Summary: AU. Faye, an orphan after her mother is killed in a seemingly random house fire, moves to Chance Harbor to reside with a cousin's family. The moment that she gets there, however, she is suddenly the subject of interest for more than one girl in her newly discovered Circle.
WARNING: This is a femslash story.
Author's Note: I haven't decided if this will be Fayana or Chamberlake. So... feedback?
Chance Harbor.
There was nothing all that special about the place. It was just another small town in the middle of nowhere; the kind in which all of the occupants pretty much knew each other. Obviously, they weren't all close. More or less, though, a random person plucked off of the street could be connected back to a close friend or family member.
Still, Diana Meade called it home and she always had. It was the sort of place that tended to trap families there for generations. When she was younger, before everything had happened, she had hoped and wished for a way to escape the little town. She wanted a bigger future. She wanted a way out forever so that she wouldn't be destined to stick around with a father - she loved him but he was still struggling and it was hard - and the omnipresent ghost of a mother she hadn't even known.
But then she had made an important discovery that changed everything. Suddenly, she had every reason in the world to stay in the little town she had been so desperate and eager to leave the moment that she graduated from high school. She had found the family Book of Shadows. She had discovered that not only was she herself a full-blooded witch, but so was her entire group of friends.
Well, she used the term loosely.
Each of them had lost a parent in some tragic accident when they were young. One of them had lost both his mother and father. They hadn't even known their parents, having all been around the same age. About one at the time of the accident, give or take a month or two. Actually, they were only separated by a couple of months when the youngest of them, Melissa Glaser, was compared to the oldest, Adam Conant. Diana, Melissa, and Adam lost their mothers; Cassie lost her father; Nick lost both parents.
They had always had this one tragic event tying them together, though some more than others. Adam's father had maintained, throughout their childhoods and even to the present day, that his son was 'written in the stars' to be with Cassie Blake. Beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed Cassie Blake. It seemed that the 'fates' agreed with him, not that Diana really believed in such a thing, because the pair had been dating for almost five years. Five years and they still seemed to be going strong.
According to her book, there had to be six members for their Circle to be complete. They had only the five. Until recently, there had been nothing that they could do about it. It wasn't like Diana could go asking around about who the sixth family was and where they lived. None of the others, except Nick who was interested in the power that a full Circle would bring, actually seemed to care that part of their group would be forever missing.
But, again, that had been until recently.
Her father had had her sit down with him one night as he struggled to express himself clearly. Apparently, an old friend of his, Dawn Chamberlain, had been killed in a horrible house fire. The only reason that he was bringing it up was because her daughter, Faye, would be moving to Chance Harbor. The girl was an orphan. Diana sat up a little straighter. There was a sensation of heat in her abdomen; a stirring that she couldn't quite put into words. Still, she knew. She knew before he said the words exactly what he was going to say.
Then the bomb dropped and the pieces all landed in place. Finally, they had their sixth member. All it had taken, and Diana felt a sharp twinge of immediate guilt as she thought about it, was for the girl to become as alone in the world as Nick was. More so, actually, since she didn't have any siblings to turn to for anything. Not that Jake was present in Nick's life at all, but at least the boys knew that the other was alive. It was more than Faye had.
"Faye Chamberlain." Nick mused over the name, seeing how it rolled off of his tongue. He cocked his head and fell back into his usual silence. He made some sort of muttered comment that caused Melissa to roll her eyes and hit him in the chest, but Diana didn't bother to ask. No doubt it was something vulgar about Faye event though they hadn't even met her yet.
It had been a day since the news about Faye had come from her father and she was trying to work out a plan to bring the newest addition to their Circle into the fold. Cassie agreed that it should probably be done gently and slowly and Adam, who at times displayed no sense own individual thought, readily agreed with his girlfriend. Melissa and Nick, on the other hand, failed to give input. They didn't need to. Diana had an idea of what it would be. Nick would want to add her to the Circle as quickly as possible, but he wasn't one for interpersonal politics. Melissa wouldn't put forth an opinion until she had had sufficient time to consider the options.
When Diana was waiting around the hallway at school, trying to catch a glimpse of the Chamberlain girl, she felt a presence arrive at her side and smiled slightly. Cassie was just as curious to see Faye as she was. They wanted to get an idea of who they would be spending most amount of their time with. The first sign that she was coming came when a boy was so busy craning his neck to look down the hall that the side of his head collided with a doorframe.
Diana couldn't blame him, to be honest. The thought made her face color rapidly.
Faye Chamberlain didn't make eye contact with a single person. In fact, those brightly green eyes didn't even acknowledge the fact that she and Cassie were blatantly watching her every move. With porcelain skin and a darkly colored, alluring wardrobe, it was no wonder that several people found themselves suddenly distracted as she passed. Everything about the girl screamed rebellious bad girl. She seems reclusive but confident in herself and secure enough to not care a number of her new classmates were rudely staring at her.
She was strong, Diana could see that clearly enough. But it was also certain to her that the girl was in pain behind the fortified walls that she erected for the rest of the world to see. She could see it in the slight way that her eyes flicked, the way that her hands tightened around her books, the way that the air around her seemed to thicken from a raw sense of emotion. Of course she was in pain, Diana mentally kicked herself for being an idiot.
Diana couldn't help herself after another couple of seconds of gazing curiously at the brunette. She followed along behind, breaking away from a Cassie who was sharply protesting in a hushed voice for her not to crowd the new girl. Still, she ignored the blonde in favor of satisfying her need to address the newcomer. She just… she had to. So, she went right up to her locker with a smile curling her lips upward.
"Faye Chamberlain, right?" The intense green eyes shifted to her and she could see cautious curiosity had been piqued not to mention a slight amused glimmer. "Diana Meade, our-"
"I know." Faye cut her off abruptly in a deadpan. A pause and then a small smirk. "You're very pretty."
With those words, Faye slammed the locker shut, turned on her heel and was gone. Diana was left bewildered and, worst of all, with heat crawling up her neck as she replayed the words in her mind. You're very pretty