Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, and thanks especially to those people who aren't familiar with Daria but are enjoying it anyway.
Disclaimer: Buffy and Angel characters Joss'; Daria characters Glenn Eichler's; Lynette Vaughn, Bonita Juarez, Carla Disk, and Maggie Silber mine. Plot mine.
X X X X X
Finally, Buffy came to the phone. "Angel? Is everything okay?"
"Depends on what you mean by 'okay.' There's no screaming emergency and I don't you to come up here to help me fight off an apocalypse." Angel figured he had to broach this gingerly.
"Good. We're dealing with one of our own right now." Buffy had vaguely alluded to it when he'd come down for Joyce Summers' funeral a couple of months back.
"Is it May already? And do you need my help?"
"Not right yet. I'll let you know if I do, though."
"You know I'll be there."
"I know." After a brief period of silence, Buffy prodded him: "You called me for a reason, right?"
"Yeah. I've got some news about Faith."
"Good or bad?" Buffy asked.
"News. Whether it's good or bad depends on your reaction . . . and whether you've softened any towards her since last spring."
Angel could hear Buffy's sigh. "I'd be lying if I said she was my favorite person in the world. But ever since I saw her confessing in that police station, I can't really say I hate her any more. What's the news?"
Angel had been planning how to say the next sentence for days. "Faith wasn't born Faith."
"She changed her name?" Buffy asked. Angel still loved her in many ways, but every once in a while she could still live up to the "blonde" cliché. "No; you wouldn't call me if it were something that trivial."
"Well, she did change her name, but not voluntarily." And Angel went on to explain about the split personality, about the dental records, and about Daria Morgendorffer.
When he was done, the other end was quiet for so long Angel wondered if they'd been disconnected. "I knew she had a screw loose," Buffy said. "I didn't know it was a whole bucket's worth."
"Buffy –" Angel said a little irritably.
"No," Buffy said. "That wasn't a shot at her. I knew she had problems. I didn't realize how deep they went. Wow." After a second. "And Wesley knew about this?"
"He did."
"When's the funeral?"
Angel said, "No funeral. He feels horrible about not telling anyone."
"He should. If we'd known earlier, we might have been able to help her. Either with a psychiatrist or magically."
"No arguments there. Wesley realizes how badly he screwed up. That's why we've gotten one of the best criminal defense attorneys in LA to agree to go in and talk to Faith."
"Shouldn't you be calling her Daria?"
"I suppose I should," Angel said. "But it doesn't feel quite natural yet." After a second, Angel added, "I'm glad you're not acting like this is all kind of scam on Faith's part."
"Oh, trust me, part of me thinks that," Buffy said. "The rest of me knows you wouldn't bother telling me this, knowing what my history with Faith is, if you didn't have enough evidence to overcome any hysterical objections on my part." Another pause, and then Buffy said, "Do you remember when we fooled her into thinking you'd become Angelus again?"
"Yes." It was almost impossible for Angel to forget. That incident, important as it had been for derailing Richard Wilkins and his plans for Ascension, had been the final straw for any possible relationship between Buffy and Angel. No matter how much he'd told himself that sex with Faith had been necessary, and as much as Buffy told herself the same thing, things just hadn't been the same after that.
"When she was taunting me I told her that I never knew she had such rage inside her. Back then I thought it simply came from her twisted jealousy over what she thought I had and she didn't. Now . . . what the hell happened to her?"
Angel said, "Her parents and sister were brutally murdered."
"That can't be it," Buffy said. "That can't be all of it, anyway."
"Unfortunately, there's not a lot I can do to figure it out beyond that," Angel said. "That's up to Faith, Daria, and her psychiatrist."
"I hope they figure it out," Buffy said. "She deserves to know who she is."
Angel couldn't disagree. "I was actually worried about telling you. But I thought you had to know."
"I understand why, and thanks." After a second, "I'm assuming you'd rather me break the news to everyone else?"
"Yes. Please."
X X X X X
Bonita Juarez looked at the gray-haired woman who'd just entered her office. The woman was clearly unhappy, although she didn't seem like she was about to start screaming. She'd introduced herself as Maggie Silber and said she'd been retained as counsel for Faith Lehane, "aka Daria Morgendorffer."
When she'd said the last part, Bonita had almost jumped out of her seat. How the fuck had anyone else gotten hold of this information? As far as she knew the only people who knew about it were her, Lynette, Faith/Daria and Carla Fisk.
She reviewed them one by one. Faith/Daria hadn't had any visitors and was as much of a loner as anyone could be inside a prison. She had no friends in here, and her only visitor – a local private investigator, Angel something – hadn't been by in the last ten days.
Lynette's professional ethics were such that she'd risked contempt of court citations repeatedly in the past rather than violate doctor-patient privilege. (Lehane's sessions with Lynette weren't exactly confidential, but that didn't mean Lynette was free to go blabbing about them to anyone who walked in off the street. And she wouldn't, either.)
Carla Fisk? Possible, she supposed, but highly unlikely; the woman had been as leery of bad publicity as Bonita herself had been.
