Title: Five by Five

Summary: Faith's long lost twin sister Hope has come to Rome in search of her sister. When two sisters meet everything seems to brighten but does something supernatural threaten to end this new reunion of sisters? And the question of whether Hope is a Potential is overpowering but will she bow down to the ways of the slayer?

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for Hope.

Author Notes: Okay, in the beginning it may be confusing because the two have swapped bodies. Or swapped personalities. Well, something's swapped. I'll change it around later on and then change it back for, like, the last two paragraphs. Hope's personality is going to go to a dark place because all of her old memories are being stirred up.

Chapter 9: Faith... Or Hope

Faith groaned loudly and attracted everyone in the room's attention. She opened her eyes and looked up at Buffy.

"Hey Buffy." She groaned and then shifted around before frowning and realising that she was on the floor. She sat up slowly.

"You guys are great, put the girl who's gone all catatonic on the floor." Buffy seemed to be embarrassed at the lack of empathy towards Faith.

"Sorry, it's just that Hope needed to be on the bed."

"Wha-huh?" Faith looked at Buffy with a clueless expression on her face. She grimaced lightly, as if brushing off something and then continued with a slight grimace and the residue of the clueless expression, "I'm sorry I meant to say: What? Hello? I'm Hope. Hope is me. Me is Hope." She said, her gestures getting wilder with each sentence. It was Buffy's turn to be clueless.

"Huh?" She asked and Faith looked around the room at all of the people that were staring at her. She stared back at them with equal intensity.

"What?"

"You're Faith." Kennedy said, breaking the silence. Faith frowned slightly and disagreed after a second.

"Uh no. I'm Hope. You know, Faith's twin. Not actually her..." Faith stopped talking as Dawn moved aside so that she could see Hope sitting up on the bed and staring at her.

"Woah." Faith said and Hope stared back at her.

"Took the words right outta my mouth little sis. Or... me." Hope said, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. She continued, the crease deepening slightly, "Not quite sure how this works."

"You and me both. Although physically you're the little sis now." Faith said grinning and Hope scowled with a small grin of her own hidden behind it.

"Well... You guys are coping well." Kennedy said, breaking the silence of everyone else in the room who were currently in shock, and voicing their opinion all in one go.

Hope shrugged and Faith did the same, both at exactly the same time.

"Okay, Will," Buffy started and turned to Willow who had been helped up by Kennedy earlier, "Any idea about why this happened? Or what has happened?"

Willow tore her gaze away from the twins and looked at Buffy. She replied absentmindedly, already in the throes of thoughts about the magical possibilities, "I'll start looking into it."

Willow then left the room, followed closely by Kennedy. Dawn grimaced at the other three in the room and said, "I'll go, you know, help." She followed the two and Buffy and the twins were left in the room. Faith rubbed her hands together and bounced on the balls of her feet, chock-a-block with energy.

"I'm gonna go out. Hunt some vamps."

"We'll come with you." Buffy slotted in quickly before Faith could leave the room. Hope started to protest but Buffy made eye contact with her so she just rolled her eyes and shrugged an agreement. Faith looked at the both of them and looked as if she was about to turn them down but, instead, just followed Faith's movements and rolled her eyes before shrugging an agreement.

When the three left the room Hope was pounced on by various potentials who demanded information. Hope looked at Faith who shrugged so she relayed this to the potentials, who parted disappointedly for the three women who then continued out into the dark night.

The women then walked the short trip to the closest cemetery with hardly a word passing between them. They approached a crypt and all of them felt it. There was a nest in there. Faith hissed to Hope, "Gimme my guns."

"Can I use the Beretta?" Hope hissed back, not giving Faith the guns yet.

"That has normal bullets. They won't do anything to the vamps except hurt them." Faith hissed back a quick explanation and Hope's face fell.

"Oh. Awwwww." She whinged as they peered through the dirty window at the vamps seated in various places around the crypt, joking and laughing. A few were playing cards and some other were playing a drinking game, with actual alcohol. Not very well known for vamps to play normal drinking games but these guys were hiding out from the potentials. Laying low, you know how it is.

"Just gimme my guns." Faith hissed and Hope sulkily handed them over. As Faith's fingers curled around the handle of each one and she felt the grip in her palm a smile creeped onto her face. Hope looked at Faith, she felt the buzz that Faith felt when she curled her fingers around the handle and knew it was the same as when she curled her own fingers around a stake. An adrenaline rush and anticipation of a good kill. Or, in gun girl's case, twenty.

"Let's do this." She said and let loose a battle cry before kicking the door down and shooting all over the crypt. Although it didn't look like it, each shot had been aimed at a vampire and each shot hit a vampire. Causing the entire population to be decreased to dust faster than you could say 'Bite me'.

"God sis, leave some for the stake wielding folk." Hope said looking around at the absolute lack of vampires and Faith just grinned sheepishly. She could tell a compliment which came as an insult when she heard one and that was definitely one.

A scared looking vampire peeked over a coffin at the three girls and Hope, seeing him, charged towards him yelling.

"Mine! Mine! Mine!" Hope yelled as she tore across the crypt but to no avail. Before Hope could even hope to reach him, Faith shot him.

Hope turned on her heel and gave Faith a big dirty. Faith grunted an apology and let the empty clips slide out of the guns before reloading them.

"What's up with you?" Hope asked, tucking her stake into the back of her leather pants after clearing away her duster.

"Stakes aren't that effective." Faith said simply and Hope shut her mouth right away, knowing exactly what this meant. Faith may have remembered that Hope knew, but she may not have. She just said this as if stating a fact that had come from a national poll. But Hope remembered why they weren't effective, why they weren't effective to Faith anyway.

