Disclaimer: If you don't recognize them, they're mine. If you do recognize them, they belong to either Joss Whedon or Glenn Eichler.

X X X X X

"Who else's decision would it be?" Daria asked. "Dr. Vaughn's? Maggie Silber's? Carla Fisk's?"

"Any or all of 'em, put together. If they decided that I needed to be erased for our own good, there ain't a whole lot we could do about it."

"You want to hear something even more pessimistic?"

Faith said, "Not really, no. Tell me anyway." She needed to have all the info she could.

"Dr. Vaughn could do that all by herself. All she'd need to do is say 'Jake, Helen, Quinn," to you, and then never say 'Faith Ellen Lehane' to me. It would be a massive violation of professional ethics, of course. But since when has that ever stopped people?" Dr. Vaughn didn't seem like the type of person who would do something like that. But Daria had been wrong before.

"We could still switch off in these dreams, though."

Daria shook her head. "Every dream like this we've had has been when you were in control. I don't know if I could."

"Dammit," Faith said "I really need to get you more into the other part of my life. That's why I have dreams like this."

"The . . . vampire slaying?" Daria said, skeptically. Just because Faith was preternaturally strong didn't mean the other stuff was true. Made it a tad more likely, but still. Vampires?

"Yeah. The vampire slaying. And I can tell you don't really believe me yet. On the other hand, you ain't treatin' me like I'm a complete nutjob, so that's a start."

"You were right about how strong we are," Daria said. "That buys you enough credibility to keep the discussion going. Still, vampires, werewolves, demons -- this sounds like sweeps week for Sick, Sad World."

"Yeah. Or an off week for ­X-Files. I wish there was some way I could show you this. You know, if you ever get out of here and I'm not with you in some way you're gonna be in a lot of trouble. You got the strength, but you ain't got the fighting skills or the instincts." After a second, "Do you have any fighting skills?"

"I learned basic self-defense -- Mom insisted. Nothing fancy like you can do."

"Most of my fighting technique comes from the street," Faith said. "I've never been much of a martial artist. My Watchers gave me a little discipline, showed me a few techniques, but not much. I just took the way I'd already been fightin' and figured in my new strength and speed. Never even really learned weapons beyond knives and stakes." She paused. "I can do a bit more to prove myself, though. Yeah, this is a dream, but it doesn't look like I can conjure up anything I want. And you can try what I'm about to show you next time you get the chance. If only there was a way for you to meet Angel." And saying this, she began kicking, punching, and dodging imaginary attackers.

Daria was impressed with her speed and agility. And she believed Faith; this didn't seem to be a lucid dream where either one of them could control things.

So perhaps, if Faith had her speed and strength --

There was something Daria had heard of called "muscle memory." A body instinctively remembers how to do things over time through repetition. It wasn't psychological, but a genuine physiological change.

Faith had told her she'd been fighting for a long time. And Faith was Daria. Yes, d dreamtime was unreliable. But it was worth a shot.

This was going to require something Daria wasn't very good at -- not thinking.

She watched Faith for a bit. Then she threw a punch.

Then another.

Then a kick.

Then a second kick.

Then she began to dodge and weave, just like she'd seen Faith do.

Faith looked over and saw Daria shadowfighting. She didn't feel any more intellectual, so she knew they weren't integrating; but somehow Daria had picked up Faith's techniques.

And --

This was weird.

The more Daria fought, the more she stopped looking like a bookish teenager and stated looking more like Faith thought of herself. Oh, the girl still had on the same outfit and the glasses; but she looked 19 now, not 15, and more self-confident, more assured.

Daria stopped when she felt Faith looking at her. "Sorry," she said. "Muscle memory. I was seeing if I could do the same things you do." Faith watched her image revert back to 15 years old. Dammit. She needed to not do that.

Faith had heard of muscle memory. Her first watcher had mentioned it as one of the reasons she should train, train, train. She got that now; she hadn't gotten it then.

"Of course," Daria continued, "This is the dream version of muscle memory. The real test will be seeing how well it works in the real world."

Faith said, "Try not to get into any fights. The guards kind of frown on that. And yeah, we could kick their asses, but eventually, there are more of them than there are of you."

"Darn. There go my plans to start a riot and slip out in the chaos."

"You should have seen yourself, just now," Faith said. "When you stopped thinking and started fighting, you looked just like me."

"I still can't picture myself wearing tight leather pants," Daria said. Except possibly at gunpoint. And even then, it would need to be a large-caliber weapon.

Faith shook her head. "No. I mean, you looked your age. Our age. And you had the muscle tone we have now. But now you're back to what you used to look like. Eventually, you're gonna have to start seein' yourself that way full time."

"Or --?"

"Or you're dead," Faith said. "Look. Just because you don't remember your time as a vampire Slayer doesn't mean other people and creatures ain't gonna. There are people who would track us down and kill us based just on that, never mind what me and B've done to them. And then there's the sacred duty of bein' a Slayer." Faith couldn't believe she'd said that with a straight face. It had taken her years -- till the time she'd been in B's body in that church and finally knew what it was like to say "Because it's wrong," and mean it -- to really get it.

Too late, seeing what happened afterwards. Too late for her. But maybe not too late for Daria.

Daria said as much. "Seems to me you weren't treating it like a sacred duty."

"I know. That was my fuckup. It doesn't have to be yours. Look, Daria, I realize this is a whole new level of shit bein' piled on you. But it ain't something you're going to be able to avoid."

"Muscle memory," Daria said.

