FIC: Cleveland Calling (4?)
May '04
"Bree!" Faith yelled, dancing up on her tones. "In now! Don't give her a second to rest!" The Irish Slayer responded to her shout immediately, leaping up into the air, cannoning into Dana's chest with a dropkick. The previously insane Slayer staggered backwards but kept her feet and when Breena landed in a crouch, she caught her with an overhand right to the forehead that dumped the red-head on her ass.
"Whooee!" Faith crowed. "Dana is large and in charge, today!" The newest member of their group turned to her, a grin on her face. And fell on her side when Penda clipped her, catching her with her shoulder on the knee. In an instant, Dana was up on her feet and snarling at Penda. "Whoa!" Faith got between the two Slayers before something started. "Relax, Dan," she ordered. "That was your bad, I didn't say the session was over. What did Penda just teach you?"
"Pay attention," her fellow brunette temptress replied, a scowl on her face.
"That's right," Faith ruffled her protégée's hair, eliciting a slight smile. She was proud of Dana, the girl had made real progress in the past three months. From having to have her own room and have one-to-one supervision, she was now living and training with the other girls. She'd even managed to go out a few times, and spend time with Harris and Andrew without ripping their heads off. Which, with Andrew was quite an achievement for even a normal woman.
A huge lizard hovering in the dark sky, massive wings flapping mightily.
Gunn lying on the ground, blood pumping out of him.
A blue-haired, leather-clad woman that looked a little like Fred, stood over the big African-American.
Angel brandishing a sword. And then exploding into dust.
"NO!" The visions hit her with the force of a freight-train, sending her to her hands and knees. Her lungs heaving, she became vaguely aware of her students surrounding her, crowding her in as they clamoured to find out what was wrong. "Back off," she whispered. The others continued to chat, too excited to shut up. "Back off!" she screamed, her voice straining.
She was gratified when a space was quickly created around her. Forcing her limbs under control, she staggered to her feet. "Miss Lehane," she noticed that in the face of her temper, Breena returned to calling her by her title. "What's wrong?"
"My mobile," she whispered, heart still pounding. When the Slayers just stood looking at her, she let out a growl. "Someone pass me my fucking cell!"
Dae instantly darted over to her sports bag and returned with the phone. "Thanks," she nodded brusquely before dialling her phone. Realising the others were still stood staring at her, she raised an eyebrow. "Privacy mean anything to ya?" The other Slayers immediately moved to the far end of the basement.
Her heart stopped when she got a standard out-of-service message. Fear combating anger in her veins, she flung the cell into the wall, the force of the collision smashing it to pieces. "FUCK!" she screamed in terror before leaping from the ground to the top of the steps in a single motion. Flinging the basement door open, she rushed out, the Slayers following her down the corridor. "Harris!"
Xander looked up as his office door crashed open. "Has nobody around here heard of-," his irritation dissipated at the terror in the Boston Slayer's wide eyes. "Faith," he said. "What's wrong?"
"I…I need y..you to c..call Angel," the usually cocksure beauty stuttered.
Xander hid a grimace. Not this old chestnut, she was like a dog with a bone. "Girls," he looked over Faith's shoulders, unwilling to have an argument in public. "Some privacy, please." Once the other Slayers had disappeared, closing the door behind them, he looked at Faith. "Sit down." The moment the Slayer had obeyed, he spoke again. "Faith, we've talked about this, if you're not willing to agree to disagree about Angel, maybe you should lea -."
"I had a vision," the Slayer muttered, tears welling in her eyes. "They're all dead. And I couldn't get a tone on my phone."
Worry replaced irritation. "Faith," he gestured at the seat even as she reached for the phone with his other hand. "Please, sit down." He started when the phone rang as his fingers curled around the receiver. After shooting the Slayer a nervous look, he picked the receiver up and spoke into it. "Hello?"
"X..Xander," he blinked at the hoarseness of the speaker's voice. It took him a second to recognise the voice as the normally composed Detective Lockley. "Turn on your TV."
His brow furrowed in confusion, Xander shook his head before speaking. "Kate," he glanced at the impatiently waiting Slayer. "I'm in the middle of something. I'll ring -."
"Turn on your fucking TV!" he blinked at the cop's sudden explosion of foul language. "It's LA.," a cold weight settled on his heart. "It's gone to hell. I'm on way over to you right now."
"O..okay," he stuttered, replacing the phone.
Faith stared at him. "What about Angel?" the Slayer urged.
"This is about Angel," he said, turning the TV onto a news channel. His eyes widened at the sight of burning, crumbling buildings in central LA., and a clean-cut newscaster who looked younger than Xander at that moment felt. They watched and listened, helplessly mesmerised for several minutes and then the screen changed to the centre of the disaster.
The Wolfram & Hart offices. "A…Angel."
Xander glanced towards Faith. The now grey-faced Slayer was sat huddled in her chair, her eyes blank and looking for all the world like a broken doll. "Faith," rising, he walked over to the Slayer. "I'm sorry-."
