Update: Atonement's A Bitch
Oct. 6th, 2006 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyThese are parts 7 and 8 of "Atonement's a Bitch", a series of more or less stand-alone missing scenes about Faith's reintegration into the gang in s7. The first 6 scenes can be found here, and the 9th and last one here. Rating: PG13/R
Interlude: Purgatory
Missing scene from between "Touched" and "End Of Days". Mostly a canon collage, but it's going someplace.
Red numbers counting down in front of her. "Everybody get down!"
The explosion was so loud she couldn't hear it. The feeling of being lifted clear off her feet by a giant wall of air. Flames. Pain. Darkness.
And in the darkness, voices, images, sensations; some hurt, some felt way too good, some pulled her one way, some the other.
Mom. And all the shit that happened to her before...
Power. Strength. Vowing never to get beat down again.
Standing by helpless, watching Kakistos torture her Watcher to death.
Staking the fucker. Spitting on his ashes.
Sunnydale. The gang. B. Thinking she belonged.
Washing Alan Finch's blood out of her shirt. Pretending it came out.
The look on Richard's face when she called him "Sugardaddy". And the flip her heart made when he wouldn't have any of that.
Throwing her knife at the spider, not realizing until afterwards that she'd just saved Wesley's life.
"Sorry, friend, boss wants you dead." No excuses this time. The knife slid in him so easily, warm blood spilling out over her hands.
"You did it. You killed me. Still won't help your boy, though." Using what she thought was her last breath to make sure someone else died. Oh yeah, quite a ride.
"If you're watching this tape, it can only mean one thing. I'm dead."
Running all the way from the airport to the church, needing to believe she could do this. Because it's right.
"You're nothing! Disgusting! Murderous bitch! You're nothing! You're disgusting!"
Cutting into Wesley. Making sure to note his responses; any point that seemed extra tender got extra attention. Shallow cuts. Don't want him to pass out. Make sure he feels everything. "It's not too late to let me help you", my ass. It's way too late.
Angel.
Looking down from the roof at the street below. Much higher up this time. Could get the job done. Buffy behind her, ranting. "Till you got bored with the whole guilt thing, decided to come back to shake things up?" "That's not gonna happen."
Waking up in her cell the first morning. Touching the bars in the window, surprised at how much easier it was to breathe in here.
Trying not to let pride in when Wes introduced her as "Faith, The Vampire Slayer".
"This is all you are? I had heard the Slayer possessed great strength..." The demon was so much stronger than her. "There's no real power here." Then what's left?
Kicking Angelus' ass. Holding back.
"Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything."
"It hurts."
"I know. I know."
Sunnydale. The gang. B.
"I pull for the good guys now."
Everyone choosing her. Her.
"You have changed, Faith."
"You keep looking for love and acceptance from these people, these 'friends' of yours, but you're never going to find it. The truth is nobody will ever love you. Not the way I love you. They'll forever see you as a killer." Standing up to him, although it hurt like hell.
Leading them into battle. The look of awe on Kennedy's face as she took down a bringer. Fighting the good fight.
Red numbers counting down in front of her. Realizing she'd been set up.
"Everybody get down!"
The explosion -
Paved With Good Intentions
Missing scene from "End Of Days"
Funny how Hell wasn't what she'd expected. Everything hurt, no surprise there. But it wasn't that hot, whatever she was lying on was soft and smelled nice, and though her eyes were closed she could tell that the light was... dim. Soft, even. She'd had hangovers where it hurt about a tenth as much to open her eyes as it did now, and she could almost hear the hinges in her eyelids grind rust as she did.
Funny how Hell looked a lot like Buffy's bedroom.
"She's awake. Go tell Buffy."
The voice was muffled, like her ears were full of cotton, but she could hear someone leave the room and someone else move a chair closer to the bed. Then he leaned into her line of sight. Maybe it was just the eyepatch and the 24-hour stubble, but Xander looked tired. Old. "You had us worried there for a while. Seriously, the coma thing? Give it a rest already."
