Kathy's Revenge

Chapter 35
Oz’s POV

So Buffy tried to kill Faith… again. But Faith did hurt Willow, but Buffy hit Xander, but she didn’t mean to. So who is the bad guy in all this? Buffy caused more pain but does the amount of pain caused show which one is guilty? Surely it cant be that, what use would Eggshell skull be? Plus if it was about amount of pain then whatever made Faith go all weird was what caused all the pain because if that caused Faith emotional pain, which caused Willow physical pain by being throws and if she hadn’t been hurt then Buffy wouldn’t have hurt Faith… so in theory this is all Faiths minds fault.

I walk down into the basement, best place to be in a time like this… away from all the mess.

I get to the bottom step then walk over to the couch in the middle of the room where Rachel is sitting.

“Hey.” I say.

“Hey.” She says back.

I sit next to her contemplating the scene upstairs. For some reason I seem to be on Faith’s side in all of this but that doesn’t make sense since I didn’t like Faith not too long ago. She did try to kill me and all my friends but something about all this is making me feel like it isn’t her fault.

“It isn’t you know.” Rachel says, I hate it when she does that, its like she can read my mind… although she might be able to… lets not go back to the whole reading minds scenario that was bad enough when Buffy could do it.

I find my mind wandering again, thoughts I had back then filtering in.

If Rachel can read my mind then my thoughts aren’t my own and if my thoughts aren’t my own then they must be hers and if my thoughts are hers then I am not me, she is me or I am just something placed in this world to amuse her or something… like the Truman show. So I guess if she can read my mind then I cease to exist but I think I exist… I mean I’ve got thoughts and feelings but what if she is making me have these and I am just like a weird little puppet to her?

She could be manufacturing this whole little world and even making me have these thoughts now so that I think that I am real when I am not, but then if I think that then maybe that is what she wants me to think and again I am not real.

Faith comes down the stairs to the basement, Rachel says ‘hi’ to Faith as she exits the room, which is what pulls me out of my contemplating. Faith continues coming down the stairs she circles the room a couple of times and then settles on the bottom step of the stairs.

She takes a cigarette out of the packet in her pocket and lights it. We sit for a long time just sitting, not talking.

“Guess you aint liking me to much now either then?” She asks almost to herself but I answer anyway.

“No.”

“Yeah but Red, you and her still got this thing and I hurt her didn’t I? And then I made her worry… plus the whole thing about me trying to kill you all. You guys seem to think I don’t ever think about that… and I don’t blame you for not trusting me but, I thought B would have been over it by now… I mean I helped her save the world yet again.”

“I don’t not trust you.” And that is the truth, I don’t. I thought I should but shit happens. I mean I tried to kill them all too just because I couldn’t control my actions doesn’t necessarily mean that if I could have that I would have.

She seems to keep asking me rhetorical questions whether she is just asking for the sake of it or if she is asking herself or not expecting me to answer anyway I don’t know.

“Is this all because of the breakdown that she is like this? I mean I am not in control when these things happen, when I threw Willow she wasn’t Willow… she was Kakistos. I couldn’t control what I was doing when the thing down here with Buffy went down.” She is furrowing her brow as if she is thinking as hard as she can about all this.

I don’t have an answer for her so I don’t give her one, I just look at her as she gets up off the step, lights another cigarette and begins pacing around the perimeter of the large basement.

“You think that I should just leave? I mean I’m causing loads of trouble here with everyone and it might be better if I go… I could go back to Boston or something and live a normal life, finish school and college and get a job and all that junk.”

“A normal life?” I say raising an eyebrow my eyes still following her as she walks around the room.

“I guess you’re right, I don’t do normal… even before all the slayer stuff… even then I wasn’t…” She trails off and stares up at the tiny window near the ceiling.

“Who was?” Is all I can come up with, I know that I am meant to be comforting her but I am no good at all this stuff, give me some philosophical questions and I’ll get right to work but this… this isn’t my territory especially not with Faith, we don’t exactly have a history.

“I just don’t want to hurt anyone anymore and I don’t want to be hurt anymore either. All this stuff seems to happen when I am around all you guys, shit always goes down and goes bad. When I was other places it wasn’t like this.” She says still pacing. “Maybe I am just not meant to be anywhere near you guys.”

I think about this for a second, fate I guess is what she it talking about and destiny. Well I guess if fate and destiny do exist then it doesn’t matter if we think about it or not because it is still gonna happen so any changes we make are already gonna happen in the grand scheme of things anyway. But then again does knowing your fate give you choice I mean the whole thing about slayers and destiny hasn’t gone as ‘they’ said it would but maybe ‘they’ just got it wrong and everything that did happen was what was destined to happen so it didn’t matter what they or anyone else said. Or maybe ‘they’ had to say that was how it was gonna happen to make sure that in the end everyone ended up doing what they did and stopped the whole thing. Well what’s a better motivator than certain death?

“I think I’m gonna go have a bath or something, get the rest of the shit out of my hair.” She says finishing her cigarette. “And thanks Oz for listening and that…” She stops halfway up the stairs. “It means a lot.” She says before disappearing through the door.