Is Death Her Gift?

1: The Human Slayer

The call from Wesley had finished up a couple of minutes ago. Faith was in her den in the warehouse building she and Giles had remodeled as the home of their rogue slayer sanctuary in Chicago. Nimbly, she pounded away on a large punching bag, her forehead and neck glistening with sweat. She’d known it was Wesley on the phone—or rather guessed—because she’d noticed that Giles grew quiet, almost disturbed and as Faith remembered it from her time in Sunnydale, Wes was one of the few people able to uppercut the older watcher with equal portions of annoyance and dread enough to stun him into brooding silence.

When the hushed conversation had ended, Giles had taken his time coming to tell her the news. He cleared his throat in the spacious meeting area where they tended to host Scooby meetings when the old gang members popped in for a visit and stopped to clean his glasses twice before slowly moving to lean against the doorway to the den.  Faith felt him watching her before she looked up and saw him there. Slayer senses came in handy, always. Giving the bag a few more level punches for good measure, she pulled back and looked over at him, figuring what the stitch was automatically.

“New girl in L.A.? She asked, grabbing her towel from a nearby coat rack and running it over her damp shoulders.

“New girl in L.A.” Giles confirmed, “but not of the usual variety, I’m afraid.”

Faith popped the top off of the water bottle on her desk and took a few swallows before leaning back against the polished wood.

“What’s different about this one?”

Giles didn’t know how to say it. I mean, there was no polite or politically correct way to put it. The gruesome simple truth that he hoped he was managing to get across was that a girl named  Dana—who had spent months being raped, stabbed at, and God only knew what else by a serial killer—had been called to become a slayer and that girl was now not only severely mentally unstable, but she had just broken out of hospital and murdered two men while also taking the time to mutilate one of the bodies post-mortem. Going after her would be anything but a routine mission and Giles didn’t feel right asking Faith to do such a thing, but there was no one else who was able to do what she did.

Faith listened to the details of the mission as Giles stumbled over them, respecting her enough not to gloss over the very real possibility that this girl wouldn’t be one she would be able to save. That it was possible that she was just too far gone already to be able to be reached. The truth was doing a number on Giles though. Never before had Faith seen her mentor look so old and run down. In the dim light of the overhead lamps, the wrinkles around his eyes and the creases on his forehead stood out as if they had only recently been stamped there. She knew he couldn’t be comfortable with asking her to do what she knew she had to, but Faith was also having a hard time swallowing it.

Never before had she gone into a mission already knowing that it was almost certainly a lost cause, but here Giles was—basically telling her there was no hope and acting like he was already consoling her for the loss. That alone was enough to scare Faith out of her usual bravado and into the comfortable arms of her defensive tendencies.

“Hold up, G. I didn’t sign on for this bullshit. This Dana girl isn’t like the two-bit hard luck brats you usually send me after. From what you’re saying, she didn’t choose to go evil or become a monster. She was made one by years and years of torture which makes her an innocent. I can’t do it, G. I can’t take her down and what if I gotta? Most missions I’m good for, but not this one.”

Giles pushed away from the doorjamb and paced in front of the open French doors to the den, grumbling, roiling more with his own fear and distaste for this assignment than any sort of ill feelings directed at Faith, but damn it a rogue slayer—especially one this dangerous couldn’t be allowed to live. Faith couldn’t wimp out on him now, not when he needed her.

 “I do feel for what you are going through, Faith, I sincerely do,” Giles began. “However, now is not the time to be backing away from your calling. May I remind you, Faith, that this is your job! You are the one who saves the dangerous ones who don’t have anyone else to turn to and if they cannot be reached, you subdue them because there is no one else who can do it.”

Faith remained quiet, regarding him through hard, dark eyes. Giles couldn’t tell if she was going to deck him or start throwing things, but either way this conversation had to be had. The recent Slayer Organization was still new. The Watcher’s Council was in the throes of being rebuilt but none of what they were trying to accomplish was stable yet and something so seemingly insignificant as one girl gone wrong with sharp pointy objects could unravel the entire tapestry before Giles and Buffy and the Scoobies even had a chance to finish it off. Faith had to understand that the work she did was essential. Too many nights, he had allowed her to drink herself into oblivion and drown in her own self-loathing. Too many nights he had allowed the amount of stress her job put on her shoulders to weigh her down, but not now. Now she had to suck it up for the greater good because she was needed.

“Are you paying attention?” Giles asked, stopping to stand in front of her and trying not to be put off by Faith’s obvious bad mood at the topic. “You bloody well better be. No one else in our little hodgepodge of hellmouth survivors has your propensity for darkness—your own personal expertise. Your insight. You know what it’s like to have touched that evil within yourself, to have given into the power, and have to come back from it stronger than you were before. That is why these girls need you, Faith. That is why I chose you. The fact that not all of them can be saved is a hard, but unfortunate fact of life and we must accept it.”

