Author's Note: Happy Tuesday, everybody! Here comes the next chapter of Ten Thousand Miles for your reading pleasure. I've moved the timeline up about six months from the end of the last chapter, because we seriously need to start covering time a little quicker in this story! Thanks for being patient while I took time off from this story to write my Eight Days of West Wing Christmas Fluff, I hope to get back to regular weekly updates from here on out. Hope you enjoy, feedback is always great!
…...
June 1998
Faith wasn't sure how she felt about Madison. Sure, it was better than anything California had to offer, at least in the eyes of a native Bostonian, but the entire Midwest still gave her a touch of the wig. Cleveland was okay, the Hellmouth and being pretty close to the Eastern Seaboard gave it a nice familiar ambiance, but once you got into farmer territory, no way. She firmly believed that there was no such thing as farm-country nice, just people who were more repressed and who'd smile as they slipped a knife between your ribs. All the same, the airport wasn't too bad, and the capitol building was pretty enough, and she was going to ditch her traveling companion here, which counted for a lot. Maybe Madison wasn't so bad.
Richard Lancaster, currently cowering beside her in the passenger seat of the sporty red rental car, had been a pain in her ass for every minute of the four days she'd known him. A half-trained Watcher before the Council had gotten itself blown up, he'd spent nearly a year trying to uncover any remaining traces of the old Council (or more likely hiding under his own bed), before Giles and Robin had tracked him down through some of Giles' London contacts. They'd brought him to Cleveland for Watcher School, the companion program to Slayer Camp that had started up at the converted lodge. He was supposedly twenty-three, Faith's own age, but he seemed a lot younger and more callow in his outlook, except when he got his Watcher on and started channeling his inner forty-year-old-asshole.
Buffy had gotten sick of his shit within two months at The Lodge, so Giles, who was trying pretty hard to repair the shredded remains of his relationship with her, had sent the kid off to Robin in New York.
That had lasted all of two weeks, most of which Faith had been out of the country on a Slayer-finding expedition in Eastern Europe. By the time she'd arrived home, Richard had managed to alienate Robin, Robin's two other trainee Watchers, and three of the five in-house Slayers, while the remaining Slayer was head-over-heels in crush with the guy. He was a definite hottie, Faith would give him that much, but a chiseled profile and movie-star blue eyes seemed to be the only things he had going for him. Honestly, she wasn't sure how somebody with no spine could be so inflexible at the same time.
In any case, Robin claimed he was already up to his ears in FNGs while Dan in Madison had none, so it was time to spread the load around a little. Coincidentally, news of Rick the Dick had not yet spread to Madison, so Dan had cheerfully agreed to the additional help with his five Slayers and two Minis. If the guy washed out here, they were going to have to throw him into the ocean or something.
The Madison Slayer House was a tidy and not-too-fussy six-bedroom place on the edge of the city, one of those big old places left over from the days when folks had lots of kids in case some died. Steph and Chao-Ahn had moved into the house when it opened, and thank Christ some Watcher could finally speak enough Cantonese to help the poor girl start learning English. Erin and Jessie had trained up in the second batch at Slayer Camp and come out for some seasoning, while Donna had somehow patched things up with her family and kept living at home. Madison had an unusual setup in that they also had Molly Morello, the widow of a dead Watcher, who knew the score and was compassionate enough to take in a couple of the orphaned littles who weren't old enough to be on their own or live in a Slayer house.
The town wasn't exactly hopping on the supernatural front, certainly not enough to keep so many girls busy, but they took field trips and stuff on the weekends up to supernatural hot spots in the surrounding states, and sometimes went south to help out the friendly coven already supervising Chicago. Girls in New York and at the new Slayer House opening in LA went there because they wanted to be full-time Slayers. The girls in Madison, on the other hand, were finishing their educations and making plans for college. Faith didn't really understand that desire, but she liked the fact that it was a choice they could make. In Scooby meetings, Buffy's tongue-in-cheek term for the New Council's executive board meetings, Giles and Buffy were already talking about about Slayer-Watchers, educated Slayers who could mentor the next generation of empowered girls from the front, rather than placing their fates in the hands of people who could never truly understand what being a Slayer meant. Girls like Steph and Donna would be proof of concept, if they survived long enough. Until then, there were guys like Rick.
The whole crew was assembled at the house when Faith pulled up; she could feel the faint buzz of Slayer essences and if she'd concentrated, she probably could've picked out all seven individually. Activating all the Potentials had been necessary and was turning out to be pretty useful, but it came with a whole load of brand new metaphysical bullshit to deal with as well. Steph and Donna were out on the front porch by the time she parked, leaning on the rail and calling out envious comments about Faith's car. The second Rick got out of the car, Faith caught a quick and unmistakable pop of lust from the direction of the porch. Judging by the way Steph elbowed Donna in the ribs, she'd felt the pop even harder. Donna paid no attention to either of them, absolutely focused on the new trainee Watcher. Fantastic, Faith thought with a sigh. This would make everything so much less complicated.
Chao-Ahn and the other girls spilled out onto the porch, alerted by the same sense, and were therefore just in time to watch a starry-eyed Donna nearly fall down the stairs in her haste to make Rick's acquaintance. College girl or not, though, she was still a Slayer, and managed to catch herself with just one artful palm pressed against his chest. "Hi," she began breathlessly, "I'm Donna Moss. You must be Richard Lancaster. We've all really been looking forward to meeting you."
"I am, in fact," the Watcher replied, giving her a smile that showed lots of very even white teeth, "but you should feel quite free to call me Rick." He didn't seem even a little bothered by the girl practically annihilating his personal bubble. "I'm very glad to be here. I've been told a great deal about your training regimen here and the way this house operates. We're obviously at the rawest beginnings of what could one day grow into a tremendous program for molding young Slayers. I'm sure I'll have a great deal to contribute, and I imagine I'll learn a few things as well."
