Faith sighed lightly as she made her way, escorted by a pair of burly policemen, through the hallways of the Los Angeles Correctional Facility for Women. Her first week in the pen had not been totally unkind to her, but then again she had not yet been introduced to the prison's psychologist. The shackled slayer assumed that, since she could handle herself in any fight and planned on being cooperative with the guards, the shrink would probably be her biggest problem. It wasn't that the doctor had any direct control over Faith (as far as the young brunette knew, anyway). It was just that she HATED people trying to pick her brain apart and examine her thoughts as if she were some kind of sick little science experiment for them to play with.

She lingered on that thought for a moment as she was led to the psychologist's door. One of the muscular policemen opened the door for her, as the other ushered Faith inside the small, neatly organized room. The shrink sat behind her tidy little desk, ready to pounce on the inmate with her "superior knowledge of the inner workings of the human mind" or whatever.

"You must be Faith," the doc stated warmly, as if she could lull the slayer into trusting her. Faith wasn't falling for that one.

"That's what it says on my Confession," Faith replied indifferently, carefully pulling her "tough girl" façade into position. The optimistic look on the psychologist's face was not diminished in the slightest by her patient's curt response.

"Hello, Faith. My name is Dr. Huksly. You can call me Lenina if you'd like." The doctor was still trying to gain Faith's confidence, smiling broadly. It still wasn't working. "Actually, your Confession is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I've already been sentenced," Faith said, not seeing the point of the conversation. "I can't change my confession now." As she spoke, the prisoner observed her inquisitor, sizing her up. The doctor was not unattractive, with a slender face that was accentuated by a pair of high cheekbones. A pair of thick glasses sat atop her small, button-like nose, giving her an air of superiority and intelligence. She seemed to Faith very much like Wesley, had he been female.

"I know that," replied the doctor calmly. "I mean that I'd like to know how you reached a point in your life where you felt violence was necessary for your survival."

"I covered all of this-"

"You said in your confession that you killed Allen Finch during a routine mugging. That doesn't explain the carnage you caused here in L.A, seemingly for fun. I want you to tell me the truth this time."

If there was one thing that Faith couldn't stand, it was someone who didn't know how to mind their own business. She was fed up with this interrogation, even though she had only entered this office a few moments ago. As an evil grin crept across the slayer's face, she decided to have a little fun with Dr. Husky or whatever her name was.

"Well, I guess most of my troubles started when I became a slayerŠ"

Faith laid it on as thick as possible. She briefly mentioned her alcoholic mother and her life of poverty before moving on to her watcher and Kakistos. She was able to choke back her real emotions enough to slide a morbid joke in when she outlined, in detail, how the murderous vampire had killed the watcher, Gloria. She related vividly her first meeting with Buffy, the REAL chosen one. She described Mayor Wilkins' cornball jokes and fear of germs. She made little slurping sounds to accompany the knife sliding effortlessly into her stomach. She tried her best to recount some of the terrifying dreams that had plagued her during her eight-month coma. She described how unbelievable it felt to inhabit Buffy's body, to be the perfect slayer, and how unbearable it was to have that taken away. Finally, she came to her rampage through L.A, and her stay with Angel until she was sent to jail.

"So, doc," Faith said with a wide, mischievous grin," What's the diagnosis?" She knew that her story was ridiculous enough to show the head-shrinker in front of her who was in charge of this conversation, to show her just how pointless this little meeting was.

"Fascinating," the doctor commented as she scribbled little notes onto a couple of pieces of paper excitedly. "This is the most detailed case of mental divergence I've ever seen!"

Faith could feel the blood draining from her face as she shook her head in disbelief. There was no way that any shrink would take her story seriouslyŠshe hoped.

"Doc, I was just joking," Faith stammered nervously, "I don't really believe any of that stuff. I was pulling your leg, y'know?"

"You lived your childhood in poverty, probably in an unclean environment, correct?"

"Yeah, but-"

"And you just happened to meet an employer who kept everything around him spotlessly clean, on top of being the father-figure you never had?"

"But that's a coincidence!"

"And this 'Buffy', the one girl who was the embodiment of everything you wanted to be, was the person you chose to switch bodies with. But you couldn't keep her life because being the embodiment of everything you wanted to be also meant that she had to be unbeatable. Correct?"

The psychologist had taken every word of Faith's misshapen tale seriously. As she stared blankly at the doctor, she felt a familiar, nauseating feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her that she had just made a BIG mistake.

"Buffy Summers?" the voice on the other end of the line asked.

"That's me," answered the college student, holding the receiver between her ear and her shoulder as she perused her Chemistry textbook. She had been moments away from catching up on some much- neglected homework when the ring of her phone interrupted her.

"Hello. I'm Dr. Huksly from the Los Angeles Institute for the Criminally Unstable. I'd like to talk to you about a former acquaintance of yours named Faith-"

"There's nothing to talk about," Buffy answered bluntly.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," said Dr. Huksly. "Faith is suffering from what's called 'mental divergence'. She has created a fantasy world for herself in an attempt to cope with reality. You seem to be at the center of this fantasy world."

"How's that?" Buffy asked, scoffing at the absurd notion.

