FIC: Testament
Aug. 19th, 2008 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyI was kindly invited to the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lynnevitational, and I got the idea that I'd use it as an excuse to finally finish this old WIP. Because apparently, my muse needs a deadline. For which I was fashionably late anyway, but here it is.
Title: Testament
Author: Beer Good (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beer_good_foamy)
Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~5000
Fandom: Buffyverse,
Characters: Mostly Faith, Giles and Wesley; some Buffy/Spike.
Disclaimer: The usual stuff about Joss, money, characters, blood, large bowls of porridge, rightful claim to throne, etc.
Summary: The Angel gang's last stand didn't go unnoticed among those who used to know them, especially given their last communications on the eve of the battle. Two letters and a phone call start a chain reaction that force the survivors to re-evaluate their situation.
Fic started in 2005, revised and finished in 2008 for thelynnevitational.
"Before we talk of any repentance, try walking in my shoes; you'll stumble in my footsteps." (Depeche Mode)
"To live outside the law, you must be honest." (Bob Dylan)
1. Testament
Dear Mr Giles,
I am sorry for troubling you, but as the head of the new Watcher's Council and my former mentor, I feel it is only right that you should be the one receiving this.
If the US postal service does as it has promised, you should receive this letter together with a package containing my watcher's diaries as well as some other texts I have written over the years. I expect the earliest entries are good for no more than a laugh, but some of my later findings may be of use for future daemonology researchers. Of course, not having had access to the Council's library for some time, it is possible that I have merely been re-inventing fire, as they say. Nevertheless, feel free to do with these writings as you will. I have been holding on to them for some time, but it seems that may no longer be necessary.
One volume you may find of particular interest is the newest one. It is not really finished (it certainly needs editing) but I believe it contains some previously unknown information about the oldest daemon races which may still prove useful. It is in the binder marked "Fred". (Consider the irony: it would seem I am a watcher of sorts again, although I am not exactly sure who is teaching whom.)
I hope everyone is well at your end. If you are in contact with Faith, I would appreciate it if you could pass on the attached envelope.
Give my regards to my father if you see him.
Sincerely,
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
2. Step Away From The Glass
Faith flinched inside as a cop car passed her. She knew not to let them bother her; after all, it had been over a year since she broke out and so far she'd only had one close call. She was on the other side of the country, one of thousands of wanted fugitives in the US, and as long as she lay low the chances of a cop looking at her and going "Hey, isn't that chick wanted for murder?" were pretty slim.
Still, she flinched.
When she saw another black'n'white heading the other way (gee, two police cars in five minutes in downtown Manhattan, what are the odds... calm down, girl) she ducked into a bar for a breather. It was just her and the bartender, which suited her just fine. Just the one exit too, which suited her somewhat less, but whatchagonnado.
"Double vodka. Plenty ice."
"ID."
"I stole a copy of And Justice For All the day it was released. Just give me a drink, OK babe?"
The bartender shrugged and poured her what she'd asked for. This girl seemed like a type 14 customer to him: the kind who desperately needs to talk to someone, but doesn’t really want to, and shouldn’t be too crowded. "I'm Jim, by the way."
"Good for you." Faith pointedly looked past him into the mirror behind the bar as she raised the glass. Not that he didn't seem like a nice guy, but... funny, with all the practice she'd had at being alone, she still felt like something was missing now that she wasn't part of the Slayer gang anymore. It had been her decision; they never said anything to her face about it, especially not the juniors who had heard a few too many stories about her to ever be completely relaxed around her, but she knew having a wanted murderer on the team was a problem. Everyone had to be extra careful at all times, and simple things like buying a plane ticket or explaining to a cop why you were carrying around a sharp stake became almost impossible; not very convenient for a mobile demon-hunting team trying to keep a low profile. So like so many before her she’d gone to New York to disappear in the crowd, with no one but Giles knowing how to get in touch with her, and hunted alone leaving as few witnesses as possible. And to think that her and B had actually been... OK, "friends" might be saying too much, but... it had been nice to have a mission.
"This seat taken, sweetheart?"
She was jolted out of her thoughts as a man planted himself on the barstool next to her without waiting for an answer. Forty-ish, balding, overweight... and obviously bent on more than just conversation. Great, that's all I needed right now.
"So, what's your poison, honey? Mind if I buy you a drink?"
Is this dude for real? Faith felt a rising urge to just slam the guy's face down on the counter, but reminded herself that she was low-profile girl these days and just clenched her teeth and looked away.
"Come on, darling. Don't be like that. I know you'd like to have some fun..." It was so out of the blue it took Faith a second to register what was happening: the guy had actually reached out and grabbed her boobs. The old Faith would have sent him to the emergency room. The new Faith almost did, but reigned herself in at the last second and instead calmly seized him by one wrist just hard enough to not snap it. Part of her felt way too good about hearing him gasp in pain; he pulled back his other hand so quickly he got caught on her jacket and almost ripped it off.
"Everything OK here?" Jim stepped a little closer as the guy struggled to free himself; in 20 years of bartending, he’d had to intervene more than once to stop a fight. Often more than once a night. Usually over women not half as good-looking as this one.
"Five by five," Faith remarked casually as she wrenched the fatso’s hand from her chest and slammed it down on the counter. "Mr Three-seconds-from-castration here was just about to leave... ain't that right?" She gave his wrist an extra little squeeze and then let go. He was off the barstool and out the door so fast she was almost disappointed.
Oh well, she might as well pay up and leave. She reached for the wallet in her inside pocket, and found something else as well. An envelope that hadn't been there before the pervert stuck his hands inside her jacket. Whaddyaknow, he must have been one of Giles's couriers. What is it about carrying other people's mail that attracts psychos? She looked at the envelope with her name on it and recognized the handwriting. Rather than paying up, she ordered another drink and then read Wesley’s letter.
