CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
 
“I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy,” Buffy groaned as she shut her phone.
 
“Problem, love?”
 
“I know you were listening, don’t pretend you weren’t,” she grumbled. “We need to get to Mom’s.”
 
“Slayer Number Two is on the loose, is she? Do we have any idea where to look for her?”
 
“Only my Mom’s house. I don’t know where the stuff the Mayor left her was stashed, or how she even knew about it. But she’s apparently been gone since yesterday, and if she’s been there already, then she already has that thing he gave her to swap bodies with me. We need to get to Mom’s before she does and be ready to talk her down.”
 
“Talk her down?”
 
“We can try. She is a slayer. If we can get her to listen to us, maybe we can keep her from getting in any deeper than she is. I’m not sure exactly what went down when she went to LA, but I know it wasn’t good.  It was bad enough to make her go to jail voluntarily. And she stayed there till Wes came to get her out so she could help us.”
 
“And if we can’t talk her down?”
 
“If we can’t, then you need to be damn sure you know it’s me before you get naked again!”
 
He laughed. “I remember meeting her back then. I couldn’t tell it wasn’t you, and I—But that wouldn’t happen now. Know you too well now not to be able to figure it out. Helps that I know it’s possible it’s not you, but I think I would know anyway.”
 
“Well, just in case…” She grabbed his belt and pulled him in for a kiss. When she felt the reaction she was looking for, she let go and backed away. “Don’t do it.”
 
He adjusted himself. “Do we need a code word? Something you can say if it looks like I might be confused? ‘Cause, got to tell you, love, when that body gets close to me, my brain shuts off.”
 
“Seriously?”
 
“You can’t be brassed off about that, Slayer! It’s you! Your body. I’m not sayin’ I won’t know it’s not you, or that I wouldn’t touch it if I did, I’m just saying my blood, as usual, isn’t goin’ to be rushing to my brain and it might take me a minute or two.”
 
“Fine! If I’m me, and you don’t seem to be sure, I’ll say… snap out of it, Spike!  Same thing if I’m not me. If you see Faith and you’re not sure you can trust that it’s me, say something and I’ll tell you to snap out of it then too.”
 
“That works.  But the plan is going to be not to let that happen, yeah?”
 
“That’s the plan. Let’s go.”
 
XXXX
 
 
They got to Revello Drive just in time to catch Faith following Joyce into the house. Even with super speed, by the time they were in the door, Faith had already punched Joyce unconscious. She whirled around at the sight of Buffy and Spike right behind her.
 
Clearly readying herself for a fight, Faith hung on to Joyce, saying, “Just stay there, B, and your mom doesn’t get hurt.”
 
“You already hurt her, you bitch!” Buffy’s plans to talk to Faith went right out the window when she saw her unconscious mother. To Faith’s obvious surprise, Spike touched Buffy on the arm. “Easy, Slayer. Know you’re mad, but we had a plan, remember?”
 
“What the hell?” Faith stared from Buffy to Spike and back. “One undead honey wasn’t enough for you?” She narrowed her eyes. “William the bloody fangless,” she said. “I know about you.” She frowned. “I’m not sure how, though.” She shrugged. “Guess that last vamp I killed told me. He still had his fangs…”
 
Spike shrugged and gave her a toothy smile. “Anytime you want to test mine, you just let me know, Slayer Number Two.” He stepped out from behind Buffy, and it was her turn to be the voice of reason.
 
“Drop it, Spike. The idea is to talk to her, not fight her.”
 
“But I want to, love,” he purred. “She’s almost as much fun as you are.”
 
Faith blinked her confusion, having never had a fight with Spike and only knowing about him through things others had told her. She seemed to shake off the momentary weirdness and pulled a now semi-awake Joyce closer to her. Buffy breathed a sigh of relief at seeing her mother regain consciousness and she relaxed a little.
 
With everyone’s attention on making threats and preparing to fight if necessary, no one was actually watching Joyce very closely, including Faith. So when the empty tea kettle slammed against her head, Faith was stunned just long enough for Buffy to punch her in the face and wrench Joyce away. Leaving Spike to get Joyce away from what might quickly be a fight scene, Buffy continued to punch Faith until she had her on the floor, glaring up at her, but not fighting back anymore. As the nurse had predicted, while not as helpless as a normal human would have been, Faith was a long way from having her complete strength back, and she had no choice but to surrender.
 
