When Faith Comes A-Knocking

Summary: A woman named Faith comes to SunnyDale with a message from one of Clover's old "friends". Another mystery woman also appears.

Disclaimer : I do not take credit for the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the show itself. They belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, the WB, and everyone else who works on Buffy . However, the new Slayer, her friends, Watcher, and etc. are my own.

Spoilers: Everything and nothing, I guess.

Clover Chase sat across from a fresh grave waiting. The Chosen One took another sip of her extra big gulp. "Come on Mic, old buddy, rise already." She took another sip of her drink. "And hurry." Like a flash of lightning on a clear day, Clover felt nature calling.

The grass on top of the grave starting moving. Clover took a stake out of her bag and waited only a few more seconds. The shell of what at one time had been football player Michael Davis rose from his grave. Without even thinking, Clover stuck the stake in his heart. The former Michael Davis exploded into dust.

"Thank God," Clover mummered as she grabbed her bag and ran for the Quicky Mart across the street.

As she vanished into the station's restrooms, a small, red, expensive looking sports car came to a sputtering halt in front of the cemetery gates. The car's owner attempted to crank the car two more times but to an avail. The car became silent, the driver's side door opened, and a pair of white tennis shoes stepped out. The young woman shut the door behind her and let out a very pent up sigh.

"I can't believe you," she directed at the car. "If I ever see that salesman again I've going to stuff that commission he earned..." Her complaints ended in a muffled scream as she was knocked off her feet onto the grass by the road.

At that same moment, Clover emerged from the station with a long sigh of relief and noticed the young woman struggling in the grasp of an attacking vampire. Clover noticed a median nearby, and ran up to it jumping. She did a half somersault in the air and landed on the sport car's roof.

"Dead Dude," she called out to the figure looming over the woman, " why don't you pick on someone who is worth killing."

The vampire turned toward her with a low growl. The Slayer jumped down and whipped out a stake. "Let's rumble," she said as she dodged a punch to the face.

The woman, in the meantime, had crawled to a safe distance. When the girl jumped up to escape a kick in the knee, she noticed that there were scars along her right arm.

Clover gave the vampire a roundhouse kick in the stomach, turned, and staked it as she pulled out. She then turned to see the woman had risen to her feet, and in the street light, she could see her clearly now.

The woman stood around five-eight with a small frame. She had very pal skin, dark brown eyes, and long highlighted hair that varied from bown,red, and dark blond worn loose over shoulders. She was dressed in a small white spaghetti strap tank top and a pair of jeans.

"Next time be more careful," Clover stated trying to think of a good explanation for what had just happened. "That man, he probably had rabies or something. I didn't even see him get away, there wasn't enough light. Oh well, nothing stolen or broken?" The woman shook her head. "Good. Well, there's a payphone at the station back there. I really have to be going." Clover turned on her heel and walked down the street.

The woman watched her leave with an expression of disbelief. "Spike was right," she said to herself as she walked towards the phone, " this town is strange."

Gavin spied out his friend Clover from across the quad. In his opinion, he thought she looked wonderful today. She had on her light blue canvas shoes combined with jeans and a matching little blue strapless shirt. Since the three weeks had passed since they had first met, Gavin had been proud of the fact that she had taken to not wearing her leather jacket at all even though her arm had caused quite a few comment from the "popular" crowd.

He waved as Clover spotted him and came up to perch on the stairs with him. "Did you see President Hanson last night?" Gavin questioned annoyed. "He interrupted at least twenty of my fifty prime time channels. Him and that wife of his, first lady Brittany Spears. Have you seen the footage of their past works on 'Where Are They Now'? And they wonder why no-one takes their foreign policy seriously."

"Nope. Mom made me watch 'T.V. Land' with her last night when I got home. They had a whole Dawson's Creek marathon on. And we thought living on the Hellmouth was bad ;those people had serious problems."

Their conversation was stalled as Rai came up to sit beside them. "Juice?" she questioned holding out two more. Gavin and Clover accepted, and they sipped in relative silence.

"May I have your attention please," came Principal Rogers over the intercom. "I am pleased to announce that we have an unexpected speaker for our assembly this afternoon."

"What is Rogers talking about?" Gavin questioned.

"Oh, he's just being British," Rai repeated.

"At least it gets us out of last period," Gavin added. "Some of us are not so fortunate as to have a Watcher as our principal that we get to pile through dusty books seventh hour."

