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Chapter Text

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or ‘Over There’. I write these stories for fun not profit.

Crossover: BtVS and ‘Over There’.

Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar; Written in glorious English-English which is different to American-English..

Timeline: Post BtVS Season 7; Over There, Season 1.

Words: 13 Chapters.

Warnings: Some strong language and violence.

Summary: 'Over There' xover; …Sergeant Lehane showed great fortitude and bravery during the action of the 26th October, 2005. Her boldness of spirit and courage exemplify the very best traditions of the US Infantry…

Authors Note: Canon up to BtVS season 4 ‘This Years Girl’, AU from that point onwards; major changes to canon concerning Riley, Buffy and Faith’s actions.

Tom Lehrer.

3rd Infantry Division Area of Operations, Iraq, July, 2005.

“Ya sure this is the right road?”

Looking across the cab, PFC Esmeralda (Doublewide) Del Rio glanced at her partner, PV2 Brenda (Mrs B) Mitchell and raised a weary eyebrow. Their new Corporal had been ragging on them all morning, they’d both hoped that she’d stay back at Liberty when they’d been detailed to go out and repair a Hummer. But oh-no, that would be way too easy, Corporal ‘Bitch’ wanted to come along too.

“I’m sure, Corporal,” Doublewide told the non-com with only a hint of a world weary sigh, “Staff Sergeant Hicks said, first left after the burnt out truck an’ this here is first left.”

“Okay,” Faith admitted grudgingly, “maybe you two know what ya doin’ after all.”

Looking down at the map in her hands, Faith studied it for a moment trying to get her bearings. Looking up out of the wind-shield, she studied her dusty surroundings for a moment before admitting to herself she was lost.

“Sorry,” Faith sighed quietly, junior non-com’s weren’t supposed to tell privates they were sorry, they were supposed to know everything even when they didn’t.

“Y’what?” Doublewide turned and looked at Faith as if she’d suggested something improper.

“Look,” Faith admitted, “I shouldn’t have snapped at ya back there, I…”

“Time o’ the month?” Mrs B smirked.

“Yeah,” Faith started to feel pissed again, “somethin’ like that.”

The truth was, Faith didn’t know if she liked Mrs B. The short, blonde, teenager was a pig-headed little bitch and probably a liability to the squad she was attached to plus the entire army. But, she’d not done anything to make Faith feel like she wanted to snap her scrawny neck; which was precisely how Faith felt right at this moment. The fact was that Mrs B reminded her far too much of the face-less woman that came to her in her nightmares, didn’t exactly improve her feeling towards the girl.

This was the mystery woman who’d killed her father and had come after her with his blood still dripping from her knife; the mere thought of it made Faith shiver slightly in the desert heat. Closing her eyes for a moment, she once again saw the park and her father (or at least the man she assumed was her father) sitting next to her on the blanket. They talked and laughed enjoying their picnic until…. Until the blonde in grey walked up behind her father, he turned to look up at her almost as if he was expecting her. Faith remembered the glint of the knife flashing through the air and the blood spurting from her father’s throat.

Remembering how she’d screamed and how she’d crawled away from the murderess; Faith also remembered how the woman had come after her chasing her until… Well, she must have caught up with her because the next thing Faith remembered was waking up in hospital eight months later. Everything had changed, or she thought it had because she couldn’t remember anything before that fateful picnic; at least nothing that mattered. Faith could remember her name, she could remember songs she’d heard and movies she’d seen, but who she was, she’d no idea. Everything before that day was a big black hole. Opening her eyes, Faith saw the ever present dust rise around the truck as it bounced along what was laughingly referred to as a road. No more than a kilometre away, she caught her first glimpse of the deserted little town that was their target.

“Jeez,” Faith breathed softly, “what a shithole.”

“You got that right, sister,” agreed Doublewide quietly.

Turning the truck into what had been ‘Main Street’, Mrs B brought the vehicle to a halt. Sitting there between the two privates, Faith studied the town for a moment. The village-town, whatever, was a typical Iraqi ‘dump’. Only this ‘dump’ had been made more interesting by someone having fought over it at sometime in the past; Faith couldn’t decide if it made the town look better or worse. Twenty or thirty metres up the narrow street stood a Hummer, its hood open and an ominous dark stain under the engine where something had soaked into the sand. Near the Hummer stood four typical desert grunts all looking at the truck expectantly waiting for Faith and her party to make their entrance.

“Come-on guys,” Faith shifted in her seat as she checked her rifle, “let’s get this show on the road.”

Opening her door Mrs B jumped down onto the sand, turning she accepted her rifle off Faith. Doublewide climbed out the other side and heaved her tool box down from the cab; Faith was the last to jump down onto the sandy road. Holding her rifle casually in one hand and resting the butt on her hip, she looked up and down the street checking out the buildings for danger, she felt nothing.

Not long after leaving the hospital in Sunnydale, Faith had found she could sense danger, at first she’d assumed that everyone could do it. It wasn’t until she was in Basic that she discovered she’d been wrong. Okay, everyone could sense danger to a certain degree, but they couldn’t actually point to the bush hiding the machine-gun or tell if someone was waiting around a corner. It’d puzzled her instructors and confused her, but over time she’d learnt how to use and then sharpen her skills.

Walking towards the soldiers, Faith noticed the Iraqi civilian standing in the middle of the street for the first time. Someone had placed him in a stress position; arms out from his sides and knees slightly bent. A sadistic drill instructor had tried something like that on her once in basic, she’d given up long before Faith had.

“What happened to him?” Faith asked a tall soldier who wore spectacles, the name tag on his body armour said ‘Dumphy’.

“He got caught,” Dumphy gave Faith a crooked smile.

“What happened to y’vehicle?” Doublewide wanted to know as she walked over and looked into the engine compartment of the Humvee.

“Got shot,” Dumphy replied his grin getting wider.

Sauntering over to the Hummer, Faith gave it a once over, she sighed and shook her head, it looked as if it’d received a long burst of fire directly into the engine.

“See what ya can do, Doublewide,” Faith pushed her helmet up off her forehead a little, Doublewide was a way better mechanic that she was, “yell if ya need a hand, okay?”

“Don’t worry, Corporal,” Doublewide opened her tool box and rested her rifle against the side of the Hummer; “I’ve got it.”

“Who shot it, Dumphy?” Faith smiled noting the reaction of the infantryman; this was something else Faith had slowly realised that was different about herself, she had really good eyesight and could read things from further away than most people expected.

“Don’t know,” Dumphy was talking like an idiot from Hicksville, Faith wasn’t fooled by the act, “and I saw him do it.” Faith noticed that Dumphy had lost his smile, there was something going on here that he wasn’t happy about. “Shooter’s in with Sergeant Scream,” Dumphy jerked his head towards a semi-derelict building to his left.

Nodding her head, Faith glanced over at the building; Sergeant Chris ‘Scream’ Silas was something of a legend within the battalion; a long service veteran who knew his business.

“Y’all got resupply?” asked a soldier with the name ‘Williams’ printed on his body armour, “I’ve got like two MRE’s left.”

“Yeah,” Faith jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the truck, “in the back of the truck, there’s water too.”

“Oh yeah!” Williams punched the air as he moved determinedly towards the vehicle.

As she followed him with her eyes, Faith saw Mrs B standing in front of the prisoner in some sort of weird martial arts pose. ‘The Striking Crane’, or something, Faith remembered it from watching one of the ‘Karate Kid’ films. Shaking her head in disgust, Faith wondered how she could remember some crappy film from the 80’s but not who she really was.

“Leave the prisoner alone,” Faith ordered.

Reluctantly Mrs B relaxed her pose and wandered off to stand at the side of the street. Faith gave the teenager a hard look as she turned and walked over to see how Doublewide was getting on.

“Man, I wish I had my husband here,” Doublewide complained as she struggled to loosen a nut.

“Don’t we all?” Faith grinned as she reached out and took the wrench from Doublewide’s hand, “It’d sure make these long cold nights more interesting.”

“No, that ain’t what I mean,” Doublewide explained “he’s got a tool-kit that makes this government issue shit look like the second-rate shit it really is,”

“Wouldn’t you mind sharing his ‘tool-kit’ with the rest of us girls?” Faith undid the nut easily and handed the wrench back to Doublewide with a smile.

“Whatever,” Doublewide sighed and went back to work.

Walking on over to the truck again, Faith climbed up into the cab and pretended to be checking on something. In reality she was trying, once again, to come to terms with the strangeness that was her life, which included ‘superstrength’. Sometimes she scared herself she was so different to everyone else. The things she could do frightened her. Most of the time she tried not to stand out too much, but it would be nice one day to let her ‘mad skills’ run free for a while.

Ambling over to where Doublewide worked, ‘Dim’ Dumphy and ‘Angel’ King looked at the semi-wrecked engine then at each other, they shook their heads defeated by the internal workings of the Hummer and turned their attention to Doublewide.

“So what’s the story on the new Corporal?” Angel asked nodding his head towards the truck.

“Her?” Doublewide pulled her head from the engine compartment and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “She came up from Kuwait last week,” Doublewide glanced towards the truck; the new Corporal had ears on her like a bat, she didn’t want to be overheard. “Story goes she beat the crap outta four Marine Recon guys over a game of pool or somethin’.”

“No way!” Laughed Dim.

“What her?” Angel looked at Faith in surprise, “Like by herself?”

“Uh-huh,” Doublewide nodded her head, “that’s what they say. Anyways, the Marine Colonel was so embarrassed by having the crap beaten outta four of his big, rough, tough, marines by one itty-bitty army-girl he wouldn’t press charges; didn’t stop the army sending her up here though.”

“Guess they thought that if she likes to fight so much,” Dim looked in the direction of the truck, “she might as well do it up here.”

“What do they call her?” Angel asked.

“Oh yeah,” Doublewide smiled, “you’ll luuuv this…Corporal ‘Slay’, coz she sure ‘slayed’ those gyrines!”

“No shit!” Dim laughed quietly.

The long afternoon slowly turned into evening; Faith made herself known to Sergeant Silas who dismissed her from his mind almost immediately. This didn’t bother Faith that much, the guy looked tired and probably didn’t want to bother about some nameless new corporal just now. Most of her time was spent wandering between Doublewide, who was still working on the engine and Mrs B who was trying to goof-off. Faith tried not to rag on the teenager too much, she was a driver not a mechanic so there wasn’t much for her to do anyway. But Faith couldn’t help feeling that Mrs B was a screw-up waiting to happen and that didn’t fit well with Faith’s regular army sensibilities.

Faith loved the army, it gave her the order and security she seemed to crave. Plus it was one-hundred percent better than anything that had happened to her after she’d walked out of Sunnydale General. She remembered waking up in a room somewhere in the hospital’s basement. Apparently she’d been in a coma for about eight months and no one had expected her to come out of it. Somewhere along the line her medical insurance had run out and the bills had stopped being paid. The hospital, unable to just switch off her life support, had moved her down into the basement and put her on minimal care.

When she’d woken up it’d come as a complete shock to everyone; Faith couldn’t remember who she was or what had happened to her. The hospital authorities had moved her into a better room (one above ground) and the police had come to talk to her; she couldn’t tell them anymore than she’d told the doctors. A couple of weeks after waking up, Faith found herself well enough to get out of hospital but the hospital authorities wouldn’t release her. Apparently they wanted to do more tests on her to find out why she’d woken up and why she was in such good physical condition.

Then, one evening, two Sunnydale PD detectives came to see her; they told her they’d worked for the mayor. Faith had sort of worked out that her father had been the mayor but had been killed in an accident; however, for some reason no one would give her the full story. The detectives gave her a large envelope containing a driver’s licence, a social security card and about two thousand dollars. They also gave her a bag containing some clothes and advised her to leave town that night; they didn’t explain why.

That night, Faith sneaked out of the hospital and got a bus to LA. For a couple of months she drifted from motel to motel, never staying in one place too long just in case someone was looking for her. As she desperately tried to piece together her life she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was after her. One morning when she was out of options and only had a couple of hundred dollars left, Faith walked into the nearest army recruitment office. Having decided there was nothing for her in her past; it was time to be the best she could be in her future.

It was fully dark now; everyone had eaten, except the prisoner and the mysterious officer that Faith hadn’t seen yet. Doublewide was still tinkering about in the engine compartment and Mrs B was sitting against the wall of a building talking to the other soldiers who weren’t actively on guard. Silas wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so, Faith drifted from Doublewide to where the soldiers sat and then back again.

“You okay, Doublewide?” Faith asked on one of her visits to the mechanic, “I can have Mrs B give you a hand if ya want.”

”No thanks, Corporal,” Doublewide stood up from the engine and wiped her hands on a rag, “she’s just a driver not a mechanic. Anyways I’ve nearly finished.”

“Cool,” Faith patted Doublewide on her shoulder, “get cleaned up and get ya head down, okay?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Doublewide started to collect up her tools as Faith turned to face the street.

Just as Faith was running her eyes over the darkened street (she didn’t need night vision aids, to her the street was almost a bright as day) the prisoner gave a quiet groan and fell over.

“What the fuck?” Faith walked swiftly over coming up behind the two soldiers who’d been watching the prisoner.