And Bonita knew she hadn't told anyone –
Wrong. She'd told her contact in the LAPD, who'd told their dentist. The dentist, she was sure, wouldn't have known the whole story. That meant her contact had been talking.
At least he hadn't been telling it to everyone, or it would have gone public by now. And Bonita knew that he wouldn't have directly gone to a lawyer on Lehane's behalf.
But he'd obviously told someone.
"Mrs. Silber," she said, shaking the attorney's hand, "Obviously we had no idea you were going to show up or you wouldn't have had to come to my office. As far as we knew, Faith Lehane hadn't hired a new attorney."
"She didn't," Mrs. Silber said crisply. "I obviously can't tell you who did."
"You realize that if Lehane didn't hire you herself that she doesn't have to see you, right?"
"Of course. At which point I'll tell whoever hired me that, and go home. But if it's convenient –"
Bonita was confident in her ability to manage a prison, but she didn't have all of the prisoners' schedules memorized. "One moment, please," she said, looking up Faith Lehane's schedule in her computer. "She's in her GED class right now. She should be done in about fifteen minutes. I don't want to pull her out of it. I can have one of the guards escort her to the lawyers' visiting area once she's done. What she does after that is entirely up to her, of course." Lehane still seemed determined to serve her full sentence; if Mrs. Silber had shown up two weeks ago, she would have told the lawyer to go to hell.
But things were different now.
"That'll be fine, Warden Juarez," the attorney said. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go back and review my notes on the case before I actually meet Ms. Lehane."
They said goodbye to each other, and Maggie Silber left the office.
As soon as she was gone, Bonita got up and shut the door. She made three phone calls.
The first was to the guard station nearest the prison classrooms. She ordered them to take Lehane to lawyer's visiting area one.
The second was to Carla Fisk. She had to let the DA know that time might not be on their side. Ms. Fisk swore, thanked Bonita for telling her, and hung up.
The third was to her friend inside the LAPD. "So, Larry," she said. "What part of 'keep this a secret' were you having trouble understanding . . . ?"
X X X X X
"Miss Lehane?" The woman speaking looked to be about sixty, Faith guessed. She had gray hair and wore thick glasses, but definitely looked like a woman who worked out. Woman had muscle tone.
Faith had been surprised when the guards had said she'd had a visitor; even more surprised when she was taken not to the usual visitors' room but to the area where lawyers met with their clients. There was a videocamera monitoring the room in case a lawyer tried to slip something to a client -- whether drugs, a weapon, or some other definition of "slip" entirely -- but no sound. Lawyer-client privilege still held.
"That's me."
"My name's Maggie Silber," the woman said. "I'm an attorney who specializes in cases like yours."
Suspicious, Faith said, "How do you know what kind of case I got?"
"A friend of yours asked me to look into your situation once he found out about your condition."
"My multiple personalities. You don't gotta try and spare my feelings, counselor. And I'm guessing this friend's name would be Angel."
"How did you know that?"
Laughing bitterly, Faith said, "When you only got one friend, it's not hard to guess. How'd he find out about it?"
"He didn't tell me. He explained your situation and asked me if I'd represent you. Now, if you don't want my help -- I was told you admitted to two murders and didn't try to make any sort of plea bargain because you wanted to redeem yourself?"
Faith said, "Yeah. I did bad things, counselor. I need to make up for 'em." After a second, "Dammit. I want to tell you to leave but I can't do that anymore."
"Why not?" Maggie Silber seemed genuinely curious.
"Because it ain't just about what Faith wants anymore. There's two people inside this body, not just one. I need to find out what Daria wants too. And the doc -- Dr. Vaughn -- she's not around to set off the change and she's the only one who can."
"That's not typical for multiple personalities," the lawyer said.
"So I've been told. But it's the case here. Daria only comes out when the doc says a code phrase and then I only come back when she says another one. Anyway, I guess I'll let you represent me for the moment. At least until Daria makes her wishes known. Meantime, the warden brought in an ADA -- woman named Fisk. She seemed kinda sympathetic, but at least you can talk to her."
"Okay. I'll do that. Now that we have that out of the way, I have some questions for you . . ."
X X X X X
That night, Daria and Faith shared their dreams again. They talked for awhile, discussed Maggie Silber, and came to some decisions.
X X X X X
Dr. Vaughn walked into the conference room. She'd passed on her other cases -- except those that were still making their way through the court system -- to colleagues. She wanted to concentrate on helping Faith and Daria become one whole person again. The kind of person Faith was would be very hard for a girl like Daria to accept. Daria was cynical, sarcastic and pretended to have seen it all. But it would be very hard to do that when confronted with some of Faith's actions. Daria knew that Faith was sexually active and had killed two people. She hadn't yet been confronted with the full scope of her behavior.
"So how have things been going?"
"I assume you've heard about the lawyer who came here yesterday?" Faith said in an even tone.
"Yes. Have you decided what you're going to do about it?"
"I'm taking her up on her offer. She's going to talk with ADA Fisk and we're going to see where it goes from there."
Something wasn't right here. "Is everything alright, Faith?"
And then Faith gave a Mona Lisa smile. "You're not talking to Faith."