From over by the register, Jim watched her read and saw her face harden from annoyance to shock to grief.
"Bad news?"
Faith didn't answer for a while, just sat there staring at the counter. Then, just as Jim was about to move closer she crumpled up the letter in her fist. She lifted her glass and toasted thin air, downed the vodka in one gulp and then hurled the glass past the bartender's ear, smashing a couple of bottles and the mirror.
Jim instinctively ducked behind the bar as he was showered with broken glass. It probably saved... maybe not his life, but at least his health, since the glass was quickly followed by two of the bolted-down barstools. He cowered behind the bar as Faith went apeshit on his furniture. When he looked up ten minutes later, she was gone, as was most of his bar; chairs broken, pictures smashed, the jukebox thrown halfway across the room... Jim picked up the phone, which turned out to be broken as well, and then headed outside to find a cop. He'd always been good with faces, and he was sure he could give them a good description.
3. Ready To Cut Loose?
Giles opened his eyes and slowly focused on his alarm clock. 3.11 AM. The noise that had woken him up was someone banging at the door of his apartment, which instantly led to equal parts worry and hope; he hadn't slept well recently, and so he’d given specific orders not to be disturbed unless it was really important. Maybe it was good news. He put on his bathrobe as he made his way towards the door, looked through the peephole - Alright, so not good news then - and opened.
"Hello, Faith."
"Hiya."
He went back to sleep. That’s usually what happens when a pissed-off Slayer punches a completely unprepared middle-aged man.
"You ever get the feeling you done something before, G?"
At first, Giles wasn’t sure where he was or why he couldn’t move. Then his vision unblurred and he saw Faith, casually leaning back on her chair with her feet up on his dinner table, giving herself a manicure with his sharpest steak knife in a casual display of Slayer abilities. To anyone who didn’t know her, she seemed calm. But he knew that smile, that cruel look in her eyes... only there seemed to be something else there as well. And didn't her voice shake ever so slightly?
"I think there’s a fancy word for it. You know, when you’re sure this exact thing happened to you already, and you’re just repeating it?"
"Déjà vu."
"Right. I keep forgetting how smart you are, Giles!" She pointed with the knife at the ropes that tied him to the chair. "Me and Wesley did this once. I tied him up and tortured him for, like, hours. Beat him, cut him, burned him... funny how I couldn’t break him, though. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if you’re as tough as he was? I’m pretty sure I remember everything I did to him, it would be almost like science: same experiment, see if we get the same results?" Faith let her legs slide off the table and leaned forward, staring him down with a joyless grin. He didn’t look away.
"For both our sakes, I really wish you wouldn’t. But... déjà vu, Faith. I’ve been tortured before, by people far more experienced than you. And you -"
"Oooh, that sounds like a challenge!" She flashed him a bright smile... and then made an almost visible effort to bring herself under control again. "But I ain't gonna. Not yet, anyway. We’re just gonna have a talk, where one of us asks the questions while the smart one gets to sit in that chair until he answers them. Starting with an explanation of what happened in LA a week ago, and it better be good."
Giles sighed and winced at the pain in his jaw. "We... we don’t know everything that happened. It seems Angel and his colleagues went after the circle of the Black Thorn, one of the most powerful demon cabals in the world, and as far as we can tell they wiped them out. But they paid for it. There was a huge battle, and... well, apart from Wesley, we cannot be sure."
"So Wesley’s really..."
"Wesley is dead." Giles watched Faith slump back in her chair, her jaw muscles working, and found himself wishing yet again that he didn't have to be the one delivering the bad news. "Someone brought his body back to his flat, arranged his weapons around him and left the door open so he would be found. As for the rest, we have no idea. Spike called Buffy just before the battle started, but all we know about the outcome is that there were an awful lot of dead demons. But given that we’ve been unable to locate or contact them since then, we're assuming that... that none of them made it."
The pained expression on her face spoke volumes. For a second he thought she would... then she forced it back and was all cold business again. "OK. So we know who was there. Let’s talk about who wasn’t."
"What..."
"You know damn well what I mean." She pointed the knife straight at his face, raising her voice. "You command the biggest demon-fighting army since Army Of Darkness, Giles. Exactly how many of your girls were sent to help them?"
"We couldn't..."
"Bullshit! You've got your seers and secret agents and shit, and I know they asked you..."
"For once in your life, will you SHUT UP AND LISTEN?" Giles was just as surprised as Faith when he snapped at her. He tried to calm down again and looked away from her. "We did receive a request – or perhaps I should say a demand – for help some time before all this. What I told Angel then still stands: the Watcher’s Council does not help the CEO of Wolfram & Hart, no matter what his credentials. Surely you remember – they were the ones who hired you to kill Angel." He calmed down and waited for her to respond, but when she didn't he went on. "I’ve no doubt that Angel thought he was doing good, but neither do I doubt that he was being used. That battle was a suicide mission, Faith, a desperate last stand, and they knew it. The choice was mine: sending Slayers to die for a lost cause would have been senseless. I'm not proud of that decision, but it was the right one."
"Right. And I guess it just happened that some of the ones who paid for that were Angel, Wesley and Spike, none of who was ever on your best-friends list."
"If you’re suggesting –" He almost snapped at her again, but she didn't give him a chance.
"I ain’t suggesting shit. I’m saying that you sat on your bony British butt and let them die without lifting a finger. And I can’t let you get away with that." Faith was standing up now, shouting, and her grip on the knife had tightened. For a while, it was a staring contest, both having said too much, neither willing to back down. Again, it was Giles who looked away first.
"Faith... I know this is hard. But I also know you. You’ve worked long and hard to make up for what you’ve done in the past. You do not want to step across that line again."
Faith kept staring at him for a second or two. Then suddenly she was in his face, the knife - *THUCK* - buried several inches deep in the table right over his lap. "Well then quit fucking MOVING the line on me! You can’t..." And once again she reeled herself in, pushing the fury down and turning her back on him, her knuckles white around the knife handle as she yanked it out again.
