DISCLAIMER: No I don’t own them, but if I did the world would be a better place.
SUMMARY: This is a story of lost identities and the struggle to discover who it is you really are.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This is a new series, so you can expect more parts in the not-so-far future. I’m going for dark and depressing, but I don’t know, let me know if I pulled it off.
SPOILERS: There aren’t really any particular ones, but maybe ‘Smashed’ and ‘Wrecked’.
DISTIBUTION: This story’s for all. Anybody can feel free to put it on their site if they let me know about it first. And please do, because I would love to have some work posted!
FEEDBACK: You know you want to.
RATING: PG for some language.

In the end, we all are who we are. No matter how much we may have appeared to change.
-‘Lessons’.

~*~*~*~*

The world was broken, an unidentifiable place.

Once again it was in the command of evil influence and control: The Old Ones- the vampires. But unlike the dawn of time, this was long past the evolution of humanity, and it duly suffered in the aftermath. The world knew the pain and abject misery derived from the earth millions of years before civilization was born, the earth that was once one of the fiercest hell dimensions in existence.

Chief leaders were destroyed, great cities burned.

Chaos reigned.

Spreading in an influx of sheer terror and despair, its authority stretched at an unimaginably fast pace, inconceivable to anything we can hope to imagine today. Poverty and disease, famine and squalor, it tore apart families and homes, children and parents, lovers and siblings.

And it all began in the small, typical setting of an ordinary Californian town. A town which was known as Sunnydale –a town none too remarkable, none too interesting at all.

Except for the fact that Spanish settlers erected it over the very Gates of Hell.

Oh, and then there was the slayer, of course.

A formidable young woman, no more than a child really. She possessed an unearthly beauty of which she attained from her mystical roots, and was the centre of many legends that we still often read of to this day. Ill-fated, she was to be the one single girl in all the world chosen to defend that small little town atop of Hell, and all that dwelled there.

At this, she failed.

The following takes place six years after that sacrifice…

~*~*~*~*

Los Angeles Sector 7A Border Control 2008

The darkness filtered slowly over the city streets, crawling with limitless patience, yet with an voracious thirst for power, the knowledge it would come again just in the recesses of it’s existence- and that when it did come again, it would perhaps be for a little longer.

That it would ultimately reign.

The slayer slunk in those illusory shadows with the practiced swiftness of a predator. Unlike most of the innocent human beings caught in the crossfire between good and evil, she was not the hunted. She was the hunter.

She was the one thing darkness still feared.

The gates to the Los Angeles Sector 7A loomed dauntingly up ahead of her, guarded heavily by fortified figures clad in sinister black- whether they were human or vampire, she wasn’t close enough to tell. She paused to duck behind the undergrowth beneath the rise of the main highway. Vampire patrol groups also converged at the top of the knoll and her eyes narrowed into slits as she observed them with hatred.

To distract herself her eyes drifted slowly to the gateway that stood between her and her and the city of Los Angeles.

L.A lay behind those walls, once home, so long ago now. It had been a very long time since she had returned to Los Angeles.

She preferred to stay away. The city held too many memories, too much pain. And apart from that, it was pretty much the vampire’s central base. Getting in was going to be extraordinarily difficult. Migration to and from Los Angeles was at a stringent limit- if there was anyone out there who still wanted to actually enter the city at all.

One of so many things that had changed since the invasion.

But she was willing to take that risk. Something here had called to her again, some inner sense. She was always drawn here at least every year. Following on the false hope that maybe, just maybe, her friends had survived and they were here, somewhere.

No, she never strayed too far from home.

But never before had she quite convinced herself to venture inside the city gates either. She returned persistently, to stare wistfully up at the gates, struggling with the constant inward debate to endeavour inside, but she never did. She didn’t like to think of herself as a coward- the slayer couldn’t afford to be. But underneath that confident swagger and sharp stinging wit, that was all she was.

Buffy Summers clenched her knuckles tightly, and took a deep steadying breath.

She would be going in tonight.

However, there would be no risks. She was here for a significant purpose, one she remained confident that she could pull off.

Stopping the vampires.

