Fic: Never the Twain Shall Meet | Buffyverse | Cordelia/Faith | R

[liz_estrada]

Title: Never the Twain Shall Meet
Author: liz_estrada
Fandom & Pairing: Buffyverse; Faith/Cordelia
Summary: A slightly 'butterfly effect' AU where Cordy and Faith meet as students in Beantown.
Rating: R for language, sexuality, violence.
Word Count: about 9400
Author's Note: My femslash08 assignment, written for niroc who asked for C/F. I kind of waited 'til the last minute to start writing, then I couldn't stop. As a result, it's not very good or focused, but there's a lot of it - like a cheap C/F buffet.

******

The new girl, a year-end transfer from Blessed Laura Vicuna on the southside, chain-smokes alone on the old rectory's back lawn during lunch. She slips into the classroom just before the bell and takes her seat directly behind the most popular, loathesome girl in school, a seat assigned to her because Mother Agatha enjoys vicarious torture as much as the next nun. The earthy, mortal smell of dead Marlboros clings to the newbie's uniform and gradually envelopes Cordelia Chase in a cloud of disgust. She turns halfway around and hisses, “You stink like a dive bar restroom.”

“Stall's big enough for two,” the new girl whispers. She slumps and blows Cordelia a smoky little kiss off two nicked, tape-splinted fingers.

Despite her original intent to sneer and quickly disengage, Cordelia finds her attention caught between those damaged fingers, then on the girl's crookedly pretty face. Faith Lehane's wide eyes are ringed with deep purple; she looks sleepy, half-high or drunk, decidedly lecherous, and entirely genuine. Her steady, searching gaze borders on bare-throated vulnerability, like there's nothing anyone could say or do that could possibly hurt her... and that's just weird.

If Cordelia has learned anything about human nature during her reign of high school tyranny, it's that most teenagers spend twenty-odd hours a day scared shitless of monsters like her, and those who aren't terrified are openly hostile (partly due to sublimated terror). Conversely, the disarming way Faith is smiling at her makes Cordelia feel like a dorky kid yelling “Boo!” from beneath a scissored bed sheet. This is intriguing, but it's also a strange new thing. Cordelia reflexively rejects strange new things.

“Don't flirt above your station,” she coolly whispers while turning away.

Faith waits until Cordelia's facing forward again, then leans up close to her ear. “Princess, if you ever get that scepter outta your ass... I'm around.”

She eases back while Cordelia, livid and tense, leans as far forward as her desk will allow.

*

Iron Age, a club salvaged from a bankrupt foundry, is brightish on the dance floor, dim at the bar, and pitch black everywhere else. Saturday night patrons chug their drinks, bump their stimulant of choice, and stagger off toward privacy. After two beers and three shots, Paul Fargo doesn't want to dance anymore; his hands are up Cordelia Chase's skirt and down her blouse as he pulls her into the darkness of a storeroom. She peels her mouth free from a hard kiss and tells him to slow down. He feigns deafness, blaming the industrial noise which passes for music. He traps her against the cinder block wall and grinds his erection against her thigh, attaches his mouth to her throat and pulls so hard, Cordelia knows she'll need cover-up for a massive hickey, and - aside from the whole incipient date rape thing - that totally pisses her off.

“Oh, nasty! God! Cut it out!” She pushes against his linebacker shoulders and he doesn't budge.

“Loosen up. It'll be good,” Paul slurs across her cheek.

“Paul, come on, not like this,” she tells him while dodging his boozy, sloppy mouth. “Hey, let's go to my house. My dad's getting another bullshit anti-drug award tonight, so they won't be home for - ”

“No! Dammit, Cordy, I've fallen for that before,” he nearly shouts. “We mess around a little, then you freeze up and send me home!”

Cordelia looks aghast; Paul's been pissy and mean before, but never this insistent on closing the deal. “Excuse me for wanting my first time to mean something.”

His hands are rough now, grabbing hard, and she can feel the rake of his teeth across her neck as he dives in again. “It doesn't have to mean anything. I dunno what the fuck you're saving it for,” he says. “All I know is you're a goddamned prick tease and I'm done waiting.”

He loops a thumb under her thong's waistband and rips it off, throws it away. Paul has trapped and immobilized her legs with his own, so Cordelia blindly hammers both fists against the back of his letterman jacket, yanks a handful of his hair. He yelps, grabs her hands, pins them behind her back and surges forward, nearly crushing her fingers against the wall. She screams directly in his ear. “GET OFF! STOP!” She shouts for help, though she's vaguely aware that she won't be heard. They're too far away from the crowd, behind a closed door, and would anyone even care if they did hear her? Unlikely, but she keeps shouting anyway, hoping to break Paul's eardrum. “NO! STOP! NO!”

“Shut up,” he growls. Cordelia hears his fly unzip and she panics, tries again to twist away from him. Far, far away, the door hinges creak... then comes a blunt, thudding noise and Paul just... stops. Pulls away really fast and doesn't say another word. Cordelia's fear keeps her pasted against the wall, gasping and blind. She discerns the sound of dead weight dragged over rough cement, some faint moaning and just there, lurking behind the noises... the smell of tobacco smoke. Cordelia holds to the wall and strains to see anything, to understand anything, through the darkness. Shortly she hears the plastic crack and liquidy shake of a chemical glow stick, and Faith Lehane's neon green face swims out of the gloom.

“You okay?” she asks. Her huge, searching eyes seem drawn to the blooming raw spot on the cheerleader's throat. “Are you hurt?”

Cordelia takes a moment to acclimate to this surreal injustice; her timely rescuer is the new weird girl and not Brad Pitt. She quickly smooths down her skirt, adjusts her brassiere and top. “What? I'm fine. Beyond fine. I'm peachy. Where's Paul?”

“Cooling out. Are you sure you're not hurt?” Faith leans closer and waves the light near Cordelia's face. “Did he bite you?”

