Hear No Evil

La la la...another chapter...go me!

Chapter Six

Faith's thrashing woke Buffy up the next morning. She was feverish, and when Buffy called her name, she opened her eyes but didn't seem to see anything.

Buffy wanted to stay--to hold her, to protect her--but it would do no good; and besides, she'd made a promise to Faith to find the murderer. She dressed quickly, slipped out of the house, and headed for school.

The lunch bell was ringing as Buffy ran across the field, looking wildly around her. Everything seemed normal, students eating lunch, tossing Frisbees, lounging around the quad. She looked upwards and saw a glint of light in the bell tower, the shadow of someone peering down into the courtyard. The face was familiar--a guy she'd seen around, but never taken much notice of--Jonathan. He moved again, and she saw the in in his hands. There was their murderer.

Buffy sprinted across the quad and hopped up on the banister of the wide stone staircase. She ran up the banister, balancing easily, and jumped for the roof. She got a one-handed grip on the rain gutter and swung up to catch a better hold. With a flip, she heaved herself n ton to the roof. She scrambled across the tiles, heading for the bell tower, and leapt straight through the rough boards that covered its nearest window. Jonathan startnd jnd jerked his rifle around, pointing it at her, looking like a rabbit caught in the sudden glare of headlights.

"Jonathan," she said, fear and excitement charging through her. Her Slayer-instinct told her to rip the gun out of his hands, but she took a breath and held out a hand to him, palm up. "Please. It's not worth it."

He snorted derisively. "How would you know?"

"No matter what they've done, they don't deserve to die, Jonathan," she said, keeping her hands steady with an effort.

"Die?" He backed up a step or two, the bullet casings clinking around his feet. "You thought I was going to shoot everybody?" He sounded offended at the suggestion.

"You mean...you weren't?" she asked, confused. "Then why are you up here with an assault rifle?"

He seemed as bewildered as she was at the question. "I was going tll mll myself," he said.

"Oh." Buffy stepped towards him. "No...Jonathan...please. You don't want to do this..."

"You don't know what I want," Jonathan said. Tears slipped slowly down his cheeks. "You're so perfect, you probably wouldn't even care if I did it, you're just saying that because you think you're supposed to."

"It's not like that," Buffy said. "I want to help you. Give me the gun."

"No!" His fingers whitened where they held the barrel. "Get away from me!"

"Jonathan--"

"Stop saying my name like we're friends!" Jonathan lifted the weapon and pointed it at her, its tip shaking slightly but still aimed directly at her chest. "We're not friends. You never even talked to me before--"

"I know..." Buffy held still, her hands out. Jonathan was sweaty and pale, his eyes jumping from her face to the to to the door. Buffy knew she could grab the rifle away from him, but something stopped her--something about the fear and hurt in his dark eyes. She said, slowly, "You know, Jonathan...I'm not perfect. I have this friend, Faith--"

"The one from the Bronze?" Jonathan asked, his grip loosening slightly on the rifle.

Buffy nodded. "She's very sick..." She felt the tears pushing at her throat, burning behind her eyes, but she forced the words out: "Dying, maybe." She looked out the wide casement to the quad below them, where everyone was enjoying just one more sunny Sunnydale day, eating lunch, fooling around. Their voices drifted up to the bell tower, but she couldn't hear words, just the sound of it, one wide wash of conversation. She wondered if that's how it felt for Faith--so much noise, but nothing left to make sense.

"Yeah, well--" Jonathan shoved the rifle higher again. "Why should I care about her? She never even noticed me...nobody does."

Buffy sighed. "A while ago...Faith did some terrible things. And she thought that they were so bad that we could never forgive her--so bad that we'd stop caring about her. So she left us. She went away, but we--I still thought about her, you know?"

"So?" Jonathan said it harshly, but she could see him faltering.