“You got cotton in your ears, old man?” Faith rolled her eyes at him, trying for all she was worth to rein in her temper. “I don’t have a problem with the job, that’s not what I’m on about. It’s a stitch I can handle most of the time. I know I am doing for the good. I’ve only had to put down two girls out of fifteen so far and that to me is something to be proud of, but this job—this mission—isn’t the same. This girl, she’s not playing with a full deck and she might not even be able to. She’s been yanked so many ways, she doesn’t know which way is up anymore and the only way this kid can find any peace is to hack away at orderlies and male nurses with bone saws and to top it all off, now she has super powers? This is some kind of wicked fucked up, G. You know the job I do, it isn’t exactly something that gives me the warm fuzzies. Most nights, I can’t get the faces of the girls I put down out of my head and every morning, I gotta remind myself of all the ones I saved from the gutter otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. It’s the only thing keeping me sane, but if I do this—I’m not sure even that will be enough to keep me from losing it. This isn’t right. This girl—she doesn’t deserve to die, G. She doesn’t. I can feel it. She’s just one fucked up kid. ”

Giles removed his glasses from his nose and wiped his face with one broad palm.

“I know,” he sighed, defeated, really looking like he’d aged ten years in the last six months since the latest apocalypse had been averted. “I know and I wish I could tell you that you wouldn’t have to kill her, but we can’t let her continue on as she is. She can’t keep killing, Faith. Those people—they’re innocents too.”

Faith took a deep breath and released it quickly as both of her fists slammed down into the desk beneath her, her knuckles going through the solid cherry wood. She really, really didn’t want to have to do this, but what else could she do? Finally, Faith conceded and stood up heavily as if her body suddenly weighed a hundred more pounds.

“When’s the next flight to L.A.?” she asked, yanking off her hand wraps and tossing them into a dark corner of the room.

Giles sighed gratefully. He hadn’t realized how truly worried he’d been that he wouldn’t be able to get Faith to go along with the mission until relief settled into the pit of his stomach and his entire body relaxed.

“Wesley’s booked you a seat on the first one out. It leaves in three hours,” Giles said, turning to leave. “And Faith? You’re doing the right thing.”

Faith waited until she heard Giles’ footsteps fade away into another part of the building before a loud, primal scream erupted from her lungs and she kicked the punching bag for all it was worth. The chains holding the abused thing busted under the strain, sending the large bag barreling dangerously through the paneling of the side wall. Faith sank to her knees, feeling herself retreat from the world in a way she never had before. She really, really didn’t want to do this. Having to put down other girls like her—girls that reminded her so much of the fuck up she used to be that it wasn’t funny—was killing her inside. Angel told her redemption wouldn’t be easy. He’d told her that it would be forever, but he didn’t say that it would hurt this much and be so confusing.

What was it really aside from the word itself that separated what she did from murder? Killing was killing. Taking a human life was taking a human life no matter which way you turned it.  She was trying to do good, she really was and when she looked at the faces of the girls she’d saved from horrible lives, Faith knew she had. But it came with a price, for every girl she saved, there was one somewhere out there that she couldn’t. As pessimistic as life had made her, Faith always went into every mission with the hope that she could rescue the slayer she was after from evil and that hope remained with her even mere seconds up to the dealing of the killing blow. She never gave up on any of them and it felt wrong to be going into this, already being expected to fail.

Story of my life, Faith thought, standing again and cracking her neck to distract her from the stinging behind her eyes.

Almost everyone she’d ever known had given up on her; had expected her to turn out a fucking mess just like she had. Everyone but Giles, the Scoobs, Angel, and Buffy. Even when she was evil, they’d seen a different side to her. Shit, it still surprised her that Buffy had been able to see the good in her. Even when they were fighting, even when they’d switched bodies, and back again, she’d seen the look in Buffy’s blue eyes—beyond the hurt, beyond the betrayal, there had lingered the belief that Faith really was good somewhere deep down inside. Faith would never admit to it, but she was more than grateful for that notion while it lasted, until hatred finally replaced it.

Whatever. That was ancient history.

Faith stretched briefly then moved over to the opposite wall where a small leather duffle bag sat sandwiched between two bookcases. She always travelled light. It came in handy if a mission suddenly went awry or the cops were alerted to the commotion of destruction and chaos that was two slayers fighting. She had a couple of pairs of clothes already packed to leave at the drop of a hat if she needed to—like now—along with a few low profile weapons that were stowed in foam and carted with the protection of special collector’s licenses so she didn’t get arrested going through security at the airport. Faith lifted the worn brown bag, comforted slightly by the sturdy creak of the leather and the familiar weight of the things inside.

On her way out into the main room of their loft, she stopped in front of the wall of windows admiring the city skyline against the backdrop of an orange sunset. The Loop was lit up in the fading light as the shadows of the buildings settled over the dark waters of the Chicago River. Faith took a few minutes to enjoy the scenery, knowing in a few hours she’d be halfway across the country enroute to a murder.

2: What’s Your Childhood Trauma?

The plane landed on time—for once—and Faith disembarked at Los Angeles International with very little hassle. The man operating the baggage claim gave her a withering look when she hefted her bag up onto her shoulder with one arm and Faith gave him a charming wink so his composure faltered and he looked away. She loved getting a reaction out of people. They never saw her coming and most of them didn’t have experience enough in the personal arena to know what to do when they were approached by someone whose entire demeanor screamed sex, power, and heat. Her ability to turn heads in a room made inconspicuously getting away from someplace a chore sometimes, but for the most part, Faith was happy with how she came off to people.

