FIC Faith: The Series S4 Ep 5 (51?)

Riley's eyes widened when he saw the brunette beauty who'd just walked into the strobe-lit university bar. She was maybe five five with a leather-clad body that just didn't quit, raven hair that bounced as she stalked through the club like she owned it, framing her cupid-shaped alabaster-coloured face, a wickedly inviting smirk on her full lips. "Whoa, babe alert," commented Graham.

"I'd say," Forrest agreed.

"Serious babe alert," Riley corrected before taking a swig of his beer bottle and a winking at his friends. "Don't expect me back at the house tonight." After taking a round of high-fives off his friends, he strolled over to the curvy beauty as she stood by the bar. "Hey beautiful," he flexed his arm for maximum effect, "buy you a drink?"

"Sorry hon," the girl turned towards him. All at once he was struck by both the girl's sexy huskiness and the depth of her dark brown eyes. "But I'm waitin' for my-," suddenly the girl's lips parted in an intoxicating smile. "Yo Xand! Sorry, Cornfed, gotta go!"

"Oh boy," Riley watched as the raven-haired lovely sauntered gracefully across the heaving dance floor, "did she ever blow you out," taunted Graham.

"Crashed and burned," Forrest agreed with a punch to the shoulder.

Riley squeezed onto the bar counter, the wood cracking under his fingers, as he endured his friends' baiting. He just hoped one day he came across the little bitch getting attacked by a vampire.

He guessed that night he'd be a little slow to get there.


"Hey gang!" Faith greeted as she dropped into the booth that the gang had taken up. It was crowded with five gals and two guys in it, but that was how she liked it, all her friends around her.

"Who was that?"

Faith smirked as she saw her boyfriend glaring towards the bar where the guy who'd hit on her was being 'comforted' by his friends. He was so protective, it was so damn sweet. "Just some guy who hit on the hotness that is me," she nestled into X's side. "But I said I had this thing for sweaty construction workers."

"Oh please," a green-looking Cordy smirked. "I'm going to vomit."

"Hello," Faith looked towards Gunn with eyebrow raised, "hypocritical much?"

"It's not the dating construction workers I have a problem with." Cordy smirked as she squeezed Gunn's arm. "They're pleasingly hunky. My problem is dating Xander."

"Damn Chuck," Faith winked at the African-American. "Are ya blushing there, stud?"

Three hours later and Faith was leaving the toilet en-route to grabbing the gang and heading out on patrol. "Hey sweetheart."

Faith looked up in disinterest at the tall, scrawny man blocking her way. He was long-faced, with a face that was all sharp corners, weak blue eyes, and violently blonde almost white hair. Damn, he looked repulsive. "Yeah?"

"I was thinking I could get you a drink," the man said in an accent that was straight out of 'Mary Poppins'.

"I've got someone. Thanks but no thanks," Faith attempted to step around the man but he stepped into her path.

"Oh come on," the man reached out a hand to stroke her hair. "Old Strike will show you a good-, ahhhh!"

"Lesson to the wise," Faith warned as her hand blurred out to grab the man's hand and bend his fingers back. The man's legs buckled under him, forcing him to his knees. "No means no. You get me?" the teary-eyed man nodded. "Good, now I won't be seeing you around me or mine again will I?"

"N…no," the man gasped.

"Right answer," Faith released her grip and stepped around the man. "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya."


Strike glared up at the raven-haired bitch as she strode past him, her ass no longer wiggling seductively, but mockingly, the pain in his fingers unimaginable. "You bitch," he growled as he watched her dare to kiss another man. "You'll pay." Under his breath he started to utter a spell, a smile slowly spreading across his face. No one said no to William Strike, no one.


"Hello Cordelia," Giles looked up from his morning paper, surprised to see it was the former cheerleader, the usual late-riser, rather than Faith who was up first. "There's coffee in the pot."

"Thank you, Giles."