"What do you mean not effective? They are very effective. It goes: slayer, vampire, stake, poof." Faith just studied the ground intensely and her knuckles began turning white from holding the guns at her side in a tightly clenched fist. Buffy didn't notice this, however, and was about to continue when Hope made eye contact with her and shook her head. Buffy looked confused by went quiet anyway, anticipating an explanation later on.

"Let's go to another cemetery eh? Find some potentials and relieve em of duty." Hope said, breaking the silence and walked to the entrance, opening the door invitingly. Buffy walked through glancing back at Faith a few times but never saying anything, and then eventually Faith stopped gritting her teeth so hard and took a deep breath before walking out of the crypt. Hope was last out and closed the door gently, letting it click shut behind her.

(From now on I'm going to Hope and Faith by their personalities, not by whose body they inhabit. Just cos it's getting a bit confusing now.)

Hope, Faith and Buffy walked to the next cemetery in an awkward silence. Buffy was deep in thought about why Hope had been so against stakes and why Faith had stopped her, Faith was in between the two and hoped that she could keep the emotions down to a minimum, and Hope was gripping her guns, gritting her teeth and not giving in to tears that were threatening behind her eyelids.

It wasn't long before they met a group of potentials who were sitting around in the cemetery playing games and talking about random subjects. They saw the three slayers approaching and stood up and tried to look businessy. Buffy couldn't help but shake her head and be all strict teacher at them before letting them get home.

"You should relax B, let them have some fun, y'know?" Faith said as she took a seat on a gravestone that one of the potentials had been seated on. Buffy sighed heavily.

"Hope... Or Faith. You should know that slaying isn't just about being here and showing up for the job. It's also about doing the job. Protecting people, saving them, killing vamps." Buffy said and Faith glanced at Hope who had heard every word and was now inwardly punishing herself and taking every word on board.

"Well I dunno B, I mean in some instances, many instances, you might be out with another person and then that person could get hurt and you couldn't have done anything about it." Faith said, looking at Hope.

"Well how about not bringing the other person?" Buffy said, completely not taking a hint. Faith decided that any more attempts would cause Buffy to just dig the whole deeper and put her sister more into suicide mode so she just shook her head and went over to her sister who was standing there studying the ground intensely.

"You okay?" She asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Hope looked at her and said with absolutely no emotion in her voice or face, "Five by five."

There was a quiet 'oof' behind them and a thump as a vampire tackled Buffy to the ground. The two sisters turned to see this and Faith went to help but got a kick that made her reel back into a big grave statue and hit her head on it, causing her to drop to the ground. She looked up, suddenly sickeningly dizzy and reached around to the back of her head and when she brought her hand back to her eyes she saw the dark red sticky stuff on her hand just before passing out.

Hope stood there, catatonic, as Buffy wrestled with the vamp in front of her. Buffy kicked the vamp off of her and flipped up to her feet. She looked at Hope,

"Faith! Or... Hope! Are you just going to stand there? Help..." But Hope never got to hear who she had to help because the vampire came at Buffy again, knocking her off of her feet. This time the vamp was winning. Buffy continued to struggle with him but he kept getting closer and closer to her throat. Just as she felt the tips of his teeth on her throat she screamed.

"Hope!" Unbeknownst to Buffy it was exactly the same thing that Jess had screamed before she'd been drained and it was this one thing that shook Hope out of her catatonic state. She saw Buffy in a fatal position and raised her arm to shoot the vampire, who collapsed into dust on top of Buffy.

"I told you stakes weren't effective." Hope said hollowly, not looking at our blonde hero.

Buffy breathed hard and her pupils dilated as she realised that Hope had saved her from death. Well the death part wasn't that big but the fact that Hope hadn't helped earlier pissed her off slightly. Okay, more than slightly. She looked up at Hope with one of her steely glares. Hope didn't notice any of this though, and didn't even look at Buffy. She was looking at where the vamp used to be and swallowed hard.

She dropped both of the guns and looked at the spot hard, as if the vampire was still there. Her eyes betrayed the fact that she had many emotions battling it out in her mind. It was probably the most showing of emotions that Faith's eyes (cos remember this is Faith's body) had ever revealed. She then turned and walked away in such a way that it reminded Buffy strongly of the way that Angel had walked away after the mayor had been defeated with the smoke and the fire trucks and the flashing lights.

(Okay, this next mini section there will be no more personality stuff and quips so this will be referring to the twins as whose body it is. Also Buffy's referrals are her vision being clouded and forgetting that the two have exchanged personalities.)

Buffy just stared at the retreating figure of Faith and felt something threatening to be released. Something that she didn't want to be released. She clenched her jaw and just got up. Then she saw Hope lying by a statue of an angel with a nasty looking head wound. She quickly gathered her into her arms and carried her back to the house.

Only one thing was relaying in her mind. And that was that she would make sure that Hope was okay. Faith could hold her own. After all, she was five by five.

TBC

Okay, less of a cliffie here. Ah well, I wanted to put more on but then it got too long, so now it's too short. Instead I'm putting it next chapter. Take a walk in Hope's shoes. Or I suppose now they're really Faith's shoes... Most of it will be Hope thinking and possibly Scooby research on what's happened.

I will be exploring Hope's relationship with her dad, Jess and Jess' dad, Cobalt Azure. So stick around for the next chapter on (announcer's voice) Five Byyyyy Fiiiive!

Hehe

JB