“Bite me? Uhh... no? See, he was trying to screw me, not eat me.” Cordelia belatedly realizes how that sounds, and it only makes her blushing cheeks flame harder. Annoyed, shocked, and humiliated, she slaps Faith's hovering hand away and hastily arranges a few locks of hair to cover her mauled neck. “Go ahead. Soak it up, freak. But if you spread this around - ”

“This ain't exactly front page news,” Faith says, shrugging. “It's the way of the world. The best girls always date the worst guys.”

Cordelia smells a compliment in there somewhere and, as it doesn't reek of flattery, it throws her further off guard. This girl seems immune to pigeonholing, and Cordelia's not at all certain how she feels about that. She steadies her voice and leans a bit closer to Faith. “Hitting on me right now would be the height of bad taste,” she says, and turns toward the ghostly outline of the exit.

Faith waits a beat, then calls after her. “Would it taste better tomorrow?”

Amused by the girl's horrible, perfect timing, Cordelia snorts up a soft laugh. “Doubtful. But I'll let you know.”

“Fair enough.” Faith holds the glow stick out and points toward the floor. “Careful. Don't trip over your prom king.”

Cordelia first sees the gleaming white of Paul's K-Swiss sneakers, then assembles the rest of the picture. He's lying face down, unconscious, in a shallow pool of vomit and blood. There's a moment of confusion while she finally computes the unlikeliness of Faith happening upon them by accident, or pretty little Faith dropping footballer Paul empty handed, but her doubts are soon swamped by righteous anger. Cordelia nudges him with a toe, makes sure he's still breathing, then savagely drives the point of her stiletto heel into his nutsack. Paul Fargo twitches, chokes a bit, and another trickle of vomit spills from his mouth.

“The king has abdicated. Long live the queen,” says the newly single monarch. Trying hard to seem unaffected, Cordelia carefully picks her way out of the darkened storeroom. Once, near the club exit, she looks back to see if Faith is following, but can't find her. Beneath everything else, below the nauseating swirls of mixed emotions about what happened and what nearly happened, she feels strangely disappointed.

She wishes her parents weren't out again on the charity circuit, wishes that her own useless flunkies weren't all passed out drunk beneath college boys. She wishes that Faith or someone, anyone who seemed to give a damn, would take the car keys from her shaking hands and just drive her home.

*

Faith does follow her, at a discreet distance. She keeps an eye out until the tire smoke from Cordelia's departing BMW fogs over her. She lights a cigarette and walks the alleys twice before sneaking back into the club through the ladies room window. Bound by a skimpy budget, she can't pony up another $10 cover charge. Under her breath, she curses the skinflints at the Watcher's Council, betting they could care less about funding the fight against evil, so long as they have yummy biscuits and hot tea in their faggy little drawing rooms. While sliding in across the bathroom window frame, she rips her top on a broken latch. Faith doesn't complain; if she goes home with no more than a torn shirt for her trouble, it's a good night.

At the bar, she sits by a handsome blond woman who slowly nurses a creamy-looking iced drink. Faith speaks just loud enough to be heard over the grinding music. “Guy wasn't a bloodsucker, just a horny asshole. I cracked his melon, she crushed his grapes.”

“My, my. What vivid, organic imagery - our cooking lessons begin to bear fruit.” The woman's tone is a gentle tease and her English accent bears a light, crisp Dorset twist. “Is your friend well?”

“Five by five. Don't know that she'd call me a friend, though.” Faith lights a fresh Marlboro from the dying last and, failing to find an ashtray, drops the butt into another patron's beer.

Gwendolyn Post grimaces and thumps her rude young ward on the arm. “Miss Chase's judgment is clearly suspect; she's a snobby posh who dates horny arseholes, whereas you are an heroic paragon of literary magnitude. You were looking out for the girl. If she can't see that... well, it's her loss, ducks.”

Faith blushes hard and absently flips her off. “I got your paragon.”

“Indeed,” Post says, and shakes her head. For such a hard-edged little egoist, Faith remained solidly unable to accept compliments.

Over Faith's shoulder, a sinuous, hungry looking girl trails a stumbling man out the side door. The girl checks her six too many times, making certain they aren't followed, and the Watcher notices.

“We may have a nibble,” Post says.

Spying the exiting couple, the Slayer nods and dismounts her barstool. While the older woman's attention is split, Faith makes a grab for her rocks glass and tosses back the silky pale contents. Horrified to find that it was not, in fact, a White Russian, she nearly does a spit take. “Jesus, what was that? Plain milk?”

“Worse - soy milk. Consider it nutritional penance for trying to drink on duty.” Post waves toward the doors. “Are you planning to save that poor stupid bastard from a fate worse than death?”

Making a show of her surly mood, Faith mumbles, “Nothin' better to do,” and stalks out.

*

In the week that follows, Cordelia Chase makes life so difficult for Paul Fargo that ruptured testicles, a concussion, and a shattered nose are the least of his problems. Within ten days, his parents pull him out of school and send him to their ranch in Montana. Cordelia and her acolytes, a rabid pack of ciphers known as the Cordettes, virtually float through the school halls, gloating over a 'dating mishap' turned power play. As far as Paul (or anyone else) knew, the mighty Cordelia had smacked the fiendish dog unconscious with a bottle of blackberry schnapps, stomped his nads, and left him on the storeroom floor.

Faith hasn't spoken to her since that night, and it's really starting to bug Cordelia. She expected the girl to approach her for a reward of some sort: amnesty from social exile, a little hush money (Cordelia didn't have to be told that Faith wasn't rich), or maybe even a date. Not that Cordelia would deign to offer anything more than a few crisp Ben Franklins, but when she expects to be asked and isn't... it bugs. So, when nearly six days pass without so much as a 'hey, how ya doin?' or 'you ever gonna thank me, you ingrate bitch?' or even any sustained eye contact, Cordelia's patience runs out.

She trails Faith after Friday's final bell, stays well behind through halls and exits, all the way across campus to the street parking line behind the old rectory. Muffled sounds of a distant choir seems to leak from that building's granite walls, which strikes Cordy as funny since the school choir disbanded in early spring, after Father Julian hung himself in the rehearsal room. When Cordelia slows her pace, the singing gets a bit louder. She's curious - but not stupidly so - and she doesn't linger. She's on a mission, though the objective remains somewhat murky.

