Introduction
Season:
First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links | Fanfic
| Goodbye Iowa | Who Are You? |
Buffy and Faith change the sheets on the bed in Buffy’s room in her house. Buffy thinks that the sheets smell nice, like summer. That’s something that Faith wouldn’t know about. Buffy can’t stay though. There are things she has to do.
Faith understands. “Little Sis coming. I know.” She leans over the bed as she folds under the sheet corners and looks down at it. Fresh blood drips onto the sheets. “Damn. Just when we made it so nice.” Faith straightens up. “Are you ever going to take this thing out?”
Buffy looks down at Faith’s belly. She’s holding Faith’s knife which is stuck in it. She pushes it in deeper.
Faith lies unconscious in her hospital bed, her eyes move beneath closed eyelids. Lightning flashes.
Xander works on the faulty taser rifle at the workbench in his basement. He doesn’t have much hope for fixing it, but he will keep working on it. Willow suggests that he just try experimenting, and push a few buttons. Xander doesn’t think it’s a good idea to do that with something called a “blaster” and Giles agrees.
Buffy thinks she’ll need some extra firepower for the next time she goes up against Adam. She has spent the last three days trying to track him without any success. Giles thinks that maybe she should take some time off, and get some rest. She’s getting pretty ragged.
Willow wants to know if Buffy has gotten any word on Riley. Buffy hasn’t. She has been asking regularly, but the only thing any of the Initiative people will say about Riley is that he’s fine. Buffy doesn’t know what they mean by that. She’s afraid that they might have put him back onto the drugs.
Xander keeps fiddling with the blaster. He nearly electrocutes himself, but none of the others seem to notice.
Willow and Giles are confidant that nothing bad is happening to Riley. He is one of the Initiative’s top people after all. It doesn’t make sense that they’d hurt him.
“But the Initiative has all of those brain-washy, behaviour modification guys,” says Buffy.
“So?” asks Willow.
“So what happens when they start not liking his behaviour?”
Riley picks up Buffy’s kerchief off the table beside his bed, and sits up. He winces in pain. He gets out of bed and starts to put on his shirt. He walks toward the door to his room.
His exit is blocked by a soldier. Riley tells him to stand aside. The soldier doesn’t move. Riley repeats the order, following it up with a threat of violence. Forrest appears and tells the soldier to stand at ease.
Riley slowly and painfully walks out of the room and down the hall. Forrest follows him. He wants to know where the walking shish kebab thinks he’s going.
“You know where I’m going,” says Riley.
“Ugh. Don’t even tell me you’re headed for that girlfriend of yours. Look at you. One good conjugal visit, and you’re back in intensive care to stay.” Forrest really doesn’t like the idea of Riley going to see Buffy. He wants Riley to explain it to him.
“I don’t explain, because I don’t have to,” says Riley. “I’m the one in charge.”
“Things change,” says Forrest, but he doesn’t explain what he means by that. He doesn’t think that now is a good time for them to be involving outsiders. The Initiative has been badly hurt, and he thinks that they should be keeping their problems in the family.
“Family?” asks Riley. “Is that what we are? Step aside!”
Storm clouds threaten, and there’s the sound of distant thunder. Faith is having a picnic with Mayor Wilkins. She’s worried that it’s going to rain. He tells her not to worry about it. She is too young and too pretty for worrying.
The Mayor is distracted by a visitor to their picnic. A small garter snake has wandered onto their blanket. He picks it up and sets it aside. “You see, there’s nothing going to spoil our time together.” He turns to the picnic basket behind him. “Who wants cheesecake?”
“No!” cries out Faith. Buffy slashes Wilkins’ throat with Faith’s knife, and plunges it into his chest.
Buffy stands over Faith holding the bloody knife. “I told you I had things to do.” She steps toward Faith.
Faith tries to crawl away from Buffy.
Buffy, Willow and Xander search the woods looking for any sign of Adam. They find it in the form of a demon, hanging spread-eagle in a tree. Its chest has been sliced open and the skin stretched back revealing its internal organs. The body is still steaming.
They reconvene in Xander’s basement. Adam is clearly studying anatomy, human, demon, whatever he can get his hands on. Buffy doesn’t know why, and she doesn’t want to wait to find out.
Buffy also doesn’t want to leave Riley in the Initiative’s hands any longer. She thinks it is time to break him out. She outlines her plans for doing so. She wants Willow to hack into the Initiative’s computers, either on-line or by magic, to shut down their security systems. She plans to use Xander’s remaining military supplies to climb down the elevator shaft and blast open the elevator doors.
