Starting Over Again

Hey, I know I said I was gonna update the story last week but I thought that this chapter was an imporatant Faith/Buffy wise so it took a little longer than planned. I just wanted everything to be right... I changed one tiny thing in the previous chapter, just Faith's last name. I had written 'Matthews' but then I remembered that Buffy hadn't known Faith's last name and that the mayor probably would've used his last name. So I will be using 'Wilkins' until Faith tells Buffy her real last name.

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Willow, Tara and Buffy walked into the hospital, not knowing what to expect from Faith when meeting her. Once they got to Faith’s room, Willow and Tara decided it would be better if they waited outside while Buffy went in there to meet Faith first.

Buffy slowly opened the door, expecting to see Faith lying on the bed like she’d done for the past couple of months. Or at least seeing Faith standing next to the bed demanding to be released while the nurse and doctor tried to convince her it would be best if she stayed there for a while.

What Buffy saw, however, wasn’t any of those scenarios. The room was empty, except for Faith’s nurse changing the bed sheets, the flowers that Buffy had gotten for Faith weren’t there anymore either.

Buffy frowned slightly and then decided to ask the nurse what was going on.

“Excuse me, Emily, do you know where they put Faith? I just got a call about that she woke up.”

Emily looked up, recognizing Buffy’s voice immediately and smiled.

“Don’t worry Buffy. She’ll be here in a minute, Jason in just doing a physical check-up on her.”

Buffy went to ‘her’ chair and sat down in it, relieved that Faith hadn’t left already.

After about 5 minutes, which seemed like an eternity to Buffy, the door opened. The doctor walked into the room with Faith who was sat in a wheelchair.

Time stopped for Buffy as Faith turned her head to look at her, they caught each others eyes/ both were silent not sure what to say to each other. Buffy saw that Faith’s eyes were cold, for a moment it seemed as if something else was there, fear, but Buffy couldn’t be sure. All Faith saw was regret, sorrow and love? but she wasn’t sure about the last one. What she didn’t see though were anger, hate and disappointment which surprised her. Faith didn’t show this, not wanting Buffy to be able to read her, but she didn’t succeed. Buffy had seen it.

“Hey Faith.” Buffy said softly, not sure how Faith would react to a talking Buffy.

“Hi B, guess you won then seeing you here alive and kicking. Who would’ve thought?” Faith’s voice was like ice, but that had been expected so Buffy decided to ignore it since she didn’t want to start this second chance with a fight.

The room was filled with tension but the doctor didn’t seem to notice as he pushed the wheelchair forward, put it next to the bed and prepared himself to help Faith onto the bed.

While the nurse and doctor took their time to help Faith, Buffy took her time to examine Faith.

Faith had gotten skinnier during her coma, but that was expected and Buffy had seen it happen. Buffy had told the doctors that Faith’s metabolism worked a lot faster then the average human. The doctors kept this in mind whenever they fed her through the tubing system.

Faith was quite pale, but not as pale as someone would’ve been after waking up from an 8 month coma. This was probably because Buffy had always kept the window open whenever she was there and the weather was nice, it was just to let Faith get some fresh air while she was stuck inside.

As Faith’s legs were lifted up to the bed Buffy could see the loss of the firm muscles, her legs looked very weak and were a lot thinner than Buffy remembered them to be.

When Buffy was examining how Faith was being helped by the doctor and Emily she slowly realised that Faith actually needed help. She also realised that Faith had been brought into the room in a wheelchair and that she hadn’t used her legs at all since she came into the room.

The doctor walked away from the bed and Emily left the room. Buffy could see how exhausted Faith looked right then, just from having to get back into a bed.

Not wanting to let the silence turn into and awkward one again, Buffy decided to find out what was wrong with Faith, how fast she would recover and when she would be allowed to leave the hospital. But Buffy was beaten to it by Faith.

“Hey doc, when can I leave this place?” Faith tried her best to ignore Buffy’s presence in the room but it was getting a lot harder since Buffy was looking at her the whole time.

“That depends on your recovery and when ms. Summers will be able to take you in, when that is is mostly up to Buffy, so my guess is that it will be very soon.” The doctor smiled at Buffy.

“What is wrong with Faith’s legs?” Buffy asked, not wanting to deal with when faith would move in right now, she knew that Faith would want to say something about it. But with the doctor in the room it wouldn’t be such a great idea.