"So, we never talked about it--about what she'd done. But when she got sick, she came back, and--and she knew that I still cared for her." Buffy paused, then said more softly, "That I loved her." Outside the window, everything was too brigtoo too perfect--the green grass and the cloudless sky. When she looked back, Jonathan was staring at her wide-eyed. "And if she'd stayed away for good I wouldn't be able to tell her that," she said. "If she hadn't come back, I'd hate myself for never...letting her know...before it was too late." She walked to the window embrasure and leaned on the sill, staring down at the students. "All those people down there--they all have things like that, things they feel but they'd never say. And if you did it, if you killed yourself, I bet you'd be surprised how many of them would hate themselves. You might not know who, but they care. They do."

"I'm sorry," Jonathan said. "About your friend."

"Yeah..." Buffy turned around and stepped slowly towards him. "So...will you give me the gun?"

Without waiting for an answer, she took another step forward, and another, until she felt the cold metal of the barrel in her palm. Jonathan swallowed hard, his shoulders slumped, and he let go of the stock. Buffy ejected the round from the chamber, and the cartridge landed on the floor with a loud chink.

"You know I could have taken this frou?"u?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," Jonathan said. They stared at each other for a moment, then Jonathan knelt down and started gathering up the scattered bullets. Buffy broke down the gun and packed it in its case.

He passed her the bullets and watched her close the case. "You really...I mean--you probably trust me, huh? To tell me all that?"

"I guess I do," Buffy said. "You seem like a trustworthy guy."

"Well..." He smiled a little. "Thank you."

Buffy returned the smile. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

She followed him down the rickety staie the that led them back to the courtyard. She tried to pass him the rifle case, but he shook his head, again with that small smile. "I've got to go," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I know...you have to save the world, right?"

"Yeah," she said wryly. "That's it."

Jonathan nodded, as if all his suspicions had been confirmed. "I figured."

Buffy took off at a run, the rifle weighing downdown. She headed for the library, hoping that Willow or Giles would finally have a clue. If not--

But she didn't want to think about if not.

She was passing the cafeteria when she heard Xander's shout, and she skidded to a halt.

"Poison! The food's been poisoned! She's trying to kill us all!"

Buffy rolled her eyes but changed direction, slamming through the cafeteria doors. Xander was rushing from table to table, shoving trays and lunches to the floor. As Buffy made her way to him, the lunch lady exploded out of the kitchen with a giant meat cleaver in her hands. She barreled towards Xander, lifting the cleaver over him. Xander tripped over a fallen chair and sprawled beneath her, raising his arms defensively. Buffy shoved past the last few people in her way and swung the rifle case at the lunch lady's head, clonking her a good one to the temple. She dropped like a pole-axed steer, whatever that was, and Buffy caught the meat cleaver before it could embed itself in Xander's forehead.
Xander lay on his back, eyes squeezed shut, muttering, "I told you so. I told you so. I told you so," over and over again like a prayer.

"You did," Buffy said. "Giles will probably have a heart attack. We'll rename it 'Xander Was Right Day' and have an annual parade in your honour. But, Xander?"

Xander opened one eye and squinted up at her. "Yeah?"

"You're lying in the Mushroom Surprise." Buffy gave him a hand and pulled him to his feet. "Did you guys find anything?"

"We thought it was Freddy, at first," Xander said. "I was looking for him when I saw the Jell-O...uh, I mean, the lunch lady making strychnine into secret sauce."

"Did you find anything that might help Faith?"

"Oh. Right." Xander brushed at a noodle on his shirt. "Willow and Giles are checking something out--they think they almost have it..."

Buffy was running n ben before he'd managed to finish histenctence.

In the library, Willow was sitting at the table, Giles hovering above her and reading over her shoulder. "Buffy!" Willow said. "I think we've found it."

"What is it?" B ask asked. "What do we have to do?"

"Ridiculously simple when you see the answer, liost ost puzzles," Giles said, hefting the thick volume Willow had been reading. "Mythical transubstantiation has long been one of the more common aspective sacraments, and--"

"Time becoming an issue," Buffy said to rush him along. "Will?"

