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“You two are so annoying. I can’t deal with this anymore – you two need some forced bonding time to talk out your shit,” Willow says. Buffy and Faith exchange a confused look. Then, Willow adds with a grave look on her face, “That was my favourite coffee mug, Buffy,” and with that seemingly being her final straw, pulls her hands together and starts muttering Latin.
“Wait, what the fuck is going on–” Faith starts.
“Uh, Wil? Best friend of multiple years and–” Buffy says at the same time.
The world spins round.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Faith says as they appear in a random street. Rain hammers down on them, so thick Buffy can barely see a thing. There's a haze of redbrick buildings around them, a seemingly endless street driving into a fog.
“Willow!” Buffy shouts to the sky. Unfortunately, the sky does not answer.
The two run over to a bus stop, seeking shelter from the rain. Buffy scans around through squinted eyes, there's not much to go on. Not even street signs which would reveal which country they were in. Any useful information that might have existed in the bus sheltered has all been peeled off, or graffitied over.
“So, what do we do?” Faith asks. “Wait until she magics us back to the right spot?”
“Nah.” Buffy grimaces. She knows Willow better than that. She's not willing to stick it out in some silent, cross-dimensional battle of wills; not while there's torrential rain thundering down on them, at least. Buffy is cold, and her clothes are clinging to her body; Willow's definitely won this round. “I think she’s gonna make us stick this one out.”
There's extra context that Buffy knows - and refuses to tell Faith. Drunken conversations which repeat in different forms, with different levels of inebriation, every other week between Buffy and Willow. Conversations which normally end with Willow's head in her hands, and Buffy avoiding Willow's looks for the twenty-four hours following.
“You have terrible choice in friends, you know that right?”
Buffy turns to Faith. “How else would we be so close?”
“Good point.” Faith nods sincerely.
“So, go to a mall or day drink?”
“It’s five o’clock.”
“Yeah, somewhere,” Buffy says.
“No.” Faith points to a clock. “It’s actually five o’clock.”
Buffy squints through the rain at the clock tower, then frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t even lunchtime five minutes ago.”
“So, it makes sense that Willow could get mad and magic us to another town – universe? dimension? – but not that she could magic us forward in time?”
“Fair point,” Buffy acknowledges. “That would explain the weird jet-laggy feeling I’ve gotten now.”
“Do you thinks she magicked us to New Zealand or something?”
Buffy raises her eyebrows. “New Zealand?”
“I dunno. That’s far away, right?”
“Well, yeah, but I doubt Willow just decided we should go on holiday to New Zealand,” Buffy says. “Plus, if she could do that, then I have serious issues with the fact she made me take the plane to San Francisco last summer. I’d have quite happily avoided that flight, thank you very much.”
“Yeah, but imagine if your dad knew you could just be magicked over to the west coast at any time. He’d make you do family bonding with Paige and the stepsisters.”
Buffy pulls a face. “Gross. I miss the times when he basically didn’t exist,” Buffy says. It’s not entirely true. She appreciates – in theory – having her father back in her life. It’s just weird. And she just can’t understand why, after everything, he decides that now is the time when he wants to be her father. Now, when Buffy and Dawn don’t need him.
He abandoned them for half of their teenage years. Didn’t even send a phone call when Joyce died – certainly didn’t turn up to her funeral. Nor Buffy’s for that matter.
Then all of a sudden he pops up a year ago with a fiancée and acts like there’s no distance between them.
It’s all just weird.
Somehow, Buffy can manage being thrown into an alternate dimension (or whatever this is) better than she can receiving an email from Hank Summers.
“Let’s split up. Try and figure out our bearings and meet back at seven.” Buffy decides.
“Sure. Seems safe enough.” Faith flashes Buffy a grin and flicks up finger guns. “Don’t die.”
Buffy suppresses a grin. “Ditto.”
*
“You find anything?”
“Supermarket. Closed-down cinema. Clothes store. Dive bar – typical town stuff. Nothing useful.” Buffy shrugs. “You?”
“Cemetery, church, creepy old mansion that some vampire-type probably lives in. Same old.”
“No secret portal back home?”
Faith rolls her eyes. “No. What do we do now then? Patrol? You think Willow will let us back if we do some good Samaritan-slaying type shit?”
“I was thinking recon.”
“Recon?”
“Yeah, you know the part of the job you’re supposed to do before you just jump down drain holes and find yourself in a nest.”
Faith leans forward and waggles her eyebrows. “But the jumping part is so fun.”
Buffy rolls her eyes fondly. “I say we go into the dive bar and hope we find some Willy the Snitch equivalent we can get information out of.”
