Hybrids (1 of 2)
Title: Hybrids (1 of 2)
Author: kanedax
Recipient: intl_princess
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-15
Spoilers: BtVS Season 5 (w/ minors of 7 & 8 and AtS 5)
Warnings: character death (duh), language, and disturbing images
Summary: Buffy can't save the world every time. Written for the apocalyptothon ficathon.
Thanks to charma_10for the beta!
Faith Lahane was paying for her sins.
She just didn't like the return on her investment.
How long had it been? Five days? Six? How long had it been since they had tossed her in here, simply because she was attacked by one of the other girls in the Valley State exercise area and had no choice but to defend herself?
"I just broke her fucking wrist," Faith muttered for not the first time, or the five-hundredth, since being placed in what the guards so pleasantly called a Security Housing Unit, but was really, as Faith and her fellow inmates not-so-pleasantly called it, The Hole. "It's not like I killed the bitch or nothin'."
Things had been messed up in the prison for a while. Faith knew it. She just wished she knew why. Meals had been coming sporadically for a day or two. Three days ago (four? Faith was losing track), they stopped completely. Sensing something was abnormal, she had been conserving that last meal--a plate of Dinty Moore, canned lima beans, and a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie--trying to spread it out in the time since.
Two days ago (three?) the water stopped running from the sink in Faith's cell. Thank God I figured that out before I took a piss, Faith now thought. The water in her toilet bowl wasn't the cleanest in the world, but when you were thirsty, you'd take any port in a storm.
Or somethin', she thought, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. I wasn't ever good with metaphors, or whatever...
The toilet bowl was at about a quarter of its original level. The plate was down to three pieces of potato, five lima beans, a chunk of beef, and a chocolate-crumbed cellophane wrapper. She was hungry. She was thirsty. Faith was using the corner furthest away from her cot to piss (or shit; she hadn't had to do that in the last few days, considering the food she'd been taking in) so as not to spoil her water supply.
She was tired. She was hungry. The Security Housing Unit was starting to smell like a cross between a gym locker and a homeless shelter on Burrito Night.
And she was hallucinating.
These weren't the happy, fluffy, three-headed elephants that she had seen during some of her more wicked trips in her younger days, either; way back when she was sitting in the alleys of South Boston, smoking whatever-the-hell with who-knows-who. They were powerful; if it weren't for the fact that she was currently locked behind a super-strong magnetic locking system, she'd think that these visions, these people, had snuck into the room while she was asleep.
Her mother talked to her. Her father. Telling her how worthless she was. How she was an accident. How glad they were that they had died before seeing their daughter in prison for murder.
Buffy was there a lot, too. She did more gloating than anything. About how strong she was. How she was so much stronger, so much better, than Faith could ever be. How she had put Faith in a coma, killed her boss, and would gladly do it again. She liked to show off that damn knife, too.
"I made a mistake in ever trying to help you," Angel said in one of his many appearances. He cracked a grin that reminded Faith so much of Angelus, or at least his mimicry of Angelus, that she shuddered. "You're not worth saving, Faith. Never were. Never will be. The world would be a better place if I had just let Buffy kill you. At least then there'd be another Slayer, a better Slayer, walking around free instead of sitting in a prison like a worthless pile of shit."
Mom. Dad. Buffy and Angel. Post and Dormer. Finch and that volcano guy. All on a rotating circuit.
But in the last day or two, others started appearing. Wes and Giles. Cordelia and Harris. Red and Mrs. Summers. The tall drink of water soldier boy that Faith had boned when she was pretending to be Buffy. The chubby dye-job dyke who was munching Red's carpet.
Laughing. All of them. Laughing at her, hurling insults and venom at her. Mocking her as she sat in this prison, slowly wasting away just because she had accidentally killed some guy just once. Or twice.
"I didn't mean to," she muttered. "I didn't...It was an accident, I swear, I didn't mean to kill him. Why am I being tortured like this?"
The voices continued to laugh.
"I didn't do nothin' wrong!" she cried out into the empty cell. "I shouldn't be locked up here! I shouldn't starve to death!"
"Yes you should," said Buffy calmly. "You should starve like the mongrel dog that you are, Faith. You deserve this and worse. You're a killer, and you don't deserve to live."
"It ain't right!" Faith sobbed, knowing that tears would be pouring down her cheeks if she weren't already dehydrated. "It ain't...I swear to fuckin' God, I want to pay for what I did, but this ain't right!"
"You're making the world a better place," said Angel with that same despicable smile, "by not being in it."
"Shut up!"
Faith's face fell into her hands. Her fingers clawed at her dark locks, and she pleaded, over and over, for the voices to just... stop... fucking... talking!
"Oh, now why would you go and say something like that?" said another voice, a voice that was all too familiar to Faith. "All that foul language? It's unbecoming of a girl as pretty as you."
Faith forced herself to look up. Sure enough, there he stood over here, that well-tailored suit that always looked both professional and comfortable on him. Straight tie, straight cuffs, neat hair. And that smile. That warm, disarming smile...
"Boss..." Faith said helplessly. Out of all of the voices, all of the faces, that had visited in the last few days, this was the first time that Mayor Richard Wilkins had appeared before her. She instinctively flinched back, fearing his words, his insults, more than any of the others. He was
(like a father)
important to her. Important to her life. She didn't think she could bear to hear anything come from his mouth.
Wilkins seemed to recognize her fear, and his smile softened. "Faith," he said, hunkering down in front of her. "Faith, what happened?"
