Inner Walls

ACT V: Light


***


Six months had gone by since Faith's arrival in prison. Six months she had spent fighting her fears, her anxieties, her remorse, trying to contain her violence and her madness. Six months of solitude, of confrontation with her thoughts, with her tortured mind.

Six months and only one visit. Angel had not come back but his words were still imprinted in Faith, like a hope,


"This is your light..."


like a meaning given at last to her life. He had released something inside her and she clung to his words and to the image of a certain blonde Slayer who had condemned her. But this image - her satisfaction - did not make her suffer any longer, she lived it now as a challenge, as the symbol of her redemption.

News of the fight between Faith and Trisha had spread in the prison. A strange calm had reigned since then. Trisha's gang had split. In jail nobody stayed with the losers. But nobody tried to take control either because everybody feared to have to face the anger of the woman now called "The Slayer" by the prisoners. They did not only fear her anger, her reactions disturbed them too. They did not understand that Faith did not replace Trisha in her role of leader, that sid nid not take advantage of her ascendancy and of her power to control and exploit them. Faith was not interested in all this. She stayed for hours in her cell, smoking and waiting, her gaze turned inside. She waited.

And one day, she was called.


***


"Faith? Visit!" shouted a guard through the gate.


Faith stubbed out her cigarette with a shaking hand and headed to the visit room. While walking along the passages she wondered if Angel had come back to appraise the import of his previous words, to make sure that she was not dead or that she had killed no-one, to make certain that she had not plunged into darkness again.

But behind the pane, there was no vampire.


Buffy...


The petite blonde had her arms folded and was eyeing Faith with a harsh and intransigent look. Faith swallowed, then finally made up her mind to sit down and lift up the phone. She waited until Buffy decided to do the same.


"Buffy..."


"This is your light, Faith..."


"I want to make things clear: I've only come because Angel begged me to do it, because he told me that you were sinking... that you were needing us... needing me..."


Buffy paused still fixing Faith with a harsh look then she resumed, in view of her silence.


"I thought that you never needed anyone, Faith... I thought you were so strong that nothing could ever reach you... I thought that you didn't care about anything, about the harm you did to us... to me."


Some words came back in Faith's mind, words that she had said to Buffy on the roof before the Council men sprung up in their helicopter.


"You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything..."


"You know it's wrong... You know that I... regret..."


This last word had been extremely difficult to pronounce for Faith. It was like the outcome of a long and painful reflection.


"It's too late, Faith, and it's too easy. I didn't come to hear that."


"So why did you come?" asked Faith who began to tense up.


Buffy studied Faith for a while then a little ironic smile appeared on her lips and she drew her face very close to the pane as if she wanted to confide something to her.


"I came to make sure that you really were in jail among your fellow criminals... I came to make sure that Angel wasn't wrong, I wanted to see what despair and pain looked like on your selfish face... I wanted to be sure that you would know what it is too..."


"You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything..."


Buffy fixed Faith's eyes in which tears began to form. The dark Slayer was clenching the phone with all her strength as if to prevent herself from falling.


But I've never known anything but that, B, despair and pain...


"Now I'm sure. So I can leave."


Buffy put down the receiver, took her handbag and began to walk away.


"Buffy!" shouted Faith with a sob.


Buffy turned back and saw the tears which were running down Faith's cheeks. And Faith glimpsed again the ibleible vision of satisfaction on the other Slayer's face.


Is this my light, Angel?


Then the veil fell down again in Faith's mind. And she plunged again into the void.


One week had passed since Buffy's visit. One week that Jessy had seen Faith come back from the visit room with this blank stare and looking destroyed. One week that she tried to understand what could have happened there. But Faith said nothing. She stayed prostrate on her bed and only got out of it because Jessy dragged her to the refectory or to the showers. One week that Jessy saw the emotion, tears in her lost eyes. And that she did not know how to help her.

Faith unceasingly replayed the movie of the visit in her head. She constantly saw again the anger and the satisfaction in the green eyes of the other Slayer. She could not believe that Buffy could delight at her suffering. She could not believe the hatred emanating from her. It was not like her. It looked more like what she could have felt.


It's not you, B... Or else...


An idea had just gone through her despaired mind. She rose abruptly and strode out of the cell.


***


"Can I use the phones?", Faith asked a guard.


"Yes, of course. The call boxes are up there. You have five minutes.", she answered, pointing at a room.


