Chapter 14

We all sat down. Kate was next to Faith, with Beth next to her. Angel, Liam, Finn and I were further away.

"When I talked to Buffy," began Kate, "She told me how at first she did not want to be the Slayer and how hard it was to keep the secret from her mum and friends…"

"It was different for me, my mother didn't care about me; she was either drunk and knocking me about or passed out. I could have turned into a six foot Sloth Demon and she wouldn't have noticed. I was pleased to find out that I had been chosen and that I had extra abilities, for years my mother had been telling me what a useless piece of crap I was."

"That's awful!" I heard myself saying.

Faith looked at me. "I can tell, Mrs Kerrigan…"

"Clare, call me Clare."

"I can tell, Clare, that you and my mother are polar opposites. You are like Joyce Summers, you care about your daughter, so," She turned back to Kate, "some of your choices will be different to mine and some the same. You come from a very supportive family, I know because Angel has told me about them. You have security, where I had none. I did not think twice about leaving home and being with my Watcher. He looked after me, but when he was killed by Kakistos, I lost my security and I went to find the only other person I knew who would understand me; the other Slayer, Buffy. She tried really hard to be nice to me, but I was pretty crappy to her. I was very mixed up and found someone who wanted to look after me. He was very kind and always tried to make sure I was eating right and bought me clothes and rented a flat for me. No sexual stuff you know, he was like a surrogate father."

"Is that the Mayor who ate the Principal?" asked Finn in what he thought was a whisper, but in reality was quite loud.

"You got it, kid, the psychopath Mayor. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I made bad decisions in my life,"

"You made the right one to give yourself up." Put in Angel.

"True – but that was the hardest decision I've ever made."

I just thought how amazing this young woman was, she had had such a terrible start in life and had to find her own way in a very difficult world; not only a broken home, but to find out that she was a Slayer and had to battle with vampires and demons. Faith had been let down, abused and abandoned and now was paying for the consequences of her bad decisions. My children paid for the consequences of their bad decisions by having to do extra washing up! Well two of them did – what is it with boys and being caught? For all I knew Beth and Kate also made wrong decisions but I never found out, or had to clean up the result!

"I think you are very brave." I said.

She looked at me, "You are very kind."

And then out of the blue I just said, "When you get out of here, come over to England and live with us; be part of our family for a while." I meant it.

"Are you for real?"

"Yes." I smiled.

She looked at Angel, "Everything you said about her was true."

Angel nodded, "I told you she was wonderful."

"Can I ask some questions?" It was Kate; I had almost forgotten why we came!

"Sure, sorry go ahead," apologised Faith.

"Are you afraid when you go out patrolling?"

"Yes, because you know that what you are going to meet will be scary and will want to kill you, but, I know I am better than them. I am right and they are wrong. That gives you such a blast when you get rid of them."

I had to bite my lip and sit on my hands and not say anything. This was Kate's time not mine.

Kate was nodding, "What does a Watcher do?"

"They guide you and tell you things to help you survive. They know all about the vampires and demons that you might meet and they prepare you. They train you in martial arts and how to use different weapons. It's neat stuff and there's no where else that you can get this information."

"Do you get to choose your Watcher, do you like have a catalogue of Watchers?"

Faith laughed.

"No such luck. Matthew, my first Watcher was really cool. I was gutted when he was killed. I thought it was my fault for ages and ages, and part of me still does…" She stopped for a moment, and then seemed to compose herself and carry on, "Wesley was very, very different. At first he was a real dork. He was so British and correct he nearly disappeared up his own…"

"Faith." It was Angel.

"Sorry, present company excepted – I know he's much better now, but then he did everything to the rules. The Watchers' Council are a load of stuffy old men who like to make rules about how Slayers should live and what they should do. They have rules about rules."

"Will they know that I am a potential Slayer?"

"I don't know. If they haven't contacted you, they might not, or it may be that you are related to Angel, that they aren't sure what to do with you."

"I hadn't thought about that." Kate replied. Neither had I.

"What do you think I should do?"

"About what?"

"Being a Slayer."

"The way I see it, and don't take my word as gospel, because remember," Faith pointed to herself, "Rogue Slayer here. You have to make the best of things. You live your life the best way you can; you go to school, you make friends, you live with your family for most of the time. But you will get this little nagging thought that there is something else in your life that you are missing. When you start to get this feeling; it's the waking up of the Slayer inside you. That's when you need to contact Giles or Wesley and let them know. Oh and keep up with the Martial Arts practise, it does come in very handy."

"I don't feel anything different."

"Then I would say you aren't ready yet. You will find that your strength increases and you are able to heal very fast if you hurt yourself."

The boys were just itching to ask questions and couldn't contain themselves any longer.

"What's the biggest thing you've ever killed?"

"How many different colours of blood are there?"

"Have you met Dracula?"

"What's the worst thing you've ever killed?"

