Archive of Our Own

Faith’s leaned up against the wall of the office building, boot kicked up on the brick behind her. 

Slushie in her hand is cold in that satisfying way that hurts a little, ice biting through the plastic. She brings it up to her mouth, savors the nip at her tongue.

Wonders if the flavor, the fake chemical cherry, is always gonna remind her of free food down at the church on Sundays. Her tongue gone Kool-Aid red, running screaming with the other kids, and she could go faster than any of them. Could beat all their asses as they stampeded through the parking lot. Mouth open, swallowing big gulps of air. Just fucking galloping. 

And then she’d look back. And there Mom would be. Smiling at her. Cheering her on.

“C’mon, Faith! There’s my little firecracker!”

And then Faith would grin so hard and she’d feel so warm and so full and Mom would have this gloating look to her, nudging the other moms. 

Like, see? See how my kid knocks yours outta the fucking water?

Faith thinks about it now, and she still feels warm, but in this way that’s all wrong. Like when you’re a little kid and you wake up to a fever all blazed through you, or to your sheets all sticky and hot around you and realize you pissed the bed. 

Faith thinks about it now and she just wants to hide, duck her head in her hair, only her hair only barely comes curling to the edge of her jaw now.

It’s just like … she doesn’t want anyone to see her thinking about it. Must be obvious on her face, right? 

She doesn’t want anyone to know she wants it.

She pushes the memory away, and remembers that in her other hand, a blue raspberry slushie is getting warmer by the second, dripping condensation into her fist. She’s half considering drinking it herself, so at least someone gets to enjoy it proper, when the door beside her swings open.

“Well now that was a hoot and a half, lemme tell you!” Fred says.

“Yuh huh?” Faith says, pushing the drink into Fred’s palm, shaking the drip off her own fingers.

“Well first we got to talking about Glerg’s home dimension which I didn’t mean to because there’s so many other important things to talk about, what with me being traumatized by a whole nother demon dimension, but somehow we got on the subject of how the gravitational fields on his home world are impacted by all the ectoplasmic energy in the local ether? And boy did that just get us on a tangent or what!”

Faith can’t help but grin. “Sounds nice.”

“It was! Really was nice!”

They’ve been doing this since Faith got back to L.A.—Faith bringing Fred to therapy, milling around and window shopping and getting snacks while she’s there, waiting outside to walk her home. Started back when Fred was still too skittish to leave the hotel on her lonesome. 

Now they just keep it up because they got used to it, Faith guesses. ‘Cause Fred likes the company, or whatever.

Faith doesn’t mind the company either.

“So, you wanna catch a movie or something?” Faith says. “We could see Donnie Darko. ”

Fred shakes her head. “Oh see I would but it sounds real upsetting? Oh but how ‘bout that movie about that French girl and she’s all quiet and funny?”

“I don’t do movies that make me read.”

Fred takes a thoughtful sip of her slushie. “ Monsters Inc. ?”

“Think we’ve got a deal.”

“Oh heck!” Fred says. “Can’t. I gotta get home for a phone call with Mom and Dad. But maybe next week? Oh, and we could invite Charles! And oh, well everybody else too— Cordelia, and Angel, and Wesley, and, well, everybody! And we can sneak in snacks and hide them in big pockets like we’re spies or something?”

Faith fiddles with the empty plastic cup in her hand, feels the melting ice crush crackle around inside. “So, you’re still doing that. The calls thing. The parents thing.”

“Well, yeah,” Fred says, holding her free hand out to brush the leaves of a tree overhead. “I wish it could be more often. I mean, every other day’s great, but we’ve just got so much to catch up on, you know? But they might come and visit again next month!”

Faith’s eyes hurt, all of the sudden. “Oh. They uh. They were just here, weren’t they?”

“A little bit ago, yeah!” Fred says. “It’s just I miss them so much and they miss me so much. And we’ve been doing this thing, watching Jeopardy? And then tallying up how many right answers we get and calling on the phone to talk about it. Except for how I always win, but that doesn't stop us. And it’s on at different times for us now, which makes the whole thing a little bit roundabout, but we always watched it together when I was a little girl, so just feels right to watch together now, sorta. And for a while, you know how when you’re a kid you get these ideas? And they’re not right but you get ‘em anyway. So I was convinced I’d grow up and marry Alex Trebek and my mama said well baby he’s a lot older than you and already married and it wasn’t even like I was thinking well heck marrying Alex Trebek sounds like a hoot — except I bet it would be a hoot because he’s all nice and knows things and is funny in that wry sorta way? Plus he’s Canadian and they’re always just the biggest sweethearts you ever did see, and they appreciate doughnuts, culturally, and I just don’t think I could marry somebody that didn’t have a good appreciation for doughnuts, you know? But anyhow, I think it was that I had the idea in my head? That you grow up and you marry some man and Alex Trebek was about the only man I saw on a daily basis who wasn’t my dad or those snotty boys at school, so I thought it just seemed like the most logical conclusion.”

Faith crackles the empty cup in her hand. “... Right.”

“But anyway, I just wanna see them proper. Not just, you know, roundabout TV nights.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Faith says. Her throat hurts, feels raw and papery all the sudden.

“So, what’re your folks like?” Fred asks, taking a loud slurp of her drink. “I mean, d’you see ‘em often?”

“Well,” Faith sucks in on her lip. “Mom’s pretty dead. And before that she was uh .. but my dad, he’s …well. Haven’t seen him since I was ten. Skipped town. And it’s the funniest thing, but he just keeps forgetting to call.”

“Oh, well have you tried maybe asking somebody you both know to give him your number ‘cause maybe he lost it and then he can— oh. Oh, I’m sorry, Faith. That’s just rotten.”

Faith’s teeth are sharp at the edge of her tongue. “Whatever. Uh, anyway, how’s it going, with Glerg? Whole therapy thing.”

“Oh, I’m real glad I’m going. He says ‘hi’, by the way.”

Fred adds in a little wave, for effect.

Faith’s boots knock into a divot in the sidewalk that throws her off balance for a second. “You guys talk about me?”

“Well I talk about everybody! You’re all just so nice to me, and such good people, and you make me feel so, well, welcome! And taken care of! And you, well you saved me from the monsters in Pylea and have been keeping me such good company now that we’re back and I just think that’s really sweet of you? To use your fancy Slayers powers to help me, of all the things you could do with them? And you know, was so nice of you to set me up going to see him for demon therapy. And most people don’t like therapy, on account of how they’re scared of it? But you going with Wesley was real brave when you think about it, and—”

“That’s nice Fred. Thanks,” Faith says, and her tongue feels itchy.  

And it is. Sorta the problem, is Fred’s just so fucking nice . Nice to everyone, sure, but that also means she’s nice to Faith. Which is bad enough on its own, but she’s all earnest about it too, and it makes Faith’s feet itchy, makes her wanna wring at her own hands. It’s too much. LIke someone looking at her right in the eyes.

And yeah, Cordy’s nice to her too. But Cordy doesn’t gush—she’s quick and matter of fact about it and will just say some shit like, oh my God you’re such an idiot can’t you see you’re amazing? And Gunn too, in his own way, but there’s usually a punch on the arm with it and he doesn’t linger in the moment ‘cause he knows it makes Faith antsy. And Angel’s nice to her, but in that way where if she falls asleep on the couch in the hotel he’ll put a blanket over her.

But Fred? She just won’t give it a fucking rest. Just always bubbling out of her, this urge to sweetness, and it hurts Faith’s teeth. She can’t take it.

Be nice if she could take it. But maybe she’s just a little too fucked for that.

But saying so would mean admitting it out loud, would mean Fred looking at her dead on knowing all about how Faith’s mangled up inside and honestly, been a while since Faith knew anyone who’s never had a front row seat to her going on some kinda bender. Someone who just thinks she’s good, right off the bat.

So she just keeps saying thanks, looking at the ground, letting Fred go on with it.

*

Back at the hotel, Fred vanishes up into her room to go call her old man or whatever, and Faith plops into the seat across from Cordy’s desk, kicking her boots up.

“You wanna get your gross gravedirt mud boots away from my nice, clean invoices?”

“Oh, so you think all Slayer boots always got gravedirt on ‘em, huh? Never pegged you for a bigot, Cor,” Faith says.

Cordy smiles at her, flips her the bird, and swats at Faith’s boots with a rolled up newspaper, and Faith swings her legs down to land her feet on the ground, flipping Cor the bird back with a half smile.

“So, how was your demon therapy outing?” Cordy asks, pushing her pile of papers to the side.

Faith shrugs. “Got slushies. Fred talked for twenty minutes straight without drawing breath. Pretty impressive.”

Cordy flicks her gaze up to Faith. “So, do you think you might ever—”

“No .” 

“You didn’t even know what I was gonna ask.”

“Did. And no.”

“I just think ,” Cordy says, with that look on her face where Faith knows it’s no use, Cor’s gonna get her two cents in if she has to wrestle Faith to the ground to do it. “That you went to demon therapy once already. And you’re already over there all the time. And you have a really good reason to go? So you should just go.”

“How about, no, never again, fuck you?”

“Aw, you’ve just got such a way with words!” Cordelia says.

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

“Look, I know you don’t wanna talk about the Buffy of it all—”

“Wow, you figure that out all on your own?”

“But if you don’t talk about it, you’re gonna be fester girl. And I don’t want you to be fester girl. I want you fester free.”

“What are the odds you drop this without me having to talk about it any more?”

“Slim to none,” Cor says.

“Okay. Look. It was bad there. I know you know that, but it was. And I’ve actually been pretty fucking happy since I came back from Sunnydale? So sue me if I don’t wanna throw that in the fucking trash thinking about—”

About all those months in Sunnydale alone and trying to scrape up a friend wherever she could get it and when she thinks about that now feels like that little kid feeling again, like pissing the bed and you don’t want anyone to know, and trying to wedge herself into their fucked up little family only she didn’t fit she never fits , and, and, and, and— 

About digging Buffy out of the grave. 

About her hands all dirty and bloody clutched around Buffy’s back and about the way Buffy breathed into her, all ragged and coughing up soil, and Faith could taste blood in her mouth and didn’t know whose it was, about how she stood in front of Buffy in the dim of her bedroom and told her she loved her and even as she did it, knew she shouldn’t, felt like she was driving a runaway train into a wall and she coulda stopped it at any point but her hand was numb, couldn’t reach the lever to brake, and Buffy just stared back at her.

Or that no one from Sunnydale’s even called since she left, like they’re trying to forget the whole thing. Like Faith was never there, like she’s not even real, and that makes her head feel all liquid and sharp but if they did call, that would be worse, because she just wants to forget .

She tells Cor, “I just don’t wanna think about it.”

And then she has to catch her breath. Just for a split second, but Cordy sees.

“Okay,” Cordy says. “I got it. No remembering.”

“Thanks,” Faith says, and Cordy reaches over, gives her a quick squeeze of the hand. Doesn’t linger. Just enough to remind Faith that she’s here, she’s in the hotel, she’s with her people, nowhere else. 

Faith’s gonna say something else, is thinking of where to change the subject to that’s as far from this as possible, when there’s a bloodcurdling scream from upstairs, ripping through the lobby.

Faith jumps out of her seat, moves towards the stairs, but Cordelia says:

“Don’t bother. She’s been doing that for like, hours . She’s just all pissed Angel won’t give her people blood.”

“Or she’s screaming ‘cause she started having the baby? Or ‘cause another vamp cult broke in and is trying to kill her again, or ‘cause, I dunno, she got bored and killed Angel and now he’s dust up there. Or cause—” 

Cordy rolls her eyes and stands. “Yeah yeah, I’m coming, fine.”

*

“It’s very dangerous to deny pregnancy cravings, Angelus,” Darla’s telling him.

“Darla, I understand that you want human blood very badly, but it’s not going to do you any harm to—”

Cordy nudges Faith in the doorway. “Told you.” 

Darla says “No. I meant dangerous for you. ”

“You’re not gonna hurt me, Darla,” Angel insists, arms crossed.

“Oh, I’m not? It’s just I’ve been getting so very bored up here. Might just have to stake you for something to do.”

Faith nudges Cordy back. “Told you .”

“Shocked you even need any blood,” Cordy says, marching into the room all glaring to stand beside Angel. “You didn’t get enough from munching down on my neck?”

Darla leans back in the bed, arms behind her head. “Someone thinks very highly of herself. It’s cute.”

“You’re one to talk,” Cordy says.

“Careful about standing too close, sweetheart,” Darla says. “I’m already very hungry.”

“That’s enough , Darla,” Angel says, a snarl, and he’s got this bugly look on his face, like the vamp wants to come out.

“Well maybe if you got me someone to eat I wouldn’t have to threaten to kill your friends, lover,” Darla throws back at him. 

“Hey!” Faith says, stepping in between all of them. “Hey. That’s enough threatening to kill each other for the day.”

“She started it,” Angel grumbles.

Dalra says, “By asking you to stop starving me and your child?”

“There is a minifridge full of pig’s blood right fucking next to you, Dar.”

“And if I wanted him to come out malnourished and blue in the face, maybe I’d drink it,” Darla flings back.

“ HEY,” Faith shouts, and it makes Angel flinch, though Cordy and Darla aren’t shaken. “What did I just fucking say?”

Cordy steps back, looking annoyed. “She did start it though.”

“And I don’t wanna have to finish it, Cor,” Faith tells her. “Look, why don’t the two of you go downstairs, alright? I’ll sit with her.”

“Oh, we never got to finish our training from this morning!” Cordy says, tugging on Angel’s arm.

“You sure you’re up for it?” he says back, with half a grin.

“Am I up for kicking your ass? You fucking bet, pal,” she says, and then they’re both hurrying out of the room to scurry down to the basement.

When it’s just Faith and Darla, Faith takes a seat in the hard armchair next to Darla’s bed.

“‘Training’,” Darla says. “That what they’re calling it now?”

“God help ‘em, I think they’re actually training.” Faith says, kicking her feet up on the nightstand.

“You wanna take a bet on how long till they realize?” Darla says.

“Didn’t know you were so invested in Angel’s love life,” Faith says.

“I’m not. I wasn’t joking about being bored to death over here.”

Faith looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “Alright, I’ll take that bet. I mean Angel’s—look, I love the guy like a brother, and he knows his shit as far demons go. But emotionally? Dumb as a pile of bricks. And Cordy … thinks she’s smarter than she is, when it comes to people. I mean, was a minute there, she thought I was in love with Gunn. ”

Darla barks out a little laugh. “Please, I barely know you and I could smell the lesbian on you from a mile away.”

Faith bites her lip. “So yeah, I’m thinking years. Maybe by the kid’s second birthday?”

“I think you’re probably right,” Darla says. “Pity. Would be fun, to see him lose his soul again.”

Faith looks at her. “Since you bring it up. The soul thing.”

“Not that it would even necessarily work ,” Darla says, a bitterness to the edge of her voice. “Apparently not all of us are so special to manage to fuck the soul of of him.”

“Not what I meant,” Faith says, and her mouth feels all tense and heavy. “Uh. Meant your soul. Or, the kid’s soul. Whatever. Angel said he had one.”

Darla blinks, runs a hand at the edge of her belly. “That’s the going story.”

“Which means you got one too.”

“Do you have a point?” Darla says, this flash of her teeth, and even with the blunt human ones, it’s enough. To remind Faith she’s still a predator. Still the thing Faith was built to kill.

“Yeah, I do,” Faith says, and flashes her own smile, pushes the harshness of it—reminds Darla she’s not the only predator in the room. “You keep talking about killing Cordy. Wanting human blood. And you know what I am. So you know if you mean it, I gotta do something about it. And I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page here, sweetheart.”

Darla bats her eyelashes. “You’d kill the mother of Angel’s child? And here I thought you loved him like a brother. Makes me your, what, ex-sister-in-law? We’re family, Faith.”

The word makes everything in her flash hard and bitter and tensed. And then it feels a little funny, doesn’t it? Bitch already knows how to be a mother. Just twist your little knife and then smile like you’ve never even heard of a blade. 

“You don’t get to be family just ‘cause you say you are,” Faith says. “Now answer the fucking question. You planning on killing anyone or not?”

Darla rolls her eyes. “Soul’s got so little to do with it. People kill people all the time. Thought you’d know that, out of anyone.”

Faith swallows hard, stiffens in her seat. “I was a kid.”

The pale arcs of Darla’s eyebrows go up. “I meant because you’re the Slayer. But this is much more interesting. Have you killed someone, Faith? An actual person?”

She’s looking at Faith like she’s something on TV. It makes Faith’s fists tighten. 

Faith looks back at Darla, feels like her chin is too tight in her face. Wants to say something, but she can’t make the sound come out. Like, if she opened her mouth it would just be this little squeal, like pigs when the slaughter’s coming.

Darla grins. “Knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Faith forces herself to make a sound anyway. “I need to know if you mean it.”

“Well what’s not to like? So strong for one thing, and that never hurts. And I’ve always been partial to dark hair—”

“Not me,” Faith says, and her cheeks feel warm. “Killing people. And you better be fucking honest with me ‘cause I’m not in the mood to play around.”

Darla’s looking back at her, oceany blue of her eyes all intent and serious all of the sudden. Faith can’t tell what to make of it, except maybe that it always feels like there’s a joke in the air, when Darla’s talking, something amused and above it all. 

