Act1

As often as this time in the afternoon, Rupert Giles sat at his desk, an open book in front of him, a pen in his hand, sheets blackened with a thin and regular handwriting under his arm. He jumped at a sharp knock at the door and looked up. Faith stood in the doorstep.

“Wanted to see me?”

“Right. Please come in Faith. Close the door.”

Saying this, Giles got up and gestured to the dark-haired Slayer to come forward. She obeyed and closed the door behind her as she had been told. Then she came shambling to the desk and let herself fall heavily in an armchair before Giles had time to invite her to do so. Giles sat back and considered Faith’s sullen look for a moment.

“Hum, Faith” He began and tried to hide awkwardly his discomfort.

The Slayer was staring at him, shared between amusement coming from Giles obvious illness and mistrust from the reasons Giles had asked for her to come.

“Faith” Giles resumed after a brief hesitant silence. “I’m glad you find some time to come and see me”

“You asked for me” Faith said, looking everywhere but at Giles. “I came”

“Well” Giles said, steadying his glasses on his nose. “I wanted to talk to you about these last weeks and even months”

Faith deeply sighed and sunk in her armchair as she had wanted to disappear.

“What about these last months?” She asked in a slightly bitter tone.

“Well, I have to tell you that I… Well, us, the council, we’re kind of worried about you”

Faith looked at Giles with a bored look.

“Worried?” She repeated, as too be sure she had correctly heard.

“Yes, worried” Giles confirmed. “Your… behavior lately was kind of worrying to us…”

Faith frowned and stood up slightly on her seat.

“My behavior?” She asked.

“Yes, your behavior”

Giles settled more comfortably in his armchair and looked at Faith straight in the eye.

“Listen Faith, I’m going to be clear and direct with you”

“That’ll be a change” Faith grumbled.

Slightly surprised by Faith’s comment, Giles opened his mouth then closed without completing his lecture. He decided to let this pass and resumed, as the Slayer had not talked:

“You’re one the Chosen two and you’ve been activated for years now. Despite your…hum…how put this? …bustling past, we had – I had – great hopes about you after seeing you during the fight against the First. You proved you to be a talented leader and…”

“A leader who sent kids in deathly trap!” Faith interrupted in a furiously tone.

“A leader who lead a group to victory” Giles corrected.

“B lead the group to victory” Faith countered.

“Buffy did. With you”

“She did it alone” Faith repeated stubbornly.

“Buffy wouldn’t have done anything alone.” Giles went on without quitting his quiet tone. “She needed you, just like she needed the others”

Faith stopped protesting and decided to sink into a sulky silence instead. Giles saw her behavior changing but nevertheless resumed:

“Whatever, I wanted to tell you that I find your stubbornness to refuse to take part to collective missions a great pity. I know that you patrol a lot when you’re alone but I think you’d be a lot more useful here, with the others Slayers. These girls need you, as you could need them. But since you came back, I have to admit I have some trouble to understand what you do. You don’t follow any order and even since last month incident in the nest which required Kennedy’s help, you keep doing just it pleases you. It’s a nonsense”

Faith sighed and answered nothing at first. Then she noticed that Giles clearly waited fir her to answer something. She sighed again but decided to talk:

“Giles, what do you want me to do?” She asked. “You want me to obey to girls who couldn’t hold a stake a year ago?”

“Some of those kids had already survived a descent in a hellmouth one year ago” Giles answered coldly.

“Maybe, maybe” Faith admitted. “And one year ago, I escaped jail where I was locked in for two murders. I spent eight months in a coma and three years in jail. And you’d want me to be among the kids? I think I’m better by myself”

She stopped and put her vibrating brown eyes in Giles’ ones.

“I think I’m an alone kind of girl Giles”

The Watcher considered the Slayer for long second before he crossed his arms over his chest and said:

“And I think you’re not an alone kind of girl more than anyone. No one has to be alone. Not even the Slayer. Not now.”

He stopped again a brief second and resumed before Faith could react:

“I’m worried about you Faith” He said sincerely. “I’d just like you to think about all this”

Giles fell silent and searched to read any kind of reaction on the Slayer’s face but found none.

