Dreamtime
It took them three weeks to tell her Buffy was dead.
Three weeks.
And they didn't even tell her when they told Angel. She had to hear it from Cordelia, of all people -- weeks after Angel found out and disappeared off to some monastery.
No one thought to tell her, no one even remembered her, choosing instead to use a goddamned robot.
Three weeks after the death of the only working Slayer, and Faith was still in prison. Three weeks since Buffy jumped off a platform, three weeks since everything changed.
And the dreams never stopped.
They were having a picnic on her grave, both wearing tea dresses and eating tiny cakes, all cream and strawberries and lighter-than-air angel food cake.
Buffy wore the palest blue and Faith wore the palest pink and the blanket they sat on was snowy white against the rich velvet green grass. And the grass ate the corpses and the girls ate the cakes.
"It's a nice day," Buffy said, looking up at the sunlight streaming through the trees.
"Mmm..." Faith mumbled, licking the cream off of her fingers.
"It's just too bad that I'm dead."
Faith looked at Buffy and gasped, recoiling.
Buffy smiled, lips cracking, eyes cloudy, hair lank, skin grey and crumbling even as the bones peeked through the skin. "Come on, Faith..." she whispered. "One last kiss?"
It was a rare raining evening in Sunnydale, and after their first patrol around the various cemeteries, they gave up, choosing to curl up in the Summers' living room with a couple of terrible movies and a bowl of popcorn.
They slouched lower and lower on the couch, nearly horizontal, thighs touching, hands grazing hands as they reached for popcorn. "Remember this moment?" Buffy whispered into Faith's ear.
"What?"
"Remember this moment? You and I sitting here, watching movies, and then you kissed me?"
Faith smiled, her eyes still on the movie. "Yeah...I remember..."
"Too bad it'll never happen again." Buffy's voice grew rough, gravelly, as if rolling over vocal chords stretched thin and rotten.
Faith turned, and Buffy smiled, her head lopsided and hollow against her broken neck.
Her prison cell was small and cramped, with a triple bunk-bed on either side. Originally meant to sleep two, it slept six, and not well.
But her bunkmates were gone, and Faith laid on the highest bunk, while Buffy laid on the bottom bunk. Faith's hand trailed down, sliding against the cold metal and thin bedding of the middle bunk, tracing the confines of her life with every bolt and loose thread.
"I wanted to tell you something..." Buffy said.
Faith leaned over, hair falling down into her face, looking down towards the bottom bunk, where she could only see Buffy's hand, dangling over the edge. Her nails were pink, frosted, delicately trimmed and perfect.
"Yeah?" Faith croaked, lips dry.
"They all think I jumped because of Dawn... Or because I was tired of being a Slayer, or because of Mom's death, or any of the other clichéd reasons people keep on bringing up." The hand stayed on the edge, unmoving. "But they didn't realise -- they didn't know what I know..."
Faith wanted to look away, wanted to pull the thin scratchy prison blanket over her head, wanted her bunkmates to come back, wanted it to not be at all real.
Buffy's head suddenly appeared, peeking from the bunk. But it wasn't Buffy -- not the Buffy Faith remembered, but instead a grinning skull, with stringy dull hanks of hair plastered to the final dried pieces of flesh.
"You killed me, Faith."
Faith shut her eyes tightly, wishing it all away.
"I jumped for you."
Faith rolled back onto the bed, her eyes still closed. She rolled against the cold bricks of the wall, pushing her hands against her ears, trying to block out the voice below.
The dreams continued throughout the summer.
When they stopped, everything changed.