"Leave me alone," Faith said, curling up tighter. "You're... You're one of them."
"One of them? One of who?"
"The voices," Faith said quietly. "The voices, the faces, they... they... they keep coming."
"You're hearing voices?"
Faith nodded, and Wilkins chuckled. It was a gentle chuckle, the kind that held no edge, no accusations. That's what she always liked about him. He never looked down on her.
"Well, it's no wonder you're hearing voices," he said, looking around the cell. "With the food they're feeding you in this place? It's a wonder you're not seeing President Nixon doing the tango with Rosa Parks!"
"Buffy," Faith said. "Buffy, and Angel, and..."
"Oh, now why would think I'm bundled up with those miscreants?" asked Wilkins. "Faith, you know I respect you more than they ever did. I always will."
"You're not real," Faith said, although her fetal position was slowly relaxing. "You're... Boss, you're dead."
Wilkins nodded. "I had a feeling that might throw a monkey wrench into my argument. But I'm not a vision, Faith. I'm not a hallucination. I'm not... Well, I'm not solid anymore," he demonstrated by waving a hand through her knee, "but I definitely am who I am."
"Why?" asked Faith. "Why are you here?"
"Now, that's a very long story," said Wilkins, standing up again. "One that I will have to tell you later. Right now, we have more important things to do. We need to get you out of here. We need to get you a nice turkey sandwich and some cool, crisp vegetables. Always important for a balanced diet..."
"But..."
"We need to clean you up, as well,"
"But I can't..."
"So unsanitary here, Faith." He looked around the cell with a grimace of distaste. "I simply can't stand to see you here another day."
"Boss, I can't leave."
"Why not?"
"Because..." she sighed. "Because I killed a guy, boss. I killed your guy. Finch. I'm a murderer, and..."
"Oh, come now!" Wilkins said with a wave of his hand. "You're a murderer because why? Because Angel said so? Because Miss Summers said so?"
"Because the nice judge and jury said so..."
"Well, I'll tell you something, Faith. I've been in government a lot longer than that judge has, and I say that you don't deserve to be here. You don't belong here. You deserve to be outside, free, living your life."
"But..."
"Faith, things are happening out there. Things are changing faster than I ever anticipated they would. You are needed outside. I need you outside. And, quite frankly, there's not a man, woman, or Army alive that can hold you here anymore."
Faith's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, so much to explain." Wilkins sighed and walked do the cell door. "But I think it's better that you just find out for yourself. You've been punished for your so-called crime long enough, Faith. Time to break down the door and get out of here."
And he was right. Faith had paid for her crime. What had happened to her this last week was nothing short of torture. She knew that there were laws in this country, whether she felt she needed to obey them or not. And it was criminal to keep her here without food, without water, without even a guard opening the window in the door to check on her.
She had paid her dues. Something was happening outside, and she had paid her dues. She was needed somewhere else now.
But...
"I can't," said Faith, pushing herself to her feet. "I mean, I might have been able to a few days ago, but I'm... I'm tired, boss. I can't..."
"Can't is a four letter word," said Wilkins. "You're strong, Faith. You're the Slayer. I believe in you."
"I'm not the Slayer," Faith admitted, leaning against the wall and staring at the door. "And the magnetic lock-"
"What do you mean, you're not the Slayer?" Wilkins asked. "Faith, Buffy died, remember? It doesn't matter if she's still alive; she's out of the loop. You're still a part of the lineage, you are the one who replaced Kendra Young, and you are the one who will pass on the power after you're gone. You're the Slayer. Buffy Summers is just a usurper. And you're more powerful than she is on your worst day than she is on her best."
"But the lock-"
"What lock?"
"The lock on the door," Faith said. "It's... It's magnetized. Fuckin' powerful shit..."
"Faith..."
"Friggin' powerful stuff," Faith corrected quickly. Wilkins gave her a warning look, but didn't press the matter further. "If it was just the deadbolt I'd probably be able to do it, but..."
As if on cue, that was the moment that the lights went out in her cell. Her heart tightened, her breathing stopped. No windows. No lights. It was just... black.
"Well, that was convenient, wasn't it?" said Wilkins, with a trademark guffaw.
"I can't see nothin'..." Faith said. She was never very good with the dark, ever since she was little, and she resisted the urge to start stumbling around the room in a blind panic.
"Once you break down the door you'll be fine," said Wilkins, his voice coming from her right side. "There are emergency generators running lights in the main prison, but the magnetic locks are disabled."
"What happened?" asked Faith. "Boss, why did the power go out? I can't hear any thunderstorms or nothin' outside."
"No time now, Faith," said Wilkins. "Follow my voice. The generators only run the lights and the refrigeration. The designers figured a deadbolt alone could hold a regular prisoner until power is restored. But we both know you're not a regular prisoner. Now, follow my voice. I'm standing right in front of the door."
Faith slowly forced her feet to move forward in the darkness, her hands held out in front of her. Slayer senses allowed her to navigate the room easier than she had anticipated, but she still let out a grunt of surprise once when her shin bumped the cot.
"Warmer," Wilkins said. "Warmer..."
"How can you see me?"
"I'm a ghost, Faith. Light and dark don't bother me. You're almost there... and... Bingo!"
Faith's palms bumped against the solid metal door.
"Feel it okay?" Wilkins asked, and Faith had a momentary bout of disorientation when she realized that the voice was originating from somewhere between her ears. She realized that she must be standing right where he was standing, his incorporeal body merged with hers, and instinctively took a step back.
