Of History
Rome is full of light and noise. One snapshot extreme after another crowding your mind, making it safe again. Bougainvillea and traffic fumes. Roaring scooters and Armani shades. Poor back streets, with washing strung between balconies where skinny cats sit, staring, imperiously down as if they own the world. Soaring arches and colonnades like insane cake decorations. Doorways that swing open to show you one more ruin, one more thing older than you could ever have imagined back home. You are discovering the strange comfort of history. Occasionally you think this city's like a giant graveyard, with the stream of life surging, oblivious, through its bones and tombs; one long Day of the Dead. These days you simply let it carry you, don't worry too much about where it's going. Which is why when Faith showed up on your doorstep late one night, nervous and exhausted underneath her bravado, you just went with it. Two months later she's still here, still not saying what leaves that dark, bruised look around her eyes; but you have your theories.
The door slams and you hear Faith's boots on the hall tiles. "Hey B."
"Hey yourself."
She drops her keys, jingling, onto the kitchen table; and when you look up from the scattered pile of paperwork in front of you -- bills, bills, Council business, a dog-eared postcard from Xander -- she is smiling, pupils dilated, eyes a little too bright.
"Market was nuts," she says, dumping a laden bag of shopping onto the floor and catching an orange as it tries to escape over the top. "You sure this city ain't built on a Hellmouth?"
"Hmm, pretty sure. Though I think old Mrs Vercelli, downstairs, might be a Gaylor demon."
Faith nods, as if she's suspected as much all along and begins stashing the food away in various cupboards.
You scrape back your chair and go to stand behind her. It's ridiculous, Faith 's acting like the poster child for domesticity -- which is both sweet and plain unnerving -- and you can't continue pretending everything is okay. " Where have you been for the last five days?" Oh so gentle voice, you will not shout, give her an excuse to turn this into a fight again.
Faith's shoulders tense, she pauses, rests her hands on the counter, doesn' t respond.
"Faith?"
"Shit -- what are you my Watcher now?" Her hands contract into fists. You notice the fine ingrained dirt; dried blood? under her fingernails.
"Stop doing that. Stop throwing up walls when all I want is to..." Through your rising anger and frustration you ache to hold her; or at least to fuck her until she cries herself silent, shaking in your arms the way she did that first night. In the heat of your bed you could still smell the cold, Cleveland rain and the after-burn of battle on her skin. Why it happened, why you let her guide your clumsy, uncertain touches, you don't know; only that it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe you finally let yourself see her, and once you did, you couldn't stop seeing.
"Dawn was worried...I-I was worried."
"Think I've forgotten something," Faith mumbles, staring at a shelf full of tins.
"Hey, Earth to 'Denial Girl.' For once will you drop this bullshit?" It may be harsh, but you have to say this. "Jesus, Faith, you're about as subtle as a napalm bomb. Y'know what, if you wanna kill yourself -- go right ahead." You're fighting to keep your voice steady now. "Just, just don't expect me to be your audience."
The noise she makes could be meant as a snort of derision, or it could be a sob.
You move to lay your hands over hers and before you know what's happening she has you face down across the table; hard, polished wood against your cheek, her weight on your back pinning you there.
"Would you miss me?" Her breath is hot on your neck. She's trying to get that arrogant, 'don't give a shit' tone into her voice; but she just sounds lost and desperate.
You moan quietly as she starts grinding her hips into your ass. You're already getting wet for her as the rocking movement presses the edge of the table, almost painfully, against you. Her hand is sliding up your thigh, gathering up the fabric of your light, cotton dress; then slipping underneath it. You automatically spread your legs a little wider in anticipation. You know how it will be, strobe-light fast, blinding; your whole life compressed into the sensation of her fingers on you, stroking, circling, driving into you until you 're screaming, throat raw and cracking, and it sounds like someone else's voice. You scrabble at the table top, trying to regain some control. You know that afterwards, Faith will keep apologising for hurting you, even while you' re insisting that she didn't; and when you try to touch her she will shy away from you as if she's contagious. And when Dawn comes home from school, Faith will concoct some tall tale about where she has been for the last -- fill in the blank number of -- days, which will make Dawn laugh and roll her eyes. And later she'll let Dawn beat her at poker.
Faith's fingers are hooking deftly inside your panties, starting to tug them down; you try to turn so you can see her, and she smacks your head back down with the palm of her hand; your ears are ringing -- she'll be especially sorry about that afterwards. Any second now you'll be too far gone to stop this, and you are determined that this time you will change the pattern, introduce some new rules.
"No," you manage to say.
"Baby." Faith is trailing kisses over the top of your spine and shoulders, where the dress is cut low. "Want you so much."
"No," you say it louder, forcing the word out. "No, not like this."
You pray she'll stop of her own accord; you need to believe she cares enough to stop without you having to make her. A shuddering breath, then her searching fingers still and withdraw slowly. She sags against you for a moment, practically dead weight, and you feel how badly she's shaking before she stands up and backs away.
