She's No One
'What's your name, miss?'
Faith stares back at the fuzzy fluorescent green shape. There are no misses here. Why won't her eyes focus? She smells burning odors, like pork chops on a barbecue, singed rubber, and sees hot orangey shapes flicker behind the man.
The bus. What happened?
'Where are the others?' she asks, and her voice is so much hoarser than normal. The smoke, she guesses. Her ribs really hurt.
The world chooses this moment to come into focus and she sees on his regretful tired face that there are no others anymore. There's a thin, keening sound like the wind.
'What's your name, miss?'
No one, she thinks of answering.
'Summers. Buffy Summers,' she says.
Immediately after shouting starts behind the flames. 'We got a live one!'
She sees the joy on the sooty face in front of her, and tears up because he still feels the loss of these anonymous accident victims. It's only several heartbeats after that that she gets what it means.
Buffy's face looks so white against the green hospital sheets. 'My name is...' her eyes search Faith's face, her thin cold fingers clench convulsively on her hand.
'Faith,' Faith says. 'Faith Winters. You're my friend.'
Faith leads Buffy by the hand to the motel room. Kind people from the Victims' Association have given them vouchers and clothes, so they needn't be homeless until credit cards and driver's licenses are duplicated. In a plastic bag are all the wallets and personal belongings from the Potentials and the rest of the Scoobies.
Buffy sits down on the left bed. She looks tired and drawn. Even a Slayer needs some time to recover from being crushed to death, Faith guesses. She slowly undresses Buffy, careful not to jostle the broken arm. Buff's eyes slide vacantly around the room, coming to rest on Faith's face.
'Buffy?' Buffy says in a scared, childlike voice. 'I feel so sad. Why is that?'
'Our friends died,' Faith says in a thick voice that surprises her. 'Our watcher, my lover and my sister.'
Buffy flushes in shame. 'Poor you, you've lost way more than me and here I am, making you take care of me.' Tears well in her big green eyes. 'I'm sorry,' she says, and clumsily embraces Faith with her good arm.
Faith lets tears flow onto Buffy's smooth golden arm, and the funny thing is, they feel real. When she looks in the mirror while brushing her teeth, her eyes are red and swollen and her face is blotchy. It makes her silent. Maybe the Scoobies and Giles weren't actually her friends, but together with Robin and Spike they're almost the only people she's connected with since her Watcher died.
Angel. She sees her mirror hand fly to her mouth. She's completely forgotten about Angel. There's no one who could have called him, but she breaks out in a sweat anyway. How could she have overlooked that there were people outside of Sunnydale who knew them both? She thinks hard. They simply never can go back to LA, that's all. Angel and the others need never know.
When she comes back into the room, Buffy is curled up on the bed, fast asleep. Faith bends over her and kisses her brow softly, strokes the long hair away from her face. She climbs in behind Buffy and slides against her. Buffy's body is surprisingly warm. Other people have always felt cool to Faith, but here is someone whose flesh is stoked as high as her own. She falls asleep almost immediately.
The next morning they get up early. Faith salvages everything she can from the bag of personal effects. There's a surprising amount of money in Giles and Robin's wallets, some jewelry, a singed driver's license from Kennedy. She decides to risk it and goes out to hotwire a car. Buffy's waiting for her with their meager stuff when she drives up to the morel room.
'Whoa,' Buffy says admiringly. 'How did you know how to do that?'
'You taught me,' Faith says. 'You must have learned in prison.'
Buffy blanches. 'Am I a criminal?' she says in a small voice as they roar off to the interstate.
Faith squeezes her upper arm briefly. 'You did a bad thing, but then you repented and paid your debt to society. No way you're a criminal. You chose to do good.'
Buffy looks relieved. 'Thanks,' she says to Faith. 'I'm very grateful you still want to be my friend. Were we friends before?'
'Oh yeah,' Faith says. 'Never stopped being bestest pals.'
Her hand is still lying on Buffy's arm, and it feels very nice. They drive like that all day long, mostly silent, but always touching. Now Faith's arm lies on the back of the seat, stroking soft mindless rhythms on Buffy's neck, then Buffy's hand lies burning warmly on her thigh for hours, making Faith wish she'd worn cut-offs. A languid heat washes through her lower body, too lazy to be called desire, too hot to be comfort.