"I... I did what I had to do, Faith. We all make our choices and live with them. They understood that. I know you do too."
Faith stood quiet for what seemed like several minutes. Then she let out a long, shaky breath. "You don’t sell your friends out. THAT’S the line you don’t cross. The one that puts you on probation for the rest of your life. Except it only applies to some people, right? The good ones get away with anything, but..."
"Tell that to Buffy," Giles mumbled.
She ignored the comment and slumped onto his couch, reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled and torn piece of paper. She didn’t read it, just held on to it as she wiped at her eyes with the back of the hand holding the knife. "How fucking stupid can... He believed in me. God, I ruined the guy’s life, and he still... him and Angel were the only ones who ever did."
"If that's true, then prove them right."
"I’m sorry, Giles, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do this... any of this..."
They sat there, both looking at the knife as Faith turned it over and over in her hands. Then she got to her feet and walked over to Giles.
4. Nothing Makes Sense
Beep. "Oh bugger. I hate these things. Oi, Buffy, pick up if you're there!"
For a few seconds there seemed to be just the sound of raindrops hitting leather somewhere close to the cell phone, but by the fourth listen she realized that there were various sounds of the city somewhere far in the background; cars, people, gunfire, apocalypse echoing against the walls of the alley. Then a disappointed snort.
"Right. This really isn't how I wanted to do this, but... Sod it, we've pissed off the top brass something fierce and I don't think they're about to let us get away with it. I'd blame Broody McForehead for that, but... let's face it, I've passed out too many bad cheques not to have a few bounce back hard. No more'n I deserve, I guess. We've been played for suckers right from the start, and... yeah."
By the fourth listen, Buffy figured out that the small break here was probably Spike taking a drag on a cigarette. Of course.
"Look... I'm sorry about not letting you know sooner about me being somewhat less than dead and all, but Angel was... fuck it, you know how we both feel about you. We've spent the last year fighting about it, and both of us have been too chicken to try and actually talk to you. And now I guess... The fat lady's getting ready for her solo and they don't come any fatter than this." A false cheeriness crept into his voice. "Speaking of which, here comes Angel now. I'll see if he wants to -"
Beep. "Message received, May 20, 7.52 AM."
The tape ran out, just like it had on the morning Spike called, just like it had every time she had listened to it since. For the thirtyoddth time, Buffy resisted the urge to smash the defenseless answering machine to pieces. She had hit the snooze button at 7.50 on a beautiful Rome morning and now these 60 seconds of lo-fi tape were all that remained. She was rewinding the tape when there was a knock on her bedroom door.
"Buffy? Giles is on the phone again."
She didn't look up. "Tell him I'm not in."
"Buffy..." Dawn poked her head around the door. "Sooner or later you're gonna have to talk to him."
"Fine." Buffy turned to her. "Ask him what he wants. Ask him if he really wants my opinion or if he's just calling to tell me about some other decision he made without asking me. Ask him if..."
Dawn nodded. "Fine, I'll just tell him you're out." As she closed the door, she heard the beep as the tape recorder started over again.
"I see. Thank you, Dawn." Six time zones away Giles hung up the phone and rubbed the welts where the rope had cut into his wrists. Now the cut-off rope lay in ringlets around his chair. Faith was still hunched over at the far end of the table, one hand around the whisky bottle they had been sharing, the knife safely back in its drawer.
"Didn't go too well, huh?"
"She... says she's not home", Giles motioned for the bottle and she slid it across the table to him. "Apparently she hasn't been home for some time now. I suppose I can't really blame her."
"Maybe I really should have tortured you." Faith slurred slightly, having polished off almost half the bottle by herself. "She mighta felt sorry for you."
"Perhaps." Giles shrugged and took a swig.
"And if not, maybe me and her could have bonded over that," she mused. "Either way, one of us woulda been better off."
There was silence around the table for a while. Giles seemed to have something in his eye; Faith didn't comment on it. Eventually Giles looked up. "Did you ever meet Fred?"
"Fred?" Faith frowned. "Angel's Fred? Yeah. Sure. Not like we hung out or anything, but... nice girl. L'il flaky. Wes... Wes was sweet on her, I think. Guess she bought it too, huh?"
Giles nodded, almost started to speak but took another drink before actually saying anything. "I wonder if... if I had made another decision if I had ever met her."
"Yeah. Wait. What?"
"Fred... 'bought it' several months ago." Giles didn't meet Faith's eyes. "She was possessed by an ancient demon. It killed her within hours and took over her body." His hand moved to a loose-leaf binder lying on the table, as if to open it, then let go again. "Angel called me afterwards and wanted me to have Willow restore her, and I refused. That was the only request for help we ever got, and it was the last time I ever spoke to any of them. It was probably too late, and I'm still convinced that there were forces at Wolfram and Hart who would have jumped at the chance to deliver a blow to the Council. But still... if I had known her personally, maybe..." He chuckled bitterly and took another swig from the bottle. "I've done things I've never told Buffy about. I've mucked about with dark magic, I've taken innocent lives for the greater good, I've sent young girls on deadly missions... Yet this time, all I did was make a conscious decision not to help a complete stranger. That's what I'm going to tell Buffy if she ever speaks to me again... Do you suppose she'll accept that as an apology?"
"B? You never know. I hear she can carry a grudge." Faith grimaced and reached for the whisky, staring past Giles' shoulders at the window behind him for a few minutes. "So is this what you get? Try and do the right thing, almost get yourself killed for it, end up on the outside anyway until someone decides you're not worth helping or even talking to?"
Giles shrugged.
