Fiction Coming Home

Title: Coming Home

Author: Restive Nature (aka Bavite)

Rating: PG-13 for violence

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters, nor do I own characters or settings from Dark Angel. They belong respectively to Joss Whedon and Cameron/ Eglee.

Timeline: Post series for Buffy and late season 2 for DA, after the episode “The Berrisford Agenda”.

Pairing: Faith/ Alec, though not in the way you’d expect.

Summary: The fury of Faith.

A/N- I was reading over at the TtH forums that Joss Whedon had finally (post series), decided on a surname for Faith. When I read what it was, this fiction popped into my head and wouldn’t go away.

She cornered him in the dead of night. He’d just exited his local haunt, The Crash Bar. He wasn’t drunk. That was never an excuse for him. Manticore had seen to that. They’d raised his metabolism to such heights that he burned off the alcohol before the buzz could ever really reach his brain.

But still, in the last moments of his life, Alec McDowell pondered over a great many things. Like who was this dark haired woman? How, at her advanced age, was she able to so easily overpower him? She had to be older than even the X-1’s. And why was she after him? There was something familiar about her eyes, but he couldn’t place it.

And how had she overpowered Max? She’d simply thrown Max into a wall like a rag doll. Max, the girl who’d been on the lam from Manticore, a secret black ops government project deeply set in Research and Development. Their soldiers were so beyond the cream of the crop that it wasn’t calculable. And Max was even beyond that. The only reason Manticore had ever caught her was because she’d let herself get caught. Max’s emotions got the better of her and as always, that led to her downfall. But somehow, even lacking the training that even the youngest soldiers were receiving, Max kicked collective ass on them all.

Yet she was no match for this aged virago.

Blow after blow rained down on him and Alec could only stumble backwards, seeking to escape the torrent of pain she was delivering to him. And now, all he could think of was that he wasn’t going to go down in a blaze of glory. There would be nothing to his name but a short blurb in the paper, or a brief mention on the news. Maybe if he was lucky, Logan Cale would eulogize him on his illegal cable hack show, Streaming Freedom. But no, the ever elusive Eyes Only would probably be more concerned that his ‘not even like that’ girlfriend had bruised her precious chin by smacking into a brick wall.

Finally, finally, the woman paused. Alec wanted to react. He wanted to retaliate, but the burning sensation in his lungs wouldn’t allow him to. He’d known pain before. He’d known fear. But now, something else was clawing at the insides of him.

“W-why are you d-doing this?” he managed to rasp out. The compulsion to speak was a painful mistress. A demanding one. Alec just had to know. Before she finished whatever punishment she was determined to mete out, he had to know.

“You killed my son,” the woman snarled, even as she withdrew a weapon concealed in the back of her pants. Alec’s eyes widened as he took in the very suspicious and surprising form of a wooden stake.

“Who…?” He was going to ask who her son was. But her misguided reply was answer enough.

“The name is Faith,” she growled, even as she descended upon him. And Alec knew then what that elusive emotion clawing at his mind was. It was certainty. The certainty that he was going to die. And as he looked into the woman’s eyes, he knew that in a way, maybe he deserved this. He was sure of it as she continued. “Faith Lehane.”

It was amazing to him how easily the wooden implement went into his chest. He could even feel it as it tore into the muscle of his heart. His eyes drifted close as he realized that she’d struck him in the left ventricle. He would be dead quickly. That was one blessing. A fast death. He’d always feared dying by torture. Drawn out, weakened beyond insanity. And while he didn’t enjoy pain, this intrusion into his heart wasn’t so bad. All right, it was hard to breathe now and he was getting cold. That made sense to him, because his heart couldn’t pump that blood to his waiting extremities.

As Alec’s mind began to fade, he took one more glance up at this avenging angel. Surely she was a mother whose grief would never fully run its course. A mother who would kill to avenger her son and Alec realized that some things would not be over for her. She was crying. For him? For her son? For herself?

“Forgive me?” he heard her murmur softly. Who was she asking that of? Him? Her son? Or maybe even a higher power. Whoever it was, it better not be him. For he wasn’t long for this good green earth. In fact, he had his own higher power to deal with.

*****        

Even through her tears, Faith Lehane could see the sad smile on the boy’s face. He hadn’t seemed that surprised when she’d announced who she was. Maybe he’d known all this time that he’d have to pay for murdering her little boy. And yes, she had succeeded where that pansy ass, Robert Bedsford had failed. But it brought no surcease to the pain. In fact, it just made things worse.

She was taken back, twenty years. Another time, another night, but a death just like this. A stake through the heart. A last gasping breath. But this time, Faith heard something more. A yearning, from the soul. And she wondered if she would find forgiveness in the next life as this young man might be doing right now from the angel he named.

“Rachel…”

Faith bowed her head. When she had sunk to her knees, she didn’t know. With a trembling hand, she reached out to the young man. He couldn’t have been much older than Simon had. They looked similar in only a general way. The same color hair, similar build of the body. And then Faith did the worst thing imaginable, given the circumstances and situation. She began to wonder about his life.

Did he have a mother and father? Did he have a wife or a lover? Did he work? Did he gather at this bar with his friends? There was so much she didn’t know. The only true fact she had was that he had killed her little boy. Simon, whom she had barely seen since she’d given him up for adoption. She’d asked only that he know her name when he grew up, in case he might one day want to find her. Simon, the lovely little boy that came to her only in pictures from a wonderful adoptive mother. Simon, the charismatic young man who had the soul of an artist. Simon, who had changed his last name to hers when he came of age, despite their rocky uncertain relationship. Simon, whom she would never understand.

Did the young man, Alec, his name was, did he have a reason for having to be a mercenary? Was there something else compelling him to murder her son? Something compelling him to take Simon’s place only to use that position to spy on Berrisford? There were so many unanswered questions and Faith realized now, that she’d never get that time and understanding back.

She heard a groan coming from the girl she’d beaten down. Perhaps a friend of this Alec’s. And Faith knew that she had to get away. As she stood she spared one last glance for Alec. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. And as Faith left the scene of her latest crime, she realized that she had her own Angel to talk to. He might not offer forgiveness or a ray of hope, but at least he could offer understanding. And that’s something she needed very badly right now.

“I’m coming home Angel,” she muttered as she ran over plans to get to Los Angeles as quickly as possible. “I’m coming home.”