Scar Tissue
Author's note: Missing scene from "Touched", right after the whole... you know... the everybody-but-Andrew-gets-laid bit.
Faith flopped back onto the pillow, panting as she came down. "Oh, damn. I needed that."
"No kidding?" Robin grinned, starting to catch his breath again. "I think I pulled something."
"Sorry, but... Three years, man. Things get built up."
"And there go my fantasies of what goes on in women's prisons", Robin sighed.
She chuckled. "Hey, I ain't knockin' it, I mean it's obviously working out for Red..." The walls weren't all that thick, and as busy as they'd been they couldn't help but notice they weren't the only ones looking for some release. "It just wasn't for me. Spent most of my time in solitary, if you know what I mean."
Robin hadn't known Faith for long, but it felt good to hear her laugh; he had a feeling she hadn't done that either in a while. The relaxed smile looked good on her – a little too good, maybe. It reminded him how young she was... well, that and the fact that she was lying naked next to him and didn't seem at all embarrassed about it; the way she talked – and the way she'd just done some things to him that definitely weren't in the beginner's manual – he had almost forgotten that he had about 10 years on her, and he didn't consider himself very old. He couldn't help wondering how she'd gotten here, what had happened to -
"See anything you like?" There was an amused tone to her voice and Robin realized his eyes had been wandering a little too obviously, but she didn't seem to mind. Then everything happened very quickly. One second she was lying next to him and he was partly covered with a sheet, the next the sheet was halfway across the room and she was straddling his legs. When he tried to move she playfully pinned him down like he didn't weigh anything. "Uh-uh-uh. Fair's fair, you got your peek, my turn." She sat back, grinning, giving him a thorough appraisal in the faint light of the lamp on the bedside table. "Not bad. You work out? That’s a nasty one you got there, though."
He followed her gaze down past his stomach, not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult, until he realized she was talking about the ugly scar across his thigh. "Yeah. A vampire almost took my leg off with a crowbar once. Not all of us have Slayer strength to fall back on."
"Oh, hey, don't forget the super healing. Without that I'd have one or five of those myself."
Of course, even in this light, he could tell that a life as a fighter had left her with a few scratches. Most had healed so well they looked like she'd had them for a lot longer than she could possibly have been a Slayer, but there were a few that seemed newer. A bitewound on her neck that was sure to leave a mark, and...
"And this one?" He ran his finger over a jagged scar on her otherwise flawless stomach.
"Oh... yeah. That one." Faith grimaced as she let him go and lay back down on her side of the bed, looking down at the scar as if she had forgotten it. "Little present from Buffy. Never healed right for some reason, guess I'm stuck with it. Been meanin' to blame the doctors for that, guess they were too busy trying to keep me from croaking to make it look good."
Robin started and looked up at her. "Buffy did that?"
"Yep. Came into my home with a big-ass knife and stuck it in my belly. My big-ass knife, come to think of it. Put me in a coma for eight months." She shrugged, trying to sound like it wasn't a big deal. "Guess I had it coming."
"Wait, let me get this straight. We're talking about Buffy Summers, right?" Robin still felt like he was playing catch-up.
"Well, yeah, how many Buffys do you know?"
Robin frowned. For all his conflicts with Buffy, he had never really doubted her intentions. "I guess I just thought the Slayer was supposed to be the good guy."
"Oh, she is. It's me who wasn't." When he still didn't seem convinced, Faith rolled her eyes. "Look, it's real simple. Buffy was right, I was wrong. Slayers stop monsters, I needed stopping, she did her job. End of story. Besides, everything healed alright. Water under the bridge. And just because you ended the longest dry spell since I hit puberty don't give you the right to..."
OK; that was it; Robin was officially creeped out. "You’re not a monster, Faith."
"Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that lately", she muttered.
"How old were you?"
"Jesus! What does that..." She got up from the bed and seemed like she was going to just leave him there, before realizing she couldn't very well go running around the crowded house buck naked. She turned back. "OK, so I was seventeen. So what? Old enough to be tried as an adult."
"So you're a kid, you're the Slayer, you've got a huge responsibility and you lose track of the mission." He shook his head. "Believe me, there are worse things that could happen."
"Lose track of...? I killed people!"
"Yeah, but you're still here. Do you know how many Slayers get a second chance?"
"Man, for a high school teacher, you sure seem to think you know a lot about Sla..." Her face fell as an idea seemed to hit her. "Oh no. No. Please don't tell me I just fucked a Watcher."
And so he told her how he had come to know about Slayers, how it had shaped his entire life, and why he was here in Sunnydale right now.
At first, she just stared at him. Then she flopped back on the bed with a hollow laugh. "Your mother? Oh yeah, that's what every girl wants to hear right afterwards. Jesus CHRIST, dude, you got issues."
"Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that lately." Robin nodded thoughtfully. "But at least they're mine. I don't know everything about you, but I do know this: if you keep thinking of yourself as just a Slayer or just a killer or Buffy's... evil twin, it's gonna eat you up inside. I think there's more to you than that. And sooner or later you're going to have to trust -"
That one struck a nerve. The laughter stopped. In one movement, Faith was up on her knees leaning over him and staring him down, making sure there wasn't any part of her he couldn't see. "You're right – you don't know shit about me, motherfucker! 'Inside'? Hey, you been in there and I don't recall any complaints. If all you wanted was another poke you shoulda just said so, I had enough of shrinks in jail."
"Faith, that's not what I..." For a second he thought he'd pushed too far; they both knew she could beat him up without even breaking a sweat, and trust – obviously not something she was used to. Two people who had had to grow up way too fast stared at each other.
Finally she looked away and got up to get the bedsheet. "Look, I'm sorry, it's just... it's late and we've got a big mission in a few hours. I just need to get some sleep." She slumped back onto the bed, pulling the cover over her and then quickly turning around again when he grabbed half of it. "And just what do you think you're doing?"
"Uh... late, big mission, sleep...?"
"Here?!?"
"Well... I suppose I could go downstairs and find somewhere else to crash, of course I'd probably wake up some of the girls you're supposed to lead into battle tomorrow, but..."
She sighed and seemed to gauge the size of the bed before turning her back to him again. "Fine, whatever. Just stay on your side, OK?"
"You're the boss."
It seemed there was some trouble with Buffy's mattress, though, since when he woke up a few minutes before she did, they had both drifted towards the middle and she was curled up right next to him.
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