Author's note: Did y'all catch the paraphrase from the Buffy episode Enemies at the end of the last chapter? Strictly intentional, I assure you.
Also: Wow. Part 25. I really didn't think the fic would go this long. In any events, thanks to all the readers and reviewers who've managed to read this far. I have an ending in mind, but I', not quite sure how much longer it'll take to get there.
Disclaimer: Daria belongs to Glenn Eichler. Faith belongs to Joss Whedon. Lynette Vaughn and Bonita Juarez belong to me.
X X X X X
Lynette Vaughn came back from her morning jog. She didn't call out when she entered the house. Her husband was off shooting on location in Wyoming and the cat never came when she was called.
As she walked past the kitchen, she noticed a message on her answering machine. Checking the caller ID, she noticed that it was from Bonnie Juarez and had come in ten minutes ago.
She pressed play: "Lynette, get down here as soon as you can. Lehane's apparently ranting and raving in her cell -- she hasn't hurt anyone, or herself, but I'm really worried. My guards are afraid to go in the cell with her and you know my guards aren't wimps. I'm going down there now to see if I can calm her down."
Dammit. She'd never told Bonnie what had happened with Faith. She'd called Carla Fisk and Angel but somehow she'd overlooked telling Bonnie about it. So Bonnie didn't know that Lynette wouldn't be "Faith's" favorite person anymore.
Daria Morgendorffer, ranting, raving, and scaring the guards? Something was wrong here.
Could her hypnosis have gone awry?
It was possible.
What wasn't possible was that Daria had started ranting and raving on her own. That just wasn't in her personality. Daria had been in a towering fury when Lynette had told her she'd excised Faith, and all Daria had done then was tell her irritably to get away from her.
And unfortunately, whether Daria trusted her or not, Lynette was the only one who stood a chance.
She washed up quickly, changed her clothes, and ran out the door.
X X X X X
"Okay, stand back," Bonita told the guards as she came near Faith Lehane's cell. She could hear the young woman screaming from well down the cellblock. She didn't seem to be making any threats; hell, she didn't seem to be acknowledging anyone else's existence.
"I wouldn't get too close if I were you," the guard, Josie, said, walking towards her while two other guards kept an eye on Lehane. "She's still poundin' her fist into the wall. And, boss, either she's a member of the WWF in disguise or we gotta sue whoever built this place for usin' shitty material. 'cause she's almost ready to put a hole through the wall."
Speaking quietly, Bonita said, "Are there any other prisoners still in the cellblock?"
"Most of them are either workin' or in class," Josie said. "We got a few who've got free time."
"Get them out of here. Put them in the main yard," Bonita said. Let the inmates think that something fishy was about to go down; she didn't care. She just wanted to keep the knowledge of Faith's split personality away from the main prison population.
"I'm going to walk over to Lehane's cell with you," she continued. "When I get there, motion Henley and Dominguez to come with you. Then have Dominguez and Henley get the other prisoners out of the area. You go to the armory and get the tranq gun and get back here. Just stay out of sight of the cell. Also -- who's on duty at the main entrance today?"
Josie, who was head of this guard shift, knew the answer off the top of her head, as Bonita had expected. "Villanueva and Sheldon."
"Dr. Vaughn should be coming. When she does, have one of them bring her back here as fast as they can.
"But --"
"Lehane's behaved herself since she got here," Bonita said. "I doubt she's going to hurt me, and if she tries, I don't care how much fucking damage she's doing with those fists, it's gonna take her a while to get through her cell bars. If she does get threatening, I'll back off and you can nail her with the tranq."
Josie looked a bit doubtful about Bonita's plan, but bit off whatever protest she'd been planning on making. 'Yes, boss."
They walked up to the front of Lehane's cell. Josie gestured for Henley and Dominguez to follow her; they both looked at Bonita for confirmation. She nodded and they walked off.
Bonita turned and looked into the cell.
"Why didn't it work?" Faith said.
"Why didn't what work, Lehane?"