“Am I really worth all that?” asks Riley from the foot of the stairs.
Buffy rushes to him, and gives him a hug, causing him to wince in pain. She quickly lets go asks if she hurt him.
“No. A giant skewer through the rib cage hurt me. That was just a reminder.”
Buffy asks Riley how he got out, and he tells her he walked. They tried to stop him, but he made it clear that either they let him go, or someone’s ass would get kicked. Considering the shape Riley’s in, it probably would have been his.
“That’s great, Riley, and, you know, there’s no polite way to ask you this, but, uh… Did they put a chip in your brain?” Xander looks over Riley’s head for any sign of an incision. Riley is just confused by the question. Buffy tells him to forget it. She’s just happy to see him.
Riley apologises to Willow for the way he acted the last time he saw her.
“Forget it,” says Willow. “Tell you what: you two crazy kids take down an unstoppable killer cyber-demon hybrid thingy, and we’ll call it all even.”
“Taking down Adam’s going to be tough,” says Riley. “There’s no way to predict what he’ll throw at us.”
“You’re here,” says Buffy. “Whatever comes, we can handle.”
Faith runs through the cemetery at night. Buffy is following her, carrying the knife. Faith runs between the headstones, looking back over her shoulder at Buffy. Buffy is walking. As fast as Faith runs, she can’t get away. She runs straight into an open grave.
Buffy walks up to the edge of the grave and looks down at Faith cowering beneath her. She jumps into the grave. It begins to rain as the sound of Buffy and Faith fighting comes from the grave. The fight stops.
Faith crawls out of the grave as the rain pours down. She stands in the rain, letting it wash the mud and the blood off her. Lighting flashes.
Faith wakes up.
Faith pushes aside her sheets, pulls the heart monitor leads off her chest and sits up in her bed. She gets out of bed and starts toward the door. She’s stopped by the IV tube that is still stuck in the back of her hand. She pulls it out and wanders out into the deserted corridor in her hospital gown.
Faith walks down the corridor. A girl appears at the far end. She’s lost. She asks Faith for directions to the west wing before she notices that Faith is even more lost than she is.
“Graduation,” says Faith. “I got to get to Sunnydale High School Graduation. Now.”
“Well, you can’t,” says the girl, “I mean, Sunnydale High School isn’t even there anymore.”
“What day is it?” asks Faith.
“Friday.”
“What date?” asks Faith “The date.”
“February 25th.”
Faith realizes she’s been out for a long time. “What year?”
The girl thinks that Faith is really in need of some help. She offers to go find a nurse, but Faith is just interested in learning what happened to the school.
“Well…it was a tragedy, really,” says the girl, “Lots of students died, the principal, the Mayor. I really think maybe I should get you some help.”
Faith walks out of the hospital wearing the girl’s clothing.
Buffy and Riley are together in her dorm room. He shows her the kerchief, the only bit of her he had while he was stuck inside the infirmary.
“It’s just a scarf part of me, really,” says Buffy.
“I’m serious,” says Riley. “Just knowing you were out there, that you cared.” He goes to the window and checks the blinds. “Think we’re being watched?”
“I don’t know,” says Buffy, “Does the Initiative do that?”1
Riley doesn’t really know, but it’s a possibility. He’s a little distracted, he doesn’t know what to do. Buffy asks how she can help.
“Give me an order,” says Riley. “That’s what I do, isn’t it? Follow orders?”
“You don’t have to,” says Buffy.
“Don’t I?” asks Riley “All my life, that’s what I’ve been groomed to do. They say jump, I ask how high, I get the job done. Just don’t know if it’s the right job anymore.”
Buffy understands how he feels. She tells him about the Council of Watchers, how they always used to order her around. Riley wonders if she obeyed any of them.
“Sure,” says Buffy. Riley looks dubious. “The ones I was going to do, anyway,” she concedes. “The point is, I quit the Council. And I was scared. But it’s okay now.” Riley has a choice. He can quit the Initiative and find his own way to fight the demons, or he can stay with it, and try to change it from the inside.
Riley doesn’t think he can quit. “I’m a soldier. Take that away, what’s left?”
Buffy sits in Riley’s lap. “A good man.” She starts running her hands through his hair and nibbling on his ear.
“What are you doing?” asks Riley.
“I…am looking for brain-washy chips in your head.” Buffy starts to nibble on Riley’s other ear.
“Finding any?”
