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Chapter 5: Act V

Author's Notes: Hey guys! Thanks for reading Episode 3! It's been *fabulous*. Keeping the Faith will return on February 12th, or possibly very very early in the morning on February 13th, for our next exciting installment! Please feedback your authors and tip your waiters. See you then!

Faith checks her phone as she takes the stairs out of the subway station two at a time, swearing under her breath. She pauses at the top to get her bearings—it’s becoming easier and easier every time she does it—and starts to head toward Rubi’s, moving in an easy lope that she could keep up for miles. The pretentious coffee shops of Tribeca fade away into the night life of Greenwich Village, the high-class awnings giving way to neon signs and a throbbing, pulsing bassline, almost below Faith’s range of hearing.

She checks the phone again as she pauses outside the bar, the digits reading 7:48 in the early evening light. To the west the sun is starting to set, tendrils of pink and orange reaching back to the east. She takes a breath, muttering a silent prayer as her fingers touch the small silver cross at her neck. Finally she reaches out, the metal of the doorknob cool and solid against the palm of her hand as she pulls the door open and steps into the darkness.

The bar is starting to get into the swing of the evening, and rock music flows through the PA. A few couples are starting to dance, and the stools near the bar are mostly occupied. Faith lets her eyes wander, surfing the booths and quiet tables near the back before she makes her way to the bar. The fluttering in the pit of her stomach is an old friend, the same thing she feels before a battle, her body preparing itself for the unknown. She has to force down the urge to take a fighting stance, but her motions are fluid and almost predatory.

“Relax, Lehane,” she mutters as her feet cross the room almost against her will. “It’s just a bar. I’m sure it can’t be that bad.” Then she’s ducking under the wooden flap at the end of the bar and it’s game on. She puts a sultry smile on her lips, her body language apathetic, letting her voice sit husky and low as she approaches her fellow bartender.

“Sup, Fal?” she says, throwing her hair over one shoulder with the flick of her neck, her rouged lips peeling back into a smile.

“Where’ve you been?” Fallon asks, her eyes flickering away from the drink she’s pouring only for a moment. “You were supposed to be here almost an hour ago.” Her voice betrays only a hint of annoyance. She finishes pouring the beer and hands it over to a patron, who smiles and nods.

Faith shrugs. “Sorry. Hadta go to a concert, watch my friend sing. Totally forgot about it.” She indicates the slowly-building crowd with a tilt of her head. “Not bad for a Wednesday,” she says casually.

“Faith? It’s Thursday. College night.”

“Oh.” Her stomach flips a little bit. “Um. Baptism by fire, then, huh?”

“Yyyep,” Fallon quips, adjusting her hat, a few spikes of blue hair falling against her forehead under the brim. “It’s sink or swim time. You up for it?”

“Hey, man, throw me to the wolves. It’s only bartending. How bad can it be?” she asks rhetorically, leaning one hip up against the inside of the bar. It touches something sticky as Fallon throws her head back, laughing from the gut. Faith grimaces, although the outward expression is fleeting. A hand reaches across the bar, tapping her on the shoulder; she has to resist the urge to whirl and twist the offending extremity and twist it until it breaks. Instead she turns, casual as she can pull off.

“Yeah?” she says easily, cocking a hip. It’s in confidence, not disdain, and she throws in a smile to make sure.

“Hi,” says the attractive young black woman whose hand was tapping on her shoulder. “Can I get a Mai Tai for me, and a Twisted Margaret for my girl over there?” She nods her head toward a pretty redhead down the bar; Faith recognizes her as the girl who was dancing with her most of her first night here. “Oh, and, uh, make hers dirty,” the customer says, leaning in conspiratorially and fanning her face with a twenty. Faith smirks as she leans forward, eyeing the Twisted Margaret, who seems glad of the attention.

“Check. One Mai Tai, one dirty Twisted Margaret, coming right up.” She pauses, though, eyes flickering to the space under the sink. It’s suspiciously vacant, and she swears silently before insinuating herself over to Fallon, tapping the shorter woman on the shoulder.

“Uh, Fal?” she says awkwardly, the other tender almost ignoring her, “Help?”

~*~*~*~

Aislen wraps her coat around herself just a little tighter as she stands outside the door to Helen’s apartment, the brown-eyed soprano fumbling with her keys. Aislen’s whole body feels wired and drained all at once, exhaustion mediated by the intermittent thrills of energy still running through her. The dress is drafty, her thighs unused to being exposed, and the September evening is chillier than usual, with a coolness that pervades even the air inside. She shifts her feet awkwardly, trying to generate some warmth and mostly failing.

Finally Helen gets the door open, and she precedes Aislen into the apartment, tossing her jacket haphazardly over the back of a chair. Aislen steps into the cramped living room, whose far wall doubles as the kitchen, a stove and refrigerator separated by a small stretch of counter and kitchen sink. The walls of the apartment have been painted the softest, subtlest shade of blue, with one wall hand-painted with a mural of birds in flight. They seem to wheel and call, wings extending to the sea, to the heavens. Aislen’s hand reaches out to touch them, her eyes closing as her fingertips brush over the smooth paint.

“They’re beautiful,” she says softly, her eyelids fluttering open. She gets no reply, and her head turns to where Helen had been standing; Aislen is alone in the living room, the open door in the back corner the only exit aside from the front door and bathroom. She wanders back, peering into the solitary bedroom. Helen has a suitcase open on the bed; she’s filling it, dumping clothing from her dresser into the dark blue case haphazardly, almost randomly.