L.A. was the key, any novice could figure that. Buffy intended to take it down, or at least put a chink in the proverbial armour the vampires protected themselves with.

Then there was always Sunnydale, of course.

If Los Angeles was strictly contained, Sunnydale was worse. Much worse. Standing over the Hellmouth, it was naturally an important aspect of the vampire’s reign. It was heavily protected, and encased in a magickal barrier that only the blood of a supernatural being could breach. It was the only city in the United States occupied in its entirety by vampires and vampires alone. No human ever survived past its gates.

There were some limits that even a vampire slayer couldn’t hope to breach and that was certainly one of them. Though she was indeed supernatural in birth, she had no desire to be locked away in some vampire prison, awaiting her death so that the next Chosen One could be called if she were to be caught.

There were countless human prisons all over the sectors, and as soon as you were captured, that was where you went. She had heard horrible things about those places.

So there were going to be no risks.

The other reason was the fact that she just couldn’t muster up the courage to return there, not yet. If Los Angeles was overladen with emotional baggage, it paled in comparison to Sunnydale.

For now, L.A. was just a big enough challenge.

She flicked her waist length mane of blonde hair impatiently over one shoulder, and took the time to give the vamps present a quick headcount. Too many. All of her instincts were buzzing to get in there and take them all out, but she knew surprise was pretty much the element here.

Where the word slayer was once an unknown name in the general populace, the title now assumed a role of mysticism rather than actuality, which was ironic really when one considered she had started off about as notorious as a ballerina-dancing hippopotamus.

As far as the vampires of this world were concerned, Buffy Summers was dead and long buried. Jumping into an avoidable fight was definitely going to defy that. And that meant making things very difficult for herself.

The reason they thought she was a myth, of course, was because she made it that way. She passed through from one set of anarchists to the next, one city from the next, never long enough to prolong a rep, never long enough so that they could form more of a friendship than the uncomplicated associations that she preferred. Never long enough that they could learn her true identity.

Because, after all, that was what had gotten them all into this mess in the first place.

Buffy sighed, and stopped her thoughts just in time before they moved off in that certain forbidden direction and sat back on the balls of her feet. Then resolutely she straightened, and began to circle the perimeter of the gate in full alertness. A slow, wide grin spread across her features when she spotted her opening.

A vampire had fallen asleep at his post- and she couldn’t even blame him. They weren’t expecting any trouble, and they certainly had no reason to. It just proved once more how far the power of the vampire’s authority was stretching. They were too cocky, too secure, and they had good reason to be. Anticipating any activity from what they considered to be harmless civilian life was not something they considered to be vital.

This night was going to be an exception.

Buffy’s slim fingers curved around the shape of the sharply wielded stake in her jacket pocket. She dashed forward at a blindingly fast speed, and ducked behind a pile of tossed crates before any of the other vamps could even turn their head and see.

The snoozing vamp didn’t so much as twitch.

Buffy brandished the stake in front of her, and skulking up beside him, plunged it through his heart. Whipping her head around and straining to see through the darkness –unfortunately unlike her adversaries she wasn’t blessed with built-in night vision goggles– she made sure the sound had gone unheard to his fellows.

Then she slipped along with her back pressed to the cold concrete wall until she hit a chain link fence adjoined with it going in the opposite direction. Pausing, she swept her gaze uneasily to either side. Satisfied she was still alone, Buffy wound her fingertips tightly into the holes of the wire, and launched herself gracefully up the side of the fence in walk like strides. The top was lined with barbed wire and she cursed to herself when her hands closed around it, causing sharp pain to stab at her palms. Gritting her teeth firmly together, Buffy ignored the feel of pain, and straightened unsteadily.

Arms swaying out in front for balance, Buffy leapt. She landed with a hard thud against the concrete, but her arms gripped the top of the wall. She heaved herself slowly up to the top.

The other side was completely pitch black, and almost impossible to see into, until a group of sniggering vampires emerged from within a building close by. One of them held a fag between his fingers, and he lit up. The spark of the cigarette lighter was enough to alert Buffy to where they were.

