Author:
For: monanotlisa.
Pairing: Buffy/Faith and Angel/Buffy. Setting: Post-"Not Fade Away."
Rating: G.
Request: Buffy, Faith, and the Trans-Siberian Railway.
She caught up with Buffy on the Trans-Siberian Railway, halfway to wherever the hell it went to. ‘Always east,' an old man told her broken English, dotted with hints of his native Russian. She'd been following the flash of blonde hair for far too long.
"We're all hurt," she shouted down the corridor of the train at the figure which stood immobile, looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by. "It's not just you. Dammit, B. It wasn't about you." She walked closer.
"I know." Buffy whipped around. Her face red and puffy as she had been crying, but not today. "But it was Angel."
Faith shook her head at his name. According the brochure she picked up on her way in, Czar Alexander III had drawn up plans for the railroad in 1891, and she thought it was around the same time Angel got his soul. At least, that was what she read in those musty books Giles insisted that she didn't know how to properly handle.
"He didn't call." Buffy bit her lip, making it puff red under her teeth.
Faith snorted. "Andrew. Andrew told him to fuck off and never come back, B. He did call."
Continuing to bite her lip, Buffy looked to the floor. She remained silent, stretching it for minutes. "He didn't call me," she finally said.
"Why don't you come home? There are still people who care about you." Faith focused a moment on the passing scenery, then remembered the time she puked on the merry-go-round when she was five-years-old. Her eyes shifted back to Buffy's face.
"Dawn's gone to college," Buffy answered. "And Andrew… If I ever see him again, he's going where he should've in the first place, jail." Her spine straightened as her head tilted up. "So tell me, Faith, in all your wisdom, what do I have to go back to?"
"Me."