Buffy fic
Okay, so, this has been sitting on my machine for some time now. I asked two and a half people to beta it, but I guess they're busy, so it's being posted. I'm not nearly as sure of it as I was of my last fic, but oh well. Haven't even read it over for a month. XD
Also, I may continue this...it's styled like a stand-alone, but you never know.
Title: Parallels in Eight Days
Author: scully_trusnto1
Word Count: 2670
Rating: Shit...PG-13? Mainly for that swear right there. XD
Character/Pairing: Buffy, Buffy/Faith (implied)
Summary: It seems in some ways that Faith will always be there, even after Buffy knows she's gone.
Warnings: Character death.
It's Sunday. The funeral is small and quiet. Buffy knows everyone there. Nobody cries.
There is no wake. The coffin is simple and wooden. Buffy watches as it's lowered into the ground. The sun shines off the polished wood. It's a beautiful day. The sky is cloudless and deeply blue. There's nobody there to say something like "If only she could appreciate this wonderful day," so Buffy can't contradict anyone.
The priest speaks. Nobody gives a eulogy. It seems too formal. They all meet so often that this seems just like another gathering. Nobody says "I'm sorry" because there is no one to say it to.
In single file, they walk by the coffin that's now far below their feet. Buffy is last. She looks down. She doubts Faith would have wanted to be buried. The thought of her being shut in a box and hidden away is too confining. Buffy thinks that Faith probably would have wanted to die fighting fire. There would be no body, but the smoke would never leave the air.
Then again, she had probably never thought about it at all. Buffy throws dirt into the hole. It lands with a dull pattering. Her fingers remain smudged.
The next day is Monday. Everyone is at school. The thought of skipping a day never occurred to Buffy. After classes, she sits in the library as they discuss the latest disaster. Their conversations are subdued. They get nothing done, though it seems to Buffy that they talk for forever. They don't talk about Faith.
She's patrolled alone far more often than not. Her body remembers this and doesn't feel Faith's loss. Buffy knows she should be seeing Faith's shadow around every corner, feeling her presence next to her, hearing her laugh. She doesn't. She's used to Faith's absence.
Later, she sits in her room combing her hair. She likes to use a comb sometimes instead of a brush. The brush seems to soft. Knots must remain even when it seems to pass smoothly through. There's a knock on her door.
"Come in," she says. Her mother turns the knob. She stands in the doorway.
"Do you need to talk?" she asks. She was at the funeral. Buffy wonders what she thought of Faith. She must have just thought of her as another Slayer, someone who could protect her daughter where she herself couldn't. Buffy wonders if she thought of Faith, the person, the girl, not the Slayer, at all.
"I'm fine," she says. She can't remember saying anything else the entire day.
It's late and she lays in bed and stares at the ceiling. She knows she should be grieving, but she can't find grief. She sits up. The bed creaks. Heat fades from her feet as they meet the carpet. She stands and looks out the window. It's quiet. There is a light on across the street. Most of the street lights have burned out. Still, as she looks at the sky, she can't see any stars.
On Tuesday she has a test. The sound of pens scraping against paper is a mechanical noise. Rrrr-vvvv, say the pens. The pencils are softer. Chuuuuut, they whisper. Buffy's pencil is broken. She grinds it into the sharpener. The sound overpowers. Garrr-ugh! it snarls, over and over as the handle circles again and again. It sharpens the wood farther than the graphite. She goes back to her seat. She didn't know the answers anyway.
After class she tells Giles about a demon she met last night on patrol. It got away. Its description didn't sound familiar to Giles. He says he'll look into it. The others nod from their seats. They seem expectant.
"That's it," she says. She thinks her voice sounds uncertain.
Willow says, "Buffy, Xander and I were thinking maybe we could come with you tonight."
"No," Buffy responds, too quickly. The others stare. She realizes her fists are clenched behind her back. Willow looks like she might speak again.
"I don't want to get you hurt." The line is tired. She begins to back towards the door. "I have to go. Mom wants me home early." She turns away from them to walk faster. Cordelia says something behind her and there's a sharp reply, but she's running now and can't hear or answer or care.
