Other Side 13: Bad Magic

The Other Side of the Door

Chapter 13: Bad Magic

Four months, two weeks ago

Sunnydale

The images were blurry. A stake with blood running along the grain of the wood. The view of Main Street from the roof of Sun Cinema. A different rooftop, growing distant as she fell away from it. Buffy talking to her about washing dishes. A bright purple light in a graveyard. Joyce helping her move boxes to a basement. Giles pouring her a cup of coffee while asking her about a recent patrol.

She couldn’t shake them from her head. They were as fuzzy and illogical as she remembered images from her dreams being before she was called, but they didn’t feel like those old dreams. They stayed with her, weighing on her. Something about them didn’t make sense.

“Faith? Are you paying attention?”

She looked up, and for the briefest moment, she thought she saw a demon with skin mottled in dark orange and rust tones standing with an arm slung casually over Buffy’s shoulder, bending low to whisper something in her ear she thought was funny.

When she blinked, Buffy and the demon were gone, and only Jonathan was standing in the middle of Giles’ living room. He was looking at her expectantly.

“Uh, yeah. Uranium power core. Got it.”

“Ok. Good.” Jonathan glanced at his watch. “I’m playing the Bronze again tonight, so I have to get moving. Who am I going to see there?”

Willow, Tara, Riley, Anya and Xander’s hands all shot into the air.

Faith and Giles traded glances.

“I, uh, believe I’ll stay in to do some reading,” the latter hedged.

“And I really should patrol.”

Jonathan gave her a smile that was just short of patronizing. “By yourself?”

Faith shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why not? I’m not looking to start a fight with Adam, but this other monster that’s running around–”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Jonathan said quickly. “I’ll take care of it.” He moved to where she sat on the arm of the couch and gave her a kiss on the forehead, stretching a bit to reach it. “You just make sure you stick to vampires, and leave the big monsters to me, ok? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

She nodded, acquiescing. “I’ll make it short. Then I’ll see if I can find that missing phone number. You know, for some slayer girl talk.”

This answer seemed to be acceptable to everyone, and Jonathan soon left the apartment with excited Scoobies on his heels.

Faith didn’t speak again until she and Giles were alone. “It doesn’t make sense,” she whispered, still staring at the door they’d closed behind them.

Giles didn’t look up from the page of notes he’d taken during Jonathan’s briefing. “I’m inclined to agree. How was Walsh able to get a uranium-based power unit here without anyone of a higher rank or position asking questions?”

“Not Adam. Everything else.”

He put down the notes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean all of us losing the phone number to B’s place in Chicago. At the same time.”

“It happens. I’m sure it will turn up soon enough. Meanwhile, Buffy is getting a few days of none of us interrupting her studies, for which she’s undoubtedly grateful.”

“Including Riley.”

“Well, yes, of course. But I’m sure his interruptions are no more cumbersome than the rest of –”

“But why is he one of us? Where did he even come from?”

Giles moved into her line of sight, pulling her focus from the door. “From the Initiative, of course. He’s been a valuable resource… Faith, are you feeling alright?”

She looked up, locking her eyes on his. “Why is this random Initiative dude hanging out with us, Giles? Did he just -out of nowhere- decide he’d join Team Slayer when his job went sideways, without being close buds with any of us? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot.”

“Because a lot of stuff isn’t jiving. I’m telling you, man, something’s off. I saw some stuff last night, stuff that doesn’t match up to what I woke up to.”

“You had a slayer dream?”

She looked away. “I don’t know for sure. I just know things were different. I woke up knowing me and B helped Jonathan organize the students to take down Wilkins, but feeling like I wasn’t even there.”

Giles looked toward the desk drawer in which he kept the letters Buffy had been sending him from Northwestern, remembering a reminder to listen to Faith’s dreams. “A dream of a different reality, perhaps? I can look into it for you.”

“Thanks.” She stood up. “I need to get out for a while, try to think this through.” She rubbed at a spot on her abdomen on her way to the door.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah. I just remember having pain there. Not sure why.”

“I’ll see what I can learn.”

She nodded and walked out, leaving Giles looking after her, his forehead creased in concern.