"Five by five," she said, leaning forward again to gauge her striking distance. "Hope this works."
"I have faith in you," said Wilkins, and she could hear a smile in his voice through the darkness.
Faith tensed. Prepped. Lifted her leg high, bent at the knee. Pistoned it outwards, striking the door hard. It didn't break, but she felt it give. A second strike achieved a similar result. The third strike, she felt it buckle.
The fourth and final strike was enough to break the prison door's lock, and the door slid to the side along the wall, opening an inch. Faith was now able to see floodlights glowing through the crack, so she was able to grab the edge of the door and push it the rest of the way open.
The first thing that struck Faith was the smell. Rotten, stale, like ground beef left out of the fridge for too long. She instinctively put her hand over her mouth and nose, then pulled her pale blue prison uniform over her mouth, hoping to mask the odor.
Why didn't I smell this earlier? she wondered as she looked left and right down the deserted hallway. It's fuckin' ripe.
"Because your cell smelled so bad by itself," said Wilkins from behind her. "Go to your right, there's a staircase up."
Faith nodded, and wandered down the cellblock, past unoccupied SHU after unoccupied SHU.
I guess I was the only naughty prisoner, she thought. No one else is locked up...
"They were," said Wilkins darkly. "But those bastards didn't trust you, Faith. They had let the others go back to their cells long before you. A lot of them because they had to go to the hospital wing."
"Hospital wing?" Faith asked, rounding a corner. "Why the hospital--?"
But her question was answered as she saw the first corpse. Sprawled across the first flight of stairs, the bloated, purple body was clad in a prison guard uniform. Faith couldn't tell if it had been male or female, as its scalp was completely devoid of hair. Its hands were around its throat, and its mouth was open in agony, as though it had spent its last waking moments choking to death.
Faith took a hesitant step forward, getting a look at the tag on the body's uniform. Wilkins stepped past her, ascending the stairs.
"Gathway," she read, her breath gone from her lungs. "I knew her. She was one of the guards who... Boss, what happened?"
Faith looked up at Wilkins, who stood on the first landing. Another corpse, just as swollen and bruised as Gathway's, leaned against the landing's railing, and Faith could see the hand of a third body hanging limply from the next flight up.
"More than you can imagine, Faith," he said sadly, looking up, his gaze distant. He looked as though he were seeing through the ceiling, through the prison, and to the world above. "More has happened than you can possibly imagine."
---------
Buffy Summers didn't know how long ago the electricity had gone out. She knew that the living room was dark. Was vaguely aware that the television had also gone dark, but was also unaware about how long it had been broadcasting a simple "Technical Difficulties" banner before it had shut off.
She wasn't aware of much of anything right now.
Giles was the first to die.
Joyce had fallen ill that morning, days ago. She had been preparing to go on her date when it happened. By that afternoon her fever had grown to well over one hundred degrees. Dawn, who seemed fine herself, had been sent home from school early. It seemed that Sunnydale Junior High was shut down due to low attendance.
"There were maybe only a hundred of us there," she had told Buffy as they stood in the kitchen, Dawn leaning against the counter next to the microwave, while Buffy sat at the breakfast bar. "Lots of the kids who were there were sick, too. Most of the teachers, too, and I guess they couldn't get enough subs. So here I am."
Joyce was the one who suggested that Buffy go check on Giles after he had called, sounding quite sick himself.
"He's all alone here," Joyce had said as she adjusted her pillows.
"I'm not leaving you," Buffy said, clutching her mother's hand. "Mom, after the surgery, you're weak..."
"I'll be fine," said Joyce. The rattling cough that erupted from her mouth moments later argued the point. "See to him, Buffy. If he's feeling, see if he wants to come over here. I know it's easier for me to get healthy when I'm with others."
"Besides, he's English," said Dawn from the other side of the bed. "He wouldn't know how to make chicken noodle soup."
"Are you sure?" Buffy asked Joyce. "I don't have to..."
"I'll be fine," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I have my little munchkin to take care of me."
"Mom..." Dawn said with a blush, but didn't press the matter any further. After everything that had gone on the last month, with Dawn discovering her origins, it was nice to know that she was starting to feel like a part of the family again.
So Buffy left the house.
Arrived at Giles's townhouse.
Found him dead on the couch. Purple and swollen and...
Buffy heard the phone through the darkness. The ringing seemed to come from miles away, and she numbly realized that she was sprawled on one of Giles's rugs, facing the ceiling. She had apparently fainted. Blacked out. Whatever.
She clawed her way up Giles's desk, where the phone insisted on ringing. The couch was facing away from her, hiding the horror of her Watcher's death from her eyes.
She picked up the receiver. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"Hello?" Buffy asked from the other end of the football field.
"They're not answering!" Dawn's frantic voice screamed from the other side of town. "They're not answering the phone it says the line's busy and Mom's dying and they're not answering the phone!"
Dawn's voice temporarily pulled Buffy back from oblivion. Giles was... Giles was gone. The streets were far too empty for the middle of the afternoon. Those who were on the street seemed to be coughing and hacking and spitting onto the sidewalk. They were sick.
Everyone was sick.
Giles was dead.
Mom...
"Mommy..."
Buffy blasted out of the townhouse, leaving the receiver hanging uselessly next to the desk.
The hospital, Buffy thought frantically as she sprinted down the streets and the avenues, hoping against hope that she could make it in time. The hospital, I can get her to the hospital, Ben's at the hospital, he can help, he can...
She entered the house, not even realizing until later that she had torn the door from the hinges as she opened it. She heard Dawn's screams from upstairs.