The winter sun is setting in a blaze. She's in the graveyard and and begging the sun to remain for just a little longer so she can kill. She rips a chain from a padlocked tomb and sunlight hammers in, red, reducing screams to dust.
She doesn't know how long she's outside. She's left the graveyard and is searching the streets when she finds herself in front of her house. She should go in. The sky is graying. She's not sure how long she stares at the invisible stars before she pushes the door open.
The house at night is different from itself in the day. It's silent. It's still. It seems like it's waiting.
In her room she only makes it out of some of her clothes before she's on her bed. It seems like too much trouble to get undressed properly. Her legs are tired. She can't find sleep.
On Wednesday she's not tired. Giles meets her before class.
"I've been talking to the Council, of course," he says. "There's a lot to be done when... such circumstances arise." Just once she wishes someone would say Faith's name. She hasn't said it for days and it feels stuck in her throat. She wishes Giles would say that Faith is dead.
He's still talking. "...Council has decided that she should come here."
She's sure she heard wrong. "What?"
"I tried to talk them out of it. It's too soon, too emotional." She wonders what he's talking about. She's been very mature, not emotional. She begins to speak, but he cuts her off. "I know, Buffy. Looked at practically, of course, it's the right thing to do. She's had no training to speak of and the Council feels--"
Her calm evaporates in a moment. She doesn't understand the anger, but she can't think of anything else. "I don't give a damn about the Council." She's not sure why he looks so surprised because surely he must feel the foul pain in her stomach and rushing in her ears and the bitter taste that clogs her mouth and reaches into her nose and eyes. "The Council can fuck themselves. I've had it with the Council and their fucking practicality." The anonymous fury has not asked her permission to surface and now she can't control it.
"Buffy--"
His shocked voice cuts into her and suddenly the anger flees and she's left feeling so weak she can't stand before him. "I have to go," she hears herself say and she's gone.
Later, she doesn't know what happened. She looks in the mirror in her room. She looks exhausted. She doesn't feel anything but awake. She looks at her hands. Her fingernails have dug grooves in her palms.
Giles corners her on Thursday and demands to know what's wrong. She apologizes for her outburst and said she was just tired, and the Council was right, a new Slayer would learn more here than anywhere, and was there anything else? He looks taken aback but can't think of anything else to ask. She leaves. She thinks she's done talking when Willow is suddenly in front of her.
"Are you okay, Buffy?" Her eyes are searching.
"Fine," she says. She knows she should be surprised that her patience for this question isn't wearing thin.
"It's just...you've been really down since...you know, and..."
The unbidden anger rears again but Buffy controls it. Her arm is shaking. Willow doesn't notice as she finds more words to not talk about Faith with. Buffy feels something inside her coiling and uncoiling.
"I know you guys had the whole Slayer-bond thing going on and I know you know I, well, really didn't like her, so you probably think that you can't talk to me, but you can. I don't-- I might not, you know, understand everything, but I'm your best friend, and I'm here so you can talk to me." She stops for a moment. "I just, uh, wanted you to know," she finishes lamely.
The anger has abandoned her. She should feel grateful or relieved or even still angry, but she doesn't. "I'm fine, Will. I have to go," she says. She leaves without looking Willow in the face.
She's patrolling later when the desperate anger comes again and she doesn't know how to stop her head from spinning. Everything blurs and her memories run together. When the anger fades she feels horribly alone.
A good Slayer is dead, but there is no reason to mourn beyond that. Faith wasn't a friend. Buffy didn't even like her. She shouldn't even miss her. She should feel guilty about being glad that she can patrol alone again. All she can do is wonder why she cares.
The new Slayer's name is Jones. She's in the library on Thursday when Buffy enters. She says she's thirteen, but she looks more like ten to Buffy. She's from Australia.