“What do we do?” Angel asked Smoke, the SAW gunner, as he looked down at the prisoner.

“The man said ‘watch him’,” Smoke replied not moving a muscle, “I’m watching him.”

Faith smiled to herself, that’s what she liked; a grunt who obeyed orders!

“Don’t you think you better check him out?” This was from Dim who was hidden in a dark corner next to one of the buildings.

“Nope,” Smoke replied calmly, unknowingly making Faith smile again; anyone with half a brain could see this was probably a set-up.

Obviously Dim couldn’t see it, he got up and walked over to where the prisoner lay, Faith felt herself tense ready to fight.

“Hey,” Dim called quietly but getting no response from the prisoner, “hey,” he tried again this time nudging the Iraqi’s leg with his foot, “you alright?”

Angel looked at Smoke as they shifted uncomfortably; perhaps the prisoner had died while in their care, if so they were in deep shit. Still not getting any reaction from the prisoner, Dim reached down to shake him awake; Faith moved to her left so she could get a clear shot at the Iraqi if she needed to.

“You alive at least?” Dim was now standing right over the prisoner.

Suddenly it happened; the prisoner exploded into action and grabbed hold of Dim throwing him off his feet and into the dust. He rolled on top of the soldier as he tried to wrestle Dim’s weapon from his hands. Dim was already fighting back and by the time Faith had got to the struggling men he’d almost got the better of the Iraqi.

Grabbing the collar of Dim’s jacket, Faith heaved him off the prisoner and pushed him out of the way. Dim hit the wall of a building about eight feet away with a loud, surprised grunt as the air was forced out of his lungs. Before he’d even started to gather his wits about him and before anyone else could intervene, Faith had picked up the prisoner and hurled him against the wall of a building on the opposite side of the street. Even before the prisoner had had a chance to bounce off the wall and fall to floor again, Faith was there pressing the muzzle of her rifle against the man’s chest.

“Just give me an excuse, motherfucker,” she snarled quietly into his face.

The prisoner tried to struggle but found he couldn’t move, for a moment his eyes went wide with fear just before he started to yell.

“ALLAH! I COME! I COME TO YOU!” He shouted as other hands grabbed him and held him securely, Faith allowed herself to relax.

“Not till you tell me where my Stingers are,” came a loud male voice from behind Faith.

Turning Faith saw the mysterious officer who was there to interrogate the prisoner. He was a big fair haired man; he was so big he made the M4 in his hand look like a toy.

“I will be welcomed in paradise as a martyr,” the prisoner informed everyone calmly.

“Not if we bury ya in a pig skin, asshole,” Faith informed him, she’d read this somewhere or seen it in a movie, she was interested to see what effect the threat would have; as it turned out, not a lot.

“WHERE’S MY MISSILES!” The officer screamed into the prisoner’s face ignoring Faith’s comment.

“KILL ME!” Demanded the prisoner.

“Be my pleasure,” Faith pulled a knife from a sheath on her leg.

“YOU SAVAGES, YOU HEATHERNS!” Persisted the prisoner, “YOU DEVILS, KILL ME!” The prisoner started to shout in Arabic again as he saw Faith move towards him her knife out and ready. “Kill me…” he begged almost sobbing, “Please…”

“Stand down Corporal,” the officer looked directly at Faith before looking down at the prisoner. “You’re not getting off that easy kid.”

“At ease, Corporal,” the officer was pacing up and down in front of an old battered table in the building he’d been using all day, Faith relaxed a little, “I saw what you did out there.”

“Don’t know what ya mean, Sir,” Faith replied as her eyes followed the officer’s movements across the floor.

“I saw you throw the prisoner across the street,” the officer explained, “now how did you manage to do that?” Before Faith could reply the officer spoke again, “And don’t give me any crap about training or how it was dark and I didn’t see right. I know what I saw.”

Faith remained mute, the moment she’d most feared appeared to have arrived. Up until now she’d always been able to hide or divert people away from how different she was.

“You weigh, what? A hundred-and-twenty pounds?” The officer pointed out, “I know our friend out there isn’t exactly a heavy weight but I couldn’t do what you did.”

Still Faith remained silent: it seemed like her best option.

“Okay Corporal, have it your way,” the officer signed tiredly, “go get some sleep.” Faith turned to go but was brought up short by the officer’s next words. “I’ll be watching you.”

The next morning the sound of smashing furniture and yelling drifted out into the street from the house where the insurgent was being interrogated. The mysterious officer, who Faith had discovered was called Ryan, didn’t sound as if he was having much luck persuading the Iraqi to give up the location of his missiles.

Climbing down from the truck, where she’d been catching a few zees’s, Faith walked out into the dusty street and looked around; Dim; Angel and Smoke were sitting in the shade in front of Hummer. They were talking to Doublewide and Mrs B about what Ryan was doing to the Iraqi and whether any of them were going to report him; the consensus of opinion seemed to be that they wouldn’t. Sergeant Scream was sitting with his eyes closed and his helmet off, his back against the wall of a building a few yards away from his squad; Faith could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t really asleep. The same sensitive hearing that told her Scream wasn’t really sleeping told her that Tariq, the last member of the squad, was in with Ryan translating.

It occurred to Faith that with all the squad members accounted for there was no one on guard. Looking down at Scream she wondered if she should say something, she didn’t know Scream at all, so she didn’t know how he liked to work. Maybe he’d told the squad not to bother with a formal guard during daylight hours. Adjusting her grip on her rifle, Faith decided she had to say something.

“What’s goin’ on, Sergeant?”

“I’m not supposed to say,” Scream didn’t open his eyes; he just lay there pretending to be asleep.

Realising that Scream had misunderstood her question, Faith looked around with a frown on her face; she noticed that the squad was listening intently to her and Scream.

“But I will if you promise to keep your mouths shut so I can sleep,” Scream continued.

“Yeah, okay,” Faith replied hesitantly; to be honest she didn’t care why Ryan was ragging on the prisoner.

“The town where we were working roadblock duty, Barak?” Scream explained sounding a little like Clint Eastwood.

The squad had been on roadblock duty a couple of days before when they’d captured the Iraqi that Ryan was so interested in.

“Someone in that town hijacked a truck with twenty Stinger missiles in it…” Scream paused for a moment.

“Shit,” Smoke breathed quietly.

“Ryan thinks this guy knows where the missiles are at,” Scream shifted slightly before continuing, “and until those missiles are found there’s no close air support in this sector. Which means if you get pinned down, the helo’s can’t come in to help you. So I’m thinking I’m gonna give this guy some latitude, right Corporal?”

“Yeah, right,” Faith scratched her head, “like that was all real interesting Sergeant but shouldn’t there be someone on guard?”

Scream opened one eye and looked up at Faith. “Dim!” He called, “You’ve got the duty.”

The day passed by slowly; Faith took herself off on patrol’s of the town, mainly to relieve the boredom, but also to familiarise herself with the layout of the place. Sometimes she went by herself, sometimes she took one of the squad. It seemed to her that they were going to be in this ville for some time, they had a load of MRE’s and water in the back of the truck which was way too much for just a quick in and out mission. It was on one of her patrols that she found herself walking next to the guy they called ‘Angel’.

“Have we met?” Faith asked as they walked down one of the hot dusty allies.

“Don’t think so Corporal,” Angel gave Faith a look out of the corner of his eye wondering if the Corporal was coming on to him.

“It’s just like I know that name from somewhere,” Faith explained, “I mean ‘Angel’ isn’t a regular nickname.”

“I got called it ‘cause I sang in a church choir,” Angel explained, “you musta heard it around camp.”

“Ya think?” Faith wasn’t convinced; this was another of those half memories that struggled from her mind every now and again to tease her.

Looking at the guy hard, Faith decided that maybe he was right, perhaps she’d heard someone say something about a guy called Angel.

“Church choir, eh?” Faith stopped to stare into a darkened building, her eyes quickly adapting from the glaring sunlight of the alley to the cool darkness of the building. “How come you’re the squad sharpshooter?” she gestured at the ACOG sight on Angel’s M4.

“I learnt to shoot at Church Camp,” Angel shrugged and gave Faith a tired smile, “just comes natural to me, I suppose.”

Glancing at the guy again, Faith decided he was right, she’d never met him before.

“Okay,” Faith stopped in the middle of the alley, “let’s go back to the truck.”

“Anything you say, Corporal,” Angel just stood there looking at Faith.

“You don’t like me do you?” Faith asked, she could tell by the tone in his voice.

“It’s not that, Corporal,” Angel sighed and looked down at his feet, “it’s just that I…we…the squad, we don’t know you. We don’t know if we can trust you when the shit’s flyin’.”

“Gotta prove m’self, eh?” Faith grinned like a tiger that had just spotted her lunch.

“Something like that,” Angel agreed.

“Cool,” Faith smiled, “come on, let’s go,” she started to lead Angel back towards the truck, “Y’know I only go on these patrol’s to relieve the boredom,” she grinned at Angel, “and hey, we might ‘a found one of those stashes they say are all over this crap-hole country. Hell,” Faith slapped Angel’s arm playfully, “we could’ve been goin’ home with a million bucks!”

“No such luck,” Angel winced and rubbed his arm where Faith had slapped it, man, he thought, she was strong.

A/N; SNAFU, Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

Chapter Text

Eventually a long, hot, boring day turned into a long, cold, boring night. For some reason Doublewide had decided that now was a good time to do some more maintenance under the Hummer, Faith supposed it was better than doing it in the heat of the day. It wasn’t as if they were in a hurry to go anywhere.

The officer, Ryan, had spent all day yelling at the prisoner with Tariq translating the officer’s insults so the Iraqi didn’t miss any of the finer points. So far the insurgent hadn’t said a word other than to fling back some insults of his own. Faith felt sure that if she was left alone with the little asshole for half an hour, Ryan would soon find out where his missiles where. All he’d have to do would be to threaten to give him back to the girl with the sharp knife. The rag-head would soon give it up and tell him all he wanted to know.

But no one asked mere corporal’s to exercise any expertise in these matters however, so, Faith just sat in the sand with her back resting against the Hummer and passed Doublewide her tools as she called for them. Looking up after handing Doublewide another wrench, Faith noted everyone’s positions, it was something she did quite naturally particularly at night.

Angel was on guard down the street a ways; Tariq, Smoke and Mrs B where sitting sharing a bottle of water next to the building where Ryan was set up. Sergeant Scream was nowhere to be seen, probably taking a dump somewhere, Faith thought. The prisoner was back in his stress position in the middle of the street and Dim… Dim got up from where he’d been sitting and walked into building being used by Ryan. Listening hard, Faith tried to make out what was being said, she couldn’t get more that a few words but she could tell by the tone of Dim’s voice he wasn’t happy, his conscious was pricking him.

“Fuck sake,” Faith sighed.

“What was that Corporal?” Doublewide peered up at her from under the Hummer.

“Nothin’,” Faith spat into the sand, “Hey,” she called softly before Doublewide disappeared back under the Hummer, “that Dim-guy, he’s a good soldier right?”

“Yeah sure,” Doublewide gave Faith a troubled look.

“Then why’s he beatin’ himself up over some asshole Iraqi?” Faith wanted to know.

“Maybe it don’t seem right to him?” Doublewide suggested.

“Yeah maybe,” Faith nodded her head just as Mrs B came and sat down next to her, “whatever.”

Going back to trying to listen in on what Dim and Ryan where talking about, Faith failed to notice all the noise being made by the insurgents as they moved into position further down the street. However, she certainly noticed the RPG as it whooshed through the air and exploded against a nearby building.

“SHIT!” Faith grabbed for her rifle and hauled back on the charging lever.

Looking up she saw muzzle flashes from several locations at the far end of the street. Bullets ricocheted off the hood of the Hummer and she ducked back down behind the vehicle. Looking left and right she saw Doublewide and Mrs B looking scared but clutching hold of their rifles like they meant to use them. They weren’t going to run; Faith smiled reassuringly at the two women just before she lashed out with her foot and kicked the arc-light that Doublewide had been using to illuminate the Hummer. The light fell over and went out; its demise markedly reduced the number of rounds coming their way.

Taking her chance, Faith peered over the hood of the Hummer again. This time she could make out about a dozen muzzle flashes coming from fifty or sixty metres down the street. Firing off a couple of rounds, Faith was gratified to see an insurgent throw up his arms and slide out of view. The rest of the squad were firing back as they spotted targets, another insurgent went down this time from a burst of fire from Angel.

Smiling to herself, Faith didn’t need night vision aids, a fact that she kept to herself. Although the colours looked a little washed out to her it was almost as bright as day. The insurgents gave away their positions every time they fired. They didn’t switch position after sending a long, wild burst of fire at the squad so they made themselves easy targets. Once you’d spotted an enemy position you’d be pretty sure they’d fire from it again, all you had to do was wait until they popped their heads up and then blow them off! Glancing to the rear, Faith saw there was no fire coming from behind them. If she’d been setting this up she’d have attacked from all sides at once and quickly overrun the position. As it was the insurgents seemed happy to keep their distance and ‘spray and pray’ from the other end of the street.

