Ok, since these executive types insist on holding a gun to my head- "I do
not own any Malcolm in the Middle or Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
characters." Pout. Thanks a lot to all you reviewers, I'm glad this fic
seems to be working out so well. Also, for those of you looking forward to
a little more BtVS/AtS interaction, I can tell you now that while I'd like
to, I can't take all your suggestions into account, but I hope to do
something that will make up for it a fair bit further down the track.
Think of a family vacation. somewhere in the direction of LA ;-)
Specifically to donnatellaMarks- your idea of introducing Robin into the
mix completely floored me, I never would've thought of that myself, but
since I can't really write his character, and I see Faith as more of the
"love 'em & leave 'em" type, he won't be making an appearance. Also, I
live in Australia & have only just seen the ep where they get together, so
I don't really know where that relationship goes. Sorry I can't do it for
you.
Also, just a quick note for this chapter- in the universe of this fic,
after Chosen, Faith went home, the rest of the Scoobies kinda scattered.
The newly activated Slayers all went home or wherever the hell they wanted
to slay on their own turf. Willow and Kennedy are together (this will be
important later on) and are kinda nomadic in a way. Buffy and Giles are
travelling the world together, searching for other girls who were activated
as Slayers by the big spell, leaving Dawn to live and work at the Hyperion
with Angel as her guardian. So that's where I'm coming from, hope you
enjoy! R&R!
* * * * *
"Hi, Francis," Lois crowed into the phone. Faith and Hal exchanged worried glances as they slunk out of the kitchen. Whatever Lois was planning, it didn't bode too well for the eldest brother of the family.
"Mom! How are you? Back from your sister's already?" Francis chattered over the line.
"Yeah, something came up," Lois returned a little bitterly, looking pointedly over to where Faith was now busy teaching Reese, Dewey and even Hal a few simple offensive manoeuvres she'd picked up through her years of battle. Malcolm had come out of his room, but he sat stonily on the couch, refusing to meet his sister's eyes.
"Really? What?" Francis asked, blissfully unaware of his impending doom.
Lois chose this moment to pounce. "Well, Francis, how about the fact that after five years in California, your sister came home!?"
"Faith is there? Is she ok?"
Lois could hear the relief and the surprise echoing down the phone line from her firstborn son. She closed her eyes a second, realising that because of the short life expectancy of Slayers, as Faith had just explained to them, Francis fully expected that he would never see his big sister alive again.
"Yes, she's fine. And now what I want to know is; WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT HER!?"
Francis tried to stutter an explanation, but he couldn't get a word in edgeways around his mother.
"I am so disappointed in you! All this time you knew! You knew and you didn't say a word. Francis, I'd ship you right off to Military School again if I could!! For all the good it did!"
The four rumbling in the living room had stopped to listen. Faith's eyebrows shot up. "Military School?" she mouthed.
"Yes, about a year after you left, we decided it was the best environment for your brother, to help him straighten out," Hal informed her. He thought to himself for a minute. Francis had always been incredibly difficult, but it was only after Faith's disappearance that he had become completely uncontrollable. "Though now in retrospect I think I might understand why he got so out of hand."
"So where is he now?"
"He dropped out and ran off to Alaska to get married. Now he's the foreman of a Dude Ranch run by a couple of crazy Germans," Reese interjected.
"And Mom hates his wife Piama," Dewey supplied.
"She does not," Hal tried to protest, but to no avail. All three of his youngest children just gave him a nonplussed look.
In the kitchen, Lois could still be heard screaming into the phone, and Faith hurried in there to see if she could ease the situation. "Uh, Mom? Can I use the phone? I gotta make a quick call," Faith interrupted, hoping she could salvage at least some of her brother's hearing. "And let me talk to Francis, too."
Lois stopped mid-rant, thrown off by the sound of Faith's voice. Faith took the opportunity to relieve her mother of the handset and slid it up to her ear. "Hey, Francis, can you hear me? Can you still hear?"
"Faith? What the hell? How are you...?" Francis trailed off, not really wanting to finish the crude question; 'how are you even alive?'
"I'm five by five," Faith responded dryly, not having missed the meaning behind Francis' question at all.
"Look, I'm gonna go talk to my boss, then I'm coming home to see you, ok? Don't go running off again until I get there." Francis' free hand was gesturing wildly at the phone for Faith to stay put until he got there, as if the movement would have any effect on the whereabouts of his sister.
"Sure. Hey, bring the missus, dying to meet her," Faith replied casually. "Look, I've gotta make a phone call but I'll see you soon, Francis."