"Then what's the point? I mean, why NOT be what everyone says you are? Why NOT sell out if everyone thinks you did anyway?" She took another swig, half of it spilling down her chin. "Come on, Giles, whaddyasay? You and me. I got the brawns, you got the brains, let's make lots of money. Dontchathink we'd make better villains than any of these losers we've been fighting all these years? If you're right about Angel and Wesley, I'm sure their former bosses got a job opening..." She grimaced and trailed off.
"You're not serious?" Giles put his glasses back on and looked at her, then shook his head. "You're not serious."
"Nah. But... nah. Only... I mean, what the fuck?" Slayer coordination starting to fail, Faith let the front legs of chair hit the floor and leaned forward. "I coulda just stayed behind bars until I got a piece of paper sayin' I'm reformed, but instead I had to go listen to Angel. He told me that people like me and him had to pay, our time would never be up, and I been trying to walk in his shoes but then his time was up and there's just this huge dead end street sign! I thought I'd come here all avenging angel, only..." She paused and frowned. "Turns out that ain't me anymore. So if I can't be bad, if I can't go back to the hero gig, and seriously, no way in hell I'm takin' up with you... what else is there?"
Again, silence reigned as they tried to come up with a way to move forward. Giles cleared his throat. "I know you weren't fond of the idea last time I mentioned it, but..."
"No."
"Why not? It's an easy matter for the council to set you up with a new identity. At least you'd be able to live a normal life, or whatever qualifies as normal for -"
"No way." Faith shook her head. "I've spent enough time wanting to be someone else. I'm stuck with me, Giles, that's pretty much all I've got right now. I just gotta figure out..."
Giles was about to answer – what, he didn't know – when someone banged on the door. "Cleveland PD, open up!"
Faith sat up straight. Giles motioned for her to stay where she was, absent-mindedly ran his hands through his hair and across his chin (as if that was going to hide the bruise that was forming on his jaw) and went out to answer the door. She heard Giles argue with the cops out in the hallway. He sounded impressive enough, but she had no idea how much sway the Council held these days.
"Sir, this woman is considered very dangerous and we have a warrant to search any house where we have reason to believe she may -"
"I understand. But I would still suggest that you mention my name to your commanding officer before you do anything that you will regret when you spend the next 20 years controlling parking meters."
When Giles returned to the kitchen, alone, it was empty. There was a crumpled note on the table next to the bottle, his wallet was gone and the back door was open. He sighed, sat down and read the note.
Faith,
Let's get the cliché out of the way first. By the time you read this etc. I know you've been told that before.
I've thought a lot about you lately. Buffy told me once that I destroyed you. Perhaps I did. Perhaps someone else did, long before I had the opportunity. Perhaps you did it yourself. I will not apologize to you, since that would mean you would have to apologize to me and I honestly don't know which one of us would start. Things do tend to pile up, don't they?
Six weeks ago I lost a person who meant more than anything to me. The funny thing was, I thought I'd lost her long before that. I was used to it – just like I once got used to the idea that I had lost you. You ended up proving me wrong, as did she. For all the good it did.
I honestly don't know why I am writing this letter. I suppose I just wanted someone to know this: everything I've ever done, all the bad decisions I've made, I did because I thought it was for the greater good. I don't expect you or anyone to thank me for it, and I don't know if you should. God knows our tenure at Wolfram & Hart hasn't been very successful; I suppose Giles was right to refuse to help us.
I just told someone that I don't intend to die today, but that may have been another lie. I'm not sure. At any rate, as I've come to find out, that old saying about the paving on the road to hell isn't entirely inaccurate.
Here, there were several half-finished sentences that had been crossed out until they became unreadable – the word "lie" seemed to be in there once or twice, but that was all Giles could make out - and the last few sentences were scribbled in a much more hurried script.
There is a ledge beyond the edge, Faith. You'll never know when you get there, it may not be big enough to hold on to for long, and more than likely somebody will try to kick you off it. But I am going to go stand on it now, and if by some miracle I can hang on, feel free to disregard this letter. Then again, you may wish to do so anyway. We might all have been better off, but here we are.
Yours truly,
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
5. Nobody Knows What You Are
And so Faith ran. Again. With no plan, no Watcher, no destiny, she ran. Next morning she wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to dodge the cops, but she got on her bike (bought for cash, no questions asked, figuring if she got stopped the name on the registration and her lack of a license really wouldn't be the issue) and left Cleveland behind.
Over the next couple of days, she stayed on the small roads, working her way West – slowly and aimlessly at first, but unmistakably West. She was halfway to LA before it struck her that she was halfway to LA; for what felt like the first time in a long time, it didn't feel like she was running from something. When she pulled over for the night, she lay awake on her motel bed thinking about that for a long while. It was like... everything that had gone before had played out. People had been telling her bullshit for years, telling her what she was, what road she had to take, and none of it had held up; as much as it hurt, there was a weird kind of freedom in that thought, like she could find her own way. Maybe that was good enough for now.
So why LA? Was that even where she was headed? There seemed to be dozens of possible answers, and none of them felt completely wrong. There were still demons in LA. There were still clubs in LA. There might even still be vampires with souls in LA, and if there was, they were going to get their asses kicked for not letting her know. If there wasn't... fuck it. You gotta be someplace. She'd make up a reason why when she got there.
In the meantime, she liked being on the move. The old bike wasn't the most low-profile way to travel, but she liked the way it responded; no electronics, just all power straight onto the tarmac and her hands on the handlebars, every little bump in the road going straight up her arms. Plus, hey, big vibrating engine between her legs didn't suck. She had to stay alert; one mistake and she'd be spread across three counties... but at least it would be her own mistake.