“You had me at dive bar.”
Buffy takes that as acceptance, and leads the way towards the dimmed noise of chatter and raised voices. Buffy steps through the door, grimacing a little at the smell, then stops dead as her eyes land on someone.
“Oh my god.”
“What?” Faith says from behind her. Buffy turns around and pushes Faith out back onto the street. “What is going on with you?”
“It’s you.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Faith retorts defensively.
“No, I mean, it’s you.”
“Still not catching your drift, B.”
“In there.”
“I would be in there, if you hadn’t pushed me out.”
“No – oh my god, Faith, you can be so slow sometimes – it’s you!”
“You’re the one not making any sense.” Faith throws her hands up in the air.
“You’re in there.”
“No, I’m not.”
Buffy groans. “Another version of you is sitting in the bar.”
Faith frowns. “What?”
“Another version–”
“No, I understand what you said,” Faith interrupts. “I’m saying: what?”
“Check it out yourself,” Buffy says, gesturing towards the door. “But be subtle, it might wig you - other you – out if she sees you – you you.”
“You’ve really got to work on your explanations,” Faith mutters, opening the door and walking through it. Buffy follows after her, almost faceplanting into her back.
“I said be subtle!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Faith says, forcing herself to move forwards towards an empty table in the corner. “It’s just, that’s me!” she says. “Like, actually me.”
“I told you!”
“That’s so weird,” Faith says, then immediately adds, “I need a drink.” Within seconds Faith manages to flag down a bartender and order two beers – then asks if Buffy wants anything – and drinks half a beer at a pace that honestly Buffy is too impressed with to be concerned about.
“Are you okay?” Buffy asks.
“Yeah, it’s just weird,” Faith says, peering over her pint glass in the direction of other-Faith. Faith ducks back behind the wall out of other-Faith’s vision, and shakes her head in disbelief. “Same gestures and everything.”
“Yeah,” Buffy says, letting her eyes stick on other-Faith for a moment. She looks almost exactly the same. Her hair’s done up slightly differently, more reminiscent of Faith in LA, when her hair was curlier, but other than that she looks the exact same, down to the scrutinising look in her eyes as she weighs up her options.
“You should go talk to her,” Faith says, and Buffy jerks back round to look at her.
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“I don’t know, she’ll have information.”
“You just want me to meet her so I can tell you if you’re the same,” Buffy says, leaning back in her seat and letting her eyes drift back in the direction of other-Faith.
“You’re telling me you’re not curious? ‘Cause I see the way you can’t keep your eyes off her.”
Buffy blushes, caught. “It’s just weird. You’re here, but you’re there, but you’re here–”
“I know. It’s weird,” Faith interrupts pointedly. “Trust me, I know.”
“Why do you think she’ll have information?” Buffy takes a sip of her own drink, turning back to Faith.
“I just know,” Faith says, taking the opportunity to peer round the corner and eye up the other version of her.
“But how?”
Faith frowns, turning back to Buffy. “It’s me,” Faith says, and Buffy’s not sure if she heard Faith say ‘duh’ audibly or if it was in her head.
“Yeah, but only sorta,” Buffy replies.
“Trust me, she’ll know something,” Faith says. “I have a habit of stumbling upon the wackos.”
Buffy shrugs. “Okay. It’s not like we have anything else to go on anyway.” Buffy stands up, brushing down her jeans. She pulls of her coat and adjusts her top carefully. “Do I look okay?”
“What?” Faith says, eyes slowly rising to meet Buffy’s.
“I want to make a good impression,” Buffy says, letting her hair down loose and shaking it out a bit.
Faith pauses, then slowly says, “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Buffy frowns, unconvinced by Faith’s answer. “I’ve got to be interesting to get ‘your’ attention.”
“You’ll be fine, just go,” Faith says, nudging Buffy towards other-Faith.
*
“Did she say anything interesting?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Buffy says, sitting back down across from Faith. “Mainly, you were just kinda flirting with me?”
Faith takes a swig of beer and ducks her head. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Uh, why would she do that?”
“Well,” Faith says, steeling herself up for something, “I guess you’re kinda her type, so…”
“Her type?”
Faith shrugs stiffly. “Yeah.”
“You know she is you, right?”
“Barely.” Faith brushes her off.
“So, just to clarify,” Buffy starts, “you’re saying that I’m her type, not yours.”
“I mean, I didn’t say that. But yeah, sure – if that’s what you got from what I said.”
Buffy frowns. “Uh, translate whatever you just said for me, please.”
