Faith-in-Buffy and Buffy-in-Faith have a confrontation

"Oh no, you don't," said Faith. "I didn't come all this way for nothing."

"Go away, Faith," said B's voice from inside the house. "I don't want to see you right now."

"But I wanna see you."

"Why? You got your ****. Why not be satisfied with that and take off?"

"Wait!" said Faith. "All that screaming you used to do about me stealing your body and now that I'm here to return it, you don't want it back?"

"Yes, I don't want it -- now," said B. "Seventeen years ago, that might have been a different story. But I've changed since then. So go away!"

The last thing Faith wanted right then was to go away so she went ahead and **** her way into the house, literally pushing her way past the locked kitchen door with her still considerable Slayer strength. Now that she had more than a glimpse of B in her body, she could not help noticing that her own body had changed. It was heavier now -- not necessarily fat but not as toned as the body she had known in her younger years. Her breasts seemed bigger and saggier, not from surgery but from the changes brought about by multiple pregnancies. There were wrinkles in Faith's face that did not used to be there; worry lines and crow's feet and -- God, what has B done with it all these years? Had she no sense of responsibility at all?

"You should not have come here," said Buffy-in-Faith, an angry tone in her voice.

"Why?" said Faith-in-Buffy. "I thought this was what you wanted all those years ago."

"And if you had switched back all those years ago, I would have been happy. But now is different. You wouldn't be doing me much of a favor switching back now, Faith. I've gotten used to your body. And this face -- the one you used to be so proud of -- that's the only face my three children know. Even if I wanted to switch back now, there is no way I could ever deprive them of the only mother's face they had ever known. They would think of me as a stranger -- and frankly, I love my kids too much to put them through all that."

"What about me?" asked Faith. "What about my needs?"

"You had your chance, Faith. My late mother would have gladly treated you like a third daughter if you had let her -- but you never did. I don't blame you for being so picky after the thing with the Evil Watcher but Gwendolyn Post has been dead for years. You can't keep acting like everyone you meet in the world is going to turn out to be exactly like her."

"But, B --" Faith started to say.

Then she said, "Wait? Third daughter? Don't you mean second daughter?"

"Oh, right. You never met Dawn. My younger sister. She's been a big help to me when Riley's away on business. And she was a bigger help when I was expecting. Granted, she still squeals a bit much -- even at her age. And she's still a bit of hair-puller. But she's okay -- for a little sister."

For the first time in ages, Faith felt cold in a way that could not be explained by mere nudity. Joyce had had another daughter -- a daughter that could have been her. But no, Faith already had a mother. A mother who got drunk and passed out and who always needed to be protected from abusive ex-husbands and boyfriends. Faith never got the chance to have a mother like B's mother. The closest she got was her Watcher Gwendolyn Post -- and what a disaster that had been.

"I'm sorry, Faith," B was saying, "but you have to leave. My children will be home from school any minute now and I really don't want you here when they arrive."

"Well, I'm not leaving," said Faith, and with that, she whipped out the Draconian Katra and tried to place it in B's hand.

However, B still had a remnant of Slayer strength that she used to slap it out of Faith's hand before it could make contact with her. The artifact fell to the kitchen floor, only to be kicked under the refrigerator by an angry B.

"God damn it, B!" cried Faith. "You could have broken that thing."

"You broke the original," said B. "Why do you care?"

It was then that Faith lost it. One moment she was looking at her own face; the next moment, she was **** her own throat.

No, she was **** B's throat. It just happened to look like her own throat because B was still in Faith's old body. And she wouldn't give it back. She wouldn't give it back. She wouldn't give it back. She wouldn't give--

"You leave my mother alone!" said a young girlish voice from behind.

Then Faith-in-Buffy felt a kick to her lower back that could only be made by a possessor of Slayer strength. But that meant the child had be at least sixteen. And surely B's oldest kid wasn't that old.

As Faith-in-Buffy let go of Buffy-in-Faith and turned to confront her would-be attacker, she saw that the child was indeed that old. But that wasn't the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise was the way the child had her face. The same face Faith had had in her old body when she was sixteen.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the young girl with Faith's face.

Buffy-in-Faith just smiled at the girl. "Buffy, this is your Aunt Buffy. The one you were named after. As you can tell, she's a bit eccentric and she has obvious anger issues. But it's okay now. I'll don't think she'll be bothering Mommy anymore."

Then Buffy-in-Faith reached under her refrigerator and retrieved the Draconian Katra. She threw it at Faith and said, "Go!" which Faith did, without a word, not even bothering to retrieve her clothes from the back porch.

B had lied, of course. Faith wasn't the girl's aunt. And it would only make sense that she would have wanted to name her oldest daughter after herself like most mothers do.

And it made even greater sense that such a child would want to protect its mother. God knows Faith's own mother wasn't perfect and yet Faith always felt compelled to protect her. So apparently it runs in the family, so to speak.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt like running. So she did run until finally she came to the bank of a large river.

She glanced at the Draconian Katra, now crumbled and broken, and threw it as far as she could into the river.

Then she sat down, naked, on the bank of the river, and stared at the setting sun until at last the land was covered with darkness.

After all this time, she thought, B had finally gotten the last word.

No, worse yet, she thought. B's daughter -- the one that looked like Faith -- had gotten the last word.

And for the first time in her life, Faith had no idea what to do next.