In an effort to settle his mind, he opened the drawer where Buffy’s letters were kept, intending on rereading her words about slayer dreams. Inside, he found an unfamiliar jewelers box bound closed with red tape, and a page of notes about the apparently dangerous object contained therein.

The letters he remembered receiving from Buffy were missing. All of them. There was not so much as a torn envelope left to indicate they’d ever been there. He suddenly found himself sharing in the feeling of things not making sense.

He rushed out to the courtyard, calling out to his charge, “Faith! I need you to tell me more about this dream.”

*~*~*

Today

Sunnydale

Tara opened her dorm room door and nodded in greeting to her guest, not the least bit surprised at who had knocked. 

Faith strolled into the room and took a seat at the foot of the bed. “Where’s your girl?”

“Across the hall, taking a shower. She’s… frustrated.”

“Makes sense. She wanted to do one big, flashy spell, and have roses thrown at her feet for the results. Maybe not literal roses, but at least a rush of hugs and ‘thank yous.’ …But that’s not what we got.”

Tara winced at this statement.

“You know I’m right, T. I get it. She was trying to bring her best friend back from a place she thought was a hell dimension. She was trying to be a hero.” Faith sighed and looked down at her hands in her lap. “Thing is, there are no heroes here. Will’s gonna have to see that, gonna have to accept that… what you guys did tonight wasn’t even right, let alone worth getting roses over.”

Tara dropped into her desk chair. “I know,” she whispered. “Now, I mean. We didn’t…”

“That’s why I came by. It was Joyce’s call, not telling you guys. Not mine. But maybe I shouldn’t have come down so hard on Will for thinking she was right, and sticking to her guns about it. I kinda get that, too. The truth got sprung on her without any time for her to figure out how to deal.” Faith glanced toward the door, indicating the bathroom across the hall. “Mind if I stay long enough to say so?”

The wince returned. “Maybe you shouldn’t. I-I mean, it’s a nice gesture, and I know apologies don’t come easy for you, but…” She sighed. “I’m not sure she’s ready for that. She still thinks… Well…” 

Faith frowned at the book Tara handed her, which had been sitting open on the desk. “What does ‘memory cleansing’ mean, exactly?”

“It’s designed to erase the trauma of foreign influences. L-l-like brainwashing, mind altering magic… or dimensional travel.”

Faith muttered a string of curses under her breath. “She wants to take away nine years.”

“She wants to help, Faith. She– She wants her friend back. Happy and normal, and not resenting us for bringing her back to her old life.”

“You tell her this is the wrong way to play it?”

Tara managed a weak smile. “Why do you think she’s so frustrated?”

Faith closed the book and slipped it into the back of her waistband as she stood up. “Tell her to save her energy for opening a portal to Rasheen.”

Tara bit the inside of her cheek as Faith’s jacket was settled over the stolen book, effectively masking it. “I-I already did, but… You’re right about her needing time to get used to all this, to Buffy being different. If we give her a few days, maybe…”

“Four months,” Faith said emphatically, not hearing the dorm room door open behind her. “That’s how long they’ll be missing from their lives if Willow keeps them here for just a week. Four months, T. Ask Giles if you want the math on how that breaks down, but it’s safe to say they’ve already been missing for days. Talk some sense into her, will you? ‘Cause if Willow decides she’s gonna make B and her vamp hostages, she and I are gonna have a serious problem. I haven’t spent the last six months busting my ass to try to stay on the straight and narrow, just to end up harboring a kidnapper on my team.”

“Then maybe I’m not on your team.”

Faith turned around to face an angry Willow, standing in the doorway, wrapped in a towel. “So you’re admitting to holding them hostage? Miss High and Mighty, who never stops riding me about my crimes, is a criminal, too?”

Willow glared. “I’m sorry, I forgot about that time I held a knife to your throat. Oh, wait…”

Faith kept her cool,  refusing to take the bait. “I guess you thought you’d save that move for your best friend.”

“I’m trying to help her!”

“By doing the opposite of what she’s asking you to do?” She pushed past Willow and out into the hall, pointedly ignoring Willow’s sputters of self-defense. “I gotta hit a couple of cemeteries before I call it a night. You know, the thing Buffy asked me to do?”

