Nusac

Chapter 34
Faiths POV

“What the fuck happened in there?” Buffy shouts at me. Nam is upstairs still passed out, meanwhile everyone else including Giles, Anya and Xander are all in the living room giving me the scolding of a lifetime.

Willow is being really timid, Tara is stroking her hand gently whilst glaring at me.

I sigh loud and heavy rubbing my temples with my thumb and middle finger of my right hand. “I am not gonna be able to explain this without getting certain people upset and even more pissed off okay, so can we not just leave it, no one got hurt did they?”

Buffys eyes widen in anger. “She could have killed Willow! Hell, you could have killed Willow, that barrier took way too much out of her.” Buffy says pointing at Willow, who granted does look exhausted.

“Fine, you want the whole sitch, you got it… I did warn ya that you wouldn’t like it though.” I stop for a second looking around at the room. “Willow was headed for shit, Nam saw it and she was trying to knock some sense into her.” I’m cut off, again by the high and mighty Buffy Summers.

“Knock sense into her!”

I roll my eyes. “Wrong phrase, she tried to talk to her, that’s what all the shouting and shit has been about… look Giles, Tara and Nam were sort of in this together right. Tara was already worried about how much magic Red was using and so was G-Man… all Nam did was try to take it up a level by trying to get her to see.”

“Oh so she just decides to go fucking mental and try to kill my friends…”

“It was my fault.” A small voice says from the couch, we all look and see Red sitting all timid, she lets go of Tara’s hand before she stands up. “I touched her, when I was mad… Me and Tara did some research on what you said about the amulet thing, you said it blocked stuff and we got curious as to what it blocked so we researched.”

I shake my head and let out an amused sigh. “Shit Red, you should have known better than to touch her if you knew.”

“I was angry… I… I just pushed her you know but my palm brushed her shoulder a bit.” The sentence stops there and Red drops her head looking at the floor.

“What are you all talking about?” Again holier than thou Miss Buffster.

Red, Tara and Pike all look at me, I get to do the splainy… yay for me. “I’ll give you the short version. You touch Nam and she feels whatever you’re feeling, anger, sadness, happiness, pain… anything really. And the amulet I wear… it means she can touch me without feeling it all. So when Willow touched her she got the anger, took it in as her own, we can just be glad you only brushed her a little Red.” I look towards Will and see her nod her head at me, yeah she agrees.

“So no touchy Nam until we all get amulets right?” Xander says with a small smile.

“Would probably be best.” I reply walking out of the room to head to the kitchen.

“Faith?” I turn around just as I reach the kitchen cupboards to see Red. I raise my eyebrows at her, she follows me into the kitchen and sits on the counter watching me.

“What do you want Red?” I ask as I rummage through the cupboards. All that spell casting has made me hungry.

“Thanks…” She paused a second and I give her a confused look. “…You kinda saved my ass back up there.” She says pointing to the ceiling. “Oh and you can tell Nam that there is no way I’m going evil if that’s what it’s like!”

I snigger. “That aint shit Red, real evil witches… gotta be like a million times worse, Nam still has control as hard as that is to believe when that happens, plus she said something about using good magic or something, I think you’ll have to ask her exactly but its something to do with you always drawing off the power of the hellmouth… not good.”

She looks like she’s searching for something to say to me.

I have my own search. Which is much more important. I need to find some food, I’m starved. A ha. Victory is mine. Pop tarts. Can’t go wrong with pop tarts. I pull apart the packaging and drop two into the toaster. Now all I have to do is wait. I haven’t had pop tarts for over two years why should I have to wait more?

“Faith?” Looks like Red’s decided what she wants to say. I turn to her so I don’t keep staring at the toaster willing it to pop up. “I didn’t know that you could use magic.” Here we go.

I cross my arms across my chest and lean backwards against the counter top. “I couldn’t when I left.”

Her eyes go as big as saucers. “You’ve only been practicing for two years.”

“With the figuring out I could harness it and the knee injury a little less than that. I usually only use it when I need to.” That’s a lie. “Well unless I want to show off.”

I got a giggle. From Red. We’re having a conversation and she laughed at something I said. Up is down and left is right, what’s going on with this world? “You must be very talented. I mean a barrier like that and fireballs…” She’s struggling for something to say again. Is this Red or some sort of impostor. “I’m very impressed.” Now I’m scared.

I try my best to shrug off the praise. “It’s just another form of defence. In Nusac you need as much defence as you can get.”

“You like it there.” It’s not a question it’s a statement and it makes me recoil slightly. I don’t want her to be able to read me. Pike does that enough. The last ting I need is someone who trusts me as little as Red does to be able to read me like an open book. “What’s it like?”

I’m just about to make an excuse and escape when the toaster pops up reminding me that my stomach is empty. Pulling them both onto my plate and deciding how best to eat them without burning my tongue distracts me from having to answer the redhead. I don’t know if it’s selfish and wrong to keep that place to myself, even if it’s just for a little while. It’s my own little world my safe haven and I don’t think I want to give that up just yet.

When I turn back around with a mouth full of burning pop tarts she’s still looking at me like she expects an answer from me. How the hell am I going to say this in a way that isn’t going to get my head removed from my shoulders?

It’s at this very moment that Pike pokes his head around the doorframe of the kitchen. “Faith. Namine’s awake.”

I feel my forehead crease. “That was faster than last time.”

“This has happened before?” I’d actually forgotten that Red was there.

I struggle to answer her. Then just decide on the truth. “Sort of, just once.” It was vague but it was still the truth. With that I grab my plate and practically run to catch up with Pike who is already at the top of the stairs by the time I get there.

I stand in the doorway looking at Namine, she slowly sits up in the bed and looks towards me, I shove the remaining part of the first pop tart in my mouth. “How bad was it?” She asks looking kind of embarrassed.

I shake my head at her. “No one got hurt.” I walk towards the bed and sit cross legged at the end of it facing Nam. I hold the plate out to her with the last pop tart on it, Nam eyes it suspiciously before she take it and begins to nibble around the edges. ”It worked though, I don’t think Red is gonna be goin’ evil anytime soon.”

”At least something good came out of it…” Nam pauses for a second before looking sheepishly into my eyes. ”By the Gods Faith, what the hell am I going to do? How am I going to face those people? They must be so angry with me.”

I raise my eyebrows. ”Aint like you to care about what others think…”

With that Nam looks down at the pattern on the bedspread covering her lower body.

”It aint too bad… from what I can tell it’s only B that’s got a problem and that is more than likely because you know me than because of what you did.”

Pike leaves the room quietly; probably sensing something is coming like he always does.

”What happened between you two?” Nam asks wrinkling her brow at me.

I smile at her, yeah I should really learn to leave the room when Pike does. The only thing that I can think of to get out of explaining that way too long story is to use a very old cliché. ”You need your rest.” I say before darting out of the room to relative safety.