“You’re leaving?” she asks quietly, leaning against the doorway. Helen laughs.

“Aren’t you?”

“No. Well, um. Maybe. Someday.” She pauses. “Not tonight.”

Helen stops, a pale blue dress in one hand. “Neither am I. I’m leaving first thing in the morning, on the first train that gets me not-here.” She shoves the shirt into the suitcase.

“But… why?” Helen stops again, coming around the other side of the bed to look the younger girl up and down.

“Where did you grow up?” she asks gently. Aislen shrugs, nervously.

“Kansas City.”

Helen nods, sitting on the corner of the bed, distant look in her eye. “I grew up in a town called Plattekill, Tennessee,” she says quietly. “My mother was the manager in a tiny department store. My father owned the local bakery. In good years he made just enough to break even. In bad years…” She shakes her head.

“Plattekill had nothing for me. Absolutely nothing except a church choir and a part-time job getting up before dawn to help my dad bake bread. We were the only Chinese family for three counties.”

“So what happened?”

“I ran away,” Helen says, corner of her mouth quirking up. “I left a note and ran to New York when I was seventeen. Auditioned for Juilliard. Got in. Got a scholarship. I needed more than a town that could be brushed off the map with a fingertip.” She laughs bitterly, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m thinking maybe I should have stayed in Tennessee.”

“Will you stop?”

“Stop?” Helen asks, confused.

“Singing.”

“Oh, Aislen,” she says, smiling sweetly, as the tears begin to flow, “there’s nothing left to sing. He took my song,” she says, nearly choking on the words. “He took everything I had.”

Helen laughs again, the trill sound bordering on mania. She gets herself under control after only a moment; to Aislen, uncomfortable and confused, it feels like an eternity. The brown-eyed woman wipes her cheek, the tear track slightly dark from the running makeup. She sighs.

“Do you need somewhere to stay tonight?” Aislen hesitates, but Helen takes it for an answer. She stands, turning her back to the door. “Towels are in the closet by the bathroom. With the sheets,” she says quietly, making her way back to her dresser. “The couch is all yours.” Then she starts to pack again, not turning to look behind her, moving with an anger and a sorrow that radiates through her bones.

Aislen steps back quietly, pulling the door gently shut. She knows without a vision that when she wakes in the morning, Helen will be gone. There will be a set of keys waiting on the table beside the door with a note telling her to take whatever she needs, to stay until the rent runs out. She wonders if maybe she’ll do what it says.

~*~*~*~

Faith feels calm, despite the throbbing throng of the crowd, the shouted orders she has to strain to hear even with a Slayer’s ears, the pounding house music blasting over the room. It’s well after midnight—she stopped checking the clock hours ago—and Rubi’s is packed from wall to wall. She hasn’t stopped moving in hours, drinks and money flowing freely across the bar. She’s found her stride, and has spent the last several hours learning to focus only on one customer at a time.

A soft smile plays across her lips, her body moving easily and unconsciously to the pulsing bass. She’s half dancing as she works; the only thing that’s stopped her from taking to the countertop is the nonstop flow of orders as those dancing try to slake their thirst. She turns, facing one of the women who has been drinking steadily all night, easily passing off the Thin Lizzie she’s been mixing. She moves fluidly to the girl she’s internally designated as next in line, smiles easily at her.

“What’ll it be?” she asks, half-shouting. It doesn’t really matter if the girl can hear her or not; Faith suspects she can’t, but in the manner of bars everywhere, she orders anyway.

“A pitcher of Bud and a bottle of Jack!” she shouts, still barely audible under the sonic onslaught of crowd and DJ-chosen music. Faith nods, her eyes flickering up and right, doing quick math in her head.

“Sixty-three,” she says. The girl makes a “what?” face; Faith holds up six fingers, then three. The girl nods, shouts back.

“Tab! Colville!”

Faith nods again, turns back to the bar. She pours the pitcher from the tap, some of the cold foam sloshing lazily over the top. She’s learned to ignore it; the barback will take care of it later. She spares a glance back, holding up a glass. She points to it, then holds up three fingers, a querying look on her face. The customer responds by holding up five, and Faith nods, drops shot glasses into as many pint glasses, performing a small miracle of acrobatics to bring the pitcher and requisite vessels to the bar in front of the young woman. The multicolored lights play across the young woman’s face as she waits impatiently for her whiskey. Faith turns, opening a cabinet, reaching up. Her hand just barely clasps around the barrel of a bottle of Jack when a voice, loud and demanding, pierces through the din.

“Bartender! While you’re grabbing that, I’ll have a shot of it, too!”

Faith freezes, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Her stomach somersaults, clenching inside of her, and only a moment later she turns, bottle of whiskey in one hand.

There’s a new face at the bar, the one undoubtedly responsible for the voice, and the owner is by no means unfamiliar to the Boston girl. Her hand loses its grip on the bottle, the squared glass seeming to fall from her hand in slow motion as the girl’s face screws into a mask of confusion. The bottle bounces harmlessly on the soft rubber mat beneath Faith’s feet; she barely even notices.

“…Faith?” The brunette leaning past a stool seems genuinely surprised to see her, dark eyes almost as puzzled as Faith’s own, voice perfectly clear to Faith even through the auditory overload. Faith’s own face displays nothing but shock and befuddlement as her head cocks to the side, her eyes scanning the familiar face.

“…Kennedy?”

~*~*~*~

Keeping the Faith

S1E03: Sotto Voce

Written by: Miz Black Crow

Story by Miz Black Crow and Bobina

Beta’d by Bobbi