Title: Like Mother, Like Daughter

Summary: She looked like she was about sixteen, with long, bushy blond hair and a sallow complexion marred by acne scars, but it was her eyes that got Buffy's attention. Big and brown and glaring at the camera with ferocity that Buffy recognized all too well. Or, towards the end of season two, Faith volunteers to investigate the supernatural happenings in Beacon Hills for entirely selfish reasons.

Main Characters: Faith Lehane, Erica Reyes, Dawn Summers, Connor, Teen Wolf-ensemble, possibly more to be added later.

Pairings: Berica (main), background Scallison, Jydia, Connor/Dawn, Sterek and possibly Chris Argent/Faith.

Disclaimer: Just a fangirl.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Prolog

"I heard we have a situation in Beacon Hills."

Faith entered Buffy's office with her usual aplomb, pushing open the door without knocking and throwing herself into a chair, propping her boots up on her desk. Wrinkling her nose, Buffy leaned forward to prod at one with the eraser of her pencil. "Off," she ordered, "and how do you know that?" When Faith didn't answer right away she glanced up and immediately sat up as well, brow furrowing. "And what's wrong?" she demanded flatly.

It took her another couple of seconds, but Faith eventually dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward on her elbows. "I just got off of the phone with Alan," she said, and then went quiet again. Buffy waited patiently for about ten seconds before opening her mouth, which was when Faith chose to speak again. "My kid's missing."

Her jaw clicked shut, and Buffy was stunned into silence for almost a minute before finally saying, "You don't have a kid."

It was the truth. Buffy had known Faith for fifteen years and the other woman had never, not once, mentioned anything about having had a baby or being a mother. Granted, there were large portions of those fifteen years where they were out of contact, but Buffy would have known. Faith would have told her, if only to be spiteful.

The expression on Faith's face was telling Buffy something very different, and her movements were a little jerky as she pulled her wallet out of her back pocket and flipped it open. Buffy's eyes widened when she pulled out what was obviously a school portrait and handed it over to her without saying anything. For some reason, when Buffy took it her fingers were shaking slightly.

She looked like she was about sixteen, with long, bushy blond hair and a sallow complexion marred by acne scars, but it was her eyes that got Buffy's attention. Big and brown and glaring at the camera with ferocity that Buffy recognized all too well. She cleared her throat. "I think," she said, looking up into those same brown eyes; the stubborn tilt to her jaw was familiar too, "you should probably explain."

Sighing as though Buffy was putting her out extremely, Faith snatched the picture back, looking down at it before she slid it carefully back into its place in her wallet. Its place in a plastic picture protector, in a long line of other pictures; Buffy leaned forward to get a better look and Faith snapped her wallet shut with a sneer.

"She's Kenny's," she muttered, causing Buffy's eyebrows to go up in surprise. Faith rarely talked about her ex-boyfriend, and Buffy knew almost nothing about him and what she knew only through brief mentions. The timeline was right, though, if the girl in the picture was sixteen. "His sister raised her. She thinks he's her uncle." Her tone was clipped: she was presenting memorized facts.

"Oh," Buffy said, bothered by her tone, "So she doesn't know who you are?"

"I couldn't be the Slayer and her mom," Faith explained, still in that same robotic way, "and Kenny would have been a terrible dad. Bree's older, she's married, and she can't have her own kids. I did the right thing."

The uncomfortable part was Buffy thought Faith was right. After she had met Robin Wood, Buffy had realized that being a mother and a Slayer was impossible. It wasn't a life a child should be raised around, and there was no question in Buffy's mind that the life that little girl had lead was incomparably better than the life she could have. It still made her sad, and something Faith had mentioned earlier was niggling at the back of her brain.

"You said she was missing?" she asked, standing up and going over to the filing cabinet in the corner. It took her a few seconds of rummaging, but she found the Beacon Hills file and brought it over, plopping it onto her desk. Her hand slapped down on top of it when Faith reached for it.

She looked like she wanted to hit Buffy for it, just a little, which Buffy ignored as she sat back down. "They're saying that she ran away."

There it was, her a-ha moment. Buffy kept her expression bemused while her mind started making connections. "So? Teenagers run away all of the time. I did. You did." Of course, there was more to it, and Buffy opened the file knowing exactly what she was looking for. She'd been bitten third, so she was further back in the pile, but—Buffy tugged the vitals sheet loose and slid it over to Faith. Erica Reyes, sixteen, bitten Beta werewolf. "She looks a little different, but that's her, right?"

Faith's jaw tensed. "You're getting worse and worse at hiding those brains of yours the older we get, B."

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

"Of course you don't. Yeah, that's her."

"Did you know she was bitten?" Buffy asked carefully. Faith nodded, looking away and crossing her arms defensively. She was leaning so far back in the chair Buffy worried it would tip. "Let me guess: Alan told you?" Faith nodded again, and Buffy rolled her eyes. That veterinarian was a menace. "So you want to go to Beacon Hills to find her." Sighing, Buffy closed the file again. She almost wanted to say no. There was a tiny part of her that would never completely trust Faith, and the mess in Beacon Hills was getting messier every day. Having someone in the thick of it that Buffy wasn't sure she could rely on didn't seem like the best idea, but… It was Faith's kid, and Buffy wasn't a heartless bitch.

"It's around a seven hour drive from here," she finally said, "so you should probably start packing."

Faith stood up slowly, tucking her wallet back into her pocket, and nodded again. "Thanks a lot, B," she said, and her voice was a little rough. Buffy chose to ignore it.

"Don't thank me just yet. I'm sending Connor and Dawn with you."

Wincing, Faith gave Buffy the dirtiest non-lethal look she ever had. "You're making me take the newlyweds?"

"God yes, are you kidding me? They've been back from the honeymoon two weeks and I'm already sick of them."

Faith flipped her off as she shut the office door, but Buffy's laughter still managed to follow her down the hall.