I gotta admit, its all such a huge waste.

Look at that, me admitting something. Me, admitting I screwed up.

Girl, my mama once told me (drunk as usual; thats the only time I got advice from her), girl, you gotta watch your back. Dont let anyone stab you in it.

Yes, mama, Ill watch my back. No, mama, I wont let anyone stab me in it. Mama, I dont know if I let you down or not. I never wanted to let you down, but I always did. She stabbed me in my belly. My belly that could have done what you did, given life to a confused little girl who doesnt know how to give all she has to give. Mama, she stabbed me in my belly and I laughed and I fell. Mama, you called me your angel (sometimes) and then I fell. So many times. From heaven to earth and all the way to hell.

Mama, I cant find her here.

Its just the voices here, and they tell me shes gone. They whisper that shes gone, taunting and tormenting me over and over. Shes gone gone gone gone gone gone. Dead in a right proper Slayer way. They dont have to tell me but they do. They dont have to, because I saw.

Funny all the new ground me and B tread together. Never two Slayers, not like us. We knew each other, we lived in the others life and breathed the others breath. No brushing in and out like Kendra. We were closer than anyone realized, even us. No Council could predict this, this connection that goes beyond psychic. She stabbed me in my belly and I fell, and all the hate oozed away.  I could see into her head, from the moment I hit the truck bed, and I was never alone. I loved her for so many things, but I honest-to-God loved her for that, for never leaving me here alone.

She left me. I tried to scream it into her head, begged her not to go, begged her to turn back. Stubborn to the fucking end, that girl. I should have known. Plucky enough to stab me in my belly, plucky enough to walk into her death. Too bad that psychic hearing only seems to work one way. I hear her, she dont hear me.

(I love her, she dont love me.)

No one can hear me. I babble, I sing, I shriek my pleasures and pains, my triumphs and losses, and nobody hears. They dont hear me now. All the stethoscopes and gauges and monitors, and they cant hear the loudest signal Im putting off. They cant hear me crying.

Living in her head all these months, I started to forget. The blood, the pain, the betrayal - my betrayal. Of her. I failed her, made her kill me. I wish I could have known earlier, what would happen when I found myself in this predicament. In this hospital bed.

But like I said, they never had two Slayers working together. How could they know what would happen when they killed (loved) each other? When one killed (loved) the other? When one hit this point of having nothing to do but think and think and wonder if part of her soul attached itself to the hand holding that knife (my heart)?

I only wonder because I started seeing. Even before that dream, that crazed dream with the cat and the boxes and stuff I cant even remember (it all gets so hazy when a day is a week is a month) I saw everything she did. I felt Angels teeth like they were in my neck, I watched the Boss change and realized in horror all Id done to help him. I saw myself racing through the halls and reaching Giles side and I saw the fuse and I saw the explosion. I saw the redness in her head and I felt the tears when she watched him walk away into the glare of mist and flashing lights.

I felt her heart speed up when our eyes read the prophecy together. And when it happened, I tasted the fear and the doctors raced with the crash cart when I jerked. I felt the life flowing from her body and I saw Xander with his shiny wet face.  I screamed and I died like I didnt die from the knife; I felt her die and I whispered I love you into her head and then she was gone, and I was alone.

I forgot what its like to have this blankness in my head, this space where I cant seem to figure out how to decorate. Emotions here, memories there, add a little knowledge there. Neurons fire and youve got yourself a Faith.

But Faith aint Faith anymore, not without her.

All my life I lived with that emptiness, knowing something was missing and not quite knowing what it was. Then I was Called in place of Kendra and I found her and I knew what that little piece was, what fit into the hole. Someone to understand. I knew she was supposed to be there but I didnt know how to make her fit. Like the very last piece of the puzzle that you keep turning and turning and it still wont go, and you get so tired by the last turn that you just want to give up, tear it all up after all that work and lay it all to waste.  Most people have the patience to get to that last turn, but I guess I didnt. I laid it all to waste just when she was about to fall into my life in just the right way. Just when we were about to be everything I could possibly want. Just when I started to think we could both understand.

Just when I thought I might be able to say Im sorry.

Wait. This is new. Whered the blackness go? Theres this big white canvas in front of me and it takes me a second to do the reality check and realize its a ceiling. You dont have ceilings in your head, thats one thing Ive learned. Just a big vast endless space that manages to trap you without having borders. You cant get out, even when you get into somebody elses head. You have to be there, too, with the loneliness and the emptiness and the way the craziest songs youve ever heard in your life come back up, of all things, to play over and over again all out of tune and warbled.