She crawled along the top of the wall, which was moderately thick to account for her petite figure. She dropped to the ground when the sound of their laughter grew fainter.

Very casually, she brushed off the dirt that had stained her clothing and started off along the cramped alleyway as if she did it every day.

She was in. She was home.

For now.

~*~*~*~*

Los Angeles had never been the most honest or upright place.

Buffy had lived there for the better part of her twenty-seven years, and even though those years had been lived in blissful ignorance of the inner workings of the world, every city-dweller was raised with enough knowledge to know about what went on in the dark.

The invasion had only just magnified those problems.

As Buffy slowly walked on through the streets, she avoided eye contact with passers-by, kept her head bowed low, and wrapped her leather jacket tighter around her frame, unconsciously protecting herself.

Men in ragged clothing huddled around dying trash fires, and women strutted the streets clad in skanky leather and cheap, tawdry materials that exposed just about everything. They were pale and drawn in the face, and she didn’t need her slayer senses to be able to tell they had been letting vampires feed off of them, and getting what they wanted in return.

Buffy shivered, and knocked shoulders with a man passing in the opposite direction. He sneered at her jeeringly.

“Watch it, Princess”, he snapped, flashing yellowing teeth.

Buffy turned away, closing her eyes miserably, concentrating on the path ahead instead. Vampire patrols had passed frequently since her arrival inside the city gates, and she wanted to find somewhere to hole up the night. As it was, any sane person who didn’t bare a serious death wish had already hid themselves away from the ever-increasing threat of night.

She turned a tight corner, and couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose when she realised a cluster of junkies occupied the cramped space. Buffy picked up the pace.

“Hey”.

She felt wiry fingers close around her wrist before she was tugged roughly around, and Buffy found herself staring into the face of a woman about her own age, obviously heavily into the habit.

God, she thought in disgust, guessing she was probably after money. Why is it that there is suddenly a vampire takeover and the human race just uses it as another excuse to screw themselves over?

“I don’t have any money”, she snapped, wrenching her arm free and starting off again.

“Buffy!”

Buffy stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of her name, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she regarded the woman.

She stepped closer, into the light filtering over the alley walls from the moon, and Buffy took a moment to recognise her. Her hair, a dark strawberry blonde colour, was stringy and oily, and her features were pale and drawn. Her green eyes squinted as they stared Buffy up and down in mild disbelief, and Buffy had to choke on her shock.

“Amy?”

It was Amy Madison, an old friend of Willow’s from Sunnydale high.

Amy chuckled humourlessly. “You’re still alive”, she observed blandly. “Isn’t that something?”

Buffy hesitated before moving closer to her, and shook her head. “Amy, oh… God. What… happened to you?”

Amy shrugged. “I’m not a strong person, Buffy”, she said wretchedly, as if that would explain it. “I do what I have to”.

Buffy closed her eyes. So here it was. Here was the very embodiment of her past, living proof that she had been a person once, had been alive.

It was easy enough to see what had happened to the Wicca- Buffy had been too distracted to sense it before, but the use of magick was practically radiating from her, to an extent it was obvious it had been abused. This was the person Willow would have become herself, had things not altered as drastically as they had.

“I thought you were dead”, Amy went on, as if Buffy wasn’t even there at all. She laughed again. “Everyone else seems to be. Nothing’s been the same since that night”.

Buffy knew what night she was referring to- the night Sunnydale was taken over.

Buffy grasped Amy desperately by the shoulders. “Amy, you have to listen to me for a second here. I need your help. My friends? Do you know if they’re still alive? Willow, or Xander, or-or Dawn?”

Amy’s pupils darted in and out of focus. “They won’t last long here. Nobody ever does. Not with them”. She looked at Buffy, with sudden urgency. “You have to be careful here, Buffy. They’ll kill you, if you don’t understand. They always kill you”.

Buffy pulled away a step in exasperation. It was beginning to become disturbingly obvious that Amy wasn’t all there. “Who will?”

“Wolfram and Hart”, Amy responded dimly.

Buffy furrowed her brow. “Wolf, Ram and who?”