“Okay, listen up!” Faith grabbed the attention of Doublewide and Mrs B. “This is what ya gonna do,” Faith looked up and down the street once more, nothing had changed much. “Stay here an’ defend this here Hummer, right?”

Doublewide and Mrs B nodded their heads their eyes wide with fear in the darkness.

“What are you gonna do, Corporal?” Mrs B wanted to know.

“I’m goin’ out there,” Faith pointed to the buildings lit up by the strobe-like flashes of rifle fire, “so don’t you god-damn shoot me when I come back, okay?” Faith started to crawl towards the buildings opposite, she paused to look back at the two women, “Put some fuckin’ rounds out will ya!?”

With that parting order, Faith disappeared into the night and Doublewide and Mrs B started to fire their rifles.

It was no use denying it, Faith loved the night. Her enhanced senses seemed sharper to her somehow than during the day. Like now, she could just sense where the insurgents where without even having to look. Pausing in a doorway she could hear Sergeant Scream getting the defence organised; she heard Angel’s steady firing as he sort out the enemy and she could hear the insurgent’s screams when he found them.

From the noises going on all around her, Faith could tell that the squad were more or less concentrated around the Hummer, all that is, except for Smoke who appeared to have got himself separated and pinned down. Faith frowned and shook her head, ignoring the sounds coming from the squad she concentrated on the insurgents. They were shouting to each other excitedly as the blazed away indiscriminately at the Americans.

They shouted to each other like they’d killed hundreds of Americans and were winning the battle, Faith noted that there were more than a dozen of them; she could feel them moving through the alleys towards her trying to slip behind the squad's positions. From the direction they were taking, Faith guessed that they’d come out right on top of Doublewide and Mrs B, the two women would be caught out in the open and even these insurgent jokers wouldn’t be able to miss gunning them down at that range.

Getting up from the doorway, Faith ran silently down the alley, she paused at a junction and listened again. The firing from over by Scream’s position had fallen into a steady rhythm. The insurgents she was hunting sounded like they were making their way along a road or alley one building over. Faith could hear them chattering amongst themselves, no doubt telling each other how Allah would reward them in paradise for fighting the American infidels. Giving a wolf-like grin, Faith moved rapidly down the narrow passageway. If she had her way they’d soon be checking out paradise in person.

Halting at the corner where the alley joined a road; Faith peered around the building to see half a dozen insurgents making their way along the street away from her. Stepping out into the road she brought her rifle to her shoulder and fired one round. The last insurgent in the line dropped his rifle and threw up his hands, his knees giving way as he fell silently to the ground exposing the next man in line.

Firing again, Faith watched as the second insurgent joined his comrade in the dust. The third insurgent, however, sensed something was wrong. He turned and was able to fire a wild burst in Faith’s general direction before she plugged him right between the eyes with her third round. Alerted now the remaining insurgents dived for cover and blazed away at where they thought Faith was. Of course by the time their bullets reached Faith’s old position she wasn’t there anymore.

Grinning like a fiend, Faith wanted to shout with the joy of the hunt. This was what she was made to do, if the US Army couldn’t see that and let her into a combat unit to actually fight, that was their problem. If she couldn’t fight officially she’d fight unofficially. Making her way through the ruins of a building destroyed back in the invasion, Faith got herself into position opposite the insurgents.

They were still firing down the street where Faith had been a couple of minutes ago. Standing so she could see over the wall that separated her from the street, Faith fired a short, controlled burst. The rounds hit the insurgents and they tumbled to the ground in slow motion like a scene from a Sam Peckenpah movie. Listening for any tell-tale breathing or groaning noises, Faith climbed over the wall and out of the building before walked across the road and checking out the bodies.

Just as she was about to check on the insurgents to make sure they were dead, one of them jumped up and leapt at her. The insurgent snarled like an animal as Faith raised her rifle and pumped two rounds into his chest. Much to her horror and surprise he kept coming. He body-checked her and they both fell to the ground rolling across the sandy street punching at each other ineffectually.

Letting go of her rifle, Faith fought until she had her hands around the insurgent’s neck, she pushed him away from her; he’d been trying to bite her on the neck but her body armour had got in the way. It was only then that she saw his hideously distorted face, the yellow eyes and the fangs that reached for her throat, that she let out a scream of horror and disgust. Faith increased the pressure on her attackers windpipe, it didn’t seem to be doing any good. The insurgent just snarled something at her in Arabic and punched her across the jaw.

Seeing stars and hearing a high pitched ringing in her ears, Faith fought to stay conscious; she was pretty sure she’d never been punched so hard in all her life. Having gone limp and let go of the guy’s throat, the insurgent opened his mouth again and started to lower his mouth and fangs towards her neck. Feeling the foul creature’s rancid breath on her throat as he once more taunted her in Arabic, Faith lashed out knocking him off of her and letting her get back to her feet.

Giving her head a quick shake to clear it of the last of the bells ringing in her ears, Faith kicked out with her foot catching the insurgent in the side of his head. He bounced down the street a couple of yards before jumping up and rushing at her again, his arms open wide and his fangs bared. In that instant, Faith saw the bullet holes in his body and knew with a certainty she had never felt before that this guy wouldn’t stay down however many times she shot him.

The insurgent hit Faith like a freight train, but now she was ready for him, she found she could fight him off. In fact as they exchanged blows, Faith slowly realised that she was stronger and faster then the insurgent. It was only her inability to actually kill him that was stopping her from bringing the fight to a swift and successful conclusion. As they grappled in the middle of the street, Faith found herself wrapping her arms around the insurgents head; some deep seated instinct was telling her what to do. Grabbing hold of the insurgents chin and placing her free hand on the back of his head, Faith twisted his head violently to the right.

Feeling a moment’s slight resistance she heard the insurgent’s neck snap, standing back, Faith watched the insurgent fall. Instead of falling like any normal dead guy, he gave a short, surprised gasp as he turned to dust that mixed with the sand at her feet. Not believing her eyes, Faith backed up a couple of paces, where’d the fucker go? Panicking slightly she looked up and down the street. Her eyes only saw the empty street with its dead bodies and her rifle lying in the sand. There was no sound of running feet, no sound of heavy breathing as the insurgent made his escape; she’d killed the fucker so where was the body?

After sitting huddled against a wall for a minute or two, Faith took a deep breath; she’d killed the insurgent motherfuckers and prevented them from getting behind and killing her squad mates. No one had to know about the insurgent that wouldn’t die when you shot him. No one needed to know that he’d turned to dust when she’d broken his neck. Standing up slowly, Faith walked over and picked up her rifle with a trembling hand, she stood for a moment before blowing the dust from her weapon. Once more feeling back in control of herself, she turned, policed up the dead insurgent’s weapons and started to head on back to join Scream’s piece of war.

Throwing the insurgent’s AK’s into the sand next to the Hummer, Faith joined them moments later. Doublewide and Mrs B both turned to look at her in surprise, neither of them had noticed her come up behind them.

“Where the fuck did you get these?” Mrs B picked up one of the AK’s before dropping it again almost immediately when she noticed the blood on the weapon.

“Original owners won’t be needin’ ‘em any more,” Faith smiled.

“You mean…?” Mrs B’s jaw dropped open as she realised what Faith meant.

“Sergeant’s been looking for you,” Doublewide informed Faith looking back over her shoulder, “he didn’t sound too pleased when you weren’t here.”

“Whatever,” Faith shrugged her shoulders.

“Where the hell have you been?” Sergeant Scream yelled as he slid to a stop next to the Hummer and hunkered down in front of Faith.

“Hey!” Faith snapped, “I’ve been out doing my job!”

“What’s the idea going off by y’self?” Scream wanted to know, “You could’ve endangered the entire squad.”

“Me endanger the squad?” Faith demanded in disbelief, “ME?”

Faith was getting angry, she’d just gone out and risked her incredibly attractive skin killing insurgents (and things that didn’t die when you shot them), stopping the bad guys outflanking the squad and generally being a lean, mean and oh-so hot, fighting machine and this asshole was telling her she was endangering the squad?

“What about you?” Faith demanded as a burst of fire snapped above her head.

“WHAT?” Screamed Scream.

“Yeah,” Faith just couldn’t stop herself, “talk about endangering the squad? What about having someone on guard all the time? What about fixin’ up one of these buildings as a strongpoint? What about all round defence? What about not having your squad spread out in the open? WHAT ABOUT THAT, HUH!?”

Scream and Faith stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds as the battle raged on in the street behind them.

“I haven’t got time for this bullshit,” Scream told her, “I’ll deal with you later.”

Crawling back down the street Scream took up position on the corner of a building before starting to fire at the insurgents. Faith was about to follow him and kick his ass, she would have too if Doublewide and Mrs B hadn’t thrown themselves on top of her and stopped her.

“Okay! Okay!” Faith snapped as she fought her way from under the two women.

“Look Corporal,” Doublewide repositioned herself behind the Hummer when she saw Faith wasn’t going to do anything rash, “it don’t mean nothin’. You got the bad guys; let your actions speak for themselves.”

“Yeah,” agreed Mrs B, “if you get busted they’ll put you in with us…”

“Scared I’m be too hot for you to handle?” Faith grinned, back to her normal self, “So tell me, what’s been goin’ on ‘round here?”

Dawn finally broke several hours later; the insurgents were still at the opposite end of the street. They and the squad had exchanged occasional bursts of fire through out the night; it wasn’t until morning that the insurgents started to lay down masses of fire as if they were preparing to assault the squad’s position.

The squad was still in the positions they’d been in the night before when Faith had gone off on her lone mission. All of them were in pretty good cover except for Smoke who was trapped behind a wrecked car between the insurgents and the squad. Listening as Scream checked on his men, Faith crawled under the Hummer until she could see down the street from under the engine. Raising her rifle to her shoulder she sighted on an insurgent who was leaning out of cover spraying the street with fire; she fired once and the insurgent fell dead into the street.

“Good shooting Angel!” Scream yelled.

“Not me Sergeant,” Angel called back.

“Then who?” Scream turned around to look behind him, he saw Doublewide pointing under the Hummer at Faith, “Oh,” he said, “good shooting Corporal.” Scream looked down the street to where the insurgents hid, “SMOKE?”

“YEAH?” came Smoke’s reply.

“GET READY TO MOVE,” Scream told him.

“MOVE?” Smoke demanded, “MOVE WHERE?”

“COVER!” Scream yelled as he sprinted off down the street towards Smoke’s position.

“Fuck, me!” Faith wriggled from under the Hummer, jumped to her feet and started off after the sergeant firing as she ran.

Seeing the movement from the American positions the insurgents redoubled their fire. Luckily they were such abysmal shots that they only succeeded in sending up clouds of dust and sand as their bullets stitched their way across the street. Grabbing hold of Smoke, Scream dragged him from his cover and started to back down the street as the squad laid down covering fire. Faith stood to one side of the street, feet planted firmly in the sand, her rifle at her shoulder firing calmly and unhurriedly at the insurgents.

*CRACK!* An insurgent fell from a roof.

*CRACK!* A second insurgent stumbled from a doorway to fall into the street.

Bullets impacted all ‘round Faith, apparently unheeded as she continued to fire covering Scream and Smoke’s retreat. Stopping to change magazines, Faith noticed how much attention she was attracting, calmly she slipped a fresh magazine into her rifle and started to walk backwards towards the squad still firing as she went. Just as she was about level with where Angel and Tariq hid, she felt herself being grabbed from behind and pulled into cover.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing Corporal Lehane?” Scream yelled into her face.

“Look, man,” Faith pulled herself free from Scream’s grip, “you looked as if you were fixin’ to get y’self killed. With you dead I’d be in command of this cluster-fuck, I didn’t want that, so…”

“Fuck you,” Scream said slowly as he shook his head in confusion, “get back to your people an’ don’t get shot.”

“On my way, Sergeant,” Faith climbed to her feet and started to run back towards the Hummer and smack into the prisoner who was running in the opposite direction.

Faith and the prisoner collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs as they struggled in the dust. After only a few moments, Faith’s superior strength and the fact that the prisoner still had his hands tied behind his back allowed her to drag him back to American lines. By the time she got back to the Hummer and handed over the prisoner to Ryan there were only two insurgents left. These tried to run but were shot down by Angel as they foolishly attempted to escape down the street.

“Its just like she said,” Dim whispered to Scream after he and Smoke had come back from confirming Faith’s ‘kills’. “Five dead insurgents about a block over. Two shot in the back, another shot between the eyes and the other two hit by automatic fire.”

“Yeah,” agreed Smoke, “looks like they were fixin’ to get behind us.”

“Okay,” Scream nodded as he watched Ryan load the prisoner into the back of a Hummer that had just arrived out of nowhere, “help police up the area then we’re outta here, okay?”

“Yes Sergeant,” the two men turned to help their squad mates collect the insurgent’s bodies and weapons.

“Corporal Lehane,” Scream called over to where Faith was helping Doublewide and Mrs B load up their truck, “a word.”

Faith walked over to the sergeant wondering what he was going to complain about now; had she shot too many bad guys or something? Walking up to Scream she found herself being led away to where the rest of the squad couldn’t hear.

