I Am What I Am (Complete, BtvS/DA xo, Mature)

[KiaraAlexisKlay]

Working Title: I Am What I Am

Author: Kristin aka Kiara Alexis Klay

Rating: Pg-13 for now.

Disclaimer: The usual. Neither are mine, DA owner by Fox and the team of Cameron and Eglee, and Buffy is owned by Joss Whedon and company. And yes, I do use a Dark Angel quote, it’s one of my favorites!

Summary: A little Faith can go a long way, hehe.

A/n: Faith has always fascinated me. So have the stories involving her that had paired her up as a transgenic. So while the original Faith is an X5 idea is not mine, hopefully, this story arc is and I hope it’s different enough I don’t get accused of stealing someone else’s plot. Depends on how good this goes.



I AM WHAT I AM

~~~

Faith looked around, making sure no one was in the area or paying attention to her, waiting for the lull that would enable her to act. Spotting her chance, she jumped and caught the metal piping on the side of the building that faced the dark alleyway she had been in just moments before.

With an unnatural feline-like grace, she scaled the side and gained the rooftop quickly, nimbly landing upon the roof. Her booted feet made no sound upon the gravelly tarmac, her lithe body slipping and flowing through and around the many topside obstacles that dotted the roof like some dark clothed wraith. There one second, gone the next. Blink and you missed her, avoiding the heating and air conditioning pipes, vents, and units that littered the industrial sized building.

This building was one of the oldest in Sunnydale, one of the first built by some American entrepreneur who envisioned a California as more than just a Mexican extension. The building used to be a large factory but now had been converted for more modern needs. The sign at the front, which conveniently blocked her from being spotted on the street, read Sunnydale Pharmaceuticals: Est. 1885. Where Your Problems Have Our Solutions.

Quaint, Faith smirked, smoky dark eyes glimmering and seeming to absorb all the light that entered. But apt. My problem has one of their solutions.

The long, thick mane of equally dark hair was pulled back in a serviceable French braid, the finished end reaching midway down her back. When loose, it would extend a few more inches, so that it would lightly brush the curve of her lower back, the natural curl and wave slowing its downward progress.

Raising a gloved hand, she swiftly and efficiently picked the flimsy lock on the door of the roof access, knowing that there weren’t any security measures wired into it. Apparently, the current owners didn’t think that anyone would be insane enough to climb nearly five stories up just to break in. Fortunately for Faith, she was just one such insane person willing to try, and she was good enough to succeed.

Gliding through the door, which she opened only enough to slip through, she stuck a piece of duct tape over the bolt, making sure that if a swift exit were needed she wouldn’t be hindered by a little thing like a relocked door. Carefully shutting the door, she headed in a modified running crouch down the stairs, keeping to the walls and shadows, easily avoiding anything that would trip a normal person in the dark.

Faith wasn’t a normal person.

Not in any sense of the word, by any stretch of the imagination, in this life or the next.

She needed no light to guide her path, though she had never walked this building’s corridors or silent halls before, moving with an assurance that bordered on arrogance if one didn’t know Faith, know what she was.

Some would say I’m a slayer, the dark brunette sneered inwardly, a wry and unamused approximation of a smile twisting her lips.

A slayer, but not the Slayer, with a capital ‘s’ and the before it. But even then, even though I’m a slayer, even if I were the Slayer, that isn’t who I am, what I am.

Faith paused, settling into her crouch, not concerned or even feeling any strain for having stayed crouched or ducked for so long, her body long since inured to such things. Her eyes roved over the room, looking into hidden corners and high spaces for cameras or heat signatures signifying the presence of those anti-intruder measures.

Spotting several, she waited patiently almost casually resting, pupils telescoping and zooming in, observing the placement and rotation, mind already multi-tasking and providing several game plans on how she could avoid being caught on tape or alerting any one to her presence.

Waiting five full rotations, not that she needed to second guess her own observations but it couldn’t hurt to make sure, she suddenly burst into action, blurring and making it to her targeted corridor over half a room away in a tenth of second. The door was already long since been closed before the first camera even panned over to cover it.