She rode across the plains of Nebraska as the sun slowly sank ahead of her. She hadn't checked her map for a while, figuring she knew the general direction. For the last few miles she'd been cruising in the slipstream behind a big semi truck, but since she hadn't seen a cop in a while she pulled into the oncoming lane and gunned the bike, overtaking the trucker like he stood still. The engine growled like a beast let out of its cage, the sky lay open in front of her, and when she came to a fork in the road she took it.
lynnevitational, and I got the idea that I'd use it as an excuse to finally finish this old WIP. Because apparently, my muse needs a deadline. For which I was fashionably late anyway, but here it is.Title: Testament
Author: Beer Good (
beer_good_foamy)Rating: PG13
Word Count: ~5000
Fandom: Buffyverse,
Characters: Mostly Faith, Giles and Wesley; some Buffy/Spike.
Disclaimer: The usual stuff about Joss, money, characters, blood, large bowls of porridge, rightful claim to throne, etc.
Summary: The Angel gang's last stand didn't go unnoticed among those who used to know them, especially given their last communications on the eve of the battle. Two letters and a phone call start a chain reaction that force the survivors to re-evaluate their situation.
Fic started in 2005, revised and finished in 2008 for the
lynnevitational."Before we talk of any repentance, try walking in my shoes; you'll stumble in my footsteps." (Depeche Mode)
"To live outside the law, you must be honest." (Bob Dylan)
1. Testament
Dear Mr Giles,
I am sorry for troubling you, but as the head of the new Watcher's Council and my former mentor, I feel it is only right that you should be the one receiving this.
If the US postal service does as it has promised, you should receive this letter together with a package containing my watcher's diaries as well as some other texts I have written over the years. I expect the earliest entries are good for no more than a laugh, but some of my later findings may be of use for future daemonology researchers. Of course, not having had access to the Council's library for some time, it is possible that I have merely been re-inventing fire, as they say. Nevertheless, feel free to do with these writings as you will. I have been holding on to them for some time, but it seems that may no longer be necessary.
One volume you may find of particular interest is the newest one. It is not really finished (it certainly needs editing) but I believe it contains some previously unknown information about the oldest daemon races which may still prove useful. It is in the binder marked "Fred". (Consider the irony: it would seem I am a watcher of sorts again, although I am not exactly sure who is teaching whom.)
I hope everyone is well at your end. If you are in contact with Faith, I would appreciate it if you could pass on the attached envelope.
Give my regards to my father if you see him.
Sincerely,
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
2. Step Away From The Glass
Faith flinched inside as a cop car passed her. She knew not to let them bother her; after all, it had been over a year since she broke out and so far she'd only had one close call. She was on the other side of the country, one of thousands of wanted fugitives in the US, and as long as she lay low the chances of a cop looking at her and going "Hey, isn't that chick wanted for murder?" were pretty slim.
Still, she flinched.
When she saw another black'n'white heading the other way (gee, two police cars in five minutes in downtown Manhattan, what are the odds... calm down, girl) she ducked into a bar for a breather. It was just her and the bartender, which suited her just fine. Just the one exit too, which suited her somewhat less, but whatchagonnado.
"Double vodka. Plenty ice."
"ID."
"I stole a copy of And Justice For All the day it was released. Just give me a drink, OK babe?"
The bartender shrugged and poured her what she'd asked for. This girl seemed like a type 14 customer to him: the kind who desperately needs to talk to someone, but doesn’t really want to, and shouldn’t be too crowded. "I'm Jim, by the way."
"Good for you." Faith pointedly looked past him into the mirror behind the bar as she raised the glass. Not that he didn't seem like a nice guy, but... funny, with all the practice she'd had at being alone, she still felt like something was missing now that she wasn't part of the Slayer gang anymore. It had been her decision; they never said anything to her face about it, especially not the juniors who had heard a few too many stories about her to ever be completely relaxed around her, but she knew having a wanted murderer on the team was a problem. Everyone had to be extra careful at all times, and simple things like buying a plane ticket or explaining to a cop why you were carrying around a sharp stake became almost impossible; not very convenient for a mobile demon-hunting team trying to keep a low profile. So like so many before her she’d gone to New York to disappear in the crowd, with no one but Giles knowing how to get in touch with her, and hunted alone leaving as few witnesses as possible. And to think that her and B had actually been... OK, "friends" might be saying too much, but... it had been nice to have a mission.
"This seat taken, sweetheart?"
She was jolted out of her thoughts as a man planted himself on the barstool next to her without waiting for an answer. Forty-ish, balding, overweight... and obviously bent on more than just conversation. Great, that's all I needed right now.
"So, what's your poison, honey? Mind if I buy you a drink?"
Is this dude for real? Faith felt a rising urge to just slam the guy's face down on the counter, but reminded herself that she was low-profile girl these days and just clenched her teeth and looked away.
"Come on, darling. Don't be like that. I know you'd like to have some fun..." It was so out of the blue it took Faith a second to register what was happening: the guy had actually reached out and grabbed her boobs. The old Faith would have sent him to the emergency room. The new Faith almost did, but reigned herself in at the last second and instead calmly seized him by one wrist just hard enough to not snap it. Part of her felt way too good about hearing him gasp in pain; he pulled back his other hand so quickly he got caught on her jacket and almost ripped it off.
"Everything OK here?" Jim stepped a little closer as the guy struggled to free himself; in 20 years of bartending, he’d had to intervene more than once to stop a fight. Often more than once a night. Usually over women not half as good-looking as this one.
"Five by five," Faith remarked casually as she wrenched the fatso’s hand from her chest and slammed it down on the counter. "Mr Three-seconds-from-castration here was just about to leave... ain't that right?" She gave his wrist an extra little squeeze and then let go. He was off the barstool and out the door so fast she was almost disappointed.
Oh well, she might as well pay up and leave. She reached for the wallet in her inside pocket, and found something else as well. An envelope that hadn't been there before the pervert stuck his hands inside her jacket. Whaddyaknow, he must have been one of Giles's couriers. What is it about carrying other people's mail that attracts psychos? She looked at the envelope with her name on it and recognized the handwriting. Rather than paying up, she ordered another drink and then read Wesley’s letter.
From over by the register, Jim watched her read and saw her face harden from annoyance to shock to grief.