Now, looking at Faith, there’s none of that. Right now, for a second, Faith remembers this bitch is four hundred years old, and Faith’s got no idea what a span like that does to a person.

“It’s nice to talk about it,” Darla says. “The hunt. The kill. Makes me feel like me.”

“Alright,” Faith says. Everything feels a little too heavy, in the room. She can’t stop looking at Darla.

“But, it’s different. In me. Whatever this thing is.”

“The kid?”

“The soul,” Darla says, this far-off thing in her voice, eyes leaving Faith, sweeping up to the corners of the ceiling, like she’s remembering something. “Both. It just … everyone seems real now. I don’t like it.”

“People didn’t seem real before?”

Darla purses her lips, a thought coming to surface.

“When you’re what I am? Everyone else, they’re just … toys. Entertainment. It’s not a person in there. But I can’t seem to remember that anymore. Lately all I can think about is that they’re people . All of you. And I miss it. I miss when it wasn’t real. Was simpler then.”

Faith’s thinking about when she was the Mayor’s hired knife. Thinks about the little voice in her she just kept shoving down. Burying her knife in that professor. In that demon trying to sell them the Books of Ascension. Felt easy. Her hands knew just how to make the blood flow. Knew how to suck the life out of someone so quick you didn’t have time to think about it. Just keep it moving. Just do what you know how to do.

“Yeah,” Faith says. “Real simple.”

“To answer your question though? I probably won’t kill anybody any time soon. So you won’t have to stake me at least until the kid’s born.”

Faith swallows. “Good to know.”

And then her body just feels heavy and weird and this whole room is a little too much so she stands, heads for the door, but Darla clears her throat:

“I’m not gonna make it easy for you though, Slayer. When it comes time for that? I’ll kill you before you can kill me.”

Faith twists on her heel, backs out of the room biting her lip, half grinning. “Well, we’ll see about that.”

***

Angel’s saying: “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Faith pulls herself up to sit on the counter where the office bit of the lobby starts. “You wanna try telling that to the pissed off pregnant vampire? Be my fucking guest, dude.”

Gunn walks out of the office behind them, handing a book from the shelf to Fred. “I’m with Lehane. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Angel glares at him. “Why would you ask that? Why would you ever think it’s a good idea to ask that?”

Gunn narrows his eyes. “My natural optimism and sunny disposition?”

“Well stop it,” Angel says. 

“Don’t be such a sourpuss, darling ,” Darla says, from behind them. “It makes you look old.”

Faith swivels on the counter, sees Darla making her way down the steps slowly, mostly waddling, gripping the railing like a lifeline.

“That’s a pretty shade of lipstick, Darla!” Fred says. 

“Aren’t you sweet,” Darla says. “Is everyone ready? Where’s Cordelia?”

Angel says, “No one’s ready, because no one’s going.”

“And why’s that?” Darla asks, grabbing her jacket from the coatrack.

Angel goes all sputtery. “Because I said so!”

“ Oh ,” Darla says. “Because you say so! Of course darling, silly me.”

“Well, if you won’t stay, then I’m coming along,” Angel insists.

“Absolutely not,” Darla says, firmly. “It’s a girls’ night.”

Cordelia comes into the room from the back office, purse in hand. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

Angel turns to her, sputtering even more. “What, you’re going to this?”

“You try saying no to the pissed off pregnant vampire,” Cordy says.

“Hey, that’s what I said!” Faith tells her, hopping off the counter. “Jinx.”

“Happily!” Angel tells Cordy, and pivots back to Darla. “ No .”

“No?” Darla says. “Well why didn’t you say so?”

Angel gets this surprised smile on his face. “Really?”

“No. Now come on, ladies,” Darla says, and moves towards the door. 

Wesley glances up from his pile of books at the couch. “Perhaps it could be good for her, Angel. Release some endorphins, relax a bit. It can’t be healthy for her or the baby to be cooped up in here miserable night after night.”

“See? The boring one agrees with me,” Darla says, heading out the door with Faith, Fred, and Cordelia following behind her. “And Angelus? Don’t wait up.”

“Wait—Faith?” Angel calls after her.

Faith catches herself on the opened door of the hotel to stop walking, grabbing at the handle. “I know, I know, anything happens, yada yada, you’ll never forgive me, yada yada. I’ll be a good little bodyguard, promise.”

“Thanks,” he says.

“Anything for you, big guy!” Faith calls back.

*

“So is this gonna get me like, real, real drunk?” Fred’s shouting over the music.

The four of them are crowded around a table at this demon gay bar that Faith heard about from this fae chick she used to fuck. All technicolor strobe lights and twinky fuschia-skinned cocktail waiters with horns, in short shorts and leather harnesses, and Fred’s clutching this thick chalice that’s wafting purple steam, the berry drink in it sloshing back and forth like ocean waves. 

“One way to find out,” Darla says. “Bottom’s up, sugar plum.”

“Uh,” says Fred. “I don’t know how I feel about getting crazy wasted on some magicky demon cocktail ‘cause see I haven’t done any drinking in five years and I got no tolerance anymore and also I’m definitely way crazier than I used to be the last time I drank anything, so who’s to say the kind of impact this is gonna have on my cerebral or cognitive functioning because when you think about it—“

“ Hey,” Darla cuts in, clapping her hand on the table. “I have been cooped up in that hotel for fucking weeks surviving on pig’s blood slop while this kid punches me in the cunt day in and day out. And I can’t drink because Angelus’ pet Slayer won’t let me even get a cup in my hand, so God damn it, someone is gonna get drunk tonight, so that I can at least experience the barest proxy of a good time. Get the picture?”

Fred’s eyes go all bug wide. “Well—“

“ Drink ,” Darla barks.

Fred drinks. Big chugging glugs that end in a deep burp.

Faith gives her a clap on the back—you gotta respect a solid burp.

“Wow! Threats and forced drinking,” Cordy says, a cold glance at Darla. “This is just the funnest girl’s night I ever had!”

She takes a sip of her neon green martini.

“I didn’t make any threats,” Darla says.

“Every time you so much as speak, it’s a threat,” Cordy fires back.

Darla brings a hand to her chest. “I’m just touched you think so.” And then turns to Faith—“So, Slayer, you drinking?”

“I start drinking, I get distracted, you start drinking. So no, I’m good.”

Fred wrinkles her nose. “Do you mean drinking alcohol or people?”

“ Yes ,” Faith and Darla say at the same time. 

“You know,” Fred says. “I don’t think this drink is even affecting me.”

*

“Ain’t this song just a hoot and a freaking half?” Fred’s hollering, standing on their table, doing this jerking dance that’s all hips and knees and elbows. 

“It’s something!” Cordy calls up at her, grinning, and then quickly swipes her martini glass up from the table before Fred’s sneaker cracks into it.

“Woah there, Texas,” Faith says, standing up to still Fred by the elbow. “You wanna simmer down?”

“Party poop!” Fred accuses, this bright smile on her face as she clambers down off the table, plops back in her seat.

“Yeah, Faith,” Cordy says, with a sip of her drink. “Stop being a party poop.”

“Right, ‘course,” Faith says, and turns to Fred. “Fred, I’m sorry I stopped you from falling off the table and cracking your skull open. I shoulda respected you and let you fall.”

“Aw, thanks!” Fred says. “That means a lot.”

To Cordy, Faith says, “Happy now?”

“As a clam! I’m clam-like,” Cordy says, clinking her glass against Faith’s cup sitting on the table.

“You two are just the sweetest with each other, anybody ever tell you that?” Fred says. “And I know I’m only saying this ‘cause I’m all drunk and my inhibitions went out the window about half a cup of this freaky glowy steaming magic cocktail ago, but I think you’d make a real cute couple if you ever wanted to be a couple? ‘Cause see when I first moved into the hotel I thought you might be what with Cordy calling Faith on the phone all the time and missing her real bad but then she was also missing Angel real bad so I thought no, that’s just how you are with friends? Except when Faith came back from Sunnydale you guys seemed just thick as thieves, which is an interesting expression ‘cause are thieves thick and if they are does that got anything to do with them being friends and uh— oh sorry, was I rambling? Sometimes when I get drunk I ramble.”

Cordy says, “Only when you’re drunk? And anyway, I’m not Faith’s type.”

Faith raises an eyebrow. “What’s my type?

“Same as Angel’s. Little blonde chicks who look like trouble.”

Faith feels Darla’s eyes on her neck, and then her skin feels too hot. She rolls her shoulders back to shake off the feeling, and then says, a scoff to it: “And besides, Cor’s not gay.”

“And like, if I was?” Cordy says. “Like, Faith would be so lucky.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with me?” Faith says.

Darla cuts in: “Well I could probably give you a long list if you give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”

“Not now, bloodsucker,” Faith says.

Cordy says, “Well for one thing you wear your pants like, ten times between washes.”

Faith narrows her eyes. “How many times are you supposed wear ‘em before wash day?”

Cordy leans back in her seat. “I rest my case.”

Faith tells Fred, “Besides, only one person Cordy’s interested in.”

Cordelia narrows her eyes. “There’s literally no one.”

Faith sips her soda. “If you say so.”

“Don’t say it like that! There’s literally no one!”

Darla cuts in, elbows hitting hard into the table, her head cupped in her hands, “Huh. So are you in denial, or just stupid? Not that you can’t be both.”

Cordy knocks back the rest of her radioactive-looking drink. To Darla, she says, “Okay, fuck you?” To Fred, she says, “You wanna go dance?”

Fred nods, and Cordy yanks her up by the hand into the crush of dancers.

Faith turns to Darla, glaring, “Why do you gotta do that, huh? Rile her up?”

Darla gives this unapologetic smile, like a cat bringing a dead bird back to your porch. “It’s fun?”

“There’s nothing else you can do for fun?”

Darla glares. “Literally no.”

“Alright, fine, I guess I get that. But speaking of you giving people shit for the hell of it?” Faith clinks her nails against Darla’s glass of blood. “You been complaining to Angel about drinking pig’s blood for weeks. And now you’re ordering some at a bar.”

“For your information ,” Darla says. “This is not just pig’s blood. This is a blend of pig’s blood and primate blood with just a squeeze of human. It’s their speciality. Just enough to make you feel not completely empty inside.”

“That’s wicked gross. Also, gotta be illegal, right? The fucking, monkeys? And the people? ”

“Interesting choice that you mentioned the monkeys first, but alright.”

Faith sighs, pulls her hands over her hair. “I oughta shut this place down.”

“First of all, how? You’re just a Slayer, you’re not in charge of demon liquor licenses.”

“Well just ‘cause that’s true doesn’t mean it’s—”

“And second of all? Blends like this are probably saving more lives than they’re losing. Keeps us sated. Keeps us from hunting? And I mean, the human blood is probably from willing participants.”

“Yeah, that probably ’s real comforting to me right now.”

Darla grins. “I mean, if you really want me to stop drinking this, I could always look for something else. Your friend Cordelia did taste delicious.”

“Jesus Christ,” Faith grumbles.

Darla grins. “Jealous?”

Faith huffs a frustrated puff of air through her nostrils. “No. You just—you gotta stop with Cordy, alright? I know you don’t mean it. I know whatever bootleg soul you got means most of this is just for … for whatever it does for you, to pretend you can still, like? Go for the kill and have it feel fine. But Cordy doesn’t know that. And she’s got some quality rage in her. So, she stakes you? That’s on you.

Darla bats her eyelashes. “I’m touched you’re so concerned for my wellbeing.”

“Please. I’m concerned for Angel ’s wellbeing. You die, he goes deep-end again, and one way or another, I gotta clean up that mess.”

“Well the last time Angelus and I went deep on anything—”

Faith cuts her off. “Hey, no. Immature sex segues are my thing. Get your own thing.”

 Darla laughs, clinks her cocktail glass of pig’s blood against Faith’s soda “Fair enough, Slayer.”

They sit in silence for a few—or, not silence , because this place is flooded thick with the kind of techno beat you can feel in your fucking skeleton? But they’re not talking. 

And then something’s tugging at Faith’s head, and she’s gotta ask. Been itching at her since the other day.

“The soul, though.”

Darla looks at her over the rim of her glass as she sips. “Yeah?”

“How’s it—I mean what’s it feel like? When you started to notice. That thing you said, the other day. I been thinking about it. That uh, people felt like people. Instead of toys.”

Darla says, “Didn’t, really. Hardly noticed that part at all, when it started. It was more…”

“More?”

Darla claps her glass down on the table. Looks Faith death in the eye. “You wanna know the truth of it? Why I really don’t care about your little friends, soul be damned? Why, it comes down to it, I needed to, I’d eat them all in a heartbeat? You included?”

Faith sucks in a breath, meets Darla’s eyes like a challenge. “Why?”

“Because they are nothing. Not compared to him.”

There’s something wet in her voice, the edge of almost-cry. She’s looking down at her stomach. 

“The kid.”

“I love him so much. I…”

“Darla?”

“This child. My child. It’s so real. I thought I’d — I thought I’d loved Angelus. In my own way. I thought I’d loved The Master, the way you love a father. Thought I’d loved myself. That that’s what it was, keeping me alive all these years, that survival instinct. Loving myself, loving this life. But this? Him? This is more than … It’s complete. It’s … I love him completely . I—I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything as much as this life inside of me ... He moves in me, and ... did you know when he’s fussing inside me, the only thing that calms him down is the jingle from that carpet cleaners commercial?”

“Stanley Steamer?”

Darla nods, smiles. “Stanley Steamer. Stops him kicking right away. Sends him to sleep. And he—he makes me feel—I don’t know the words for it. I think there are words. Just, none I know.”

Faith’s throat feels itchy, like she swallowed sawdust and now it’s drying her out from the inside.

“Huh,” is all she can say. 

“Yeah. Huh,” Darla says back. “So that’s — that’s what the soul feels like. Everything feels real, because he’s so real. He makes the whole world come into sharper focus. Or, or maybe there wasn’t a world before. Not really. I thought there was but …but not like this. Not so real. ”

“You never got like this last year,” Faith says. “All, uh, I dunno. Talking like this”.

Darla swirls a finger around the rim of her glass, and it comes up bloodstained. She grins, laughs like she had to force herself to make the sound. “It’s this fucking soul. Turning me into a softy.”

Faith coughs. “Some kid.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s—“

Darla breaks off. And then she’s looking at the ground, something sad and mournful on Darla’s face that hurts Faith’s eyes to look at, so then she looks at the ground too.

It’s silent between them for another moment, and the song playing is a little slower now, though still the kind you can grind to. 

Darla nudges Faith’s soda glass again.

“To switch to a subject that makes both of us wanna eat glass just a little bit less—the soft drink? Really? You do know you could have a beer if you wanted one. And still be awares enough to stop me from drinking anything that’s not regulation approved?”

Faith shrugs. “I uh, when I was in Sunnydale, kinda overdid it. The drinking. Trying not to now.”

“You strike me as the kinda girl who likes to overdo it.”

Faith clenches a fist hard around her glass. ‘Cause yeah. Yeah she is.

She remembers the day she got back from Sunnydale, still shaking, even when she wasn’t trying to be. But she could still feel it , the grave, Buffy’s, clinging to her. Her skin felt all filmy and rotten even after she’d scrubbed it bloody and raw. 

And she could still feel the months before the grave too, the months between graves, between digging Buffy into the earth and clawing her out of it. They stretched out long and tinny inside Faith’s head, rattled around like loose coins, the way she’d slept in B’s bed and walked her patrols and no one wanted her and she didn’t even want her and she had to stay anyway. 

And remembering, in her hotel room, she wanted it to stop. Wanted it all to be quiet. 

And she knew how to make it quiet, didn’t she? Quiet can live in a bottle, for a little while, if she knows anything, she knows that, and— 

And she was reaching for it, a bottle still sitting on top of her minifridge from before she went north, before she knew B died, before they even went to Pylea.

Her fingers curved unsteady around the thick glass neck. 

And then it was like she wasn’t looking at her hand anymore. It was Mom’s hand, looked the same, the big knobby knuckles and the fucked up, bitten down nail beds, and the sharp wrists. 

And Faith was looking at herself from far off, she was tiny, sitting on the carpet with her secondhand dolls with their hair all frayed and their naked plastic skin. Watching herself, reach for the bottle, dressed in Mom’s faded old Red Sox tee. Watching herself flop back on the couch. Watching her breathing go all choked in her sleep, like it always did. And Faith could never tell, the panic would grip her down to her socks—should she try to wake her? ‘Cause what would be worse? What would be worse, was it Mom dying, drowning in spit, drowning in the bottle, in her sleep, like Faith always got worried she would, when she was little, if Faith didn’t shake her awake? 

Or would it be the backhand to the face? Would that be worse? Faith’s cheeks stinging and her little body ricocheted backwards into the wall with a crack. For waking Mommy up, when doesn’t Faith know she’s supposed to let her sleep?

Mom had her young. Too fucking young. Was only in her thirties when she bit it. And who knows, maybe Faith pulls it like B, gets yanked back to life enough times, maybe she lives longer than Mom ever did. Maybe she wins.

So in the hotel room, on that first day back from the Hellmouth, Faith smashed her bottle of jack against the wall with a shriek, cut her fingers trying to pick up the pieces, and Angel rushed in, ‘cause he heard her crying, ‘cause he smelled the blood, and held her while she shook.

Now, in the club, Faith tells Darla, “You don’t know a fucking thing about the kinda girl I am.”

Darla takes a sip of her drink. “My mistake.”

