its kinda strong content. Contains child abuse so you know. If you don't feel comfortable with it im sorry.

WPOV.

Oh they look so bored. I can certainly understand it. Its there birthday and they are sitting here hearing stuff they already know. Well most of the stuff. Except that.

"what?!" faith yells. "you mean to tell me somethin' is goin' round ta off the slayer line but nobody tells me?!" uh oh.

"faith you were in jail." Buffy says as though that makes any sense.

"you guys coulda picked up a damn phone! Hell wrote a letter even." she sighs and starts to calm.

"you were safer there. It was better you didn't know." that's what Buffy thinks.

"yeah cus bein in another coma was real comforting'. But don't worry its all good. I was so safe there." she shakes her head in disgust. "one of you guys take notes or somethin'. I'll be by later ta get ya." she starts to walk to the door.

"Faith where do you think you're going?"

"away from you Buffy."

"you can't leave. We are in the middle of a meeting. You can't just get up and walk out. You need to hear this."

"so now its important to fill me in?" she shakes her head. Brad gets up and walks out with her. I swear those two are thick as thieves. Sorta understandable though. They both carry the burden of being extremely powerful and the oldest. To a sense. Brad is the oldest between him and Braden and faith is the oldest completely.

"goodness Buffy what is your drama with my sister. The past is the past let it go." bray says.

"i can't just let go of the fact she tried to kill me and the people I care about!" he shakes his head and simultaneously he and Kennedy stand.

"later willow." Braden says. Kennedy nods at me and I can tell she's trying not to go off on Buffy.

"I'm coming with you." everybody gives me a slightly shocked look but they don't say anything. There is no way they are going to have some birthday fun without good ole will.

FPOV.

This is shit. Earlier I had to get the hell outta here and now I'm back because they got some 'newer developments.' meanin' they got like a thousand new potentials comin' in and they want me to meet em. Why? Who the hell knows. I mean they interrupted the madden tournament we were havin for this. I want to bang my head into a fuckin wall! I swear. I have this naggin' urge to hit somethin'. Brad walks over to me.

"whore." he states calmly. I smile.

"slut." I say back

"it"

"hoe bag"

"over sized pile of dog sh-"

"faith!"

"yah red?"

"stop it. Both of you." we pout like little kids. At the same time. We say:

"he started it" "she started it" we then turn to each other and stick our tongues out. She shakes her head. She's only been hangin with all of us for two days but she's used to it. We get quiet and tune back into the conversation.

"so the first has a new strategy." Giles starts. "he's going after the slayer in her dreams. It doesn't show itself to you it just waits until she's vulnerable. Once her guard is let down it strikes. A series of fake events that could throw the slayer away from the fight at hand." brad lets out a bored sigh.

"something the matter Bradley?" he looks at Giles like he's stupid.

"no I'm just waitin for you to get to the part where we should give a shit." me, Braden, Kennedy, and red try to suppress a chuckle at the suggestion he just made.

"we should do our best to all look out for Buffy." Giles says calmly. Brad just gives him a blank look before his eyes get big.

"oh! Damn you're sayin' we should care about Buffy's well being. Oh sorry I can't bring myself to do that." everybody is lookin a little shocked that the sweet innocent brad would say somethin like that. "what?" he asks.

"of course you should. The buffster is the slayer after all." I notice brad's eyes darken at that.

"brad" I say in a warnin tone. I know he ain't scared'a me but he calms down.

"she's a slayer. Far from bein THE slayer." he states calmly.

"come on brad. I know she's your sister and all but we all know faith will never be the slayer. She'll always be the second string. The back up. I'm sorry but it is what it is."ouch. Talk about sweet talkin a girl Xander.

"I'm afraid Xander is right for once. Faith has never been the slayer she's always been a slayer. Buffy is the true slayer." Giles says. Damn. My birthday is ruined.

"I'm still in the room ya know." I state agitated. Xander sighs.

"sorry. Forgot about ya. Just like I really want to." the last part is mumbled but I heard him. I can tell brad did too.

"fuck you Xander! Watch what the fuck you say bout my sister aite. I may be sweet and kind but that's the surface. You keep scratchin and I'll show you exactly who Bradley is. I'm not faith or Braden or anybody else for that matter. Cross the line again an' I will fuck you up. Ya dig?" he says and his voice is as cold as the north pole. Sometimes I forget how he can be.

"you want to calm down Bradley"

"and what are you gonna do if I don't Buffy." this is getting outta hand.

"brad c'mon lets go." he looks at me an nods. "see you guys later." we make our way out. Boy he's got a temper. And we're gonna talk about it.

KPOV.

Well that's brad for ya. Protectiveness a plenty.

"god what's his drama?" Xander asks. Now he's an idiot.

"the fuck you think?! You jus sat here and dissed our sister on her birthday!" Braden yells getting up walkin outta the house. Xander looks down a minute.

"how was I supposed to know it was her birthday?"
"did you ever ask.?" the anger in me starting to show. "exactly what do you know about faith?" oh I'm so pissed cus I know they don't know shit. All they've know the better part of four years is that she's a slayer and she's from Boston. "anybody? Hmm? Nothing. Didn't think so." well I'm gonna tell em. Yep faith never would. Actually no I'm not. She's gonna tell em now cus she and the boys just walked back in. "now's your opportunity to find out." I say to a room full of heads hung in shame.

