Faith paced in her room, unable to sleep. Things were going down, big things, and these people were sleeping. She’d had enough sleep when she was in a coma, as far as she was concerned, even if that had been three years ago. People were dying. These girls… They haunted her. So close and yet so far. It was torture watching them die, knowing she was powerless to stop it, and knowing, too, that they weren’t the last to be extinguished.
As far as she was concerned they weren’t out of danger. Obviously these Bringer guys could locate Slayers anywhere in the world. Maybe it was special Slayer-telepathy, like a homing device, maybe they had helpers telling them where Slayers were hiding out. Or potential Slayers, anyway. It didn’t matter. They were still out there, which meant that she and Buffy, and any other girls who’d managed to stay alive so far, were still in danger.
Then there was this whole Spike thing, which she still didn’t understand. Spike had a soul now. Big deal. That was enough that Buffy was hell-bent on saving him? Sure, yes, it would avert possible apocalypse, but something about it all didn’t ring true. She was sure there were motivations behind it all that Faith wasn’t being let in on. What a surprise. Faith, kept in the dark by the Scoobies.
She’d help them rescue the vampire, and then maybe put a stake through his heart, but she’d help. Be a good little do-bee and do what she was told. She was on board here, really. The dark path didn’t hold appeal for her anymore, but that didn’t make being a white hat any easier. Especially being back in the mix with these particular white hats. She hadn’t fit in before, she certainly wasn’t feeling the love now. Buffy had yet to make a single moment for them to even talk, much less thrown a glance in her direction since their escape from prison. Dawn and the others, with the exception of Xander and Gunn, treated her like a leper. She was a Slayer, dammit. Reformed by her own actions. They didn’t have to like it, but they needed to accept it.
It was Angel who was throwing her off more than anyone. The one person who’d been her friend, even after she’d done her worst to him and his. She’d tortured his friends, hurt him as best she’d known how, and he’d still been there for her. He’d stood up to Buffy for her, even though Faith had known it was killing him inside to do that. Especially when she’d let it slip about Buffy’s new beau. Wonder what happened to him, anyway…
The talk they’d had upstairs, earlier, had her shaken.
I’m not sure that your involvement is going to help with anything right now. It might actually make it worse.
That’s what he’d said. He didn’t want her here, or, at least, he didn’t want her to help. She might interfere. With Buffy. And Buffy’s plans.
Hurt stabbed at her heart once again as she remembered the look on his face as they’d sat in the hallway upstairs, him earnestly telling her to back off and let Buffy have room to do what she did best—which, in the eyes of everyone down there, was anything better than Faith.
“Whatever,” she muttered as she flopped down onto her bed.
She didn’t want to back off. It wasn’t her style, for one thing, but for another, she didn’t feel like she could, or should. This was…important. She was on the road to redemption and all that crap, and for once in her life, she had a chance to start over. To, god help her, to be someone.
She’d do her job here, she’d help save the world, make a safe place for the potential Slayers, stop the Bringers and whatever they worked for, rescue Spike and avert apocalypse…and then she’d head out on her own. There were other places to be a Slayer. Places that didn’t already have a Slayer, who didn’t have Scooby gangs and vampires with souls. Places where she could just be Faith and do what she did best—slay and be alone.
It was how it had always been, and truth be told, she’d been in far less trouble when she’d been on her own. Maybe a little lonelier, but it hadn’t been such a hassle. She was past blaming Buffy for her problems of a few years ago, or mostly, anyway, but it was the truth. Before coming to Sunnydale and getting mixed up with all these people she’d been happily doing her job in Boston and not getting lip, or serving jail time, for that matter.
So what if Angel thought she’d be better off going elsewhere? That’s not why she was leaving. She was leaving for her. Time with Faith…you know, self-discovery and all that crap those magazines that came on the library cart were always spouting about. Dr. Phil was popular for a reason, right?
Bored, restless, and not in the least bit sleepy, she jumped off the bed.
“Enough of this crap,” she muttered, snagging a stake off the dresser and heading out into the hallway, then down the main stairs. She’d get in a couple hours of patrolling, then come back for some daylight snoozing. Vamps weren’t the only ones who got to sleep during the day as far as she was concerned.
