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: Sorry about the wait- RL is manic at the moment. Thanks for all of your comments and advise on the last chapter, keep it coming.
Distant Elephants by Kiara
7- SIDE BY SIDE…
Seth opened the door. She was back. "Hi."
"Hi."
"Is it true? That you're my sister?"
Faith nodded uncomfortably. She'd kept a secret for so many years and now it seemed like everyone knew.
Now they were both uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."
"It's okay. It was a long time ago." Deep down, she was disappointed. She was his sister and he didn't remember her, but rationally she knew that he was only a young kid when she vanished from his life.
"So I've heard. But you're gonna be sticking around for a while, right?" Seth asked hopefully. Ryan wasn't the only one who was tired of people leaving.
Faith looked back at Xander who she'd insisted come along again. They hadn't really discussed how long they were staying for, he'd just promised to stay for 'as long as she needed'. Xander gave a slight nod of encouragement.
"Yeah, I'm staying for a while."
Seth grinned. "Cool. Well I'm Seth. It's nice to meet you…again." He held out his hand for her to shake, still smiling. Well, thinking about everything that went on in Orange County it wasn't that weird and it seemed to be the year for unearthing long-lost relatives; first the Lindsey aunt-who's-more-like-a-sister fiasco and now the older-sister-returning-after-ten-years debacle.
"I know who you are, Seth." Faith replied, shaking his hand bemused. He seemed to be taking this all in his stride, much better than she expected. "This doesn't bother you?"
"I shall have to tell you the tale of Grandpa's illegitimate love child some time. Add an Atwood into the equation and you'll see that I'm pretty used to new family members."
Faith blinked. "Okay."
Seth heard Ryan moving behind him. "Have you met Ryan?"
"Who's Ryan?"
"I'll take that as a no. Ryan- get over here! Mom and Dad adopted him a couple of years ago after Dad got him out of juvie."
Ryan's smile dimmed slightly. "Okay, I hate it when you introduce me like that."
"Sorry man," Seth said, not sounding sorry in the slightest.
"Nice to meet you."
Ryan shook Faith's hand, not noticing the odd expression on her face.
"You've err, got a great family."
Faith sighed. "So I'm told. Talking of, are they here?"
Seth ushered them in. "Yeah, I'm surprised Mom didn't run out as soon as she heard the door."
"Your Dad's probably holding her back." Ryan said before turning to Xander. "Hi."
Xander grinned. "Xander. I'm Faith's chaperone."
"Hey!"
Xander grabbed her arm. "Maybe I should leave, give you some time with your family."
"You're part of my family." Faith protested instinctively. "I mean, I want you here."
"If that's what you really want, then I'll stay. I promised I would, didn't I? But I just think you could do with some time with your parents."
"You can hang with us if you want. How do you feel about video games?" Seth offered.
Xander looked to her hopefully.
Faith nodded. "You're probably right. Go, have your dorky fun."
"Hey!" Came Xander and Seth's responses, while Ryan sighed resignedly.
"Mom and Dad are in the kitchen."
"Right." Faith said, but made no move towards the kitchen.
"Go on, it'll be okay. I'll be right here if you need me." Xander said and, mindful that Seth and Ryan were still standing right there, dropped a gentle kiss onto her cheek.
She nodded and Xander watched her walk into the kitchen before turning to Seth and Ryan. "Okay, what are we playing?"
"It's up to you; we have a lot of stuff."
Xander smiled. "The advantage to being rich as a king."
"One of 'em. So you and my sister, eh?"
Xander blushed. "Not exactly."
"That's a yes, right Ryan?"
"Absolutely." Ryan said giving Xander a sympathetic smile. He knew what it was like to be on the wrong end of Seth's questions.
"We're taking things pretty slow." Xander admitted.
"Slow is good, but not too slow or you'll end up like Ryan and Marissa."
"Nothing's happening, Seth." Ryan ground out. Xander got the impression that this was a long standing argument between the two of them.
"Sure, whatever. The thing is," Seth turned back to Xander; "I feel it is my duty as long lost brother to warn you. If you hurt her, then I will set Ryan on you. And Summer in one of her rage blackouts." Seth finished with a dramatic shudder.
Xander laughed. "Trust me when I say that Faith can look after herself. I mess her about and you'll be finding parts of me for weeks."
"Well, that's alright then." The conversation lapsed into silence, which, of course, Seth had to fill.
"So, dude, what's with the eye patch?" Seth asked with his usual amount of tact. "Is it some bizarro fashion statement? I can't see Summer going for it."