And then it’s the uneasy not-talking again, which suits Faith just fine, and she finishes the rest of her soda in one huge gulp and flags a waiter to grab her another. When she’s twisting around to catch his attention, though, she sees Cordy moving back towards the table, her face all bemused.

“Where’s Fred?” Faith asks.

Cordy jerks her head behind her, and Faith follows the line of sight to see Fred making out with this tall, bright pink demon chick against a support pillar.

“Y’know for someone who hasn’t kissed anybody in five years she’s really going for it,” Faith says. “Guess its like riding a bike.”

“Tell me about it. She hit on the demon girl. Actually, “hit on” is an understatement. More like, grabbed her and started doing this super grind-y dancing and was like, wanna make out? And then. Well. Them making out.”

“Dude, I get it. If I went five years without getting any? Fuck, I’d be willing to go back to dudes.”

Cordy gives her a look. “That bad?”

“Not permanently or anything! But desperate times, desperate measures,” Faith says. “Like say I’m stuck on a desert island or something, and it’s just me and some guy, and he’s super fucking into me, ‘cause how could he not be? You think I’m not gonna let him get me off?”

“Speaking of—” Cor says. “How long has it been? I mean, I know it’s crazy to suggest you go back to dating when you just got back from whatever the fuck was up with Buffy.”

“Yeah, it would be fucking crazy,” Faith says. “Thanks for playing.”

“But—and I think I’m only suggesting this because I’m also a little drunk?”

Faith grins at her, this rush of fondness and annoyance coming all at once. “And ‘cause you love meddling?”

“That too! Obviously. But anyway, maybe you wanna like, give Anne a call?”

Faith drinks down the icemelt in her empty soda glass instead of answering. 

“Or not,” Cordy says.

“Just,” Faith says, hands running through her hair. “The fuck is there to even talk about with Anne? Sorry I skipped town for another dimension and never called you again except to dump you, but now that I’m back in town, you wanna fuck? Oh, and remember my not-ex I was all hung up on when we started going out? Yeah, I’m even worse about her now. ”

Cordy nods, thrums her fingers on the table. “Point taken.”

“Why’d you even bring it up, then?”

“I feel like … when you were with her, you were, like … happy. And it’s not like being with someone just makes that happen automatically! But, I don’t know, maybe it would be good. Someone you already sorta know, and, and who’s not Buffy, and who’s into you and you’re into them? Maybe it could be nice?”

Faith feels Darla’s eyes on her neck again.

To Cordy, Faith says, “Nah, I’m good. Uh, you’re in a dry spell too though, aren’t you? Why don’t we talk about people you could hit up for a fuck.”

“I can think of one,” Darla says.

Cordy gives her a look. “Um. Ew?”

“Didn’t mean me, dollface.”

Cordy says, “Then who did you mean?”

Faith rolls her eyes, “Can we not do this again?”

“Do what again?” Cordy demands. “Do you know who she means? Is this about whatever you were talking about before?”

“So not the point,” Faith says. “Look, let’s just get back to the uh—being happy that Fred’s at least getting some, right? That seemed like a nice, safe subject.”

“Oh, she’ll get some alright,” Darla says. “Especially since that Warnok demon’s gonna bite her head off and eat it if they get much closer towards mating.”

Faith snaps her head towards Darla, “You didn’t mention this until right fucking now?”

Darla shrugs, “No one asked me.”

Faith pushes up from the table, bustles into the crush of writhing demon bodies, and yanks Fred away from the demon chick by the elbow.

“Hey!” Demon Chick says. “Not cool, dude. She was into it.”

“Yeah!” Fred says. “I was into it!”

Faith tells Fred, “She was gonna eat your head off.”

Fred frowns, turns back to Demon Chick. “Well. That does put a damper on our flirtation.”

Faith yanks Fred back to the table, where Darla and Cordy are staring each other down with daggers in their eyes, and Faith’s not sure how the fuck she’s gonna get through the rest of this evening keeping everyone from each others’ throats or keeping Fred from dying because she’s stupid drunk, and honestly when the fuck did Faith become the responsible one? Isn’t she supposed to be the one who’s stupid and violent and always getting her fists where they don’t belong and fucking shit up, and isn’t it bad enough she spent all summer on the goddamn Hellmouth cleaning up everyone’s messes and shaking and not weeping because she didn’t know how and gritting through the pain because there were demons to brawl down.

And if she was the old Faith she’d say fuck it, and let Cordy and Darla go at each other’s throats and stop ignoring the fact that Darla’s making eyes at her and just fuck her in a back room about it, and she’d let Fred drink herself into a stupor and get eaten because that’s not Faith’s business. 

But she’s not the old Faith anymore. She cares about shit now. 

She doesn’t know what the fuck that means.

What she does know is she wants a drink more than anything, or to hit something, or to kiss Darla, or maybe all three, and none of those are things she should do but there’s this well of feeling bubbling up in her and she can’t shove it down for anything, it’s just red and antsy and— 

“Well well well, if it isn’t my three favorite ladies and a vampire I have strong mixed feelings about!” comes a familiar voice from behind the table.

Faith spins around in her seat to see Lorne walking towards them, arms out, in this shiny pink and purple button-down, pants so tight you could bounce a quarter off them, and purple velvet platform boots.

And she just smiles. And the tension’s spilling out of her a little bit, like a tea kettle whistle slowly petering out when you turn the flame off. ‘Cause how could it not, right? It’s fucking Lorne. Guy just puts you in a good mood.

“Lorne!” Cordy says. “You look, just … wow. That sure is an outfit, huh?”

Faith stands, gives him a quick hug. “Ignore her, she has straight person taste. You look fucking sick, dude. Grab a chair.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Lorne says, sitting himself down with his sea breeze. “Now, what are you ladies up to? This a wingwoman operation for my girl Faith? ‘Cause if you want, I’ve got three women alone off the top of my head who are currently in this bar that’d be dying to meet you, Faithy.”

“Pass,” Faith says. “But don’t think I won’t take you up on that sometime.”

Cordy says, “Nah, we’re strictly here as hostages.”

“Pardon?” Lorne scratches his head.

Fred explains, “Girls’ night out. Darla said if we didn’t come, she’d eat us.”

Darla says, “Only one of you I’m all that interested in eating.”

Cordy says, “Okay, we get it , you had a lot of fun sucking on my neck like your own personal juice box. Would you give it a fucking rest?”

“Not what I meant,” Darla mumbles, low enough that only Faith hears.

And Faith knows she’s only doing it because she’s bored and also fucking Faith would bother Angel like nobody’s business and also Faith knows she really shouldn’t indulge in it because she just did a whole summer of messy and she doesn’t want anymore and fucking her adoptive brother and reformed murderer sponsor’s ex-wife / vampire mom / baby mama is about the goddamn definition of messy.

But also, Cordy was right. Faith really can’t resist a tiny blonde girl who looks like trouble.

“So, Lorne,” Faith says, searching for a distraction. “What brings you here? Bible study?”

He grins. “Well I thought I was on a date. Lloyd, this Vengeance Demon I met? Cute as a button with a tuchus like you wouldn't believe. Dreams are made of tuchuses like the one that boychik’s sporting.”

Faith says. “He play you? ‘Cause you just gimme the word and I’ll beat the shit out of him.”

“Well he said to meet him here tonight, come out dancing. And I mean, that’s a date, is it not? Where I come from, that’s a fucking date. So I arrive, dressed to the nines, even broke out my good cologne, with the enchanted pheromones? All for this putz. And I’m looking for him for a half an hour that I am never getting back, and finally find him in the bathrooms getting entirely too acquainted with one of the waiters. By which I mean he was blowing that waiter. And I know that waiter. I’ve fucked that waiter. And let me tell you, dumb as a post. And you’re gonna stand me up? For him? What, just because he’s got giant pecs and an ass you could balance a cake stand on and uh … alright sure, you definitely stand me up for that waiter. But still.”

Fred shakes her head emphatically. “Well that is just not freaking right! That’s bad manners, is what it is, and, and you know what? I’m with Faith—I’ll beat the shit out of him too! No mercy!”

Faith grins, claps her on the back. 

Lorne says, “No one’s beating anyone up … though ask me again after another two sea breezes and I might change my tune.”

“Well, whatever you need, we’re Team Lorne,” Cordy says.

“And if what you need is violence? Can’t stress enough how willing I am to make that happen,” Faith says.

Fred coughs, loudly.

“Right, sorry,” Faith says, slings an arm across Fred’s shoulder. “How willing we are.”

Lorne smiles at them. “You know what I could really use?”

And then he’s pulling them all out onto the dance floor.

And Faith feels good out here.

She’s got Cordy’s and Fred’s hands in hers, and even Darla’s playing along, letting Lorne spin her slow by the hand and lolling her head all sultry to the music. The beat's thick and pumping, you feel it in your stomach. The bodies around them are this thick, sweet crush, every kinda demon you ever seen just writhing together. Lights all flared and pulsing over them, colors all magicked-up, must be, ‘cause when Faith looks at the flashing lights she has trouble thinking of the name for the shades, just knows that when the colors drench her she feels this deep roil in her feet, in her gut. 

The song shifts, the tune going all flitty and light and the dance shifts with it, and Lorne’s twirling Fred and she’s going giddy from it, her skirt spinning out in a fan, and Cor’s clapping, laughing, moves so she’s with her arms squeezed around Lorne and Fred in this way where none of them can dance all that well, but they look so happy doing it.

Which leaves Faith, dancing real close to Darla. 

And Darla can’t move too quickly or broadly, not as big as she is, so they’re sort of just swaying, and Darla’s hands are seizing around Faith’s back, blue of her eyes sweeping up real close, and Faith’s letting it happen, rolling her body into Darla’s a little, and honestly? Fuck it. 

Centuries-old ridiculously hot vampire wants to seduce her? Literally who the fuck is Faith to turn her down.

So she lets Darla sidle up close. Lets Darla bring her eyes up from Faith’s lips like she’s drinking her in, the liquid blue drag of her gaze. Let’s Darla bring her fingers, feather-light, to the edge of Faith’s mouth, and grin into the part of her lips.

Faith breathes out, shuts her eyes, smiles.

And then the hand vanishes from her face, and there’s the sound of a body hitting the floor, an anguished grunt from it.

Faith’s eyes flash open and Darla’s on the ground, clutching her stomach, and the other three are clustering around her. 

“Darla?” Faith asks, crouching. “Is it—”

“It’s time,” Darla says. “He’s here.”

And then the crowd is surging.

Faith hears the rumblings, all the demons mumbling— is that—the vampire baby—yes!—time to gather the—must alert our brotherhood of —and then it occurs to her that Angel was right, this was a bad idea, and also that they were all fucking idiots taking the woman carrying the demon antichrist or whatever to this club when every fucking demon cult on the western seaboard apparently wants to eat this kid whole and sacrifice his soul or whatever the fuck.

Faith turns to the others—“Get her to the car, now ,” and they nod, Cordy’s face all business now, and pulling a moaning Darla up off the ground and Fred slinging Darla’s arm over her shoulder even though it looks like she’s taking on about none of the weight.

Fred turns to the crowd, fists blazing, ready to force a path and then to kill or knock out as many of these fuckers as she can, but Lorne stops her fists.

“You just get her to the car, Faithy. I’ll handle the rest.”

And Faith’s not fully processing that statement, but she nods anyway, trusts him. Shoves her body in front of Darla’s and forces their way through the crowd, the others close behind her, and Faith’s shoulders, hands, knees, just jutting out as much as she can manage, knocking bodies out of the way until they reach the door.

It shuts behind them, and Faith clocks the bouncer in the face when she spots the knife glinting at his side.

And then from inside the club is the most blood-curdling scream she’s ever fucking heard. Muffled mostly by the two sets of doors between the street at the dance floor, but it still makes her eardrums burn like someone stuck a hot poker in them, and next to her Darla wrenches at her own ears, gasping.

“The fuck was that?” Darla asks, and wobbles a little in Cordy’s grip. Faith has to grab at her to keep her standing upright.

Lorne barrels out onto the street behind them, steadying her at her other shoulder.

“Sorry about that, didn’t take into account vampire hearing. But, good news, that whole place is knocked pretty thoroughly unconscious, so maybe a little thanks for the fella with the killer high note?”

Darla just glares. 

And then the glare drops because she’s doubling over, face all twisted in pain, and fuck, they gotta get out of here, they’re too exposed like this, they gotta— 

“Cor, gimme your car keys,” Faith says, and Cordy does, and they lead Darla along to the corner where they’re parked, slowly ease her into the back seat, and she’s full-on screaming now, and the sound makes Faith feel like she’s gonna lose it, but she can’t lose it. She can’t lose it. She’s the only sober one here right now except for the pissed-off vampire who’s in fucking labor , and she has to keep them safe . 

“How do you feel?” Faith asks. She’s in the front seat with Cordy. In the back, Lorne and Fred are on either side of Darla.

“How do you fucking think I feel?” Darla says.

Faith doesn’t answer that. She peels away from the curb, and she’s gotta get them back to the hotel, she’s just gotta get back to the hotel, and then everything will be okay, and then everything will be fine.

The roads are slick with the start of rain, and Faith’s fists hurt, like her knuckles are gonna pop.

In the cupholder, Cordy’s cellphone starts buzzing.

“Yeah” Cor says. “Was just gonna call you? She’s — Darla’s in labor. Yeah well— in labor, Wes, it’s not that complicated of a concept … Okay. Fuck? Yeah we’re—Faith, where are we going?”

Faith tries to bury the anxious groan building in her. “The hotel? I thought?”

“Yeah, no,” Cordy tells her. “Hotel’s a no-go on account of Wolfram and Hart goons and some guy called, uh—Wes, what was the name again?—some guy called Holtz?”

“ Holtz? ” Darla gasps from the back. “No, that’s not possible. That’s—he’s there? He’s with Angelus?”

 “No, he left, he—he was gonna hurt Angel, but, he didn’t, but—Wes, the fuck is happening? ” Cordy says. 

“Holtz can’t be alive. He’s not alive,” Darla says. “He’s— aah! Fuck,” Darla says, breaking off into another low scream. 

“Well he fucking is!” Cordy says. “Wes, is the hotel safe? Can we come back there? … Well then where can we fucking—okay, okay. Uh, we’ll just …”

“Cor?” Faith asks. “You wanna tell me where the fuck I’m going?”

Lorne says, “Turn right up ahead.”

*

They’re almost at Caritas, and in the backseat, Darla is singing.

This low, raspy song that half doesn’t have a tune, though maybe that’s just because Darla’s singing it through low, throaty moans of pain. Sounds old and a little bit haunted and a little bit pretty. 

She rasps:

“ Pastime with good company 

I love and shall until I die;

Grudge who lust, but none deny

So God be pleased thus live will I

For my pastance

Hunt, sing, and dance

My heart is set:

All goodly sport

For my comfort

Who shall me let?

Youth must have some dalliance

Of good or ill some pastance

Company methinks then best ... ”

And then sputters out, groaning again.

Faith pulls the car into an open slot a few doors down from the karaoke bar, and looks back at them once she’s in park. And Lorne’s just staring at Darla, and Darla’s just staring at Lorne, eyes going wide.

“Oh,” Lorne says.

“ What? ” Darla barks, but then she’s moaning again, clutching at her stomach, and Faith feels this pang through her whole chest.

“C’mon, we gotta get her inside. Fucking come on!” 

They listen, the air in the car feels thick and sharp and sober now, and soon they’re inside, and the guys are all already there, Angel and Gunn and Wes waiting, pacing, brows all furrowed.

Angel rushes up to them as they’re leading Darla in from down the stairs.

“Darla!” he says. Opens his mouth again, like he’s going to scold her, for going out, but Faith shakes her head at him. Angel nods. “Dar, are you alright? Is he…”

Darla shoves past him like he didn’t say anything, and then she’s got her hand around Lorne’s throat.

“You tell me what the fuck you heard when I sang or I swear to God, I will squeeze hard enough that it punctures through your little sanctuary spell.”

Lorne says, voice thin and choked: “You can’t deliver him.”

Angel’s face falls. “What?”

But Darla just lets Lorne’s neck go. Steps back, looking down at her stomach, cradled in her hands. “I know.”

“You know?” Angel says. He’s at her side now, hands on her shoulders, and the look on his face makes Faith wanna cry.

“His heartbeat,” she tells Angel. “It’s faint. It keeps getting fainter.”

Wesley says, “That makes sense. I was … I was concerned about this. Darla, your body—it's not a life-giving vessel. I don't know that it's equipped to do what it needs to do in order to bring a baby to term.”

Angel turns to him, voice a snarl: “If you were concerned about this why didn’t you bring it up before now?”

Cordy says, “Well that’s fine, right? I mean, isn’t that the whole reason C-Sections exist? Vampire uterus or not, isn’t that part pretty much the same?”

But Lorne’s shaking his head still.

Fred says, “Oh. Oh . The mystical force? That’s been protecting the pregnancy. We go in trying to make an incision and…”

There’s a heavy roll of thunder cracking outside.

Angel says, “And it’s could end up killing him.”

Gunn scoffs, “Some protective force.”