Faith looked up and growled. "I'd go away if I were you, warden. I'm not especially pleasant company right now." Her voice sounded a bit off -- and not just from the anger.
Bonita said, "Fuck that, Lehane. This is a prison, remember? I realize you've got special circumstances but in the end you don't get to tell me what to do. In fact, you don't even get to make suggestions. Now. I've sent the guards away, but I will have them tranq you if I don't get a good answer. So. I'll ask again. Why didn't what work, Lehane?"
"I'm not Lehane."
That shocked the hell out of Bonita. "You're -- Daria?"
"Yes. I've been Daria for a couple of days now," she said, still growling. Where the hell was all of this rage coming from?
"And what didn't work?" Lehane -- no, Daria -- slammed her fist into the wall again. "Knock that off. You're actually starting to damage the wall." She knew Lehane was a lot stronger than she looked, but this was ridiculous. Some building inspectors were going to have to come in and check the place. She couldn't have the inmates thinking they could simply pound their way out of their cells.
"I'm having a hard time caring."
"You'll care if I have to stick you in solitary because your cell's too badly damaged to stay in," Bonita said.
She stopped her next punch in mid-flight, then snarled, "Good point. Is it okay if I stomp the floor?"
"Why do you have to do anything?" Bonita said as Daria slammed her foot down on the concrete floor of her cell.
"Because I have all of these emotions inside me and for some reason I can't deal with them. I need to let out my anger somehow. And I'll be damned if I'm going to use it against another person."
"You've been raging like this for, what, two hours now?" Bonita said. "This isn't the usual fit of anger."
"No kidding," Daria spat. "You might be better off tranquilizing me. Use a heavy dosage. I might need it. Maybe when I wake up I'll have calmed down."
"I'd rather not unless I have no choice," Bonita said. "I know you're on your way out of here and I'm actually trying not to screw that up."
"I appreciate that," Daria growled again. "It might sound like I'm ready to rip your head off but I'm not." She let out a short, wordless scream of anger and pain. "God damn it! I hate being like this," she said through gritted teeth. Because I'm not. I don't vent ---" on the word vent, Daria stamped her foot onto the floor again --"Like this. And I can't control it. It's why I stopped the guards from coming into my cell. Faith had these emotions. And she killed people with them. I will. Not. Do that."
"I've got Dr. Vaughn coming down --" Bonita was interrupted when Daria stomped on the floor again, twice as hard as she had before.
"This is all her fault," Daria said. "If she hadn't done what she did --"
Puzzled, Bonita asked, "What did she do?"
Daria let out a laugh that sounded more frightening than any of her growls had. "She's the one responsible for me being like this."
"What?" That sounded irresponsible and stupid -- two words she would never associate with Dr. Lynette Vaughn.
"She took Faith away!"
"She did?" Every word out of Daria's mouth made the situation more and more confusing. "That's not how it was supposed to happen."
Stomping her feet again, Daria said, "Again, no kidding."
"No," Bonita said, wishing like hell that Lynette had bothered to tell her what was going on. Inwardly, she laughed at herself for being something of a hypocrite. On the one hand, she was glad she was clear of the entire situation, because of the publicity. On the other hand, she wanted to be told all about it.
Bonita went on, "That's not what I meant. I meant that Dr. Vaughn was the only one who argued against it. ADA Fisk was for it and so was I. Dr. Vaughn was so firmly opposed to it she almost stormed out of the room."
"What about my aunt?" Daria asked.
Bonita knew the results of the hearing yesterday, so she know Daria's aunt had also been in favor of removing Faith's personality. But she didn't feel it was her business to tell Daria that. "I don't know," Bonita said evasively. "I left before she got there." Out of the corner of her eye, Bonita noticed Josie come back with the tranquilizer gun. She nodded to let Josie know to stop there. Josie was enough of a professional to know when the situation called for immediate action.
Daria was not a threat. Not a threat to anyone else, anyway. And she didn't sound suicidal, either -- and Bonita had, sadly, had to deal with several suicides during her journey through the penal systems of Texas and California.