“Wolfram and Hart”, a voice spoke darkly behind her shoulder. Buffy turned swiftly, fists unconsciously clenching at her sides.

A young man stared back at her, looking remarkably calm considering his surroundings – and sane, Buffy noted, with slight relief. He had coal black hair and equally piercing dark eyes, that probed into her wisely.

“They’re the big thing in these parts”, he continued on nonchalantly. “You’re not from around here, are you? Else you would have already known that”.

Buffy glanced at Amy, who had curled in on herself in the corner, and was rocking to and fro, muttering to herself under her breath. She took a cautious step towards the man.

“Who are you?” she demanded charily.

“You a friend of hers?” the man asked instead, ignoring her question and gesturing to the witch pointedly on the ground.

Buffy frowned. “Not… exactly. Is she going to be okay?”

He sighed deeply. “It’s hard to say. I met her on one of her clean days, but those are becoming fewer and far between lately. I come and check up on her every now and then. She’s usually easy to find. And Sector sweeps are normally later in the week, so I don’t have to worry too urgently about the vampires”.

He extended a hand, seeing her still distrustful look. “I’m Ryan”, he explained politely. When she accepted his hand, he frowned at her. “I don’t know why you’re out here all alone. Don’t you know it’s dangerous after dark?”

Buffy glared at him. “ I can take care of myself”, she responded acridly.

He didn’t look affronted. “I don’t doubt it. So, do I get a name?”

“Buffy”, she answered carefully.

“Buffy”, Ryan repeated thoughtfully. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing in L.A.? Nobody comes here without a good reason, and I’m interested to hear yours”.

“I have people here”, she replied guardedly.

“Ah”, he murmured. “But you don’t know they’re alive?”

She looked away. “No.”

She paused, and then her blue eyes flickered up to him again. “This Wolfram and Hart? Who are they?”

“Them?” He pursed his lips in a dry smirk. “Lawyers, mostly. And human ones, which I find highly ironic. But Amy wasn’t wrong when she said how dangerous they are. The vampires let them live because they’re powerful –probably more so than they themselves. If they hold a grudge against you, you’re dead. It’s as simple as that.”

Buffy cocked an eyebrow. “Nobody’s tried to take them out?”

Ryan eyed her with newfound wariness. “People tried. But they all died in the process. Even then, the best thing you can hope to do is kill the human partners, and they aren’t the ones in supreme control.”

“Well who is?”

He frowned. “I don’t know why you’re asking all of these questions, but I can see where your mind is going, and you can forget it. Wolfram and Hart had been doing this in L.A. a long time before the invasion. If anything, they were probably at least partially responsible for it. The only person who’s ever really survived against them did nothing but piss them off, and their power has grown so much now that they don’t even have to worry about him anymore”.

A strange sinking sensation started in Buffy’s stomach, and she stared at Ryan closely.

“This person?” she started slowly. “Who are they? Do you know their name?”

Ryan sighed deeply. “If you’re thinking of going after them –“

“Please!” she interrupted tensely. She drew in a long soothing breath to calm herself, before she spoke again in a much more unruffled tone. “Just tell me. Who are they?”

Ryan bit his lip, and then shrugged as if to say, ‘What does it matter to me, anyway?’

“He works with a group of people like him. They only do small time stuff, nothing to really draw attention to themselves. There’s no point in risking it anymore. Apparently… well, I’ve heard stories that he used to be one of them.”

Buffy felt her whole body quiver. “And his name”, she asked quietly.

Ryan exhaled noisily. “As far as I know?

“His name is Angel”.

~*~*~*~*

Crashing music was pounding out from the stage when she slipped silently past the intimidating figure of the bouncer, and managed to furtively make her way inside the club.

Faith ground down hard on her teeth as she struggled to shove her way through the gyrating bodies on the crowded dance floor, poverty-stricken youths flinging themselves carelessly around, flirting with all sorts of perverse danger as they did.

The trashy nightspot was dubbed Prophecy, which Faith figured was just another ironic twist in the joke that was her life. It reeked of sweat mingled with cheap cigarettes and spirits, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. The patrons were punk-types and what would have been bikies in peacetime, covered with all sorts of obscene body art and studs and rings.

