Exhaustion is like a heavy, comfortable blanket, at least when the exhausted party is in a position to appreciate the iron-heavy lethargy in limbs and mind. When on a mountain hike, or struggling to stay awake after an accident, exhaustion can be life-threatening and not very much at all like a comfortable blanket. But when the exhausted person is situated in a little room with a little bed and a little pillow, the feeling of total utter tiredness is nice.

Peaceful.

When she'd first woken up, she'd hated the feeling of lead in her bones. Her body had gotten quite enough rest, thank you very much. Now, she was beginning to understand it. She'd been pushing her body for so long, even in forced unconsciousness she'd played the same terrible games with herself, lying and pushing and trying to convince her mind that this was who she really was. Down time was gonna be needed to fix up all the little white lies - and not-so-white lies - that she'd told herself. Good thing she had a whole bunch of mandatory down time ahead of her.

Angel had brought her a walkman and some tapes he'd found in her bag, Faith got the feeling that it wasn't the kind of thing she was allowed in here. But the girl cop, Faith knew that she should use the word woman but found it hard to take pretty blonde law enforcers seriously, wasn't the tough-as-nails bitch she was supposed to be. Trying to be. Faith knew that when people wear masks that don't fit, they always slip in the end.

Nine inch nails. That would do. Fragile was certainly a word that Faith could relate to at this point. She felt as if her bones would break if she moved anywhere too fast. She'd traded her Filter tape for a coke on the way to LA, which was too bad. Something upbeat and bouncy might make her feel less like a lump of very worn out granite. It had been a coke worthy of its price, though. Bright red wax paper cup with the white wavy ribbon down the side. Ice cubes rattling against the plastic lid, candy-red straw poking up the top with a little smear of Faith's dark lipstick around the rim. God, she'd kill for a coke.

No. Not kill. She wouldn't kill for anything.

Laying down on the matress, headphones still in place, Faith closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

"Hey, you awake in there?"

Of course her company would be required at the exact second she'd begun to dream about something other then being stabbed or stabbing someone. It had been a nice dream, actually. Hearts and flowers and a little babbling brook with silver fish in it. And a guy with cheese, that part made Faith decide to lay off the music before bedtime. Groggily, she sat up, scratching her hairline and pulling the now-dead earphones off.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm up and I'll leave for cheerleading practise soon as I've had my daily stairmaster time." Faith said, yawning and covering her mouth as she did so. The girl cop, Kate, rolled her eyes.

"You've got a visitor."

Faith looked over, expecting to see Angel or maybe even Buffy. The former had tried to come see her every few days, as if she could actually damage herself in a room that didn't even have breakable glass. The latter had telephoned twice, the first time awkward and depressing for both of them, the second an almost surreal half-hour, the pair of them acting like nothing bad had ever happened between them, the easy fun they'd once shared back on the surface. Faith had gotten off the phone that time feeling happier then she had in God knew how long. When she saw who it actually was, Faith climbed off the bed and backed away a little further into her cell.

"I don't wanna see him."

"I know how you feel." Kate agreed. "But it's my duty to make sure you and your lawyer have talks before the hearing."

"He's not my lawyer." Faith shook her head emphatically. "Don't let him in here. If you let him in here he'll kill me."

"I'm not going to hurt you, Faith." Lindsey assured her. The expression he got in reply was about as far from trustful as you can go without getting a connecting train.

"Ok, sure. You're not going to hurt me, and maybe later I'll go sunbaking with Angel." That comment got an amused snort out of Kate. Faith would have smiled, if she hadn't been so afraid. She turned to the police officer. "Please don't leave me alone with him."

"I had no intention of doing such a thing." Kate folded her arms across her chest. "I'm staying right here."

"That's police intimidation. How can she speak freely with you present?" Lindsey argued. Kate gave him a look of total contempt.

"How can she speak freely when she fears for her life? The woman's confessed for crying out loud. How much of a case do you really think you're going to make."

Faith tuned out of the rising argument the two in the doorway were engaged in. Woman. Again, she thought girl was a term she'd feel more comfortable with. Maybe while she'd been asleep for eight frigging months, the world had decided she wasn't a kid anymore. But she sure as hell didn't feel like a goddamn woman.