“The council members would like to meet you later” He concluded;

Faith couldn’t help a gesture of surprise.

“The council members?”

Giles immediately tried to sooth her:

“They’d just like to talk with you? Just like us now. That’s why I want you to think about this before. I let you know when we’re ready to meet you”

“Giles, you’re kidding me, right?”

“Absolutely not” Giles answered firmly this time.

“What do you want me to tell them?” Faith protested again.

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something”

Faith opened her mouth to protest again but Giles interrupted her.

“Faith, it’s important to me”

Then he pointed out to her that she could leave. The Slayer rolled her eyes, got up, gestured somehow with her head as a goodbye and exited the room.

***

“Hum… Still nothing?”

Giles adjusted his glasses and looked at Buffy who was slouched in an armchair in front of him. Giles was used to see her here this way lately. The Slayer wore a dark and sullen look on her face and she looked distractly past Giles’ shoulder the stars now appearing in Cleveland dark sky.

“No” She answered. “Nothing”

Buffy ceased to look absent-mindedly outside and looked at her former Watcher.

“And I’m going to leave tomorrow… My luggage are already done and…”

“Buffy…” Giles interrupted in a soothing tone. “You did everything you could. You can’t wait here forever. You have to get back to your life. Xander and I will be there just in case of something happens.”

But Buffy’s look did not change. Far from getting calmer, the Slayer became even more restless and started to nervously rap her fingernails on the armchair’s arm.

“Giles, I made that decision, it’s up to me to take care of this. I WANT to to take of this”

Then, she threw her arms to the sky:

“Damn it, what’s so damn long? Willow pulled me out of my grave within minutes! Well, not literally pulled out…”

Buffy shivered to the painful memory of getting out of her grave herself. A sickening idea came to her mind.

“Giles! What if Tara has to get out of her grave like I did?” She exclaimed in a panic.

“It would be bad news if such is the case” Giles answered darkly. “Considering the fact that her grave is buried deep under Sunnydale’s rubbles”

Buffy’s look became one of horror and she almost got up.

“Oh, God, Giles… You think that… that it could be ?”

Giles shook his head.

“Even if we can’t say for sure, it’s very unlikely Buffy. Gideon will probably take care of that point in one way or the other”

Buffy let escape a relieved sigh and fell back on her seat.

“Son why is this so long Giles?”

Giles sighed sadly.

“The answer may be really simple Buffy” he began.

“No” The Slayer replied. “Xander already told me the same thing” she added.

“And Xander may be right” Giles asserted.

“Buffy, being ready to face a possible failure was a condition to get yourself in this” Giles added almost severely.

Buffy laid her clear eyes on her Watcher and sighed with lassitude.

“I know Giles, I know” She whispered. “It’s just…It took me so much time to decide, I thought about this so much, I weighted and weighted it again and again… And maybe for nothing. It’s hard to accept, that’s all”

Giles looked sympathetically at her. He was about to tell her some comforting words, but the Slayer absent-mindedly resumed:

“It’s not the kind of thing you do without giving it a lot of though. Even if it’s what you think”

She added those last words in a firmer tone as she looked at him. He wanted to deny but she didn’t give him enough time and said in a lower voice, her eyes on her shoes.

“It’s not like I was waiting for something I order on internet or something like that… It’s… It’s just… It’s just deeper…”

She stared again at Giles.

“And I know even better than before that not telling Willow was the right choice”

Giles nodded his head gravely. He stood up, went round his desk to get closer to Buffy who had gotten up seeing him doing so. The Watcher got then the simplest and the most comforting gesture. He hugged the Slayer.

“I guess you’ll probably have to do your mourning a second time now, Buffy”

The Slayer returned the hug with pleasure. It had probably been too long since she and Giles hadn’t gotten themselves a moment link this. And Buffy knew that Giles was giving her at that precise moment was exactly what she needed: fatherly comfort and tenderness.

“Or maybe you’ll have to mourn someone you never get the chance to mourn before” The Watcher breathed.