"I keep trying, but..." Faith tried to sit up, but the second she moved at least six different parts of her body screamed at her to lie back down right now and she took their advice. Everything hurt. Damn, that was some explosion. Thank God for Slayer strength or I would... would... shit. Suddenly she felt like someone had injected her with two gallons of ice water, and ignoring the pain she sat up straight. "The others. Are they OK?"
"Maybe you should wait-"
He put his hands on her shoulders, trying to get her to lay down again, but she grabbed his wrists. "TELL me."
He sighed, letting go. "Lots of scrapes and bruises and busted eardrums, four more or less seriously hurt counting you... and five missing, presumed dead. Joanne, Liz, Ana, Dominique and Colleen." Xander explained about the übervamps and about how there hadn't been any time to go back to check pulses on the ones who didn't make it out. How Kennedy and Vi had carried her all the way back to the house.
Killer. The room started spinning, the bile rose in her throat and she swallowed hard, fighting to not throw up as all her ideas of redemption and forgiveness swirled away into nothing. Then she slowly lay back down, turning her head away. "They shouldna..."
"Sorry, what was that?" She didn't answer. "This wasn't your fault, Faith. It was a trap, anyone else would have made the same-"
"Says you."
"Says Buffy."
"What the fuck does B know. She's as much a demon as me." He so didn't get that. "Oh, Giles didn't tell you? Turns out Slayers are demons. Enough to get people killed, anyway."
Xander blinked and looked at her for a few seconds, then slowly nodded to himself. "Now that really does explain a lot." Her face darkened, but he waved it off as ge got to his feet. "I meant about me, not you. Something about me being a magnet... Not important. Besides, that's a crap excuse anyway. You don't get to back out this time."
There was a vicious bite to his words and Faith suddenly found herself wanting to punch his righteous face in, but a few broken ribs begged to differ. "Excuse? Fuck you! Give me some credit! I coulda just stayed away, but no, I had to come back here and now five people are dead because they were dumb enough to trust me. Least if I'd bought it, one of the newbies could have taken over. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just get out outta here before-"
"BECAUSE-" He realized he was shouting and seemed to run out of air as he sat back down. "Because I'm going to."
"Huh?"
"Tonight, the part of Faith will be played by Xander Lavelle Harris." He shrugged at her raised eyebrow - Lavelle?. "Like it matters now. In a minute I'm going to go downstairs, I'm going to trick Dawn into coming outside with me, then I'm going to knock her out, put her in the car and drive her as far and as fast as I can from Sunnydale. Leave the legion of superheroes to fight for themselves."
Faith was completely puzzled now. "Oh man, B's gonna flip if you-"
"Where do you think my orders came from?" He glared at her. "Buffy wants Dawn safe... and me, I guess. No one's going to have time to save us mere mortals once the excrement hits the air conditioning. Which means it's time for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back in the game."
"But it's just..." She was fumbling for words. "Do you know how fucking hard I've been trying to make things right? And then I... I just mess up again. It's like everything I touch just turns to shit and the harder I try the worse it gets, and I don't know how to... to..."
Xander looked at her as she ran out of words, then let his gaze drop to the floor. When he spoke again his voice was completely void of emotion. "I've lived in this town all my life, Faith. Everything I've ever cared about is here. I had known Buffy less than 48 hours when she let one of my best friends get killed, did you know that?" He grimaced. "Of course you don't. I'm not sure even Buffy remembers. Willow probably does, but she and Jesse were never that tight. And besides, I was the one who staked him. It's been seven years and sometimes I still almost dial his number when something happens. But I just never let on, you know? What would be the point? Buffy did all she could. Just like she did all she could when the Anointed One tried to kill Willow, or when Angel killed Miss Calendar, when Drusilla killed Kendra, when you switched sides, or when Glory..." He got up and walked over to the window, parted the drapes and looked out over the ghost town that was Sunnydale. "Exactly one year ago today I put in new glass in this window and a new carpet on the floor. The day before we had shipped Willow off to England and I had no idea if I would ever see her again. The day after, we buried Tara. I didn't know what to do with the old carpet, it seemed wrong to just throw it in the trash with her blood on it... I think Buffy finally got rid of it. I couldn't. Everything went to hell and all I could do was put in new double glazing afterwards."