When her thoughts wandered back into the now Faith realised Kate had stormed off angrily. She knew the feeling. You try and do the thing you think is right and all this stuff gets in the way and drives you nuts until you just don't give a damn. Lindsey had probably shoved so many legal rules down her throat that exasperation had overriden any concern for Faith's wellbeing. More likely, there hadn't been any concern in the first place.

"So how are we gonna do this? Poison? Strangulation….oh wait, I guess that one's out." Faith couldn't resist a comment about Lindsey's missing hand. "I've always kinda hoped I'd be executed with a gun to the temple. No stabbing, if I can just make a request, because the stains are hell to get out." Faith figured if she was gonna go, she might as well go wisecracking.

"I'm not here to kill you." Lindsey repeated. Faith looked more confused then unconvinced this time.

"Ok, so why are you here? I'd have thought you guys were chomping at the bit to get the money I took back."

"That amount wasn't even enough to show up on the accounts." That got a double raised eyebrow from Faith. How much money did these lawyers have? Whoa.

"Ok, still not seeing the part where you drop by to give me a housewarming in my new little home here. Like what I've done with the door? Iron bars are all the rage in Paris this year, or so I hear. Paris is the fashionable place, right? Or is that London?"

"Both are considered fashionable, although I'm partial to New York myself. I told you, I'm here as your lawyer."

Faith sat down on the floor. Furniture had always kind of bugged her, to be honest. "I don't have any money. I owe you money, you know I don't have squat. Plus, like the lady said, I've confessed. I didn't realise I even got a trial."

Lindsey surprised her then by joining her where she sat on the floor, opening the briefcase she hadn't even noticed he was holding. That had happened to her once before, when she hadn't even realised Buffy was holding a stake as they'd walked through the graveyard on patrol. Some thigs are just so expected they don't even register. Slayer, stake. Lawyer, briefcase. There was a manilla folder inside, which he now opened.

"You confessed to one accidental stabbing of the deputy mayor of Sunnydale, California."

"And a whole bunch of other stuff." Faith prompted. Lindsey shook his head.

"That's it. The other crimes you claimed to have commited have already been solved."

"What? Oh, excuse me, that was rude. What?" Faith shook her head. She noticed for the first time that she'd managed to keep what little stuff there was in the room organised. Usually, she was kind of messy. Perhaps the new Faith she was trying to be had a better sense of tidyness.

"Solved. Attributed to the mayor of Sunnydale, now deceased, and a mysterious person named Mr Trick who gone missing." Lindsey couldn't keep the twitch of a smile from pulling at the corner of his mouth. Faith looked amazed for a moment, then her face feel back into nonchalant not-caring.

"You guys did that."

"Wolfram and Hart do what they can to make their clients satisfied."

"Quit it with the lawyer talk. I'm not your client, I can't pay you a red cent, or any other color money for that matter. I don't know how you did it, although I'm a little curious, but my main question is why?"

Lindsey was quiet for a beat, looking at Faith's face. She'd given up on the dark makeup, she couldn't put it on right anymore. It just made her look bruised. Without it, she looked younger, her facial expressions more readable, even with her constant attempt to look uninterested. With little to fill her time with, she was washing her hair more often. That was good, he would have suggested those steps anyway.

"Everybody's got reasons. Not everybody wants to hear reasons, but everybody's got them." The reply seemed to satisfy Faith. After her own quiet moment she nodded. "So what do you want from me? What do I have to do in return? Because I can't really offer much at this stage." Her eyes roamed to the grille on the door and then dropped down to the small triangle of flesh visible above the collar of her shirt. Lindsey didn't say anything. He knew she had more to say.

"I want to get out of here."

That was his cue. With a nod, he leafed through the papers, looking at the neatly typed pages efficiently. Faith's cheeks colored a little with shame at her misjudgment of the situation. When she didn't speak, Lindsey looked back up.

"Why?"

Faith smiled a little at that. Winning power games was something she'd kept her knack for. Even the Wolfram and Hart troupe were no match for her skill in that. "Everybody's got reasons. I think if I'm going to spill, you're going to return the favor."

Lindsey smiled at that, Faith masked her surprise at the honesty in the expression. It wasn't just an acknowledgement of her impressive manipulative skills, it was a look of genuine amusement. Closing the folder again, he leant back a little, still seated on the floor.

"Ok, deal."

Faith drew a ragged breath, resting her chin on her hand, elbow on her knee.

