Aftermath (BTVS)
Title: Aftermath
Author: telaryn
Recipient: wal_lace
Rating: PG-13
Warning: References to character death
Summary: The Slayers somehow cause the apocalypse. Faith is left to pick up the pieces.
Word Count: 2035
Dawn hadn’t known she was acting as bait at the time. Overwhelmed by grief and loss, and the physical demands of her body, she’d devoured the food Faith had stolen for her before crawling into the sleeping bag they’d lifted from the burned out hulk of a nearby sporting goods store.
She’d fallen asleep in seconds. Faith had watched her for a while, nursing the beer she’d gotten for herself and marveling at how easily the younger woman seemed to throw off the horrors they’d both endured mere hours before.
Fall back!
It’s coming…they’ve taken out our left flank!
Buffy!
Faith and Buffy had fought shoulder to shoulder, at Buffy’s insistence. “I can’t trust anyone else,” she’d told Faith privately. “I’m going to draw as much heat as I can and punch a hole right up the middle. I need somebody watching my back who can handle that level of action.”
“Five by five,” was all Faith had said out loud, but they’d both smiled at the irony. A thousand Slayers surrounded them - every single one of them more trustworthy than Faith - and in the end all the two of them had was each other.
Which was why it hurt so much worse knowing that in the end it wasn’t Buffy’s back that had needed watching…
Shuddering, Faith drained the balance of her bottle in a single swallow and got to her feet. Stretching overhead, she grabbed one of the lower branches of the tree they were camped under, and swung herself up into the canopy. Once secure, she moved lightly from point to point until she found a split that looked like it could hold her weight, and was out of easy view from the ground.
Buffy wouldn’t have approved of what she was doing at all. She’d always been stupidly protective of Dawn - practically sealing the girl in a plastic bubble in order to keep her safe. She would have definitely been against Faith using Dawn as bait.
The reality of it was, though, that they were being followed. Faith hadn’t been able to pick up who or what was on their tail - just that someone was.
And Buffy’s in no position to object to anything anymore.
We need to flush them out, Faith thought, shifting slightly on her perch in a futile attempt to get more comfortable. I need to take them on my terms, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be good for anything. While she hadn’t admitted it outright to Dawn, Faith hadn’t slept in almost three days, and the deprivation was starting to take its toll.
Three full teams of Slayers… Nearly a thousand girls were dead in a firestorm of demonic energy. Buffy was dead. Giles, Xander…they’d all fallen in the battle to stop the Hellmouth opening. Only Faith had lived, dragging a nearly catatonic Dawn from the killing field into what currently passed for safety, as Cleveland burned around them.
Why me? she thought - depression teasing around the fringes of her thought. She knew every single person who had died on that battle ground, and as far as Faith was concerned every single one of them had deserved to live more than she did.
The sudden sound of movement below her perch brought Faith back from the brink just in time. She tensed, waiting. Half a dozen heartbeats later, two men crept into the clearing - looking around nervously. “I told you they came this way,” the taller one said, gesturing at Dawn.
His companion circled around the sleeping bag. Faith held back, hoping they would keep talking. “We need the other one,” he said, leaning down to look at Dawn. “Hanlon’s not going to pay for this one - she’s human.”
“So we grab her and use her to get the other one,” tall guy said. “I’m telling you that was Faith I saw. Hanlon wants her bad - alive if we can get her.”
“You got some magical way for us to keep her alive? She’s the worst of them!”
Vampires? Faith wondered. Her gut instinct said human, but they were a little too knowledgeable to be garden variety citizens. Giles said Hanlon was recruiting demons to back him up, she was forced to acknowledge. And it was true that while she and Buffy had fought mostly demons on their way into the Hellmouth, that didn’t mean vampires hadn’t been around somewhere.
Faith exhaled softly, realizing that the prospect of facing a couple vampires steadied her in ways few other things could have. Tensing for a second, she pushed out of the tree - dropping on the taller of the two interlopers and dragging him to the ground. He managed to roll and twist away from her before she could get a solid grip on him; making a judgment call, Faith fumbled for a stake before scrambling to her feet.
