Author: Lucinda

Rated t for teen

twelth in the "My Daughter" series

Disclaimer: Quentin Travers, Lilah Morgan, and Faith are the creation of Joss Whedon for the series BtVS and/or Angel the Series. Caine Marko, Tom and Sean Cassidy, and Charles Xavier are the creations of Marvel comics.

Distribution: with the rest of the My Daughter series.

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

md12..md12..md12..md12

Sean was swearing at the stack of papers. Not just a little bit, but using words that they'd learned from their Gran, words that would have been at home on the roughest docks, or among some of the nastier mercenaries that Tom had encountered. He had no idea that his law-abiding cousin knew language like that...

"Should I be asking what the papers did t' you?" Tom asked.

"These are copies of the police evidence and the transcripts from her trial," Sean glared at the offending pages. "Using this, it's possible to piece together some things about Faith's life."

"Is it her life that has you swearing, or her trial?" Tom settled on a chair, curious as to what his cousin had come up with about Faith.

"Things fell apart for her about two years ago. Increased problems at school, getting into fights, some property damage..." Sean shook his head, before commenting, "Most of which could be normal for someone who's just discovered mutant abilities, or is having a particularly violent batch of teen rebellion."

"What changed?" Tom knew that his cousin wouldn't be swearing like that for just a violent case of teen rebellion.

Sean glared at the pages again, "There was an attack on the apartment, and Eileen was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Faith disappeared. The police initially thought that she was killed, and searched for her body, the Boston police official theory became that she was abducted by the person or persons who did that to Eileen. Faith didn't reappear in the Boston system."

"She's in California, how'd she end up on the other side of the blasted country?" Tom frowned, and then muttered, "How'd she pay for it?"

"There's nothing in these papers until she reappeared in Sunnydale last year, late fall. Early December she's sitting in a nice little apartment paid for by the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins the third."

Tom's hand clenched around his shillelagh and he growled, "What did this Wilkins fellow have to do with my daughter? My underage daughter?"

"The rest of these papers allege that he turned her into his pet assassin," Sean thumped the pages, and shook his head. "OF course, the evidence is ridiculous. He paid for her apartment. The apartment had numerous weapons inside. Nice things. And Faith with no job, no family, and no education... it does look like something wasn't quite on the level."

"Is there any hard evidence of anything?" Tom's shillelagh was starting to glow.

"He paid for her apartment. He paid for her medical bills when she was injured. One of the people that she is alleged to have killed was part of his staff, the majority of the evidence involving her came from the Sunnydale police department," Sean paused, and then added, "The person who provided it retired from the police force due to injuries and is now the Mayor of Sunnydale."

"Paying for an apartment doesn't mean that... Doesn't Xavier pay bills for some of his students? They aren't turning into his assassins or whores," Tom snarled. The very idea that some bastard in Sunnydale was accusing his daughter of becoming some perverted mayor's assassin or girlfriend was disgraceful.

"He does on occasion, and as far as I know, none of the people who've gone through Xavier's work as assassins or whores. The mayor paid her bills, she didn't have an education, she didn't get along with a few other people in town... This isn't enough to get any sane jury in any nation I know of to convict the girl, let alone find her guilty of a half dozen murders!"

"Faith's sitting in prison right now, obviously there was a jury that found her guilty…" Tom paused in his rant as ugly memories and rumors resurfaced in his mind, "Or do y' think they were persuaded to claim a guilty verdict? How long a reach does that Travers fellow have?"

"What someone who wanted her locked up would need would be some persuasive people to paint a picture of her as a ravening, homicidal lunatic, vicious, amoral and ruthless. Then convince a couple people in the jury that she was far too dangerous to be let loose, let them convince the rest. Possibly put a little pressure on the other jurors, which they might or might not have had the ability to follow through on. If it's your family, few people are willing to see if threatened violence will actually appear," Sean sighed. "Y' shouldn't have just broke down that bastard Travers' door, y' should have broke open his head."

"And you the law officer telling us that we should have gone from simple property damage up to assault, maybe even manslaughter," Tom shook his head, almost managing a mocking smile.

"Th' man's only human by technicality, it's be closer to cleaning up a stain on society," Sean grumbled. "Removing a parasitic growth. A wart."

"Tempting as that might be, I'd rather help Faith first," Tom admitted.