"I'm not atoning here. I want to feel like I've made up for what I did, not that I'm being punished for it. Plus, it's only a matter of time before the Watcher's Council wastes my sorry jailbird ass."

The lawyer scratched the skin just above his right eyebrow, looking at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"You really are little miss born-again now, aren't you?"

Faith shook her head. "The Lord's nobody's shepherd. I had to find my own path back. Just took me a little longer then most people. Now please recount to me the no doubt interesting and fun-filled story of why the super-evil lawyer I double-crossed and who turned me into the police is now offering to get me out free of charge." The sarcasm in her voice could have cut through the metal bars on the window.

Lindsey's voice was clipped, no cold but simply stating facts. "I couldn't forget what had happened to you. You struck me as a person who knew the real deal about life. Seemed sad to have a kindred spirit languishing away because of Angel. He has this annoying habit of winning all the time."

Faith stood up, shaking her head. "See, I knew this was a joke. I don't know what you expect from me, but I'm no kindred spirit of yours. I'm leaving that behind, don't you get it? I'm not going to be your hired gun. And I'm not going to be a pawn in some stupid game you and Angel are playing. Get out and leave me alone, I'm real busy here." She walked over to the bed, picking up the discarded cassette player and putting the volume on high. Lindsey scribbled something on the front of his folder and stood, leaving the cell. Faith kept her back turned to him, not wanting her expression visible. She was a soldier, and soldier's don't cry. Specially Spartan ones. There had been a book about Greece in the apartment she'd borrowed, and Faith had taken great relish in reading about the strong fighters she'd once been compared to.

When Lindsey had walked away, Faith let her shoulders slump. So much for that. Half her brain was furious at her, the old half, the half that knew the real deal, like the lawyer had put it. That half was giving her new side a tearing-down.

*You'd have slept with him in the blink of an eye to get out of here, but you're too dammed moral to take help if it's for the wrong reasons? Whether the police think you're a serial killer or not, you know the truth. You're dirty, Faith. You don't even deserve the help he offered.*

But the other part of her, the part she was gingerly getting to know better, was proud. She'd been strong enough not to take the easy way out, to hold up her values even when it meant staying here. Her heart sank when she turned to see the beige cardboard folder on the floor, scrawly handwriting across the front.

