Fic: The End of the World. Again. (Buffy/Angel)

Title: The End of the World. Again.
Author: deifire
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Faith/Robin, Faith/Buffy, Faith/Spike, Faith/other(s)...
Warnings: Apocalypse Just Post-Season Seven Buffy-ish. Character death.
Recipient: wal_lace
Request: Nuclear war. Faith. Xander taking charge.
Summary: It was the end they never saw coming.



The End of the World. Again.

The First Days After

To be honest, Faith hadn’t been paying much attention before it happened. Not to who’d started it or why or what if anything their suddenly large army of Slayerettes might have possibly done to stop it. She was vaguely aware of an increase in the number of high intensity political discussions and TVs turned to CNN that week, but she’d been busy searching out and dusting a nest of vamps near San Francisco, dealing with that incident with the Polgara Demon, and, oh yeah, teaching a couple hundred newly minted Slayers which end of the pointy stick goes in the bad guy. And somewhere in there was the night at the cabin with Robin and some much needed R&R. Or whatever the cool kids were calling it in the days before everything blew.

So, yeah. She imagines the late Richard Wilkins would have a lot to say in a very-disappointed-in-you tone of voice about her lack of interest in current events, but the fact was they’d had their own war to fight. She just never imagined, until she heard the panicked voice of Xander on the radio calling everyone who could make it to get to shelter now that they’d been fighting the wrong one.

She and Robin barely made it back to the abandoned Initiative base they'd been using as a temporary HQ on time. In fact, they interrupted Buffy in the middle of an impassioned speech to the volunteers about to attempt the rescue mission.

And then…well, boom.

The Apocalypse they never saw coming.

***

It turns out there are advantages to being part of an army in the days following nuclear Armageddon. They’ve got food, weapons, a well-fortified home base, and it seems that Slayer healing ability really comes in handy against radiation sickness. Which is very much of the good, as one of the first things they find themselves without is a witch.

Wicca is another one of those things to which Faith never paid much attention, but she does get the basics of what’s going on with Wills. Seems if a good deal of your magical strength and power comes directly from the Earth itself, and the Earth itself suddenly gets all scorchy and radioactive…well, what happens to you next isn’t pretty.

Giles might have known what to do, but Giles was over in Europe investigating reports of newly empowered Slayers when it all went down, and they never do hear from him again. They’re still surviving in the days sans Willow, still holding it together, but team morale is at an all time low.

And then the Hellmouths start to blow.

***

One Year After

Faith misses sleep. She’s spent almost every day since the end of the world hungry, horny and exhausted. Food and sex she can take care of, but sleep doesn’t come so easy anymore. She made Robin move across the hall after the nightmare during which she accidentally kicked him out of bed and almost through the wall. He understands.

Oh, yeah. She and Principal Hot Guy are still going strong, which surprises her a lot more than the world getting nuked did. Surprises her even more when he catches her with a twenty-year-old blonde Slayer one night after patrol.

If Faith was being completely honest with herself, she might admit that she was sort of trying for an excuse to end things where they stood. Then again, if Faith was being completely honest with herself, she’d have to admit just how much the girl looked like a slightly younger and fuller-figured version of B, and Faith just wasn’t gonna go there. At any rate, it hadn’t so much worked out that way with the ending things. Seems what Faith and Robin Wood have is an open sort of thing, and they’re both adults and cool with it. Besides, there’s way too much else to worry about right now.

Multiple Hellmouths, multiple post-apocalyptic mini-apocalypses. Luckily, a few thousand more extra Slayers. Untrained and unseasoned for the most part, but they're why what’s left of the world has yet to be overrun by demons, though according to Xander’s intel there are a few place like what used to be Cleveland, Florida, Kitchner/Waterloo, and a couple of towns in South and Central America that have been temporarily ceded to the forces of darkness. Also, something big may or may not have gone down in L.A. that’s got Buffy all uptight and everyone worried about Angel.

In the meantime, there’s the normal, regular, everyday tenfold increase in vampire and demon activity to deal with. Damn, she didn’t think there’d be this much going on with the vamps still. Seems they like radiation just about as much as they like sunlight, which sort of cut down on their sheer numbers in the days following the big boom. But with the food supply running low and underground territory suddenly at a premium, vampire/human conflict is pretty much bigger and badder than ever. Also, it seems there are things out there in demonland that actually thrive on fallout. Who knew?

Fight. Slay. Eat. Screw. Live to fight another day. It’s a life.

But Faith still misses sleep.