 She walked out of the buzzing front entrance towards the street. Not bothering to hail a cab yet, Faith pulled her cell phone out of her belt and flipped it open, hitting a number on speed dial and waiting as it rang on the other line. The British voice that picked up wasn’t exactly whom she had hoped would answer, but he would have to do.

 “Hiya, Wes. I just landed…so what’s the skinny on this Dana chick?”

 Around thirty minutes later, Faith was racing through festering back alleys so far removed from downtown Los Angeles that it almost felt like a different world. She’d taken a cab to the last known location Wes had for the girl. It turned out to be an all stops minimart with bulletproof glass surrounding the cashier counter and a very dead security guard spread out in the middle of one of the aisles fenced off by yellow police tape. From there, Faith had managed to track the girl to what looked to be a derelict factory building and slowed in her search. Halfway in her leap over the chain link fence surrounding the place, the little hairs on the back of Faith’s neck rose and adrenaline began pumping through her body like ice. Her limbs and muscles woke up, the slayer in her alert and pacing back and forth inside of her, agitated at the prospect of prey nearby.

 Always one to follow her instincts, Faith ran up to the building, taking note of one broken window on the ground floor. It was the only one without bars, the reason becoming clear as she noticed the remains of the iron fortifications scattered on the pavement, bent and broken.

 “Good to know she’s keeping in shape”, Faith quipped to herself, as she climbed through the open space and disappeared into the darkness below.

 She rolled to her feet on the concrete floor as the predator crouched inside her. Something was nearby. Not on this floor, but close enough to be dangerous. Unlike Buffy, Faith had always felt at home with the wildness inside of her. The slayer part of her, the demon that propelled her, seemed to mesh seamlessly with her human side. When Faith was younger, she hadn’t cared to be able to tell the difference between the two. Her humanity had felt like a weakness to her, seemed to be holding back the animal in her that wanted to fight and kill and fuck all at once all day and all night without a care as to what happened to anyone else. But in prison, Faith had finally taken time to learn the difference. The predator inside was a crucial part of what she was, but it wasn’t who she was and it wasn’t where her true strength lay. It was her humanity that made her strong—her ability to decide to protect others who couldn’t protect themselves.

 Still after so many years, every time the slayer inside reared its ugly head—Faith felt the temptation to give in and let it rule her as the familiar power coursed through every fiber of her being. To just stop caring about everyone and what they thought and what they deserved and what was fair would be too easy though. Because she understood what it meant to lose control, Faith could usually talk the rogues she hunted down out of their destructive ways. But this Dana girl wasn’t like any rogue she’d gone after before. They hadn’t even met face to face yet and already Faith could feel the difference. Most rogues were like she had been—wild, untamed, uncaring, unfeeling, but Dana wasn’t wild so much as feral.

 The trauma dealt to her as a child must have been so great that it completely stamped out her human will and personality and when the slayer took over that was all the girl had left to protect herself alongside a range of painful memories. If Faith had been less experienced, she might’ve mistaken Dana for an otherworldly demon or a Were just by the pure animalism radiating off of the girl in aggressive waves. However, Faith could feel that she was human if only just so and that knowledge alone was enough for her to take a deep steadying breath and try to calm the predator within her enough to move ahead.

 Faith took a few steps into another hall and stopped, taking note of her surroundings. Satisfied that she would be able to recognize the corridor and get back to it even in the dimness of the building, she quietly set her bag down beside the wall, retrieving a tight utility vest sheathing around fifteen or so small leaf shaped throwing knives from the naked eye and a Bowie knife that she quickly stuffed into one boot before rising and moving forward again. The air in the place smelled stale and dusty and dank. Faith didn’t know how many floors the building had, but she figured that Dana was on the one below her. Just something about how the tingles up and down her spine centered closer to the ground than the ceiling spoke volumes. All she had to do was find her way down into the basement. 

 Finally, she passed a doorway with the door hanging off of the hinges that seemed to be spewing cold air from somewhere. When Faith descended onto the first step she knew she was going the right direction because her instincts went haywire. The sensations were a jumbled mess of feelings and emotions that writhed uncomfortably in her stomach like worms. Fear of the unknown jostled with the thrill of the hunt. Regret and guilt at what she knew she might have to do conflicted with pride in her tracking abilities and the anticipation of a good fight. On the edge of everything, she felt Dana. The slayer inside of Faith recognized another one of its own kind and curiosity warred with animosity in her gut. The aggression coming off of the girl somewhere below her was nearly overwhelming and Faith knew that Dana knew she was there, waiting her out and perhaps even also wanting to meet this familiar stranger with whom she shared so much in common.

 A dim light radiated from somewhere at the base of the steps, letting Faith know for sure that the basement at least was inhabited. She knelt onto the second step and waited there for a few moments. Part of her was curious to know how strong the slayer in Dana really was. I mean, if it was basically all Faith could feel, she was pretty sure that Dana’s predator was floating very close to the surface, but she still felt the need to know. So Faith waited, wanting to see if this new baby slayer had patience enough to wait her out or if she would take the bait and attack uphill—putting Dana herself at a disadvantage. But the savageness inside of this girl wasn’t blind, it was clever and it knew what was going on.