She was almost to the front door when a muffled sound came from the kitchen. Faith paused, hand on the door, and glanced in that direction. Harbinger?
In the kitchen?
Probably not.
Still worth investigating. Quietly she trotted over to the galley door, putting her ear up to it and opening it just enough to peer inside.
“Oh, that was nothing compared to Glory, though. She was the worst I’ve seen. But, then again, that’s the only time I was allowed to be around the Big Bad. Every time before Buffy’d send me and mom packing until she’d beat up whatever had come to town,” Dawn was babbling as she munched on a handful of chips.
Connor looked interested. “Who’s Glory?”
Dawn swallowed the chips and took a swig from a soda can. “She was a god. Came here looking for me, before…when I was that Key I told you about.”
“What did she want with you?”
Dawn’s eyes rolled skyward. “Drain my blood. Open portals. It was a thing. I’ve got scars on my belly…no more bikini’s for me.”
She said it so sadly Connor almost smiled at the simplicity of her lament. Almost killed by a god and she was upset over a swimsuit. Though…looking her over, maybe he was a little sorry about that, too.
“So it was…the Master first, then Angelus, then Faith and the Mayor, then Adam, then Glory…then Willow…” Dawn continued nonchalantly. “We have a lot of problems in Sunnydale.” She paused, considering. “You’d fit in there.”
Connor glared at her. “I don’t understand about this girl…Faith. She was your enemy, she woke up from a coma and tried to kill you, and now we rescued her?”
“And she tried to kill Angel and Cordy and Wesley, too, don’t forget,” Dawn reminded him.
“Right. So…why is she here, running free?”
Dawn shrugged. “Buffy has some weird sense of obligation, I guess. I dunno. I don’t understand it. Personally I’d have left her in the slammer.”
Faith’s heart sunk as she stood at the door and she closed her eyes, willing herself to just walk away. And go out and kill things. Many, many things. Violently.
Connor snorted in agreement. “Misplaced obligation, yeah…that’s like an epidemic around here. My dad’s an expert on it. Seems to think that just because he’s my dad, he should look out for me. It just gets in the way.”
Dawn snorted. “At least Angel cares about you. I haven’t seen my dad in years. He didn’t he come down for my mom’s funeral. He was off somewhere in Spain for months, and when he came back and found out what had happened, he didn’t even care. He doesn’t help out at all…Buffy had to get a job just so we could keep the house and, you know, have food and stuff.”
“But you’re on your own, free to do whatever you want,” he countered.
“Hardly. Have you met my sister? Plus Willow’s there, too, and Xander. He doesn’t live there, but he might as well for all the time he spends on our couch.”
There was thoughtful munching and Faith was about to back away from the door when Connor spoke up again.
“So Sunnydale’s got its share of bad guys. Doesn’t sound so bad. It’s like here. Big evil and all.”
“It’s not bad. Especially when you live with a Slayer.” Her brow scrunched as she contemplated that. “Or maybe it’s bad because I live with a Slayer…”
“The Slayer thing… You’re not a Slayer?”
Dawn’s hair swished around her as she shook her head. “Nope. Not even a key anymore, either. Just plain old me. Buffy’s the Slayer. It’s a Calling. She was Called when she was 15, here in L.A. Then we moved, to a Hellmouth, if you can believe the luck, and she kept up the slaying there.”
“And there are others? Around the world? They’re who the guys in robes are killing. The girls your sister and Faith see in their dreams.”
Again her head shook. “There’s only supposed to be one. Just Buffy. Faith’s an accident.”
In the hallway outside Faith’s entire body tensed. She was an accident…a mistake. Never supposed to have been there. Would nothing stop reminding her of that fact?
“What do you mean?” Connor wanted to know.
Dawn eased herself off the barstool she was currently propped on and walked to the pantry, grabbing a box of cereal and diving in. “Buffy died, for just a minute, the first year we lived in Sunnydale. The Master drowned her, but Xander brought her back. But because she died it created this…glitch in the system. And that Called Kendra.”
“Kendra?” he asked, eyeing her choice of snack with a shake of her head. She was cute, but she ate like a horse.