***

Two Years After

It wasn’t an entirely stupid plan, all told. If Watcher Junior had bothered to let anybody in on it, someone might have been able to point out the fatal flaw. Maybe. They’re a bit short on spellcaster knowledge these days. Also, it remains that nobody had ever bothered to ask Dawnie what she was up to.

When Dawn began scouting out the remains of libraries and collecting old books, when she began spending more time alone and studying, they all assumed it was her own adolescent way of helping out and coping and decided to leave her alone. At least, that was Buffy’s call and the care and feeding of Dawn Summers stuff was pretty much Buffy’s deal.

What they didn’t think about--what Faith still had a hard time believing even after Andrew had tried to explain it multiple times with charts, graphs, and different-colored dry erase markers--was that Dawn had once been a Key. Some sort of mystical whatever with the power to open doors between dimensions before some monks had changed her into Buffy’s sister and somehow retconned everyone's memories so that it had always been what was. Or something. Anyway, Dawn had once held the power to open gateways between worlds, and was it entirely impossible to imagine she could harness it and do so again? And perhaps find, not a Hell sort of place, but a liveable world the powers that be hadn’t blown all to hell?

Not an entirely stupid plan, really

They don’t know what went wrong--if it was the wrong spell, or Dawn’s power, or simply the way magic seems to have gone bad in this world--but there was nothing left. Not even anything to clean up. Just a scream, and a flash of light from the general direction of Dawn’s room, and by the time anybody got there, no more Dawn. Ever.

Buffy walks around in a daze most days. Oh, she’ll still fight, still scout for food and supplies, and can still command an enormous amount of respect as Slayer Numero Uno when she absolutely has to, but she’s not quite in the game anymore. Faith finds herself taking over more of the day-to-day running of things with Xander the One-Eyed Watcher, and if you think that isn’t awkward at times, well...

Kennedy can pretty much be counted on as a mission leader (though you have to make sure Vi’s not on her team nowdays, or else they tend to snuggle during briefings), and so can Rona, but Rona’s pregnant and about to be temporarily out of action soon. It’s the first known kid of the post-nuclear, post-multiple-Chosen-Ones age, and everybody’s excited. It’s also surprising when Faith thinks about it. There’s been an awful lot of action of the boy/Slayer kind going down--not just between Rona and her fiancé--and Faith's pretty sure that given the circumstances, not everyone’s been After School Special safe. It can't be a Slayer thing. Slayers can make babies same as anyone else, assuming they live long enough to get knocked up and through the nine months after. She had living proof of that handcuffed to her headboard last night, as a matter of fact. Xander thinks it might be a radiation thing. Faith wonders if it’ll go away. She wonders if it’s another thing she should be worried about.

Nah.

***

Three Years After

Robin was less understanding about Spike.

Oh, Faith was sure they might have been cool eventually if only they could have talked about it. But what do you say? "Sorry about boning the guy who killed your mom and all, but it wasn't really about him. Or me. See, it was sort of a stupid, fucked up way of mourning the woman we'll both always be in love with. That's okay, right? We're five by five?"

Yeah. Not going to happen. She and Robin tried to make it work in abscence of actual words, but just found themselves drifting further apart until the night Robin announced he was leaving, taking a team to fight the good fight elsewhere in what remained of America.

Spike left not long after, too. Part of it was some sort of guilt for not being there to prevent Buffy from finally checking out for good and real, but most of it was the stress of being the sort of souled creature to whom everyone else smells a little too delicious now that the take-out food supply of the sort provided by blood banks and butcher shops has dried up.

Faith was relieved.

She might have tried Xander next, could almost believe he would have understood exactly, but part of their being able to work together well enough to keep everyone alive involves never, ever bringing up or attempting to re-enact that night in Sunnydale.

The worst part was it wasn’t even anything epic that eventually took out the woman everyone still thinks of as The Slayer. Just an ordinary vamp having one real good night.

Still, Xander gives a rousing speech to the troops at the funeral, and they fight on like they always have. They’re becoming a regular community now, with Slayers, ordinary humans, and the occasional non-blood-drinking, non-people-eating good demon. Rona’s daughter is the oldest of three healthy baby girls now, and the world is moving on.

And then the rumors start.

***
Four Years After

Rogue Slayers. She supposed she should have seen it coming. Give people sudden, unexplained superpowers and blow their world out from under them, and don’t be surprised if some of them try to take over what’s left of it.

Still, it feels weird to lose her status as the Bad Slayer. Though her own walk on the dark side never got anywhere near as nasty as some of the stuff she’s been seeing lately. Despots on power trips backed up by Slayer power. Slayers who hunt anything for sport. Slayers literally driven out of their minds.