Like when my mama used to play her old records, the ones that daddy left. I always loved when she would put on Edith Piaf, and the pretty voice would fill the air with French.  I didnt understand the words (never been much of one for languages - school, either, for that matter) but I would stretch out on my back on the old carpet in my little room in Boston, and I would look up at the ceiling - a lot browner and dingier than this one - and thats when I got to be an artist. I got to paint all sorts of stuff, and I painted myself in Paris with someone who would love me like mama loved me. Someone who would give me the advice and wisdom she would.

Guess I knew even then that I couldnt make it on my own. Not in the morality department, anyway. Gotta have a guiding hand...given my life, it seems fitting that I forced my only guiding hand to guide a knife into my belly. I can laugh about that, now. I can laugh about pretty much anything now that I realize that I see the ceiling because my eyes are open.

Pretty much anything.

I cant seem to laugh about her being gone. Cause even though I would have killed her, would have broken her into pieces, I never wanted her dead. Survival instinct, you know? That and the fact that I was pretty fucked in the head. Someone should do some study on whether comas can help get rid of psychotic behavior. I feel strangely unfucked now. Except for wanting to die when I think about getting out of here and picking up the pieces, living without her to help me. I couldnt pick them up when she wanted to help; how can I now that shes gone?

I cough softly and gaze around. This is not good. I *hate* needles. And my body...I havent felt this weak since long before I was Called. Not since the guy in the street grabbed me and I wound up in the hosp - No. No, I will not think about that. Ill think about how this means Ill be getting out of here and start training and maybe even make up for a tiny fraction of everything I did. Just a tiny fraction, because the bigger fraction is solely comprised of her, and I cant possibly make up for not being there for her.  

Cause you see, once youve gone so far that theyre not around to be able to forgive you, youve most likely done something that cant be forgiven. Mama couldnt forgive me, either.

I make a decision right there and then. Or here and now - my sense of time and place and everything relevant to reality is just all fucked. But my decision is this - no more being weak. No more self-pity and self-indulgence and self-absorption. Its not just me, I gotta see that. I do see that. Or I did, but I was wrong then, too, cause then I was thinking it was just her and me. And now shes gone, but its still not just me. Im alone; its just me in that sense, but its not. Its Willow and Xander and Giles and Angel and Cordelia and everyone I hurt.

Its the new Slayer, Buffys...the only word to use is replacement, and it seems so cold, so dismissive. Whatever she is, its her. I have to help her, keep her from fucking up like I did. Nothing like the voice of experience to cure what ails you, mama used to say.

First things first. Im alone, in this small room, and I most definitely do *not* want to be alone. And there are things, things I have to do. I lift my arm and barely manage to grasp the button to call a nurse before my body remembers that it has no strength. It isnt a nurse that comes; its a doctor and rather quickly, too. He stops in the doorway (and damned if he isnt attractive) and simply stares for a moment, shocked. I dont really care - I sort of gathered from all my time in Bs head that I was not one of those lets-wait-and-pray-for-the-best case scenarios. I was more a roll-her-once-a-day-to-prevent-bedsores-as-long-as-the-insurance-doesnt-run- out type. How the hell was this being paid for, anyway?

So the doctor is there and he slowly comes in. I wonder how much he knows about me. Cant be much...who was there to bother to tell him? "Faith?" he queries softly.

"Thats me." Wow, talk about dry mouth. "Water?"

"Of course." He ducks into the bathroom (why is there a bathroom in a room occupied for a coma patient?) and returns with a glass of water. Not as cold as I like it, but hey, no biggie. It helps the rasp in my throat, at least. "Faith, youre a patient at -"

"Sunnydale Transitional Hospital, I know," I cut in. "Head trauma, coma, its been five months, its probably late October, yeah yeah yeah. Look, doc, lets cut to the chase. I need to use a phone."

He looks startled. "Faith, Im afraid there are other matters more pertinent right now than -"

"No, there arent. I know Im acting strange, and I know youre surprised to see me awake, but I really do need to make a call before anything happens. Please? Just hold the receiver to my ear and dial the number?"

Shaking his head in amazement, he lifts the phone from its cradle and dials the number I tell him. The ringing seems to go on forever, and finally the tired, weary voice mutters, "Yes?"

"Giles." God, I never thought Id be glad to hear that stuffy, British voice. "Giles." Its all I can say.

"Who is this?" he demands suspiciously.

"Its...Faith. Dont hang up! Please...Buffy, she wont turn. Dont worry about that."

I hear a clunk. He must have dropped the phone. "Wh-what?" he finally stammers. "Is this a joke?"

"No joke," I whisper. "Giles, I just woke up a few minutes ago. I need you to come see me. Something strange has happened. Can you come? Will you?"

I can practically hear his reluctance, his concern, his distrust, dripping from his breath as he hesitates. "I cant move, Giles. I cant even hold the phone Im so weak. Please."

