A/N: A humble thank you to duchess for her idea that I used at the end of this chapter
Faith was sitting on the weight bench waiting for her hand to heal when Buffy walked in. "Hey," she said. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Why did he do that? Why was he so nice? What does he want?" came gushing out of Faith's mouth, evidence of her confusion over Dean's actions.
"Oh, that's easy, Faith. He wants you of course. He just wants a little more than your usual, get some and get gone, that's all." Buffy said trying to explain it to Faith in a way that was more in her language than Buffy's normal mangling of English.
"What do you mean he wants more?" Faith asked, worried.
"He's courting you Faith. As in, he thinks he might want to marry you." Buffy held up her hand to stop the objections she could see in her sister slayer's eyes. "I know that's what he's doing because he's doing it the same way his dad does, and John already sort of proposed to me. He screwed up doing it big time, but I guess it does sort of count." She rolled her eyes at the memory of her holding John above her head and his blurting out that he'd bought her a wedding ring.
"Why the hell would he want to do that?" Faith panicked. He wanted to marry her? The psycho slayer who killed people and attracted weird shit?
"Calm down Faith." Buffy patted Faith on the back. "It isn't that bad for a hottie to want to court you. It means lots of dates and not a lot having to make sure they keep their hands to themselves, although I'd guess Dean would be a lot easier to get there if you wanted. John's so much of gentleman I want to scream at times." She said ruefully.
"Not getting any after patrol, huh?" Faith asked, trying to divert attention from herself by being a bit crude. She couldn't put enough into though and Buffy looked at her knowingly. She shrugged; it had been worth the attempt at least. "Come one, B? Why would he want to marry me? He knows I'm a slayer, and I ain't stable. Does he get off on psychos or something?"
"Faith, he's a hunter. Sam is the one who wants a normal life. Dean is the one who loves hunting and says that he'd go psycho if he had to live a normal life. He wants a girlfriend, maybe a wife, who is already in the business and he doesn't have to explain things too. He'll never be anything else, and that doesn't give him a whole lot of options after he's done with chasing skirts. Being pushed off the deep end for a few months isn't going to scare him off because; number one, you brought yourself back and number two, he knows you're working hard on getting yourself back to where you can be a slayer again. He doesn't want someone who is normal. He wants someone who can defend herself and fight with him rather than someone who is just going to keep house while he goes hunting." Buffy said.
"So how big of a jerk is he? I mean, there has got to be something wrong with the guy." Faith said. She was absolutely certain that for Dean to be interested in her, he couldn't be a real nice guy like Xander.
"Faith, did you not hear what I said? This guy loves to hunt things that go bump in the night. That right there puts his sanity in question as far as I'm concerned. He doesn't hunt for the same reason John and Sam do. They hunt because the Jekfoontar clan killed their girls. Dean hunts because he loves it and it helps people. I'm not sure which is more important to him honestly. But hands down the most important thing to Dean is his family. I mean, psycho important. The slightest threat to them that doesn't come from him and he's jumping in there to kill it. I told you what happened when they found out that Glory was after Dawn."
Faith nodded. Ok, so he wasn't a normal guy, but was he a good guy? There was only one truly good guy that she had ever known, and she had tried to kill him. She was so glad that Xander had forgiven her, but there was no way she could ever forget that. "Yea, ok, I can understand that. But how is he on the Xander scale?"
"Well, he's a lot like Xander will end up like I think, if Xander had more of the soldier memories that is. I think his sense of humor needs a lot of reworking because he's the smart ass from hell." Buffy laughed, "Which should put him right up your alley." Faith laughed as well, nodding. She did like smart asses; it was easier when they could keep up with her on that front. "He's also a mother hen from hell, according to Sam. You would not believe the bitch fest I walked in on one day. The worst part is I'm not sure Dean even knows it. So, on a Xander as a ten, I'd give Dean an eight, maybe an eight point five."
"Do I want to know why you are rating your boyfriend's son?" Wesley asked as he walked over to remove the splint from Faith's hand.
"God Wes! It's not like that!" Buffy gave him a disgusted look. "We're talking about how good a boyfriend for a slayer Dean makes; specifically, Faith."
"He grew up a hunter, and he is a decent sort. If you wish to pursue a relationship with him Faith, I will not object. He is aware of everything he needs to be after all."
"Wes, you must be the only person who doesn't realize Dean's been chasing Faith since day one." Buffy said, noticing as she did so that Sam had walked in and was talking to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth and Dawn were both drenched with sweat. They had been going over the same spell for hours, exploring both the how and the why. Elizabeth didn't want to make the mistake of only showing Dawn how to do something, her power was too strong. "You do realize that we are still just skimming the surface, don't you Dawn?"
"There's more?" Dawn asked faintly. She was exhausted and couldn't contemplate even more to learn for just this one spell.
"Yes. We haven't touched on ethics; appropriate uses, where the energy comes from, oh there is a lot more to it. The reason we aren't doing that of course is because you are learning to use this spell in combat, and nothing else. It is a simple spell Dawn, but used in the wrong way it can still bring about disaster. You are going into a very straight forward situation. If you don't go in and help any way you can these demons are going to kill everyone connected with your family. It is a 'kill or be killed' situation, rather than, oh say, the light bulb burned out and I don't want to get up and go change it." Elizabeth said reasonably.
Dawn nodded. "I can see that, even if you can't change a light bulb with a shielding spell." She said wryly.
Elizabeth laughed lightly and stretched as high as she could reach. "I think we need a break. Let's see if there's anything to eat." Dawn agreed wholeheartedly with that plan and tried to stand up. It was hard as she had been sitting so long, she had stiffened up. "Always stretch first before you try to move, Dawn. Otherwise you may end up falling on your face." She smiled to take any sting out of the comment.
