Fanfiction: Okay
EMAIL: iiveraione@aol.com
She lets her imagination wander into the distant part of her mind, soaking up the small things like the funeral bill, and how little it takes to smile and say ‘I’m five by five’ to whoever asks. The trick, for her at least, was to not look into their pity-filled eyes. She instead looks off into the distance. To watch the birds fly, the trees sway, and listen to the sound of the creek that lay not-too-far into the woods. Considered apart from anything else, was the color of the sky at sundown, when it looked as if a four year old child had tossed a bucket of paint into the multitude of clouds that littered the million dollar painting. And it was true, wasn’t it? A child’s painting was worth a million, however a mess it may be. No one could understand that until they lost a child of their own. Until they give their heart so fully to something so small, do they understand how valuable a hand print or giggle can be.
Accustomed to faking it, she isn’t one hundred percent on why Xander sees through every wall she throws up in front of her. Proceeding with the “grieving process” at a less than desirable rate, she was punishing him. For every inch of his being. Why he still exists after what happened.
He was the one driving the car, after all.
He was the one that got out alive.
Not her child.
Her child. Her baby. The one she was going to watch grow up. There were going to be visits to the playground (there was, for a little while) and trips to the nurse. But instead there was just a mangled corpse - too mangled to recognize, even if it was her kid.
And shouldn’t she be thankful? So long in her life she wished for someone like Xander to come along and sweep her off her feet, hold her when things like this happened, and not blame her when she acted like she is now. Should she really pin him the one of culpability?
She needs someone to blame. She needs someone to hurt.
There’s a space, void and empty in the distance. A hole in the ground where the uncomfortably small coffin is lowered. They toss dirt inside, like burying a bag of trash. Which, if she considers those that are in charge of burying people, is probably on spot with their way of thinking. Had to be tough, to bury a kid. Had to be worse if it’s your kid in the ground.
In the ground. Ouch.
She doesn’t accept the comfort Xander offers. Instead, with the breeze tossing up strands of honey-brown hair, she walks away from the burial ground, like walking away from everything that was. It felt like she was going behind bars for the first time all over again. She can feel all eyes on her. She can feel the sympathy and the burning sensation that came with all that bile in her throat.
Soon, yet not soon enough (nothing could ever be enough now), she reaches the vehicle she arrived in. There’s keys still in the ignition, Xander must have forgotten to remove them, but it wouldn’t matter either way. Living her life as a teen left little space for not learning how to hot wire a vehicle. If she didn’t have the keys, she’d get out of there one way or another. If she had to run until she had to puke.
She opens the door with a rusty creak that reminds her of how she really feels. Like her heart being fried on the hot sidewalk, steaming and crackling, among other things.
When she slides in, settles into the familiar seat, puts her hands on the steering wheel, she’s hit with every memory. Every drive to school and every piece of human remains scattered on the highway. She has to fight to hold back the sudden tremor of nausea that threatens to overtake her. Clamping her eyes shut, and swallowing as if she hadn’t had a drink in ages, she starts the ignition. It’s a steady rumble, almost like a distant thunder, and as soon as she opens her eyes again she’s pulling out of there and driving as far away as possible.
She doesn’t worry about Xander. He knows she’ll be back. She wonders if he understands. She wonders if she cares, or if she’s simply fooling herself into thinking these crazy things. Maybe it was the promise of better days that troubled her so. But she’d come so far. She was beyond questioning herself at this point.
There is something so inviolable to motherhood, she thinks, as she drives down the deserted highway and imagines the scene all over again. Something that death or disaster cannot rip away, no matter how iniquitous. She picks this theory apart in slow, intricate steps. On one hand - delicately balanced however shaky she’s been over the past few days - there is the silent, ever glistening hope that her child will make straight A’s, later going to college and getting betrothed. On the other hand - far more shaky than the other - is the growing sickness in her gut that something bad will happen. The worry. That worry. This was something that never went away, she knew now. No matter how dead and done one child may be.
Rotting six feet under - and she was still worried that her kid might miss the school bus.
Many arguments later (although Faith stopped keeping count), she sits on her little girl’s bed. It still smells like little roses. It looks like roses, too. Pink bed sheets with red pillows. The epitome of innocence. Legs are drawn to her chest and various stuffed animals are cuddled in her arms.
There’s a knock on the door, and as sure as she is it’s Xander, the more sure she is she’s ready for him to die. For herself to die. To die in this room at this moment, so she could be with her baby and away from him and everything else that’s been itching under her skin for too long now.
“Leave me alone.”
She’s crying now, and he continues to try to get her to open the door. But she can’t; won’t. She hugs the blue teddy bear tighter to her chest, so hard that the beady eyes press into her skin, and it hurts a little. He knocks some more until he finally gives up and opens the door all on his own.
The teddy bear hits him in the head, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, he walks toward the bed, the strongest look of concern on his face and she wants him to diediediedie.
“Faith, what’s wrong?” He asks, a seemingly simple question - yet a true response would take hours to explain in full. And she can’t believe he asks it, because she knows he knows. What’s wrong?
Everything!
Everything is wrong! Go away!
My daughter’s gone forever!
Die!
“Leave me alone.” She repeats and he sits next to her. He places a hand on her shoulder - firm and as masculine as Xander can be, and her shoulders send icey chills up his arm.
“Faith…”
And then his hands are in her hair, brushing it away from her face. ‘You look pretty when your hair’s pushed back’, he’d told her, and she swore… no, knew that someone had told her that before. It made her stomach knot - like her insides finally chose to wrap around themselves and make her shrivel into a bitter nothing.