"Faith needs to eat the heart of the second demon," Willow explained.

"Oh, yeah, dead simple, once you figure it out," Buffy muttered. She opened the door of the book cage, reaching for her favourite throwing knife and a serrated dagger.

Willow followed after her, reading from the sheaf of notes she'd taken. "There's no ritual preparation or incantations," she said. "You just need to carve out the heart and bring it to her. And we know Faith found them in Shady Glens Cemetary originally, but that she chased them to the playground near Restfield afterwards. You've got to make sure you don't get anyod ood on yourself or this is just not going to end well."

"Right." Buffy sheathed her knives and stuck them into her waistband. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." Willow put her notes down and smiled at her tentatively. "Good luck."

"Thanks, Willow." Buffy eased down the part of her that was geared up in full Slayer mode, enough to say, "I couldn't have done this without you...you know...all of this. You--you're my best friend, you know."

"Yeah, well...just...I don't know," Willow said softly. "It'll be okay. You'll find the demon, and, after that...Don't mess it up, okay? No more mopey Buffy."

Buffy nodded. "Promise."

"Right." Willow jutted her chin out and pulled a total Resolve Face. "Now, what are you still doing here? You've got demons to slay! Hearts to extract! People to save!"

Buffy touched Willow's arm, and stepped past her out of the cage. Giles pushed his glasses up his nose and gave her a small, encouraging smile. She checked her weapons one last time and sprinted from the library.

*

White scaly wormy mouthless demons did not have a lot in the way of camouflage. In mid-afternoon there would be nowhere, even in Sunnydale, where they could go unnoticed; so Buffy first checked all the larger mausoleums in Shady Glens. They were all empty, except for one newbie vamp that she didn't even pause to fight--she just kicked his door down and burned him to a crisp. She was making her way through the small stretch of Breaker's Woods that separated Shady Glens from Restfield when she felt the demon coming.

Buffy curled her nose up at the reek of it. Before it could leap out of the bushes at her, she sprang after it, grabbing it as it rushed her and turning her hip to throw it head-first into a bunch of scraggly spruce trees. It shook itself and came at her ag mor more slowly, its claws extended. Buffy fell back, looking for room to maneuver in her usual style, but the thing turned and ran. Rage slammed through her. She couldn't let it escape; she couldn't fail Faith, not this time, not again.

Throwing caution to the winds, she let the Slayer part of her take over, forgetting everything to do with strategies and ics.ics. There was only the need to kill, the endless energy of every move she'd ever learned, every fighting style she'd absorbed in long sessions with Giles, and later, with Faith. Catching up with the demon, she gave it a terrific roundhouse kick that impacted its ribs with a sickening crack. It went flying ass over elbow, and she kicked again before it could get up. She launched herself on top of it and pummeled its face, losing herself in the feel of meat and bone giving way beneath her fists. The demon trio lio lift its arms and push her away, and it got in one blow that brought her back to her senses. Without a pause, she reached for her dagger and plunged it into the demon's neck, twisting away from the gout of silvery blood that sprayed upwards.

As quickly as she could, she dug her blade into its chest, sawing at the ribs until they snapped, and covering her hands with her shirt sleeve before scooping the blue muck of its heart into a baggie. She sealed it and set out for home.

For Faith.

Buffy nearly burst the front door off its hinges pulling it open. She ran past her mom without even a glance, bounding up the stairs four at a time. She headed for her room, where only yesterday she'd been so happy, but something was wrong. She could feel it. There were no Slayer-tingles, no sense that Faith was nearby, and she felt a sob trying to cut off her breath because if she couldn't feel Faith then maybe she was too late, and she couldn't be, no, she couldn't, please--

She didn't want to know, but she had to. She opened the door to her room slowly.

The bed was empty. The breeze ruffled the curtains at the open window.

Faith was gone.

*

Da da dum! To be continued.