Xander laughed nervously. "How much did your parents tell you about why Faith had to leave?"
"Not much." Seth looked at him suspiciously. When his parents had explained who Faith was to him he'd know they were leaving something out. Now his curiosity had resurfaced. "Why? What happened?"
"Not my story. Car accident, I don't really like to talk about it."
"Oh. I'm sorry, man. I didn't-"
Xander waved off his apology with a wave of his hand. "Forget it. Where are we playing?"
"The pool house."
"Pool house? Cool!"
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"…And I lived with them for about six years getting trained for what I might become. Then when I was sixteen I was called and moved to Sunnydale to help out the slayer, Buffy."
"What happened to Thomas and Jane? Do you still see them?" Kirsten asked gently.
"They're dead. They were killed by vampires just after I was called." Faith spoke into her lap, not looking up at her parents.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be, they weren't very nice people."
Sandy and Kirsten shared significant looks. They guessed there was something more that Faith wasn't telling them, but they knew enough not to push her.
"The Council told me that you knew all about the slaying."
"We knew some of it." Sandy revealed. "A watcher came to our house and told us that you were different and need to be trained for what you might become at a special school in England. We didn't believe him and sent him away. He kept coming back, and eventually we started to wonder but by then it was too late. A week after the first visit you were taken."
"They told me that you didn't want to take the risk of having a demon-magnet in your home." Faith said quietly, trying to gage their reaction.
"They said we didn't want you? Why would they do that?" Kirsten said upset.
Sandy thought about it for a brief moment. It was obvious really. "So Faith wouldn't want to find us. They didn't want their warrior distracted, am I right?"
Faith nodded slowly. "We weren't meant to have friends or anything. That's one of the things that's different now. So you wouldn't have minded?"
"We would never have disowned you." Kirsten vowed, meaning it wholeheartedly.
There was a silence as Faith thought about what her mother had just said. Would she still stand by that when she told them about her past? Faith honestly didn't know, she didn't dare to hope.
Sandy cleared his throat. "So have you been in Sunnydale since you became a slayer?"
Faith started to nod, but then shook her head. It was time to come clean, it was better they reject her now then later when she got used to the idea of having a family again. "Actually no; I was in LA for a while… in prison."
"What did you do?" Sandy asked evenly. He'd seen enough during his time as a public defender to know that a jail sentence did not automatically mean a bad kid. Ryan was an example of that. He would not jump to conclusions.
"I was out with Buffy, the other slayer, and we came across a bunch of vampires." Faith started, watching for their reactions carefully. "We'd just got the last of them when something snuck up behind me so I staked it on instinct. I thought it was a vampire, but it was the deputy mayor. He died."
"So you went to jail for that? But it wasn't your fault!" Kirsten protested.
Sandy breathed a sigh of relief. He could deal with that. It was an honest mistake, she thought her life was in danger and reacted accordingly.
"The courts don't really believe in vampires, but that wasn't exactly the reason. After that happened, I got dangerous for a while. I felt like an outsider, I was always alone so the mayor of Sunnydale took me in, but he turned out to be a demon so he probably wasn't the best influence, but he took care of me when I had no-one else. I helped him out and that turned Buffy, Xander and their friends against me."
They were watching her. Sandy kept his face carefully blank while Kirsten looked close to tears. Neither of them looked like they hated her so she continued.
"Things got pretty bad for a while. He convinced me to shoot Buffy's boyfriend, Angel, with a poisonous arrow."
"Did he die?" Sandy asked neutrally. Inside his brain was whirling, but he kept it all hidden. How were you meant to react when your daughter tells you that she was in league with a demon and tried to kill a person.
"Oh no, he's a vampire."
He blinked, surprised. "Aren't you guys meant to kill them?"
"He turned good a long time ago, except for a couple of relapses. He has a soul now. Anyway, Buffy had to get the blood of a slayer to counteract the poison so she stabbed me and then I jumped off a building to get away."
"She stabbed you?" Kirsten gasped.
"Yeah, but I deserved it. I tried to kill her way more than she tried to kill me." For a moment she had forgotten who she was talking to and she lapsed into the easy talk about death and violence she'd gotten used to over the past year.
Kirsten looked a bit faint. "Oh. That's alright then."
Faith had to hide a smile despite the situation and remind herself that what seemed normal to her wasn't necessarily normal for the average person. "When I woke up from the coma, there was this whole body switching incident and I ran away to LA." Faith looked down again. "I hurt people; I almost killed my watcher. And then I begged Angel to kill me."