Buffy let herself go in the embrace for a moment before finally getting free.

“What about you?” She asked. “The council ? Is everything okay? “

Giles sighed and got back to his armchair.

“Yes, yes. Everything’s quite good actually. Well, almost everything“

“Almost?” Buffy asked as she sat back herself.

“A little problem with Faith”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Faith. Again”

“Maybe you could try and talk to her? I’d like to have her more invested in the young Slayers’ training and to have her becoming a leader here in Cleveland. But she’s a little…”

“Stubborn?” Buffy offered.

Giles nodded, a little bit embarrassed to admit it.

“Yes, yes. I guess we can put it that way. So, will you? I think she’ll listen to you more than me or anybody else and…”

Buffy raised her hand to interrupt.

“Well, I’m not sure about this. But I’ll talk to her”

***

Buffy pushed quietly her sister’s room door. Dawn was there, pacing the room at a decided step, gathering her clothes with curt gestures, and throwing them without care in a suitcase opened on her bed. She grumbled words under her breath that even Buffy couldn’t hear with her enhanced Slayer hearing. The older Summers stayed on the doorstep for a moment, looking at her sister pacing, Dawn never noticing her. Finally, she came in and closed the door behind her.

The noise of the latch made Dawn turn around to her sister, and Buffy could see she was wearing a clearly frustrated look on her face.

“Oh, it’s you” She said simply.

Then she came back to her task without adding anything else. Buffy came closer to the bed, sat beside the headboard and checked out her sister. She looked like she was furious and the Slayer wondered what had happened for her to be in such a state. She decided to forget her own problems for a time to try to understand Dawn’s.

“What’s wrong?” She gently asked:.

Dawn stopped what she was doing and turned to her.

“What’s wrong what?”

“Looks like you’re irritated”

“Because I am” Dawn dryly answered as she resumed her ordering.

“And why are you?” Buffy frowned and asked.

Dawn shrugged.

“It’s nothing” she said first.

Then she stopped her task again and turned around to the Slayer.

“Actually, it’s because of Kennedy. We kinda fought, that’s all.”

Kennedy. ‘Of course’ Buffy thought. The blonde Slayer considered a sister silently for a time. Then she made her decision. It was a time like another to come back to the burning Kennedy topic.

“What happened with Kennedy?”

“Nothing special” Dawn grumbled. “She’s just Kennedy” she added after a silence.

Dawn said nothing more, like those simple words were enough to explain everything and she obviously didn’t want to dwell on the matter. But Buffy decided against it.

“Dawn” She began.

But her sister didn’t bother to listen or to stop her activities to give her some attention. Buffy then seized her by her arm and forced her to turn to her.

“Dawn, we should talk”

“About what?”

“You” Buffy answered. “You look like all irritated and I’d like us to talk about it”

“I just told you what it was about” Dawn said.

And saying this, she was about to come back to the closet but Buffy stopped her.

“Dawn, we have to talk.” She repeated. “About Kennedy”

Dawn let willingly escape a long bored sigh.

“And what about Kennedy?”

“I don’t get you” Buffy calmly explained. “I don’t get what you have against her and why you’re acting the way you do with her. Don’t you see it makes Willow sad?”

Dawn winced and crossed her arms over her chest and Buffy was satisfied to read on her sister’s face that the Willow point had shoot right in the middle.

“Why don’t you like Kennedy?”

“She’s bothering me” Dawn answered without further explications.

“Why?” Buffy asked firmly.

“I don’t know!” Dawn shouted. “Or maybe I do. There’re a lot of reasons. Very good reasons” She specified without explaining said reasons.

“It’s the way she always wants to be better than anyone, to be a super gifted Slayer, a super cool gal, to date the most powerful witch on earth. The way she does anything she can to be a melting between…between…”

She seemed to search a moment how to explain clearly what she meant and finally said :

“…between Faith and Tara”

Buffy’s mouth opened wide in shock and surprise and the Slayer looked at her sister with a dumbfounded look. For a moment, she tried to portray what could be a melting between Tara and Faith. But no image nor idea came to her mind and Buffy gave up as Dawn added when she Buffy’s look :

“No, it’s not a Faith and Tara melting. It’s Faith and you melting. Yeah, ‘cause she’s got nothing in common with Tara. Well, except the dating Willow part.”

