Buffy paced the floor back and forth until Faith stepped in front of her. “Stop,” the younger Slayer ordered firmly, taking Buffy by both arms.
Buffy gave her a chagrined look. “Sorry.” She blew out a frustrated breath and flopped onto the floor. “I’m about two steps from the loony farm in here. I mean, look at this place. Miles and miles of nothing but white. No doors, no windows, not even tacky artwork.”
“Nothing but my stunning mug,” Faith agreed with a grin. “I know. It’s a little overwhelming. But chill out. There’s nothing we can do, so now we just have to sit back and wait for our rescuers.”
Buffy paused then glanced in Faith’s direction. “A couple years in prison really mellowed you out,” she observed quietly.
Faith thought about it a moment, and shrugged. “Sitting in a room you can’t escape from…yeah. I’m sorta used to this by now.”
“Yeah,” Buffy nodded. “I guess you would be.” She paused a moment, thinking, then dared to ask. “So…was it that bad?”
Faith shrugged again and took a seat on the floor. “What you’d expect. Unless you think it was like Oz or something. Bunch of women who act tougher than they are, talk too much or not at all, most of ‘em guilty, some of them not…”
It was something Buffy had wondered about many times over the years and she decided to pursue the conversation. “Did you make friends?”
Now Faith laughed. “I guess you could say that. You learn real quick who to avoid and who’s okay.”
“I can’t picture you avoiding anyone,” Buffy told her wryly.
“Well, there’s where you’re wrong. I was the tough-chick loner, the one who could hold my own and nobody messed with.”
“Okay, now that I can see.”
“I guess it wasn’t so bad, when I think about it. I didn’t start trouble, but I was always in it. Girls who thought they could take me would try. I coulda messed ‘em up real good…but I didn’t. Unless I had to. Spent most of my time on laundry detail, or cleaning pots, a little bit of it in solitary confinement.”
“Why?” Buffy asked gently.
Faith’s mouth twisted into a frown. “This guard, Hammer…J.T. Hammish. He had it out for me. Played favorites with some of the girls who’d trade him favors for privileges. I wasn’t one of ‘em. He tried…when I clocked him for laying his fat hands on me he decided I was his new favorite target. From then on, every time there was trouble, I was somehow responsible. Didn’t matter if I was in my cell the entire time, my name would get worked into it and end up on the blame side of the story.”
Faith’s dark eyes were angry and wistful and Buffy felt sorry for her. “I’m sorry.”
Faith shrugged again. “That’s how it was.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Buffy absently playing with the hem of her pants. “You could have escaped any time you wanted,” she said finally.
It was a statement, not a question, and Faith nodded in response. “I know.”
“You didn’t.”
A slow shake of brunette locks. “Nope.”
“How come?”
With a sigh and a roll of her large brown eyes, Faith stretched out on the endless sea of white floor and stared at the nothingness of the ceiling. “I put myself in there, I was going to do what was right. Serve my time.”
Buffy looked up then and gave her a slow nod. “I’m glad. But I’m more glad that you’re out. We can really use your help.”
With a laugh, Faith closed her eyes. “Fat lot of good we’re doing in here.”
“If we were running the rescue operation, we’d have been out of here hours ago.”
There was annoyance and a little smugness to Buffy’s tone and Faith had to smile. “You don’t have to tell me, girlfriend.”
Buffy took a cue from Faith and stretched out on the floor, closing her eyes for a catnap. “Wake me when the cavalry arrives, will you?”
“That a girl,” Faith said sleepily. “Don’t sweat it, get some shut eye, and we’ll be all fresh and ready to kick some lawyer ass when Angel springs us outta here. Then you two are free to be.”
“Mmmhmm,” Buffy answered her softly.
Faith’s eyes popped open. “What?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s with the non-committal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Soulful brown eyes peered at her. “Oh jeez, are you kidding me?”
Buffy looked up at her curiously. “What?”
“You and Angel. You’re fighting again?” She stopped and looked at the ceiling. “Wait, why am I surprised? Isn’t that the way this story goes?”
“We’re not…” Faith gave her a look that clearly said she wasn’t buying it. “Okay…we are.”
Faith swung her legs around until she was sitting Indian-style. “Spill it.”
“I don’t think so,” Buffy told her hesitantly.
“You got something better to do?” Faith asked, glancing around. “You can sit here and feel worse and worse, and get more and more pissed off at our current situation and at Angel, ‘cause you’re stewing on it, or you can talk about it, get it all out, and possibly feel better.”