And knew she was too late.
---------
There would be no funeral for Joyce Summers and Rupert Giles. No coffin, no priest reading the Bible over them. There wouldn't even be a mortician to pick them up.
By the end of that first horrible day, Sunnydale, California, America, the world, had spun into total chaos.
Buffy stopped measuring time by hours, or minutes, or days. By the time she found herself sitting alone in the dark, staring at a dark television, she had begun to measure time by the deaths.
After Mom and Giles, the first news reports began to spring up on the local and national news broadcasts about an outbreak. The government was unaware of the cause of this virus, but assured the public that an antidote was in the works.
Anya called the house. Xander was in bed with a fever.
The Vice President held a press conference, and repeated the statement: An antidote was coming, and Americans should remain calm during these isolated incidents. He ignored any questions from the press about the whereabouts of the President himself, and excused himself from the podium after coming down with a coughing fit of his own.
Willow called. She and Tara were poring over their spellbooks, hoping to find some sort of supernatural origin to the disease, and possibly a mystical cure.
An anchorwoman for the CBS affiliate announced that the United States military had declared martial law in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas. Buffy changed the channel to the ABC affiliate, where they discussed reports of riots in Chicago, Detroit, and Miami, and a heavy military presence in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, and Austin.
Night had fallen. Buffy reluctantly re-invited a completely healthy Spike into the house. She said she did it because Dawn wanted him there, because she was still in total disbelief over her mother's death. Buffy eventually admitted that, despite the things that Spike had done just weeks ago in the name of love, she herself also needed someone there, even if it was... him.
The Surgeon General was reporting a twenty percent casualty rate. The CBS affiliate sent a reporter to Cedars-Sinai, where a doctor quickly announced a death rate of at least eighty percent before the feed was shut down in a tussle with military personnel.
Ten minutes later, CBS was off the air.
Anya called again. Xander was dead. Anya was coughing into the telephone.
Buffy and Dawn drove to Willow and Tara's dorm while Spike volunteered to patrol. On the radio, National Public Radio's correspondents were checking in. Israel was in chaos. London was in total anarchy. A religious sect in Antwerp had set off bombs at the Cathedral of our Lady and the Church of St James, killing hundreds. Moscow's correspondent was halfway through their report when they disappeared in a flurry of static. Buffy swore she heard the rip of an explosion in the background moments before the reporter had been cut off. She didn't mention it to Dawn, but was sure that her sister had heard it, too.
Willow was at her desk, reading one book among stacks, when the Summers girls arrived. A box of Kleenex and a bottle of orange juice were perched nearby. Tara, however, was now in pajamas and in bed, with a fever as high as Joyce's had been. Willow thought she had found a spell that might work, but it would require ingredients from The Magic Box.
"It's iffy, though," she explained after blowing her nose. "Even curing one person takes a huge amount of power. This is going to be a shot in the dark, but..."
The one glance that Willow threw back to Tara's bed was all that Buffy needed to know. The spell might work for a lot of people. But if it only worked for one, for her one, then Willow wanted to try. Her best friend was already gone, and she would do everything in her power to save her love. Buffy volunteered to go to the shop for the supplies, while Dawn stayed behind with the girls.
NPR was off the air when Buffy left the dorm. Spinning down the dial, she found the local sports talk station and the local conservative talk station both running on all cylinders, taking call after call from people who were reporting the same thing over and over:
Anarchy ruled.
The official word was horrifically wrong.
People were dying.
A lot.
Buffy had never felt so helpless in her life. When she arrived at the Magic Box she found herself facing three vampires. She did her best to beat the crap out of them before dusting them.
It made her feel a little better.
But not by much.
She pulled together the ingredients, returned to the car, and saw her first tank. The Army base outside of Sunnydale had finally decided to flex their muscles, after all, and rolled down Main Street. Most of the men in uniform looked like they were sick themselves. A megaphone blared to the population to remain calm, maintain order.
She decided it would be better to stay off the street with all of those guns showing themselves, so she ran back to UC Sunnydale as fast as she could. The streets were mostly empty, yet she found three teenagers coming out of Sunnydale Bank. Their faces were pale and sweating; their arms and pockets stuffed with money.
She did her best to beat the crap out of them, too.
It made her feel a little better.
But not by much.
Tara was dead when she arrived. Dawn was sitting in the corner, pale and silent. Willow was in hysterics, lying prone over her girlfriend's body, howling with grief, coughing and sneezing between sobs.
"We can fix it," Dawn mumbled quietly. "We can fix it, Buffy, can't we fix it, there has to be a spell, Buffy, we have to..."
"Come back!" Willow screamed into her lover's dead face. "Please, come back!"
Buffy and Dawn eventually were able to pry Willow from Tara's side, and convinced her to come back to their home with them.
They found a Mercedes Benz idling next to the dormitory. The driver was dead inside. Buffy quickly realized that taking a dead man's car wasn't the worst crime that could happen today.
Willow died on the way back to Revello Drive. After losing her best friend and the love of her life within hours, she had given up trying to hold on. She died alone in the back seat.
The radio was turned off, as most of the stations had given way to static, and Buffy and Dawn drove in silence.
They pulled into the driveway, and Buffy pulled the shovel from the garage.
As she opened the door and entered their house, she had heard Dawn sneeze.
And now Buffy sat in the darkness. Grief still stood outside, trying desperately to enter. But the shock was too great. Dawn was upstairs in her room.
Buffy closed her eyes.