“What are you Lehane?” Scream asked, “some kinda super-soldier sent to make my life a misery?”

“No, Sergeant I…” Faith was about to add some choice opinions but was stopped by a look from Scream.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Scream wanted to know, “You did some good work out there but you put yourself and the squad in danger. In future I’ll tell you when you can go out an’ play Supergirl, okay?”

Faith bit her tongue to prevent herself from saying the really snappy come-back that would have probably got herself busted back down to civilian or something.

“And the other stuff,” Scream looked away from her in embarrassment.

“The other stuff?” Faith gave him a puzzled frown.

“Yeah,” Scream coughed and looked uncomfortable, “about setting up a strongpoint an’ everything…” Scream took a deep breath, “Maybe you were right, maybe I was tired which is no excuse, I should have known better, okay?”

Faith nodded not saying anything.

“Maybe,” Scream leaned in close to Faith almost whispering in her ear, “maybe if you see me slacking off like that again you tell me, eh?”

“Sure thing, sir,” Faith smiled feeling about eight feet tall.

“And don’t call me ‘Sir’ god-damn-it!” Once again Scream was his usual unpleasant self, “Now let’s mount-up an’ get outta this shit hole!”

Chapter Text

Tom Lehrer.

Normally, Faith would drive one of the company commanders; occasionally she even drove the battalion commander; Faith was popular. Part of this popularity was due to her uncanny ability to sniff out an ambush or predict where the next mortar round would land and not be there when it did. The other part of her popularity with the battalion’s officers was that she was a really good driver; she could do things with a Hummer that had never been put in the manual.

Today she wasn’t driving the battalion or indeed any of the company commanders. Today she was driving Lieutenant Hunter who was a reserve officer fresh from the States. He was a tall, balding guy, a little too old to be a First Lieutenant and Faith could tell he was going to be a complete pain in the ass. This feeling wasn’t due to any of Faith’s weird abilities, it was because her highly developed soldier’s instincts told her so. Other than giving her a couple of terse orders Hunter not said word one to her or the guy who was manning the .50 cal on the Hummer’s roof.

On this convoy of three vehicles they were tail-end Charlie driving from Tedium to Monotony where they were going to guard an Iraqi prison. Semi-desert and the occasional goat rolled by on either side of the road. Up ahead of her Faith could see the truck driven by Mrs B containing the other guys in the squad she’d come to think of as her own. Looking up into the back of the truck she could see Dim talking, she could tell by the bemused expression on Smoke’s face that Dim had been thinking too much again.

Thinking too much was not a good idea for a soldier in places like Iraq, it made you lose focus and losing focus could very easily make you dead. Faith kept her thinking to a bare minimum and concentrated on subjects that didn’t include US government policy in Iraq or what the Army Brass thought they were achieving. Both subjects could lead to a loss of focus. Instead, Faith focused on such important things as sex, where her next meal or beer was coming from and doing her job. This attitude, she felt, would see her through her tour and back to the States; if it got her promotion and a better posting that was all to the good too. However, because she’d let her mind wander, she’d lost focus by thinking about not losing focus, she didn’t notice the ambush until it was already sprung. Her eyes caught the flash of an RPG rocket flying through the air towards the convoy.

“AMBUSH LEFT!” Faith yelled in alarm as she watched the missile fly inexorably towards the truck carrying her friends.

“HALT!” Called the officer next to her; he kept on saying something but his words were drowned out by the roar of the .50 cal on the roof as the gunner fired off into the desert.

Grabbing for her rifle, Faith looked to see what was going on around her. The truck ahead of her had stopped. The RPG appeared to have missed because there was a loud explosion to the right as the rocket impacted the desert. The .50 cal gunner was putting out rounds for all he was worth. The Lieutenant was yelling into his radio his words still drowned out by the gunner on the roof. Sergeant Scream appeared from the lead Hummer and started to lead the squad towards where the RPG had come from. This left Faith with nothing to do; with half an ear she listened as the Lieutenant called for air support, the .50 cal having stopped, the gunner having probably run out of targets. Taking her rifle in her hand, she pushed open her door and climbed out onto the road; running towards the truck she climbed up onto the step to the cab and looked inside.

“MRS B!” Faith cried, the opposite door was open and Mrs B was alone sitting behind the wheel her mouth open and her hands in front of her face. “Hey, kid,” Faith said more softly sensing that the teenager was in shock, “you okay?”

“It touched me,” Mrs B replied almost too quietly for Faith to hear.

“What?” Faith checked the girl over; she didn’t appear to be hurt.

“It freakin’ touched me god-damn-it!” Mrs B burst into tears and pulled off her sand glasses.

Realising that the rocket must have passed straight through the cab without hitting anything, Faith smiled.

“Better an RPG than some of the dicks ‘round here, kid,” Faith pointed out just as Doublewide appeared behind her.

Leaving the mechanic to look after Mrs B, Faith trotted over to the side of the road nearest the ambush, Scream and the squad reappeared out of the scrub, Tariq carried an RPG launcher over his shoulder as they headed back towards the truck.

“Lone RPG gunner,” Scream replied to Faith’s unasked question, before adding, “KIA.”

“Cool,” Faith nodded her head as she turned to walk the sergeant back to his Hummer. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Sergeant,” Faith said semi-formally, “but the way I was taught anti-ambush drill was, you either bulled your way through or you ran like hell, right?”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” Scream stopped and turned to face Faith, “what’s your point?”

“Okay,” Faith paused for a moment before asking, “if that’s so why did Lieutenant Hunter halt us right in the middle of the kill zone?”

“Yeah,” Scream agreed, “I wondered about that myself.”

Turning away from Faith, Scream headed on back to his vehicle, he’d not had to say anything more to her, the expression on his face had been enough for her.

“CORPORAL!”

Turning around, Faith saw the Lieutenant standing next to the Hummer gesturing for her to get back behind the wheel.

“On the way…Sir,” Faith trotted slowly towards her vehicle.

The prison was like no prison Faith had ever seen, not that she was an expert. Even with her memory only going back to the day she woke up in Sunnydale General, she felt sure she’d never spent even one night in jail. The place was really nothing more than a vacant lot behind a large building with a high, barbed wire topped fence around it. The ground was sand and gravel without even a thin layer of tarmac to separate it from the street outside. The Iraqi guards controlled the gate and patrolled the perimeter; the Americans had been detailed to patrol the interior because the Iraqis couldn’t be trusted not to murder the inmates.

“This is where we’re pulling guard duty?” Dim asked as he gazed around at the prisoners who sat or lay on mats on the dusty ground.

“Yeah,” Scream looked around uncomfortably, “smells like a god-damned barnyard.” Noticing the squad’s disbelieving looks that he’d know what a barnyard smelt like, Scream added, “They have barnyards on Long Island…okay, stay here I’m gonna find the Cee-oh.”

“This is a prison, right?” Faith asked.

“Yeah,” Tariq explained, “the real one’s overcrowded. The Red Cross keeps demanding we relocate some of these guys so they end up here.”

“There’s no cells,” Smoke observed.

“I don’t like being a jailer,” Dim added quietly.

“Me neither,” agreed Mrs B who’d sensibly found some shade and was standing in it.

“You don’t like being in Iraq,” Smoke laughed.

“You’d have to be an idiot to like being in Iraq,” Faith pointed out reasonably.

“I don’t like being a jailer for the urban poor,” Dim announced momentarily killing the conversation stone dead.

“You’d be happier if they were like the urban rich?” Faith asked breaking the silence, “You gotta downer on rich people or something?”

“Seriously,” Dim looked around at all the faces turned towards him, “I feel an affinity for the urban poor.”

“You wouldn’t know the urban poor if it got up an’ bit you on the ass, collage boy,” Doublewide sniggered.

“Do ya feel an affinity for me?” Faith grinned as she put her arm around Dim’s shoulder and snuggled up to him as close as their equipment would allow, “I’m the urban poor too y’know?”

“The Skinheads in London,” Dim disengaged himself from Faith’s embrace, “the Bloods in Compton…”

Dim’s statement was met by looks of disbelief from the rest of the squad.

“Don’t you?” he asked after a long pause.

“Look man,” Smoke fought hard not to laugh too openly, “these ‘urban poor’,” he gestured at the Iraqis, “they’d eat you alive, man. Just shows, you collage boys don’t know shit.”

“He’s right, Dim,” Faith said quietly, “you think too much. One day it’ll get you killed.”

“Hey, Smoke,” Faith called softly as she stood next to the SAW gunner near the gate a little later, “you ever do jail time?”

“You what?” Smoke looked at Faith as if she’d just insulted his manhood, “You think just coz I’m black I musta been in jail?”

“No?” Faith turned to face the gunner, “It’s just if there’s anyone in the squad that’d done jail time I figured it had to be you…I mean Angel? Dim? Okay, Mrs B I’ll give you but it’s a guy thing I wanna ask about so you’re my man.”

“Guy thing?” Smoke asked doubtfully before admitting, “Okay, I’ve done a little juvie, what y’wanna know?”

“Should these guys,” Faith gestured with her rifle towards the prisoners, “look so-so,” Faith struggled to find the right word, “limp?”

“Limp?” Smoke looked from Faith to the prisoners and back again.

“Yeah,” Faith shifted uncomfortably under her body armour, “limp…what’s the word?” Faith thought for a moment, “Listless.”

“Listless?” Smoke shook his head slowly.

“Look man, if ya gonna just repeat everything I say back to me…” Faith’s face went dark as her temper started to rise.

“No,” Smoke noticed the smouldering anger in Faith’s eyes, “man, be cool. Look if this was the States maybe I’d agree but these here are Iraqis, man,” he shrugged as if that explained everything. “But I’ll tell you one thing,” Smoke pointed towards an Iraqi sitting by himself in the corner of the yard, “watch that one, he’s a killer. Every killer I’ve seen got the same mad eyes, an’ he’s got killer’s eyes.”

“Yeah,” Faith studied the Iraqi for a moment, “thanks, I’ll remember that.”

The feeling had been getting stronger all day, first it had started like an itch she couldn’t scratch, now it was like a voice whispering in her ear, but Faith couldn’t work out what it was saying. Sometimes it felt like the feeling she got just before she noticed an ambush, but mostly it felt like an all encompassing feeling of dread and menace. Not long after they’d arrived at the prison, Faith had noticed how limp and lifeless the prisoners were. Looking into their lifeless eyes she saw nothing but hopelessness and fear. Normally she’d have dismissed these feelings as just the result of the despair at being in a prison where the guards were likely to kill you and there was no hope of justice.

But these observations, added to her own feelings of impending doom told her that something was very wrong here. So wrong in fact that she’d gone to Scream and volunteered to command the night time guard detail. Scream had looked at her as if she was insane; he told her that he was quite willing to share the duty with her. Faith pointed out that she didn’t need so much sleep (Faith had found that she could manage with two or three hours sleep in each twenty-four). Anyway, Faith had grinned, it was cooler during the night, Scream had smiled and said if that was what she wanted then she could have it.

Since her fight with the thing that wouldn’t die, Faith had been doing some on-line research. At first she’d been unsuccessful until she’d started to look on some sites that detailed the supernatural. Slowly she’d pieced the evidence together, the thing she’d fought most matched the stories about vampires; the fangs, the distorted face the yellow eyes it all fitted. It fitted if you disregarded the other stories that said that vampires were cool looking dudes who went round in evening dress and red silk lined cloaks. Of course Faith didn’t believe a word of it, vampires didn’t exist the guy she’d fought must have been something else.

He was probably some left over from Saddam’s time; some experiment that had gone wrong. Maybe it was some sort of biological weapon he’d been going to unleash on the west. But that still didn’t explain why the insurgent hadn’t died when she’d shot him. However, it was obvious to her that it bit people on the neck to drink their blood so maybe there was another one around here snacking on the prisoners. Blood loss would make them listless and the knowledge that they were slowly being sucked to death would explain the look of fear and helplessness in their eyes. Keeping a sharp look out for any bloodsucking monsters lurking in the shadows, Faith walked quietly around the compound stepping carefully between the sleeping prisoners. Hearing something behind her, she turned just in time to see Smoke hit the prisoner with ‘killer’s eyes’ with the butt of his SAW.

“CRAP!” Faith climbed over the waking prisoners and was just in time to stop Smoke from hitting the guy again, “Hold it Smoke!” Faith pulled him away from the prisoner who looked up at them from the ground with hate filled eyes, “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Lieutenant Hunter as he strode into the compound.

“Prisoner attacked Private William’s, Sir!” Faith said before Smoke had a chance to incriminate himself.

“I’ll deal with you in the morning,” the officer told Smoke, he turned to point a finger at Faith, “I want your report on this incident on my desk first thing in the morning.”

“SIR!” Faith snapped to attention as she watched the officer leave, “Where the hell did he spring from?” she asked herself, before turning on Smoke and demanding, “Okay, what the fuck went down here?”

“Did you hear the alleged racial slur, Corporal?” the following morning Lieutenant Hunter sat at a battered old table in the hot, dirty room he was using as an office.

There was a file opened on the table that Lieutenant Underpants (as he’d recently been christened) kept looking at. Faith couldn’t quite make out what it said without making it really obvious she was trying to read it. Sergeant Scream stood in the corner of the office behind her; she could feel his eyes boring holes into her back.