And then everyone’s still arguing, bullshit, just bullshit, about is it the Powers really protecting the kid, is the kid gonna be something worth saving to begin with, and no one’s fucking doing anything to actually help that right now the kid’s not dead and Darla’s just standing there, face all haunted, something moving underneath her features Faith doesn’t like, doesn’t trust. It's like when she wakes up from a Slayer dream, that’s what it feels like. Like something’s coming, and she can’t stop it, can’t half see what it is. But it feels bloody. 

“Fuck this,” Faith says. “Cor, gimme your phone.”

Cordy tosses the cell across the room. “What are you doing?”

“Dunno. Helping.”

*

Inside Lorne’s bedroom, Faith sits on the bed, leaning on her knees, heartbeat pumping so thick she can feel it in her elbows. The phone’s ringing still. It occurs to her that it’s the middle of the night. Might not even be awake.

She’ll pick up though. She’s gotta, doesn’t she? Whole reason Faith called from Cordelia’s phone, not her own.

Willow’s voice sounds thick and dreamy. There’s music, loud and moody like they always play at the Bronze, in the backdrop. “Cordy?”

“It’s me. It’s Faith.”

“Oh. Look, if you called to yell at me about the fucking resurrection I’ve had just about enough of it for one week so if you wanna just at least wait until tomorrow before piling any more kindling onto the Willow guilt pyre then—”

“ Will ,” Faith snaps. “Don’t got time for this. I need your help. This is life or death shit, okay? How fast can you get to LA?”

“An hour? If I seriously disregard traffic laws and use a fuckton of magic?”

“Good. Do it.”

Faith gives her the address of the club plus the barest details about what's happening, slams the phone shut. 

Breathes in one wet almost-sob into the palm of her hands, that she doesn’t know where it comes from, she just knows her face feels heavy and her lungs hurt and this all feels wrong, this feels so fucking wrong and she can’t wrap her hands around it, and she just wants it to be okay . 

She needs it to be okay.

Needs Darla and the kid to be okay.

*

Darla’s lying on Lorne’s bed, Angel and Faith on either side of her.

She’s drifting in and out of consciousness, and her hands won’t leave her stomach, and Angel’s hands won’t leave Darla’s hands, and Faith’s hands just hurt.

Darla’s saying, “I think I caused this. I … I didn’t want to let him out. I still don’t. I can’t let him, because …”

“Because you love him,” Angel says, and his brow’s all furrowed, his mouth a little trembly.

“And when he comes out … when his soul … I won’t even be able to remember that I loved him,” and then she’s crying. Faith didn’t even think Darla could cry. “I want to remember.”

“You will,” Angel says, but it doesn’t sound like he believes it. “You will remember.”

Darla says, “Maybe it’s best like this. If we both just … I was never gonna be any good for him anyway.”

Angel says, “Shh, don’t talk like that.”

Faith says, at the same moment, “God, just shut the fuck up, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”

And then her hands hurt too much to keep sitting there and she’s checking Lorne’s clock and Willow should be here soon but not soon enough, and she can’t sit anymore. 

She gets up, goes to pace around in the other room.

Behind her, as she lingers at the edge of the room, trying to catch her breath, she hears on the other side of the door, still talking, more bullshit, bullshit, about how it’s no use, how Darla’s gonna die and Angel’s not arguing with her half hard enough about it and Faith wants to rip the hair from her skull.

She checks the clock. Willow should be here soon. Not half soon enough. But soon.

Gunn comes up beside her, nudges her with his elbow. “You sure this is gonna work? Your witch friend?”

“Dunno if you’d call her my friend. But the things I’ve seen her do? Yeah, yeah I think so. I think … ”

Seen her wrench Buffy’s dead body back from the other side, and Buffy was just bones down there, decaying to dust, and then she was in Faith’s arms, so warm and pulsing and clawing at her like she needed her, and Faith felt half dead too, till B came back, and Will did that. Did it all wrong and Faith can’t think about it too long without feeling like she needs a knife in her palm, something to make it simple, but still. She did it. 

Faith says, “Anybody can, it’s her.”

Wesley makes this stupid little tutting sound. “Faith, I appreciate your, er, faith in Willow. But this is a vampiric birth. Nothing like this has ever happened before. We have no way of knowing if she’ll be capable of—”

“I saw her resurrect B from the fucking dead Wes. Pretty sure being a vampire midwife’s below her, but thanks for playing.”

Faith’s not sure. Not sure of anything except that Darla’s gonna die and the kid’s gonna die and Angel’s gonna go so dark and Faith probably will too, feels like she’s hanging off the edge of the earth, feet dangling into the black, nothing below her, it’s all crumbling. 

Feels like when she was on that roof, when B put the knife in her and the pain was so sharp and slick, and she looked down, and there was nothing to do but fall.

But, she just—she wants it to be okay. She wants one fucking thing to get to be okay for fucking once and this kid didn’t do anything and he should get to live. He should get to live and be with his mom.

Behind her, Darla’s coming out of the room. “Why do you care so much, Faith?”

Faith frowns. “Should you be standing up?”

“They say it can help,” Angel says. “Moving around. I think I read that somewhere.”

Darla laughs. “Don’t see what good or harm it does one way or the other. I’m dying, lover.”

“Fucking stop that,” Faith says, half-shouts, her throat is so raw.

And then Lorne screams.

“Oh Jesus H. Roosevelt—” he shouts. “Everyone—c’mon, there’s a tunnel, we gotta—”

And he’s corralling them through this little door in his bedroom Faith didn’t notice, and there’s no time to think, and Angel’s hurrying Darla along, half-carrying her, and Faith’s head is so loud, it’s all so loud.

“The fuck, Lorne?” Faith asks, as they scurry down into this tunnel that’s barely lit from the cracks through to the club and the street up above. 

Lorne’s breathless: “There was someone, outside, he was—he was whistling, and I—”

And then behind them there’s this ear-splitting boom . Like when you get too close to fireworks. Like what B told her it sounded like, when they popped the high school to shreds.

And it’s hot behind her, and everyone who’s got breath, their breathing’s so thick, and when the tunnel finally spits them out into the alley behind the club, Faith can only gasp upwards, into the rain, into the black of the sky.

“What the hell was that?” Cordy asks.

But Angel beats him to it. “Holtz. It was him, wasn’t it, Lorne?”

And then Darla’s gripping her stomach in pain, is falling to the wet asphalt.

Faith and Fred are crouching with her, and Darla’s looking up at Angel:

“It all makes sense now. That's why this is happening. Holtz. Angel … his family, his children … It doesn't seem so funny now, does it?"

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Fred says.

“We gotta get her out of here,” Cordy says. “There’s gotta be somewhere . Somewhere safer, somewhere—”

“No,” Darla says, and her voice is all soft and clear and far away and Faith wants to throw up. “There’s no safe. There’s never been any safe for me.”

And Angel’s crouching too now, the rain sopping his hair heavy over his face, and he’s looking at her, and he’s crying, his mouth trembling, and Faith can’t take this, she can’t.

Has she ever seen Angel cry? Guy’s always fucking miserable, sure.

But never this.

“Darla,” is all Angel can say. Sounds like he’s begging. “You’re gonna be okay. We just have to—”

“No,” Darla’s almost smiling, the kind where your mouth’s just all twisted. The kind it hurts to look at. “No, I don’t think so. Once he’s gone, I won’t be okay. I won’t be okay at all —”

Darla’s crying now too. And her voice is all high and choked and they should be doing something. All of them. 

But it feels wrong to move somehow. Wrong to do anything but watch this. Like standing vigil, or whatever they call it.

Because it’s coming. Faith can feel it. Darla. Her dying. And they should give her space, do it proper. She never really got to do it proper before.

“ Darla,” Angel begs again.

“Our baby is gonna die, right here in this alley,” Darla chokes, sobs. “You died in an alley, remember?”

Angel’s gripping her hand so tight. “I remember.”

Faith feels numb. She knows the water’s falling on her face, knows she’s probably cold, shivering. But it’s just nothing. Just her glazing eyes and her stinging lips and the dying vampire on the ground that she knows she shouldn’t care about, but everything in her is just fucking wrenching. Like a cloth you wring out.

Darla’s breath trembles out of her: “I wanna say I’m sorry. I wanna say it, and, and mean it. But I can’t—aren’t .. Aren’t you gonna tell me it’s okay?”

“No,” Angel says, so soft, head bowed close to her. 

“It’s really not, is it? We … we did so many terrible things together. So much destruction, and, and pain. And we can’t make up for it. Any of it. You know that, don’t you?”

And Angel answers again, looking her dead in the eyes. “Yes. I know.”

One of her hands is on the ground next to her, and lifts her hand, clasps it between his, brings it to his mouth, shaking. 

Darla says, “This child, Angel. It’s the one good thing we ever did together.”

And then there’s a sound behind Faith. Footsteps. She tenses. It’s Holtz, it’s gotta be, with another bomb, with a stake, come to finish the job, come to—

Darla says, “The only good thing.”

Faith turns, and sprinting towards them, stumbling in the wet, is Willow.

Darla tells Angel: “ You make sure to tell him that .”

And then her hand is reaching for a wooden splinter on the ground and there shouldn’t be a splinter on the ground, shouldn’t be there. But there is. It’s in her hand. 

And Faith’s blood is running so hot and tight, and it feels like a dream. Feels like a nightmare like Faith always gets where your limbs are all jelly and you can feel the bad thing coming and if you could just move quick enough you could stop it but you can’t you never can— 

But Faith reaches Darla. Faith’s fast, and she reaches Darla.

Stops the stake just before it finds her heart.

Rips the stake from Darla’s hand.

Faith rasps: “You tell him yourself.” 

Willow reaches them, finally, and the rainwater’s got her hair so dark it’s almost brown, and she kneels at Darla’s side and her hands are swaddled in light.

“Gonna need a really long explanation for this when we’re done, Faith,” Willow says.

And then the light in her hand surges around Darla’s stomach, bright and yellow and needful and pulsing and insistent, and Faith wants to look away from it but the light’s got this tugging thing going on, like it won’t be told no.

Darla says, cries, begs: “What are you doing, I—I was gonna save him. I can save him, just let me—don’t take this soul out of me, please, I—I wanna love him. Please let me keep loving him.”

Faith grips her hand, the one she was gonna use to turn all of her to dust just a minute ago, so tight. Digs her nails in. “You wanna love him? Then fucking love him. Not gonna be any use to him once you’re ashes.”

And Darla’s still shaking her head, and Angel’s just staring at all of them, haunted, and Wesley’s biting his nails as Willow works her mojo and Fred’s eyes are wide as the moon, and Willow mumbles old words Faith doesn’t understand all loud and building under her breath, and Cordy and Gunn are flanking them, scanning the alley, crossbows poised, all nerves.

And then the light rises up above Darla’s belly. Like a balloon someone let go. And the light thickens.

And then there’s a baby in it. 

And then the light goes. 

And there’s just the baby.

Crying, all wet from the rain and the womb, in Darla’s arms.

And Darla’s crying too, staring at him with her eyes shiny and not understanding and her arms trembling as she holds him, holds him so tight.

“He’s real,” Darla says, to herself, soft. “Angel, Angel do you see him? Do you see our boy?”

And Willow falls back onto her heels, and Faith looks and her eyes are this swirling almost-black, the spell light still reflecting in them like a mirror, and she’s wobbly as a spinning top, and Faith has to catch her by the elbows to keep her from reeling all the way backwards and cracking her head on the concrete.

And the rain is still pouring down. And at the other end of the alley, there’s a man. Rain soaked and his crossbow pointed right at them, and this must be Holtz. The guy who oughta be a ghost or all the way gone but instead he’s flesh, all through, guy who Angel and Darla made all bloody and now he’s here, to bring the blood back.

Holtz stares them down, takes in the sight of them. Of Angel and Darla, curled around their baby, foreheads blocking him from the rain, Angel’s jacket wrapped around the baby’s pink flesh.

And he goes.

Which is fucking insane—if it was Faith, she woulda taken the shot—but whatever. Faith’s got a fucked up witch on her hands and a vampire baby crying in the alley and a burnt out club behind them and the rain drenching it all.

And Faith doesn’t have time to think about anything, except that she’s gotta get up and bring the car around before this kid catches his death out in this cold.

***

They’re at the hotel. Faith’s hair is drying all crinkled and mineraly. She’s stripped down to the thin tank top she had under her leather jacket, and her jeans are sticking all painful and wet to her legs, and her boots are in the corner under the heating vent so mildew doesn’t set.

The place is still bloodsoaked from the brawl with Wolfram and Hart’s fuckers. The huge metal cage they wanted to put Darla in was still sitting on the front steps when they got back.

Until Faith smashed it to scrap metal with her best sledgehammer in a fury. And now the mangled shine of it is sitting outside under the awning. 

Cor said she’d put it out tomorrow morning with the recycling.

And there’s a thunderstorm still raging outside and Faith feels like she hasn’t slept in a year and her eyes are bloodshot and hungry and it keeps feeling like someone’s gonna barrel through those doors to kill them all.

But the only sound stays the thunder, and the pot of tea Fred put on slowly coming to a whistle in the background.

Upstairs, the baby’s still crying, and she hears Lorne singing a lullaby and maybe she’s imagining it, because it’s too far off to really hear it, but when the kid finally stops weeping, she thinks she hears Angel make this gentle cooing sound. 

They’re calling him Connor. 

Angel and Darla, whole ride back, were arguing over names, and it seemed like nothing was gonna stick, and Faith almost laughed, at how normal it almost was, and then wanted to bite down on her whole tongue, that they were both so convinced something horrible was gonna come out or that nothing was gonna make it out at all that they didn’t even think of names until he was already squalling and in the world.

But then Angel said, “What about Connor?”

And Darla said, “Oh. Oh of course. That’s his name. Just fits him, doesn’t it?”

“Feels right,” Angel’d said.

And Darla’s voice went all surprised at the baby clutched tight in her lap. “ Hi, Connor .”

And in the seat next to Faith, Willow was just starting out the window, clutching her stomach like she was trying not to puke—she was too fucked up from the spell to drive, so Gunn and Fred took her car back to the hotel, and Cordy in her car with Wes and Lorne.

Now, in the hotel, everyone’s either gone home, or is sleeping off the day in one of the spare rooms.

Upstairs, Angel and Darla are watching Connor sleep. Faith went to go look at them, and they were both sitting there over his crib, unmoving, unblinking. 

Downstairs, Fred brings Faith two mugs of tea, with a nod and a little squeeze on Faith’s shoulders, and heads over to the office to sit with Gunn.

Faith brings the tea to the couch, shoves one mug into Willow’s hand, and plops down on the seat opposite her.

“Thanks,” Faith says. Her voice feels too loud, in the echo of the lobby, all the rain thudding down around them like a curtain. “For coming. For … whatever you did.”

Willow gives a slow nod, takes a sip of the tea and then breathes out quick with her tongue jutting ‘cause the drink’s too hot. Tells Faith, voice coming out all syrupy. “It’s no big.”

“Right.”

“Well, actually, it is big, ‘cause you sure didn’t tell me there was some big freaky mystical aura wrapping around that placenta. I thought it’d be just a simple teleportation spell, y’know, plop him out, bada bing, bada boom, right?”

“Sure.”

“But I get in there and there’s this like, energy shoving at me, and making all this pressure, like inside of her, which for a second I thought I was gonna kill the baby? With all the pressure? Oh, but then I didn’t, so boy was that a relief. ‘Cause you know, that’s kind of the thing we’re all trying to avoid, I’m assuming, is killing the baby?”

“Yeah, we uh, like it when he’s alive, so.”

“I figured! So see, I was so panicked for a second but then I totally figured it out, actually it was way simple—y’know what, no, not simple, I’m just really good? But anyway, I realized I could just make this quick little eensy temporal fold, so the protective force or whatever could stick inside of there for a minute and boom . Baby sucked right out before the Powers that Whosit-Whatsit could even see what hit ‘em.”

“Okay,” Faith says. Takes a sip of the tea, and she can’t half taste it, for how it scalds her tongue. Takes another sip. “Uh, you good, by the way? I mean, you look a little…”

Looks like Faith’s mom when she was mid-bender. Looks like she hasn’t slept in days and something’s running through her, tugging her along the current, making her choke on it, but she can’t stop.

Willow just laughs, and the sound is hard. “Oh, you know! I’m … I’m fine , really. I’m—” she breaks off, a giddy, freakish cackle of a laugh. “You know what? I’m five by five.”

Looking at Willow, Faith feels a little like that time she took shrooms accidentally. Like all the sudden the world was just a little too surging and big and off and looking at it made her stomach lurch.

Faith swallows a hard lump of saliva. “Right. Uh, so last time we saw each other it was pretty … rough.”

Willow swats a hand in the air, takes a careful, blowing sip of the steaming tea. “Ugh, no big. It’s so fine!”

“No,” Faith says, narrowing her eyes. “Not fine, Will. You — I mean you were all — you didn’t tell me . You didn’t tell me, about B, about bringing her back, and I fucking choked you and we got in a goddamn screaming match and then I just left and I haven’t talked to any of you in months so—fuck. None of that’s fucking fine. And we should, shit, like, talk about it? Right? Isn’t that what you people do?”

Willow looks down into her cup, eyes crossing as she zones out into the steam. “Really Faith, I mean it. It’s fine! Like, I don’t hold anything against you, you know? So you should just let it go too, and then we can both be people who let it go and that’ll be way nicer and we don’t have to worry about it. Okay?”

Faith’s suddenly remembering why she always has such an urge to gut someone whenever she’s around Red.