 So much for the element of surprise, Faith thought.

 Grimacing, she pulled a knife free from her vest and slowly crept down the remaining stairs. The single light in the room grew brighter as the swinging light bulb at the back of the room on a chain merged into Faith’s line of sight. Dana wasn’t immediately visible from the stairs, but she wasn’t hiding either. The girl she’d been hunting stood close to the farthest wall, diagonal to the stairway. Faith hadn’t been expecting to find much when they met, but what she saw unleashed the ice in her veins. Dana was average sized for a fifteen year old, skin and bone, olive complected, with dark hair and an anesthetized gaze. Her clothes were ill fitting and covered in dirt and blood, some of it her own from an angry gash on one cheek, but the rest of it had been finger painted on her face and shirt like a preschooler’s drawings.

 Faith could feel a myriad of sensations bleeding out into the air from Dana to her. Her cinnamon eyes connected with Dana’s almost black ones and Faith could suddenly feel each emotion running through the other girl as if they were her own. The full range of feelings were there, just out of balance: anger topped the scales along with a dark euphoria that Faith guessed was the slayer inside of Dana relishing in the blood and violence she caused. Fear wasn’t there at all and simultaneously there was something else missing in the girl’s bleak eyes. Something vital to redemption and salvation: human compassion. Though Faith couldn’t see it, she wasn’t entirely ready to believe that the ability to care was something Dana was incapable of, just not something she had a lot of practice at? Damn, this was all kinds of messed up.

 Dana stared at her opponent intensely—sizing her up—as if she wanted to devour her and destroy her at the same time.

 “I am strong, not weak anymore,” Dana said, beginning to circle Faith slowly, her movements mirroring the elder slayer. “And you are strong too. Strong like me.”

 “Yes, strong like you.” Faith regarded the baby slayer quietly, moving so that they were facing one another at all times. “Look, I’m here to help you. I was sent to help you so you can learn how to live with the powers you were given. So you can live a better life than this—”

 Faith’s speech was interrupted as Dana shrank instantly back towards the wall, shaking and yelling wildly in another language. As the tirade boiled down, she looked at Faith with a burning stare that seemed to penetrate through all of her defenses. Finally, the baby slayer spoke, channeling a hatred Faith had hoped was long dead.

 “I gave you every chance!” Dana’s hollow voice shouted, louder and lighter than it should have been. “I tried so hard to help you and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel, Riley, anything that you could take from me you took. I’ve lost battles before but nobody else has ever made me a victim.”

 B? Faith stopped cold, her eyes wide, her mouth open just enough in surprise to maybe catch a mosquito if there were any around. What had Dana just said? It couldn’t be. Those had been Buffy’s words, said on Angel’s rooftop years and years ago. How did this girl know them? She’d assumed Angel hadn’t met her or he would have taken Dana in himself, so what the fuck was going on here? Was she psychic? Could she read minds?

 Faith mirrored the alert, but comfortable posture of the other girl now silently staring her down, watching her more cautiously now than ever. She knew she should say something. Maybe even attack. Anything was better than waiting for the next step or for this psycho kid to shank her with one of her own knives, but prison had taught Faith patience and she had taught herself that there were things more important in this world than appeasing her own anger. The predator inside of Faith was pissed because it recognized what Dana was doing—that through some weird psychic link—she was using Faith’s most painful memories so she could toy with the older slayer like she was a ragdoll and relishing in every minute of it. But Faith didn’t take the bait. She couldn’t afford to lose it. Not today.

 “You tried to gut me, Bondie,” Dana spouted again, her eyes never leaving Faith’s.

 “That was a long time ago,” Faith responded, recognizing her own words. “I’m a different person now and so is Buffy. You can be too. Strong, not weak, like me.”

 Faith took a tentative step forward and Dana took another back along the wall in response.

 “I can help you, if you let me.” Faith tried again, calmly taking another step, almost within striking distance now.

 “…No such animal, no such animal,” Dana growled over and over as her body tensed up at Faith’s closeness. “No escaping…head and heart, stab the heart and cut off the head. Only way to be sure…”

 Dana moved farther away, a vulnerable look taking over her features as the savageness melted away and all she appeared to be was an overgrown little girl, regarding Faith strangely with a mix of sadness and—finally—fear.

 What the hell?? Faith wondered.

 The change in Dana was so quick and so complete that Faith thought that she might be seeing things. Maybe her not wanting to harm this girl was making her see Dana as harmless so she couldn’t harm her or some other strange mind shit. Whether or not Dana’s new demeanor was genuine, Faith knew two things. First, she couldn’t kill Dana this way, not even if she had wanted to and, second, she was definitely looking at this kid’s human side now. The slayer—the predator that had been protecting Dana from the horror of her nightmares—had retreated temporarily for some reason. Maybe it was tired of being on the surface all of the time. Maybe it recognized Faith as kindred and therefore not much of a threat at the moment. Whatever the reason, Faith knew that this docile Dana wouldn’t be sticking around long and she had to take advantage of this opportunity while it lasted before the crazy bitch came back and made everything harder.

