Damned if I don't, damned if I do.

Hiya guys. Sorry for the ridiculously long delay between updates. Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter. They keep me going when this fic starts to melt my brain.

This chapter is split into nine segments so, to speed things along, I’m posting them in nine separate sections. Hopefully there will be one every couple of days (as I write them). Thank you for you patience :)

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i : Do Not Disturb!

From the shallow depression where the cages were grouped the land they had to cross gave the impression that it was nice and flat. The impression was false, it was in fact very rocky and uneven. Ordinarily it would pose Toni no problem but she was exhausted and caught her booted feet regularly, nearly tripping. A few paces behind, Faith had eventually taken off her heeled wedding shoes finding it easier without, but Toni heard her quiet grunts of pain as she scraped her toes or the jagged edges dug into her bare soles.

“How much further?” Faith asked after a while.

“A long way,” Toni said regretfully, although she was mostly just thinking of her own discomfort it was true.

“I need to pee.”

“Again!”

“Yeah! Gotta a problem with it?”

“Si! You squatting every ten minutes is going to draw attention to us.”

“I thought we were invisible.”

“For the moment, but we’ve already used more of the potion than we should have.”

“I need to go.”

Toni stopped and looked around. There was nothing visibly threatening that she could see.

“Fine, go.”

“Not here, there’s nothing to go behind.”

“No one can see you,” Toni reminded her. “You’re invisible.”

“You can see me!”

Toni turned her back in exasperation. “I never knew you were so bashful.”

“I’ve never been this fat and awkward before.”

Toni impatiently listened to her pee. When the patter against the hard rock had stopped she turned back around.

“At least wait for me to get my underwear back up, perve,” Faith griped.

Toni rolled her eyes. “Please, like I would ever wish to perve on you.”

“Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Toni ignored her grumbling and started to walk again. Faith could catch up when she was ready. While they were invisible she wasn’t too concerned with having to protect the Slayer. That would come after they had used the last of the potion, something that was going to happen a lot sooner than she wished.

Dawn had said they had enough to last the two of them for the journey out of Tartarus but when Willow was working out the dosage, they hadn’t known exactly how long it would take Toni to reach Faith across the smoky pit. The constant darkness meant that she wasn’t at all sure how long it had taken herself – two or three days, maybe even a little longer – but she knew that thanks to Faith’s condition they were making the return journey more slowly.

On top of that they had obviously miscalculated Faith’s weight. While her arms and legs looked half-emaciated, stringy muscle vividly defined under the bone-stretched skin and her face had lost its softness to become hard and angular, the plumpness of her belly belied the rest of her. The baby inside seemed to be growing healthily, greedily taking everything it needed from the rest of Faith’s gaunt body.

“When did you last eat?”

“Dunno. Yesterday maybe. They threw meat in from the start but I figured it was probably human so I didn’t touch it.” Faith was quiet for a long moment while they picked their way over the rock. “Then I got too hungry not to,” she murmured.

Toni thought about that. “The humans down here are already dead; their flesh wouldn’t have sustained you. It must have been beast meat.”

Faith gave a shaky laugh of relief behind her.

Toni hadn’t meant to console her and added, “The meat of demon beasts.”

“Gross as that is, still better, yunno.”

Toni tried to work out how different Faith’s body mass might be with the baby. Would it be a big difference or not? She cursed herself for not mentioning this possibility to Willow, but she had been too caught up in her own preparation – and Buffy – to think of such things. Ah, Buffy, how she longed to see her now! Even a glimpse in a dream would be something but she could not remember the last time she slept or imagine that the next time would be soon.

Troy should have been thinking of such things though. It was his child putting them all in greater danger. He should have been thinking of nothing else and working with Willow to ensure her sums were correct instead of moping over the loss of Faith every day.

Wasn’t it enough that Buffy had already been doing that?

She shook that cruel thought away – it wouldn’t help her here. She suspected they still had enough potion to see them all of the way across Tartarus providing they could keep at the pace she was setting and stopped for nothing but Faith’s frequent bathroom breaks.

As if just to be difficult, Faith suddenly said, “I need to sleep.” Her voice sounded distant.

Toni turned. Faith was distant. Twenty steps behind her and getting slower.

“We do not have time to rest.”

“I’m not saying it’s a good plan, I’m just saying I need to do it.” Faith was fifteen paces behind now. “Just an hour of shut eye and I’ll be good to go again.”

Toni took in her drooping form, the way her bare feet scuffed the uncompromising rock more and more and relented. It would do her no good if Faith collapsed.

“Okay.” She spied a deeper crevice than most in the rocky terrain and made her way to it. “You can sleep down there and I will keep watch.”

