Faithfully Dangerous

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-15

Disclaimer: These aren’t my characters, as you all know. If they were, they’d all be living happily ever after by now.

Summary: Set during my story Latter Days. Faith is sent to L.A. to get information out of Angel and recruit Wesley—if she can. What she discovers is a scheme by persons unknown to take advantage of the imbalance, and an unlikely friendship.

A/N: Although this takes place during Latter Days, there isn’t a direct 1-1 relationship between the chapters. So, you could say that time is moving at a slightly different pace, although they will intersect.

Chapter 16

The Slayers were in hunting mode, which meant that there wasn’t a lot of talking, but Leslie’s blood was singing. Between the seven of them, they had already staked eight vampires and killed three demons who had attacked the group with the clear intention of getting to Faith. No one was injured, and Leslie could sense the exhilaration.

What her parents would never—could never—understand was the hunt. Even if she someday went to college and gave up slaying full time, Leslie knew that she’d spend at least some of her nights like this. Being a Slayer demanded nothing less.

“Up ahead,” Faith called softly, breaking into a jog, Dana immediately to her left.

Leslie had been impressed with the crazy Slayer. She appeared to have no fear, and while Ellen was on hand to ensure that she killed demons and vampires, not people, Dana hadn’t had any trouble telling the difference.

In fact, if Leslie wasn’t mistaken, her eyes were just a little less wild, her movements a little more focused. Maybe Ellen was right, and this was exactly what the other girl needed.

Leslie felt her stomach twist as she saw what Faith had. She wasn’t sure how many demons surrounded the car—too many to count. A man and woman were dead, their bodies sprawled in awkward positions on the ground next to the vehicle.

She wasn’t sure how the young man had managed to hold off the demons. He’d found a piece of rebar somewhere and was swinging it wildly, although clearly with a lot of power. One of the demons he made contact with doubled over, and he followed up with a swing to its head that cracked the skull.

Leslie processed the scene in bare seconds, drawing the sword she carried and leaping into the fray as soon as she was close enough. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Phoebe stop to bring up the crossbow she carried, and one demon went down with a howl of rage and pain.

Faith and Dana were twin whirlwinds, dark hair whipping around their faces as they fought off the group. Leslie’s partner was Caridad, and they took on one of the demons together. She cut low, hamstringing it so that Cari could shove her stake into its throat. Caridad left the stake where it was and drew her long knife.

Later, Leslie would have no idea how or when she’d received the wound to her left shoulder, nor would she be able to recall how she twisted her knee. The adrenalin prevented the pain from even registering until after every demon was dead, and the young man stood there, chest heaving, still clutching the piece of rebar.

“Connor?”

It was Faith’s incredulous identification that broke the sudden silence that had fallen at the end of the battle, and Leslie’s eyes widened. She didn’t know the whole story behind Angel’s kid, but she knew that this wasn’t good.

The young man adjusted his grip on his makeshift weapon. “Who are you?”

Faith raised her hands. “I’m a friend, that’s all. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Connor backed up a step. “Stay away from me.”

Leslie caught the slight nod that Faith gave, although she didn’t move otherwise. “We want to help you.”

“I don’t know you,” he shot back.

Leslie edged to the right, trying not to alarm him. She knew what Faith wanted, and that didn’t include letting the poor kid run off on his own. If it had been some random stranger, she might have been able to believe that the demon attack was one of opportunity, but she didn’t think that was the case.

Faith put her hands down slowly. “No, you don’t, but I know you. Let me guess, you’re not like the other kids.”

The rebar wavered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You tellin’ me you can’t bend that rebar with your bare hands?”

Connor dropped it completely, then turned to run. He might have been the son of two vampires, but Phoebe and Uta had been out of his line of sight, and they stood right behind him. Leslie and Caridad closed in on him, as did Faith and Dana, leaving him surrounded with nowhere to go.

When he looked at Faith again, she smiled. “We’re not like other kids either. Maybe you want to know who and what you are, maybe you don’t, but I’ll bet you want to find out who killed your folks.”

His face turned ashen, and he glanced back at the broken bodies still laying on the ground. “Yeah, I would.” His voice was impressively steady.

Faith nodded. “Then let’s do that.”

