TRAPPED - PT. 2 (OR - FIRST WORD, JAIL…)
In the middle of a meadow, full of birds chirping, flowers, a bright
sun shown down on a large apple tree. There wasn't a
single flaw on the bark, all the leaves were a light green, and
the apples were the image of perfection. Large, bright red, almost too
good to be true.
Running into the meadow, came two females. A blonde and a brunette.
They came in, playfully tackling each other to the
ground. They rolled in the grass kissing, running hands through
hair, laughing. Stopping eventually, they ended up on their
backs, heads facing the tree.
"Whoa." Buffy said in awe.
"Yeah. Too bad it's off limits." Faith said.
Buffy got up and started walking towards it. "What do you mean?"
"It's not for us." Faith said, moving to catch up.
"Who else is going to use it?" Buffy looked up at the tree. "Isn't
it beautiful?"
"It really is." Faith sighed in agreement. Just wasn't something
they were meant to have. She knew that.
But Buffy didn't let that stop her. As she was walking around the
tree, a few apples fell off, landing at her feet. She picked
one up and turned it around in her hand, staring at it admiringly.
"Faith, look at this!"
The younger slayer went to stand beside her girlfriend and lover,
and looked at the apple she held in hands.
On the apple, an image was playing out. It was a scene. A wedding
on a tropical island. Faith and Buffy stood side by side,
barefoot on a sandy beach as they slipped rings on each other's
fingers.
Faith looked away. "That's a nice dream."
"Who says that's all it has to be?" Buffy picked another apple up
and handed it to Faith. "Here. What's yours?"
Faith looked at the apple, and then handed it off to Buffy quickly.
"Doesn't matter."
The blonde stared at it, eyes widening in surprise. "Faith…I…had
no idea."
"Just something…forget it. There's a reason why things are called dreams, B. Usually can't get 'em."
"I don't believe that." She gave Faith back the apple, and she still held hers in her hand. "I'll go for it if you will."
"I'm telling you…we'll just get -"
"At least we'll know we tried."
Faith closed her eyes. She wanted to do so much. She couldn't resist
going after it. The two slayers bit into the apples. They
were definitely sweet. Weren't all dreams?
Then, dropping down out of the tree, came a two-headed snake.
It coiled itself around the girls' wrists, bonding them
together. Both ends of the snake sank their fangs into their flesh,
and they cried out.
The next thing they knew, the snake had transformed into a pair of handcuffs, and the dropped apples began to rot.
They woke up simultaneously in their cell, Buffy's head resting on
Faith's shoulder. The first thing they noticed was a visitor standing on
the other side of the bars.
"I understand that you're in need of representation." Lindsey McDonald
stated.
***
Angel entered his home looking distraught, and Raziel picked up on
that immediately.
"What has happened?" Raziel asked.
"They've been arrested." Angel answered quietly, with controlled anger.
"Credit must be given to Kain, then. He's made sure my resources to
get to him are limited."
"They're not resources." Angel said sharply.
"Forgive me. People. Whatever you wish to call them, he has made sure
they don't interfere either."
"Until we can…"
"This changes things. I see that."
Raziel had some thinking to do, and he felt himself beginning to weaken.
He hadn't eaten, and his hunger was growing.
***
"They wouldn't even let me see her. I'm her mother, for God's sake."
Joyce said to Giles, in his home.
It had been two days since Buffy and Faith were arrested and imprisoned.
The gang was paralyzed. They couldn't do anything. The
police were dead set on isolating the two slayers from everyone and
everything. They hadn't come forward with any evidence to
charge them with, and they'd have to soon, or Buffy and Faith would
be released. The fact that the cops were waiting so long, either meant
they had nothing, or they had a lot and were just trying to put it
together.
"The reason they aren't allowing you to see her, is because morals
and ethics don't apply in this town. Especially where Buffy and
Faith are concerned. This is all tied in with the Mayor and Wolfram
and Hart. It has to be."
"Why don't they just face Buffy and Faith head on?"
"Because they could easily defeat most anything thrown at them, and
this way, and Angel says the vampire's name is Kain, does not
implicate himself or the firm."
"How can they fight the law?"
"That's the point. The courtroom is Wolfram and Hart's battleground,
and once they get in there…"
"We have to do something. You, Willow and Xander can't fight forever.
And I know I can't."
"Angel was going to come here with Raziel," Giles said the latter vampire's
name with a substantial amount of bitterness, "but I asked
him to put that on hold until we can figure something out. It's too
much of a risk to complicate things right now. We need them out of jail,
I
just haven't the faintest idea what to do."
***
Buffy and Faith sat on one side of a long metal table, each cuffed
to a leg of it, and Lindsey sat on the other side. The room was bare except
for the table and the three chairs they were all sitting on. There was
a two-way mirror on the far wall, and Faith looked toward it suspiciously.
