CHAPTER 9
"Okay, give us a few minutes," Buffy told Faith. She hung up and stepped back on the pier. "Dawn, we're gonna have to interrupt our little dip in the lake for a bit. Faith's at the bus station in town and we need to go get her." Dawn was momentarily crestfallen, until Buffy added, "Tony, since you're a local, you want to show us how to get there?"
"Sure," he smiled. "Faith's the dark-haired gal who got on the chopper with the wounded, right?"
Rather than changing out of their bathing suits or wearing them wet under their jeans and T-shirts, the two sisters put on robes that they'd brought along. Tony decided to wear his T-shirt and his wet trunks while sitting on a towel; he took the front passenger seat of the Mercedes as, to Dawn's unspoken gratitude, Buffy volunteered to sit in the back.
"Make a left on the highway," he told Dawn as they went around the driveway and out the exit through the woods. "So you don't like to drive, Buffy?"
"Not really," she replied.
"Buffy only drives in life-or-death situations," Dawn chuckled. "Like the last time she drove-"
"Watch it, Dawnie!" Buffy said. "Remember, we were all affected by Mr. Hottie Quarterback's Enchanted Letterman's Jacket! Even Willow!"
"And, as you pointed out to me, none of us were responsible for our actions." Dawn glanced over to Tony. "Another one of those 'It could only happen in Sunnydale' stories. You had to be there."
"Okay," Tony nodded. "So going back to the other 'Only in Sunnydale' story, what happened to the costume shop proprietor?"
"Oh, yes. Ethan. After that incident, he kept on turning up like a bad penny," Buffy replied, "until one time he turned Giles into a Fyarl demon... You being in the Army and everything, have you ever heard of the Initiative?"
"Not through the military. I've heard stories and rumors, mostly from your grandfather and mine."
"Anyway," Buffy continued, "after I caught up with Ethan and kicked his ass and made him turn Giles back, a friend of mine who was in the Initiative had them haul him away for 'rehabilitation'. Hopefully we won't see him again."
They continued down the winding highway, through the woods and occasionally getting a glimpse of the lake. As they approached Keogh City proper, the area became more developed, the woods less desolate with more houses. As they passed a driveway that led down to a lakeside redwood house similar to but smaller than Carl's, Tony pointed out, "That's my family's place, where I'm staying."
As they passed the city limits, they drove past a few more affluent homes on big lots, especially those on the lake side of the highway, and then went past the gateway to the University of California Keogh City campus. As Tony pointed out the student center, library and other landmarks, the two sisters noted with little surprise that the architecture was quite similar to that of UC Sunnydale, if slightly more modern.
"So what's campus life like here?" Buffy asked. "Is it really that much of a party school? Grandpa was telling us just before you arrived how he had to stop renting his place out as student housing because they were a little too rowdy."
"If I remember right, that was several years back," Tony replied. "The school still has its moments, but it's mellowed out a little. From what I've heard about UC Sunnydale, they were a little wilder than we are."
"Probably because of the Hellmouth," Buffy nodded.
"So how far away's the nearest mall?" Dawn asked.
"From here, just about five miles, on the other side of town," Tony said. "All the modern amenities, but the city council made sure it was in the next valley, out of sight from the lake. Didn't want to ruin the aesthetics of the view."
"I can understand that," Dawn nodded.
Just past the campus, they came through an old commercial zone with a theater, coffee houses, bookstores, small specialty shops and restaurants, which reminded Buffy and Dawn of Maple Court in Sunnydale where The Magic Box, the Sun Cinema and the Espresso Pump had been. The main street then passed through the Town Square, which sloped down to a marina on the lake, and up to City Hall, the Public Library and the bus station.
Dawn pulled the Mercedes into the loading zone in front of the bus station. Tony opened the door and then helped Buffy out of the back seat. Since there was a lot of activity on the lake that day, even in her bathing suit, robe and flip-flops, she didn't look out of place among the other people walking around in the square, and she didn't feel self-conscious as she stepped into the lobby of the bus station.
Buffy scanned the lobby, looking for Faith. She didn't see her on first glance, scanned the room back in the other direction, and was beginning to worry that whatever had forced Faith to leave Ventura had caught up with her. Until a figure in a baggy sweatshirt, jeans and a wide-brimmed straw sun hat got up from a dark corner near the phone booths and came up to her. Buffy saw that Faith was wearing sunglasses with oversized lenses and had the hat brim pulled down low over her face with her hair tucked up inside the crown, and was carrying the large tote bag she'd purchased at the Wal-Mart the day Sunnydale collapsed.
"Hey, B!" Faith whispered. "Thanks for coming! Let's get the hell out of here!"
"So what's going on?"
"Later. Gotta talk to Giles."
