Author's Note: Many thanks for the vast multiplicity of reviews, and apologies for taking so long to finish this part. I was at my college homecoming all weekend and didn't have a whole lot of time to write.
Disclaimer: Daria and Amy are Glenn Eichler's. Faith and Angel are Joss Whedon's. Carla, Lynette and Bonita are mine.
X X X X X
Daria woke up Monday morning early, before the guards came around to rouse everyone for breakfast. That night, there had been no special dream. Daria had intended to pinch Faith in return if she got the chance, but the only dreams she had were normal ones.
Blinking her eyes, she looked at the book, still sitting on the floor next to her bunk.
There was enough light for her to read, if she wanted to.
Did she want to?
There was one chapter left in April 10, 1997. The central chapter to the book: the chapter dealing with the death of her family.
Did she really need to know the details?
And the answer remained, "no."
Maybe one day she'd be ready to learn what had happened; what Willard Jay Harbaugh had done to turn her into Faith.
But not yet.
And honestly, even if there was nothing in the book she could learn -- even if nothing triggered those memories that Dr. Vaughn had promised not to reveal to her -- it was still about her parents and her sister being murdered.
They were dead. How they'd died, why they'd died, what they'd died from, all of that was irrelevant.
She sighed, got up, and went to the bathroom -- the biggest problem she'd actually had so far, actually, was using a toilet completely open to public view the way hers was. Daria had always been an extremely private and modest person. She was just grateful that somehow, Faith wasn't sharing a cell with anyone else. It would have made going to the bathroom almost unbearably embarrassing.
Anyway, once she was done, she went back to bed and lay down.
Sleep didn't come.
At best, thinking that it would had been a bad idea.
X X X X X
Angel woke up Monday morning depressed and angry -- with the system, with himself, with Willard Jay Harbaugh, with Carla Fisk, and with the Watcher's Council.
He'd made it down the stairs and into the building's basement without incident. Either Carla Fisk hadn't sent anyone after him, or he really had been that fast.
Either way, once he'd made it back to the Hyperion, he'd made a point of calling her and explaining that the building was accessible through the sewer system.
"You came up through the sewer system?" she'd asked. "How did you know how to get here?"
"You'd be amazed how often it comes up," Angel had said. "Look. I promised you I'd tell you, and I've told you. If I figured it out, other people could, also -- people who aren't as nice as I am."
"So if you were going to tell me anyway, why did you run off like that?"
"I ran off," Angel had said, "Because what you're doing to Faith ticks me off, and still ticks me off. I told you because, despite what you plan on doing to Faith, I believe that you believe you're doing the right thing." And because he had no interest in seeing news stories leading off with, "Fourteen people were killed at the LA District Attorney's office today when a gang of disfigured men invaded, apparently through the sewers." Of course, he could hardly tell that to Carla Fisk.
"I'm glad you told me," the ADA'd said. "The next time you try to get in via that route you'll find it blocked."
"The next time I come to the DA's office I'll come in through the front door." He wasn't planning to go there again at all.
He'd racked his brains for the rest of the day yesterday going over ideas of how to help Faith; he'd even dragged Wesley in to help. (While Angel wasn't in charge of Angel Investigations anymore, Wesley was sufficiently ashamed of how he and the Watcher's Council had handled Faith/Daria that Angel probably could have enlisted him in an effort to storm the prison if he'd tried hard enough.)
Between the two of them they'd gone over and dismissed magic, bribery, blackmail, sweet reason, and, yes, brute force. Bribery and blackmail stood too great a chance of backfiring; brute force would get them arrested or killed; and Angel had already tried to be reasonable and failed.
Magic was the only one that seemed like it would stand even a remote chance of success; the problem was, the magic they could think of would either, at the end, still leave Faith/Daria a fugitive, or would be an act of possibly even greater evil.
The only thing they did was find an entry from the sewers into the courthouse where Judge Knott usually did his business, so that Angel could at least observe the proceedings, and maybe testify.
It was all he could do, since he couldn't come up with another idea.
X X X X X
Amy Barksdale woke up Monday morning not so much convinced she was doing the right thing as the least wrong thing.
Her discussion the previous night with Rita hadn't helped matters. Not that Rita had disagreed with Carla Fisk's proposed course of action; far from it. She'd been wildly enthusiastic about it. She didn't even want to hear about Amy's doubts.
Rita's problem was that Rita, no matter that Amy loved her and was closer to her now, was simply not a deep person. To Rita, everything was black and white, right or wrong. There were no shades of gray in the world. And hearing Amy express the slightest hesitation was cause for Rita to start ranting about how she "Always saw everything as something that needed to be discussed." It had gone downhill from there until, reverting back to the old days, they'd hung up still screaming at each other. Rita wouldn't arrive in Los Angeles today until after the hearing was over. Thank the gods for small favors.
In her emotion, excitement, and anger, Amy Barksdale had started out that way; she'd told Faith upon their first meeting that she hoped it was also their last meeting.