"He thinks I don't know anything, but I do," she is saying to Giles as Buffy pushes open the doors. It takes Buffy a moment to decipher the words from within the accent's confines. Jones throws a bitter look over her shoulder at him. He's her watcher. His face is jagged like a cliff. Hard angles set his eyes deep into his head. He could be thirty-two or fifty-eight.
"Patricia--" he begins, but he's cut off when Jones hisses that that's not her name. He amends, but not gladly. Buffy wonders how Jones can talk to him like that. His words seem as set in stone as his face. "Jones was in a gang of demon hunters, but she has no training and handles herself like a fledgling."
Buffy sees that Jones has to bite back a smile to protest. She doesn't look like a fighter. She's small and plump. Her face is childish.
Giles looks up and sees Buffy has entered. "Oh, good, you're here. Jones, this is Buffy. Buffy, this is Jones and her watcher Mr. Morgan." Jones' eyes are round and blue. She looks at Buffy and Buffy thinks she looks suddenly shy. The sentiment doesn't suite her.
The two watchers are talking later and Buffy's at the table, staring at her homework. Jones sits across from her. Buffy can feel her watching. She ignores. She doesn't like the automatic affection she feels for Jones-- affection that was painfully absent when she met Faith.
She's not getting anything done. She didn't expect to. She raises her head and Jones quickly looks away. Buffy is struck again by how small she is.
"How old are you?" Jones asks suddenly.
"Eighteen."
"How long have you been a Slayer?"
Buffy has to think. "...Three or four years." It will soon be nearly a fourth of her life. It feels like so much longer.
"What's it like?"
It's a simple question, but it's fully impossible to answer. She can't think. People have asked her before what it's like, but they were normal people. They were easy to lie to. She remembers Faith. Faith lied about Slaying.
She evades and asks Jones about herself. Jones is enthusiastic and alive. She tells about living with a bunch of other kids. They fought demons and evaded the police. Buffy half-listens to her. She is too young.
"Where are you staying?" Buffy cuts in eventually. Jones looks like she hadn't thought about that.
Buffy looks at the library doors as they are pushed open. Cordelia looks annoyed as Willow and Xander argue about some nonsense and Oz, as usual, looks attentive but bored.
"Buff! Maybe you can help us out here. Who--" Xander slows down as he sees Jones. "...'s this?" Jones stands. She's not much taller standing than sitting.
Giles and Morgan stop talking. Giles introduces everyone to Jones. Everyone stares. Slayers aren't supposed to be this young.
"You sure she's the Slayer? 'Cause--"
"'Cause what?" demands Jones, glaring at Cordelia. Cordelia glares back and affirms aloud that Jones must be a Slayer, since she's such a pain in the ass.
Buffy has to leave. She says a brief goodbye and can feel eyes watching her as she exits.
On patrol that night, Buffy thinks about Jones. She is nothing like Faith. To think that they had something in common is fully insane. They are similar, though-- all of them. Something decided that each had some necessary quality. Buffy thinks about herself and Faith. They were both Slayers.
She stares at the ceiling on Friday in the gray dawn and wonders what will happen if she just doesn't get out of bed. Surely, if she could just lay here long enough, the world would fade. There would be nothing left but her and the memory of Faith.
After class, Giles asks if Jones can stay with Buffy for a while. Buffy agrees. She's not really paying attention to what he's saying. The days before seemed oddly blurred, but today seems over-sharpened. Words are too hard-angled to make sense.
Jones sleeps in Buffy's bed on Saturday night. She's been training with Morgan all day and is exhausted. By seven, when they eat dinner, she's swaying on her feet. Later, Buffy's mother talks to Buffy.
"My god, Buffy, she's just a little girl!" she says. She is deeply shaken. Buffy doesn't know what to say.
She patrols until she thinks it might be getting lighter, but it's quiet all night. When she opens the door to her room Jones wakes up.
"Where've you been?" she asks. Her voice is groggy, but she doesn't seem annoyed at being woken.
"You know. Patrolling."
"I could've come."
"Morgan and Giles want to wait until you're better trained." Buffy remembers that she hardly trained at all before she started patrolling. She wonders why they're waiting for Jones.
