Buffy growled almost inaudibly as she burst through the door to Faith's apartment. The music blared from the brunette's stereo and she was stretched out across the bed, her feet kicking in time to the beat. Buffy's mouth opened, but words failed to form. The room was spinning at a rate far beyond anything she had ever experienced before and she felt like she was going to be sick.

Faith bit hard into one of the Twizzlers she had in her hand just moments before she felt her stomach give way. She dropped the latest issue of Spiderman onto the bed and closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against the whirling room around her. The lights behind her eyes began to dim and she was aware of the fact that she was losing consciousness.

"God damned candy," was the last thing either Slayer heard before the world they knew ceased to exist.

"Liz, Liz wake up, we've got to get out of here before the sweep," the brown-haired youth urged. The blonde moaned and rolled closer into her lover's arms. He sighed, "God, why do you always have to be so damn gorgeous at the most inappropriate moments?"

"Mmmmf," she murmured, stretching backwards so that her stomach arched into his. He smiled his silly smile when she yawned and received a mouthful of her own hair for the effort. After sputtering with it for a few minutes she sat up and brushed it back, revealing a slightly embarrassed and slightly perturbed young woman. "What time is it, Alex?"

"About an hour until they search this place again. We have to move," he grunted as he stood to a crouching position. The roof of the tunnel was low enough that he had to bend at the waist while walking through it, but not so low that he would have to bend over even while he was seated. "Come on."

The female sniper took his hand and bent over as she came up. She turned around and grabbed the rolled up pack they had been laying against, pulling her rifle from the middle and handing him the left over blankets and supplies. He took them wordlessly and followed her lead as they made their way east, towards the front lines.

The tunnels, tubes, and networks of ditches they crawled through were anything but clean. Dead rats littered the floor and maggots, worms and flies infested the corpse of any unlucky Rebel that was shot by a sniper or enemy soldier. Occasionally a Union soldier was shot down in the ditches and their body was raped by any Rebel who found it; most of the time the poor, traitorous bastards were left unrecognizable with knife slashes and bullet holes.

The sky above them, when they were out in the open air, was cloudy with soot and ash from the buildings the Union had burnt down. Now and then the roar of a jet bomber would cause the two soldiers to halt and duck for cover, each praying the other wasn't hit by a falling explosive or a well-aimed shell. The smell of burning gasoline wafted to them from what remained of the city streets and the occasional sounds of a skirmish echoed off the broken buildings that towered above.

Faith awoke to the general feeling of being trapped. Her arms were pinned to her sides and her chest was weighed down with something, something soft, blonde, and warm, something that smelled like dirt and the other side of the fence. Something that made her smile and whisper affectionately, "Dar."

The older woman responded to her pet name by squeezing the brunette tighter and shifting her right leg so that it fit perfectly into the cleft made by both of Faith's. The younger girl let out a hiss and resisted the urge to grind herself against her lover's thigh.

Rolling her eyes, Faith looked around the small safe house they were in. Their clothing was strewn everywhere, scattered during their first heated embrace the night before. The small stove Darla had been using before Faith had arrived had long since burnt out, but the pot still steamed a little. It occurred to her then that she had arrived at the house not more than an hour or two before. Grunting, she looked out one of the small windows.

It was nearly morning. They'd need to get away from each other as soon as possible or they'd risk getting caught. She groaned and pushed the sleeping woman up, shaking her slightly until the blonde's icy eyes opened to look at her own brown pools reproachfully, "Why didn't you just ask me to wake up?"

"Because you never listen," Faith said, kissing her promptly. "And because I like looking at you naked."

The blonde smiled and tossed her hair back over her shoulders with a flip of her head, letting the object of her forbidden desire get a good look at her thin, formidable frame. Darla leaned in towards Faith and whispered, "I bet you also like it when I do this."

"Nyugh," Faith gasped as Darla thrust her knee into the soft patch of hair that was now quickly becoming damp with need. The brunette shook her head and took a deep shuddering breath, "We can't. We have to get out of here. They'll find us if we don't."

"Have it your way," the blonde shrugged, promptly pulling away and retrieving the pieces to her clothing that they had left strewn across the floor of the small safe house. Faith's head hit the floorboards hard as she let a loud growl identify her disappointment.

Darla chuckled as she began buttoning her uniform's vest. She was lucky that the Union's suits were tight and padded enough that they didn't require her to wear a bra; it made these desperate excursions so much easier. She looked around and found her pants, pulling them on quickly and jumping so that they snuggled into her curves properly before she buttoned them.

