Chapter 2

The plane landed at New York's JFK Airport and Faith, Kennedy, and Willow said a brief goodbye. Faith was going to Manhattan and Kennedy's family was on Long Island so they had to part company. But Kennedy gave Faith the address and phone number of her family's house if she ever needed anything or just wanted to talk. Faith accepted it with a smile and then turned and walked away with a backpack slung over her shoulder. Two outfits, another pair of shoes, and the basic toiletries were in the backpack and really that was all Faith needed to survive.

Kennedy and Willow watched Faith leave. Then, Kennedy turned to Willow and smiled. "Ready to meet the fam baby?"

Willow smiled back, a tad nervous. "Ready as I'll ever be. Let's go."

Kennedy noticed the nervousness and leaned forward and kissed her girlfriend. It seemed to calm Willow down. Kennedy then led Willow to the rental car booth.

Faith hailed a cab and had it take her to Times Square. Giles had given her a large sum of money before she left, to cover her expenses for a while. Faith got out at 42nd and 8th and took a look around. She had a weird feeling of coming home, she couldn't explain it so she shrugged it off and walked downtown until she found a suitable (cheap) hotel. She walked in and got a room. She got to the room, took a shower, then picked up the phone by the bed and dialed the phone number her father had given her in the letter. After the third ring, the line was answered by a man with a deep, raspy voice.

"Hello?"

"Um...hi. This is Faith is Martin Carlson there?" Faith asked a bit nervously. Martin Carlson was the name her father had given her.

"Faith, hello. This is Martin. Are you in New York already?"

"Yup just got in. So, how do you wanna do this?" Faith decided to just cut to the chase. No sense in beating around the bush right?

The man cleared his throat. "Um...I have some business stuff to take care of today until 7 but, maybe we could meet up tonight at 8?"

"Sure, that works. Where?"

"Are you familiar with the city?" Martin asked, concerned about making sure Faith could find the meeting spot.

"Yeah, kinda. I can get a map, it's no big. So...where?"

"Ok, sounds good. Um, the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park then? Should still be light enough outside to be safe. It is summertime. Sound good?"

"Um...yeah sounds good to me. 8pm sharp then at the Terrace. See you there...Martin."

"See you Faith." Martin smiled at hearing Faith say his name. He had been worried that she'd try to be formal and call him Mr. Carlson or Sir or something like that. But, no, she'd called him Martin, it gave him hope that maybe soon, she'd call him dad. Martin hung up the phone and so did Faith.

Martin looked around the room and his gaze fell to a photograph of a young woman with a small child. The woman's dark hair was spread out over her shoulders left bare by the strapless dress she wore. Her arms were holding a little girl, about 3 years old, who smiled like an angel. The little girl's hair matched her mother's as did the happy, carefree smile on her face. Both of them looked like nothing could ever wipe the smiles from their faces. But the mother's eyes also held...love. A love that at the time seemed strong and lasting and indestructible. The little girl was Faith, and that picture had been taken just five months before it all fell apart. Before Martin had been approached by a man from England who'd claimed that Faith was a special child, a potential Vampire Slayer, and that she needed to be trained as young as possible to ensure she'd be ready if she was called. Martin had laughed at first then raged when he realized the man wasn't kidding. He'd tried everything he could to keep Faith with him but, even Linda, his wife, had turned against him.

Linda was a Watcher. She'd been given a leave of absence when she'd met Martin and had Faith, but when it was revealed that she'd given birth to a potential slayer, Linda had been called back into service. She knew what would be required of Faith and of herself and without a moment's hesitation, she'd agreed to it all. Oh but they had fought long and hard but in the end, Martin didn't stand a chance against the Watcher's Council. They'd had more money, power, connections, and influence than Martin ever imagined and they had taken Faith from him. The divorce happened shortly after that, and Martin didn't even get joint custody. Linda got full custody and she took Faith to Boston. She raised her there and trained her and, hopefully, had loved her enough to make up for his not being therebut as he'd found out recently, Linda hadn't.

The Council had assigned another Watcher, with Linda being simply Faith's mother. Linda broke down, when she realized that she was being essentially cut out of her daughter's training and that she would have no say in how Faith was trained or treated Linda went off the deep end. She'd turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. Martin assumed that when she'd been replaced as Watcher, Linda had suddenly realized what she'd given up when she'd left him and then, with the damage done and no way to go back to the way things were, drugs and alcohol and sex, became the next best things. Martin also found out about the men, thanks to a private investigator he'd hired a few months after the divorce was final. A different man every week, each one worse than the last, treating Faith like an unwanted inconvenience (and that was a best case scenario). There were times, but no proof, when Martin got the feeling that those men had done more than just ignore his little girl.

He'd get the truth from Faith and if any of them touched her at all, he'd track them down and make them pay, NO ONE hurt his daughter and got away with it for long. Martin had also found out about Faith's coma, and how she'd ended up in a coma in the first place. Martin had a bone to pick with Buffy Summers. But that could wait, until after he got the full story from Faith, because he also knew that Faith had escaped from jail and gone right to Buffy Summers and, considering they are both still alive, they must've made amends. But Martin still wanted to know the truth from Faith.