Hybrids (2 of 2)
Author: kanedax
Recipient: intl_princess
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-15
Spoilers: BtVS Season 5 (w/ minors of 7 & 8 and AtS 5)
Warnings: character death (duh), language, and disturbing images
Summary: Buffy can't save the world every time. Written for the apocalyptothon ficathon.
Thanks to charma_10for the beta!
Faith Lahane was paying for her sins.
She just didn't like the return on her investment.
How long had it been? Five days? Six? How long had it been since they had tossed her in here, simply because she was attacked by one of the other girls in the Valley State exercise area and had no choice but to defend herself?
"I just broke her fucking wrist," Faith muttered for not the first time, or the five-hundredth, since being placed in what the guards so pleasantly called a Security Housing Unit, but was really, as Faith and her fellow inmates not-so-pleasantly called it, The Hole. "It's not like I killed the bitch or nothin'."
Things had been messed up in the prison for a while. Faith knew it. She just wished she knew why. Meals had been coming sporadically for a day or two. Three days ago (four? Faith was losing track), they stopped completely. Sensing something was abnormal, she had been conserving that last meal--a plate of Dinty Moore, canned lima beans, and a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie--trying to spread it out in the time since.
Two days ago (three?) the water stopped running from the sink in Faith's cell. Thank God I figured that out before I took a piss, Faith now thought. The water in her toilet bowl wasn't the cleanest in the world, but when you were thirsty, you'd take any port in a storm.
Or somethin', she thought, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. I wasn't ever good with metaphors, or whatever...
The toilet bowl was at about a quarter of its original level. The plate was down to three pieces of potato, five lima beans, a chunk of beef, and a chocolate-crumbed cellophane wrapper. She was hungry. She was thirsty. Faith was using the corner furthest away from her cot to piss (or shit; she hadn't had to do that in the last few days, considering the food she'd been taking in) so as not to spoil her water supply.
She was tired. She was hungry. The Security Housing Unit was starting to smell like a cross between a gym locker and a homeless shelter on Burrito Night.
And she was hallucinating.
These weren't the happy, fluffy, three-headed elephants that she had seen during some of her more wicked trips in her younger days, either; way back when she was sitting in the alleys of South Boston, smoking whatever-the-hell with who-knows-who. They were powerful; if it weren't for the fact that she was currently locked behind a super-strong magnetic locking system, she'd think that these visions, these people, had snuck into the room while she was asleep.
Her mother talked to her. Her father. Telling her how worthless she was. How she was an accident. How glad they were that they had died before seeing their daughter in prison for murder.
Buffy was there a lot, too. She did more gloating than anything. About how strong she was. How she was so much stronger, so much better, than Faith could ever be. How she had put Faith in a coma, killed her boss, and would gladly do it again. She liked to show off that damn knife, too.
"I made a mistake in ever trying to help you," Angel said in one of his many appearances. He cracked a grin that reminded Faith so much of Angelus, or at least his mimicry of Angelus, that she shuddered. "You're not worth saving, Faith. Never were. Never will be. The world would be a better place if I had just let Buffy kill you. At least then there'd be another Slayer, a better Slayer, walking around free instead of sitting in a prison like a worthless pile of shit."
Mom. Dad. Buffy and Angel. Post and Dormer. Finch and that volcano guy. All on a rotating circuit.
But in the last day or two, others started appearing. Wes and Giles. Cordelia and Harris. Red and Mrs. Summers. The tall drink of water soldier boy that Faith had boned when she was pretending to be Buffy. The chubby dye-job dyke who was munching Red's carpet.
Laughing. All of them. Laughing at her, hurling insults and venom at her. Mocking her as she sat in this prison, slowly wasting away just because she had accidentally killed some guy just once. Or twice.
"I didn't mean to," she muttered. "I didn't...It was an accident, I swear, I didn't mean to kill him. Why am I being tortured like this?"
The voices continued to laugh.
"I didn't do nothin' wrong!" she cried out into the empty cell. "I shouldn't be locked up here! I shouldn't starve to death!"
"Yes you should," said Buffy calmly. "You should starve like the mongrel dog that you are, Faith. You deserve this and worse. You're a killer, and you don't deserve to live."
"It ain't right!" Faith sobbed, knowing that tears would be pouring down her cheeks if she weren't already dehydrated. "It ain't...I swear to fuckin' God, I want to pay for what I did, but this ain't right!"
"You're making the world a better place," said Angel with that same despicable smile, "by not being in it."
"Shut up!"
Faith's face fell into her hands. Her fingers clawed at her dark locks, and she pleaded, over and over, for the voices to just... stop... fucking... talking!
"Oh, now why would you go and say something like that?" said another voice, a voice that was all too familiar to Faith. "All that foul language? It's unbecoming of a girl as pretty as you."
Faith forced herself to look up. Sure enough, there he stood over here, that well-tailored suit that always looked both professional and comfortable on him. Straight tie, straight cuffs, neat hair. And that smile. That warm, disarming smile...
"Boss..." Faith said helplessly. Out of all of the voices, all of the faces, that had visited in the last few days, this was the first time that Mayor Richard Wilkins had appeared before her. She instinctively flinched back, fearing his words, his insults, more than any of the others. He was
(like a father)
important to her. Important to her life. She didn't think she could bear to hear anything come from his mouth.
Wilkins seemed to recognize her fear, and his smile softened. "Faith," he said, hunkering down in front of her. "Faith, what happened?"
"Leave me alone," Faith said, curling up tighter. "You're... You're one of them."