Her opponent beat her to vertical, but Faith came up between him and Dawn. So much for keeping a low profile, she thought as she heard Dawn moving behind her and sensed the younger woman rolling to her feet. Guess she wasn’t as tired as I thought.
“Stake now, talk later!” she snapped.
Her opponent grinned at her, drawing her attention back to the danger in front of her. “Hello, Faith. Mr. Hanlon says hi.”
She snorted. “Your boss doesn’t scare me.” Behind her Faith heard sounds of Dawn engaging the other man. Hope she can handle herself.
“Awful cocky for someone who just helped destroy an entire city,”
Faith was disturbed at how much the accusation stung. There’d been some debate going on well above her pay grade about whether taking the Slayers into the Hellmouth would make things worse, but she didn’t know what other choice they had. The demon that had been released was in the process of laying waste to what remained of Cleveland. They couldn’t have walked away from at least trying to stop it happening.
Of course that’s not something you say to the meat, she thought. “We gonna fight, or are you just gonna bore me to death?”
With a cry she suspected he thought was impressive, the man launched himself at her. They traded a flurry of blows, with Faith trying to angle for a kill shot with her stake. Something’s wrong, she realized quickly - the question of the man’s humanity once again rising in her mind. She raised her leg, slamming her heel into the center of his chest just hard enough to stagger him back a couple of steps. His arms flung wide - opening himself up for the kill.
Faith stepped forward, raising her stake…and froze. Human. Definitely human. Realization stayed her hand. “Dawn, no!”
She couldn’t turn her back on the man in front of her, and couldn’t do anything to stop the nightmare of sound behind her as Dawn drove her stake home with a precision that would have done her sister proud. Dealing with what little she could control, Faith threw her own weapon aside. Lunging forward, she spun her target around and drove him to his knees - one arm twisted up behind his back almost to the point of breaking. “Stop!” he screamed - his voice suddenly strangled and desperate. “Please…God…stop! Don’t hurt me!”
Dawn was still on her feet - Faith held position with some effort as the younger woman moved up behind her. “What are you doing?” Dawn cried. “Why didn’t you stake him?”
The man struggled weakly, and Faith tightened her grip. “He’s human,” she said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “Not a vampire.”
She braced for the tears - the flood of Summers guilt as the realization of what she’d done took hold of Dawn. Not for the first time since she’d left the battlefield, Faith was surprised. Dawn stepped into her field of vision, and the littlest Summers’ expression was harder and colder than Faith had ever expected possible. “So?”
“Slayers aren’t murderers.” The words were strange on her tongue, and Faith wondered when she had started believing them.
Dawn wasn’t having any part of it, however, and she certainly wasn’t accepting it from Faith. “They know who we are. You heard them. They were after the reward.”
Five thousand dollars per Slayer, dead or alive. Ten if it was Faith or Buffy. The judgment on their lives had been pronounced two days before Buffy had led her army into battle at the Hellmouth. Giles and Buffy had suspected Hanlon of being behind the offer - Faith hadn’t cared at the time.
“Hanlon doesn’t give a shit about us anymore,” she said finally. “It’s over. He knows we’re no threat to his master.”
“What are you going to do with him then?” Dawn asked.
Like so many things in her life, Faith hadn’t thought it through. Can’t just turn him loose. Even the possibility of fifteen thousand dollars in payout was too much temptation, and Faith was going to have to sleep sometime.
Exhaling sharply, she wrapped her arm around her prisoner’s throat - pressing as hard as she could against the pulse points. The man immediately started to struggle again, but as tired and weak and sick at heart as she felt, he was still no match for her.
Kill him. Denied a kill, the beast in her head was unhappy. This is a waste of time and energy; he’s going to force you to kill him eventually.
“No,” Faith growled, redoubling her efforts until the man’s struggles slowed, and his body grew heavy in her grip. When she was certain he was unconscious, she let him go - pushing herself back and up as he fell in a heap on the ground.