Buffy concentrated on her sister’s words and tried to gather her thoughts. She began to form a theory.

“Dawn” She gently asked. “It’s about Tara, isn’t it?”

As Buffy pronounced the witch’s name, Dawn stopped pacing and came to settle near her older sister.

“Maybe a little” she admitted. “I just think she’s not at her place”

“And what would be her place according to you?”

Dawn shrugged.

“I don’t know. But not Tara’s”

Buffy took gently her sister’s hand in hers.

“You know, I don’t think Kennedy is taking Tara’s place, I…”

“Of course she is!” Dawn protested.

“Dawn, you don’t want Willow to be alone forever, do you?”

“No, no” Dawn answered in a low voice.

Buffy ran her fingers in her sister’s long hair, as she was used to when she was younger. She didn’t protest and let her do so.

“And you didn’t have any problem with Kennedy at first. Why now?”

Dawn shrugged flippantly.

“At he beginning, she was just a potential interested in Willow. We were at war. We could die any second. And Will needed so much someone who could make her smile again, someone to give her some hope again…”

She stopped, and she looked like she was lost in memories of that past so close and so far at the same time.

“But now…” Dawn resumed. ”It’s… it’s almost serious”

Buffy couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows about the ‘almost’ but decided no to comment and to let her sister finish.

“They live together now and everyone is looking at her like she’s Willow’s girlfriend”

“But she is” Buffy gently prompted.

“Yeah. She is. And everyone accepts her, everyone likes her. Not only Will. But Xander, Giles, you… So, what’s the matter with me not accepting her?”

Dawn fell silent and looked at her sister who looked for an answer or comforting words to give. But before she could come up with something, the younger Summers lowered her head to stare at her hands on her knees and resumed in a low voice :

“I just think that as long as someone still misses her, as long as someone doesn’t want to replace her, then, she’s not entirely gone…”

“Oh, Dawn!”

Buffy stopped caressing her sister’s hair and suddenly hugged her.

“I know it’s already more than two years” Dawn whispered as she let herself go in her sister’s arms. “But I still miss her. I just don’t want her to be dead…”

Buffy clasped her sister more tightly in her arms and felt her own heart constrict as Dawn let herself more and more against her.

“And I often thought and hoped that maybe one day, Willow would be powerful enough to…”

Dawn stopped talking and let her head lay on her sister’s shoulder. Buffy remained silent, just waiting for her sister to finish to tell what Buffy had already guessed.

“I know what you’re going to say. I know it’s bad to hope something like that, I know I shouldn’t talk about this with you after all you went through” Dawn went on without looking at her eldest. “But sometimes, I hoped that one day, Willow would be powerful enough to bring Tara back”

Dawn fell silent and waited for her sister’s reaction. She already anticipated the lecture she was sure was to come about that foolish wait. But Buffy just caressed again her sister’s long hair without saying anything.

“But if Willow’s happy with Kennedy, if she doesn’t miss Tara anymore, then there’s not any more chance it can happen…” Dawn finished in a breath.

Buffy freed herself a little from her sister’s embrace to look at her and make her look up to her.

“Dawn, I still miss Tara too. And Willow missed her. Willow will always miss her. Kennedy won’t ever change that. They’re both different. And loving Kennedy doesn’t mean she replaces Tara. For none of us. But…”

“I know” Dawn interrupted. “I know you can’t understand I could hope Willow would do that, I know it’s bad, I…”

Dawn had stepped back against the wall as she said this and her hands were clutching desperately the bedspread and she didn’t dare to look her sister in the eye. Buffy tried hard to control her feelings and she came closer to her sister again.

“Dawn, I understand. You don’t have to be ashamed. And you know, it took some time but I got a beautiful resurrection finally, didn’t I?”

Buffy put her finger under Dawn’s chin to make her look up to her again.

“Didn’t I?”