“Mmm, not sure,” says Buffy. “But I should probably keep looking, just in case. You’ve been strong long enough, Riley Finn. Okay, I’m going to help you. And we’re going to find this demon, and we’re going to kill it together. And in the meantime, you are going to stop torturing yourself.”
“You sure about that?” asks Riley.
“It’s an order.”
A doctor questions a nurse in Faith’s hospital room. The nurse has no idea what happened to her. She just found Faith was gone when she came in to check on her at the start of her shift. The doctor wants to talk with everyone who was on duty during the previous shift, and see the logs. Find out just when Faith disappeared.
Detective Clark is in the room too. “Walk me through this one more time. You knew this woman was wanted for questioning in a series of murders. There’s no security on this wing?”
“You don’t understand,” says the doctor. “There’s no way that girl was going to wake up. This can’t be happening.”
An orderly comes in. He tells them that another girl has just been found, beaten unconscious, and her clothes taken.
The doctor and detective leave. The nurse goes to the phone and dials a number. “It’s happened. Send the team.”
Faith stands outside the burnt out shell of Sunnydale High looking at it. From there she wanders downtown, looking around. Feeling lost and alone.
Faith goes to Giles’ home, and looks in through the window beside the door. She sees Buffy discussing what they can do about Adam with Giles, Willow, Xander and Riley. They really have no ideas. Riley picks up the blaster, and fiddles with it for a couple of seconds. It starts to work.
“Hey! How did you do that?” Xander takes the blaster away from Riley to look at it again. “Is there, like, an on-off button somewhere in here?”
“Blasters are easy,” says Riley. “Adam won’t be.” Faith watches Buffy sit on the arm of the chair he’s in, and give him a kiss.
Willow figures it would be easier to deal with Adam if they had Dr. Walsh’s notes on him. Giles doesn’t think it will be very easy to get them without mounting a major assault on the Initiative.
“Speak for yourself,” says Riley.
Giles admits that having someone on the inside would be very useful. Riley doesn’t know how much use he will be, but he promises to share all the information he can with them. It’s the least he can do.
Giles’ phone rings, and he answers it. The call is for Buffy.
Buffy gets up, takes the phone and listens briefly to the person on the other end. “What sort of emergency?” she asks. She listens some more. “Um, no, I haven’t. … Thank you. I’ll let you know.” She hangs up, and stands thinking about what she has just heard.
“What is it?” asks Giles.
“It’s Faith,” says Buffy. “She’s awake. She beat someone up, took her clothing, and disappeared out of the hospital. No one knows where she is.”
“I’d say this qualifies for a worst-timing-ever award,” says Xander.
Giles thinks that they have to find Faith. Willow asks what they should do about Adam.
“I’d hate to see the pursuit of a homicidal lunatic get in the way of pursuing a homicidal lunatic,” says Xander.
Buffy doesn’t expect to have to wait long for Faith to turn up. She isn’t exactly low profile.
“Then what?” asks Giles.
“Oh, I have an idea,” says Willow, “Beat the crap out of her.” This sounds like a good plan to Xander.
Even after beating the crap out of Faith, Buffy figures they still have the problem of what to do with her. None of their options look good. The police won’t be able to handle Faith, and Buffy doesn’t want to turn her over to the Council. The Initiative might be able to contain her, but none of them really likes that idea either.
“There’s no way around it,” says Buffy. “Faith is back, and whether I like it or not, she’s my responsibility.”
“Yeah. Too bad,” says Willow. “That was the funnest coma ever.”
Buffy is hoping that she won’t have to beat the crap out of Faith again. Maybe she’s changed. Maybe she doesn’t remember what happened, She could just be out there somewhere feeling lost and scared. Giles concedes that there may be some way to rehabilitate her.
“And if not, ass-kicking makes a solid Plan B,” says Willow.
“I’m not going to rule it out,” says Buffy. “First thing—we need to find her, then we can take it from there.”
Riley has been sitting listening to the whole conversation with growing confusion. “Who’s Faith?”
Buffy walks through the campus with Willow the next morning. Willow wants to know what Buffy told Riley about Faith. Buffy tells her that she told him the truth. “She’s my wacky identical cousin from England, and whenever she visits, hijinks ensue.”
“It’s good you guys have such an honest relationship.”
“No, I told him the story,” says Buffy. “I vagued-up a few bits, but no flat-out lies.”
