FF: Stages 3/3

["The Fool" <honouredfool@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Stages 3/3

Disclaimer: Joss owns all character commonly associated with BtVS.

Feedback: Please.

Authour's Notes: I know, I know, this was sort of a long time in coming but I lost it in cyberspace not once but twice. Hurray for Shyfox.

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Chapter 6: Acceptance.

"Don't even think about it." Faith's arm jerked away from her body, the knife switching directions to protect the life it had moments ago been poised to take.

"Willow." Faith rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. "What are you doing here? Where are the others?"

"Their downstairs. I convinced them that it would be best if I talked to you first. You're dad says I have five minutes then he's coming up. "It does matter if you put the Dark itself right in front of me." At least, that what I thought he sounded like." Willow smiled that cute little Willow-half smile she had. "Put the knife down."

"Why? What does it matter Red? She's gone. It's my fault." Faith collapsed into sobs. "It's all my fault."

"It's not your fault." Willow remained on her side of the room. She'd like to think she knew Faith well enough that she knew a hug from her wasn't what she needed right now. "Cordelia did what she thought she had to do. It's no one's fault but that monster's that she died and from what I hear you fixed him good for it."

"Then why don't I feel good?"

"Because she's still gone." Now Willow crossed the room and sat down on Faith's bed. "Come downstairs. They?we all love you. We can help you." She rubbed Faith's thigh. "We'll have a little wake for her. Just like they would in Boston." Willow flashed the dark-haired Slayer another little grin "We'll get out the whiskey, remember the good times."

"Okay. Go back downstairs. Tell them I'll be down in a minute." Willow stood up and turned around to face Faith again.

"Give me the knife."

"Will!" She protested.

"Give." When faced with resolve face Faith had no real choice. She gave. Willow grinned at her and left the room. Faith lay back and waited for him to come in.

"Faith?"

"Hi Daddy." 
"Are you alright baby? Willow had your knife when she came out?" He trailed off. Faith pushed herself off the bed and walked over to wrap her arms around Owen's waist.

"Don't worry Daddy, that's over now. Come on let's go downstairs." She led her father out the door and headed down the stairs.

****

Joyce was just setting down a tray of glasses to go with the whiskey that Giles had produced from no where when her doorbell rang. "Who could that be? Everyone we know is here."

"Angel?" Xander suggested.

"No, not yet." Owen answered him cryptically.

"Let me get it Mom" Buffy pulled herself off the couch she and Willow had settled into and headed to the door. Upon opening it she found herself face to face with Cordelia's ghost, only it was about thirty years older than Cordelia had been. "Cor--"

"No dear, I'm Cordelia's mother, Helena." Buffy had noticed the pain in this woman's eyes at the mention of her daughter.

"Please, come in. We were just sitting down for a drink. Cordelia was a good friend of all of ours in high school." Cordelia's mother came into the living room and looked around at the saddened, apprehensive faces there. Buffy gestured her to a spot on the couch beside Willow.

"It's alright. I know who most of you are." The looks turned from saddened and apprehensive to quite scared. "It's alright I won't tell anyone, I just want to understand."

"How?" Giles either couldn't or didn't want to finish.

"Apparently just before she came she left a letter with a lawyer here in town that was supposed to be delivered to her father and I if she died under "mysterious" circumstances. In it she explained about the vampires and the demons and all the stuff you people have to deal with. I-I remember the year Cordelia graduated from high school, the monsters at the ceremony." She smiled ruefully. "I managed to convince myself it was terrorists- that I had been hallucinating." Mrs. Chase paused again and looked around the room at a half dozen glistening pairs of eyes until she settled on Faith. "You must be her, you're Faith." It was more a statement than a question but Faith felt obliged to answer her.

"Yeah, I'm Faith."

"Come here. Let me have a look at you." Faith stood up and crossed the room to kneel before Mrs. Chase. "You're very pretty."

"Thank you ma'am." Faith winced as Mrs. Chase placed her hand on the wounded upper arm.

"Are you hurt?" There was genuine concern in her voice.

"Not much." Faith took a deep breath. "I killed it. That thing that killed her? I destroyed it." She blurted out quickly. "It was my fault she died but I killed it." Mrs. Chase gently brushed tears from Faith's cheeks.

"She knew you would baby doll. Now what's this nonsense about it being your fault?" Sensing the beginnings of a deeply personal conversation between these two women Joyce quietly stood up and led the others from the room.

"I wasn't here. When she died." Faith let out a gasping sob. "I could've stopped it. Could've saved her."