She wasn’t sure about that, but Buffy swallowed hard and sat up slowly. Why not? “Okay…well. I got to LA and Angel and Cordelia and Gunn didn’t have their memories. Well, they did, but they thought it was three years ago. Everything that had happened since then--totally erased.”
“Right. Angel didn’t remember coming to see me in prison but he remembered you and me and the big showdown at his old place,” Faith nodded.
“So…given that time frame… His last memory of me was us still in somewhat limbo. I mean, I would have been dating Riley at the time, but…” There was an awkward pause at the mention of Riley and both girls flashed back to Faith’s indiscretion with Buffy’s former beau before swallowing hard and moving on.
“Like you two have ever really been over each other,” Faith nodding, prodding Buffy along. “I got it. Get to the good stuff.”
“Right, so. I guess just, with what memories he had and stuff, and then he found out that I’m not seeing anyone right now, and all the crap that’s happened to me, and to him, in the last few years… It brought back a lot of stuff for us.”
“Stuff. Which led to hot and dirty smooches I’m guessin’. Probably some heavy petting in some dark corner of the hotel, am I right?”
Buffy rolled her eyes uncomfortably but couldn’t deny it. “He sorta attacked me, in the good way.”
Faith gave her a wicked grin. “Good for him. And what did you do? Stand there or give the guy somethin’ to remember?” she teased in a suggestive voice.
“Not the point.”
“You lust muffin!” Faith crowed, making up her mind that Buffy had given as good as she’d gotten.
“Anyway,” the elder Slayer said in a mock grumpy tone, “one thing led to another, and another, and another…and then I found out that before the memory thing made Angel start thinking about me again, he was thinking about Cordelia.” She said the last words slowly, almost unable to utter them, much less contemplate the idea of it all.
Faith’s eyes bulged. “Thinking about…no, no way! Cordelia Chase? Ms. High and Mighty 2003?”
“Apparently she’s a kinder, gentler Cordelia these days,” Buffy grumbled.
“Yeah,” Faith snorted in disbelief. “Whatever. Maybe if she had a lobotomy. I don’t believe it for one second. I mean, Buffy, girl…he’s only ever had eyes for you. Ever.”
The blonde shrugged. “Not always,” she said softly.
“As long as he’s known you, yes.”
“He slept with Darla,” Buffy pointed out. “Resulting in a son.”
“Buffy,” Faith said seriously, leaning forward a bit. “Give it up. Sex is just sex sometimes. Granted, in Angel’s case it came with a pretty serious side effect but… In all his years Angel’s only loved one girl, and she looks a lot like you. The man is seriously crazed about you, that’s obvious even now.”
“How do you mean?”
Faith gave Buffy a pitying look and spoke slowly, as if to a child. “Just looking at him, sweetie. He’s got a thing for you that goes beyond reason. Kinda like you have for him,” she said pointedly. Buffy was quiet for a moment and Faith’s eyes once again headed heavenward. “Don’t tell me you’re not in love with him. You are. It’s obvious to everyone but you two for some reason.”
“Yeah, well… That doesn’t make things between us easy. Plus, I’m sorta a big hypocrite.”
“How’s that?”
“Because while I’ve been giving Angel hell for his feelings for Cordelia… I was sleeping with Spike most of last year.”
Faith took a single moment to contemplate that and then began to laugh. Buffy glared. “Why, exactly, is that funny?”
“If you need me to explain it…” the brunette chuckled. “Oh, B…really? You just can’t get away from that bad boy thing, can ya?”
“It wasn’t that… I was… Lonely.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Spike’s hotness personified. But he’s also just so not your type.”
“And what’s my type?”
“Well, yeah, he meets the Summers criteria of being dead, and a vampire, and apparently having a soul…but Buffy… You and Angel is one thing. Angel’s… God, how do I say this without sounding like a total romantic doof? Angel’s different. He’s the kind of guy that when he loves you, when you’re with him, it’s all about you…making you happy, making you know that you’re the one he loves, the one he can’t live without. Am I right? I just don’t get that from Spike. Spike sends off this down and dirty vibe, which, granted, is pretty yummy, but it’s not you.”
“And what am I, Ms. Freud?”