Read this, I'll be back tomorrow afternoon.

~~~~~

Apart from her music, the other main distraction to while away the days with was her notebook. Faith didn't write stories in it, or a diary. Those were things that would require her to think beyond the moment-to-moment existence that was keeping her from insanity. Diaries needed a future, and she had none, fiction needed experience, and there was none Faith cared to draw from. So she scribbled song lyrics as she listened to the albums that she hadn't swapped for food along the line, sketched silly things like fairy princesses and bumblebees, and sometimes just tapped the paper with the end of her biro as a way to mark the seconds passing slowly. It was resting neatly next to her case folder on the floor at the end of her bed. It was the natural place she stored important things, easy to grab when a quick getaway was needed (fat chance of one of those in here) and out of the way for day to day living.

The afternoon was a little chilly, so she had her blanket draped around her shoulders when Lindsey arrived. There were shadows under her eyes, he looked as infuriatingly slick as ever. Faith attempted a scowl but it fell apart before leaving ground control.

"I thought I made it pretty clear I didn't want you to come back."

"It's pretty clear you expected me back." Lindsey countered. This was true, Faith had been waiting for a good three quarters of an hour. It was boring, but less boring then killing time with no expected breaks in the monotony. "Are you willing to follow the game plan outlined in my notes?"

"Oh, is this a game? I thought me being in jail was pretty much reality. My bad." Faith shot off the comment for the sake of wisecracking before letting her tone return to annoyance. "Sure, why not? I can play good little girl as well as the next homicidal maniac. I go in, I squeeze a few tears out, promise to never ever hurt anybody ever again. They let me go, poor widdle Faithy waify, such an unhappy bubbie."

Lindsey nodded, obviously pleased with her agreement, sarcastic as it had been. Faith's mouth opened again, words faltering before they got out, her voice catching. Lindsey cocked his head, quizzical.

"What's wrong?" he sat down in the straight-backed chair against the wall opposite Faith's bed. She looked uncomfortable.

"How did you know about all that stuff in my file? The doctors promised my Mom they'd never tell anybody, and I didn't know anybody even knew that stuff that happened after I ran away." Without the kohl encircling her dark eyes, the liquid pain there was so… naked. Faith had never thought much of vunerability, and now vunerability was overjoyed at the chance to hold full dominion over her face.

Lindsey didn't understand her for a moment. The file he'd included for Faith to read had been one created for another client, one that hadn't ended up needing it, due, as was becoming far too common for Wolfram and Hart, Angel Investigations. The childhood outlined there was a harrowing tale of parental neglect, suggestions of repressed abuse, and a traumatic, violent mugging in adolescence. Lindsey had been afraid it was laying it on a little too thick, even for the human blobs he usually ended up scamming onto the jury.

Then it clicked.

"It was my right arm, when I was seven. Your file says it was my left." Faith's voice was soft, her eyes looking anywhere but at her lawyer's face. Lindsey didn't know if he could breathe, much less say anything at that moment.

"How did you survive?" he managed finally, his own voice hoarse. She looked up at that.

"I've got this birthright, y'see?" she knew that he knew all about it, but the wisecracks weren't something she could just stop doing all of a sudden. "Kinda comes in handy when a couple of thugs have just beaten you up and stolen your bag - not that I had much in there. Somebody coming out of the shadows and telling you you're the one girl - well, one of two girls - in all the world who can be the Slayer. My first words to my first Watcher were 'Couldn't you have Called me twenty minutes ago?'" Faith's mouth tugged up in a bittersweet smile as she remembered the woman. "And anyway, first time we met you told me you didn't care about my personal stuff?"

Lindsey cast his mind to the 'personal stuff' his law firm had known about Faith, pre-file editing. Her mother's drinking and subsequent suicide, which now seemed likely to be an act of terror at someone discovering what her daughter had gone through. Several counts of drunk and disorderly behaviour. An ex-boyfriend who was no longer capable of fathering children. An arrest for public fornication, Lindsey had laughed when he'd read that a local priest had been arrested at the same time for the same charge.

"If you're going to survive in the real world without causing bodily harm to anyone who irritates you, you have to learn how to turn anything, anything at all, that happens into an asset. If you're born to poverty, make it a drive to suceed. If you're damaged by the hand life deals you, make it grounds for acquittal. Everybody's reasons are positive ones, if you know how to word them."

"If you don't word 'em right then nobody listens for long." Faith thought of a pretty blonde face shouting at her to shut up. Lindsey nodded, thinking that if Angel's friends were anything like the vampire himself, they had probably mimed sleep at Faith's reasons. No wonder she was now in need of a really good lawyer. "Everywhere I go, trouble follows." The tone of her voice was a little sad, a little angry. "I'm just a magnet for problems. Every day is just another crisis."

"A crisis of Faith." Lindsey murmured. She looked up, a little startled, her eyes wide. As if she'd forgotten he was there.

"What?"

"Something somebody said to me once." He explained dismissivley. "I'm going to arrange for you to see a psychiatrist, to get a psychological profile."

"Sure, shrink my head." New-model Faith was a very easygoing girl. "What about clothes?"

"I'll have somebody buy something for you, I'll bring it with me tomorrow."

"Golly gee Mr McDonald, can I sell my soul and become a lawyer and have lots of money too?" Faith quipped.

"Only if you're a good girl and eat all your greens." Lindsey countered.

~~~~

The next day was the most action-packed Faith had seen in a good long while. In the morning she awoke to a visit from her friendly neighbourhood psychoanalyst.

"This is the part where you find the root of all my troubles and make it go away?" Faith queried. The woman's name was Lenore, and she seemed nice enough. Faith was just a little worn down by Watchers and lawyers and shrinks, looking out for her because of some altruistic motive. She wouldn't have put it in quite those words, but the idea remained the same.

"No, this is the part where I find the root of all your troubles and tell your lawyer so he can convince a jury that you should have a chance at a normal life. Hopefully, that will in turn make it go away."

"Well good luck." Faith said, leaning back in her very comfortable chair with a smile that held about as much belief in the woman as a shark has honest concern for a fish's wellbeing.

"Can we talk about your parents?"

Faith pretended to be thinking hard about that. "Hmm… I know, let's not, and say we did."