"You bet. Listen Faith... I'm glad you're ok," Francis said in a rush as if he'd stored all his courage up to say that sentence and had only that opportunity to let it out. He hung up the phone.
Faith smiled a little to herself as she hit the disconnect button and dialled Angel's number. It was Dawn who answered the phone over at Angel Investigations.
"Hey, D, how's the new job going?"
"Faith! It's good, but I'm bored. Not much in the way of monsters or whatnot so far. Apparently that's a good thing, though. But I still don't understand Cordelia's filing system, coz she sure ain't using the alphabet! You get home ok?"
"Sure did, brat. Can I talk to Angel, is he around?"
"Yeah, hang on a sec."
Faith listened in amusement as the phone made the light thudding sound of being dropped on the desk and Dawn's voice screamed out loud enough so that Faith was almost sure she would hear it all the way from LA even without the phone; "Angel! Phone!"
"Coulda hollered that out myself, D," she muttered as Angel picked up the receiver to greet her.
"Faith, you got home ok?"
"Why does everyone keep asking me that? Like they think I'd jump off the wagon half way or something?" Faith asked, a little touched by the concern but mostly just irritated.
"Or most likely that you'd wrap that confiscated celica of yours around a tree," Angel amended. "So how's it really going there? How's your family?"
With a quick glance to her family still together in the living room, naturally arguing over nothing, Faith replied with a bemused, "Seems like old times. I just wanted to let you know I arrived in one piece, and somehow after talking to my family I'm *still* in one piece..."
"You talked to your family about... everything?" Angel asked a little delicately. He felt like Faith's sponsor in the struggle for redemption, and he was a little guilty at not having been there at such a critical moment of her continuing recovery. "What did they say?"
"Yeah, I told them," Faith dropped her voice so she could confide in Angel privately. "They actually took it better than I expected. I mean, Mom and Dad sure weren't happy about it, and I don't think Dewey even understands. Reese is kinda still stuck in the violent caveman world where he thinks being a fugitive makes me the ultimate cool. I'm gonna tell Francis when he comes home, it's just Mal... Malcolm hates me, Angel."
"He doesn't," Angel assured her. "It's a big thing for people to just understand, and he'll deal with it as best he can. It might not be easy, but one day he will be able to look at you without that cloud over his eyes. All you can do is try and be the sort of sister he wants to look at."
"Um, Angel? That's actually kinda gross?" Faith smirked, as usual taking a dirty spin on Angel's words and lightening the atmosphere. "Look, I just wanted to give you the number here, in case you guys decide to let Angelus out of the cage again or something. You got a pen?"
Angel wrote down the phone number Faith dictated to him over the phone, and Faith secretly marvelled that she remembered it so effortlessly after all this time. She was just about to hang up when a soft rustling sound indicated that someone had picked up the extension and was listening in.
"Hi, I'm Dewey," a carefree young voice chirped. "Who are you?"
"Ugh. Dew, put down the phone," Faith said, but she was ignored by both males on the line.
"Hi Dewey," Angel gave his best effort at being friendly to the child, but Faith had to admit he sounded a little overzealous. He had definitely missed out on this stage of Connor's childhood. "I'm Angel."
"Angel? You're an angel? Do you work for Santa?" Dewey asked excitedly.
"Uh, no- I'm not *an* angel, my name is Angel," the two and a half centuries old vampire tried to explain to the child less than a decade old.
"Oh, I've been really good this year, can you tell Santa I haven't burnt down anything at all yet? And even if I did take all that money off those people, I returned it so I shouldn't really get in trouble. And I didn't mean to fall into the tiger cage at the zoo, and anyway, Reese was the one that threw the goat in and got it killed so that wasn't really my fault either..."
"Dewey! Hang up the phone!" Faith tried again, straining to keep the laughter out of her voice. A part of her was dying to see how Angel would handle this.
"Um, ok," Angel said, really not wanting to understand anything at all that Dewey had just said. "But I don't know Santa. See, Elves work for Santa, not angels, and-"
"Can I have a new bike?"
"Well I don't know, you'll have to write to Santa and ask him-"
"And another Action Man?"
"Again, Dewey, I can't make that decision-" Angel tried, but to no avail. His sharp ears caught the sounds of Faith's muffled laughter, trying hard as she was to control her giggles as she listened to her baby brother talking Angel in circles.
"And I wanna go back to the zoo and see the tigers! I named them Stanley and French Fry and I miss them."
"I'm not an Elf! I'm tall! Faith, would you stop laughing and do something please!?" the original vampire with a soul finally lost his cool, frustrated beyond measure with the child.