Dawn stared down at him, hands on her hips and a familiar, petulant expression on her face. “That was a waste.” Faith shuddered, hearing the sounds of her own darker impulses coming from Buffy’s little sister.
“We don’t kill humans,” she repeated, meeting Dawn’s gaze squarely. “Get your stuff packed - we’re on the road in ten.”
“You have a plan all of a sudden?” Dawn asked.
Faith smiled bitterly, everything coming together in her head all at once. “We’re going to find Willow.” She couldn’t say exactly when she’d seized on that idea as the preferred course of action, but the more she thought about it the more sense it made.
Not waiting for Dawn to keep up, Faith crouched by her gear and started gathering up the items that had spilled out of her pack. She forced herself to stay focused on the task in front of her - to not look at Dawn and get sucked in to whatever argument she was itching to start. We don’t have time. She didn’t know how long the man she had put out would stay out, and they didn’t know if he had friends that would come looking for him.
“Buffy is dead, Faith.” The statement finally exploded into the stillness. Faith paused in her packing, hanging her head and letting the fatigue she’d been battling wash over her.
I can’t do this, she thought - finally raising her head to look at Dawn again. “Yes,” she said. “Buffy is dead, along with a thousand other Slayers and who knows how many civilians.” Her voice was too calm; it set off warning bells in her head. She couldn’t take out her frustration on Dawn.
She couldn’t afford to let herself go that far.
Dawn at least looked a little embarrassed when Faith reminded her of the true scope of their loss. To her credit, she recovered quickly. “My point is, if Willow could have done anything about it, don’t you think she would have?”
Faith stood, slinging her pack on one shoulder. “Red’s not a god, bitlet. She’s hella powerful, but we don’t know why she wasn’t there. We don’t even know if she could have stopped what happened.”
She sighed, feeling the weight of the world crushing down around her. “If she’s alive, though, we need to find her. She’s our best hope for regrouping and making some sense out of this mess.” She flipped a corner of Dawn’s sleeping bag over with her toe. “Get packed. You have five minutes.”
Author: telaryn
Recipient: wal_lace
Rating: PG-13
Warning: References to character death
Summary: The Slayers somehow cause the apocalypse. Faith is left to pick up the pieces.
Word Count: 2035
Dawn hadn’t known she was acting as bait at the time. Overwhelmed by grief and loss, and the physical demands of her body, she’d devoured the food Faith had stolen for her before crawling into the sleeping bag they’d lifted from the burned out hulk of a nearby sporting goods store.
She’d fallen asleep in seconds. Faith had watched her for a while, nursing the beer she’d gotten for herself and marveling at how easily the younger woman seemed to throw off the horrors they’d both endured mere hours before.
Fall back!
It’s coming…they’ve taken out our left flank!
Buffy!
Faith and Buffy had fought shoulder to shoulder, at Buffy’s insistence. “I can’t trust anyone else,” she’d told Faith privately. “I’m going to draw as much heat as I can and punch a hole right up the middle. I need somebody watching my back who can handle that level of action.”
“Five by five,” was all Faith had said out loud, but they’d both smiled at the irony. A thousand Slayers surrounded them - every single one of them more trustworthy than Faith - and in the end all the two of them had was each other.
Which was why it hurt so much worse knowing that in the end it wasn’t Buffy’s back that had needed watching…
Shuddering, Faith drained the balance of her bottle in a single swallow and got to her feet. Stretching overhead, she grabbed one of the lower branches of the tree they were camped under, and swung herself up into the canopy. Once secure, she moved lightly from point to point until she found a split that looked like it could hold her weight, and was out of easy view from the ground.
Buffy wouldn’t have approved of what she was doing at all. She’d always been stupidly protective of Dawn - practically sealing the girl in a plastic bubble in order to keep her safe. She would have definitely been against Faith using Dawn as bait.
The reality of it was, though, that they were being followed. Faith hadn’t been able to pick up who or what was on their tail - just that someone was.
And Buffy’s in no position to object to anything anymore.