Willow wonders how Buffy handled the Angel bits of the story. Those are the parts Buffy vagued up, to the extent of leaving Angel right out of it. Explaining Angel to Riley is going to take a much longer conversation than she had time for the night before. She had to get out looking for Faith.
“Any luck?” asks Willow.
“Couldn’t find her. Don’t know exactly where to place that in the luck continuum.” Willow points out that at least Buffy isn’t the only one searching for Faith this time. Every cop in Sunnydale must be looking for her too.
“Pressure’s definitely high. I’ll tell you,” says Buffy. “If I were her, I’d get out of Dodge, post-hasty.”
A dark haired girl who had been standing reading notices on a nearby bulletin board turns around. “You’re not me,” says Faith.
Faith looks Buffy over. “So, check you out, B. Nice. The big-girl-on-campus thing’s really working for you.”
Buffy tells Faith she’s been looking for her. Faith figures Buffy hasn’t been looking very hard, she hadn’t moved for eight months, but she is five by five now and ready for some payback.
“So much for pleasantries, huh?” says Buffy.
“What’d you think, I’d wake up and we’d go for tea?” asks Faith. “You tried to gut me, Blondie.” She’s ready for them to have another go at it.
Buffy has a quick look around. She tells Faith there are too many innocent people around.
“No such animal,” says Faith.
“I guess it was too much to hope that you’d use your down time to reflect and grow,” says Buffy.
“Could say the same about you,” says Faith. “I mean, you’re still the same old ‘better than thou’ Buffy. I mean, I knew it somehow. I kept having this dream. I’m not sure what it means, but in the dream, this self-righteous blonde chick stabs me and you want to know why?”
“You had it coming?”
“That’s one interpretation, but in my dream, she does it for a guy,” says Faith.
Willow has taken off her backpack, and is trying to sneak up behind Faith to hit her with it. This has not gone unnoticed by Faith. “Try it Red, and you lose an arm.” Buffy signals Willow to back off.
Faith turns her attention back to Buffy. “I wake up to find out that this blonde chick isn’t even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. She’s moved on to the first college beefstick she meets. And not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, she’s forgotten all about the chick she nearly killed for him. So that’s my dream. That and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel. But, uh, tell me, college girl, what does it mean?”
“To me?” asks Buffy. “Mostly, that you still mouth off about things you don’t understand.”
They hear the sound of an approaching police siren. Buffy figures that someone must have called in sighting Faith. Since they’re out of time for conversation, Faith swings a punch at Buffy. They exchange a few kicks and punches. Willow gets in a wack with her book bag on Faith’s back before the cops arrive.
Faith decides it is time to go. “You took my life, B. Payback’s a bitch. See ya around.” Faith runs away, through the two cops who have just arrived. She punches one to the ground, and kicks the second in the head as she goes over the police car. She runs away and jumps over a wall.
Buffy chases Faith, but when she gets to the wall and looks over it there is no sign of her. She’s vanished.
Willow recruits Tara to accompany her while she looks for Faith. She’s happy to have the company, she doesn’t want to be doing this alone. Her plan is simple: if they spot Faith they run and report it to Buffy. “We’re not here to engage. This is strictly recon.” Tara gives her a surprised look. “What?” asks Willow.
“You said ‘recon.’” says Tara. “You’re, like, cool monster fighter.”
“Well, technically, Faith isn’t a monster,” says Willow. “And as far as fighting, I’d be lucky to bruise her fist with my face.”
This gives Tara pause. She didn’t seem to be quite expecting that. She doesn’t think that she’ll be much use if it comes to violence.
Willow isn’t worried about that happening. She figures they should be able to spot Faith before she spots them. “She’s like this cleavagey slut bomb walking around going, ‘Oh, check me out. I’m wicked cool. I’m five by five.’”
“Five by five?” asks Tara. “Five what by five what?”
“See, that’s the thing. No one knows!2 Buffy can handle Faith. And you’re plenty safe with me.” Willow plans to search until nightfall, and then she intends to hide.
Giles and Xander patrol a downtown street that evening. Xander has the blaster hidden under his coat. He’s a little worried that Faith may be targeting him, since he and Faith have history. (The Zeppo), (Consequences). Giles doesn’t seem to be too worried about that.
They hear a noise in an alley, and cautiously enter to check it out. Xander turns on the blaster.
Spike steps out of the shadows, and lights up a cigarette. He wonders what they are doing there. They tell him about Faith, including a description: dark hair, yay tall, criminally insane.
“Is this bird after you?” asks Spike.
“In a bad way, yeah,” says Xander.