“Look, it’s not a big deal, right. Just because you’re my type doesn’t mean I’m gonna go all lesbo for you. Just because she has a thing for you doesn’t mean I do.”
Buffy pauses. “Did you use to have a thing for me?”
Faith shifts uncomfortably. “It’s just attraction. Way I figure, it doesn’t mean anything. All surface level and that.”
“Right?”
“You’re just very blonde, okay?” Faith mutters.
Buffy frowns. “Okay?”
Faith finishes her pint, and quickly moves to the next one.
“Did she say anything useful, other than how – I don’t know – green your eyes are or whatever?”
“You know my eyes are green?” Buffy teases.
Faith wads up a slightly soggy napkin and tosses at her. Buffy laughs as she dodges it.
“Barely green,” Faith says as though that’s a weighted insult that will deeply offend Buffy. “They’re brown some of the time.”
“You’re not helping your case, you know?”
“I know,” Faith says miserably.
“She did also mention my eyes,” Buffy continues.
Faith grabs the other napkin, and throws that at Buffy too. She settles back into her chair, rolling her jaw anxiously. “You know it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know,” Buffy acquiesces, leaning back in her chair. “She mentioned some weird magic-y guy works out of a shop a few streets down. It’ll be open in the morning.”
“And until morning?”
“There’s a motel down the road,” Buffy says, carefully avoiding Faith’s gaze.
“She said that, huh?”
“Yeah, she mentioned it,” Buffy says, blushing.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Faith laments.
“We should go before she spots you,” Buffy suggests.
“Or comes here for a follow up on here proposition to fuck,” Faith replies, swirling the beer around in her glass dismissively, before pushing it over in Buffy’s direction and standing up. Buffy takes the glass and takes a few sips, eager to have a better excuse to be flushed.
“Yeah, I think I accidentally made her think it was an option, so we should definitely go,” Buffy agrees, standing up and pulling on her coat.
Faith’s half way to the door before she registers Buffy’s words, turning abruptly with bulged eyes to loudly say, “You what?!”
Buffy pushes her out the door, “So much for subtlety. Half the bar looked at us.”
“Did she see me?”
Buffy swallows awkwardly. “She wasn’t really looking at you,” Buffy admits.
“Typical,” Faith snarks.
Buffy frowns. “Are you jealous?”
“Did you accept her proposition to fuck?” Faith asks in lieu of answering Buffy’s question. Buffy thinks that probably means something. Unfortunately, Faith’s question has stopped her from having any ability to feel like she has the high ground here.
“Only sorta.”
“What does ‘sorta’ mean?”
“Well, she asked if we should get a motel room later, and I said, well, I’m definitely getting one and then she did that smirky thing – yep, that one – and I sorta forgot to correct the situation.”
“You got flustered?”
“Maybe,” Buffy says.
“Because she smirked at you?”
“Because she was trying to fuck me!” Buffy retorts.
“And you didn’t say no.”
“Well, I didn’t say ‘yes’ either,” Buffy says.
Faith snorts. “Sort of sounds like you wanted to.”
“You are jealous!” Buffy exclaims, feeling like this is her best opportunity to return to the question she really wants answered.
“Nah-uh,” Faith says.
“You’re jealous of yourself.” Buffy laughs. “That’s so pathetic.”
“Shut up.”
“You forgot to deny it,” Buffy points out gleefully.
“You’re the worst. This is why I don’t patrol with you anymore.”
“Are you sure it’s because you can’t handle being in my presence too long because of your overwhelming feelings for me?” Buffy teases.
Faith turns to her, a glint in her eyes that makes Buffy feel uneasy. “You want to talk about acting flustered in the other person’s presence?”
“Uh,” Buffy quickly backpedals, vaguely recalling a certain incident with spilt coffee when Faith started stretching earlier that day which may or may not have gotten them into this situation, “no, not really,”
Faith smirks. “Thought so.”
“In my defence, I didn’t think you’d seen that,” Buffy says.
“You shrieked loud enough to burst the kids’ ear drums.”
“It was hot!”
Faith rolls her eyes. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Likewise.” Buffy crosses her arms. “Are we going to talk about why you were jealous?”
“Are we going to talk about why I make you flustered?”
Buffy pauses. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Yeah, thought so.” Faith snorts.
“Let’s just go to the motel.”
“Good idea.” Faith starts walking off down the street.
“Faith?” Buffy calls after her, trying to hide a smile. “It’s this way,” Buffy says, pointing in the other direction.
Faith opens her mouth to say something, then, thinking better of it, shakes her head and walks back towards Buffy.
“Other-me gave you good directions, huh?” Faith says.
