Mythological Counseling.
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss, same deal with Angel the Series, and the characters of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are not mine either- I know not who owns the copyright to them... I simply and formally disown any right to make any money for this fanfic involving either universe. Please enjoy. Neither do I own Angel the Series, and I formally forfeit any legal claim to money made in those series's until (and only if) I manage to get a legal contract established with Mr. Whedon- which is highly unlikely.
Pairing(s): Xander Harris/King Arthur (friendship, counseling- almost as "big brothers, big sisters" does in the real world), Faith Lehane/Xander Harris (forced sex- she raped him in "Consequences", but past- referenced; not shown), Morgana Le-Fey/King Arthur (past sexual assault and forced fatherhood- referenced), Mordred/Arthur (forced fatherhood- referenced) Eddie/Faith (rehab counseling by cop of prisoner).
Characters: Xander Harris, Faith Lehane, Eddie (cop, plays a role in Faith's rehab in prison), King Arthur Pendragon, Morgana Pendragon, Mordred Pendragon, and various OFCs.
Summary: While in prison, Faith's given an assignment to write to whoever she has hurt to seek to make peace with them- one fellow she utterly devastated in a criminal act was Xander Harris- this deals with her attempt to make up to him for forcing herself on him a few years before. Xander gets some surprising help from a fellow in English Mythology. Please read, review/comment, and enjoy. Further Summary Inside.
Story Notes: A lot of my works deal with the topic of religion, this is going to be no exception. Ironically, the ex-Villainess and the Councilor share the exact same religious background in this story: like King Arthur Pendragon, Faith Lehane was raised Catholic- but wow has she fallen into deeply criminal misconduct!
Lets put it this way: in one of her counseling meetings in prison, she and the other women in her group wind up discussing theological/philosophical beliefs- and most of them are totally blown away to find out she is a baptized Catholic- who used to be a good girl... considering her reputation as a bit of a thug- they are surprised. It was a light and friendly conversation that spontaneously cropped up while waiting for the session to begin, and just about everybody was astonished to find that out about that particular woman (who was also collecting protection money from many of the other women- some very tough too) in that prison. She wasn't living right at all. This is her attempting to make right with him for her sexual attack on him when they were eighteen.
This: [text] refers to either prayer or temptation, depending on the material transmitted.
Please read, review/comment, and enjoy.
I do, by the way, love the idea of her as a fallen Catholic, that's a brilliant touch, so thank you to any and all authors in the series for that touch to her background/personality/beliefs/whatever. I want to publicly thank you, you, without knowing it, gave me a sister in her and helped to facilitate my affection and caring for her.
This story kind of picks up with events in the time after Faith turned herself in in the series "Angel" and will include elements from the episode "Consequences" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's a distinct possibility that Xander has PTSD as well- to a very slight degree (slight thanks to his personal strength, and PTSD thanks to Faith coming back into his life after raping him- which she did.).
If anyone gets a kick out of the emotional pain he suffered, it'll likely be the First Evil (can be seen as the Devil).
A consummate sadist- that wicked spirit!
This story is now the first of a new series, to be titled "Having Walked on the Dark Side" that deals with characters trips down the Dark Path, and attempts to break addictions thereto... please enjoy.
Chapter 1.): "Meetings and Restitutions".
Beginning Chapter 1 Author's Notes: Please tell me what you think- this is to be fun- and is going to be a bit weird, it can be read as King Arthur's soul is trying to help Xander be willing to show mercy on Faith- that's the general gist of this story.
As Faith was being paroled from Stockton Correctional Facility, all she could think of was the need she had to make up to Xander for hurting him the way she did. At eighteen, she was an absolute mess, ethically speaking, and had done some things she was most definitely not proud of: one of these was to sexually assault him. Her attitude at this time was the same one as when you are determined to go to confession, the certainty mixed with the shame of your offenses... when you're walking forward to report yourself for certain felonies against moral law- that's what she was feeling deep within her.
In Confession and during chats with the Prison Chaplin, she was reminded that to make up to God, she also had to make up to her neighbor for the hurt she did to him. Single biggest thing that turned her towards the Sacrament of Confession was the fact that she could make up to someone she had hurt., and if God would help her to make up to her neighbors, that is an added bonus- in fact, scratch "bonus", that's the real goal of hers.
If you pressed Faith for her reasons to turn good and got through her resistance, she'd tell you that it was "due to the influence of a few good men" in her life: Eddie, Angel, these were some very good men to her; Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was yet another who helped her to amend her ways: it was he who had gotten her to help redeem Angel from his mental disorder's effects (not just mental disorder, the effects were a profound moral disorder too: betraying and trying to murder his friends, amongst other things, horrible things.)... she knew this glitch: psychopathy, she herself had been dealing with it for all her adult life.
Faith was never a girl who lacked confidence: and she was really self-assured of her physical beauty in several ways. In short: she was extremely confident because of many things; one of these was she was a beautiful girl and she knew it- physically speaking. This was one thing she used to hunt her 'prey', as she perceived the undead, she'd go to dance clubs, dance with them to lure them into thinking she was 'easy meat', then lead them outside and turn the tables on them! This was one thing Faith loved: turning the tables on monsters who were about to attack her., it was all about the timing: attack them when they are about to attack you!