Faith deals with them. Hell, she’s taken out Slayers before.

The big rumor is that a sect calling themselves the Daughters of Lilah have taken over Los Angeles. Andrew thinks the name has to do with someone misreading a Biblical myth, but Xander’s sure this one has Wolfram and Hart written all over it. Faith’s inclined to agree with Cyclops there. This one is going to be huge.

***

Five Years After

They took back Los Angeles.

They never did find Angel, or anybody who had reliable info on what happened to him. There were rumors, of course. There always are.

Faith hooked up with a blue haired chick named Illyria for a while. The sort of woman with enough stamina and imagination to almost make you forget the way she sometimes looked at you like you were some sort of strange, yet fascinating species of bug.

Then there was Renee, Kate, Sam, Jewel, James, and a couple more she can’t quite remember. Also, that night at Kennedy and Vi’s when they sampled their first attempt at moonshine. She’s gotta stop things like that. People are looking up to her now, and the rumor mill gets a little awkward when you're In-Charge Chick.

After two miscarriages, Rona finally gives birth to a healthy baby boy who survives for approximately a week and a half.

At the funeral, his distraught older sister punches the wall. Or, more accurately, punches through the wall.

Mini Slayers. A whole new and exciting problem.

***

Six Years After

Faith takes her axe and leaves town. She doesn’t get very far, just moves into an old outpost a few miles away from the rest of the rebirth of civilization, where they still send Slayers and ordinary humans who want to fight the good fight to her for training.

She doesn’t object to the slow rebuilding of normal, it’s just making her a little claustrophobic, especially now that everyone’s pairing up, having kids, and making regular little post-nuclear families. Yet somehow they still look up to her and Xander as everyone’s Mommy and Daddy, and Faith never signed on for that. She needs some time to herself. To patrol and hunt and kill alone, and enjoy the least possible amount of responsibility.

Xander still stops by from time to time and brings news. It seems the human race has retaken Cleveland. Their newly elected mayor? Robin Wood.

"Good on him," Faith says, and is happy.

***

Some-teen or So Years After

Faith finds the first white hair. Slayer healing, it seems, doesn't keep you from getting old. She wonders if they ever knew that before, and ponders the absolute weirdness of possibly being the first Slayer in the history of every one who ever Slayed to get to worry about grey hair and wrinkles.

She still looks younger than Xander, though she has to admit the silvering of the hair around his temples combined with the eye patch actually makes him look kind of hot. She's listening to him give her the latest news from New Slayer Central, and she's not quite sure what to make of it.

"So it’s not just us?" Faith says.

"Well, I don’t exactly have contact with the entire world," says Xander. "But all the reports I’m getting confirm it."

"You think it was the spell?"

"Maybe," says Xander. "Maybe something went wrong. Maybe this is what’s it’s supposed to be doing, somehow giving humanity more protection against the forces in the days we really need it. Maybe it’s just that more Slayers survived the war, and this is a normal Slayer thing that we never found out about before..."

"Sort of a long way from 'one girl in all the world', huh?"

"Yep. Andrew figures it’s about six Slayers for every normal human kid, male or female, that reaches the age of five."

"So we get more than our fair share of hot chicks with superpowers. What's the bad?"

"Well, it's..." Xander looks a lot younger when he blushes. "Let me put it this way, when a man and a Slayer fall in lust, there's usually the sweaty part and then sometimes, nine months later, baby. Now when a Slayer and a Slayer fall in lust, again there can be said sweaty part...often a highly athletic and super-flexible version thereof...but..."

Faith considers. "Damn," she says. "You're talking a whole world full of Slayers and no way to make more?"

"Not unless there's a sudden, unexpected change in basic reproductive biology. Which I wouldn't entirely rule out, given all the fun new weirdness we seem to encounter each and every year. Also, like I said, it might just be a temporary effect of the war or Willow's spell..."

"But if not?"

"If not, the human race has a serious problem in another few generations."

Faith sighs, puts her head in her hands. She misses the days when the major threat to life as they knew it had fangs and claws and would die when you cut its head off.

"Hey, it'll be okay," say Xander, suddenly all concern-face. "And if not, it's not the worst way to be doomed..."

Faith shrugs, smiles. "Yeah, it’ll work itself out," she says at last, and puts a hand on Xander's shoulder.

And, hey, if it doesn’t, it’s only the end of the world again. And they’ve lived through that before.