 “Dana,” Faith called softly, evenly. “I’m Faith and I’m a slayer like you. I’m here to help. I can get you some better fitting clothes, maybe a hot meal, and a place to sleep. All you gotta do is listen to what I have to say. Can you do that for me, Dana?”

 “…You had it coming…” Dana murmured, looking down at the cement floor pitifully. “I remember what you did to me, Faith. The broken glass, the shallow cuts so I would remain conscious. You haven’t changed, you can’t. You’re sick! A rabid dog!”

 Suddenly, Dana lunged forward, grabbing Faith by the shoulders and throwing her into a stack of nearby packing crates. The older slayer fell through the dusty wood like a knife through butter. Faith had expected Dana to be strong like all slayers were, but most baby slayers couldn’t throw her across a room and not be out of breath at the effort. She wasn’t even sure Buffy was capable of that one and yet this girl had thrown her like a shovelful of snow.

 Faith flipped off from her back into a crouch and stood. Dana was smiling at her now, the careless, mirthless, hateful smile of the returning predator gearing for a fight. A fight for dominance. A fight for survival. A fight to the death.

 “No wonder you died…” Dana quoted in a scarily out of place Jamaican accent Faith didn’t recognize. “I could wipe the floor with you right now.”

Dana lunged for Faith again, but this time Faith was ready. She ducked and caught the advancing girl with her shoulder beneath her ribcage. Then Faith took advantage of Dana’s sudden loss of balance and wrapped her arms around her legs, using the other girl’s momentum and weight to drop her to the floor. The baby slayer obviously didn’t see that move coming because she yelped in pain, but quickly recovered, rolling a couple of feet away from Faith and copying what Faith had done before by flipping from her back to her feet as if she’d done it a hundred times.

 “Not bad,” Faith said, “but it’s going to take a lot more to take me down if that’s what you’re aiming for. I could save you a lot of trouble, kid, if you’d just listen to me. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”

 Dana raced forward again and swung at Faith, the first blow being blocked expertly by Faith’s forearm, but the second one got lucky and landed on Faith’s temple. Shit! She hits like, B, Faith grimaced, whirling around to block another attack and delivering a rough kick to Dana’s unguarded abdomen. Faith hadn’t held anything back and a vicious blow like that should’ve brought the baby slayer to her knees, but Dana didn’t so much as grunt. Instead, Dana straightened up and delivered a round house kick to Faith’s neck. Faith caught her opponent’s leg and twisted her torso, slamming her elbow squarely into Dana’s jaw.

 That got the Dana’s attention.

 She spit blood out of the side of her mouth and let out a loud primal scream, throwing herself at Faith again and again. Faith had to say it for this kid, not only was she strong, but she could definitely take a beating. Every blow Faith dealt, Dana absorbed and dealt back twofold. It wasn’t like fighting another baby slayer—they were usually clumsy and overconfident and it wasn’t like fighting someone as graceful and by-the-book as Buffy, but a whole other animal entirely. Dana’s slayer rode too close to the surface for her to fight in any sort of civilized, orderly manner. Every punch or kick she threw was thrown from gut instinct. There was no trained thought, just the will to live and kill. Luckily for Faith, it seemed like Dana hadn’t ever fought anyone like her before because she was tiring quickly. Her attacks were becoming more frequent, but more sloppy and easier to dodge.

 Finally, Dana backed up, gasping for breath and tried to flip over Faith to get to the stairs, but Faith jumped up and caught her in a headlock in midair. They landed on the concrete floor in a tangled heap of struggling limbs. Dana seemed to be losing steam and it appeared that Faith might actually be able to get to her—if only because she was too exhausted to do anything other than listen—but just when Faith thought she was done, Dana grasped a broken piece of wood from one of the crates and slammed it desperately into the back of Faith’s skull. The older slayer’s grip immediately loosened around her neck as Dana pushed her back onto the floor—hard. She had half expected Dana to run once she was free, but the girl just stood above her going in and out of focus as Faith’s vision faded to black.

3. Gifts & Curses

Faith was glad she hadn’t had to use her knives yet and that Dana hadn’t decided to use them on her while she was out, but they weren’t going to do Faith any good hanging across the room with her vest from a nail on the wall. It was the first thing she noticed when her vision refocused. The second thing she noticed was that she was still in the same basement and was tied to a metal support beam not far from where Dana had knocked her out. Her head felt like she’d tried to chug a bottle of Jack and then passed out, but the rest of her seemed remarkably okay. No broken bones or missing limbs and that was a plus when you were in the hands of a psycho baby slayer only interested on killing and maiming.

 Speaking of the psycho baby slayer, where was Dana?

 Faith sat up and pulled at her restraints, but the electrical cords used to bind her hands and feet together had been tied too tight to simply pull out of.

 Great, Lehane. Just fucking great. Maybe next time I go to take down a rogue, I’ll stand still and let her use me as a punching bag first, give the bitch a running start. How fucking stupid can you get? Faith chided herself.

