For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 4

Faith took off her gloves and wiped the sweat off her forehead. June was an unpleasant time to be doing warehouse work. The last two weeks had been nice, some of the most relaxing times she had really had ever. Taking her Sox cap off and shaking out her now shorter hair, she thought that it was nice that aunt Jessica cared about her and Xander, but let them make a lot of their own decisions. Sure she planned things, like arranging for Xander's uncle Rory to hire her and Xander to do odd jobs at his garage. It was real work, though, like doing the inventory which had her sweating, they'd already found several discrepancies which proved they were doing something more useful than just cleaning. When Uncle Rory had taken them fishing the prior Saturday he had told them that Jessica asked him if he could use them. But that was okay with Faith, he was paying them under the table until she turned 14 and he could get them both work permits but it was still spending money which she had never had a lot of. The Faith that had had to oversee a bunch of teenage girls figured that Aunt Jessica didn't want her and Xander left with too much free time. So she approved of their idea of going out for Cross Country and the training that that entailed. They were going to Hapkido classes two days a week, which was interesting, it was a style Faith hadn't studied before and lent itself quite nicely to being smaller and not nearly as strong as she was used to. Mr Park was a great teacher. Faith's meetings with a counselor so far had been pretty low key, but she had to watch what she said lest she come off as the world weary twenty six year old she was in her head.

They were going over to Willow's when they left the shop and Faith was totally looking forward to diving in the pool.

"Almost done?" she turned to see Rory looking in the storage shed.

"If the other shed is the same, I think we've got at least four or five more days like this," Xander replied to which Faith groaned. It wasn't that bad, they were only working eight until noon Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but damn it was hot and dirty work after about nine a.m.

Rory chuckled, "Yeah Faith, that's why I'm paying you two to do the job. When you're my age, it's harder to bend and climb to check things that have gotten pushed to the back of a shelf." He held up two cold bottles of water, "It's a hell of a job, I'm just glad you two are able to do it so I don't have to do it myself or take Brian away from working on cars to do it." Brian was Rory's only full-time employee a quiet guy in his twenties.

Faith gratefully took the ice cold bottle from him. She took a couple of swallows letting the liquid chill her throat. She didn't feel so hot that chugging the water would make her feel bad but she still took measured swallows and noticed that Xander did the same. She looked around once again at the back yard of Rory's shop there were two storage sheds, a dozen cars in various states of repair, Rory's projects, most of which Xander told her were cars that he took in to repair and then never heard from the owners again, and the shaded Kennel that was the dogs', Fred and Lamont, daytime resting place.

"Alright you two, here's your pay and I'll see you this weekend." Rory handed each of them an envelope.

"Thanks Rory," Faith said pocketing the money. Rory had told them he would take them shooting on Saturday, as Xander had predicted he was open to the idea of taking them hunting.

After finishing their water, they each rinsed the bottles and refilled them to put back in the fridge as was the norm at the shop and road back to the Harris household.

Aunt Jessica had lunch prepared for them when they got there, so after quick showers, they sat and chatted with her, this being Thursday, Jessica was awake after the nap she took when she got home to put her back on 'normal people' hours as she called it. They told her about doing inventory and cleaning. She sympathised with the two teenagers. Once they were done with lunch,after hugs goodbye they both dressed in swimsuits and skated over to Willow's.

Willow's mother answered the door and with a quick greeting just pointed out to the backyard before going back to the stack of papers she had spread on the kitchen table. Out in the back yard, Jessie was talking to Willow and Marcie, it was obvious from his hand gestures that he was talking about the game the last Sunday. Faith hadn't met Marcie in the prior time, but they had run into her on Sunday when they were grabbing lunch before meeting Andrew and Jonathan at the game store. Xander had asked if she minded them joining her and then talked to her through lunch, talking her into joining their gaming group. After the gaming broke up when they were on their way back home, Xander had explained to her about the Sue Richards gone around the bend trick that the girl had apparently pulled their sophomore year. Increasing the estrogen factor in the game group had been a good thing in Faith's opinion.

Dropping their boards and bags, they toed off their shoes before joining the others.

" – Andrew totally should have let me make that maneuver," Jessie was complaining. Jessie had opted to be their Rigger, their vehicle specialist.

"Jessie, are you whining about your crash?" Xander asked. At Marcie's nod, he continued. "Dude, it was a Tuk-Tuk you hotwired with five of us hanging on, not your custom interface GSXR, I'm just glad we landed in the water, skin replacement rehab would have killed the profit on that mission. Just be glad Marcie and I opted for ruggedized cases for our electronics. As is I still think replacing the two personal comms that got damaged should come out of the pay before distribution."

"Hey if Willow had been able to maintain the glamour spells, we wouldn't have been running under fire, we could have just gotten on the Tube and been back out of Krupps territory before they knew Marcie or you had spoofed the data cache."