It was the kind of place that would have attracted her a few years ago.

She balanced on the tips of her toes as she swept her dark brown eyes searchingly over the heads of the dancers, ignoring the blatantly admiring stares she drew from some of them.

God, even I find that a bit degrading.

The whole place smelt of corruption and dirty dealings, which were, as luck would have it, things she was very intimately familiar with.

Prophecy was in the very centre of one of the diverse human settlements around this Sector, which had yet to be busted by vampire patrol groups.

Not that there weren’t signs of vampire interaction.

Crosses and bulges in jackets and pockets that were obviously weaponry were seized by at least a third of the general population, which reminded her all too utterly that they were indeed in the middle of a war.

A war they were loosing.

She wrangled her way over to the bar, eyes still searching for the reason she was here in the first place. She’d seen worse off places, but this one in particular was giving off some vibes that were making her agitated and uncomfortable.

It was in what had once been an old warehouse in Boyle Heights, a cluttered bar thrown together over to one side, and booths to the other. The majority of space was left to the dance floor, and a pathetic stage in the juncture at the front that creaked with every movement of the band that was singing on it.

She vaguely wondered why these places even operated at all, they had no purpose, and most of the people that went to them were such obvious targets for vampire meals that she didn’t see them lasting into the next week. But then she supposed they needed something to keep the shells of their lives in existence, and the crowded area at least provided some safety.

Faith the vampire slayer had been brought into the vampiric invasion reluctantly, and that was the truth.

She was sitting on jail sentence of five years without parole at best when the warning signs first started. That gang warfare had waged out of control in small suburbial Sunnydale.

She remembered the moment distinctly in her mind– even now. She’d been in the T.V. room, and Katty, a fellow inmate, had jostled her into a game of cards. At first the news bulletin had come up, she hadn’t payed much heed. Then the word Sunnydale was uttered, and she was listening so intently she could feel the blood churning in her ears.

Faith didn’t understand it at the time. After all, what didn’t happen in Sunnydale? She had only lived there a year before her coma, and yet had experienced a lot more pandemonium there than in her whole life back in good old Boston.

But something about this situation impulsively instilled fear into her veins, and the moment the broadcast announced Sunnydale was under ‘gang control’, she realised it was virtually secret code for, ‘The Hellmouth’s finally kicking back’.

Understatement.

The sketchy details she had gathered from various sources all stated more or less the same thing.

It had begun simply enough by the arrival of a new vampire leader- funnily she couldn’t even remember his name now.

What was different about this vampire was that he had ambitions. Ambitions he definitely intended to fulfil, unlike so many of his indolent self-inclined relations. Ambitions like exterminating entire human existence.

He had escaped detection on introduction to town, and had lain low shrewdly biding his time for months on end, gathering his forces, and striking in one deft attack that there was no hope of anticipating.

The vampires had been merciless; ravaging the town within hours, converting the Sunnydale Main Street into a feasting ground for their kind, and a cemetery for hers.

Nobody could prevent it, and their aspirations certainly didn’t stop at the Hellmouth. Their number grew enormously in that one single hit, and they had extended their domination and taken most of California in the next year and a half with an ease that chilled her to the bone.

It wasn’t long at all before their influence had spread to the city.

Their leader had called for Faith’s extermination, and before she knew what was happening, the guards had been turned and she was being hauled off into some quiet dark corner cell to be ‘taken care of’.

So what had she done?

She got the hell out of there, of course.

And the rest was more or less history. Here she was, wrenched violently back into the position she had resented ever since her first watcher’s murder- the slayer. Protector of mankind, Chosen One, all that jazz.

The one and only, if rumours were to be believed.

Buffy Summers hadn’t been heard from since the invasion first began, and by all accounts she had died right there doing her duty, protecting all she held dear and paying the failing price for it.

Buffy’s alleged death resulted in a lot of mixed emotions for the renegade slayer. They had been the best of friends, once, and Faith had even replaced Willow on Buffy’s socialite list, for the shortest time.