"please faith enlighten us." Buffy the ever so sarcastic bitch. "tell us all about how you never had a puppy an how mommy used to slap you around a bit. How life was so unfair to you. Please do I'll start the violins for you." I notice the look on Faith's face.

"Kendall" I state trying to calm her a little. She looks at me and nods her head.

"why don't you tell me what you already know so I won't repeat info."

"that you're a 22 year old high school drop out psycho slayer from Boston. You're name is Kendall faith Lehane and that's it."

"wow Buffy you know two whole sentences bout her. And most of it isn't even right." I say. 22? yeah right.

"for starters I'm not 22. I'm 20. yeah I'm 2 years younger than you. I'm not psycho but I was diagnosed as manic depressive when I was 12. I am from Boston but I didn't drop outta high school. I went to a private school and graduated when I was 13. I did have a puppy growin up. His name was sparky. I liked fire as a kid. So sparky it was. You're right my mom never hit me. That'd be too mild. We had full out torture sessions." she stops to take a deep breath. Torture sessions? What is she talkin about? " before daddy left with you guys she pulled a few strings and had his name removed from my birth certificate. That's why he never got custody. So while you guys were there you knew about her temper. Well when you left it got worse. She wanted to remind me everyday of how I ruined her life. When I was 8 she tied me to the bed in the guest bedroom naked. She used the dullest knife she could find and she cut my entire body. Chest to ankle. She had better plans for the neck up. Anyway when she was done and the wounds were just right she poured alcohol on the open wounds. Once she was sure I was covered in alcohol she untied me. While I was tryin ta get up offa the bed she threw some lit matches on me and everybody knows with the right amount of alcohol you'll light up like a Christmas tree. So anyways she gave me enough time for the pain to subside to a dull throb when she picked me up, cus it hurt too much to move so I wouldn't fight her, and she put me in a tub of ice cold water. Held me under for a minute or at least I think that's how long it took me to turn a little blue. Anyway. After all of that was over she made me sit in the living room chair. She told me if I moved she'd kill sparky. So I sat still. He was my only friend so I couldn't let him die. She sat starin' at me with my puppy in her lap then got this sickening smile after a while. Before I knew what was happenin she snapped his neck. I swear I wanted to die with him. She told me I didn't deserve a fate as good as death and she went all out with belts and chains. Anything that would hurt me. She hit me with it. No matter how much I tried to run and hide she found me. That was the last day she was ever nice to me. She started to do drugs heavily and drink more and more. By the time I was 10 I was used to it. Hell I was even 'used' to the guys. The hospital knew me all to well. I was used to goin up to two weeks with out food. When I was twelve I had finally had enough. I got the courage to run. I was on my way out and she saw me. She was majorly pissed. Didn't care though. I ducked and dodged and got the hell outta there. That's when I came to dad's. And the next day we got the word sayin she was dead. Boy I was fuckin ecstatic. I spent the next two years alternation between dad and foster homes. I finally cut my self off from you guys when I was 14 and got adopted by my first watcher, Annabelle. Got called at 15. met kakistos. Got Annie killed by not bein careful. Started a cross country trip here. Doin odd jobs and what not. Sellin a little coke and getting the hell outta dodge before I had to pay up. Finally made it here when I was 16. on my birthday. Wasn't lookin for B or the scoobs but found em anyway. Figured they weren't half bad got side tracked. Finally got back on track started helpin uncle Rich after the finch thing. Held a knife to red, tried to strangle Xander after I popped his cork, tried to kill angel and Buffy. Got stabbed but in a coma woke up wantin revenge. Took B's body, went to sleep woke up to find Riley fuckin me. Figured it was normal for him and Buffy. Took her ma hostage and finally went to la for redemption. After I tried to kill angel again 'o course." wow. I never knew some of this.

"you forgot the professor." Buffy whispers and for the first time I notice everyone is crying. Even the boys who don't normally cry. What professor.

"who?"faith asks then her eyes get big. "oh he's fine. I couldn't kill him. He was my uncle."

"uncle lester?" I ask.

"yep." she states. "so there ya go everythin there is to know about faith." I know there is more but she's not ready to tell them yet though.

"I'm sorry." Xander and Buffy say at the sametime.

"don't sweat it. The past is the past." god how hard that must have been for her. But she was gonna tell em all eventually. I can tell from the look on her face. She probably would have said it all in anger though. For some reason I feel oddly relieved this is out in the open. Brad walks over to her and hugs her. They share a smile. He gets this look like he's thinkin something.

"hey Kendall?" he asks.

"yeah?"

"i hope you know this doesn't mean you get outta cookin tonight." he says with a smile. They look at each other and burst out laughin. Only he would say something like that. "you laughin I'm serious." she looks at him and shakes her head. "no for real. We gotta eat some kinda how. We can't let Kennedy cook. Hey maybe we can use her cooking to beat the first." everyone laughs at this.

" a he he hell." I state even though I'm laughing too. And it feels good. If only it could last.

Chapter two people. Please review.