“You, my dear, are the good girl. I’m sorry, but you are,” Faith told her simply. “You have a dark side, I’ll give you that. And it’s pretty scary—always is when the good girl finally gets nice and fed up. But you dabbled in the dark stuff and still came out clean. It washes off you, B. No matter what you roll in, or who you roll with, you’re going to be spring fresh every time.”
“You make me sound like a detergent,” Buffy grumbled. “I can be just as dark as the next person.”
“Dark on you translates to cranky, sweets,” Faith informed her. “You’re just not cut from that cloth.”
“And you are?”
Faith’s head shook. “This isn’t about me. Angel, try as he might want to, isn’t cut from that cloth either. He’s a member of the good-guy camp forever, long as he doesn’t go losing that pesky soul of his. Spike…soul or not, is the only one who can get away with the bad boy thing.”
“Are you forgetting about Angel’s less pleasant alter-ego?”
“Nope. But Angelus is a totally different story, love. From what I hear he can hold his own against the worst of the worst, and yeah, I don’t really ever wanna come up against that. Takin’ Angel down ‘cause he’s got that slime walking around with his body isn’t on my top ten list of things I wanna do in this lifetime. But don’t you see? With Angel being who he is, and having Angelus in him, you get the best of both worlds. You get the good guy and the badass. You love them both, don’t tell me you don’t. You have to.”
“I don’t love Angelus,” Buffy told her stubbornly.
“You do,” Faith insisted. “You have to because you love all of Angel. You may not like that son of a bitch, but you love Angel, Buffy.”
Buffy sighed, knowing Faith was right, but she wasn’t ready yet to admit to it. “I’m not sure I can get past the Cordelia thing.”
Faith raised an eyebrow and lie back down on the floor, stretching out. “I think you’re going to have to. You were sleeping with the enemy, babe. Angel was just thinking about it. In my book, thinking about someone’s not a crime.”
So why does it still feel like a betrayal? Buffy wondered as she settled back onto the floor, knowing full well that she was never going to get a catnap now.
*~*~*
“There’re here,” Willow told him, her eyes closed as the spell took effect. “On this plane, anyway.”
“Where is she?” Angel whispered to Wesley as they watched the witch perform her locator spell on the two Slayers.
Wesley consulted his papers. “The Arashim dimension. It’s a plane, void of anything. It exists but it contains nothing but what’s sent there.”
“Are they okay?” Dawn asked, her voice wobbly. Connor, at her side, put his arm around her shoulders.
Willow’s eyes twitched under closed lids as she looked into her heart to find the answer. “I think so,” she nodded after a moment. “I don’t sense pain. But I can’t get a bead on their exact location.”
“Can you get a fix on the means by which they were sent there?” Wesley asked.
Willow’s brow furrowed as she concentrated. “Spell…maybe a portal.”
“It’s always a portal,” Lorne grumbled. “And then something of mine gets destroyed.”
“Performed where?” Wesley asked her again.
“Definitely inside Wolfram and Hart. In fact…I’m getting the sense that…”
“What?” Angel asked, stepping forward.
Willow’s eyes opened a second later, her mouth forming a frustrated frown. “There’s a huge mystical pull to their energies coming from inside Wolfram and Hart. The spell I used, it sorta walks you through the steps of the person whose energy you’re seeking. I followed Buffy up through the catacombs, into the Wolfram and Hart building, and then it just…stops.”
Angel’s fingers snapped. “That’s the point of origin for the spell then, for whatever they used to send Buffy and Faith to this dimension.” He grabbed his coat and began to pull it on.
“Angel,” Wesley interrupted. “We need a plan. We can’t just go barging into the law firm and demand that they tell us how to get to the Arashim dimension. I don’t think Lilah will be quite up for sharing just out of the kindness of her heart.”
“Especially ‘cause she ain’t got any kindness. I’m kinda sketchy on if she even has a heart,” Gunn said tersely.
“And the Arashim,” Giles put in, “Wesley’s right. The plane exists, but it doesn’t. There’s not a single thing there that originates from that dimension. Anything there was sent there. It’s just a vast white…void.”
“White void?” Angel asked, his brain stirring.
Giles nodded. “Completely a blank slate. Walls, the sky, the earth, nothing actually exists there.”
Wesley and Angel shared a look.
“The white room,” Angel nodded.
“It’s a subsection of the Arashim dimension. Like a…wormhole,” Wes agreed.
“Meaning what?” Xander asked.
Cordelia glanced over at him. “Meaning we’re going to Wolfram and Hart. Again.”
“But this time we’re going in the front door,” Angel growled.