“Smoke said…” Faith began but was cut off by Lieutenant Underpants before she could get started.

“Private Williams,” Underpants held up his hand to stop Faith talking, “I won’t have these stupid nicknames in my platoon.”

Frowning, Faith glanced down at the officer, stupid nicknames, she wondered? Nicknames were ‘good’ they were ‘inclusive’, they improved unit cohesion; she knew all this because she’d read it in her junior non-com’s handbook. Okay, thought Faith, if that’s how Lieutenant Underpants wants to play it; she braced up to parade ground attention.

“SIR!” Faith shouted loud enough to make Underpants wince and Scream snigger quietly behind her, “YES SIR!”

“Okay,” Underpants gave a world weary sigh, “what is the prisoner alleged to have called Private Williams?”

“SIR!” Faith stood ramrod straight in the middle of the room, “THE PRISONER CALLED PRIVATE WILLIAMS A ‘YANKEE NIGGER’, SIR!”

“How could you hear anything, Corporal?” Underpants leaned across his desk towards Faith, “You were on the other side of the compound.”

“SIR!” Faith was once again interrupted by Underpants.

“There’s no need to shout Corporal,” Underpants snapped, “I’m sitting right here.”

“Sir,” Faith started again, “I have very sensitive hearing.”

“You what!?” It was obvious from the look on Underpants’ face that he didn’t believe a word of it.

“Sir?” Scream was doing his best to keep the amusement from his voice.

“What Sergeant?” Underpants demanded tiredly.

“It’s true, Sir,” Scream continued unhelpfully.

“What’s true?” Demanded Underpants.

“Corporal Lehane’s hearing, Sir,” Scream decided it was time to explain, “On several occasions Corporal Lehane has heard things long before anyone else in the platoon. She’s saved the platoon from several ambushes which might have caused us heavy casualties. If she said she heard something, you can take it to the bank,” Scream paused just a little too long before adding, “Sir.”

“Proper little Wonder Woman, aren’t you, Corporal?” Underpants said distastefully, not waiting for Faith to reply he continued, “So, Private Williams gets away with it again, first he shoots Iraqi civilians now he brutalises prisoners.” Underpants’ eye flipped from Faith to Scream. “I want him out of my platoon and if I find you two have been covering for him you’ll find yourselves in a world of hurt…dismiss!”

Following Scream back out into the daylight, Faith removed her helmet and ran her fingers through her hair.

“World of hurt?” Faith asked incredulously, “Like, he’s watched one too many war movies or something?”

“Yeah he’s an asshole,” Scream agreed.

“I can hear a big ‘but’ comin’,” Faith looked up at the Sergeant as she walked along next to him.

“But, he’s still our platoon leader, Corporal.”

“Yeah, sure,” Faith agreed, “shall I tell the guys to salute every time they see him?” Faith grinned evilly, “You know, like, when there’s a sniper around or something?”

“No!” Scream came to a halt and turned to face Faith, “No you won’t…anyway it wouldn’t help.”

“Why’s that, sir?” Faith asked innocently.

“Iraqi’s can’t shoot for shit,” Scream pointed out, “they’d probably miss and hit one of us by mistake, an’ don’t call me ‘sir’.”

“Weird shit?” Faith asked; it was night time again and Faith was guard commander, tonight she was sharing the duty with Angel and Mrs B, “My entire life is weird.”

“Come-on, Corporal,” Mrs B drawled in her West Virginia accent, “you’ve gotta tell us something.”

The three soldiers had been swapping ghost stories to pass the night away. Faith looked from Mrs B to Angel and shrugged.

“Okay,” Faith settled herself more comfortably against the wall of the little sandbag bunker they were using as they watched the prisoners. “I don’t know any ghost stories but I’ll tell you something weird.” Faith paused as she recollected the incident, “I was on this detail up near DC a couple of years ago around Christmas time. Usual Army shit, y’know? Anyway the Staff Sergeant was a good guy and he let all us drivers take the night off to sample the delights of the local town.”

“Now that is weird,” Angel interrupted.

“I haven’t got to the weird part yet,” Faith pointed out.

“No,” Angel smiled in the dark, “I mean a Staff Sergeant who’s a good guy!?”

Mrs B giggled and Faith gave Angel a hurt look.

“You wanna hear this story, or not?” she asked, Angel nodded. “Right, where was I? Yeah, that’s right, I was coming back to Fort Featherstone, where we were stopped and these five or six guys with knives jumped me right outside the main gate!”

“Street gang,” Mrs B said knowingly.

“No,” Faith continued, “at first, like you say, I thought street gang, but if they were they musta been some sort of weird religious street gang coz they were all wearin’ robes like monks.”

“Trust ‘Corporal Slay’ to piss off the local monks,” Angel observed.

“So, there’s this big fight,” Faith ignored Angel’s comment and carried on with her story, “I was with a couple of buddies and we were beatin’ on these guys, but they wouldn’t give up. The really odd thing was they kept coming after me as if I was something special.”

“I got it!” Mrs B cried out, “You got the Pope pissed at you and he’d sent some hit-monks after you.”

“Eventually,” Faith frowned at Mrs B, “the MP’s came out to see what the commotion was all about. For once they got it right and decided we were the victims and joined in the fight on our side.”

“Now that really is weird!” Angel laughed.

“Look,” Faith glared at Angel, “there’s other shit-holes that need guardin’ I can go else where, y’know?”

“No-no!” Angel grinned, “I’m sorry, finish your story.”

“Like I was sayin’,” Faith settled down again, “they kept coming at us even after one of the MP’s shot one of the fuckers. So we keep on fighting and more MP’s turn up and the guys in the robes fuck off with the MP’s and local police on there tales.”

“So that’s not weird,” Mrs B pointed out, “that’s just a fight with a bunch of religious crazies on PCP.”

“No,” Faith turned to the teenager, “that’s not the weird part. When they looked the two freaks over, the ones the MP’s had shot, they found the fuckers hadn’t got any eyes!”

“Ewww!” Mrs B squealed, “What none? Then how’d they see you?”

“Don’t know,” Faith shrugged, “but their eyes had been cut out and their eyelids had been sewn together an’ weird symbols an’ crap carved on ‘em.”

“Carved?” Mrs B repeated, “That’s just gross.”

“That’s weird,” agreed Angel nodding his head.

“Come on Mrs B,” Faith glanced at her watch and climbed to her feet, “time for us to go for a walk…”

“Oh Corporal,” gasped Mrs B making her voice sound like a Southern Belle, “I didn’t know you cared, all this,” she gestured to the prison, “and moon lit walks as well!”

“If you say, ‘I do declare’ just once,” Faith smirked, “I’ll have you changing the oil on every truck in the company.”

“Oh Corporal,” Mrs B sighed clasping her hands to her chest, “you’re so masterful.”

“Stop fuckin’ about,” Faith checked her rifle, “let’s get goin’. Angel,” she looked over at the sharpshooter, “you cover us from there, okay?”

“On it,” Angel confirmed.

Walking carefully and quietly between the sleeping prisoners, Faith and Mrs B patrolled the compound. For a moment Faith stood and shivered; it was cool in the town at night, but not cold like it could be in the desert. No, the cause of Faith’s reaction was the return of her feeling of unease, only this time it was much stronger.

“You okay, Mrs B?” Faith called quietly.

“I’m good,” replied the teenager.

“Good,” Faith sighed with relief, “stay alert.”

Halting, Faith stopped to scan the compound; there were the dark shapes of the prisoners lying on their mats, there was Mrs B walking between the sleeping figures. At the back of Faith’s head something nagged at her telling her something was wrong or just plain weird! But she couldn’t see what it was; there was nothing to tell her what to do. Just as she was about to tell Mrs B to get back to the position where Angel was doing overwatch, something big and black rose up behind the girl and engulfed her.

“B!” Screamed Faith and just for a moment she wasn’t standing in a prison compound in Iraq anymore.

Faith found herself standing in a dark alley way somewhere in the States (she felt sure of that) another blonde teenager was struggling with a creature that had its arm around her neck. Faith started towards the girl and…

Suddenly, Faith found herself back in the real world; she pushed herself between the panicking prisoners to where Mrs B struggled with the dark shape. In an instant, Faith knew this was what had been causing her feelings of unease; this was the thing that had been feeding off the prisoners. Obviously it was tired of its diet of Iraqi and wanted some fresh, young, West Virginian for a change.

Grabbing hold of the thing that was smothering Mrs B, Faith shivered with disgust as her fingers sank into something like cold jello. It covered the struggling girl like some vile, cold, squidgy, blanket. It was only now she was close that Faith realised that part of it was still keeping the shape of the prisoner with killer’s eyes that Smoke had pointed out to her earlier.

Tearing at the thing, Faith tried to pull it off Mrs B but it was like trying to fight an octopus. As soon as she’d pulled one part of the creature free from the teenager another part would latch on to her. As if from a very long way away, Faith could hear Angel yelling at them to stand clear so he could get a shot.

As Mrs B’s struggles started to get weaker, Faith wondered if the creature would leave her be when it’d had enough of whatever it was taking from her or would it suck her dry and kill her? Taking no chances with the girl’s life, Faith tore at the thing and managed to pull most of it off the girl. Immediately it started to attack her.

First it engulfed Faith’s hands making them feel numb and cold. Gasping at the shock of it Faith managed to hold the thing off her body long enough for her to shout at Angel telling him to take his shot. There was a loud crack as Angel fired; his bullet hit the creature and it exploded like a balloon full of slime. Cold gobbets of gunk splattered to the ground all around and all over Faith and Mrs B. Screaming as the cold stuff hit her, Mrs B curled up into a ball on the ground as Faith climbed slowly to her feet wiping slime from her face. The compound was covered in the vile stuff as were several prisoners who were scraping the gunk from their skin just as fast as they could.

“Did I get him!?” Angel ran over looking around for a body.

“Yeah,” gasped Faith, “you got him,” she rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment, “thanks.”

“No problem,” Angel looked around perplexed, “Where’d he go?”

“Never mind,” Faith breathed, “we’ll find him in the morning.”

“Slay,” Scream’s voice came from behind her, “you okay? What’s goin’ on, what’s wrong with Mrs B?”

“Fine,” Faith turned to face the sergeant, “don’t know for sure, shock?”

“You what?” seeing that Faith was shaken but otherwise okay, Scream knelt down next to Mrs B who was sobbing and shivering on the ground.

“Prisoner, attacked Mrs B, Sergeant,” reported Faith, “we fought him off, Angel shot him and he kinda…”

“Kinda what?” Scream looked up at Faith.”

“Well, Sergeant,” Faith took a deep breath, “he kinda exploded.”

“Exploded?” Scream closed his eyes for a moment as he imagined Lieutenant Underpants’ reaction to this latest event, he sighed quietly “And I was getting short too.”

The following morning, Faith found herself back in Underpants’ office.

“He what?” Lieutenant Underpants requested clarification.

“Yes Sir!” Faith replied as she, Angel and Mrs B stood in a line in front of their platoon leader, although they’d tried to clean up, Faith and Mrs B still had bits of dried slime on their uniforms.

“You expect me to believe,” Underpants walked right up to Faith and glared down at her, she really wished she was taller, “that a prisoner just blew up.”

“Only after Private King shot him sir,” Faith explained before adding, “maybe he was a suicide prisoner, sir.”

Before Underpants could say anything more, Mrs B started to retch and throw up on the office floor.

“Get her out of here!” Underpants yelled to no one in particular.

Taking this as a general order to leave, Faith and Angel grabbed Mrs B and dragged her from the room.

“Sergeant,” Underpants turned to glower at Scream who stood with a faint smile on his lips in the corner of the office, “I want a full report of this incident and Private Williams’ part in it on my desk by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.”

“Sir,” Scream replied non-committally.

“We’re going back to Liberty,” Underpants dry scrubbed his face, “by midday someone else will be responsible for this hell hole.”

Sitting at his desk in his tent in the heart of Camp Liberty, Captain Riley Finn smiled as he read a report about an exploding prisoner. He checked the date at the top of the report and frowned, it was dated about a week ago. A report like this should have crossed his desk within twenty-four hours of the incident happening. He sighed as he placed the report on his desk and sat back in his seat. Things like this happened all the time, reports getting lost, not prisoners exploding.

He glanced at the report again; an Iraqi prisoner had attacked two female soldiers, a third soldier had fired one round and killed the prisoner. The prisoner had exploded covering everyone and everything with pink slime. Not flesh and blood but pink slime, the report was quite clear about this. Neither of the soldiers actually in contact with the prisoner when he exploded had reported any injuries of ill effects; the younger of the two had thrown up later in her c/o’s office but that was probably due to delayed shock. Sighing again Riley shifted the report from his desk to his pending file; he’d look into it when he had more time, like in twenty years or so.

Just as he was about to start in on another report, Riley noticed a large figure blocking the entrance of his tent; his hand drifted to the pistol in its holster strapped to his leg and then let it drift away again as the man walked in out of the bright sunlight. Studying the man as he crossed the tent towards him, Riley noticed the Colonel’s eagles on his collar, Riley sprang to attention.

