Author's Notes: The origin of Faith.

Disclaimer: Buffy and Angel characters belong to Joss Whedon; Glenn Eichler created the Daria characters; and everyone else and the plot are mine.

X X X X X

Daria looked across the table at Dr. Vaughn. "So you think hypnotizing me will help?"

"Actually, Faith thought of it," Dr. Vaughn said. "She's really always been a lot smarter than she's pretended to be."

"I've noticed that too," Daria said. "My instinctual reaction is to say, well, obviously, since she's me, and that's one of my few qualities I'm actually proud of. But I'm betting that's not the way it works with multiple personality disorder."

Dr. Vaughn nodded. "It's not."

"Hmmm. So whatever caused me to dissociate, become Faith, didn't have a problem with intelligence, just education."

"That's what I'm hoping to find out. But the trigger phrase I use to put Faith under will bring faith back. I need to hypnotize you separately."

Daria said, "Well, I did have those dinner reservations at the Ambassador. But I suppose I can postpone them."

"Good. Now, Daria, I need you to relax . . ."

X X X X X

It had been a lot harder putting Daria under than it had been the Faith aspect of her personality. Despite Daria's stated desire to cooperate, there was something in her personality that was highly resistant to being hypnotized -- to giving up control. It had taken some time and work to get her subconscious to trust Dr. Vaughn as much as her conscious mind claimed to.

"Daria?"

"Who else would I be? Besides Faith?" Even in deep hypnosis, she was sarcastic.

"Good. Now. You told me that the last thing your conscious mind remembers is going to bed on the night of April 9 reading a book called . . . Dhalgren?"

"Right. Samuel R. Delany. About a young man whose identity keeps shifting."

"But now I'm addressing the unconscious part of you."

"Or so you hope."

"Do you remember April 10?"

"'I'll tell thee everything I can, there's little to relate.' It was a normal school day in Highland -- which mostly meant I was smarter than the teachers, which one of them promptly proved by assigning me a last-minute dramatic reading of a Shakespeare scene with the two stupidest people on the planet."

"I've read about them. Were they really that bad?"

"Worse. Although apparently Highland had uranium in the drinking water, so it may not have been entirely their fault."

"Uranium? You're kidding."

"Would that I was. One of the main reasons we moved. Mom and Dad were both trying to nail down jobs anywhere in the country. Mom once said that she'd have moved us to Alaska if she'd had to. Dad's response was ,"Dammit, Helen! What am I supposed to do in Alaska? I don't like the cold!' Mom didn't appreciate my suggestion of using Quinn as bait to hunt polar bears."

"Back to April 10, Daria."

"Anyway, normal dinner, and after dinner I went to the idiots' hangout. As usual, when I got there they were watching MTV and making sarcastic comments about the videos. To my utter amazement, though, they'd actually done a better job than normal in preparing for the assignment. In this case, that meant they actually had the play and had some vague idea of who Shakespeare was. It took the next two and a half hours for me to beat the idea into their heads that I wasn't going to leave Highland with a failing grade because of their stupidity, and to get them to actually look at the words on the pages. When I left I was reasonably confident that at least they'd be able to read the dialogue directly from the books, having impressed upon them what exactly I would do to their genitalia if they failed."

"You threatened them? Did you mean it?"

"Most of it. The part about 'feeding them to the jaguars' was a bit of an exaggeration. There were no jaguars anywhere near Highland. I would have had to settle for armadillos."

"Interesting."

"The walk home took me about 15 minutes -- it was roughly a mile walk, and one I'd made far more often than any human being should have had to endure. I wonder why I blacked this out."

"Traumatic amnesia can often take away the conscious memory of events that happened well before the trauma, Daria."

"I thought that was usually only short-term memories."

"That's in an accident, when the brain hasn't had time to process the short-term memories into longer-term ones. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics."

"Ah."

"And now . . ."

"And now's when I'd like to stop."

"If I'm going to help you, Daria, we can't stop now. Please, Daria. I know it's hard."

"You have no idea how hard it is."

"No, I don't. Tell me."

"I got to my house at quarter of ten. I noticed the front door wasn't latched. This struck me as odd, so I called out for Dad, Mom, and Quinn, but they didn't answer. I stood there for a minute or so and listened. I heard nothing inside the house. Nothing at all."

"Keep going."

"So I opened the front door."

"And?"

"No."

"And?"

"No!"

"Daria! This is where you became Faith. If we know what happened --"

"Do you want me to do it again? Do you want me to become Faith again?"

"If we know what set you on that path, we can begin to reintegrate you."

"I'll try," Daria said, after a long pause. "But do me one favor."

"What?"

"When I wake up from this, don't tell my conscious mind what you found. Either part of it."

"I'll do my best."

"I suppose that's the best I can do . . ."

X X X X X

I pushed open the front door and looked inside.

My father was sitting on the couch. I started to say, "Dad, why didn't you answer me?" when I noticed that he wasn't moving.

I ran over and looked at him. He wasn't breathing and he had no pulse. I thought he'd died of a heart attack. Jake Morgendorffer had always seemed on the verge of one --

I thought this until I saw the bloodstain on the wall.

The back of his head -- the back of his head --

Someone had shot him. And then posed him on the couch.

