Fic - She Was Wrath
Title -- She Was Wrath
Author--
cornerofmadness
Disclaimer -- Joss Whedon owns all
Rating -- PG-13
Characters/Pairing -- Faith & Lilah
Timeline -- Post Series
Word Count -- 2,467
Warning --none
Summary -- Faith doesn’t understand how Angel could work for Wolfram and Hart but she’s going to find out.
Author’s Note -- This was written for the Circle of Friends remix. It’s a remix of M. Scott Eiland’s Damaged Goods, which you can find here.
“She was fury, she was wrath, she was vengeance.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows
XXX
Faith stood, staring the modern building stair stepping toward the sky. She hated the place and all the horrible memories it housed. She’d been inside it when she was at her lowest, at her absolute worst. They had taken her, recognizing her pain and vulnerability. They twisted her like a pretzel and set her off to murder the only man who really saw anything of worth in her.
Angel knew this. He was completely aware of what Wolfram and Hart was capable of, and yet somehow he was working with them. She and B had known this shortly after their school bus full of newly activated Slayers had pulled up to Angel’s place. Buffy had told her what Angel had relayed to her, and Faith had gone through the damn roof. It had been ugly. She thought she had actually scared Buffy with her tirade, and then Buffy wanted to know what the hell Angel was thinking.
Buffy was going to take that question to him, and Faith hoped Buffy didn’t rage her way straight out of a place to house the Slayers until they were recovered. As for Faith, she managed to corral Angel first, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. Afterward, she went to the source but chickened out at the doorway. No, not chickened out; Faith Lehane wasn’t afraid of this but she was cautious. She knew well how dangerous the people inside those walls could be, even if many of them were merely human. Granted, humans were evil enough in their own right. Her mother’s string of boyfriends had proven that to Faith from an early age.
She shook herself. She wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t contemplate those days before she had been Called, when she was still weak. She wouldn’t remember when she hunted Angel. She wouldn’t revisit the hell she’d unleashed on Wes and the jail time that came after it. Faith was ashamed to admit that she blossomed in the rigid structure of jail. Hell, if she thought about it, she’d have to admit she had done the same with her first Watcher, the first person to think she’d amount to anything. Her first Watcher had been as stiff upper lipped as Wes but maybe because she was an older woman, Faith had responded to her well. She mistrusted men. It was ingrained in her after her childhood. She used men and moved on, mostly because she feared what would happen if she stayed with them.
Angel was the exception, the first of them, if she discounted the Mayor, and Faith felt she should. She had made a few more exceptions for Wes and Robin, maybe even Xander and Giles if she were honest but if not for Angel, none of that would ever have happened. He believed in her, refused to kill her when she tried suicide by vampire. He visited her in jail, the only person to do so. It was enough. It gave her a ledge to dig her toes into and turn herself around.
So, she owed it to him and to herself to find out what the hell he was doing working for the enemy. Faith drew in a few deep breaths, not to calm herself but to give oxygen to her inner fire. She didn’t want calm. Calm would get her squat with these people. She needed the Slayer’s wrath. Luckily, it was easy to tap into. She stalked inside and no one stopped her. Hell, the security guard barely gave her a once over, his eyes lingering on her chest before he gave her a sharp nod of his chin.
Faith moved past him to the elevators. She checked the directory figuring things could have changed in the intervening years. She scoped out Morgan’s office number and found it easily enough, down a poshly carpeted corridor. Her personal assistant couldn’t be human. She set off Faith’s Slayer sense.
Faith jerked a thumb toward the inner door. “I’m going in.”
The woman pushed her hands flat on her desk. “Miss Morgan has no time today. Her appointment book is full. If you give me your name, I can put you in for her first available appointment. It’ll be about three weeks.”
Faith didn’t let it get under her skin, reminding herself this woman was merely doing her job. “You misunderstand me. I don’t give a damn about an appointment. I’m going in now.”
The assistant stood up, putting herself between Faith and the door. “That won’t be possible. Don’t make me call security.”