"Ill be there soon." And the phone goes dead.

I look up at the doctor. "Ill have a visitor soon. Let me see him for  awhile and Ill cooperate with whatever after that."

Hes scribbling in a chart as fast as his hand can move. I suspect Im turning into a paper for some journal, but whatever. I just have to see Giles, I have to make sure they dont try to lock me up again. He tried to help me last time; why couldnt I see it? Too busy fucking up to pay attention to my own personal savior.

I gotta admit something else. I dont get it. I dont get the decisions that the powers-that-be make sometimes. I mean, get this. They look out for humanity enough to Call a few who maybe, hopefully, can help, and apparently they get involved on an individual basis sometimes.  So what I dont get is why they took her and not me. I keep getting these second chances even though I keep screwing up, like they really think one of these times Im gonna get it right. But how can all the chances be worth all the things Ive done to screw it up? And then they take her, the one who always seemed to have it together. The girl had it pegged; she didnt need to be looked after so much. And they took her.

I try to think of what Giles would say if I told him that. Something about it being Bs choice - does he know yet that she knew? - and the way we have free will.  They didnt take her, it was just circumstance, yadda yadda yadda. But free will only goes so far in a world where prophecies come true. Someone somewhere set something in motion so that someone else, somewhere else, could write the prophecy so that she could walk into her death in Sunnydale.

I think it goes more to the fact that she was who she was, and she did what she did, and I have a hell of a lot more to learn. No need to let me off the hook of all these sins I have to atone for.

It isnt long. He walks into the room alone, and I realize just how much it hurt to lose her. She wasnt just his Slayer; she wasnt just a pupil to teach in the art of demon demise. She was his friend, and she was the only child he had ever had. It hits me suddenly that she probably had a lot of people crying at her funeral, and she was the only one who might have cried at mine.

He stares at me now, a little shocked, a little worried, a little neutral. "Faith."

< "Hey, G." I try a wan smile and fail even at that. Why am I so fucking scared that his face will close down in condemnation?

"Ah...how long have you been awake?"

"Like I said, a few minutes before I called you. Giles...has she been buried?"

I saw the comprehensive confusion creep across his face. "I - Yes, she has. This morning. Faith, how do you know -"

"I told you, something strange has happened. Ever - ever since she stabbed me, Ive been in her head. Like this connection...I know everything thats happened since then, everything she knew." I want to just demand to know everything I need to know, but I need to be soft. Docile. Non-psychotic. "Hows Xander?"

"Not well. Hospitalized, traumatized. Hes catatonic. Faith -"

"Do you know what happened? How she...died?"

"Actually, no." Hes grasped this fast. "Do you?"

"You want revenge, go after Drusilla. Better yet, wait til Im out of here and Ill do it...That is, if you dont send me away to be locked up. I understand if you do, but I want to tell you...I want to make it up to you. All of you. I want...I want to be the Slayer again. To be on the right side."

He stares at me, his expression indecipherable (where the hell did I learn that word?). "Faith, I cannot stay now. Ill have to come back -"

"Wait. She wont vamp out. She didnt feed. Youll watch anyway, tonight, but she wont, I promise. I was there. And...you should know that it wasnt your fault. She wouldnt have let you be there, because...G, she knew she was going die that night. Theres a prophecy you calculated for next year, but the date was off. She was reading ahead and realized the mistakeshe made the choice to go. I think she - she knew it was time."

I dont think Ive ever seen this man cry. But there it is, a tear slipping down his left cheek. It looks sort of lonely and I wonder if one will join it from the other eye. "I will come back later, Faith...Buffy told us how you helped stop the Mayors ascensionher dream...well talk later, all right?"

Does that mean he believes me? That hell give me a chance? I dont want to dare to hope but I do, and my heart lifts up on itself and I want to sing. Something happy, like Im So Pretty. Something perfect. Maybe shit can be okay.

But there it is at the same time. The boss. The sting knowing hes dead. The relief that he failed but the wrench of losing the only father-figure I ever had. Well, the guy in the street made me call him daddy, but the boss never held a knife to my throat. Never put me in the hosp

No. Not there. Here, with Giles. But hes backing out the door and Im alone again, and the voices are starting up the chant again. Shes gone, Faithy dear, gone gone gone. A little puppy (undead demon) ate your puzzle piece and youll never be whole again. Shes gone. They hate you. Kill yourself, Faithy dear. Youre fucked in the head.

God, how I want to listen. All I can think of is that I wish I had been at the funeral and I wish I could be at the grave right now and oh not again not that night dont live that night again thats when it all started. I close my eyes and I can feel her lips on me and the most obvious thing occurs to me for the first time, that maybe she had such an easy time stabbing me not because of Angel but because of me, because she put the ball in my court and I never gave it back.