The voice was still flat, but his hand shook as he bunched the curtain up in his fist. She had to say something. "From what Giles tells me, you did a little bit more than that."
Xander shrugged. "Sure, OK, there was the whole saving the world. But that's just damage control, repairing something that should never have been broken to begin with. You wanna talk fuckups? Join the club. We always do it for the best reasons, and it always..." He tapped the floor with his shoe, an annoyed tone creeping into his voice. "There's a bulge in the carpet right here. I couldn't make it right again. Not completely."
"So why are you telling me all of this?" She hated that she knew the answer almost as much as the fact that it was working.
He closed the curtains, returning the room to dusk, and turned back to look at her; his face a mask of pain. "Who else am I going to tell? I’ll be outta here in ten minutes. I can't even say goodbye to Willow or Anya. 24 hours from now everyone could be dead and if somehow the world doesn't end, I'll spend the next 60 years wondering what happened.” He took a deep breath and got in her face. "So I'm giving you a job, Faith. I don’t care what you need to tell yourself, but you're going to fight like hell to save them, you're going to make it through this and afterwards you’re going to look me up and tell me what happened. You can whine all you want up here, but I've seen you fight; if you're backed into a corner you're not gonna stop fighting as long as there's a breath left in you. And I'm backing you into my corner."
Voices, images, sensations. Some pulled her one way, some the other. Oh for fuck’s sake, the voice she would like to pretend she could call a demon snorted. Backing me? Like he could make something happen if I didn't want it to?... Faith thought about the last time they'd been in a bedroom together. I could do anything to you right now, and you want me to. I can make you scream. I could make you die. She had always wondered if she really meant that. He had come to her to help and she had...
And so the other part of her looked into his one remaining eye and realized that he knew how powerless he was. He wasn't threatening her; he was begging. Exploded or not, she still had him by the balls here – and it was up to her what to do. She could do anything right now. So she told the not-demon it was just so she wouldn't have to watch him actually start blubbering, swallowed the lump in her throat and shook his hand.
"Deal."
It didn't make it all right. But it made it a little easier to breathe.
Chapter 9 here.
Interlude: Purgatory
Missing scene from between "Touched" and "End Of Days". Mostly a canon collage, but it's going someplace.
Red numbers counting down in front of her. "Everybody get down!"
The explosion was so loud she couldn't hear it. The feeling of being lifted clear off her feet by a giant wall of air. Flames. Pain. Darkness.
And in the darkness, voices, images, sensations; some hurt, some felt way too good, some pulled her one way, some the other.
Mom. And all the shit that happened to her before...
Power. Strength. Vowing never to get beat down again.
Standing by helpless, watching Kakistos torture her Watcher to death.
Staking the fucker. Spitting on his ashes.
Sunnydale. The gang. B. Thinking she belonged.
Washing Alan Finch's blood out of her shirt. Pretending it came out.
The look on Richard's face when she called him "Sugardaddy". And the flip her heart made when he wouldn't have any of that.
Throwing her knife at the spider, not realizing until afterwards that she'd just saved Wesley's life.
"Sorry, friend, boss wants you dead." No excuses this time. The knife slid in him so easily, warm blood spilling out over her hands.
"You did it. You killed me. Still won't help your boy, though." Using what she thought was her last breath to make sure someone else died. Oh yeah, quite a ride.
"If you're watching this tape, it can only mean one thing. I'm dead."
Running all the way from the airport to the church, needing to believe she could do this. Because it's right.
"You're nothing! Disgusting! Murderous bitch! You're nothing! You're disgusting!"
Cutting into Wesley. Making sure to note his responses; any point that seemed extra tender got extra attention. Shallow cuts. Don't want him to pass out. Make sure he feels everything. "It's not too late to let me help you", my ass. It's way too late.
Angel.
Looking down from the roof at the street below. Much higher up this time. Could get the job done. Buffy behind her, ranting. "Till you got bored with the whole guilt thing, decided to come back to shake things up?" "That's not gonna happen."