“Okay,” she breathes. “Whatever.”

Willow perks up, blowing on her tea and taking a little conspiratorial sip. “Okay so. You can’t hold out on me. I need the deets and I need them now. Angel? Baby? Darla? Also, baby? Darla’s not dead? Darla’s alive and a vampire and giving birth to a maybe-vampire maybe-human baby? Which is also Angel’s baby? Who is also a vampire? And baby? ”

“Uh, yeah that pretty much sums it up.”

“Right. But how?”

Willow’s grinning at her all urging like they’re just gal pals who gossip together. 

Which Faith guesses they were, for a minute there in Sunnydale, when Faith was playing dress up with B’s life. And then her head hurts and she wants to go lie down. But also it feels nice, Will looking at her like she’s a friend. And feels angry too. Feels wrong and a little nauseous and makes her think about the summer and she doesn’t wanna, God she doesn’t wanna.

Mostly Faith feels tired. She thinks that’s the best word for it. Just plain tired.

She takes in a breath and explains:

“Well. We’re a little lost on the how too? ‘Cept that the Powers that Be got a big hard on for Angel and also there was this whole thing last year? Where like, these evil lawyers brought Darla back as a human but then she was all dying of syphilis? So Angel did these trials to win her a new life, but she’d already gotten a new life? So it didn’t work. And then she got vamped again. But then they boned, and the extra life he won like, saw an in, I guess. And boom. Vampire fetus.”

Willow wrinkles her nose. “Damn. It gets weird down here, huh?”

“Big words from the Hellmouth.”

“Well yeah but Hellmouths are supposed to be weird. Like, your lives are just weird at random. It’s freakier.”

“Sure, you win, Red,” Faith says. Kicks her socks up on the coffee table. Rain’s still pounding something fierce outside. And she’s trying to think of the politest way to tell Red to get the hell out so she can go to bed.

“But okay, I still don’t get—Angel? Sleeping with Darla?”

Faith raises an eyebrow. “You seen Darla?”

Willow blushes. “Okay yes, she’s like, objectively incredibly hot. Or whatever. But I meant like, he’s still all soul-having? I mean, he seemed real soul-having. He opened my car door for me and everything.”

“Guess a rock-bottom despair fuck with his maker didn’t do it for him,” Faith shrugs.

 And then she can’t not think about the rest of it. About B.

 About how knowing Angel’s down here living with his ex and fucked his ex and is dadding it up with his ex would probably freak her out ten ways to Sunday, and B’s had enough freaked out shit piled on her for one fucking year. 

Faith can still see her eyes, when she was out of the grave and they were in B’s room, and it already felt like B’s room again one second in, like Faith had never made it her own the whole summer. B’s eyes just haunted and empty like water cups left in the sun, everything that fills them turned to vapor.

And she should get to settle. She should get to fill up with water again, and Faith’s got this feeling, like the slightest push could knock the cups over, and then all they’ve got is the empty.

Willow beats her to it: “What should I tell Buffy?”

Faith’s mouth feels hard. “Don’t tell her anything. Angel wants to tell her, he can do it. That okay?”

Willow laughs, dark and quiet. “Oh, sure. Yeah, not a problem. We’re all keeping all kindsa secrets these days over in the Scooby Gang. Or didn’t you hear?”

Faith furrows her brow. Her face is heavy. The room feels all thick. “Hear what?”

“Buffy,” Willow says, and it sounds like she meant to say it with another laugh, all breathy and sarcastic like before, but instead it just comes out wheezing. “Buffy was in Heaven. She didn’t tell us. We thought—she let me think—I didn’t know, okay? I thought. I thought I was bringing her out of somewhere that she couldn’t … I thought I was helping. I was helping , Faith. She needed me .”

And she sounds desperate and her mouth looks all crushed and Faith feels like she stumbled into the back end of somebody else’s night terrors and the plot’s already going and she doesn’t know her lines.

The rest of it, what Will’s actually saying , doesn’t hit for a second.

And then it fucking hits. 

“B was … Buffy was—?”

Faith’s thought about it every day since she pulled Buffy from the grave. How B just fucking latched onto her, clung to Faith like little kids to the swimming pool ledge, clung to Faith like she needed her, wanted her, like, like it meant something. 

Coming out of that place, out of Hell, and seeing Faith . And yeah, B didn’t take it right, and Faith didn’t say it right, when she told her, that she loved her, that she’s always loved her.

But it must’ve still meant something. She must’ve felt something, some bit of it, some relief, something that wasn’t all wrong. Something good. Faith could be good.

‘Cause Buffy came out of Hell and the first good thing she saw was Faith. 

And that could turn into love. Couldn’t it?

Now, all Faith can think about is the horror in B’s eyes when Faith dug her up and fuck, fuck .

B got ripped out of Heaven and the first thing she saw was Faith’s face, all desperate and mud and blood.  

No fucking wonder she hasn’t called.

And sure Faith hasn’t called either but how could she? How could she when she did it all wrong and she didn’t save B and she didn’t do anything right not ever and she’s only gonna fuck it up and B doesn’t need any more of that.

And Faith can’t be that anymore. Just the fuckup. Who nobody wants.

‘Cause down here? At least she can be somebody they need. Someone who helps, someone who sees Darla dying and fucking does something about it and now there’s a baby upstairs and he’s safe, for now he’s safe , and Faith did that right, didn’t she? So why doesn’t it feel like it?

Why doesn’t it make the burn in her go quiet, even for a second?

Faith tells Willow, “I think it’s time for you go home, Red.”

Willow sniffs, like Faith offended her. She chugs down the last of her tea, leaves the mug at the edge of the table. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

“Uh,” Faith says, as Will grabs her coat. “I really do … you coming here. Helping Darla. That’s real shit, and I mean that. So, thank you.”

Willow swallows, gives this tiny squeak of a nod. 

“Okay,” she says, and vanishes out the front door, back into the storm.

Upstairs, the baby starts crying again, and as Faith heads up the stairs to go check on him and Darla and Angel, the rain still lashing against the roof overhead, she feels this sudden rush of relief. Of gratitude.

That she’s here. Somewhere where she can do something. Someplace where them needing her isn’t even a question.

***

“So, guys? What about Holtz?” Fred asks.

They’re in the lobby, and Cordy’s trying to give Connor a bottle but he’s being all fussy, so Gunn takes him, and he quiets down in about a second like he always does with Gunn—if you can count the week since he was born as always anything—and Gunn gives Cordy this gloating smile as Connor suckles down the formula.

Angel scratches his arm all anxious. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard or seen a thing from him since the day Connor was born. I’ve asked all my contacts about him—”

Cordy says, “By your ‘contacts’ do you mean you beat up Merle?”

Angel says, “Hey, I also beat up several other demons. I don’t just beat up Merle. I’ve got range.”

“If you say so,” Cordy mumbles. 

Angel continues, glaring loudly at her , “But anyway , nobody’s got any fresh leads on him, and everywhere he was seen before Connor was born’s gone dry. So, unless Cordy gets a vision, I don’t see how we’ve got anyplace to start looking.”

Cordy looks up from her computer again and frowns. “Hey, buddy, with the rushing? I don’t exactly have the Powers on my beck and freaking call here. If I could get a vision, I would.”

Angel says, “I didn’t rush! Where in there was I rushing?”

“You had rushing voice.”

“Did not.”

“Did too!” Cordy insists.

“Faith, back me up here, was I rushing?” Angel says.

Faith looks up from sharpening her axe. “Hey, no, I don’t get in the middle of Cordelia semantics fights? She always wins. Just, admit you had rushing voice and move on.”

Angel grumbles, “Okay, I might’ve been using rushing voice a little .”

Cordelia beams a smile, and goes back to answering emails.

Fred frowns, “You guys? So, to clarify, this means we don’t have a lead on the hellbent hates-Angel-and-Darla-and-all-of-us-by-extension time traveler revenge guy? ‘Cause, I don’t know about y’all, but I’d sure feel a lot better if we had even the eensiest little lead on hellbent time traveler revenge guy.”

And then their heads all turn as the front doors of the hotel slam open.

Darla appears in the threshold, mouth bloody.

She wipes at her lips with the back of her hand and grins at them. 

“Holtz is dead.”

Again, Faith thinks about a cat bringing a dead bird to the doorstep. Used to be this tabby in Boston, when she was little. Left dead sparrows on the back porch for weeks, necks all bent and bloody.

Angel rubs at his eyes. “What?”

“Holtz is dead. I killed him,” Darla says again, slipping off her silk jacket that somehow she didn’t get any blood on even though her face is covered with it.

Angel looks all confused and constipated still. “You mean you, you—” 

“ Killed Holtz,” Darla says, again, rolling her eyes. “And this woman he had with him, in their little lair? Just for good measure.”

She lets the door slam shut behind her, sidles lazily into the main room.

“How did you—” Angel starts, still staring at her. “How’d you even find him? My leads have been giving me nothing.”

“Oh by your leads ,” Darla makes air quotes. “Do you mean beating up a few measly demons who know you’re too much of a soft, gormless, goody two shoes to follow through on any real threats anymore?”

Angel makes a bruised face. “I follow through.”

“Anyway,” Darla says. “I went to a few demon haunts, committed a few brutal murders, suddenly everybody got real chatty. And now Holtz is dead, Connor is marginally safer, and I had a lovely breakfast. Wow, I’m having a really good day, aren’t I? And it’s barely even gotten started!”

She grins at Angel, and then walks over to take the baby from Gunn’s arms.

“Hi Connor!” she coos, her voice going all high and gooey, her face still splattered with blood. “Do you wanna come to Mommy? Do you wanna go upstairs and play?”

 Connor makes this gurgly sound that Faith guesses means yes , and nestles into Darla’s arms, staring up at his mom as she takes him up the stairs.

Angel blinks blankly at them for a second, and then seems to realize something.

“Hey!” he says, hurrying up the stairs after them. “You have to wash off the blood before you touch him—it’s a biohazard !”

“ This is his heritage, Angelus!” Darla lobs back loudly from the top of the steps.

The vague sounds of their argument echo downstairs until Faith hears one of the room doors shut. 

“Huh,” Fred says, slumping down into her seat. “That was kinda anticlimactic?”

Gunn nods, sitting down next to her. “Yeah, I was really gearing up for this Holtz guy being like, a whole thing.”

“Well, murder is er … efficient, as far as problem-solving goes,” Wesley says. “I suppose.”

Everyone gives him a look.

“Not that we should be doing it!” Wesley clarifies quickly. Half-heartedly, if you ask Faith. “Just, er, it never hurts to, erm, show some appreciation for alternative methods of getting things done.”

“If you say so, Wes,” Faith says, clapping him on the back and going over to the minifridge next to Cor’s desk to grab a soda.

Upstairs, through the bedroom door, she hears Darla shout:

“Well if we’re not teaching him about proper murder techniques, where’s he going to learn it, huh, Angelus? The streets?”

“He doesn’t have to learn about it at all , Dar!” Angel shouts back. “Some basic fighting moves sure, but—”

“Oh, so you want him to just have no connection to his culture, is that it?” 

“Murdering people isn’t a culture!”

“Oh, so that hundred and fifty years just meant nothing to you then? You know you always do this, you always love to belittle what I —” 

And then they’re interrupted by Connor breaking out into a cry, and Faith thinks she hears Darla scold Angel for waking him up, and Angel grumbling back about how it wasn’t him who did the waking up.

Faith grins and sits on the edge of Cordy’s desk. “They’re naturals at this, huh?” 

***

Faith’s out patrolling. Cemetery-ing it today. Keeping it classic.

And Angel’s with her because Cordy made Faith bring him so he would have something to do than stare at Connor unblinking, worrying about money and disease and every other fucking thing that can ruin a baby’s life.

Which Faith said was at least better than worrying about his immortal sins or whatever. But that just earned her a glare.

So now they’re out at the closest cemetery to the hotel — Angelus Rosedale — which Faith likes ‘cause the palm trees are pretty and the name makes Angel all mad. And Faith’s swishing her stake back out of a vamp’s body as the guy turns to dust, which is, if she thinks about it, maybe her favorite feeling. Something so satisfying about it. How the weight of the vamp just vanishes, how you can hear the dust sprinkle on the ground if you’re standing on concrete. How the stake slides in all rough but comes out smooth and easy.

But also, that was the only fresh grave in the place, so now there’s nothing to do but take the long walk back through the paths to Angel’s car, to hit up Evergreen and Beth Israel before they call it a night.

Faith doesn’t miss much about Sunnydale—like, fucking nothing. Except how she misses getting to walk places. Something nice about it. Just your own two feet and all the nice dark hours between you and sunrise.

Next to her, Angel’s feet are making these big, lunking footfalls like he’s not a fucking creature of the night.

“You good bro?”

Angel glares at her. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Faith says. 

They walk a few more steps.

“I’m not fine,” Angel says.

“No kidding.”

“I just—you know what if he needs me ? What if he’s sitting there staring up at the ceiling thinking where’s Dada? Where’d Dada go? What if he thinks I abandoned him, or, or I died, or — or, you know kids that young, their memories are like goldfish. He could’ve forgotten me. Oh my God, what if he forgot me?”

“If he did, he’ll remember you in like an hour when we get home.”

“Or what if someone else broke into the hotel, to hurt him, or—”

“Then Darla’ll rip them to pieces with her teeth in two seconds flat if they even come near him.”

“But what if—”

“Okay,” Faith cuts him off. “You know you don’t gotta be that guy, right? The guy, the only guy. We got your back. We got Connor’s back. The whole gang’s there, and he’s real safe with them. So fucking relax.”

Angel smirks at her. “Oh. I should just relax . Why didn’t I think of that?”

Faith shoves him on the arm. “‘Cause I’m the one who’s the brains of this operation. I mean, really, you’re mostly just here to stand around and look pretty.”

Angel smiles, but it fades quick, like most Angel smiles. “But what if—”

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Faith groans. “Just, would you fucking let us help you? Like, you know you were there for me, when it was the worst it was ever gonna get. So fucking let me—and all of us—do that for you. ‘Kay?”

“But—”

“Do you want me to hit you?”

Angel pouts. “No.”

“Then stop acting like someone I wanna hit.”

They walk a few more paces. Night’s clear and cool and the moon overhead’s all nice. And Faith feels good. Like, she thinks about it for a second, and realizes, like, huh, this is what good feels like. It’s been a while. She’d near forgotten.

Faith says, “You know it’s sorta cool. Like, I’ve been the resident fuckup everyone’s worried about for years. So, kinda nice that it’s you now.”

Angel says, “Me having Connor was not me fucking up.”

“No yeah, Connor’s a little miracle, yada yada yada. But you impregnating your mom to make that miracle? Now that’s fucked up.”

Angel gives her a look like he should be blowing steam out of his ears. “ Darla is not my mother. ”

“Okay, but she like, vampire birthed you, yeah? Oh my God wait, holy shit, does that make Connor your brother?”

“That’s not how that works, and no it does not.”

Faith claps him on the back. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night, buddy.”

Angel frowns at her. “Did you know you’re the worst person I know?”

“Aww, Spike’s gonna be so disappointed if he ever hears you said that.”

Angel thinks about that for a beat. “Second worst.”

“Better,” Faith nods, grinning.

Angel looks up at the treeline, and tells Faith, “I was pretty fucked up last year too though. I mean, this isn’t the first time.”

“Well yeah, but I was all fucked up too. Now I’m actually doing … good? Kinda crazy. I mean, the shit in Sunnydale was a fucking crapshoot, yeah. But since I been back … I dunno. I’ve been feeling … okay.”

Angel scratches his head, gives Faith this bashful look. “... What’s that like? To feel okay?”

“Fucking weird, man. I keep expecting everything to blow up. I mean, last time I was happy? Buffy fucking died. Just, doesn’t seem like this one’s gonna be allowed to stick either.”

“Give it time,” Angel says. “Something always blows up.”

“How are you the person I go to for comfort?” Faith asks, eyebrows going all skeptic.

“Oh, don’t ask me, that’s confused me for years. I wouldn’t go to me for comfort if you paid me.”

“Wow,” Faith says. “That’s real healthy.”

“Oh yeah, that’s me,” Angel says, as they get spit out on the other side of the cemetery, and walk towards his car. “Emotionally healthy Angel.”

Faith pulls her car door open, plops into the passenger seat. “That what they call you on the street?”

“No, they usually call me, Oh, not this guy again. ”

Faith smiles. “Sounds more like it.”

***

No one in the hotel’s gotten any proper sleep for days.

Used to be so quiet in here. Faith’s been getting nostalgic for the old days lately. Early days. Just her and Angel, right after they found the place. Rest of the team would go home, and they’d sprawl across the lobby, Faith drinking drink hot cocoa and he’d sip his pig’s blood and they’d talk and listen to music and do nothing and the whole world was all silent and cozy shadowy. And theirs. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she’d make him push all the furniture to the side in the lobby so they could play deck hockey, all too-competitive and breathless laughing and crashing into furniture and cracking so many hockey sticks that Faith almost accidentally staked him on like, three separate occasions, just from the flying shrapnel.

 It felt like how she always thought having siblings woulda been. Just the way everything feels secret and special and makes you laugh for no reason.

  Now, it’s loud in here. Crowded. Like what Mom always said having siblings was like—just no fucking space and no fucking quiet and someone’s always screaming in the other room.

And it’s not that it’s bad. Only different. Just makes Faith wish she’d appreciated the quiet better, when it was around. 

