Travel Companions (6/?)

by pari

Disclaimers: Draco and Hermione and all their lot belong to J.K. The Sunnyville crew belong to Joss. I've got nothing. This is simply for fun, not profit.

Feedback: please.

Archive: ask and you shall receive.

A/N: The author's note in the last chapter was tagged on a short while after I'd posted chapter 4. There hadn't been more than one review at the time :p I have gotten quite a few nice reviews since then…I just forgot to delete the AN complaining that I hadn't :p So don't feel as though I've forgotten you, you lovely people you who left feedback for chapters four and five :)

A/N: Finally - finally - the fandoms in the crossover have crossed over. My apologies for the wait (if you were waiting).

Thanks: to all who have sent me feedback for this fic :) (especially you, Stacy :)

Past parts can be found here: thing about closing Hellmouths is, if you're the kind of girl who likes to raise a little hell yourself - and have spent the last few years of your life either doing just that, or slaying - then life without a Hellmouth can get to be pretty boring.

Sure, there are perks - more time to party; less time scrubbing bloodstains and slime out of your favorite pairs of jeans. Less death-of-innocent-bystanders.

And Faith had to admit - not having had to avert an apocalypse in several months had been pretty nice. After having averted two, Faith just found apocalypses annoying.

But barring all that, Faith sort of missed the Hellmouth sometimes. Vamp-ass kicking just wasn't what it used to be. There were very few around these days, and hardly any demons. And the vampires that did turn out, were less Big Bad than they were Big Bore. Most of them didn't even talk while Faith was trying to kill them, and that really pissed her off. If she was going to drag her happy ass out of bed, and trudge all the way down to a nasty old cemetery just to kill something…then the least that something could do was make with the witty repartee while the obligatory killing commenced.

Something told Faith that tonight would be different when she arrived at cemetery numero cinco and felt this…this something prickling beneath her skin. It was the same kinda feeling Faith got when she came up against something new and really not fun to come up against. Or the first time Willow had gone all Red-Headed Witch of the West in front of her.

Then she saw them - the vampires. Her vampires, turning to dust right there, unslayed.

Or… Yeah. Slayed, obviously. But not by her. By some little brunette in jeans and a sweatshirt and a way big mumu. And she had a friend. Faith saw only the back of him - black clothing, blonde…hair…

Faith shook her head. For a moment, she was reminded of… And she opened her mouth to speak. "Who the…"

That's when the ground suddenly disappeared and everything went dark.

[]

Faith regained consciousness in a motel room. Or what might have been a motel room before someone went Giles all over the place. The room reeked of dusty old books like the ones the Watcher liked to pore over whenever he got the chance.

Of course, Giles's books didn't have as many teeth.

Literally.

Faith shook her head, then looked in the direction of what she groggily decided must be the sound of a dog chewing. It wasn't a dog, but a book - trying to chew on her chair leg. Mostly it was just getting its pages all crinkled up, and making a lot of noise. But still…

Faith went to kick at the odd spectacle, and maybe cuss a little. How the hell did she end up in a motel room cum library a-la-Giles, and a chair-eating textbook? And, more importantly, would the book start in on her ankle after it had finished trying to maul her chair?

But then Faith realized she couldn't cuss. She couldn't kick. She couldn't even open her mouth. She was frozen stiff; all she could move were her eyes, and those danced around the room now wildly. If Faith's muscles hadn't been entirely out of her control, they would have tensed like coiled springs. Surprises weren't really Faith's thing. And waking in a strange motel room, unable to move, with demonic reading material growling at her feet definitely fell under the category of Surprises With a Capital…

"Hey!"

A man's voice captured Faith's attention. British accent…just a little different than Giles's or Wesley's or Spike's.

Then a black boot entered Faith's line of sight, kicking the book gnawing on the chair leg beneath her across the room and under a bed. The book squealed as it skidded along the floor and thudded against a wall, unseen. Faith followed the boot with her eyes, until they set upon the face of the boot's owner.

"Pesky bugger. Didn't mean to leave you alone with Granger's little guinea pig. Forgot it was here, honestly. We just went to grab a bite to eat. Pity about those boots. Muggle-made, are they?"

'Nice,' Faith thought. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting when she'd looked up, but it wasn't this stranger - with a nice body hidden beneath expensive clothes, and unusual features (delicate and sharp at the same time), and those strange, grey eyes. Faith wasn't so surprised she didn't recognize a good-looking guy when she saw one.

Of course, she wasn't so hard-up she minded kicking said hottie's hot little ass, either.

And would have said so, if her lips weren't so damned useless all of a sudden.

Whatever. Faith let her angry eyes speak for her. And nearly went dizzy with rage when the blonde just arched a brow at her expression, then stretched out on one of the room's beds, with his ankles crossed and his hands behind his head.

"Malfoy, enough with the boots already," came a feminine voice from just outside Faith's vision, as Faith noticed for the first time the scuff marks on her new Docs.

Okay. That settled it. She was kicking blondie's ass, and the demonic book, all the way from here to the next Hellmouth.

"And that better not have been you kicking my book I just heard. It's testy enough as it is. There's no telling what it'll get up to now if you've abused it."

Then Malfoy's companion - the girl Faith had seen in the cemetery - came into view, carrying two large plastic bags of what smelled like Chinese. Up close, Faith saw that the "girl" was a little older than she'd looked from far off - maybe Faith's age. She had shoulder-length auburn hair and brown eyes, and that slightly pinched expression Faith had only seen before on a Watcher. Or two.

"Oh!" The girl said suddenly, blinking as she took a look at Faith, startled. "You're awake!"

Malfoy snorted before Faith could think to try. "Well, of course she's awake, Granger. Did you think I was talking to her in her sleep?"

Granger didn't strike Faith as the type to give as good as she got, but she turned to the blond with a look on her face that suggested this sort of thing happened between the two of them all the time.

"What? You can bathe a woman in her sleep, but not make inane conversation to her?" Granger glared at her companion and pulled a skinny little stake out of her muumuu.

Faith was torn between amusement and concern. That was one wimpy ass stake, yo. But Faith couldn't scratch her nose right now, much less take on muumuu girl and her twig, whatever she planned on doing with it.

Which blondie obviously took issue with, seeing as he was off the bed and at Granger's side, holding the hand that held her stick in one of his, before even Faith had seen him move.

'Very nice,' Faith thought. Maybe tonight would be un-boring for a change.

[ to be continued…]