Waking up in her cell the first morning. Touching the bars in the window, surprised at how much easier it was to breathe in here.
Trying not to let pride in when Wes introduced her as "Faith, The Vampire Slayer".
"This is all you are? I had heard the Slayer possessed great strength..." The demon was so much stronger than her. "There's no real power here." Then what's left?
Kicking Angelus' ass. Holding back.
"Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything."
"It hurts."
"I know. I know."
Sunnydale. The gang. B.
"I pull for the good guys now."
Everyone choosing her. Her.
"You have changed, Faith."
"You keep looking for love and acceptance from these people, these 'friends' of yours, but you're never going to find it. The truth is nobody will ever love you. Not the way I love you. They'll forever see you as a killer." Standing up to him, although it hurt like hell.
Leading them into battle. The look of awe on Kennedy's face as she took down a bringer. Fighting the good fight.
Red numbers counting down in front of her. Realizing she'd been set up.
"Everybody get down!"
The explosion -
Paved With Good Intentions
Missing scene from "End Of Days"
Funny how Hell wasn't what she'd expected. Everything hurt, no surprise there. But it wasn't that hot, whatever she was lying on was soft and smelled nice, and though her eyes were closed she could tell that the light was... dim. Soft, even. She'd had hangovers where it hurt about a tenth as much to open her eyes as it did now, and she could almost hear the hinges in her eyelids grind rust as she did.
Funny how Hell looked a lot like Buffy's bedroom.
"She's awake. Go tell Buffy."
The voice was muffled, like her ears were full of cotton, but she could hear someone leave the room and someone else move a chair closer to the bed. Then he leaned into her line of sight. Maybe it was just the eyepatch and the 24-hour stubble, but Xander looked tired. Old. "You had us worried there for a while. Seriously, the coma thing? Give it a rest already."
"I keep trying, but..." Faith tried to sit up, but the second she moved at least six different parts of her body screamed at her to lie back down right now and she took their advice. Everything hurt. Damn, that was some explosion. Thank God for Slayer strength or I would... would... shit. Suddenly she felt like someone had injected her with two gallons of ice water, and ignoring the pain she sat up straight. "The others. Are they OK?"
"Maybe you should wait-"
He put his hands on her shoulders, trying to get her to lay down again, but she grabbed his wrists. "TELL me."
He sighed, letting go. "Lots of scrapes and bruises and busted eardrums, four more or less seriously hurt counting you... and five missing, presumed dead. Joanne, Liz, Ana, Dominique and Colleen." Xander explained about the übervamps and about how there hadn't been any time to go back to check pulses on the ones who didn't make it out. How Kennedy and Vi had carried her all the way back to the house.
Killer. The room started spinning, the bile rose in her throat and she swallowed hard, fighting to not throw up as all her ideas of redemption and forgiveness swirled away into nothing. Then she slowly lay back down, turning her head away. "They shouldna..."
"Sorry, what was that?" She didn't answer. "This wasn't your fault, Faith. It was a trap, anyone else would have made the same-"
"Says you."
"Says Buffy."
"What the fuck does B know. She's as much a demon as me." He so didn't get that. "Oh, Giles didn't tell you? Turns out Slayers are demons. Enough to get people killed, anyway."
Xander blinked and looked at her for a few seconds, then slowly nodded to himself. "Now that really does explain a lot." Her face darkened, but he waved it off as ge got to his feet. "I meant about me, not you. Something about me being a magnet... Not important. Besides, that's a crap excuse anyway. You don't get to back out this time."
There was a vicious bite to his words and Faith suddenly found herself wanting to punch his righteous face in, but a few broken ribs begged to differ. "Excuse? Fuck you! Give me some credit! I coulda just stayed away, but no, I had to come back here and now five people are dead because they were dumb enough to trust me. Least if I'd bought it, one of the newbies could have taken over. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just get out outta here before-"
"BECAUSE-" He realized he was shouting and seemed to run out of air as he sat back down. "Because I'm going to."
"Huh?"
