Faith was already in the room when she realized Gunn had company. She backed out quickly, but not quickly enough, because Gunn smirked at her, and the company turned her head and smiled. She was thin, and blonde, and almost effortlessly pretty. Faith had never seen her before.

"Sorry," she said. "I can leave you two alone."

"No, come on in," Gunn said. "I'd like for two of the strongest women I've ever known to meet each other."

"Strong? Me?" Faith and the company both said. They gave each other a startled look, then turned to stare at Gunn, who laughed.

"Last I checked, the definition of strong wasn't 'break under pressure'," Faith said.

"Uh, huh," Gunn said. "'Cause that's exactly what you did when faced with Angelus. And don't you start," he added, turning to the company. "I might have to get out of this bed and...talk some sense into you."

The company laughed. "Well, we can't have that," she said. She turned to Faith. "You really can come in, you know. I'm Anne."

Faith realized she'd just been standing in the doorway like some big geek, so she swaggered into the room. Anne was sitting in the only chair, and she didn't want to sit down on Gunn's bed, so she propped her butt on the foot of it, instead. She wasn't about to admit it, but she wished Anne would leave. Gunn seemed to be the only one of their merry band that wasn't constantly flipping out while trying to pretend that he wasn't. At least, she didn't think so. Suddenly, Faith wasn't so sure.

"Are you all right?" Anne asked her.

Faith shook her hair out of her face and gave Anne her best 'Who, me, officer?' grin. "Five by five," she said.

"Mm, hm," Anne said. The way she was looking at her made Faith twitchy. No one knew her that well, and she sure didn't want any fucking sympathy from someone she'd just met. Screw being careful, anyway. Gunn was the one who'd mentioned Angelus.

"You've been missing out, being stuck here all this time," she said to Gunn, turning her back on Anne. "The Hellmouth's come back up."

"I heard," Gunn said, but what really surprised Faith was Anne's, "What? No!"

"I grew up in Sunnydale," she added at Faith's stare. "I thought you all closed it for good."

"How did..." Faith started, but then she trailed off, because she didn't really know what she wanted to ask.

"You're a Slayer, right?" Anne said, and now it was Gunn's turn to look at her.

"How'd you know that?" he asked. "I didn't tell you when I was woozy, did I?"

Anne laughed. "No. I just...I can tell. You look like Buffy."

Faith laughed, too, though she wasn't really amused. "I think we all can agree that the only thing my looks have in common with Buffy's is that we're both smoking hot."

"Well, you are that," Anne said, smiling sweetly at her. "But it's more in how you move and how you...I don't know...are. I can just tell. Buffy saved my life, you know. Twice."

Faith shrugged. "That's what she does."

"That's what you both do," Anne said. "That's who you are."

Faith looked at her, wondering just what this chick saw when she looked at her. Whatever it was, Faith didn't think it was really there. Anne wasn't talking about dealing with apocolypsy shit; she was talking about helping just one person. Yeah, Faith had been patrolling regularly in Vancouver, plus helping Robin train the newbie Slayers. But it still didn't feel natural. Whenever she saved someone's life - and it did happen - the someone wanted to thank her, and she'd never got used to that. It still felt like the thanks were meant for someone else, not her. Like the thanks were meant for Buffy.

"Yeah," she said to Anne, shrugging like it was nothing, then turning right away to Gunn. "So, you heard about the brand spanking new Hellmouth in Bethlehem?"

Gunn nodded. "Freshly brewed evil, right in the Christmas City," he said. "And Angel said your Watcher dude thinks it was on purpose."

Faith shrugged. "That's for the brains to figure out. I go where they point, fight when they fight."

"You don't have to, you know," Gunn said.

"As the lady said, I'm a Slayer," Faith said.

"Yeah, but you could stay here in L.A. and fight evil here. There's plenty of it."

"That's for sure," Anne said. She looked sad, as well she might.

"We could use your help," Gunn said. "And I think we made a kick-ass team."

"Yeah," Faith said. "I hadn't really thought about it - I just...huh."

She barely paid attention to the rest of the conversation, though she tried to hide it every time one of them said something to her. She left as soon as she could think of a reason to, and headed back to the Hyperion. She had a lot to think about.