“There’s a sign for the motel there,” Buffy replies, pointing towards a well-illuminated sign.
“Oh.”
“So,” Buffy starts as they walk towards the motel, “tomorrow, how about we blame all of this on being very sleep deprived and discombobulated, and pretend nothing happened.”
“Oh, so the usual order?” Faith asks. “Perfect.”
“The usual order?” Buffy replies.
Faith raises an eyebrow. “Pretending nothing happened…” Faith says pointedly – unfortunately, Buffy has no idea what the point is. She pulls a confused expression. Faith’s brow furrows. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You kissed me.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
“That was just for patrol.”
Faith raises her eyebrows. “Just for patrol?”
“Well, yeah,” Buffy says defensively. “I thought we were going to blow our cover scouting out that scary demon cult and–”
“Even though there was no one around.”
“I heard someone!”
“So you say.”
“I did!” Buffy protests. “It didn’t mean anything. I’d kiss anyone for patrol.”
“Rona?”
“Sure.”
“Ellie?”
“Why not.”
“Kennedy?”
Buffy pulls a face. “Maybe not.”
“Well, I’m glad to know you have some standards,” Faith says, pulling open the motel door and striding up to the man at the front desk to ask for a room. He looks over Faith’s shoulder and locks eyes with Buffy knowingly. Faith hands him over a few notes, then walks back to Buffy, a bemused expression on her face as she brandishes one key.
“I asked him about two rooms and he laughed at me and only gave me one key.”
Buffy bites her lip to stop herself from laughing at the confused look on Faith’s face. “C’mon,” she mutters, pulling Faith in the direction of the corridor usefully labelled ‘rooms’. “He knows the other you, obviously.”
“Oh.” Faith groans. “So, he thinks we’re here to fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Great.” Faith pauses, twiddling the keys in her hands nervously as they walk down the corridor to the door. She jams the key into the lock, twisting it open, and pulling down the handle, then hesitating. “You know if he thinks we’re here to fuck there will only be–”
“Yeah, Sherlock. I’d figured that one out,” Buffy says, pushing past Faith and into the room. “One bed.” Buffy rolls her eyes. “It’s not as if we haven’t had this situation before. I’m taking the left,” Buffy says, “and I call dibs on first shower.”
“Okay,” Faith says, only sounding vaguely defeated as she throws her jacket onto the chair and starts pulling off her shoes. “So, we won’t talk in the morning?” she double-checks.
Buffy peers round the bathroom door, a small smile on her face. “As per usual,” she agrees. “We can’t let Willow win, after all.”
“No,” Faith agrees. “That would be terrible.”
“Yep, no condoning of her actions.”
*
“I’m sorry girls. I can’t help y’all,” the shopkeeper says, brushing down the counters with disinterest. Buffy think they got off on the wrong foot when he rolled up to open the store to find two slayers boredly waiting outside for him. He didn’t seem like the type to actually want customers.
“There’s no magic in this store?” Buffy asks, looking around. It doesn’t look too dissimilar to the old Magic Box store that Giles used to own in Mystic Falls. Hidden on the shelves, behind the obnoxiously labelled tourist bait, are weird items like the ones strewn over Willow’s room.
“Sure is, but none that can help with dimension hopping – I mean, seriously girls. Dimension hopping?” he scoffs. “You think I have the economics for that sorta product? Hell no.”
“Alright. Got it. What about cross-dimension communicators?” Faith asks, then turns to Buffy and adds, “Figure that way we can at least yell some sense into Willow.” Buffy shrugs; it’s as good a plan as any.
“Uh,” the shopkeeper chews his lip. His eyes light up, and he starts scrambling around his desk, reaching for a big book. He pulls it out and flips through the pages, running his finger down the page before landing on something. “Oh! Yes! I might have something,” he says. “Come, come, follow me.”
Buffy and Faith exchange a look, then follow after him.
He walks them through a maze of shelves, down a few steps into the back of the shop. Then, he lifts up an old red telephone set. “This should do the trick.”
“It’s a phone.” Faith raises an eyebrow.
He frowns. “It’s enchanted. Some old warlock I believe, wanted to cheat on his wife but didn’t want her finding out. Best way to do that was some interdimensional hopping I believe, but then he had to figure out how to do phone sex so–”
“Too much information! Seriously, too much,” Buffy says. “How much does it cost?”
He eyes them up. “It’s one of a kind, really. I’ll have to say $500.”
Faith snorts. “Yeah, fuck off. I’ll give you a fiver.”
He reels back, affronted. “Five dollars! For an interdimensional phone system – which, by the way, does double up as a normal phone. It’s worth hundreds. Really, five hundred was an extremely generous offer.”