Rounding the rectory corner, she finds her quarry leaning against the low seat of a vintage motorcycle. Faith, calm and unsurprised, is apparently waiting for her to catch up. Busted and caught wrong-footed, Cordelia advances slowly. While once again noting the girl's perpetual aura of repose, Cordelia is stung by a paper cut slash of envy; she can't recall a time when she was ever that at ease with herself.

“Couldn't stand the cold shoulder, huh?” Faith asks, grinning a little. She stuffs her navy uniform blazer into a saddlebag and slips on a band collared leather jacket that fits like a second skin. She fishes cigarettes and a silver Zippo from the inside pocket and lights up.

Cordelia avoids body language that might make her look defensive (arms crossed), or nervous (fluttery fingers), or flirtatious (smoothing out her already smooth hair) in favor of a brief chin jerk toward the bike. “Nice cliché you've got there.”

Faith absently runs her fingertips over the glossy black fuel tank and gleaming silver Triumph badge. “Borrowed. She gets me where I'm going. You ever ride one?”

“Shuh... no. I like my brain right where it is - inside my skull. The other night notwithstanding, I do use it occasionally.” When it occurs to her that they're having a civil conversation in public, Cordelia glances around to assure herself there are no witnesses.

Faith, blowing smoke out the side of her stubborn grin, doesn't seem bothered. “Right. You're that girl.”

Cordelia grits her perfect teeth, steels herself for the inevitable insult from this trashy urchin with good timing. “I'm what girl, exactly?”

“The smart, beautiful one everybody hates on.” Faith says it matter-of-factly while thumping loose ash off her Marlboro. “Somebody told me you're Harvard-bound this fall.”

“Oh.” Cordelia blinks, takes a moment to process that this trashy urchin with good timing might also be perceptive and friendly. “Maybe. I've short-listed Yale and Columbia, too.”

“Whoa. Kick ass much?”

Quietly, she waits for a rude post-script, but that's all Faith says. There's no predictable crack about how daddy is buying her college admissions, no insinuation that Cordelia must've blown a few teachers to get all those letters of recommendation, and to keep her average at or above 4.0 since sophomore year. Faith bluntly deemed her smart and beautiful, and accepts that she's earned her future on merit. Cordelia, pleasantly surprised to be taken at more than face value, decides to return the courtesy.

“How about you? I bet you're going local, like Suffolk or BC.” While waiting for an answer, Cordelia scuffs a rhythm against the sidewalk with the soles of her black Mary Janes. It occurs to her that she is rarely (if ever) this nervous when talking to a boy.

“Suffolk. That'd be nice,” Faith agrees, even as her smile falters and fades. She shrugs and looks off toward the ivy-clad brick wall where the street dead ends. In the old church graveyard beyond the wall, broken tombstones stud the hillside and valley like ragged teeth in a gaping, hellish mouth. “College is probably not in the cards for me,” Faith says.

Cordelia is puzzled. The girl seems sharp enough and not lazy, always answering when called on in class, always handing her assignments in on time. She wonders if maybe it's not a GPA thing, but a matter of motivation. “What? Is there no school where you can major in smoking, looking cool and rescuing hapless prom queens?”

After a few quiet, self-conscious seconds, Faith starts laughing. She coughs a little, stubs out her cigarette, mellows down to another nice smile. It strikes Cordelia that, for a smoker, Faith's teeth are very white. Or maybe they just look whiter set in the soft frame of full, dark lips. It then strikes Cordelia that it's vaguely queer of her to keep noticing Faith's prettiness in a purely appreciative way, with no insecure envy or catty suspicion attached. Or maybe it's not vaguely queer - maybe it's just maturity whittling away at the last vestiges of her high school idiocy. Either way, Cordelia's smiling back and feeling almost happy, so the why isn't her primary concern.

“You wanna get a coffee?” Faith casually suggests, though her persistent grin betrays a certain hopefulness.

Before the invitation is even fully spoken, Cordelia knows she's going to say yes. They'll go someplace small, mid-distance and safely away from campus, where Faith will smoke and drink black joe and listen with a thoughtful smirk. Who knows what they'll actually talk about? Maybe they'll trade family histories, talk shit about people from school, and what each will do after graduation next month. Or maybe they'll discuss something else entirely, other things. Anything. Cordelia's off to Europe for the summer, and she wants to rant about the architecture of Prague with someone who won't mock her ability to discern Gothic from Baroque because, after all, it's just fashion for buildings. She thinks Faith might be that person.

Cordelia takes a couple of steps forward, but a shrill ringing interrupts her formal acceptance of the invite. Faith's smile withers away as she flips open a scuffed-up StarTac phone. After a few terse words are exchanged - “Where? -- How many? --- Right now? ---- Fine. I'm moving.” - she looks positively crestfallen.

Fearing there's no clandestine coffee in her immediate future, Cordelia doesn't exactly look thrilled, either. “What's that about?”

“Family emergency,” Faith says. She hesitates and furrows her brows, as if calculating complex risk/reward ratios. “You wanna... maybe... meet up later?”

“Tonight?” Cordelia's own brows hike up near her hairline. A Friday afternoon latte is one thing, but a Friday night rendezvous without boys or Cordettes would be, for all intents and purposes, a vaguely queer date. It's a knee-jerk emotional response, worrying that the clique will pounce on any behavioral deviation... then she remembers that a few months from now, they'll be off to whatever podunk private nursery school their parents could shoehorn them into, while Cordelia Chase studies design (and maybe architecture) in the friggin' Ivy League. Why should she care what those losers think? “Okay,” she blurts, “but we'll be taking my car.”

Faith shifts around, suddenly looking uneasy on the motorcycle. “Uh... sure.”

“Nothing against the bike,” Cordelia explains. “I simply will not be seen in public with helmet hair.”

Laughing as she stomps the kick starter, Faith digs out a scrap of paper and hands it over.

Cordelia can't help sneering over the girl's superhuman confidence. “Address and phone number, right at the ready. You just assumed I'd want this.”

