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Final Score: Authoressinhiding, 0; Joss Whedon, 1

Bang. Bang! BANG. BANG!

Grimacing, Angel set his book down on the coffee table and went to the door, which was shaking visibly as someone pounded on it. Could a vampire never get a moment's peace? First trying to destroy the glove of Mynhegon, next that blasted double-crossing English Watcher witch, then Slayers and psycho Brit battling it out in his living room and now this. Who in Sunnydale would be coming to bother him at – Angel glanced at the clock on the wall – four in the morning?

Angel undid the heavy lock and opened the door. "What the –" he gasped in confusion when a disheveled Faith pushed past his arm into the mansion. Not for the last time, he reflected on the irritating irony that while vampires couldn't enter dwellings uninvited, people were continually bursting in on him.

After shutting the door carefully, Angel turned to look at his surprise visitor. The dark-haired Slayer had changed clothes since their earlier fight that night. Her charcoal tank and black leather pants were formfitting enough that Angel could tell she wasn't packing any stakes there, but he didn't doubt she had one stowed in her boots. Although he wasn't really expecting her to go for the kill, the vampire knew from experience that you could never tell what women, especially Slayers, were going to do.

While Angel surveyed her, Faith checked him out. She liked what she saw. "Name's Faith," she said mockingly, holding out her hand. "I don't think we've been properly introduced."

Angel raised his eyebrows at the stench of alcohol that rolled off her breath. "Angel." He took her hand, shook it once, and let go very quickly. "Why the late night call?"

"I just wanted to, er . . ." Faith stepped closer to Angel and promptly threw up all over his feet.

The vampire had been prepared for anything. Anything, that is, except that. "Whoa!" he shouted, leaping back.

"Ruin your Italian leather shoes?" Faith laughed, her eyes slightly unfocused. She vomited again, this time on the wood floor. "Damn."

Furious, Angel abandoned his shoes for a greater cause. He grabbed Faith's arm and hauled her to the large guest bathroom, which hadn't been used in years. Faith knelt in front of the toilet, puking her guts out and cursing in between heaves. Angel sat beside her on the rim of the bathtub. His chivalrous attempt to hold her hair back was met with a fierce kick and even more vitriolic cursing.

"All right, fine," he spat resentfully. "Have it your way. The lady Watcher was right. You are an idiot."

Her response surprised him. Faith sat back on her heels, one hand on her stomach, the other pressed to her mouth. "I know." The muffled words were quiet, just loud enough for him to hear.

"What?"

"I'm an idiot. I should have trusted B to know what she was doing. It was just – Blech!" The toilet demanded her attention for a good few minutes. Surfacing at last, she wiped her mouth on a square of toilet paper. "Buffy has everything, you know? The mom, the cool Watcher, the friends, the hot love interest, a nice home. What do I get? A crappy room in the shadiest motel in Sunnyhell. I mean, even the vampire has better digs than I do."

"Faith," Angel began, but she was busy throwing up again.

"So, when I got my new Watcher, that Post chick, I was finally somebody's priority again. Not Faith the Second-Rate Slayer. I wasn't an afterthought. And then I found out you were back. I figured staking evil you would make B and me more even. At the same level. No longer St. Slayer and the Screw-Up." More puking. "You saw how well that worked out."

"Faith," Angel started again. He had a moralizing plan all worked out now.

"Why am I even telling you this?" Faith demanded angrily. "You got psychic vamp powers or something?"

"I wish," said Angel dryly. "Then I would have delayed this interview until I'd gotten some sleep."

Faith looked up from her toilet, interested. "Vamps sleep?" Then with a bit of embarrassment and bitterness, "Sorry, what with my Watchers getting killed and all, I'm a bit behind on the lore.

Angel smiled. "Vampires sleep. We don't really need it, but it's the best way to wile away those sunlit hours."

"Oh." Wiping her mouth again, Faith stared darkly at the contents of her toilet. "Spinach. Why is it always spinach? I don't even eat spinach."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't eaten spinach in over two hundred years."

"And here I thought you were going to make some dumb Popeye joke."

"The element of surprise. It's what's kept me alive this long."

Faith flushed the toiled. She was going to have a nasty headache in the morning. In fact, it had already started. "Hand?" She let Angel pull her to her feet. "You wouldn't happen to have water or something normal people drink, would you? Blood just isn't my style."

"Funny. Come on. There's water in the kitchen."

Slayer followed vampire through the stately, empty mansion. She still didn't trust him. Surreptitiously, Faith checked her boot to make sure her stake was there. It was. Good.

"So why did you come here?" Angel asked as Faith gulped down glass after glass of water, trying to get the taste of bile out of her mouth.

"I wanted to see for myself if you were evil."

"Oh. And am I?" Angel easily maneuvered her into a corner and backed her against the wall.

Putting her hands on his chest, Faith pushed the vampire away. She slipped underneath his arm. "Not sure yet."

"If I were evil, wouldn't I have killed you already?"

Faith refilled her glass from the tap. "Maybe, Angelus. But I can't think of many tortures worse than . . ." she mimicked throwing up.

The vampire laughed. "True." He watched, curious, as the slender girl downed her water in one go. She met his eyes coolly and set her glass down on the counter.

"Time to go," Faith announced.

"You get what you came for?"

"Oh, yeah." The Slayer strode through the mansion back to the living room, swinging her arms as she went. "The crapper in my hole could never have dealt with all that." She mimed vomiting again. "Hey, lookie here. What's the big bad vampire been reading? The Bell Jar? Real classy. You'd make a great Watcher, Angel boy. Well, except for the fangs part.

Smirking, she headed for the door. Angel reflected on the convoluted enigma that was women.

"Wait," he called as she stepped out into the pearly gray predawn. Perplexed, Faith turned back. "You're a piece of work, Faith. But you're not an idiot."

She looked at him strangely. "Okay . . ."

"And, Faith?"

"Yeah?"

Angel's wrist flicked, and Faith automatically caught the cellophane package he threw her. "Have a breath mint."

Fin

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