Lindsey saw her. "This is a private meeting."
Faith looked at Buffy, and then back at him. "Really? So if we wanted
to, say," She snapped her chain, as did Buffy, and flipped the
table over. Lindsey jumped back, nearly crushing his briefcase. "Come
over there and break your neck, nobody would know?"
Three cops burst into the room, trying to fumble for their guns.
"Good call." Buffy said, impressed.
"What can I say? I'm perceptive." Faith turned to Lindsey. "Now, are
you going to play nice? Cause we already got screwed over by
your people once. You really think we're gonna let it happen again?"
Lindsey nodded to the three officers for them to leave. They moved
for more sets of handcuffs, but he shook his head, and they
backed out of the room, shutting and locking the metal door behind
them.
Buffy started to lift the table back up. "Now, where were we?"
"He was gonna say how he planned to defend us." Faith said, taking
her seat once more.
"But from what? They haven't charged us, and if they don't, we get
let go. It's that forty-eight hour thing."
"The reason why you haven't been charged, is because I've delayed it."
Lindsey picked his briefcase up off the floor, and sat it on the
table. "They've got numerous charges which they are more than willing
to press, and all of which will stick. But that's up to you."
Faith's _expression_ of toughness faltered somewhat. "Do tell."
"Where do you want me to start? Robbery? Evading arrest? Assaulting
law enforcement? Or shall we skip right to murder?"
Faith flinched.
"They can't -" Buffy began to protest.
"Oh, they will. Miss Summers, they have been waiting a long time to
get you behind bars, as I've come to learn. And with the local
police department's aggressive new polices, I can assure you that they
will pull out all the stops."
Buffy closed her eyes and laid her head on the table. Faith's hand
found hers, and it squeezed tightly.
"Now, as for you, Miss Adams, you didn't appear to have any record
whatsoever on file, I'm told. You don't exist, according to the
computer system."
"Then why am I here?" Faith thought. "Oh. Nevermind. I'm looking at
the reason." She glared at him.
"Thinking about extending our sentence? I can't see how that would
help." He paused, and began to open up his briefcase. "As I was
going to say, the police don't have files on you, but Richard Wilkins
did. Very extensive ones on the two, of you, actually. Damaging
as well.
"Mayor Treden has lumped you in as part of the old, corrupt administration,
and I could probably use blackmail as a defense.
Coercion. Against your will…"
"But?" Buffy prodded.
"There's one piece of evidence that could either destroy both your
chances, or help them tremendously, depending on how it's used."
"Stop stringing us along." Faith hissed.
Lindsey reached into his briefcase and grabbed a small tape recorder.
He rewound the tape inside for a few seconds, and then he hit
play.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been…well, I've never
confessed before, but there's a first time for everything, right?"
Faith's voice said off the tape.
The slayers were in a shocked silence.
"There certainly is, isn't there?" Lindsey said.
***
"This is all messy." Willow said to Xander, walking through the Restfield
cemetery.
They were trying to do their honorary slaying duty, seeing as their
slayer friends weren't in a position to.
"That's the understatement of the century, Will." Xander quipped.
"But…jail? Who would have thought jail?" She asked in her patented,
worry mode.
"I know it's hard to believe, being a Hellmouth and all, but this is
reality. In reality, when you have a record like Buffy's and however
they got Faith's, you go to jail. It'd be nice if we were a TV show
where such pesky details were ignored…"
"But we're not."
"Nope."
"Right." Willow turned to him. "How come you're calm guy?"
"No, this is 'panicked pretending to be freaked' guy. Especially cause
of the vamp, oh about, directly in front of us."
Willow realized what he was saying and without missing a beat, closed
her eyes and said a few soft words. The vampire tried to
attack, but he couldn't move. He was frozen in place. Xander lunged
forward and staked it.
They looked around cautiously.
"So what are we going to do?" The redhead asked. "Xander, no." She added
quickly, in her most authoritative voice.
"What?"
"Whatever you may be thinking…don't."
"Gotcha. No thinking. So…where's your other half?"
"Huh?" Willow thought. "Oh. With your girlfriend. What's going on with
her anyway?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. She won't talk to me." He froze.
"You don't think they're - nah."
"Tara and -?" Her worry began to increase, and her face scrunched.
"No. I mean…no. Of course not."
"Anya wouldn't…good. Glad that's settled." Xander said quickly.
They continued to walk; however a little more preoccupied.
***
"You have no idea what it's like." Anya said sharply to Tara in the blonde's dorm room. "Inflicting vengeance for a millennium and then
suddenly being human and feeling...bad."
"Why do you have to be so mean?" Tara asked.
"Mean?"
"I might not know much about you…but you…you don't know anything about
me either."