“Look, how ‘bout we just do it as a rental. I’ll give you five dollars if you let us play with it for an hour–”
“No, no. We don’t do rentals.”
“Ten. Or nothing.”
“Nothing, then,” he says, crossing his arms.
“Look, dude, you don’t really seem like you have the real estate to be turning down an easy ten dollars. Ain’t like you’re getting a lot of foot traffic now, are you?” Faith says.
“It picks up after noon,” he replies defensively.
“Look, we ain’t got nothing to spare. We were tossed in here with no preparation by her”–Faith takes the opportunity to aggressively jab at Buffy’s arm–“poor choice in friends. I’ve only got,” Faith starts filtering through her pockets. She pulls out a fiver, then another fiver. Then she starts demonstratively rummaging through her pockets, and pulls out a few coins. She shrugs, “It might add up to eleven dollars. I dunno. You can count it up if you want.” She extends her hand.
The shopkeeper grimaces, then takes the money from her hand. “Whatever, have at it. But if you break it then I’m calling the cops on you and suing your asses.”
Faith rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Give us some privacy now will you,” she says, waving him away. He scurries off, counting the coins in his hand. “What?” Faith asks defensively when Buffy raises an eyebrow.
“I know you’ve got another couple of twenties in your back pocket.”
“So?” Faith raises an eyebrow. “We might need that. It’s bartering, B. Gotta do it.”
Buffy shrugs. “Yeah, okay.” She turns to the phone and dials up Willow’s number.
“This better work,” Faith mutters. “I’m not too keen on sleeping in the motel again.”
“Neither.”
“Neither? You’re the one who stole all the covers. You had a royal time of it.”
“I did not steal all the covers,” Buffy says affronted.
“So did.”
“So didn’t.”
“Seriously?” A tinny – and exasperated – voice answers the phone.
“Shit, it actually worked. Cool.”
“Hey, Willow,” Buffy greets.
“Were you two just arguing?”
Buffy and Faith exchange a look, then quickly answer at the same time:
“No.”
“Definitely not.”
“Uh-huh,” Willow says sceptically. “So, why are you calling?” she asks with a casualness which Buffy thinks inappropriate for their current circumstances.
“You sent us to an alternate dimension!”
“You broke my favourite mug!”
“It was an accident!”
“Was it?”
“Yes!” Buffy exclaims.
“Fine, it was an accident, but there was also an obvious and avoidable causality to it that I do not want to repeat.”
“What the fuck?” Faith mumbles.
“Yeah, seconded. What?”
“Look, this is for the best and I’m sure deep down you both know it.”
“Nope.”
“No clue what you’re on about,” Buffy says. “Just tell us how to get back home. We’re running out of money. This could be dangerous, Wil!”
Willow scoffs. “It’s not dangerous in the slightest. There’s a very easy way out.”
“What is it?”
“Yeah, at least give us a hint as to where the exit is?”
“The key to getting out is talking. Once you two have an honest conversation you’ll automatically return here.”
“I find you very annoying and am fully considering breaking all your other mugs as revenge for this when I get home,” Faith says. “How’s that for honesty?”
“Talk to each other! Don’t call again – I won’t answer.” Willow hangs up.
Buffy looks over at Faith, then quickly looks away, running a hand through her hair.
“She’s lost the plot,” Faith complains.
Buffy makes her way towards the exit of the shop, Faith quickly on her heel.
“Hey, slow down,” Faith calls after her. “Buffy!” Buffy forces herself to stop, taking in a deep breath and turning around to look at Faith. “Where are you going? You got a plan?”
“A plan? No. There’s no plan. You know Willow’s too good to leave a loophole.”
“So, what?” Faith asks. “What do we do?”
Buffy waves a hand around dismissively. “You heard her.”
“Talk?” Faith frowns. “You actually want to talk?”
“No. Of course not. But I also don’t want to be stuck here forever.”
Faith nods slowly, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She looks away from Buffy, eyes casting far down the street as though she’s still expecting a huge door labelled ‘EXIT’ to just pop up. It doesn’t.
Faith turns back to Buffy. “What’s there even to say? None of it matters,” she says. “I mean, we can joke about it all we want, but…”
“Yeah, I know,” Buffy replies. Skirting around the topic in whichever way possible is something they’ve gotten good at – too good at. It’s easy to hide mutual connection behind jokes and teasing. It’s harder to admit the truth – that no amount of mutual connection changes their past. And no matter how much Buffy’s tried, she can’t forget what happened.
