Chapter Two

See Chapter One for Disclaimer
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She'd spent an hour or so staring out the window at the passing scenery without really seeing it when the thrum of the truck's engine abruptly changed. Faith blinked, coming back from the dark places within herself where she'd been aimlessly wandering. The interstate highway they'd been on continued off into the distance, but they were off of it now, the tractor trailer slowing in stages as it moved down the approach to a roadside rest area. Just ahead there was a large parking lot, currently occupied by a dozen or so cars and vans, many of them with out of state license plates and strap-on luggage containers perched on their roofs. The rest area itself was a medium-sized building; its neatly arranged landscaping looked picture-perfect in the afternoon sun. Inside one would likely find spacious bathrooms and any number of coffee and snack machines. Supressing the urge to yawn, Faith turned and looked across at the man driving.

"What's up? Can't hold it 'till we get to Monterey?"

From what she'd heard, whenever Buffy got tired of Sunnydale she liked to head south, towards Los Angeles. That being the case, when Faith had hitched her way out of town she'd headed in the opposite direction. This truck was her third ride of the afternoon; looking like she did meant that there usually wasn't a lack of people willing to give her a lift.

"Just makin' a pit stop, little lady," He answered. "Plus I thought you might want to stretch your legs a bit. An' it might be a good idea to hit the can yourself; it's a long way till the next restroom."

She studied him for a moment, but he was busy watching where he was driving as he maneuvered the big vehicle into one of the parking slots designated for trucks. Ol' Dean was a nice enough guy, she supposed. Sure, he'd been leering at her a little whenever he thought she wasn't paying attention, but there wasn't a law against looking. He looked to be in his early forties; a slightly scruffy white guy, a bit overweight because his job was basically just sitting behind a wheel all day, but not too terrible looking for all that. Riding in the passenger seat of his truck was a huge improvement on the little Celica with the bouncing, screaming eight year olds that had been her previous lift. Sure, it'd been nice of the young couple to stop for her, but twenty minutes of sharing the back seat with the terror twins had nearly cost her her sanity.

Something out the window caught her eye, and she craned her head to get a better look. There, just beside the entrance to the building, was an honest to goodness injun-type teepee.

"What the fuck is that doing here?"

Dean finally finished the process of parking his truck, ran the gearshift through a final elaborate movement, and engaged the parking brakes. A muffled discharge of air from somewhere back underneath the trailer and the vehicle was still.

Or at least almost still; for some reason she still didn't get, truck drivers seemed very reluctant to actually turn off the engine unless they were going to be gone quite a while. The man leaned over towards her (a bit closer than was really necessary, she noticed) and looked towards where she was pointing.

"Oh, that." He straightened slightly, though he was still close enough that the material of his shirt was brushing her arm. "There's a couple'a Indian reservations up through here. A lot of the 'skins make their living sellin' trinkets to the tourists. Rugs, silverwork, beads; that kind of thing." He reached across her and ran a finger over the tattoo on her right bicep. "That's a tribal tat, isn't it?"

Faith gave him a level stare.

"Sort of." His fingers were still on her arm, stroking slowly up and down as he watched her. There didn't seem to be any kind of threat going on here, but still….

"Okay, what's the deal?" She asked, blunt and to the point.

He grinned.

"Well, like I said before; it's a long way to the next rest stop." He looked down at her arm, tracing a line down her bicep, across the inside of her elbow, to where her hand lay on her thigh. Glancing up at her, he gave a little shrug. "I figure, since I'm being nice enough to take you three hundred miles, you might feel like being nice in return." He tilted his head, indicating the sleeper compartment just behind where they sat. "What do you say?"

Faith leaned back in her seat and thought about it.

