A/N: Surname I'm pulling from Angel Season Four eppie. It *should* be on
the tape. Checking it now.
[ Some time later]
Okie dokie. There's no name on the tape. Guess they don't want to name Faith's surname. So for the purpose of my fics, Faith is Faith Carter. And btw, thanks go to Jen, as per usual, parce que elle m'aide quand' elle est en vacance. To those of u who aren't practising for the French written GCSE.she's helped me when she's on holiday. Endured me bugging her. Hence my lil' happy.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Faith paced the floor of the cell. She tipped back her head, and breathed in deeply. The fresh air filtering through the solid bars carried the smell of spring. Sultry, and warm, it spiralled into her, making her remember. Practising, fighting, talking. It had been winter when she'd killed the guy.
Spring when she started working for him. The Mayor.
She stretched her muscles, loosening them, in readiness for the yard time. She knew the drill. At exactly 12.02, the bell would ring. Guards unlocked the cells so they could go out into the prison yard. Small for the number of women there, sandy coloured dirt. But there were weights. Bars. Keeping her strength up. But for what? So that another crisis could come up? She was the Slayer, but was going to die behind bars. Never slay a vampire.
She smirked suddenly. She'd outlive B. Consolation prize. Knock the longest- lived crown off the prom queen's head.
"430019." She looked up. She knew her number.
"Out." The guard gestured with the baton, sliding the door back. She frowned, confused.
"What?" They always opened the door from the back. What the hell?
The blow came out of nowhere. She fell, hard.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He dialled the number, holding his breath. Jay picked up.
"Hey. Is Starr contactable?" he asked brusquely.
"You sent her, Sullivan. She's in L.A. No phone. She ditched it. Said Wyndham Pryce. Discontinued operative here. There's only been two. I suggest if you want contact, you get yourself out there.," Jay replied. Monotone. Most of the Council backups were the same.
"Right. Potentials?" Sully asked, scanning the room for sign of the other employees. He wasn't supposed to be here.
"Coming in all sides of the globe. I'd say we have twenty here. We get reports of them, then they go over to that Watcher. Rupert Giles."
Sullivan felt his throat tighten.
"No," he corrected. "Wesley Wyndham Pryce. Longest known Slayer. He's collecting them. Starr took three to him. Kendall, Hart, and Robins."
Jay hissed in a breath on the other line. "What are you talking about? Wyndham Pryce was fired. 1999. His Slayer went bad. Faith Carter. Killed a human. Council operatives sent to recover her. She broke free. Off the record, Sullivan, she's more than the Council can handle. However, she made contact with Angelus, the souled vampire, and has spent the last two years in prison. The Watcher I referred to is Rupert Giles. Watcher of the Slayer, 1997. Buffy Summers. Due to her revival, after death, she created the second Slayer line. Giles was fired following her failed Cruciatmentem. She then became rogue when Pryce was sent out to become Slayer to her and Carter. She rejoined the Council, as did Giles in 2001, and Giles has been training the Potentials since the Council ended," Jay finished. His solemn, operative tone ended. "C'mon, Sully. You know this. You, and a few others, including me, made it out of the Watcher School. Starr and some of the Potentials escaped. "
"I think I may have sent my sister into real danger," Sullivan murmured, as he hung up the phone, pale, and shaken.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Jane cast a scared look in Angel's direction, and spun, running towards the glass doors, tears streaking down her pale face.
"You promised!" she shrieked. "You promised! How could you?"
"What's wrong?' Gwen asked, bewildered, over the child's howls, as they ran after her.
"I don't *know*!" Angel growled. Cordelia appeared at the top of the stairs.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded. Jane tripped on the steps to the front door, subsiding into silent sobs.
"You're just like all the others," she said, dully. She looked up at Cordy, her eyes accusing. "You promised. I hate you."
She flung herself out of the door, and ran. Cordelia cast a confused look at Angel, but chased after the girl.
