Getting Ready
Title: Getting Ready
Author: Juniper (juniper1@chickmail.com)
Summary: Faith takes care of one last piece of business in the hospital.
Rating: R for language and stuff
Disclaimer: Joss & co. own 'em; I'm just trying to make it through rerun season.
Spoilers: Anything through season 3 is fair game.
Feedback: Much craved.
Distribution: Sure, just let me know where.
Notes: #4 in my Faithseries. This one's pretty clean, but hopefully Faith will be getting some action very soon. And this is for Angel, so she'll continue to wrap me in her wings.
It's three in the morning, and I'm creeping through the halls of the hospital like I have no right to be here. Giles is coming in exactly seven hours to discharge me, and I'll be released into his care.
He must have some plan, but I'm not in on it.
That doesn't matter now. 'Cause I'm here. At the door that's just slightly ajar to let the darkness form a barrier against the light. If I open it just a little more I can see him, on the bed. So frail and wan...I can't imagine he's been like this for five weeks.
Even injured, I was fighting and kicking the whole time, desperate to get out of Buffy's head and into mine. Trying to open my eyes and see the world again.
But I guess...he saw what I felt, through her, and it sent him here. To this tiny corner of safety where the world can't come in.
I can, though. So I do. I slide along the wall, hugging the solidity of the cool surface, more afraid of approaching him than I've ever been of any vampire. His eyes are open, but I don't think he sees me. He doesn't react, anyway; even as I take one hesitant step away from the wall, he lays there on his side, slack-jawed and still.
Oh, God, this is wrong. He was so *alive*, so...good. He was the one who really made me doubt. He made me reconsider every lesson I'd ever taught myself.
I used to hate that I let *them* back into my life for anything other than sex. Men, you see. Before Sunnydale, used to be that there was nothing else that really mattered - I'd get my thrills and then out the door.
But Xander...I almost let him stay. He was rubbing my arm so gentle and lazy, and it wasn't like anyone else. But yeah, he had to go. Had to get him out of here so my head could have room to expand and I could think again.
I would get so fucking fired up I would think something must be wrong, that the Slayer cells in my body must be letting out some aphrodisiacal shit that shuts me down inside. I mean, Xander? It's like the whole world is programmed to think of him as asexual. Something screwy happened to make me jump his bones.
But something made it so it was a little more, it wasn't just sex. I wanted to lie next to him for hours, and then I thought of Giles and he was out the door. Not thinking of Giles *that* way, of course; I just mean that I remembered how I agreed to let him be my Watcher.
So relieved when I was Called and got a female Watcher. And even when Mrs. Post showed up and I didn't feel quite right about giving the loyalty to someone besides Giles, it was okay, 'cause she was a she. Even after she turned out to be bad news, it wasn't so much about her being a *her*. Not like it would have been if Giles did something psycho. So basically when Wesley showed up, I just knew. *He* couldn't be trusted, and he proved me right.
But it got to be a trend. First Giles, then Xander. And then, the boss. Even after I had to balk, after G and X started pushing and trying to get into my head and deconstruct, and I swore I'd never let another man back in, not as a friend, not as someone to be trusted for anything but sex, the only one to go to was the boss.
There was once a point when Jared, this perpetually inebriated jerk I used to sleep with, told me he'd choose me over a bottle of fine wine any day. So I asked if he'd choose me over a six-pack.
He said no.
That was the last time before Xander that I let myself think a man could care about me for anything but the sex. I shook off all those delusions of love, emotion, affection...It's hormones, see. They run on testosterone, and the rest is hot air.
Sometimes I used to watch *her* going about her life with such angst, blissfully unaware of how much worse a teenage girl's problems can get. She thought slaying was a tough life - and I envied the ease of her life most of the time.
Guys put on these airs about falling in love with a girl's innocence, but that's shit talking. What the fuck does a guy know about a girl's innocence? Being a guy, he can't have the purity that is so unique to girls, so he can't possibly appreciate what it means to hold on to it.
I could.
It's fucking weird how as you grow up, you realize how many of those old sayings you used to laugh at are true. Like you never appreciate what you have until you lose it. Most of the time you probably don't even realize you have it.
There was this one night, when she was dancing at the Bronze, laughing at Xander's goofy little bobs to the music. Watching her (I watched her a lot), I realized just what different worlds we were from.
She thought the only monsters were the ones Giles could conjure up from dusty old books.
She thought only vampires would suck you dry.
She could dance with Xander and not wonder if he was plotting how to get her into bed. And there I was, just trying to give in before they reached out and took it, trying to make sure I didn't have to fight the human demons as well as those from hell.
I wanted her so bad.
I wanted to show her things, show her how the big, bad things in the dark could all fade into this sparkle of stars as I made her drown in her own ecstasy. Sometimes I thought she was trying to live under the same curse as Angel, to try to live in synch with him, cause she seemed so damned determined to make sure part of her mind was on the horrible things in life.
She wouldn't let herself forget the bad, even for a moment, and I wanted to show her how.
I used to think I wouldn't be able to, either. It took so long to learn to shut it off, to just live hard for just a few moments, a few minutes, a few hours. Never a whole day, but you take what you can get before the guilt settles back in.
Xander's gonna have to learn that, too, or he'll never be out of here...I can almost hear the voices in his mind, telling him he failed her, he let it happen, he should have saved her from Drusilla. A wild cacophony right behind his eyeballs, chanting and pounding louder than the waves break against the shore.
He'll drown soon, if he doesn't get out. Even if it's not for good, if he slips back in most of the time, he still needs air. He needs to come back, and if I could I'd give myself up for good to help him.
This isn't the way it should be. This isn't what I ever wanted. This isn't the world I wanted to come back to.
I just don't think there's anything I can do about it. All I can do right now is stand up. Touch my fingers to his slack-jawed cheek and shuffle out of the room. I have to be getting ready.
For everything.