Lenore felt the beginings of a headache build behind her eyelids. This was going to be a very, very long morning.

~~~~~

"No."

Lindsey watched as Faith took two steps back and almost tripped on the edge of her low bed. He didn't think he'd ever seen someone so inexplicably preturbed. He, unlike Faith, probably would have put it in those exact words. Her hair was breaking free of the ponytail she wore now, falling around her thin cheeks. Lindsey made a mental note to find out if she was eating enough.

"I'm not going to wear that."

Lindsey looked down at the offending dress, a light pink number he'd had a secretary from accounts pick up. She'd always struck him as being rather good at choosing appropriate outfits, and a request for 'virginal young woman, but one that's been through a lot' had yeilded this short collared piece. That was, judging by Faith's reaction, not going to be a viable option.

He shrugged.

"All right." He brushed the small crumple of fabric aside. Faith sat down gingerly on the edge of her bed, keeping her vision trained on the outfit, as if it was going to jump up and bite at her or something. Lindsey just added it to the quickly-growing mental profile he was forming of the girl. Yesterday she'd ammended his reference to her as a woman, explaining emphatically that she was a girl, just a girl. Straight underneath that piece of information he could now add 'intense dislike of short pink dresses'. No more weird then most of the data he kept on his clients. "I'll have something else brought over tomorrow."

"Thanks." Faith seemed to relax a little. "Mr McDonald…"

"I think we can be on a first name basis, don't you?"

"Ok, whatever. Lindsey, then. I know I asked this the other day, but I really want to know."

"Why?"

"Yeah." Faith nodded, shifting over so he could sit on the edge of the bed too. It was the most comfortable position the little room had to offer.

"Because you remind me of me." Lindsey offered.

"That's a reason to go whole-hog on a person you know is never going to work for you, even if hell freezes over?"

"Actually I hear that some parts have nice ski slopes." Lindsey mentioned conversationally, then laughed at Faith's expression. "That was a joke."

"Oh, ok. With the people I've hung around lately, you can - "

"Never tell." Lindsey finished her sentence. "I know the feeling."

"I feel kind of bad about the shrink this morning. She was pretty cool, and I was a total bitch." Faith sighed. "Could you give her this? It's a notebook I've been keeping while I've been in here. Might help her some."

"Sure." He looked down at the front, a squiggly shape of ballpoint lines coming into focus as a drawing of a dragon trapped in a spider's web across the front of the thin book. It was a beautiful image, the thin scribbly lines of ink looking like some finely spun metal. The twist of the dragon's tail as it tried to escape. "May I?" he asked.

"Knock yourself out." Faith leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. Lindsey opened the first page, the handwriting neater then he would have expected, neater then his own. 'Inside my shell I wait and bleed'… well, no surprises there, her cassette tapes were strewn all over the place, musical preference straightforward for such a contradictory girl. The next page had more drawings, a girl in a tower, letting her hair down to a prince who appeared to be cutting at it with an ornate knife. Then an intricate design on the next page after that, it looked vaguely celtic. Faith cracked one eye open and noticed what page he had paused on.

"I was thinking of getting that as my next tattoo." She explained.

"Could you leave it until after I've convinced twelve of your peers you're not going to do things like that anymore?" Lindsey asked. Faith raised her hand in a mock-salute.

"Will do, sir, yessir."

He turned the page, the brittle paper crackling a little, the thin blue lines running across it marring otherwise wonderous images. More lyrics. 'You'll never see me fall from grace'. 'Never' was underlined three times. 'No place to run and hide'. 'I wish you could see the world through my eyes'.

"These are all Korn lyrics, aren't they?" Lindsey asked. Faith opened her eyes again.

"Sure are. How come you know that?"

"I'm hardly an eighty year old. In fact, I know people well over eighty who appreciate Korn. Over three hundred and eighty."

"See, this is why I can't tell when people are joking." Faith said, her mouth curving up into a grin. Lindsey returned the smile. Looking back down at the page, he noticed another word, written in smaller letters, down in the lower righthand corner.

'Daddy'.

Another Korn song. He could almost hear the choral voices that began the piece of music. "Mother, please forgive me, I just had to get out all my pain and suffering…" A song of childhood rape, of parental betrayal. His gaze moved from the notebook up to Faith's face, he eyes had closed again and she had no idea he was watching her as she sat, a look of exhausted contentment on her features. She was beautiful, as fragile as the captured dragon she'd drawn. Was this some spirit's idea of a joke? Lindsey does one noble thing, saves some kids, and now the gods are playing dark avenger with his conscience? He didn't want to fall for Faith, she was just a girl, as she'd put it herself. A girl who, quite rightly, thought he was a souless, well, lawyer.

He hadn't wanted to be born poor, either. Sometimes stuff happens that nobody plans, a little reminder that no matter how powerful you get, you're always at the mercy of a cruel fate. Like falling in love.

