Fleeting

Part VI - Burden Of Death
A/N: ya'll are giving such nice reviews that i decided to give you a new part already. enjoy.

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Despite the creature comforts of my new home, including all the food I could eat without having to work for it, the heat hadn’t escaped my notice. Now living in sunnyhell for five years should have taken care of that problem, but then I was never really prepared to find myself in hell, while still being very much alive.

It’d been a good five weeks since skip had last come to see me, the memories and words of the conversation seemingly dripping out of my mind, except for one thing: I had to get out.

Dragging my almost fully healed body from the confines of the sofa, I trudged over towards the small training area I’d set up, and eyed the punching bag for a long minute, before laying down on the weight bench, and starting to lift the bar in a series of repetitions.

I didn’t really need to tone the muscles up, but without a sparring partner, there’s only so much a girl can do by herself. And even if B were here, I doubt she’d actually know how to get ready for it anyway.

I hadn’t ventured outside since I’d arrived, knowing full well that half the demon population of this hell, were gunning for me. Not to say I didn’t have a few unpleasant callers over the time here. But it wasn’t like I had anything else real life to fight.

Laying the weight bar back down, I sat up flexed my back, feeling the muscles stretch slightly under the sheen of sweat that had been ever present since I got here. I wouldn’t have minded the sweat if I was getting a tan at the same time.

Laying on the mat on the floor, I curled my feet underneath the metal bar that I’d attached to the wall, and started to do a rapid series of sit ups, following a set of 50 by a set of 50 crunches, then starting to process all over again.

A whooshing sound came rumbling through eh apartment and almost made me loose rhythm, until I realized that it was just skip arriving.

“Hey fella. Where’ve you been for all this time?” I could feel my stomach muscles bunching slightly underneath my skin, but I didn’t turn to look at him, carrying on my work out instead.

“L.A. jesus, I was only gone for two days.”

“Five weeks actually. If you’re running by this time.” Finishing off, I slowly climbed to my feet and turned to face him, smiling at him, despite knowing he was a demon, but liking the big guy anyway.

“Man! You’ve been working hard haven’t ya?” his eyes trailed up and down my body, causing me to walk over to a full-length mirror and peer at myself curiously.

Well fuck a duck. My eyebrows almost shot off my forehead when I saw myself. Where before the femininity of my gender softened my body slightly, making me look like I couldn’t hurt a fly, my body was now bunched up in groups of hard, rippling muscles. Not like those creepy body builder women you see on tv. But everything had been fully toned, the muscles structures I had before being hardened beneath the skin, now giving me the look of a predator.

“Damn.” Turning this way and that, I checked out my body, feeling a small sense of pride at the results of my hard work.

“Faith?” looking up at him through the mirror, I saw a look of sadness cross his eyes as he watched me through the glass. There was something in that look that I knew I’d seen before. Something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

“Who?”

“Tara.” His voice smashed into my head, making the blood rush behind my eyes and cause a white-hot stabbing pain being them. Pressing the heels of my hands into them, I lowered my chin to my chest and just tried to breathe. Without even opening my eyes I knew that little black spots were dancing in front of my face.

Staggering slightly, I turned around and put my back to the wall as I slide down it, the sound of my own breathing vibrating so harshly through my own head, I couldn’t even tell if skip was talking to me again. Maybe he wasn’t, maybe he’d gone.

A wave of dizziness raced through me, causing nausea to jump up into my throat, threatening to spill over. Just like the tears I was scarcely holding behind my lids with my hands.

Tara?

~ ~ ~

I kept tapping the end of my pen on the corner of my book, as I propped my head in my hand and attempted to read the text in front of me. Why on earth had I let B convince me to actually pass high school? And worse, talk me into going to college?

I’m quite positive that I didn’t give a flying fuck about south east asian pocs. cs.

I hand suddenly clamped down on top of my own, causing me to jump slightly and turn to the girl beside me.

“Jesus T-bear.” I whispered to her softly. We were in a library after all. “you scared the bejesus outta me.”

She smiled softly at me as she removed her hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry. But that was bugging me.” Indicating with her hand towards where my pen holding hand was.

I smiled sheepishly at her before closing the textbook and shoving everything into my bag. “you coming? I’m boring myself to tears here. Need a coffee fix.”

*

“I dunno. Sometimes it’s just a little too much for me to handle all at once, ya know?” she nodded as she took a sip of her drink. “ I mean, I never had to worry about kid sisters, and college assignments and friends all at once, *and* on top of slaying.” I shrugged before sucking up some iced mocha through my straw. I swallowed deeply before continuing. “it used to all be so simple. Sleep through the day, slaying at night, making sure to releave the vamps of their wallets be dus dusting commenced.”

“the only thing I ever had to worry about was getting away from my family.” The hint of sadness and anger behind her voice didn’t escape my attention. “and then when I got here it was all just.. old Tara, ya know? But now there’s willow. And with willow comes the rest of the gang. Not to mention the whole ‘fighting evil’ thing too.” I grinned at her balsay mentioning of our work, so to speak. “not to mention the actual life stuff on top of that.”

“yeah but, what can we do?” I shrugged, curling my empty coffee cup into a near by trashcan and leaning back in my chair as I stretched.

“the thing you gotta remember faith, is even thought now you have people to care about and look out for, at least two other people wake up thinking the same thing.”

“you saying you think of me when you wake up?” I smirked as she blushed and ducked her head, before looking back up at me.

“I’m saying that it works both ways. You have people to care about now, but those people also care about you too.”

“yeah,” I nodded, looking down at my fidgeting hands and wishing, for not the first time in my life, that I could just sit still for a couple of minutes. “I get that now. Doesn’t mean the ends gonna be any different. Cause I’d still gonna die young.”

reaching ss tss the table, she grabbed one of my hands and gave it a gentle squeeze be lee letting go again. “you just gotta remember faith. There are no happy endings: only the moments before.”

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as I sat shaking, my eyes glazed over as I remembered the rest of that day, I swallowed the sob that wanto bto bark it’s way out of my mouth. That was a Wednesday. B and red were in class all day, and me and Tara made a habit out of studying together and hanging out for a good portion of the day.

I small smile lifted the corners of my lips as I recalled the number of times Tara had to actually come to my room and practically yank me out of bed, just to make sure I was awake.

“Who?” I said, shaking my head to clear the fog, and looking up at him. I could feel the rage burning within me as I looked at skip, feeling the bittersweet hatred for whoever did this to Tara welling up within me.

“Guy called warren. I wouldn’t worry about him thought. Someone’s already taking care of the shit.” Willow. I smirked mirthlessly as I thought of what all that witchy power could be used to do to him.

“He dead yet?” I pushed myself up to standing, feel a dull ache within for the loss of my friend. My *best* friend. And almost a child like glee at what was going to be done to him.

“Almost.” He looked at me, knowing exactly what I was thinking, before I even thought it. “You know you aren’t gonna be able to get to him without a fight, right?”

“Do I look like I give a flying fuck right now? Huh?” I shouted at him. Fuck it, going home could wait.

There was someone I had to wait to see before I went anywhere.


Continued Next in: Silent Screams