She wasn't angry; he wasn't attacking her, he was just asking. It wasn't even the first time she'd had this particular situation come up; sure, her looks helped her catch rides, but they also tended to make people think she might be willing to give a little something back in trade. She'd done it before, too. It was no big deal; people had been using her body, either with her consent or without it, for a long, long time now. These days, so long as she was in control of things, she had no problem with using it to get what she wanted. If it made her feel good too, then so much the better. Dean was a long way from the best looking guy she'd ever fucked, but he was a ways from the bottom of the heap, too. And it was a long way yet to Monterey. If a quick grunting session in the back of the truck was all it cost her then she'd count it cheap fare.

And yet….

She shook her head, not even really sure about why she was turning him down.

"Sorry, man." She caught his hand in her own. Crushing every bone would have taken her hardly any effort at all, but there was no reason to go there. She merely pulled his hand away from her arm, and held it away until he drew back. Predictably, the man's face tightened with a mix of anger and sullen resentment.

"What? I'm not good enough for you?" He slid back over to his side of the seat, not looking at her as he grabbed the door handle and opened the door. "I'm going to take a leak, and I want you gone before I get back." He jumped down, and the last thing she heard before he slammed the door was a muttered "-No free rides, little white-trash bitch-"

Faith sat there for a few seconds, watching as he stomped away towards the building.

Great. Now what do I do? Most of the people here are tourists, and I don't want to spend another few hours trapped with a couple of brats climbing all over me, fighting with each other and screaming at mommy and daddy. She looked towards where Dean had disappeared inside. And when did I get to be all goody-goody an' morally opposed to random acts of screwing? She wasn't sure; it was just that somehow it had seemed like something….

Her eyes suddenly widened, and she groaned with the realization.

…Like something that Buffy wouldn't approve of. She shook her head in an attempt at denial, but it was all too true. Shit. Even when she gets me so pissed off and twisted into knots that I have to skip town, I'm still tyin' to please her. Like she'd even know about me and this guy doin' the nasty in the back of his truck.

That was it, though. Ever since she'd first hit Sunnydale; well, ever since that thing with Kakistos, anyway, she'd been trying to conform to the Buffy code of Slayer behavior. Sure, she really sucked at it, but the thing was, she was trying. She rarely drank in front of the other girl anymore, since that first time she'd had a beer while with Buffy, and the older Slayer had given her an unmistakable 'look' that made her feelings on the whole 'you're not yet twenty-one, and even if you were alcohol is just so very gross' thing very clear. Same thing with shoplifting, even though it had only been a measly tube of lipstick that Buffy had seen her take. Nope, none of things that Faith took as her basic rights and privileges seemed to sit well with ol' blondie. Sometimes it seemed like the only emotion she could provoke in Buffy at all was a faint air of disapproval… which was so very far away from what she wanted the other girl to feel towards her.

No wonder she'd finally had to get out of there for a while.

And speaking of getting out….

Faith popped the door open and picked up her worn backpack, pausing only to reach over and snag Dean's cigarettes and lighter from where he'd left them on the dash. So what if she hadn't smoked in more than six months (Ms. Northam, the Watcher who had found her, hadn't approved of any of Faith's habits, including that one), and so what if the Scooby gang, and practically all of Sunnydale High was one big anti-smoking poster? She could do what she wanted, and if Buffy didn't like it then that was just too bad.

Even inside her own head that sounded awfully petulant, and she grimaced as she tucked the pack inside her jacket pocket.

With a resigned sigh, she slid off her seat, dropping the three or four feet to the ground-

--And when the soles of her boots struck the asphalt of the parking lot, a resounding Thoom passed through her from feet to scalp, as if she'd just stomped on the head of a giant bass drum. She came off the ground in a sort of instinctive half-leap, frantically grabbing hold of the side of he truck in an attempt to keep her feet off the pavement. Hanging there, her boots safely on the chrome ledge beside the door, she threw looks in every direction, trying to see that had caused that bizarre… well, it hadn't been a sound, exactly, but it had been something.

