Work Text:
In her whole short life leading up to today, Faith's only ever memorized four phone numbers.
The first of them was the phone number of the tiny apartment she’d lived in with her mother ever since she was a kid. The dismal too-small box back in Southie that she’d spent years dreaming of escape from. Not that she ever had any reason to call that one, or to invite anyone else to call her either. Unlike some people, she didn't exactly have a fawning little gang of sycophants and hangers-on to arrange late night gossip sessions with.
She used to have to give that number to teachers though sometimes. Before she was smart enough to just take the hint and drop out of school entirely. They used to demand it after summoning her to some principal’s office or some classroom for after-school detention, then get pissed at her when nobody answered. As if it were Faith’s fault her mom was too busy enjoying the drinking and passing out parts of life to pick up the phone. As if she’d ever asked for her to do that.
(Hell, maybe if she’d just asked her to carry on drinking herself to death then her mom would’ve stopped. God knows she’d never given Faith anything else she’d ever asked for.)
Anyway, that was one number she could go ahead and forget. Good riddance to that.
Then there was Diana's number. Diana Dormer.
Diana was her first Watcher, and – in every way that mattered – her last Watcher too. Snobby Rupert Giles had only ever looked at her like she was a cheap, flawed copy of his favorite golden Slayer, and lying Mrs Post had only ever been using her to get her hands on that stupid glove, and that jailbait-chasing creep Wesley was somehow worse than both of them put together. But Diana had been okay. For a Watcher, anyway. She’d been all right.
Diana had given her her number early on, shortly after she’d first invited Faith to stay at her place. "In case of emergencies," she'd said gently. “Or if you just want to talk.”
Faith had never known when to use it. Never been sure what Diana wanted from her until it was too late to ask. Her Watcher's house had been real nice, the few times she’d gone round to visit, but she'd worried that there was some kind of trick she wasn’t spotting, some strings attached that she’d not be able to escape. So however much she’d wanted to, she'd never actually called her on it. Not really.
She'd rung the number once, for the first time and the last, only after Diana died. When even a stupid little kid should've known it was way too late. Driven by some weak childish impulse on a very bad night, after a string of at least a dozen bad nights, when she was already halfway across the country. It rang and rang and rang and however long she waited nobody had ever answered.
Well, what had she expected to happen anyway? Diana was dead and she’d not been good enough to stop it and no amount of wishing would ever change that.
She could probably go ahead and forget that number too.
The Mayor had given her his number, as well, last of everyone. “Saving the best till last as usual, are you Faith?” he might have asked her, beaming at her in his office over another plate of cookies. (The Mayor hated crumbs and mess and disorder, that wasn’t a secret, but somehow he never seemed to mind her eating at his desk.)
It was his private office number, direct line. Not the one most people had to call. The real one: the one Trick had used, and Mr Finch, and maybe some other dead losers Faith had offed without knowing it. That was good. it meant he trusted her, that she was useful to him. That she was safe. She didn't think she'd ever call him on it either though. What if she said something stupid and pissed him off? What if he decided he could do better?
Mayor Wilkins wasn’t Diana. The Mayor wasn't all right. Not really. He was a monster, and a killer, and he was wicked gross. Only … he was on her side, wasn't he? He’d set her up in this place, hadn’t he? A little nicer than that dump of a motel she’d been left to rot in. He’d given her a chance. He got her, the way nobody else in this town did. The real her. After all, she was a monster too. Everyone knew it. She belonged, with him, in a way she’d never belonged anywhere before.
Use it or not, she'd be hanging onto his number for a while. It wasn’t as if she had a choice.
And then there was the third number. The one she didn’t want to think about. The most important number. Her number. Buffy Summers’s number. The Buffy Summers, the one Diana had told her about almost a year ago. The one Faith had known about, somehow, even before that, the face she’d glimpsed in her dreams the night before she’d woken up stronger and stranger and different than before.
The other Slayer – the real Slayer, Faith supposes, the good Slayer – had given her number to Faith herself on her third night in Sunnydale, after the big fight with Kakistos.
They’d been hungry, after dusting that old monster. Both of them. Starving. And, maybe, they'd both been feeling something else. Something that Faith had been sure she’d seen, deep in Buffy’s eyes, that very first night they’d met. A feeling she’d never been able to talk about it with anyone else, because they wouldn’t have been able to understand. The feeling she’d always gotten after a good slay. The high that kept her going, night after night, vamp after vamp.
