The Envelope

She wasn't sure where it had originally come from. It was a small, fragile looking figure with delicate features embedded in a flat oval amber amulet the size of her thumb. She'd found it in a slim envelope in the binding of her watcher's journal long after the last time she'd run from Sunnydale. Cured of overt sentimentality long ago, she'd only kept the envelope because her name was on it. After reading through the journal looking for some clue about the envelope's contents Faith had passed the slim volume on to Giles to add to the library he was slowly rebuilding after the destruction of the Council. Keeping the amulet and the fine silver chain it was on had seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

She rarely wore any sort of jewelry like the amulet. In a fight it was a dangerous distraction. When she was prowling the dance clubs and bars of the cities she frequented it didn't match her tough image. She kept it hidden in her small room in the Council's Cleveland office. Only Dawn knew anything about it. She'd shown it to her one night in Cleveland, once more passing through on her way to somewhere else when Dawn had intruded on her self imposed loneliness.

She'd been sitting on the roof outside of her window, staring out at the nearby city. For once she'd felt no need to be out in it. With just her melancholy thoughts and a beer for company, she'd taken the amulet out of its hiding place and for some reason she couldn't explain she'd put its chain around her neck.

"Faith?" Dawn's voice came softly through the window.

"Yes?" she answered gruffly. If it had been anyone else she would have ignored them but she'd never been able to ignore Dawn. She suspected that it was a slayer thing. She'd noticed how even the newbie slayers would all briefly stop whatever they were doing to glance at Dawn when she entered a room. Something about her drew them like bees to honey but she seemed to affect no one else in that manner.

Dawn poked her head out of the window. "What are you doing out here?"

"Just thinking."

"Aren't there better places to think?"

"Not places I want to be." She took a sip from her bottle.

"Can I join you?"

"Sure." She moved over to make room for the tall brunette scrambling through her window.

"What are you thinking about?" Dawn asked as she planted her feet on the roof tiles and leaned back against the adjoining roof, wedging herself firmly in place.

"Things." Faith said quietly.

"What kinds of things?"

"All sorts of things. Life..."

"The universe and everything?" Dawn giggled at the expression on Faith's face. "Sorry. Just had a geek moment."

Faith stared at her in surprise. "A geek moment?"

"You know... channeling Xander or Andrew and their obscure pop culture references." Dawn explained sheepishly.

"Oh. No. Nothing so grand." She shrugged. She looked at Dawn out of the corner of her eye. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Pretend they aren't always watching you?"

"Who?"

"The slayers... " she looked over at Dawn. "You do know they notice you whenever you enter a room. Don't you?"

"Oh. That. Yes, I do know about it." She stared blankly out at the city. "I don't pretend. I just ignore it. If I didn't it would drive me crazy. And it isn't like they can control it."

"What causes it?" she asked Dawn curiously.

"Buffy had Willow check into it the first time she noticed it happening. Willow thinks it is something the monks did to keep the Key safe. They just didn't expect there to ever be more than one slayer. I'm sort of a slayer magnet."

"Well, that's better than being a demon magnet like Xander." Faith commented. "And some of the newbies are kinda cute."

"To you maybe. You've got that whole sexual magnetism thing going for you. I'm surprised you aren't beating them off with a large stick." Dawn briefly pouted. "But they don't even know they are doing it when they see me. It's hard to be friends with them when I don't know if they really like me or if it's because I'm the Key." She shrugged and continued sadly - "And I can't be a watcher because of it. Any slayer I was with would be too busy protecting me to pay attention to what they should be focusing on. It could get them killed. Like it did Buffy."

"That's a bit harsh don't you think?" Faith protested.

"No. It's the truth." She turned back to Faith and smiled sadly. "But we're not here to talk about my problems or guilty conscience. What were you really thinking about?"

"Nothing much. It's just one of those nights when I want to be by myself." She took a sip from her bottle. "Not feeling much like company."

"Oh. Did you want me to leave?" Dawn said, starting to get back up.

"No." Faith said quickly, hearing disappointment in Dawn's voice. "You're okay here."

"Thanks." and Dawn settled back into her perch on the roof.

They'd been sitting quietly for an hour when Faith broke the companionable silence. "We should probably get back inside. It feels like rain."

"Okay." She scrambled to her feet and climbed in the window ahead of Faith.

As Faith climbed in the window the amulet around her neck caught Dawn's attention. "What's that?"

"Something I got from my first Watcher."

"Can I see it?" Dawn asked.

"Sure." Faith put her bottle on the small desk near her window, and removing the amulet from around her neck, handed it to Dawn.

"It's very nice. Is it always this warm?" she asked curiously, holding it in the palm of her left hand.

"Yes. I think it's because of what it's made of. Amber is like that."

Looking closely at it, Dawn noticed several small symbols around its' edges. "These look familiar." she said, pointing them out to Faith. "Do you have any idea where it came from?"

"No." Faith said nervously. "Could you promise not to tell anyone about it?"

Dawn looked confused but nodded in agreement. "Sure. But why?"