Cordelia sniffed as she smelt the coffee. Seeing the former rich girl's mouth opening in a familiar complaint, he pre-empted her. "If you want the expensive brands, you'll have to find the money to pay for them," he gently chided.

Cordelia pouted before pouring a cup and sitting down. They sat in companionable silence for a while, him reading the previous day's 'Times', and the cheerleader perusing some ghastly fashion magazine or other.

And then the kitchen door flew open, and a thunderous-looking Faith stalked in. "That rat bastard!"

"And a good morning to you -." Giles trailed off as the Slayer stalked past them both without even a nod or a grunt and stormed out, front door slamming behind her. Shaking his head at his foster-daughter's rudeness, they'd have words later, not that it would do any good, he turned to her best friend. "Did they argue last night?"

Cordelia shrugged. "No more than usual."

"Ah," Giles nodded sagely. "That bad, eh?"


Gunn groaned as he looked at the vast amount of ground they had to dig up for foundations. The only thing that would make this back-breaking misery worse would be – he glanced around at his companion. Oh yeah, he'd got the president of his fan club, Xander Harris. Life sucked.

Gunn stretched back, allowing the kinks in his lower back to straighten out. "How long before break, Xander?"

The younger man glanced towards his watch. "About another te-, oooof!"

Gunn gasped when the youth was hit by a black blur, knocking him to the ground. It took a second for his stunned mind to recognise the lithe figure as Faith, another second to register that she had her hands wrapped around the bluing man's throat, squeezing for all she was worth. Stepping forward, he grabbed the Slayer's shoulder. "Faith, you're killin-."

The Slayer didn't even look up as she backhanded him into the air. Hitting the ground with a thud, Gunn struggled to his feet and started forward. Seeing his spade on the ground, he lifted it up, muttered a silent prayer, stepped forward, and brought the flat of his makeshift weapon down on the brunette beauty's head. "Ooof," he gulped when the Slayer looked up at him, almost losing bladder control there and then, only to gasp when she slumped forward. After a second, he reached forward and gingerly pulled her off the still wheezing man.

"Tell me you're not dumb enough to be cheating on Faith?" Gunn queried as he nervously eyed the unconscious Slayer. God he hoped he hadn't hit her too hard to cause permanent damage. But on the other hand, he really didn't want her waking up too soon. "Never mind the powers, what about the hotness?"

"Must be," the boy dry-heaved for a few seconds, "under a," the youth coughed, "spell."

"Yeah," Gunn helped the teen to his feet before picking up the Slayer and hefting her over one shoulder, visions of the KKK lynching him for hitting a white woman dancing through his mind, "because you're just so lovable."

Xander's glare lacked its normal power. "Let's get her to Giles."


Giles beamed as the foyer door opened. "Cordelia, clients?" He sighed and shook his head when the girl failed to look up from her magazine. "I'll get that shall I?" he sniffed.

"Thanks. And a coffee would be good too." as usual his sarcasm was lost on the former high school queen. To make a point with Miss. Chase, one needed a chisel and a rather large hammer. Sighing slightly, he made his way out from the office and into the reception area. His mouth dropped open when he made his way through to find Gunn carrying his child's limp body over his shoulder and a considerably worse for wear Xander trailing behind. "What the bloody hell have you two buggers done!"

The African-American reared back at his Ripperish growl. Xander, more used to his temper, slumped into a chair, the look on his face resembling that of shell-shock. "What's the racket!" Wesley rushed into the foyer, his eyes widening at what he saw. "Now, Giles, I'm sure they have a good reason. Let's not be injudicious, huh? After all, blood is such a bugger to get out of the carpet, and we really don't need to replace the furniture in here again. Not twice in one month."

"I'm not laughing, Wesley," he warned, eyes still fixed on the LA. native as the young man carefully lowered the Slayer's limp body onto the reception room's table

"I wasn't joking," Wesley muttered. "Overheads, Giles, over-."