Clover smiled. "Yes, my physical ideal heaven. Well, I suppose we've had entirely too much dawdling for this morning. First hour awaits."

The student body of SunnyDale High gathered noisily in the auditorium at the end of the day. Clover, Rai, and Gavin, though they stalled as much as possible, found themselves seated in the second row and gazing up at the stage which Dustin Rogers paced checking the sound system for the third time.

"Seems the speaker's a little late," Rai observed watching Dustin's impatience.

"Sorry I'm late," a young woman's voice called out from the side of the auditorium and the figure scrambled her way up the stage. Dustin Rogers looked up at the voice as did Clover.

"Hey, wait a minute, that's the woman I rescued the other night," Clover told Rai and Gavin.

"Yes, yes, you're late. That's obvious," Dustin Rogers replied as the woman placed her notes on the podium. "Just get on with the talk shall you. I'm rather late at the moment."

"I would rather like an introduction," the woman said pointy tapping a manicured nail on Dustin's suit jacket.

The principal gave another exasperated sigh and mumbled a few things no-one caught, then said hastily into the microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe you are all probably familiar with our speaker this afternoon. May I introduce prize winning horror novelist, Miss Alicia Price."

Loud applause and whopping erupted from the audience allowing Alicia a few moments to scan the crowd as she usually did before a speech. Her eye alighted on one young lady in particular. "So," she whispered to herself as she smiled at the assembly, " as I thought."

The whooshing of the bus doors sounded behind Faith as she stepped down and then moved back surveying a place she never thought to see again. The bruises that decorated her features discouraged most of the people around her from getting any closer, and those that had tried found a cold reception. Very cold indeed.

The teenage trio, Gavin, Rai, and Clover, were all sitting in their usual places around the long table of the "Batcave" while Dustin emerged finally from the bookcases.

"That insufferable woman," he said as he sat down in one of the chairs with one of his many ancient volumes of doom.

"Who are you talking about?" Rai questioned for everyone else.

"That, that Alicia Price woman. I just finished reading one of her novels, and I ask you, what does she know of the horrors of the world? Utter gibberious! And of course the school board worships her as a literacy genus, and of course they would pick my school for her to give a talk at!" Dustin elaborated.

"Well she is from New Orleans, " Gavin put in, " I hear you've gotta be pretty quick to make it there."

"Yes, well, excuse me for not rushing to beg for her autograph like the rest of SunnyDale," Dustin muttered.

"Actually," Clover spoke up as she balanced a knife point down on her index finger, "I saved her from a vampire attack last night."

"Guess not everyone in town wanted her autograph. Or maybe it was an un-dead fan," Gavin laughed.

Dustin gave him an icy stare when made him quickly shut up, then looked back at Clover and said, "By the way, I have been meaning to ask if you had the Slayer Handbook from your previous Watchers?"

Clover put the knife down slowly. "Oh, that book." She noticed Dustin's waiting gaze. "Well, when I gave you Mr. Holder's book,I needed something to balance out the television stand. What? Have you actually seen how long that book is? It could be the encyclopedia except it goes way past z. Isn't there a Cliff Notes version?"

"Which means you haven't read it," Dustin said.

"No, not really," Clover admitted. "I did get to page two, but it kinda went downhill from there. No plot structure."

Dustin took a deep, cleansing breath, counted to ten, and then muttered 'insufferable' under his breath a few times which caused the trio to grin. "All right," he finally said, " I will meet you at the Bronze at 11:00 sharp. From there we will go to the cemetery."

"Freedom!" Clover exclaimed gathering up her books and heading for the stairs with Gavin and Rai behind her.

"11:00!" Dustin yelled to their retreating backs. "Sharp!"

Rai walked into the Bronze wearing her new outfit that she really was quite proud of ; a pink stripped shirt, jean pants and brown ankle high boots. She spotted Clover at a table alone and walked over.

"Hey," Clover said looking up from her drink. "So, where's Gavin?"

Rai took a seat next to her friend and took a sip from the coke. "He and the guys are backstage setting up."

Just as Rai finished talking, the lights in the Bronze dimmed. The stagelights came on and flashed colored as small lights popped everywhere. Gavin and his bandmates, Coal and Nick, took the stage.

