"Mission Statement" (Post-Season 6)

[the vamp nurd]

Quote:

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the vamp nurd - I've read a few bits and bobs of your stories. Image and atmosphere; who needs linearity, anyway?

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"Don't go linear on me."

Sorry I missed church, I was busy becoming a lesbian and worshiping Satan



Bardlet no #27

[xita]

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blonk, blink, blong

[MellindraX]

I'll admit, I was mildly horrified to read that you'd put Faith and Buffy on 'Jerry Springer', but you handled it in such a way that no warped imagination could think of them as the average Jerry Springer guests, while still cracking me up with Xander's, excuse me, Lex's little double affair.

You gave everyone a happy ending, and you did it believably.



Thank you for this writting masterpiece!

It is my solace, my home, the place where my walls crumble and fall away, because no one can know who I truly am. Thank goodness for the Internet, preserver of sanity! -Unknown

[Bagheera]

Mel – Only mildly horrified. You are very kind.



Miss Kitty adds: I think Willow and Tara were at least mildly horrified, too. They talked about it just the other day when Faith dropped around. Here’s how it went:



The doorbell rang on a sunny Californian Wednesday. There was a brisk “I’ll get it!” from Willow. The redhead strode swiftly down the front hall.



“It’s Faith,” I announced as Willow swept past, so close that the breeze as she came past ruffled my fur.



“Honestly Miss Kitty,” Willow sniffed as she reached the door, “one of these days I’m going to trip over you and break my leg into itty bits.” She swung the door open, and just as I began to say that maybe she ought to watch where she is going and pay attention to folks that aren’t always conveniently placed at eye level, my well-worded reply was drowned out as the redhead recognised the visitor.



“Faith! Hi!” The former Slayer was greeted with a hug and a peck to the cheek. “Come on in.”



“Is my god-daughter here?” was the brunette’s first question as she entered the living room.



Tara, entering from the opposite side of the room with a glass of water, uttered the disappointing reply: “I’ve just put her down for a sleep.” Faith tried to hide her chagrin, and accepted the offer of tea.



“Is Buffy doing stake-out duty?” Willow enquired when they were all seated.



“No, no,” Faith seemed momentarily embarrassed. “She’s taken Jimmy shopping. I think they’re picking out a birthday present. For me.”



Willow trilled: “Aw, that’s sweet!” but Tara said after a moment: “You don’t seem completely comfortable about it,” and she gave Faith what passed for a penetrative look.



Faith struggled to say what she was thinking. “Well…”



“It’s not – not Jimmy, is it?” Willow asked anxiously. “He hasn’t been acting up again, has he?” Though at first he had seemed perfectly okay about it, Buffy’s son had reacted badly to Xander’s sudden disappearance and his behaviour for a time had been a challenge. I didn’t see a great deal of him during that brief period, but suffice to say that whenever he tried anything on me, he was swiftly shown the error of his ways.



“No, no, he’s been fine just lately,” Faith squirmed.



“But is it – oh Goddess, Faith it’s nothing to do with…You-Know-Who…” Willow trailed off.



“Huh?” Now Faith was becoming confused as well as awkward.



“I think Willow’s wondering if you’re having trouble relating to James,” Tara helped out, “because of who his father is. And Willow, I think you can say Xander’s name out loud. I mean, he’s hardly Lord Voldemort, is he?” Willow blushed and exchanged a brief glance with her partner, and silently communicated that Tara was quite right once again.



“No, it’s nothing like that,” Faith hastily reassured them. “I love Jimmy to bits, I really do. And I honestly don’t think of him as Xander’s kid. There’s so much of Buffy in him. It makes it pretty easy to get along with him.”



“But what’s wrong? Faith?” Willow persisted.



“It’s…look,” Faith began, “I sometimes feel like I’m cheating an exam. Okay, bad analogy, I never cared about school enough to bother cheating on a paper – in either of my lifetimes. But…with Buffy...”



“Because you remember your past life and she doesn’t,” Tara said helpfully.



“Yeah,” Faith nodded and grinned then. “You know Tara, you should be a counsellor or something, you have a gift…”



Tara grinned shyly back at the brunette. “It has its uses in the law, too,” she said, half-mysteriously. “But it must be awkward for you, feeling like you have kind of an advantage over Buffy.” She smoothly returned to the subject.



Faith nodded, serious once more. “Like, the first time we slept together. It – aw – Jesus, like I knew everything that pushed Buffy’s buttons. It was too easy, I mean God, what was I competing with? Three and a half years with the Minuteman? But afterwards, I mean, I knew – I knew – that Buffy was gonna start freaking and trying to back out on me. She was gonna tell me that she still felt straight, even though she’d just had the best night’s sex of her entire life. She opened her mouth to say it, and I fricken knew she was gonna say the exact same little speech she gave me once before, and I knew it was wrong but I just had to turn my back on her. ‘Cause I didn’t want her to see me cry, not then.”



“I’m sorry,” Tara said quietly.



“But it worked out in the end,” Willow added. “Right?”