"T' play the devil's advocate here, if she's still in jail when Travers gets his just rewards for all he's done, nobody could possibly believe that she had anything t' do with it," Sean paused. "I wonder… no. Law abiding citizen… officer of the law… I am not supposed to try to hire assassins."

Tom wasn't certain if his cousin was exaggerating to try to lighten the mood, or if he seriously wanted Quentin Travers to find himself six feet under, probably but not necessarily dead first. Then again, with this fellow, perhaps dead and with a stake through whatever shriveled version of a heart he might have would be safest.

Meanwhile, a young looking attorney from Wolfram & Hart, with decades of practice playing the fresh-faced enthusiastic innocent was raising questions about the authenticity of evidence used in a trial. With wide hazel eyes, the attorney breathlessly asked 'When did having someone pay for medical expenses become proof of murder?' and 'How does a fifteen year old girl learn to kill people and vanish their bodies?' and even more awkward, 'So the majority of the evidence came from the political successor to Mayor Wilkins? Isn't that some sort of…ummm… self interest… no, conflict of interest? Or at least a pretty solid motive for adding a bit of bias to his statements?'

There were no possible answers other than 'no, paying medical expenses is NOT proof of murder', 'there is nothing to show how a fifteen year old indifferent student could vanish for six months and turn up capable of murder and disappearing bodies' and 'yes, that would be a strong motive for bias or possibly altered evidence.' Grudgingly, permission was given to appeal the case, though the police departments insisted that they couldn't spare a lot of time or manpower to help the young attorney investigate.

"Oh, that's quite alright, officers. My family's been in law for a very long time, I think I can muddle through an appeal," Jacob DeWyatt assured them. "All I need is for someone to let me look at the evidence, and maybe make copies of some documents and reports…"

"So Wolfram & Hart had a good interning program? They make sure that you know how to get things done? Or do they just start you on the legwork until you work your way out of it?"

"Both, though I managed to escape doing legwork for everyone. There's a few people there with less seniority than me now," Jacob gave another youthful grin. Working among humans was so easy… He'd be able to play young enthusiastic fool for probably another century before he looked too old to carry it off. His family had been advisers and experts in legal codes for thousands of years. What he was less certain about were the reasons why Wolfram & Hart were working to get the Slayer released from prison. Ah well, it wasn't his job to ask too many 'why are we doing this' questions. It was his job to raise questions about her guilt and get her out of prison if legally possible.

If they wanted her out that much, there would be other measures available if legitimate legal means failed.

Idly, Jacob wondered if someone had manufactured the evidence that had sent her there, or leaned on the jurors. He could certainly understand the benefits of having the Slayer confined in one place, unable to go forth and fulfill her responsibilities. It would also make efforts to kill her easier, though more obvious. Though that wasn't his problem either. He didn't arrange wet-work, he stuck with strictly legitimate legal matters. His cousin Leon on the other hand… Leon wasn't an attorney.

As Jacob began looking over the evidence, he frowned. He'd been told that his young, naïve innocent act would be advisable, and that he might be able to spin things enough for a retrial. He hadn't been told just how scant the hard evidence was for the case, and just how much was more circumstantial than anything else. There was no hard evidence linking Faith to the murders. There was very little hard evidence that murders had been committed instead of unsolved disappearances. None of it looked like something that a fifteen or sixteen year old human girl with no known training would have been capable of committing. Knowing that she was a Slayer made things more believable from the technically possible aspect, but there was still no hard evidence for anything beyond Wilkins paying for Faith's expenses. Granted, that did suggest something was going on, but the normal human's first thoughts wouldn't be pet assassin… More likely an illegitimate daughter or under aged lover.

Maybe he could find some things to add credibility to one or the other of those ideas? He wasn't about to manufacture evidence, but if he could get reasonable probability of a theory other than teen murderer it would make things simpler.

The more Jacob DeWyatt studied the evidence, the less he liked what he saw. This had every hallmark of political expediency trouncing truth, and while the Slayer might have killed those people, there was no supporting evidence. Part of him desperately wanted to know how Wilkins had managed to sway a Slayer to his side – the possibilities of such an idea were staggering. Another part wanted to know why the Council of Watchers had permitted such a thing… In prior centuries, they'd either kept Slayers sufficiently provided for and insulated as to remove such chances or eliminated them before they could be subjected to mortal legal systems.

Just what was going on here anyhow?

End My Daughter 12: My Daughter's Evidence.