"Bad news?"
Faith didn't answer for a while, just sat there staring at the counter. Then, just as Jim was about to move closer she crumpled up the letter in her fist. She lifted her glass and toasted thin air, downed the vodka in one gulp and then hurled the glass past the bartender's ear, smashing a couple of bottles and the mirror.
Jim instinctively ducked behind the bar as he was showered with broken glass. It probably saved... maybe not his life, but at least his health, since the glass was quickly followed by two of the bolted-down barstools. He cowered behind the bar as Faith went apeshit on his furniture. When he looked up ten minutes later, she was gone, as was most of his bar; chairs broken, pictures smashed, the jukebox thrown halfway across the room... Jim picked up the phone, which turned out to be broken as well, and then headed outside to find a cop. He'd always been good with faces, and he was sure he could give them a good description.
3. Ready To Cut Loose?
Giles opened his eyes and slowly focused on his alarm clock. 3.11 AM. The noise that had woken him up was someone banging at the door of his apartment, which instantly led to equal parts worry and hope; he hadn't slept well recently, and so he’d given specific orders not to be disturbed unless it was really important. Maybe it was good news. He put on his bathrobe as he made his way towards the door, looked through the peephole - Alright, so not good news then - and opened.
"Hello, Faith."
"Hiya."
He went back to sleep. That’s usually what happens when a pissed-off Slayer punches a completely unprepared middle-aged man.
"You ever get the feeling you done something before, G?"
At first, Giles wasn’t sure where he was or why he couldn’t move. Then his vision unblurred and he saw Faith, casually leaning back on her chair with her feet up on his dinner table, giving herself a manicure with his sharpest steak knife in a casual display of Slayer abilities. To anyone who didn’t know her, she seemed calm. But he knew that smile, that cruel look in her eyes... only there seemed to be something else there as well. And didn't her voice shake ever so slightly?
"I think there’s a fancy word for it. You know, when you’re sure this exact thing happened to you already, and you’re just repeating it?"
"Déjà vu."
"Right. I keep forgetting how smart you are, Giles!" She pointed with the knife at the ropes that tied him to the chair. "Me and Wesley did this once. I tied him up and tortured him for, like, hours. Beat him, cut him, burned him... funny how I couldn’t break him, though. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if you’re as tough as he was? I’m pretty sure I remember everything I did to him, it would be almost like science: same experiment, see if we get the same results?" Faith let her legs slide off the table and leaned forward, staring him down with a joyless grin. He didn’t look away.
"For both our sakes, I really wish you wouldn’t. But... déjà vu, Faith. I’ve been tortured before, by people far more experienced than you. And you -"
"Oooh, that sounds like a challenge!" She flashed him a bright smile... and then made an almost visible effort to bring herself under control again. "But I ain't gonna. Not yet, anyway. We’re just gonna have a talk, where one of us asks the questions while the smart one gets to sit in that chair until he answers them. Starting with an explanation of what happened in LA a week ago, and it better be good."
Giles sighed and winced at the pain in his jaw. "We... we don’t know everything that happened. It seems Angel and his colleagues went after the circle of the Black Thorn, one of the most powerful demon cabals in the world, and as far as we can tell they wiped them out. But they paid for it. There was a huge battle, and... well, apart from Wesley, we cannot be sure."
"So Wesley’s really..."
"Wesley is dead." Giles watched Faith slump back in her chair, her jaw muscles working, and found himself wishing yet again that he didn't have to be the one delivering the bad news. "Someone brought his body back to his flat, arranged his weapons around him and left the door open so he would be found. As for the rest, we have no idea. Spike called Buffy just before the battle started, but all we know about the outcome is that there were an awful lot of dead demons. But given that we’ve been unable to locate or contact them since then, we're assuming that... that none of them made it."
The pained expression on her face spoke volumes. For a second he thought she would... then she forced it back and was all cold business again. "OK. So we know who was there. Let’s talk about who wasn’t."
"What..."
"You know damn well what I mean." She pointed the knife straight at his face, raising her voice. "You command the biggest demon-fighting army since Army Of Darkness, Giles. Exactly how many of your girls were sent to help them?"
"We couldn't..."
"Bullshit! You've got your seers and secret agents and shit, and I know they asked you..."
"For once in your life, will you SHUT UP AND LISTEN?" Giles was just as surprised as Faith when he snapped at her. He tried to calm down again and looked away from her. "We did receive a request – or perhaps I should say a demand – for help some time before all this. What I told Angel then still stands: the Watcher’s Council does not help the CEO of Wolfram & Hart, no matter what his credentials. Surely you remember – they were the ones who hired you to kill Angel." He calmed down and waited for her to respond, but when she didn't he went on. "I’ve no doubt that Angel thought he was doing good, but neither do I doubt that he was being used. That battle was a suicide mission, Faith, a desperate last stand, and they knew it. The choice was mine: sending Slayers to die for a lost cause would have been senseless. I'm not proud of that decision, but it was the right one."
"Right. And I guess it just happened that some of the ones who paid for that were Angel, Wesley and Spike, none of who was ever on your best-friends list."
"If you’re suggesting –" He almost snapped at her again, but she didn't give him a chance.
"I ain’t suggesting shit. I’m saying that you sat on your bony British butt and let them die without lifting a finger. And I can’t let you get away with that." Faith was standing up now, shouting, and her grip on the knife had tightened. For a while, it was a staring contest, both having said too much, neither willing to back down. Again, it was Giles who looked away first.
"Faith... I know this is hard. But I also know you. You’ve worked long and hard to make up for what you’ve done in the past. You do not want to step across that line again."
Faith kept staring at him for a second or two. Then suddenly she was in his face, the knife - *THUCK* - buried several inches deep in the table right over his lap. "Well then quit fucking MOVING the line on me! You can’t..." And once again she reeled herself in, pushing the fury down and turning her back on him, her knuckles white around the knife handle as she yanked it out again.
