Disclaimer for whole story: I do not own anything to do with BtVS, not the characters nothing, zilch. So there, this is just a fanfiction. And ain't it obvious I don't own BtVS, otherwise why the hell would the show not still be on. I mean come ON! Ok so officially rambling but anyway…

Summary: Set after Chosen, S7 finale. Faith was left out of all the plans and everyone moved on with their lives, many wondered what she did after battling the first but none knew, there were rumours but never true sightings of the dark slayer. Now 5 years later she turns up and with a new big bad God from a hell dimension threatening to take over the world it is just as well. Can the past be kept in the past to ensure there is a future?

O, pairings? Who should Faith end up with?

Buffy?

Angel?

Another one of the Scoobs?

Or someone completely new?

VOTE!

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Cruciatus

By Audiodream

3. Begging for Answers

FAITH:

After her slightly confusing exchange of words with Buffy in the middle of the night she had found it harder to sleep. But finally by 2.00AM she had found a peaceful slumber, well the nightmare hadn't come back at least.

When she awoke she felt a hundred times better, she had been right her slayer healing had taken affect and her wounds were healing nicely. She woke up at 5.00AM, finding no one else around she fragilely sat up, swung her legs over the bed and then started getting dressed in some sweats.

Making her way out of the room she kept her left arm wrapped around her torso. She wasn't in immense pain but every now and then there was the odd twinge. Over the past year she had dislocated her left arm so many times she lost count. Also it made her feel better keeping her arm pressed against her now stitched up wound in her abdomen. No doubt it would leave a scar, even with slayer healing. The thought of stab wounds and scars on her stomach made remnants of her nightmare come back to her and she physically shook her head to rid herself of the images.

She took a left down a long corridor after going up a flight of steps and found herself in another corridor filled with doors that led to class room type places. With desks, seats, and whiteboards. She continued until she found another slight of stairs and that was when she found it. On the third floor, at first it presented itself as a small hall before going through twin white doors into the biggest gym Faith had ever seen. It seemed the whole third floor had been turned into a massive training hall for the SITs. This was just the place she was looking for. A place to blow a little steam before any of the others emerged.

She walked across the floor, still holding her torso with her left arm. She wasn't stupid; she knew she shouldn't work her left arm too much so she wouldn't. But she needed to blow off a little steam before B started with all her questioning. Sure she no longer was a psycho evil bitch, but that didn't mean they would trust her answers 100, especially when they wouldn't be the truth. Faith wasn't naïve, she knew the truth would only lead to more questions she couldn't and wouldn't answer. So for now the lies she had been making up last night whilst waiting for sleep to come over her would have to be enough. Hell, even she didn't know most of the answers. And until she did there was no way she was going to share what she knew with B or any of the others.

She found what she had been looking for in the gym, a punching bag. Making her way over to the bench near the south wall she grabbed some random white material and started tightly wrapping it around her right hand and then repeating the process on her left. Not bothering with gloves she headed to the bag she had chosen to use for her work out.

She started off nice and easy, only using her right arm, then gradually her 'nice and easy' right hooks and jabs turned into full force and soon not bothering laying off her left arm she started pelting the bag with everything she had in her. Every punch or kick having the full backing of her slayer strength and all the turmoil she felt at the moment.

She didn't know how long she had been there beating the bag, or when the small twinge in her fists turned to pain but she became fully aware that she was being watched when she heard someone clearing their throat. With one last high kick on her right side she stopped the moving bag and turned to face the person who must have been an early riser like she was.

"B." She said lamely as she stared across the floor to the other slayer. She noticed B's attention was turned to her fists, she looked down and they were bleeding, the white of the fabric she had wrapped around them for support was stained with her blood. She hadn't noticed, and that scared her.

"Going at the bag a bit hard ain't ya?" B asked obviously a little shocked to find her up and about, let alone giving her everything to a punch bag. "'Specially since the state you were in yesterday." Faith found her self nodding not sure what to say. "Your high kicks are a little sloppy; vamp woulda had your ass." Buffy said trying to lighten the tension that had fell between them and Faith was grateful. She smirked, like usual.

"Hey what can a girl do around here to get a little sympathy," Faith said and then a mischievous spark entered her eyes. "They might not be my best but they still beat yours Miss Shorty." B mock gasped at this and threw a bottle of water Faith's way. Suddenly the tension was there again and Faith knew what was coming.

"After breakfast meet with me, Giles, Will, and Kennedy and we'll talk about stuff." B said before heading out leaving Faith with a bigger desire to just leave without saying anything to anyone.

But knowing there had to be a reason why the portal led to the backyard of the San Francisco Potentials' Academy, she resisted the urge and decided to stay put. Besides, she had no where else to go.

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BUFFY:

It had been a shock to her to find Faith up and about, after all her injuries looked life threatening just the night before. Yet again though Faith managed to surprise. Buffy was worried for her fellow slayer, the only other slayer who knew what it felt like to be a slayer before the first. What it had meant.

The state that she had found her in this morning had worried her even more; she was going so hard at that poor punch bag that Buffy thought that it might fall off of the ceiling. And then with the state of Faith's hands, she hadn't even seemed to notice until she caught her obviously staring at them. It had shocked her, reminded her too much of the 'old' Faith, the one who had been more reckless and…evil.