Nothing odd was in sight, though. Random tourists, the highway running past, grass, the rest area building over there and some trees beyond it… nothing. Moving with care, Faith lowered one foot, and just barely brushed the toe of her boot across the blacktop of the parking lot.

Nothing happened.

She scowled unhappily, then pressed her foot down.

Everything seemed fine. Letting go of the truck, she stood there for a few moments, still waiting for the weirdness to return, but things stayed very normal.

--The hell?

She spent a few more seconds glaring around at all the normality, then shrugged.

Okaaaay. I guess it was just my imagination. She adjusted the pack strap across her shoulder and set off towards the building. Funny, I would have sworn that I didn't have one. An imagination, that is.

And on the subject of overactive imaginations, she suddenly had the oddest prickling sensation between her shoulder blades…. Trying her best to keep it casual, she reached up and gave her hair an unnecessary push back over her shoulder, and tossed a glance back behind her.

Nobody was there; or rather, there was, but it was just a group of five people loading themselves back into their minivan in preparation for the next leg of their trip to wherever. Faith gave her hair a nervous tug, then tossed it back for real, turning her attention back towards the building. She didn't really need to use the facilities, but as she surveyed the travelers wandering around, drinking coffee and trying to recover from long, sleep-inducing stretches of driving, a thought occurred to her. It was a little risky, but this wasn't Sunnydale; if she screwed up here, nobody back on the Hellmouth would ever hear about it.

--Unless she actually got arrested or something, and that wasn't real likely, was it? Faith made sure her pack would stay on her shoulder without her holding it, then flexed her hands, loosening them up.

All right now. Who looks good and tired, here? Hey, he seems mostly out of it.

The Slayer moved towards her chosen target, a tall man wearing a Denver Broncos windbreaker. He was walking slowly along the front of the building, just one of a couple dozen people who were doing the same thing; staring at the Indians selling their stuff, reading the informative tourist-info plaques that lined the walk, and generally doing their best to shake off their weariness before getting back behind the wheel. As he turned away from one of the signs proclaiming the area's wonders (Visit the scenic Cachuma Lake Recreational Area!) she 'accidentally' stumbled into him.

Just as she 'accidentally' reached for his wallet.

Now, before the whole Slayer deal had come along, she had been living on the streets of Boston, and there had been occasions when she'd tried her hand at pickpocketing. She'd been awful at it. Nowadays, even with the enhanced coordination and reaction speed she'd received, she was still a long way from being great, but sometimes 'good' was good enough.

Like now. The guy took a half-step back, automatically reaching out to steady her as she leaned against him. When he got a good look at her, and his tired brain finally registered just what those two warm, soft objects that had briefly pressed into his chest had been, he was reduced to hasty, embarrassed apologies. She smiled brightly, told him that it had all been her fault and not to worry about it, and then she walked away… with his wallet safely stashed in her jacket pocket. About twenty yards further on, and nearly to the spot where the teepee was set up just across from the building's entrance, she found another likely mark. This time it was a woman, a poor young thing who had her hands full trying to manage a squalling infant, while snapping desperate orders to three little kids who were happily ignoring her and climbing all over the antique-looking wooden fences that were intended to keep visitors off of the grass and shrubbery. Faith strolled up behind the woman, smiled approvingly at the ugly little embryo she was fussing with, and neatly slipped her hand into the purse hanging from mom's shoulder. Shielding her actions with both the woman's body and her own, she'd extracted a wad of bills in moments (leaving the lady her credit cards; she wasn't a total bitch), and then was on her way.

Sorry, Lady, but if you're going to squirt out four brats that me and Buffy are going to end up fighting to protect, then you'd better be prepared to cover a few of my expenses.

That was two down, and she'd made it seem easy. Of course, it wasn't really that effortless; in fact she was so tense that she was trembling.

Shit, I hate doing that! She glanced back, but no one was looking like they'd noticed her actions. She breathed a quiet sigh and kept her stride slow and unconcerned.