Faith looked pensive for a moment, the look on her face indicating that she was still picking over her memories and putting them back where they belonged. She shook her herself all over, looked up and grinned that familiar, wicked smile. “Eventually, yeah,” she said at last. “And getting rid of Xander, that didn’t suck.”



Willow cleared her throat, hesitated and then said: “But did you have to do it that way? On TV, with everyone…watching.” She shuddered, her own secret fears of being in front of an audience coming to the fore.



Faith slipped comfortably down her chair a little, her eyes introspective. I couldn’t resist, so I hopped into her lap and curled up. Good Faith stroked my ears gently as she talked. “I think so, yeah,” she said after a while. “I know it’d be different for you guys; I mean, if you’d been with someone else before you’d met each other, you’d sit down and talk it out like real people, like adults. Because we all know how well that went with ole Oz, right?”



“Um,” Willow cleared her throat, embarrassed.



“Sure, bad example,” Faith continued. “Okay, how’s this? I’m not a superhero anymore, right? I’m just an ordinary raven-haired vixen with a cleavage that could crush diamonds, right? But I still feel like the Slayer. That feeling of power is very hard to forget, it’s like the best drug you can imagine.” Willow and Tara both nodded, and I could tell that they both knew first-hand what Faith was talking about. “Sometimes…sometimes I miss the excitement. And I knew something was going on. Some days it was obvious Lex was going to work, with his little lunch-box and his Village People outfit. Other days, he had a bag with him big enough to have a change of clothes in it, and he looked sneaky. Both his face and his body language.”



“What was that you said about possessing gifts?” Tara smiled at Faith.



The brunette laughed and said, “It could be a Slayer thing, I don’t know. Hey, you’ve gotta be able to read people if you’re gonna beat five kinds of crap out of them, right? So anyway, I had a good idea Lex was up to something (or more likely, someone) and even if I was wrong, taking Buffy away from him on live TV was kind of a buzz. And now do you think Annabella’s asleep so I can sneak a little peek at her?”



Tara smiled and the three rose (I dived onto the floor the moment Faith made a move to stand up) and walked softly into the second bedroom. There in a cot, beneath an unruly mop of ginger hair lay Tara and Willow’s daughter, profoundly asleep. She was on her side facing the door, a tiny clenched fist on the pillow next to her face, her great pale eyelids with their impossibly long blonde eyelashes resolutely shut. She did not so much as stir when the trio entered. I padded around the women’s legs, purring, hoping one of them would pick me up for a better look. Nothing doing, so I prepared to spring from the floor onto the cot-side, the better to see my little sister.



Willow noticed what I was about to do and grabbed me around the middle and picked me up. “Don’t you dare, Miss Kitty,” she hissed angrily. “You are not to climb into this cot, ever, do you hear me?” And she shook me just a bit to emphasise the point. I turned my neck and since I now had a good view of the baby and of Faith and Tara’s faces, their eyes alight with love, I decided not to argue the point and allowed myself to relax and be held in Willow’s arms.



Oh, Willow. Fiercely protective is all very well, but really! As if I would smother my own sister; I mean, she’s heavier than me for goodness sake! Most people have now dismissed the notion that cats can smother babies as a myth, but when the odd suspicious case report finds its way into otherwise respectable publications*, even sensible folk like Willow can be duped. It think it’s just good old prejudice. Humans have this thing implanted into their brains that cats are in league with Satan. Strangely, the same prejudice does not apply to dogs, even though they regularly maul and kill babies and small children. I thought along these lines for a moment, and then I turned and gave Willow a reassuring hug and a nuzzle. Annabella is perfectly safe with me, you know that in your heart, don’t you?



After a few minutes we all slipped out of the bedroom and Faith got ready to leave. They said their goodbyes and kissed by the front door.



“You’re okay Faith, really,” Willow gave the former Slayer an affectionate squeeze.



“You know me,” Faith grinned, her equilibrium restored. “Five by five.”



“I’ve always wondered what you meant by that,” Tara wondered. “Five what by five what?”



“Ha!” Faith exclaimed. “You never saw ‘Aliens’?” Tara and Willow looked at one another and shrugged. “The pilot, she was so cool!”



“Pilot?” Tara and Willow asked together.



“She flies the Marines down onto the planet,” Faith explained. “She says stuff like: ‘rough air, we’re in for some chop’ and they’re like flying through a fricken hurricane.”



“And five by five?” Tara persisted.



“Oh right, yeah; they’re on course, and she says: ‘We’re in the pipe – five by five.’”



“But…she died horribly in the end, didn’t she?” Tara frowned. “They all did.”



“I guess,” Faith shrugged, “but it was her job. Just like being the Slayer.”



“Right,” Willow agreed. And with a final wave and a scratch between the ears for yours truly, Faith was gone.





*Heaton PA, Sage MD. Fatal smothering by a domestic cat.

N Z Med J. 1995 Feb 22;108(994):62-3.

"They fed me behind bars from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera--the Panther-- and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and came away." Rudyard Kipling

[Anonymous]

Wow...this story was great!...great job!

This story was quite the ride...I read it in like one day..I started and couldnt stop..I stayed up all night!

*Whispers:dont tell my mom*