Faith smirked and shoved her aside one handed. She slammed her way into Lilah’s office. Lilah sat behind her desk, stacked high with tedious paperwork no doubt. She was immaculately coifed in a business suit that probably cost more money than Faith had ever seen in one place at one time. Cordelia would probably have coveted it if she weren’t in some mysterious coma that Angel was being a little secretive about. That set off alarm bells in Faith’s head too.
Buffy had wrote it off as ‘Angel is always secretive.” There was truth in that but Faith hated to tell Buffy she knew Angel better than her sister Slayer. Faith had made the mistake of asserting that once before, and it had nearly come to blows. She didn’t want to repeat that. She and B were almost in a good place, and she didn’t want to wreck that, especially not with all those Newbies relying on them. But after that Orpheus fueled ride through Angel’s brain, through his screwed-up history, she knew him better than literally anyone. Let him be the one to bring that up to Buffy if he wanted to. Maybe Buffy would believe it coming from him.
Faith shoved that to the back of her mind as Lilah was busy telling her personal assistant that security wasn’t needed. The woman beat a hasty retreat as Lilah fired the first shot across Faith’s bow, bringing up her imprisonment, like that was going to somehow rattle her. She stalked over to Lilah’s desk, grabbing it, letting the wood creak under her fury; better it than Lilah’s face. As much as she wanted to pummel the bitch, she knew she couldn’t. She had to be better. She had promised too many people now that she would be good. Felony assault would feel great right now but it wouldn’t serve her purposes.
“What is your game?” She said in harsh but measured tones.
Faith let Lilah’s mocking reply wash over her. She knew she was being baited but she refused to bite. It was shockingly easy to let it go past her. Wow, she really had grown. “Oh, no the evil lawyer is reminding me of my wicked, wicked past. I don’t think I can bear it!” Faith locked eyes with her as she mocked Lilah. Her only response was an arched eyebrow. She was one cool…well, Faith wouldn’t say what she thought of Lilah because those words had been edited out of her vocabulary between Dawn and all the baby Slayers. Buffy would lose it on her if she said what she was really thinking and admittedly they were ugly words. No woman should be called those things. “Angel told me that he’s in charge of this place now and that you were the chief stooge. I had to see it for myself.”
Faith still couldn’t believe it. She had confronted Angel after Buffy had told her about Wolfram and Hart but he didn’t deny it, not even when she had pressed him on how could he work for evil incorporated, especially knowing what they had made her do. Angel said there were reasons in a tone that didn’t invite pressing further. She had even reminded him about how she pulled him back from being Angelus, that he owed her. Faith wished she could remember that time more clearly. There was a haze around it that she didn’t understand but attributed it to the drug. Angel wouldn’t be budged.
“I always liked ‘minion’ or ‘lieutenant’ better. They both have that sinister touch that makes me feel all special when I come to work in the morning.”
It took all Faith had not to roll her eyes at that, prompting Lilah to bash on her sense of humor, as if she cared what Lilah thought about her at all.
“Lilah I won’t ask again. Is Angel your boss?”
That’s all she wanted. That was the only thing that mattered to her. She needed to know where Angel was in the scope of things. He couldn’t have flipped, right? He had to be playing an angle but what was it?
“Yep I’m head of Administration for Wolfram and Hart, Los Angeles. Every piece of paper that details significant projects for this firm and how they are funded comes across my desk.” Lilah droned on about her paper pushing job, actually appearing annoyed by it. Faith supposed if her corpse and soul were stuck paper pushing for eternity, she’d be grumpy too. It still didn’t answer what Faith really wanted to know; what the hell was Angel up to.
She started paying attention again when Lilah asked her to rip off her head. It wasn’t an offer she was made every day. Oh, that was so tempting but since Lilah seemed to want it, Faith had no intention of indulging her. “Thanks, I’ll pass. Didn’t you spend most of your time pushing paper anyway? What’s so bad about having to do it now?”