The next thing Faith knew, her mother had rushed over and was holding her tightly. "Oh honey…"
"I'm sorry."
"What happened then?" Sandy asked, still trying to come to terms with the fact that his only daughter was a criminal.
"Angel let me go. He knew that no prison could hold me if I didn't want to be held. I couldn't live with the guilt anymore, so I handed myself in and went to jail. I stayed there for three years, give or take, until I was needed in the underworld and Wes, my former watcher, busted me out. We saved the world with the help of Willow, one of my former-friends from Sunnydale. She took me back to Sunnydale to help with the First Evil who was trying to end the line of slayers and bring about hell on earth. Buffy and I led all the girls with the potential to become slayers down into hell where we fought this ultimate evil and won, but Sunnydale collapsed in on itself. We moved to LA to start rebuilding the Watchers Council (the old one got blown up) and now we're scattered all over the world." Faith finished.
There was a long pause.
"And you've never had to go back to jail?"
Faith shook her head. "No, the new Watchers Council wiped my record. They decided that helping to save the world and everyone in it twice was a pretty good start to redemption."
"Would you like me to leave?"
Kirsten grabbed her hand over the breakfast bar. "Don't go. I can't loose you again. Right Sandy?"
Sandy stayed quiet.
"Sandy?"
"It's okay, I get it." Faith muttered, she felt her heart break a little bit more.
"Faith, would you wait in the living room for a moment." Kirsten said, her shocked eyes not leaving her husband. She waited until her daughter was safely out of hearing before speaking again and an angry whisper. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that our daughter is a mass murderer who never finished her jail sentence." He said sadly.
"But she's better now. If Xander and his friends can forgive her, then why can't you. We weren't even there, Sandy."
"That's not our fault."
"No." Kirsten agreed after a pause. Ever since Faith had returned, Kirsten had been feeling guilty about how they had handled the situation all those years ago when the Watchers Council had made their proposition. If they had have only said 'yes' then everything would be so much easier. She pulled herself out of her thoughts. "I thought you'd be the last person to react like this. After Ryan-"
"Ryan was arrested because of something his brother did. It's hardy the same thing."
"How can you be so cold? This is our daughter, Sandy." Kirsten said incredulously. "I won't give her up again for anything. Not even for you."
With that, Kirsten turned around and went into the living room where Faith was sitting.
"He'll come round." Kirsten said as she saw the stricken look on her face.
She sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have said anything."
"It would have come out in the end. It's… quite a story."
"You should hear B's." Faith sighed. It wasn't easy to explain her complicated life to someone who didn't even know the basics.
"We dance so close to the darkness every day than sometimes we're bound to cross into it. Andrew tried to rule the world; Giles used to raise demons; Angel and Spike were two of the most feared vampires in the world and killed thousands of people; Willow came pretty close to ending the world with her magic; I went bad; and Buffy died twice and went crazy and tried to kill everyone. At the last count, Dawnie and Xander were the only one's who haven't been evil for a while... And this probably isn't making you feel better so I'll shut up now."
Kirsten just gaped. There was one of those awkward silences which had been ever present over the last twenty four hours.
Well, silence until a hesitant voice came from the doorway.
"You live outside our reality. You have your own laws."
Faith and Kirsten turned around like a shot to see Sandy standing there, leaning against the doorframe.
"But there are still some things that can't be fixed." Faith said evenly. She still didn't really know how he felt and he wasn't given anything away, but the fact that he was standing there had to be a good sign.
"It's the past, Faith." Sandy said, crossing over to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. He'd heard some of the details on the grapevine; the case of a messed-up teenage killer with almost unnatural speed and strength was unusual and he'd be surprised if lawyers everywhere hadn't heard it. He'd known at the time that there had to be another side to the story, just like with every one of his clients, but he couldn't hazard a guess as to what. Until now. "I'm not even going to pretend to understand, but it seems to me that you and your friends have been living in a different world to ours, a world with your own laws and punishments. We want you to be a part of this family, Faith. We're rather fond of fresh starts."
Faith blinked back tears, determined not to cry again. "Yeah, I've met Ryan. But this is a little bit different."
"He's a good kid. Just like you are. That's all I need to know. Will you be part of this family?"
Faith looked up at her father's strong, welcoming face and at her mother's almost desperate eyes, her hand still clinging onto hers. "I'd like that."
Kirsten wrapped her arms around Faith in another hug. "Welcome home, Faith."
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Next chapter: Sunnydale life catches up with our heroine…
Please review!