"One of them? One of who?"
"The voices," Faith said quietly. "The voices, the faces, they... they... they keep coming."
"You're hearing voices?"
Faith nodded, and Wilkins chuckled. It was a gentle chuckle, the kind that held no edge, no accusations. That's what she always liked about him. He never looked down on her.
"Well, it's no wonder you're hearing voices," he said, looking around the cell. "With the food they're feeding you in this place? It's a wonder you're not seeing President Nixon doing the tango with Rosa Parks!"
"Buffy," Faith said. "Buffy, and Angel, and..."
"Oh, now why would think I'm bundled up with those miscreants?" asked Wilkins. "Faith, you know I respect you more than they ever did. I always will."
"You're not real," Faith said, although her fetal position was slowly relaxing. "You're... Boss, you're dead."
Wilkins nodded. "I had a feeling that might throw a monkey wrench into my argument. But I'm not a vision, Faith. I'm not a hallucination. I'm not... Well, I'm not solid anymore," he demonstrated by waving a hand through her knee, "but I definitely am who I am."
"Why?" asked Faith. "Why are you here?"
"Now, that's a very long story," said Wilkins, standing up again. "One that I will have to tell you later. Right now, we have more important things to do. We need to get you out of here. We need to get you a nice turkey sandwich and some cool, crisp vegetables. Always important for a balanced diet..."
"But..."
"We need to clean you up, as well,"
"But I can't..."
"So unsanitary here, Faith." He looked around the cell with a grimace of distaste. "I simply can't stand to see you here another day."
"Boss, I can't leave."
"Why not?"
"Because..." she sighed. "Because I killed a guy, boss. I killed your guy. Finch. I'm a murderer, and..."
"Oh, come now!" Wilkins said with a wave of his hand. "You're a murderer because why? Because Angel said so? Because Miss Summers said so?"
"Because the nice judge and jury said so..."
"Well, I'll tell you something, Faith. I've been in government a lot longer than that judge has, and I say that you don't deserve to be here. You don't belong here. You deserve to be outside, free, living your life."
"But..."
"Faith, things are happening out there. Things are changing faster than I ever anticipated they would. You are needed outside. I need you outside. And, quite frankly, there's not a man, woman, or Army alive that can hold you here anymore."
Faith's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, so much to explain." Wilkins sighed and walked do the cell door. "But I think it's better that you just find out for yourself. You've been punished for your so-called crime long enough, Faith. Time to break down the door and get out of here."
And he was right. Faith had paid for her crime. What had happened to her this last week was nothing short of torture. She knew that there were laws in this country, whether she felt she needed to obey them or not. And it was criminal to keep her here without food, without water, without even a guard opening the window in the door to check on her.
She had paid her dues. Something was happening outside, and she had paid her dues. She was needed somewhere else now.
But...
"I can't," said Faith, pushing herself to her feet. "I mean, I might have been able to a few days ago, but I'm... I'm tired, boss. I can't..."
"Can't is a four letter word," said Wilkins. "You're strong, Faith. You're the Slayer. I believe in you."
"I'm not the Slayer," Faith admitted, leaning against the wall and staring at the door. "And the magnetic lock-"
"What do you mean, you're not the Slayer?" Wilkins asked. "Faith, Buffy died, remember? It doesn't matter if she's still alive; she's out of the loop. You're still a part of the lineage, you are the one who replaced Kendra Young, and you are the one who will pass on the power after you're gone. You're the Slayer. Buffy Summers is just a usurper. And you're more powerful than she is on your worst day than she is on her best."
"But the lock-"
"What lock?"
"The lock on the door," Faith said. "It's... It's magnetized. Fuckin' powerful shit..."
"Faith..."
"Friggin' powerful stuff," Faith corrected quickly. Wilkins gave her a warning look, but didn't press the matter further. "If it was just the deadbolt I'd probably be able to do it, but..."
As if on cue, that was the moment that the lights went out in her cell. Her heart tightened, her breathing stopped. No windows. No lights. It was just... black.
"Well, that was convenient, wasn't it?" said Wilkins, with a trademark guffaw.
"I can't see nothin'..." Faith said. She was never very good with the dark, ever since she was little, and she resisted the urge to start stumbling around the room in a blind panic.
"Once you break down the door you'll be fine," said Wilkins, his voice coming from her right side. "There are emergency generators running lights in the main prison, but the magnetic locks are disabled."
"What happened?" asked Faith. "Boss, why did the power go out? I can't hear any thunderstorms or nothin' outside."
"No time now, Faith," said Wilkins. "Follow my voice. The generators only run the lights and the refrigeration. The designers figured a deadbolt alone could hold a regular prisoner until power is restored. But we both know you're not a regular prisoner. Now, follow my voice. I'm standing right in front of the door."
Faith slowly forced her feet to move forward in the darkness, her hands held out in front of her. Slayer senses allowed her to navigate the room easier than she had anticipated, but she still let out a grunt of surprise once when her shin bumped the cot.
"Warmer," Wilkins said. "Warmer..."
"How can you see me?"
"I'm a ghost, Faith. Light and dark don't bother me. You're almost there... and... Bingo!"
Faith's palms bumped against the solid metal door.
"Feel it okay?" Wilkins asked, and Faith had a momentary bout of disorientation when she realized that the voice was originating from somewhere between her ears. She realized that she must be standing right where he was standing, his incorporeal body merged with hers, and instinctively took a step back.
"Five by five," she said, leaning forward again to gauge her striking distance. "Hope this works."
