DISCLAIMER: Listen up and Listen good, because I'm only saying this once! OC stuff, not mine. Buffy stuff, not mine.
SUMMARY: the OC/BtVS. Faith was taken from her family when she was ten. Now the Watchers Council is gone she's free to go back, but it's not that easy when over ten years have past and nothing's the same as when you left.
RATING: PG-13 for language.
TIMELINE: Faith is aged 21 in this fic. That makes her 16 when she first arrived in Sunnydale (around the same age Buffy was when she was called). She was 10 when she was taken from her family, so they've been without her for about eleven years. Takes place after 'the Blaze of Glory' for the OC and goes AU (alternate universe) i.e. Trey will not show up. At least not for now, but I may change my mind later.
A/N: This chapter is mainly background stuff. I promise that the actual crossing will start next chapter- I just need to get things set up first.
Distant Elephants by Kiara
4- WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH A HANDSOM PRINCE…
Faith looked up from her breakfast as a folder was placed in front of her. She turned around to see Xander behind her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, their conversation from the previous night still fresh on her mind.
"What's that?" She asked. If he didn't mention it, if he regretted what he'd said and didn't want to bring it up; then she wouldn't either.
"I found them. Your family, I mean." Xander said with a small smile. He was half expecting a slap from what he'd told her last night, that he loved her. But it didn't come. Maybe Faith was happy to just let it drop, to let his feelings keep bubbling under the surface.
Blink, beat. "You what?"
"The Cohen's. They're still living in the same house so it wasn't difficult. I can book us on a flight today if you want."
"What gave you the right to interfere in my life like that?" She hissed mindful that there were still several people eating around them.
"I just thought that you'd want to see them again." He looked hurt, giving some of the best puppy dog eyes of his life.
It worked. "I'm sorry, Xander. I don't want to see them, I just want to get on with my life, okay?"
He shrugged, somewhat reluctantly. "Whatever you want."
"Thank you." Faith turned back to her cereal, determinedly ignoring the file still sitting on her table. She finished up her breakfast and rose from the table, smiling at the younger slayer who sat down in her place.
"Miss?"
Faith rolled her eyes and turned around. "It's just Faith."
"Okay, Faith; you erm, you left this." The timid slayer held out the folder.
She stared at it for a moment. "I…thanks."
Almost in a daze she returned to her room, she didn't even see Xander watching her leave with a smile on his face. Faith put the file on her bed. She stepped back, her eyes never leaving the dark red cardboard cover, and bit nervously on a nail.
If she opened it, then she knew that she'd want to at least see them again. But would they want to see her? The old Council had said they didn't want anything to do with the slaying life back then, how would they react if she told them what she'd done, that their daughter was a murderer? On the other hand, she could destroy the folder and go back to living the life she'd become accustomed to at the slaying centre.
After changing her mind a few times, she picked up the folder and threw it in the bin. It wasn't such a bad life really.
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"I just want to get on with my life, okay?"
He didn't want to agree to that. He knew she wanted to know what he'd found out, even if she didn't realize it yet. But if he pressed her then she would just push him away. "Whatever you want." He agreed reluctantly.
"Thank you." She turned back to her food.
Xander stood there for a moment, grasping for something to say to make her change her mind. His brain refused to cooperate so he returned to his seat at the breakfast table opposite Buffy and Dawn.
"How'd it go?" Buffy knew that Xander was trying to help Faith in some way, but not how.
"I don't know." He kept his eyes fixed on the brunette sitting over the other side of the room.
"Did she take the folder-y thing?" Dawn asked, stabbing at her bacon with her fork. Like Buffy, Dawn knew that something was going on but no amount of speculation had revealed to her what it might be. They both knew that Xander had been up all night searching for information in the council's files, but neither knew exactly what the information was. Although Buffy did suspect it had something to do with Faith's family before she came to Sunnydale.
"Not yet."
Dawn craned her head around in an attempt to see Faith. "It's right next to her on the table."
"But she hasn't taken it yet." He murmured.