Dawn wiped quickly a tear that was forming at the corner of her eyes and nodded, smiling weakly to her sister. The sisters looked at each other for a moment in silence during which Dawn looked like she was fighting whatever internal struggle. Finally, her smile got a little wider.

“I’ll try to be better with Kennedy” She concluded.

***

Faith was casually laying on her bed, with her arms folded under her neck rested on her pillow. She was satisfied that Giles had decided to assign her a room despite the fact she was on the roads most of the time. That way, she could let here some of her stuff and it prevented her to share a room with others Slayers like did almost every others girls.

But the room didn’t show any sign of interior decoration or personalization. Nothing allowed an exterior watcher to guess the room was the rogue slayer’s one, except her presence in the room. Her only visible things were her black leather jacket and her boots near the only chair in the room.

There was a light knock on the door and the Slayer slightly stood. She looked at the door frowning. She wasn’t used to get visitors. A second firmer knock came then to her ears.

“Come in” Faith shouted without moving from her bed but sitting.

The door opened, revealing Robin Wood. He wore a gray cotton flannel suit and a dark red shirt. He smiled to the Slayer who was looking at him with surprise and took a step in the room.

“May I come in?”

Faith nodded and Robin totally came in and closed the door behind him. Faith looked at him with a questioning look.

The former principal stared around him before his attention got back to the brunette Slayer.

“That room is…”

He looked again around him, looking for the suiting word to describe Faith’s lair.

“…practical?” He concluded.

Faith didn’t answer to that politeness mark and asked almost abruptly:

“What brings you here?”

“Actually, I think we have to talk”

Faith stood and took her jacket off the chair and gestured to Robin to sit. He did as he was told and looked at Faith throwing her jacket on her bed before sitting on it in front of him.

“So?” she asked simply, already picturing Robin playing her the same scene as Giles in the morning, telling her how the council was disappointed with her and adding the manhandled lover part.

“Well, for a start, I want you to know that I’m not here to talk because I’m angry with you because you stood me up to the restaurant last month or because you’re avoiding me since then…”

“Which means it has probably everything to do with it” Faith interrupted him.

“Faith, listen…” Robin said.

“No, you listen to me” Faith interrupted abruptly. “I didn’t dump you willingly that day. There was a vampires attack in town and I went to help. I’m a Slayer, that’s my job, that’s my…”

“Faith, I know this. You already explained.” He answered quietly. “And I already told that with all the Slayers here, you weren’t forced to go, especially to…”

Robin fell silent when she saw Faith rolling her eyes and getting ready to interrupt him again.

“…But I didn’t come here to talk about this”

He fell silent again and looked at the Slayer straight in the eye.

“You probably know that Giles offered me to deal permanently with the European branch of the council in England”

“Yeah” Faith said, wondering where Robin wanted to go with that.

“I decided to accept. I would have asked you to come with me…”

“You perfectly know that I can’t leave the country!” Faith exclaimed with anger as she stood up.

“You already did it before with a fake identity.” Wood answered. “And you know Giles will take care of your situation toward the law as soon as he can”

Faith sat back on the bed and Robin resumed without giving her enough time to add something else.

“But I don’t ask to prevent you to have to search for a better reason than this one not to come with me”

There was a new silence.

“I don’t think we’re going somewhere together.” He said finally, his still on Faith.

“Are you saying that…” Faith whispered.

“That I’m leaving you? Maybe I am. If we were both in a situation about which we can say that one of us can leave the other.”

The Slayer didn’t answer and didn’t show any reaction.

“Listen Faith” Robin resumed. “I like you and I know you like me too. But it’s been a year we’re like that, together without being really together. I know you tried. But I think you’re still not ready for a true relationship. And I’m not sure I can still wait for you to be”

He stopped talking and a heavy silence fell between them.

“Supposing it ever happens. Or supposing I’m the guy you need” Robin finished.

Faith’s lips twitched in a light wince Wood didn’t know how to read and the ending word was for the Slayer:

“I guess we’re saying goodbye then?”

Robin gravely nodded and offered a weak smile to the former rogue Slayer’s dark face.