"Jane! Jane, sweetie, what's wrong?" she caught the little girl by the shoulders. Jane's head tipped forward, lolling on her neck. All the fight ebbed out of her, and she stood limply against Cordelia, as the woman knelt on the cold stone path, to meet her height.
"Sweetheart, I swear to you, I didn't break my promise. What's wrong?" she held Jane's shoulders lightly.
Jane met her eyes, and Cordelia was struck by the pain, and yet, acceptance in them. She had the eyes of someone who had been through the worst life had to throw, and was on the brink of it again.
"Why would she come back if you hadn't broken your promise?' she asked simply.
"Gwen?" Cordelia asked incredulously. At the name, Jane nodded mutely, the tears beginning to course down her cheeks again.
"Honey, no one is taking you away. No one. I won't let them," Cordy told her fervently.
Gwen walked slowly towards them. In Cordelia's arms, Jane tensed, stiffening.
"I remember you now. Little kid. You're eight, right?" Jane nodded. Gwen gave a sardonic smile. "Academy through and through, huh? Don't worry, I broke free of that stuff a while back. I'm not with them."
"You're.you're not?" Jane's voice was tiny.
Gwen shook her head.
"Nope. Free agent."
Jane sank back into Cordelia's arms, laughing, and sobbing, as she flung her arms around the woman's neck. Mystified, Cordy scooped her up, holding her tight, while looking at Gwen, baffled.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sitting down on a soft leather chair, in Angel's office, Jane so exhausted that she was asleep in her lap, she listened to Gwen explain.
"When I was a little girl, I was taken by my parents to an academy, for people like me. They could *deal* with my problem. " Gwen turned, running a hand along the sleek mahogany desk contemplatively.
"I'm twenty one, Cordelia. Been operating solo for a while now. I was 17 when Jane was brought to the Academy." Cordelia looked down at the child in her arms.
"What are you saying?" Angel asked.
"Jane was brought there, because it was thought she had some kind of ability. There's no kid at that Academy who *doesn't* have some tie to the freaky. And there are hundreds of kids there. I didn't really notice most of the kids, wouldn't have recognised her. She was four? Five? But you couldn't forget Jane." She smile was bittersweet, as she tousled the sleeping little girl's long fair hair.
"Why?" Angel asked hoarsely.
Gwen turned to face him, her hair swinging out behind her. Her lips were still quirked in a smile, but her eyes were dreamy, and looked beyond the vampire.
"No one could forget the screams," she said softly.
"What?"
The young woman gazed around the office.
"It's nice here. Guess Jane ended up in a nice place. Good for her, you know?"
"What did you mean, Gwen?" Angel repeated, folding his arms. She met his eyes.
"She didn't have talent," she answered simply. "This wasn't the kind of school where you learnt at your own pace, alright? If you didn't do what they wanted quick enough, they made you."
She looked down at the girl. Long fair eyelashes lay curled up on the pale cheeks. Dried tear stains were barely visible. Her lilac jumper had dirt stains on it, from the run into the garden, a bright bumblebee knitted into it was still grinning away, a blob of mud obscuring one of its eyes.
"It wasn't a nice place." Her voice sounded hollow now. "I don't know what she went through. No one really knows what each one goes through. I just know that at first, when they start, the kids scream. Long, and loud, terrified. Then they begin to get it. Truth is, sometimes magical ability, or telekinesis can be forced on a kid. All of them got something. Except her. She screamed, and screamed, long after everyone else had stopped. And then she went silent. It was like, they finally broke her. Only she didn't have some freak gift at the end of it." She was angry now.
She whirled around, her arms wrapped around herself. "I was there still when she left. Some woman picked her up. It was the look in her eyes that made me remember. Real hope, you know? All that they'd done to her, and she was still a little kid. Still had hope." She turned her back. "I don't like kids. Really don't. "
"The necklace," Cordelia murmured. Without facing her, Gwen answered.