We need to flush them out, Faith thought, shifting slightly on her perch in a futile attempt to get more comfortable. I need to take them on my terms, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be good for anything. While she hadn’t admitted it outright to Dawn, Faith hadn’t slept in almost three days, and the deprivation was starting to take its toll.
Three full teams of Slayers… Nearly a thousand girls were dead in a firestorm of demonic energy. Buffy was dead. Giles, Xander…they’d all fallen in the battle to stop the Hellmouth opening. Only Faith had lived, dragging a nearly catatonic Dawn from the killing field into what currently passed for safety, as Cleveland burned around them.
Why me? she thought - depression teasing around the fringes of her thought. She knew every single person who had died on that battle ground, and as far as Faith was concerned every single one of them had deserved to live more than she did.
The sudden sound of movement below her perch brought Faith back from the brink just in time. She tensed, waiting. Half a dozen heartbeats later, two men crept into the clearing - looking around nervously. “I told you they came this way,” the taller one said, gesturing at Dawn.
His companion circled around the sleeping bag. Faith held back, hoping they would keep talking. “We need the other one,” he said, leaning down to look at Dawn. “Hanlon’s not going to pay for this one - she’s human.”
“So we grab her and use her to get the other one,” tall guy said. “I’m telling you that was Faith I saw. Hanlon wants her bad - alive if we can get her.”
“You got some magical way for us to keep her alive? She’s the worst of them!”
Vampires? Faith wondered. Her gut instinct said human, but they were a little too knowledgeable to be garden variety citizens. Giles said Hanlon was recruiting demons to back him up, she was forced to acknowledge. And it was true that while she and Buffy had fought mostly demons on their way into the Hellmouth, that didn’t mean vampires hadn’t been around somewhere.
Faith exhaled softly, realizing that the prospect of facing a couple vampires steadied her in ways few other things could have. Tensing for a second, she pushed out of the tree - dropping on the taller of the two interlopers and dragging him to the ground. He managed to roll and twist away from her before she could get a solid grip on him; making a judgment call, Faith fumbled for a stake before scrambling to her feet.
Her opponent beat her to vertical, but Faith came up between him and Dawn. So much for keeping a low profile, she thought as she heard Dawn moving behind her and sensed the younger woman rolling to her feet. Guess she wasn’t as tired as I thought.
“Stake now, talk later!” she snapped.
Her opponent grinned at her, drawing her attention back to the danger in front of her. “Hello, Faith. Mr. Hanlon says hi.”
She snorted. “Your boss doesn’t scare me.” Behind her Faith heard sounds of Dawn engaging the other man. Hope she can handle herself.
“Awful cocky for someone who just helped destroy an entire city,”
Faith was disturbed at how much the accusation stung. There’d been some debate going on well above her pay grade about whether taking the Slayers into the Hellmouth would make things worse, but she didn’t know what other choice they had. The demon that had been released was in the process of laying waste to what remained of Cleveland. They couldn’t have walked away from at least trying to stop it happening.
Of course that’s not something you say to the meat, she thought. “We gonna fight, or are you just gonna bore me to death?”
With a cry she suspected he thought was impressive, the man launched himself at her. They traded a flurry of blows, with Faith trying to angle for a kill shot with her stake. Something’s wrong, she realized quickly - the question of the man’s humanity once again rising in her mind. She raised her leg, slamming her heel into the center of his chest just hard enough to stagger him back a couple of steps. His arms flung wide - opening himself up for the kill.
Faith stepped forward, raising her stake…and froze. Human. Definitely human. Realization stayed her hand. “Dawn, no!”
She couldn’t turn her back on the man in front of her, and couldn’t do anything to stop the nightmare of sound behind her as Dawn drove her stake home with a precision that would have done her sister proud. Dealing with what little she could control, Faith threw her own weapon aside. Lunging forward, she spun her target around and drove him to his knees - one arm twisted up behind his back almost to the point of breaking. “Stop!” he screamed - his voice suddenly strangled and desperate. “Please…God…stop! Don’t hurt me!”
