"You don't have to disappear into the darkness." Angel glanced over at his charge and tried to stifle the small glimmer of hope welling up inside him as Faith's expression softened. It was an infinitesimal change, but it was enough to pierce the strong doubts he had that this method would be at all successful. He stopped, waiting for her to say something, but as he expected, it was not going to be that easy. He was silent a few moments, and then he began again.

"I know you think you don't need our help, but you do. I know what it feels like to shut yourself off from the rest of the world, living your life cut off from anyone who might actually care about you. It seems so much safer that way." He turned his gaze from the shifting light of the fireplace to the now- hardened gaze of the girl sitting beside him.

"Oh, what do you know about it, Mr. I-got-my-soul-back-and-now-I'm-Mr.- righteous. You spend a century draining the life out of everything on two legs and just because you get your goddamn soul back you think you can sit here and give *me* advice? Yeah right." Her tone turned cajoling, almost friendly. "Come on. Just let me out of these things, I'll catch the next freighter out, and you'll never hear from me again. What could be simpler?"

Angel sighed in growing frustration, closed his eyes, and rested his head against the wall.

"You can't keep running, Faith."

"You know, if hear that one more time, I'm going to add another casualty to the list," said the slayer in a quiet but deadly whisper.

"ENOUGH!!!" Angel was surprised at the thunder in his voice, but the momentary flicker of fear he saw in Faith's eyes encouraged him onward. He felt the demon inside him straining to break free, and he let go just enough to give himself the strength he needed to continue. *Forgive me, Buffy. You didn't ask for this, but its the only way.*

"You don't get it, do you!" he hissed with all the fury of a 240-year- old vampire. "YOU KILLED A MAN! Not a vampire, not a demon--a HUMAN BEING." He was glad he had insisted on being alone with Faith; he knew that if the others saw him like this they would probably think Angelus was back. He could tell Faith was afraid of him, but she held her own, as he expected.

"He was a low-life crook, okay? I know I shouldn't have done it, but its done, there's no going back, time to pick up and move on, yada yada yada. I'm a Slayer, Angel. That's what I do. That's what nobody but me seems to understand. You gonna tell me that one accident cancels out all of the people that I've saved?" she gave an indignant toss of her head. "Unh-uh. Let B think what she wants. That's not how it works."

Angel slammed her up against the wall with his arm across her chest, the other holding her hands behind her back by the shackles. "Don't tell me how it works," he hissed. "I've been to Hell, remember? All those years of pain, you can't even begin to comprehend. But you will. I swear to God you will if you keep this up. You think all your good deeds count for anything when you take a life? When you feel nothing about the blood you've spilled? I spent half my years as a vampire trying to make up for what I did without a soul and do you think it made ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE?" He was screaming at her by this point, and in a small corner of his mind he felt a pang of regret. In trying to help Faith he had somehow tapped into a vein of frustration and hopelessness that he had long ago buried, and it was spewing to the fore like tapped oil. The look of terror on Faith's face brought him back to reality and he released her, turning around and gazing into the fire once again.

"There is no ledger for the soul, Faith." he said softly. "You don't end up in hell or heaven based on which column has the most points. When are you going to get that? Right now, you could save every person on the planet and you'd still end up with the same one-way ticket as me."

He was lost in thought for a moment, and then he realized that she hadn't said anything. He turned around to find her sitting on the floor with her hands wrapped around her knees, tears streaming down her face. In a voice that was barely above a whisper, she said, "I didn't mean to kill him."

He knew he was standing at the proverbial crossroads, and that one wrong word, one slight suggestion of blame, could send Faith spiralling back into self-destruct mode. But he also knew that, finally, there was another path open to her that hadn't been there a few minutes before. The best thing was to say as little as possible and let her come to her own realizations, letting her know that he was there to give her support if she should need it.

"I know." he said, his face remaining expressionless lest she mistake kindness for pity.

"I get so juiced, you know, when I fight... and there was one vamp after another... I thought he was going for Buffy..."

Angel took cautious, slow steps towards her and sat down, with his back against the wall where he had been before. Faith turned her gaze towards him and said, "and then he didn't disappear. Oh God, he didn't disappear." She was weeping softly, now, much to Angel's relief.