“It is very common with coma patients that their legs don’t work for a while because of the lack of exercise and leg movements. Because of the lack of exercise, the muscles in the legs become extremely weak and cannot be used. With physiotherapy, however, the muscles are trained and shouldn’t cause too many problems. She should be able to walk again in a few months.”

Buffy frowned as she heard this news.

“But what about the leg movement you told me to do with her, the exercises? I thought that was supposed to prevent this from happening, that was what you told me Jason.”

Faith looked up at Buffy. Buffy had been visiting and she knew the doctor by first name, this surprised Faith and confused her slightly. ‘She probably came here to make sure that when I woke up I would get my ass kicked or something… But didn’t she just say that she had tried to prevent this not walking thing from happening?’

The more faith thought about it the more confused she got. She had to talk to Buffy about whatever it was that was going on.

Faith really wanted to be acting like a bitch towards Buffy and give her the cold shoulder but as Buffy and Jason continued discussing Faith she noticed that Buffy was trying to get fait released straight away.

While Buffy and Jason were talking, Faith took her time to look through the room where she had spent eight months of her life without even knowing about it.

She saw a clock on the wall which she recognized to be Buffy’s. Next to her bed, on the nightstand, she saw a couple of get-well-soon cards. ‘Who would’ve given me cards? The only person who actually cared about me was the mayor, and apparently he is dead.’

“We should go sign those release papers then and then you can go make a first appointment with the physiotherapist here.”

Buffy was about to close the door when she turned around to look at Faith, “It’s good to have you back again Faith.” Buffy smiled at her and then closed the door, leaving a already confused faith even more confused.

“Ok, what the fuck is going on here? Did I wake up in an other dimension?!” She asked no one in particular.

Faith looked at the cards again, curious about who had given them.

“Dear Faith, I’m really sorry about everything that has happened between us. I hope we can work things out once you’ve woken up. Buffy”

‘So she actually wants things to work out now? This could be a scheme though. Shouldn’t trust her quite yet though.’ Faith grabbed the next card and recognized the handwriting at once.

“Faith. Buffy has told me about her plans for when you wake up. It would be great if you agreed to them. Don’t worry I’m not taking anything of what you did personally, that’s including the poisoning. It’s all forgiven. From Angel.
PS. I wouldn’t recommend coming here for a while though, Cordelia and Wesley aren’t as forgiving. I’ll see what I can do about that though after you and I have talked.”

‘Angel survived??? Shit, that means that B must’ve given him her blood… I guess she really loved him to let him do that to her, knowing that it could kill her.’

There were two other cards but Faith didn’t get to read them since Buffy just walked into the room.

Buffy sat down in ‘her’ chair again, not really knowing what to actually say now that faith was awake.

“How you feeling?” Buffy could’ve slapped herself for asking such a stupid question, ‘How do you think she feels? She just woke up from a coma you put her in!’

Faith looked at Buffy for a moment, again wondering what kind of game she was playing at.

“Like I was stabbed in the gut and then woke up from an eight month coma. What about you?” her voice was still very cold but not as bas as before.

Faith’s words, although Buffy had expected them, stung deeply.

“Oh well, you know, nervous, terrified, scared I’m gonna say the wrong things.”

Buffy decided to go with honesty and ignore the extremely cold voice that was coming from Faith. If she wanted things to work out this time she would have to be honest and very patient.

Faith was getting more confused again. Why was Buffy being nice to her? And didn’t the doctor say something about her moving in with Buffy?

“Ok B. What game are you playing at here?” Faith wanted to know, she couldn’t figure it out and was getting desperate. She didn’t have the energy to do this shit.

“You’re being nice to me while I’m like stone towards you. Apparently you have been here often seeing you know the doc’s first name. I have a card from you, one from Angel and two others. Angel’s said something about a plan of yours, and while we’re at it, how did Angel survive? You feed yourself to him? Why? And where is that ‘here’ he was talking about, why are Wes and Cordy with him? And the doc said something about me being released depended on when you could take me in. What the fuck is going on here?!”

Faith wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream out the last sentence or whisper it, both would show a sign of weakness she thought. Since she was so desperate, confused and tired she just whispered it really softly, surprising Buffy with the tone of her voice.

While Faith had been rambling though, Buffy had gotten out of her chair and walked towards Faith’s side. She sat down on Faith’s bed and took Faith’s hands in her own, wanting to comfort her and calm her down.

“Faith, breathe, relax. I’ll explain everything.”

Buffy took a deep breath before starting her explanation.

“Angel survived because he fed off of me, as you probably figured out yourself. He lives in LA, Cordelia and Wesley are there with him. They are helping the helpless or something and have called themselves ‘Angel Investigations’.”