The rapid fire of questions made Faith laugh and she answered them all.

It was Kate's turn again.

"What if you don't want to be the Slayer?"

"It's like when you see those posters during the war, you know, 'Your country needs you' with the man pointing to you. Many ordinary men, who wouldn't normally fight, sign up to go to war because they don't want to see all that they hold dear being controlled and dominated by the enemy. It's the same with being the Slayer. You know that there is evil in the world and you are the one person that can make a difference and stop the evil taking over."

"That's scary." Whispered Kate.

"Yes it is, and I don't want to talk you about it's your duty crap; you just feel deep down inside that it's the right thing to do. For a long time, I ignored that feeling and used my abilities for the wrong reasons. I hope that I have learned to listen again."

Beth's request to come and meet Faith was such a good one. It gave Kate two perspectives about being the Slayer. I was quite, no very, surprised that Beth didn't say anything or ask anything and then I realised that she had decided that it was Kate's call, not hers; she just wanted to give Kate as much information as possible about being the Slayer. Beth was such a good big sister.

Faith looked at Kate, "From what I have seen so far, and from what Angel has told me, I can tell that you have what it takes to be a great warrior." This made me smile because Beth's re-enactment group were called warriors by other people and Kate always thought this was really funny and made jokes about it, and now she was being called one herself by someone whom I knew she respected. Faith continued, "You have a great support group in your family, and having Angel as family as well can only help your preparation to be the Slayer."

"You should see her Dad," commented Angel, "He took Wolfram and Hart on because they posed a threat."

"Wow!" Faith looked really impressed, "He must be a brilliant."

"He is." Agreed Kate, Beth, Liam and Finn, all together.

"If you need any help you have Buffy, Giles and the Scoobys," Faith paused, "And you have me."

"Thank you, Faith, that means a lot to me. I have so much to think about. My life seems to have been turned upside down in the two weeks we have been in Los Angeles."

"Take your time, Kate; remember you have another life too, and you need to be thinking about that as well."

We must have been in with Faith a couple of hours. Finn and Liam had been incredibly well behaved, but I could tell they were now getting hungry and had started to fidget. Faith picked up on this too.

"Shall we call it a day? You know where I am if you want me, ain't moving from here for a while."

"Yes, I think it's time to go and my brothers definitely think it's time to finish. Thank you for your imput."

"You are welcome. We all got up, Kate went up and hugged Faith, followed by everyone else.

"You are a very tactile family, aren't you."

"Yes we are," I agreed, "Comes from my side of the family."

We all looked at Angel.

"It must have skipped over me," he said, putting on his coat. He went and knocked on the door and the prison guards came back in to put the hand cuffs back on Faith. I felt so sad that she had to return to the life of being in prison.

I went to Faith before she left, "If there is anything you need, just write and ask."

"O.K. thanks, Mom." With that she lifted her chained hand as far as she could in a wave and left. After another wait, another prison guard came and led us back to the car. She took us a different way and we had to go past an area filled with prisoners. The calls and wolf whistles for Angel, Finn and Liam were deafening. I felt my boys very close to me again, but this time their sisters walked next to them and we managed to get back to the car all in one piece. When we got back and inside the car, it started,

"You could tell they liked me more," boasted Liam,

"How do you work that out?" asked his brother.

"More people shouted for me."

"How do you know?" asked a very intrigued Beth.

"Because I am far more handsome than stupid here." Announced Liam, pointing to Finn.

"Hey, arse face, who are you kidding?" retorted Finn.

"ENOUGH!" I declared, "No more, I want to get to the restaurant in once piece, and you will put Beth off driving."

"Can I choose the restaurant?" asked Finn.

"Not today," I said, "It's Kate's call."

"I don't mind, let's drive for a little while so I can try and process what Faith was saying."

I think everyone agreed and despite the fact that we had not eaten for a good few hours, no one complained as we all understood the importance of meeting Faith. We must have been driving for about forty five minutes when Kate suddenly pointed, "Look there's a Wendy's coming up on the right, we can call in there."

We piled out; it was actually dark now. During the meal we just chatted about mundane things, not mentioning our trip to see Faith. By the time we had finished, Angel said that he would drive home and Beth agreed she was now feeling tired.

As soon as Angel backed out of the car park and got onto the freeway, all the children were asleep in the back of the car.

"I really think that was worth it; thank you for arranging the day."

"It was Beth's idea. I agree it, was beneficial for everyone, I am sure Kate will have a great deal to think about."

"I didn't really see that much of Buffy, but I am sure that although different in some ways, Buffy and Faith have also some similar characteristics."

"Yes, they have. It was good that Kate could see them both, and quite close together, she would have seen the spectrum of attitudes exhibited by both Slayers."

We lapsed into a contented silence, watching the countryside pass by and listening to the regular breathing of my children in the back of the car. All safe and very comforting.