'I've also been wondering about Faith's spiral.' A new note that appeared a week later said. 'That Watcher bitch Post, messed with her ability to trust us, but looking back, Giles did jack shit as her Watcher. He left her living in the Motor Lodge, even after we knew vampires could get in there. Why? Why didn't he ever move her into a safe place? Didn't it ever occur to him to do that? And then there's the way he acted in the wake of Buffy and Faith accidentally killing that human. Sure, Faith was the one that staked him, but Buffy threw him at Faith in the middle of their battle with all those vampires. Faith panicked and got rid of the body. Then she tried to pretend it never happened. Which, I think are understandable reactions. In time we could have helped her deal with it. Except, she and Buffy started blaming each other and then Faith lied to Giles and said Buffy killed the human herself. Giles supported Buffy and decided Faith was unstable. Maybe she was, especially after everything that happened, but he did nothing to try to help her. Not once did he tell her it was an accident, but he did tell Buffy it was an accident and one she wasn't responsible for. I tried to help Faith, she was suspicious of me though, of my motives. I guess us having sex just before everything went bad, after me and Cordy had broken up, didn't help. And then there was the fact that Willow absolutely hated her, from day one. How did Willow put it? Oh yeah, I don't like sharing my people. Like we belong to her. But you know what really didn't help? Angel knocking her unconscious and him and Buffy chaining her to a wall and lecturing her about good and evil. I think it just convinced Faith she was evil. Of course Wesley fucking things up by having a Watcher retrieval team try to kidnap her and take her to England to 'face judgement for her crimes'. What crimes? At that point there'd only been an accident. And Buffy had way more blood on her hands then Faith ever did. All it did was convince her she was evil, which is why she joined up with the Mayor and killed that Professor guy on his orders. Then she hit Angel with that poison, killer of the dead, and Willow and Oz discovered the only cure was the blood of a Slayer and Buffy promptly decided she was going to feed Faith to Angel. Faith only managed to get away from her after Buffy stabbed her in the gut, by throwing herself off that fourth floor balcony. The coma and everything just put her over into crazyland, which is why when she came out of it, she wanted revenge on Buffy, tortured Wes and tried to force Angel to kill her. Buffy trying again to kill her didn't help matters. But in the end Faith took responsibility and confessed to killing the Professor and went to jail. Buffy never did get help, not that she ever took responsibility for any of her actions anyway. Aside from trying to turn herself in when she thought she killed Warren's ex-girlfriend. I think Dawn was right and Buffy was just looking for an out then.'
"Okay, what the Hell?!" Faith said.
"Yeah, I'm thinking that too." Xander agreed. "Okay, let's think about this. We got a note way back when about the two of you accidentally killing a human while fighting a bunch of vampires. Turned out it was then Deputy Mayor Finch. We all patrolled together and ran into the mess of vampires together. Mr. Finch didn't die and he told us all about the Mayor's plans."
"Which led your insightful thoughts on how we would each react if we killed someone." Giles said. "It seems your speculation in regards to Faith was spot on. She thought it made her evil and she tested that hypothesis by killing someone, then tried to force first Buffy and then Angel to kill her, before seeking help. And I have no doubt you were right about her being haunted by it. What I don't understand is my treatment of her. At the time we got that note and it said I wouldn't support her and would support Buffy, I couldn't understand why. We speculated someone or something might have tried to influence me with Magic, which is why we had Anna Ward us all and discovered the Wards on yourself and Cordelia. Now I find I didn't just not support her during that crisis, I didn't support her all. Why? I was literally being paid by the Watchers Council to support her, as well as Buffy, so why wasn't I supporting her?"
"I hated her, apparently from day one, according to other Xander." Willow said. "And other me didn't want to share her people. Add to that, mind raping. Sounds like I might have been responsible for you pretty much ignoring her, Giles."
"Unfortunately, again we can't question other Willow, so we have no way of proving it one way or another. But it's a sound hypothesis." Giles agreed.
"And apparently X and I had sex." Faith said, trying to lighten the mood. "After him and the Queen broke up. Other Xander's right about something else, given everything that was happening, I would have been suspicious of his motives."
"I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that Angel and I thought knocking her out and chaining her up, let alone lecturing her, was a good idea." Buffy said. "What was going though our heads?"
"And let's not forget you trying to feed her to Angel." Joyce said. "I'd like to know what you were thinking in that instance."
"That I can answer." Buffy said. "I loved Angel, at least I think I did. With time, distance and reading about how I behaved in the other timeline, I'm beginning to wonder if I wasn't actually obsessed. Because my own behavior just doesn't sound normal."