"I... I did what I had to do, Faith. We all make our choices and live with them. They understood that. I know you do too."
Faith stood quiet for what seemed like several minutes. Then she let out a long, shaky breath. "You don’t sell your friends out. THAT’S the line you don’t cross. The one that puts you on probation for the rest of your life. Except it only applies to some people, right? The good ones get away with anything, but..."
"Tell that to Buffy," Giles mumbled.
She ignored the comment and slumped onto his couch, reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled and torn piece of paper. She didn’t read it, just held on to it as she wiped at her eyes with the back of the hand holding the knife. "How fucking stupid can... He believed in me. God, I ruined the guy’s life, and he still... him and Angel were the only ones who ever did."
"If that's true, then prove them right."
"I’m sorry, Giles, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do this... any of this..."
They sat there, both looking at the knife as Faith turned it over and over in her hands. Then she got to her feet and walked over to Giles.
4. Nothing Makes Sense
Beep. "Oh bugger. I hate these things. Oi, Buffy, pick up if you're there!"
For a few seconds there seemed to be just the sound of raindrops hitting leather somewhere close to the cell phone, but by the fourth listen she realized that there were various sounds of the city somewhere far in the background; cars, people, gunfire, apocalypse echoing against the walls of the alley. Then a disappointed snort.
"Right. This really isn't how I wanted to do this, but... Sod it, we've pissed off the top brass something fierce and I don't think they're about to let us get away with it. I'd blame Broody McForehead for that, but... let's face it, I've passed out too many bad cheques not to have a few bounce back hard. No more'n I deserve, I guess. We've been played for suckers right from the start, and... yeah."
By the fourth listen, Buffy figured out that the small break here was probably Spike taking a drag on a cigarette. Of course.
"Look... I'm sorry about not letting you know sooner about me being somewhat less than dead and all, but Angel was... fuck it, you know how we both feel about you. We've spent the last year fighting about it, and both of us have been too chicken to try and actually talk to you. And now I guess... The fat lady's getting ready for her solo and they don't come any fatter than this." A false cheeriness crept into his voice. "Speaking of which, here comes Angel now. I'll see if he wants to -"
Beep. "Message received, May 20, 7.52 AM."
The tape ran out, just like it had on the morning Spike called, just like it had every time she had listened to it since. For the thirtyoddth time, Buffy resisted the urge to smash the defenseless answering machine to pieces. She had hit the snooze button at 7.50 on a beautiful Rome morning and now these 60 seconds of lo-fi tape were all that remained. She was rewinding the tape when there was a knock on her bedroom door.
"Buffy? Giles is on the phone again."
She didn't look up. "Tell him I'm not in."
"Buffy..." Dawn poked her head around the door. "Sooner or later you're gonna have to talk to him."
"Fine." Buffy turned to her. "Ask him what he wants. Ask him if he really wants my opinion or if he's just calling to tell me about some other decision he made without asking me. Ask him if..."
Dawn nodded. "Fine, I'll just tell him you're out." As she closed the door, she heard the beep as the tape recorder started over again.
"I see. Thank you, Dawn." Six time zones away Giles hung up the phone and rubbed the welts where the rope had cut into his wrists. Now the cut-off rope lay in ringlets around his chair. Faith was still hunched over at the far end of the table, one hand around the whisky bottle they had been sharing, the knife safely back in its drawer.
"Didn't go too well, huh?"
"She... says she's not home", Giles motioned for the bottle and she slid it across the table to him. "Apparently she hasn't been home for some time now. I suppose I can't really blame her."
"Maybe I really should have tortured you." Faith slurred slightly, having polished off almost half the bottle by herself. "She mighta felt sorry for you."
"Perhaps." Giles shrugged and took a swig.
"And if not, maybe me and her could have bonded over that," she mused. "Either way, one of us woulda been better off."
There was silence around the table for a while. Giles seemed to have something in his eye; Faith didn't comment on it. Eventually Giles looked up. "Did you ever meet Fred?"
"Fred?" Faith frowned. "Angel's Fred? Yeah. Sure. Not like we hung out or anything, but... nice girl. L'il flaky. Wes... Wes was sweet on her, I think. Guess she bought it too, huh?"
Giles nodded, almost started to speak but took another drink before actually saying anything. "I wonder if... if I had made another decision if I had ever met her."
"Yeah. Wait. What?"
"Fred... 'bought it' several months ago." Giles didn't meet Faith's eyes. "She was possessed by an ancient demon. It killed her within hours and took over her body." His hand moved to a loose-leaf binder lying on the table, as if to open it, then let go again. "Angel called me afterwards and wanted me to have Willow restore her, and I refused. That was the only request for help we ever got, and it was the last time I ever spoke to any of them. It was probably too late, and I'm still convinced that there were forces at Wolfram and Hart who would have jumped at the chance to deliver a blow to the Council. But still... if I had known her personally, maybe..." He chuckled bitterly and took another swig from the bottle. "I've done things I've never told Buffy about. I've mucked about with dark magic, I've taken innocent lives for the greater good, I've sent young girls on deadly missions... Yet this time, all I did was make a conscious decision not to help a complete stranger. That's what I'm going to tell Buffy if she ever speaks to me again... Do you suppose she'll accept that as an apology?"
"B? You never know. I hear she can carry a grudge." Faith grimaced and reached for the whisky, staring past Giles' shoulders at the window behind him for a few minutes. "So is this what you get? Try and do the right thing, almost get yourself killed for it, end up on the outside anyway until someone decides you're not worth helping or even talking to?"
Giles shrugged.
"Then what's the point? I mean, why NOT be what everyone says you are? Why NOT sell out if everyone thinks you did anyway?" She took another swig, half of it spilling down her chin. "Come on, Giles, whaddyasay? You and me. I got the brawns, you got the brains, let's make lots of money. Dontchathink we'd make better villains than any of these losers we've been fighting all these years? If you're right about Angel and Wesley, I'm sure their former bosses got a job opening..." She grimaced and trailed off.