"Faith, how did my little girl really die?" Faith laid her head on the other woman's lap. She was so regal looking, yet at the same time so very tender. //Just like Cordelia.//

"This vampire, Talos, he kidnapped Willow. He was trying to mess up this prophecy, trying to seize power for himself or something. Anyway it pushed Buffy over the edge, cause every time she falls in love with someone something really bad happens. And Angel and Wesley were gone and my dad had to go to talk to the Powers That Be and Xander came looking for me. So when Cordelia had a vision of where Willow was there was no one around for her to send." Faith choked back tears again. "So she went herself. And he caught her. A-a-and he k-k-killed her." Faith buried her face in her hands.

"And where were you during all this?" Mrs. Chase gently stroked Faith's hair,

"I was hiding. In the woods." She burst into tears again. "I was trying to figure out if I really loved her."

"So you think it's your fault that she was killed. Because you weren't here to protect her?" Mrs. Chase gently took Faith's chin and turning the young Slayer's up to meet her own began to explain to her, "It's not your fault honey. You may not have been here to protect her from this Talos but you were still doing your best. There's more than one kind of pain Faith, there's the physical kind and then there's the pain that goes straight to your soul. Sometimes physical pain can kill us and sometimes, the other kind? We wish it could kill us. Because our hearts hurt so badly. But it can't baby, it just keeps hurting and hurting. That's the pain you were trying to protect Cordelia from, so you were doing your job after all."

"But she died. Something I was supposed to protect her from forever killed her."

"Cordelia knew the risks when she got into this Faith. She said in her letter that given the choice she would always choose to put her life on the line for others because that's what you did every night and you know how much she liked to look second best." Mother and lover smiled at the thought. Mrs. Chase reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope Faith recognized as coming from Cordelia's stationary desk. "She wanted me to give you this if you were still alive when she died." Faith took the envelope and stood up.

"Thanks Mrs. Chase. I-I'm gonna take this upstairs. Do you?" 
Mrs. Chase cut her off. "I'll talk to the others. We'll reminisce some?maybe I'll have a drink. And a good cry." She turned to leave then turned back. "Oh and Faith?" she smiled a small smile, "Call me Helena, Mrs. Chase is my mother's name." She turned and walked out.

****

My dearest Faith, 
If you're reading this then that means I'm dead. I don't know what happened to me (or what's going to happen to me. God this is weird.) Anyway, I do know this?STOP BLAMING YOURSELF! It wasn't your fault. I know you'd do anything to keep me safe so if anything it was probably my fault, I probably went off and did something stupid. This isn't the point though. The point is:

I LOVE YOU!

I love you so much. Wherever I am now I can tell you all I'm doing is sitting around loving you, and missing you. Which doesn't mean you should be in a hurry to join me wherever I am! If you do I'll be really pissed! Anyway, that's it. I love you baby and I know we'll be together again someday.


Love C. XXX

PS. I found this poem- It made me think of you. I want you to read it over my grave at my funeral. Which you will go to, I don't care if people see you cry.

C.


Faith lay silently on the bed she had never gotten a chance to share with Cordelia clutching the now tear stained letter. She could hear the others downstairs trying to laugh away the pain. Feeling no desire to join them and not wanting anyone to hear her cry she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow and wept herself to sleep.

****

Buffy and Willow lay silently embracing in Buffy's old bedroom.

"Hey Wills you still awake?"

"Yeah. What's the matter?"

//I'm sorry I let them take you. I'm sorry you had to watch her die.//

//I know Buffy. It wasn't your fault. I know the risks of being with you.// Willow began to cover her lover in little tiny kisses. //I missed being in your arms.//

//I missed having you here.//

//I love you Buffy.//

//I love you too Willow.//

//Buffy?//

//Yes my love?//

//Will you marry me?//

****

Faith stood in front of the mirror checking to make sure everything was in the right place. She had borrowed the dress from the collection Cordelia had brought with her. She didn't own any dresses but she didn't want Cordelia's mom to think she was a bum. The dress had practically burned against her skin the first time she had put it on and looked at herself in the mirror. //She would've looked so much better.// Faith had decided to forgo her traditional amount of mascara too. She knew she would cry today and she didn't want to Cordelia to get mad at her for letting her make up run.

"Faith?" Owen stuck his head through the door. "Come on, the car is here." 
Earlier this morning Mrs. Chase //Helena// Faith silently corrected herself, had called the funeral home and directed them to send the car that was to pick her up at her apartment to pick her up at the Summers' residence instead. Then she had insisted that they all ride with her, claiming that "You've been more of a family to her than I have since high school." How could anyone refuse that? Faith took one more look in the mirror before turning to go downstairs. 
"Let's go." Arm and arm father and daughter descended the stairs to meet the others waiting on the front porch.