They were hungry, but the only place open that late at night was a crappy little diner a few blocks away from the vamps’ old hideout. It had been nearly deserted when they’d shown up, no other customers at all, and for a minute Faith had been worried they’d be turned away. She probably would’ve been, she thinks, if she’d been on her own. Something about her just had that effect on people. She was trouble, she was a problem, and it was like everyone could smell it on her. Like a stink she couldn’t ever wash away.
But she’d been with Buffy, Sunnydale’s golden girl, and nobody in the world had ever known how to say no to her. That was why, not long after arriving, they’d been sitting together squashed up at a little plastic table, a table piled high with more burgers and fries and milkshakes than Faith had seen in one place for a long time. More food than she’d ever had since she’d lost Diana.
Buffy might have claimed to crave nothing more than low-fat yogurt back when she was with her friends, but Faith hadn’t bought it. No way that could be true. And that night, when it was just the two of them, Buffy hadn’t bothered to pretend. She’d torn through the burgers almost as fast as Faith, almost as if she didn’t have a mom at home who’d stay up late waiting for her and cook her hot food any time she asked. Almost as if she was as empty inside as Faith was.
At one point, she’d looked up at Faith, mouth still slightly smeared with sauce, and Faith had had the weirdest feeling. Because, fuck, this was Buffy Summers, the girl she’d dreamed about being the first night she was Called. This was the girl whose death she’d lived through in her nightmares, just like she’d lived through a second death bleeding out on the library floor at some vampire’s feet, and falling through the air to the ground far below, and hundreds of other deaths before that.
Buffy Summers, who Diana had told her stories about as if she were some kind of fairy tale. Buffy Summers, who she’d dreamed about again as she fled across the country, running for her life, not knowing where else she could turn to. Buffy Summers, who’d drowned but lived to joke about it, who’d never lost a fight, who blew up demons with rocket launchers and was really real. Who was real and alive and warm and sitting so close to her, and who – even disheveled and dirty after a fight, even with fading bruises on her arms and ketchup stains on her fingers – was the most beautiful girl Faith had ever seen in her life. Buffy Summers, who was like her, but better. Perfected. Perfect.
She’d looked up at her, and Faith had felt her heart lurch in her chest in a way that had nothing to do with all the greasy junk food they were eating. And for the first time in the longest time, she’d dared to let herself hope that maybe everything was going to be okay.
If things had been just a little different back then, if Buffy had given her just the smallest, slightest sign, Faith thinks she might have kissed her right then and there.
Not a quick kiss on the forehead, like she had after their big fight back in Angel’s mansion, but a proper kiss. The sort of kiss a girl like Buffy deserved. Romantic. Slow and deliberate. Gentle and soft and forgiving in a way that Faith could never make herself be.
But things hadn’t been different. They never were. Everywhere you went things were always exactly the same forever. Buffy had glanced away; a tired-looking waitress had shown up to ask if they were going to be done soon; the moment had slipped out of her fingers, unseized.
So Faith had just helped herself to the last few fries on Buffy’s plate when she was almost finished, smirked at her with her mouth full when the other girl protested, then left her to foot the bill and made her way alone back to her motel room.
Alone.
She’d been alone for months, out on the wrong part of town, and nobody had cared. Not really.
Giles had come round to see her once, much too late, almost a week after she’d arrived in Sunnydale. He’d looked over the place, peering over his glasses, barely managing to hide his distaste, and asked her haltingly if she was looking for somewhere else to stay. Well, nice try. Faith wasn’t about to fall for that one. What was he going to suggest: putting her up in the spare room in his place? Out of the goodness of his heart, or something? How dumb did he think she was?
“I’m five by five here, G-man,” she’d smiled insincerely, almost as keen to see the back of him as he obviously was to leave.
You couldn’t trust guys, even older guys who seemed okay at first. Even guys you were supposed to be able to trust. Especially not those guys. Faith wasn’t naive enough to think otherwise. She hadn’t been that naive for a very long time.
Buffy had come around to see her a few times, too. Not so much after they’d fought over Mrs Post’s glove – well, to be fair, Faith hadn’t exactly wanted to see her then either – but a couple of times. The last time was just before Christmas, when Buffy’s mom had guilted her into inviting Faith over for the night.
She might have kissed her that night, too. She might have, if she could’ve gotten away with it. Found some way to play it off as a joke. Lurked around the mistletoe and surprised her with a shy and furtive peck on the cheek at the stroke of midnight. She might have kissed her, if that damn vampire hadn’t shown up to ruin everything.
