Disclaimer: Since my name is not Joss Whedon, 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer', 'Angel' and the characters associated with the show belong to someone who isn't me. I also do not own the storyline, that is taken from gidgetgirl's 'The Lost Child Challenge' (details below) posted at the Chocolate Covered Strawberries Archive.
The Lost Child Challenge
When Faith was fourteen, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend. After that, she left home on her own, pregnant with the rapist's child. When she was found by the Council, her first Watcher took the baby, assuring Faith that it would be taken care of... the Watcher then was killed by Kakistos before she could give Faith more information. Now, years later, the child has come back into Faith's life.
Requirements:
Faith dealing with mixed feelings about the child: a mother's love and the memory of the rape.
- The child having a Faith-esque attitude problem
- The council having had some hand in the child's conception
- The child having an amazing destiny
- Faith wanting to save her daughter from her own mistakes
Author's Note I: To Imzadi - Don't worry, I'm not finished with Roger Wyndham-Pryce. He's one of the few characters I hated before he'd ever made an appearance.
Author's Note II: To 'too tired to sign on' and vanillagigglez - S and H do not stand for Slayer and Host or, much as I'd love to see the expressions on Buffy and Faith's faces, for Stupid and Hothead. The key to the H, at least, is in Faith's file.
Chapter 3
Kent, England.
The next day.
"I don't want to see her." The little girl's jaw was set and her fierce expression would have been almost comical on the face of so young a child if not for the cold anger in her blue eyes.
"I know you don't, dear." The middle aged woman charged with her physical well-being spoke soothingly, wanting to calm her charge. "But, after all, she is your moth. . ."
"No." She raised an imperious hand. "She's not. I don't have a mother. She's my not-a-mother. She didn't want me, so I don't want her."
Knowing better than to argue with her, the nanny concentrated on combing the little girl's dark brown curls into sleek ringlets and tying her blue ribbon.
The little girl was her pride and joy, as adored as her own child and she dreaded the day when she would be transferred to another post.
"There." She beamed. "You look lovely."
"I don't care." The five year old's expression was mutinous.
Her nanny sighed.
Despite her tender years, Eleanor could be as stubborn as a mule when she so chose.
She couldn't help but pity the young woman who was to make the aquaintance of her daughter that afternoon.
"This place is amazing!" Xander's expression was awed as he took in their surroundings. "All of this is for one kid?"
The house Giles had driven them to was bigger than Angel's mansion had been and older, set a amid large gardens and sprawling grounds that were obviously carefully tended.
Buffy couldn't help but shiver slightly.
Houses like this were all very well in period movies, but it seemed a cold, imposing place to grow up.
"This estate has been the property of the Travers family for generations." Giles told them, pulling his car to a stop in front of the stone steps leading into the house. "I didn't think that it was still in use."
Faith took a deep breath before climbing out of the car, more frightened than she cared to admit about the prospect of meeting her daughter, the child she had mourned for five years.
She couldn't allow herself to dwell on how her daughter's babyhood and early years had been stolen from her by the person she had trusted, if she did, she'd end up hurting someone and that would hardly be the best way to begin her relationship with her child.
"Mr Giles?" A tall man dressed in a black suit, who looked so proper that he could only be a butler, greeted them coolly when he answered the door.
"Yes." Giles nodded curtly. "These are. . ."
"Follow me, please." He cut him off imperiously and led them through the large hall into a reception room, decorated in cold shades of blue and furnished with what were obviously antiques. "Miss Knight will be down shortly." He inclined his head slightly and left the room.
Faith frowned.
She couldn't think why they were using her great-great-great grandmother's surname instead of hers, but she was relieved that they weren't using Bryan's.
"Do you want us to stay with you?" Buffy asked gently, laying a hand on the younger woman's arm.
Faith managed a smile and shook her head. "No thanks."
"Mind if we check it out outside?" Xander seemed eager to get out of the house as soon as possible.
She sympathised wholeheartedly.
"Go ahead."
"Are you sure." Giles pressed, clearly concerned.
"Go on." She shooed them away with a slight wave of her hand.
This was one challenge she would have to face alone.
She had been sitting alone in the reception room, watched over by the portraits of people she assumed were ancestors of Travers, for what seemed like hours, although in reality no more than five minutes had passed, when the door was opened for a second time and a uniformed nanny made her entrance, leading a small girl by the hand.
"Hi." Faith did her best to hide her apprehension as she greeted her daughter. She wanted to hug her, to sweep her up in her arms and shower her with kisses, but she could guess that such a demonstration on her part would not be welcomed. She settled for holding out her hand.
"How do you do?" The little girl's voice was polite. She left her small hand in Faith's for scarcely a second before pulling it away, gesturing towards the chairs. "Would you care to have a seat?"
"Thanks." Confronted with the astonishingly poised child, poor Faith was at a loss for words.
"How do you do?" The nanny accompanying Eleanor shook her hand with far more warmth than her charge had. "I'm Mrs Perkins. It's a pleasure to meet you." She smiled down at the little girl at her side. "She's the spit of you."
Although Mrs Perkins was well aware of the fact that Eleanor would have liked to argue that point, to insist that she was nothing like the woman she had dubbed her 'not-a-mother', the resemblence between the two of them was unmistakeable.
Aside from her eyes, which were a light blue, the little girl was a miniature of her mother in colouring and features, with the smae slight build.
"Well, I'll leave you two to get acquainted. Would you like me to get you something to drink? Some tea, maybe?" She asked encouragingly.
"Thank you, no." Eleanor answered on both their behalfs.
Mrs Perkins excused herself murmuring excuses about having to see to unspecified tasks, leaving mother and daughter alone.
Eleanor took a seat on the low couch, as far away from Faith as she possibly could, her hands primly folded in her lap, resting on the skirt of her pale blue dress.
"Hi, Eleanor." Faith smiled tentatively. "I'm Faith. Do you know who I am?"
"I do."
"I'm glad to meet you." The dainty little lady sitting opposite her made no attempt to mirror her sentiments. "Do people ever call you Ellie?"
"No, never." The response was cold.
Faith felt like she was talking to an elderly dowager rather than to a five year old child. Her five year old child.
"Do you like it here? Are they nice to you?" Her query was anxious.
"Yes."
"What do you like to do?"
"I do my lessons, I train with Mr Jamison and I sometimes play with Mrs Perkins." She clearly had no intention of elaborating any further.
"I see."
Her not-a-mother was clearly uncomfortable, the little girl noted with satisfaction.
She would have liked to kick and scream, to lash out at her, to tell her that she never wanted to see her again, but she wasn't going to disappoint Uncle Quentin by forgetting the manners he had taught her, not even under the circumstances.
"I've missed you." Only a colossal effort on Faith's part kept the tears from flowing, and prevented her from snatching up the little girl and carrying her away.
"Perhaps you should have thought of that sooner." She rose. "Excuse me."
Biting her lower lip fiercely to keep the tears at bay, the five year old ran out of the room, forgetting her dignity enough to slam the door, and hurried up to her room, determined not to cry.
She could not, would not let that woman affect her like this.
Faith sighed quietly, her breathing sounding uncomfortably loud in the stillness of the room.
/That could have gone better. /
TBC.