“Tell you what I’ll do then,” says Spike. “I’ll head out, find this girl, tell her exactly where all of you are, and then watch as she kills you.” Xander and Giles look at him, dumfounded. “Can’t any one of your damned little Scooby Club at least try to remember that I hate you all? Just because I can’t do the damage myself doesn’t stop me from aiming a loose cannon your way. And here I thought the evening would be dull.” Spike starts to go.
“Go ahead,” says Xander. “You wouldn’t even recognise her.”
Spike turns and looks back at them. “Dark hair, this tall.” He holds out his hand. “Name of Faith. Criminally insane. I like this girl already.” He goes.
“We’re dumb,” says Xander.
A black helicopter lands and three men wearing leather jackets and carrying briefcases get off it. They are met by the nurse from the hospital. They don’t waste time on introductions, they quickly leave as the helicopter takes off again and flies away.
Faith walks down the sidewalk. She stops to admire a collection of knives in the window of a sporting goods store. She hears the sound of a police radio and looks up to see an approaching patrol car. She quickly joins a group of kids walking by on the street. She leaves them half a block down, and ducks into an alley.
Faith isn’t alone in the alley. A demon steps out of the shadows. “Faith, a friend sent me. I’ve got a little remembrance from—”
Faith doesn’t wait to hear who it’s from. She attacks the demon and quickly breaks its neck. She notices the large padded envelope that the demon was carrying. She picks it up.
A patrol car passes by the end of the alley, and shines a light down it. Faith avoids it by climbing up a nearby fire escape ladder. The police don’t notice her, or the dead demon lying on the ground.
Faith breaks into an electronics repair shop, and loads the video tape from the envelope into a VCR. It’s from Mayor Wilkins. He recorded it in his office the day she went into her coma. If she ever sees it, he figures that it means that the Ascension failed, and he’s dead. “But on the other hand, heck, maybe we won, and right now I’m on some jumbo monitor in the Richard Wilkins Museum surrounded by a bunch of kids sitting indian style and looking up at my face, filled with fear and wonder.” He looks down and waves. “Hi, kids!” he laughs. Faith smiles, but the Mayor gets serious again. He really doubts if anyone is watching this in a museum.
“Faith, as I record this message, you’re, uh, sleeping, and the doctors tell me that you might never wake up. I don’t believe that. Sooner or later, you will wake up, and when you do, you’ll find the world has gone and changed on you.
“I wish I could make the world a better place for you to wake up in, but tough as it is to accept, we both have to understand that even my power to protect and watch over you has its limits.
“See, the hard pill to swallow here is that once I’m gone, your days are just plain numbered. Now I know you’re a smart and capable young woman, in charge of her own life, but the problem, Faith, is that there won’t be a place for you in the world anymore. Right now, I bet you’re feeling very much alone. But you’re never alone. You’ll always have me. And, you’ll always have this.” He holds up a small black box, and giggles. “Go ahead, open the box.”
Faith picks up the box that had been in the envelope with the tape, and looks at it.
“Don’t worry, it’s not going to bite. That’s my job.” Wilkins giggles some more. “Go ahead. Open it.”
Faith opens the box, and removes a small, complicated looking metal device.
“Surprise!” says the Mayor. “See, you don’t get these in any gumball machine. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you make friends. And some of them forge neat little gizmos like the one you’re holding right now. And here’s the good news: just because it’s over for my Faith, doesn’t mean she can’t go out with a bang.”
Buffy is with Riley in his room. He wants to help in her search for Faith. “You can’t,” says Buffy. She picks up one of his nerf basketballs.
“Give me one reason why,” says Riley. Buffy tosses the ball over his head. Riley reaches up to catch it, and winces in pain from the wound Adam gave him.
“That’s one.”
“Okay, I’m not exactly action guy, but there’s got to be something I can do besides sit around here waiting for you to pummel this gal.”
“Riley, the fact that you just called Faith a ‘gal’ only proves that you don’t know her.”
Riley knows that there is something about Faith that Buffy isn’t telling him. Buffy doesn’t want to talk about it now. It is too long a story.
“I’m from Iowa,” says Riley. “We drive four hours for a high school football game. Try me.”
Buffy still doesn’t want to talk, and she has to be going. “There’s a criminally insane woman out there with super powers who thinks that I’m responsible for ruining her life. I know Faith. She’ll come after me, and she’ll come after the people that I love.”
There’s a knock on the Summers house door. Joyce answers it.