“Didn't assume. I just hoped you might,” Faith corrects. She blips the throttle, flashes her dark eyes back toward campus, then to Cordelia. “Steer clear of the rectory, huh? I think it's haunted.”

Cordelia gives her a sharp, incredulous look as the bike tears away. Alone on the sidewalk behind campus, she hears that hollow chorus start up again in the rectory. Soft voices unite to make “Tantum Ergo” emanate from the very stones of the building. “Haunted,” she snorts, even as a chill dances down her neck. No fool she, Cordelia takes the long way around the block to get back to her car.

*

At eight sharp, dressed in designer casuals, Cordelia arrives at the address Faith gave. Impressed and suspicious, Cordelia double checks the street and house numbers, but she's right on the spot. It's an elegant Federal-style house with Palladian windows looming over the second floor and a stained glass fanlight semi-circle crowning the front door. Each panel of the fanlight glass bears a bizarre symbol: a watchful eye, a golden cross, an open book, and something that looks like a fist holding a broken stick.

Windows on the two lower levels sport boxes of velvet-faced purple pansies, and all three levels of windows bear whitewashed iron burglar bars. Through one of these brightly lit viewports, Cordelia spies Faith talking with a tall, nattily dressed blond woman. The woman reaches out with a tissue and gently blots a bit of excess lip gloss from the girl's mouth. Faith breaks into a broad smile and hangs her head. They embrace quickly, a little awkwardly, and both leave the room. Seconds later, the front door cracks open and Faith cautiously peers out. A harsh blue light pours over her, and Cordelia cannily reasons that maybe they run a home-based tanning salon. Funny thing is, the light appears to be coming from the doorway itself, like a barrier or sensor.

Cordelia fleetingly wonders whether it's too late to turn around and go home. Though she's growing wary, she doesn't really consider retreating - she's no coward. It's just that Faith's house, like Faith herself, refuses to neatly jibe with expectations. She flashes the BMW's brights a few times to get the girl's attention. Faith waves at her, but hesitates. She stands on the blue threshold and scans up and down the street a few times, then turns and guardedly punches a sequence into a recessed keypad. The door closes and, from all the way across the street, Cordelia hears the sound of deep locks throwing shut.

With both hands jammed into the pockets of her leather jacket, Faith jogs over with her head on a swivel - as if on high alert. At the car, she takes one last look around, drops into the passenger seat and offers an innocent, genial greeting. “S'up?”

Cordelia, alternately looking at Faith and her locked down house, is now mildly unnerved. “Is your mom in witness protection or something?”

“Pardon?”

“You have a James Bond security system and barred windows. God, the Historical Society must've had a hissy fit about those iron grills!”

“The bars pre-date those jokers, so they got no say in it. As for the system - there's lots of bad people in the world. Gwen's paranoid, is all,” Faith says, waving off the other girl's concerns.

“Paranoid. Does she have reason to be?” Cordelia halfway turns toward her. In the dim streetlight, she sees Faith's waving left hand is banged up again; her thumbnail bears a horrible looking blood blister, like it was smashed by a hammer. Her right eye is swollen and her make-up is heavier there, like she's used a lot of concealer. Though there's the distinctive smell of fresh Band-Aids, Cordelia can't see any, which only means the girl is hurt in places that don't show. Faith sees her clocking these new chinks in the armor and she shrinks down a bit, clearly conveying that she doesn't want to talk about it. Noting this, Cordelia barely nods; she starts the car and changes the subject. “So you're one of those precocious modern kids who calls mommy by her first name.”

Faith rolls her shoulders. This subject is barely an improvement over the first, but she wades in anyhow. “Gwen's not my mom, she's my guardian. My mom died a couple years ago.”

For a few awkward moments, Cordelia drives along in silence, remembering why she rarely ventures outside her familiar, insular social circle. Getting to know new people can be a stroll through a minefield. “Sorry,” she finally says.

“Don't be. I actually got a few good years with my mom because of you,” Faith reveals. “Well, because of your dad. She went to that Chase Rehab center he funded in Dorchester Heights, got off the pipe when I was about thirteen. Stayed straight 'til she passed from lung cancer.”

“Oh. Wow. That's... it's good. That she stayed clean for you.” Cordelia can't think of anything to say that would make that fleeting triumph less of a tragedy, so she veers off again - this time in an effort to equalize their footing. “You know, about that rehab center... when we lived in California, my dad snorted enough Bolivian marching powder to choke Courtney Love. His business partners told him to straighten up and ship out to the Boston office, or they'd feed him to the SEC for securities fraud. So we left Sunnydale and moved here, and daddy started flinging money at drug treatment programs.”

Faith shifts uneasily, though not because of the Chase family cocaine saga. “Did you just say you lived in Sunnydale?”

Cordelia nods and smiles, as if she understands Faith's tone of disbelief. “I know, right? That name - it sounds like a planned retirement community, except there's, like, tons of crime.”

“Lemme guess: gang members on PCP acting all loco, wearing monster masks... ”

“Yeah! It was constantly on the local news. How did you know that?”

“We know some people out there, so Gwen keeps track of all the drama. Those west coast freaks act up now and again, but it's not so bad around here. Maybe we've got better cops or something,” Faith says, while trying to swallow an oddly satisfied smirk. “Sorry to jump off the subject.”

“No, it's understandable. I mean, three minutes down the road and we're already talking about mommy and daddy's drug problems?”

“I got no problem with that. Let's don't steer it one way or another, just say what comes up naturally,” Faith proposes. “Otherwise, there's not much point to this, right?”

Cordelia agrees with this 2+2=4 tenet, knows that openness promotes understanding, but her practical experience is limited. “I suppose we can try.”

“Alrighty, then. So, how 'bout your dad? Is he clean now?”

“Clean? No. Just more careful about tracking snow through the office.” Cordelia lowers her head, vaguely shamed by her father's hypocrisy. She wonders how he feels when he hears stories like Faith's, about real people helped and inspired by his false empathy. If the man is anything like his daughter, he's tried pretty hard to avoid real introspection. Unless you're ready to enact change, it's a waste of time.

