would happen after that.
So no phone call. No breaking out.
Angel comes to visit and sometimes they make out. Sometimes he comes in
still filthy and bloody from fighting. Wound tight and battle hungry,
smiling the same bright manic grin that fooled her once. Angelus just below
the surface, aching to break out. Biting and fist-fucking and breaking
everything in her cell as they fuck and fight.
Sometimes, he lies next to her on her bunk and he doesn't talk. Just kisses
her. She can talk about B. then, and the words she wants to say to her come
stammering out. Angel listens and tells her at the end that she's not ready.
He wants her back out there, another Slayer tilting the balance, but she's
not ready.
She's not ready and the days slip by. She thinks about killing herself,
calling the next Slayer, someone better but she's afraid it won't work, that
she'll leave B. all alone.
She finishes her cigarette, puts the mail aside for after dinner. Stretches
and begins the tai-chi again. Lets her mind drift. Back to Sunnydale, back
to B.. Angel and the way he wept last time he came. The damn vase on her
altar, the candle she lights grudgingly. Holds her position, and for a
moment, she's floating, serene and quiet.
She'll pray over Darla's soul tonight.
Pray for her own.
She wants to die in a state of grace.
|