Faith figured her chances of pulling that kind of thing off were about four out of five, maybe a little better if, like here, she was able to pick targets who didn't really have their mind on what was going on around them. That still made it all too possible for someone to catch her in the act, and…. Well, okay, so it probably wouldn't matter anyway. If someone screamed and pointed at her, she would just take off. She could outrun anyone, outfight anyone, and even in a place like this she could be out of sight in seconds. It wasn't like they were going to organize a state-wide manhunt just to catch a pickpocket. Faith sighed, fingering the loot stuffed in her pocket while looking out at the highway.

I guess it's just force of habit, being scared of getting caught, being afraid of what the cops would do to me, being afraid they'd find out I was a runaway and send me back to mom… again. She shook her head violently, pushing aside memories of abuse, of her helpless screams that only made her mom's 'boyfriends' laugh harder, thrust harder, into an eleven-year-old girl….

She blinked, took a long, shuddering breath, then let it go.

Fuck, why am I still reliving that? That was a long time ago. It was a different place, and I'm a different person now. She was somewhat chagrined to realize that she was hunched over, with her arms folded over her stomach and her head bowed. With her teeth clenched she slowly and deliberately straightened up, lowering her arms so that they hung more or less naturally at her sides. See? I'm okay. I'm not scared like I was back then, and I'm not scared of any of these losers, either.

Just to prove that last part, she continued to linger there in plain view, despite the fact that eventually one of her victims was going to notice their missing cash. The tall man had seen her face, too, and would be able to put two and two together pretty quick. Despite that, she turned and spent a minute checking out the Indian merchants, taking her first close look at the locals. There were three of them, two women, one young and one old, and a middle-aged man, all dressed up in buckskins and beads, sitting in front of the small teepee. Faith frowned, looking at that.

Uh, call me a Boston idiot, but weren't the Great Plains Indians the only ones who used those? I mean, I always thought these guys were kind of cool, so I actually paid a little attention when they came up in history class, and I could swear that most of the east and west coast tribes lived in huts, or lodges, or whatever.

She shrugged. She could be remembering it wrong, or maybe they had decided to give in to some common racial stereotypes in order to promote the trinket trade. At least these three actually did seem to be authentic natives; the color and texture of their hair, added to their strong facial features left little doubt that they were of Amerindian blood.

Her curiosity roused, she forgot about any possible danger from her victims and strolled towards the three. As she crossed the walkway, she caught a glimpse of Dean the truck driver, just emerging from the rest area building. Not wanting to risk an incident with him, she stepped right up to the tables of items the natives were selling, staring intently at the various objects and giving the man time to walk past. He probably saw her standing there, but she didn't look up, and fortunately he just kept on going towards his truck. Somewhat relieved that she wouldn't have to listen to him bitch her out, she'd started to turn and move on when a sudden gasp made her look up.

From this range Faith could see the details of the Native costumes the three were wearing. The women's hair was braided, the beadwork of their clothes was crafted of finely carved bone and horn, with elaborate designs picked out on the pale leather. The man's face was dabbed with several colors of paint, and his expression seemed to be set in stone as he endured a group of Asian teenagers posing beside him for their friend to snap a picture. The old woman was likewise patiently watching as varied sorts of white women picked over the wares spread on the table before her.

Man, how can they stand this? She wondered. I know men didn't walk around every day with face paint on; but he has to dress up so that every idiot who walks by can get his picture taken with a 'real' Indian. How humiliating is that? And grandma over there is listening to these women babbling on about how 'authentic' all this jewelry is. I really doubt these guys ever made silver rings and cute little mini-dreamcatchers back in the old days, but since that's what the white folks buy, that's what they have to make.

Faith turned her gaze to the third one, the young woman, and she realized that this was the one who had gasped. She was pretty, the Slayer realized, and younger than she'd first thought; Eighteen or so, twenty at most… and she was staring at Faith with a look of pure terror in her dark eyes.