"Tonight, the part of Faith will be played by Xander Lavelle Harris." He shrugged at her raised eyebrow - Lavelle?. "Like it matters now. In a minute I'm going to go downstairs, I'm going to trick Dawn into coming outside with me, then I'm going to knock her out, put her in the car and drive her as far and as fast as I can from Sunnydale. Leave the legion of superheroes to fight for themselves."
Faith was completely puzzled now. "Oh man, B's gonna flip if you-"
"Where do you think my orders came from?" He glared at her. "Buffy wants Dawn safe... and me, I guess. No one's going to have time to save us mere mortals once the excrement hits the air conditioning. Which means it's time for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back in the game."
"But it's just..." She was fumbling for words. "Do you know how fucking hard I've been trying to make things right? And then I... I just mess up again. It's like everything I touch just turns to shit and the harder I try the worse it gets, and I don't know how to... to..."
Xander looked at her as she ran out of words, then let his gaze drop to the floor. When he spoke again his voice was completely void of emotion. "I've lived in this town all my life, Faith. Everything I've ever cared about is here. I had known Buffy less than 48 hours when she let one of my best friends get killed, did you know that?" He grimaced. "Of course you don't. I'm not sure even Buffy remembers. Willow probably does, but she and Jesse were never that tight. And besides, I was the one who staked him. It's been seven years and sometimes I still almost dial his number when something happens. But I just never let on, you know? What would be the point? Buffy did all she could. Just like she did all she could when the Anointed One tried to kill Willow, or when Angel killed Miss Calendar, when Drusilla killed Kendra, when you switched sides, or when Glory..." He got up and walked over to the window, parted the drapes and looked out over the ghost town that was Sunnydale. "Exactly one year ago today I put in new glass in this window and a new carpet on the floor. The day before we had shipped Willow off to England and I had no idea if I would ever see her again. The day after, we buried Tara. I didn't know what to do with the old carpet, it seemed wrong to just throw it in the trash with her blood on it... I think Buffy finally got rid of it. I couldn't. Everything went to hell and all I could do was put in new double glazing afterwards."
The voice was still flat, but his hand shook as he bunched the curtain up in his fist. She had to say something. "From what Giles tells me, you did a little bit more than that."
Xander shrugged. "Sure, OK, there was the whole saving the world. But that's just damage control, repairing something that should never have been broken to begin with. You wanna talk fuckups? Join the club. We always do it for the best reasons, and it always..." He tapped the floor with his shoe, an annoyed tone creeping into his voice. "There's a bulge in the carpet right here. I couldn't make it right again. Not completely."
"So why are you telling me all of this?" She hated that she knew the answer almost as much as the fact that it was working.
He closed the curtains, returning the room to dusk, and turned back to look at her; his face a mask of pain. "Who else am I going to tell? I’ll be outta here in ten minutes. I can't even say goodbye to Willow or Anya. 24 hours from now everyone could be dead and if somehow the world doesn't end, I'll spend the next 60 years wondering what happened.” He took a deep breath and got in her face. "So I'm giving you a job, Faith. I don’t care what you need to tell yourself, but you're going to fight like hell to save them, you're going to make it through this and afterwards you’re going to look me up and tell me what happened. You can whine all you want up here, but I've seen you fight; if you're backed into a corner you're not gonna stop fighting as long as there's a breath left in you. And I'm backing you into my corner."
Voices, images, sensations. Some pulled her one way, some the other. Oh for fuck’s sake, the voice she would like to pretend she could call a demon snorted. Backing me? Like he could make something happen if I didn't want it to?... Faith thought about the last time they'd been in a bedroom together. I could do anything to you right now, and you want me to. I can make you scream. I could make you die. She had always wondered if she really meant that. He had come to her to help and she had...
And so the other part of her looked into his one remaining eye and realized that he knew how powerless he was. He wasn't threatening her; he was begging. Exploded or not, she still had him by the balls here – and it was up to her what to do. She could do anything right now. So she told the not-demon it was just so she wouldn't have to watch him actually start blubbering, swallowed the lump in her throat and shook his hand.
"Deal."
It didn't make it all right. But it made it a little easier to breathe.
Chapter 9 here.