As they walked on to the porch it occurred to Faith that she had never seen any of her friends wearing sunglasses before and she wondered where the heck they had all got them. Then her dad tapped her on the arm. 
"Should I even ask?" she asked him as he handed her a pair of sunglasses that suited her perfectly.

"Not if you don't want to know the answer." He smiled at her enigmatically. "Let's go to church." With that he turned and led the way down to the waiting limousine and held open the door. Faith took Mrs. Chase, who looked decidedly more upset than when she arrived yesterday, by the arm and supported her as they walked towards the car. The sound of soft tears filled Faith's ears as they walked, just as the real thing filled her eyes.

****

The service was very beautiful, exactly the way that Cordelia would have wanted it. At least this was the general consensus.

"That was beautiful Mr. Roberts, thank you so much for taking care of the arrangements for me." Mrs. Chase told the old man as they walked towards Cordelia's final resting-place.

"Sadly when you've lived as long as I have in my line of work you have the opportunity to plan many funerals. After awhile it becomes just like planning a picnic." He took her hand and gave it a tight squeeze as he smiled regretfully, "Only at a picnic no one ever cries." They came to a halt in beside the coffin Cordelia was lying in. The minister began his final duties.

"Almighty God we ask that you bless the soul of our sister, Cordelia, as we return her body to the earth from which it came." He took a little canister out of his pocket and made a cross of white sand over her coffin muttering the time-honored phrase, "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust."

"Amen." The mourners responded. The ceremony concluded many began streaming towards their cars until only a few members of Cordelia's family and the Scoobs were left. Faith stepped forward to speak. 
"Hi. I know most of you from the times we've met in L.A. and everything but for those of you who don't know, my name is Faith and I love Cordelia. Before she died she wrote a letter that was supposed to be delivered to me in the event that she died." Faith stopped to gather her thoughts. "Well despite my best efforts to avoid it, it was given to me last night. C put this poem in that she wanted me to read to her because she felt it expressed our love better than she ever could. So here it is."


"I loved you first: but afterwards your love, 
Out soaring mine, sang such a loftier song 
As drowned the friendly cooing of my dove. 
Which owes the other most? My love was long, 
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong; I loved and guessed at you, you construed me 
And loved me for what might or might not be- 
Way, weights and measures do us both a wrong. 
For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine'; 
With separate 'I' and 'thou' free love has done, For one is both and both are one in love: 
Rich love knows nought of 'thine that is not mine'; Both have the strength and both the length there of, 
Both of us, of the love which makes us one."


Faith barely managed to finish before she once again collapsed into tears at the loss of her love. As her friends looked on in something akin to terror Faith fell to pieces, crying, screaming in pain and rage, throwing herself at the foot of Cordelia's grave. As they lowered her coffin into the hole. Buffy had to hold her friend back from jumping in with it. Faith began to actually wail as the undertakers began to toss dirt over the coffin. The Scoobs closed ranks around Faith as she continued to keen, her wails subsiding to plaintive whimpering. 
"She's gone! Oh B she's gone!" Faith moaned into Buffy's shoulder.

"I know Faith, I know." Buffy began to slowly guide her back to the limousine. "Come Faith, let's go home."

"I can't leave her here. Buffy, I can't leave her here all alone." The whimpering began to build into wails again. "I can't leave her." Faith broke away and ran back to the now closed grave and threw herself down on it. "I won't leave her!" 
"Leave her here." Willow said quietly from behind dark glasses. "She just needs to be alone with her for a while. Let her have that." Buffy and Xander turned to Willow and looked at her questioningly. "I know I would." Giles and Joyce came up behind them.

"Willow's right." Giles told them. "It's what anyone of us would want. I'm sure she'll come along when she's good and ready."

"Someone should stay with her though." Joyce pointed out.

"I will." Xander's face was a mask of stoicism. "I'll do it."

"Well then let's the rest of us get on to the house. Helena's going to come back with us." Joyce told them. "It appears we've picked up another family member."

The shattered Scoobs gathered themselves together, retrieved Mrs. Chase from a band of relatives and taking one last look at Cordelia's grave began to walk towards the car.

"Hey," Buffy had just realized something. "where's Owen?"

"He left as soon as the funeral ended." Mrs. Chase began. "Said he had something to do." A black look crossed Buffy's face.

"It had better be." She growled.

****

//Then you agree?//

//Of course I agree. I would've agreed with the bargaining, I just wanted my cloak back.//

//You're a bad, bad god Yahweh.//

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So there it is. I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know when the next part is going to follow because school just restarted and very soon my time will be monopolized reading the wisdom of dead white guys. Thanks for reading 


HonouredFool I

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