"Just be glad Marcie was doing it," Xander interrupted him. "I'm definitely second string on the decking until I gain some points to level up or buy better gear."

"It's not my fault, that guard must have rolled a critical success to perceive us." Willow said defensively.

"I'm just surprised Andrew does that good a job of GMing." Faith observed.

"Yeah he is pretty good, I can't wait to see what he has for us once we've developed some skills," Marcie said with a smile.

"Anyway, I don't know about you guys, but that pool looks inviting," Xander said.

"Then by all means don't let us keep you waiting," Jessie said trying to use a hip throw to launch his friend. Xander 's hand snaked out and grabbed Jessie as he lost his balance and both boys went in the water in a sputtering laughing heap.

Faith watched Xander swim over to the ladder and climbed out of the pool. He walked over to the chairs where he and Faith had dropped their stuff. He gave Jessie a dirty look as he pealed his now soaked shirt off and dug his keys and now sodden wallet out of his pockets. Turning away, she skimmed off her shirt and shimmied out of her shorts. With a yell of happiness, she took three bounding steps and bounced into a hand spring on the side of the pool and dove into the cool clear water. She surfaced behind Jessie and poked him in the ribs causing him to jump and sputter. From there the afternoon devolved into the usual horsing around that all teenagers engage in. After a seemingly endless game of Marco Polo, the third one of the afternoon, they were all lounging in the shallow end catching their breath.

Willow's mom came out leading Aunt Jessica, "Xander, Faith, did you two forget you have class today?

"Sorry, Mom," Xander yelled. "Willow, thanks for having us over."

"Sorry, Aunt Jessica," Faith said. "I set an alarm, but then left my watch in my shorts." She said gesturing to the pile of clothes."

"Well, you still have time to make class, I've got your gear in the car," Aunt Jessica said.

Faith gave Willow a quick hug and thanked her before a quick rinse under the outdoor shower that Xander had just run through. She grabbed her stuff and joined Aunt Jessica and Willow's mom. "Thank you for letting us come over today Mrs. Rosenberg."

The bell over the door chimed as Faith and Willow entered the magic shop.
"I've never been in here before," Willow said.
"Xander and I stuck our heads in when he was showing me around the town, but I wanted to look around a little more." Faith said.
"I didn't know you were into magic," Willow said.
"Well, I'm not per say, except that back in Boston, there was an old woman that lived down the hall, she gave me a charm that helped with cramps," it had actually been one of the coven members that provided it to the slayers. It did help with cramps, but it also made it so that the vampire sense was less a less painful distraction. "I couldn't find it when I was packing my stuff to come out here. Also, when mom had a particularly bad break up, Mrs. Haresh did some kind of cleansing spell which seemed to make the apartment much brighter and improved Mom's mood." Okay that was made up, but she and Xander had talked and the idea of Willow cutting her teeth on positive earth magic might lead to less likelihood of Darth Willow.
"So you're thinking the cleansing might make things more positive at the Harris household?"
"Things are pretty good, but it can't hurt."
The two young teens browsed around, Faith lead Willow away from the more wanna blessed be new age stuff to a book of household spells written by a technopagan and a thin volume on focusing your inner power. Willow browsing through the household magic book held it up,
Pointing to a charm for easing the goddess's burden.
"Yeah, the drawing looks similar,"Faith said.

The two girls put the their heads together.
"That doesn't look too difficult," Willow said reading the instructions.
"Do you want to help me?" Faith asked.
"We can make them together," Willow said happily.

Faith saw another book on runic tattoos and pointed it out, "Tattoos, cool."

"Meh, not for me," Willow commented.

"You don't like tattoos?" Faith asked.

"They're okay, just well, Jewish law says do not mutilate your body," Willow explained.

Faith decided not to bring up the fact that her friend had pierced ears and just shrugged, "Well, I think they're cool and if there are magic ones, that's even cooler."
The shop keeper was more than happy to help them find the ingredients he had in stock, small crystals and some herbs. After paying for their purchases, they hit a craft store and a health food store for the more mundane items and went back to the Rosenberg's. Reading the instructions, the both realized it was the wrong time of the month to obtain the best effect from making their own charms.
They found cleansing rituals for an individual and a place both spells/rituals had notes that it was recommended that a magic user, whenever possible, perform these prior to any major spells so that negative forces didn't corrupt the work.
Putting that aside, they started reading the other book they had found on focusing power. The first chapter was all about meditation.
"Between these, are you getting the impression that the better prepared we are, the higher the likelihood of success?" Faith asked.
"Yeah, it seems kind of like a science lab in a way, just with different tools. The cleaner the equipment, the purer the ingredients, the more likely you are to get the desired result. Do you think Xander or Jesse would be interested in this?"
"I think so, but can we not mention the charms to them?"
Willow blushed bright red, "No of course, not wanting to discuss that with the boys, near the boys, around the boys."