Things I have learnt

Disclaimer: none of this is mine.

Author's note: I apologise that I forgot to mention at the start of the first chapter that this is an OC talking. I also apologise for any mistakes in the Greek in this chapter. I am completely ignorant of Greek myself and, although I asked advice, I take full responsibility if it is "word soup". The crossover starts next chapter.

It's been nearly eleven months since I became Faith's watcher. Eleven months during which I don't think I've been either completely clean or totally undamaged at any point. Although, touch wood, I have only broken one bone and have sprained one of my ankles only three times in total. OK I've sprained the other one four times but still, credit where credit is due, most of my injuries have been dealt with by bandages or a couple of stitches. And they are getting slightly less frequent.

I've become an expert in getting demon gunk out of clothing (something I bet not many of my old university friends could say) and have learnt never to try and save money by sharing a motel room with Faith – unless I want to spend the night sitting in the corridor outside the room with my laptop while Faith entertains someone called "Chuck".

And Faith's come a long way too. I can remember the first time I persuaded her that I could come along and be a help to her rather than a hindrance. A group of nearly 200 D'Fanin demons had gathered in a town somewhere in Texas (I think) for a religious ceremony. Now I'm all for religious freedom, normall,but, when a ceremony involves the consumption of human hearts freshly harvested from a still living body, I tend to draw a line. There was a local slayer, but she had been beaten quite badly by some of the D'Fanin, before she realised the extent of their numbers, so we had flown halfway across the country to take them out while she recovered strength.

"So what's the plan?" I had asked.

"We go, we slay," she replied shortly.

"That's not much of a plan, Faith, more of a mission statement." She looked at me oddly so I continued, "I mean, I'd be quite happy to have that printed on business cards, it's quite catchy really, but before we enter a building filled with 200 demons, I'd like something a little more detailed."

"Like what?"

"Well, I could take the four on the right, you take the 196 on the left, for example."

"And what happens when some of the 196 don't realise they are supposed to fight me and go after you?"

She had a point. That could have easily led to the 'death thing' for me, which we are trying to avoid. "OK," I admitted, "maybe I hadn't quite thought that plan through to its logical conclusion but, at least it was, you know, an actual plan, just not a particularly good one."

The planning thing has really come a long way since then. Actually, I think Faith enjoys it now. Some people (mentioning no names Mr Giles) even think our plans have become a little too elaborate at times. But, I have to say, sliding down an improvised zip-wire, with a flame-thrower, over a warehouse full of vamps, is an experience every Watcher should have, not to mention, extremely effective and fairly safe (well, except for that vamp armed with a crossbow because that bolt through my shoulder hurt). And I still want to find a situation where we can use the 'priest blessing the water in the sprinkler system while we set of the fire alarm' idea. We haven't been able to use it yet so we are keeping it in reserve. I might have forgotten to mention that idea to Mr Giles yet. Oh well, he'd only forbid us to do it so I'll keep it quiet until we have a chance to work out the kinks in the idea and try it out.

Faith and I are actually making a better team than I think either one of us expected. We are very different people, with very different skills. Still we share the same sense of humour and that makes a big difference. I can't help but thinking Faith tolerates me, more than actually respects me but I can live with that. And it has been interesting travelling around the States meeting various Watchers and Slayers stationed all over. Several Watchers have mentioned recently that we are building a fairly big reputation in the US demon community and I have noticed that getting information out of demons is getting easier now when Faith's name is mentioned.

I hate to say it, though, but I think Mr Giles is slightly less impressed with us. According to Dawn (who I met when she spent one summer in England, Watcher training) he makes a 'clucking sound' with his tongue every time he gets an e-mail report from me. This is, apparently, not a positive sign. When Faith and I went to Cape Town last month for the annual Memoriam, I spent the weekend trying to avoid him. Faith spent the weekend trying to avoid Buffy and some slayer I don't know called Kennedy; so on several occasions we found ourselves hiding on the same balcony or even, at one point, in the same broom cupboard.