Lilah showed her. Faith couldn’t believe her eyes. This had to be a joke, one Angel was playing on Wolfram and Hart. Who knew he had it in him. She burst out laughing, unable to stop. Faith guffawed until tears rolled down her cheeks. It was brilliant. She would have to give Angel a pat on the back for this one.
“Well, if you’re done amusing yourself at my expense…”
“It’s just so funny, particularly after you just accused me of not having a sense of humor. This is something I’m going to put away for times when people I care about really need to be cheered up.” Faith composed herself, dashing the tears of mirth from her cheeks. “He’s making you give money away, anonymously so the firm can’t get a tax write off or publicity for it. I’m amazed you haven’t thrown yourself out of the windows yet.”
“Unbreakable,” Lilah said before trying to shoo her out of the office, obviously done indulging Faith. She had given up nothing of value, and Faith begrudgingly admired Lilah for it.
Faith was not about to be dismissed, however. She had come here for a purpose and Lilah was trying to derail her. Faith wasn’t about to let her. “You haven’t answered my question yet. What’s this whole thing about? Why did your senior partners give this place up to Angel? This is all part of some scheme to get them on their side, isn’t it?” She peppered the questions rapid fire trying to break through Lilah’s professional shell but she didn’t think she managed it.
“Well of course they’re trying to manipulate Angel, that’s what they do.” Lilah waved her off with a perfectly manicured hand that probably cost Faith’s weekly food budget. “Angel knows it, I know it, everyone in Angel’s little fighting club knows it, except Cordelia. She’s kind of out of it these days.”
Faith battled down her own temper over that stab at Cordy. She didn’t care much about Queen C but Angel did and that had been a cheap shot. As Lilah professed innocence when it came to the Senior Partners plans, she almost believed the woman but hated that Lilah could rile her when she couldn’t do the same. It didn’t help that Lilah had started in on the fact that everyone had a price. She didn’t want to think of her own price or worse, Angel having his. Lilah turned her back on Faith, a dangerous move. Faith didn’t get why Lilah had done it since she knew Lilah was well aware of how dangerous Faith could be. But there, she saw a chink in Lilah’s armor and went for it. “Even Wesley? So you had no problem with selling out the one person who ‘s given a damn about you!”
“Shut up!”
Lilah whirled around to face Faith, fire in her eyes. Yep, she definitely found Lilah’s hot button but now to use it well. “Do you think you have the slightest right to bring him up? He’s been fighting demons for four years here and most of the scars on his body are the ones you gave him.”
Faith hated that they shared the same weakness. She still couldn’t deal with the terrible things she had done to Wes. It would help if she had a way to hurt Lilah without hurting herself because the topic of Wes cut deep. “Wesley still thinks he failed me? Maybe he did, but he didn’t deserve what I did to him, and I’ll never be able to really make it up to him.” No one deserved what she had done to him. Hell, not even Angelus did. Faith still couldn’t fathom how low she had sunk. How Wesley could even look at her was a minor miracle. She wasn’t sure if Buffy and company had been told the true depths of her depravity that night. Maybe they should never know. “He really got to you, didn’t he?”
Lilah didn’t even deny it, not really. Faith felt the anger drain out of her. For the first time, maybe ever, she saw Lilah as a real person and not just a cog in the evilest corporation in the world. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Nothing had gone exactly as Faith had envisioned it. Even her promise to keep Angel and company safe, to stop the Senior Partners any way she could, even if she had to go straight through Lilah did nothing to impress the lawyer. No, maybe it had but the reminders of Wesley had opened such a deep well of pain both of them were drowning in it.
More sad than angry now, Faith left it with the promise of Slayer protection for Angel and company. She still had no clear idea as to why Angel was working here or what the Senior Partners wanted with him and his friends. She’d rope Buffy into protecting them because hell, Buffy would do that anyhow. Maybe between the two of them, they’d get the truth out of Angel but she doubted even he knew what the Senior Partners wanted. Whatever it was, they’d fight it together, and for now, that had to be enough. But if she could help it, she wasn’t walking through the door to this place again.
