Atonement's a Bitch

Chapter 1. 2 Kool 2 B 4-Gotten

Faith held her face underwater until stars began dancing in front of her eyes and then a few seconds more before pulling up, gasping for air and catching a glimpse of herself in the little mirror by the sink in her cell. She still felt the adrenaline pumping from the fight; it had been a while since she’d used her muscles for anything but working out. She had gotten into fights in her first few weeks in the slammer, and when no one managed to take her one-on-one they eventually tried twelve-on-one. She sent most of them to the infirmary and did a couple of weeks in solitary, and in the years after that everyone had stayed clear of her.

And then, out of nowhere, this. Her and Deb had never been friends – Faith didn't have any friends in here – but they'd never been enemies either. Yet Deb had attacked her in broad daylight, waving a big-ass knife and refusing to stop even when it was clear she didn't stand a chance. That wasn't the scary part, though; no, the part that had Faith panicking now was how easy it would have been – how good it would have felt – to just hit her a little bit harder. Not just knock her out, but put her down once and for all. It might have delayed her parole hearing by a couple of years... oh, there's a joke. "Sorry, instead of walking out of here when you're 70 you have to wait 'til you're 73." Not that she'd thought that through at the time; grabbing that barbell and almost smashing Deb's face flat into the ground had been instinct. Holding back at the last second had been... she wasn't sure. But was this really how far she'd come? All this time working on herself, trying to become someone better, and it just takes one little brawl with an overweight car thief to...

You're still not seeing the big picture, B. Something made us different. We're warriors. We're built to kill.

Part of her had been relieved when she was convicted of murder, not manslaughter, even if it meant an extra 10 years. "Murderer" was a good word; fair, simple, cut'n'dry. "Slayer" was a word she figured she could go a good long while without hearing again. That wasn't where all her problems had started, but it sure as shit hadn't helped any. She'd fucked up. Great. She was paying for it. Great. She'd probably die of old age before she got to see a vampire again. Great. So fucking STOP the Slayer shit already! She punched the wall hard, and it barely hurt even though the concrete gave under her fist. Yup, superpowers still there. As if last night and this afternoon hadn't proved that.

All Slayers have dreams. Usually, they're not too bad once you get used to them; memories of other Slayers, visions of impending doom, the usual crap. She didn’t know if it was some kind of weird-ass Slayer mechanism or just ordinary psychology, but here's the wicked bit: the dreams got much worse when you didn’t get to sla... kill anything. Still, most of the time they weren't any worse than any other nightmares.

Of course, some of them had been worse than others. B dying, for instance, that had been a whopper; woke her up an hour before lights-on, screaming her lungs out. She freaked out so badly that they had her seeing the prison shrink for months afterwards. Of course, she had never told him shit; what was she going to say? "See, I have this mystical psychic bond to one of the people whose lives I tried to ruin. I betrayed her, she almost killed me for it, I paid her back by stealing her body, and there was this whole... Anyway, she just killed herself, and it felt like I was ripped out of my own head. Like there were two of me and none of me at the same time. I felt her die, I felt her hit the ground, I’m feeling her rot as we speak, and everything in my head keeps screaming it's my fault somehow. So how was your day?"

Of course, Buffy had come back, and it got a bit easier. Back to the same ol' same ol' and once again she could forget about The Slayer and just be a murderer with weird dreams. Until a couple of months ago when the dreams got worse. Every night for weeks on end she had the same vision: young girls being hunted down and killed like cattle. Everything about the dreams seemed to beg for her to do something about it, and she'd woken up a couple of times wanting to yell "WRONG NUMBER!" Didn't they get that she was OUT? Couldn't whatever ran these things leave her the fuck alone? Apparently not, because last night she got the mother of all visions. It had been brief, but crystal clear: a huge cave, filled with thousands and thousands of... she guessed they were vampires, but not like any she'd seen before. Ugly fuckers. And of course, that chant that had turned up in all her dreams lately suddenly seemed to make sense.

From beneath you, it devours.

It scared the shit out of her, and she could only hope B, Angel and the others were on their toes. Whatever it was, and as bad as the dreams were, she was glad she wouldn’t have to deal with it. She wasn't a Slayer anymore, she was a murderer, and she was right where she belonged. Four walls, no one getting too close, three squares a day and everything under control. She took a deep breath, splashed some more water in her face and left her cell.

The rec area of her block was just as boring as the rest of this place. An old TV, a couple of couches and tables and a shelf with some games and shit. Games usually require at least two people, so mostly she just watched TV. A couple of girls got up and let her have a couch to herself – funny how no one ever wanted to sit close to her. There was some weird sci-fi show on: a bunch of cows being herded off a space ship, if you'd believe that, into a large green field beneath an open sky. A girl was sitting with the cows, talking to them.

"They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky and they remember what they are."

One of the inmates – Joanna, a lifer who had only been here six months and probably wouldn't last six more – sighed longingly, obviously relating. One of the older girls laughed at her. "You know they're being sold for slaughter, right?"

Faith ignored the resulting shouting match and tried to keep watching, only to be interrupted by a guard stepping in front of her.

"Lehane? Your lawyer's here."

She looked up at him. "My lawyer? What lawyer?"

"Gee, I don't know, girl like you gotta have a whole team of lawyers, right? Said it was urgent, so move it."

Faith followed the guard to the visiting area – she hadn't been here too often. Angel used to visit her when he had a chance, but then they'd restricted the visiting hours to daytime and he hadn't been by since. That was a year ago. She had no idea who it could be this time, but –

Oh.

Him.

She hesitated – images of blood and violence flashing before her, not visions this time but good ol' fashioned memories – before sitting down to talk to her watcher.

"They told me my lawyer was here to see me. You my lawyer now, Wes?"

"Hello, Faith. How are you?"

It was plain that Wesley didn't want to be here anymore than she wanted to face him, 'cause he sure didn't sound like his fondest wish in life was to work with her again. Not that she could blame him after what she did. And this wasn't the prissy, well-groomed Wesley she'd met in Sunnydale; this was someone who'd gone to the end of his rope and then just been too fucking mean to not keep going. She knew that look. She hoped he hadn't learned it from her.

"We need you."

Oh, please. She got it now. OK, let's go through the motions and then he can go back to Angel and say he tried, she can go back to the spacecows, and everyone's happy and out of each other's life again. "It's Armageddon again. I dig. The last thing you need's me in the mix. Besides, Angel'll come shining through in the end like he always does."

"Angel's gone, Faith. Angelus is back."

It took Wesley's words a couple of seconds to sink in. Once they did, she didn't think it through, just acted on instinct. "Step away from the glass."

As they bolted across the parking lot towards Wesley's car, she absently brushed shards of bullet-proof glass out of her hair and glanced up at the sky. And tried not to forget what she was.