FIC: Ashes06-Ceremony of Innocence

[Mad Hamlet <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>]

Disclaimer: All this belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutan Enemy Inc. (Grrr..arrgh)
The Crow is property of J.O.Barr. 'The Second Coming' is by William Butler
Yeats, he probably owns it but 
what with him being dead... well, suffice it to say, it's not mine. 

Note: This chapter is dedicated to Shyfox. Why? Well, she basically Pre-Reads
for me and does a damn good job. She's essintially my personal spellchecker. I
should feel a bit ashamed at not having an actual spellchecker
but..c'mon...Shyfox is a HELL of a lot more fun! Would you trade? Na-ah,
didn't think so.


Drain Brameged Inc. Proudly Presents
A Mad-Hamlet Production

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all convictions, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert 
A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 
The darkness drops again; but now I know 
That twenty centuries of stony sleep 
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

-Yeats


Ashes, Ashes, They All Fell Down
                  
Part the Sixth
Ceremony of Innocence


The windows were clean and offered, despite only being on the third floor,a
fair view of the rest of the city. In the darkness, with everybody elses
lights on, it looked like an acomplishment. A truimph of mankind over the
world and a safe haven from the elements where they, as a species, could grow
and learn so as to better itself and one day take it's place among the stars.

Of course the city, in brutal reality, wasn't anything of the sort. A haven
yes, but a place where small, scuttling things did gather in the gloom to feed
and be fed upon. Black corners, hidden rooms, and obsurded nests where the
inhabitants did all sorts of things to and for each other that would have
been, had they been witnessed by the light of day, surly been struck down by
the hand of an angry god.

"Yeah. The views pretty nifty ain't it?" Faith said looking over the girls
shoulder as she stared out the window. "It used to suck but the building
across the street finally just collapsed a few months back. Viola, I got mea 
scenic thing to stare at."

She didn't say anything in return, just continued staring out the window.
Seeing the city, hearing the city...tasting the city and therby hating it. 

"Ya sure yer not hungry? Cause I got some leftover Chinese. Junior here
doesn't really go for all those spices." Faith patted her belly.

"No." The girl whispered. "I'm fine. Thanks for asking though."

"S'not a problem Red." Faith replied, collapsing back in her easy chair. 

The brutnette fumbled with the controller for a bit before finding the right
button and the screen flashed to life with a buzz and than the sound of a
laughtrack flooded the room. Shifting in her seat a bit Faith picked up her
coke and took a sip before letting out a contented belch.
After that silence reigned for a few minutes, except for the sounds emited
from the television. 

A girl stood by a window in a broken building that was itself at the edge of
a broken city. She shared that room with the girl who had murdered her and she
had come back herself to murder in return. They had exchanged a few words and
now she looked out the windows while in the background there was laughter from
people who probably hadn't been that entertained when they were first
recorded. Somehow the laughter was appropiate.

People laughing. 

And if they could have seen her they would have really laughed. Everyone
would have laughed if they saw her. Why, if she happened to be on the outside
and someone else in her place, she herself probably would have laughed at
them. A little.

"Caffine isn't good for the baby." She finally muttered. 

"Hell Red, I gave up cigarettes for the parasite. No way in hell am I giving
up my 
coca-cola." Faith snarled. 

"Could cause birth defects though." The girl said. 

"Nah." Faith sneered. "It's part Slayer. Gonna be all tough and rowdy for the
big bad world."

"Ya hear mama in there junior?" Faith shouted, slapping her belly a few
times. "Gonna be rowdy, just like your old lady. Rowdy I tell you!"

"A murderer like it's mother?" She turned around so her back was to the
window and she was not facing the Dark Slayer. 

Faith gaped a little bit. "Is that what this is about Red? Coming back from
the grave to avenge yer 'murder most foul'? Some shit like that?"

A voice from her memories echoed across her mind, she knew what her lover,
her wife, would have said in her place, if she were here and the redhead on
the other side. Her wife would have probably said something along the linesof
: 'No, I came back to catch the latest Icecapedes.' 

"Yes." The girl said simply. "That's what this is about."

Faith grimaced. "Not surprised. Well, if yer expecting me to be all..feeling
bad about slicing you and B up..it's not going to happen."

She didn't say anything.

