Who I am...

Wow, yet another update. ^.^ Don’t you just love me? Just kiddin.


Buffy looked at Faith, attempting to hide the pain lurking behind her own eyes. Giles’ words echoed back and forth within her head, and the blonde decided to chase after Faith. The brunette had come back after school, as promised. Buffy had half thought that Faith would skip town, and after their sparring session, had silently stalked off to return home. Buffy was now hurrying after her through the parking-lot of a Motel. Those words still haunted her, and she pushed aside her feelings of jealousy, and lack of desire to share her life. He… he shouldn’t be any more difficult to kill than the Master was, Buffy. With the both of you, it should be somewhat easier, though we should certainly come up with a battle plan. Perhaps tomorrow morning we could all meet to discuss it… Those words almost hurt. …shouldn’t be any more difficult to kill than the Master… Damnit, the Master was why Faith was a Slayer in the first place! Buffy had died!

Faith didn’t really know why the blonde Slayer was following her, and she didn’t really like it. What, Buffy didn’t trust that she wouldn’t leave? Damnit, she’d be gone by now if she was going to leave! The haunted, hurt look that kept flashing through the smaller girl’s eyes didn’t help to settle the dark Slayer either. When Buffy kept the door from slamming shut, and hesitated on the threshold, as if she couldn’t just enter after all that, Faith growled. “Well?!”

“I…” Buffy hesitated again, then pushed her way in and shut the door behind her. “This is where you’ve been staying?” It wasn’t what she was going to say, of course, but she digressed to a more comfortable subject of the accommodations. The Motel had seen better days. It didn’t look any better than one of those pay by the hour dumps… maybe it was.

“Yeah, well, funds are kinda low right now, B. Don’t really got a whole live-in house like some Slayers.” Faith grumbled uncomfortably, and ignored the warmth on her chest. “What do ya want, B?”

“Darnit Faith, why do you have to be so aggressive?” Buffy fumed, glaring at her. It was so hard to sympathize with the girl when she was being so frustrating. “Don’t you get it? I understand!”

Silence reigned between them for several moments and Faith glared down at her feet in a brooding way. Yeah, Buffy understood. As well as anyone could. And Faith knew that. Damnit, if anything about what had happened was truth, she knew just from the pain in Buffy’s eyes that she understood. Why did she have to be so aggressive? Looking up at Buffy with fear in her eyes, she realized that it wasn’t just the fear of Kakistos. What if… what if her older self was wrong? What if she couldn’t change anything? What if she really couldn’t trust Buffy?

Buffy groaned and slumped down on the bed next to her. “Faith… you’re not the only one who’s lost a Watcher, okay? And hell, that vampire Giles so casually compared this Taquitos guy,” At Faith’s glower, she winced and corrected herself, “I mean Kakistos…. The Master… he killed me. Faith, I understand, maybe not completely, but I do. Stop attacking me.”

Faith was about to say something, namely about Buffy’s own aggression when they’d first met, when the landlord pounded on the door. Growling, she stood and answered it. “Hey.”

“You owe rent…” The fat man immediately grumbled, frowning at her in his stained wife-beater. At her expression, he let out a frustrated breath and bulled his way into the room, crossing his arms. “The room’s eighteen dollars a day. That’s every day.”

Faith pushed down the desire to blush as she was accosted by him, in front of Buffy, for money she didn’t have. “Yeah, I know. Listen, I’ll get it to you by tomorrow. I swear. You know I’m good for it…” She smiled and batted her eyes, posing herself a bit so that he could look her over.

The man sighed and shrugged, “It’s not like I own the place…”

“But I bet you will some day.” Faith smiled and winked at him, shamelessly flirting in front of the blonde. Well, if Buffy wanted to complain, then she could try living on her own… fuck, Faith winced at that thought even as she attempted to ignore the heavy weight around her neck.

“Not if I listen to broads like you…” He frowned and rolled his eyes, just now noticing Buffy. “Roommates are extra…”

“Oh, I’m just visiting.” Buffy said, eyes widening. Well, they’d already been wide.

Eying Buffy, the guy decided to just give up for the night and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He really would never own the place if he listened to chicks like that. Pretty as they might be, he was going to get fired at this rate.

“Listen B, as much as you might understand… you don’t really know what I’m feelin’, kay? So just fuckin drop it.” Faith said miserably, her back still to the blonde and sounding a great deal tougher than she felt at the moment. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Buffy hesitated a moment, then nodded to herself and sat in silence. That she understood too. It was only another second or two when Faith was about to ask Buffy if she was going to keep making herself comfortable, or get the hell out, but another knock on the door interrupted the barely begun sentence. Peering through the peephole, she saw the manager again, with a suitably dazed and idiotic expression on his face. “Fuck, what do you want now?” Swinging the door open, she saw the vampires, including Kakistos there, holding up the dead body of the Motel manager.

“Faith…” Kakistos grins, his face made even more gruesome by the scar down his blinded eye, and darts out a cloven hand to snatch at Faith’s neck.

Struggling, the brunette panicked, nearly whimpering, and scrabbled at his wrist to yank him off, barely seeing the blonde blur rushing between them. The next thing she knew was that she was thrown back, and Buffy was trying to slam the door closed on the bastard’s arm. It took a moment or two, but in pain the vampire eventually had to pull his arm back out, and she slammed the door shut, flipped the locks, and pulled the chain.