As it was, Buffy hadn’t even hung around to open Faith’s crappy little presents. She hadn’t even cared. Just abandoned Faith again, the way everyone else did. Left her to guard her mom like she was some kind of dog. Like she was a stray she’d briefly felt sorry for and invited into the warmth for a night, only to regret it when she realized how flea-bitten and mangy and disgusting she truly was.
She always thought she was better than you, Faith reminds herself angrily, hating the way she always forgets. Right from the beginning, and you never ever let yourself see it.
Sometimes she still thinks about calling her, even now. What for, she isn't sure. It's not like they were ever friends, is it? Not really. Buffy was just using her, same as everyone else. She gets that now, even if she'd never wanted to admit it. There was no way Buffy had ever been going to let her into her life for real. There was no way Buffy was going to admit that they were alike.
Still, she thinks about it, some nights. Most nights. She’s been thinking about it tonight.
It’s idiotic. She’s idiotic. She’s embarrassing herself again. it's just like Red had told her, back in the Mayor's office. It's too late, it's way too late. She knows that. She’s known it for a while. She’s not a stupid kid anymore.
Only … she’s never going to get another chance, is she? One way or another, it’s all going to be over soon.
It's well after midnight when she finally screws up the courage to pick up the phone. Not long to go until graduation day now. Not long to go until the Mayor's big ascension. This town will get what’s coming to it, and so will Buffy Summers. And so will she. Everything will be different.
"Willow?" Buffy says sleepily on the other end of the line, when Faith finally has the guts to dial her number. "Is that you? Are you okay?"
Faith feels herself scowling at the mention of that little witch's name, the smile she’d not been able to stop when she heard Buffy’s voice curdling on her face.
Red. That smug little witch. Of course Buffy would ask about her. Of course Buffy would choose her over Faith, again and again. Willow’s not a Slayer. She isn’t like them, she isn’t important. She’s soft and weak and shy and coddled and she’s got a family and a house and a future. She doesn’t need Buffy the way that Faith needs her. Why can’t Buffy see that?
Too late, she realizes how long it’s taking her to answer. Now Buffy's getting impatient. Sounding a little more stern.
"Who is this? What do you want?"
Faith freezes. The little script she’d pieced together in her mind all evening fades into gray nothingness. What does she want? Forgiveness, maybe. Absolution. For somebody else to really see her and agree that this was the only way that things could go. That, really, none of this was anybody’s fault. Or maybe she just wants a chance to say goodbye.
I should have kissed you, back then, she thinks. That night after we dusted Kakistos.
She can see in her mind exactly how it would have played out. Like a scene from a movie – not one of those grainy black and white flicks she used to watch on the broken television in the motel after patrol, but a real movie, on the big screen, so bright and colorful and sharp and real that it almost hurts to look at.
You'd have tasted sweet, but just a little salty, between those fries you were demolishing and the specks of strawberry milkshake waiting on your upper lip. You’d have tasted just like I imagined, all those summer nights on the run. And afterwards … afterwards, you’d have gone all shocked and wide-eyed for a second and neither of us would've said anything. Then you'd have turned all pink and protested and pretended you hadn’t been into it at all, and maybe you’d not have talked to me again for weeks and weeks afterwards. You’d probably have been weird about it for months.
But I think it would’ve been worth it. To show you. Who I was, and who you were. To take what I wanted, just for a moment. To have what I was sure we both wanted, deep down. What we both needed. To know that I was right, and that the two of us were the same. To taste it.
And now it's like ... it's like I'm drowning, like I can't breathe. I’m in that quarry the kids used to fool around in, back in Boston. I’ve jumped in from way up top like always, only something’s gone wrong. I'm stuck. I can’t get out, I can’t even move, and I'm waving for help but nobody can see me. Nobody wants to see me.
It’s just like it was back then, after I failed Diana, except I know nobody’s going to take my hand and drag me out this time. I know there’s nowhere left for me to run, and no other Slayer I can trek across the country to find is going to save me. I know the only way out is down into the dark. The only thing left to do is let the water in and drown.
Faith opens her mouth. Hesitates again, for the last time. Buffy doesn't give her another chance.
"I don't know who you are or how you got this number, but I know this isn't funny," the other girl whispers furiously. "It’s the middle of the night and I’m trying to sleep. Don't ever call here again."
The line goes dead before Faith can say a word.