Gotta Pay Now
Title: Gotta Pay Now
Author: Juniper
email: juniper1@chickmail.com
Disclaimer: They're not mine, they're Joss'. I'm just trying to make up for some of the rampant Faith-abuse that occurred last season. Please don't sue. Oh, yeah, and the title and the lyrics are from "Head In The Clouds," by the Indians.
Summary/Rating: R for language and stuff. Faith realizes she has a lot of reconstruction to do in her life.
Distribution: Just let me know where it will be.
Feedback: Puh-leeze. No, really, please? Pretty please?
Spoilers: Anything season 3 is fair game...
Notes: #3 in my Faithseries. And hmmmm...I've decided that this is for Kate B. and Te, 'cause they seem to like it and are so sweet to me.
//She danced her way around and round
Never wanted to slow down, slow down, down, down
Life came knocking on her door
She asked him what he came here for
He said you gotta pay now
If you're looking for some more.//
Can you go home when you have no home?
It's been five weeks. Five miserable weeks. I'm getting out tomorrow. They transferred me to Sunnydale General Hospital right after they established that I wasn't experiencing a "false awakening" or something like that; handed me off so I was someone else's problem.
No. I have to stop doing that. They weren't equipped for anyone non-comatose. Gotta remember that.
Sometimes the bitterness wells up in my throat and I have to attach it to something, anything, so that it doesn't stick to me. It did that a lot while I slept, attached itself to me. Who else can you distrust when you're the only one there?
Yeah, I'm getting out tomorrow. They say I've healed remarkably. They say the complete reversal of all brain-damage is astonishing. They say they've never seen anything like it.
I say I've been here five weeks too long. I say I'm sick of being fed nutrients through a tube when my shrunken stomach can't hold more than four bites of food. I say I'm tired of barely being able to dress myself. I say I need to start training again.
Training - Just the thought brings Giles to mind. He's the only one who's been here. Six visits; the first, and then exactly one each week. He finally gave me the go-ahead...he's not gonna hand me over to the Council for punishment.
He trusts me. Well, as much as he can. He's trying, and that means a lot. Though I wonder how much of it is that he doesn't work for the Council, and he may put me through punishment of his own. Lectures and shit.
It'll be worth it. Anything, as long as he'll train me, help me...watch me. Maybe protect me a little bit. I'm hoping for more than I deserve, but hey, who doesn't?
And that's just it. The problem from the beginning. I got away from Boston and the memories and I let myself forget. I started wanting again. I forgot that's not allowed.
I watched her sleeping on my bed and it just looked wrong. Not just the way her makeup was smeared or the way her hair was matted to her forehead. It was her perfect skin and her perfect smile and all her perfection and then my dingy sheets and my cheap lipstick on her face and the dim lighting and I thought, she doesn't belong here.
But I was the one who left. I didn't see anything left to do. I accused her of trying to make me like her when all the while I knew I wanted to be and it hurt that I couldn't, that I could never be anything but the bad one.
I loved her and I never told her.
When I was four years old, my mama gave me a piece of candy and made me sit in the corner, and every ten minutes she would come back to see if I'd eaten it yet. The first ten was easy; I didn't want to disappoint her and after I hid the candy under my leg, I didn't think about it so much. But then she came back and said I wasn't playing fair, that I had to hold it in my open palm and still resist. So the next ten minutes was harder, but I thought of a way to pass the time. I would stare real hard at the candy and think, okay, I can eat you, and that will be real fun, but it will be the last piece of candy for a long time if I disappoint mama and she doesn't want me anymore.
I sat there for three hours, staring at that stupid candy, and I finally didn't want it anymore. The new challenge was to stop myself from throwing it on the floor and crushing it beneath my bare feet. When mama came back for the last time, she took it away and told me to go play in my room real quiet 'cause she had a date coming over. And I knew I'd won, because she told me to play in my room instead of play outside. Outside meant she didn't want me near. Outside I could get hurt.