Faith smiled at her and threw her left boot straight towards her head, but the blonde caught it easily and slipped it on, wishing that she had a pair of socks as well. The Union was hard pressed to get supplies in and out of their zone thanks to Faith and the other Rebels. Darla reached for the other boot and pulled it on as well, standing when she finished and straightening her vest before grabbing her jacket.

Sighing, she walked over to the taller woman's outstretched frame and bent down to brush her lips with a light kiss and her eyes with blonde hair before walking towards the door, "I'll see you in two days, right?"

"Two days, the Bradstreet House," Darla said, repeating their earlier agreement before she disappeared out the door into the daylight of their war-torn country.

Faith sighed and began gathering her own mismatched pieces of clothing, wishing not for the first time that she could just walk away from Liz and the others to join the Union. She could never quite pinpoint what it was that kept her fighting for the Rebellion, why she stayed and followed orders, even when she wasn't really accepted. Darla had tried time and again to get her to defect, but the brunette's loyalty to the other blonde was too great, and that fact angered Darla most of all.

"About time you showed up," the redhead said as Faith rushed through the briefing room door to edge her way into the back row in a corner. The brunette mumbled a hasty apology before the discussion continued, "So what I'm thinking is that we'll be better off setting up a sniper trap than actually facing them."

Faith looked around at the people in the room. Most of them were grunts, but the others were those who could, potentially, become leaders in the fight against the invading army. They were all tired and most of them were malnourished. Faith smirked, remembering one of Darla's comments about how her ribs were always so apparent when they made love (or fucked, as she preferred to say). She snapped back to attention as everyone's favorite 'general' began talking.

"Good thinking, Wills," Liz smiled at her friend. "But what will we use to draw them into the trap?"

"Oh, I don't know... I hadn't thought of that," the redhead smiled, chagrinned. Her girlfriend Tara smiled next to her and slipped her hand into the redhead's smaller one, giving it a light squeeze. "I guess we could make it look like we were going to take them head on."

"I'm sure I can get some volunteers for that," Alex nodded. "There are plenty of guys willing to step up and be a nice lead cushion."

"I hope that was sarcasm," Liz shot him a look and he winked at her. "Okay, so Faith and I will coordinate the sniper positions, Alex will work on getting recruits for the grunts and the rest of you can start getting our artillery together."

Liz waved her hand and the room became abuzz with talk as the soldiers filed out to leave the five friends alone. Faith twisted her back until it popped before she walked over to join the others at the war table, looking down at the map in front of them. It was littered with little red flags - areas of defeat for the Rebellion - and a few yellow ones - areas of victory. She snorted and shook her head as she tapped one of the yellow flags, "I still don't think we should have counted that one as a victory."

"Neither do I, but that's what it was. However painful," Willow said quietly, closing her eyes at the memory.

"You miss him," Tara said, caressing her cheek. The redhead nodded and leaned into it, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

Faith closed her eyes briefly, remembering her friend's valiant self-sacrificing ways and stoic demeanor. Oz had always been her favorite person to confide in, and the only member of their little army that had ever really accepted her. She still hadn't gotten over his death, any more than Red had, and it bit at her every time she had to look at the God dammed table in front of them now.

"We all do," Liz said quietly, reaching over the table to squeeze Willow's arm gently. "He died a hero."

"He died a pointless death," Faith spat, her own tears threatening to spill over. She hid the emotion deftly, her years of practice coming in handy once again. "This whole war is pointless. I'm sick of it!"

"You may be sick of it, but that doesn't mean you can quit," Liz said pointedly.

"I never said I was going to," the brunette snarled in return. Liz was always thinking the worst of her. Faith figured the blonde couldn't handle the competition, even though everyone knew she was better than Faith. The fact that they were always comparing her to the blonde gnawed at the brunette's peripheral consciousness every waking hour of the day, and part of her knew that was going to come to a head sooner or later.

Their eyes met as they both glared at the other, thinking similar thoughts of anger and jealousy, though Liz's were more of the classic feminine kind. She saw Alex watching Faith when he assumed she wasn't looking, and it had been digging into her skin for weeks. Moments passed before Faith conceded to the green eyes that her fellow sniper possessed. "Where do you want to set us up?"

The apartment building smelled of urine and gasoline, but it offered the most protection from enemy sharp-shooters. Faith made a point of breathing through her mouth as they walked through the broken, crumbling ruins of the second story.

Liz motioned towards a corner in one of the rooms; it had a gap in the wall that was about two feet wide and one foot high just a few inches from the ground. It was the perfect spot for them to take out the enemy soldiers from. Faith nodded and circled around to the other rooms, just to make sure there weren't any other delectable spots, before returning and setting up next to her companion.

"You know, this is really a last ditch effort," Liz almost whispered. She looked calm enough, putting the pieces of her rifle together after cleaning each one, but Faith knew something was wrong. They had a connection like that, one that allowed them to sense each other out.