Now they all sat, all five of them, around the desk in her office waiting for someone to speak up. And knowing they were all waiting for her she begrudgingly started. Not knowing what to say she started off lamely.

"So Faith, how are you feeling?" She said and as soon as the words left her mouth she knew it sounded as lame as she thought it would have.

"Fine, just fantastic." Faith said, going off into her own thoughts for a moment and staring at her bloodied knuckles. "Look we all know this isn't a 'get-to-know-faith…again' circle so stop beating around the bush and start with the questions. I got places to be…B." Faith said obviously uneasy with all the eyes on her and all the unasked questions.

"How've you been the last five years?" Willow asked breaking the ice. Faith moved her gaze from her hands to Willow. Faith's eyes showed no emotion what so ever and that gave Buffy the impression that she had a lot of it going on underneath.

"You know me, Five by Five." Faith said with a smirk that, again, didn't reach her eyes.

"Where've you been?" Kennedy asked this time. Faith again shifted her gaze to the right person.

"Around." She answered evasively. "Here and there. Mostly just kicking ass, partying hard…" She let her sentence trail out and Buffy felt herself get angry with her. She was answering their questions but not, if that made any sense. She wasn't giving them any answers that cleared anything up for them.

"Finding redemption?" She asked and saw Willow glance at her, immediately knowing it had come out more harshly than she had wanted. She was just so damn frustrated with these half answers.

"Obviously, girl like me gotta keep hoping for the big R word." She answered again in her cocky left unsaid way. Buffy forced herself to keep her mouth shut as Giles asked the next questions.

"How did you know about this place? I mean we don't really advertise much." He asked curiously. In fact it struck a cord in Buffy, how had Faith found out where they were based?

"Just heard about it and decided to pay a visit. If it's ok I was hoping to hang around for a while, see what's this place has got to offer." She said in a sincere voice. Faith, the girl who lived by the motto: 'want, take have.' Was asking their permission to hang around for a bit. She couldn't help but smile a little, noticing for the first time how much this woman had changed in the last eight years since she woke up from her coma. All the feelings of suspicion and distrust had dissipated when she had asked subtly if she could stay. If she was wanted.

"Sure you can, I'll have someone show you to the room you can stay in." Buffy told her and with that the 'interrogation' was over.

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ANGEL:

It had been a week since he left, and now, under the protection of night he was making his way back to San Francisco. He had heard some bad news from Wes. The ex-watcher had turned up a new prophecy that was to bring on the next big apocalypse.

If he could he would leave Buffy, Faith and the scoobies out of this one but he couldn't do this on his own and this looked like it could be a big one. Just like the first and Glory. It was a god from another dimension. He wasn't quite sure of the specifics yet but he knew something had to be done.

When he arrived at the Academy it was almost midnight, it was a Tuesday so not a patrol night so the SITs would be in their rooms and the scoobs, Buffy and hopefully Faith would be around. He knew they had to get on this immediately and he wanted to tell them about it tonight. So tomorrow they could get right with starting the research that was needed.

He found Willow, Kennedy and Giles all together in the living room talking and chatting, he told them to meet him in the library in five minutes once he had found Faith and Buffy. They nodded and already he could see them switch into 'save-the-world' Again mode.

Next he found Buffy; she was in the kitchen fixing her self a glass of red wine before heading to bed, he was sorry to have to tell her that she had to listen to him first. She agreed to wait for him in the library like the rest of them.

Lastly he had to find Faith and he found her beating a punch bag in the third floor gym. He stood in the shadows for a moment just watching her perfect moves and her skill. He truly admired it. Sometimes her moves were a bit hacked and filled with her emotions but when she was just training like this she moved with elegance and grace that he had trouble finding in the other slayers moves. She had obviously been training and/or fighting a lot over the past five years.

Just by the way she held herself you could tell that. Her muscles were more defined now, but in a beautifully feminine way. The way she held her attacking position told him she had had reason to perfect it over the years. And it was just that: perfect. Sure at the moment her right high kick was a little off but that would have to be expected from the injuries he could tell she had had when she first arrived.

Another thing he noticed was now that she was wearing a tank top he could see she had gotten a new tattoo on her left shoulder blade. It was a pentagram; in the middle of the pentagram was a face of a demon or vampire. The five points of the pentagram met with a circle, which was inside of another circle. It looked really intriguing and was the darkest colour black Angel had ever seen. It especially stood out on her tanned shoulder.

Suddenly the younger of the original slayers whipped round and glared at him, obviously sensing a vampire. Her features softened when she found out it was him. She took off the material wrapped around her fists quickly then grabbed her bag and made her way over to him. Neither of them being too big on the whole touchy feely thing they left it and just smiled at each other instead.

"So I hear great big Angel had to take a trip on some big discovery thing, anything good?" She asked while they slowly started walking out of the gym.

"UH, not if you call another apocalypse a good thing. Wes found a prophecy that makes it sound like another end of the world thing is about to start. I got the scoobies down in the library waiting for us. You coming?" He asked, stopping at the top of the stairs. For a moment he thought she would say no, but then her smirk returned and nodded. Together they made their way to the library where they would all learn about this new threat.

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TBC…

REVIEW, tell me what you thought, do you think this story has the potential to be good? Like is said tell me what you thought.

O, pairings? Who should Faith end up with?

Buffy?

Angel?

Another one of the Scoobs?

OR someone completely new?

VOTE