"Hi, we're Unica, and we're gonna make you sweat," Coal announced into the mike. The band started a number and people immediately got up to dance. Alicia Price watched Clover and her friends from the shadows.

Two hours later, Dustin made his way into the club. He spotted Clover and Rai on the dance floor and Gavin and the band on the stage. He found their table and took a seat. A few minutes later, the trio cam up to the table. "Have you staked any vampires?" Dustin asked as he whipped out his notebook.

Clover grinned at her Watcher. "Nope."

"And why not?" Dustin demanded causing his chair to fall and a few people to turn their attention towards the group. Dustin pick up his chair sheepishly and sat back down.

"Whoa, lay off the coffee there D-man," Gavin commented.

"Do you want to be suspended for life?" Dustin asked with a glance in his direction.

Clover got up out of her chair. "Let's go Dustin, the un-dead await."

"Yes, I think that's for the best."

They made their way to the door unaware that Alicia Price was following them.

Dustin was just about to go to sleep when a knock sounded on his townhouse door. He walked over and answered it. There, standing in the doorway was an older, more scared, ex-slayer Faith.

After the Watcher's Council had heard of her betrayal to Buffy Summers, they had decreed that if she ever woke from her coma, she would no longer be allowed to be connected to anything pertaining to the Slayer. The only problem was that she still had her powers.

"I have a message for you," Faith said matter-of-factly. "It's from Chris Barron." Faith spat the name out like it was poison and flopped down on the couch.

Dustin closed the door. He was, to say the least, startled. Faith coming back to SunnyDale. was a big surprise, but for her to talk of Clover's missing Watcher!

"What do you mean?" he sputtered. "What are you doing here?"

"I told you," she answered simply, "I have a message for you." She reached inside of her jacket causing Dustin to tense, and pulled out a small piece of parchment with a wax seal. "Cool it Watcher," she said as she handed the paper to him. He took it from her hastily.

Dustin glanced down at the incomprehensible seal in confusion. "What does this mean?"

"I thought you people were supposed to have all the answers. It means," she explained slowly with a small smile, " the signal of the ' Mating', and that you're playing with a very spiteful demon since he's letting you know ahead of time. He's been watching your Slayer for quite sometime and apparently like what he see. He's chosen her."

"Oh dear. Wait a minute, you're telling me that Clover's ex-Watcher who supposingly disappeared was, is, a demon whose chosen her for some strange ceremony. How long has he been watching her?"

"Look," Faith said standing up and moving towards the door, "I'm just the messenger. I don't have nay answers. I'm just an ex-Slayer, a renegade remember." Faith opened the door and stepped outside.

"Wait," Dustin called coming to stand in the doorway. Faith turned and waited expectantly. "Why did he choose you to deliver the message?"

She shrugged. "Because I was once a Slayer. Because I was there. Because I'm strong, I could carry his message without getting killed. Besides, if I hadn't he would h ave had be killed anyway. I'm not exactly evil you know," she said softly but put a small joke in between them. "Anyway, it was either this or bowling. Look, he's scary, he's strong, and he's killed a lot of people Watcher," she warned as she began to walk away. "Warn her." She disappeared into the shadows of the night.

The next day at school, Dustin was looking for Clover when he saw Alicia Price walking toward him. He quickly started to look for a place to hide. He dodged students and teachers but to no avail. Alicia Price caught up with him.

"Mr Rogers," she said as she cornered him at the stairs, "I've been looking for you."

"Really," Dustin managed to say, " and why is that may I ask?"

"Because," Alicia said as if he should already know, " the school board just hired me to be the new creative writing teacher. The old one is missing. Has been for three months." The last she added with a note of curiosity in her voice.

Dustin swallowed hard. This insufferable woman was going to be at his school all the time. ' First the Hellmouth, then the Mating, now this,' he thought to himself, then said out loud , " And how may I ask did they talk a famous writer like yourself into teaching at a school like this?"

"They didn't talk me into it," she answered, "I volunteered. These children deserve a chance to let loose their creative juices. They are stifled with regular classes. I am needed here," she ended over dramatically.

"Yes, well, if you will excuse me Miss Price I am needed over there, somewhere." He waved vaguely in the direction of the office and took off in that direction. "Strange woman," Dustin mumbled to himself. "God help me."

"Strange man," Alicia said as she watched him walk away. "Kind of cute though. What is it with me and British men?" she wondered turning away.

The End

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