Sometimes in her dreams she's fast enough. She reaches Dawn's crumpling form before Doc wraps his arm around her waist and makes both of them disappear. She never saves her—even in her dreams she can't do the impossible—but sometimes she gets to hold her while the color drains from her face, blood pumping from her stomach like a broken dam. Sometimes, she keeps her promise, and the last thing Dawn sees is Buffy protecting her.

Tonight is not one of those nights. Buffy sits up, gasping for air. Her flailing arms push back at Faith, who barely manages to keep from getting clocked in the face.

"Sorry," Buffy says, when the band of agony around her throat lets up.

Faith nods her acknowledgement, sitting back on her heels. Her dark eyes sweep Buffy up and down, lingering on the angry red splotches on her face for a moment. “You’re still having nightmares,” she says quietly.

“Aren’t you?”

Faith blanches, and Buffy shakes her head, biting her tongue from further comment. "Go back to sleep," she says quietly. "I'm fine."

Faith lies down obediently, rolling her back to Buffy. She isn't going to sleep, but they'll pretend that she is because that's easier than talking. Buffy never wants to talk after she has one of her nightmares. Not that Faith blames her. She doesn't want to talk about her nightmares either.

Before all of this, back when she thought she was taking a short vacation from her prison blues to save Buffy's sister and beat back a Hell bitch, Faith used to dream of Finch and the professor bleeding out all over her hands. Then Glory won, and the portal opened, and they took Dawn and did God knows what to keep her blood from ever ceasing. It's not the demons and the feasting beasts that haunt her. It's not even the uncertainty about whether everyone they know is still alive and breathing. It's what came after.

They were in San Francisco then, having left Willow and Giles in Oakland where they thought they'd be safe. In those days, there were still people in the cities who hadn’t fled yet, and Faith remembers weaving between them on the street, trying to keep pace with Buffy's quick stride. The abrupt cessation of all electronic noise was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. The cars packing the street sputtered to stillness. Around them, people began to raise their voices in alarm as they noticed their cell phones were no longer operational. The hair on Faith's arms rose. She was just reaching to the left to take Buffy's sleeve when the other slayer shoved her forward hard. "Go!" Buffy shouted, and Faith went, the two of them running like mad, leaping over dead cars as they crossed the street to the subway station entrance.

"What is it?" Faith asked, as they ran down the stairs two at a time. People clogged the station mainstay, frightened in the dark space, but Buffy charged through them with Faith in tow.

"I don't know," Buffy answered, her voice nearly drowned out by the cacophony around them, "but it's not good."

They hopped the turnstiles, the path illuminated by flashlight beams as the confused station workers tried to keep calm. Her toes just barely touched the platform beyond when the entire structure shook, the floor under their feet rocking madly. Bright light flooded through the skylights on the concourse, bright enough to illuminate all the way to the platforms. From behind them, people let out agonized screams. Dust poured freely from the stone ceilings, coating their hair and clothes. They didn't have time to get back to their feet before the world rocked again. The sound of shattering glass mingled with the terrified shouting.

Buffy's hand groped for her in the darkness, and Faith clutched back. A fallen flashlight rolled in their general direction and she seized it, flicking it toward Buffy. "That was not demonic," Buffy said gravely, brushing a dusty hand across a hairline cut that oozed dark blood toward her ear.

From behind them, a grungy appearing man shouted, “They nuked us! Oh, Lord!”

Some of the people on the concourse began to race toward the stairs to the surface.

“Don’t go up!” A woman screamed after them, abandoning the bag she’d been dragging behind her to cup her hands around her mouth. “If you go up, you’ll die!”

Faith didn’t wait to hear further explanation. “Down?” She asked, looking into the belly of the subway where the tracks disappeared into the tunnel.

“Down,” Buffy agreed.

Faith shudders even now, thinking of the days they spent hiding in the subway tunnels with the others who’d made it through the initial blast. The hunger that gnawed in their bellies for the first three days when they were too afraid to go to the surface.  How she and Buffy had wrapped as much clothing around themselves as they could before venturing into the station to gather food. They’d found a few survivors who had dragged themselves down there too late. She can still hear the cries emerging from their bleeding mouths when the two of them tried to carry them down into the tunnel. All of that and it didn’t even solve the problem; the city was overrun with demons when they finally surfaced.

Buffy’s arm slips around her from behind, her body curling around Faith’s too thin frame like a cat. The cool tip of her nose pokes through Faith’s hair, nudging the skin of the back of her neck. She won’t say she’s sorry for bringing up Faith’s nightmares. She never says she’s sorry for any of it. Not for the year that Faith’s spent following her around the country, searching for names on a tattered list in Willow’s handwriting. Not for the times she’s gone silent after they find out one’s dead or just gone, as so many people are these days.

The list of witches Willow thought might be able to help them locate Dawn is dwindling quickly. Faith doesn’t think Buffy will be able to go on if they finish the list and find themselves back at square one. This futile quest is all she has now. And she’s all Faith has.  So Faith doesn’t wait for apologies that aren’t ever going to come. She gets up every day. She bikes, she drives, or she flat out trudges from place to place, scrounging for food and defending herself from other people in the same situation. The sun doesn’t seem to shine behind the thick gray clouds, and between the two of them they’ve got to have slayed more things that go bump in the night than all the other slayers in history, but they keep going.

She rolls over. In the grainy light of the fire, she can see the concern in Buffy’s eyes. This is the reason she stays, aside from the fact that she’s got no one else to look for. It’s the thing that makes sleeping on the floor of abandoned houses and burning dead families’ possessions for fuel tolerable. That look in Buffy’s eyes—the tenderness she sometimes shows—that’s all Faith needs in this whole damned world.

Buffy nudges Faith closer, offering her shoulder as a pillow. Faith goes, burying her face in Buffy’s hair. The blonde has been gone a long time, and when her brown roots grew out, they brought the gray with them. They both look old and tired these days, the toxic environment and the constant stress have done their work. But Buffy still feels like Buffy, as strong and warm as the first night on the road when she’d pressed herself to Faith like a second skin. To Faith, she’s always going to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Happily ever after has never been in her cards, but following Buffy to the ends of the earth, that’s close enough.