My point is that I learned a lesson that day. When I have a temptation, and I can't hide it away where I don't see, all I have to do is remember how much everyone will hate me if I fuck up. And it works, keeping that in mind. It keeps me in line.
Well, it did. Then something got out of control and I was trying so hard not only to stop her from hating me but to make her love me that I forgot to keep trying to hate the pieces of candy. I gobbled 'em down and just prayed *she* wouldn't find out, that she wouldn't come back to check on me and the candy. But I tried to take that piece that I couldn't ever have: Angel.
It's like when you go somewhere and there's a bowl of mints or something, and you keep taking them, just one at a time, real sly, and nobody's gonna notice 'cause there are so many more. There's so much more to pay attention to.
Until you finally take so many that the dent just screams to be noticed; someone has to realize that someone's been dipping into the bowl and stashing things away for the future.
I took too fucking much...
You know, I honestly thought I'd be able to do it all. Thought I could wear both masks, play both sides of the field and not get caught. But the dent got too big, too deep...both sides wanted way too much and if I'd given it to her, I'd lose it all. 'Cause no way I'd be able to go back, not after walking out on her. She may want me fighting on her side, but how could she forgive me for that?
For going back again and again, right up until she found out, taking that place in her bed, in my bed, and lying all the time?
So the Mayor got it all. Fuck, I should have known, way back with the loft; he pushed my buttons, see, like he didn't just have mints, he had fucking *chocolates*. Stocked up on my fucking favorites and dangled it all in front of my nose, and I lost. I couldn't hold all that candy in my palm and not try just a little bit. Just wasn't strong enough. Probably still ain't...
My apologies to the world, folks. May the Hellmouth swallow me alive if I'm lying, I'm sorry. Sorry for breathing the clean air your baby with asthma could have used, ma'am. Your son doesn't have enough to eat, sir? If I could, I'd give back every meal I've ever eaten. You're freezing to death since your mom got evicted, little girl? Take my home; I have two. Or I used to. I don't need them now - take 'em both.
I can see it so clearly now. It was all just a waste. A huge, fucking waste. And I think I had an idea way back then, because I made something of a decision.
Might as well go out honestly, right? Like the scum I am.
So I did. And God be damned, the old folks were right. The truth fucking hurts.
See, whatever side you're on, you're supposed to revel in it. Live it to the fucking fullest and pride yourself on it all. Think vamps ever wish they could be good? Not unless you curse 'em with a soul. And the only times Buffy ever thought about being like me was when she was afraid she was. *Afraid*. Nobody's supposed to *want* what the other side has to give, not unless they're on the wrong side to begin with.
But if I was on the right side, there with the boss, why was I always thinking about B? Why did I wonder if I could have, should have, done something differently, even when I relished everything he gave me, *almost* everything I did to deserve his love? Why the fuck...
See, I'm doing it even now. Trying to live somewhere that the past and the present won't let me, somewhere that doesn't exist in my future. I opened my eyes in that hospital bed and it seemed so clear, that I wanted to be good, but I'm kidding myself if I think someone like me can make up for so much gone wrong.
I'm not exactly worth the trouble it's gonna take for them to trust me again.
I'm not exactly worth the time it takes to even form the idea.
And promptly reject it.
Because the one thing they never would tolerate was anyone hurting Buffy. It's like they were her own personal watchdogs, loyal to the fucking end.
Well, it's the end. They can't forgive; they can't forget. Xander, in this very hospital, his own type of vegetable. Willow, probably dreaming up some spell to turn me into something hideous. Angel, Oz, even Cordelia...she always came first. That doesn't bother me so much anymore; it's just the truth.
Giles and I have talked for hours, the times he's been here. Mostly about the connection; I don't know what else to call it. He wants to know everything...except the details of how she died. I told him it was Drusilla, and that her last thoughts were of how much she loved everyone, him included, and then he clammed up. Changed the subject and started mumbling about what we would do tomorrow, when I get out of the hospital.
That was yesterday, on his last visit. Perfect prompt to ask about how things would be.
Funny, he couldn't answer that. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
First, I have something to take care of.