Faith left the guard and slipped into a box. She knew that the lines were tapped but it did not matter. She dialled the number with a feverish hand, one of the rare numbers she knew by heart.


"Angel Investigations, who's speaking?"


Cordelia's voice extracted a smile from Faith. The former cheerleader had always seemed ridiculous to her.


"Hey, Queen C, I'd like to talk to Angel."


"Faith?!"


"No, this is Hilary Clinton."


A silence. Then Faith resumed:


"Please, I don't have much time..."


Another silence. And half-muffled voices. Faith heard Cordelia give the receiver saying "This is the perverted psycho!", a remark that, instead of irritating her, only made Faith's smile broaden.


"Hello, Faith, what's up?"


"Angel... I have to... to talk to Buffy."


"She came last week. What happened? She didn't want to tell me anything."


"I wanted to see what despair and pain looked like on your selfish face... I wanted to be sure that you would know what it is too.."


"I couldn't, Angel... I couldn't talk to her... She didn't give me time..."


"What did she say?"


"It's too late, Faith."


"She blamed me. She came to see me pay... not to listen to my fucking regrets..."


You've never listened to me...


Angel kept silent on the line. Faith insisted:


"You must convince her to come back... a last time... I need... I must -"


"I'm gonna try.", Angel cut her off. "I'm gonna try but I can't promise you anything, you know how she can be -"


"Stubborn. Yes, I know. But you're the only one who can make her understand..."


"I'm gonna try."


"Thanks. I have to go now."


"Hey Faith!"


"Yes?"


"You must fight. You know that the path is long, you know it's difficult, but you must fight, you musn't sink again, you mustn't yield to the temptation of evil."


Faith smiled again.


"Tell me, Angel, when you were given back your soul, was it provided with a priest's outfit?"


There was a silence then Angel replied:


"Very funny, Faith. But we're talking about redemption here. And there is no other word embodying better what we're both living. ow wow what you're living, you must fight, cling to your... to your light."


"Your light..."

"It's too late, Faith..."


"This is what I did, Angel. But my light went out."


And she hung up.


***


Days went by and Faith waited. She waited and clung to the hope of Buffy's visit, to what she considered as her last chance not to fall definitively into the formless jumble of her deranged mind. Not to lose touch completely with the real world. Not to sink into a nothingness of perpetual and vain suffering. She waited, forgetting the life surrounding her, Jessy, the other prisoners, the daily routine, merely hoping that the guard who walked by her cell every day was going to stop for her at last.

And one day she stopped.


It's your last chance... Don't screw it up...


***


When she came into the visit room, Faith felt her heart beating uncontrollably. Buffy had the same position as her previous visit and her gaze was as harsh as before. Faith lifted up the phone with a shaking hand. Buffy imitated her.


"You've got five minutes.", Buffy warned with a brusque voice.


"You have to promise me that you'll listen to what I have to say until the end. Afterwards, I won't ask you anything more. You'll be free to leave... and never come back."


"Five minutes."


"Promise me, B."


Buffy sighed and seemed to relax a little.


"OK. Promise."


"It's too late, Faith..."

No, not yet...


"You told me the other time that you had come to see despair and pain on my face..."


"Selfish."


"What?"


"I said: 'on your selfish face.'", Buffy corrected dryly.


Faith studied her for a while and resumed:


"Despair and pain, B, are the only things I've ever known in my fucking life. I'm gonna skip the story of my rotten childhood with an alcoholic mother and successive stepfathers who calmed their nerves on me 'cause you're gonna believe that I use it to justify my acts. No, I take the responsibility for the madness of my actions, I acknowledge I was violent and that I liked it, I acknowledge that I killed two men, I acknowledge that I helped a sick man mad with power who wanted to trigger the Apocalypse. I acknowledge that I tried to fuck up your life... But have you ever wondered why I did all this? Do you really believe it was out of selfishness? Out of sheer wickedness? Out of madness? No, B, this is what all of you wanted to believe 'cause it was easier, simpler for you. More reassuring. It was despair and pain which pushed me to do all this, to try to destroy you, to try to destroy myself..."


"You could have talked to me, shared your pain, rather than accuse me of the murder and hurt us. I could have helped you..."


You've never listened to me, B...


"You've never taken the time to listen to me... At the moment when I thought I cotalktalk to you, Angel reappeared and... there was no more room for anybody else in your mind..."


Faith paused and added:


"Anyway it wasn't my pain that I wanted to share with you..."


Buffy seemed to be puzzled by these last words.


"So what was it?", she finally asked.