"Oh yeah, I think so too," Donna said earnestly. Faith noticed Steph knocking her head gently against one of the porch pillars, but Donna was completely oblivious. She was too busy earnestly introducing Rick to everyone in the house, while ever-so-subtly (and possibly subconsciously) asserting her own claim on him. None of the girls seemed particularly inclined to challenge her on that, instead clearing out of the way to allow them in for an equally enthusiastic tour of the house.
Faith sidled up to Dan and Molly as the girls went back into the house. "So... sorry about this," she began awkwardly. "It's not too late, I could still drive him out into the country and leave him, tell the girls he's gone to live on a nice farm."
Dan gave her a smile that was only slightly strained. "How long did you say he'd been in the New York house?"
"Bout two weeks," Faith admitted. "And a couple months at The Lodge before that. He still needs to find, like, his niche."
"Have I done something wrong?" Dan asked plaintively. "I had no idea Rupert and Robin were so annoyed with me."
"I think Giles might still be a little torqued about losing his research assistant," Faith replied, "but you weren't really the one to blame for that. You got yourself a nice cozy situation up here with a buncha quiet girls and not too many vampy issues, you've got to expect to get something foisted on you that nobody else wants to deal with." She grinned. "Just let the girls chew him up and spit him out, it'll be like a bonding experience and work off some of the extra energy."
"Oh yes, that sounds like fun," Dan groaned. "That's my daughter you're talking about, as well as four other young women I'm very fond of. The last thing they need is some self-important asshat trying to get his hooks into them at an impressionable age."
"You're taking it way too seriously, Dan," Faith advised. "Learning to hit and quit is a vital Slayer skill, just like staking. Otherwise they're gonna end up like Buffy, and then they'll have real problems."
"Faith," Molly murmured, using the Mom voice.
"Sorry," Faith muttered. Nobody was immune to the Mom voice. It was frankly embarrassing.
"She does have a point, though," Molly suggested to Dan. "The girls are old enough that they're going to be bringing young men home anyway, some of whom will be less suitable than others. I'm confident that even if Donna is a little besotted at the moment, she'll overcome it quickly and it'll be a good lesson for her. And you have been hoping for someone to wear the puffy suit," she reminded him, a gleam in her eye.
Dan laughed. "If anything can put a little humility into a young Watcher, that ought to do the trick. You're planning on staying a few days, aren't you, Faith?"
"If you're planning on a demonstration, twist my arm," Faith agreed. "I'm supposed to be doing the biannual audit while I'm here, but if they were really worried about anything, they'd have sent somebody else. What are you having for supper?"
"It's pie night," Molly informed her. "Homemade chicken pot pie, with apple pie for dessert. I'll even omit the cheese slice from the top if you like."
"Just the sound of that is way gross," Faith told her, "but the rest sounds great. I'll hang out."
Dinner was about the way Faith had expected it would be after dealing with Rick for a couple days. Molly Morello was a hell of a cook, which sort of made up for the way the trainee Watcher held forth on his background, his training, his family, and his harrowing (and probably mostly made up) escape from the wrath of the First Evil. Dan, Molly, Faith and Steph all tried in turn to move the talk in other directions, but were stymied at every turn by Donna, who was some kind of fucking jiu jitsu master of interviewing and who really wanted to hear everything Rick had to say. Every conversational ball was adroitly fielded and immediately passed along to Rick, who slobbered all over it like an eager cocker spaniel. Steph finally just dropped her forehead to the table and stayed that way until it was time to clear the table. Faith could respect that.
After dinner, Dan pulled Rick into his study for Watcher talk, which gave Faith a chance to collar Donna and pull her onto the porch for a little Slayer to Slayer chat. She'd never been close to the wispy blonde Slayer, who'd worked hard enough to get by at Slayer Camp but never stood out for good or bad, but they still had the weird bond of a shared essence. It was enough to prompt her to pass along some hard-won advice. "Never date Watchers, kid. They'll break your heart."
Donna gave her a weird look. "Aren't you still with Robin?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah, but that doesn't make it less true," Faith assured her. "Lots of Watchers are assholes. Most of them are dead now, but there's a new crop of assholes out there, just waiting to bloom. You'll see plenty of them before we get the supply problems sorted out. An asshole Watcher will break your heart because it's what assholes do," she explained, leaning against the porch rail. "He won't care about you, or he'll put his career advancement ahead of your safety, or he'll try and leverage the way he controls you to give him more power with other Watchers. You trust your heart to a bad Watcher and you'll wind up betrayed or humiliated or maybe having to kill them yourself before they start an apocalypse. Either way, you'll be sad and sorry."
"What about if he's a good Watcher?" Donna demanded, hopping up to sit on the rail. "All the Watchers I know are good, they wouldn't do any of that. Robin wouldn't do any of that."
"If they're good Watchers, they're gonna die," Faith replied simply. "They'll throw themselves into a fight because they want to protect you, or sacrifice themselves to save the world, or any of a hundred brave and stupid ways to die." Donna flinched, and Faith suddenly remembered that Donna had once had a Watcher of her own, just like Faith had once had Diana. "And yeah, then they're heroes, and you always remember them, but they still broke your heart. You don't want any of that. Find a normal guy who likes strong chicks."
Donna looked away. "I don't believe it has to be like that," she retorted, mouth set in a stubborn line. "Maybe it used to be like that, but not anymore. We get to live now, why shouldn't they live too? If I loved a Watcher, I would always protect him. Nothing would ever happen to him."
Faith sighed. There wasn't going to be any convincing this one, except maybe through painful experience. "Just keep it in mind," she advised, then went back in for some more pie.