"So you came back? What for? I doubt to shake my hand and congratulate me on
a job well done." Faith said. "Probably something a little more drastic. You
came back to kill me didn't you."

She again remained silent. Not out of a sense of tact or reluctance, she was
smart enough to know a rhetorical question when she heard it. Her eyes never
left the Slayers.

"Do unto others as they've done unto you? Something like that Red?" Faith
again sneered.
"You think you got the stones for that?"

"I was a girl Faith." She said quietly. "I never had any stones and I still
don't now."

Faith just snorted derisivly. 

"I was a girl in love. With another girl. Odd, or some would lable us as
such. Maybe even strike us with the term 'wrong' or 'deviant'. But that didn't
matter to us. Because we loved each other, and from that love we were even
going to have a baby. A daughter." Her eyes still never wavered from Faiths
who, in turn, refused to look away either. "But you took that away from us."

"Oh spare me." Faith groaned. She broke eye contact by putting the back of
her hand to her forehead, a mimicry of a 'damsel in distress'. "Why O'lord?
Why did this have to happen? This cruelty and chaos, darkness and pain? What
did we do O'Lord?" She snickered. "Is that what this is now Red? The part
where you ask me 'why'?"

"We don't care why." The girl interupted her.

Faith's jaw snapped shut with an audible click but she recovered quickly.
"What's this 'we' shit Red? The 'Royal We' or something?"

The girl took a silent step foward and the Slayer's left hand twitched.
"Where's the knife Faith?"

"Knife?"

"You know what I'm talking about Faith. The Mayor's present to you. The knife
you held to my throat, the knife that Buffy buried into your gut, the knife
you used to stab my wife from behind, the knife you used to slice me open
before reaching inside and tearing my child from my womb, the knife you then
used to slash my jugular and then spent hours using to torture Buffy before
killing her." Her tone was flat, netural, without a hint of passion or rage,
neither rising nor falling as the list of atrocities was spelled out for
Faith, still sitting in her chair; the television still playing.

"Oh." Faith blinked. "That knife. It's in the cupboard of that bookcase over
there." She pointed to a small piece of furniture at the back of the room. 

The redhead moved to step around the chair and Faith moved. Her left hand,
the one that had twitched when the girl had first moved toward her, dove into
the crack between the seat cusion and the armrest and emerged an insant later
with her fingers wrapped around the handle of the very blade of discussion
seconds earlier. The Slayer lurched out of the chair swinging. Faith may have
been pregnant but she was still the Slayer and had the Slayer's gifts. Speed
is only one of them and in this case it was enough.

The Redhead shrieked as white steel again buried itself deep in her flesh and
tore across her abdomen in almost an exact parallel line of the scar she still
bore. Her hands spasmed as actual pain and remembered pain joined forces and
assulted her mind. With a final renching tear Faith pulled the knife free
letting the girl collapse to the floor on her knees, her arms wrapped around
her now rent belly trying to stave off the flow of blood. 

"Well shit." Faith cursed. "It's going to take forever to clean that up.
But..God DAMN Red! God damn, God damn, God DAAAMMMnnnn!" The Slayer licked the
edge of the knife. "Yum. Spicier than I remembered."

She slowly ambled around the stricken Redhead still curled up into a tight,
bloody, ball on the floor. "Fuck me.." Faith murmered. Her breath rasped
between trembling lips and her hand, the one still tightly gripping the knife,
was shaking. 

"Fuck me." She repeated. "I don't see what people have against sequels Red.
As far as I'm concerned this one fucking rocks!"

She idley kicked the Redhead over and watched her convulsing on the foor.
Faith slowly lowered herself down on her knees. 

"Ouch." She said dabbing two fingertips into the spreading crimson pool. "See
that dark stuff Red? Means I got your liver. You're gonna die, probably
slowly..and painfully. But I got an offer for ya, what with the two of us
going way back."

She hunched over till her lips were inches from the girls ear. "If you askme
real nice," She hissed. "I'll finish you off quick."

The girls head whipper around and her eyes blazed fury into Faith's. "No
thanks." She laughed in the Slayer's face. "I think I'll stick around." And
before the startled Slayer could react, the girl smashed her forehead into
Faith's.