"I guess this is the part where you're going to tell me and I should
pretend to be interested." Anya sighed.
"If you don't want to talk, why are you here?" The ex-demon didn't
answer. "My great, great grandmother was a…a demon. She
knew magick."
"So you've got a little demonic blood in you. Wow." Anya said sarcastically.
"You don't know how hard it is to grow up knowing that your ancestors
were demons and they killed people. My great, great
grandmother…slept with a human, killed him and gave birth to my grandmother.
She was a half-breed, so my great, great
grandmother didn't want anything to do with her. But she couldn't kill
her own child."
"You never killed anybody," She pointed her finger at Tara, "so don't
-"
Tara started to choke on her words. "I had to watch them die. My family
died because they were considered tainted by the spirit of
our ancestors. They sacrificed themselves for me. It's not the same
thing, but it still hurts."
Anya seemed to study and scrutinize the blonde's body, eyebrows raised.
"This is really me. Magick is just like…built into me, but for the
most…I'm human. I heal a little quicker...sometimes."
"She doesn't know."
"Not all of it." Tara said softly. "She doesn't know about the demon…p…part."
"Aha!"
"This isn't about…" She trailed off. She wasn't going to allow herself
to become sidetracked. "Xander knows you were a demon, he
knows you've hurt people and he still loves you."
"What do you expect me to do?"
"You're human now. Not a vengeance demon. Not a killer. Pray for those
people you killed, apologize, and move on. He's already
helping you. Try and put his help to good use."
"Like what? A job? I don't think so."
Tara sighed helplessly.
***
Giles stumbled into Willy's Place at around nine. Willow and Xander
had checked in a half and hour before, to let he and Joyce know
that they were all right. Soon after, he had taken off in his car,
and had ended up here. Now, he shakily sat on one of the stools by the
bar. Strangely enough, it was empty. Except for Willy, of course.
"No customers tonight?" He asked in a slurred tone, suggesting that
he had had a little alcohol beforehand.
"Ever since…hey, you look familiar."
"Because I'm a drunk loser? You must get a lot of people like me."
Giles answered, his eyes downcast.
"Actually, I don't get many people in here."
"What then?"
"Come on, buddy. There isn't anybody in this town who don't know about demons."
"I just figured I was seeing things. Everything's falling apart. You
know? My girlfriend's gone, I let some friends down, I let down her
mother…I'm a failure."
"I'm sure things'll get better."
"Always look on the bright side of life…" He began to sing the old
Monty Python tune. "I'm sorry. You were saying something about
no customers?"
"Well," Willy started nervously, "ever since the slayers got put behind
bars all the regulars have been otherwise occupied. Know what
I mean? Slayers?"
He looked at Willy like he thought the man was nuts. "Right. How about
a drink?"
"You sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure. Bloody moron." Willy got out a shot glass and
set it on the counter. He poured Giles a shot of tequila. "So what
are these incarcerated 'slayers' names?"
"Buffy. And the other one is Faith."
"Yes. I read about it in the paper. Do you think they'll be gone for
awhile? The cops won't say anything."
"You kidding? Those lawyers have it covered."
"Lawyers?"
"Out of town guys. Wolfram and Hart. You know."
Giles downed the drink, and felt his throat burn. "Really?" He slammed
the glass down and pointed at its emptiness.
Willy poured again. "They've got a confession from the one."
Giles' eyes widened. "Buffy confessed?"
"No." Willy shook his head. "The other one."
"I find that hard…I find that…um…" He looked to Willy for help.
"To believe?"
He shook his finger at Willy. "That's it. How do you know all this?"
Willy looked around conspiratorially. The guy wasn't going to say anything.
He wouldn't even remember it the next morning. "How
much ya got?"
Giles reached into his pocket and fumbled with his wallet, trying to
retrieve it. It fell on the floor. He stared at it for a second, and then
as he reached down to grab it, he hit the floor and giggled drunkenly.
"Whoops."
"You all right?" Willy asked coming over to Giles and kneeling down.
"Just…wonderful." He laughed again, and grabbed his wallet, spilling bills onto the floor. "How much do you want?"
Willy, taking advantage of Giles' inebriated state, grabbed all the cash off the floor. There was at least five hundred. "This'll do."
Giles struggled to sit up. "You were saying…something."
Willy leaned in close, and whispered. "She went to confess at the church on Manor Street, and they set up a recorder…"
Giles listened as explained everything. "And you went and retrieved this for them?"
"Let's just say I'll be doing some redecorating."
"I should -" His eyes darkened, and looked a little less glazed over then they had before.
Then, running into the bar, came Joyce. The two men looked up at her,
and she worriedly rushed to Giles' side. "There you are,
Rupert! I think we should get you home now." She looked at Willy. "Thank
you for watching out for him."