 Not only had she failed to stop Dana, she had let her guard down long enough for the girl to bash her head in, tie her up, and leave her to die. Now was definitely not one of her best moments. Faith fucked up, she fucked up bad. She didn’t even know where Dana was right now and who she was killing. Man, she could be out of the city already. This was bad, wicked bad of the motherfucking variety. Faith had no idea how long she’d been out. There were no windows in the basement and no way to tell if the sun was up yet or not. She couldn’t really turn to see up the stairs. She was too far away.

 Faith pulled against the cord around her wrists again, feeling the seamed rubber coating cut into her skin instead of busting like she wanted it to.

 “Fuck!” Faith yelled out in frustration, “Shit, damn, bitch, cunt, hell, motherfucking fuckwaddage!”

 Faith stopped venting her anger and tried to center herself. She could swear at the abandoned building all day (or night, whichever) and it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Faith needed to think.

 Alright, count backwards: 10…9…8…7…6…5…fuck this, shit! It so wasn’t calming her down and she was getting more pissed as the seconds ticked by. Faith sighed and tried her restraints again, not having any more luck than the first two times. She was about to lose it again when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a piece of rusted metal—what might have been part of the hinge for the broken door up the stairs—off to her side. Slowly, she scooted her body in that direction. Her tied feet closed in on it and she pulled it close enough so she could turn around the pole and grasp it with her fingers. She knew she had to use it to cut the cords, but the awkward angle of her wrists made it a difficult thing to maneuver even with slayer strength and dexterity.

 Before she could attempt it though, the metal was removed forcefully from her grasp.

 “Head and heart, no hands.”

 Faith let out a deep breath as Dana faced her. The blood markings on her face had dried completely and were more black now than red. Her dark eyes stared straight through Faith, unseeing; haunted. It reminded Faith that she was dealing with a particular breed of crazy that could come and go as it pleased.

 “You keep saying that, but I don’t think it means what you think it means right now.” Faith ventured. She had always been ballsy. Why stop now? “I’m human. You don’t want my head or heart. Vamps and demons are the ones you do that to. It’s our way once we’re chosen. You and me, it’s what we have to do am I right?”

 “You and me. What we do,” Dana repeated hollowly.

 “But only to demons and vampires. Not to humans like us.” Faith clarified, hoping like fuck she was making some sort of headway.

 “Not to humans,” Dana repeated, raising the piece of metal she’d taken from Faith so that it was eye level between them, “To monsters and killers. You are a killer, Faith the human slayer.”

 Faith didn’t say anything, surprised more than she should’ve been that this girl knew about the downsides of her occupation and was using them against her. Unhindered, Dana went on.

 “You can’t make me do shit! You think just because you’re this super bitch from hell you can command me to do whatever you want me to—live how you think I should—but you’re wrong,” Dana spouted in a new voice.

 A voice Faith had heard before.

 The last rogue she’d put down—Claudia—had said that to her in Philly just before Faith had subdued her. That night still stuck firm in Faith’s memory. The defiant look on the young blonde’s face as they stood across from one another; a look that said she’d rather die than be made a prisoner to a lifestyle she didn’t buy into just because the Powers that Screw You had saddled her with this gift she’d never asked for—and she had indeed died rather than submit. The smell of rust in the air from the old steelyard Faith had finally cornered her in, the wet sound of the suction as she'd pulled her short sword free of Claudia's dead heart, and the glazed look in the girl’s hazel eyes as Faith had dug a hole for her and laid her stiffening body in the ground after the fight was over. Nights like those peppered her nightmares. She thought of herself as reformed now. As batting for the good team, but Dana in her madness had seen through that thin veneer to what she really did. Faith was a killer. A paid killer no less. It wasn’t in her actual job description, but Giles had made it absolutely clear that it was required of her because of her “unique talents” as he so fondly put it. Basically translated that meant she had taken a life and because no one else in the Scoobies was in the murderer’s club (except Willow and everyone overlooked that because she was Willow), it was automatically Faith’s job to continue doing what everyone had turned on her for doing in the first place.

 They still didn’t completely accept her. Whenever Xander or Dawn or Willow and Kennedy crossed the country and stopped off in Chicago to see how she and Giles were managing, they always looked at Faith with this awkward expression of pity. Like she was still that scared fuck up who broke out of prison to save the world and no one knew what to do with her because she could switch teams at any moment. They couldn’t see past what she’d done—not completely.

 Out of all of them, Willow seemed to be trying the hardest. Maybe it was because she had filleted a man alive and almost taken down the world, but she seemed the most at ease around Faith. Probably because even though she was good now she was still this wicked powerful witch who had the ability to take Faith down if she turned again and Faith knew that. Still, no one else could look at her without pain. Not even Buffy. Especially not Buffy. Every time she looked at Faith it was like she was a wounded puppy or something. Her smiles seemed forced and she never looked Faith in the eyes unless Faith wasn’t looking at her directly. Even after everything Faith had done to prove that she was sorry and that she could be trusted, Buffy still looked at her with the same amount of distrust and uncertainty that Faith had approached Dana with—like she was a wild animal, not a human being.