~~~

Faith didn’t rush as she wove her way through the labyrinth of office cubicles and laboratories, steadily gaining on her target at an unhurried, controlled pace. The sight of so much science equipment raised her proverbial hackles, memories of another lab, one that had forever left their mark upon her hardened soul, rising up and were immediately quelled.

Keep your mind on the objective. Complete the mission, she mocked herself with words of her past, but the reminder served their purpose and she kept herself alert for any surprises.

The soldier who is confident in himself and assumes an area is secure is a dead one and compromises not just the mission, but the unit as well.

“Who says I’m a soldier anymore,” she mouthed silently, no sound emerging, back to a wall, taking a cautious peek up and down the T-junction in front of her.

Some would say that’s what I am, because that was my purpose, my reason for existence, to fight, Faith mused as she slunk unseen under the watchful camera’s nose, easing through the farthest door down the junction on the left, gently pulling the door shut in front of her.

One hand still on the knob, the other lightly touching the edge of the glass window, as people are wont to do when trying to keep a door silent, Faith angled her body so a slight tilt of her head allowed her to see part of the room through the corner of her eye. Moving only her eyes, she scanned the room, seeing no cameras in any of the obvious and the not so obvious places she knew and expected.

That wasn’t to say there wasn’t and she kept herself absolutely still, only her eyes darting to and fro, and she gradually leveled out her breathing until it was barely noticeable. Satisfied there were no cameras, she still didn’t move, some instinct prompting her to caution. The whole reason for this little excursion was almost within her grasp; now was not the time to get careless and sloppy.

Slowly, so slowly, she moved in increments, barely shuffling her feet, booted soles making no noise upon the squeaky polished tile. Time seemed to have no meaning to Faith as the young slayer made as little movement as possible, sometimes taking up to five minutes to complete a move.

Her diligence paid off. Her eyes, which had been taking in everything with a speed, accuracy and memory recall no ordinary human could ever hope to match, spotted the hidden camera.

Very clever, Faith mentally congratulated the person who had designed the security layout. But you didn’t reckon on me.

Very carefully, and just as slowly after making sure there were no more hidden surprises, she reversed her steps, following the path she’d just taken until she was well out of range of the camera.

Faith reached a gloved hand into one of the pockets on her trousers, the trousers themselves the black ops version of basic camouflage military trousers, complete with all the large pockets to store all sorts of goodies. One of Faith’s siblings had once called the trousers the Esvees: espionage versions.

Now Faith pulled out a singular object from the depths of a pocket on her right thigh, the slim object itself resembling an Ipod, if its casing was black and the components commandeered from an unsuspecting military base several states away. Her other hand had been working in another pocket, bringing out a little wire that she jacked into the first object, the second looking like a little control pad with buttons and dials.

She crouched down and set the first object very softly on the ground, keeping hold of the other, fingers agilely manipulating the controls. The LCD screen on the first object flared to life, a few more seconds of playing with the buttons on the other device, and suddenly Faith was tapped into the live feed from the hidden camera.

My Schwartz is bigger than yours, Faith smirked, a truly amused smile lighting her features, and in that instant, she was beautiful.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful anyways, because she was. It was that so often, her guard was up constantly, never letting anyone past the different facades she put in place. Most people thought they had her figured out. Rogue. Scoundrel. Soldier. Slayer. Killer. Avenger. Destroyer. Emotionally Repressed/Depressed. Tortured Soul. Badass. Kick butt female. She was all this and yet she was more. This glimpse of Faith, the real Faith, was rare and a sight to behold.

Faith recorded almost ten minutes of film, and then looped the pre-recorded feed into the camera’s line. She’d even planned it so that the little ticker keeping track of time at the bottom of the screen matched and ran forward just as if it had been ‘live’ footage. The dummy feed would remain thus until Faith deactivated her little cheating devices, whereas the actual feed would pick up where it left off, and no one would be the wiser. There wouldn’t even be one of those telltale flickers on the monitors to alert anyone the feed had been interrupted.