The thing is, Buffy wants to forgive Faith. She’s tried to so many times. She just can’t.
She doesn’t understand why. She forgave Angel. She forgave Spike. Her mom, Giles – everyone. She’s a forgiver. But Faith?
It won’t stick.
It comes and goes. There are times when they share a good patrol, or Faith makes a funny joke and Buffy laughs, or they do something which is so in sync – some byproduct of the time when it was the Chosen Two and not the Chosen Two Thousand, or whatever the roll call number is at now – but then Buffy remembers. And she doesn’t forgive.
Faith doesn’t expect her to, and that confuses Buffy just as much.
It’s been years, Buffy should’ve moved on by now. Faith’s stuck around through Buffy’s many falling outs and subsequent make-ups with so many people, yet she doesn’t ever expect to receive the same forgiveness that Buffy offers others so freely, and Buffy can’t understand why Faith doesn’t expect more from her.
Part of her wishes Faith did expect more. She thinks it would be easier if Faith felt entitled to Buffy’s forgiveness. Then Buffy could yell about that, and Faith would yell back, and maybe they’d fight – and then maybe they could forgive.
That’s part of the issue. Both of them are too scared to fight each other anymore. They can tease, and mock, and make comments that border on showing true anger and irritation for the other, but they never actually fight. They let everything fizzle out between them, and paste smiles onto their faces and laugh about the next thing.
They never fight and they never talk. It’s the opposite of how they used to be.
Back before, in Sunnydale, fighting and talking is all they did. Mostly at the same time.
Faith was always quick to call Buffy out on her bullshit, and Buffy was quick to put Faith in her place, and it worked when it was like that. They worked when they were honest (and yes, Buffy understands that that’s why Willow’s done this) and they don’t work when they’re trying to protect themselves from hurt feelings – and protect each other from moments when they lose control.
Buffy’s lost control around Faith only once properly in the last three years. Since that final fight, a few years after Sunnydale got destroyed, when Buffy had thought Faith was betraying her and the two fought properly, no punches held and no words held either, they’ve been careful – perhaps too careful – to not hurt each other. Buffy thinks that somehow they’ve hurt each other more by not talking. She has to take some – if not most – of the responsibility for that.
She’s the one who kissed Faith after all.
It was a loss of control, simple as that. And yeah, Buffy can pretend it was just for patrol. She had heard something, and she did know they were near a nest, but that’s not why she kissed Faith.
She kissed Faith because it was like the old days. The days before Faith killed Finch, before Faith betrayed them. Way back at the start when Buffy had wanted Faith to be something to her – not that she’d even begun to put a label on it – and Faith had sought after Buffy with an open eagerness. When Faith would wrap an arm around Buffy’s shoulder and neither of them would tense.
Buffy thinks back to that Christmas all the time. She thinks about the way Faith had smiled when Buffy had opened the door to her. She thinks about how that could’ve been the start of a real friendship – one which existed out of slaying – if everything hadn’t gone down the way it did with Angel.
Faith had made a joke, and Buffy had nearly keeled over laughing, and when she’d finally controlled herself enough to make eye contact with Faith again, she’d found that same shyly surprised smile on Faith’s face that she’d been wearing on that Christmas Eve.
And Buffy had kissed her before she even knew that she wanted to kiss Faith.
Then, she’d spouted some excuse which neither of them would buy.
Then, they never talked about it again.
But Buffy thought about it all the time. Everything between them was recontextualised behind that lens, and instead of it making everything seem more strange, and more confusing, it let everything come into focus. Everything made more sense.
And as much as Buffy liked it – kissing Faith – and as much as she wanted to do it again – and more – it just made it even harder.
Buffy had spent years learning to trust Faith again, and everything that had been building between them crumbled with that kiss. Because, yes, Buffy trusted Faith. As a partner, as a friend, as an ally – but as a lover? Buffy wasn’t so sure.
She’d been burnt too many times.
She’d always figured that if she fell in love again, it would be with someone simple. It wouldn’t be filled with the pain and heartbreak and rollercoaster that both Angel and Spike had been. It would just be.
She’d fall in love without noticing it, with someone who would never hurt her, and they’d live out their lives.
And yeah, half of that was true. Buffy had fallen in love without noticing it. But Faith had hurt her in the past, and people never truly lose that capacity to cause pain.
Faith just wasn’t a future Buffy had ever expected to want.
“Let’s just go back to the motel,” Buffy eventually says, far too aware of the way Faith’s looking at her – waiting for her to say something. Faith’s waiting for Buffy to finally be honest with her and drop the charade, and deflates when Buffy doesn’t.