"What do you mean?" the brunette replied, starting on her own rifle.

"If we don't knock off most of the brass in this branch of their army, we're not going to win," Liz's tongue was sticking out of her mouth slightly as she worked on cleaning the chamber out. Faith smiled slightly at the sight and thought that Alex was a lucky man.

"Why do you say that? Aren't you the one always telling me there's hope even in the most dismal situations?" she grunted the last statement as she hefted a large chunk of brick out of the way of the gap. Snipers aren't renowned for their upper body strength, and she was a prime example of that fact.

"I'm not saying I'm going to give up, but I'm saying that realistically, this is it. If we don't win this one, we're screwed," she shrugged, snapping the rifle's pieces back into place and crawling to the cornered in half of the gap.

"Well," Faith said, finishing up her own gun and crawling over to settle in next to the blonde. "Don't let Red hear you saying anything like that."

Liz snickered, "Tara'd kill me."

Faith chuckled and fell silent, watching the street outside. Alex was probably already setup and ready for battle. He and his men would draw the Union troops back through the gap between the apartment building and the hotel on the opposite side of the street where the snipers would start picking off the commanding officers before they started on individual soldiers. In the mean time, Alex's men would take out the troops that panicked after losing their leaders.

Together they could, hopefully, destroy the entire Rostiford County force of the Union army and gain a huge advantage over the opposing force as a whole. The Rostiford County force was the most organized, most trained, and most valuable asset that the Union had. It had won sixty percent of all the Union's battles, though it was only assigned to what amounted to a seventh of the entire war fields.

It was also the company Darla was assigned to. Faith closed her eyes and swallowed, hoping that Liz wouldn't notice her discomfort with the battle at hand. Darla was better at evading sniper shots than anyone else Faith had ever met, hell, that was how they had met, but she wasn't sure that the blonde would be able to escape the aim of a dozen well-trained Rebels.

"What's wrong?" Liz asked, not looking away from the battle field.

"Nothing. Just nervous, I guess," Faith said after a moment.

"You're lying."

"I know."

They fell into silence again. The sounds of battle sounded in the distance as Alex led the Rebels into the fray with a war cry. Guns spat and echoed between the buildings of the street, and Faith shifted where she was, resettling her gun on her arm and shoulder so that they wouldn't cramp up right when she needed them.

A loud cry of "Destroy the Rebels! Preserve the Union!" caught Faith's ears, and she cringed as she realized who it was. Darla was there, and she was acting as a leader. Buffy had ordered all eleven of her underlings, including Faith, to fire at anyone who seemed to have an air of command about them. That meant Darla was in danger, and it caused the icy hand of fear to clutch at her chest, making it hard to breathe.

"What's wrong now?" the blonde whispered, still watching the field below.

"Nothing," Faith said again, putting enough tone in her voice to ward the blonde from pressing the issue.

Liz didn't get the hint, "I'm ordering you to tell me what's got you so upset. A nervous sniper is a danger to our men."

"Fuck off," Faith snarled, cocking her rifle as the troops came into range.

"You and I are going to have a talk when this is over," Liz grunted, pulling the trigger with a loud bang as the shell found it's mark in the forehead of a second lieutenant of the Union army far below.

"Why not have a talk now, oh great and glorious leader?" the brunette snipped. A foot soldier fell, the back of his head blown to pieces, as he stepped in front of a male lieutenant.

An unidentifiable male officer clutched at his neck as blood spurted several feet from the small bullet hole that bored deep into his jugular. Liz snarled as she popped another bullet into the rifle's chamber, "You just can't handle not being in command, can you?"

"Look who's talking," Faith retorted. She missed her target and hit the wall of the building behind her.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Liz said, looking away from the field for the first time.

"You think I'm challenging you; I never even tried it. The mere idea of me being better than you gets under your skin. I see the glares you give me," she said, her voice strained as she got another soldier in her sights and fired, blowing his jaw off.

"Like hell," Liz went back to firing and Faith snorted as she, too, focused on the battle below.

"Push them back, away from the buildings!" Darla yelled from below. Faith searched frantically for her, freezing in place as she tried to find her lover. There, her hair was blowing in the wind, her usual bun having come loose in the heat of the fighting. She didn't seem any the worse for wear, and Faith let out a sigh of relief.

Liz let out a soft grunt and Darla's face exploded in flesh, muscle and bone. Her body fell, trampled by the hordes of Union soldiers heading for the front line of battle. Faith felt like she had been hit by a tank. She couldn't move for what felt like hours while her mind processed the fact that Darla was dead, and that Liz had killed her.