Dawn and Tony were still bantering pleasantly in the front seats as Buffy and Faith returned to the Mercedes. Tony got out and pushed the seat back over for the two of them to get in.
"Whoa!" Faith gasped as she got in. "Your grandpa's wheels?"
"Used to be," Buffy smiled as she got in after her. "Dawn's and mine now!" She gestured. "Faith, this is Tony Vincenzo. He's our newest Watcher."
"Hi," she nodded as she slid over to make room for Buffy, then froze. "Whoa! Tony Vincenzo? There's that name again!"
"My grandfather with the same name was their grandfather's editor," Tony said as he and Buffy sat back down and he closed the car door. Dawn started up the car and pulled out and back toward the way they'd come.
"Yeah, I know," Faith nodded. "I bought a DVD of the original Night Stalker movie. Not much to do while you're sitting in a hotel waiting for your boyfriend to recover from a stab in the gut. But the first time in the movie that Kolchak mentioned Tony Vincenzo, I thought I'd heard or read that name somewhere before. Very recently."
"Maybe you read my name tag while we were on the helicopter?" Tony grinned.
Faith gulped and then froze again. "You were on that helicopter?"
"Yep," he nodded.
She remained frozen. "That means you're in the National Guard!"
"Yep."
She turned white. "That means you work for both the State and Federal governments."
"Part time, yeah."
"So Faith. Why'd you have to bug out of Ventura so suddenly?" Dawn asked.
"Later, Dawn," she replied testily, then added. "Gotta talk to Giles."
Tony faced forward, and the canary-eating grin he'd had when they were first introduced to him returned. He waited in silence until they were passing back through the university campus before saying with the continued grin, "Uh, Faith, I already know you're an escaped convict."
There was a collective gasp from the three girls. "How?" Dawn asked. "Grandpa doesn't even know!"
"Like I said, I'm not assigned to the Medevac unit, I was just helping them out that day. But a buddy of mine on that crew called me last night. This past weekend was their regularly scheduled monthly drill weekend, and he told me some deputy warden from the women's prison in Stockton-"
"Eberly!" Faith murmured.
"I didn't catch his name. But anyway, he came by the Medevac unit and questioned the chopper crew. Showed them your mug shot, asking if you were one of the people we evacuated from Sunnydale."
"So he's hot on your trail," Buffy said.
"Listen, Faith," Tony said. "I'm now a Watcher. I'm not on the payroll yet, but I'm one of you now. As far as working for the government part time goes, as long as what you do falls within the realm of plausible deniability, if anyone asks, I'm going to pretend that I didn't recognize you from the chopper, okay?"
"Okay," Faith replied, still a little numb. "Thanks. Yeah, Eberly's hot on my trail. Real hot. I was visiting Robin at the hospital this morning when I just happened to look out the window just as he was getting out of his car in the lot across the street. I barely took the time to tell Robin what was going on, then got out by a back exit. I ran back to the hotel, just threw everything I had in the bag and left without checking out. Took the train to LA, tried to call Giles at the hotel. When Andrew told me you were all up here, I figured it'd be a good way to make my trail go cold if I came up here directly instead of going to Glendale."
"The Sunnydale Police must've tipped this guy off after the fight at The Bronze," Dawn said.
"Probably," Faith nodded. "Eberly's probably grilling Robin at his bedside right now."
"Robin's not going to give away anything," Buffy said, then explained to Tony, "He's the first new Watcher who's joined us since The First Evil started killing off the old Watchers. His mom was a Slayer, her Watcher raised him after she was killed."
"Got news for you," Faith managed a laugh. "Robin doesn't even know my real last name, let alone my real story!"
"That helps," Dawn nodded. "What made you pick Tasker for an alias, anyway?"
"Little inside joke," Faith smiled. "I always thought I looked like the daughter in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis."
"Faith Lehane?" Robin Wood squinted at the man. "I didn't even know that was her real name."
"And yet she's been visiting you every day since you arrived in this hospital, according to the security cameras."
"Come on, Mr... Eberly, was it?" Robin was genuinely annoyed. He'd never met his deceased predecessor from Sunnydale High, Principal Snyder, but reputation and old pictures suggested that the officious man in the dark suit with the thinning hair now sitting at his bedside could have been Snyder's taller and heavier kid brother. "In your line of work, what percentage of your convicts have a shady past that they've kept from even their closest intimates?"
"Is that what you are to Miss Lehane? A close intimate?"
Robin gave him an angry none of your damned business glare, then decided he wasn't up for a full-on confrontation. "You may draw your own conclusions. All I know is that this morning, about an hour and a half before you came in here, she looked out the window and then told me she had to leave, that she was going to be out of touch for a while, and the less I knew why, the better."
"Where is she staying?"
"One of the hotels here in town."