Faith tells her she's sorry, but Cordelia disavows any true bitterness regarding the man, his addiction, or the resulting coastal swap. “Boston hasn't turned out so bad,” she says. “Although someone recently told me I've been here all this time without having the best pizza in town.”

“I speak the truth - if you haven't eaten a Calabria's special, you haven't lived a full life,” Faith announces. While giving directions to the restaurant, she settles into the Beemer's leather bucket seat and relaxes as much as her bruised ribs and deeply slashed thigh will allow. Her afternoon assignment to raid a nest of four sleeping vampires turned out to be seven, all wide awake. None of them went quietly, but in the end, they all shattered to dust. Faith went home for first aid and sympathy, and got a bonus lecture about the perils of dating very rich, very beautiful people. Turned out Gwendolyn Post had a fling a few years back with a titled twit who cruelly broke her heart. The Watcher told her Slayer that this timely stateside posting had pulled her free from a spiraling, vengeful obsession that nearly consumed her good sense.

“I was borderline barmy for a bit. Compiling lists of man-eating demons who owed me favors, researching scads of horrible weapons I could use to shred that bastard to mincemeat... good lord,” she had whispered, while toning down Faith's lip gloss with a tissue. “I shudder to think what might have become of me, had I not found you.”

Faith didn't like to think about what could have happened to her without Post, either. Emerging powers, dying mother, no guidance - her life could have been a disaster. Faith had hugged her Watcher then, for only the second time in their two year acquaintance.

*

By ten, there's a large pizza and four Diet Cokes in the rear view. People come and go in the busy little parlor, but the girls linger at their candlelit corner table and talk until Cordelia grows weary of her own voice, which is a wholly new experience. It's then, when she finally stops talking about architecture and college and stifling social hierarchy, that Faith asks her why she's here, why she said yes. Cordelia tries to spontaneously voice the truth, without over-thinking it, because she's interested to hear her own unfiltered answer.

“You don't seem to take it for granted that I'm going to say A or do B - I feel like we're off-script. This is a new thing for me,” she says. “I think I might like it.”

Faith flashes a quick smile, barely nods. “Good,” is all she says.

“It is good. It's how real people are said to interact, and you seem real, you know? Like you're really you... but I'm not so sure that I'm really me,” Cordelia says. “I despise my friends. I only date guys I could never fall for in a million years. High school's nearly over, but who's to say I won't be the same pre-fabricated asshole in college, just older and smarter and with really cute Chanel glasses?”

Faith snickers and smiles again, but Cordelia isn't finished yet. “I said yes because if I don't start figuring out who I'm supposed to be, I might never be happy.”

For a few moments, they just look at each other in silence, waiting for the echo of those heavy words to die down. When Faith finally speaks, her voice is so low that Cordelia strains to hear it.

“That's the trick, I guess. I already know what I'm supposed to do, and I'm okay with it.” Faith says. Unsmiling and grave, she watches the candle flame flicker and struggle; the wick is short now, and seems to burn hotter for it. “That's helped me figure out who I am.”

This sudden shift in demeanor provokes Cordelia's curiosity and emboldens her to ask a nagging question. “Does it have something to do with this whole walking wounded thing you've got going?”

“Hmm?” Faith, plucked cleanly out of her own thoughts, looks genuinely confused.

Cordelia, thinking the girl couldn't possibly be that dense, rolls her eyes. She reaches across the table and takes Faith's left hand, the one with the badly smashed thumbnail, and holds it up near the waning candlelight. She squints for a moment, wondering if she made a mistake, then reaches for the right hand and carefully examines both. Amazingly, neither thumb appears damaged. Faith is in dire need of a manicure, yes, but that's about all. Cordelia looks up and searches for the swelling around Faith's eye, but that seems to have faded away as well. “I could have sworn your thumb was - and your eye was... nevermind. I might need those glasses sooner than I thought.”

Cordelia sighs and slides her hands free, but Faith hangs on to one index finger, traps it between her palm and left thumb - which is still a little sore. “You're not wrong. Got in a scrap today, and I was careless,” she admits.

“A scrap with who, exactly?”

“Random assholes. Nobody special.”

“Huh. So there was a blister on your thumb, but now... ”

“I'm a fast healer,” Faith explains.

Though her mouth curls in suspicion, Cordelia decides to let it drop. She's certain that, in some sense, her original appraisal of Faith as 'weird' was right on the money, but that word isn't repelling her like it used to. From the shadows, their smiling waiter slips up on cat's paws and leaves the check and two cinnamon candies. Cordelia instinctively reaches for her purse, and only then does she notice that Faith is still holding her hand. The ensuing flicker of discomfort doesn't escape notice, but Faith reacts with a benign smile and a slow pulling away that leaves Cordelia feeling a vague sense of loss - like the bad night at Iron Age when Faith didn't follow her outside.

“Last week at the club - why did you follow us? What made you think Paul might hurt me?” she asks, because the thought came up naturally and she's trying not to steer one way or another.

“Guy was bombed. And he looked at you... wrong.” Faith glances away. “I've seen that look before, is all.”

“Oh.” Cordelia chews her bottom lip, sorts out two twenties to cover the modest check and a generous tip. “Why did you think he bit me? That was a rather macabre assumption.”

After a beat, Faith shrugs and smiles. “I dunno. He seemed like the type.”

Cordelia isn't satisfied with that answer, but Faith's canny little grins are strangely effective, and she instinctively responds in kind. “This may sound totally conceited, but I half expected you to, like, see me to my car or something.”

“I sorta did. From a distance,” Faith says, though she looks loathe to admit it. “You burned out like a drag racer.”

It's kind of a sad, lovely moment for Cordelia because, upon reflection, she realizes that Faith's timely date rape intervention and not-quite escorting her out of the club... well, it's the most chivalrous thing anyone has ever almost done for her. Growing up, Cordelia dreamed of an exciting adult life dominated by a darkly handsome older man (with perfect hair and swimmer's build) who alternately lured her into danger and rescued her from said peril. Turns out her first brush with heroism comes courtesy of a darkly gorgeous teenage girl with a motorbike and a masochistic streak. The more she thinks about it, the less sad it seems, and the lovelier her smile grows. Cordelia feels like she's ahead of the curve, since most people live their whole lives without meeting someone like Faith.