With a loud bleating cry Faith reeled back and fell on her ass. The roles
were now reveresed, the redhead standing tall over the other fallen girl. 

"Sequels are actaully pretty good Faith." The Redhead leered down at her. The
black lines on her face emphasising and enhancing the feral void of her grin.
"If the plot differs enough from the original."

She examined the cut across the bottom of her shirt. "Well darn." She
complained. "Tara's gonna be real upset, she let me borrow it and I get it
ruined."

"As I was saying." The girl continued, turning her attention back to Faith.
"Sequals can be quite good, and, as you no doubt have figured out the story
has changed. Whaddya think?" She held up the base of her shirt revealing the
new wound slowly sealing up in the direction it had been adminstered. 

Faith held one hand over her injured nose. "Neat trick Red." She grumbled.
"Nice headbutt too."

"Can I have the knife now?" The girl asked politely, holding out her hand.

"Been around a the block a few times Red." Faith said still holding her nose
with her free hand. "Picked up a few things. Like how everythings connected!"
Her voice rose to a shrill screech when she said 'connected' and she swivled
around and hurled her blade across the room. 

It had landed on the television when she had first entered the apartment,
flown across and taken roost there. It made sense, televisions were usually
warm and it prefered warm places to rest just like anything else.

The knife flew from the Slayer's hand. Faith may have been pregnant, she may
have turned from her duty and become a murderous, twisted mockery of her
destiny. But she was still a slayer and she still had a slayer's strength and
a slayer's eye. 

The knife whipped across the space, end of end, glimmering and reflecting the
gloomy light of the single lamp at the back of the room heading directly for
the large, black bird on the tv. It had just enough time to cock it's head to
the side before the blade struck it's chest dead center, burying itself amid a
flurry of feathers, blood, flesh and bone. 

Or..that is what would have normally happened had it just been an ordinary
bird. But it was not an ordinary bird. It had been old when the stars were
first imagined in the mind of the Watchmaker. It had done It's duty over the a
space of time so great it could not be measured in time, but in terms of
realities. To be attacked in such a base manner and to have one actually think
that such an attack could be actually successful was a gross insult. An
offront to It's position and role in this particular round of creation.
Something terribly offensive that demanded resitution. Or it would have been,
had It actually cared.

Which it didn't.

At most It was rather annoyed. It turned ungainfully on it's feet to examine
the the knife jutting from the wall, cracking the plaster, the end still
vibrating slightly from the force of the impact. It hopped up onto the handle
and stood there looking at the dark hairded girl still sprawled on the floor.
It shook It's head slowly, as if somehow dissapointed. 

It looked down at her, at Faith and saw the slight sheen of moisture well up
in the corners of her eyes. Fear settling in the hollow place at the bottomof
her gut spreading cold fingers to push and probe at nightmares thought safely
tucked away. 

Not anymore.

Faith shook her head rapidly and wiped her eyes as if irritated by the ache
in her nose. "I hate hate headbutts" She sniffed. 

The redhead crossed the room, ignoring the quiet squelch of her boots as they
treked across blood soaked carpeting from her own belly, and pulled the knife
out the wall. She carefully wiped the plaster dust off the blade with the edge
of her shirt and tucked the knife into her jacket pocket. 

Faith, in the meantime had pulled herself back to her feet and sat back down,
wincing, into the large chair decorating the center of the room. 

"You're scared Faith." The Redhead said moving to stand beside the seated
girl. "You should be. You've lost."

"Not going to kill me Red. I know you, you couldn't do what I did to you.
That takes a special kind of twisted and I know you're just not that way."

The Redhead whipped the blade out of her pocket and held it, edge down, so
Faith's own dark eyes were reflected in the hard steel. 

"You knew me Faith." The girl purred. "Past tense." Then she didn't say
anything more, letting the brunnette realise every way those last two words
could be interpreted. 

Still holding the knife in front of the Slayer's face she spoke again,
slowly, her lips and tounge articulating lovingly every last syllable, almost
carressing them. "A riddle for you Faith. 'I have a tongue yet no teeth or
mouth, cut meat yet drink no wine. What am I?'"

"Can you guess for me Faith? Hmm?" The smile on her white dead face grew a
little wider. The Slayer couldn't seem to look away from her own reflected
eyes. She opened her mouth, swallowed, and tried again. "I..I don't know." 

