aloneFic

Hey, B. I'm standing here, looking down at your ... headstone. Never thought it'd be me doing this. Kinda guessed it was gonna be the other way 'round, with you up here in the soft afternoon sunlight and me six feet under. Never thought you'd lose. Not even when I threw in with the Mayor. There was some tickle back in my brain that just *knew* Buffy Summers would come out on top.

You're probably wondering - unless all those preachers are right and you're watching over us from Heaven; in which case, you already know - why I'm here. Council sprung me. Don't know how exactly and Giles won't say. Can't say I'm upset by it. It's hard to fight vampires, demons, and hell beasts in prison. Although, I gotta say, a girl can use all that alone time to take on a few of her own demons. Angel promised them all I'm better, but they still watch me, circle around me like little kids near the lion cage at the circus. You know what, B? I don't blame them. They lose you and get me in return. Deal doesn't seem quite right, does it?

I asked Giles how come they didn't just wait for the next Slayer, how come they got me out. He used a lot of big words in his explanation, but I think the bottom line is you died the once and as far as whatever power it is that calls Slayers, that did it for you. Now, it's back to only one girl in all the world. The Chosen One... first time I said it aloud I looked for you. Couldn't believe it was me I was talking about.

I looked around for you, wanted to laugh, wanted to fix it, call us the Chosen Two, like it used to be. Gotta say, B, it made me tear up a bit. Not for you, so much. Sorry. Well, yeah, for you, but not the you that jumped into that portal (and man, B, if there is an afterlife, you and me, girlfriend, we are gonna talk about *that*). It was for the girl who got chosen a bunch of years ago, a girl who never wanted this gig. I thought I knew what being alone was, what lonliness was. Now I know what you learned the day you were called. It's three words. The Chosen *One*. It's the lonliest f**king thing I've ever thought.

I've been alone most of my life. Never knew my dad. For all I know my mom didn't even know who he really was. Knew my mom and wish I hadn't. She was a lonely woman and she taught me you cure lonliness by crawling into a bottle, slapping your kid around, and bringing home anything that wears pants and has to shave its face in the morning. She never seemed to catch on that those things aren't much of a cure. Took me a good long while to see it myself. The guy part, anyway.

Didn't have much in the way of friends growing up either. The good kids, nice ones, like you and Willow, their parents knew what my mom was from the start and wouldn't let their precious babies play with me. Guess I can't blame 'em now. Not like I turned out much better than expectations. I hung out with other kids, on the edges of the groups, wherever they'd let me. Found out the tougher I was, the more easily they let me stay. The more 'balls' I had, the more they seemed to like me. They didn't though, not really. I was just another freak who didn't fit in. Somewhere along the line, I chose not to fit in. Figured I'd managed long enough without belonging that I didn't need it.

God, B, it hurt so much to see you, a Slayer, the only other girl on the planet who was just like me, and you didn't want to be different. You wanted to fit in. I'd come to Sunnydale thinking I was finally gonna belong someplace, be part of some exclusive, two-girls only club, even though I didn't even know I wanted to, and instead, there you were. You tried so hard to fit in, to have this normal life. And you came so close. I even tried to pull you away, to make you find that angry, feral creature that lives in all Slayers, but it scared you and you always went back to the safety of your friends. You went back to where you weren't alone.

I finally got why you didn't want to be that creature, why you fought it so hard. I got that you never pushed me away, just the darkness in me, the fear, the anger, the lonely hatred. I got it when your former vamp lover was pummeling me and my brain said "at last, at last, it's all over". There was nothing left to live for. I'd driven away all the light I could have had in my life and found out that being alone doesn't make you strong, it eats you alive.

For a year or so, I wasn't alone anymore. I had Angel. Not like you. If he didn't have that agency of theirs, B, he'd be dust. He hurts that much. But I had someone who talked to me, who listened to me, who made me feel the way you must have felt - like you were worth something, like killing wasn't the only gift you brought to this screwed up planet.

Then, Giles came to the prison. Coulda knocked me down jsut by looking at me I was so surprised. It hit me before he opened his mouth. I knew there ws only one way he'd come to see me. Angel may have forgiven me, and the rest of them may be working on it, but forgiving and forgetting are two different things. I dropped my head. I didn't want to see his eyes, didn't want to watch his mouth move. I thought maybe if I only heard it, it wouldn't be real.

He was real short about it. "Buffy is dead. The Council has arranged your release. You will return to Sunnydale with me. I am to be your Watcher and you will follow my orders."

Was all I could do to nod.

I only looked up when he kinda barked my name. His face was - Giles. You know, stern, disapproving, but with this little glimmer of understanding, like he knows what a Slayer is up against. And I don't just mean the beasties. "You are the Chosen One now, Faith," he told me. The note of pity in his voice didn't even piss me off for once.

The Chosen One, girlfriend. Funny thing - I don't want to be. It's been to damn lonely. You lived with that for -what? -two years or more, before Kendra. I've been living with it for two months and I feel the darkness closing in around me each day. How'd you do it, B? How'd you fight the dark all around and never let it in? I know what happens when it gets in.

I'm reading your headstone again. I think I could trace the shape of the letters in my sleep, I've stood here so many times. You saved the world, B. You kept fighting the darkness, kept pushing it back. The last time you did it, it was because you loved your sister and your friends so much.

And now it hits me, B. You fought the darkness not because you could, not because you liked it, not because it was the only thing that bled the hatred out of you. You fought it because you loved everything that wasn't darkness.

Sun's setting, B. Does it rise and set where you are? I hope so. Time for me to get patrolling, stake a few vamps who are too stupid to figure they should get the hell off the Hellmouth, and then report to Giles. Believe it or not, B, I even follow orders these days. Mostly. So, girlfriend, time to fight the darkness. Be at peace, B. You deserve it.

And B? Thanks. You showed me how to do this.

Alone. And not quite.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

End