Spike tossed her a ball of string from a basket on the counter, and Buffy quickly tied Faith’s hands and feet.
 
“You think you can hold me with twine?” Faith sneered, pulling on her bonds.
 
Buffy shrugged. “For a while. It only has to hold you long enough to get you to listen to me—us. First off, where’s that thing the Mayor gave you?” Buffy began searching Faith’s pockets as the other slayer sputtered and tried to find out how Buffy knew about it.
 
“That’s part of what I’m going to tell you,” Buffy said. “In just a second—aha! Here it is!” She pulled out the oddly shaped metallic object and gingerly handed it to Spike. “Here, put this in a bag or something. We’ll give it to Giles or Willow.”
 
She sat back on her heels and faced the other slayer, who was now swearing vigorously.
 
“Wow. Potty mouth, much?” She looked over at Joyce. “Are you okay, Mom?”
 
“I will be,” Joyce said, smiling her thanks at Spike as he handed her a bag of frozen peas. “Did she hit me in your time?”
 
“Yeah, I think she did. But you were all tied up and awake when I got here then.”
 
“Get with it, Slayer. That string isn’t going to hold her forever.” Spike brightened. “Unless you’re going to let me fight her when she gets loose.”
 
“You already know you can beat her, so stop looking for another easy fight and help me convince her we’re on her side.  Sort of,” she added, glaring between Faith and Joyce. “I’d forgotten about the hitting my mom part.”
 
“Are you planning to tell her?” Joyce asked. “Is that wise?”
 
Buffy sighed. “At this point, I’ve got no idea what’s wise and what isn’t. But I can’t let the wet works team have her, and the cops won’t be able to hold her if she isn’t willing to go with them. They’d have to shoot her. Maybe if everything goes right, we won’t need her against the First. But we can’t know that now. And she deserves a chance to do the right thing. She is a slayer.”
 
“What the fuck are you babbling about?” Faith was looking back and forth between the three other people in the room. People who obviously knew something she didn’t.
 
“Okay, here goes. Now, just wait till I’m finished, okay? Then you can ask questions. So, here’s the thing….”
 
When Buffy had finished a much shortened version of the events of the next three years, and the resulting planned fixes conceived of by Giles in Buffy’s case, and Angel and Wes in Spike’s, Faith was staring at her with narrowed eyes.
 
“And I’m supposed to believe this?”
 
“Well, you can believe or not. It won’t change what it is. We’re here to kill a hellgod next year, so I don’t have to die, and Willow doesn’t have to bring me back, and that disruption to the way things are meant to be doesn’t let the First grow so strong that he tries to take over the world and Spike has to use his soul to destroy the First and Sunnydale.”
 
“Soul?”
 
“Yeah. He got a soul a couple of years from now.”
 
“Is that why you and he…. are you a couple? Or just working together?”
 
“We’re together,” Buffy said. “Have been one way or another for a long time. As long as one of us wasn’t dead, anyway.”
 
For the first time, Faith’s face showed some surprise. “Dead? How many times have you died?” Her curiosity seemed to be temporarily getting the best of her anger. 
 
Buffy glanced at Spike, then thought for a second.
 
“Between the two of us? Four, I think. Look, that’s not important. If we can do what we were sent back to do, neither one of us will have to die again. Not anytime soon, anyway.”
 
“So, assuming I believe this crap, where am I in your timeline?”
 
“I think, after your little adventure being me….” Buffy glared at Faith who gave her an unrepentant grin. “I think you ran off to LA. And I’m not sure about everything that happened there, but at some point, you ended up agreeing to go to jail for the accidental killing of the Mayor’s deputy. I don’t know what happened exactly. You were bad, and then you were sorry and you went to jail. When the First started trying to kill you in there, Wes came to tell you we needed you here and you got out. But that’s almost three years from now. And it might not happen this time.”
 
“In which case I’ll still be in jail? Uh uh. Not this girl. I’ve got livin’ to do. Need to make up for all that time I was in a coma.” She narrowed her eyes at Buffy. “You remember how that happened, don’t you? You remember gutting me?”
 
