Isolation

Time is such a relative commodity. At points in our lives seconds can seem to last forever. At others the weeks disappear into a blur.

She looks at her watch. Why? In a place like this the time is told by the passing of the sun. Its gentle rhythm ticking over to the pounding of the waves on the shore. Those waves, those stunning waves, so powerful and mesmeric, defining such a lonely spot. The spray washes the freezing ocean waters into her face, reminding her that she is still alive.

There was a time when this had been a bustling little settlement, a fishing village of fifty souls, but that was over fifty years ago. As the boats got bigger the crews got smaller until the boats were too big to dock there. The locals abandoned it to the elements. The buildings had rotted away, collapsed or been burnt to the ground. Even the lighthouse, the community's last link to the sea, had lost its keepers to the automated age. Now it stood out in the bay looking back on a community of three buildings and one lonely soul.

She had come here to escape her past. To stop the death and destruction that had marked out much of her short life. Now though it was all she could think about. Memories of the times she killed for fun. The disappointments and agonies she had caused to the few people she could say in her life who had wanted to be her friends. The remorse she felt on realising that what she had done was wrong and the years she had let herself be punished for it. She thought of the prison she would, should still have been in if her friends had not tipped her off about the danger to her life and the fact that she would have welcomed such a death if it had not been for them still needing her help. She remembers returning to them, their understandable trepidation, nervousness and anxiety in her presence, yet how they had slowly accepted her back. She had killed again to protect them and all that they had held dear. She thought of the failures that had cost some of them their lives and destroyed the place that they called home, and yet had brought them closer. She thought of Robin, the man she had loved, the man who had made it all worth while, the man who, for his own safety, she had regrettably left behind. What haunted her most though was the thought that she had started to enjoy the kill again. That, amongst all her reasons for fleeing her past, was why she was here in this desolate spot.

The screech of a gull overhead distracted her from her thoughts. She sweeps the hair from her face and the tears from her eyes. She has missed them all, but knows in her heart that she will never see them again. How can they trust her now? Even when she had done and been everything they had wanted it had ended badly. She turns toward the house she now calls home, its white walls and deeply tilted roof beckoning her forth.

The phone in her pocket rings. A brief thought on the wonders of satellite technology crosses her mind, then the question of who would want to call her here.

“Hello Faith.” Says Giles

Rating: U (UK)
Timeline/Spoiler warning: Note this is set after the end of the final series of Buffy and is not affected by final series Angel
Acknowledgements: To the makers of Buffy who created Faith, Robin and Giles, great show. No breach of the copyright is intended, just a non-profitable loan.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters in this story are the property of the production company. No copyright infringement is intended by the author, who receives no monetary benefit from this work. The ideas expressed here are original. All rights reserved.