Whoa; what's the deal, here? Did she see me lifting those tourist's cash a minute ago? She glanced back along the walkway, noting that both the mother and the tall man were still in sight, and apparently oblivious to what she'd done. Faith turned back to the girl. Maybe she thinks I'm gonna lift some of her junk, too. I guess it wouldn't exactly be the first time in history a white person screwed them over, huh?

Trying to look as harmless as possible (even though she'd never thought to practice that before), she smiled.

"You've got some nice stuff here." Pointing at a beaded bracelet she fished a bill out of her pocket. "How much for that?" She figured that buying something might help change the girl's mind if she was about to start screaming for the cops, or park rangers, or whatever the hell kind of law hung out around here. The Indian girl, however, seemed not to even see the money Faith held. Instead, her eyes wide, she continued to stare right through the Slayer.

"H-he sees you…." The girl whispered, her voice shaking. Her dark eyes suddenly focused on Faith's, and she spoke again, this time with desperate intensity. "He sees you! He's watching you right now!"

Prickles ran up and down Faith's spine, and she couldn't help turning her head and doing another quick scan of the area. There was nothing; lots of people, yeah, but none of them seemed to be paying her any special attention at all.

She looked back at the native girl, ready to ask her just what the fuck was going on, but someone else beat her to it. The old woman, who Faith figured for the girl's grandmother, was leaning over and whispering angrily in a language the Slayer couldn't understand. It seemed likely that she was chewing out the younger woman for scaring a potential customer. The girl looked down meekly, but shook her head violently in reply to whatever grandma was saying. Faith was amazed to see tears running down the young woman's face, and when she glanced over at the elder of the two, she saw surprise mirrored there as well. With a quick, trembling sentence or two, the girl lurched to her feet, cast a last frightened look at Faith, and then hurried away, heading for a worn out pickup truck that was parked across the way.

The Slayer watched her go, cracking her knuckles meditatively.

Well. That was wicked strange. She thought. I wonder what her deal was?

The quiet clearing of a throat brought her attention back to the old woman.

"Please, forgive my niece." The wrinkled woman said. Her voice was rough, but her tone made it clear that she was doing her best to be reassuring. "She's a bit high-strung, but she meant no harm."

Faith cocked her head slightly to one side and regarded the woman uncertainly.

"Huh. What was the deal with that 'He's looking at you' stuff?"

"Ah…." The woman paused, and the Slayer suddenly caught a glimpse of something odd in those leathery features. She might be good at hiding it, but when she looked at Faith, the old lady had just a trace of fear in her eyes. The same kind of fear the girl had shown. "My grandfather was a powerful Shaman. I think that sometimes my niece believes that his legacy lives in her." The woman spread her hands and shrugged. "She claims to see things, to hear the spirits whispering to her; please pay her no mind. After all," She smiled thinly. "We all know there's nothing to those old superstitions."

Faith, who had on occasion had the living shit beaten out of her by someone's old 'superstitions', nodded in sage agreement and put on a blank expression.

"Yeah, nothin' to those old stories, huh grannie?" Looking back down at the stuff piled on the tables, she poked at a choker necklace made from narrow beads carved from some sort of bone. "Some of this stuff doesn't have a price. Am I supposed to barter with you or something?"

The old woman's eyes gleamed a little, and Faith thought she could almost see the dollar signs flashing in her eyes. Until, that is, the woman frowned, and glanced back over her shoulder. The Slayer followed her gaze, and saw that the niece was sitting in the front of their pickup truck, bent forward as if she were crying. The old lady turned back to where Faith was standing, and plastered a patiently fake smile on her lips.

"Since that child has disturbed you with her silliness, please choose something you like and take it; as a gift from us."

Faith smothered the grin that wanted to come when she heard the pain in the old woman's voice. Still, she'd be happy to snag something for free; that way she wouldn't have to part with any of her hard-stolen cash. Looking down at the stuff arrayed before her, her eyes were again drawn to that choker. It was really pretty, and anything that got between a vamp and her throat had to be a good thing….