Author--
cornerofmadness
Disclaimer -- Joss Whedon owns all
Rating -- PG-13
Characters/Pairing -- Faith & Lilah
Timeline -- Post Series
Word Count -- 2,467
Warning --none
Summary -- Faith doesn’t understand how Angel could work for Wolfram and Hart but she’s going to find out.
Author’s Note -- This was written for the Circle of Friends remix. It’s a remix of M. Scott Eiland’s Damaged Goods, which you can find here.
“She was fury, she was wrath, she was vengeance.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows
XXX
Faith stood, staring the modern building stair stepping toward the sky. She hated the place and all the horrible memories it housed. She’d been inside it when she was at her lowest, at her absolute worst. They had taken her, recognizing her pain and vulnerability. They twisted her like a pretzel and set her off to murder the only man who really saw anything of worth in her.
Angel knew this. He was completely aware of what Wolfram and Hart was capable of, and yet somehow he was working with them. She and B had known this shortly after their school bus full of newly activated Slayers had pulled up to Angel’s place. Buffy had told her what Angel had relayed to her, and Faith had gone through the damn roof. It had been ugly. She thought she had actually scared Buffy with her tirade, and then Buffy wanted to know what the hell Angel was thinking.
Buffy was going to take that question to him, and Faith hoped Buffy didn’t rage her way straight out of a place to house the Slayers until they were recovered. As for Faith, she managed to corral Angel first, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. Afterward, she went to the source but chickened out at the doorway. No, not chickened out; Faith Lehane wasn’t afraid of this but she was cautious. She knew well how dangerous the people inside those walls could be, even if many of them were merely human. Granted, humans were evil enough in their own right. Her mother’s string of boyfriends had proven that to Faith from an early age.
She shook herself. She wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t contemplate those days before she had been Called, when she was still weak. She wouldn’t remember when she hunted Angel. She wouldn’t revisit the hell she’d unleashed on Wes and the jail time that came after it. Faith was ashamed to admit that she blossomed in the rigid structure of jail. Hell, if she thought about it, she’d have to admit she had done the same with her first Watcher, the first person to think she’d amount to anything. Her first Watcher had been as stiff upper lipped as Wes but maybe because she was an older woman, Faith had responded to her well. She mistrusted men. It was ingrained in her after her childhood. She used men and moved on, mostly because she feared what would happen if she stayed with them.
Angel was the exception, the first of them, if she discounted the Mayor, and Faith felt she should. She had made a few more exceptions for Wes and Robin, maybe even Xander and Giles if she were honest but if not for Angel, none of that would ever have happened. He believed in her, refused to kill her when she tried suicide by vampire. He visited her in jail, the only person to do so. It was enough. It gave her a ledge to dig her toes into and turn herself around.
So, she owed it to him and to herself to find out what the hell he was doing working for the enemy. Faith drew in a few deep breaths, not to calm herself but to give oxygen to her inner fire. She didn’t want calm. Calm would get her squat with these people. She needed the Slayer’s wrath. Luckily, it was easy to tap into. She stalked inside and no one stopped her. Hell, the security guard barely gave her a once over, his eyes lingering on her chest before he gave her a sharp nod of his chin.
Faith moved past him to the elevators. She checked the directory figuring things could have changed in the intervening years. She scoped out Morgan’s office number and found it easily enough, down a poshly carpeted corridor. Her personal assistant couldn’t be human. She set off Faith’s Slayer sense.
Faith jerked a thumb toward the inner door. “I’m going in.”
The woman pushed her hands flat on her desk. “Miss Morgan has no time today. Her appointment book is full. If you give me your name, I can put you in for her first available appointment. It’ll be about three weeks.”
Faith didn’t let it get under her skin, reminding herself this woman was merely doing her job. “You misunderstand me. I don’t give a damn about an appointment. I’m going in now.”
The assistant stood up, putting herself between Faith and the door. “That won’t be possible. Don’t make me call security.”
