Title: Thank You
Author: Drake-Tepes
Summary: Quick peek into Faith's thoughts before she shot Angel.
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Her thoughts are racing through her head as she keeps watch, tension under her surface belying the façade presented to her associate. This wasn't how things were supposed to be, nothing like she'd planned. She was supposed to find a home and friends here. Something better than the family and pain she'd left behind. From a mother who bounced between being too high to know she existed to trying to control every facet of her life. The loss of the one positive role model, one true friend, was the final straw. She hadn't looked back since. Until now. She knew she stood at a crossroads. Which path to take.
Deep down she wished there was an actual choice. She was at a crossroads where there was only one open path. The paint was wet and she was stuck in the corner. All that was left was to accept it. Embrace the path ahead of her.
It'd been made easy for her. She had come expecting to find… something. But there was no room for her. No ear for her problems and no one to try and see who she was. Not until it was already too late. It would had to have been him. She could see an odd kinship in him, he knew where she came from. He'd been some place just as bad. She hated him more for that than anything he could have done for her.
Inside, she blames herself for everything. She had come expecting to fit in. Expecting to be a sister, to find another parental figure and be a daughter. She came to find there was no room for her. If she were part of the family then she'd become the redheaded stepchild.
As much as she blames herself she knows that in the end it was them. Their fault. They never accepted her fully. They were envious or aroused or relieved or petty or indifferent. She was just there. That's all she was. The bad influence because no one tried to influence her. She never spared a thought to wonder if she had been open to being accepted. Never a thought to what she could have done. They were the ones who should have done something.
Old routines came back and she saw herself more and more as her mother. Getting high on the hunt, getting off on the kill. Dragging anyone to bed she could find. They were supposed to do what she needed and leave. They were supposed to be like the others. They weren't supposed to see who she was. No second helping. She was her mother's daughter. No better than the thing she'd despised.
No more crossroads. Evil or not she had someone who cared for her. She found someone who treated her like a daughter, even if she had to kill to keep it. It was their fault she was here now. They drove her to this. Whatever happened now was on their heads. It was time to take a step onto the path and damn them all. They can look her up in hell for all she cared now.
She pulled her finger back gently and there was the small sound of disturbed air as the arrow shot forward hitting its mark.
Faith looked down at the arrow lodged in Angel's back while her associate took in the scene. "Missed the heart," he said.
Faith was committed to the path now as she replied to the vampire. "Meant to."