Dawn was still on her feet - Faith held position with some effort as the younger woman moved up behind her. “What are you doing?” Dawn cried. “Why didn’t you stake him?”
The man struggled weakly, and Faith tightened her grip. “He’s human,” she said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “Not a vampire.”
She braced for the tears - the flood of Summers guilt as the realization of what she’d done took hold of Dawn. Not for the first time since she’d left the battlefield, Faith was surprised. Dawn stepped into her field of vision, and the littlest Summers’ expression was harder and colder than Faith had ever expected possible. “So?”
“Slayers aren’t murderers.” The words were strange on her tongue, and Faith wondered when she had started believing them.
Dawn wasn’t having any part of it, however, and she certainly wasn’t accepting it from Faith. “They know who we are. You heard them. They were after the reward.”
Five thousand dollars per Slayer, dead or alive. Ten if it was Faith or Buffy. The judgment on their lives had been pronounced two days before Buffy had led her army into battle at the Hellmouth. Giles and Buffy had suspected Hanlon of being behind the offer - Faith hadn’t cared at the time.
“Hanlon doesn’t give a shit about us anymore,” she said finally. “It’s over. He knows we’re no threat to his master.”
“What are you going to do with him then?” Dawn asked.
Like so many things in her life, Faith hadn’t thought it through. Can’t just turn him loose. Even the possibility of fifteen thousand dollars in payout was too much temptation, and Faith was going to have to sleep sometime.
Exhaling sharply, she wrapped her arm around her prisoner’s throat - pressing as hard as she could against the pulse points. The man immediately started to struggle again, but as tired and weak and sick at heart as she felt, he was still no match for her.
Kill him. Denied a kill, the beast in her head was unhappy. This is a waste of time and energy; he’s going to force you to kill him eventually.
“No,” Faith growled, redoubling her efforts until the man’s struggles slowed, and his body grew heavy in her grip. When she was certain he was unconscious, she let him go - pushing herself back and up as he fell in a heap on the ground.
Dawn stared down at him, hands on her hips and a familiar, petulant expression on her face. “That was a waste.” Faith shuddered, hearing the sounds of her own darker impulses coming from Buffy’s little sister.
“We don’t kill humans,” she repeated, meeting Dawn’s gaze squarely. “Get your stuff packed - we’re on the road in ten.”
“You have a plan all of a sudden?” Dawn asked.
Faith smiled bitterly, everything coming together in her head all at once. “We’re going to find Willow.” She couldn’t say exactly when she’d seized on that idea as the preferred course of action, but the more she thought about it the more sense it made.
Not waiting for Dawn to keep up, Faith crouched by her gear and started gathering up the items that had spilled out of her pack. She forced herself to stay focused on the task in front of her - to not look at Dawn and get sucked in to whatever argument she was itching to start. We don’t have time. She didn’t know how long the man she had put out would stay out, and they didn’t know if he had friends that would come looking for him.
“Buffy is dead, Faith.” The statement finally exploded into the stillness. Faith paused in her packing, hanging her head and letting the fatigue she’d been battling wash over her.
I can’t do this, she thought - finally raising her head to look at Dawn again. “Yes,” she said. “Buffy is dead, along with a thousand other Slayers and who knows how many civilians.” Her voice was too calm; it set off warning bells in her head. She couldn’t take out her frustration on Dawn.
She couldn’t afford to let herself go that far.
Dawn at least looked a little embarrassed when Faith reminded her of the true scope of their loss. To her credit, she recovered quickly. “My point is, if Willow could have done anything about it, don’t you think she would have?”
Faith stood, slinging her pack on one shoulder. “Red’s not a god, bitlet. She’s hella powerful, but we don’t know why she wasn’t there. We don’t even know if she could have stopped what happened.”
She sighed, feeling the weight of the world crushing down around her. “If she’s alive, though, we need to find her. She’s our best hope for regrouping and making some sense out of this mess.” She flipped a corner of Dawn’s sleeping bag over with her toe. “Get packed. You have five minutes.”