Author note: Strong language in this chapter. Just to warn you of what is coming. Please read and review.

Chapter Four – You Can Run

June 2004

"Giles afraid that I rabbited again?" Faith asked.

"Can you blame him?" Xander answered her as he stood at the doorway of the cottage where she was staying. "I come in?"

"Not like you actually need the invitation. Yeah," she told him, waving him in behind her.

Xander quietly closed the door, crossing his arms over his chest. Like he was waiting for her to start the conversation. Man, he could be irritating as hell, she thought.

"What'd they find, Xander?" she finally asked.

Xander sighed, pulling a hand through his now much longer hair. Along with the patch on his eye, and the scruffy face, he really did start to look the pirate role. She could see why women would find it sexy.

"They found lots of demon parts and a body."

Faith had been holding her breath right after she asked the question. Either that made her lightheaded or the realization that they found evidence of a battle did. It had taken them long enough. Ten days was way too long to wait for answers.

"Do they know who?" Faith managed to croak out before she hit the sofa with a thud.

"Yeah. Willow seems to think so. The body was badly decomposed. From what the person was wearing, she seems to think that it was someone named Gunn."

Faith swallowed hard. She had hoped that the man had at least survived whatever battle they had participated in. Gunn was strong, resourceful, had your back in a fight. It just wasn't fair at all.

"They're gonna take care of it. Some of his buddies had already been looking for him. They'll give him a proper funeral."

"Nothing else?" she whispered.

"Nah. Willow was surprised that no one had come upon the scene. She said there were some wicked black magicks rolling around, probably hiding the carnage. Even made her sick."

So no other evidence made her worry even more. Giles had been informed of a big battle between a lot of demons and Angel. So where were the others?

"He's probably dust by now, Faith. He went down fighting. You know that."

Which is the way Angel would want to die, she thought. But that wasn't her only concern.

"You should come back to Cleveland now," Xander announced, moving in front of her.

He crouched down, taking her hand in his. She couldn't go back now, if ever. "No. I'm gonna stay here for a little while longer."

"The offer still stands, Faith."

And it wasn't an offer that she would ever take him up on. Throwing himself to the wolves wasn't at all what she wanted him to do. Even if it was for her.

"I can't," she simply answered him.

Xander patted her hand and kissed her cheek. He left with a wave and a nod.

Early the next morning, he came by again, hoping to convince Faith for her own good that she needed to be back in Cleveland with the others. The door was wide open as he pulled up in his car. Cautiously, he walked up the stairs. Looking around the cabin, he found that all of her possessions were gone. She had disappeared, again. And this time, Xander didn't think that she would want to be found.

"Food, right now," Faith announced as the sun peeked over the horizon.

It was barely morning. Wesley's stomach growled in agreement. He hadn't eaten a decent meal in a few days. Even at the wedding, he had stuck to drinking his meal, instead of partaking in the rubber chicken. They were still on the two-lane road that should have led them past the accident by now.

"Whatever," he groggily told her.

"Greasy diner. My favorite."

Figures, he thought. His least favorite place to eat. He had eaten in these types of places way too much, often because they were cheap enough for him to afford them, and more often enough because they had the strongest coffee when he was coming off a vicious hangover.

They had only been on the road for maybe nine hours at the most. It didn't seem like they had made much progress. It would probably take much longer to reach California than he had anticipated.

Faith practically pulled him out of the car into the diner. There were a few people about since it looked like they had just opened. The smell of strong coffee made his brain clear just a little.

"Do I pick great, or what?"

He wanted to groan back in response, but the joy on her face was unmistakable. She wanted him to be proud of her about something. It might as well be her choice in dining.

"Just as long as they have coffee."

"Grump," she shot back.

He smiled a little at her, because he knew she was correct. His back hurt from sleeping in the car, his stomach felt queasy, and his head was ready to explode. Maybe a hangover was much better.

"Why are you so chipper?" he asked as they sat down in a booth.

"Oh, come on. The sun is rising. It's a new day. And I want pancakes, lots and lots of pancakes."

Someone else in his life loved pancakes. But he didn't want to destroy Faith's good mood by telling her that. It was rare that he had even seen her smile, much less be in a good mood.

"What are you having Wes?"

"Coffee. Maybe some oatmeal."

"Nope. You need protein." Faith waved the waitress over while looking at the menu. "He'll have the number two special. How do you like your eggs?"