“Thank you,” she says, simply and finally.

“You're welcome,” Faith mumbles, and grins shyly. She slides one of Cordelia's twenties back across the table and replaces it with one of her own. “First date's dutch. In case it goes bad.”

“It hasn't,” Cordelia says. “It wouldn't dare.”

*

They chit-chat all the way back to Faith's street, where Cordelia stops and parks the car a full two blocks past the house. They're between streetlights, and the BMW has tinted windows. Cordelia figures it's private enough; she takes off her seatbelt and turns to her passenger. “Can I kiss you?”

So pleasantly surprised is Faith, she nearly laughs out loud. “You want to?”

“'Want' is a pretty forceful word. I have... a speculative interest,” Cordelia explains. “I think I might like it.”

“Then you probably will,” Faith reasons. She snaps her own seatbelt free and leans out, catching Cordelia's mouth in mid-smile.

It's a very good first kiss - slow and smooth, deep enough to taste residual cinnamon candy tingles - the kind with no timer and little breathing. It barely ebbs away before a second, stronger kiss breaks like a wave, pulling them down into a blind, slick, soundless underworld comprised of soft lip and tongue, hidden flavors and vexing dental edges. Cordelia is mistily aware that she feels good, feels present and real, and that Faith tastes and smells so clean, she probably hasn't smoked a cigarette since leaving school that afternoon. This makes her pull the girl closer, kiss her a bit harder.

Faith's hand is a static, hot squeeze at her waist, and Cordelia thinks about guiding it higher or lower, somewhere more serious. She doesn't do it because they're just necking and already she's exceeded all previous watermarks for sexual arousal. Stiff nipples strain against lace bra cups, she's half soaked and blood noise pounds in her ears, but Cordelia doesn't want to lose her virginity in the backseat of a car - even if it is a BMW. She wants a bed, and Faith, and several uninterrupted hours. Maybe a weekend. Her parents are gone until Tuesday... she just needs to figure out how to stop kissing Faith long enough to suggest a change of venue.

When Faith breaks off from the kiss, relief does not wash over Cordelia; instead, she feels jilted and hungry. She slides her fingers into Faith's hair, muttering, “A little more won't hurt.”

“Jesus. Holy shit.”

Faith breathes the words into her ear, and Cordelia giddily repeats them.

“No, I mean... you gotta go home,” Faith whispers.

“Why? What are you - ”

Faith pulls back and presses one finger across Cordelia's mouth, urging silence. With her other hand, she points across the street. Mildly sobered by Faith's sudden seriousness, Cordelia cuts her eyes sideways and sees two business-suited men skulking along the sidewalk - one older and white, one skinny and black. They're heading in the opposite direction, toward Faith's house.

“Who are they?”

“I know the black guy. Trick's bad news.” Faith holds stock still and watches as two more dark-suited men pass... then her eyes bulge and she pales like death. “No. Oh, God. Oh, fuck. ”

This reaction looks a lot like terror, and Cordelia can't resist the urge to know the source. She turns her head and sees a couple - an angular blond man in a leather trench coat and a floaty brunette woman dressed like Stevie Nicks - pass under the streetlight. They don't look particularly terrifying, but they've stolen Faith's breath and that has to count for something. Faith stays mum until they're well past, then pulls out that scuffed little StarTac and places a call to her home number. Cordelia hears the busy signal blaring through the phone, and Faith's mouth twists up in anguish.

“They can't get in the house,” she says aloud, to herself. “They can't get in. Why would they come here if they can't get in the house?”

“Do you want me to call the police?” Cordelia holds up her own cell and her hand trembles. Faith's fear is apparently contagious.

“Cops can't help with this.” Faith shuts her eyes, takes a deep centering breath. When she looks at Cordelia, her eyes have gone nearly coal black. “Once they're out of sight, I'll get out of the car, and you'll drive home as fast as you can.”

“What? There's six of them!”

“I know. Cordelia, I need you to listen to me.” Faith lays a hand on her shoulder and looks her straight on. “If you don't hear from me tonight... I'm done.”

“Done?”

“Dead. I'm dead. Those fuckers will kill me and Gwen if they get the chance, so if you don't hear from me tonight, and I show up at your house tomorrow night or next week - ”

“Wait - if you're dead, how will you show up at my house?” Cordelia rolls her eyes and grimaces. This sounds ridiculous. Crazy, even. “Like a ghost? Like Father Julian haunting the old rectory?”

“The how doesn't matter. If I show up, you cannot invite me in.” Faith squeezes her shoulder, gives her a sharp little shake. “It won't really be me. Just promise you won't let me in.”

Ridiculous or crazy or not, Faith is desperately in earnest. Cordelia agrees, and Faith checks the rear window to make sure the street is clear. She turns to Cordelia, smashes a furious kiss against her mouth, and turns the ignition key. “Go straight home,” Faith says, while tugging a stout-looking pointy stick from a jacket pocket. “Don't stop and don't look back.”

The door opens, softly clicks shut, and she's gone into the shadows before Cordelia Chase can even say goodbye - or goodnight - to the best and weirdest date of her life.

She punches the gas and the Beemer lays on toward home. One glance backward, and Cordelia's jarred nerves play a bizarre trick on her eyes. In the middle of the street, Faith Lehane punches the skinny black man in the chest... she whirls down to a low crouch... and that man explodes into a cloud of glittering dust.

She doubles the speed limit most of the way home and tries very hard not to think about ghosts and vampires. Because that shit's just ridiculous.

*

Cordelia can't sleep. Her parents are in Germany, and Inez the housekeeper went home at sundown, so the house is empty. She walks the halls and her footsteps echo like hammer blows, every breath rasps in her ears, magnified by fear. Past two in the morning, as she sits up in bed unwisely watching an X-Files repeat, there's a light tapping at her second story window. She flies toward it and looks down into the rear yard, where bloodied Faith stands on open ground, holding a handful of pebbles. The old Triumph is leaned against a tree.

