#gychallenge3

Cora was screaming from the other end of the living room; she was only six years old at the time. Laura had a large comb embedded in her sister’s dark brown hair.

“This is why you should have stayed away from the forest.” Laura said in a frustrated tone.

Derek peeled at the pages of his math book; one by one, without looking at the contents. His eyes were glued on his sisters.

A piece of paper in his lap rustled; a breeze flew in from the living room window. Derek planted his palm smack in the center of the paper, holding it in place.

“I wanted to play with the other kids.” Cora’s voice caught his attention. He looked up; she was watching him curiously with the glimmer of tears in the corners of her eyes. Laura tugged harder, pulling Cora’s head back and a squeal echoed through the house. Derek covered his ears.

Within seconds, his mother entered from the kitchen, a dish towel in between her hands.

“She’s pulling my hair!” Cora screeched.

“Am not.” Laura responded.

Without saying a word, their mother set the towel on the dining room table and crossed the room. She quickly glanced at Derek, a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She sat down neatly in front of her daughters and retrieved the comb from Laura’s hand and began to brush Cora’s hair gently.

Derek peered over at the three women, a smile spreading across his face.

The memory faded and soon, he was alone in his loft with only Cora sitting on the other side of the room. Her nose was buried in her laptop; the laptop Derek had bought her to keep her entertained. She still whined like the day Laura had brushed the knots from her hair, over ten years ago but he didn’t mind. He had never minded much because those were his sisters, his family.

He returned his gaze to the book in his lap, not noticing that Cora had looked up from the computer screen.

“Why were you staring at me?”

Derek didn’t look up. He flipped the page of his book and stared at the sentences without reading them.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not what I asked, Derek.” His eyebrow arched and he looked up to her; she was crossing the room to sit by his side on the sofa. Her body weight shifted the seat cushions and pulled him closer to her. His shoulder pressed against her arm.

“You had this look.” She started. Cora adjusted next to him and draped her arm across the back of the sofa.

“You actually looked…I don’t know, human.” Her voice flooded with sarcasm. The hint of a smirk was spreading across her face.

Derek placed a bookmark into the crease of his book and laid it on the sofa next to him. He didn’t say anything for a long time; he focused his attention on Cora’s hand. The way it was resting comfortably on Derek’s knee. He shook his head after a while and looked over at her.

             “You get the Watcher. You get the mom. You get the little Scooby gang. What do I get?”

                         Everything that meant anything, everyone that cared about anyone… all for Buffy. Like she was the snow on a mountain or something. Beautiful and pure, didn’t have to work to get so high. Didn’t have to think about everything she covered, everybody who suffered through the winters and storms in her wake.

        Faith had watched Buffy tread on her friends, use men, kill without a second thought and the world forgave her. Heck, they lined up to take their turn telling the mighty Buffy Summers how freaking sorry they were that their bad old heads scratched the bottom of her feet. She could do no wrong and everybody ended up paying for her bad choices. Forgiveness, compassion, understanding… these were things Buffy was owed without owing them in return.

                   ----------------- Buffy was right there for the whole thing. Faith had played it over in her mind a thousand times. They were fighting… Buffy was throwing her vampires. Throw – stake… throw – stake… Why was Faith to blame for that? She’d heard about Ted, heard about the little Justice League buckling down immediately to try and figure out how killing Joyce’s boyfriend wasn’t Buffy’s fault. Where were they when she needed them?

                   No, Faith… that’s not how it went down. Can’t let that in. No matter how it looked Faith had learned to pull back from the black and white and not let the aching feeling that she was the negative to Buffy’s photo cloud her judgment. She couldn’t think that way, wouldn’t let herself fall back into the mindset of a victim.

                                                        They had a job to do, and nobody got anything done living in a grief-soaked fantasy. The harsh realities were that whatever Buffy had done that mirrored Faith, the reason that exceptions were made for her sister Slayer was because she deserved them. She earned them by being a selfless friend, through bravery and kindness. Faith wasn’t stupid. She knew herself well enough to know the real reason things ended so badly for her.

                      "Ever occur to you, Faith, that the reason we forgot you is because we wanted to?"

              Something had to give, and that something was Faith. The world doesn’t care, and it won’t stop for you just because you didn’t get all the hugs you wanted back when you could stand to be touched. This stuff kicked you in the ass but you keep walking, keep climbing.  Keep your head down and stop whining.

                                  Only so many times you can trample a blade of grass before it stops springing back up, right? But it was always there… right under the surface. Like that slime from Ghostbusters… You know, down there running through the cities veins. Poisoning them from the inside. Making them angry, scared…