Title: Apology Not Necessary
Author: desert tamar
Rating: K+
Characters: Faith, Dawn
Timeline: Missing scene during S7 episode "Dirty Girls."
Disclaimer: Everything that's not my imagination belongs to Mutant Enemy
Summary: After arriving back at the Summers' house, Faith gets a less than warm welcome.

Dawn reenters the hallway and tosses a sleeping bag at Faith before giving both a disdainful look as she brushes by them. Spike eyes her guardedly and remarks to Faith, "Once again, not all about you. Bit's been somewhat pissy with me lately."

Faith raises her eyebrow. "Yeah? Did you try to kill her sister, too?"

"Not recently, no. It was...worse. Well, good luck on that spare bed." With that he exits. Faith shrugs her shoulders and follows Dawn into the dinning room, where she's resumed her reading. Girl's got her back to her, but Faith figures a cold shoulder isn't the worst conversation partner she's ever had. "So what's the sitch here? You're research girl now?"

There's a slight noise, maybe a muffled snort. Then Dawn replies in an overly casual voice, "Tried to kill Spike, huh?"

"Well," Faith takes this as an invite and comes all the way into the room. "Just a little. No one filled me in."

"Well, FYI, Buffy doesn't like us to kill murderers. Or at least not the ones she's fucking." The kid is cool, matter of fact even. Faith is almost impressed.

"Damn B.," Faith laughs. "I guess she really likes the vamps, huh?" She reaches the table and pulls out one of the chairs, turning it around and sitting with her legs out in front and hugging the back. She gets a glimpse of Dawn before she leans back down to the book in front of her. Yep, just like she thought- a face of stone.

"How long were you in jail, Faith?" The kid's face is still lowered, her hair swinging around in front of it and making it impossible to read her expression.

"A while," she replies, a little amused.

"Two years? Two and a half?" Dawn presses.

"Month under three." She's not sure what Dawn's getting at, but she'll play along.

"Hmm. Not bad. I guess being sent here, that's a little like a death sentence though, isn't it?"

"I'm here to fight, and I'll go down if that's what it takes. But you can be damn sure it'll be on the good side this time." She finishes the last sentence maybe too forcefully- the kid is starting to make her uneasy. Dawn continues to look down but the next words come out clearly.

"Do you think that makes it even?"

"Huh?" Faith is momentarily stumped.

"You know, balances out the scales. Justice prevails. You get what you deserve."

That's it- she's out of this conversation. "Look, I'm beat so I'm gonna try to find a piece of floor to crash on." Faith turns to leave but pauses at the next question.

"Is it a lot to balance you think?" Dawn asks.

"A lot of what?"

"Of crime, mayhem, general badness of the type that gets other people seriously bruised. Or dead." Dawn still isn't looking up and Faith is way creeped out, but she has this sense that this is all leading somewhere and maybe she'd like to find out where.

"Yeah, it's lot." Faith sits back down.

"I know about the stake." Dawn delicately turns a page. "In that guy's chest. I heard them talking about it." Another page. "But what happened after that?"

"A couple others. A demon," she answers. Warily. Faith is on the defense now.

"Oh, that doesn't count," Dawn says, turning another page. It's starting to piss Faith off, how she's not even looking up. "Unless, of course, Buffy was fucking him, too."

"No," she replies bluntly. "He was just a demon."

"Who else, Faith?"

"This professor guy." She doesn't like this, but for some reason she can't bring herself to move. It's like she's gotta hear this, like it's important somehow but she can't figure out why.

"Right. Andrew's Vulcan."

She's confused. "Huh?"

"Who else, Faith?" Dawn murmurs.

Faith has had enough. Screw this conversation and what it might mean. She stands up. "Yo, I don't know what this is about but you are seriously-"

"You hurt my mother, didn't you." At this, the kid looks up. Makes eye contact and holds it, steady and firm. Not challenging, just a simple statement of fact.

"Dawnie, I..."

"Don't call me that!" she shouts.

"Okay, okay." Faiths sits back down, fighting her instinct to run. "I'm not sure what you want me to say, but…"

"You tied her up. But not me. You didn't tie up little Dawnie. Didn't even gag me. Or hit me really. Just grabbed me by a pigtail and shoved me in a closet, because after all, why would you bother with little Dawnie?" She's not shouting anymore, but the words are coming out so bitterly that it's almost worse.

"I stuck a chair under the knob," Faith remembers.

"That's right, you did."

"Look, I'm sorry," she says, trying for an apologetic tone. Something that will cool the situation down, pacify the kid.

"Oh- you don't need to apologize. Didn't anyone tell you? I wasn't really there."

Faith just stares at her.

"Huh. No one did, did they?" Dawn seems a little hurt by this, but not that surprised.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't know. You don't even know that's why she died. To save me...her pretend little sister?

Faith isn't sure what to do. She isn't sure what Dawn's talking about- being pretend. What's that supposed to mean?

"Wow. It's been so long since there was anyone to tell. We don't really talk about it anymore. It's almost refreshing. See, I'm actually only a few years old- what you think happened, those are all fake memories, courtesy of monk mojo. 100% not real."

Dawn looks down again at the book. "Anyway, I just thought you should know. You don't have to apologize to me- you didn't do anything to me. Just to everyone I love. And that, that's not something you get to be forgiven for."