I ran for the kitchen to get to the telephone. I tripped over something on the floor and smacked into the wall. I shook myself off and turned on the dining room light switch.

I'd tripped over my sister.

She'd been shot too. Back of the head, just like Dad.

I couldn't help myself. I yelped in surprise, then began to cry.

Yes, me. Cry.

Who'd done this? Who'd killed --

Mom. Where the hell was Mom?

All thoughts of the phone forgotten, I ran back out to the living room and to the stairs.

I stopped before I'd taken two steps.

Because someone was coming down the stairs -- "Mom!" I yelled.

"Daria!" she yelled back. "Run --"

Then a head popped out from behind Mom. A man's head. And his hand, holding a pistol.

"Don't go nowhere," he said in a thick Boston accent. "And maybe I might let one of you live."

I wasn't about to trust him, after seeing what he'd already done to Dad and Quinn. I turned around and started to run --

And felt something hit me in the back as I reached the bottom. The man had shoved my mother down the steps into me.

"You're a smart girl, ain't you?" he said when he got down the stairs, holding his gun on both of us. I was too scared to move. "I seen your room and all of those books."

I didn't say anything. I was too terrified, too panicked, to do anything about it.

"I didn't hear no answer," he said, kicking me and Mom over to the middle of the room. "So, you a smart girl or not?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yeah, well, those books ain't helpin' you any now, are they? I got the gun, I got the muscle, and I got all your money." He shook his head. "I do have all your money, right, bitch?" he kicked Mom in the ribs.

"Yes. Everything. All the jewelry, all of it," Mom said desperately.

"Five by five," the man said. "Now, I said I might let one of you live. How do I make my choice?" He grinned. "Rock, paper, scissors. Sit up, both of you." When we didn't move, he said, "Both of you sit up or you both get shot." Rock, paper, scissors?

"Do what he says, Daria," Mom said calmly and tightly, sitting up. I did the same thing.

"Now. On the count of three, I want to see rock, paper, scissors, or I shoot both of you. One, two, three."

Randomly, blankly, I stuck out a closed fist.

And I was horrified when I saw Mom had out scissors. "It's okay, sweetie," she said.

"Rock beats scissors," the man said, and fired straight down.

The blood -- the blood -- the blood was all over me.

"A tough chick would've thrown the match," he said. "Guess you ain't tough. A smart chick would've figured out a way to save her mother and herself. Guess you ain't so smart, either."

And I must have fainted.

When I woke up, I saw, in giant dark letters across the living room wall, the words, "HAVE FAITH" written in blood. The man was gone.

And as I stared at the words HAVE FAITH all I could think about was how he was right, how being smart and all those books hadn't been any help and maybe if I'd been stronger and faster and tougher I could have helped fight him off and HAVE FAITH at least saved my mother but not Dad and Quinn oh God all of them lying dead there and HAVE FAITH the words seemed to be burning into my eyes and I couldn't look away and what good had all that education been I hadn't been able to help Dad Quinn Mom they were all gone and HAVE FAITH kept boring into my skull like it belonged there and . .

I finally turned away, looked down, and saw my mother. HAVE FAITH.

I closed my eyes. HAVE FAITH.

HAVE FAITH.

The next thing I remember I was in this room.

Keep your word, Dr. Vaughn. Don't let me remember any of this. Please.

X X X X X

When Daria was done with her narrative, Lynette Vaughn sat there, stunned.

Going through something like that . . . it was hardly surprising that Daria Morgendorffer's identity had dissociated. Finding her father posed on the couch and her sister sprawled out on the floor would have been bad enough -- enough to cause severe post-traumatic stress disorder at the very least. Having her mother shot in front of her, in such a way that it would make it easy for Daria to blame herself, and because of such a random, ridiculous method as rock, paper, scissors -- if Willard Jay Harbaugh had done similar things with his other home invasions, then that the jury saw through his faked insanity was nothing less than a genuine miracle.

It was amazing Daria hadn't gone catatonic.

The story also helped explain how Daria had become Faith, someone who wasn't educated,

"Okay, Daria," she said. "You won't remember any of it and I won't tell it to you unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Thank you."

Then she brought Daria out of the trance.

"Did you learn anything?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Well?"

Lynette shook her head. "You made me promise not to tell you."

Daria said, "Sounds like something I'd do." After a second, "Is what you learned the kind of stuff I wouldn't want to hear?"

"Yes."

A knock on the door interrupted whatever Daria was going to say next. A guard stuck his head in and said, "Ms. Lehane's lawyer is here. She said she'd like to see you both."

The guard escorted both of them to the lawyer's visiting area. A gray-haired woman introduced herself as Maggie Silber, lawyer for Daria Morgendorffer aka Faith Lehane. A brown-haired woman who looked to be about 40 and bore something of a resemblance to Daria/Faith stood next to her.

Daria nodded her head. "Nice to meet you as me. I'm Daria Morgendorffer."

"Daria?" the other woman said.

"Yes? Do I -- Aunt Amy?"

"Yes. My God. I didn't really believe it until I saw you. But it's really you." She turned to Maggie Silber. "We have to get her out of here."

Lynette said, "And with what she just told me in our last session, we might be able to."