"I can do it, you know. They all think I can't, but I can." The sleep is gone from her voice and it seems a familiar line.
"Well, watcher says jump..." Buffy's not tired, but being with Jones is like having a needling headache. She spreads a blanket out on the floor. She can feel her body's exhaustion when she lays down. She knows she won't sleep. Jones doesn't speak anymore.
Jones sleeps late on Sunday. Buffy doesn't sleep. It's been a week since Faith died and it feels like it's been years. She sits on her blanket on the floor and wants to scream. Faith will not leave her alone. She's felt grief before and this doesn't feel like grief. This is a desperate, aching need. She needs Faith's life so badly that she cannot grieve for her death.
Buffy is shaking when Jones wakes. She crawls off the bed and sits next to her. "What's up?" she asks. Buffy can't answer. She wishes Jones would leave. She wishes she had never come, that she had stayed in her warehouse across the world and likely died before she reached her teens.
"Who's that?"
Jones is pointing to a picture on Buffy's dresser. It's her, smiling, with Faith, who looks darkly uncomfortable. She's a bit behind Buffy, which is strange, since she always wanted so much to be in front.
"It's Faith." Saying the name out loud jars her. The awake emptiness leaves her and she's so tired that she's crying. Jones stares.
"It's Faith," she says again. Her voice isn't shaking and she wonders distantly at it. She doesn't seem to be controlling her words. "She died."
"Sorry," says Jones. "It sucks when people die."
She can't think anymore and feels Jones' hand awkwardly on her back as she falls apart.
On Monday, Willow timidly greets her. Buffy nods and smiles briefly and they talk about a test or homework. Xander arrives and they tease him about Cordelia. She knows when she is supposed to laugh, and once or twice she doesn't have to remind herself to.
After class, Buffy spars with Jones. She doesn't go all out, but Jones does. Morgan says her progress is acceptable.
Later, she patrols alone. She stops in front of a stone. It's Faith's. The inscription has only her name. Nobody knew her, really.
Except me, Buffy thinks. "I knew you, I think," she said out loud. There is no response. She wonders if she expected one.
END
Also, I may continue this...it's styled like a stand-alone, but you never know.
Title: Parallels in Eight Days
Author: scully_trusnto1
Word Count: 2670
Rating: Shit...PG-13? Mainly for that swear right there. XD
Character/Pairing: Buffy, Buffy/Faith (implied)
Summary: It seems in some ways that Faith will always be there, even after Buffy knows she's gone.
Warnings: Character death.
It's Sunday. The funeral is small and quiet. Buffy knows everyone there. Nobody cries.
There is no wake. The coffin is simple and wooden. Buffy watches as it's lowered into the ground. The sun shines off the polished wood. It's a beautiful day. The sky is cloudless and deeply blue. There's nobody there to say something like "If only she could appreciate this wonderful day," so Buffy can't contradict anyone.
The priest speaks. Nobody gives a eulogy. It seems too formal. They all meet so often that this seems just like another gathering. Nobody says "I'm sorry" because there is no one to say it to.
In single file, they walk by the coffin that's now far below their feet. Buffy is last. She looks down. She doubts Faith would have wanted to be buried. The thought of her being shut in a box and hidden away is too confining. Buffy thinks that Faith probably would have wanted to die fighting fire. There would be no body, but the smoke would never leave the air.
Then again, she had probably never thought about it at all. Buffy throws dirt into the hole. It lands with a dull pattering. Her fingers remain smudged.
The next day is Monday. Everyone is at school. The thought of skipping a day never occurred to Buffy. After classes, she sits in the library as they discuss the latest disaster. Their conversations are subdued. They get nothing done, though it seems to Buffy that they talk for forever. They don't talk about Faith.
She's patrolled alone far more often than not. Her body remembers this and doesn't feel Faith's loss. Buffy knows she should be seeing Faith's shadow around every corner, feeling her presence next to her, hearing her laugh. She doesn't. She's used to Faith's absence.