"Look, Angel, why don't you just hang up the phone? Just a thought," Faith reasoned, regaining control of herself.
"Right. I'll talk to you soon, Faith. Call me if you need anything."
"Will do, boss. See ya."
Faith moved to hang the phone up, and the last thing she heard as she took the receiver away from her ear was Dewey's voice chattering, "Bye Angel. Say hi to Santa for me!"
* * * * *
Hope you liked! Oh, and I have another question- I haven't seen the end of the Malcolm season (crappy far behind Australian tv) and I wanna know what the baby's name & sex turns out to be, or is it like their last name & kinda unknown??? If anyone knows this PLEASE review & tell me. I'll be an eternally grateful little kitten. ~Anoron
* * * * *
"Hi, Francis," Lois crowed into the phone. Faith and Hal exchanged worried glances as they slunk out of the kitchen. Whatever Lois was planning, it didn't bode too well for the eldest brother of the family.
"Mom! How are you? Back from your sister's already?" Francis chattered over the line.
"Yeah, something came up," Lois returned a little bitterly, looking pointedly over to where Faith was now busy teaching Reese, Dewey and even Hal a few simple offensive manoeuvres she'd picked up through her years of battle. Malcolm had come out of his room, but he sat stonily on the couch, refusing to meet his sister's eyes.
"Really? What?" Francis asked, blissfully unaware of his impending doom.
Lois chose this moment to pounce. "Well, Francis, how about the fact that after five years in California, your sister came home!?"
"Faith is there? Is she ok?"
Lois could hear the relief and the surprise echoing down the phone line from her firstborn son. She closed her eyes a second, realising that because of the short life expectancy of Slayers, as Faith had just explained to them, Francis fully expected that he would never see his big sister alive again.
"Yes, she's fine. And now what I want to know is; WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT HER!?"
Francis tried to stutter an explanation, but he couldn't get a word in edgeways around his mother.
"I am so disappointed in you! All this time you knew! You knew and you didn't say a word. Francis, I'd ship you right off to Military School again if I could!! For all the good it did!"
The four rumbling in the living room had stopped to listen. Faith's eyebrows shot up. "Military School?" she mouthed.
"Yes, about a year after you left, we decided it was the best environment for your brother, to help him straighten out," Hal informed her. He thought to himself for a minute. Francis had always been incredibly difficult, but it was only after Faith's disappearance that he had become completely uncontrollable. "Though now in retrospect I think I might understand why he got so out of hand."
"So where is he now?"
"He dropped out and ran off to Alaska to get married. Now he's the foreman of a Dude Ranch run by a couple of crazy Germans," Reese interjected.
"And Mom hates his wife Piama," Dewey supplied.
"She does not," Hal tried to protest, but to no avail. All three of his youngest children just gave him a nonplussed look.
In the kitchen, Lois could still be heard screaming into the phone, and Faith hurried in there to see if she could ease the situation. "Uh, Mom? Can I use the phone? I gotta make a quick call," Faith interrupted, hoping she could salvage at least some of her brother's hearing. "And let me talk to Francis, too."
Lois stopped mid-rant, thrown off by the sound of Faith's voice. Faith took the opportunity to relieve her mother of the handset and slid it up to her ear. "Hey, Francis, can you hear me? Can you still hear?"
"Faith? What the hell? How are you...?" Francis trailed off, not really wanting to finish the crude question; 'how are you even alive?'
"I'm five by five," Faith responded dryly, not having missed the meaning behind Francis' question at all.
"Look, I'm gonna go talk to my boss, then I'm coming home to see you, ok? Don't go running off again until I get there." Francis' free hand was gesturing wildly at the phone for Faith to stay put until he got there, as if the movement would have any effect on the whereabouts of his sister.
"Sure. Hey, bring the missus, dying to meet her," Faith replied casually. "Look, I've gotta make a phone call but I'll see you soon, Francis."
"You bet. Listen Faith... I'm glad you're ok," Francis said in a rush as if he'd stored all his courage up to say that sentence and had only that opportunity to let it out. He hung up the phone.
Faith smiled a little to herself as she hit the disconnect button and dialled Angel's number. It was Dawn who answered the phone over at Angel Investigations.
"Hey, D, how's the new job going?"
"Faith! It's good, but I'm bored. Not much in the way of monsters or whatnot so far. Apparently that's a good thing, though. But I still don't understand Cordelia's filing system, coz she sure ain't using the alphabet! You get home ok?"
"Sure did, brat. Can I talk to Angel, is he around?"
"Yeah, hang on a sec."