 “Dana, listen to me. Girls like us, we’re so powerful that we have to do good or all hell breaks loose, you know? The slayers I killed were bad girls. They—” Faith couldn’t even continue with her flimsy reasoning.

 She didn’t honestly believe that. Those girls had been just like she used to be—not bad, not evil—just screwed up. How could she make excuses for killing them just so Dana would see her in a better light when Faith couldn’t even feel good about it herself? Killing them might have saved others from being killed by them, but the list of those hypothetical lives saved didn’t make what Faith did right. Dana stared at her in silence, dark eyes boring into her again, seeming to be willing her to admit the truth out loud without the platitudes; without the lies.

 Faith swallowed loudly, afraid.

 “I’m a killer, Dana. It’s true. I kill girls like us who kill other humans instead of demons. I’m a murderer.”

 Nothing came after the admission but silence. Faith was still surprised she had said those words. Still surprised she had admitted it to herself. Back in murder rehab, that was one of the first steps to healing—acknowledging what you had done and what that made you—and Faith had been able to do it. It had taken her a couple sessions to take that first step, but she had succeeded. But doing it the second time around seemed harder even than the first. After leaving prison, she’d done her best to start fresh, to erase the perceptions other people had of her by giving them a whole new woman to look at and perceive, but the slate wasn’t supposed to be clean. She couldn’t get away from what she’d done—the people she’d killed in cold blood—and this new person she claimed to be was just a shadow covering up the truth. A truth she had just popped a hole in because Faith couldn’t stand to lie anymore, not even to this mad girl who was probably going to be wearing her guts for garters by the end of the evening. Faith didn’t care. She probably deserved it.

 As in reading her guilt riddled mind, Dana raised the piece of metal she was holding so that the jagged end pressed lightly into Faith’s cheek.

 “Doesn’t hurt if you hold still…” She said. “Don’t cry. They can’t hear you. No one to help. The other slayers, you killed them.”

 Faith cringed, wishing she could move away from the metal about to cut into her, but she didn’t.

 “Yes,” she said, quietly.

 “You killed them both, both girls,” Dana whispered as if trying to understand, letting the triangle of metal in her hand lower slightly from Faith’s skin.

 “Yes, to keep them from killing,” Faith replied honestly.

 Dana slumped back on her knees, eyeing Faith blankly. She still held her rusty weapon in the same hand outstretched in front of her, but she looked not mentally inclined to use it. The lights were on upstairs, but nobody seemed to be home.

 “I’ve killed. Will you kill me?” She asked, surprisingly straightforward for all of the roundabout bullshit she’d been talking all night.

 “No,” Faith answered honestly.

 “Why not?”

 “Because I can teach you to kill only demons—I want to teach you. You remind me of me when I was your age.”

 “That’s comforting,” came a voice from the stairway.

 Dana and Faith both nearly jumped a foot in the air. They’d both been so caught up in their own conversation with one another—Dana trying to understand and Faith trying like hell not to become mincemeat—that they’d failed to notice anyone approaching. Faith knew now who it was, the slayer inside of her quieting at the recognition of the one who had come before her. Her predecessor. The rival. The little blonde woman who was so much more than she appeared and so much more to Faith than a friend.

 “B,” Faith groaned. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

 “Hello to you too, Faith,” Buffy replied, jumping over the remaining stairs and landing on her feet expertly. “Looks like you’ve really gotten yourself into a bind.”

 “Nah, I had it all under control. Just got a little tied up getting to know one another you know?” Faith grumbled, miffed that they were falling back into their comfortable pattern of banter when Buffy had made it clear she hadn’t wanted anything to do with her for months. Why was it always so easy to gravitate towards the blonde? To forgive her even?

  “Who the fuck called you?” Faith sighed, feeling defeated.

 “Giles,” Buffy answered, crossing her arms across her chest as Dana backed away and sized up this new threat. “Said you hadn’t checked in for a few hours and he was worried, given the circumstances. I was visiting Angel anyway so I thought I would swing by and see how you were doing.”

 “Figures,” Faith grunted.

 Always checking up on me, B, is that it? Can’t let me fuck up on my own. Just can’t leave well enough alone.

 She pulled at her restraints again, this time more wildly, using all of her muscles. She might’ve been willing to let this headcase cut her into a couple hundred bloody ribbons because of her guilt, but Faith sure as hell wasn’t going to let Buffy show her up at her own fucking job! Honestly, Faith didn’t know what she was more pissed at—Buffy swooping in to save the fucking day or Giles for questioning her ability to do what he told her she had to do or the fact that Buffy was in town to visit Angel when she hadn’t once bothered to visit Faith since the destruction of Sunnydale. Self-loathing and jealousy warred for dominance in her chest, loathing that she had let herself get into the mess she was in enough that Buffy had to come in and save her and jealousy that Buffy was in the same exact city, but not seeing Faith. Both were juvenile reactions to the situation, but Faith couldn’t fucking help what she felt. She’d given up trying to steer that boat a long time ago.