On one balcony an army colleague of Buffy's ex-boyfriend joined us. Apparently he'd just heard his transfer was approved to another US military project and was trying to avoid his CO who had brought him and another couple of colleagues along and was, reportedly, a little upset by the transfer. I believe the phrase "pissed as hell" was used. According to Faith, Mr 'tall, dark and muscles' had stamina; and that weekend turned out to be yet another occasion where I can personally attest that hotel walls are, for the most part, too thin.

You know I think I'm giving the erroneous impression that Faith is overly promiscuous. She isn't, really. She is just a Slayer and, as such, has a large amount of energy that needs to be released. While some Slayers can channel these energies through meditation or doing katas; neither of these are Faith's thing so there are times she needs to release that energy in other ways; and this one is harmless enough – as long as I remember to get rooms on different sides of whichever hotel/motel we are staying in.

We are currently on the West Coast of the States, in a place called Cosmopolis, investigating reports by a local slayer that an abnormally large number of vampires seem to be coming through the area, stopping to feed, usually on young children, before moving on elsewhere. In the last few weeks she has probably killed more vampires than she has seen in the year before that which certainly seems like something that needs to be checked out.

We've been here a couple of days now, and both Faith and I agree that something big is going down somewhere. Unfortunately, apart from the fact the vampires seem to be heading South/South-West, that's all we've got so far. Faith has spent the day with the local slayer, Ally, touring the demon haunts in local towns looking for information, while Ally's watcher, Jacob, and I have spent the time going over the data they have gathered, trying to determine where the vampires might be heading and why. It has not been the most productive of days and when the four of us sat down for a quick bite to eat this evening, it didn't take us long to discover we had made virtually no progress.

We decided that we needed to be a bit more direct if we wanted any information at all and question some of the visitors themselves. Ally and Jacob headed into Aberdeen to the hospital, which seems to be a stopping off point for many of the visiting vampires; and Faith and I stayed to patrol some of the areas in Cosmopolis where the vampires have been seen. Given the situation reported by Jacob, it is not terribly surprising when a quick sweep of the cemetery hits pay dirt. There are ten of them, so we take out some with fairly rapid kills leaving Faith fighting two with a capture rather than kill strategy.

Capturing vampires is significantly harder than killing them, and one of our two potential captives is staked by accident before Faith manages to subdue the final one.

I find the sort of questioning that we need to do on occasion, very distasteful, but I'd rather it was us than Ally and Jacob – Ally is way too young, in my opinion, to have to do this sort of thing. Swallowing my distaste, therefore, I dig out the holy water and pulled out the sun cross pendant I wear.

I have no problem killing vampires, no problem at all. To me they are just dead bodies that are still moving around, and we are normally in a 'kill or be killed' situation. But I can't help feeling slightly sick seeing the acid-like burns I am causing on the skin of this vampire, especially as he is keeping his human face. It is incredibly difficult to get him to talk. He is chained firmly to a tomb and Faith is watching my back as I, not to mince words, torture him. He is stubborn, and I feel better when he finally vamps out, it makes it easier somehow. It is never going to be easy, however, and I wouldn't want it to be.

Eventually the pain becomes too much for him and he screams out, "Syllegomen peri ten thallatan tes kales poles." I knew he wasn't local but it was a bit of a shock to hear him speak in Greek, after all, we are a on a completely different continent.

"What did he say?" Faith asks.

"Something about them going to the 'sea of the good city'," I respond and then turn back to my victim. "We, who are we?" I ask him.

"Lilin," he said, staring at me with hatred.

"What is/are Lilin?" I ask. I'm fairly sure I have heard the word before, although I can't recall where. He twists around furiously, ignoring my questions. "Who is going there? Why are you going there? Who are you meeting?"

Somehow he manages to get an arm free and I am forced to stake him. Just before he turns to dust he screamed out the name "Lilith".

Faith comes up behind me. "Should we try for some more tonight? See if they can give us any more information?"

I try to suppress my shudder. There is no way I can do more tonight. "No," I reply quietly. "I'm going to call Headquarters and see if they can fill in some of the gaps."

I start to feel a little smug and proud of myself when I realise I've come through the evening without a single new bruise, until I turn round as I am digging out my phone and trip over a tree root, knocking myself unconscious.