A/N So when I decided to turn this into more than a one shot, I realized Joyce would need to be included. As Buffy's mom she has a vested interest in anything to do with Buffy, after all. We didn't get to see much of her in canon, but I think what I have written fits with what we do see. She did try to reach out to Faith at least twice that we saw, inviting her to dinner and Christmas. Plus she has a temper. Once she accepted that vampires and demons were real and Buffy was a Slayer, she tried to be supportive of her. So I can see her reacting this way if she found out Faith's situation. And Giles and later Wesley really did drop the ball in regards to Faith, I think everything that happened with Finch and the mayor could have been avoided if she had felt like someone actually cared. Xander tried but it was easy for her mistake his concern for something else. Here we have the perspective of Epione having added her two cents and Faith already having realized that maybe she needs some help and I think Joyce could provide it. We already know from Faith's brief description, that her Watcher's death hurt her too, which implies that the Watcher mattered to her, that she cared about Faith and Faith at least respected her. Also, she initially responded well to Mrs. Post. At least until she turned out to be psyco. So I think Joyce may be able to help her. Not saying it will be easy, Faith is scared, Joyce is mad and Buffy doesn't like to share people anymore the Willow does.

Joyce tried to calm herself as she drove to the Motor Lodge. The last thing Faith needed was her to take out her frustration at Rupert and the other Watcher on Faith herself. Joyce could understand Alexander's secondhand guilt as she was kicking herself for making the same mistake he had, assuming the people being paid to do a job had been doing it. She was berating herself for not questioned Buffy more carefully about Faith's situation, not to mention she should have encouraged Buffy to invite her over more than the couple of times she already had. Buffy's constant drama made it easy to focus on Buffy, often to the exclusion of everything else, but this was just too much.

'Damn how much else have I missed', she thought angrily. 'First Alexander and now Faith and what was that about Willow using magic on Alexander? I need to talk to Rupert about it in more detail as well, that just sounds nasty. But first Faith and then we go from there.'

'Oh, I should call Buffy.' Joyce thought as she pulled into the parking lot of the sleazy motel and stared at it in distaste. 'They let a teenage girl live here?!' she thought incredulously, 'and Buffy knew about it? Oh we are going have a big talk!'

Joyce pulled out her phone and quickly called home, after a couple of rings, Buffy picked up. "Buffy, I need you move all my gallery supplies down to the basement, carefully please, and do it before I get home which will probably be in about an hour. I'll explain when I get home, just do it young lady, I am not in a great mood right now and we will be having an in depth conversation when I get home. I'll see you soon and it better be done when I get there because your in enough trouble as it is, don't add to it."

Joyce squared her shoulders and steeled her resolve, she was not leaving without Faith. She climbed out of the jeep and headed for the office, pushing through the door she marched toward the front desk, a mother on a mission.

The clerk glanced up and did a double take, the lady bearing down on him did not look like the usual customer you found in this place, what could she want?

"I'm looking for a friend of my daughter's. I just found out she is staying here and I need to talk to her, her name is Faith, she's about 17, 5'5, pretty." Joyce said, again trying to reign in her temper as the sleazy looking man eyed her.

The clerk decided arguing with her would be a waste of time and it wasn't his business anyway.

"Room 23."

Joyce glared at him, then swung around and headed back out. She headed to the right of the door as she exited and headed for #23. She didn't hesitate and just reached up and knocked on the door. After a moment, it opened revealing Faith, looking confused.

"Mrs Summers?"

Up until Faith opened the door, Joyce hadn't been sure what she would say or do, but seeing the girls confusion stirred her mother's heart. She pushed into the room and engulfed Faith in a hug. Probably not the best approach, especially with a Slayer, but Joyce's heart was telling her Faith didn't need her anger, she needed acceptance and that's what Joyce offered her in that moment. Acceptance and a mother's love.

The hug took Faith by complete surprise, she had time to think 'What...' and then felt Joyce's arms around her, something she hadn't felt since the professor. Something in her broke as the soft and caring arms enveloped her and remembering Alexander and Epione, she realized Joyce cared and she found she couldn't push her away, so she let her hold her and felt herself tear up.

After a moment, Joyce pulled away and said "Pack your bags Faith, your not staying here."

It didn't even occur to Faith to argue with the older woman, she just grabbed her bag and packed her pitifully few things into it and followed Joyce out to her jeep.

"Let's go get something to eat and talk, ok, honey?"

"Um, sure I could always use a bite." Faith answered, feeling off base and trying to regain her equalibrium.

"Mrs. Summers, did Buffy talk to you about stuff?"

"No, it was Rupert."

"Who?"

"Mr. Giles."

"Seriously, his name is Rupert?! Talk about a tweed name."