Faith smirked and shoved her aside one handed. She slammed her way into Lilah’s office. Lilah sat behind her desk, stacked high with tedious paperwork no doubt. She was immaculately coifed in a business suit that probably cost more money than Faith had ever seen in one place at one time. Cordelia would probably have coveted it if she weren’t in some mysterious coma that Angel was being a little secretive about. That set off alarm bells in Faith’s head too.
Buffy had wrote it off as ‘Angel is always secretive.” There was truth in that but Faith hated to tell Buffy she knew Angel better than her sister Slayer. Faith had made the mistake of asserting that once before, and it had nearly come to blows. She didn’t want to repeat that. She and B were almost in a good place, and she didn’t want to wreck that, especially not with all those Newbies relying on them. But after that Orpheus fueled ride through Angel’s brain, through his screwed-up history, she knew him better than literally anyone. Let him be the one to bring that up to Buffy if he wanted to. Maybe Buffy would believe it coming from him.
Faith shoved that to the back of her mind as Lilah was busy telling her personal assistant that security wasn’t needed. The woman beat a hasty retreat as Lilah fired the first shot across Faith’s bow, bringing up her imprisonment, like that was going to somehow rattle her. She stalked over to Lilah’s desk, grabbing it, letting the wood creak under her fury; better it than Lilah’s face. As much as she wanted to pummel the bitch, she knew she couldn’t. She had to be better. She had promised too many people now that she would be good. Felony assault would feel great right now but it wouldn’t serve her purposes.
“What is your game?” She said in harsh but measured tones.
Faith let Lilah’s mocking reply wash over her. She knew she was being baited but she refused to bite. It was shockingly easy to let it go past her. Wow, she really had grown. “Oh, no the evil lawyer is reminding me of my wicked, wicked past. I don’t think I can bear it!” Faith locked eyes with her as she mocked Lilah. Her only response was an arched eyebrow. She was one cool…well, Faith wouldn’t say what she thought of Lilah because those words had been edited out of her vocabulary between Dawn and all the baby Slayers. Buffy would lose it on her if she said what she was really thinking and admittedly they were ugly words. No woman should be called those things. “Angel told me that he’s in charge of this place now and that you were the chief stooge. I had to see it for myself.”
Faith still couldn’t believe it. She had confronted Angel after Buffy had told her about Wolfram and Hart but he didn’t deny it, not even when she had pressed him on how could he work for evil incorporated, especially knowing what they had made her do. Angel said there were reasons in a tone that didn’t invite pressing further. She had even reminded him about how she pulled him back from being Angelus, that he owed her. Faith wished she could remember that time more clearly. There was a haze around it that she didn’t understand but attributed it to the drug. Angel wouldn’t be budged.
“I always liked ‘minion’ or ‘lieutenant’ better. They both have that sinister touch that makes me feel all special when I come to work in the morning.”
It took all Faith had not to roll her eyes at that, prompting Lilah to bash on her sense of humor, as if she cared what Lilah thought about her at all.
“Lilah I won’t ask again. Is Angel your boss?”
That’s all she wanted. That was the only thing that mattered to her. She needed to know where Angel was in the scope of things. He couldn’t have flipped, right? He had to be playing an angle but what was it?
“Yep I’m head of Administration for Wolfram and Hart, Los Angeles. Every piece of paper that details significant projects for this firm and how they are funded comes across my desk.” Lilah droned on about her paper pushing job, actually appearing annoyed by it. Faith supposed if her corpse and soul were stuck paper pushing for eternity, she’d be grumpy too. It still didn’t answer what Faith really wanted to know; what the hell was Angel up to.
She started paying attention again when Lilah asked her to rip off her head. It wasn’t an offer she was made every day. Oh, that was so tempting but since Lilah seemed to want it, Faith had no intention of indulging her. “Thanks, I’ll pass. Didn’t you spend most of your time pushing paper anyway? What’s so bad about having to do it now?”