She waved casually over her shoulder and strolled down the hall without waiting for a response.

Willow slammed the door closed and threw off her towel. “Selfish bitch.” She stomped across the room to the dresser, and continued to rant as she put on her pajamas. “All this time, and she hasn’t changed even one teensy, tiny bit. She’s still exactly the same person she was before she got all that ‘coma and slayer dream clarity.’ Power hungry. She can’t stand for a minute the idea that we’re going to get Buffy back to normal, and put all this behind us, because Faith won’t get to be the one-and-only Chosen One anymore. And that’s all she’s ever wanted.”

“I-I don’t think th-that’s quite true.” Tara bit her lip as her girlfriend turned to stare at her, and nearly backed down from saying anything else, but Faith’s reminder about the severity of the time distortion pushed her past her hesitation. “M-Maybe everyone wants what’s best for Buffy? And, sweetie, Faith knows more about what that is than we do.”

“Faith barely knows her at all. You weren’t there, Tara. You can’t know. Even before they were basically trying to kill each other, Faith was pulling Buffy down to her level, trying to make sure there wasn’t a better slayer than her, probably. Cutting school, turning slaying into some kind of team sport, ditching her friends… She wasn’t trying to get to know her. She was trying to ruin her.”

Tara frowned at the hints of jealousy she heard in Willow’s voice, but her stuttering attempt at a response was cut off.

“Hey! Where’s my book?”

It took several attempts to get the words out. “Faith took it.”

Willow stared at her girlfriend, her eyes wide with disbelief. “And you let her just walk out with it? Tara! That book is my ticket to fixing this!”

“N-No. It isn’t.” Tara swallowed hard, feeling the pressure of that accusatory stare. “There are no portal spells in it.”

Willow’s jaw dropped open. When she finally found words, they came out in a shocked whisper. “I thought you were better than that… I never would’ve expected you to be one of those people who… You really want to get rid of my best friend?”

“Oh, sweetie! No! Not like that! I-I I’m not trying to keep you from your friend. I j-just think, if Buffy wants to keep her new life, I mean, it’s only right…”

“Tara, her ‘new life’ is living in some kind of hell dimension as some kind of soldier… with Spike. You don’t understand–”

Tara’s voice strengthened as both women’s volume rose. “I understand that we messed up, Willow. It’s not our fault. We didn’t know. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible. We have to fix it.”

“That’s what the book was for!”

“No, that book was to hide it, not fix it. They aren’t the same things. Sweetie, you know I’m right. You know we have to respect her wishes. That place… That place is Buffy’s home now.”

“It’s not supposed to be!”

Tara picked up a book from a stack on the floor beside the nightstand, sending Wesley’s suggested reading list fluttering to the floor. “One of these should have what we need, now that we know the destination, and have access to objects from that dimension to focus through.” She held the book out in offer. “Help me look?”

Willow went back to staring at her in disbelief. After a long minute, still lacking words to express her shock, she turned toward her bookshelf and began scanning the titles of her own spell book collection.

Tara lowered the offered book. “I see.”

“Apparently not,” Willow mumbled, without turning back to face her.

Something in her dismissive attitude felt achingly familiar, and Tara responded in an equally familiar way.

Willow turned away from the bookshelf at the sounds of books and clothes being thrown into a bag, failing in her attempt to feign disinterest in her girlfriend’s actions. “What are you doing?”

“Getting away,” Tara mumbled as she wiped her tears with her sleeve. “I have to… I can’t stay. Not tonight.”

“You’re leaving? You can’t– I mean… why?” Willow tightly clenched the book she’d chosen from the shelf, trying to express her anger and hurt somewhere other than her face. It didn’t quite work. Tears were already welling up. “It’s just a little fight. It will be ok tomorrow. …Right?”

“I-I’m not sure. I just know…” Tara floundered for the right words. “Since my mom died, no one has cared about what I have to say, what I think about magic, what I think about what I–” She stopped herself abruptly, giving Willow an opening she wanted.

“Hey! I care! I listen! I just think you’re wrong about this, that maybe Faith’s gotten into your head or something. What did she say to you, anyway?”

“That she owed you an apology. And I th-th-think I talked her out of it.”

Willow found her expression of stunned disbelief returning.