Faith looks like she's been steamrolled, ground up, then molded into the shape of a person. But when she sees Cordelia at the window, she smiles. The pebbles fall from her hand; she hangs her head and sinks to her knees.

Like a shot, Cordelia is down the stairs and out the back door. A few feet away from the fallen girl, she gasps and stops short. In the moonlight, Faith appears no more than a mass of red, rent clothing and battered blue skin, breathing slow and deep on the wet grass. There's nowhere Cordelia can touch, nowhere a hand could comfort without adding more hurt, so she kneels in front of her and waits. Waits long enough to notice how the recently watered lawn is soft and bright, how the cool blades tickle her shins. She's trying not to look too closely at Faith for fear she might cringe, or weep. Pain is crashing over the girl like surf on rocks, and the spray alone is enough to make Cordelia want to cry.

“You got home okay,” Faith says, through a curtain of lank, sticky hair.

Shocked to hear her speak, Cordelia nods mutely, then asks. “What can I do?”

Faith sighs and extends her red-streaked right hand. “Help me up?”

Cordelia does, as gently as she can. She helps Faith limp up the back steps toward the door, where she stops and asks this carefully phrased question: “Am I not allowed to take you inside?”

A whuffing, wheezing sound comes out of Faith, a sound that used to be laughter. “Smart girl. S'okay, though. I'm still me.”

“Good,” Cordelia says. “I was just getting used to you.”

*

After a slow, torturous shedding of clothes, Faith stands in the Chase's master bathroom, under clean white light, and Cordelia sees the true extent of damage done: the mushy purple ribcage, the loose-hanging left bicep, the few deep cuts and the many shallow ones running from wrist to throat. Six people tried very hard to kill Faith tonight, and they nearly succeeded. Cordelia starts the shower and considerately programs in the high, gentle rainfall setting. “Are you sure you don't want a doctor?” she asks again. “You look like you need one. Or a dozen.”

“You should see the other guy,” Faith jokes while stepping into the warm shower. The first touch of water burns like acid, and she hisses. As the blood loosens from her skin and hair, the white tiled shower floods pink. Bits of glass and wood and grit catch in the drain trap.

“Inez could suck up that other guy with the Dyson,” Cordelia murmurs, recalling the thin black man smashed to a phantom shower of dust.

“Sounds like somebody peeked,” Faith responds. “You got questions?”

Cordelia says yes, and the information comes fast. Vampires and Slayers. Stakes and dust. Names come, too - Spike, Drusilla, Mr. Trick, a human traitor named David Sutton of the Watcher's Council - but they don't hold any weight for Cordelia. What makes her breath catch is the last sentence, spoken in a rush: “They said I have to go to California, to Sunnydale. They're sending another Watcher to replace Gwen, and he'll meet me out there.”

“So your guardian - your Watcher - is dead?”

Faith doesn't respond. She cuts the water off and steps out wrapped in a towel. She looks badly bruised and nicked up, but the cuts have stopped bleeding. Some even look smaller, shallower than before. Cordelia realizes then that much of the blood soaked into Faith's clothing belonged to someone else, possibly this Sutton man... possibly her own guardian.

“I'm sorry,” Cordelia says, because there isn't anything else. She's leaning against the locked bathroom door. Faith gingerly walks over, looking drowned and small, and Cordelia wants to hold her - lightly, for just a minute or two - but she stops too far away and asks to borrow some clothes.

“I need to get on the road,” she explains.

“You should stay here tonight, at least until the sun comes up. You said two of them got away, right?”

Faith nods. “Spike and Drusilla. They'll turn up. If they find me here - ”

“No one would expect to find you at my house,” Cordelia reasons. “Don't be dense. Stay.”

Unable to contest such logic, and too ruined for anything but sleep, Faith lets Cordelia dress her in cool bedclothes and lay her down on a soft mattress.

In the dark, as she hears Cordelia's breathing deepen toward sleep, Faith reaches out and takes her hand. She thinks of what she's lost, and will soon lose, and cries herself to sleep.

*

Near dawn, Cordelia wakes up beside the new, weird girl. The transfer student from BLV. The orphan who fights monsters. And she wonders at the funny turns life can take when you let it happen naturally, when you don't fight to steer it one way or another. In the gray morning light, she sees the bruises on Faith's cheek and temple have marbled to violet and yellow; they'll probably be gone by noon.

Faith will be gone by noon, to the town with the innocent name and the PCP gang members who are actually vampires.

Cordelia Chase will graduate, tour Europe, then study architecture at Columbia (she's just decided), and she will never meet anyone like Faith Lehane again.

There's no time to waste.

*

Waking up while being kissed can be... disconcerting. Faith adjusts with admirable aplomb, especially for someone who was nearly beaten to death several hours earlier.

Cordelia's hands are quick when pulling back the sheet, light while sliding off their clothes, and gentle on her body. They touch for a while, learning slowly through the most basic of the five senses, as skin warms and readiness builds. When the time is right, Cordelia moves astride Faith's hips and into her hands. For the first time, she's letting someone inside her, and the flash of pain is dim compared to her need. Shining hair tumbles across her shoulders, veils her face as she rides, as steady movements within and without spark up a strange chemical burn through her veins. The strength of it takes Cordelia by surprise, but she is high and open and glorious throughout. Quaking through climax and ragged, twitching descent. Groaning, flushed from cheek to breast, as her hands brace against the mattress.

Easy and slow, Faith slips her hands free. The trace of blood on her fingers prompts a guilty look, then a curious one. Cordelia simply leans down and kisses her questions away.

When she falls aside and lays down, Faith tells her she's beautiful, and Cordelia smiles as if she's never believed that until now.

*

They make love in bed until the sun is fully risen, then once in Cordelia's smaller, less elaborate shower. They devour half the food in the pantry. In these hours, few words are spoken.

Cordelia packs a bag for Faith, stuffed with good clothes and some cash. In the driveway, she hands over the keys to her BMW.

“When you get there, wipe it down and leave it in a handicapped space,” Cordelia instructs. “That way it'll get towed faster. I'll report it stolen in a couple of days, and daddy will pay someone to bring it back... or maybe I could come out and get it? I could show you around Sunnydale. I have some friends out there I haven't seen since grade school.”

