author: Lucinda

rating: pg13 for violence

sixth in the 'My Daughter' series

main characters: Tom Cassidy, Caine Marco, Quentin Travers

disclaimer: Travers and Faith are the creation of Joss Whedon for the series BtVS and/or Angel the Series. Tom and Caine are the creation of Marvel comics.

distribution: with the rest of the My Daughter series.

notes: AU after Faith turned herself in during S1 Angel/S4 BtVS.

The trip to London was actually a miserable series of flights. First, they went from Los Angeles to Chicago, then from Chicago to Boston, and finally from Boston to London. Tom felt positively queasy by that point, and exhausted from the nervous dread left by the turbulence over the ocean. His mind had been haunted by images of lightning killing the engines, causing them to plummet thousands of feet to the water below.

London called for a good deal more caution about his identity, considering that Scotland Yard was looking for him. A small matter of a few dozen criminal charges that he'd committed... He doubted that they'd care that he was trying to help out his daughter, and he wasn't certain that he wanted them to know about her. Some of them were decent enough if a bit stuffy, but others were miserable bastards with badges. They found somewhere quiet to sleep off the jet lag, and finalize a couple details of their plans.

A solid fourteen hours of sleep left Tom feeling much better. They pulled out a few maps, and some paper to scrawl a few notes on.

"Tom, can we just do this the quick way?" Caine grumbled. "Let me break down the wall, grab someone to tell us where to find Travers, and kick his head in?"

"We want to ask him questions first." Tom paused, considering things. "But the rest of it doesn't sound that bad."

"Good." Caine cracked his knuckles, with a gleeful expression on his face that had terrified an assortment of military leaders, heroes and mercenaries.

It wasn't that much more complicated than that. They found the building, three looming stories of dark brick, flanked by more looming dark buildings and a narrow, gloomy looking patch of half dead trees and thorny branches. Caine kicked the door down, and walked right inside, with Tom following after him. There was someone screaming, and a siren was going off somewhere deeper in the building.

A man with a coppery sword tried to attack, and Caine caught the sword, lifting the man to dangle in the air, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. "I'm not after you. Back off."

Tom looked around, and saw a young woman, silently watching everything from under a desk while another woman jus stared and shrieked. Beckoning towards the quiet one, he asked, "Could you be taking us to see Mr. Quentin Travers? I've got a few questions for him, and I couldn't find a number to call and make an appointment."

For a moment, she was still, and then her eyes flickered to the still screaming woman. Carefully, she ducked back out from under the desk, and brushed some dust off her skirt. "An appointment with Mr. Travers. Please follow me, I'll take you to see him now."

"Sarah!" The screaming woman gasped, the outrage almost stunning her into quiet.

They followed the trembling woman, with several more doors being knocked down, possibly just because Cain could do it. Finally, she stopped in front of an old, scuffed door that had an oddly worked pattern around its center panel. "This is Mr. Travers' office."

"Thank you, lass." Tom smiled, and tapped his shillelagh against the wooden door, which sent up a nearly invisible scattering of sparks. "Travers! Open th' door."

"Go away!" A man's voice replied, shaking slightly.

Scowling, Tom tried to open the door, discovering that it was locked. Glaring at it, he stepped back, gesturing towards it as he looked up at Caine. "It seems to be locked, my friend."

When Caine's fist struck the door, the sparks were quite visible, and looked like a shower of molten metal, flaring and falling to the floor as the door splintered and collapsed. It was quite spectacular, and a clear sign that there were – or rather, had been – some of those extra special protections on the door. It splintered further as Caine stepped into the office.

Tom almost wished that it would be possible to close a door behind him and make certain that Travers couldn't leave. "I've got a few questions for you, Travers. Most of them center on a lass named Faith."

The frightened man just blinked, blankly repeating the word as if the name meant nothing to him. "Faith?"

"A lass named Faith. Dark hair, dark eyes, grew up in Boston. She's something called a Slayer." His knuckles were white as he ground out the words. "Have I jogged your memories yet?"

"She's not going to be a problem anymore!" The words slipped out, and the man tried to push his chair back, tried to make himself feel less threatened. "I've made arrangements to take care of her."

The shillelagh narrowly missed Travers' fingers, leaving a dent in the surface of the desk. "Wrong answer."

"Who sent you?" The question held anger and fear both. "I've already sent my assurances…"

Caine smashed his fist through the wall, yanking at some wires. Lights flickered before blinking back on, and the annoying siren died. "Better."

"As for who sent me, you could say that it's a bit of a family matter." He paused, trying to puzzle out the partial label of a file that had fallen to the floor. '..th …kins' Hadn't Faith said that the Mayor of Sunnydale had been named Wilkins? He picked up the file, deciding to look at it later. "You've made things miserable for my daughter, and I'm here on her behalf."

"Your… your daughter?" Travers whispered, his eyes going wide and his face pale. Perhaps he could put a few things together correctly. "Who…"

"She's a pretty lass, about seventeen now. Her name's Faith." He pulled the shillelagh upwards, gathering the energy inside of it. "Her name is Faith Cassidy."

Travers' mouth opened as he prepared to say something, but the words were lost in the resounding noise of the desk exploding. Splinters flew backwards, several cutting into Travers. Wisps of paper glowed with flames before falling to ash, scattering the back of the room.

"You've sent people after my daughter. It stops now. If she has problems with so much as a mugger, a bit of hassle with transportation, I'll come back to take it out on you. If she gets hurt, you'll suffer three times as much. And if any of your people try to get rid of her on your behalf, we'll come back and make this seem like a friendly little chat."

Nobody stopped them on the way out.

Neither of them spoke until they were almost back at Heathrow airport. Caine broke the angry silence with a few quiet words. "You do know that we've made ourselves another enemy."

"He made himself an enemy the first time he did wrong by Faith." Tom muttered. It probably hadn't been the wisest thing that they'd ever done, but he wasn't about to just ignore that cowardly rat sending people to hurt Faith, using her as an expendable pawn and trying to have her killed just because things got out of hand.

The matter wasn't brought up again for the entirety of the trip back to Los Angeles.

They might have given things a bit more thought if they'd known that their 'chat' with Travers had registered on the sensitive equipment of Charles Xavier, the man behind the X-Men. That Tom's mutant signature had been matched and that even now, his possible actions an motivations were being discussed by a group of his enemies, among them his cousin, Sean. The X-men were known for many things, but standing idly by wasn't one of them.

End My Daughter's Keeper.