“Sit down, Captain,” the Colonel gestured with a ham sized hand as he pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Riley’s desk.

“How can I help you, Colonel…?” Riley fished for the man’s name as he wasn’t an officer he knew.

“Ryan,” the Colonel replied, “Intelligence.”

Oh great, thought Riley, all he needed this early in the morning was army intelligence poking its noise into things that didn’t concern them.

“So, Colonel,” Riley smiled and sat back in his seat again, “how can I help you?”

“My information is that you investigate what we might call the weird and strange, Captain,” Ryan spoke without a trace of amusement; Riley realised that whatever this man had come to say he was deadly serious about it.

“That about covers it, sir,” Riley replied.

“Would a young woman who exhibits unusual strength and abilities be weird enough for you Captain?” Ryan asked.

“That depends, Sir,” Riley leant towards Ryan, “tell me more.”

Chapter Text

“Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, get down tonight!” the three soldiers sang discordantly as their Hummer bounced at high speed along the track.

It’d been a good mission and now they were on their way back to Camp Liberty; hot showers and food that didn’t come out of a plastic pouch awaited them. They’d ambushed the pack of Hellhounds and cut them up into dog meat, burnt the bodies and buried what remained; Riley was well pleased with their work. An easy mission like this made up for all the ones that saw them out in the field for weeks on end and inevitably led to him coming back with fewer men than he’d started with. Suddenly the music cut out.

“Corporal Foley,” Riley looked at the man sitting next to the driver, PFC Garcia, “you did remember to put new batteries in that thing, didn’t you?”

“Sure did, Captain,” Foley picked up the battered, old cassette player and shook it; he pressed the eject button and checked the cassette, it was fine.

“Come on, man,” Garcia glanced over at the non-com, “if you don’t fix it we’ll be stuck with the Captain’s singing.”

“Shit, man,” Foley shook his head at the very idea, “can’t live with that,” he started to search for some replacement batteries.

“Hey!” Riley laughed from the back of the Hummer, “It must be against some sorta army regs to diss your C/O’s singing.”

“I call it cruel and unusual punishment,” Foley told his friend as he opened up the back of the cassette player.

Just as Riley was going to come out with a really good come back a wave of heat washed over him. He felt the air being sucked from his lungs and his ears popped as the Hummer seemed to be thrown into the air by a giant. He never remembered hearing the explosion; the next thing he knew he was lying on his side in the back of the Hummer with a pile of equipment on top of him and the smell of burning in his nose. His tortured ears rang and he could just hear a noise like a car alarm screaming in the distance.

“Captain!” It was Foley’s voice coming from what sounded like miles away, “Hold on I’ll get you out.”

As the car alarm shrieked, Riley became aware of a burning sensation in his right leg. Pushing some of the equipment from on top of him he looked down to see his right leg stopped in a bloody stump just below his knee; for a moment the screaming stopped and he realised it wasn’t a car alarm it was him.

Sliding into the back of the Hummer through the roof hatch, Foley frantically searched around for the first aid kit. It’d come off the side of the compartment when the Hummer had turned over and had become hidden under all their gear. Giving up the search, Foley took a strap from a pack and tied it tightly around Riley’s leg slowing the bleeding.

“Come on, Cap,” Foley put his arms under Riley’s arms and lifted him upright; “we gotta get outta here.”

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Riley tried to pull himself through the hatch as Foley pushed. Sliding out of the Hummer, Riley fell to the ground jarring his leg. He gritted his teeth against the cry of pain that built up in his chest. He’d always heard that serious wounds didn’t hurt right away. Losing a leg was pretty serious so why did it hurt so much so soon?

“Come on Cap,” Foley landed next to him and started to pull him away from the smouldering Hummer, “work with me man.”

Using his good leg, Riley pushed himself across the ground as Foley pulled.

“Where’s…” Riley licked his lips, his mouth felt so dry, “Where’s Garcia?”

“Garcia didn’t make it Sir,” Foley stopped pulling and let go of Riley, “the explosion put the steering column right through his chest.”

“Crap,” Riley spat, he looked down to where Foley was adjusting his tourniquet, “how bad?”

“Lets say you won’t be running any marathons any time soon,” Foley looked up and tried to smile encouragingly, “Look, Sir, you stay here and I’ll go find the aid kit an’ anything else that might be useful, okay?”

“I don’t think I’m goin’ anywhere, Corporal,” Riley tried to laugh but coughed instead.

“Here, Sir,” Foley pressed Riley’s pistol into his hand, “don’t panic, don’t shoot me by mistake an’ don’t die.”

The last thing Riley remembered seeing was Foley standing up and running back the way they’d come. He tried to keep his eyes open but he lost the unequal struggle between shock, blood loss and his will to stay awake.

“Ya sure we’re on the right road?” Faith sat in the back of the Hummer and wrestled with a map that was far too big for the compartment.

“You call this a road?” Doublewide called from the seat next to Mrs B; the teenager said nothing, she was too busy fighting with the steering wheel and trying to keep the Hummer on the track.

“That’s what I mean,” Faith, despite her apparent superstrength, conceded defeat to the map and tossed it to one side. “The road we’re supposed to be on is supposed to be surfaced.”

They all looked out through the windshield at the rutted track that lay ahead of them.

“Maybe the map’s wrong,” Mrs B suggested with no great conviction.

“What’s more likely?” Faith called, she nearly bounced off her seat as they hit a particularly large rut. “The map being wrong or us taking a wrong turn?”

The three women looked at each other and shrugged; it was true, there was no way of denying it, they were all crap at map reading. Blaming herself, Faith looked out of her window, she’d been in charge why hadn’t she told Mrs B to stop and turn back when the road went from tarmac to dried mud? This was supposed to be an easy supply run to take the mail and some MRE’s to Sergeant Scream and the guys who were hold up in an outpost miles into the desert.

“Okay,” Faith sighed admitting defeat, “Mrs B, pull up and turn us around. We’ll retrace our route and try to pick up the right road.”

“Thought you’d never…” Mrs B didn’t get to finish what she was about to say because, Doublewide interrupted her.

“Hold on!” Doublewide pointed out the windscreen, “Look.”

Now that the vehicle was halted, Faith risked climbing up to stand with the top half of her body out of the roof hatch. She didn’t need binoculars to see the thin trail of smoke drifting up into the still, hot air from over a low ridge ahead of them. Looking around, Faith studied the brush covered semi-desert. There was on sign of human activity now or anytime in the last few thousand years apart from the track and the smoke. The passenger door opened and Doublewide got out and lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes.

“What d’ya think?” she asked as she watched the smoke drift into the clear blue sky.

“I think,” Faith replied slowly as she ducked down and grabbed her rifle before popping back up out of the hatch, “I think we better go take a look, but like carefully, okay?”

“You’re the boss,” Doublewide informed Faith as she got back into the Hummer and closed the door.

“Yeah I am,” Faith told herself quietly. “Okay listen-up!” Faith ducked her head down into the crew compartment, “This is what we’re gonna do. Mrs B…”

“Yo!” Acknowledged the blonde girl.

“Lets get over that ridge so we can take a look-see, but slowly,” Faith explained, “If anybody starts shootin’ at us you back up and high tail it outta here, you got that?”

“Got-it, Corporal,” Mrs B nodded her head as she took a firm grip on the steering wheel.

“Doublewide?” Faith shifted her eyes to the back of the mechanic’s head. “get on the radio and tell Liberty what’s happening and roll down ya window and be ready to put out rounds, okay?”

“Okay,” Doublewide nodded her head as she rolled down her window and rested her rifle on the door frame, “where do I tell Liberty we’re at?”

“Shit!” Faith scratched the back of her head, she was at a loss at what to say; Doublewide turned around and grinned at her.

“I’ll make my best guess, huh?”

“You do that,” Faith agreed standing back up, “Okay, let’s roll!”

Turning to Doublewide, Mrs B put the Hummer in gear and mouthed ‘Lets roll’ at her friend; the two women rolled their eyes as Mrs B started the vehicle forward.

Coming over the crest of the ridge at no more than ten miles an hour, Faith was the first to see the burnt out Hummer abandoned on the side of the track.

“Hold it!” Faith called down to Mrs B and the vehicle came to halt.

The track went down into a kind of bowl maybe two hundred metres across, a perfect spot for an ambush. The Hummer lay on its side, the front left wheel appeared to be missing and the engine compartment was a blackened wreck; it must have hit a mine was Faith’s thought. Apart from that the Hummer looked in pretty good shape, the crew compartment didn’t look too badly damaged, so where were the crew? From the fact that the vehicle was still smouldering, Faith guessed that the attack must’ve happen fairly recently.

Putting her rifle to her shoulder, Faith scanned the rim of the bowl looking for any sign of ambushers. Seeing nothing, she closed her eyes and listened; sometimes she could hear stuff way before she ever saw anything out of place. Often she’d just know that they were about to walk into trouble, she didn’t know how she knew she just did; Faith didn’t question it but it did make her wonder.

“Nothing,” Faith said more to herself than anyone else; her eyes snapped open to once again study the barren landscape.

“Corporal?” Doublewide’s voice drifted up from below, she didn’t sound happy.

“What?” Faith’s eyes never left the surrounding desert.

“Radio must be all screwed up,” Doublewide sounded really worried, “all I’m getting is static.”

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Faith whispered, “Yeah, okay,” she called back, “leave it don’t worry about it, okay?”

“If you say so, Corporal.”

Faith could imagine the look Doublewide would be giving Mrs B just now. Faith didn’t have any problems with either woman, but, she’d much rather be here with the rest of the guys to back her up.

“Okay,” Faith called out, “this is what we’re going to do, Mrs B?”

“Still here Corporal,” Mrs B called back.

“Take us down to the wreck nice and slow,” Faith explained again, “like before be ready to run like hell but this time straight ahead, you hear me?”

“I hear you, Corporal.”

“Doublewide?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Keep you’re eyes open and shoot anything that even looks like it might be an insurgent, okay?” Faith smiled to herself, “And don’t call me ‘Ma’am’!”

The Hummer started to move forward as Faith kept scanning for trouble; what she was doing was probably against some SOP somewhere. They were probably supposed to back off and call for help. Well, Faith told herself, she’d tried to call in but had got squat on the radio and you just didn’t leave buddies out to dry without trying to help. What would it look like if she held off and someone died when she could have saved them? She’d want someone to do it for her.

The Hummer crunched to a halt next to the wreck. Standing in the hatch Faith did a complete three-sixty looking for any signs of trouble. Seeing nothing and her sixth-sense telling her nothing, she ordered everyone to dismount.

“Look out for mines,” Faith warned as she climbed down onto the track, “Mrs B, take a look in the Hummer, Doublewide you go with her and keep her covered.”

“What’re you gonna do, Corporal?” Mrs B asked squinting up at her.

“What d’ya think I’m gonna do?” Faith watched the girl with her head to one side, “I’m gonna keep you both covered.”

“Thank-you, Corporal,” Mrs B moved towards the wreaked Hummer, “Just askin’ y’know, don’t mean anything by it,” Mrs B looked into the vehicle through the roof hatch, “Holy shit!”

“What is it?” Faith asked urgently.

“Got a body, Corporal,” Mrs B held onto her lunch, “one of ours.”

“Dead?” Faith wanted to know.

“Looks like,” agreed Mrs B.

“Corporal,” Doublewide was standing a couple of yards away looking at the ground, “drag marks and a blood trail,” she pointed towards a clump of bushes twenty or so yards away.

“Watch my back,” Faith ordered as she climbed from the Hummer and cautiously made her way towards the bushes.

Creeping along, her rifle at her shoulder, Faith expected insurgents to leap out at her from all around. Imagining spider-holes opening up and the bark of AK 47’s as she was gunned down she could clearly see her own funeral at Arlington, but they’d be no one there to give the neatly folded flag to, no one to miss her other than her army buddies.

“Stupid bitch!” she admonished herself, “Wanna get y’self shot?”

Taking a deep breath, Faith concentrated on following the blood and drag marks in the sand and watching out for bad guys. Coming up short of a large thorn bush, more of a small tree really, Faith tilted her head to one side like bird looking for a worm to spear. Concentrating really heard she could just make out the sound of breathing coming from behind the thorn tree. The breathing was uneven, ragged even, as if someone was hurt; hurt really badly.

Not dropping her guard one inch, Faith sidled around the bush until she could see the man lying in the shade under the tree. Keeping her rifle pointed at his head, Faith crept up to where he lay. Closer up, she could see his US Army uniform and equipment, the automatic pistol held loosely in his hand, his leg that ended just below his knee. Coming out from behind the tree, Faith looked over to see Doublewide and Mrs B covering her from behind the Hummer.

“Get y’ass’ over here,” Faith yelled, “An’ bring the first aid kit!”

Not bothering to watch the two privates Faith turned back to the man and knelt down next to him. Just for a moment she didn’t know what to do, panicking she wished they had a medic with them. Again taking a deep breath, Faith calmed herself down and tried to remember her first aid training. Okay, she thought, the guy wasn’t bleeding to death, there was a tourniquet on his stump so either he had a buddy around here or he’d done it himself. Feeling for a pulse, Faith smiled, weak but steady, he’d probably passed out from blood loss. Just then Doublewide and Mrs B turned up.