Later, she sits in her room combing her hair. She likes to use a comb sometimes instead of a brush. The brush seems to soft. Knots must remain even when it seems to pass smoothly through. There's a knock on her door.
"Come in," she says. Her mother turns the knob. She stands in the doorway.
"Do you need to talk?" she asks. She was at the funeral. Buffy wonders what she thought of Faith. She must have just thought of her as another Slayer, someone who could protect her daughter where she herself couldn't. Buffy wonders if she thought of Faith, the person, the girl, not the Slayer, at all.
"I'm fine," she says. She can't remember saying anything else the entire day.
It's late and she lays in bed and stares at the ceiling. She knows she should be grieving, but she can't find grief. She sits up. The bed creaks. Heat fades from her feet as they meet the carpet. She stands and looks out the window. It's quiet. There is a light on across the street. Most of the street lights have burned out. Still, as she looks at the sky, she can't see any stars.
On Tuesday she has a test. The sound of pens scraping against paper is a mechanical noise. Rrrr-vvvv, say the pens. The pencils are softer. Chuuuuut, they whisper. Buffy's pencil is broken. She grinds it into the sharpener. The sound overpowers. Garrr-ugh! it snarls, over and over as the handle circles again and again. It sharpens the wood farther than the graphite. She goes back to her seat. She didn't know the answers anyway.
After class she tells Giles about a demon she met last night on patrol. It got away. Its description didn't sound familiar to Giles. He says he'll look into it. The others nod from their seats. They seem expectant.
"That's it," she says. She thinks her voice sounds uncertain.
Willow says, "Buffy, Xander and I were thinking maybe we could come with you tonight."
"No," Buffy responds, too quickly. The others stare. She realizes her fists are clenched behind her back. Willow looks like she might speak again.
"I don't want to get you hurt." The line is tired. She begins to back towards the door. "I have to go. Mom wants me home early." She turns away from them to walk faster. Cordelia says something behind her and there's a sharp reply, but she's running now and can't hear or answer or care.
The winter sun is setting in a blaze. She's in the graveyard and and begging the sun to remain for just a little longer so she can kill. She rips a chain from a padlocked tomb and sunlight hammers in, red, reducing screams to dust.
She doesn't know how long she's outside. She's left the graveyard and is searching the streets when she finds herself in front of her house. She should go in. The sky is graying. She's not sure how long she stares at the invisible stars before she pushes the door open.
The house at night is different from itself in the day. It's silent. It's still. It seems like it's waiting.
In her room she only makes it out of some of her clothes before she's on her bed. It seems like too much trouble to get undressed properly. Her legs are tired. She can't find sleep.
On Wednesday she's not tired. Giles meets her before class.
"I've been talking to the Council, of course," he says. "There's a lot to be done when... such circumstances arise." Just once she wishes someone would say Faith's name. She hasn't said it for days and it feels stuck in her throat. She wishes Giles would say that Faith is dead.
He's still talking. "...Council has decided that she should come here."
She's sure she heard wrong. "What?"
"I tried to talk them out of it. It's too soon, too emotional." She wonders what he's talking about. She's been very mature, not emotional. She begins to speak, but he cuts her off. "I know, Buffy. Looked at practically, of course, it's the right thing to do. She's had no training to speak of and the Council feels--"
Her calm evaporates in a moment. She doesn't understand the anger, but she can't think of anything else. "I don't give a damn about the Council." She's not sure why he looks so surprised because surely he must feel the foul pain in her stomach and rushing in her ears and the bitter taste that clogs her mouth and reaches into her nose and eyes. "The Council can fuck themselves. I've had it with the Council and their fucking practicality." The anonymous fury has not asked her permission to surface and now she can't control it.
"Buffy--"
His shocked voice cuts into her and suddenly the anger flees and she's left feeling so weak she can't stand before him. "I have to go," she hears herself say and she's gone.
Later, she doesn't know what happened. She looks in the mirror in her room. She looks exhausted. She doesn't feel anything but awake. She looks at her hands. Her fingernails have dug grooves in her palms.