The blue painted shutters on your bedroom windows are partly closed, allowing only a few shafts of afternoon sunlight to filter through. Faith turns but she can't seem to look at you, just stares at her hands. "Hurt you," she whispers. "I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry."
"S'okay, I'm fine," you tell her. Part of you is glad she can feel guilt, ' cause, hey, clearly not a sociopath, which is of the good; but this is so consuming, so obsessive, it makes you afraid for her. Sometimes you wonder which 'you' she is talking to.
"Sorry, oh God, please, sor--"
You can hear a radio blasting a tinny, Italian pop song from the apartment across the street. "Faith," you say in your most commanding voice. Her head jerks up, her mouth on the verge of forming yet another apology. You are longing to kiss her, but you know that right now she wouldn't let you. "Faith," you say more gently, "undress for me."
"Huh." She gives you a brief, frown of confusion; then manages to revive some attitude and translates the frown into an, unconvincing, smirk. "So, Little Miss Tightly Wound wants a strip show? Damn." She shimmies slightly, hands raking through her hair in a well practiced stretch that displays all her assets to best effect -- playing the part, every line of her body reading 'fuck me.' "Mmm. Are you expecting a free dance? Or are you planning to tuck crisp, new dollar bills into my--"
"Just do it," you say, "Let me see you."
The breeze blowing in from the Via Constantine is warm, but Faith shivers, suddenly and wraps her arms around herself. "Later. I-I'm not feelin' too good. I'll wash, and catch some z's, and...later we can...do whatever you want."
If she runs today, then tomorrow, perhaps the day after, or the day after that, you are going to lose her; and you've already lost too many people in too few years. You lean heavily against the door. "Do you trust me?"
Faith's laugh is empty. "Fuck." There is a long pause, in which she seems to be waiting to receive divine inspiration from the rug she's shuffling on. Eventually she says, "I guess so." She sounds surprised.
"Okay," you smile, trying to put her at ease, "then quit being shy, and ditch the clothes."
She has to crouch, head bowed as if in supplication, to unlace her boots; then stands and tears off her shirt and jeans as fast as she can. She's going commando of course, wearing her nakedness like an act of defiance, a dare. Beautiful and...broken. The bruises, bite marks, track marks are all fading, in a few hours they will have vanished completely. Rosettes and ink stains of overlapping colour -- yellow, green, purple; one jagged, angry, red, bite marring the top of her thigh. All in places she can hide easily.
You are gripping the door handle so hard you are sure it will snap off; you can't breathe for the pain clawing through your chest; and you knew, God, you knew. "How long?"
Faith's eyes are dark, shadow-plays full of smoke and ash. She shrugs. " Since LA, I dunno; don't really remember anymore. Everything's kinda hazy." Her hands wander over her skin, strangely helpless, hiding and uncovering the damage. "I need it. Thought I could kick it but...I-I need...guess I'm just destined to be a fuck-up, huh?"
Destined. The history in your blood. The past which divides, and connects you forever, flowing through Faith's ruined body. She's swaying on her feet, tense and frightened; more vulnerable than you ever imagined she could be; and you realise, like clouds parting, that you can't hate her anymore; her trust has washed the last trace of bitterness away. You finally prise your cramping hand off the door handle and move towards her, not knowing what the hell you are meant to do now.
Even as she is trying to escape into the shadows of the corner, you have her wrapped in your arms. She struggles half-heartedly, twisting and bucking, but you tighten your grip and refuse to let go. After a few seconds she makes a strangled, whimpering noise and gives in, grabbing onto you as if you are the only solid thing left in the world. You are stroking her hair, her sweat-damp back, gentling her as best you can, while her heart pounds through her ribs, and her breathing comes in ragged gasps.
She shudders and presses her head harder into your chest, as your fingers find a part healed bite. "Does it hurt?" Man, if there was ever a prize for asking stupid questions, you'd win it.
"Not enough." Her voice is dull, desperate. "Never enough. I just want it finished."
"I know. It's okay, just let go, let it go." You're crying now, your tears falling into the dark, straggling mass of her hair, as she whispers words you don't understand. "Faith, listen, shhh, listen sweetheart, I know I can't make you stay...hell, I can't make you stop watching 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' and in Italian that's just scary. Um, okay, so not the point -- the point is, I'm gonna keep on holding you for as long as you need, and I'm not gonna leave you."
"Buffy, please. I can't..." As you cradle her against your body, trying to lull the nightmare away, Faith starts sobbing.
"I'm not leaving you."
"You should."
"Shhh. It's okay." Rebuild, adapt, walk over the bones and go on living. This is what you've learned; what you do; what you can give her. "I'm not leaving."
You know that Faith is strong enough to break, and strong enough to mend again. As the golden, trails of sunlight travel across your room, narrow and vanish; you watch her bruises fade slowly to nothing. And when she asks, you tell her every story you can remember from Sunnydale, and your life before, until she finally falls asleep.