Lilah showed her. Faith couldn’t believe her eyes. This had to be a joke, one Angel was playing on Wolfram and Hart. Who knew he had it in him. She burst out laughing, unable to stop. Faith guffawed until tears rolled down her cheeks. It was brilliant. She would have to give Angel a pat on the back for this one.
“Well, if you’re done amusing yourself at my expense…”
“It’s just so funny, particularly after you just accused me of not having a sense of humor. This is something I’m going to put away for times when people I care about really need to be cheered up.” Faith composed herself, dashing the tears of mirth from her cheeks. “He’s making you give money away, anonymously so the firm can’t get a tax write off or publicity for it. I’m amazed you haven’t thrown yourself out of the windows yet.”
“Unbreakable,” Lilah said before trying to shoo her out of the office, obviously done indulging Faith. She had given up nothing of value, and Faith begrudgingly admired Lilah for it.
Faith was not about to be dismissed, however. She had come here for a purpose and Lilah was trying to derail her. Faith wasn’t about to let her. “You haven’t answered my question yet. What’s this whole thing about? Why did your senior partners give this place up to Angel? This is all part of some scheme to get them on their side, isn’t it?” She peppered the questions rapid fire trying to break through Lilah’s professional shell but she didn’t think she managed it.
“Well of course they’re trying to manipulate Angel, that’s what they do.” Lilah waved her off with a perfectly manicured hand that probably cost Faith’s weekly food budget. “Angel knows it, I know it, everyone in Angel’s little fighting club knows it, except Cordelia. She’s kind of out of it these days.”
Faith battled down her own temper over that stab at Cordy. She didn’t care much about Queen C but Angel did and that had been a cheap shot. As Lilah professed innocence when it came to the Senior Partners plans, she almost believed the woman but hated that Lilah could rile her when she couldn’t do the same. It didn’t help that Lilah had started in on the fact that everyone had a price. She didn’t want to think of her own price or worse, Angel having his. Lilah turned her back on Faith, a dangerous move. Faith didn’t get why Lilah had done it since she knew Lilah was well aware of how dangerous Faith could be. But there, she saw a chink in Lilah’s armor and went for it. “Even Wesley? So you had no problem with selling out the one person who ‘s given a damn about you!”
“Shut up!”
Lilah whirled around to face Faith, fire in her eyes. Yep, she definitely found Lilah’s hot button but now to use it well. “Do you think you have the slightest right to bring him up? He’s been fighting demons for four years here and most of the scars on his body are the ones you gave him.”
Faith hated that they shared the same weakness. She still couldn’t deal with the terrible things she had done to Wes. It would help if she had a way to hurt Lilah without hurting herself because the topic of Wes cut deep. “Wesley still thinks he failed me? Maybe he did, but he didn’t deserve what I did to him, and I’ll never be able to really make it up to him.” No one deserved what she had done to him. Hell, not even Angelus did. Faith still couldn’t fathom how low she had sunk. How Wesley could even look at her was a minor miracle. She wasn’t sure if Buffy and company had been told the true depths of her depravity that night. Maybe they should never know. “He really got to you, didn’t he?”
Lilah didn’t even deny it, not really. Faith felt the anger drain out of her. For the first time, maybe ever, she saw Lilah as a real person and not just a cog in the evilest corporation in the world. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Nothing had gone exactly as Faith had envisioned it. Even her promise to keep Angel and company safe, to stop the Senior Partners any way she could, even if she had to go straight through Lilah did nothing to impress the lawyer. No, maybe it had but the reminders of Wesley had opened such a deep well of pain both of them were drowning in it.
More sad than angry now, Faith left it with the promise of Slayer protection for Angel and company. She still had no clear idea as to why Angel was working here or what the Senior Partners wanted with him and his friends. She’d rope Buffy into protecting them because hell, Buffy would do that anyhow. Maybe between the two of them, they’d get the truth out of Angel but she doubted even he knew what the Senior Partners wanted. Whatever it was, they’d fight it together, and for now, that had to be enough. But if she could help it, she wasn’t walking through the door to this place again.