“Shit!” Doublewide passed Faith the first aid kit, “Who the hell’s he?”

Looking at the name tag on the guy’s body armour and the rank badges on his collar, Faith smiled.

“Captain Finn, accordin’ to this,” Faith tapped the rank patches, “now if we can keep him alive and get him back to base there’ll be medals and promotions all round, okay?”

“Y’what?” Doublewide looked at Faith as if she was on drugs.

“Just kidin’,” Faith opened the first aid kit and stared blankly at its contents, “look,” she said not really knowing what she was doing as she picked out the largest dressing she could find. “Mrs B you get the Hummer over here so we can load him up and get outta here…”

No sooner had the words left Faith’s mouth than Mrs B was sprinting back to the Hummer.

“Doublewide?” Faith unwrapped the dressing, “Slowly loosen the tourniquet so I can cut his fatigues clear of the wound and apply the dressing, okay?”

“Okay,” Doublewide started to loosen the strap around the Captain’s leg, she half expected to be covered in blood at any moment; much to her surprise the blood flow hardly increased.

Using her knife to cut away the shredded, blood encrusted trousers, Faith worked calmly and quickly while her heart pounded in her chest like a jack-hammer. Once she’d got the material clear she applied the dressing and told Doublewide to reapply the tourniquet. Much to her amazement she didn’t appear to have made things any worse.

“Okay,” Faith sat back on her heels and wiped the blood from her hands onto her trouser legs, “that should stop him from bleeding to death before we get him home…now where’s Mrs B?”

As if on cue she heard, Mrs B’s foot steps pounding towards them, flushed and panting she appeared around the tree.

“Hummer’s fucked!” she gasped.

“What?” Faith starred up at the girl not really believing her ears, “Why?”

“Don’t know,” the girl was looking frightened, “I can’t get the engine to start, it’s like the batteries are dead.”

“Why me?” Faith shook her head, sometimes she just felt like crying, life was just so unfair!

FUBAR; Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Chapter Text

The sun was heading towards the horizon by the time they’d moved the wounded officer over to the Hummer; Faith could have moved him by himself but she made out she wasn’t strong enough and had Doublewide and Mrs B help her. They’d laid Captain Finn next to their Hummer where Faith built a lean-to over the man while Doublewide and Mrs B tried to get the Hummer’s engine to start. Eventually Doublewide gave up; she came to stand in front of Faith and wiped her hands on a piece of dirty rag.

“What’s up?” Faith stopped starring at the desert and let her eyes fall on the mechanic.

“Damned if I know,” Doublewide shrugged her shoulders admitting defeat, “I’ve tried everything I know,” Doublewide sighed, “everything should work it just doesn’t.”

“Great,” Faith shook her head and looked at her feet for a second, she could feel Doublewide’s and Mrs B’s eyes upon her they were expecting her to come up with something. “Look,” she said eventually, “its gonna get dark soon…”

“Yeah, an every battery in the joint is dead,” Mrs B announced as she took the batteries from her flashlight and threw them into the desert.

“What?” Faith reached for her own flashlight and tested it; the bulb didn’t light.

“Mrs B’s right,” Doublewide agreed, “nothing electrical wants to work an’ don’t ask me why.”

“Okay,” Faith took off her helmet and sat down next to the Hummer, she gestured for the other women to join her, “like I say, it gonna be dark soon, so we stay here tonight. Look, someone is bound to be looking for us by now it’s only a matter of time until they do…okay?”

“If we was on the right road,” Mrs B pointed out unhelpfully.

“Yeah, well,” Faith really felt like punching Mrs B just about now, “they’ll search our route, when they find we’re not there they’ll expand the search area. I ‘s’pect they’ve got satellites looking for us right now.”

“What about him?” Doublewide pointed to the officer.

“Best as I can tell,” Faith looked down at the man, “he’s just asleep he’ll wake up sometime…or not. He keeps mutterin’ something about someone called ‘Buffy’.”

Faith couldn’t help thinking that their lives would be marginally easier if the officer was dead, she quickly dismissed the thought, they’d get by somehow.

“Makes y’wonder what he was doin’ out here,” Mrs B joined Faith in looking at the officer adding, “hot ain’t he?”

“Yeah,” Faith and Doublewide agreed.

“Maybe he was on a supply run,” Faith suggested.

“Supplin’ what?” Doublewide asked.

“Fucked if I know,” Faith shook her head slowly; she’d checked out the destroyed Hummer there’d been nothing in there but the normal combat gear like you’d expect to find.

Having covered the dead driver with a spare poncho and taken one of his dog-tags, Faith had searched the Hummer for anything useful. She’d found some spare ammo, a few MRE’s and the weirdest gun she’d ever seen. Pointing it out the smashed window of the Hummer she’d pulled the trigger. Apart from a tiny spark at the tip of what should have been the barrel (but wasn’t) nothing happened. Guessing that it was some kind of super-taser, Faith discarded the weapon and took the stuff she’d found back to her own vehicle.

Looking at her notebook in the fire light, Faith smiled. A fire was good, it said so in her Corporal’s handbook; it was good psychologically, good for moral it spoke to something primeval in the human spirit…it also kept you warm. Having weighed up the pros and cons of lighting a fire Faith had built and lit it herself. They were in a bowl in the desert so no insurgents would see it until they were almost on top of them anyway. Also it would help their own people find them. Didn’t helicopters and airplanes have night vision aids that picked up heat? Faith was fairly sure that satellites had sensors that picked up heat too.

They’d eaten their MRE’s after washing up a little, water might be a problem if they were here more than a day or two, so, Faith had made a list of all the gear they had. This was what she was looking at now while Doublewide and Mrs B were cleaning their rifles. They had food and water for three or four days (if they were careful). They had enough ammo for their rifles to fight maybe two engagements, but, they only had a couple of grenades. There were a few smoke grenades and a handful of flares, all in all not much of an arsenal. If they did have to fight they’d need to get lucky, fast!

“Okay, ya guys,” Faith climbed to her feet and walked over to where Doublewide and Mrs B sat. “guard duty…”

Both women groaned.

“Hey!” Faith looked down at the women as they reassembled their rifles, “If ya wanna be raped by raggedy assed insurgents that’s fine by me, but I don’t, so we’re gonna do guard, okay?”

“Okay, Corporal,” they replied like two reluctant schoolgirls.

“Good, glad you agree,” Faith injected a little sarcasm into her voice, “we’ve got maybe six hours of full dark ‘til dawn. That, as even you jerk offs can work out gives us three two-hour shifts. I’ll take the middle shift so you two can fight over the others but make it quick, okay?”

Turning away before anyone could argue, Faith headed over to check on the Captain. She’d taken the middle watch because it was the hardest, but that didn’t bother her; she didn’t need the sleep anyway and she could see better in the dark without night vision aids than most people could with them.

“Corporal?” a man’s voice came to her from out of the darkness; it took Faith a second to realise that the officer had woken up.

“Hey, sir,” Faith knelt down next to the injured man, “how ya feeling?”

“Like I had my leg blown off,” Captain Finn gave Faith a weak smile, “I’d kill for a drink.”

“Here,” Faith took her canteen and helped the officer sit up; he drank slowly until he pushed her hand away.

“Thanks,” Finn lay back down his head resting on a pack, “what’s the situation, Corporal and who are you?”

“Corporal Lehane, Sir, 54th Motor Transport Battalion, Third Infantry, we,” Faith gestured over to Doublewide and Mrs B, “were on a supply run. We sorta got lost and found your Hummer about three or four hours ago.”

“We musta hit a mine,” Finn explained, “what happened to my men?”

“Your men, Sir?” Faith looked around uncertainly.

“Corporal Foley and PFC Garcia,” Finn replied.

“Found a PFC in the Hummer, he’s dead,” Faith didn’t know what else to say, “sorry, Sir.”

“Not your fault, Corporal Lehane,” Finn closed his eyes and ran his hand across his face before asking, “Corporal Foley?”

“Haven’t seen anyone else, Sir,” Faith explained, “are you sure he got out of the Hummer?”

Faith was fairly sure she wouldn’t have missed another body.

“Yeah,” Finn nodded his head and winced.

“You okay?” Faith asked concerned, “I can give you a shot of morphine.”

“No thanks I’ll be fine for now, Corporal,” Finn shifted so he was almost sitting upright, “Foley got me out of the Hummer and tied off my leg, maybe he went for help?”

“If he did, he didn’t pass us,” Faith looked out into the night hoping to see the missing Corporal Foley walk back into their camp. “Sir, can I ask you what you were doing out here by yourselves?”

“No you can’t, Corporal,” Finn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “I think I’ll take you up on that offer of morphine now, please.”

“Sure thing, Sir,” Faith searched in the first aid kit for a morphine ampoule, “it’s just I was wondering if anyone will come and look for you,” she injected the morphine and watched as Finn started to relax.

“I doubt it…” Finn closed his eyes and Faith could tell by his breathing he’d fallen asleep again.

“Fuck it!” she cursed quietly; standing up she turned to see Doublewide and Mrs B standing behind her, “You hear that?” The two women nodded their heads, “Okay, so we’re on our lonesome for now. The plan still holds, we stay here tonight and reassess our situation in the morning. Who’s on watch first?”

Mrs B raised her hand.

“Cool,” Faith nodded, “stay sharp and wake me if you start to fall asleep or you see something you don’t like. Remember, this Foley guy might be out there somewhere so don’t shoot him by mistake…that goes for both of you, questions? Suggestions? No?” Faith looked at the worried faces that peered at her out of the dark, “Hey look,” she smiled, “we’ll be back at Liberty an’ sitting pretty by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes Corporal,” Doublewide and Mrs B didn’t sound convinced.

“Now fuck off and let me get some sleep,” Faith turned away and grabbed a camouflaged quilt from the back of the Hummer.

Taking off some of her gear but leaving her body armour on, Faith lay down on the hard ground and tried to get comfortable. To be honest she felt like she wanted to cry, there was no one to reassure her, no one to tell her everything would be fine, make the hard decisions for her, she was on her own, she was in charge, whether they lived or died was up to her… Telling herself not to be such a drama queen, Faith turned over closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Running for her life, Faith glanced over her shoulder to see the blonde woman coming after her again. Thrown against a wall, she watched in terror as those cold hard eyes burnt into her soul, judged her and found her wanting. The hot, sharp pain of the knife blade sliding into her stomach made Faith cry out in hopeless agony and despair.

“Corporal?”

With a gasp, Faith woke up to find herself looking into the frightened eyes of Mrs B.

“You okay?” The teenager asked, her concern fighting for dominance with her fear.

“Yeah,” Faith sat up and rubbed her face, “bad dream, what’s up?”

“There’s something out there,” Mrs B turned her head to look out into the dark.

“W-what?” Faith looked at her watch; the little luminous dial told her that it was almost midnight.

“There’s something out there,” Mrs B repeated.

“Like what?” Faith pushed herself to her feet, picked up her rifle and joined Mrs B staring into the night.

“Like an animal or something,” Mrs B tried to explain, “it keeps out of the fire light, but I can hear it move about out there.”

Glancing over to where the fire still burned, Faith looked out into the night turning so she could get a look at the ground all around their camp.

“I can’t…” Faith was just about to say that she couldn’t see anything, but just as the words were about to leave her mouth she saw movement right on the edge of her field of vision. Turning quickly towards the shape, Faith brought her rifle up to her shoulder. Before she’d even finished the move the shape had gone, disappearing once more into the night.

“Wake Doublewide,” Faith whispered, “an’ put that fire out.”

The girl scurried off as Faith turned once more at the sound of a stone being dislodged out in the night. Listening to Doublewide grumble as she woke up then realised something was wrong, Faith walked over to check on Captain Finn, he was still asleep. Doublewide and Mrs B appeared next to her waiting for her to tell them what to do.

“Okay,” Faith whispered urgently, “all ‘round defence…”

“But there’s only the three of us,” Doublewide pointed out helpfully, “how can we do all ‘round defence with just the three of us?”

Despite herself, Faith couldn’t help but smile.

“Two of you,” Faith corrected, “I’m goin’ out there to take a look at our visitor, you two are goin’ to guard the Captain there.”

Doublewide and Mrs B exchanged frightened looks then turned to Faith and nodded, “Yes Corporal,” they added nervously.

Watching for a moment as the two women took up position around the Hummer and Captain Finn, Faith walked softly out into the desert night. Now the fire was little more than a few red embers, Faith’s night adapted eyes easily picked out the surrounding terrain. Stars shone down brightly in the clear desert air, to her, apart from the washed out colours, it was almost as bright as day.

Stopping to listen, Faith concentrated for a moment; she could hear Doublewide and Mrs B talking softly behind her. Ignoring their voices she could hear Captain Finn’s quiet, steady breathing. Turning her head slightly so her ears were facing away from the Hummer, Faith listened for anything out of place anything not natural. Opening her eyes with a start, Faith looked in the direction of the sound like a loose stone moving about fifteen metres away.