Buffy gave her own version of a hard stare right back. “You tried to kill Angel. He was dying. I needed him and he needed your blood. I did what I had to do.”
 
“But he didn’t get my blood. Most of it ran out in that garbage truck I fell into. Why didn’t he die?”
 
Spike’s snarl made a reply unnecessary.
 
“Oh, Goody Two-shoes donated hers? Must be love,” Faith smirked, as Spike growled again. “So where’s the souled wonder now?”
 
“He’s in L.A. He has a detective agency or something. Wes is with him, or will be soon. I’m not sure about some of it. We know who was with him in our time because Spike was there for a while, but I’m not sure what’s going on now. I think you… You know what? I don’t know. And I don’t want to. I just know that you ended up friends with him and you went to jail. And then, when the First rose, we needed you here and you got out of jail and came.”
 
“Is that when you and I had our little spats?” Faith said, glancing at Spike.
 
“Couple of ‘em,” he said. “Nothing special. One was a misunderstanding, one was because you—”
 
“Let it go,” Buffy said. “None of this is going to happen if next year works out. The question is, what do we do with her now?”
 
“You know if I tell Angel about your new honey here, he’s going to go all Angelus on you.”
 
“He already knows,” Buffy said. “We’ve already seen him. He doesn’t know everything we told you, he thinks we have a seer telling us what to do, but he’ll figure it out eventually.”
 
“Or I could tell him.”
 
“You could. I’d rather you didn’t, but I don’t think it’ll matter. He has his own problems and people there in L.A. He didn’t come to help us in our time, no reason to think he’ll do it now.”
 
Faith stared between them.  “And in ‘your time’—not that I’m buying it yet—what did William the Bloody fangless do? It’s not like he could fight for you.”
 
“Spike’s chip only stopped him from hurting humans. He helped us fight Glory, kept the secret about the key—”
 
“Which is some sister you don’t have yet.” Faith sneered her disbelief at that one.
 
“It’s complicated,” Buffy said shortly, deciding there was no point in giving still-evil Faith any more information than they already had. A glance at Spike showed her he agreed completely. “The point is, by the end of next year, Spike more than demonstrated that he could be trusted—with secrets Glory was willing to torture and kill him to learn, and to fight on our side against whatever was being thrown at us. He was there when I died, and he was there when I came back. All that time I was dead, he stayed and took care of my family and helped my friends.”
 
“What the hell for?” Faith stared at Spike with genuine confusion.
 
“If you don’t know, there wouldn’t be any use explaining it to you,” Spike said softly. “You either understand, or you don’t. I’m guessing you don’t, but I hope that clears up for you someday.”  He glanced at Buffy. “Didn’t you say she and Wood—”
 
“They were working on it. No idea what it’s going to be when we get back.”
 
“And there you go again. Talking about me like you know stuff.”
 
“We do know stuff. That’s why we’re here now, trying to talk you into taking a different path sooner than you did in our time. I took your body-swapping device, so that’s not gonna happen. And even in our time, it didn’t work. I got away from the team that was supposed to take you back to the Council for….I’m not sure—”
 
“Early retirement,” Spike said with a hard stare at Faith. “You set Buffy up to take that fall for you.”  His eyes flashed amber for a few seconds and a quick look of fear crossed Faith’s face before she recovered her bravado.
 
“So, you got away from the Council goons. Then what? What was I doing while I was you?”
 
“Being your usually slutty self,” Buffy said. “Only with my body.” She glanced at Spike. “Remind again why I said we should try to save her? ‘Cause I’m really losing the thread here. If I don’t die, and we don’t have to fight the First….”
 
“Your decision, love. I don’t care one way or the other.”
 
“Are you talking about killing me?” Faith suddenly took a greater interest in the conversation. “What happened to putting me on a good path and Spike having a soul?”
 
“Soul wouldn’t stop me from killing you if I thought you were a danger to Buffy or her family. Demon’s tamed a bit, but it’s not gone.” Spike stared at her as he spoke, his expression cold.
 
“Buffy!” Joyce spoke up from the far side of the kitchen. “You cannot seriously be thinking about killing Faith?”
 