"She seems to think that you are some kind of 'vampire slayer', and that-"

"What?!?" Buffy yelled, unable to believe her own ears.

"That's right. Actually, I'm surprised you really exist. Her fantasy was quite elaborate, so I did some research to see if it was based on reality. Apparently, it is. I'd like you to come and visit her, maybe to explain to her that you don't really kill vampires." "I'll be there as soon as possible," the blonde replied.

The long drive to L.A only gave Buffy's anger time to simmer, and the lengthy trek through the institute to the visiting area left her even more time to linger on her angry thoughts. Faith had betrayed herŠ again. She had spilled the most closely guarded secret a slayer could keep: the knowledge that slayers exist.

She took a seat in the visiting room at the end of a small, metal table. As she waited for Faith to show herself, she took a minute to look around the room. The entire chamber was white except for the metal door and table, giving it a sanitized look to match the smell of disinfectant in the air. The only objects in the room were the table, chairs, and a small surveillance camera mounted in one corner of the room, hanging from the ceiling. Buffy briefly scanned the room for audio equipment, finding none. She really didn't want anything she said recorded for prosperity.

Hearing the door open, she turned her head forward to address whoever had just stepped inside. Her eyes narrowed as Faith, bound in shackles and escorted by a pair of guards, entered clumsily. The brunette's hair was draped over her eyes, shielding her from the outside world. She was wearing a white outfit that bore a closer resemblance to a pair of pajamas than a prison uniform. Then again, Faith was no longer in prison. She was in a nuthouse.

"Faith," Buffy stated blankly, more to get the other girl's attention than as a greeting. The rogue slayer looked up for the first time, swaying her head in order to remove her hair from in front of her eyes.

"I'd like to talk to her alone," the tiny blonde said to the guards as Faith took a seat across from her former adversary.

"BuffyŠ" she drawled dreamily. Buffy could see now that Faith's brown eyes were glazed over to the point that the blonde could see her reflection in them. Both of the guards took their leave, knowing that they should have plenty of time to come back in and sedate the patient should she become violent.

"How could you, Faith? How could you tell them-" Buffy was interrupted by the other girl, who was giggling softly as her hair spilled back over her face. The smaller slayer was furious. "What the hell is so funny, Faith? You-"

"You're not real," Faith said plainly, interrupting her visitor yet again.

"Excuse me?"

"You're not real," the brunette repeated, trying to contain her laughter. "Not in the way that I think you are, at least. See, the girl sitting in front of me is actually 'Buffy the college student', but I would have said that you were 'Buffy the vampire slayer' just last week." Suddenly, the unstable brunette burst in to a fit of hysterics.

"Vampire slayer! That's some messed up shit, isn't it?" When Faith's laughter died down slightly, she continued. "Y'see, you are actually aŠ" the younger girl paused, closing her eyes in an attempt to recall Dr. Huksly's exact words. "Š'Manifestation of my own insecurities'. Apparently, you were everything that I wished I was, which is why I was so jealous of you.

"And as for all those crazy vampires, they aren't real either. They were 'an attempt by my own subconscious to alleviate disappointments and failures that I've experienced'. See, I always thought my mom was killed by a vampire, but she actually died of a heroin overdose. Kakistos, on the other hand, was a physical manifestation of my own violent urges, although I'm not sure if he actually killed my watcher because I'm not sure if she really existed or if she was just another manifestation-"

"Shut up!" Buffy screamed in desperation. "You're scaring me." She could hear her own voice wavering as she spoke, trembling as badly as her hands. Seeing Faith acting this way, talking this wayŠwas frightening her to death. The brunette was obviously drugged with God- only-knows-what and probably didn't realize what she was saying. At least, that's what Buffy tried to believe.

"You don't get it, do you?" Faith asked, smiling widely as her head bobbed unsteadily from left to right. "I've just been a little messed up all these years- not evil, not criminally psychotic, just a little loony." Buffy could no longer tell if Faith was laughing hysterically or sobbing violently as she continued her explanation. "All those people that I've hurt, let down, killedŠthey never even existed. Finch, Wilkens, Xander, Joyce, Gloria, momŠ" The drugged slayer's emotional outpourings dropped to a whisper as she beheld her former friend. "You."

"I forgive you," the blonde stated warmly, not so much as a gesture of friendship as an attempt to break the haze of madness that seemed to have surrounded her former partner. Faith's head snapped forward, her eyes narrowing in anger.

"I am not evil," she stated slowly, enunciating every word clearly.

"I am not evil!" she repeated in a louder, more forceful tone as she slammed her fists on the table.

"I am NOT evil !!" she yelled as a pair of security guards rushed into the room, accompanied closely by a doctor.

"I AM NOT EVIL !!!!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as the guards grabbed her, giving the doctor the opportunity to plunge a needle into her arm and empty its contents into the young woman's bloodstream. Buffy felt as helpless as a child, sitting there and watching a slayer being reduced to a whimpering shell as the drugs kicked in. As Faith's legs gave out underneath her, Buffy could still hear the rogue slayer mumbling to herself.

"I'm not evil. I'm not a murderer. I'm not evilŠnot evilŠ"

End