~~~~

"She fell in with known petty criminals, specifically Rupert Giles, an older bachelor also known as Ripper," pause for effect, let the insinuation sink in. "And one Buffy Anne Summers, whose record lists juvenile convictions as an arsonist and who had been questioned over a murder only a year beforehand, one among several deaths that can be linked to her."

D-day. The trial. Faith, sitting like a good little angel in her demure purple dress and soft pink cardigan. She'd been fairly picky about the clothes, although there had been no repeat of the pink dress episode. She and Lindsey had clashed over color ('No pastels. I don't care how innocent they look.'), style ('Just because I'm supposed to look reformed doesn't mean they have to hang like a sack'), and price tag ('hey, it's your money, I don't really care, I'm just saying that you're getting ripped off'). With every passing day since her crash and burn, Faith was regaining a little of her spark. No wonder he nickname had been firecracker as a child, Lindsey had found that out from the file Wolfram and Hart had compiled. It was perhaps a tenth as thick as the one he now carried in his head on her. (She likes to be called a girl. Not a woman, not a gal, just a girl. She likes popcorn and french fries. She hates feeling manipulated, by anyone, for any reason.)

The jury was, as usual, lapping up every word he fed them. "Falling into a pattern of self-mutilating behavior, Faith lost touch with the momentary stability she'd found under the care of her guardian, Miss Lauren Gleeson," Her watcher. The vampire with cloven feet had gotten her, something Faith didn't talk about and had been extracted from the files. "Mr Finch was simply in an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time. So was my client. It's not Faith's fault that her parents treated her in the unconscionable way they did. It's not Faith's fault that her world fell apart, or that she sought comfort in the kind of people she'd spent her whole life in the company of. It's not Faith's fault her life up until that night brought her to the alley, any more then it was Mr Finch's. Everyone in this room is here today because we object to the wrongful death of an innocent person. Allen Finch did not deserve what happened to him that night. So, as thinking human beings, I urge you to consider Faith's future. Does she really deserve to be punished for something that wasn't her fault?"

The lack of a hand made dramatic gesturing half as effective, but that was a moot point with a speech like that. Lindsey was not someone to feel overly proud over individual achievements, but it was a damn good closing, even for him. He'd written it the night before, looking over photocopies of Faith's notebook, the original was currently in a big pile of background evidence. The last page he'd kept staring at long after the clinching tearjerker was complete. More song lyrics, Faith really enjoyed her music.

'I will only complicate you, trust in me and fall as well'.

He could have written the same sentiment to her as she apparently had written to him, a small capital L under the words was enough to make him wonder.