Buffy took an other breath before continuing, she figured that if she herself was calm and relaxed Faith would eventually feel more at ease and relax too.

“I’m being nice because I’m sorry for what happened before, I was being a bitch and should’ve helped you instead of ditching you like that. We can talk more about that later, we sorta have to… The plan Angel was talking about is something I thought of not too long after graduation.”

“How did you survive the Ascension Day? I thought that the mayor would’ve killed all of you.” Fait interrupted.

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what B? I was sorta unconscious.” Faith tried to give Buffy a smile but it turned into a grin instead.

“After you jumped off of the building onto the truck I went back to Angel.”
Both slayers flinched slightly at the memory of the fight. Faith because she had lost and Buffy because she had won it.

“I cured him with my blood. Since I had lost so much of it he had to bring me to the hospital. I was unconscious for a few hours. You were lying opposite me, a curtain separating us. We shared a dream. You told me how we could beat him. Because of you we won the battle, we wouldn’t have been able to done it without you.”

“I told you how to beat the mayor??? Wait, was I speaking in riddles or something? Yeh, I was. And we were fixing a bed, and there was a cat. Shit, I remember that now.”

They both smiled at the good memory of when they weren’t fighting but just talking normally to each other, or at least as normal as riddles get.

“Right, the plan,” Buffy remembered, “after graduation I pretty much spent all my time here, talking to you, hoping you would wake up. I wanted to have a second chance with you, an other chance to actually make it work. I want us to be friends, and I don’t mean like it was before, but a real friendship you know.”

Faith thought for a moment before replying again, Faith had lost all the hatred and anger towards Buffy and she was surprised it had happened so fast. It was probably ‘cause she could see that Buffy was being genuine and really wanted things to work out.

“I want that too, believe me. And it sounds great and all, but B, where am I gonna live? What about the police? I’m pretty sure that they’re after me again now that the mayor isn’t here to keep ‘m off of my back.”

Buffy smiled, knowing that what she would say now would surprise Faith even more than the previous things.

“Willow removed the police files, you’re a free girl.”

‘My free girl… Ok, where the hell did that just come from?!’

“Red did that? Shit… gotta say that I’m really surprised, appreciating but surprised. But where am I gonna live?”

“You have a room at my house, we have your things there and the room itself has been finished for months. But because of paralysis it would be best if you lived in my dorm until you can walk. I’ll be able to help you better because of the slayer strength and my mom is out of town for the next 2 weeks anyway. I’m sharing the dorm with Will but I’m sure she wont mind staying at Tara’s for a while.”

Buffy looked at the time and then got up from the bed, she let go of Faith’s hands, just realizing she had been holding them the whole time. She got the wheelchair and put it next to the bed, then she went to the other side of the bed to get Faith’s clothes from the bottom of the nightstand. She had put them there for when Faith woke up.

“Will you need help getting dressed? If you want me to I can wait outside.”

Faith looked at her clothes and then up at Buffy. Faith hated asking for help but if they both wanted things to change for the better things actually had to change. Buffy had decided to become less of a stuck-up-bitch so Faith decided she could be less of a bad-ass and ask for help.

“I’ll probably need help with the pants, seeing as my legs are pretty much useless right now and can’t move on their own.” This was as close as she could get, for now.

Buffy smiled at Faith, knowing that things would definitely change this time round. She helped Faith get dressed and then helped her into the wheelchair.

“We still have to go by the physiotherapist to make an appointment. After that we’ll see Willow and Tara.”

“I’ve seen them already. I saw them right before we went back here, Red said you were in here but I already knew. Slayer tingles, gotta love them. Hey, did you know that Red ain’t driving stick anymore? When I saw her she was making out with some blonde chick, Tara I’m assuming. What happened to Oz? You gotta tell me all the shit that’s been down while I was out.”

Buffy smiled to herself as Faith got excited about getting a second chance, a new life to do better.

“Yeh I know Willow is gay, Tara’s her girlfriend. A lot has happened but don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything.”

Buffy pushed the door open and then follow with Faith in the wheelchair. She would have to ask Willow to pick up the few things left in the hospital room while Buffy and Faith were talking with the physiotherapist.

She closed the door behind her and headed into a new life. A life with Faith as her friend instead of her enemy.

It wouldn’t be all easy though, they both knew that they were in for a bumpy ride but Buffy was sure that they would be able to get past it. Together.

TBC……