If it had been Buffy before him, she would have been in his arms by then. But he didn't know how to help Faith deal with her pain, and he knew an overture of comfort would hurt the situation much more than it would help. Instead of reaching for her, he stilled, waiting for her to make the next move. His dilemma was solved when she leaned her head on his shoulder, and she didn't pull away when he put an arm around her.

"What am I going to do?" He didn't recognize the voice coming from the girl beside him. The bold arrogance had been usurped by a black despair.

He looked at her and gave her a benign smile. "Faith, when are you going to realize that you aren't alone? That there are people that care about you? That want to help you?"

Her insolent nature tried to rear its head and make some snide remark about Angel's future career as a detox counselor, but she was too emotionally exhausted. In addition, though she would hardly admit it even to herself, she was also too afraid to alienate the one person who seemed to think she still had a chance at being a good person.

"Oh right. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not the most popular slayer in town."

Angel pulled away and looked at her closely, and she was startled by the wonder in his face.

"These people..." he said, shaking his head and softly chuckling..."you can hurt them in the most unimaginable ways, so badly you think there can't possibly be a chance in hell of ever winning back their trust... You bottle up the guilt, you turn away from them..." She was surprised at the emotion in his voice. He glanced down at the claddah ring on his finger and began twisting it. . "And they come after you. They drag you kicking and screaming back into their lives...breaking you down until you finally accept their forgiveness..." He wiped a strand of hair out of her face and gently ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. "Don't ever think you're lost, Faith - because they won't let you be."

She had been trying to hold it together and keep her emotions in check, but Angel's words of comfort touched a raw nerve and burst open the door to all the emotions she had been holding inside her for so long. He held the wayward slayer as she wept uncontrollably in his arms.

"I...I don't know, Buffy. What makes you think that Angel will have any more luck with her than the rest of us?" Giles took his glasses off and wiped his eyes, like he always did when he had gotten no sleep.

"Giles, he has to. If he can't get through to her--" Buffy was interrupted by the arrival of two figures through the library doors.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Faith Mancini wouldn't have been caught dead walking anywhere with someone's arm around her, let alone that of a vampire. Now however, she was more scared than she had ever been in her life, and Angel's presence gave her the strength she so desperately needed to walk into the library and finally admit she couldn't go it alone.

"Faith" Buffy glanced at Angel and let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief when he answered her questioning gaze with a nod.

Faith looked towards the floor and then finally drummed up the courage to meet Buffy's eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"I know. It's okay." Buffy paused for a moment. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She turned to Giles, and was relieved beyond words to see the concerned smile on his face.

"I'm sorry I lied to you."

"It's alright. But we do need to talk."

"We most certainly do," said a voice from the stacks. At the top of the stairs stood Wesley Wyndham-Price, in full old-school Watcher mode, puffed up with righteous indignation and fury.

*Damn him* Giles thought. His immediate concern was Faith's perception that that the Watcher's council was now completely involved in her situation. And worse yet, that its liaison was a twit who thought courage was something reserved for other people, usually those with stakes.

"No-" said Faith, panicked, and slowly backing out of the library. It was one thing to throw herself on the mercy of people that had once cared about her, but this was too much.

"Faith, a moment, if you please," said Giles.

"Giles I can't--"

"Faith, " he said softly, "Trust me." Buffy smiled inwardly at Giles' words and thanked whatever Slayer gods there were that she had ended up with this man as her Watcher. She knew that tone so well-- one of comfort and also one that meant Giles had a plan.

"Mr. Giles, I'll thank you to go back to your books and stay out of this. This is Watcher business."

"Yes it is, actually, so if you would excuse us."

Price gave an incredulous laugh. "And why would I do that?"

Giles gave Buffy a quick glance that said he was about to reveal something that he was sorry he hadn't told her in private.

"As of today I-..I have been restored to Watcher status. The Council is most upset at the way you handled the Balthazar situation, and they are actively searching for your replacement." A touch of Ripper's venom entered his voice as he added, "And before you get either of my slayers killed, I am to act as their Watcher in the interim."

Buffy felt almost sorry for the man as he literally deflated right in front of them. She could see the hurt in his eyes, and the stunning realization that he had failed at the one thing he thought was his true calling. *Sorry, Wesley, but you never even had a chance.* A very small part of her was basking with satisfaction. How dare he come into their lives and expect to be everything to them that Giles was?

