The Brink Of Your Mind

Something Deep Inside
A/N:I’m such a tease. But unfortunately, I completely stonewalled after the last chapter. I had no idea what the fuck to do with the pair of them after that. I mean, jeez, I’m not dead; I had a number of ideas. But it wouldn’t have fit in. so I’m taking a step back, and then another step forward.

~ ~ ~

The sound of the air pressure being let out of the buses engine jolted the blonde awake in her seat, just in time to see Sunnydale bus terminal come into view. At a guess, it was about four in the morning, but then, she didn’t exactly put on her watch when she astral projected her entire body into the woods with Faith.

And if it was in the middle of the day, she’d feel like a completely idiot walking around in her chequered pj pants and a tank top.

She’d sat around for a good hour after she’d settled Faith into her sleeping bag, and after much deliberation, she’d decided to go home, despite her earlier decision. For starters, she had no idea what the say to the brunette, and for another thing; her mother would probably have several heart attacks when she went into wake her up in the morning, and she wasn’t there.

She wanted to leave her a note, but as it happened, Faith didn’t have a pen or any paper with her, so she’d had to settle for scrawling a note in the dirt near the stream and surrounding it with twigs and stuff. Just to make sure Faith would see it.

She currently had no idea what the hell was going on, or why Luc had decided that Buffy astral projecting during her sleep to where Faith was, was a good idea. But she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just go with it.

If she’d actually taken the time to call upon the mourning star and ask him, she would have found out that he wasn’t doing anything of the sort.

It was all Buffy, and all Faith.

~ ~ ~

The first thing Faith noticed when she woke up, was that the rain had stopped. The second was that she was in her tent, without having a clue as to how she got there. And the third was that she was completely naked.

Wriggling around in the tent, she wormed her way to the entrance to her temporary ‘home’ and unzipped it, sticking her head out and looking up at the sky. Noting the position of the moon, she figured it was about four in the morning. She rolled onto her back, unconcerned for the moment about her nudity within her sleeping bag, as her eyes searched the sky above her head.

She’d had a complete and utter melt down before she’d fallen asleep. And even that was putting it politely. She’d broken, would be a more apt term for what happened.

She’d always believed, through out her entire life, that she had somehow deserved all the shit she’d received as a child. That something was so wrong inside of her, that her stepfather had seen it and so proceeded to try and beat it right. That she was an affront to life just by being who she was born to be.

Now she realised that the thing he saw in her was her frightening strength of will, her hidden power that could match his own. He wanted her obedient, so he beat her. Raped her. Pimped her out. She can still recall, in vivid detail, exactly what it felt like to have his bones crunching into pieces beneath her fist.

She’d never really taken any pleasure in willingly hurting people, but with him it was different. With him she had to hurt him, had to break him like he broke her, just so she could get free. So she could walk out that front door and never look back.

She’d even failed at her own revenge, calling him an ambulance from the payphone just around the corner. She didn’t want his death on her hands; she was stained enough as it was, she didn’t need that on her conscious too.

She sighed, pulling her smokes out of her bag and lighting one up, breathing in a lungful of toxic fumes before breathing it out again noisily.

What did Buffy know anyway? How did she know it wasn’t Faith’s own damn fault? How did she know that the brunette didn’t deserve everything that was handed to her. Although, something must had hit home, all those times she kept saying it to her, because inside she felt something snap.

Maybe it was the tightly wound cords, that held her fragile soul in place. That kept it from screaming up her throat and choking her with the memories of a past she’d rather forget. Maybe Buffy had broken the bottle, but more than that; shattered it.

And what if she had? It meant that there was no safe place for her to hide anymore. It meant that she’d have to deal with whatever emotions and memories came her way, and get over them in turn. It meant she couldn’t hide anymore.

And with that thought, she felt a small smile tugging at her lips. Because she *wanted* to feel that. Subconsciously, she needed that. Because although she’d finally managed to find the inner strength to walk away from that son-of-a-bitch, he still had power over her. His memory was like the after taste of vomit in the back of her throat.