“Yeah, okay. Whatever,” Faith says, already turning away from Buffy.
*
“Are you mad at me?” Buffy asks as they walk through the door to their motel room. Faith didn’t talk the entire way home – which, whilst a short distance, is still admittedly a long time for Faith to go without talking.
“No,” Faith says, not looking at her.
“Faith.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Well you’re acting like–”
“Fine!” Faith exclaims. “I’m a bit – I’m not mad. It’s just, you’re the one who said we had to talk about this because there’s no other way out, right? And then you started thinking and you thought yourself out of a conversation – like you always do – so what now? Are we just trapped here until you get out of your own head?” Faith asks heatedly.
“No. I – I don’t know. Do you… do you want to talk?”
“You’re the one who said we might as well just cut to the chase. Willow’s not gonna have left us any loopholes so we might as well be honest about all of this and get it over with: I love you and you don’t want that, and that’s fine. I said it out loud – I’ve been honest. So now we can go.” Faith looks to the sky. “We can go, right?” she says bitterly. “Willow, seriously! Let us go!”
“It doesn’t work unless we’re both honest,” Buffy says quietly, sitting on her side of the bed, and crossing her legs under her.
Faith crosses her arms. “Fine, then just say it. Say you don’t want it so we can get out of here already.”
Buffy shakes her head.
“Buffy, it’s fine. I’m a big girl, I can take it.”
Buffy rubs at her face, and exhales. “I love you too.”
Faith blinks in surprise, her brow furrowing. “What?”
“I love you too.” Buffy forces herself to meet Faith’s eye. “That’s why we’re here. Not because you’re not being honest, but because I’m not. And Willow knows that because I told her and now she’s manipulating the situation because she thinks we’re being idiots but she doesn’t understand.”
Faith sits down on the bed, still slightly shaking her head in disbelief. Buffy doesn’t think she’s even aware she’s doing it. “She doesn’t understand what?” Faith eventually asks.
“That love isn’t always enough,” Buffy says, as gently as she can manage.
Faith tenses, her body stilling entirely. Then she nods. “Yeah. Got it,” Faith says, standing back up and turning away from Buffy. She looks up at the ceiling as though Willow’s face will manifest on it. “Okay, we’re done now. Let’s go.”
Nothing happens.
Faith turns back to Buffy, now looking slightly irritated. “So, what? Is there more? ‘Cause you need to just spit it out already so we can go back, okay?” Faith paces around restlessly. Buffy’s sure that the main reason Faith wants to go back to their dimension is so that she can run off and put some space between them.
“Faith, it’s complicated. I don’t know – I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know what I want. Or, I know what I want but I don’t want to want what I want because it’s too…”
Faith frowns. “You know what you want but you don’t want to want what you want? Was that what you said? That’s a lot of words, B. I dunno if I’m keeping up–”
“I don’t trust you.”
Faith straightens. “Yeah, I know. I get it. It’s fine.”
“I mean, I don’t trust you like that.”
“Like what, Buffy?”
Buffy recoils a little at the full name call out. “I guess, what Willow’s trying to force me to say – which, really, Wil, slight violation of my trust, thanks – is that… I don’t trust you to not break my heart.” Buffy looks away from Faith. “And I don’t want that with you. I mean… I’d want to be with you if I knew it would work out, and part of me sees a version of this where it does work out. But part of me sees all the ways it wouldn’t, and I don’t think I’d survive that, so I’m not sure if it’s worth it.”
“Wait.” Faith raises her hands. “So, you’re saying you’re afraid of commitment?”
“To you. I’m afraid of… Look, you know what happened in the past. That could all happen again. We’re combustible, Faith – we go boom and explode and take out who knows what in the collateral. When we lose control it’s pretty damn catastrophic – which, as someone who’s lived through like a dozen world-ending catastrophes at this point, is saying something – and if we were together there’s no way we wouldn’t lose control at some point, because couples fight. It’s just what they do. And I don’t know how to stop that.”
“The best way to minimise the damage is to just… not open the door in the first place.”
“Huh,” Faith says.
“Huh?” Buffy asks, nervously rubbing her hands against her jeans. Of all the responses she’d imagined, ‘huh’ was not one of them.
“No, it’s just… I thought you didn’t, you know, feel that way. I’m used to you not loving me back, it’s fine,” Faith says nonchalantly, “I’ve worked out how to manage that, and not let it hurt me and affect our relationship. Like, you didn’t feel the same, so it wasn’t worth dwelling on, but – this? I don’t know how to just step back from this, B.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… you just opened the door. I ain’t closing it – and I’m not letting you close it without, I dunno how this metaphor goes on… experiencing it? If the issue is you being scared of committing to me, and not you just not being in love with me, well… I’m saying, I can work with that.”