“I’m sorry, Mom. She caused a lot of pain and destruction last year, and in our time she didn’t get any better when she was here pretending to be me. I don’t know what happened while she was in LA, but I don’t think she suddenly grew a conscience when she reached the city limits. Who knows what she might do if we let her go?”
 
Faith looked from Spike’s suddenly alert expression to Buffy’s doubtful one. They could see Faith’s thoughts reflected in her changing expression. She already knew Buffy was willing to kill her to save someone she loved. It shouldn’t have been hard to believe that the slayer she thought of as soft and weak would be willing to kill her in cold blood just to save herself some future worry.
 
“You’re different,” she said to Buffy. “Harder.”
 
“I’ve had a rough few years,” Buffy said. “I’m not the Buffy you think you know.”
 
“You’d do well to keep that in mind,” Spike said, maintaining his icy stare. “She’s not the kind-hearted girl you remember, and I’m not the fangless vamp someone told you about.”
 
Faith’s bravado never wavered, but her body relaxed and she stopped what Buffy was sure had been a steady attempt to break out of her flimsy bonds.
 
“So. If you let me go, I’m supposed to do what? Go to LA and throw myself on Angel’s mercy? I’m the one who shot that arrow that almost killed him.”
 
“Not the first time somethin’ or somebody has tried to kill him. Probably won’t be the last,” Spike said with a shrug. “Not sure he’d hold that against you.”
 
“And if he does still hold it against me, you two have clean hands ‘cause you let me go,” Faith said shrewdly.
 
“Win, win.” Buffy waited to see what the other slayer was going to do.
 
“Do we ever like each other?” she asked Buffy, who shrugged.
 
“We get along better… as long as you aren’t hitting on my vampire…. So, yeah, I’d say we were working on it when Giles decided to throw me right back into the worst parts of my life.”
 
Faith shot a quick look at Spike, who just frowned and shook his head, so she wisely didn’t follow up on that part of Buffy’s answer.
 
“Fine,” she said. “Let me out of here and I’ll disappear, never to darken your door again—unless there’s an apocalypse you can’t handle.”
 
Buffy rolled her eyes, but nodded. “Okay. We’ll get you to the bus station and buy your ticket. After that, you’re somebody else’s problem.”
 
XXXXXX
 
Faith took the ticket to LA and stared back and forth between Spike and Buffy, studying them as she had the whole time walking from Revello Dr to downtown. She nodded as if to herself.
 
“Yep. Old Angelus is gonna go apeshit about this. Grownup Buffy has definitely moved on.”
 
“I have. And so has he, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
 
“Damn! More stuff I don’t know.”
 
“Get on the bus, Faith. And don’t come back unless or until you’re invited. With luck, we won’t need you, but if people start trying to kill you for no reason, might be time to think about coming back or at least calling. Just in case…”
 
“Got it.” Without further conversation, she got on the bus and walked to the back, sprawling across the seat there. She made a rude gesture at Buffy and Spike, who were watching the bus until it pulled out of the station.
 
“That was almost too easy,” Buffy said with a frown.
 
“It’ll be okay, love. It may seem like it was easy, but I had no trouble reading her reactions. She’d make a lousy poker player, but I can see why that old vamp got to her.”
 
Buffy gave him a questioning look.
 
“Fear, pet. She’s afraid. I could almost smell it, definitely hear it in her breathing and heart rate. There’s a lot of anger that flares up, but underneath it, she’s got no confidence. She’s afraid of you, and she’s not sure she wants to try me. She won’t be back.”
 
“I wonder if I should call Angel and tell him she’s coming?”
 
“Didn’t do that in our time, did you?”
 
“No. She just ran away after we switched back.”
 
“Then let her go. She’ll either do whatever she did in our time to make her want to change her ways, or she won’t.”
 
“Thank you, O wise one,” Buffy said, nudging his arm.
 
“Anytime, Slayer.” He nudged her back. “What say I take you out for dinner to celebrate still being you?”
 
“Sounds like one of your better plans.”
 
She smiled at him to show she didn’t mean it, and he put his arm around her.
 
“Every now and then I come up with a good one,” he said, smiling back. “Wait till you hear what I’m planning for after dinner….”