Title: Clean Slate

Rating: PG

Summary: Takes place post season 7 Btvs. No real spoilers though Giles leaves Faith,           Willow and Andrew with some research.  Written for leni_ba in the Faith Ficathon, requirements at the end. Hope it’s what you wanted Hon!

 

 

 

Faith rummaged through the fridge. The house was blissfully quiet and would be for another forty eight hours. She couldn’t remember what silence sounded like.  Since she’d been busted out of jail and become part of the white hats, life had been one hellva ride. As if living with a mass of caffeinated teenage girls wasn’t enough, they’d also closed a Hellmouth and moved to England to start some kind of Watcher/Slayer program. She was actually a role model. The prison counselor would be jumping for friggin joy.

 

            “Damn wanna be’s eat everything in the house, like rats,” Faith grumbled and slammed the fridge door shut. She started opening cabinets. The doors opening and slamming shut sounded loud in the stillness of the kitchen. Up on the highest shelf, tucked in a corner, Faith found a bag of rice cakes and a jar of crunchy peanut butter, both had Buffy written in bold black marker. Faith shrugged and carried the food into the den.

 

            Willow, Andrew and Giles sat around the big wooden table there surrounded by books. Willow’s brow was furrowed as she flipped the pages on three different books at once. Giles gnawed on the ear piece of his glasses and paced as he read through another book. Andrew was pretending to read. Faith smirked but kept silent when she saw he had the latest X-men comic hidden in a big, dusty book.

 

            She tossed herself on the couch and flipped the channels on the TV until she found I Love Lucy re-runs. She laughed out loud at Lucy in the pie factory. She’d seen this one before but it never failed to make her laugh. She opened the jar of peanut butter and scooped a big glob of it out with her finger. She smeared it on a rice cake and then sucked the excess peanut butter off her finger. She could feel Andrew watching her but hey if that’s how the boy got his rocks off, more power to him.

 

            “Those are Buffy’s, you know,” Andrew said.

 

            Faith arched an eyebrow at him and glanced out the corner of her eye. “So what are you? The food police?”

 

            “She’s gonna kick your ass when she gets back from Brighton,” Andrew smirked.

 

            Faith rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Lucy.

 

            The phone rang shrilly and Giles answered it. He walked into the kitchen to have his conversation.

 

            “Dawn said you killed a Vulcan and a conquistador. I told her that can’t be true because Vulcan’s don’t live on our planet and conquistadors died hundreds of years ago,” Andrew said.

 

            “Huh?” Faith said looking up from the TV.

 

            “Did you kill a Vulcan?” Andrew asked again.

 

            Faith looked to Willow for clarification.

 

            “I think he means the volcanologist you killed in Sunnydale,” Willow said without looking up from her book.

 

            “Oh, yeah,” Faith said uncomfortably and turned her attention back to the TV. Sometimes if she ignored him he went away.

 

            “What about a conquistador?” Andrew asked.

 

            Faith turned the volume on the TV up.

 

            “So did you or didn’t you?” Andrew persisted.

 

            “Did I what?” Faith asked, hoping he’d drop the subject.

 

            “Kill a conquistador?” Andrew asked.

 

            “It was Kakistos, a vampire so old his feet were cloven. Faith and Buffy killed him,” Giles said stepping into the den. “One of the watchers needs my assistance on a matter in Cambridge. It shouldn’t take terribly long. I should think a day perhaps two,” Giles said.

 

            Faith pushed up off the couch. “Cool, we’ll go throw some stuff in a bag,” she said.

 

            “No, it’s quite alright, just research. You would be immensely bored. If you’d just stay here and…err…hold down the fort,” Giles said.

 

            Faith arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re leaving me in charge?”

 

            “Well as the only slayer in residence you would be the primary protector should something go wrong. Buffy and the other slayers will be returning from Brighton day after tomorrow,” Giles said.

 

 

            “I’m getting stuck with the geeks on crack because of that time I tortured Wes, aren’t I?” Faith said.

 

            Giles colored and looked flustered. Willow’s next comment didn’t help any.

 

            “Hello, so not a geek here anymore. My girlfriend has a tongue ring,” Willow said.

 

            “Yeah and it’s written somewhere that you can’t be a geek and gay,” Faith smirked.

 

            Giles muttered “Oh dear,” under his breath and clucked in that way that he had. He started up the stairs to pack a bag leaving Willow and Andrew to the research and Faith to her TV. He came back through with a small over night bag and a list of instructions for Willow.

 

            “Should you need me, I’ll be at this number,” Giles said handing Willow a scrap of paper.

 

            “We’ll be fine, Giles. Wicked Wicca here, only not wicked in the evil sense wicked in the powerful sense,” Willow said.

 

            Giles smiled. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll be quite fine. Alright then, I’m off.”

 

            Giles hadn’t been gone terribly long when Andrew jumped up from his seat at the table, banging his knees on it.  He whined for a little while and then seemed to remember why he’d jumped up in the first place.