Ellen slipped inside the circle. As far as Leslie had been able to tell, she’d held back from the fight, but she put her hand on Connor’s shoulder now. “It will be fine, lad.”

Connor didn’t look convinced of that, and Leslie didn’t blame him a bit. She wasn’t sure that anything was going to be fine.

~~~~~

Upon reaching the location that the spell had indicated, Wesley saw no sign of the young Slayer, and he proceeded south, the direction the small point of light had been moving. When he heard the sound of a struggle, Wesley broke into a run, coming up on a the scene of a fight.

There were two vampires and a girl with her back against the wall. In this area of town, there wasn’t much in the way of wood, but she’d managed to scrounge up a broken bottle. In the hands of a more experienced Slayer, that might have been enough, but this girl was untrained.

With a flick of his wrists, Wesley released both stakes from their sheathes. The first stake found its mark in one vampire’s back, and it crumbled into dust. The girl didn’t even blink, shoving her broken bottle into the face of the second vampire, and it backed right up into Wesley’s second stake.

The girl didn’t drop her weapon. “Back off. I don’t need your help.”

Wesley raised his hands. “I can see that,” he said diplomatically, deciding that now was not the time to argue if he was to win her trust. “May I show you my identification?”

She gave a short nod, and Wesley reached for one of the Council’s business cards. Giles had had them made up and dispersed to anyone who might be requested to contact the new Slayers. He also palmed the small figurine. “Here.”

The Slayer took the card from him, and gave him a puzzled frown when she’d read it. “You’re from a school?”

“It’s a special school.” He held out the figurine. “I spoke to Lindsay and Liz. Lindsay gave me this to help me locate you.”

Abby dropped the bottle, holding out her hand for the small dog. “Oh.” She glanced up at him, suspicion dwindling. “How—”

“We’ve been trying to find you before anyone else could,” Wesley said with a meaningful glance at the scattering of dust on the sidewalk. “My name is Wesley.”

“I’m Abby,” she said absently, looking back down at the dog. “So, what’s this thing about?”

Wesley glanced up and down the street. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded warily. “Yeah, but—”

“We’ll get something to eat, and I’ll explain everything,” he promised. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay here, however.”

Abby nodded and tucked the token in her pocket. “Okay.”

Wesley breathed an internal sigh of relief, grateful that things had gone so well.

Then again, they hadn’t made it back to Los Angeles yet, and anything could happen.

~~~~~

Fred was surprised to see Gunn on the other side of the door when she opened it. He looked as haggard as she’d ever seen him. “Charles? What’s wrong?”

“I needed to talk to someone.”

“Come in.” She moved aside immediately, ushering him to her well-worn couch. “Sit down.”

He collapsed more than sat. Gunn’s tie had been loosened and hung askew, and his suit was rumpled. Fred didn’t think Gunn had been this disheveled since starting at the law firm. “What happened?” she asked when he didn’t speak right away.

“I’m losing it, Fred,” he confessed hoarsely.

“Losing what?”

“The knowledge, everything they stuffed inside my head. It wasn’t permanent.”

“Oh, Charles.” Fred laid her hand on his arm. “Can’t you—I don’t know, get them to fix it?”

He glanced up at her. “I tried. I went to the doctor, but he wanted me to sign a piece of paper, to get something out of customs for him. I couldn’t do it.”

She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You can’t know what that would have done if you had. He works for Wolfram and Hart, right?”

“What good am I gonna be to Angel?” Gunn asked, his eyes haunted. “He doesn’t need another thug.”

“You’re not a thug!” Fred shot back. “You’re better than that, Charles. You refused to let them have their hooks in you. We’ll figure it out.”

He met her eyes. “Is it ‘we,’ Fred?”

She searched his face, wondering what her answer could be after everything they’d been through, after everything they had been to one another. “Will you promise not to try to protect me? It might mean that I make some mistakes, but you need to let me do that.”

“I can try.”

He looked so broken, so hurt, that Fred put her hands on his face, pulling him closer and pressing her lips to his forehead. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll go to the Council. Maybe there’s something they can do.”

The phone rang just then, and Fred reached over to answer it. She didn’t get very many phone calls, but the ones she did get were usually important. “Hello?”