"What have you done to Faith!" Cordy's screech from behind him caused cracks to appear on the windows.

"That's right," muttered Gunn. "Blame the black man. You guys could give lessons in racial profiling to Mark Fuhrman."

"She attacked me," Xander rasped. Giles paled as he noticed the bruising on the young man's throat. Faith had done that? "When Gunn tried to stop her," the young man briefly wheezed for breath, "she threw him to the ground, so he hit her over the head with a spade." Giles winced as he noticed the egg-sized bump on top of his unconscious Slayer's noggin. "And before you ask," the youth coughed, "no I didn't do anything."

"Right," Giles stared at the comatose beauty. "We'll have to do some rese-."

"You bastard!" Faith suddenly sat bolt upright. Before any of them had a chance to move, she'd leapt off the table and at Xander.

"Oh bugger!" Giles looked towards Wesley before lunging at the enraged beauty, his fellow Watcher a half-second behind. "Help me!"

It took the two of them and Gunn to drag the berserk brunette off him, their muscles straining. And in those scant seconds, she'd already bloodied a disbelieving Xander's mouth and closed his right eye. "Bastard! Asshole!"

"Faith calm down!" Giles yelled to no effect. Turning his attention to the dazed youth, he shouted over his charge's foam-mouthed rantings. "Get out of here, now!"

The young man looked dazedly at him. "Move it Xander, we can't hold her for long!"

"B…but."

"Go!" Wesley added his voice to the clamour.

Finally the youth stumbled to his feet and staggered out of the building. He'd barely cleared the door when Faith shrugged off Wesley, sending Giles' fellow countryman falling onto the table with enough force to splinter it in two. Instantly the snarling Slayer started for the door. Giles winced when Cordy drove a chair square into the Slayer's back, knocking her sideways. Faith turned, backhanded the foolishly brave cheerleader to the floor and charged out of the door.

"Okay," Cordelia stared after the departing duo as he helped her back up. "So when did Faith turn into Alex Forrest?"


Faith snarled as she saw the pick-up fleeing out of the way. "You'll pay," she snarled. "I'll kill you, you bastard." Face contorted in a scowl, she started through the streets, heedlessly pushing people out of the way.


"I have an idea," Amy whispered to Willow as her friends talked about Faith's magically-brought on psychosis. This was an opportunity, a chance to get something that her and Willow did on their own, Tara had cut into her alone time with her girl-friend, but this would get them closer again. "A friend who might be able to help."

Willow turned to her, eyes filled with a desperate hope. "But we can't tell the others."

"Okay," Willow looked towards the others sat around the book-strewn table, Cordelia holding an ice-pack to her face. "Guys," the two Watchers turned to her. "We're going to my house for some more books. We'll be back later."


Rack looked up at the tell-tale jangle of his store's door opening. He almost fell to his knees as he felt the power spilling out from the red-head. Never before had he sensed such power. He forced his eyes back to Amy. "Hello, Miss Madison," he purred. "As always a pleasure. And," he directed his gaze back to the red-head, "with such a lovely companion." He hid a smirk at the red-head's blush. Such an innocent, they were always the ripest fruit.

"Hi Rack," the woman looked worried. "We've got a problem. Our friend is a Slayer and she's been infected-."

"Amy!" the red-head's green eyes bulged. "You can't just tell people that!"

His disciple shook her head. "Don't worry, Rack's alright."

Rack struggled to concentrate as Amy talked, the power from the red-head intoxicating. But finally his student finished her explanation. Rack grimaced inwardly, caught on the horns of a nasty dilemma. If he helped the Slayer, he would gain the red-head's confidence, and take the first step towards possessing her. But on the other hand, is he feigned a lack of knowledge, he might be able to get rid of the Slayer, someone who was always a threat to his source. Finally he nodded, the lure of getting his hands on the red-head's deep well of power impossible to resist. After all, he was always a gambler. "Of course, come with me."