Though Faith appears moved by the gesture - and the offer to visit - she says it's a bad idea. “You'd never be safe around me. As long as I live, it's gonna be like this.”

Cordelia infers that Faith does not expect to live very long. Based on what she's seen, she can't argue to the contrary. “I'll be at Columbia in the fall. If you're ever in New York...”

“Yeah, right. You'll probably have ten new suitors by the end of orientation.”

“It wouldn't matter.” Cordelia touches her face, kisses her cheek. “This won't happen to me again.”

Faith shuts her eyes and takes a deep, centering breath. She gives Cordelia a hug and kisses her chastely, like an old friend. Says 'thank you' and drives away, headed west.

Cordelia watches her go until the car is a speck at the far end of the street. She needs to go grocery shopping, to replace the stores they decimated, and to be around people. She'll take her mom's Benz from the garage. Maybe she'll see someone she knows, and they'll talk. Maybe that person won't recognize exactly how Cordelia has changed, but they'll notice something is different.

She clicks the garage opener, but the bay door does not respond. She rolls the batteries and clicks again - still nothing. Cordelia grunts in annoyance, fumbles with her house keys, and takes the long way through to the garage. She flicks the lights on and reaches for the manual crank to let the door up, and it won't budge. It gets jammed sometimes, her father says, and he pries it up with a shovel or some other makeshift lever. Cordelia picks up a broom handle and wedges it under the door, pulls up as hard as she can...

In her peripheral vision, she sees an old pile of blankets in the corner shift around, like something is hiding underneath. The ragpile stands up like a person, like a woman, and walks toward her.

... the strained broom handle cracks like a gunshot, and Cordelia has a stout, pointy stick in her hand...

The ragpile woman sings a nursery rhyme, and her voice is hypnotic. Dark, pinwheeling eyes peer through the lace rags, and Cordelia knows this is one of Faith's renegade monsters. The vampire Drusilla raises her hand, extends one delicate, razor-nailed finger toward Cordelia's throat.

... she thinks of Faith punching a vampire in the chest, whirling to a crouch as the dust flies...

“Pretty baby,” Drusilla coos. Her nose wrinkles, and she smiles hideously. “You stink of the Slayer.”

... she's always been good at physical mimicry, show her a move once and Cordelia can replicate it...

Drusilla rears back her arm to cut the girl's vein and drink up more of the Slayer's pain.

... she grips the stake and thinks of Faith striking hard...

*

Cordelia feels a familiar hand on her shoulder. When she realizes what's happening, that she's been pulled off the path, it's all she can do not to curse like a sailor.

She opens her eyes in the vast, empty white room, and the glare is painful. She has a rotten headache, and her heart feels strangely empty.

The endings aren't always so bad; sometimes, she's actually relieved to be back here, in the middle of boring-ass nowhere. But the chance to see another uncharted path always draws her back to this room, where all the parallel lines run unbroken, where every variation of her mortal life is isolated and equally possible.

Sometimes, Cordelia sees herself marry young, bear children, and take antidepressants for fifty years. Other times, she dies violently in the prime of her life. She's rarely happy with either the journey or the end result, and it's often her own fault.

This story, this path, was turning out different. Her eyes opened early and she felt strong. But each path can only be walked once, and now she'll never get to see where this one led.

“I wasn't finished,” she complains, shrugging the friendly hand off her shoulder. Cordelia sits on the white bench in the white room and stares into space. She casts a glance up at the gleaming blue line high above, but she's not ready to leave yet.

Tara Maclay sits beside her, speaking softly. “You shouldn't be doing this. We're not meant to see our other paths.”

“If the Powers wanted to stop me, they would stop me,” Cordelia snaps. “I'm just killing time.”

“You're hurting yourself. Every time you do this, you come back miserable. It's no way to spend your afterlife.”

Cordelia is pretty sure her attack would have taken Drusilla by surprise. She would have dusted that daffy bitch, and gone on to live a moderately happy life. She knows with deep surety that she would have seen Faith again, and her disappointment is unexpectedly sharp. “This time was different,” she says.

“How?” Tara raises her voice, flicks her hands in exasperation. “Did you learn the meaning of life? Was your death actually meaningful? Did you fall in love?”

After a tart look toward her insightful companion, Cordelia tries to explain the most esoteric variant. “A few times, I saw things with total objectivity. The me there didn't see it, but I could see these other involved parties when they weren't with me. Like these parties were talking in a bar and Cordelia was nowhere to be found, but I was still there. Sometimes, when I really tried, I could almost tune in their thoughts or feelings. That's kind of cool, right?”

Tara pulls a skeptical face. “Uhh... no. That doesn't sound cool.”

“You don't know cool. How is that not cool?”

“Cordy, that sounds like omniscience. You're flying in restricted airspace.”

“It only happened a couple of times! It's not a big deal.” Having no desire to argue, Cordelia stands and circles up toward the blue channel running overhead. Before she vanishes into it, she calls down to Tara. “By the way, I owe you a Coke.”

Tara giggles a little and lifts after her. They had a standing bet that no-way, no-how, in no alternate life would Cordelia Chase ever fall for a girl, with the wagered item being an ice-cold Coca-Cola - which is exceptionally delicious in the afterlife and very hard for dead people to come by. “Who was she?” Tara projects. “Was it someone I knew?”

Cordelia decides to keep that to herself for a while. It didn't happen anywhere outside the line, there were no intersects with her path. Still, everything she knew and felt still clings to her psyche, and it all seems very real. She wonders if it means something, if the Powers are letting her glimpse these other lives in an effort to expand her consciousness, to broaden her soul. If so, it means they intend to send her back to Earth eventually, and Cordelia yearns to rejoin the fray.

Sometimes, she sneaks away and looks down on Los Angeles, sees the devastation, sees Angel and Connor and stubborn, displaced Wesley fighting the good fight.

Tonight, she looks elsewhere in the world and sees Faith alone, smoking on a Miami rooftop after killing a nest of vampire children.

At that moment, Cordelia isn't sure who needs her more, or where she'd rather go.

END