“Fred, it’s Angel.”

“What’s going on?” Fred was feeling a little more charitable towards the vampire now that she remembered exactly what had happened. She could see that he might have believed that he was not only doing the right thing, but that he was helping them. She’d certainly been happier without those memories, and she guessed that Wesley and the others could have said the same.

“Cordelia’s back. We need to talk.”

Fred took a deep breath. “How long has she been back?”

“She woke up yesterday. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but we had some things that we had to discuss.”

“It’s okay.”

“Can we meet?”

“Have you called Wes?”

“I tried the hotel. There was no answer.”

“He’s out of town. I’ll try his cell phone. He’ll want to know about Cordy. Maybe we can meet somewhere? Gunn and I need to talk to you, and we’d probably better not do it at the office.”

“Of course. Call Wes and see when he’s going to be back. We should probably have a meeting with everyone.”

Fred didn’t like the sound of that. “Doesn’t Cordy want to see us?”

There was a long pause. “I didn’t ask.” Another long pause followed. “Where are you guys now?”

“We’re at my place. Let me give you directions.”

When Fred got off the phone, she looked at Gunn. “Angel and Cordy should be here soon. Do you want something to drink?”

“You got a beer?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She rose and placed a quick kiss on his lips. “We’ll talk to Angel. Cordy’s back, so that has to mean that things are looking up.”

Fred had to believe that things would get better; that’s what had allowed her to get through five years in Pylea.

~~~~~

Abby was going after the hamburger as though she hadn’t eaten in a week; for all Wesley knew, she hadn’t.

“Thanks again,” she mumbled around a bite. “I was starving.”

“Quite literally, it seems,” he replied with some amusement, since it was her second hamburger in less than half an hour.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You should eat whatever you want.”

Under the harsh fluorescents, he could see that the girl’s mousy hair was greasy and her clothes dirty. It was clear that she’d been on her own for quite some time. “Lindsay told me that you have an aunt in the city,” Wesley said carefully. “Is there a reason that you aren’t staying with her?”

“She said I could at first,” Abby replied around a bite of hamburger. “Aunt Kit said I could live with her and everything, and she’d talk to my dad about it so the cops wouldn’t say she was harboring a runaway. But her boyfriend doesn’t like kids, and Dad said I should come home.”

“And you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t.” Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “He would have killed me if I had.”

Wesley didn’t doubt her, but he still had to ask. “Why is that?”

“Because the last time he tried to hit me, I stopped him.” Abby looked him right in the eye. “And when I hit him back, he went flyin’. I didn’t even stop. I just grabbed some stuff and left. I had a little money, and L—Liz loaned me some more. She thought my aunt knew I was comin’.”

Wesley leaned back in his seat. “I run a school for girls just like you in Los Angeles. You wouldn’t be alone there, but the choice to come is yours. If you don’t want to, I’ll make sure you’re safe in another location.”

He could see that she wanted to believe him. Abby wanted to trust that he was exactly who and what he said that he was, and that he could fulfill his promises. “Let me call Faith,” he said, realizing that perhaps hearing those same words from another Slayer would help. “She can confirm what I’ve said.”

Wesley dialed the number, honestly thankful for an excuse to do so. Faith answered immediately, although she sounded distracted. “Yeah. What’s up?”

“I’ve found the Slayer,” he said without preamble. “She needs to know that I’m speaking the truth. Would you talk to her?”

“Only if you promise to be on the first flight back tomorrow.” Faith sounded grim. “We have a situation. More than one, actually.”

“I’ll head back immediately. Her name is Abby,” he reminded her before passing the phone to the girl.

Wesley had no idea what Faith said, but some of the tension seemed to leave the young girl’s face, and when she flipped the phone closed, she appeared determined. “I want to go.”

“What did Faith say?”

Abby just shrugged. “She said that if I thought killing vampires was wicked cool on my own, I should try it in a group.” Then, smiling shyly, she added, “And she said you were a really good Watcher, and that I should trust you.”

“Do you?”

There was a wealth of innocence in her blue eyes when she looked at him—innocence, and knowledge both. “I don’t think I’ve got a choice. It’s either you or the streets, and you saved my life.”

Wesley nodded, knowing that foundation might just be enough.