“No…” Faith’s brown eyes were wide with pure shock and fear, staring at the door.

“I think I just bought us a little more…” Buffy’s words were cut off as a hand was punched through the door and reached for her, and she jumped back, yelping the last word out. “time!”

“No! Nooooo!” Faith was practically shrieking her screams now as she scrabbled back on the bed, trying to get further away. Buffy, seeing the girl panic, hurried over and grabbed her wrist.

“Scream later! Escape now!” Running for the bathroom, she dragged Faith behind her, forcing the younger Slayer to tag along as they heard the door being kicked in. It took less than half a moment to get into the bathroom and have the window kicked out, the both of them diving through.

Faith is still wide-eyed in terror, staring back at the window that, no doubt, the vampires will be jumping after them through any moment now. Grabbing Faith’s hand again, Buffy yanked her away and started running. “Faith, lets go!” They kept going, and Buffy led them down one side of a fork in the alleys and streets, the vampires hot in pursuit. Before long, she’d crashed them through yet another window, and into a warehouse. Spinning, they saw the only vampire that had managed to take the correct path run past cluelessly.

Breathing hard, more from the excitement and panic, Buffy turned to Faith with her eyes quickly softening. “We’re okay. Faith… what happened?” Faith, still in shock, terrified, didn’t answer. “Faith! What happened?”

The brunette was startled enough out of her shock by her name that she turned wide eyes on Buffy. They looked like a frightened child’s. “I… I was there B. I was there when he killed her. I saw… I saw what he did to her, what he was gonna do to me. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t…. I ran. I… I saw it…”

“Faith…” Swallowing hard, Buffy approached, her face serious and brows knitted slightly. “First rule of slaying, faith: don’t die. You did the right thing, okay? You didn’t die. Now you do the math. One of him, two of us.” Buffy gulped and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “He may have gotten me, Faith, but damn if I didn’t kill that bastard the Master, and I was only one Slayer.”

Faith only looked past Buffy and shook her head, her eyes widening again. “No.”

“Yes, Faith. We can do it.”

“No…” Faith looks like she starting to really panic again, and Buffy turns to see what she’s staring at. On the floor is the body of a pizza delivery boy, as well as a few other corpses, all of which are starting to get rank. How did she not notice that before. “This is his place…”

“He drove us here.”

“Fuck…” One of the vampires had appeared at the entrance, growling at them, as Faith stares off in its direction. Turning, both began to run through the warehouse, and the vampire gave chase again. Two more came it, trying to head them off, but Buffy managed to kick a bucket into the face of one of them. Reacting more from training than the fear that Faith seemed to be trapped in, she threw away the other two with hearty kicks, jumping into fight mode. Flight hadn’t worked after all.

By the time she’d gotten on top of a table, and knocked yet another vampire into unconsciousness with a crowbar, Kakistos had started to advance upon Faith, his one-eyed gaze fixed and hungry. Calling out, she threw the crowbar. “Faith, don’t die.” The brunette was surprised enough to actually catch it, which somewhat surprised the older slayer.

Things were somewhat of a blur after that. Faith didn’t even get to swing the crowbar, she was punched into some kind of wooden beams against the wall, Buffy was attacked by yet another vampire. Somewhere behind her she eventually heard Faith shout a loud “No!” and attempted to hurry her own efforts to move over and help her fellow Slayer. She’d promised.

She’d finally staked the annoyance of an undead and turned with her newly created stake to see Kakistos wailing on Faith, hitting her hard enough to knock her out of even his grip and back onto the floor. No! Buffy ran, and even as she managed to plunge the wooden stake into his heart, where it should be, she found no dust to greet her.

Picking the blonde up by the hair, he threw her aside, grinning and chuckling. The tiny thing hadn’t even been able to fully push through his thick and mutated hide. The blonde fury was up and back into the fray as if she’d merely bounced though, Faith watching in pained fear and shock from where she’d been thrown. Buffy tried to push the stake in farther, managing another hit or two, but it doesn’t even seem to effect him.

Laughing, Kakistos spread his arms before the shocked blonde Slayer, and Faith slowly seemed to wake from her daze as she stared on. “I guess you need a bigger stake, Slayer!”

Fear and rage driving her, Faith grabbed one of the broken wooden beams she’d landed in and ran it through his chest like a javelin, screaming as she ran. His face a mirror of pure shock, almost comical, Kakistos slowly disintegrated into dust, leaving his skeleton, which then crumbled to dust too. Buffy stared at the beam as it dropped to the ground, approaching Faith, and the brunette only stared around with wide, somewhat frightened, but mostly angry eyes for anything else that would attack. Whatever other vampires had been there had taken the opportunity to escape. As both Slayers turned to look at the dust that had once been the vicious vampire, Faith heaved a few heavy breaths.

Buffy pulled her hair back behind her ears and looked up at Faith casually. “You hungry?”

“Starved.” Faith nodded, and without a backward glance or another word, both strolled out of the building.

TBC

For those of you who are curious, since the picture just WON'T show up here, here's the url to the pic of the pendant that is now attempting to guide Faith.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/AbstractRainbow/pendant.jpg