"I have faith in you," said Wilkins, and she could hear a smile in his voice through the darkness.
Faith tensed. Prepped. Lifted her leg high, bent at the knee. Pistoned it outwards, striking the door hard. It didn't break, but she felt it give. A second strike achieved a similar result. The third strike, she felt it buckle.
The fourth and final strike was enough to break the prison door's lock, and the door slid to the side along the wall, opening an inch. Faith was now able to see floodlights glowing through the crack, so she was able to grab the edge of the door and push it the rest of the way open.
The first thing that struck Faith was the smell. Rotten, stale, like ground beef left out of the fridge for too long. She instinctively put her hand over her mouth and nose, then pulled her pale blue prison uniform over her mouth, hoping to mask the odor.
Why didn't I smell this earlier? she wondered as she looked left and right down the deserted hallway. It's fuckin' ripe.
"Because your cell smelled so bad by itself," said Wilkins from behind her. "Go to your right, there's a staircase up."
Faith nodded, and wandered down the cellblock, past unoccupied SHU after unoccupied SHU.
I guess I was the only naughty prisoner, she thought. No one else is locked up...
"They were," said Wilkins darkly. "But those bastards didn't trust you, Faith. They had let the others go back to their cells long before you. A lot of them because they had to go to the hospital wing."
"Hospital wing?" Faith asked, rounding a corner. "Why the hospital--?"
But her question was answered as she saw the first corpse. Sprawled across the first flight of stairs, the bloated, purple body was clad in a prison guard uniform. Faith couldn't tell if it had been male or female, as its scalp was completely devoid of hair. Its hands were around its throat, and its mouth was open in agony, as though it had spent its last waking moments choking to death.
Faith took a hesitant step forward, getting a look at the tag on the body's uniform. Wilkins stepped past her, ascending the stairs.
"Gathway," she read, her breath gone from her lungs. "I knew her. She was one of the guards who... Boss, what happened?"
Faith looked up at Wilkins, who stood on the first landing. Another corpse, just as swollen and bruised as Gathway's, leaned against the landing's railing, and Faith could see the hand of a third body hanging limply from the next flight up.
"More than you can imagine, Faith," he said sadly, looking up, his gaze distant. He looked as though he were seeing through the ceiling, through the prison, and to the world above. "More has happened than you can possibly imagine."
---------
Buffy Summers didn't know how long ago the electricity had gone out. She knew that the living room was dark. Was vaguely aware that the television had also gone dark, but was also unaware about how long it had been broadcasting a simple "Technical Difficulties" banner before it had shut off.
She wasn't aware of much of anything right now.
Giles was the first to die.
Joyce had fallen ill that morning, days ago. She had been preparing to go on her date when it happened. By that afternoon her fever had grown to well over one hundred degrees. Dawn, who seemed fine herself, had been sent home from school early. It seemed that Sunnydale Junior High was shut down due to low attendance.
"There were maybe only a hundred of us there," she had told Buffy as they stood in the kitchen, Dawn leaning against the counter next to the microwave, while Buffy sat at the breakfast bar. "Lots of the kids who were there were sick, too. Most of the teachers, too, and I guess they couldn't get enough subs. So here I am."
Joyce was the one who suggested that Buffy go check on Giles after he had called, sounding quite sick himself.
"He's all alone here," Joyce had said as she adjusted her pillows.
"I'm not leaving you," Buffy said, clutching her mother's hand. "Mom, after the surgery, you're weak..."
"I'll be fine," said Joyce. The rattling cough that erupted from her mouth moments later argued the point. "See to him, Buffy. If he's feeling, see if he wants to come over here. I know it's easier for me to get healthy when I'm with others."
"Besides, he's English," said Dawn from the other side of the bed. "He wouldn't know how to make chicken noodle soup."
"Are you sure?" Buffy asked Joyce. "I don't have to..."
"I'll be fine," she repeated, more firmly this time. "I have my little munchkin to take care of me."
"Mom..." Dawn said with a blush, but didn't press the matter any further. After everything that had gone on the last month, with Dawn discovering her origins, it was nice to know that she was starting to feel like a part of the family again.
So Buffy left the house.
Arrived at Giles's townhouse.
Found him dead on the couch. Purple and swollen and...
Buffy heard the phone through the darkness. The ringing seemed to come from miles away, and she numbly realized that she was sprawled on one of Giles's rugs, facing the ceiling. She had apparently fainted. Blacked out. Whatever.
She clawed her way up Giles's desk, where the phone insisted on ringing. The couch was facing away from her, hiding the horror of her Watcher's death from her eyes.
She picked up the receiver. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"Hello?" Buffy asked from the other end of the football field.
"They're not answering!" Dawn's frantic voice screamed from the other side of town. "They're not answering the phone it says the line's busy and Mom's dying and they're not answering the phone!"
Dawn's voice temporarily pulled Buffy back from oblivion. Giles was... Giles was gone. The streets were far too empty for the middle of the afternoon. Those who were on the street seemed to be coughing and hacking and spitting onto the sidewalk. They were sick.
Everyone was sick.
Giles was dead.
Mom...
"Mommy..."
Buffy blasted out of the townhouse, leaving the receiver hanging uselessly next to the desk.
The hospital, Buffy thought frantically as she sprinted down the streets and the avenues, hoping against hope that she could make it in time. The hospital, I can get her to the hospital, Ben's at the hospital, he can help, he can...
She entered the house, not even realizing until later that she had torn the door from the hinges as she opened it. She heard Dawn's screams from upstairs.
