"What am I doing?"

I half-expect an answer as I ask myself the same questions I've been asking for the past two hours. I've lied to my friends, my sister, to be where I am now, but I can't even think up a reason that sounds convincing to myself.

I told them I had to see Angel. Sure, we talked; I told him I was alive again, but after the shock wore off there wasn't much in the way of sparkage. We had each agreed a long time ago that we were finished. When I hung up the phone, I had this over-whelming feeling to leave, get out, and he was my perfect excuse.

No one questioned the "why," more the "why now?"

I couldn't take the giddy way my best friend was acting: hovering around me, nervous and twitchy, dancing around me like a love-starved puppy looking for attention and validation. I couldn't take the opposite reaction I was getting from my sister, either: sorrow-filled eyes and hunched shoulders, depressed and sullen like I was still dead. So I left. Told them Angel needed to see me and took off.

Here I am now, driving down a long, dark, empty highway with the windows rolled up. I only have the vaguest idea of where I'm going. Not to see Angel, though. We agreed over the phone that it would be a pointless visit. But to see the only person that, even in death, in peace, I couldn't let go of. The only person I could ever imagine understanding me. I just hope she'll see me when the guards bring her into the visiting room. What am I going to say to her?

"What am I doing?"

Two more hours and the sun is starting to rise. It should be beautiful, but I just can't see things that way anymore. Knowing now what I do, feeling true peace the way no one on Earth will ever feel, the so-called simple pleasures just don't cut it. I can't care to see the point in them.

The night bleeds into day, colors waking along with the birds in the trees, but all I see beyond the red ball of sunlight is pain.

That, and two guard towers that let me know my shoddy directions have actually gotten me to my destination.

I don't think as I park and exit the car. I don't analyze things anymore as I enter the door marked "Visitors Only." I don't feel a thing as I'm lead through three security checkpoints. I barely breathe as I give the warden my name and my reason for being here.

I'm lead down a long hallway, the fluorescent lights so much harsher than the sunlight, stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. I sit down in a hard, Creamsicle orange plastic chair in a waiting room that smells of too much disinfectant, numb, practically forgetting why I'm here in the first place.

A guard appears through the door in front of me, and I follow him into another room, another uncomfortable chair. A different guard appears on the other side of the plexiglass partition, followed by the one person who could ever make me remember myself.

Faith looks almost bored when she sits down across from me. Neither of us reaches for the phones to start up a conversation. We could always communicate better without speaking anyway. Words just made things more confused. More confusing.

She studies me as I take in the sight of her in turn. Her hair is longer, more untamed than the last time I saw her. Her skin is pale from too much time indoors. I can see clearly defined muscles where her skin is exposed, her body having filled out from that of a lanky teenager to that of a young woman. A Slayer's body.

Her eyes, though, the windows to her soul, once swelled with raging emotion, are hollow, disaffected.

Much the way I feel.

The guard reminds me that we only have ten minutes left, snapping me out of whatever trance I had fallen into, staring into Faith's dark eyes. Absently, I pick up the receiver next to me, watching as Faith warily does the same.

I can hear her slow, steady breathing through the connection. I can practically feel her heart beating, and it's enough to have my mind in a tailspin of memories. Sights and sounds and smells, and feelings. I'm lost for more moments, until she chooses to speak.

"I'm glad you came."

I can only nod. I want to tell her how much she's affecting me, but the words grate in my throat like sandpaper. Faith's eyes flash a deep sadness as she catches my gaze, before they return to their previous void.

"See ya around."

She severs the connection almost as soon as she speaks, not giving me a chance to respond. I don't think I could anyway. The guard leads her back to her cell. She doesn't even give me a backward glance.

I don't remember getting out of the prison or into my car, but here I am, sitting in the parking lot. Tears I had thought would've dried up with my corpse months ago are tearing tracks down my cheeks.

I don't really think I could explain my reasons for coming here. For not saying a word to her. I could tell you I had great expectations of heart-felt reunions and mended rifts, but then I'd be lying. I can't tell you what I'm doing here. Hell, I can't even tell myself. All I know is that today, it's where I'm supposed to be. I don't care if I never see Faith again. At least I'll know that I'll always feel her. I'll always feel something.

I turn back onto the now-busy highway, heading south. What am I doing? I've found faith, now I'm going to find myself.