Europe
May 2006

Small starbursts had been spinning around the upper perimeter of the room, where wall met ceiling, for some time now; one suddenly came zinging down near her face, quickly arcing back up again and exploding into a firework that gave off a faint glowing outline of a face.

Faith shook her head, and the firework disappeared; only the firework. She didn't like that firework. Actually, she didn't like any of the fireworks. They all ended with that face.

She decided to test the window, which seemed coated on the trim with what appeared to be purple gelatin of some sort that moved along at its own pace, in a big rectangle around the glass. It sparkled here and there, and when she touched it – though she was actually a good six feet away – it felt cold and similar to jam. She tried to swipe some onto the wall, but only got a hazy color burn that faded quickly like the light spots the sun leaves on your eyes.

What had the old man said this was for? To let her see something? Er…. Something to do, wasn't that it? Important? Or…maybe not. She couldn't remember. She hoped it didn't have anything to do with those fireworks.

She grinned, looking toward the door as someone entered the room.

"Hey, D," she said, turning her attention back to whatever it was she was now wrapped up in. "I think I took acid or somethin', man. You wouldn't believe - "

But at that particular moment her head snapped back as her entire body seized, her eyes slamming shut. She shook violently, erratically, every part of her jerking and jolting.

Dean rushed to her side, having not the slightest idea what was happening. "Faith?" No response. Her head was twitching slightly, her breathing short and hard. "Faith?" he tried again.

After another several prolonged moments, when he had made up his mind to begin shaking her vigorously, her eyes snapped open and she flew back up to a sitting position so fast he fell off the side of the bed.

Her breathing was harsh and erratic. She held a hand to her chest, where her heart was. Dean looked up at her, still on the floor, unsure of whether or not he should speak. He made up his mind.

"…Faith?"

She didn't answer him, instead bolting up and heading to the bathroom; but as she left and he caught a look at her profile, he could swear her eyes were shining.

Cleveland

Buffy's fist was hanging perilously in the air two inches from the young girl's surprised face.

"You have to remember your weak spots. Always be aware of every part of your body and everything around it." Buffy lowered her fist. She was sparring with one of the Slayers who had just moved in a few weeks ago, and who still needed a lot of training. "You might have five different bad guys coming at you all at once. You have to be prepared for anything."

"Five at once?" the girl squeaked, clearly daunted by the idea.

Buffy nodded. "Five at once."

"Buffy?"

Buffy turned to see Dawn at the top of the stairs. "Willow's back."

"Keep practicing those moves I showed you, okay?" After the girl nodded, Buffy turned and followed after her sister.

The witch was sitting at the kitchen table, looking more or less like herself but more like she knew something that wouldn't spell a fairytale for anyone. Buffy sat down next to her.

"So? How was Europe? Did you see the Eiffel Tower?" God, did she love story time.

Her friend perked up somewhat. "Yep. It's just as fantastic as it looks in all the pictures. And – and I saw the Louvre, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and… Well basically all the tourist-y things, and a bunch of different cities." Then her face changed, falling from cheerful to conflicted. And uh…" She opened her mouth slightly to say something, then paused for a long moment. She seemed to change her mind and held it back, opting for something else. Buffy noticed all of this but said nothing. "Uh, then I met this psychic guy, might've been a witch too, and he told me some stuff that's – not so fun."

"Does it directly involve us? Because I much prefer pawning this stuff off onto one of the other groups we have." Over a year ago they had branched off into several mini-organizations across the country, to handle the influx of new slayers and to broaden their reach.

Willow seemed hesitant, usually a bad sign. "Well, he said that, basically, your life is in danger…" She remembered something else. "Oh, and that you should be expecting a great change."

"Oh," Buffy said, her voice dripping with bitter sarcasm. "Great, what's new? I always love a little side of impending death with dinner." She paused. "Did he tell you anything else?"

"He said something about The Influence, or something like that, if I remember right."

Buffy sighed. She couldn't even catch a break when she was one of thousands. After so many years of barely escaping death, almost nothing surprised her anymore. She got a far-off look in her eyes as she stared out the window. "All right. Find out what you can. Let me know." She absentmindedly stood and gave her friend a hug. "Dinner in half an hour?"

"I sure hope so, I could eat a walrus. Not – that I ever would."