“She was from Jamaica or somewhere like that. She didn’t last too long. Drusilla killed her the year we were all being terrorized by her, Spike, and Angelus.”
Connor gave her an even look. “The same Spike we’re trying to rescue.”
Dawn nodded. “There’s a lot of side-switching that goes on around Sunnydale. Anyway. Drusilla killed her…and now…”
“Faith.”
“She side-switched, too,” Dawn told him. “Killed some guy in Sunnydale, on accident, but it was too much for her and she went all psycho I-wanna-be-a-badass-freaky on us. Buffy had to take her down. Almost killed her.” She realized, suddenly, that Connor probably knew nothing of Angel’s involvement in that story. “She tried to kill Faith to save Angel, actually.”
It worked, she was delighted to see. Connor’s interested peaked. “To save him? Why? From what?”
“Faith shot Angel with a poisonous arrow and it was going to kill him. Wesley tried to get the Watcher’s to help, but they don’t help vamps as it turns out.”
“Good policy,” he noted and ignored her stern look.
“We researched and found out the only cure was the blood of a Slayer. Like, almost all of it. So Buffy went after Faith. But it’s not like she just up and turned on Faith. Faith was bad news long before that. She…ah…” Dawn reached for some of the cereal she’d spilled out onto the Connor at the exact moment he did the same. Their fingers brushed and for a moment their eyes held. “She…” Flustered she snatched her hand back and cleared her throat as Connor’s eyes watched her, interested.
“Faith decided she liked being bad and killing stuff, people, too, more than being a Slayer on our side. Blamed Buffy for everything wrong in her life. Even tried to seduce your dad,” she said with an attempt at a grin. “Didn’t work. Angel would never have gone for her skankiness.”
Faith’s hand fell from the door and she backed up before turning and bolting from the hotel.
“Anyway…” he prompted her.
“Anyway…she shot him with the arrow, Buffy went after her but it didn’t work and Faith just ended up in a coma in the hospital for months.”
“How did Buffy cure my dad, then?”
Dawn’s eyebrows wiggled knowingly.
“She let him feed off her?” he demanded.
“Yup. He stopped just in time and she was fine a little while later…with a transfusion, but still.”
“Why would she do that? She’s a Slayer!”
Dawn shrugged. “She loved him.”
Connor considered this with disgust. “Doesn’t matter. He left her anyway. He abandons everyone at some point.”
“Oh, please,” she exclaimed with a roll of her blue eyes. “He had to. He still loved her, she still loved him…probably still does. But he’s a vampire, she’s a Slayer. And they can’t…you know…do stuff,” she whispered, “without releasing his soul so… It was the only way. It’s sorta romantic, you know? Like…Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers…divided by two houses…and two different cities.”
When she looked up and grinned at him he was watching her again with those careful eyes. It unnerved her, and…sorta excited her at the same time. With a calculated flip of her hair she leaned over the counter onto her elbows, cutting the distance between them in half. “When Angel came here he met up with Cordy and Wes again, and eventually Faith came after them. It was bad, for a while, but Angel got through to her. Or so the story goes. Got her on the so-called road to redemption and she turned herself in to the police for the crimes she’d committed. That’s why she was in jail.”
“You don’t trust her,” he noted.
She shrugged. “No… but Buffy does, or sorta anyway. And Angel does. So I need to, too. I mean…before she went all renegade on us she wasn’t so bad. Trashy, but she had good stories. Stuff Buffy would never tell me about slaying…and Faith would gossip about what she’d seen Buffy and Angel doing in the cemeteries when they were supposed to be patrolling,” she grinned evilly. With a decisive crunch she continued to snack merrily on the dry cereal.
He grinned at that then glanced around at the array of food she’d managed to get into. “You guys don’t have food in Sunnydale, I’m guessing.”
She managed to look embarrassed for a split second before grinning. “I like to eat. It’s one of the things I’m best at.”
“I noticed,” he nodded with a smile, and reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “But…I like it.”
Dawn’s heart fluttered in her chest and her eyes fell to their hands, resting comfortably on the butcher-block counter. “Oh… Well…good.” Not knowing what else to do she held up the cereal clutched in her other hand. “Uh...Snack?”