"Tags. Put around her neck, so she could be identified quickly. Some of those kids.when they were finished, you didn't know how old they were. Should have her name, DOB, and the date she went into the academy."
Cordelia picked the tag up gently from where it hung around Jane's neck. The child barely stirred.
"2/6/2000," she whispered. "Right under her birth-date." She fingered it, making the silver flash in the dim light.
"How many children did you say were there, Gwen?" Angel asked, frowning, looking at Jane.
She shrugged elegantly, reaching up to comb her hair back with her fingers, arching her back. "I was more of a 'get the hell out of there' person than a 'let's stop and count'.
"So when she saw you-" Cordelia breathed, as she put the pieces together. Gwen nodded, lifting a slim shoulder.
"Must of thought I'd come to take her back. Poor little midget. That place still creeps me out."
"I'm going to put her to bed," Cordy said, lifting the little girl, and holding her tightly against herself.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Cordy?" The little voice was slurred, as Jane rubbed sleepily at her eyes with balled fists. Cordelia bent over the bed, tucking the quilt around the child tighter.
"Hey," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Night time, remember?"
"You're not gonna let them take me?" Cordelia kissed Jane's forehead, sweeping the hair off her face.
"No, sweetie." Jane sighed, and rolled over to face the wall, little sleepy sounds of contentment.
As Cordelia reached the door, she called out.
" 'Love you." Cordy stopped, and turned back to the little girl. Jane yawned, and the eyelashes fluttered closed. She smiled.
"Love you too."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
She opened her eyes. The room was white. Bare, empty.
[Weird sense of déjà vu here]
She sat up, and pushed away the blankets. A tugging feeling at her skin caught her attention, and she looked down. A drip was connected to her arm. She yanked it out, hardly feeling the sting. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and padded across to the door, her bare feet cold on the icy floor.
She opened it, and peered around. A hospital, like any other. People talking, moving around, lab coats moving past, she ducked behind the door, and pressed against it.
"Extremely dangerous..blood sample..guard," she caught.
[What the hell is goin' on here?]
She scanned the room for clothes. She damn well wasn't going to make it out of here butt naked except for a papery gown, was she?
"Room 104," she heard a woman's voice, and froze, instinctively.
"Well now-" the woman sang out. She had no choice. Faith slammed the pan across the woman's temple.
Stripping the woman [there goes the déjà stuff again] she dressed quickly in the pyjama type outfit. Walking fast, letting her hair hang in front of her face, she strode past the guard, and stepped into the nurses' room. Snatching jeans and a baggy top off a peg, she changed, and made a break for the front of the hospital.
"Anderson General. Well that makes a hell of a lot of difference," she muttered. She grabbed the arm of a passer-by. "Hey, you know if this is L.A or not?"
Bewildered, the man nodded.
She took off. One place to find out anything, particularly as it seemed she was on parole, indefinitely. Angel.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
A/N: I know it got a bit fluffy there, but explanations will abound. It was kinda necessary, and Gwen, okay, OOC for a bit there, but hopefully, she got back on track. So.did the cliff-hanger work? Lol. Yeah. More news on the Academy in upcoming chapters. Btw, I loved the Buffy ep with Cassie. To all of you out there who don't read cryptic, this is a clue. Lol. Next chapter.Sullivan, Faith, and a few faces come back to AI, and Jess..well, it's almost time for a butt kicking there..I didn't know you could hate your own characters.She reminds me waaay too much of a girl I know, and I kinda resemble Faye more than any other.
Btw, on relationships front, I have my own ideas, but any suggestions on the Faith 'ships front? Lilah and Wes may or may not make a comeback, I haven't yet decided if I can write it or not, so if you wanna see it, suggest it. I'm not averse to suggestions. Hint hint! Ooh, if you wanna do anything special, or you're just plain bored..and if you've gotten down to here, you *are*, check out the World's End site on my profile page. New nominations are needed, and the categories are similar to the previous, so please, nominations needed!