Then things had altered so drastically, and she had allied herself with the evil Mayor, a decision that pinned slayer against slayer.

The last time they had seen each other they had come to a stilted, if ambivalent understanding.

But Faith never wanted her dead.

It was hard to believe the ultimate Buffy Summers had failed at anything; she always won and came out on top. Death had never stopped her before.

Of course, there was always a first time for everything.

Faith let out a sigh of relief when she finally spotted who she was there for, leant oh-so-casually against one of the booths talking to his friend- she couldn’t remember the guy’s name- and blending in easily with the shadows with the grace that a slayer could envy.

She strutted over to them with newfound confidence, but thudded into someone on her way – which considering the amount of clientele in the bar was not exactly avoidable.

“Hey!” a voice snapped, thick with a brogue English accent. “Watch it there”.

Faith whirled, unable to resist a good repartee before he gave her the excuse to deck him one, when she was confronted with him face-on, and was struck with a sense of distinct familiarity.

“Do I know you…?” she asked haltingly.

Now he offered her a wolf-grin, a slow lazy sort of smile that made her shiver, and she couldn’t help but notice how damn sexy he was.

The face was studless, which was a definite tick in the plus column in her book, and his hair was relatively normal enough, peroxided blonde and plastered back with gel. But there was arrogance about him… a confidence that she noticed, and was very appealing all at the same time.

“Say, now I was just about to ask you the same thing”.

She knew guys well enough to know that he found her attractive, but there was something else in his gaze that made her uneasy.

What the hell…?

“I’d say I just have one of those faces”, he went on, blue eyes suddenly darting over her warily.

So he feels something off too then…

“I’m not especially from these parts”.

“No…” she murmured, but could not for the life of her shake the feeling.

That voice…

He bobbed his head awkwardly. “Well, best be off.”

She stepped aside, and started to move through the throng to her earlier destination herself. “Yeah.”

She was still studying his departing figure thoughtfully through the corner of her eye as she sidled up to the table that Angel and Gunn- Gunn, that’s his name-, now occupied.

“Sorry I’m late”, she muttered distractedly, not really looking at either of them, and slumping into the ratty chair between them, legs propping up on the spare seat across from her. Annoyance flashed behind Gunn’s eyes, and she had to grin. He didn’t like her, probably something See-all-Know-all Cordy had told him. Bugging him just gave her a little extra free entertainment. They didn’t get cable anymore, after all.

Her brown eyes flicked in Angel’s direction, and she realised the dude was in serious… well, serious-mode. Not that it was an unfamiliar look for him or anything. All the same, she could sense something was off, and forgot all about her strange encounter with the blonde Englishman.

“Angel?” she prodded gently. “What’s the score? You look wicked business-like there”.

He glanced up, slightly distracted himself. “Oh. Sorry. I uh…”

Faith looked to Gunn, who gave a small shrug in response. “Hey, don’t look at me. Not a free agent. He didn’t even tell me what the deal is either – just dragged me along for the trip”.

Faith smirked, tone dripping sarcasm. “I’ll just bet he did”.

Angel leant forward solemnly. “Look Faith, I need your help with something.”

Faith cocked an eyebrow. “Does this something involve roughin up vamps in some way? Cause if it does, count me in. Anything to get those freakin’ blood suckers crying uncle”.

Angel barely managed a smile. “Well good. I’m glad you’re on board.” He paused. “I need someone who knows the prisons of this town fairly well, and well, the most obvious candidate for that is you”.

Faith snorted. “I should be flattered, cept y’know, not. So what do you need help on, hmm? Break-in?”

Angel shrugged. “More like a break-out actually, but same concept. I’ve had word that the Sector 7H prison is where a good friend of mine is stationed. And I wanna get him out.”

“I think he’d be more than willing to go along with that”, she responded dryly in her usual evasive manner, but inside her heart was thudding uncontrollably in her chest.

There was something else. Something she could sense, and was making her palms incredibly sweaty.

Gunn noticed it too, because he leant forward in his chair, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Angel, man, just what friend are we talking here?” he asked bluntly.

Angel looked him straight in the eye.