His brain was still so foggy, that he didn't realize that now she was ordering for him. "Over easy?"

"OK, toast too. Some oatmeal on the side. I'll have the number three, with bacon on the side. And lots and lots of coffee."

The waitress looked at him, smiling as she walked away. She quickly brought the two of them cups, slowly pouring him the black stuff. What he wouldn't do for a nice cup of tea. But he needed the caffeine jolt to clear his mind.

"Thank you," he told the waitress.

"Any time," she answered back.

Faith's expression became a little cloudy now. Her scowl told him that something was bothering her yet again. He really didn't want to play twenty questions with her this early in the morning.

"Is there a problem?" he cautiously asked her, having no clue whatsoever to the sudden change in mood.

"Why do you do that?"

"What? Ask you a question?"

"Be so polite. Did you see the way she flirted with you?"

Wesley shook his head. The waitress wasn't flirting with him. Women for the most part didn't flirt with him. Even Lilah didn't flirt with him. Cordelia had been the last woman to actually flirt with him and that had ended disastrously. He thought that his disheveled appearance would scare any woman off. Obviously Faith thought different.

"I seem to be quite dense this morning, Faith."

"Typical man," Faith mumbled under her breath.

The waitress came back over again, to see if they needed refills on their coffee. It had only been maybe three or four minutes since she sat the mugs down on the table.

"The food should be out shortly," she told them, smiling down at him again.

Good Lord, Faith was correct. Wesley watched as the waitress's expression changed to a scowl as she looked over at Faith. Faith just grinned up in response, a challenge spread across her face.

"Faith, why on earth do you care what that waitress is doing?"

"Just not right. You're here with me. And it's just tacky."

Now that was the understatement of the year. Faith wasn't exactly the poster child for taste most of the time. Her actions and her dress were usually on the side of risqué. And her language was anything if not challenging to say the least.

"Don't worry. I'll just be oblivious like all the other males of the species."

"You go on and do that."

The waitress quickly brought their meal out. Wesley smiled up at her, politely telling her thank you again, which earned a kick under the table from Faith. He grimaced a little, thankful that she hadn't put any power behind the kick. Faith smiled at him again, but then dug into her food with abandon. He found that he was quite hungry also, glad that Faith had ordered him more than just the small bowl of oatmeal.

Faith downed her meal quickly, rubbing her belly in delight as she finished her last piece of toast. Quietly sipping her coffee, she watched him over the rim of her cup.

"Is there something else I missed? Perhaps a sign from the cook too?"

"Don't be such a smartass."

"I'm not sure why you would think that any woman intelligent enough to put two words together would even take a gander at me."

"Gander? What the hell does that mean? I'm a girl, OK. I notice these things, you know."

Yes, he had noticed that Faith was a girl. Even looking rumpled from a night of driving, she still looked fresh and ready to go. He must look frightful. That must be why the waitress was hovering. Maybe she thought that there was something wrong with him.

"She probably thinks I had a hard night."

"Not too hard though. You look like you've been good and thoroughly fu . . . ," Faith almost finished before he had a chance to put his hand over her mouth.

The waitress had walked up behind Faith without her seeing. He was lucky that he headed her off from her comment. Faith bit his hand to get him to remove it.

"More coffee?"

Wesley shook his head yes, wanting more caffeine to flow through his system so he could actually keep up with Faith. He just hoped when they got on the road she would calm down and sleep for a while. And they needed to find their way back to the interstate.

"That hurt," he whispered to Faith as the waitress disappeared behind the counter.

"You should know better than to shut me up."

"And you think that the waitress is tacky?"

"Hey, I was just talking. Nothing to it."

The waitress brought over the check, handing it to Wesley. Faith grabbed it out of his hands and went to pay for it at the cash register. Wesley finished his coffee as Faith paid for the breakfast.

"More coffee?" the waitress asked again, clearly glad that Faith wasn't sitting at the table with him.

"If I have any more, I will float out of here."

"Nothing like a strong cup of coffee to wake you up in the morning," she answered back.

"Come on, lover. Let's motor," Faith called from the door.

"Yes, dear," Wesley managed to grumble out, watching the waitress's face fall at the endearment.

Faith snickered as they reached the car. "It's a wonder some woman hasn't pussy-whipped you yet," she said as she got into the passenger side.