"Don't tell me you're fucking sorry!" In an instance, the raven-haired Bostonian was up, snatching hold of him by his lapels, and flinging him into the air. Xander groaned as he thudded into the wall, thankfully missing the window, and slid down to the ground, pain flaring through his shoulder and head. In a second the east coast native was on her feet, eyes wild, like some primal beast of prey. "This is what you fuckers wanted! Well whoopee! Now he's dead," Faith's face fell, the anger replaced by heart-tearing sorrow. "Now he's dead, now he's dead. And I have no-body!" The Slayer spun around and started for the door.
"No, Faith!" Xander began to scramble to his feet only to be hit by a wave of nausea. He shook his head, trying to shove the darkness away, but then it enveloped him.
"Xander! Xander!"
"Amy," he mumbled. "Put the megaphone down." He forced his eyes open to find the witch was stood over him. Without the expected megaphone. He looked around. "Faith?"
"She stormed out of here about a quarter of an hour ago," Amy looked around. "Kate just arrived to see you, Xander," the witch looked bewildered and more than a little scared. "What's happening?"
Faith had run off? Xander winced, and she was probably self-destructing somewhere. He had to find her. "I'll explain in a minute." Ignoring his thumping head, he reached behind him and pulled himself up on the radiator behind. "Get everyone into the briefing room." The witch stared at him. "Now."
"Amy's told me that Cleveland is too big of an area for her to do a locater spell on. So this is what we're going to do," Xander looked around the briefing room, having finished explaining what had happened to his shocked audience. "Kate, you take Penda and Astrid. Amy, you take Dae and Enye. Andrew, I want you to stay here with Breena and Dan-."
"No!" Dana shouted, her head shaking wildly. "I wanna come with you. Find Faith."
It took him a helluva lot of courage and self-control, but he managed to keep his voice steady as he stared at the young woman. "No, Dana, if Faith comes back here, I need people here to contact us." Seeing the Slayer's mouth open, he spoke again. "What has Faith taught you?"
"Do as you say," she muttered sulkily.
He nodded at Breena then looked towards Dana. After a second the Irish Slayer's eyes widened and she nodded in understanding. Satisfied his unspoken message of the red-head keeping an eye on Dana had gotten through, he looked at the others. "What are you waiting for? You find her, call me."
Xander groaned as he stopped outside a bar door, the twelfth he'd stopped at in the past four hours. "That makes it six pints of coke I've drunk then. No wonder I need to pee," steeling himself for the inevitable stench, he took a last breath of fresh air and stepped inside.
The dive's air was filled with the mingled stench of vomit, sweat, smoke, and booze, and the sound of raucous heavy metal blasted out, making his ears pound with blood. His entrance into the bar, its walls covered with biker colours, was met with hostile stares from many of its biker patrons, stares that he barely noticed as he stared with mounting horror towards the back of the bar.
In its shadows there stood a table upon which Faith stood, wildly writhing, surrounded by a dozen or so cheering bikers, clapping in unison to her movements. "Oh no, Faith," Xander muttered. "You couldn't find a church to find contemplation, it had to be the local Hell's Angels' chapter." After a quick gulp, he made his way to the back, forcing a confident expression. "Hey, guys," he started. "You've have your fun. Time for her to go home."
"She leaves," his heart stopped when the biggest of the bikers, a gargantuan shaven-headed biker standing several inches over six feet with a goatee, and bat sized forearms covered in prison tattoos turned and stood to face him. "When we say so."
The giant's words were met with hearty cheers. Xander craned his neck to look up at the mammoth. And he'd thought Angelus was scary. His only hope was to start a fight and hope Faith saved him. How manly.
"She leaves now." He smashed his best punch, a right hook into the man's jaw. His opponent grunted. "Oh crap," yep, his full bladder was just about ready to go. He ducked the mammoth's right hook only to be grabbed by the throat and flung shoulder-first into the wall. "Oww!"
Faith laughed at the sound of a fight, her entire world the pounding music. Get a few dances, she gyrated wildly to the music, have a few beers, and find a couple of studs to spend the night with. That sounded like a party to her. She looked around idly to see how the fight was going. Maybe she'd screw the winner, kinda to the victor goes the spoils thing.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Xander being picked up by a three hundred and thirty pound steroid freak. He'd come for her. "Fuck!" Faith leapt into the air, curling herself into a ball as she flew over the heads of her cheering audience. Landing in a crouch beside the biker, she grabbed hold of a massive forearm as the thug raised his fist to club a dazed-looking Xander back to the ground. "Don't think so."
The biker turned to face her, an almost comically bemused expression on his ugly mug. "What the fuck?" The biker growled before throwing a left hook at her.