She hadn't changed that opinion, not really. But she wished, at least, she hadn't come off as such a hard-ass about it. The Faith persona did have her own identity and her own set of people who cared about her -- this Angel, if no one else. It was only natural that they'd be upset about the prospect of her going away forever. She should have realized that from the beginning, and tried to be nicer about the whole thing. This was a morally ambiguous area.
She still would do whatever it took to get Daria back, and free; she'd go to that trial, and, even over Daria/Faith's own objections, assume her guardianship and have her treated.
On balance, Amy still saw that as the right thing to do.
But it was a narrow, narrow decision.
If there was a way for her to get Daria out of jail while keeping Faith around, no matter that Faith had killed people, she'd do it as long as she was convinced that Faith was no longer dangerous. Even the ADA seemed willing to stipulate Faith's sincere desire to make up for her crimes.
But that wasn't an option, and she couldn't really blame Carla Fisk for not seeing it as one. Amy didn't care much about publicity, but she fully understood how the LA DA's office ran by different standards. (And after OJ, McMartin, and the trial of the four officers who'd beaten Rodney King into a bloody pulp, she could even understand why they would be extra sensitive about any negative publicity.)
So she would be complicit in killing off an independent personality.
How she'd handle Daria's anger after she was finally released, she had no idea.
X X X X X
Bonita Juarez woke up Monday morning grateful she was simply a prison warden.
Lynette and Carla had both called her giving their interpretations of what had happened in the DA's office after she'd left.
She'd laughed when she heard how the PI had simply run out of the building -- had to give the man credit for guts, if not brains. Beyond that, though, Lynette was still complaining about how unfair it was, and Carla was happy about having gotten Faith's aunt to go along with her plans.
All in all, it made Bonita glad that she really didn't have anything to do with the decision-making in this case. The headaches, thank goodness, belonged to somebody else. All she had to do was make sure the prison ran smoothly. She was amazed she could say that with a straight face, but she could.
She felt sorry for everyone else involved; for Lynette, for Carla, for Amy Barksdale, and especially for Faith and Daria. But at least she was out of it.
It was looking more and more like her decision to leave after the morning brainstorming session had been a good idea.
X X X X X
Carla Fisk woke up Monday morning in a good mood, all things considered. She'd discovered -- accidentally, but that still counted -- a security leak in the DA's office and taken steps to have it plugged up. (For the moment, they'd simply moved some boxes on top of the sewer access. There was some obscure regulation mandating that they couldn't simply create a new concrete floor on top of it, so eventually they were going to make sure it couldn't be opened readily from underneath, and put locks on the door that led to the room containing the access.)
She'd been a bit pissed when that PI Angel had run off, but eventually, after talking to Bonnie Juarez, had seen the humor in it. She'd still had plans to investigate him and his credentials until he'd called a couple of hours later and told her what she'd promised.
She couldn't even fault his motives. Eventually, though, Carla hoped he and Dr. Vaughn would understand that Carla was doing this all for the greater good -- good for Daria Morgendorffer, good for her family, good for the city of Los Angeles and the state of California.
For the moment, she'd have to settle for them not getting in her way. Dr. Vaughn had made that promise, and given what Angel had done in the office yesterday he wouldn't make a particularly good character witness. Faith Lehane's record, Carla felt, would speak for itself quite eloquently against anything he could say.
Certainly, Lehane had been a model prisoner; doing everything she could to show that she was sincere in her desire to pay for her crimes; she'd even been going for her GED, which was kind of ambitious considering that when she started she knew she wasn't likely to get out for another twelve years or so, minimum.
But what she'd done before that had been violent, and bloody, and decidedly antisocial. Lehane's desire to reform was no doubt genuine; that still didn't mean she couldn't pose a danger to society. If Carla lost the emergency hearing, she'd file for a regular hearing, and in the interim she'd make damn sure Faith Lehane aka Daria Morgendorffer stayed in jail until the situation was resolved the way she knew it needed to be resolved.
Yes, this would be unfair to Daria Morgendorffer, who was the most obvious victim in all of this. But it would still be, overall, best for everyone involved, and that was the ideal she worked towards.
And honestly, as far as handling the situation went, she hadn't heard anyone else come up with a better idea.
X X X X X
Dr. Lynette Vaughn woke up Monday morning, after a lousy night's sleep, resolved to help Daria Morgendorffer/Faith Lehane however she could.
She'd promised Carla Fisk she wouldn't interfere with the emergency hearing today; and she wouldn't. If another hearing came around, she made no guarantees; but by that point, "Faith" would likely be gone for good.
She hated being put in this position. Ninety-five times out of 100, she agreed with the DA's office. One of the reasons she worked for the city of Los Angeles, doing this, is because she believed that -- not that the prisoners didn't need help; a lot of the times they did. But they were exaggerating some symptoms, or faking them, to get out, to get off, to get drugs. Even after she exposed their fakery, though, she continued trying to help them with the problems they did have.
Faith was different. Her DID was genuine. And because of it, the city of Los Angeles was going to do its best to make sure she ceased to exist.
Lynette wasn't going to let that happen.
Simple determination wasn't going to be enough, though. The world was full of people whose "motive was clear, whose will was strong, and who were just as dead as if they'd been wrong."
But Lynette had more than determination.
She had an idea.