Wesley stopped and banged his head on the side of the car slightly, hoping that he would wake up from whatever nightmare he was living. Pulling the door open, he noticed the look of merriment in Faith's eyes. She really did love embarrassing him to the extreme.

"And it's a wonder why a man would even want to date you because you're such a bitch," he got out as he started the car.

"Coffee's workin', Watcher," she told him, laughing in response.

"Let's just find some gas and get the hell out of here."

Wesley found a gas station on the outskirts of the town in which they had just eaten. The air had gotten considerably cooler since they had stopped for breakfast. The clouds were rolling in, maybe indicating rain. He just hoped that it didn't snow before they found their way back to the interstate.

Getting back into the car, he drove off as Faith opened the map back up, trying to plot their course of action.

"We should be close to the interstate, Faith. We don't need the map just yet."

"Well, we should be heading in the right direction. It's just the signs don't match. Why don't we stop and ask for directions?"

"I know where we are going. It shouldn't be long now."

"Why is it that men cannot stop and ask for directions?"

"Because I plotted the course last night. We should be fine."

They passed a sign that told them the route they were using was taking them north, instead of south, which was what he thought he had plotted.

"You were driving last night. What happened?" he accused her.

"I followed your directions. Did you ever think that you possibly could be wrong? Oh, wait. That's right. You're never wrong, are you Wes?"

"Occasionally I am wrong. But you were driving."

"You know, you could have driven if it worried you so much about the way we were going."

The fighting wasn't getting them anywhere fast. They were going the wrong way. So he pulled over to the side of the road. There wasn't another car in sight.

"Then you drive," he told her as he wrenched the door open.

"I will, you dork. I bet I can get us to where we need to go," she announced as she got out of the car too.

Wesley stomped over to the side of the road to change places with Faith. She scowled at him, but moved out of the way as he started to get into the car.

"Bastard," she told him before he stepped in.

"Why do you have to insult me?" he asked.

He stopped his forward progress into the car. The clouds on the horizon got darker and more ominous, just like his mood.

"Jerk," she answered back, putting her hands on her hips.

"I am not a jerk nor am I a bastard."

She looked up at him, ready to challenge him. He just hoped it wasn't to a physical altercation, because she would have him pinned to the ground in seconds flat. And the ground was a bit rocky and uneven under his feet.

"How about son of a bitch? Dumbass? Am I getting warmer?" she growled at him.

She had moved over to stand directly in front of him. If she were going to take him down, now would be her opportunity. He stood his ground, glaring down at her. She could take her best shot, he thought. She might not like the results. He still had a colorful store of insults built up in his brain to call her.

"Go ahead, watcher. Call me a name and see what will happen."

She really did want a physical confrontation. Instead, he reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from her face, and placed it behind her ear. Her sharp, piercing brown eyes melted right in front of him. They practically swam with tears at his actions. She had wanted to spar with him. All she got was a touch, which shut her up.

Before he could reply to her expression, the heavens decided to open up and deposit a deluge of cold rain. Instead of letting her take over the driving, he ran back around the car, getting soaked just in those few steps. So now, he really couldn't tell if she was really going to cry because of his tenderness. No one had shown her tenderness in her life that he knew of. Now he figured out how she could be calmed. He smiled at the thought.

"Fuck," she whispered. "What now?"

Wesley grabbed the map from the console and reopened it, finally finding the route they had traveled.

"If we go north for a few more miles, we can connect with another road, which should take us back to the interstate. It will take some time."

"Sorry," she blurted out.

"For what?" he hesitantly asked her.

"I must have missed a turn or something. At some construction or something. The signs were hard to read and I didn't want to wake you up."

Faith hid her face from him with her wet, becoming curly hair.

"It's much harder to drive in the dark when you don't know where you are going. It'll be fine."

"Yeah," she said, not raising her head to meet his eyes.

Starting the car, he turned on the heat. "Cold?"

"A little," she shortly answered.

He thought he liked it better when she was angry with him. It was when she shut down emotionally that he knew there could be trouble.

"We'll find our way back to the interstate. Maybe stay in a real motel tonight and get some rest. Why don't you rest now?"

"Good idea. I am tired," she readily agreed.

Wesley pulled his wet jacket off before getting back on the road, placing it between the seats. Faith was asleep quickly, hair still damp in the now steamy car. Wesley managed to take his jacket with one hand and place it over her. It wasn't wet on the inside since he was quick to get out of the rain before it soaked through.