“Wesley”.

Faith choked. “WESLEY?!” she blurted out, shout drowned out by the heavy metal music around them. “You’re messing with me, right? We’re calling Wesley a friend these days, are we?” She rose abruptly to her feet, knocking back her chair, and shook her head emphatically. “Forget it, Angel. You know I usually got your back in any situation, but not this. Not after… no way”.

Gunn looked loathed to admit it, but spoke up himself. “Hate to say, but I’m with her.”

Angel frowned. “Look, guys, I know we have our issues with him–“

Faith had to scoff. “ISSUES?” she repeated scathingly. “You got that damn right! He sold us out, Angel, and it isn’t the first time from what I’ve been told. I’d bet my life’s insurance he’d fold faster than superman on laundry day if he had the chance to screw us over again. We can’t trust him, and you want my help to break him out of the brig? The guy can stay in there for all I care. He can stay in there and freakin ROT.”

Angel’s eyebrows tweaked together. “I think you’re getting a bit bent on this, Faith”, he said sharply. “A few years ago and it would have been exactly the other way around, wouldn’t it? But Wesley was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt”.

Faith sighed in loud exasperation, frustrated beyond belief. “This is… different. I didn’t kill any of my friends.”

Angel gave her a long pointed look. “You might have”.

Faith shifted uncomfortably, and it was obvious they were both thinking of the same person.

But this was a different situation entirely, and Angel knew it. She knew it was partly her own past circumstance; her reversion to redemption, that had convinced him Wes was the injured party here. He was certain something inside Wesley was reachable like she had been, that it wasn’t too late to write him off. And Faith wanted to believe that, she really did.

She knew she and Wesley both had traumatic childhoods to account more than a little to their downward spiral. She didn’t know enough about Wesley’s past to make judgements, but she knew his father had been hard on him. But whereas hers had been a cry for help and attention, Wesley was simply… cruel. He did what he did… because he did.

They had been launching a harbour attack a few years after the initial invasion, trying to put-off the inevitable L.A. takeover as much as possible. Faith had joined forces with Angel and his crew by this point, and Wesley had been welcomed back into the fold after the incident with Connor.

Why he did it, she would never really know – she reluctantly admitted – as much as she wanted to believe him as evil and nothing less. She ought to know better than anyone that nothing was as black and white as Good and Evil. Most of the time it was just grey.

But he had alerted the vamps, and some of the crew had lost their lives.

Namely Fred, Lorne. And Connor.

Gunn’s coal black eyes had grown cold and slitted.

“I was willin to stand back when this was your issue, man. When it was Connor and you forgave him, I could let it go. It was your call, not mine. But it’s his fault that…” He stammered, and Faith felt bad for how she’d treated him. He paused, and when he spoke again, it was in a firm, steady voice. “Fred is dead because of him. And I ain’t never forgivin him for that.”

Angel looked away. “We can’t even be sure he really did it – at least intentionally, anyway”, he murmured softly.

Faith was glancing between the men uncomfortably, mentally willing Angel not to push Gunn any further.

“We never got the full story. We all make mistakes.” His voice was determined. “Wesley was a part of our team, Gunn. And I’m not ready to give up on family”.

Gunn lunged so fast Faith couldn’t hope to stop him, and he slammed Angel roughly against the brick wall aligned by the table. Slight jeers and hoots met with this sudden burst of violence, but other than that the attack went unnoticed.

Gunn was trembling as he tightened his fistful of Angel’s shirt. “You BASTARD!” he roared. “I’ll never call him a member of my family, EVER! He killed her, he killed your own goddamn SON and look at you, do you even give a shit? DO YOU?!”

“Gunn”, Faith gently grabbed his arm, but he shrugged her violently off and backed away from Angel in disgust. Angel meanwhile, faced his enraged friend’s wrath square on, and didn’t so much as blink at his line of insults. Faith had to admire that.

Gunn shook his head once more, then stalked for the door. “You do this, and you’re just as bad as he is”, he tossed over his shoulder as he went.