[ Some time later]
Okie dokie. There's no name on the tape. Guess they don't want to name Faith's surname. So for the purpose of my fics, Faith is Faith Carter. And btw, thanks go to Jen, as per usual, parce que elle m'aide quand' elle est en vacance. To those of u who aren't practising for the French written GCSE.she's helped me when she's on holiday. Endured me bugging her. Hence my lil' happy.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Faith paced the floor of the cell. She tipped back her head, and breathed in deeply. The fresh air filtering through the solid bars carried the smell of spring. Sultry, and warm, it spiralled into her, making her remember. Practising, fighting, talking. It had been winter when she'd killed the guy.
Spring when she started working for him. The Mayor.
She stretched her muscles, loosening them, in readiness for the yard time. She knew the drill. At exactly 12.02, the bell would ring. Guards unlocked the cells so they could go out into the prison yard. Small for the number of women there, sandy coloured dirt. But there were weights. Bars. Keeping her strength up. But for what? So that another crisis could come up? She was the Slayer, but was going to die behind bars. Never slay a vampire.
She smirked suddenly. She'd outlive B. Consolation prize. Knock the longest- lived crown off the prom queen's head.
"430019." She looked up. She knew her number.
"Out." The guard gestured with the baton, sliding the door back. She frowned, confused.
"What?" They always opened the door from the back. What the hell?
The blow came out of nowhere. She fell, hard.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He dialled the number, holding his breath. Jay picked up.
"Hey. Is Starr contactable?" he asked brusquely.
"You sent her, Sullivan. She's in L.A. No phone. She ditched it. Said Wyndham Pryce. Discontinued operative here. There's only been two. I suggest if you want contact, you get yourself out there.," Jay replied. Monotone. Most of the Council backups were the same.
"Right. Potentials?" Sully asked, scanning the room for sign of the other employees. He wasn't supposed to be here.
"Coming in all sides of the globe. I'd say we have twenty here. We get reports of them, then they go over to that Watcher. Rupert Giles."
Sullivan felt his throat tighten.
"No," he corrected. "Wesley Wyndham Pryce. Longest known Slayer. He's collecting them. Starr took three to him. Kendall, Hart, and Robins."
Jay hissed in a breath on the other line. "What are you talking about? Wyndham Pryce was fired. 1999. His Slayer went bad. Faith Carter. Killed a human. Council operatives sent to recover her. She broke free. Off the record, Sullivan, she's more than the Council can handle. However, she made contact with Angelus, the souled vampire, and has spent the last two years in prison. The Watcher I referred to is Rupert Giles. Watcher of the Slayer, 1997. Buffy Summers. Due to her revival, after death, she created the second Slayer line. Giles was fired following her failed Cruciatmentem. She then became rogue when Pryce was sent out to become Slayer to her and Carter. She rejoined the Council, as did Giles in 2001, and Giles has been training the Potentials since the Council ended," Jay finished. His solemn, operative tone ended. "C'mon, Sully. You know this. You, and a few others, including me, made it out of the Watcher School. Starr and some of the Potentials escaped. "
"I think I may have sent my sister into real danger," Sullivan murmured, as he hung up the phone, pale, and shaken.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Jane cast a scared look in Angel's direction, and spun, running towards the glass doors, tears streaking down her pale face.
"You promised!" she shrieked. "You promised! How could you?"
"What's wrong?' Gwen asked, bewildered, over the child's howls, as they ran after her.
"I don't *know*!" Angel growled. Cordelia appeared at the top of the stairs.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded. Jane tripped on the steps to the front door, subsiding into silent sobs.
"You're just like all the others," she said, dully. She looked up at Cordy, her eyes accusing. "You promised. I hate you."
She flung herself out of the door, and ran. Cordelia cast a confused look at Angel, but chased after the girl.