"Oh c'mon Faith." The Redhead whispered. "It's a game. Here's a clue, it's
the only thing you ever loved."

Slowly the the dark haired girl turned her head to look up into the grinning
face of the other. She didn't say anything for a few seconds. The only noise
in the room once more the TV. Now the news was on and the anchorman was
feigning concern as he read about the latest bouts of gang violence plaguing
the perfect city of Los Angeles. 

"A knife." Faith said finally.

"Very good Faith. A knife is the correct answer." And the Redhead turned the
knife and ran the side of the cold metal over the rising swell and exposed
flesh of the Slayers gut. She ignored the shudder that wracked over Faith's
body as well as the gasp that accompanied it. 

She felt nothing. Not a twinge of regret or worry. There was no pleading
voice deep inside her, or even a the slightest questioning of her actions.
Inside there wasn't even pain or rage. She was playing a role, filled with
nothing. Grey, absolute like sheet metal was all she held within, flat and
pitiless, not even the slightest ripple of difference or indifference. Just
actions, reactions and things that had to be done. Even this realization
though, of what she was, caused not the slightest tremor in her hand as it
slid the blade along the rise, over Faith's navel and turning it so the point
now scraped a white line down the other side over her flesh toward her
pelvis.

With a yelp of pain Faith bolted upright and the Redhead yanked the knife
away. 

The Slayer's fingers buried into the soft material of the armrests and tore
away great chunks of the fluffy material. Her muscles stood out in stark
contrast, writhing and shifting under her skin as they became more and more
tense. The lines of her neck bulging. At the same time a large stain spread
slowly around the Slayer's crotch.

The Redhead strolled into the kitched, arms crossed over her chest. "Either
you just peed your pants Faith, or your water just broke. Don't move. I'll be
right back."

***


"Push." The voice was flat and quiet. In no way comforting merely giving an
instruction. 

"Fuck you." Faith snarled. The girl reached around and slapped the Slayer's
cheek. "That's no way for a mother to talk." She chastised. 

The brunnette was stretched out on the floor, on a white sheet. The Redhead
crouched between her spread legs, a blanket and two bowls by her side. 

"Push Faith." Again the command and the Slayer had no choice but to obey, her
teeth grinding together and muscles tensing as her body reacted whether she
wanted it to or not. 

This had been going on for hours. 

The sun had risen and set in the interim and in that time the Redhead had
calmly and methodically prepared. First she had torn the phone out the wallso
they would not be interupted, nor allowing Faith any chance to arrange an
interuption. Than she had carefully and precisly repaired the door, screwing
it back onto it's hinges and, as best she could, repairing the deadbolts.
Those had proven a lost cause and she had settled for propping a chair under
the doorknob. While doing all this she had allowed Faith to go through the
joys of labor. Twisting about in her seat, spitting and cursing as waves of
pain assulted her, feelings as if a giant vice was slowly crushing the bones
in her abdomen yet at the same time forcing something else open. The Redhead
had had to intercept Faith when she tried to stumble across the room to the
kitchen and grab a bottle of whiskey. 

"That's not good for the baby." The Redhead had admonished as she casually
plucked the bottle from Faith's hand and tossed it out the window. Then she
had gone back to getting things ready. After that was completed she had
carried the Slayer to the easy chair as if she were a babe herself and sat her
down then turned up the volume on the television to drown out any sounds that
might attract the neighbors..if there were any. Then pulling up another
wooden one she had sat down to wait.

After the sun had set, a good eight hours since the labor had started, the
Redhead had uncermoniously dumped Faith, who had drifted off into a fitful
sleep, out of her seat and onto the floor. 

Stripping the still groggy Slayer of her pants had proved little trouble.
Faith had not resisted as the Redhead forced her legs apart and examined her.
Maybe she had given up but the girl doubted it. 

"I'm no doctor Faith." She had said. "I wouldn't have minded being given the
chance but you saw to that didn't you?" 

Faith didn't respond just lay with her head back trying to hold back the pain
that had been growing steadily for the last day.

"So all I have is a few books I read in a pique of boredom way back when
but..I'd say you're ready and even if you're not, I'm tired of waiting." The
girl said in a deadpan voice.