Don’t say my name. You can’t! You killed her! Your fault! Yours!
“Talk to me, please.”
No. I’ll never talk to you. Never! You took her away! You hurt- stop. Don’t. Stop being nice. I’m being a bitch, stop. Just stop. Please… Don’t touch my hair, stop being nice. Stop. Stop it stop it. You hurt her-took her away stop pleasepleaseplease stop just… God…
She turns away from him, looking at any part of the room that doesn’t have him in it, because she knows he can read every little thing she’s not saying just by looking in her eyes. She hates and loves that about him. And why could she not settle between love and hate? Why must there be so much confusion within her life?
“I miss her, too.”
No you don’t!
“I do.”
I didn’t say anything…
He tilts her chin, turning her head to face his own, with nothing but his index finger. He wears a crooked frown on his face and she wonders if that’s a tear she sees welling up in his one eye and why had she EVER let him drive with just that one eye?
Silence falls over them both for what seemed like an eternity too long for Faith, and when they speak again, it’s after she pulls him into a kiss that stung like a permanent tattoo.
“I love you.” She says, and this time he doesn’t know she’s lying.
The next few months were filled with similar kisses and whispered ‘I love you’s. Faith was never one for such display of affection, but in all irony, it had come to be her way of fooling Xander. He was truly convinced and she wasn’t quite sure what to think about that.
After another kiss, the phone rings, and he dashes to the other side of the kitchen to answer it. Like pretty heroin needles, she feels as if she’s been stabbed by something dirty, yet small and fragile. She knows it’s Buffy on the other line, probably asking them to go to Italy this summer for a visit. But the last time such a concept was floated, so soon after her daughter’s death, she had made it clear that she was not up for visiting the retired sainthood.
She doesn’t bother listening, instead drifting off into a world of her own until he hangs up, and even then she isn’t really there.
“That was Buffy.”
She nods, as if she hadn’t known already, and waits for him to continue.
“She wants us to visit.”
Again with the visiting and not considering of her feelings. But she’d been told on more than too many occasions that it was time for her to move on. Still though, she can’t shake the fact that she is bothered by the entire thing. No matter how many years passed, Xander would always love his precious Buffy. It’s why he was driving to the airport that night. To pick her up.
She’d wanted to see her daughter. Precious Buffy wanted to see Murderous Faith’s daughter and whose fault was that, now that she’s a mangled corpse, rotting and being eaten by only God knows what?
She has to dig her nails into her skin to keep from yelling out.
“Xander…” She begins, and he cuts her off.
“Just for a few days. We fly there, stay a few nights, and fly back.”
She smiles and nods, too sick to fight with him now.
They’re still discussing the trip, only weeks before they were scheduled to hop a plane and leave. She isn’t sure why, but the excitement he gets from the idea of visiting Buffy over such a stretch of time insults her. She ignores the fact they were best friends. To her, it sounded like a plate full of bullshit. A best friend doesn’t try killing your ex.
She’d heard stories, and she will never stop believing them.
Buffy was quickly becoming the bad luck stone for her bad life.
She scrubs away at the dishes in the sink, lost in thought as Xander goes on and on about the upcoming trip. She was far from ready to leave her home, and now that she was leaving the country?
Dinner’d been silent, for her - very loud on his part, but that really didn’t bother Faith. Too busy reflecting on what could happen if they left for a day or two. Or three. Or four - from what people have been talking. They didn’t own much, and she didn’t own her daughter no longer, but she couldn’t fight back the urge to nag: Make sure she’s ready for school tomorrow, make sure the night light is working… she can’t stand it without the night light. And leave her door open, but shut the closet…
Even a child’s nightmares are bittersweet, when you comfort them afterwards.
“It’ll be okay, Faith.” He says, stepping in beside her and beginning to help with the sink that was overflowing with dirty dishes.
“I know.” She lies, and she is beyond caring if he is fooled or not. Instead, she continues to scrub and grind, listening to the clanking of dishes as she separates the clean ones from the dirty ones.
After a few minutes, they are down to only a couple, and he lays a kiss upon her forehead and retreats into the living room.
“It’ll be okay.” She repeats, to no one in particular, staring down at the last dish in the sink: a child’s mug.
As he drifts to sleep in the guestroom of Buffy’s place, Faith realizes, for the first time, what she’d been hiding from herself the past couple of months. It’s not that difficult, she thinks, ringing her hands together like it was her last day on earth. And really, it was.
There was no excuse for where she was now. No one to blame. Maybe this was all just her fault to begin with. It was, if you think about it.
But she can’t take anything back now - eyes shut so tight that the tears don’t even dare to show themselves. She’s not sure if they’re really there or not.
The TV in the living room is still on, and despite how loud and clean Xander’s breathing is in her ears, she can distinctly hear what was being said. It was some bullshit therapy session, but she couldn’t help but listen to every word.
“You have to take control!” They say, and Faith cringes. She isn’t quite sure why. To keep from laughing, or to keep away what inevitably had to happen? Maybe both.
He was the one driving the car.
He was the one who wrecked it.
He was the one who got out alive.
Not her child. Her child. Glowing eyes and a matching smile, too cute for comfort, yet so adorable one could cry.
She can feel the blood on her hands now.
So she watches Xander’s chest rise one more time, listens to him breathe in one more time, watches him live one more time, before twisting and removing the dagger from his gut with a sound so sick and familiar it makes her want to scream.
It’s going to be okay, she reminds herself, ignoring the fireworks of red that splatter against him, her, and everything else that it could possibly reach.
As she slides out of the bed, she can still hear the television. “You just have to remember,” They say, their words taunting her. “It’s going to be okay.”
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