By the normal standards of her job, no prisoner should be allowed to cause this much disruption. She should be telling Josie to come over and shoot Lehane/Morgendorffer so full of tranquilizers she wouldn't wake up for a month. But this wasn't a normal situation. And she really wanted to see Daria Morgendorffer be free of this place.
There was probably no other prisoner she would have gone through this much effort for.
"Okay," Daria said harshly. "Let's say I believe you." She obviously didn't. "Then why would Dr. Vaughn have erased Faith's personality?"
"I don't know," Bonita said. "You'd have to ask her. She's --"
A voice from about twenty feet away said, "She's here."
X X X X X
Daria, through her rage, was grateful to Warden Juarez for talking with her, for trying to keep her calm. It was probably the best job anyone really could have done under the circumstances.
That part of her that was still capable of being analytic had long ago realized that her reaction was far, far from normal. Even though she pitched emotional fits like this about once a year, she knew they didn't last hours.
Emotions vented. Things slowed down. Adrenaline ran out.
And two hours plus into this one and she was still ready to chew steel and spit out nails.
That part of her that was still analytical had figured it out: reading that chapter of her aunt's book had been incredibly stupid.
The flashes of memories she had had nothing to do with this. What Daria could recall of April 10, 1997, still added up to a total of maybe fifteen seconds scattered throughout a whole day.
But as she'd read through it, her emotions had begun boiling to the surface.
No, Faith hadn't come back.
But the emotions she'd been created to deal with had.
Faith could have channeled the anger, the pain, the anguish, the raw hurt.
But Faith wasn't here.
The part of her that wasn't analytical kept stomping on the floor and screaming.
There was one thing the two parts definitely agreed with each other on, though:
She didn't want to talk to Dr. Vaughn.
Unfortunately, not dealing with Dr. Vaughn was impossible, unless Daria either suddenly developed the power of teleportation or somehow found a way to knock herself unconscious.
The warden had moved out of Daria's line of vision, about 20-25 feet down the hallway. They were speaking in whispers, quietly enough that under most normal circumstances they couldn't be heard.
But most people didn't have the physical skills of a vampire Slayer.
". . . have to talk to her alone."
"I can't let you do that," the warden said. "She's really angry with you."
"I'm not saying you need to let me into the cell," Dr. Vaughn said. "Just stand further away. Think of it as doctor-patient confidentiality if you have to."
The warden sounded dubious. "I'm worried about your safety," she said. She didn't need to be. Daria would nothurt another human being. But she understood why the warden was concerned. "And I seem to have gotten through to her a bit." She had. As much as she could, she'd managed to calm Daria down. But it wasn't enough.
Daria hadn't been kidding when she'd told the warden to have the guard shoot her with the tranquilizer rifle. As long as she was unconscious, she wouldn't be able to hurt anyone, even by accident -- and maybe these emotions, these emotions she was never meant to handle, would go away while she was asleep.
"I understand. But there's something I can help her with that no one else can. Remember, I hypnotized her." Daria growled incoherently and stomped her foot again. They were almost mechanical, these rages of hers. Like she was a machine that steam had to be let out of periodically or she'd explode.
"Okay, Lynette," the warden said. "I'll trust you. But we're staying in the cellblock and if things look like they're going bad, Josie will shoot first and ask questions later."
"Understood." Then she started to walk over towards Daria's cell door.
Daria took a quick step back before she got there. "You don't need to worry," Daria snapped. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm still ticked at you, but I'm more ticked at myself that it didn't work."
"What didn't work?"
And Daria explained what she'd done, leaving out the dream conversation with the Buffy-echo.
"Oh, Daria," Dr. Vaughn said. "I wish you hadn't done this."
"You left me no choice. I wanted Faith back and you'd taken her away."
Dr. Vaughn then said, "I need to show you something." Then she said a phrase that echoed one of Daria's own thoughts. "I never knew you had so much rage in you."
As Daria was thinking that this couldn't be a coincidence, she somehow knew what she needed to say next. "What can I say? I'm the world's best actor."
And Dr. Vaughn smiled and said, "Second best."
And Daria remembered.