And she had said for the first time the word that Faith was quickly growing
to hate. "Push."

It had watched the goings on. Had not interfered in any way merely observed.
Refraining from judgement until later, for now being seemingly content to let
things proceed apace.

"Push. More." The girl commanded in a clipped voice. Taking a deep breath the
Slayer held it and bore down. 

"Good." The Redhead responded in the same flat voice. "Not much longer."

"You're...you're enjoying this arn't you Red." Faith gasped, sweat ran down
her face and pooled in the hollow of her neck. 

"I thought I would Faith." She replied evenly. "Ever since this began I was
filled with such absolute.. hate and rage. Pain too. I was convinced that
somehow seeing you hurting, or at least killing you would ease it, provide a
balm of some sort. Now though, now I feel nothing, am getting nothing..there's
no satisfaction here. This is just something I have to do." She looked up at
the Slayer and her flat, green eyes reflected no light. 

"I believe you." Faith whispered before letting her head fall back to landon
the floor. 

"That's nice." The Redhead said. "Now push."

Faith pushed.


***

"Push again." The girl commanded. 

Faith complied wordlessly and the the baby was expelled from the Slayer's
body with no fanfare or sense of accomplishment. It took in it's first
lungfull of air and began to wail loudly as only a newborne can do. If the
Redhead noticed Faith's hand twitch at the sound of her child she gave no
sign. 
	
"Well, that's that then." The girl said and reached for the knife. 

She carefully lifted it from the bowl of clorox bleach in which it had been
soaking for the last hour, rinsed it off in the hot water and wiped it dry.
Then she carefully cut the umblicical cord before dropping the blade back into
the pot of water.

She picked up a blanket and cleaned off the screaming child as best she was
able. Then taking another one she wrapped it up before handing it to it's
mother. 

"Congratulations Faith." She said in that same, dead voice. "It's a girl."

The silence was palpable, the television having been turned off long ago.
Flat green eyes stared into defiant black ones and between them all a child
screamed. 

"A girl." Faith whispered.

"Yes. A girl. Just like mine, of course yours is alive."

"Good point." Faith said.

The Redhead crouched down next to mother and child and reaching out slowly,
ran the fingers of her left hand through Faith's hair. The grime and oil of
Faith's formerly shining locks coated her fingers but she ignored the feel and
instead pushed the ribbon out of the Slayer's hair letting her curled, tangled
hair fall free. She followed the the hair with her fingers down, down to the
back of Faith's neck and let her fingers linger there, wrapping them slowly,
firmly but in no way that would cause discomfort around the back of the
Slayer's skull.

Faith said nothing.

Reaching out with her right hand she carressed Faith's cheek,
once..twice...and on the third time again her fingers lingered, slipping,
sliding, moved down the contours of the brunnetes face until she gently cupped
Faith's chin in the palm of her right hand.

"Say it Faith." She murmered.

"What?" Faith gasped back.

"I've given you all I can. Say it. Tell her, just once. That's all I can
allow Faith. You have this once chance to tell her Faith how you feel."

They waited.

Faith's eyes glanced down to the child she held to her chest. She had stopped
crying, Faith's daughter, and now her tiny hands fumbled about with Faith's
tank top, as if somehow drawn by instinct to the what lay underneath. Then,
moving steadily Faith's eyes looked at the other girl, holding her head in her
hands. Her eyes stared at the scar tissue visible through the cut in her
shirt, up over her breasts, her neck that Faith remembered her fingers wrapped
around and steel sliding home, to her face. Her white face, pale, like
chiseled marble; the eternal smile of ebony that twisted over and along the
curves of her features accompanied by the black tears, up to those green eyes
with less light in them then when she had watched the Redhead's life drain
away that first time three years ago almost to the day. 

And she chose.

Faith's lips curled up into her trademark smirk and she felt that cold
comfortable slamming of the gate in her mind, locking away weakness, mercy and
fear. She couldn't even feel the hot streaks running down her face anymore.

"At least I got to have my baby Red."

Snap.





Do not cross a storyteller.
A storyteller is, perhaps, the most powerful thing in all of creation.
At their beck and call they have the powers of What Might be, What Could Be,
What Should Be and What Will Be.
All anyone else has is What Is. 
All the pontential versus mere reality. 


-Mad-Hamlet