Giles corners her on Thursday and demands to know what's wrong. She apologizes for her outburst and said she was just tired, and the Council was right, a new Slayer would learn more here than anywhere, and was there anything else? He looks taken aback but can't think of anything else to ask. She leaves. She thinks she's done talking when Willow is suddenly in front of her.
"Are you okay, Buffy?" Her eyes are searching.
"Fine," she says. She knows she should be surprised that her patience for this question isn't wearing thin.
"It's just...you've been really down since...you know, and..."
The unbidden anger rears again but Buffy controls it. Her arm is shaking. Willow doesn't notice as she finds more words to not talk about Faith with. Buffy feels something inside her coiling and uncoiling.
"I know you guys had the whole Slayer-bond thing going on and I know you know I, well, really didn't like her, so you probably think that you can't talk to me, but you can. I don't-- I might not, you know, understand everything, but I'm your best friend, and I'm here so you can talk to me." She stops for a moment. "I just, uh, wanted you to know," she finishes lamely.
The anger has abandoned her. She should feel grateful or relieved or even still angry, but she doesn't. "I'm fine, Will. I have to go," she says. She leaves without looking Willow in the face.
She's patrolling later when the desperate anger comes again and she doesn't know how to stop her head from spinning. Everything blurs and her memories run together. When the anger fades she feels horribly alone.
A good Slayer is dead, but there is no reason to mourn beyond that. Faith wasn't a friend. Buffy didn't even like her. She shouldn't even miss her. She should feel guilty about being glad that she can patrol alone again. All she can do is wonder why she cares.
The new Slayer's name is Jones. She's in the library on Thursday when Buffy enters. She says she's thirteen, but she looks more like ten to Buffy. She's from Australia.
"He thinks I don't know anything, but I do," she is saying to Giles as Buffy pushes open the doors. It takes Buffy a moment to decipher the words from within the accent's confines. Jones throws a bitter look over her shoulder at him. He's her watcher. His face is jagged like a cliff. Hard angles set his eyes deep into his head. He could be thirty-two or fifty-eight.
"Patricia--" he begins, but he's cut off when Jones hisses that that's not her name. He amends, but not gladly. Buffy wonders how Jones can talk to him like that. His words seem as set in stone as his face. "Jones was in a gang of demon hunters, but she has no training and handles herself like a fledgling."
Buffy sees that Jones has to bite back a smile to protest. She doesn't look like a fighter. She's small and plump. Her face is childish.
Giles looks up and sees Buffy has entered. "Oh, good, you're here. Jones, this is Buffy. Buffy, this is Jones and her watcher Mr. Morgan." Jones' eyes are round and blue. She looks at Buffy and Buffy thinks she looks suddenly shy. The sentiment doesn't suite her.
The two watchers are talking later and Buffy's at the table, staring at her homework. Jones sits across from her. Buffy can feel her watching. She ignores. She doesn't like the automatic affection she feels for Jones-- affection that was painfully absent when she met Faith.
She's not getting anything done. She didn't expect to. She raises her head and Jones quickly looks away. Buffy is struck again by how small she is.
"How old are you?" Jones asks suddenly.
"Eighteen."
"How long have you been a Slayer?"
Buffy has to think. "...Three or four years." It will soon be nearly a fourth of her life. It feels like so much longer.
"What's it like?"
It's a simple question, but it's fully impossible to answer. She can't think. People have asked her before what it's like, but they were normal people. They were easy to lie to. She remembers Faith. Faith lied about Slaying.
She evades and asks Jones about herself. Jones is enthusiastic and alive. She tells about living with a bunch of other kids. They fought demons and evaded the police. Buffy half-listens to her. She is too young.
"Where are you staying?" Buffy cuts in eventually. Jones looks like she hadn't thought about that.
Buffy looks at the library doors as they are pushed open. Cordelia looks annoyed as Willow and Xander argue about some nonsense and Oz, as usual, looks attentive but bored.