"She might really not want to see what's in there." Buffy said, but immediately regretted it when Xander turned his one-eyed-glare onto his longtime friend.
"She needs this." There was a dangerous growl in his voice that Buffy hadn't heard before.
Despite herself she flinched back from Xander, trying to think of the right thing to say. Xander's admission that he loved Faith had surprised his long time friend at first, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Faith and Xander were the only original Scooby's living in Cleveland full time, well, except for Giles but he was always busy with the council. It made sense that they would get closer.
After the group had left Sunnydale, Faith and Xander had put all their differences aside to care for the injured and rebuild the council. Some months after the relocation to Cleveland, Xander was starting to move on from Anya's death and Robin Wood moved to England shortly after Faith and his breakup. They had been drawn together, became close friends. Xander told Faith about how he missed his ex-fiancé, Faith told Xander about her relationship fears. Xander didn't realize it at the time, he had no idea until Buffy had forced him to see it himself, but his feelings of friendship for Faith had slowly developed into something more.
"Look, she's leaving it." Dawn's urgent whisper had Xander's head snapping back to where he knew Faith would be.
He watched as a slayer picked up the folder and handed it to Faith. He smiled as Faith took the file and left with it. He knew she'd have to read it, she was too curious not to, and then she could finally start to move forward.
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"Aright nice and easy now start that shoulder turn, keep your eye on that ball maintain the spine angle, come on, turn those shoulders finish that turn feel that weight shift, you feel the..." Sandy faltered under his wife's glare. "I'm just gonna stand here, nice and quietly but supportively, alright."
Kirsten swung her golf club at the little white ball and put her hand on her hip to see how far it went. It didn't go very far.
"Wow.That was okay, your feet were a little busy maybe quiet your feet down, try it again."
Kirsten shook her head. "No more try's I hate golf, I suck at golf, I no longer wanna play golf."
"Honey, you could only get better."
"I'll take your word for it." Kirsten said, her smile from a minute ago fading.
"Kirsten…"
"Don't Sandy." She pleaded. They'd had this conversation so many times.
"You've been like this since…" He couldn't bring himself to say it. "Seth and Ryan are starting to notice something's wrong."
"We should have told Seth years ago." Kirsten insisted.
"So he could miss her too? At least this way he's a normal kid. Don't take that away from him." He knew she wouldn't tell Seth about his sister now, she wouldn't want to hurt their son when there was no point.
Kirsten shook her head helplessly. She'd been doing better, but now it was like she'd stepped back to where she was ten years ago. All her waking thoughts were filled with her lost daughter, and a good number of her sleeping ones.
"I don't know if I can do this anymore." Kirsten revealed quietly. "I have to go, magazine stuff."
Sandy watched his wife leave, noticing the slight slump in her shoulders and the usual bounce missing from her walk. "Keep it together, Kirsten."
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Faith watched the girls in front of her sparring; only paying half attention. Xander loved her. She'd known for a while that she felt more than friendship for the one person in the world that she felt like she could be herself with. But Faith had never said anything, never wanted to risk what they had only to be rejected and become an outcast again. She'd tried to kill him, she'd killed others. In what world would anyone see her as good enough for Xander 'help the helpless' Harris? And then they was that folder.
Try as she might, Faith could not get the file out of her head. It had been more than ten years. She'd moved on and had a life of her own. Going back now would only do more harm than good. So why couldn't she get it out of her head?
She heard one of the slayers calling her. "Faith?"
"Yes, Emily?"
The young slayer sighed. "Emma."
"Right. I knew that. Yes, Emma?"
"We have demonology in five minutes."
Emma suddenly found herself on the receiving end of many glares. It seemed her classmates would much prefer to stay and fight with each other than learn about the various dining habits of demons.
Faith smirked. "Wouldn't want you to miss that. See you tomorrow."
With much grumbling, the ten girls trooped out of the room leaving Faith alone with her thoughts.
She lasted all of two minutes.
"Ah screw it."
Frowning, Faith stomped back to her room, ignoring the younger slayers that had to dive out of her way as she rushed past, and fished the folder out of the bin. She took it over to the four poster bed that all of the senior staff at the council was privileged to and sat down.