They stop at Motel 6. It's still so hot that the air shimmers, making the six seem like there are three of them, 666. Buffy doesn't comment on it. She seems to have lost her personality as well as her memory. It scares Faith a little, having this meek biddable girl along. She's so much smaller than Buffy used to be. But when she sees the tiny body bend and sway to her every movement while she puts their stuff away in the motel room, dancing to keep ahead of her and stay out of her way, a shadowy excitement rises in her.
'Why don't you get in bed, Faith?' she says.
Buffy blushes but starts unbuttoning her charity blouse right away, a little clumsy with her cast. Faith rummages for Xander's big pocket knife and starts sawing away at the plaster. She's almost sure the break must have healed by now. Buffy's big green eyes rest calmly in hers. Her absolute trust makes Faith warm and her hands shake. Can she live up to it? When the cut is complete the cast is easily broken away from the arm. Faith runs her lightest touch along it, watching the skin pucker and the little hairs rise.
'Does it hurt?' Faith asks.
Buffy shakes her head. 'It just makes me very warm,' she says with a soft smile.
Faith falls headlong into the smile and drinks Buffy's lips with abandon. Buffy lies against so sweetly and pliantly that Faith can't stop herself and goes on pushing her down on the bed. Who is this Buffy? Did she always exist beneath the stern warrior's exterior, was she like this with Angel? This Buffy's clothes and underwear fall open with a touch like a flower unfolding. Within its petals lies golden Buffy, waiting for Faith's lips and hands.
At first she's reverent and careful, exploring softness and smoothness with her tongue, stroking the gentle rise of stomach with her knuckles, staying away from small eager breasts. But Buffy draws up her hands against their undersides, and they're so soft, soft as her own breasts, which are still tightly packed away in nylon and Lycra. Buffy lifts hesitant fingers to the hem of her T-shirt and Faith helps her get it off.
'This feels so new, Buffy,' Buffy says. 'Like it's the first time. What was our first time like?'
'I think we were pretty drunk,' Faith says, unable to come up with a more romantic scenario, but then she takes unexpected flight. 'I saved you from these freaking awful guys, they were trying to hurt you.'
Buffy glows at her, curls and stretches her spine like a cat that wants to be stroked. 'You're my hero,' she says and opens her thighs shyly.
Faith hides her burning face in Buffy's soft flesh, teases open the secret folds one by one, feels the curly edges fill with blood, and thick honey drips slowly onto her lips. Buffy sighs, she's so passive, it's hot but makes Faith impatient too. She crawls upward and kisses the waiting mouth. Buffy responds with gratifying eagerness, thrusting her clit against the heel of Faith's hand. Her flesh grows even warmer and a deep pink blush colors her face and breasts. Her nipples are dark red now, tightly clenched, and Faith nips the little strawberries gently with her teeth. Buffy bucks harder. Faith tries a little more force and is rewarded with a rippling screaming orgasm from Buffy.
Buffy likes it a little violent, does she? Faith half remembers a conversation with Spike, when she'd gotten the impression that Buffy had been doing out the violence, not receiving it. She must have been wrong. She goes on rubbing more fiercely, uses her nails to scores thin stripes along Buffy's; flank and squeezes her breast like a guy. Buffy likes everything, the rougher the better. She keeps on coming, completely oblivious of Faith now.
'Spike!' she screams, flinging her head against the pillows in frenzy.
Faith stops, nonplussed. Buffy opens her eyes wide, taking in the room and Faith with shock. Her mouth shuts tightly, she draws up and away from Faith.
'What the hell?'
Faith is frozen to the bed.
She can't do anything but watch emotions wash across Buffy's face. First the drawn lips and scrunched brow of disgusted horror, the open mouth and wide eyes of remembrance, then sadness, painted in trembling lips and slow tears. At last anger settles comfortably in the set of her shoulders and her clenched fists.
'What is this, Faith? Where are we?'
To her helpless mortification, Faith bursts into tears. That was so not the plan, she was gonna take care of Buffy, not be all weak and girly. A gruff little hand finds its way into her hair.
'Last thing I remember is being in the bus. What...'
'Accident,' Faith sobs. 'They're all dead, all the little girls.'
Buffy's hand clenches reflexively, pulling hard at Faith's hair. Faith revels in the small stinging, she deserves a little pain.
'The others?' Buffy asks.
Faith nods. Buffy's hands fly up slowly to her face, Faith can see the 'o' of her mouth through her loose opened fingers. Then she falls forward to Faith, who is there to catch her. At least they can cry together.