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Chapter 3: Buffy

Giles wasn't the only familiar face waiting for me in England. When we got to the school, Faith was standing out front waiting to greet me as well. We hugged like we'd been the best of friends back in the day, but the truth was I hated her a little. The Faith I saw standing in front of the school was the Faith I'd always feared most. Not the "evil killer who's trying to seduce my boyfriend" Faith, but the strong, confidant, I'm on top of the world Faith that I'd seen when she first rolled in to Sunnydale.

Of course that Faith hadn't really been as strong and confident as she'd seemed. In fact she'd been scared and hurt. But I hadn't seen that at the time. All I'd seen was a girl who seemed to be taking over my life. Who seemed to be more liked by my friends than I was. I've always wondered if things might have been different if I'd been able to see past my own fears, if I'd been a little nicer to Faith maybe things could have been different. The fact that nowadays Faith would be the first to tell you that the only one responsible for the things she did was her, only makes it worse.

Still, I meant it when I hugged her, and when I looked into her eyes I could see the lines and the scars that came from worrying about the lives of all these girls. From being afraid that if you messed up, they died. And then I kind of hated myself for leaving her behind to take care of my job while I went off and lived the normal life. On the other hand, maybe she was the lucky one. She knew where she belonged while I've been living this big lie for the last five years.

I guess when all's said and done Faith and I will never be best friends, but sometimes, well sometimes there are these moments where we just click. The truth is, the only one who really understands what it's like to be the Chosen One is Faith. Sure the world is full of slayers now but that's just the point. They'll never know what it's like to be the one person that everything and everyone is depending on. They'll never be alone the way Faith and I were. Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing. I'm all for the Sisterhood of the Slayers, it just means that every now and then, when Mercury is in the fifth house, Faith and I get each other in a way that no one else can.

She gave me a tour of the school, showing me the class rooms, and the student dorms and stuff like that.

"So B, what is it you want to do here?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. Not teach math. But other than that. . . " I shrugged.

Faith nodded. "It's okay. We'll figure something out. So this is my office."

Faith had an office. Weird. It wasn't a stuffy office though. It was actually kind of cluttered and there was a calendar with a very nicely muscled biker on the wall. In fact as soon as she sat down she kicked her boots up on the desk.

"The thing is B, you need to understand about the girls, who they are, and why they're here."

I looked at her a little confused. "They're here because they're slayers, right?"

Faith smiled a little indulgently at me. "Yeah, there's that, but it's a bit more complex. You remember how it was right after Sunnydale? Almost no watchers and all those girls who'd never even heard of a slayer. That's why we started the school. But now we have enough trained slayers and watchers that we don't have to take girls away from their families."

Faith sighed. "Problem is, the world’s far from perfect. Some of the girls here don't have families, others have bad ones that we couldn't leave them with. And then. . . I don't know if you noticed how. . . multi-ethnic the students here are but, well. . . "

Faith got up and looked out of her window. "I used to think I had things rough in Boston, or that Sunnydale with its Hellmouth was dangerous. Some of these girls, their families begged us to take them. They figure their daughters were safer fighting demons than living in their home countries. Others, well, not all the world’s cultures really embrace the idea of super powered girls."

Faith shrugged and turned back to look at me. "It's hard you know. These girls have this destiny to fight evil, but only if it's got fangs, or horns, or scales. How do we tell these girls that they're not bullet proof, that they have to stand aside and let some warlord kill their neighbors?"

I got up before I started squirming in my chair a little too much. "I'm sorry, I guess I never really thought this all through back in Sunnydale."

"No, B. Don't be sorry. You did the right thing. These girls, they're amazing. You've got no idea." She smiled. "But you will."

Faith was right. The girls were great. Of course before I found that out I had to get publicly humiliated. Okay, maybe public humiliation is a bit strong, but it definitely wasn't my finest hour. The next day Faith called an assembly so that everyone could meet me all at once. So what happens when you gather a bunch of hyper, super-strong teenagers into one room and introduce them to the famous "rival" of their favorite teacher? They want to see who's tougher, that's what.

I knew it was a bad idea, but I just couldn't admit that I wasn't up to fighting Faith. Of course, considering that I hadn't fought anything other than tooth decay for the last five years, well let's just say I went down fast and hard. The girl's cheered for Faith even as she helped me back up to my feet.

"Would you believe I was just getting warmed up?" I asked sheepishly.

"Don't tell me you wanna go again, B?" her tone was mocking, but there was this look in her eyes that I recognized.

Before everything went crazy and bad, Faith and I spent a lot of time patrolling together. During that time we learned to read each other in a special kind of way, and the look she was giving me now meant "trust me." Of course in the past Faith would give me that look before jumping headfirst into a nest of vampires with no plan other than punch them a lot, but still we never did get ourselves killed (although I almost drowned a second time) so I figured, why not?

We squared off again. The fight was longer this time, and this time I won. Well, sort of. She knew and I knew that she let me win, but she made it look good. Not that it did much for my self-confidence. I mean, what had the world come to when I can't beat Faith without her letting me win? But no one seemed to catch on.

Well, except for Giles, which was even worse in some ways. But Giles didn’t say anything, which was definitely worse.





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