The door to the back room opened and Sam walked in. Dawn could see that her big brother was a little agitated, although she didn't know what would make him that way. He had always seemed to her to be the calmer of her two brothers. "Hey, Elizabeth, how is Dawn doing?"
"She's coming along fine, Sam. She has the shielding spell down well enough that I'm going to have someone start throwing things at her so she can get used to impacts against the shield. Then we'll go on to a tracking spell. I'm sorry, but there is no way I'll teach her offensive spells just yet. She learns extremely quickly, but as I don't have time to go over ethics and such, I just won't do it." Elizabeth was very firm on that subject. She knew with the Winchester's past history with these demons, one of them would be asking her to teach Dawn an offensive spell.
"That's not something she's going to need. We'll all be taking weapons with us, so she'll be armed. Is it possible for that spell to be made one way, I mean, can it stop things that are shot at us and let us shoot back?" Sam asked, a plan starting to form in his mind.
Elizabeth smiled, "I already thought of that, and the answer is yes. That is the variation I'm teaching Dawn."
"Good, Dean has managed to get moving while holding that connection thing you were trying to teach him, but he's still very unsteady. Hopefully he'll have that part down within a day or two." Elizabeth stared at him in shock. How could Dean have managed it so quickly? "What else is he going to need to learn? I need to figure out an approximate timeline."
"Once Dean masters moving while holding on to the connection at all times, he only needs to learn to build shields. The shields will keep out any emanations an object gives off unless he lowers them. Do you really think that he's that far along with his progress?" Elizabeth had never had two students who learned so quickly as these two, of course with Dawn that was partially a matter of her being one with an extremely old and powerful source of magical power. She was more reminding the Key part of her how to do things, and simply teaching the girl part of her why it worked. With Dawn's intelligence, that was often a simple matter with such simple spells as this one.
"It's not so much a matter of him learning new skills as it is learning how to use old skills in a new way. Sensei has been teaching Dean and me how to fight for years, and a lot of the focusing of your mind and spirit exercises he taught us is very similar to what you're having Dean do now. It took Dean years to master those skills and I think Sensei was about ready to rip his hair out by the time Dean really started to understand what he was talking about." Sam grinned; he had always caught on quicker to what Sensei was talking about, much to Dean's annoyance.
"Well, in that case, I think Dawn should be ready by the end of the week. The shielding spell and the tracking spell are simple ones, but I want to be sure that she really has them down before sending her off to use them in a fight. I don't thing she'll be learning anything else, but we'll see." She took the drink and towel that Dawn handed her.
"That sounds good. Is there anything the two of you need?"
"Food!" Dawn whined. "I'm starving!" Sam laughed and handed her some money. Dawn grabbed it and slowly stumbled for the phone at the shop's counter.
Sam turned to see Faith, Wes, and Buffy had been watching his conversation with Elizabeth and Dawn. He waved them over and explained his plan to them. A little shuffling of the players and a startling revelation from Elizabeth cemented their plans. The demons wouldn't know what hit them.
Dean and Faith were walking back from one of her appointments with the lady shrink that night when it finally happened. Not the attack from the clan, that was something they were waiting for, no this was something they should have expected what with this being Sunnydale and Faith being a slayer. They were attacked by vampires. There were five of them and it was the biggest pack Dean had seen all summer. Three of them had grabbed Dean. The other two went after Faith. Now, if these vampires had been more than minions, they would have realized who these two were and left them alone; but as they weren't and didn't, they made several fatal errors. The first was that more of them had gone after the much larger Dean, rather than the smaller, but much more deadly Faith. The second was that they stopped to gloat. Faith had frozen in fear when she was tumbled to the ground, but when she saw that Dean had three vampires pinning him down and one was about to take a bite, her instincts and training took over. A swift jab with the high, WOODEN, heel of her right shoe dusted the vampire just starting to hold down her legs. A kick to the head of the other vampire brought him to the ground and Faith rolled to her feet, literally stomping the vampire into dust on her way to rescue Dean. Two of Dean's stakes had fallen to the ground and she picked them up on the run. A series of swift jabs with the stakes left the vampires dust and Faith threw the stakes down as she ripped Dean's clothes in a frantic search for any bite marks. It was only when she saw that Dean only had a few scrapes that she finally collapsed in tears. The entire thing had only taken about ninety seconds. Dean held and rocked her until she wore herself out.
"Are you feeling better?" Dean asked Faith quietly once she had stopped crying. Shakily, Faith nodded her head. "You did good here Faith. I'm gonna have a few bruises but that's it thanks to you."
"I killed them." Faith said, not quite believing she had done so. She had been so scared of going out slaying and making another mistake.
"Yes you did and you saved my ass." Dean said. He didn't let Faith go as he knew she was still in shock. "Thank you."
"I did it." She murmured again. "Whoa, didn't think I could do it."
Dean smiled and got her to her feet. "I knew you could Faith." This was probably the best thing to have happen to Faith, he thought. Get her over the shock quick and fast. She should be ready to eat again by the time they got to Joyce's. Maybe he could get her weight up another half a pound. Deep in plans to stuff Faith, he gently guided her back to the Summers' house where she was living.
The next few days passed both too slowly and too quickly for both sides. The demons watched and planned and waited for the right moment to strike, and the humans did the same. There were a few attacks, but the demons that carried them out must have been desperate for advancement among the clan, because they were easily beaten off. They did however; provide an answer to the question of whether or not blessed ammunition would work as well as holy water. It did.
A/N: The idea from duchess was for Faith to get into slaying before she realized it and through her crisis that way. Thank you again, duchess!