Seconds after the bullet was fired Liz jumped as Faith screamed, "Darla! No!"

"What the hell?" was all Liz could get out before Faith had jumped on her. The brunette drew her arm back and let it fly at the blonde's face, her glove connecting with bone to produce a loud crack. "Ow!"

Liz threw Faith off of her, holding her nose while she reached for her pistol. The brunette snarled and leapt at her again, this time accompanying the action with the accusation, "You killed her! You bitch! You killed Dar!"

Realization flashed in Liz's eyes, "You traitor!"

"I never told her anything," Faith spat, dodging a flimsy attack. "We kept our relationship sex-only, with the occasional discussion of life before this ever started!"

Liz stumbled to her feet and cocked the pistol as Faith scrambled out of the room. Letting out a cross between a grunt and a scream, the blonde raced after her one-time ally. She skidded to a halt, the bricks in the hallway clattering to and fro, seeming indignant towards her thrashing about on top of them. She sucked in her breath and held it, listening for anything that would give Faith away.

The blonde gasped and pulled back in pain as a bullet grazed her temple. Blood poured down her face, obscuring her vision and mixing with the fluids her nose had already unleashed to stain her failed attempt at a regular uniform even more. The sounds of bullets hitting the floor tipped her off to where the brunette was and she ran for the clattering, ducking left and right and up and down, trying to stay erratic and out of her line of sight.

Liz hadn't even seen her pick up the rifle when she had left, and that ticked her off. Faith was the only person that could cause her to screw up, but today that would all end. She'd put that double-dealing bitch in her proper place: fifty feet under cold stone ground.

"Do you have any idea what it's like?" Faith yelled from around the corner. Liz cursed; Faith had moved positions on her. "To love someone you can't have? To know that their loyalties lie somewhere yours don't? To have to love them despite that?"

"Poetry? From you? I wouldn't think it possible of a back-stabber," Liz almost laughed.

"Don't you think I would have joined them by now, Liz?" the brunette sounded like she was crying. Her voice was cracked and there was an underlying sense of weariness in her words. "Had I not been loyal, don't you think you would have known?"

Liz was silent. She looked down at her pistol. Faith had crossed the line. You don't fall for the enemy. You don't sleep with the enemy. You don't hit your fellow soldiers because they killed the enemy.

"You never accepted me!" Faith yelled against the walls of the apartment building. "It was always, 'Why can't you do things like Liz?' or 'Why can't you act more like Alex?' or 'Why don't you smile once in a while, like Tara?'"

"We gave you every chance, Faith. I gave you every chance. You always had to play the tough guy. You always had to be a loner," Liz called back. "I bet you were with them at Lindersteel. I bet you were the one who took out Oz."

"Bitch!" Faith snarled, coming round the corner to face her opponent. "He was the only one I ever connected with! He was like a brother to me!"

Faith's finger pulled tight against the trigger of her rifle, which was aimed squarely on Liz's chest, just as Liz's finger pressed firmly against the trigger of her pistol. The guns fired only seconds apart, but only one bullet found it's mark. Faith looked down at her bleeding chest as the rifle clattered the floor, it's barrel smoking.

Liz dropped her pistol and barely acknowledged the pain in her shoulder where the bullet had sunk into the muscle here. Her eyes were on Faith; she was clearly trying to understand exactly what happened, her face was confused and more than a little dismayed. The brunette blinked several times before looking at the blonde, "You did it, then, didn't you? You killed the enemy."

Faith slumped to the floor, her body bleeding as her soul departed to the underworld. Liz turned as the sounds of battle subsided outside and a victory cry arose. It wasn't Alex's cry. The Union army had won; the Rebel's were officially screwed.

Buffy blinked. What had just happened? Where was that place? Why did she go there? Was Faith really dead? The blonde shook her head and looked at the bed Faith was occupying before she had been unceremoniously dumped into another life. The other girl was staring at her, eyes wide, and Buffy got the distinct impression that she hadn't been alone in her trip.

"Hey B," Faith whispered. "How's it going?"

Now, for those of you who are left confused (and I don't think there shall be many), the explanation: The point of the 'dream' sequence was to show that Buffy would lose overall if Faith were to die. They (read: the Scooby Gang or the Forces of Good) need Faith to fight with them. If she's not around, if she and Buffy are too busy going head-to-head to worry about the battles at hand, then Evil is going to win.

The whole thing with loving someone whose loyalties lie elsewhere: Angel. I do think that in the cannon. Faith was heavily attracted to him, if not in love with him.

And the title itself is supposed to suggest a "Last Ditch Effort" on the part of the Powers That Be to get the Slayers to work together, instead of against one another.

Well, that about clears up my poor attempts at symbolism. Hope you liked it.