‘Cause now Fred’s there, and Lorne too since his club’s burnt out. And Cordy’s crashing half the time, passing out in Faith’s room or Angel’s when she’s up late with them and the baby. 

And it all just feels … real. Like, like she’s stuck in it, in this life, in this, this, this family . And it’s not like she wants to get out. It’s more just, she always could before. Every place, she knew that she could up and go, if she needed to, wanted to. Even if she didn’t want to. Had the option.

But now? Now it’s like, she’s got these roots. All surged up from the bottom of her like how trees do, and they feel funny on her feet. She hardly knows how to move, when she notices them.

And Darla’s there too. Which is, well. Y’know.

And Connor. Little perfect precious baby Connor who when Faith looks at him she gets this urge to hit something because he’s so fucking little and cute it makes her almost violent, the kinda violent she didn’t know she had in her, like she wants to squeeze him and squeeze him til the air comes out of his lungs and she wants to gobble him up whole, like she wants to scream, like she wants to cry because every day he’s getting so much bigger and time’s going so quick and so slow and mostly it all just makes her think about him dying, one way or the other, this cold gripping fear pressing into her.

Mostly, all of those feelings just land into her sitting quietly by his crib, staring at him, saying: “Hey. Hey, can you say Faith? Can you say Auntie Faith?”

“ Ahh ,” says Connor. Or maybe he’s just burping.

“Close enough.”

Feels weird. That she’s got all this for him. ‘Cause she’s got no blood shared with the kid and still. Still she looks at him and feels sharp inside and can’t make any syllables that sound like words, there’s just … just love. There’s just— 

Just. It feels fucked up. That anything that small can exist. Sometimes Faith thinks about how small he is. Thinks about how the whole world’s been trying to beat down their door to cut him up to ribbons ever since word broke he was gonna exist. And then she can’t sleep all night. Then she just needs to stay up, eyes trained on all the door, sharpening her weapons.

Tonight though? 

Tonight she was sleeping so fucking nice. 

Tonight she was dreaming that she was some place warm and bright and quite literally drowning in pussy and what a fucking way to go, you know?

And then she woke up with a start and thunked her head into the headboard of her bed like a battering ram, cursing, blinking with her eyes burning into the night. 

“The fuck?”

And then she heard the crying. Just, colic-y whining car alarm screech that hurt her throat just to listen to.

And she tried to shove a pillow over her face to drown it out or maybe just suffocate herself into an early death to get some proper, forever shut-eye. But that didn’t work.

And now she’s sitting on the floor in Darla’s room, staring at the crib, nursing a cup of shitty instant coffee that Cordy handed her.

Cordy’s on the hard little couch across from her. “How long do you think he can do this?”

Faith frowns so hard into her coffee cup that her cheeks hurt. “Don’t ask questions you don’t wanna hear the answer to.”

Through the adjoining door that links Darla’s room to Angel’s—he switched rooms after Connor was born, so they’d have this setup—she hears them yelling at each other.

“Gee, you don’t think maybe he’s getting riled up by the dysfunction train in there, do you?” Cordy says.

“ Aaaaaaaaaaa??????????” says Connor.

“Thanks for agreeing with me, Con,” Cordy says.

Faith chugs her coffee in one big gulp, and she wishes immediately that she didn’t, ‘cause then it’s like, fuck. The coffee’s gone. Whose idea was it for the coffee to be gone?

“What, Darla and Angel, dysfunctional? C’mon, Cor. They’re co-parents of the fucking year over there.”

Darla says, “Well if you’ve got a better solution to stop him crying, let’s goddamn hear it, Angelus!”

“Right, because screaming ten feet away from him is definitely helping, Darla.”

“More help than you’re being.”

“We are not giving him whiskey.”

“Just a drop. ”

Angel says, “He. Is. A. Baby. ”

“A vampire baby!”

“Having vampires for parents does not make him a vampire baby. All his tests at the hospital said he is a perfect normal, healthy, human—”

“Those doctors are mortal fools who wouldn’t even know what to look for to suggest he’s more than human. Do you think there’s just a test in the maternity wing where they prick his finger and blood sample comes back and it says, aha, human baby with vampire constitution, of course. ”

Faith can hear Angel putting his hands on his hips. “We are not giving him whiskey.”

“It’ll quiet him down!” Darla says, her throat sounds all scratchy. “Trust me, I know a thing or two about babies.”

“What, eating them?”

“I cannot believe you are bringing up Beijing right now.”

“You wanted me to eat that baby , Darla.”

Darla says, “One baby! One time! A century ago!”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t still eat a baby now, then?”

Darla pauses for a second. ‘Well, not our baby.”

Angel says, “I’m so comforted.”

“You’re missing the point, lover,” Darla says, and Faith suddenly wishes she had popcorn. Or, y’know, that she was unconscious. Unconscious would be best.

Connor says, “ Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Darla says, “I spent the better part of my human life in whorehouses, Angelus. I’ve soothed enough squalling infants in my life to know—”

“Well infant care has changed a little bit since the seventeenth fucking century, Dar!”

Cordy asks Faith, “You’ve got super strength. Do you think could knock me out? Just a light concussion, nothing fancy.”

Faith stands up.

“I wasn’t serious.”

“No, I got an idea,” she tells Cor, and swings open the adjoining door. “Hey lovebirds?”

“We’re in the middle of something, Faith,” Angel tells her, gritted teeth, eyes not leaving Darla.

Faith grabs Darla on the arm. “What was that, uh, that commercial you said used to calm him down? When you were pregnant?”

Darla looks at her.

*

“ Call 1-800-Steamer. Stanley Steamer makes carpets cleaner,” the four of them sing in uneasy chorus.

Connor blinks up at them. Stops, for one blissful fucking second. 

And then rips into another colic-y screech.

“Okay,” Cordy says, rubbing her hands together. “From the top, everybody!”

*

About eighty thousand fucking rounds of the Stanley Steamer jingle later that include waking up an incredibly pissed off Lorne to take over singing, Connor finally settles into sleep, and Lorne stumbles back to his room, flipping them all the bird.

Cordy passes out too, flopped across Angel’s bed like a starfish, snoring so loud Faith’s sure it’s gonna wake the baby up again. But so far, so good.

It’s almost light out. Faith can see the brightness pooling faint at the edge of Darla’s blackout curtains. 

And Angel’s staring at the baby with his eyes all bloodshot and Faith didn’t even know vamp eyes could get bloodshot. And he’s got that look on his face again, like he’s counting and alphabetizing all the ways Connor could accidentally die a horrible death before midday.

“Hey, go to sleep, big guy,” Faith tells him. 

“I’m not tired,” Angel says, holding back an obvious, roaring yawn.

“You fucking are,” Faith says, chucking a pillow at him that lands him square in the face. “ Sleep.”

“No, I don’t wanna let—Darla shouldn’t be up with him alone.”

Darla flips around at him, her hair moving in this knife-sharp swish. “You think I’d hurt him?”

Her voice is strained and crinkling like someone just tried to choke her out.

“No,” Angel says too quick, all serious, jaw hard and set. “Just, it’s hard. Being up with him alone. You should have help.”

Darla gives him this look that’s all bruised. This look like she doesn’t believe him.

“I’ll stay up with her,” Faith says. “Now get some fucking shut eye before I shut your eyes for you.”

Angel sighs, nods, turns back to his room, where Cordy’s somehow shifted to cover even more of the bed with her limbs all splayed. Faith spots this fond little grin on his face about it which, yup, yeah. That fucking tracks.

 Angel heads for the couch, which is hard as stone and only about half the length of his body.

Faith’s gonna say something, about how there’s twenty other beds on this fucking floor and he doesn’t always have to make the choice that will make him as uncomfortable as possible at all times. But Angel wouldn’t listen anyway and also Faith knows for a fact that being in earshot Cordy’s snoring helps him sleep 'cause he's a fucking grandpa who's got it bad for her, so Faith drops it. 

She shuts the door between the adjoining rooms, and sits down on the armchair across from Connor’s crib. Darla’s standing over it, watching him sleep.

“Y’know, you can go to sleep too? I’ll play guard dog,” Faith says.

Darla’s voice comes out all smoky and dreamy, how it does. “No, that’s alright. I’m not tired.”

Faith’s throat feels choked up all the sudden. Watching her watching him. 

She looks so …

“How is it?” Faith says, pulling her knees to her chest. Her legs hurt. She’s not sure why. “Being …”

“Being a mother?” Darla asks, this wry rise to her eyebrow.

“Well, couple weeks in. Gimme your reviews.”

Darla shakes her head a little, sits down in the chair against the window, her back pressing into the blackout curtain. “It’s … strange.”

She’s looking off into the distance, like she’s thinking real hard. She doesn’t usually get like this, Faith’s been noticing. Not around the others. No, it’s all blood and giggling and bullying Angel, around the gang. 

Darla gets soft with Faith though. Some. This dreamy far-off way she gets, like last year when she was human for a bit, the few times Faith was around her before Angel went on his little psycho bender. 

Faith can’t tell why. Time was, she probably woulda ran from the room, second someone got like that with her. All, vulnerable and too much like when a cat splays itself across the floor belly side up. 

She doesn’t have that urge in her anymore. Maybe she’s too tired for it. Maybe after she dug B out of the grave, she left that piece of her in there. In the mud. From the blood she shed clawing. The one that had the energy to run. Maybe she wants something to hold onto now.

She misses it. Whatever that piece was. That thing that had rusted around her like armor.

And she’s missing it extra as she draws her knees into her chest even closer, bites at the edge of her cheek. “Strange how?”

Darla looks at the ceiling. It makes her jaw look really good, in this way that makes Faith wanna close the distance between them, kiss her, make it rough, make it needy.

She stays put.

Darla says. “I thought I wouldn’t remember. How it—how it felt to love him. Before. When … he was in my body . And, and his soul , it was, it was mine . And I’ve never felt closer to anyone than I did then. To him. And I thought … it was so sharp. You forget. Sort of like … when I was human again. When I saw the sun again. It was so bright. I’d read about it in books, but … but nothing’s like seeing it. That you have to look away from it, because it’s so bright it hurts.”

“Okay,” Faith says. She’s so tired, and she can’t stop looking at Darla.

“And, and that’s what it felt like, then, to love him. It was all through me, and it was pure, and it was … if I looked at it straight on, it was almost too much. But I couldn’t stop looking. Because … because he was me. And I was him. His home . And … and he was mine. My … home. My soul.”

Faith can’t think of anything to say. Her eyes hurt. She’s so fucking tired.

She bites her nails. 

Darla keeps going: “And I thought I wouldn’t be able to … to remember that.”

“You remember?”

Darla swallows. “Almost. It’s like a dream you wake up from. And you can remember the feel of it. But not the shape, the meat. Just loose pages from a book, and they’re off their binding now, so the story can’t come together.”

Faith looks at the ground. “Angel told me once that, that when he lost his? His soul? Was like, he could remember it all. The way he felt. Made him feel … dirty, though. Like looking at a mirror from the wrong side. Uh, that’s how he said it, anyway. Guy’s a fucking drama queen.”

Darla grins fondly. “He gets that from me.”

Faith says, “So that’s what it is? The way you used to love Connor, it feels … dirty?

Darla lets out this little gasp, this almost laugh. “No. No it’s … it’s like …”

She pauses, fingers twirling in the air. Like she’s trying to grasp hold of something.

“The Master,” Darla says, her eyes widening. “The vampire who made me? He was so old that, that the languages he’d learned in his youth, no one spoke anymore, not for centuries already, by the time he sired me. And he knew them still. But only almost. Not fluently. Not the rhythms of them. And there was no one left to speak them with him.”

Faith’s tongue feels heavy. “Okay?”

“And that’s how it feels. It feels like, I used to know this language. And I know that I used to be able to speak it. Dream in it. t was the only thing I could think in, for this shining moment. And now I can string together a sentence, maybe. But it takes such work. ”

Faith thinks about when she was a little girl and she was the strongest one on the playground even then, and the toughest too, and the bravest, and when the little kids were getting picked on she’d march right up to the big kids and sock them in the nose until they ran off to their mommies to sniffle and cry all snotty. 

Didn’t even have to think about. Just did it. Just kept things right

She thinks about when she woke up from the coma. When she shoved herself into B’s body and had a stake in her hand again, and it felt so off. Saving that girl in the alley in the Bronze. Felt like someone else’s skin, ‘cause it was, but isn’t this what she was born for? And what’s gonna feel right on her if this doesn’t?

“Yeah,” is all Faith says.

Darla looks Faith dead in the eyes. “I do love him. Connor. I just love him different.”

“Different,” Faith repeats. 

“It would be easy. I think it would be so easy. To leave. Leave him with Angelus. To… to hurt him. Just like a game. I’ve hurt so many little boys just like him, after all. They were no different. Only difference is Connor’s mine.”

“Pretty big difference,” Faith says, and it shouldn’t be, but it feels true all the same.

“Maybe so,” Darla says, voice low and husky. “It’s just … that part of me? The one who remembers how to speak that language? The one I knew when his soul was in me? That part knows that it’s selfish. That part wouldn’t call this love. This thing I have for him. That I want to … to protect him because just he’s mine . Because I grew him. Because … when I think about someone else hurting him I know I could burn down the whole world.”

Faith shrugs. Tries hard to make it look casual, rolling through her shoulders. “Doesn’t sound like it would be easy then. Leaving him. Hurting him.”

Darla examines her nails. The pale light passing through the sharp tips. “Would hurt me too much, to do it. That’s the only reason I wouldn’t. I have to remind myself. Sometimes he, he cries, and I want to just let him wail it out. I think, I could starve him, couldn’t I? I could lock all the bottles away, I could dash his brains out, I could vanish into the dead of the night and never—”

“You couldn’t.”

“No,” Darla agrees. “I couldn’t. But. I have to remind myself . And isn’t that—I have to remind myself that I never would. That it would hurt. Not to have him would hurt. To make him afraid. Or make him hate me. That would hurt too.”

In the street below, Faith hears the day getting started. The slow roll of cars. The birds, waking up, and it feels wrong somehow. Rude of them, to start twittering away so easy, when some people are still on the wrong side of sleep.

“Sounds good enough to me,” Faith says.

“I wouldn’t have thought so, a few weeks ago. And he won’t think so, when he gets old enough. He’ll know then. That I don’t do it right. Love him right. I mean, do you…:”

“Do I what?”

Faith grinds her fists over the arms of her chair. She wants to cry. She wants to go to sleep. She wants to hit something so fucking bad.

“Do you think it counts less? The love I have for him? That I have to … try so hard to make it?”

Faith thinks about her mom.

She’s been trying real fucking hard not to. But her mom’s everywhere these days, all of the sudden, her mom’s behind every corner and every fucking memory and didn’t she leave the memory of that bitch dead in the ground in Boston where she belongs for a reason? So why’s it gotta come up now, huh?

So yeah. Her mom. Her mom with Faith’s mouth and Faith’s way of curving it into a smile, her mom with Faith’s hands and Faith’s fists.

And she had all the fucking pieces didn’t she? The soul. 

Mom grew Faith inside her and saw her when Faith was like this, just Connor-sized and had never done fucking anything wrong. And yeah, maybe Faith fucked it all up later, maybe she was bad and dirty and rotten and all the folks who hurt her could see, and that’s why they picked her to hack down to nothing. Maybe Mom saw it too, some point, that’s why she never loved her right, not for most of the way that Faith can remember.

But somewhere along the way Faith was this.

Somewhere along the way Faith was a little thing just a few weeks old, freshly pushed out of the fucking womb. Who had nothing wrong with her. Who was just this. Was just good. Was just crying into the night ‘cause she didn’t have any other sounds for needing something. Who only had this wail in her, these lungs, this little heartbeat and these fingers, these impossibly tiny little fingers and these smooth little cheeks like wheels of cheese, like the full moon.

Faith was this and Mom knew her then, birthed her, soul and fucking everything, and it still didn’t do shit. Mom had all the fucking pieces she needed. To love Faith. 

To love her just a little. 

But here Faith is instead. Almost crying, looking at this kid, just looking at him. All the superpowered motherfuckers in Los Angeles clawing with everything they’ve got to keep his heart beating, and it makes her feel sick, makes her want to puke all her guts out, makes her wanna— 

Faith sucks in a deep breath. She know Darla can smell the tears on her, can see them through the dim, can hear how her heart’s speeding up. Fucking vampires.

Faith tells Darla, “No. Makes it count more.”

***

In the dream, Faith’s with Mom.

And it’s quiet, and it’s just the two of them. So it must be after Dad left. Faith must be getting big and tall, and the apartment must be getting loud and cramped, with all the boyfriends in their wifebeaters who’d smack Faith in the face if she got on their nerves and Mom just let it happen. Mom would smack Faith too, harder than they ever would, if Faith complained. So she just learned not to be home.

But she’s home now, in the dream. And the apartment’s quiet and it’s just the two of them, and that should make Faith nervous. But in the dream, she doesn’t know that. In the dream she thinks it feels nice. Feels like TV show. Mother daughter bonding time. That’s a thing people say.

In the dream, the air is full of soap bubbles and smells like soap too, all clean and pink and pale and squeaky. And Faith’s at the edge of the couch, faded yellow one with the flower cushions. She’s on the floor, knees in her chest. Cartoons on the TV, and Mom’s letting her watch them. TV’s not on mute but Faith still can’t hear it, but that doesn’t bother her. Mom’s on the couch beside her. Paging through a magazine. Smoothing a hand on the back of Faith’s hair, every now and then. Long, hard acrylic nails scraping against Faith’s scalp and it feels like love.