There was nobody in the public area waiting with baited breath for the verdict. Angel and his cohorts hadn't even known the trial date, as far as Lindsey knew. So the victory, with an extremely short deliberation, was a quiet one, Faith smiling when informed that she was free to go, ducking her head shyly. Lindsey wasn't sure if it was acting or genuine. Maybe even Faith didn't know.

~~~~

"What are you going to do now?"

They were sitting at a very expensive sidewalk café, Faith's first meal outside the big house. She'd ordered hotcakes and bacon at three in the afternoon, but since she was with Lindsey McDonald, the kitchen had gotten right on it. It had been Faith who'd spoken, asking herself as Lindsey adopted what she'd named his 'anywhere but here' face, a look Faith still couldn't decide on the meaning of. She'd narrowed it down to either boring, weird, evil demonic lawyer thoughts or deeply kinky sex thoughts. His face never gave her any clues to which of these it might actually be.

"Hmmm?" the spell of the look broken, Lindsey's thoughts quite visibly returning to earth.

"I was just asking myself what am I gonna do now? All this time it's been 'when I get out, when I get out'… ok, I'm out. I'm a reformed rouge vampire slayer, a homeless one at that. Doesn't make for a good resume."

"Are you going to stay in town?" Lindsey was careful to keep his voice neutral.

Faith had thought about that a lot. The deadpan, almost bored way the question had just been asked of her made her wonder again at what the hell made this guy so dear to her? Why was it cutting her up inside that he was techinically the enemy?

"Haven't decided. Lindsey…"

"Yes?"

Faith attacked a particularly tough bacon strip with her knife and fork, glad of a little mindless distraction. "How do you know all about me? The stuff you were saying in the courtroom…"

"All from the files." And from watching you, Faith. The way your eyes blink down when you're too embarrassed to look embarrassed. The way your hair falls around your cheeks. How you hold yourself, fearless and brave and still so fragile, even now that you're getting your confidence back.

"I haven't told anyone about the cutting though. Like, the mugging, I figured that Lauren must have asid something to someone, and that's how you knew. But nobody on the planet knows about the cutting."

Lindsey was once again amazed. He'd put that in because it was fashionable now for confused, unhappy teenage girls to strike out at their own bodies. He hadn't even considered that it might be true. She'd seemed so good at ... externalising ... her anger.

"Even the scars are just on my legs, I wear pants mostly…" Faith continued to speak. Lindsey wanted to look right at that second, but resisted the temptation, just as he resisted the one to destroy the world that had damaged her so badly.

"I thought Slayers healed up better then humans did." There was his voice. Being in such a verbal profession meant that he could find it when needed.

"Oh, it fades." Faith rubbed at her cheek with one palm. "It all fades. I just made sure some of them didn't fade so quick." Sliding her leg around, she lifted the hem of her long skirt until Lindsey could see the faint white lines, delicate like filigree.

On her shin, low enough to be covered by knee boots, high enough to be concealed by dresses, was a deep, angular set of lines. They formed a single letter. B.

"I was gonna put an A on the other leg, after Angel made me feel even more miserable then Buffy had." Faith admitted. "But he caught me with the knife before I could do it. Thought I was going all homicidal on him."

Lindsey couldn't resist looking at her other leg, the one she hadn't ended up marking. Except that it turned out she had. One long vertical line, and a shorter horizontal one joining it at a right angle from the base. The first letter of his name, an ugly, unhappy, angry letter L.

"Do I make you more unhappy then they did?" he asked softly. Faith moved her skirt back down quickly, flushing from having him see something she didn't want him to.

"No… yes… not in the same way." She struggled for words.

"In what way then?" All he'd wanted to do was keep her safe, and he'd just hurt her more and more.

"Why'd you have to be a black hat? Why'd you have to be so charming and perfect and, and just exactly what I always wanted!" Faith spluttered. "I'm not going to be a bad guy again. I have not only been there, but I have done that, and just because I got off doesn't mean I'm itching to go for round two."

"Then don't." Lindsey said simply. "Let me set you up with a place to stay, some money for living expenses, at least until you get on your feet and decide what you want to do. Then, it's your call if you want to try and save my soul or if lawyers are a lost cause. You've had enough major life-upheavals for one day, Faith. Leave that stuff for later."

That left her quiet for a moment. Lindsey was surprised at himself. Arguments of that clarity usually took him a little longer to think of. But he would have said anything at that point not to lose her. Just because desperation made him say it, however, didn't make it any less true.

"Where will I live?"

"I'll get you an apartment in the same building I live in." Lindsey offered, the perpetual teenage boy that lives inside all men crowing at this victory.

"Will it have a playstation? The last apartment given to me by a rich evil guy had a playstation in it."

"You can have ten playstations if you want them." Lindsey had a sudden urge to spin around lamp posts and sing stupidly happy songs. An afternoon had never looked sunnier.

"Nah. I only need one. Two control pads, though. I'm planning on having company over pretty often."

Faith wasn't sure what was going to happen. Her future was a blank page in her notebook, space for her to put anything she wanted. For all she knew, Lindsey would never stop working for Wolfram and Hart, or Angel would kill him before he could come back to the light side of the force, or she'd end up just as bored on the outside as she had been in jail and would end up drinking like her mother. Or maybe Lindsey would turn good, and they could go live on the other side of the country or something, or work with Angel Investigations. Or maybe something else again, she'd always been a daydreamer, imagining things that she could do or a way things could have been . There would be time for all that tomorrow.

And it was only thanks to Lindsey that she had one of those at all.

Impulsivley, demonstrating once again how she'd ended up with the name firecracker, Faith leant across the café table and kissed Lindsey. Time for everything else tomorrow.