"You're not serious?" Giles put his glasses back on and looked at her, then shook his head. "You're not serious."
"Nah. But... nah. Only... I mean, what the fuck?" Slayer coordination starting to fail, Faith let the front legs of chair hit the floor and leaned forward. "I coulda just stayed behind bars until I got a piece of paper sayin' I'm reformed, but instead I had to go listen to Angel. He told me that people like me and him had to pay, our time would never be up, and I been trying to walk in his shoes but then his time was up and there's just this huge dead end street sign! I thought I'd come here all avenging angel, only..." She paused and frowned. "Turns out that ain't me anymore. So if I can't be bad, if I can't go back to the hero gig, and seriously, no way in hell I'm takin' up with you... what else is there?"
Again, silence reigned as they tried to come up with a way to move forward. Giles cleared his throat. "I know you weren't fond of the idea last time I mentioned it, but..."
"No."
"Why not? It's an easy matter for the council to set you up with a new identity. At least you'd be able to live a normal life, or whatever qualifies as normal for -"
"No way." Faith shook her head. "I've spent enough time wanting to be someone else. I'm stuck with me, Giles, that's pretty much all I've got right now. I just gotta figure out..."
Giles was about to answer – what, he didn't know – when someone banged on the door. "Cleveland PD, open up!"
Faith sat up straight. Giles motioned for her to stay where she was, absent-mindedly ran his hands through his hair and across his chin (as if that was going to hide the bruise that was forming on his jaw) and went out to answer the door. She heard Giles argue with the cops out in the hallway. He sounded impressive enough, but she had no idea how much sway the Council held these days.
"Sir, this woman is considered very dangerous and we have a warrant to search any house where we have reason to believe she may -"
"I understand. But I would still suggest that you mention my name to your commanding officer before you do anything that you will regret when you spend the next 20 years controlling parking meters."
When Giles returned to the kitchen, alone, it was empty. There was a crumpled note on the table next to the bottle, his wallet was gone and the back door was open. He sighed, sat down and read the note.
Faith,
Let's get the cliché out of the way first. By the time you read this etc. I know you've been told that before.
I've thought a lot about you lately. Buffy told me once that I destroyed you. Perhaps I did. Perhaps someone else did, long before I had the opportunity. Perhaps you did it yourself. I will not apologize to you, since that would mean you would have to apologize to me and I honestly don't know which one of us would start. Things do tend to pile up, don't they?
Six weeks ago I lost a person who meant more than anything to me. The funny thing was, I thought I'd lost her long before that. I was used to it – just like I once got used to the idea that I had lost you. You ended up proving me wrong, as did she. For all the good it did.
I honestly don't know why I am writing this letter. I suppose I just wanted someone to know this: everything I've ever done, all the bad decisions I've made, I did because I thought it was for the greater good. I don't expect you or anyone to thank me for it, and I don't know if you should. God knows our tenure at Wolfram & Hart hasn't been very successful; I suppose Giles was right to refuse to help us.
I just told someone that I don't intend to die today, but that may have been another lie. I'm not sure. At any rate, as I've come to find out, that old saying about the paving on the road to hell isn't entirely inaccurate.
Here, there were several half-finished sentences that had been crossed out until they became unreadable – the word "lie" seemed to be in there once or twice, but that was all Giles could make out - and the last few sentences were scribbled in a much more hurried script.
There is a ledge beyond the edge, Faith. You'll never know when you get there, it may not be big enough to hold on to for long, and more than likely somebody will try to kick you off it. But I am going to go stand on it now, and if by some miracle I can hang on, feel free to disregard this letter. Then again, you may wish to do so anyway. We might all have been better off, but here we are.
Yours truly,
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
5. Nobody Knows What You Are
And so Faith ran. Again. With no plan, no Watcher, no destiny, she ran. Next morning she wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed to dodge the cops, but she got on her bike (bought for cash, no questions asked, figuring if she got stopped the name on the registration and her lack of a license really wouldn't be the issue) and left Cleveland behind.
Over the next couple of days, she stayed on the small roads, working her way West – slowly and aimlessly at first, but unmistakably West. She was halfway to LA before it struck her that she was halfway to LA; for what felt like the first time in a long time, it didn't feel like she was running from something. When she pulled over for the night, she lay awake on her motel bed thinking about that for a long while. It was like... everything that had gone before had played out. People had been telling her bullshit for years, telling her what she was, what road she had to take, and none of it had held up; as much as it hurt, there was a weird kind of freedom in that thought, like she could find her own way. Maybe that was good enough for now.
So why LA? Was that even where she was headed? There seemed to be dozens of possible answers, and none of them felt completely wrong. There were still demons in LA. There were still clubs in LA. There might even still be vampires with souls in LA, and if there was, they were going to get their asses kicked for not letting her know. If there wasn't... fuck it. You gotta be someplace. She'd make up a reason why when she got there.
In the meantime, she liked being on the move. The old bike wasn't the most low-profile way to travel, but she liked the way it responded; no electronics, just all power straight onto the tarmac and her hands on the handlebars, every little bump in the road going straight up her arms. Plus, hey, big vibrating engine between her legs didn't suck. She had to stay alert; one mistake and she'd be spread across three counties... but at least it would be her own mistake.
She rode across the plains of Nebraska as the sun slowly sank ahead of her. She hadn't checked her map for a while, figuring she knew the general direction. For the last few miles she'd been cruising in the slipstream behind a big semi truck, but since she hadn't seen a cop in a while she pulled into the oncoming lane and gunned the bike, overtaking the trucker like he stood still. The engine growled like a beast let out of its cage, the sky lay open in front of her, and when she came to a fork in the road she took it.