"You know how Giles and Willow are about Watcher things." She plopped down onto her bed before continuing. "They'll assume it belongs to the Council and insist I give it to them. It's the only thing I have left from her."

"Okay. I won't tell them." Dawn promised, still holding the amulet.

"You know, I keep it here in Cleveland with my things. It isn't exactly something I can wear slaying. If something does happen to me you should probably see that Giles gets it, just in case."

"Nothing is going to happen to you!" Dawn objected.

"You can't know that." Faith insisted looking up at Dawn from her position on her bed. "Even with all of the newbie slayers running around it's still dangerous out there for the rest of us. Any time I go out could be my last. You need to promise me you'll do this."

Dawn looked around Faith's room, as if looking for a way to avoid the request. "Okay. But only because it will never happen!" Her answer was punctuated by a clap of thunder, causing her to jump. She handed the amulet back to Faith and joined her on the bed.

"Thanks." Faith said, relieved for some reason. After getting up and putting the amulet away, she turned back to the window and looked out at the rain that had started to pour down.

When it looked like she was going to stare out of the window for a while, Dawn interrupted her. "Did you know we have a pool table now? They brought it a couple weeks ago. Want to check it out?"

"No, you go ahead." Faith answered quietly, not taking her eyes off of the rain.

"Are you afraid I'll beat you?" Dawn asked with a smug look.

"You beat me? In whose imagination?" Faith turned around in mock disbelief, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Kennedy has been teaching me!" Dawn exclaimed. "She's very good."

"Lead on, little girl." Faith said, pulling Dawn up from the bed. She turned Dawn towards the door and pushed her gently into the hallway. "Let's see what you've got."

"I'm not a little girl!" Dawn protested.

"No, I guess you aren't." Faith missed the delighted smile on Dawn's face at the comment as she followed her down the hall, all thoughts of the amber amulet momentarily forgotten.

In what had seemed to become a normal part of her life, Faith had just been passing through London when Giles asked her to run an errand for him. An old friend of his had found something in the Paris catacombs that he thought Giles would be interested in and she was conveniently available to meet him at the Paris station to pick it up.

But first she had to get to the correct platform. Looking at the ticket she'd gotten from Giles, it had seemed to be such a simple thing. Find Platform 9, find her seat and take a nap until Paris, grab the thing from Giles' friend, get back on the train and go back to London. But the station wasn't cooperating. Platform 9 seemed to be closed. She just stood there staring at the entrance for a minute while station traffic flowed around her. Someone in the ticket office had obviously neglected to notice that this was the wrong platform for the Paris train.

Grumbling to herself at the incompetence of the ticket agent, Faith turned around to go straighten it out when she ran into a scrawny person dressed in what looked like the remains of a fortune teller's carnival outfit. Grabbing at a waving arm to prevent both of them from colliding with an old, strangely dressed man with a long white beard, Faith found herself looking into the face of a frightened old woman who looked back at her through a large pair of magnifying glass like glasses.

"Death, death all around you." the woman screeched at her while the old man looked at them both bemusedly before speaking in a calm voice.

"Sybill, now is not the time for such things. Please let the young lady go."

"She isn't wearing the amulet. She must wear it at the end." the woman muttered to herself, just loudly enough for Faith to hear her in the noisy station.

Faith let go of her arm and stepped back in confusion. "What?"

"I'm sure she didn't mean anything." the old man answered. He started to take the woman's arm, as if to guide her away from Faith when she seemed to go into a trance. Her eyes staring blankly towards Faith, the woman began to speak in a solemn tone -

"The seventh shall stand at the center of the circle of stone,
not expected, alone among her sisters the key, the first chosen,
the white, the red, the searcher, and the thief. The last chosen
shall guard those to come against the dark. She shall endure
the past to be reborn in the future."

When she finished the woman seemed to collapse in on herself and a stunned Faith once more grabbed her to keep her from falling. Looking angrily at the old man, who seemed to have a thoughtful look on his face, Faith growled out "Tell me she didn't do what I think she did! I don't have time to deal with a prophecy right now!"

The old man looked at her in interest after her angry pronouncement. "Sybill has been remarkably accurate with the few real predictions she has made." he calmly told her.

"Let's hope she isn't with this one." Faith grumbled to herself. "I'll never hear the end of it from the others. Prophecies are their thing not mine."

At this point the old woman seemed to recover and pulled herself erect as if nothing had happened. "Albus? What happened?"

"Nothing Sybill." the old man soothed her. "You tripped and this young lady stopped you from falling."

Faith wasn't sure why he didn't mention the prophecy but was in too much of a hurry to be bothered to deal with it. She could get Dawn to check it out for her discretely the next time she was in Cleveland. She didn't think she was going to forget it.

"Thank you." the old woman said to her.

"It was nothing." Faith told her. "If you'll excuse me... I have a train to catch." she said politely and nodded at the other two before resuming her journey. She could feel the old man watching her as she walked away.

• This occurs some time before Red Raider - The Quest but after the beginning of The Other Girl

© Copyright 2009 Andy Stoffel. Last update: 7/19/09; 10:53:03 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.