Faith listened in amusement as the phone made the light thudding sound of being dropped on the desk and Dawn's voice screamed out loud enough so that Faith was almost sure she would hear it all the way from LA even without the phone; "Angel! Phone!"
"Coulda hollered that out myself, D," she muttered as Angel picked up the receiver to greet her.
"Faith, you got home ok?"
"Why does everyone keep asking me that? Like they think I'd jump off the wagon half way or something?" Faith asked, a little touched by the concern but mostly just irritated.
"Or most likely that you'd wrap that confiscated celica of yours around a tree," Angel amended. "So how's it really going there? How's your family?"
With a quick glance to her family still together in the living room, naturally arguing over nothing, Faith replied with a bemused, "Seems like old times. I just wanted to let you know I arrived in one piece, and somehow after talking to my family I'm *still* in one piece..."
"You talked to your family about... everything?" Angel asked a little delicately. He felt like Faith's sponsor in the struggle for redemption, and he was a little guilty at not having been there at such a critical moment of her continuing recovery. "What did they say?"
"Yeah, I told them," Faith dropped her voice so she could confide in Angel privately. "They actually took it better than I expected. I mean, Mom and Dad sure weren't happy about it, and I don't think Dewey even understands. Reese is kinda still stuck in the violent caveman world where he thinks being a fugitive makes me the ultimate cool. I'm gonna tell Francis when he comes home, it's just Mal... Malcolm hates me, Angel."
"He doesn't," Angel assured her. "It's a big thing for people to just understand, and he'll deal with it as best he can. It might not be easy, but one day he will be able to look at you without that cloud over his eyes. All you can do is try and be the sort of sister he wants to look at."
"Um, Angel? That's actually kinda gross?" Faith smirked, as usual taking a dirty spin on Angel's words and lightening the atmosphere. "Look, I just wanted to give you the number here, in case you guys decide to let Angelus out of the cage again or something. You got a pen?"
Angel wrote down the phone number Faith dictated to him over the phone, and Faith secretly marvelled that she remembered it so effortlessly after all this time. She was just about to hang up when a soft rustling sound indicated that someone had picked up the extension and was listening in.
"Hi, I'm Dewey," a carefree young voice chirped. "Who are you?"
"Ugh. Dew, put down the phone," Faith said, but she was ignored by both males on the line.
"Hi Dewey," Angel gave his best effort at being friendly to the child, but Faith had to admit he sounded a little overzealous. He had definitely missed out on this stage of Connor's childhood. "I'm Angel."
"Angel? You're an angel? Do you work for Santa?" Dewey asked excitedly.
"Uh, no- I'm not *an* angel, my name is Angel," the two and a half centuries old vampire tried to explain to the child less than a decade old.
"Oh, I've been really good this year, can you tell Santa I haven't burnt down anything at all yet? And even if I did take all that money off those people, I returned it so I shouldn't really get in trouble. And I didn't mean to fall into the tiger cage at the zoo, and anyway, Reese was the one that threw the goat in and got it killed so that wasn't really my fault either..."
"Dewey! Hang up the phone!" Faith tried again, straining to keep the laughter out of her voice. A part of her was dying to see how Angel would handle this.
"Um, ok," Angel said, really not wanting to understand anything at all that Dewey had just said. "But I don't know Santa. See, Elves work for Santa, not angels, and-"
"Can I have a new bike?"
"Well I don't know, you'll have to write to Santa and ask him-"
"And another Action Man?"
"Again, Dewey, I can't make that decision-" Angel tried, but to no avail. His sharp ears caught the sounds of Faith's muffled laughter, trying hard as she was to control her giggles as she listened to her baby brother talking Angel in circles.
"And I wanna go back to the zoo and see the tigers! I named them Stanley and French Fry and I miss them."
"I'm not an Elf! I'm tall! Faith, would you stop laughing and do something please!?" the original vampire with a soul finally lost his cool, frustrated beyond measure with the child.
"Look, Angel, why don't you just hang up the phone? Just a thought," Faith reasoned, regaining control of herself.
"Right. I'll talk to you soon, Faith. Call me if you need anything."
"Will do, boss. See ya."
Faith moved to hang the phone up, and the last thing she heard as she took the receiver away from her ear was Dewey's voice chattering, "Bye Angel. Say hi to Santa for me!"
* * * * *
Hope you liked! Oh, and I have another question- I haven't seen the end of the Malcolm season (crappy far behind Australian tv) and I wanna know what the baby's name & sex turns out to be, or is it like their last name & kinda unknown??? If anyone knows this PLEASE review & tell me. I'll be an eternally grateful little kitten. ~Anoron