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They split up, after Sunnydale explodes into nothing more than dirt.
Buffy doesn’t know who decides—it’s not just her, not really, but—she hugs Xander, Willow, and Giles goodbye and then the next thing that she knows she is sitting in the back of a cab, squished in between Dawnie and Faith.
Dawn’s knee is jittering up and down and she is gnawing at her cuticle, agitation, and panic wafting off of her. At the first notion of splitting up, Dawn’s face had gone stark white and she’d whipped around to shoot Buffy a look that very clearly said, if anyone comes at her with a taser again, she is gonna go down fighting. Buffy wasn’t going to make that same mistake twice. Now that the world has ended or whatever, it seems safer to have Dawn at her side, anyway.
Faith though, that one she didn’t see coming.
The formerly only other slayer in the world is sitting far more still than Dawn. She’s staring out the window with a look on her face that Buffy can’t analyze right now, unmoving as the desert passes them by. Buffy tolerates both of them for two hours then calls out, “Stop! here please,” to the driver and all but shoves Dawn out and then crawls after her.
“Where are we?” Dawn asks, while Buffy digs into her pants and throws a few wads of cash through the divider. Faith looks ready to second her question.
“The desert,” Buffy says and starts walking.
“B… what the fuck,” Faith mutters, but she follows after; so does Dawn.
…
…
The desert screams at night.
Buffy wakes with a start to animal noises, things moving in the shadows, Dawnie’s whimpering, and something else that she can’t explain. Habit, probably. Buffy crawls out of the bed—expertly dodging over Dawn so as not to wake her. She pulls an extra blanket out of the linen closet and wraps it around her shoulders. She didn’t expect the desert to be cold at night, either, but a week of sleeping in this dingy little cabin has proven otherwise. Buffy opens the creaky door as quietly as she can manage and slips out onto the porch.
The desert screams at her. Buffy’s skin turns to gooseflesh and she has dropped into a defensive stance before she even realizes that what she is priming herself to fight is a goddamn rabbit. There aren’t any vampires out here. There’s nothing out here but rabbits—all of Buffy’s demons are inside her head.
She must not have been quiet enough with the damn door, cause a minute or so later, Faith slips outside and plops down next to her, shivering.
“This place is fucking cold,” she whines. “What’d you pick it for?”
“It was close and the cab was about to cost a million dollars.”
Faith shrugs and tries to steal some of Buffy’s blanket. “Good reason as any.” Buffy slaps her hand away. “Come on B, it’s freezing out here.”
“Then go back to bed,” Buffy snaps, harsher than she means to. Faith has been… weirdly good to have around. She cooks, which Buffy never expected. She stumbled out of the tiny bedroom with Dawn that first morning, both of them bleary-eyed and grumbly to find Faith, flipping pancakes and dancing in her underwear.
“Flapjacks?” she’d offered.
“Awesome,” Dawn had grinned, and then grabbed a plate and loaded it up with so much maple syrup that Buffy’s teeth hurt just looking at it. Faith laughed and tossed Buffy a wink and Buffy hadn’t known what to do with it. A nice, calm morning; no expectations for anything more than sharing food and a whole day of anything they might want ahead of them. No slaying, no patrol, no vamps, no saving the world.
The world has already been saved. There are other people who can do that job now, loads of them, it’s not just on Buffy anymore.
It’s part of why the desert is screaming at her, probably. She has no clue what to do next.
“Is that a rabbit?” Faith asks, squinting out into the blackness.
“Yeah.”
“They die out here,” she says, matter-of-fact.
“What?”
“Bush fires and predators and shit,” Faith shrugs again.
“Everything dies, Faith.”
“Most things die,” Faith corrects and finally manages to snag half of Buffy’s blanket. She considers—for one petty, teenage moment—shoving Faith away and watching her land in the dirt, but they’re not teenagers anymore and Buffy doesn’t think she actually wants to push Faith away. Metaphorically or physically. It’s only, that she hasn’t decided what it is that she wants to do about that fact, yet. Sharing a blanket and eating her pancakes seems like a big enough step for now.
“Maybe we should leave tomorrow,” Buffy offers.
“And go where?”
“Where do you want to go?” Buffy asks. “It doesn’t have to be me deciding everything.”
“I didn’t—” whatever Faith had been about to say, she swallows it down and stares out at the night. Only the rabbit stares back at them both, unblinking. Looking at it again, Buffy is pretty sure that there is something off about it, after all. Faith sticks her tongue out at it and it hops off, leaving them to their thoughts. “Have you ever been up near Boston?” Faith asks a minute or so later.
“No.”
“I haven’t been back in ages,” Faith says, picking at the edge of the blanket. “I was sorta thinking maybe…” she shrugs. “I dunno.”
Go to Faith’s hometown… Buffy mulls the thought over, freezing for half a beat when she hears Dawn get up but settles once she hears the bathroom door open. Loud as fuck. The noise in this place is getting to her, none of the sounds come from the right places, it’s starting to make Buffy’s skin itch. There’s too much nothing and she doesn’t know what to fill it up with.
“Okay,” she says, “sounds good to me.”
“Really?” Faith sounds shocked, then a little terrified, and then pleased. Humming to herself as she tugs the blanket closer and then shifts so that her shoulder touches Buffy’s. Buffy nods and as she does, their shoulders sort of brush up and down. Faith’s breath hitches and Buffy stills. The rabbit is long gone and there’s just blackness in front of them. Buffy takes a single moment to consider it, then turns her face and finds Faith, aroused and shocked, barely an inch between their mouths. Buffy crosses the line. She knows that Faith won’t. Not now.
Faith lunges the minute Buffy gives her the cue and latches their mouths together. For one heady moment, Buffy stops thinking about the chasm that’s left of her life she needs to fill, whether or not she even wants to be a slayer anymore, what she’s gonna do about Dawn, what she wants—she doesn’t think about any of it. The only thing that matters is the chill desert air and Faith’s mouth and hands.
Something screams out of the night and they break apart, going into defensive positions and waiting for a monster to crawl out of the bushes and try to kill them. Nothing comes. Buffy stands there shaking with adrenaline, fists up, back pressed to Faith’s, breathing hard and nothing meets them. Buffy lets out a shaky laugh and before she knows it, she’s gasping for air from laughing so hard. Faith looks over at her like she’s gone crazy for one single beat, but then she’s laughing just as hard, flopping back down and giggling like she’s seventeen again. Buffy doesn’t stop laughing when Dawn slips out onto the porch and stares down at the two of them, confused and half-asleep.
“Are you two high?” she asks, causing both of them to scream with laughter. Dawn stares down at them for a minute longer and then turns around. “I’m going back to bed. Don’t die or anything.”
Buffy’s clutching the floor and Faith’s arm and trying to breathe through her laughter when she looks up and meets Faith’s face, there’s a weight that drops away somewhere. Buffy stills and then purposefully crawls forward and kisses Faith again, slow and easy. When she pulls back, Faith is gaping up at her and then she gives Buffy a cocky grin.
“Goodnight Faith,” she says, pointed.
Faith laughs. “Night, B,” she says, and then pops up and goes back inside, leaving Buffy to the desert and her rabbit.
It’s come back. Buffy stares out at it, the shadows twisting and looking like it could blow up and turn into a monster at any moment. Buffy mimics Faith and sticks her tongue out at it. Its ears twitch, and then it hops along once more, off to terrorize someone else in this vast desert night. Buffy pulls the blanket closer around her shoulders and rises. When she turns back to give one last look out at the night, she doesn’t have a smile like a clenched fist anymore.