Faith could have dodged, but chose not to, allowing the punch to bounce harmlessly off her head. "That the best?" she twisted the biker's wrist and yanked, simultaneously breaking his wrist and popping his shoulder out. Sensing a man charging her from her left, she shot out a foot, her heel smashing into her would-be assailant's balls and sending him to the ground. "You got?" An elbow to the throat sent Goatee-Guy down to his knees.
After stepping past the gasping hood, she looked at X. "Are you -."
"Hey!" she was shocked when Xander shoved her to one side. Twisting her head, she watched as her friend took a pool cue to the shoulder meant for her.
Fury racing through her veins, she spun with a dancer's grace and lashed out, a smooth overhand right slamming into Pool Cue's nose, shattering the bridge, the foundation of viscera that burst out as a result of her attack showering Xander. Faith snatched the pool cue out of the dazed thug's hand before bringing it up between his legs, scoring with a direct hit to the balls. "Foul shot," she muttered. The man whimpered before falling to the ground. Faith dropped the cue beside him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a switch-blade wielding thug approaching her. Faith played oblivious until the last second, then stepped into the man, knocking the weapon away with her elbow before spinning to face him and butting him square in his face. The thug fell on his back.
Two thugs charged her, aiming to catch her in a scissors movement. Faith leapt into the air, executing a flawless splits kick that caught both of her assailants in the chest, knocking them across the room. Upon landing, she saw another charging her, bikers, man, she'd forgot how dumb they were. Scooping up a bottle from a near-by table, she flung it into the wanna-be's forehead, knocking him to the ground. "Enough!" she growled, the emotion of the day and her situation making her voice hoarser than normal. "Just back the fuck off! I wanna leave with my bud," she risked a glance over her shoulder, wincing at her friend's glazed and battered condition, before shooting a challenging look around the shocked bar. "Nobody try and stop me and we won't have any more," she lashed out a kick as the guy who'd been beating the crap out of Xander reached his feet, catching him in the mid-section and knocking him back down, "trouble."
The journey home was completed in silence, Faith too churned up inside to speak, and Xander either too dazed or angry to speak. Once they reached their home, she wordlessly followed Harris inside, wondering when he would tell her to pack her bags and get her leather-clad ass out.
Entering the lounge, she found the others had got home before them, Xander having phoned ahead. "Hey-," her voice trailed off as she registered the stranger sat in their midst. Stranger? It was as if a mist cleared, a wall in her memory removed. "Connor? How the fuck did you get here?"
"He's got wicked powers X, senses like a vampire, and strong and fast too, almost as good as a Slayer, he'd be a real asset." Faith paused nervously as she looked at the battered man cleaning blood away from his mouth. "I know he's Angel's son, but Angel sent him here, asked for me to protect -."
"He can stay."
Faith stopped, surprised by Xander's sudden caving in. She'd expected to do a shit-load more grovelling, hell she was surprised he hadn't kicked her ass out already. "Uh, thanks," it was on the tip of her tongue to ask why, but deciding not to push it, she turned to leave.
"I always hated him." She turned back to Xander, a question in her eyes. "Even before Angelus, although that proved I was right. He got Buffy, he got the power. Then," Xander winced. After shaking his head clear, he continued. "It had to be him who helped you, not me. Because I wasn't man enough."
Faith's mouth opened in shock, why did it always come down to this with guys? "No, X-."
The man continued over her, as if she hadn't spoken. "Then," Xander clenched his fists together as if forcing himself under control. "Then he left and he tore Buff's heart out, she was never the same afterwards." And yet, Faith thought whimsically, the change wasn't an improvement, something she'd have thought impossible. "He leeched the hope out of her, made her easy meat for that bastard, Spike. Then Deadboy got Cordy. But," Xander looked down at the sink, Faith followed his gaze, wincing at the blood swirling in it. "You were right, in the end he was trying, he was fighting the good fight. And I was wrong. For that, Connor can stay. Now leave, I need to finish up here and rest."
Faith licked her lips, figuring it was now or never, she spoke. "X, I-."
Xander turned to her. "Not now, Faith."
"I'm sorry."
Xander looked up in surprise at the whisper. He'd been so engrossed with his paperwork, he'd never heard the curvy Bostonian walk into his office. "Forget about it," he waved a hand. "You were upset. I understand-."
"Not that," Faith shook her head. He was alarmed to see tears once again welling in her eyes. "Wes is gone too, ya know?"
Xander looked at Faith, not understanding where the conversation was going. "I know," he said slowly.
"Me and him were five by," Faith chuckled, the sound not one of amusement. "Well, three by five, maybe. But I never said it, I always figured it wasn't important, that he knew. But now he's gone, I'll never have the chance to tell him, so I'm telling you, 'case I don't get the chance later." Faith wheezed, like an asthmatic struggling for air. "I'm sorry for the way I treated ya after ya saved me from that Jhe bitch, I'm sorry for trying to kill ya," suddenly the Slayer was sobbing. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Hey, hey," in an instant, he was up, arms around the slender young woman. "Sush," he whispered into Faith's ear. "It's alright," he whispered. "Past is past."