That’ll piss them off, she laughed inwardly. Her little foray into the security system had also revealed there were no other cameras, audio recorders, heat seekers, or motion detectors hidden around the room or in the room behind the large vault-like door that was her intended target.

Once again she rose, leaving her little ‘cheater pod’ and it’s control on the floor where they lay, she approached the vault door once again, at a more normal rate this time. She only took a moment to peruse and determine that the locking mechanism was a simple combination and that it was only a matter of diverting the electrical feed to the wiring of the security alarm wouldn’t ring. All this was accomplished smoothly and efficiently, and in no time Faith was inside the vault.

Wouldn’t the Slayer and her Scoobies be so appalled at seeing me here? She shook her head even as she prowled through the rows after rows of shelves filled with medication of all types.

Not likely. They would probably just shake their heads and say, ‘I knew she’d end up like that.’

Everything from holistic herbs, spices, roots, and flowers to more modern lab generated cures lined these shelves.

“Jackpot,” Faith chuckled, pulling a collapsible nylon sack out of one of her nifty pockets, and set to work. The first thing she grabbed was a large bottle with the word Tryptophan extract etched in nice block type lettering.

~~~

“Hey, Anya, you forgot to put something away!”

“Watch what you’re saying boy, or else I might have to pull that tongue of yours out. I never forget to put something away,” Anya, former vengeance demon turned mortal, somewhat playfully chided her boyfriend and live-in lover.

“She’s right. When have you known Anya to forget anything?” Willow Rosenberg put in helpfully, red burnished hair glinting in the Magic Shop’s lighting.

“Never,” Tara spoke up, shaking her head in emphasis, then immediately blushed that she spoke up at all.

Tolerant and affectionate grins crossed the faces of those now starting to collect in the room, coming to see what was the matter.

The Scooby gang was all gathered in Giles’ place of business, and all the familiar faces were there. Xander, the big goofy brunette with a heart of gold and less valuable common sense, quick with a remark of any kind, welcome or not. Anya, who was right now mildly irritated her boyfriend would insinuate that she would be lax on anything concerning the Magic Shop. As if!

Willow the occasionally still shy but much needed glue that helped bind and smooth the group together. Her girlfriend, the much shyer and less open Tara, who’s family life sucked and was a dark, younger version of Willow’s self esteem levels a few years prior.

Giles, former librarian turned Magic Shop entrepreneur, who still could be found more often than not with his nose stuck in some dusty volume or ancient tome. Dawn Summers, the younger sister-not-really-but-was to the great Slayer. She was a reminder of what it was like to be a teen and not have the worry of adulthood that had been forced on her companions at so early an age with which they alternately embraced and resented.

Spike, formerly known as William the Bloody, a vampire who had a chip in his head instead of his shoulder: it made him an erstwhile anti-hero, somehow who despite himself found himself fighting on the side of ‘good’ though it drove his inner demon wild. He was also platinum bleached head over heels, fang over claw in love with the one woman he couldn’t have and couldn’t really stand him: the Slayer.

Finally, the most incongruous one of them all was the Slayer herself. She was short and petite and blonde, a former cheerleader and fashionista, not exactly what comes to mind when thinking of the being who’s very existence sends shudders through bad vampires and supernatural evil doers everywhere. Buffy didn’t look at all like someone who night after night that routinely kicked vampire and evil butt with her merry hoard of family and friends at her side, but she did, and did it well.

“It’s a box,” Xander stated the obvious, pointing to the offending object.

“Really, I would never have guessed if you hadn’t told us what it is,” Spike rolled his eyes, his clipped British accent making the words seem more formal and derisive.