 

            “Oh! Star Wars the original one is coming on TV in 15 minutes!” Andrew looked at Faith like he expected her to do something about it.

 

            “So,” Faith said.

 

            “Well, its Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and Han Solo,” Andrew said.

 

            “Luke Skywalker was a whiney puss. Darth Vader should have put him out of his misery, and every one else’s years ago. Han was damn sexy though,” Faith said.

 

            “I always liked Princess Leah’s hair. Xander and I dressed up like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leah one Halloween,” Willow commented.

 

            “Come on, Faith, change the channel,” Andrew whined.

 

            Faith rolled her eyes and consented. Andrew fell on the remote control she handed it to him like hyenas to a fresh kill.

 

            “You know, you’re kind of like Princess Leah, Faith. Only not so clean and not so nice,” Andrew said.

 

            Faith glanced at Andrew and then at Willow. “Do you understand anything he says?”

 

            Willow shrugged. “Well yeah, but Xander pretty much trained me to be fluent in nerd.”

 

Willow got absorbed in her research. Andrew was saying the lines in the movie along with the actors.  Faith had seen the movie a couple of times before and didn’t think it bore a repeat. She got up and walked over to where Willow was sitting. She turned a chair backwards and set down, her chin on the straight back.

 

            “So, what are you working on?” Faith asked.

 

            “Oh, well it’s a spell, kind of like a locater spell to find the slayers I activated,” Willow explained.

 

            “I thought you already had one of those,” Faith said.

 

            “Kind of, it’s only good for when we already know there’s a slayer in a certain city. If I can get this one to work right, I’ll cast it over a map of the world and little green lights will blip up over every city that has a slayer in it.  So far we’ve been relying on news reports and things to find the slayers and it’s not very efficient. I’m hoping this will be more so,” Willow said.

 

            Faith nodded. Willow chewed on her lower lip and shifted through the books on top of the table.  Her brow was furrowed. “I think Giles took the Common Herbology book,” she said.

 

            Faith picked up a book and held it out to Willow.

 

            Willow shook her head. “That’s Mystical Herbology. I need to cross reference Mugwort, a common herb or at least common in the sense that it’s not mystical, and make sure that’s what I’m going to need here.”

 

            “Doesn’t Giles have like a collection of encyclopedias? They should have a whole section on different herbs,” Faith said.

 

            Willow and Andrew both stared at her like she’d made some kind of startling revelation.

 

            “What? My Mom had a regular that was an encyclopedia salesman. He used to let me look at the books while he did my old lady in the next room,” Faith said.

 

             Willow blushed. “Oh, well that was nice of him…” she trailed off and walked over to the low bookshelf where the encyclopedias were. She pulled out the H and cracked it open. Dust flew. It was so new the pages and spine were still stiff.

 

  “Ah Ha! Here it is, mugwort and it’s exactly what I need,” Willow fairly beamed up at Faith.

 

Faith shrugged. “I’m not a brain trust. I just avoided going to school, didn’t really see a point to it.”

 

“You should think about going back, finishing high school. Education is important,” Willow said.

 

Faith smirked. “I got my GED in prison but I’m kicking ass kind of girl not a secretary pool kind of girl. I don’t think a college degree is gonna do me a lot of good. None of the vamps and demons cares if I’ve got a master in whatever.”

 

“Yeah, but your not going to be a slayer forever. I mean now that there are so many slayers, you can be like Buffy and do something else,” Willow said.

 

Faith laughed. “I ain’t never gonna be like B and things got way twisted when I tried. No thanks I’ll stick to being me and slaying, things I know,” she said.

 

            “So what’s it like, being a hardened criminal?” Andrew asked, changing the topic. His tone suggested that he’d wanted to ask Faith this question since before they defeated The First. He just hadn’t gotten the chance yet.

 

            “I could arrange for you to find out,” Faith said.

 

            “She’s not a hardened criminal anymore. Angel used Evil Inc for something good and got her record lost, or something. She gets to start with a clean slate,” Willow said.

 

            “You know, I thought I was going to jail forever that time…well when-I-we, Jonathan and Warren and me tried to kill Buffy,” Andrew said.

 

            “In this room, that’s not really impressive. I think we’ve all tried to kill B at least once,” Faith said

 

Faith sauntered over to the couch and dropped down on it. She leaned back and turned her attention to the TV. It was that scene in the bar on the planet with all the weird looking patrons. It reminded her a little of Willy’s with karaoke, which was actually a very scary thought.

 

She watched Han and Chewy flit across the screen but her attention wasn’t really on the action. She was thinking about what Willow had said, a clean slate. She smirked to herself. No one really ever got a clean slate. Everyone still remembered what she had done, would always remember what she had done but they were just willing to forgive now. Maybe that was better then a clean slate.

 

 

 

 

           

Leni wanted Willow and Andrew (along with Faith of course) an encyclopedia and a kitchen.

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