Her hand hovered over the front cover for a few moments. There was a real chance that if she opened it, she'd need more- she'd need to see them. But she couldn't not open it; not when it was sitting right in front of her. Decision made.
The first page was full of facts about her mother. Name, age, occupation, address and other such details. As she glanced over it, Faith felt relieved to see that the only thing which had changed was her mother's position in Caleb's company. There was a Polaroid picture that Kirsten had obviously not known was being taken paper clipped to the top left corner. Faith could tell it was taken at one of Newport Beach's exclusive social events. Kirsten had aged gracefully; she looked almost the same as she did eleven years ago.
The second page contained the same details about her father. Once again, the only thing different to what she remembered was the occupation- Sandy had since opened his own law practice. The picture revealed the kindly face of her father she remembered from her childhood.
Faith smiled when she saw the picture on the third page. She'd always assumed that Seth would have changed as he grew older, he was only six the last time she'd seen him after all, but there he was. In all his curly-haired glory. Maybe she would have recognised him after all.
The rest of the file contained more information and pictures. Pictures of her parents, of her brother, of her grandfather, of her brother and another boy whose name wasn't mentioned and of the house that she had so many happy memories of.
By the end, there were tears running down her cheeks. Faith realised that she wanted this. She wanted her family back. So she did the one thing which felt completely natural to her and rang Xander.
"Hello?" His voice had the faraway quality of the phone line despite his only being a couple of doors down the hallway.
"It's me. I want to meet them."
He didn't need to ask what she was talking about. "I'll be right there."
As he hung up, Faith happened to look up and into the mirror. When she saw her tearstained reflection she grabbed a tissue and tidied herself up, ignoring the voice inside that was drawing attention to the fact that if it were anyone else she wouldn't care. She didn't want anyone to see she'd been crying. Yeah, that was it.
'He's seen it before,' the little voice persisted; 'and her didn't leave you then.'
She was pulled from her thoughts by a knock on the door. It was Xander.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Can I come in?" He asked after a long pause.
"I suppose so." She played it cool, just like always. Well, until recently anyway.
He was looking at the pictures still strewn across her bed. "You opened it then."
She nodded. "That's Mum, Dad and not-so-little Seth."
"They look nice. I can see why you want to see them again." He spoke casually, but he knew there was a lot riding on his words.
"Will you come with me?" Faith blurted out. She didn't mean to say that, she hadn't even realised that she wanted him to be there with her. "You don't have to."
"Of course I will. I could do with the holiday." He joked, relieving some of the tension that had been between them ever since Faith had first told him the truth.
"Not that you've done anything to deserve it." Faith returned lightly. "I mean, what do you actually do around here?"
"I'll have you know I am a valued member of the staff." Xander said haughtily.
"Oh yeah?" She snorted.
"Yes." Xander returned certainly.
She returned his smile. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Come here." He held his arms out, trying to draw her in for a hug.
Faith froze for a moment. She didn't do the touchy-feely stuff. Almost of their own accord, her legs moved forward towards him.
He pulled her close, wrapping his arms tightly around her. He didn't let her go until he heard her muffled voice speaking into his chest. "What?"
She looked up at him and blushed. "When I'm with you, I feel safe."
He gave her his lopsided grin. "I feel pretty safe with you too, what with the super powers and everything."
She was still looking at him. Xander swallowed a lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. There was nothing more that he wanted than to just kiss her right there and then. But he couldn't. She was going through too much at the moment; he didn't want to take advantage of her. She needed him as a friend more than anything, he felt like a jerk for even thinking that there could be anything more.
Instead, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead in a brotherly way and stepped back slightly.
"I'll book us on the next flight."
She took a deep breath. This was what she wanted, right? "Great."
"It'll be okay, Faith." Xander said sincerely before backing out of the room, putting some space, not to mention a solid oak door, safely between them. He leant back against the wall, banging his head against the cool stone and trying to reel in his emotions.
He loved her; and that was why they couldn't be together.
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Next chapter will be up soon. Please Review!