Fic: {Title: Set Fire to the Rain}
Fandom: BtVS/AtS/ SPN
Verse: Gimme Shelter
Characters: Faith Lehane, mentions of Giles, Buffy, Dean Winchester, John Winchester
Pairings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 758
Beta: None so mistakes are 110% mine.
Spoilers: Post BtVS Chosen, AtS Not Fade Away, SPN Season 1, Gimme Shelter Verse
Author's Note: For the winter_of_faith LJ community (which y'all should go check out)...and I've never been to Miami so I apologise if there is any inaccuracies.
Summary: Six months after Faith left things badly with Dean in Reno, Nevada
Miami, Florida
December 2005
Faith sat down heavily on the only empty bench at the Miami-Dade bus depot.
She was physically and mentally tired.
She'd just staked a nest of vamps hiding in one of the alleys near the depot. Flexing scraped already-healing knuckles, she ran her right hand through her tangled hair, her left hand simultaneously pulling her leather jacket closer together. It was uncharacteristically chilly.
She tried not to think about the last time she had been in Florida. So of course that was all she could think of.
She had made a pit-stop in this tropical Hell after she'd taken a good swipe at Kakistos' eye in Boston.
She wondered how in retrospect, despite the bone-crushing fear of capture, rape, torture and being killed...1998 had been a much simpler time. Back then she had foolishly believed that maybe, if she survived (translation, hid well enough away from) Kakistos, she'd start a new life somewhere shiny and different.
Nothing grey and damp like Boston, but nowhere as wicked hot as Florida either of course.
Nah, she'd thought about going somewhere where she could maybe have a sister Slayer who'd watch her back.
California, the land of Buffy Summers.
Rumor had it girlfriend had taken out a demon with a mutherfucking rocket launcher!
Now that was a girl Faith could roll with.
And California was where they made 90210, so how bad could it be?
She'd be meeting hot actors like Jared Leto, and staking vamps, raising a whole lotta hell…
Maybe even get to blow shit up Hollywood style, like Buffy did.'
And she'd be safe. And she would have a life. Maybe Buffy's folks would take her in and she'd get a family too.
Fastforward eight years, and here she was back in Florida, still alive but facing a different kind of debiliating fear and even more loneliness. As if on cue the baby currently squatting in her uterus kicked and Faith's hand instinctively went to her abdomen. Hell she'd wrestled alligators in the nude, deep in swamp territory but it sure as shit had felt a whole lot easier than what she was going through now.
"Can't catch a muthafucking break," she muttered to herself.
The baby kicked again, harder this time and a begrudging smile of wonderment ghosted her lips.
Dean Winchester's kid had spunk.
Six months ago when she had walked out on him in Reno she had not known she was knocked up and now he was gone, like she had made sure he'd be. Yet she was the one stuck with a permanent souvenir.
Faith sighed to herself, you could take the fucked up trailer trash Slayer out of Boston but you couldn't take the fucked up trailer trash destiny out of the Slayer.
A homeless man shuffled past and Faith tensed in the pre-dawn light. Easing Betsy the knife Mayor Wilkins had given her, down her right jacket sleeve, Faith felt the reassuring weight in her palm and took a calming breath, ready for anything. Her other hand was clenched in a fist over her abdomen, ready to do serious damage if and when Betsy couldn't.
The bum walked over to darkened corner some 10 feet away from her and plopped down onto some tattered cardboard that was serving as a bed.
Faith let out a shaky laugh.
Damn pregnancy hormones had her jumpier than ever.
"And emotional as fuck too," she muttered as she patted her stomach comfortingly.
But the harmless near miss with the bum, had served as a reminder. Trips down memory lane could get someone killed. And she didn't need another innocent death on her hands when she was still trying to atone for the others.
Getting up off the bench, she pulled out the Council-supplied cellphone in her pocket and turned it on. Looking around her one last time she headed for the main road as she speed-dialed Giles. She needed to kill whatever it was he'd sent her here for and get the Hell outta Dodge.
She got his voicemail as her phone beeped with a message. Hanging up the call she opened the SMS.
'Old demon hunter friend of Wesley's needs your help with a Mohra demon nest. His name is John Winchester. He will contact you at 9 a.m. Miami time today. Keep your mobile on.'
Faith nearly dropped the phone at the sight of John Winchester's name, and scowled at the sky as her heart started beating way too fast. Rereading the SMS again she snapped her phone shut.
"Well, sonofabitch."
- TBC -