"Jane! Jane, sweetie, what's wrong?" she caught the little girl by the shoulders. Jane's head tipped forward, lolling on her neck. All the fight ebbed out of her, and she stood limply against Cordelia, as the woman knelt on the cold stone path, to meet her height.
"Sweetheart, I swear to you, I didn't break my promise. What's wrong?" she held Jane's shoulders lightly.
Jane met her eyes, and Cordelia was struck by the pain, and yet, acceptance in them. She had the eyes of someone who had been through the worst life had to throw, and was on the brink of it again.
"Why would she come back if you hadn't broken your promise?' she asked simply.
"Gwen?" Cordelia asked incredulously. At the name, Jane nodded mutely, the tears beginning to course down her cheeks again.
"Honey, no one is taking you away. No one. I won't let them," Cordy told her fervently.
Gwen walked slowly towards them. In Cordelia's arms, Jane tensed, stiffening.
"I remember you now. Little kid. You're eight, right?" Jane nodded. Gwen gave a sardonic smile. "Academy through and through, huh? Don't worry, I broke free of that stuff a while back. I'm not with them."
"You're.you're not?" Jane's voice was tiny.
Gwen shook her head.
"Nope. Free agent."
Jane sank back into Cordelia's arms, laughing, and sobbing, as she flung her arms around the woman's neck. Mystified, Cordy scooped her up, holding her tight, while looking at Gwen, baffled.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sitting down on a soft leather chair, in Angel's office, Jane so exhausted that she was asleep in her lap, she listened to Gwen explain.
"When I was a little girl, I was taken by my parents to an academy, for people like me. They could *deal* with my problem. " Gwen turned, running a hand along the sleek mahogany desk contemplatively.
"I'm twenty one, Cordelia. Been operating solo for a while now. I was 17 when Jane was brought to the Academy." Cordelia looked down at the child in her arms.
"What are you saying?" Angel asked.
"Jane was brought there, because it was thought she had some kind of ability. There's no kid at that Academy who *doesn't* have some tie to the freaky. And there are hundreds of kids there. I didn't really notice most of the kids, wouldn't have recognised her. She was four? Five? But you couldn't forget Jane." She smile was bittersweet, as she tousled the sleeping little girl's long fair hair.
"Why?" Angel asked hoarsely.
Gwen turned to face him, her hair swinging out behind her. Her lips were still quirked in a smile, but her eyes were dreamy, and looked beyond the vampire.
"No one could forget the screams," she said softly.
"What?"
The young woman gazed around the office.
"It's nice here. Guess Jane ended up in a nice place. Good for her, you know?"
"What did you mean, Gwen?" Angel repeated, folding his arms. She met his eyes.
"She didn't have talent," she answered simply. "This wasn't the kind of school where you learnt at your own pace, alright? If you didn't do what they wanted quick enough, they made you."
She looked down at the girl. Long fair eyelashes lay curled up on the pale cheeks. Dried tear stains were barely visible. Her lilac jumper had dirt stains on it, from the run into the garden, a bright bumblebee knitted into it was still grinning away, a blob of mud obscuring one of its eyes.
"It wasn't a nice place." Her voice sounded hollow now. "I don't know what she went through. No one really knows what each one goes through. I just know that at first, when they start, the kids scream. Long, and loud, terrified. Then they begin to get it. Truth is, sometimes magical ability, or telekinesis can be forced on a kid. All of them got something. Except her. She screamed, and screamed, long after everyone else had stopped. And then she went silent. It was like, they finally broke her. Only she didn't have some freak gift at the end of it." She was angry now.
She whirled around, her arms wrapped around herself. "I was there still when she left. Some woman picked her up. It was the look in her eyes that made me remember. Real hope, you know? All that they'd done to her, and she was still a little kid. Still had hope." She turned her back. "I don't like kids. Really don't. "
"The necklace," Cordelia murmured. Without facing her, Gwen answered.