Nah, She thought to herself. It's too expensive; the crone here is edging towards a heart attack just watching me look at it. There were other things there, but most of them just looked too… cheesy. Little toy tomahawks for the kiddies to play with, some kind of psuedo-ceremonial rattles, feather clips to put in your hair…. Most of the stuff that looked decent was something she had no use for, like the little drums made of wood and animal hide, or the small rugs that were woven with intricate patterns. That pretty much just left the jewelry.

She edged to the side, where the table of bracelets, rings and necklaces was displayed. There was a lot of silver, a lot of turquoise, and while most of the stuff looked well-crafted, it somehow left her cold.

Faith sighed.

Hell with it; just pick one and move on, there's other things to see and do.

She reached forward, towards a small, cheap-looking bracelet… and her hand stopped in mid reach. She couldn't really say why she'd stopped, but there was something….

On the far corner of the table, sitting beside a bin full of genuine 'Spirit stones' gathered on long-hidden sacred ground (the sign said so), there was a small wooden box. It was full to the brim with tarnished bits of broken and bent jewelry that looked like it might have been gathered up off the side of the road somewhere. Both the box and its contents looked utterly unremarkable, but for some strange reason Faith found herself reaching for that box. She picked it up, hefted the weight in her hand for a moment, and then dumped it out on the table.

The old Indian woman started to protest, but the Slayer ignored her. She spread the bits and pieces out a little, still not sure what she was doing, or why. There didn't seem to be anything of note in the pile of debris, just junk, mixed in with stuff that a competent jeweler might or might not be able to repair. Faith gnawed at her lip for a few seconds, then held her hand over the bits, her palm a few inches above the table. Her hand drifted slowly back and forth, passing over rusted wristwatches, lengths of silver and gold chain, single earrings of various designs, a few battered buckles, a pair of odd-looking rings--

--Her hand stopped. There was something, almost like a faint warmth against her palm, when she held her hand over those rings. Still acting on impulse, she picked them up. Despite what she'd felt (or thought she'd felt), they were cool to the touch. The metal had an odd hue, though. It almost looked like a funky sort of gold, but the longer she looked at them-

"Copper." The old woman said, and Faith nearly jumped. She'd forgotten all about the Indian lady standing there. Looking up, she saw that the old woman was staring intently at the rings Faith was holding. The Slayer looked back at the items she was holding, and smirked.

Well, at least these are cheap enough for her not to miss much; they're just a couple of pennies somebody melted down!

They were kind of pretty, though. The two were similar in size, but where one was simply a plain metal band, the other sported a tiny etching of a bird. The workmanship involved was actually pretty amazing; she looked closer at the bird one, and found that there were many images inscribed on it, but it had been done in such a way that you could only see one at a time, and which one it was depended on the angle at which you were viewing it. The effect was almost like one of those holographic cards, where the picture changed as you moved it. In fact, as she turned the ring, the shifting images of the tiny bird almost made it seem as if it were in flight. Even stranger, as she turned the ring around and around, the movements the bird made didn't seem to be exactly repeating themselves… and as she continued to stare, she could have sworn that the image turned its head in mid-flight, and looked right back at her.

"How did those get in--?"

The old woman's voice made Faith blink, and when she looked again, the bird was poised in mid-flight, looking straight ahead. She turned it around and around, but couldn't seem to find the angle that showed the bird looking at her again.

"So, how about I take these?" Faith looked up at the woman. "I mean, I know you said just one, but these are only copper, right?"

The Indian lady gave a 'harrumph' at that, but her heart didn't seem to be in it.

"Copper was precious to our peoples in olden times, thousands of years before the whites ever learned how to get iron and silver from the rock inside the earth. North of here, you could find nuggets of it in the streams, like gold." She was staring at the rings, and at Faith, and that tiny glint of fear that had been in her eyes earlier was back, and stronger than ever. "Some of the oldest things that man ever made were made from metal like that."