As she slept, he occasionally looked over at her face, so peaceful in slumber. She looked so young and vulnerable when she was asleep. He just wished she looked that way while she was awake. Faith was always on alert, always making sure everyone around her knew she was in control. What would she be like if she wasn't in control? Probably somewhat like she looked as she tortured him so long ago. But she had control now, over herself especially. That was why she hated it that he pointed out that she took a wrong turn. It wasn't that she wanted to be right. She just didn't want to be wrong, about anything.

The rain gradually turned into sleet, which made the driving a bit more treacherous and slick. Wesley had to slow down considerably. They would be lucky to reach the interstate by nightfall if the weather kept up what it was doing at the moment. And if it became any colder, it would snow. And he surely didn't know if the car had snow tires. He rather doubted it very much, since it was one of Angel's stable of cars. One didn't need snow tires in Southern California.

Wesley had figured out they were in Nebraska somewhere. Small towns and large farms were the only evidence of civilization that he had seen. He just hoped that one of those small towns possessed somewhere to stay the night.

He awoke Faith when it was time for lunch. They ate in virtual silence at a fast food place along the route, getting them quickly back on the road. Faith hadn't said more than two words to him as they traveled along in the car.

"Faith, I wanted to apologize," he started.

"Why do you do that? Always say you're sorry? You know, I'd rather you call me a piece of shit than apologize every few seconds for something that was my fault in the first place."

He wanted to tell her that was just the way he was brought up, to be polite and gracious. And all he could think about though was the fact that this was his coping mechanism around his father when he made an error. Even when he apologized for translating wrong or for not getting a perfect score on some test, his father would still punish him, whether it was physical or just a harsh scolding. It had become a hard habit to break. Even Cordelia and Angel had told him not to apologize for every problem that happened.

"You are not a piece of shit, Faith."

"I was then."

So that was what was bothering her. He had almost put the incident out of his mind after she had proved herself again in his eyes. She had reformed herself. And he had blamed himself for treating her so poorly in the first place. His role in the whole drama was significant.

"You were troubled. Yes, you were to blame. So was I."

"No one deserves what I did to you."

"No. You are right. I didn't deserve it. Nor did you deserve the watcher that you had in Sunnydale. I know now that they would have killed you if they had taken you back to England that first time."

Faith folded her knees up in front of her, looking like she was trying to make herself smaller and smaller.

"Would you like me to stop?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she managed to get out. "I'm glad you helped me out with those fuckheads."

"So am I, Faith. So am I."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes straight forward.

This was the first time she had actually said the words out loud. He knew she was sorry for what she had done to him. And he also knew she wasn't capable of that kind of action now. He just hoped she believed it too.

He reached over and took her hand in his, squeezing to reassure her that he accepted her apology.

"You're still a jerk," she told him, a slight smile on her lips, still holding on to his hand for dear life.

"Comes with the territory," he smirked back.

TBC

Next: More hijinks on the road. They really didn't fight in this chapter. They need another fight. Or something physical. Oh, I don't know. Come back and read, please, please. I'm begging. OK, I'll stop now.

Author notes: I hope everyone is getting what I'm trying to do here. Every chapter will start off with Faith as she is right after "Not Fade Away" happened, moving on into the future. Then I will go into what happened on the trip. Please, please, if you figure out what is going on, e-mail me. Don't spoil it if people are looking at the reviews. I just hope I'm dribbling it out enough so people are getting enough info, but not enough to figure it out. Oh, come on, I like mysteries.

Thanks go out to all you great reviewers again. First, there is a great fic by Xenon that you all have to read. It's about Wes as a ghost and Angel as Buffy's guardian angel. It's really great stuff. Thought I'd plug it here. One slick, good piece of writing. Please review it too. Thanks to Wav, pari106, Illyria639 and everyone else. This one is getting more and more exciting the more chapters I write.

Answers to questions:

Wav—I love you! I'm serious, you know that (I hope people get my sarcasm, but I really do love the reviewers at this site)

Pari106—you'll see what happens; I bet you figure it out, just not too soon though. I'm practicing my mystery writing style in this one. Let's hope it works.

Illyria639—Thanks so much for the review; I'm trying. And hey, you answered my trivia question. That movie was absolutely horrible. The only thing good about it was him playing the Russian guy. There were so many actors in that movie that couldn't act to save their lives. And the script was kinda scary it was so bad. And lastly, I'm not telling you what will happen, exactly. We'll see.