Willy quickly got to his feet. "Yeah…no problem." Joyce helped Giles up, and they started for the door. "Drive safe!"
When the two of them got outside and into the car, Joyce in the driver's seat, she turned to Giles who sat across from her.
"Well?"
He reached inside his jacket, pulled out the mini-tape recorder he had hidden, and grinned. "Moron."
***
"I'm screwed." Faith said the next morning to Buffy.
The blonde got off her rock-hard bed/cot/wood plank on the other side
of their cell, and walked over to Faith's. "Scoot over." The
brunette sat up, and Buffy sat beside her. "We're in this together.
If you're screwed, I'm scr…wait. That doesn't sound right, does it?"
"If we were anywhere else it would sound pretty damn good." Faith got
up and began to pace. "There's no reason we both have to go
down. I could work a deal. Do your time and mine, and -"
"Stop right there. Forget everything else, okay? Either we both get
out or we both stay in. Besides, you confessed to a priest. They
can't use that."
"All they have to do is come up with a story and edit the tape, B."
"Fine. So we both get the black and white stripes. I won't let you
take the fall."
Faith smiled sadly. "I knew you were going to say that. This is what
happens. I knew it." She turned away.
Buffy got up and walked around in front of her. "What's happening?"
"Love messes with your head and you can't see straight. There's other
things to think about. One of us has to be out there, and it's
better you than me."
"I'm not convinced."
"Did you forget about Raziel and all that? Your…our friends? You gonna
leave 'em to fend for themselves? And you got college goin'
for ya, B. Everything."
"So do you!" Buffy practically screamed. How could Faith not see that?
"All I've got is you. And I thought that would be enough, but…I've...things
have changed. Caught up with me. Maybe this is the best
thing for me."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'm not gonna let you."
Faith pulled Buffy into a tight embrace, and then kissed her. More
tenderly and lovingly than she ever had. Both slayers got an eerie
feeling that this was last time they'd ever share a moment like this.
Faith stopped, and whispered in her lover's ear.
"Too late."
As she said that, a guard unlocked their cell, and entered. He pulled
Faith back, away from Buffy. "Summers, you're free to go."
"What did you do, Faith?" Buffy asked.
"Go, B. Please."
"No." Tears were streaming down her face. "I can't believe you -"
"Damn it, Buffy! Leave!"
Buffy flinched. "I'll get you out. You know that, right?"
Faith looked down at her feet. The guard directed Buffy to go down
the hallway. When Buffy was out of sight, he pulled Faith up, handcuffed
her, and then they walked down the other direction, and out a back door.
In the alley, a limousine's back door was open, and the officer pushed
Faith in.
"Welcome aboard." Lindsey said to her inside.
***
"We're going." Angel said to Raziel.
"I thought -"
"I can't wait anymore."
Raziel got up off the floor of Angel's home, and walked up to the younger
vampire.
He was shaking. "For once…you and I are in…agreement."
"What are you -?" Angel's eyes went wide.
"I'm sorry. But it has to be done."
Raziel shoved his clawed hand into Angel's chest, and a green light
began to come from his mouth. Angel dropped to his knees, and
he began to be fed off of. Raziel felt himself getting stronger. Soon,
he would be sated, and he would reclaim his weapon.
***
Buffy entered Giles' home about twenty minutes later, to find everyone
there. Except Anya. They all saw her, and rushed over, giving
her hugs. After the initial shock and welcoming, the questioning began.
Buffy sat on the couch, Willow and Tara next to her.
"How did you get out?" Xander asked. "You didn't -"
Buffy was shaking, rubbing her hands together. "No…no. Faith…uh…"
"Where is she?" Joyce asked.
"I can't…"
"Oh no." Willow said quietly.
Giles walked over to his table, and picked up his tape recorder. "Damn."
Buffy looked up. "What's that?"
"It's not important." He said softly.
"Tell me, Giles."
He cleared his throat. "It was a confession from Willy. I was going
to go call Angel and tell him to get in touch with Wolfram and Hart.
In the hopes that they would…get you released."
"Because they'd be afraid of getting accused of…" Buffy ran her hands
through her hair. "If she had waited just a few more…"
She slammed her fist into the coffee table, breaking it in half. Tara
and Willow cautiously reached for her, and when Buffy began to
cry, they enveloped her in a hug. Xander stared down at his friend,
and felt his anger level rise.
Not saying a word to anyone, he stormed from the house.
--
"I wanna set the record straight. I thought the cop was a prostitute."
(Homer J. Simpson)
"You think you know? What's to come? What you are? You haven't even
begun."
(Tara to Buffy, BTVS)
"Since when is there a cowboy in 'Death of a Salesman' anyway?" (Willow,
BTVS)