Rating: R for language and darkness
Summary: Faith's reaction to the S5 finale
Disclaim: The utterly evil Joss, Fox, WB, ect.
Author's Note: This was going to be much more anti-Buffy than it is, but I wussed out at
the end. :)


My Heart Bleeds
By Shuvcat
-----
Well ding dong, the bitch is dead.

Everybody dies. Isn't that what she kept trying to tell me? We all die and
we all gotta pay the piper eventually. Own up for our sins. Except I've
been owning up for a year now, and I'm still here. She was supposed to be
indestructible, and perfect besides. But she's gone.

Hate to quote ol' Red here, but boo-hoo.

I'm supposed to feel sorry? I'm supposed to sit here in this phone booth
with Angel staring at me with that pained I'm-gonna-drop-one look on his
face, where he's been every week on the dot, where she never was -- never,
B, you never came to see me even once, just like the coma -- and just
because you're dead now, I'm supposed to be sad?

I knew already, of course. Same way Buffy probably would have known about
Kendra, if she'd been a million miles away when the broad got her neck
snapped. Turns out Slayers can feel it when one of us dies, only --
surprise -- no one's ever found that out before, because there's never been
two or three freak Slayers floating around before. Nope, I get to be the
lucky winner of that one, and so does the next sorry chick who's gonna get
the job, now that B's gone.

That's three, B. Three gals you're wrecked because you didn't have the
sense to stay dead last time. Was it worth it, girl? All the people you
saved make up for it? 'Cause the visions sure seem to think so.

Oh yeah, I knew already. Damn visions. They come in the middle of the
night, flashing like a meteor shower, the Powers That Be mourning their best
and brightest. Scenes from your life, B, a whole highlight reel
immortalizing how wonderful, and honorable, and sweet and lovable and
all-around perfect you were. They just keep coming, they won't shut up....

I'm in there, too -- first as your buddy, then as your enemy. I have to
watch you defeat me along with all the other monsters. I have to watch all
your triumphs in memoriam, even though I don't want to, because whatever mad
scientist God that made us hot wired us this way. You would've had to watch
my slide show too, if I'd died first, like everyone thought I would. Hoped
I would. Except mine wouldn't have been this long or beautiful. Mine
would've been, she killed a few vamps, screwed up big time, and then died.
The end.

I even have to watch the last scene of your life like I was there for it.
Even being locked in solitary miles away couldn't save me from that one.

I can't cry, I never cry. Am I supposed to? You pulled a self-sacrificing
half-gainer into Hell to save the world, save your sister. You pulled it
out of the fire, just like always, the perfect, sacrifical Buffy they all
loved so much. The Golden Warrior going down in a blaze of glory, like they
all imagined it would be. You gave them a good show, girlfriend, you give
great death.

Even got a funeral, complete with the friends, the Watcher, the studly vamp
to mourn at your grave. Poor sweet baby. My heart bleeds.

Really kind of hard to get a good cry on when I have to watch every
wonderful thing you ever did on infinite rewind. When I see what I should
have lived up to, and I know I can't. When I have to watch you kill the
only other person to care anything about me, over and over. And then listen
to the gods applaud, like it's the final touchdown of the Super Bowl.

I'm supposed to cry for you? Especially after that? Cause that's the last
time I remember feeling like I wanted to cry, when I woke up and found him
dead. You think you're the only one who gets the grief and the mourning?
Think you didn't visit it on me first? Fuck you, B. I hope it hurt.

.....hell....I don't mean that. You know I don't.

At least you get to come back. You will...you did it before. If anybody
can claw their way back, it's you.

Come on back, B. Don't stay dead this time. I need you to kick around,
girlfriend. If you die...shit, especially that way... saving your little
sis, in battle against a hell-god, that would mean I'd have to forgive you.
I don't wanna forgive you. That's all I've got left in here, even in the
middle of my little quest-for-peace thing I'm runnin. It's still here,
underneath -- all the pain, all the rage over what you took out of me. The
only thing that's kept me going, knowing we'd eventually get to throw down
again...that I'd see you again. I could even have forgiven you on the
outside, maybe, someday. But not in here. Not yet.

Damn it, B, you're not supposed to be dead yet.....

I hang up the phone, even though Angel's seat has been empty for some time
now. And the first tear slides down my face.


End

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