As Faith sat down in the counseling group room for Murder Rehab 1, she crossed her legs in her lap, and placed her folder on her lap intending to await the councilor's arrival to begin the course for the day... She sat there for a while, twiddling her thumbs and looking with a wary eye on the other women in this group. She knew them all by now; pretty darn well, but didn't trust any of them with her back-side at all... every single one of these women was pretty much equally deadly, but none of them could match her in a fight., that was the one thing she had going for her if a fight broke out.
For some odd reason, the instructor was late that day, and then the oddest thing happened: an impromptu theological discussion broke out amongst the women in the room! To Faith's recollection: a pair of women who were cellmates and, at least according to prison rumor- which was pretty prolific in a womens prison, regarding how much women tend to talk about their friends- good friends, got into a discussion of matters of metaphysics/ethics.
As things happened, they managed to rope everybody else in the room into the same discussion, so that when the councilor did arrive, he was astonished to find a pretty lively and civil discussion going on! Matthew was the fellow's name, and to Matt's surprise as he walked in, it just happened to be Faith's turn; and he got a clear earful of another prisoner named Julie saying to Faith "There's no way you're Catholic!", to which Faith just laughed, then responded "Oh, yes, I am." with a smile on her face.
To which Julie responded "Catholics don't do things like you've been known to do, so nuh-huh." she replied, shaking her head in a "no" fashion.
Faith just smiled, she was enjoying this. "We run a huge gammit, Julie" she replied, paused, then continued "ever hear of a fellow who goes in history by the name of Santa Anna? He was one of us, but sure didn't act like it, at least during the Texan Revolution." Faith was having fun here, and her face betrayed that reality... but deep down inside; she knew she hadn't acted right at all- that, above all else was what had lead her to here!
This discussion went back and forth between them and the other prisoners in the group until the meeting began, then served as a background info to the meeting to a certain degree... following that meeting, it resumed to a further degree than before. Finally, they went their separate ways.
It was roughly ten-o'clock in the morning when Faith got to the prison store, and she purchased a book she had been thinking about as a peace-offering to a certain fellow she had hurt. Taking the novel back to her cell, with some gift-wrapping paper, she proceeded to write a letter of apology to him.
Eddie, one of the correctional officers, and good friend of Faith, happened to see her wrapping up this gift, and he asked her some details about what she was doing. For her part, she requested that he stay around a bit, and make certain that both this letter and book make it out of the prison to the mail for a certain "Mr. Xander Harris".
Eddie saw no reason not to agree, and he had the time for his friend, Faith., so he acquiesced to her request. He observed her wrapping up this gift for this fellow, and agreed to arrange to have it delivered, but informed her that he may not want to hear from her "It's up to him." Eddie had told Faith.
Faith, upon hearing that, hung her head sadly; she really wanted to make up for what she had done wrong to Xander, but nodded her head knowingly- she knew she was in a form of Purgatory right now. As a result of that, she had to do a lot, and I mean a lot of waiting. "Please, I really hurt him, so I need to make up to him." She informed Eddie- who, for all intents and purposes, was something akin to her Guardian Angel in role right now- with her as the Penitent Soul. She was on the brink of tears regarding this horror she remembered committing. She also handed him a letter she had hand-written and packaged into an envelope she had bought at the Prison Store- along with stamps- hand written and hand-addressed, that is. Eddie could see that she was pretty serious, so he promised to do the best he could for her.
Roughly two weeks later, Xander Harris received a letter addressed from Stockton Womens' Correctional Facility, and his blood froze! Attached to the letter was a gift- a novel he had mentioned offhandedly that he was after some months ago, during a Scooby Meeting- a novel on King Arthur.
The novel was a nice gift, but the letter's return address massively upset him He had refused to read it on principle, and his live-in girlfriend, Anya Jenkins, asked him point-blank what the matter was that had gotten him so incredibly upset in the first place! He really didn't want to let on to her that he had been raped by a girl, so he said that it was an old acquaintance he didn't want to deal with right now. Anya, to his astonishment, believed him.
When night fell, and he got into bed, he had dreams full of Arthurian Mythology: Merlin, King Arthur, The Knights of the Round Table, Mordred, Queen Guinevere, the whole lot of them.
Amazingly: in his dreams, Arthur looked a lot like the actor who plays him in Once Upon A Time, and sounded an awful lot like him too. These dreams were definitely on the weird side! For instance: Arthur and he would often sit down together and discuss their respective troubles with women, and he was an awful lot like a counselor more-so than a king in his manner of speaking to Xander!
End Chapter 1 Author's Notes: This chapter was basically an introduction to the tale, the next one will deal with Xander's dream in further detail; suffice it to say: Arthur's relationship to him is akin to that of someone who volunteers into "Big Brothers, Big Sisters" and he's trying to assist Xander with some 'girl trouble' of a sort. The title of that one will probably be: "Counseling Dreams".
Let's face reality about those two fiction stories: both guys have had a horrible encounter with a woman in their lives- so Arthur Pendragon is perfect for the role of councilor to Xander Harris in this regard- especially with Xander's attacker trying to make peace with him!