“You can work with that?”
“I’m pretty patient.”
“So…?”
“You’re scared of committing to me now, that’s fine. I can wait. I’ll prove that you can trust me, and you can trust us to not implode – that even if things go wrong, we can manage it. I’ll wait. That’s what I’m saying.”
“I’m not asking you to wait,” Buffy says.
Faith shrugs. “Loving you isn’t exactly easy to shake. I’ll be waiting either way, if you’re never ready, that’s fine. If you are, then… let me know. Or,” Faith says, “if you prefer we can pretend I’m that other version of me and start over, and I’ll just flirt at you obnoxiously and you can ‘accidentally’ accept my offer to fuck.” Faith grins.
“I don’t want to start over,” Buffy says.
“You sure?” Faith says, and yeah, she’s obviously joking, but there’s something nervous in her eyes. “Beginnings are fun.”
“It wouldn’t be you. I don’t want some cheap knock off version of you, okay?”
“You want the version you can’t trust? That’s a bit masochistic,” Faith says, and laughs slightly when Buffy’s face betrays her obvious surprise. “Yeah, I know. Big word for a high school dropout. Don’t worry, I ain’t getting smart on you. Willow kept calling me it and – once I figured out how to spell it, which took longer than I’d like to admit – I looked it up in the dictionary. She ain’t entirely wrong – with either definition.” Faith winks with false bravado.
“You telling me you’ll wait for me... That’s you being a masochist.”
“Maybe." Faith pauses. "Or maybe you’re just worth waiting for.”
“You’re insane.”
“Clinically.” Faith nods, her mouth twisting into a wry smile that Buffy can’t help but reciprocate.
“So, what, you’re fine waiting until I’m ready? – if I’m ever ready,” Buffy adds seriously.
“Do you love me? Like, really love me?”
Buffy frowns. Sometimes loving Faith is the most obvious thing in the universe to her. She forgets that everyone doesn’t know that. (Admittedly, most people seem to know. Case and point: Willow).
“Yes. I love you.”
“Then, yeah- yes.” Faith nods, offering Buffy an almost shy smile. Buffy bites her lip to stop herself from grinning like a schoolgirl with a crush. “I’ll wait.”
In the next second, the world turns upside down again, spinning them all around. They appear in the kitchen, in the exact same spots as they were in before, just one day (and one conversation) later.
Willow and Kennedy are basically in each other’s laps whilst Xander’s cooking up something in the frying pan. Xander yelps loudly when Faith and Buffy appear, whilst Willow just smiles at them both, a silent challenge in her eyes.
Faith and Buffy lock eyes with each other, Faith tilting her head in the direction of the cupboard. Buffy nods obligingly.
Faith walks over to the cupboard, making eye contact with Willow the entire time. Willow’s smile slowly starts to fade as Faith pulls open the cupboard, and picks up a ‘KEEP CALM & DRINK TEA’ mug that Willow had brought at Heathrow when they first arrived in England. Keeping her eyes locked with Willow, Faith drops the mug onto the floor.
Willow opens her mouth to say something, but Faith quickly raises her hand and cuts over her with a quick “No”.
Willow looks over at Buffy, a silent question in her eyes. Buffy just shrugs, unable to contain her amusement.
“Now we’re even,” Faith says, walking out. “No more dimensions, okay!” she yells from the hallway.
“As long as you stop being an idiot!” Willow shouts after her.
“I’ve missed something haven’t I?” Xander mutters to Kennedy as he starts putting bacon on plates. Buffy quickly grabs a plate from the cupboard and holds it out to him. He gives her a piece, then, on further insistence from Buffy, gives her three more.
“So?” Willow asks Buffy.
Buffy chews on a piece of bacon. “If you ever do something like that again–”
“You two needed to talk.”
“It was up to us to make that decision–”
“It’s been months since you kissed her,” Willow interrupts. Xander makes a surprised noise, at which point Buffy remembers that she definitely forgot to tell him about the recent developments regarding her and Faith. “You weren’t ever going to talk, admit it.”
“Fine. But still – not cool,” Buffy says, munching down on her second piece of bacon.
“I won’t do it again.”
“Good.”
Willow pauses, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “So?” she repeats.
“Oh.” Buffy realises. “No,” she says, shaking her head.
“No?” Willow asks, disappointed.
Buffy pauses, contemplating. Then, unable to stop a small smile tugging at her lips, she amends her words: “Not yet.”