"Retro Amor," Giles looked up as Amy and Willow walked in. "That's the spell that was cast on Faith."

"How do you know this?" Wesley demanded

Amy shot the younger Watcher a look. "We don't have time. The longer she's under it, the more powerful its hold will become. What we need to do is something that Faith gave Xander as evidence of her feelings and a local telephone book, with them, and this," the girl pulled out a tiny pendant, "we'll find our caster."

"I'll get the phone book," Tara volunteered.

Giles nodded his thanks. "And what do you suggest we use-."

"The first ever 'Tomb of Dracula #10'," Cordelia interrupted. "It's the magazine Faith got Xander her first Christmas in Sunnydale."

"How do you know about this comic?" Giles sceptically asked.

"Jesse and Xander were always-," Cordy's voice trailed off with an uncomfortable look at Gunn.

To his credit, the black shrugged. "Past is past, girl. Go get the comic."

In just a couple of minutes, they were at the table, the comic sat upon the open at its centre directory, the directory in turn sat upon the table, encircled by flickering the candles, the stench of incense heavy in the air as the two witches murmured under their breath. Suddenly the magazine levitated off the table, the phone book flicked through several pages before coming to a stop, and the pendant flew out Amy's hand to land on top of a name. Giles strode forward. "Well done girls. William Strike, I'll go pay that young man a visit and have a pointed discussion."

"Did you sense what I sensed?" he looked up at Wesley's mutter beside him. "The spell Amy and Willow used was tainted with black magic."

Giles shrugged. "I have larger concerns." Seeing his fellow Watcher's mouth opening, he purposefully turned his back on him. "Cordelia, I need you to wrap a parcel for me. Anything will do, I just need to look like a delivery-man."

Cordelia looked outraged. "I had servants to do my wrapping-."

"Well you don't have them anymore!" he snapped. "Just do as I bloody say for once!"


Faith smirked as she turned the corner and saw the battered man leaving a sports store, a nervous look on his face, and a baseball bat in his hand. "Like that's gonna help," she muttered, as she stalked after her soon-to-be victim. This was gonna be fun, best to savour the moment.


William Strike yawned as he heard the knock on his front door. Grunting with the effort, he stood and turned his tv off, disappointed he hadn't heard any report of the bitch from the previous night being taken into custody for murdering her boyfriend. But just give it time.

"Coming!" he shouted as he strode into his narrow hallway. "Yeah?" he swung the door open to find a studious looking man in his mid forties stood in the doorway, a small brown parcel in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

"Are you," the man glanced down at the clipboard. "William Strike, only he has to sign for this?" his obviously fellow country man proffered the package.

Eyes drawn to the mystery package, he nodded. "That's me," he agreed.

And gasped when the man drove a knee into his crotch. "Good." Dropping the parcel and clipboard, the man grabbed his shoulder and shoved him inside the house, back-heeling the door shut behind him. "Then it's time we had a discussion about your use of magic." Still struggling for air, William opened his mouth.

His assailant filled it with a fist, blood and teeth spewing out. Dazed, tears streaming down his face, he dropped to his knees. "Ahhh!" he screamed as the man grabbed a handful of his golden locks and drove his head into the wooden banister.

"You slimy git!" the man roared, face twisted into something more terrifying than anything he'd ever seen. "You're going to get the pasting of your miserable life!" Hand still gripping his hair, the enraged stranger dragged him towards the front room, stopping occasionally to kick him in the ribs.

Strike tried desperately to grab at the foot smashing into him. "Nooooo!" he screamed as the man's foot stamped on his hands shattering three fingers.

"Oh yes!" By now spittle was running down the man's face, eyes bulging. "Cast a spell on my girl would you?"

His girl? Strike's stomach hollowed as he realised this man was the boyfriend or father of the bird he'd enchanted the previous night. "I'll break the spell!"