"Which one?"
"Oceanside, Oceanview, Ocean Park, Ocean something!"
Deputy Warden Eberly gave him an angry glare.
"Hell, I've never been there!" Robin shrugged. "I haven't been off this floor since I got out of surgery!"
"All right," Eberly continued to glare. "Faith Lehane had other associates from Sunnydale. Whom the cameras have shown she spoke to in the emergency room when you and the other wounded were brought in." He showed Robin a picture he'd been holding: a digital security camera printout of Faith, Giles, Buffy and Dawn stepping out of an elevator. "This man and the other two young women among them. They've all been to visit you here in this room."
"The other two young women," Robin sighed, "are Buffy Summers- a former employee of mine, a counselor at Sunnydale High- and her younger sister Dawn who was a student there. The gentleman is a friend of theirs, a Mr. Giles."
Eberly took out a notepad and started scribbling. "You have a first name on this Mr. Giles?"
"Reuben, Rudolf, something like that. Everyone just calls him Giles. In fact, I can't swear for sure if his name is Reuben Giles or Giles Rubin. Or Giles Rudolf. Or if Giles is spelled with a G or a J."
"And where can we find the two Misses Summers and Mr. Giles?"
"Somewhere in the LA area," Robin shrugged again.
Eberly's glare intensified. "Can you narrow that down for us?"
"Some motel or hotel. That's all I've got! They were concerned for my health but they're really not that close friends of mine." He glared back. "Definitely not 'close intimates'!"
By the time they got out to the back deck of Carl's lodge, Buffy, Dawn and Tony were getting tired of the repeated "Whoa!"s that Faith had been exclaiming with each new sight since they'd turned into the driveway. Thankfully, her last "Whoa!" came when Buffy introduced Faith to Carl and Joan."
"Whoa!" Faith said as she shook the couple's hands, then added, "I'm sorry. But damn! You two really do look like Darren McGavin and Carol Lynley! I just bought a DVD of your original movie."
"Actually," Carl laughed, "I prefer to think that they look like us! And thanks for contributing to the family fortune!"
"And this is Father Phil Vincenzo, my uncle," Tony gestured.
"Hi," Faith looked him over as they shook hands. "Does that mean that anything I say in front of you is protected by confidentiality of the clergy?"
"If you wish," Father Phil nodded.
"What's happened, Faith?" Giles asked. "Why'd you have to leave Ventura all of a sudden?"
"Stan Eberly, one of the deputy wardens at Northern California Women's. I saw him from Robin's room this morning, coming in the front door of the hospital, so I slipped out a back exit." Faith then quickly recapped her trip to LA and then to Keogh City, with Tony adding his information about the helicopter crew being questioned.
"I would say the first priority would be to get you out of California, out of their jurisdiction," Giles said. "Wouldn't you agree, Carl?"
"That'd be the smart thing to do," Carl nodded, "although I think we have time to plan this out, not rush. I can't think of anything that would link Faith to this place."
"Robin wouldn't give Eberly any indication I had any connection to you, Mr. Kolchak," Faith said to him.
"Yes," Giles nodded in agreement. "He doesn't even know where exactly in the LA suburbs we're staying."
"Good," Carl nodded. "No reason you can't hole up here for a few days until we figure out how to transport you out of state. Wouldn't want to just drive you across the border and dump you in some desert town in Nevada with no transportation, no identity to get a driver's license and a car."
"Where would I go, then?" Faith asked. "Any ideas?"
"Now that you've brought it up, Faith," Giles said, "I've always considered that, failing an attempt at convincing the State of California that you were swallowed up in the Sunnydale Crater, this present situation would become inevitable. So my idea was to kill as many birds with one stone as possible and send you to Cleveland."
"To this other Hellmouth," Faith said.
"Yes. It's never been nearly as active as the one in Sunnydale, in fact the Council has never been able to localize it. We've just seen manifestations of its existence in the form of demon activity throughout the city and particularly along the Lake Erie waterfront. But not concentrated enough to pinpoint."
"So it's like Sunnydale Lite?" Buffy quipped.
"Yes," Giles smiled back. "But that may be subject to change now that the Sunnydale Hellmouth is closed. Without that outlet, evil, like any other form of pressure, may seek release at the next weakest point."
"Oh, goody!" Faith rolled her eyes. "My very own Hellmouth, all to myself!"
"Actually, no, Faith," Giles said. "I had planned on sending at least one other Slayer with you to Cleveland. And," he nodded toward Joan, "since Mrs. Kolchak has graciously agreed to come out of retirement to supervise the academic instruction here at our new Slayer Academy, that frees your Mr. Wood to go to Cleveland with you as your Watcher!"
Faith's eyes lit up as she gasped and clutched his forearm. "You're serious?" If he was, it was the only good news she'd had all day.