"Buff! Maybe you can help us out here. Who--" Xander slows down as he sees Jones. "...'s this?" Jones stands. She's not much taller standing than sitting.
Giles and Morgan stop talking. Giles introduces everyone to Jones. Everyone stares. Slayers aren't supposed to be this young.
"You sure she's the Slayer? 'Cause--"
"'Cause what?" demands Jones, glaring at Cordelia. Cordelia glares back and affirms aloud that Jones must be a Slayer, since she's such a pain in the ass.
Buffy has to leave. She says a brief goodbye and can feel eyes watching her as she exits.
On patrol that night, Buffy thinks about Jones. She is nothing like Faith. To think that they had something in common is fully insane. They are similar, though-- all of them. Something decided that each had some necessary quality. Buffy thinks about herself and Faith. They were both Slayers.
She stares at the ceiling on Friday in the gray dawn and wonders what will happen if she just doesn't get out of bed. Surely, if she could just lay here long enough, the world would fade. There would be nothing left but her and the memory of Faith.
After class, Giles asks if Jones can stay with Buffy for a while. Buffy agrees. She's not really paying attention to what he's saying. The days before seemed oddly blurred, but today seems over-sharpened. Words are too hard-angled to make sense.
Jones sleeps in Buffy's bed on Saturday night. She's been training with Morgan all day and is exhausted. By seven, when they eat dinner, she's swaying on her feet. Later, Buffy's mother talks to Buffy.
"My god, Buffy, she's just a little girl!" she says. She is deeply shaken. Buffy doesn't know what to say.
She patrols until she thinks it might be getting lighter, but it's quiet all night. When she opens the door to her room Jones wakes up.
"Where've you been?" she asks. Her voice is groggy, but she doesn't seem annoyed at being woken.
"You know. Patrolling."
"I could've come."
"Morgan and Giles want to wait until you're better trained." Buffy remembers that she hardly trained at all before she started patrolling. She wonders why they're waiting for Jones.
"I can do it, you know. They all think I can't, but I can." The sleep is gone from her voice and it seems a familiar line.
"Well, watcher says jump..." Buffy's not tired, but being with Jones is like having a needling headache. She spreads a blanket out on the floor. She can feel her body's exhaustion when she lays down. She knows she won't sleep. Jones doesn't speak anymore.
Jones sleeps late on Sunday. Buffy doesn't sleep. It's been a week since Faith died and it feels like it's been years. She sits on her blanket on the floor and wants to scream. Faith will not leave her alone. She's felt grief before and this doesn't feel like grief. This is a desperate, aching need. She needs Faith's life so badly that she cannot grieve for her death.
Buffy is shaking when Jones wakes. She crawls off the bed and sits next to her. "What's up?" she asks. Buffy can't answer. She wishes Jones would leave. She wishes she had never come, that she had stayed in her warehouse across the world and likely died before she reached her teens.
"Who's that?"
Jones is pointing to a picture on Buffy's dresser. It's her, smiling, with Faith, who looks darkly uncomfortable. She's a bit behind Buffy, which is strange, since she always wanted so much to be in front.
"It's Faith." Saying the name out loud jars her. The awake emptiness leaves her and she's so tired that she's crying. Jones stares.
"It's Faith," she says again. Her voice isn't shaking and she wonders distantly at it. She doesn't seem to be controlling her words. "She died."
"Sorry," says Jones. "It sucks when people die."
She can't think anymore and feels Jones' hand awkwardly on her back as she falls apart.
On Monday, Willow timidly greets her. Buffy nods and smiles briefly and they talk about a test or homework. Xander arrives and they tease him about Cordelia. She knows when she is supposed to laugh, and once or twice she doesn't have to remind herself to.
After class, Buffy spars with Jones. She doesn't go all out, but Jones does. Morgan says her progress is acceptable.
Later, she patrols alone. She stops in front of a stone. It's Faith's. The inscription has only her name. Nobody knew her, really.
Except me, Buffy thinks. "I knew you, I think," she said out loud. There is no response. She wonders if she expected one.
END