"I know you will," the man snarled. "When a low-level mage suffers enough pain or unconsciousness, any spell they've cast is broken. And guess what?" He gasped when the man shoved a sofa cushion on his face and held it down. "you're in a world of pain."

Strike shoved at the man's grip, but his lack of leverage, the older man's superior condition, and his own injuries meant he was helpless. "Now," the man leaned over him, whispering in his ear. "You have 24 hours to leave town. And then I'll be telling my daughter and her friends this address. And they really are people you don't want to argue with." Suddenly darkness engulfed him.


Faith halted, suddenly confused as to where and what she was doing. Her eyes widened as she saw her bruised boyfriend just a few people away. She stepped out of the auto shop's shadows. "Hey X!"

Her boyfriend's head snapped towards her, an inexplicable look of horror on his face. Without looking where he was going, her man stepped out into the road.

"Shit!" Heart pounding, she jumped into the air, using a mail-box by the side of the road to push off and crash into her boyfriend at the shoulder, flinging them both clear of the on-coming truck he'd failed to see.


"Hey."

Gunn looked towards Xander stood in the doorway of his room, a nervous look on his face and a leather-bound book under his arm. "Hey," he replied.

"Can I come in?" After a second he nodded, the kid's face relaxed slightly. "Thanks," the youth said before walking in, sitting beside him on the side of his bed, and passing him the book. He looked down in puzzlement at the brown tome. "That's my," the youth's voice briefly trembled, "that's my photo album." The young man opened the book to a photograph of a younger version of him sat between two unfamiliar kids. "That was the first day at junior high," there was a note of bittersweet yearning in the youth's voice that made Gunn's heart catch. "The guys with me are Jesse and Jonathan." Gunn noticed a slight shake in the youth's finger as he pointed to both youths in turn. "We were the best friends like ever, well, us and Will, we were the nerd squad," the youth smiled wistfully. "We'd hung together since kindergarten."

"Cordelia mentioned Jesse."

His softly-spoken comment went apparently unheard by the young man. "Jonathan died two years, at the hands of Angelus and William the Bloody. Then, Jess," Xander's voice shook again, "Jess bought it at the hands of a rouge Slayer. And then you turn up, cool as heck, and everyone just expects you to take their place."

"Hey, Xan," suddenly Gunn got where the boy's resentment came from.

"I got so angry, you were here, but they weren't. I was supposed to accept you as their replacement," the kid's voice trailed off, then he shuddered. "Then I realised that Jonathan would think you were so cool, coming from the streets of LA.," the young man half-smiled, "and Jesse would think you were pretty fl-."

"Next word's fly, and I am gonna have to lay a smackdown on your ass," Gunn warned.

"Fluent in street talk," the young man smoothly changed. The white kid let out a short laugh before turning serious. "I know I messed up. Heck, Jess and Jon would kick my ass for wallowing, not getting on with life, not accepting you on your own terms. Fresh start?"

Gunn smiled slowly before sticking out a hand. "Fresh start."


The car pulled up silently in the darkened parking lot. After a glance around to satisfy himself the lot was indeed deserted, he climbed out, knee-length jacket swishing in the pleasant fall wind. His movements effortlessly graceful, he stalked to the back of his car and cranked open the trunk.

A smile slowly spread as he peered down into the trunk and saw the hog-tied blonde stuck there, her sky-blue eyes looking up pleadingly at him, and her mouth stuffed with her panties so that only muffled whimpers could escape, her once-fashionable clothes torn and bloodied from his first experience of her. What sort of idiot stopped for a hitchhiker anyway? The sort of idiot who was just begging to be mutilated. Well, his smile widened, he guessed it was her lucky day.

"Oh don't worry," Angelus purred as he ran a finger down the silently sobbing blonde's cheek before leaning in and licking her tears off her face, loving the salty taste, "you're just the warm-up act. I've got bigger things than you planned. Just think of yourself as," he laughed softly, "as practice."