"You got the moves. That's a big leg up. But it ain't even half the battle. I mean, you got the same strength and skills I do, right now, if you stop thinking about it. But if we fought, I could take you ten times out of ten. And while I told you about vamps and werewolves and how to deal with 'em, there are a whole shitload of other nasties out there that you and me ain't got time to memorize."

"You're saying if I get out of here, my life is pretty much over anyway," Daria said. "Doesn't give me a lot to look forward to." She shook her head. "I'm not a hero. I never wanted to be a hero. All I wanted to do was write and get an education."

"Are you sayin' you like it better in here?"

"No. I'm saying right now my best hope is that you're completely insane. And my muscle memory makes even that faint." The strength was superhuman, the speed and fighting skills not so, but combined, it said that either Faith labored under an incredibly powerful delusion or that she was telling the truth.

And that scared the hell out of Daria.

X X X X X

"What kind of bagel do you want?" Bonita Juarez, who'd been born and raised in New York City, had grown up loving bagels and didn't see any reason to change that now that she was thousands of miles away from ninety percent of the quality bagel shops in the world. It was a bitch and a half finding a place out here, but she had. "I got a dozen mixed here, plus cream cheese and butter."

She, Carla Fisk, and Lynette Vaughn were meeting to discuss the Faith Lehane aka Daria Morgendorffer situation. Bonita's one full-time day off was Sunday, and she repeatedly told the deputy warden who got stuck running the place Sundays not to call her in for anything short of a riot or a mass escape attempt. So far she'd gotten called in once in three years.

Still, this was important enough that she agreed that they needed to hash it out as soon as possible. Bonita had apologized to her family and went over to the DA's office as soon as church was over.

Normally, this wouldn't have been in her job description. But these weren't really normal circumstances, and both Lynette and Carla had asked her to be there to be, if nothing else, a sounding board.

"Cinnamon raisin?" Lynette asked. "Plain."

"Everything," Carla Fisk said. "With cream cheese."

Bonita took an onion bagel, spread it with half butter and half cream cheese, and sat down in one of the chairs around the conference room. The DA's office never slept, not even on the weekend, but it did take it easy. No one would be using this room for a while.

"Okay," Carla said. "You said you came to some kind of breakthrough yesterday?"

"You could say that," Lynette said. "I found out what turned Daria Morgendorffer into Faith Lehane. Ms. Fisk -- did you get the file on Willard Jay Harbaugh from the state of Texas?"

Carla said, "Yes. Got it yesterday. Spent some time looking through it. It's pretty thick and very gory."

"I want to confirm a few things before I tell you. Where was Harbaugh born and raised?"

"Hold on . . ." Carla said. Bonita couldn't see why this was important, but she wasn't the expert. "Born in Quincy, Massachusetts. Grew up in Boston."

"Good. How many witnesses did he leave alive?"

Carla answered that one without checking her file. "Two. They were terrified but they gave us pretty detailed descriptions of what he looked like."

"Three," Lynette said. "He was still there when Daria Morgendorffer got back from her school project."

"He said that he'd never met her."

Laughing sharply, Bonita said, "A lying spree killer. Never would've seen that one coming."

"And did he leave messages on the walls of all of his victims' homes?"

"In their blood. Always short and inspirational. 'Don't give up,' 'Hang in there,' 'Have faith --" She and Bonita looked at each other. "That's the one that was on the wall of the Morgendorffer home in Highland." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Lynette said. "And you've just confirmed a lot of what Daria Morgendorffer told me under hypnosis."

"Let's hear the rest of it, then," Bonita said.

And Lynette told them the whole story. When she was done, Bonita said, "Holy mother of God . . ."

"There's nothing in the official record that conflicts with Miss Morgendorffer's story?" Lynette asked.

"Apart from her actually being there, no," Carla said. "Holy crap. The other two survivors suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. And they didn't have family members killed five feet away from them."

"I'm surprised she didn't go completely catatonic," Lynette said. "As it is, seeing her mother murdered right in front of her caused a trauma severe enough to completely dissociate her identity. By objective standards, Faith Lehane is not an improvement on Daria Morgendorffer. But it had just been forcefully demonstrated to Daria how little help her education had been, and how a 'tough chick" would have been able to protect her family. Given all of this --"

"I almost never say this about my inmates," Bonita said, "'cause I've heard seven different kinds of bullshit seven different ways. But that girl's a victim. Maybe Faith Lehane isn't, but Daria Morgendorffer sure as shit is."

"Agreed," Carla said. "Dr. Vaughn, you said the normal procedure in cases like this is to integrate the two personalities, correct?"

"That's usual. It's not always done -- on occasion, it's better for the person to maintain the dissociated identities, if the process of integrating them would make matters worse or there's really nothing mentally wrong with the person other than the multiple personalities. Other times, it might be better to eliminate the dissociated identity entirely."

"How long would it take to integrate Faith and Daria?"

Lynette shook her head. "I couldn't begin to tell you -- and I'm not sure it would be feasible in this case. Their personalities are so wildly disparate that integrating them would be very difficult."

Carla Fisk said, "And here's where the District Attorney's office sticks its head in, officially. The Faith identity is responsible for two murders and a whole host of lesser crimes. Putting her back on the street as herself is unacceptable."

Lynette said, "Daria will never go for it. She and Faith made a deal -- they're able to talk to each other in their dreams, I think I told you that -- and Daria agreed that Daria wouldn't try to be released if it meant Faith losing her identity."

"Well," Carla said, "Someone's just going to have to tell her that it's not her decision."