Faith closed her eyes, and then turned to Angel when he was gone. He waved a dismissive hand before she could speak. “Don’t, Faith”, he warned. “Just… don’t”.

Faith couldn’t help but put in her own little digs as well. “Well what did you expect?” she retorted accusingly. “You bring it up like it’s the most casual thing in the world, and we’re talking about releasing the same person who killed the guy’s freakin girlfriend.” She clapped her hands together with sarcastic bravado. “Smart, Angel. Real smart.”

He scowled at her. “We don’t know anything”, he snapped. “Would you have preferred it if I’d given up on you this easily?” He sighed. “Look, I can do this with or without your help, Faith. You said no, then fine. I’ll just find someone else.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Angel, you’re not doing this without me. No one else has been inside and survived and you know it.”

He gave her a long look. “But that isn’t going to change your mind, is it?”

Faith sighed. “I know… I owe the guy some loyalty. He used to visit me sometimes, back before…” she trailed off. “And you know I owe you even a whole lot more. So I’ll swallow my pride on this one”, she conceded unwillingly. “But he steps a foot outta line, and he has to deal with me, got it?”

He nodded with a weak smile. “Got it. Hey, a slayer on his back should set him straight, right?”

“Is that word even plural anymore?” Faith muttered unthinkingly under her breath, but Angel heard her. His face darkened, and she swallowed. There were only so many subjects taboo with the guy and Buffy was definitely one of them.

“Angel”, she began repentantly, and then stopped. “No, you know what? I don’t have to feel guilty for that. It’s true, isn’t it? And without the Council anymore, you’re lookin’ at the one last slayer standing, is my bet”.

He went very quiet.

Remind me to just keep my trap shut next time, she thought uncomfortably.

Faith slumped back into her chair dejectedly, yearning to follow Gunn’s retreat path herself now. Angel sighed deeply, sensing this, and his eyes trailed out onto the hopping dance floor, away from her.

“I’ve lived a long time, Faith”, he murmured softly, and she was relieved to hear his voice had returned to that almost gentle way he used with her.

“I’ve seen a lot of things, and not much would surprise me, considering all that”, he continued with conviction. “But you know something? I never underestimated Buffy. Where she’s concerned? Anything is possible”.

Faith licked her lips. “Angel… it’s nice that you believe that, it really is. But it’s been six years now. Six years. Don’t you think… if she was alive… we would have heard about it?”

“I have to believe in something”, he muttered quietly.

Faith closed her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you do”.

~*~*~*~*

The darkness silhouetted the man’s face as he stood quietly observing in the shadows of night, and he took a guarded step backwards as the curvy figure of the young woman slinked past his position.

She was a pretty one, no doubt about that, but he sensed something about her that stilled his instinctive urge to follow her, even though he had been watching her since she had left Prophecy half an hour ago. He had noticed it back in that bar, and the more he let the feeling sink in, the more it disturbed him.

She was a vampire slayer.

He had plenty of experience with slayers, of course he did. He had fought enough of them in his lifetime to be familiar with them.

Instead, he watched her departing outline with his chalky blue eyes narrowed, and then turned his attention to the apartment building that she was about to enter. His honed senses were conscious of the presences of others inside, but the sensation was weak, due to the vampire invitation rite that encased the entire building. A foreboding intelligence in him told him that the building was also heavily doused in holy water, as if the earth beneath was tainted with it, and the entire area was sacrosanct.

The whole situation appalled him.

But he was curious by nature, and it would usually have only intrigued him further by the obvious fact that these people knew what they were doing when it came to vampires. He hadn’t met many of them since the whole invasion had started, and they always presented a welcome challenge.

Truth be told, the invasion was slightly boring to him.

Everything was too easy, vampires had complete control, and if one excluded that bloody creepy law firm that was in charge of these parts, the humans most certainly did not.

These people were different. And he had his very strong suspicions as to who they were. He also assumed he knew who that brassy brunette slayer was that had just graced him with her presence not two minutes earlier.

And the man that trailed behind her now, who the vampire watched slide past with his lip curling over in distaste.

Oh, it was them all right, and he did not welcome their return to his life.

Spike decided something had to be done about it.

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