Tara sniffled. “I didn’t mean to. But maybe it should mean something that I could do that on accident? M-maybe it wouldn’t have happened if you’d listened to me about that memory cleansing spell before she even got here.” She closed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Maybe I still don’t have someone who cares what I say.”

The door was open by the time Willow found her voice. “Tara? Baby? You aren’t leaving me? … Are you?”

“I just need to think about things tonight, ok?”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” She waved toward the window, vaguely indicating the university campus. “Someplace quiet. Maybe the library. I’ll figure it out from there.”

Willow’s tone was nearly pleading. “You can come back here. Have a quiet think and then we can talk?”

Tara shook her head and wiped another tear from her eye as she stepped into the hall. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alone in the dorm room, Willow wiped away tears, too. As she returned to her reading, her expression shifted into one of resolve. “It’s ok,” she whispered to herself, scanning the table of contents. “I can fix this, too.”

*~*~*

Four months, one week ago

Sunnydale

A girl of about twelve years old answered the door. “Hi?”

Faith gave her a smile. “Hey, kiddo. I’m going to guess Jonathan is your big brother?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “You’re here to see Jonny?”

“Yeah. Is he home?”

The girl turned and shouted down the hall. “Jonny! There’s a girl here to see you!”

“Very funny,” came a familiar voice from behind a closed door.

“There really is! She’s pretty, too!”

Faith chuckled. “Thanks, kid.”

“I’m not falling for it, Candace! Give it up!”

Faith raised her voice to the same volume as Candace’s. “I’m more real than you are!”

“Crap.” The door opened, and a shame-faced Jonathan stepped into Faith’s line of vision. “I, uh, guess we need to talk, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Candace looked back and forth between them, then ran for the kitchen. “Mom! Jonny’s finally got a girlfriend! But I think they’ve had a fight!”

Jonathan trudged up the hall and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. “Sorry about that.”

“You’ve got a hell of a lot more than a nosy kid sis to apologize for.”

“I know.” He kept his gaze firmly on the porch floor. “I didn’t get anyone killed, did I?”

“Not as far as I know. I’d ask what the hell you were thinking, but it’s pretty obvious.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I planned out a big speech. All about how you can’t just jump to the happy ending on your life story, how you gotta work for it first, and make amends when you fuck up, instead of disappearing until it blows over, because it never really does if you don’t make the effort… All the stuff I’m trying to sort out for myself, you know? But now that you’re in front of me, I kinda just wanna smack the shit out of you and call it a day.”

“I get that. I mean, I don’t really know what you’re talking about, with you, but the smacking part…”

“Look at me,” she commanded.

He obeyed, albeit slowly.

“You can’t do this shit, man. You just can’t. You’re screwing with dangerous powers, and with everyone’s lives, just to make yourself feel better. It doesn’t work. Trust me on that. You still felt like shit when you were in your everyone’s-invited-fantasy-land, and you still feel like shit now, yeah?”

He nodded.

“’Cause there’s no one thing that’s gonna fix it, whatever it is. Life’s a slog sometimes, man. It’s just trying to live a little better, one day to the next, and hoping you end up with a decent life when all the little stuff starts piling up. I can’t tell you if that actually works out. I’m in the slog, too. I just know you gotta try.”

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“One friend. That’s all you need to get started. I had one friend who was willing to give me one more second chance, and I decided not to waste it. Now I have a few friends, a few people who think I’m worth putting up with while I figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life.”

“Was Buffy your one friend?”

“How’d you guess?”

“You’re hanging out with her friends. I know my opinion doesn’t count for much, but I think you’re fitting in ok.”

Faith snorted. “Some days.” She studied him for a minute. “You got someone in mind?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Give it a shot. And lay off the magic fix-its, alright? Use that mojo to help other people, and don’t use it at all if you aren’t sure that’s what you’re doing. Abusing the power you’ve been given… It doesn’t lead anywhere good, man. I promise.” She started down the porch steps, but stopped when he called out to her.

“Faith?”

“Yeah?”

“Buffy… She didn’t go away to college, did she?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

“Somewhere else, living her own second chance.” 

<Chapter 12: Biased Decisions
Chapter 14: Flawed Communication>