"Well..." Price said softly, "That's it, then."

"Yes," said Giles, "I do believe it is."

"What are you going to do about Faith? You don't think your newfound status is going to protect her from the Council, do you?" Said Price, with a tinge of moral superiority back in his voice.

"I have spoken to Quentin, and he has agreed to an inquiry here in Sunnydale. I expect Faith will undergo counseling... and the matter will be dropped."

"In Sunnydale? But protocol dictates--"

"Wesley, do you care more a- about protocol or the life of a slayer you yourself are sworn to protect?" Giles asked, with honest curiosity in his voice.

Price became flustered, shuffled his feet and looked down at the floor. "I see what you mean." Then he looked over at Faith, "I am sorry."

If he expected a reply, he didn't get one. Faith was still trying to digest the news that someone in her young life had actually gone to bat for her, not out of duty but out of friendship. She only looked up at Price and gave a slight sigh, an inscrutable expression on her face.

Epilogue

"Hah!" Buffy exclaimed, as she rounded the corner to the Slayers' makeshift finish line of the track. "Beat you by a hair."

"This time," said Faith, amiably. She wasn't sure how Giles had managed to rope her into this souped-up training regimen. After everything that had happened, she was sort of expecting some time off. She suspected that it was his way of both keeping an eye on her and keeping her out of trouble.

"Well that about does it." said Buffy. Then, after a pause, "Hey, Will and I are going for yogurt. Wanna come?"

"Nah, that's okay," said Faith, though, surprisingly, she would have liked to take Buffy up on her offer. "There's something I have to do."

Faith made her way past the last of the few students milling around the campus and pushed through the double doors of the library to find Xander Harris deeply engrossed in term paper research. She stood at the end of the table for a moment, but he didn't look up.

"Hey."

Xander snapped the book closed by reflex and unconsciously backed his chair away from Faith a few inches.

"Faith..Hi" he said, nervous and unsmiling. She didn't fail to miss his obvious glance at Giles office, and his relief at hearing a filing cabinet drawer open and close.

"Look, Xander, I- I'm sorry."

"It's okay, really." he said, bitterly. "I'm used to lending a hand and getting it wrapped around my throat. Happens all the time.... " They stood there for a moment in silence. Then, in a voice that betrayed the hurt in heart as well as body, Xander added, "Just out of curiosity, why *did* you try to kill me?"

Faith sat down on the edge of the table and tried to compose her thoughts. "After I- after the...thing...in the alley, I didn't want to deal with it. I wanted to just pick up and get on with my life, with my slaying. But B kept trying to suck me into her own little guilt party. She kept trying to get me to trust her, trust Giles, to trust all of you....Like that was gonna happen. I thought I finally had it all worked out. I tell Giles she did it. She's his favorite, ya know? What's he gonna do to her? Problem solved, I go home and sharpen stakes. And then you show up."

"Yay, me - fool extraordinaire."

Faith stopped looking off into space and turned to look Xander in the eye. "I tried to kill you because you were the only one with absolutely no stake in this, and you gave a damn anyway."

"Oh , gee, that clears it all up." He looked at Faith like she had completely lost her mind, which, he thought, wasn't that much of a stretch.

"I didn't want your help, Xander. I didn't want anyone's help. It was easy to write off Buffy's wanting to help me - she was there, she felt as guilty as I did. But I couldn't write off yours, and it really pissed me off."

She continued in a voice heavy with emotion, "That night we spent--it actually meant something to you. And you came back anyway, in spite of how I treated you..." She continued in a soft voice, "I'm not used to having real friends. I tried that once, but the people I care about have a tendency to end up dead. So, no friends."

"Well you know, I hear killing them sorta doesn't help any..."

Faith paused a moment, and with a trembling voice said, "I'm so sorry... I didn't want to hurt you. I just wanted you to stop caring about me. I wanted to believe I didn't need your help."

Xander came around the table and stood next to her. "And now?" he said gently.

"Well, if the offer still stands..."

He took both her hands in his and said with a half-smile, "Well, I gotta talk to management, but I think we can work something out." He gave Faith a hug and was surprised when she didn't pull away.

*Yeah*, thought Xander, *I think she's gonna be okay*.