Martin went about his business as usual, but there was a hum of anticipation buzzing through him as he kept an eye on the clock, knowing he'd be seeing his daughter that night. After all these years, he was finally going to see her again. With Linda dead and the Watcher's Council destroyed, he'd found out about that too, he was finally able to contact her directly after he'd gotten her criminal record wiped clean of course. Martin Carlson wielded a lot of power in the legal community now, and having Faith's record expunged, even of a capital crime, had been easy for him. And it was the least he could do after he'd left Faith to the machinations of Linda and her Watcher. He didn't know if the watcher had been good to Faith or not, but he did know that she had been killed in 1998 by a vampire and that Faith had fled to California soon after that...Sunnydale, California to be exact and that's where all of Faith's real problems had occurred. Martin was always sorry that she didn't know about him and that she could come to him for help.

He briefly wondered if he should contact Linda's niece, tell her that her cousin was in town. Martin had remained close to Linda's sister after she'd married his best friend Roger Novak. Their daughter Casey had never known her aunt Linda but she'd still thought of Martin as her uncle. Recently, Martin began telling her about Faith, little by little without revealing the Vampire Slayer part. Casey had, admittedly, been fascinated and had wanted to meet her cousin. Casey had been his encouraging rock during everything he'd been through tracking Faith down and getting up the nerve to contact her. Martin decided that contacting Casey could wait until he'd met with Faith.

Faith took a nap after talking with her...father. She was a bit jet lagged after the flight and with the time difference, so she laid down to rest. Besides, it was still daylight out so there weren't gonna be any vamps to slay to take the edge off the waiting so she figured a nap might help.

Faith woke up a few hours later to see that it was 6 o'clock. She had two hours until the meeting and as she was tryin to decide what to do in those two hours, her stomach chimed in with its opinion. Faith decided to just go out and get something to eat and also to get acquainted with the City so she could find the Bethesda Terrace when she needed to later.

Faith found 42nd street and picked a random direction and just walked until she came to a familiar sight--the Golden Arches. Faith smiled at the McDonald's sign, nice to know that even in New York City she could still find a Big Mac.

Faith walked in and ordered a Big Mac, fries and a sprite-no ice. Faith hated when the ice melted and watered down the soda--yuk! Faith paid for her food then walked up a flight of stairs to the upper level and found an empty table for two near a front window and sat down. Eating her meal while looking out the window at the people walking by, Faith let her mind wander a bit.

After about five minutes, Faith was eating slowly, more interested in the people than the food but still hungry enough to eat, Faith glanced down and noticed a stunning woman.

She was beautiful and Faith felt an instant attraction and before she could think to get up and follow and meet her, Faith noticed that the woman entered the restaurant. Faith was so busy trying to calm herself that she didn't notice the woman sit down two tables away from her. When she did notice, Faith reverted to her usual modus operandi of sly looks and casual indifference. It was how she worked, with women anyway, as she determined if her 'prey' was interested.

Faith was an old hand at spotting...interest and this woman was giving off enough vibes to make Faith's libido stand up and take notice. There were quite a few other things Faith noticed about the woman as she sat there admiring her, as the woman distractedly looked out the window as she ate. The first thing Faith noticed was that she was noticeably older than Faith first thought, not really old, more like mid 30's and nowhere near Faith's cut off point with women.

She had tanned, smooth skin, short dark brown hair with light brown highlights and brown eyes. She also had the saddest face Faith had ever seen-- that wasn't in a mirror looking back at her that is. Faith felt a sudden urge to see that sad face happy. To see those sensuously full lips turned up in a smile just for her.

The woman turned suddenly away from the window and caught Faith looking. Faith, even though embarrassed at being caught, didn't flinch and held eye contact for a while before releasing a sexy, inviting smile.

The warmth that blossomed in Faith's belly as the woman smiled back, took Faith by surprise. It was a genuine, if slightly cautious, smile and it took Faith's breath away. The two ladies sat there smiling and looking into each other's eyes for a few more minutes then, the woman arched one eyebrow as if in question of something. But before Faith could react the woman broke the eye contact to answer her ringing cell phone.

***

"Benson. Yeah, on my way. Bye." Detective Olivia Benson silently cursed her partner's timing, and also praised it. Sparing one last smiling glance at the pretty young brunette who was smiling at her, she picked up her trash and half eaten meal then left.

Elliot's timing sucked cuz she was enjoying the little flirting session she'd been having with the younger girl and she wanted to at least find out if the girl was legal yet. She kinda looked it but Olivia knew by now that looks could be deceiving. After all, she herself, looked like she was ok but really she wasn't. She still missed Alex but she also knew that there was no future there...yet. One day, maybe, if the threat ever ended, she might come back and Olivia fully intended to pick up where they'd left off but until then, she was stuck here--alone and lonely. Olivia decided it was time to move on...it had been almost a year and remembering the brunette in McDonald's, she knew that she'd just passed up a great chance. She didn't even get the girl's name!

Olivia pulled up to the solid brownstone and flashed her badge to the uniformed cop standing guard. She walked past him and went up to the third floor where Elliot was waiting and talking to the ME.

"What do we got?" Liv asked.

Elliot turned to her then back to the ME.

"Jennifer Walker, 25, student at Hudson University. Bludgeoned to death after she was raped, burned, cut, sodomized and see here," the ME pointed to the girl's throat where clear bruises showed imprints of fingers, "she was strangled as well."

"Geez time of death?" Liv asked, her professional facade covering her disgust.

"Judging by the body temp, I'd say she's been dead since noon, but I won't know for sure until I do a full autopsy. I'll have a more definite answer then."

"Ok. Thanks doc." Elliot said as he led Olivia over to a young woman who was standing next to another uniformed cop.

TBC...