Faith turns around. Tries to. 

She twists her head real slow, to go look at Mom, to smile at her. 

Faith finishes turning around, and the couch behind her is empty, even though Faith can still feel where the fingers were running through her hair.

And then there’s a throb through the middle of her gut something fierce, big and empty, like when Buffy buried the knife in her. And Faith in the dream doesn’t know about that yet, so many years till that comes, but the feeling’s the same. Everything’s always too sharp in her, that’s the trouble.

Faith says, “Mom?” and her voice sounds so small. 

Faith wakes up just from that. Just from hearing how small her voice sounds coming through her own ears.

In her bed, at the hotel, she just starts fucking crying. Just hard, ugly sobs, no sound coming out, just gasping, gagging. And the place in the middle of her still hurts so fucking bad.

***

Faith’s in the lobby, sparring with Gunn. And he’s sweating up a storm, panting, hands wrapped up and tucked inside of boxing gloves. Faith’s going bare knuckle, barely broken a sweat.

“C’mon, Charlie Boy. You gotta give me something to work with,” she taunts.

“I …” he starts, and breaks off to pant some more, squirt a stream of orange Gatorade into his mouth from his water bottle. “ Am. ”

Fred smiles at them from the couch, peeking up from her book. “Ain’t it just so sweet that he really thinks that’s true?”

“Adorable,” Faith says. “Seriously though Gunn, you wanna stop? I can go spar with Angel if you want a break. Could actually maybe get a real workout in, in that case, which’d be a plus.”

Gunn dramatically wipes a thick bead of sweat from his brow, shakes his head all serious. “Nah, no fucking way. I’m taking you down, Boston. Fred, watch and learn how it’s done.”

Faith grins at him, and he lunges at her, form all sloppy, punches telegraphed to hell and back.

She feints, not even that well, but he still falls for it, goes wide and lets her land a left hook to the stomach.

She wasn’t even hitting that hard, but he still crashes to the ground. 

Fred smirks at him. “What exactly was I supposed to be learning there, Charles?”

He smiles up at her, all dopey. “… Not to pick a fight with the Slayer?”

Faith reaches out and grabs him up to standing. “Don’t sell yourself short, dude. I mean, I almost broke a whole sweat there.”

Gunn claps her on the back. “One of these days, Lehane.”

Cordy walks in, holding Connor in her arms as far away from her as she can, nose wrinkled. “You’ve been saying that for like, a years’ worth of days, Gunn.”

“Yeah, and eventually, it’ll be true!” Gunn says, and then turns back to Faith. “Besides, I still kick your ass in Smash Bros every fu—”

“Hey!” Cordy interrupts, gesturing at Connor as she plops him down on the counter to change him.

“Every fudging time,” Gunn continues. “So even if I never beat you in a real fight, I still know what it would feel like if I did. And doesn’t that count for something?”

Faith falls back onto the couch opposite Fred, legs splayed up over the top, and grabs Gunn’s bottle of Gatorade to finish it off. “Really not.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Strong words from the girl who can’t even win when I go easy on you.”

“Well yeah you’re gonna fucking win ‘cause the Nintendo is at your apartment and so you get to practice all the fucking time. So it’s a no brainer that you’re gonna win and it’s not a skill thing it’s literally just time spent on it, so—”   And then Faith realizes how crazy loud her voice got and that everyone is looking at her. “... That’s uh, what it would sound like. If I cared. Which I don’t . Obviously.”

“Could you watch your language in front of him?” Cordy says, voice all regular, and then turns back to Connor, voice shooting up all high and gushing, “Aww, who made a poopy diaper? Huh? Was it you? Was it Connor? And who got poop all over my hand? That’s right, also you! And who’s gonna get poop on my hands again later just to mock me for even trying to wash them ever? Aww that’s right! That’s you!”

“That’s our Connor,” Faith says, leaning against the counter where Cor’s changing him. “A champion shitter.”

“So you just enjoy cursing in front of the impressionable baby then? That’s what passes for fun with you?”

“He doesn’t know what the fuck I’m saying,” Faith says, and then makes her voice go all high and sweet. “Do you Connor? Do you know what the fuck I’m saying?”

Cordy rolls her eyes as she grabs a wad of baby wipes. “Okay but if his first word is fuck I’m telling Angel on you.”

Faith shrugs. “I’ll just blame Darla.”

Gunn says, “Careful while you’re changing him, Cordy. Yesterday he peed in my eye.”

Fred starts giggling on the couch. “That’s impressive if you think about it! Real good aim. Precocious even!”

Gunn touches a hand to his chest, all fake outraged. “Am I a joke to you, woman?”

Fred grins at him. “See you’re saying that like it’s a bad thing. I’d call it a badge of honor, being a joke to me. Some people’d give their left arm for the privilege of being a joke to me!”

Gunn smiles back at her. “That so?”

Faith turns her head as the door to Wesley’s office opens—Wes and Angel showing some clients the door. She sees Wes take in the scene of them all. And sees him clench his jaw, sees his neck go tight like he’s swallowing hard, like he’s gritting his teeth. Like how he’d get in family therapy, sometimes, when Faith hit a nerve she didn’t know about til it got twinged. 

Angel says, “Don’t you worry, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson. We’ll put all our best guys on this. You won’t have to worry about those vampires coming anywhere near you or your son ever again, I pr—”

And then the front door swings open so hard it slams into the wall with a crack.  

Darla’s face is bloodstained from her mouth down, dripping.

Half of Faith’s head is going all deja vu from after Darla killed Holtz—chick likes to make an entrance. 

And the rest of her head is just wishing Darla didn’t look so hot like that. All the blood dripping from her pretty mouth, eyes flushed and sweet about it.

But also Faith’s really not in charge of what she finds hot, so.

Darla grins, open-mouthed, tongue running over her bloody teeth all casual. “Evening, everybody.”

The woman—Mrs. Henderson—stares at Darla. “Is she—is that—?”    

Wesley makes this squawking sound from deep in his throat. “What? No, no, not at all what you’re thinking. It’s quite a funny story in fact, er, and erm. Yes, well. Perfectly rational explanation, if you just, er—”

Cordy, not looking up from fastening Connor into a new onesie that isn’t covered in shit, says, “Hey Wes, didn’t we have a few more forms for the Henderson’s to sign? In the office? Lots and lots of forms?”

“Forms! Yes of course. Tremendous pile of paperwork I’m afraid, you know how it is. Waivers and such. Er, if you’d follow me? Yes, lovely, lovely.” 

He ushers them quickly into his office, shooting daggers at Darla with his eyes through the glass of the door.  

She waggles her fingers back casually. Notices a drip of blood on her index finger as she does, and slowly sucks it into her mouth, lips wrapped around.

Which just feels fucking calculated. Feels like she’s trying to make Faith feel insane and horny. And like, Faith’s not mad about it? It’s just a fucking lot.

“Darla,” Angel says. “We’ve talked about this.”

“What?” Darla says. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to wash it off before I hold Connor. I looked into it, and, though it pains me to my very core to admit it, you were right about it being a biohazard, so.”

Angel sighs so deep. “It’s not just about the blood in front of Connor.”

Darla looks at him all confused. “Then what, lover?”

Angel looks back at Cordelia. And then they’re just raising their eyebrows at each other, like they’re having some secret conversation in code. Angel looking all sheepish and tired, Cordy going all insistent, exasperated.

Cordy tells Angel. “Oh for the love of God, I’ll tell her if you’re gonna be such a freaking baby about it.”

Darla rolls her eyes, hands on hips. “Tell me what, princess?”

“You have to stop murdering people. Like, immediately.”

Darla wrinkled her nose. “But I like murdering people.”

Angel’s brow goes all broody. “We mean it. This ends now.”

Darla laughs a little. “Does it?”

“You don’t stop, and we’re going to have to kill you,” Angel says. Faith thinks he means for it to come out all menacing, but the fact that he looks at the floor as he says it sorta ruins the effect.

“You’d kill Connor’s mother?” Darla asks, letting her voice go all high, eyelashes all batted. 

Angel says nothing.

“Thought so,” Darla says. 

Angel swallows, grits his teeth. Meets Darla’s eye. “I could take him away from you, though.”

“Uhh,” Gunn says. “This sure does seem like a … fun conversation. Unrelated note, Fred you wanna go get some tacos right now and not be here for this conversation?”

“Uh huh!” Fred says loudly. 

The two of them rush out the front door of the hotel and into the street. Faith spots Wesley’s eyes flick to them from behind the glass of the office door.

Darla smears at her mouth with a tissue until the blood’s all but gone, and scoops up Connor from the counter into her arms. He fusses for a moment, and then settles into her, his little head nuzzled against the crook of her arm. “You know if you did it wouldn’t be for long. I’d find you, Angelus. I’d find you both.

“Then I’d take him away again,” Angel insists. He looks all pained.

Darla rolls her eyes. Connor wraps his whole fist around her thumb. “Are you trying to custody battle me?”

Angel clears his throat. “Well. I do know a lot of lawyers.”

“Uh,” Cordy says. “Evil lawyers who hate you and want Connor dead? But yeah, sure.”

“Let’s say it does comes to that,” Darla says. “That this is even a matter governable by law, and we take this to court. I don’t think you’re coming out on top, my dear. At least I’m a consistent caretaker.”

“Please,” Angel scoffs. But there’s a twitch in his eye. A jump of a vein in the way his jaw gnashes down.

“I’ve been soulless again since he was born, Angel. And still managing to take care of him just fine. You get too happy, and how long until you’re putting him through a meat grinder just for the hell of it?”

There’s a joking tone in her voice. But her eyes are cold, harsh. Dire.

Faith’s mouth feels tight. She says, “She’s got a point, big guy.”

Angel wrings his hands against themselves, fingers twisting up. “Look, I ever—Faith would kill me. Wouldn’t you, Faith? You’d kill me?”

She used to say she wouldn’t. Angel was the first one, ever, her whole life, not to give up on her. And you don’t just throw that away. That fucking means something. And she was always so sure of it. That she’d stick with him, to the end, bring him back from the brink, whatever it takes. Just how he did for her.

But it’s different now. Connor dribbles a bit of spit onto his chin, and that kid didn’t fucking do anything, didn’t ask to be here, but he is now, all weak and soft and alive, and everyone wants him fucking dead.

“Yeah,” Faith says. Her throat hurts. “I’d kill you.”

“So that’s your big argument?” Darla asks. “It’s okay that if someone flips the right switch in you you’d eat your own son, because the little Slayer that could is gonna stake you before you get the chance? No offense, Faith, but that doesn’t quite work for me.”

“First of all,” Angel says. “No one’s flipping that switch. Switch is flipped off, forever.”

Darla and Faith look at each other. Faith’s trying so hard not to look at Cordelia that her eyes feel achy in their sockets. 

“Wild to me that you believe that, but whatever. You had a second of all?”

Angel says, “ Second of all , you can call me an unstable parent all you want. But exposing him to murder is the goddamn definition of unstable.”

“I don’t kill anyone in front of him!” Darla says. ‘I mean, not yet. He’s still far too young to learn the family business.”

“Murder isn’t a family business!” 

“Not with that attitude, it’s not.”

The door creaks open behind them in the office, and then Faith hears Wesley say, “Oh, terribly sorry, I just forgot about one last form I need you to fill out! Quite a long one, in fact.”

The door clicks shut again.

“Look,” Angel says, and he’s got this look on his face that reminds Faith of the Mayor, when Faith used to track mud in on the carpet. “Just don’t kill anyone. I can’t stop you from feeding. I know that. I can’t make you drink pig’s blood. But we both know you can feed without taking enough to kill. I mean, damn it to hell, Darla, we know every demon haunt in this city. I’m sure we could find you tons of places full of humans who’d line up to be your willing snack.”

Darla kisses Connor’s forehead all soft. “You’re telling me to change who I am, Angelus. The killing is a part of me. It’s been a part of me for four hundred years. Just because I’m someone’s mother now doesn’t change that. And I’ll keep telling you that until you get it.”

“And I’ll tell you the same thing every time, Dar. You want you to see your son? You’ll do this. Because hey, maybe you’d win a custody fight, if it came down to it. And maybe you’d track us down every time I take him away from you. But how about the meantime? Human lives are short as summers, Darla, and as far as we know, that’s all he’s got. Eighty, ninety years if we’re lucky. You gonna miss out on six months with him? On a year? ‘Cause there’s no getting it back. You’re gonna miss the babbling stage? Gonna miss when he falls climbing out of a tree and breaks a bone for the first time? Gonna miss when he’s thirteen and won’t stop listening to the most depressing music anyone’s made in your whole four hundred years and won’t turn down the speaker for anything? You gonna miss his first crush, his first—”

“Final offer,” Darla says, cutting him off. Looking down at Connor with her mouth twisting. “I won’t kill anyone within city limits. Just, think of me as …  as an outdoor cat. You don’t see me, it’s none of your business what I’m doing. Long as I come home.”

“Fine,” Angel grunts. 

“Fine!” Darla says.

There’s a beat of silence.

Darla says, “We should probably get him down for his nap soon.”

Angel smiles. “You notice that drooling, mumbling thing he’s been doing as he’s falling asleep?”

“Oh I know. It’s so cute I think I’ll die, every time. And I’ve died enough times, I should know.”

Angel’s voice goes all high and gentle. “You wanna go have nap nap time, Connor? Yeah? Yeah you do. Come on, come to Dada. There’s my little guy. There’s my little Connor.”

He slowly takes Connor out of Darla’s arms, and the two of them bring him up the stairs.

Faith looks at Cordy. Cordy looks at Faith.

“So … we just gave her carte blanche to kill whoever she wants as long as it’s not technically in Los Angeles, huh?” Cordy says.

“Yup,” Faith says, and hikes up to sit on the counter. “Hey, you wanna go get a pizza?”

*

The cheese is way gooey and warm and the sauce is hot and the bread is crisp in Faith’s mouth in this way that makes her feel like it’s all gonna be fine.

And she’ll still die on the hill that all West Coast pizza is basically fucking garbage, but still. Having pizza’s always gonna be better than not having pizza.

Cordy’s taking a thoughtful bite of her white slice, and she’s making her worried face.

“What’s eating you?”

Cor gives her a look. 

Faith says, “So still the Darla murder thing, then?”

“Yeah, the Darla murder thing . The thing where we’re supposed to help the helpless, not look the other way while Angel’s baby mama eats them for dinner? The thing where I so don’t get how you’re so chill about this?”

Faith takes a gnashing bite of crust. Her insides feel all thick and heavy and too loud, and she wants to bite something, but she’s already biting something. And it’s not helping. ‘Cause she doesn’t feel chill. This feels like the fucking opposite of chill, is what it is. Feels like, yeah, she knows what Darla is. Darla’s the thing she’s supposed to kill, Darla’s the thing she was born to kill and she thought her whole fucking mission in L.A. was supposed to be about that, remembering how to be the fucking Slayer again. And she did. She had it in her. The fight. The instinct. Felt like her.  

But then. Then that alley. All the rain pouring down and Darla with the stake to her chest and Faith just, just had to , just had to—

“It’s not great. But, better than nothing. I mean we can’t—we can’t kill her, you know? And we can’t get rid of her, I mean she’s, she’s part of this now, you know? And she’s trying, Cor. ” Faith says. “She’s changing. Maybe. Fuck, I know that sounds like I’m full of shit, and maybe I am but. But seeing her out there. She was gonna—she was gonna do herself in. She was gonna just—it couldn’t just stop , you know? Not then. That couldn’t be where it ended.”

Cordy’s taking a sip of soda through her straw, Faith sees the dark liquid rising under the plastic. And then she stops, eyes wide, hands smacked down on the table with fingers splayed. “ Oh!” Cordy says. “Oh I so get it now.”

“Get what?” Faith says. She’s got that urge to bite something again. Settles for the inside of her cheek. It stings, where her teeth hit the flesh.

“That you’re way projecting? Like, all your stuff, onto Darla.”

Faith bristles in her seat. “You mean the mom shit? ‘Cause I swear I’ve hardly even been thinking about her, I mean, just a little, but like, normal amount, y’know? Like the normal amount you think about your dead piece of shit mother, or…”

She trails off, ‘cause Cordy’s giving her a look.

“No, I meant projecting about you. Like, your whole corrupted Slayer oblivion redemption thing or whatever?”

Faith’s face feels hot. “Oh.”

“But since you bring up your mom…?”

“No.”

“But if you—?”

“ No ,” Faith says. Her mouth hurts. She has this sudden urge to flee the restaurant, run into the street, get hit by a car, leave the country. 

Cordy sighs. “I’m just gonna bring it up again in like two days, you know.”

“I’d expect nothing less, Cor,” Faith says, and she can’t help but smile. Just a little. And then it fades quick, ‘cause she remembers how they got on the subject. “Uh. The other thing though? That you said? About uh … about me?”

“Oh yeah, that you’re way projecting? Like, you’re one of those guys in the projection booth at the movie theater, is the degree to which you’re hugely projecting right now.”

Faith looks down at the table. At the scars on her hands. “Say more.”

“Well, okay. Remember that night you were gonna turn yourself in?”