"Tags. Put around her neck, so she could be identified quickly. Some of those kids.when they were finished, you didn't know how old they were. Should have her name, DOB, and the date she went into the academy."
Cordelia picked the tag up gently from where it hung around Jane's neck. The child barely stirred.
"2/6/2000," she whispered. "Right under her birth-date." She fingered it, making the silver flash in the dim light.
"How many children did you say were there, Gwen?" Angel asked, frowning, looking at Jane.
She shrugged elegantly, reaching up to comb her hair back with her fingers, arching her back. "I was more of a 'get the hell out of there' person than a 'let's stop and count'.
"So when she saw you-" Cordelia breathed, as she put the pieces together. Gwen nodded, lifting a slim shoulder.
"Must of thought I'd come to take her back. Poor little midget. That place still creeps me out."
"I'm going to put her to bed," Cordy said, lifting the little girl, and holding her tightly against herself.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Cordy?" The little voice was slurred, as Jane rubbed sleepily at her eyes with balled fists. Cordelia bent over the bed, tucking the quilt around the child tighter.
"Hey," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Night time, remember?"
"You're not gonna let them take me?" Cordelia kissed Jane's forehead, sweeping the hair off her face.
"No, sweetie." Jane sighed, and rolled over to face the wall, little sleepy sounds of contentment.
As Cordelia reached the door, she called out.
" 'Love you." Cordy stopped, and turned back to the little girl. Jane yawned, and the eyelashes fluttered closed. She smiled.
"Love you too."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
She opened her eyes. The room was white. Bare, empty.
[Weird sense of déjà vu here]
She sat up, and pushed away the blankets. A tugging feeling at her skin caught her attention, and she looked down. A drip was connected to her arm. She yanked it out, hardly feeling the sting. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and padded across to the door, her bare feet cold on the icy floor.
She opened it, and peered around. A hospital, like any other. People talking, moving around, lab coats moving past, she ducked behind the door, and pressed against it.
"Extremely dangerous..blood sample..guard," she caught.
[What the hell is goin' on here?]
She scanned the room for clothes. She damn well wasn't going to make it out of here butt naked except for a papery gown, was she?
"Room 104," she heard a woman's voice, and froze, instinctively.
"Well now-" the woman sang out. She had no choice. Faith slammed the pan across the woman's temple.
Stripping the woman [there goes the déjà stuff again] she dressed quickly in the pyjama type outfit. Walking fast, letting her hair hang in front of her face, she strode past the guard, and stepped into the nurses' room. Snatching jeans and a baggy top off a peg, she changed, and made a break for the front of the hospital.
"Anderson General. Well that makes a hell of a lot of difference," she muttered. She grabbed the arm of a passer-by. "Hey, you know if this is L.A or not?"
Bewildered, the man nodded.
She took off. One place to find out anything, particularly as it seemed she was on parole, indefinitely. Angel.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
A/N: I know it got a bit fluffy there, but explanations will abound. It was kinda necessary, and Gwen, okay, OOC for a bit there, but hopefully, she got back on track. So.did the cliff-hanger work? Lol. Yeah. More news on the Academy in upcoming chapters. Btw, I loved the Buffy ep with Cassie. To all of you out there who don't read cryptic, this is a clue. Lol. Next chapter.Sullivan, Faith, and a few faces come back to AI, and Jess..well, it's almost time for a butt kicking there..I didn't know you could hate your own characters.She reminds me waaay too much of a girl I know, and I kinda resemble Faye more than any other.
Btw, on relationships front, I have my own ideas, but any suggestions on the Faith 'ships front? Lilah and Wes may or may not make a comeback, I haven't yet decided if I can write it or not, so if you wanna see it, suggest it. I'm not averse to suggestions. Hint hint! Ooh, if you wanna do anything special, or you're just plain bored..and if you've gotten down to here, you *are*, check out the World's End site on my profile page. New nominations are needed, and the categories are similar to the previous, so please, nominations needed!