"Faith...ok, so it is a weird name and not California weird." Joyce chuckled as they pulled into the Express Pump. "Come on, let's talk."

"Ok."

They went to the counter and each ordered a muffin and coffee, before heading to a table in back, away from everyone else, Joyce intended for this to be private conversation.

"Faith, first let me say I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just assumed Rupert was looking after you. It was his job and he was even being paid to take care of you, the fact that he was so consumed with Buffy and it sounds like Willow and wasn't paying attention to anyone else, well it's infuriating and disturbing. He seems to have missed a lot that was happening right under his nose and I still can't believe he allowed a relationship with Angel to progress like it did. How someone, who knows so little about teenagers, let alone teenage girls, could have a job like his is beyond me."

"Well, Watchers aren't trained to deal with teenagers, Mrs. Summers, they're trained to deal with Slayers, who happened to be teenage girls. They tend to forget the teenage and girl parts and consentrate on the living weapon part."

"That's an excellent observation, Faith and yes that explains a lot. Rupert put all his energy into making sure his weapon functioned to the best of it's ability, which by extension would also explain Angel and Willow, Buffy, the weapon, functioned better when she had what she wanted, a boyfriend of her choice and a best friend of her choice. Too bad her choices aren't that great. Angel's a vampire, soul or no soul, and that's just discusting and from what Rupert said, Willow has done considerable damage to Alexander and Cordelia."

"Apparently, she didn't like him being almost as smart as her, so pretended he wasn't smart, and she used magic to mess with his head and break him and Cordelia up. Which explains the whole fluke thing as Willow kept calling it, because I never got a vibe that he was into Willow in a sexing her up kind of way, you know. Real into Cordelia and hey I know he was hot for me, but he didn't try anything with me."

"How do do you know he was into you?"

"Well there was the drooling at my wild and crazy stories, checking out the bod and of course there was the hook up last week, that was a big clue."

Joyce nearly chocked on her bite of muffin, "you and Alexander had sex?" she said, astonished.

"Hey, he and Cordelia weren't together so it wasn't cheating and I'm pretty sure it's a one time thing. With everything about Willow coming out, he and Cordelia will probably make up and get back together. Which is good because they were happy together. But if they weren't, well I might have been interested in more. He was good to me and part that whole thing with the goddess lady was that he was hurting for me, so I know he cares and maybe that could have gone somewhere, if we were will willing, but Cordelia's got first dibs and Xan isn't gonna give up on them so easy, you know, so its done. But for a first timer, he was good, good hands you know and built, definitely no complaints about what he has in his pants."

"I should be all motherly and disapproving, but I think in this instance I'll just say, I'm glad it was enjoyable, but it does complicate the situation."

"Nah, I'm cool, I like him, but I don't love him, and he treated me way better than others dudes I've been with, so I'm good."

"Well if Alexander is a better example of a boy than ones you have known before, maybe you should try finding another boy like him and see if it can't develop into something more? You deserve more than random hookups, Faith, you deserve to be cared about. Whatever happened before, doesn't mean you can't try for something different, maybe better. It can hurt if it goes bad, but when it works, it's worth it."

"I'll think about, I always thought, the quick and done was all guys cared about, until actual an goddess told me Alexander cared and was mad on my behalf you know, I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that someone cares. I mean the professor cared, but it was her job, you know. They're wasn't anyone else that cared, that's for sure."

"The professor?"

"Professor Diana Dormer of Harvard. She was my Watcher. She died, in a bad way, but she died trying to help me, unlike Mrs Post, the fake Watcher from a few months ago, who was just pretending to care while she looked for some demon artifact she could use to kill us all."

Joyce stared at her, "There's a lot Buffy has been keeping from me," she muttered. If you want to talk about them..."

"No, maybe later, but no, not now."

"All right, I'm not going to push, just know we can talk if you want to. Prying information out of Buffy can be hard and I'm use to her shutting me out, but sometimes she does tell me things and you can too. I won't claim to have all the answers, but I do care and your not alone. So why don't we head home and get you settled in, plus your going to need more clothes and we need to talk about what we're going to do about school. Depending on which way you want to go, you could enroll you at the high school, home school or you could get your GED." Joyce decided giving Faith options she could choose from was better than just leaving it up to her if she was going to school or not. Faith needed boundaries, so did all the others. They just hadn't been getting them, she realized, not from their parents and not from Rupert. 'Looks like I've got more that need looking after; oh well I always wanted a big family.'

As they headed for 1630 Revello, Faith thought about everything that had happened in the last two days. Maybe Epione's visit, weird as it had been, had helped, at least for her and maybe for the others. Mrs. Summers seemed like the real deal, like the professor, not being paid to be nice but actually being nice. Alot to think about.