Xander shot a glare at the chipped vampire, and if glares could kill, Xander would have turned Spike to dust a long time ago.

“Of course it’s a box,” Anya interjected, soothing her boyfriend while at the same time stepping up to get a good look at it.

Her head tilted and her hair swung over her shoulder as she examined this strange apparition that seemed to have appeared while their backs were turned, and the movement was enough to distract Xander from his glare match with the vampire.

“It wasn’t there a minute ago, where’d it come from?”

“Good l’il Nibblet, gets right to the point. I like that.”

Dawn flushed under the vampire’s praise and some of the others fought not to groan. Buffy rolled her eyes and had no compunctions about delivering a smack on the vampire, ignoring his yelp of protest as she too, moved forward, curious.

“This looks authentic,” Anya sounded surprised.

“Authentic?” Buffy echoed, getting closer to the former demon.

“Yes, authentic. I haven’t seen something like this in years,” Anya murmured, almost as if she’d forgotten everyone else.

“What is it?” Xander asked, stepping closer to his girl and narrowing his eyes as he observed the vampire moving closer.

Theoretically and mentally he knew the vamp was doing it for two purposes: to get closer to Buffy and to piss him off, but that didn’t mean that Xander had to like his proximity to his girl.

“It’s a chest, Egyptian in fact,” Anya went on to explain then fell silent, a slight frown furrowing her brow, eyes riveted on the smooth lacquered wood she now was running her fingers over, unusual writing and carvings raised in relief on the sides and lid.

“I thought it was a box,” Tara piped up, sounding small and childlike. She huddled closer to Willow, who smiled gently and pulled her in under her arm.

“Me too,” Dawn agreed, returning Tara’s grateful smile.

“Chest, box, coffin…same thing,” Spike shrugged, wincing as Buffy’s fist connected once again with his flesh, this time hitting the area where shoulder and pectorals met.

Giles, who had been about to say something, stopped, and took his glasses off to clean them, smile twitching at the edges of his lips. Xander didn’t hide his amusement and glee at the vampire’s discipline, and found himself under Spike’s baleful glare.

“It’s a chest,” Anya repeated. “And not just a chest, a specific chest. This particular type was used by physicians and priests to store precious herbs, spices, medicines, special rare and unusual ingredients if you get my drift,” she looked meaningfully at Tara and Willow, the resident representatives of the coven. Both girls blushed, and Anya proceeded on.

“This symbol here is the Eye of Ra. And this symbol here,” she pointed to the appropriate squiggle, which looked like a woman with the head of a cat.

“This is the symbol for the goddess Bast, also known as Bast-et. She was known for healing, but she was also the warrior goddess. The goddess Bast, the Eye of Ra, destroyer, avenger, goddess who comprehends all goddesses. Not a lady you want to mess with. The healing warrior. One hand that heals, the other kills. I swear, I think I can still smell something medicinal from it. Then again, I could just be smelling the stuff from the store.”

“No, no you’re right.” Spike took a step forward, nose forward and taking a deep breath, though being dead, he didn’t need the air. He scented the air, nose twitching and flaring.

“There’s something inside that box of the herbal quality.”

For once, no one questioned or ridiculed the vampire, for which he was grateful. They knew that a vampire’s sense of smell was acutely developed, and didn’t doubt that what Spike said wasn’t true.

“So let’s open it,” Dawn, having come up to stand by her sis, reached over.

“NO!” several voices rose and scared the crap out the poor girl.

“We don’t know what opening the box, the chest, would release,” Giles hastened to explain, upraised arm reaching upward to wipe the sweat off his forehead. Willow and Tara were both extended toward the girl, Buffy had an arm blocking her approach, Xander and Anya both had arms up as if to ward her off. Spike had a hand grasping her shoulder, so she well and truly immobilized.

“Geeze!” the teenager complained, heart thudding a mile a minute.

