Chasing the Girl

Disclaimer - part one
Part 4

Faith sat for three hours and listened to Willow and Kennedy tell their story. She was tired, her legs were numb, and she destelytely needed to go for smokes, seeing as after the first ten minutes she was smoking like a chimney. After they had finished, they admitted they were tired and were heading off to bed.

Faith asked if it would be alright if she left to get some cigs, and Kennedy gave her a key and told her she could walk down to the corner market. Willow started to protest, but yawning just nodded her head, remembering Faith was still a Slayer and could take care of herself.

'Jesus,' Faith thought, as she shut the door behind her. 'what the hell did you do, B?'

She thought back to what the girls had just told her.

"After you left," Willow had started. "Buffy changed. I guess it was in Cleveland when we first noticed it, but it didn't escalate til we got here."

"What did she do?"

"She didn't talk about you leaving, it's like you weren't ever with us. I didn't completely understand that til I found the note you left her one night after we got to Ohio. I remember that I started to say something and she just looked at me and said 'Shut up.' That was the end of that."

"Yeah," Kennedy added, "we weren't even allowed to say your name."

"Anyway, Buffy didn't talk about it and we didn't ask. Maybe we should have. But as soon as the opportunity for New Orleans came up, we jumped on it. Hoping a change of pace would help. "

Kennedy chimed in again.

"We were all in a slump by then. Sick of Cleveland. Sick of the other Slayers. My parents had the house, so we decided it would be good. And Dawn went with Giles; so Buffy, Xander, Will and I packed up and moved here."

"Whoa, hold up, Dawn went to England with Giles?"

"Yeah," Willow continued. "Giles got her in to a public school there and we decided it would be good for her. We met with a little resistance, but she knew it was better in the end."

"So, anyway," Kennedy finished. "the four of us moved here. Willow quickly got a job with the casino. Xander found a construction company willing to hire a guy with one eye, and Buffy and I were going to split the slaying. New Orleans is full of baddies."

Willow stood up and walked to make a drink, she offered one to Faith who refused and then sat back down,

"Pretty quickly we realized who was doing the slaying and who wasn't. Kennedy was gone every night. Do you have any idea how many damn cemeteries there are in this city?" She didn't wait for Faith to answer. "Buffy was either sleeping or drinking, hanging out with some crowd she had ran across one night on patrol. We ignored it at first. Figured she was just trying to find the fun."

Kennedy added, "Xander stood up for her the longest. Said she never got to really live a life. Give her a break, that sort of thing. We sorta overlooked it. I mean Will and Xand were working cause they wanted to, we had plenty of money, so we just ignored it."

"Then Giles called," Willow said. "we'd been here a little over a year and Dawn was graduating. We had kept Buffy off the phone, making sure her conversations with Dawnie were short cause we didn't want to alarm them, but Giles and Dawn weren't stupid and they sensed something was off anyway. Giles thought it would be good for Buffy, for all of us, really, to attend Dawnie's graduation, so we all headed to England."

She glanced at Kennedy and then looked back at Faith. "We thought it would be a good idea at the time."

Kennedy finished for her. "It wasn't."

They had proceeded to tell Faith the whole story. The drunken plane ride. The indifference Buffy had in going in the first place. When they first saw Dawn and Giles; Willow swore Buffy was crying, but she quickly hid it.

They were there for twoks.\rks.

"A lot came out in those two weeks." Kennedy said, nodding to Willow. "It ended with Buffy seducing Dawn's boyfriend right in front of Dawn. In front of all of us. We were too stupid to see what was happening until later that night when we heard Dawn scream and we ran to Buffy's room."

"Yeah, Jack pulling up his pants, Dawn crying, and Buffy was so high she was actually laughing."

"Laughing? High?" Faith asked."What was she really on?"

"What wasn't she on?" Kennedy said. "She had scored some high grade X the night before in some club she had gone to. With some chick she met on the plane. And then she and this dick were in her bedroom screwing and getting high. Dawn was just going to tell her goodnight."

"Needless to say the rest wasn't pretty." Willow sadly added, "Giles told us to go home and get Buffy help. She had done the unthinkable, as far as he was concerned, and that was hurt Dawn. He made us promise. We made excuses for her, but we were as shocked as he was, as Dawn. Only Xander didn't seem surprised."

"She didn'eak eak to us the rest of the way home. Xander told us that he had known that she was trying all this shit. Seeing how far she could take it. How he had gone to a bar with his buddies one night and he saw her going into a bar across the street. He said he was curious, so he followed her. Said she was 'leathered out' and then he knew why. Cause she was the main act in some sick and twisted sex show."

Faith looked at Kennedy. "And?"

"And that's all, he wouldn't tell us what she was doing. Said there was no need. We asked him why he felt he should keep that from us. He said he confronted her and she told him to mind his own goddamn business. He thought the trip to England would help. It didn't."

"So that was what, four and half years ago and you just call me?" Faith asked.

"Oh, we've only hit the tip of this iceberg." Willow said, and poured another drink.

Faith walked on to the store faster. Wanting, craving, her nicotine escape. She had gotten mad at Willow and Kennedy at that point in the story and she was regretting the tone she used with them. 'It's so easy to fall back into the role they want me in,' She thought. 'be the bitch, seems like B's beating me in spades in that area.'

To be continued