“Hi Joyce!” Faith punches her. She steps into the house and closes the door. “Mind if I come in?”
Faith goes through Joyce’s dresser, examining her lipsticks, while Joyce sits on the bed. Joyce has a bruise on her cheek.
Faith finally finds a lipstick she likes. She’s surprised that Joyce would have something named “Harlot” and starts to apply it. “Now normally, I wouldn’t be going with a color this dark, but I read in some magazine eight months in a coma will damage a girl’s natural skin tone. Good thing pale is in this year. Or was it last year?” She kisses her reflection in the mirror, and turns to Joyce. She wants an honest opinion. “How do I look?”
“Psychotic,” says Joyce.
Faith is a little disappointed. She was going for sultry. It doesn’t really bother her though. She thinks she knows what Joyce is thinking. “You’re thinking ‘You’ll never get away with this.’ Warm?”
“Actually, I was thinking my daughter is going to kill you soon,” says Joyce.
“Is that a fact?”
“More like a bet.”
Faith is impressed with Joyce’s bravado, but she doesn’t really expect Buffy to be showing up any time soon. She has found a pile of unopened mail, all addressed to Buffy. She leafs through the envelopes, tossing each of them onto the bed after she looks at it. It doesn’t look like Buffy is in the habit of visiting her mother very often. She thinks that Buffy has been too busy with her new college life to spend much time thinking about her mom. Buffy didn’t even see fit to warn her mother that Faith was awake.
Joyce isn’t really interested in Faith’s opinions. She just wants to know if Faith is planning to slit her throat any time soon.
“Don’t tell me you don’t see it, Joyce. You’ve served your purpose. You squirted out the kid, raised her up, and now you might as well be dead. I mean, nobody cares, nobody remembers, especially not Buffy, fabulous superhero. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to face it—she was over us a long time ago, Joyce. Too busy climbing onto her new boy toy to give a single thought to the people that matter! I mean, you’re her mother, and she just leaves you here to die!” Faith picks up a knife off the dresser.
Buffy crashes through the window, and tackles Faith. Buffy springs back to her feet. “Hi Mom!”
“Hi honey!” says Joyce. Buffy redirects her attention back to Faith. She grabs Faith and tosses her out the bedroom door. Joyce grabs the phone and dials 911.
Buffy and Faith fight in the upstairs hall. They exchange some kicks and punches, and then fall down the stairs together.
Buffy pushes Faith up against the wall of the dining room.
“Thought I’d got to the clean marine, didn’t ya?” asks Faith. “He’s a cutie. Looks like he could use a good roll in the sack.”
“You’re not his type,” says Buffy. “He’s not big on sleaze.”
“He’s probably just never tried it.” Faith throws Buffy across the dining room table, sweeping all the dishes off it onto the floor. Buffy springs back to her feet, and Faith throws a vase at her.
Faith pulls open a drawer of cutlery which she dumps on the floor. She throws the drawer at Buffy, and reaches down and picks up a carving knife.
Giles arrives home, and tries to turn on the lights. The switch doesn’t work. A man sitting in Giles’ desk chair turns on the desk lamp. “Hello Rupert.” He has two companions with him. They are the men who got off the helicopter.
Faith hears the sound of approaching sirens. She’s running out of time. She runs from the dining room into the living room, closing the French doors in Buffy’s path. Buffy smashes through them and tosses Faith onto the coffee table, smashing it. Faith springs back to her feet and kicks Buffy away. She grabs the device that she got from Mayor Wilkins off the fireplace mantel, and slips it onto her hand. Metal rings pass over three of her fingers, and the body of the device rests in her palm.
Buffy comes back at her. Faith catches Buffy’s hand in hers, holding it tightly with the device trapped between their palms. There is a flash of light, and they both jerk as though they got an electric shock. They stare at each other in surprise.
Buffy is the first to recover. She punches Faith, and knocks her to the floor. She’s left holding the device. Faith doesn’t get up.
Joyce rushes into the room. “You okay?” she asks Buffy.
“All things considered,” says Buffy.
Joyce looks at the device in Buffy’s hand. “What is that?”
“Weapon of some kind.” Buffy drops it, and smashes it under her foot. “Didn’t work, whatever it was.”
There’s a pounding on the door. “Oh, the police,” says Joyce.
Buffy looks down at Faith, who’s still unconscious. “She’s their problem now.”
“You sure you’re okay?” asks Joyce.
“Five by five,” says Buffy. She smiles.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A demon | The woods | Dissected by Adam |