And until she’d delt with all the shit from her past, the image of his face in her head would always bring the bittersweet taste of pain into her mouth.

Another thought occurred to her; Buffy knew something about her past. Obviously, otherwise she wouldn’t have said what she did. But how? She was so sure that Giles hadn’t requested her file yet, and so didn’t have a clue about her childhood.

Maybe you should ask her. A little voice in the back of her head whispered to her, one that she recognised as the one she had been missing for most of her life. It was the voice that called out for you to stop what you were doing, that shouted at you if you were wrong, or being an ass. The one that drove you to do the very best that you actually could do.

She stubbed out her smoke on the ground, cramming what was left of it into a plastic bag she’d been using for rubbish, before shuffling back inside her tent to try and get some more sleep.

~ ~ ~

Willow sat at her desk, nervously messing with her pen and sneaking glances between the chalkboard and Buffy. For her own part, the blonde seemed a little tired, but was actually attempting to do some of the work that they’d been set. Willow, being Willow, had already finished it, and was quietly contemplating what she’d seen the other day, when she cast her spell.

It was a very simple one really; to check Buffy’s energy and to figure out what was taking up so much of her time and energy. Just to make sure she was ok.

She’d gone into a trance like state, picturing her blonde friend in her mind perfectly as the smells surrounding her penetrated her third eye, bring it to the foreground. The image of Buffy in the flesh had faded backwards, leaving only the imprint of her body, and a networking of wires where her friend used to be.

Willow had done this spell countless times, and new that what she was seeing was normal. Apart from that bright twinkling blue wire.

She followed the emerald energy lines, watching in fascination as they glowed brighter than was normal, as they pulsated. Weaving themselves through out every single inch of Buffy’s body. Which was also a little strange, as non super-beings had only half that much, and not through every single inch of them. But she’d guessed that was because Buffy was a slayer.

The pale yellow lines were her soul, and like mostly everyone else’s they were concentrated around the chest area. But one single thread wasn’t connected to its corresponding end. It was woven delicately into that neon blue one. All the way through it actually.

The red represented her mind, and there was also a hell of a lot more there too. Mostly centered around the head, obviously, it was so dense that you couldn’t even see through it to the other side, like with everyone else. It was a pulsating ball of flowing energy that never seemed to still.

She’d finally dragged herself back to the neon blue line, after coming to the conclusion that everything else with her friend was fine, she instantly became fascinated with it. It over took most of her body, but not on it’s own. It was following every other single line within Buffy’s body, giving them all a kind of shadow of blue. With little threads of everything weaving themselves deeply within that single blue one.

She’d never seen anything like it in her life, and so came to the conclusion that this was her slayer line. This was what made Buffy a very different person. She also came to the conclusion that while it was obviously her slayer, it was also something that Buffy had been born with. Nothing so densely incorporated into someone’s being could have just appeared one day. This is the kind of stuff that happened during your making, something that took a long time to create. Not something that happened in the instant that the slayer before you died.

Sheecomecome slightly confused though, at the single thread that had unwound itself from the main line, thought still attached to it, and trailed off, away from Buffy’s body. So she’d lost focus on Buffy then, figuring that where ever this thread lead her too, was ultimately the reason for Buffy being scattered recently.

She’d walked through out the ere ere for what seemed like forever, her finger tips resting just above the blue thread as she followed it back to a completely different person. One who’s rage line was slightly more inflamed than most, and who’s pain line was almost taking over her entire soul.

It had taken a few moments, but willow had finally brought the real time image of that person forwards through the energy map, watching in startled fascination as raven colored hair emerged, followed by tanned skin and eyes that no one could ever forget.

The person who Buffy was connected too, not only as a slayer, but also by the small soul thread that was woven deeply within that slayer line, was Faith.

Willow had awoken from her trace in a mild state of shock. Giles had had to make her three cups of very sweet tea before her hands had stopped shaking, and she’d stopped swallowing deeply.

And now that she had all this information, she had no idea what to do with it all.

Or how to tell her best friend about it.


To Be Continued