The F in Pike (Book 3.5) (girlxgirl)

Memory Gaps

I can't let this end badly.

My head turns as I think I see something out of the corner of my eye but it just ends up being Faith not far from where I'm standing.

Things always seem to end badly. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, they just never seem to end well. But it doesn't have to be that way this time. We still have time to change things. She doesn't have to go down this path. I can get her to see that things don't have to be this way.

I look towards Faith who is a few feet away, her focus trained on any sign that Dawn might be nearby.

Or at least, one of us will. I'm honestly not sure which one of us will get it done. We aren't exactly in Dawn's good graces at the moment with the way things went when she disappeared. She's hurt, emotionally speaking, and I can't say I blame her. We betrayed her, or at least she thinks we did. We made one of her worst fears a reality and she found out about it in probably the worst way.

I go back to looking out for Dawn.

Not that either of us had any intention of it happening that way. We didn't plan on betraying her at all. If not for whatever spell we're under, it wouldn't have happened. Now all we have to do is get her to see that and maybe everything will work out. There's still a chance that it can workout. She wouldn't feel hurt if she didn't still care on some level. It might be buried under all the anger and resentment she's feeling right now but even that is proof that there's still a chance.

People who don't care, don't get angry or resentful or feel betrayed. If there's one thing that I learned from all the insanity and destruction that we went through after Tara died, it's that. Even someone like Willow with all that she'd been through could be pulled back from the brink and learn to feel again. Dawn's still got a chance. I know she does.

Again my focus turns back to Faith.

And if anyone knows how to come back from the brink, it's Faith. She knows what it's like to walk right up to the edge of the cliff and not jump. She knows what it's like to dance on that line and enjoy it. I know she can pull Dawn back from this. There's no way she's stopping until Dawn realizes just what a mistake she's making.

My focus shifts to Connor who is a few feet away himself.

And I'm guessing that Connor isn't going to give up either. He's got a lot of his father in him. He really seems to want to do good in the world. Angel never gave up on Faith, even when I wanted to, and I don't get the impression that Connor's going to give up on Dawn. He's had multiple opportunities to walk away if he wanted to and he didn't. That shows real character. The kind of character that his father has in spades.

We come up on a building and suddenly Connor stops. That makes me freeze in my tracks and raise a hand towards Faith, who also stops and looks our way.

"What is it?"

"We're in the right place."

"You're sure?"

Faith makes her way over to us as Connor closes the distance between me and him.

"Her scent just suddenly picks up here. I'm guessing that whatever she did, it brought her here."

"Guess we were right to start here eh B? She did come back to her dorm room."

I kinda just tilt my head at her.

"Guess so. Any idea if she's still here?"

He looks around in a couple directions before settling on the second floor of the dorm.