The Slayer had slipped the rings onto her left hand, the plain one on her ring finger, and the bird one on her middle. They fit perfectly, and she held up her hand to check it out.

"Uh, okaaay…." She hadn't really been asking for a history lesson, after all. "So, can I have 'em?"

The woman swallowed, then nodded firmly, her wrinkled hands clutching at each other.

"Yes, please take them as our gift to you."

Faith grinned.

"Cool; thanks!"

With a wave of her newly be-ringed hand, she turned and headed towards the entrance to the rest area building. The woman seemed happy to see her go.

* * * * *

Once inside, Faith changed her mind about making use of the facilities. One thing that hitchhiking had taught her was that a bathroom, no matter where it might be, was infinitely preferable to using a stand of bushes beside the highway. After that business was dealt with, she spent a minute checking herself in the mirror over the sinks. Her hair was in its usual state; a semi-wild mane spilling past her shoulders, but it still looked okay.

At least I'm not like Buffy, thank god. She must spend an hour every day figuring out how to do something different with her hair. Me, I run a brush through it in the morning and call it done. She did take the time to redo her lipstick, but that wasn't purely a vanity thing; the better she looked the shorter the wait would be for her next ride. Regarding her image, she smiled at herself. And damn, I do look pretty good, don't I? Maybe with this cash I lifted I can buy another set or two of decent clothes when I get back. Going by what Giles gives me to live on, those Watchers must expect me to live on white rice and only wear sackcloth.

And that was almost literally true; the Librarian did give Faith a weekly allowance, but even with the long-term deal that had been worked out with the hotel where she was living, it was barely enough to feed her. She just couldn't figure out what Giles was thinking. Did he want to control Faith by forcing her to live week to week, with never enough cash to finance a trip out of Sunnydale? Was the oh-so-mighty Watcher's Council so strapped for funding that they couldn't even support their premier weapon against the monsters? Or was it something simpler? Did Giles, who had never actually had live with and support Buffy, as most Watchers did their Slayers, (as Faith's first Watcher, Ms. Northam, had done) simply not understand how much it cost Faith to feed her ultra-high-performance body? Could a Watcher, supposedly one of the most well-informed supernatural experts in the world, simply not know what he was doing? That was kind of hard to believe, but why else were things happening this way?

As it was, with the hundred and fifty dollars she received every Monday, she barely broke even most weeks. It sounded like a lot; it was certainly more than she'd lived on back before the Slayer gig had turned up, but in truth it wasn't enough. Seventy-five dollars a week went to pay for her crappy living quarters. The remaining seventy-five was hardly sufficient to keep her fed, and that was with Faith using some seriously creative ways of obtaining sustenance. Some shoplifting was usually involved; when nothing else was available, half a loaf of bread served to fill her stomach, some sugar provided the calories she needed (she stole the little packets from various places by the handful), and a pint of milk to wash it down at least made it seem like a real meal. She was fairly sure that the demise of the 'All you can eat' breakfast bar at the local Denny's had been entirely her fault, but hey; she'd taken them at their word, and for a couple of weeks that place had been a regular post-patrol stop.

Beyond that, Faith still had just the three sets of clothes which she'd brought with her to Sunnydale, and all of them were showing real signs of wear. The leather pants she was wearing now were the only ones she owned; the only thing she had that could survive repeated anti-vampire patrols, and even they were starting to get sort of ragged.

Faith leaned closer to the mirror, staring into her reflected eyes.

You know, I could just sort of mention all of this to Giles. Maybe he doesn't know he's practically starving me to death. Maybe, if I told him I needed more cash, he'd be happy to see that the Council upped the 'weekly subsistence benefit', or whatever the hell they call it.

