It's been two weeks since my hard earned favours finally purchased Faith's freedom, but she still has that jumpy look she wore when she walked out of the doors of the jail. It's like she doesn't quite believe that the barriers are gone, that she doesn't have to be on edge twenty four hours a day. She's made it through the nightmare, but she doesn't quite believe she's woken up.

Faith's redemption is nothing if not high maintenance. I'm standing here against the wall, and that's the thought that keeps running through my mind. She trains with me, spars with me, and she's out every night, backing me up or doing her own hunting. She's formed a strange alliance with Gunn, her false placidity enough to make me laugh or maybe even cry. Gunn doesn't quite know what to do with her, but he can use the backup, so he doesn't question her, and she likes it like that.

Sometimes when I look up, there's a haunted look in her eyes, a ruthlessness in the necessity of her killing, and I know that she's reliving her fall from grace. She swears that she's sorry, more often than she really needs to. They've all forgiven her.

Wesley's stopped eyeing her with that measuring look. He's finished being a Watcher, realizing that she's essentially untrainable. Cordelia took longer to forgive, but I've noticed some Faith shopping expeditions in the past couple days. She usually returns in a pissy mood after Faith finds the black or the leather or the push up bras, instead of submitting to Cordelia's whimsical trendiness.

"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"

In spite of it all, Faith's got an innocence that somehow survived her debauchery. She's got a fierceness of spirit that makes me want to guard her, protect her, and make sure nothing ever breaks her. I find myself with small trinkets to please her, trying to tease a real smile out of her solemnity.

I know I've got to be careful with her. Buffy was my salvation, my golden girl, but she could never be anything more than a sunbeam of a dream. Faith's inner darkness knows my own, and sometimes I'll be fighting with my demon and I'll see her watching me and I know she understands. The urge to combine our darkness is almost palpable some days, and its at those moments that I usually find some demon to hunt, some prophecy to research. Anything to avoid those soft brown eyes.

"Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways I had
To make her glow
"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you
That I'm in love with you"

The first night she was out, I realized how dangerous she was to me. She walked into my apartment, tentative, so close to afraid that I didn't realize at first that she was fighting the panic, the urge to fight her way past the walls, into the open air and freedom.

She was so caught up in her simple pleasures. The fresh smells of the soap in the shower, the soft cotton of the robe, the richness of the cocoa I made her at bedtime. She snuggled down into the flannel sheets I'd bought for her, rubbing her cheek like a small cat against the matching pillowcase.

Later that night, as a nightmare broke her sleep, I tried to calm her. The horror of being chained up, the walls closing in on her, was obvious beyond the few words that she spoke. That which makes a Slayer was never meant to be confined.

When she opened her arms and asked me to hold her, I couldn't resist. Brushing a kiss on her forehead, I let her cuddle into me. I'm ashamed to say that I pretended that I had the right to do so. She needed me, and I let myself be lulled by her warmth, the drift of fragrance from her hair. In the morning, we looked awkwardly everywhere but at each other until the strangeness wore off and I could build my walls again.

"You - Soft and only
You - Lost and lonely
You - Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You're just like a dream"

Faith keeps dragging me to these smokey, shadowy dives. Wesley and Cordelia stopped coming along after the first time, preferring the ambiance at the uptown yuppie bars, where the bartenders are used to dealing in Bombay Sapphire and Guiness. She's happy here, at least as happy as she gets, sipping a Jack and Coke as she stands with me between songs.

Mostly though, I'm content to stand against the wall and watch her. Its like she comes alive again, all her mischievous energy, her darkness amplified by lush swirls of sound. She's twirling now, arms outflung with an airy grace that bears no resemblence to the predatory air she used to wear. There's no anger in her movement these days, only a wistful loneliness that touches me all the more deeply for its nearness to my own longings.

She's much more beautiful in her unaware, unself-conscious spin than she ever could have hoped to be when she was using her sexuality as a weapon. These days, her necklines are a little higher, there's a little more breathing room in her pants. Not enough change to deny her innate sensuality, just enough that now she's tantalizing, rather than cheap.

"Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me"

I wake up alone every morning, remembering that one morning when I woke up with her in my arms. I know I can never have that again. She's so much more, these days, than harsh makeup and skintight leather. She needs someone normal, someone full of light and goodness, who won't remind her of who she was, the potential for darkness inside of her.

The most beautiful I've ever seen her was that first night, clean scrubbed and bundled up in my fluffy white robe. She looked so untouched and angelic, even as she radiated the loneliness I'll never have the right to soothe away.

But, sometimes, its enough that I can watch her dance and pretend that one day, she could be mine.

"You - Soft and only
You - Lost and lonely
You - Just like heaven"