~~~

Outside, unobserved, a dark cloaked figure observing them couldn’t restrain the laughter, though the figure managed to keep it muffled.

~~~

The sudden movements of them all had moved the chest slightly, courtesy Anya and Xander bumping into each other and the table in their hast, and a sheaf of heavy, marble colored vellum paper crinkled to get everyone’s attention.

“What’s that?” Tara whispered, breaking the silence, as all of them had seemed to hold their breaths.

“It um, appears to be a, um, piece of paper,” Giles fumbled, both for his glasses and his words.

“Bravo, old man! You can see even without those spectacles,” Spike’s sarcastic rejoinder brought them all abruptly back down to earth. Before another verbal grudge match could start, Buffy snatched the piece of paper and opened it.

“Oh, hell,” the Slayer’s uncharacteristic curse was spoken with great feeling and fervor, and it brought everyone up short, leaning closer to find out what it was.

“What’s it say?” Dawn asked. She grabbed the paper out of her sister’s limp grasp and read aloud.

“A little gift for B and crew, from me to you. Happy Slaying.”

“It’s not even signed,” Dawn complained, frowning as she read it, confused.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Xander rumbled ominously, an odd timbre to his voice that had Anya shifting instinctively closer to her lover.

Dawn looked up at her sister, now noticing how Xander, Giles, and Willow’s faces had all drained of color. Tara, Anya, Spike, and her seemed to be the only ones who didn’t get the immediate significance of the letter.

“What? Who’s it from? How do you know who it’s from?”

“Faith,” Buffy spoke so softly, they almost missed her answer. The Slayer’s eyes were turned inward, staring at something, someone not there. “Only Faith would call me B.”

“Who is Faith?” Dawn demanded sharply, alarmed at the change in her beloved sister’s behavior, and that of her closest friends, family.

“The other slayer,” Spike spoke just as soft, for once not condescending or spiteful, as he recalled hearing his Slayer go on at length about his particular person from her past.

“You’re darker half,” Willow breathed, clutching Tara.

“The one who got away and betrayed us all,” Xander’s bitterness, hurt, and betrayal was very nakedly apparent.

Anya leaned against his side, arms wrapping around his waist, hugging him close to take that look of grief off his face. She too, had heard about Faith, and she didn’t like the girl’s connections to Xander.

“Does this mean we can open the box?”

Dawn looked up at all the bemused expressions cast her way. Her eyebrows went up and her hands went to her hips.

“What?”

~~~

Faith laughed from her perch on the rooftop across street, having no need for binoculars or hearing aids, as her own senses were good enough, thank you very much. It gave her an insidious little delight at the little bit of chaos she threw at them.

It was bad to get such amusement out of other people’s dread and worry, but hey, at least she wasn’t homicidal otherwise she could really have some fun. This was a harmless, mischievous prank in an otherwise dull existence, and she savored what she could.

She chuckled all over again as she thought of how the Slayer and her groupies would fret and wonder how in the world she, Faith the Rogue Slayer, successor to the Slayer Kendra, had managed to sneak in and place this unusual gift without alerting everyone that she was there. What would grip their butts even more would be the question, How did she get away and Where did she go?

Casually, Faith popped the lid on her already opened bottle of newly acquired Tryptophan, and tossed a small handful of about six or seven pills into her mouth, swishing it down with a recently purchased –yes, purchased- bottle of water. The imperceptible shaking was controlled as tightly as possible, and Faith had to force herself to relax, willing herself not to betray any further weakness.

“Who is Faith?” the girl mimicked the Slayer’s sister, sliding to sit on the rooftop, her back hidden by part of the large sign so she couldn’t be observed. Her shaking increased, though to any passerby it looked like she was just shivering cold.

“Is she friend, foe? Rival, lover? Slayer, soldier? Who is Faith?” she murmured, feeling her body give in the increasingly larger shudders.

She gently lowered herself on her back, looking up at the lightening sky, who’s edges were turning pink and orange, gazing upon the stubborn stars that even among the din of Sunnydale’s lights and onrush of day you could still make out. She remembered a quote she had heard in her traveling, and thought it appropriate.

“When it is dark enough, one day you may yet see the stars.”

“Who is Faith?” she repeated, musing, even as a particularly nasty spasm rocked her body.

Transgenic. Rogue. Avenger. Destroyer. Slayer. Sister.

“I am what I am,” she whispered, before closing her eyes and giving in to the pain.