Faith thinks about it every goddamn day.

Cordy says, “I mean, that was Darla. Trying to end it. End herself. Like you said. She was all, y’know, thinking the best way for her to be in the world was not to be in it. And you said no . You made her keep going. You said that wasn’t allowed to be the end of it.”

Faith’s ears feel hot and ringing. She stuffs another mouthful of pizza between her lips, and chews roughly, not hardly tasting the food.

“Which, y’know,” Cordy says. “Is the same thing you did. When you decided to stay, instead of going to jail. Deciding you get to keep going. That that’s not the end of the story.”

Faith swallows. Grabs at her thumb with her whole fist. “That was you though. You talked me out of it. The prison thing. If you hadn’t been there, then I’d be … I’d be…”

Cordy sighs. “God, I was just so mad at you, y’know? Like really fucking mad at you, ‘cause you were being so stupid. So I had to make you stick around, so I could keep being mad at you. Y’know?”

Faith takes in a deep exhale of breath. Looks up finally. And it hits her. The Cordy of it all. Like, she’s really taking it in. The past three years and how it all could’ve not happened, how she could be in a jail cell right now, angry and friendless and all the people she’s saved since then would’ve been dead and maybe Faith would still be dead inside too, like she was, before she broke down weeping in that alley, in the rain, beating her fists into Angel’s chest. 

Like she got again, manning the Hellmouth, trying under her breath to lose a fight, to get put in the ground permanently. 

She feels almost like she’s gonna start crying. Feels the threat of it coming thick and fast under her eyelids. “Yeah, uh … yeah. I uh …”

“Are you all good, Faith?” Cordy asks. Reaches over and grabs Faith’s hand, covers the whole fist with her palm like they’re playing Rock Paper Scissors, and Cor won with paper. 

“I don’t really uh … I’m shit at this? The … the saying things. When the things are about … But uh. I’m real glad I know you, Cor. I mean I never, I never stuck around anywhere before? Didn’t fucking know how. And I never woulda had the chance, without you, and just … and now we’re … I mean you’re my best fucking friend, and I hardly ever even had half a friend, ever, my whole life. Not a real one, not a … and I … it’s all …”

Cordy squeezes her hand, tight. “I know.”

Faith exhales, squeezes back. “And you’re right. ‘Bout Darla. I think that’s it. I just—I think she’s getting better. You know, she talks a big game, killing and bloodshed all that. Walks a big game too, not gonna say she doesn’t. But … she loves that fucking kid, man. Soul or no soul, she loves that kid. And I just … I feel like that’s gonna make it okay, you know? Like, like she’s gonna get there. Wherever the fuck there is.”

“Well, I just hope there doesn’t involve the slaughter of innocents? But no yeah, totally with you on the other points!”

Faith smiles, a real one this time, big and beamy, and she feels her cheeks are all wet, tastes a little salt on the edge of her lip, so she guesses she really was crying for a minute there. “You’re wicked perceptive today, Cor. Kinda freaky.”

“Shut up, I’m always perceptive.”

“...Right.”

“What?”

Faith sips her soda to hide her facial expression. “Whose room did you sleep in last night?”

“What? Angel and I fell asleep giving Connor his bottle.”

“ Yeah, ” Faith says.

Cordy scrunches her face up. “I literally don’t even know what you’re bringing this up for?”

”If you don’t know how dumb you sound, I legally can’t tell you , ” Faith says, and takes another bite of pizza.

***

Faith’s headed back up the block from Taco Bell, towards the office building where Fred has therapy, to pick her up from her session.

Gunn’s next to her, holding their takeout bag. On account of his massive, obnoxious crush on Fred that he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed. Though at least him and Fred are less nauseating than Cordy and Angel about it. Gotta hand it to the nerds, at least they’re a little clued in on the situation. 

(And sure, Faith’s the least goddamn qualified person to throw that stone, seeing how it took fucking and flirting with any guy Buffy was  remotely close to and thinking about her every minute of every day for years on end till she wised up? But, in Faith’s defense, she had the whole gay repression excuse working for her. That fact that these are straight people and they’re still acting like this?)

And fine, right, Faith’s also still acting like this, about Darla. But there’s circumstances at play. Would be messy as hell. And sure, that’s never stopped Faith before, but whatever. She’s allowed to grow, isn’t she?

And anyway, Gunn’s grinning all stupid when Fred comes out of the front door and meets them. And Fred grins back, and they’re both so earnest it makes Faith feel a little bit like throwing up. But mostly it’s nice.

Stops being nice when the curl in her gut comes back. Reminds her what she was planning on doing today in the first place.

“You two go on and head back without me,” Faith says. “I gotta uh. Take care of some stuff.”

Gunn nods, taps her on the shoulder with his fist. “We can wait.”

Faith bites her lip. “You sure? I might uh, be a little while.”

Fred squeezes her arm. Faith guesses it’s a whole arm-touching thing now. “Yeah. We’re sure as a … well I can’t think of a simile right now, but sure as a couple of sure things!”

“Thanks, guys,” Faith says, and the words feel real loud in this way that hurts her mouth so she just pushes off from the conversation, in the door.

Up the gray stairwell to Glerg’s suite and through the big heavy brown door to his office.

He blinks up at her with all ten of his eyes. “Faith. Long time no see.”

“Yeah. Been busy.”

“I heard—some business about a Hellmouth?”

Faith nods, her throat all tight. “Business. Yeah.”

Glerg smiles, the pale blue creases of his skin crinkling even more with it. “Something I can do for you, Faith?”

“This a bad time?”

Glerg gestures for her to sit on the couch in reply, so she guesses it’s not.

“Right, okay,” Faith says. “Uh, I’m just here ‘cause — well Cordy’s been badgering me about it. And Fred, I been bringing her, so I’m over here a lot anyway and uh, I don’t wanna like, do a whole thing, again? The whole, therapy thing. Did that already with Wes. I mean, you know that, you were there. And it was good, y’know? ‘Cept when it made me wanna throw up blood. But I don’t have the — it tends to, to pull stuff up? And I’m kinda doing okay for the first time in uh — since before all that business. On the Hellmouth. So I don’t wanna — y’know? And is that like, okay?”

Glerg tilts his head, gives her this searching look. “It’s okay. I promise.”

“Good,” Faith says.

“But there’s something you wanted?”

“Uh,” Faith says. And she does. She does, that’s the whole fucking reason she came here, but it feels so stupid now. Makes her feel all little, saying it out loud. Like something you could squash. ‘Cause that’s it, isn’t it? The thing she wanted .

She stares at the dirt of her shoes. “I got a question. Was wondering if you could gimme an answer.”

“Give me your best shot,” Glerg says, with a sip of his coffee from a big pink mug that says, How Many Therapists Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb? … One. But the Lightbulb Has to Want to Change.

“Been thinking about uh, my mom lately. I guess Fred filled you in on the situation? We’re like a fucking sitcom over at the hotel.”

“The baby,” Glerg says.

“Connor,” Faith nods. “And I guess just … seeing him like that … I mean Darla and Angel, they love him. They really fucking love him. Two most fucked up people I ever fucking saw. But, they just … they do it.”

“And that gives you a lot of feelings.”

“Yeah. Shitty feelings. Feels uh — okay, I know it’s stupid to be jealous of a freaky prophecy baby that every demon on this continent wants to gut and sacrifice. But uh. They just love him. I mean I get it. I love him. But … it was never like that, for me. It was … I mean Mom was … complicated.”

“Most people are.”

“She wasn’t even really that bad, is the thing,” Faith says. “I mean, Dad was worse, half the time. And I been hurt a lot worse by a lot more people than either of my parents ever managed to do to me. And uh …”

And her face is hot and her mouth feels too big and her eyes are all wet and blurry and she wants to crawl into the floor, but she keeps saying it. 

“I guess it just feels stupid,” Faith says. “I feel stupid. That I care. That … that it can still hurt so much, when it was nothing special, really. Your run-of-the-mill neglect and child abuse. Pretty textbook. Lotsa people had worse.”

Glerg inhales a sharp breath. “ Run of the mill doesn’t sound quite right next to neglect and child abuse , does it?”

“Whatever,” Faith says. “I just wanna know.”

“Know?”

“I wanna know why. Why was it like that? You know? Why didn’t I get a good one?”

She doesn’t say that maybe it all would’ve been better. Her whole life. Maybe she wouldn’t have to be the kind of person who has to learn how to be happy. Fucking pathetic, that that’s something she has to learn. She doesn’t say that maybe it all coulda been fixed before it was broken if she just came into the world with a mom who loved her. Who wanted to. Who knew how. 

Doesn’t say it ‘cause she thinks she’ll start full-on sobbing if she does. But she thinks Glerg can tell anyhow, what she means behind it.

“I wish I had an answer for you,” Glerg says after a long moment.

Faith laughs, all snotty and wet. “Fucking knew you’d say some vague therapist bullshit like that.”

Glerg smiles at her. “Am I so predictable?”

Faith rubs at her dripping nose and eyes with a tissue from the side table. Glerg gets the good kind, she’s remembering now. The ones with the lotion inside.

Glerg says, “There’s no good reason for it, Faith. Why some of us get parents who know how to be parents, and the rest of us get something else. Just a spin of the wheel. And it doesn’t say anything about you, Faith. It’s not your fault.”

Faith grinds her knuckles into her knees. “This is the part where I pretend I believe you about that, right?”

“Something like that,” Glerg says. “But, I gotta say—and I’m gonna sound like a broken record from when you and Wesley used to come to see me. But that’s something I can live with.”

Faith leans back into the couch. “Lay it on me.”

“Just because you didn’t come from a family that was good at loving, doesn’t mean you can’t have that now. It’s not a life sentence. And, seems to me you’re already doing pretty well in that department.”

Faith smiles a little bit into her tissue, despite herself. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I mean, yeah, I got Cor and Angel and Wes and Gunn and Fred, and Lorne too, he kinda lives with us now? And well, Darla and Connor, they live with us too, and it’s uh … it’s good. I think it’s … I think it’s all good.”

“It sounds good.”

“Yeah,” Faith says. Bites on her lip a little. “It does, I guess.”

Glerg looks at her. “But you thought it would make it better. That having the kind of family you always wanted, that it would cancel out the years where you didn’t.”

“Just seems fucked up that that’s not how it works, huh? Like, I oughta get my money back?”

Glerg laughs. “Let me know how that goes for you.”

“You got it,” Faith says. And then she’s itching to stand up. The office feels all tight on her skin right now. Like, it was okay, saying all that, ‘cause she said it fast enough. But if she sits here in it, it’s not gonna be okay.

Faith just wants to keep being okay.

“I’ll see you, alright?” Faith says, moving towards the door.

“You know where I am,” Glerg says. “And Faith?”

She turns back to face him, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”

“You look happy.”

Whatever she was gonna say in reply gets caught in her throat. A fly in a spiderweb, all sticky and trapped. So she just nods. Smiles, a little, and it feels okay, having the grin come out of her.

*

Outside, Fred and Gunn are waiting for her, just like they said they would be. Sitting on a bench, carcasses of Taco Bell wrappers spread across Fred’s lap.

“You miss me?” Faith asks.

“Oh yeah,” Gunn says. “It was a dire fifteen minutes.”

“Charles cried,” Fred says, almost with a straight face. And Faith laughs and the two of them laugh too, and they start walking back towards home. 

***

They’re in the Hyperion lobby, all of them. Wesley thumbing through his old books and muttering translations under his breath. And Angel giving Connor a bottle, doing this dumb slow bouncing dance with his head and singing some old Irish song while he does it. And Darla’s painting her nails, eyes flicking up to watch Angel sing to Connor every couple of fingers. And Faith’s pretty sure Fred and Lorne are high right now, considering how Fred’s eyes are all red and Lorne’s eyes are even redder than usual and they were all giggly when they came in from the back garden, and are now just sitting on the floor leaned up against each other, kinda dazed. And Gunn’s playing backgammon with Cordy and getting his ass kicked and every round Cordy wins she stands up and does this whole entire victory dance, and when she does, Angel can’t stop grinning, and then Darla gets up and smacks him on the head — “just so you don’t get too happy,” is what she says. 

And Faith’s just sitting. Ears going all warm, limbs all loose and happy.

She takes over on Connor duty after a while, and he’s in her lap, looking up at her, his crazy big eyes taking her in, his little fingers grappling around against her arms, trying to get a feel for the world. 

“You played peek-a-boo with him yet?” Fred asks. “He goes freaking nuts . It’s just about the cutest thing I ever saw in my whole entire life ever forever.”

“Peek-a-boo’s a good idea,” Darla says. “Let him hone his reflexes.”

Cordelia groans in this way that makes Faith feel like somehow this is a continuation of a fight they were already having. “He doesn’t need reflexes. He’s a baby.”

Angel says, “Actually, maybe it’s not a bad idea. I mean, he is a baby. But he’s a baby half the world wants to kill. He should know how to defend himself.”

“Oh, is that before or after he learns to pick his head up all the way?” Cordelia says.

“Well obviously we can’t teach him how to fight yet,” Angel says. “But maybe once he starts walking, we could show him a few moves?”

Darla nods in agreement. “I’m sure he’ll pick them up quick. He’s so bright.” 

“He’s a baby,” Cordy says, again.

“Yeah,” Darla says. “A baby who’s gonna be able to beat the shit out of every other kid at nursery school.”

“Don’t you want him to have friends?” Cordy asks.

“Friends are overrated. Being feared is much more important,” Darla insists.

“Angel!” Cordy complains. “Say something!” 

Angel gives her an apologetic look, but the kind where you don’t mean it. “Well, alright, I didn’t have a single friend for about two hundred years, and I turned out alright?”

Faith says, “You spent a buncha decades eating rats and then you fucked one virgin and tried to destroy the world.”

“Okay, so maybe not that alright.”

Cordelia narrows her eyes. “Wait … was I your first ever friend? Like you had to have had other friends before? Right?”

“Uh,” Angel says. “I had people who I  … knew?”

“Oh my God,” Cordy says.

“So yeah, I’ve done the being feared thing, and I gotta say having friends is maybe better. Definitely better.”

Darla rolls her eyes. “Pathetic.”

Gunn does this double take at Angel. “Wait, I’m still caught up on the no friends thing. I mean, weren’t you living up in Sunnyhell for like, three years?”

Angel says, “Well yeah, but …”

“And you were dating Buffy for all three of those years? And she wasn’t your friend? And her friends weren’t your friends?”

“Please, Angel and Buffy didn’t have any time to be friends. They were too busy being all supernatural soap opera and crying and screaming. And that’s when he wasn’t trying to kill her.” 

Angel gives her a humorless smile, “Thanks, Cordy.”

Cordy beams back at him. “Any time!”

Darla’s giving Angel this look that can only be described as a snarl. “Oh, so you killed me for her and you weren’t even her friend? Interesting, Angelus.”

Angel stands up, his voice going crazy loud in this way that — oh yeah this one is definitely a continuation of a fight from before. “How many times do we have to have this argument, Darla?”

Darla stands up too, shoving him a little. “Until I’m satisfied that you’re properly remorseful about it.”

“Well what’s that gonna take?”

Darla smiles. “Oh, I know! How about you could kill her for me?”

Angel grimaces. “I know you’re joking, but no.”

“Oh, I’m not joking.”

Cordy says, “Uh, well see Buffy already died once this year and it was pretty uh … the worst thing that ever happened? So maybe not? Definitely not.”

“Easy solution,” Darla tells Angel. “I make her a vampire. Then your ex-girlfriend’s not all the way dead, and we’re still even. Everybody’s happy.”

Angel says, “ Literally no one is happy in that scenario.”

And then Darla’s got this look on her face, like she’s deciding whether to drop it, or to pick another fight. 

She grins. “Well, I know someone else I could make a vampire.”

“ No.” Angel barks. “I’ve said no.”

“Obviously not yet!” Darla says. “I’d wait until he’s an adult. You think I want to be dealing with his colic for all eternity?”

“You’re not turning Connor,” Angel says, hands on hips.

“Oh, so you’re fine just watching our son die then, is that it? You have always been so selfish. And, I’ve got to say, it suited you better without the soul.”

Fred jumps up to standing now, “Okay! I’m gonna take Connor for a walk in the sun.”

“Me too!” Gunn says.

“Me three!” Lorne agrees. “Tip top idea, Freddikins.”

“Me four,” Cordy says. “I have a Darla-shaped headache.”

Darla frowns. “Faith, go with them.”

“Why?” Faith asks. 

“Look,” Darla says. “Charles is a perfectly decent fighter … for a human. But if a demon cult attacks, he’s far likelier than you to lose and end up with my son dead. So. Go. With Them.”

Faith rolls her eyes, but stands anyway. “Ma’am yes ma’am,” she says, with a little sarcastic half salute.

Darla grins. “Ooh, ma’am . I like that.”

And then she’s making eye contact with Faith and yeah, yup, okay, Faith’s definitely gonna fuck her. 

Not right now or anything? But she doesn’t see any way at this point for it not to happen, so.

Cordy says, “Stop hitting on Faith, it’s getting weird.”

“I’ll hit on whoever I please,” Darla says.

“Look, it’s bad enough you sent Angel into a rock bottom murder tailspin last year. I’m not letting you worm your little fingers into another one of my friends.”

Darla says, “What I do with my fingers is none of your—”

“So!” Gunn says, loudly. “Walk in the sun?”