"For the first time in my life, I had the impression I found someone who could understand me... Another Slayer... who could understand the weight of such a calling... what we felt... For the first time in my life, I had the impression I exist and I thought I'd found a friend... We didn't need to talk to know what the other was thinking... feeling... You knew what I felt, B... for you... And you felt it too... I know that..."


"I don't understand what you're talking about, Faith.", Buffy said visibly ill at ease.


Faith smiled. She had not been wrong.


"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, B. And this hatred I saw in your eyes the other time in the visiting room, and all these times after... after Finch... I know it so well... It's not like you... But it betrays you, B... The desire I felt for you, I saw it in you too... And you were unable to face it... It made you too scared. It questioned you too much. There was Angel, the others... You've never been afraid of monsters, you've never been afraid to love a vampire, but you were afraid to love me."


"You're talking crap. There was nothing between us but friendship... and... and... hatred..." stammered Buffy who had lost her confidence.


"Yes, hatred... A hatred caused by the frustration of having been rejected, abandoned, betrayed... Despair and pain again for me... And for you, a convenient justification to run away from your feelings and your desires... A hatred caused by the fear to face them. The harm I did to you allowed you to bury them, to forget them. In front of the others it was easier to acknowledge your hatred for me than your desire... But the less you succeeded in forgetting them, the more your hatred increased... and the more you looked like me."


Buffy had blanched. Her jaw tensed, she clenched the phone so hard that her knuckles were white.


"That's it. I have just only one thing to tell you, B, and afterwards you can leave... I wanted you to know that... that... I'm sorry for all the harm and pain I did to you... and... and that I loved you... and... and that I'm ready to do anything for you to forgive me one day... 'cause... 'cause I still love you, Buffy..."


Faith had tears in her eyes. She was relieved. She had thought that she could never say it, never fBuffBuffy's gaze if it had been filled with hatred as she uttered these words. But there was no longer hatred in the blonde Slayer's eyes. Just amazement and tears.

For Buffy was crying.

She was crying because of all this incomprehension, all this waste, all this suffering. And because of her own cowardice. Because of her cowardice to acknowledge the truth. For the first time she felt guilty. Guilty of having given up Faith after Finch's murder, guilty of not having listened to her when she had needed it, guilty of having used her when they had needed to. Guilty of having tried to kill her. Guilty of having fled the confusion that Faith's mere presence always aroused in her, guilty of not wanting to acknowledge her feelings. She admitted, at last, that she had a great part of responsibility in this huge waste. And that at the very least she owed Faith to take it.


"No... I am sorry, Faith. I was... a coward... I didn't want to understand... I didn't want to acknowledge... I -"


"Visits are over!" announced a voice in the phone.


Buffy seemed to panic. She wiped away the tears that were still running down her cheeks and clung to the gaze of Faith who was rising, hurried by a guard. She saw again the image of her own hand and of the knifestuck into the dark Slayer's belly.


"Forgive me, Faith!"


Faith smiled. The veil of darkness had vanished from her mind.


"I've forgiven you for a long time, Buffy."


"I'll come back next month!"


"It's too late, Faith."


"No. It's too late, ain't it B? Our lives had parted for ever. Now that we're in peace with each other, I prefer to keep this image of you. I don't want you to come back."


There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything...


Faith put down the phone slowly. And before disappearing with the other prisoners, she whispered words that Buffy could read on her lips.


"I love you, B."


***


Faith spent two years in jail. Her trial was never held, for lack of witnesses and of tangible evidence. She refused all the visits, clinging to the last vision she had kept of Buffy, the vision of a vulnerable Slayer who had forgiven her, the vision of the tears of this strong woman who had acknowledged that she had shared her love. It was enough for Faith. Her mind had woken up. It had emerged from the darkness. Appeased at last.

The day of her release, Faith left her orange suit and took her own clothes on, restoring her lost identity. But she knew that she would never be the same again. She went the opposite way, walked down passages again, meeting envioazesazes, passing again through gates definitively locked up behind her. This day, she walked through the heavy entrance door on her own, a door she would have never thought to see again. She looked one last time at the prison walls, searching for the window of her cell where Jessy would pursue her life.

When she turned back, at last, to face the outside world, her eyes were full of tears. And this is in that way that she saw her. Leant against a car, her arms folded, with these green eyes which had been her obsession for all these years of imprisonment and solitude.


Maybe it's not too late finally...


Then Faith wiped away her tears and headed to the light.


*******

THE END