Buffy smiled, a rather fake smile if Willow had looked close enough. "I'll be there." She left the room, leaving the other woman uncertain. She moved through the house quietly, making sure no one saw or heard her. As she reached the back door, she slipped out unnoticed and headed off into the darkness.

"Faith?"

Dean had walked in on the slayer throwing clothes and other items into a bag very hurriedly, a look on her face that he couldn't quite place. He had never seen her this way before.

"I have to go. I have to get back to…" she shook her head slightly, as if she had forgotten what she was saying, or stopped herself. She seemed incredibly flustered.

"…Cleveland?" he supplied.

She glanced at him, distracted. "…Yeah."

"Why? Just all of a sudden out of nowhere? What's going on?" There was a tinge of annoyance in his voice that she heard immediately.

She cut her eyes at him. "Nothing, D. It's my own business, okay?" She threw the last of her belongings into the bag and slung it over her shoulder, turning to face him.

"Well, but… But what about me?" He sounded almost indignant.

"You'll be fine. Don't worry. I taught you how to handle yourself."

"Well, yeah, but… I mean, without you…" He paused, seeming to search for words. "Why did you say you suddenly have to go back, again?" He squinted his eyes at her in what looked a great deal like suspicion.

Her words were rushed. "I just have to, all right? Look, I'm sorry, I know this seems really strange to you, but just believe me when I tell you that I have to go. This is just who I am. You should know that by now. It's been a blast, really. Don't get into too much trouble, all right?" She hit him on the arm and headed toward the door.

There was a loud crackling sound that filled the room, catching the attention of both of them very quickly. A horned, gray and very ugly demon was standing in the middle of the room. He was wearing some sort of strange and brightly colored suit, and he had a white beard so pointed it could have been considered a weapon that reached his chest. Faith, at this point, had gone into battle mode and dropped her bag, ready to fight.

"You," he pointed at Dean, "are an ingrate. I never should've gone through all this hassle. Things are just so much easier when you do them yourself." And with that, he lifted his palm up, facing the young man, and a bright red light emanated shortly from it. Dean promptly vanished, screaming, into the air. There was no evidence of where he had just stood.

Faith stared in shock, still poised, but unsure whether to feel anger at Dean's death or anger at him for hiding something from her. The confusion from the demon's words set in, and she felt blank.

"As for you," he said, turning to her with an almost jovial expression on his wizened face, "I have a little surprise for you. You remember back, the first time you met Dean when you 'saved his life,' and dutifully refused his offer to help you and whatnot?" She tightened her fists, tensing up. "Well that was actually aplan plotted out by yours truly – and him – to get 'in' with you and make you hopefully trust him, though as you recall it didn't work out so well." He sounded as if he was excitedly explaining how something worked to a child. But she could sense the underlying fury. "So, then we waited around until you fell off a roof, which gave us the perfect setup to knock you out and make you think Dean saved you. Once we were in, we bided our time, waiting for the perfect moment to harness your powers and energy." He threw up his arms exaggeratedly. "However, since you've gone and thrown a wrench into everything by suddenly deciding you want to leave and go back home, I have had to step in, get rid of the idiot, and take care of it all now by myself." His smile was sardonic and bitter.

Faith, for her part, was more stunned than she had been in a very long while, trying so desperately not to let all the things this demon had just told her seep in, at least not now; or what the word "home" had prompted inside of her. Now she had a job to do. Kill him. She needed to focus on that. For her own sanity. "And how do you plan on doing that?" she asked, her eyes narrowed in hate.

"Well, you see, first I'm going to stun you, and then the plan was always that I would take you to – " He never finished the sentence, as Faith had pulled a large blade from the back of her pants and shoved it forcefully through the side of his skull before he had a chance.

She looked down at his crumpled body, uninterested in what he had been about to say. She had bigger things to worry about. "Nice try." He melted away into the carpet, leaving a stench. The blade remained, and she picked it up, wiping it on the bed and putting it back.

She didn't want to dwell on anything that had just occurred in the last five minutes; how somehow the one person she had somewhat managed to befriend and share lives with, out of all the other people in Europe, in all the time she had been there, even for a what small amount of time they had been working together, had been betraying her all along. It was the story of her life. What shit decisions she always seemed to make.

She knew she had been better off on her own.

She shook it off, quite literally. "Bastard," she muttered, before picking up her bag and hurrying from the room at an even faster pace than before.

---

Meanwhile, far away, a young woman left a dark area extremely unsatisfied.