And knew she was too late.
---------
There would be no funeral for Joyce Summers and Rupert Giles. No coffin, no priest reading the Bible over them. There wouldn't even be a mortician to pick them up.
By the end of that first horrible day, Sunnydale, California, America, the world, had spun into total chaos.
Buffy stopped measuring time by hours, or minutes, or days. By the time she found herself sitting alone in the dark, staring at a dark television, she had begun to measure time by the deaths.
After Mom and Giles, the first news reports began to spring up on the local and national news broadcasts about an outbreak. The government was unaware of the cause of this virus, but assured the public that an antidote was in the works.
Anya called the house. Xander was in bed with a fever.
The Vice President held a press conference, and repeated the statement: An antidote was coming, and Americans should remain calm during these isolated incidents. He ignored any questions from the press about the whereabouts of the President himself, and excused himself from the podium after coming down with a coughing fit of his own.
Willow called. She and Tara were poring over their spellbooks, hoping to find some sort of supernatural origin to the disease, and possibly a mystical cure.
An anchorwoman for the CBS affiliate announced that the United States military had declared martial law in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas. Buffy changed the channel to the ABC affiliate, where they discussed reports of riots in Chicago, Detroit, and Miami, and a heavy military presence in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, and Austin.
Night had fallen. Buffy reluctantly re-invited a completely healthy Spike into the house. She said she did it because Dawn wanted him there, because she was still in total disbelief over her mother's death. Buffy eventually admitted that, despite the things that Spike had done just weeks ago in the name of love, she herself also needed someone there, even if it was... him.
The Surgeon General was reporting a twenty percent casualty rate. The CBS affiliate sent a reporter to Cedars-Sinai, where a doctor quickly announced a death rate of at least eighty percent before the feed was shut down in a tussle with military personnel.
Ten minutes later, CBS was off the air.
Anya called again. Xander was dead. Anya was coughing into the telephone.
Buffy and Dawn drove to Willow and Tara's dorm while Spike volunteered to patrol. On the radio, National Public Radio's correspondents were checking in. Israel was in chaos. London was in total anarchy. A religious sect in Antwerp had set off bombs at the Cathedral of our Lady and the Church of St James, killing hundreds. Moscow's correspondent was halfway through their report when they disappeared in a flurry of static. Buffy swore she heard the rip of an explosion in the background moments before the reporter had been cut off. She didn't mention it to Dawn, but was sure that her sister had heard it, too.
Willow was at her desk, reading one book among stacks, when the Summers girls arrived. A box of Kleenex and a bottle of orange juice were perched nearby. Tara, however, was now in pajamas and in bed, with a fever as high as Joyce's had been. Willow thought she had found a spell that might work, but it would require ingredients from The Magic Box.
"It's iffy, though," she explained after blowing her nose. "Even curing one person takes a huge amount of power. This is going to be a shot in the dark, but..."
The one glance that Willow threw back to Tara's bed was all that Buffy needed to know. The spell might work for a lot of people. But if it only worked for one, for her one, then Willow wanted to try. Her best friend was already gone, and she would do everything in her power to save her love. Buffy volunteered to go to the shop for the supplies, while Dawn stayed behind with the girls.
NPR was off the air when Buffy left the dorm. Spinning down the dial, she found the local sports talk station and the local conservative talk station both running on all cylinders, taking call after call from people who were reporting the same thing over and over:
Anarchy ruled.
The official word was horrifically wrong.
People were dying.
A lot.
Buffy had never felt so helpless in her life. When she arrived at the Magic Box she found herself facing three vampires. She did her best to beat the crap out of them before dusting them.
It made her feel a little better.
But not by much.
She pulled together the ingredients, returned to the car, and saw her first tank. The Army base outside of Sunnydale had finally decided to flex their muscles, after all, and rolled down Main Street. Most of the men in uniform looked like they were sick themselves. A megaphone blared to the population to remain calm, maintain order.
She decided it would be better to stay off the street with all of those guns showing themselves, so she ran back to UC Sunnydale as fast as she could. The streets were mostly empty, yet she found three teenagers coming out of Sunnydale Bank. Their faces were pale and sweating; their arms and pockets stuffed with money.
She did her best to beat the crap out of them, too.
It made her feel a little better.
But not by much.
Tara was dead when she arrived. Dawn was sitting in the corner, pale and silent. Willow was in hysterics, lying prone over her girlfriend's body, howling with grief, coughing and sneezing between sobs.
"We can fix it," Dawn mumbled quietly. "We can fix it, Buffy, can't we fix it, there has to be a spell, Buffy, we have to..."
"Come back!" Willow screamed into her lover's dead face. "Please, come back!"
Buffy and Dawn eventually were able to pry Willow from Tara's side, and convinced her to come back to their home with them.
They found a Mercedes Benz idling next to the dormitory. The driver was dead inside. Buffy quickly realized that taking a dead man's car wasn't the worst crime that could happen today.
Willow died on the way back to Revello Drive. After losing her best friend and the love of her life within hours, she had given up trying to hold on. She died alone in the back seat.
The radio was turned off, as most of the stations had given way to static, and Buffy and Dawn drove in silence.
They pulled into the driveway, and Buffy pulled the shovel from the garage.
As she opened the door and entered their house, she had heard Dawn sneeze.
And now Buffy sat in the darkness. Grief still stood outside, trying desperately to enter. But the shock was too great. Dawn was upstairs in her room.
Buffy closed her eyes.
Hybrids (2 of 2)