Faith was ten steps away now and changed her course to meet Toni. “’Preciate it.”

Busy watching Faith, Toni startled so badly when the sky-rending screech came from directly behind her that she threw herself over the rocks in front of her without any coherent thought.)

She scrabbled further away, feeling her knees scrape and cut on the uneven surface as she turned and saw three long serpentine necks rising out of the crack in the ground. It was obviously a lot deeper than she had thought. Their heads were dizzyingly high, waving cobra-like as two out of the three screeched again, hurting her ears.

“Get down!” she yelled to Faith as, through her fear, she forced herself to half-crawl, half-jump further away over the rocks.

With the sound of a giant blow torch, one of the heads issued a long billow of flame and a boulder just a few feet away super-heated until it glowed pink-white in the darkness.

Under the high-pitched screeching she could hear the thud of Faith’s feet beating rock as she ran closer.

“Get do…” she began again but Faith was beside her before she could finish.

“What the fuck is that?”

“The Hydra.”

She couldn’t tell if Faith recognised the name or was just too freaked to care. “Okay, well let’s get the fuck away from it.”

“We have to go around it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m all for that.” Faith tugged at her arm. “Come on!”

“Have you seen the length of its necks?” Toni demanded. “We will have to go a miles out of our way!”

“I thought we were invisible.”

“We are, but it can sense us.”

Faith thought for a moment, watching the beast’s heads sway. “Can only shoot three flames at once. Long as it can’t see us we can avoid them, right?” Even as she spoke another two heads reared up into the smoky darkness. “Shit!”

“It has four more,” Toni said, curiously detached as she tried to think.

“Nine heads?” Faith asked incredulously. “Who the fuck needs nine heads?”

Toni chuckled darkly. “No one. I will go and teach it that.” She gripped the broadsword in both hands and stood up.

“Are you fuckin’ crazy? I’m not gonna let you get killed.” Faith grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down. Surprised by her concern, Toni let herself be. “I don’t know the fuckin’ way out of here.”

Toni rolled her eyes at her mistake. “Then how do you suggest we proceed?”

“How do you kill it?”

“You cut through all of its necks.”

“All nine of them?” Faith checked.

Toni rolled her eyes again. “Si.”

“Okay.” Faith rolled her shoulders. “Then give me the sword.”

“Do not be foolish.”

“I’m the Slayer around here.”

“I am stronger than you right now.”

“Yeah, I seriously doubt…”

Without looking away from the Hydra, Toni gave Faith’s chest a push. There was a tiny bit of resistance before she tipped onto her back.

“Hey!”

“Be quiet! It can probably hear us.”

Before Faith had righted herself, Toni picked up a rock and hurled it towards the head furthest away. She was up and running for the closest point as it reacted to the missile. With a double handed stroke she cut clean through one neck. The other four heads made a quick appearance and she only just missed being toasted. Being burned alive probably wouldn’t kill her, but she didn’t want to find out. Another head seared some rock just to the side of her. As it took a second to suck in more breath with which to ignite its flame ducts, she darted in and sliced through that neck.

As she did so she saw the first stump regrow before her eyes. It stunned her enough that another head had the chance to ram into her. That stunned her even more. She was thrown level with but ten feet away from Faith and lay on the stony ground, clutching at the pain in her chest.

She heard the sound of slapping feet again and then Faith crouched beside her. “You gonna live?”

“Probably,” she groaned.

“Never thought I’d be happy about that,” Faith said as she helped her sit up.

“I had forgotten it could regenerate in such a manner.” Toni struggled to her feet. “I will not forget again.”

Seeing the determination in her eyes, Faith picked her up. Toni struggled but was carried a dozen feet away before Faith had to put her down again. She fell over wheezing but kept one hand on Toni to stop her doing anything stupid while she recovered.

“I’m not gonna let you kill yourself. B would never forgive me.”

“Buffy cares only for you,” Toni did not even try to keep the bitter note out of her voice.

“Yeah?” Faith got to her own feet, brushing blood and debris from her hands and knees. “Then even more reason for me to stop you dying before you get me out of here.”

Two sheets of flame came from opposite heads, scorching the ground in front of them and they both froze until the rock became so hot they had to backstep in time.

“We go around?” Faith asked.

“The invisibility potion will run out too soon.”

“Not like it’s doing us any favours now.”

Faith was right. Waiting until the Hydra slept, if it ever did, could take as long as going around.

“Okay. That way,” she said, pointing slightly behind and to the right of where they were standing.

Faith let go of her and started to make her way awkwardly over the uneven surface again.

“Do you still need to sleep?” Toni asked.

“Strangely, not so much now.”