"Yes, Faith," he nodded with a thin smile. "I'm not nearly as averse to romantic relationships between Slayers and Watchers as Travers and the Old Council were. Especially if the romantic relationship was established before the Slayer-Watcher partnership. And actually, Robin would be more of a Watcher to the other Slayer or Slayers than to yourself, with your experience."
To the surprise of the Scooby Gang, Faith's eyes misted as she kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks, Giles!"
Giles blushed briefly. "Quite welcome." He cleared his throat. "Now, as I've said, I've had this plan in the back of my mind all along. We just have to expedite things now. We need to start setting this place up as the new Slayer and Watcher Academy. Hopefully by the time we actually start to move in and operate out of here, Faith will be safely out of here, across the state line and on her way to Cleveland. So we can all have plausible deniability with regard to any potential criminal charges in helping her get away."
"So how do I get to Cleveland?" Faith asked.
"I have a plan for that, too," Giles nodded. "My biggest worry right now is how to contact Robin without tipping this Deputy Warden off or leading him straight to us. I think it's a reasonable assumption that by now, he's got Robin's phone at the hospital tapped and set up for tracing of calls."
"We could call him from disposable cell phones," Xander suggested.
"And send him a disposable cell phone by Fed Ex," Dawn added. "That way they can't listen in."
"That'll work, as a stopgap measure," Willow nodded, "but I was also thinking, as long as we're turning this place into Hogwarts West and you want to make us hard to find or trace..."
"Putting a glamour around this place?" Giles smiled. "That would take a lot of mystic energy."
"Oh, no!" Willow replied. "Nothing magical. I was thinking more along the lines of setting up a web server and having net-based phone service. With an off-site server and firewall, so they can't even tell what country we're calling from, let alone find our location."
"Yeah!" Dawn grinned. "This off-site firewall could be like a virtual Platform Nine and Three Quarters!"
"I'll let you two handle that," Giles sighed, then smiled thinly.
"Yes," Buffy said. "We'll let Minerva and Hermione do the work!" Willow shot her a wry glare and she smiled. "Hey! You're the one who called this place 'Hogwarts West'!"
"Actually, Buffy," Joan said, "your grandpa and Giles and I talked about it on the way up. There's only one thing we're going to call this place!"
A little later, at Joan and Carl's suggestion, Dawn and Tony went back out and he showed her the way to the supermarket, where they bought food for a dinner cookout on the back deck, as well as several days' worth of provisions for Faith. They got back in plenty of time to resume their dip in the lake with the others, with Faith changing into her swimsuit and also joining them. Faith was actually able to relax and let go of, if not forget, the stresses of the whole day.
Owing to the approach of the Summer Solstace, it was still light when they finished dinner, bade goodbye to Tony and Father Phil, left Faith at the lodge and headed back in the two car convoy to Glendale, but it was almost 11 PM by the time they'd returned and Giles summoned all the Slayers who were over eighteen into his suite living room, where he, Xander and Andrew were waiting with Buffy and Willow. Kennedy, Vi, Tracie and Gillian all sat on one couch; Kennedy took the end farthest from Willow, who mentally told herself not to read too much into it.
"The reason I've called you all here," Giles began, "is that there have been a couple of new developments. In a few days, we're all going to be checking out of this hotel and relocating to Mr. Kolchak's estate up in Lake Keogh. But I need the four of you, as legal adults, to consider a possible alternate assignment, so to speak. As you all probably know, Faith has what I shall refer to as a 'checkered past.'" He sighed, then continued, "This morning, that past nearly caught up to her. I won't go into any further details at this point. As I've also mentioned, there is another Hellmouth in Cleveland, Ohio, which will eventually need to be covered on a permanent basis as we had in Sunnydale. What I need is one or two Slayers who are legal adults with drivers licenses. What I propose is to purchase a car and register it as a corporate vehicle belonging to the Council, and for those one or two Slayers to drive to Cleveland in that car with Faith and set up a base of operations there along with Faith and Mr. Wood as a team. I don't need an answer right away, just think about it for the next day or so while we set our move to Lake Keogh in motion."
It was only a couple of seconds before Kennedy shot a quick glance at Willow without allowing the establishment of eye contact, then raised her hand and said, "Sure, I'll go to Cleveland."
FEEDBACK/REVIEWS ARE INVITED. PLEASE KEEP 'EM COMING!
Allen: I hope this answers some of your questions and concerns. Not going to give away too much, but your thinking is a lot like mine.
Originally, before Joss Whedon came out with the retroactive canon announcement about Faith's last name being Lehane, I was going to have her real last name be Tasker per the True Lies reference. I figured that even though it was retroactive, I'd go along with the Lehane canon.