Yeah, maybe. More likely, they'd just see it as Faith making excuses, as her causing even more problems, and being less of a Slayer than Buffy was. The girl looking back at her from the mirror's depths suddenly looked paler, her eyes harder.

After the truth had come out concerning the circumstances of her arrival in Sunnydale, one of the first things Giles had done was take Faith aside and explain to her how wrong it had been for her to lie about her Watcher's death. Apparently the folks in England were not at all happy with her failure to keep Ms. Northam safe from Kakistos; they figured that if someone had to die fighting a vamp, it was supposed to be the Slayer. The librarian, too, thought she'd been cowardly to run, and irresponsible to lead the big vampire to Buffy, who apparently had enough troubles of her own without having to deal with Faith's.

Not that he had said it in those words; he'd tried his best to be gentle, to talk his way around actually calling her a miserable excuse for a chosen one, but Gile's own disapproval of her was very evident. Plainly it was his opinion that only someone like Buffy, who could do no wrong, was fit to be a Slayer. Of course, nobody ever mentioned that Buffy herself had lost her first Watcher, back in Los Angles, and it was her stupidity in not killing Angel right after he lost it that had resulted in the death of that Miss Calendar person, but it had been obvious from the beginning that everyone treated the older Slayer differently than Faith.

And did they really think I needed reminding of how badly I fucked up with Kakistos? Did they really believe that whatever 'punishment' they threatened me with could hold a candle to what I already put myself through, every time I remember how she died?

Suddenly, and without warning, something occurred to her, and she stopped breathing for a moment.

Wait a second…. It was painful; the abrupt realization of a thought that had been lurking, unformed, for quite a while now. Is that it? Is the reason Giles is in charge of two Slayers now not because they trust him so much, but because they really don't trust me at all? Her fist was clenched so hard that it was white, the new rings shining as she pounded her hand gently on the edge of the sink. Fuck me; that is it, isn't it? The Council doesn't trust me not to get another Watcher killed, so they're leaving me with one who has another Slayer to take care of him. No wonder Giles doesn't give a crap about what happens to me; they've already written me off as a lost cause.

She stared at herself in the mirror, and now it wasn't to admire what she saw there; it was to reinforce what she'd known for a long, long time now.

No one else cared; no matter what they said, or promised, or pretended to feel, no one in the world cared about her. If even the people behind this whole 'sacred destiny as the Slayer' deal didn't give a shit about her anymore, then who did she have?

Buffy? It sure didn't seem that way, now did it?

No, it was all back down to what she'd had before, to what she'd been left with long before any of this 'Slayer' stuff had been dumped on her.

The only person she could really count on for anything was herself. When everyone else left her, or turned on her, or… died on her, Faith would always be there.

She nodded, acknowledging that fundamental truth, and the dark haired girl in the mirror gravely returned it. Her steady eyes met Faith's own, as if to say: Yep, that's right. I've got your back.

It wasn't much, but sometimes you just had to take what you could get.

Along about then, a group of four girls around her own age came into the bathroom, their high-pitched voices resounding from the tiled walls as they giggled over some joke. Faith turned her head to look at them, and they abruptly went quiet as they saw her standing there. They were dressed in expensive, trendy clothes; no doubt their parents spoiled them rotten, just like Buffy's mom did for her own little princess. The girls came the rest of the way inside, pointedly not looking directly at the Slayer, but stealing glances from the corners of their eyes. The looks they exchanged, and the little grins on their faces, proved that they found her appearance terribly amusing.

Faith ignored them, as she always did when she encountered their type. Shouldering her pack once more, she headed back out into the building's central area. Passing through the doorway, she heard whispers from behind her.

"-looks like a runaway, doesn't she?"

"A junkie, more like."

"Just white trash; god, did you see her clothes!?"

Faith kept walking.

Laugh it up, you bitches. And if I ever see a vamp about to rip your pretty little necks out, we'll see if you remember how funny this was. I know I will.

* * * * *