 Buffy—like always—was clearheaded and focused on the problem at hand. She moved her hands from her chest to her side and advanced slowly on Dana, cornering the girl like the trapped animal she probably already felt like.

 “Hi Dana. My name is Buffy.” There was a cold, no nonsense tone to the older slayer’s voice that left no room for negotiation. “I’m not here to hurt you, but I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else either. That includes Faith. We both want to help you and the way I see it, you have two choices. You can either come with us for training and let us care for you or fight me and I can tell from the look of fear on your face that you’re not ready for the world of pain that would open up for you. What’ll it be then, Dana?”

 Damn, Faith cringed at the dark look in Buffy’s eyes.

 Dana seemed to recognize it too—the complete lack of compassion, the edge of hardness that Faith thought Buffy had only really reserved for her when they were fighting to the death back in their glory days. She knew from experience what Buffy’s reserve face meant and Faith didn’t want to see this kid have to go through that. Above all, what she really, really didn’t want to see was what would happen to Buffy if she ended up killing Dana. Buffy wasn’t a killer. Out of all of them, she was the hero, the golden girl. The one to avert the apocalypse and maintain a level and moral head all the way through and if she ended up killing Dana—either on purpose or by accident—it would destroy the person she was inside. Faith couldn’t let that happen.

 “B,” Faith called, feeling the cord around her wrists give a little as she yanked at it again and again with everything she was worth. “She doesn’t understand. She’s not all there upstairs, you know? It’s not her fault.”

 Buffy glanced at Faith briefly out of the corner of her eyes as Faith struggled and arched against the pillar behind her, then shifted her eyes back to Dana as the baby slayer snarled something at her in another language. The predator in the girl was returning and she was eyeing Buffy now like she was prey, but for all intents and purposes now, Buffy was the slayer among slayers and she wasn’t going to be easy to take down. And if Faith had her way, Buffy wasn’t going to be taken down at all. However, it was clear that Dana felt threatened not only by Buffy’s presence, but also by her words. Her muscles had tensed, her posture had turned more defensive, and Dana was eyeing Buffy warily. For a moment, it looked like Dana might give in and submit, but just as quickly she changed her mind and charged Buffy full on.

 Buffy easily sidestepped the Dana’s first attempt, but was harder pressed to block the rain of well-aimed punches and kicks that followed. Just as wildly as she had gone after Faith, Dana zeroed in on the older blonde. Buffy fought by the book, blocking blows and redistributing them with a flare that was uniquely her own. Dana didn’t have any sort of martial training, but she more than made up for it in her ruthlessness. Dana held nothing back and Buffy stumbled a bit as the girl landed a punch to her jaw, then another to her sternum. Buffy was a great fighter, but it was clear now that Dana had the upper hand after landing a kick to the older slayer’s abdomen that sent her reeling to the floor. Dana’s craziness made her unpredictable and creative with her attacks, which more than made up for her lack of any sort of training.

 Faith heard a loud ripping sound as the cords around her wrists finally broke and she began to untie the ones around her feet as Dana advanced on Buffy, landing a hard kick to her side as the blonde struggled to stand.

 Come on, B. You’re better than this.

 “Buffy! Get up!” Faith shouted as Dana landed another kick, sending Buffy flying into the opposite concrete wall so hard that plaster rained down from the ceiling upon impact.

 Dana turned towards Faith and snarled when she realized the other woman’s hands were free. Faith had her feet free in another minute and stood.

 “Hey psycho bitch, why don’t you leave blondie alone and focus on me. I’m the killer remember. I’m the one you wanted to carve up so let’s give it another whirl.”

 Dana yelled as she rushed Faith head on, her first few punches easily deflected like before. Faith jumped over a kick designed to trip her up and flipped backwards in the air using one foot to catch Dana painfully in the chin while righting herself. It was clear to Faith that Dana was tiring again. Her breathing had quickened and her face shone with sweat. Her punches and kicks were becoming more wild, more clumsy and easy to block. Dana was fading fast and she sprung back from Faith, trying to catch her breath, but the attempts turned into a series of painful yelps as three tranquilizer darts shot into the Dana’s back. One would usually be enough to take down a slayer for a few hours, but Dana was unusually strong for someone so young and Buffy hadn’t wanted to take any chances of her waking up before they were ready for her too.

 Dana slid down to the floor, her dark eyes rolling back into her head before closing. Faith looked up and met Buffy’s victorious eyes.

 “Nicely diverted, Faith,” Buffy said walking up to Faith and invading her personal space, slipping the gun she’d borrowed from Wesley back into the seat of her jeans where she’d pulled it from and smiling like she’d just won a prize or something.

 Maybe Buffy had loosened up since they’d last seen one another. She seemed to have less of a stick up her ass about this whole situation than Faith had anticipated.

 As they stood there just staring at one another, Faith felt the warmness directed at her from the only person she'd ever wanted to have it from and felt her insides melt and a wide shit eating grin spread across her face. Maybe it really wasn't so bad to have her ass handed to her by the blonde every once in a while. It kept Faith from giving into her dark side and reminded her that Buffy—though she would never admit to it—did actually give a shit about her. And that made all the difference in the world.

 “Anytime, B. Anytime.”