Things She Never Thought She'd Have
May. 10th, 2017 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katleeptTitle: Things She Never Thought She'd Have
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Faith
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
nekid_spike 30 in 30 Day 8: Crave, Books, Memory, Cup of Tea
Warning(s): Character Death, Future Ficlet
Word Count: 704
Date Written: 9 May 2017
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Whedon, not the author, and are used without permission.
She moves slowly through her kitchen as the storm rages on outside. Sometimes she misses her younger days of endless battles and high-spirited spunk, but those days are far behind her now. Some days, she can barely old the books that have been left to her along with this house in her old, wrinkling hands.
It's funny, Faith thinks with a smirk. She never would have thought she would have lived so very long. It's a miracle she made it through her first few years, even nights, as a Slayer, especially since she didn't have the kind of guidance B had, the kind of guidance that left her this place that, after living here for years, she finally started to think of her own. She misses the fights sometimes -- she used to crave the violence sometimes --, but her body just can't hold up to the grueling battles any longer. She smirks again at herself, admitting her body can't hold up to any battles.
She pours herself a hot cup of tea as she remembers she has much more important things she can do now in a storm than fight or fuck -- it's been a good, long while since she last had one of those too. But tonight isn't a night for either. It's a night for remembering and crossing paths once again.
She walks through her home without any lights. She knows every step by heart, every turn by instinct. She goes into a study and sinks into a chair, still holding her cup of tea. She sips it casually, slowly, and waits with patience she never had as a younger woman while lightning illuminates her curtains and trees cut jagged fingers across the window panes.
Finally, with another blast of thunder rolling across the night sky, he appears. Then she comes and then another from Faith's past and another. She looks across the rim of her mug at them all as they gather before her.
"How goes the battle?" he asks, but his words don't sound with an open, human voice. She hears them in the wind whistling in from her open windows.
"Endless," she admits, "as always, but there are new fighters now."
"Does that mean you're finally ready to join us, F?"
"Don't rush her, Buffy. We all had to make that decision for ourselves."
"Not all of us," Anya points out. "Some of us got chopped down too early."
"You did well, love."
"At least I finally got you back," the former Demon says, crinkling her nose and hugging Xander close to her.
Faith could point out that she had him first. She could, but she doesn't. She could point out that Anya wasn't the only one to die in the line of battle. Again, she could, but she doesn't. Instead she blows slowly across her hot tea, sips it even more slowly, and lets it warmth curl into her cold insides. She sips it down to the last drop as she's lived her life to the fullest as well. Then, still holding the cup and saucer passed on to her by Giles, and also snuggling deeper into the big chair he once sat in that is now hers and will one day belong to yet another Watcher (and who would have ever thought she'd outlive her usefulness as a Slayer to one day become a Watcher?), Faith murmurs, "Yeah. Yeah, I think I am."
She lets her eyes drift closed as she settles in this position in which her students will find her in the morning. They'll find her in the morning, and they'll find the will she's left, leaving all of this to Dawn as Giles once left it to her and Dawn, too, will one day leave it to her successor. The storm lifts, and with it goes the winds upon which Faith and the others sail into an afterlife that she also thought she would never have. Her last breath leaves her body with a smile for she's lived a good, long life, far better and longer than she'd ever thought she'd live, than any of them ever thought she'd live, and she's happy at last, something else she'd never thought she'd have but does.
The End
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Faith
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:
nekid_spike 30 in 30 Day 8: Crave, Books, Memory, Cup of TeaWarning(s): Character Death, Future Ficlet
Word Count: 704
Date Written: 9 May 2017
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Whedon, not the author, and are used without permission.
She moves slowly through her kitchen as the storm rages on outside. Sometimes she misses her younger days of endless battles and high-spirited spunk, but those days are far behind her now. Some days, she can barely old the books that have been left to her along with this house in her old, wrinkling hands.
It's funny, Faith thinks with a smirk. She never would have thought she would have lived so very long. It's a miracle she made it through her first few years, even nights, as a Slayer, especially since she didn't have the kind of guidance B had, the kind of guidance that left her this place that, after living here for years, she finally started to think of her own. She misses the fights sometimes -- she used to crave the violence sometimes --, but her body just can't hold up to the grueling battles any longer. She smirks again at herself, admitting her body can't hold up to any battles.
She pours herself a hot cup of tea as she remembers she has much more important things she can do now in a storm than fight or fuck -- it's been a good, long while since she last had one of those too. But tonight isn't a night for either. It's a night for remembering and crossing paths once again.
She walks through her home without any lights. She knows every step by heart, every turn by instinct. She goes into a study and sinks into a chair, still holding her cup of tea. She sips it casually, slowly, and waits with patience she never had as a younger woman while lightning illuminates her curtains and trees cut jagged fingers across the window panes.
Finally, with another blast of thunder rolling across the night sky, he appears. Then she comes and then another from Faith's past and another. She looks across the rim of her mug at them all as they gather before her.
"How goes the battle?" he asks, but his words don't sound with an open, human voice. She hears them in the wind whistling in from her open windows.
"Endless," she admits, "as always, but there are new fighters now."
"Does that mean you're finally ready to join us, F?"
"Don't rush her, Buffy. We all had to make that decision for ourselves."
"Not all of us," Anya points out. "Some of us got chopped down too early."
"You did well, love."
"At least I finally got you back," the former Demon says, crinkling her nose and hugging Xander close to her.
Faith could point out that she had him first. She could, but she doesn't. She could point out that Anya wasn't the only one to die in the line of battle. Again, she could, but she doesn't. Instead she blows slowly across her hot tea, sips it even more slowly, and lets it warmth curl into her cold insides. She sips it down to the last drop as she's lived her life to the fullest as well. Then, still holding the cup and saucer passed on to her by Giles, and also snuggling deeper into the big chair he once sat in that is now hers and will one day belong to yet another Watcher (and who would have ever thought she'd outlive her usefulness as a Slayer to one day become a Watcher?), Faith murmurs, "Yeah. Yeah, I think I am."
She lets her eyes drift closed as she settles in this position in which her students will find her in the morning. They'll find her in the morning, and they'll find the will she's left, leaving all of this to Dawn as Giles once left it to her and Dawn, too, will one day leave it to her successor. The storm lifts, and with it goes the winds upon which Faith and the others sail into an afterlife that she also thought she would never have. Her last breath leaves her body with a smile for she's lived a good, long life, far better and longer than she'd ever thought she'd live, than any of them ever thought she'd live, and she's happy at last, something else she'd never thought she'd have but does.
The End