Taking a firm hold of her rifle, she pulled back on the cocking handle and checked that there was a round in the breach. Satisfied that she was loaded and ready, Faith started to move towards where she’d heard the sound come from. Crouched over with her rifle at her shoulder, she carefully laid her feet down wary of making any sound. Ahead of her, perhaps ten metres away, was a large clump of bushes. The noise had come from behind it, now there was nothing but silence.

Just as Faith was moving to her right so she could out-flank the bush something moved. At first she thought it was a wayward goat or something, but as her eyes fell on the creature she realised it was too big to be a goat. The thing was about man sized and covered in long straggly hair, it moved like a Chimpanzee or great ape. It turned to snarl at her and Faith gasped as she saw its pointed ears and demonic face as it crouched over what looked like human remains. The creature started to bound towards her straight into the burst of fire she sent at it. With a sound like a dog whimpering the creature fell lifelessly to the stony ground.

“Shit!” Gasped Faith as she turned to cover the terrain around her; expecting to see more of these things coming after her, she was surprised to see how still the desert was.

“You okay, Corporal?” Doublewide’s thin voice came from over by the Hummer.

“Yeah!” Faith called back reassuringly, “I think I got Mrs B’s intruder.”

Walking over to the corpse, Faith rolled it over with her foot. Blood mated the hair on its chest as it gazed with lifeless eyes at the stars above. Up close it looked more like some strange man-beast than it had when it was snarling at her moments before. It’s mouth was frozen open in a hate filled snarl and Faith could make out its sharp teeth and long pointed tongue. Shivering slightly, she backed away from the creature and turned to look at the other corpse, what she saw almost made her want to throw up. Turning away slowly, she headed towards the Hummer.

“Coming in,” Faith called, “don’t shoot.”

“What was it?” Mrs B asked, “Is it dead?”

“Its dead,” Faith nodded as she took a drink from a bottle of water, “I don’t know what it was…local version of Bigfoot, maybe…yeah an’ I think I found that Foley guy.”

“Dead?” Doublewide swallowed noisily as Faith nodded her head.

Faith’s eyes came to rest on the figure of Captain Finn who’d woken up and was looking around wanting to know what was going on.

“Just had to shoot some fucked up critter, Sir,” Faith went over and knelt down next to the officer, she placed her hand on his shoulder and easily pushed him back down onto his back.

Just for a moment, Faith thought she saw a troubled look in Finn’s eye as he glanced at her hand. But almost as soon as she’d noticed it the look was gone.

“What’s going on, Corporal Lehane?” Finn’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Weird ape-thing out in the desert,” Faith replied as she held the water bottle to Finn’s lips.

“A what?” Finn asked as he pushed the bottle away; was that fear or worry Faith saw in his eyes?

“Yeah,” Faith nodded, “’bout the size of a man covered in long hair, pointy ears sharp looking teeth…never seen anything like it even on the Discovery channel. Looks like it got your guy Foley.”

“You sure its dead?” Finn looked into Faith’s eyes; there was something really worrying the guy.

“Took half a dozen rounds in the chest,” Faith smiled, “its dead.”

“Good,” Finn sighed with relief, “we’ve got to get out of here Corporal!”

“Hold on!” Once again Faith found herself having to hold the officer down; it was obvious to her that Finn wasn’t telling her everything. “We, and ‘specially you aren’t going anywhere ‘til dawn, so why don’t you tell me what’s goin’ on?”

“Don’t know what you mean, Corporal,” Finn turned his face away from Faith, “just obey orders and get the men ready to move.”

“Women,” Faith corrected, “and we ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til ya tell me what’s goin’ on!”

Please tell me ya old grand pappy used to take ya out hunting when you were a girl.

Chapter Text

The pieces of the puzzle where all starting to fit together in Faith’s mind; first there’d been the insurgent that wouldn’t die even when she’d shot him. He’d only died and turned to dust when she’d broken his neck. Then there’d been the suicide prisoner who’d exploded covering her in slime after Angel shot him. Now there’d been the weird dog-man out in the desert. Add to all this a Captain, with no unit badges on his uniform, out in the desert with just two men and a Hummer. A man who’d told her that no one would come looking for him when he was overdue. It was obvious to her that this Captain Finn (if that was his real name) was part of some Black Ops team sent to Iraq to track down…to track down what? Faith sat back on her heels and thought for a moment.

“What’s goin’ on here, Sir?” Faith asked eventually.

“At the moment, insubordination, Corporal,” Finn replied.

“Yeah, like you’re gonna make that stick,” Faith laughed, “and I suppose that’s just a flesh wound,” Faith pointed to Finn’s stump, “ya gonna hop outta here?”

“You’re to leave me behind and go for help,” Finn explained.

“No-way man!” Faith laughed, “We don’t leave our own behind, so while we’re waitin’ for the sun to come up we can pass the time by you tellin’ me what the hell’s goin’ on.”

“Okay,” Finn sighed and pointed, “but not in front of them.”

Faith turned to see Doublewide and Mrs B standing behind her.

“Sorry,” Faith smiled again, “they hear what I hear,” she paused and cocked her head to one side, “what’s that?”

“What’s what?” Asked Finn.

Ignoring the man, Faith stood up and turned to face the sound of many feet running across the stony desert towards them.

“That way!” Faith pointed into the dark and raised her rifle to her shoulder.

The sound of snarling beasts came to everyone’s ears now.

“Flare!” Faith ordered urgently.

Dropping to her knees Mrs B’s frantically searched through the pile of spare gear by the Hummer’s rear wheel. Finding the flare she untapped the ends, pointed one end at the sky and pulled the length of string at the other. There was a loud *WHOOSH!* and a cloud of grey smoke as the little rocket sped into the dark sky leaving a trail of sparks behind it.

The rocket arced into the star lit sky and exploded with a pop-like bang. Shining like a miniature sun the flare drifted slowly towards the ground under its own little parachute. Casting a strange stark, white light across the ground, the three women saw the pack of dog-men knuckling their way towards them at a fast run.

“FIRE!” Faith yelled as her rifle spoke breaking the spell that seemed to hold the other women like statues.

The fire from the three M16’s lashed across the creatures sending them tumbling to lie on the ground as the harsh light of the flare illuminated this eerie vision from hell. By the time the flare had drifted to the ground not one of the dog-men remained on its feet.

“Another flare,” Faith ordered as she swapped her empty magazine for a full one.

Once again the flare shot into the sky illuminating a circle of desert around the Hummer. This time there were no slavering, snarling hell-beasts charging towards them, just their bodies that lay still on the blood flecked sand.

“What the fuck were they?” Doublewide asked her eyes round with fear.

“How many flares have we got left?” Faith wanted to know.

“Two, Corporal,” Mrs B’s voice sounded far away.

Just then the second flare floated to the ground. It continued to burn behind a bush for a moment before leaving them in a dark that somehow seemed blacker than it had only moments before.

“Like Doublewide said,” Faith turned to look down at Finn, her eyes had quickly adapting back to the darkness, “What the fuck where they?”

“Hellhounds,” Finn replied wearily.

“Hell-what!?” Demanded Doublewide.

“Hellhounds,” Finn repeated, “my men and I were sent out here to eliminate a pack of them, obviously we missed some. They’re left over bio-experiments from Saddam’s days.”

“Obviously,” Mrs B didn’t sound like a happy soldier, in fact she sounded mightily pissed.

Looking at her watch Faith glanced over to the east, the first faint signs of dawn had appeared on the horizon.

“Okay,” Faith had made up her mind, “pack up, we’re leaving. Just take water, ammo and any energy bars we’ve got.”

Given something concrete to do, Doublewide and Mrs B started to move like they meant it. Stuffing spare clips in her pockets Doublewide pointed at Finn.

“What about him, we leaving him behind?”

“No way,” Faith placed the two remaining flares into the map pocket of her fatigues.

“We gonna carry him?” Mrs B asked incredulasly.

“No,” Faith checked her equipment then slung her rifle over her neck so it hung down across her chest, “we aren’t…I am. Help me get him up on his leg.”

“WHAT!?” Doublewide and Mrs B chorused.

“You can’t!” Objected Finn, “leave me here with a rifle, get help I’ll be okay.”

“Bucking for a posthumous Silver Star, Captain?” Faith laughed, “Gonna sacrifice y’self so us poor chickens can get away free? No way man,” Faith gesture for Doublewide and Mrs B to lift the officer up, “not that easy. If anyone’s getting any medals out of this fuck up it’s gonna be us for savin’ your sorry ass.”

Fending off Finn’s weak attempts at fighting them, the two women got him onto Faith’s back.

“You won’t last ten metres, Corporal,” Finn objected.

“Gotta agree with him,” Mrs B pointed out.

“You let me be the judge of that,” Faith replied as she shifted Finn to a more comfortable position, “come on…follow me!”

Setting out at a brisk walk Faith headed off along the track back the way they’d driven the previous day.

“Mrs B,” Faith called, “you take point, Doublewide, you’re Tail-End-Charlie.”

The two women got themselves into position in front and behind Faith, they almost had to run to keep up with her as she moved swiftly along the track.

Their shadows grew longer then progressively shorter as the sun rose into the clear blue sky. Calling a halt, Faith laid Finn on the ground with the help of Doublewide and Mrs B.

“Leave me,” demanded Finn weakly, “that’s an order.”

“Sorry Sir,” Faith lifted a water bottle to her lips and drank, “you’re delirious.”

“You!” Finn turned on Doublewide as she began to put a new dressing on his leg, “I’m authorising you to take command. Leave me here and go for help.”

“Don’t think the Corporal would like that, Captain.” Doublewide looked closely at the stump for a moment, “Hey, Slay, come look at this.”

Crawling over to Finn, Faith realised that this had been the first time Doublewide had used her nickname to her face.

“What’s up?” Faith asked quietly.

“He’s been bleeding again,” Doublewide pointed at the blood sodden dressing, “a lot.”

“Shit,” Faith looked down at her legs, sure enough there were dried drops of blood all over her fatigues. “Can’t be helped, just tighten the tourniquet and put on a new dressing, we should get picked up soon.”

“Corporal?” Mrs B had assigned herself the duty of lookout while they were stopped; she was pointing back along the track. “Someone’s coming.”

Looking in the direction of Mrs B’s pointing finger, Faith saw a plume of dust heading rapidly towards them.

“Right on!” Faith smiled with relief their luck had changed, someone had come to get them, “Told you they’d be looking for us.”

Standing up, Faith waved her arms at the fast approaching vehicle, much to her surprise it stopped when it was still several hundred metres away. When the vehicle stopped the dust cloud its passing had caused started to dissipate and Faith caught her first clear sight of the vehicle.

“Oh crap,” she sighed, “when do we get a break?”

“They’re insurgents aren’t they?” Mrs B’s West Virginian accent got thicker as she spoke, “This just ain’t fair.”

“Ya not wrong, B,” Faith looked around and started to give orders. “Doublewide, B get the Captain here into the bush,” she pointed off the track, “now who’s got those grenades?”

“Me!” Mrs B tossed the two grenades to Faith who put them in one of her pouches. “What you gonna do?”

“You stay here an’ protect Captain Finn,” Faith ordered, “I’m gonna see if I can get us a ride.”

“Better you than me,” agreed Doublewide as she finished tying of Finn’s new dressing. “Come on Mrs B, lend a hand.”

Watching as the two women pulled the weakly protesting, Captain Finn off the track, Faith checked her rifle and started to trot towards the insurgent vehicle. Her eyes easily picked out details in the shimmering air. The vehicle looked like a white Toyota pick-up, there were half a dozen men, maybe more, standing on or around it and what looked like a heavy machine-gun set up to fire over the cab.

Seeing the insurgents start to move, Faith stepped off the track and started to run. Dodging between the bushes as she worked her way closer to the pick-up. Hearing the crack of heavy rounds going over her head, Faith threw herself to the ground as an instant later the slow ominous stutter of the machine gun came to her ears. After crawling quickly through the sand away from where the insurgents had last seen her, Faith risked raising her head above the level of the surrounding bushes.

The Toyota was moving slowly along the track towards where Doublewide, Mrs B and Finn had gone to ground. There were two men in the back with the machine gun, three trotting along side the track and another driving. Guessing the range at no more than seventy metres, Faith raised her rifle to her shoulder and fired. Her burst sent the number two on the machine gun spinning over the side of the pick-up. The gunner must have noticed where the fire had come from as he turned the heavy Russian weapon towards her and sent a long burst in her direction.

Hugging the ground, Faith heard and felt the heavy rounds lash the bush and ground around her. Rounds cracked like whips just above her head, she decided she had to get out of here. Just for a moment the gunner stopped his fusillade. Hearing a lot of shouting and the sound of men running through the bush towards her, Faith realised the insurgents were coming after her.

The bad guys would expect her to try to get away; Faith was going to surprise them by pressing home her attack. Once again she heard the steady stutter of the machine gun as it raked the bush. Moving to her left, she started to try and out flank her opponents, she’d not gone more than a dozen metres when a man burst from behind a bush almost on top of her.

Grabbing the man with inhuman speed and strength, Faith dragged him to the ground and broke his neck. This had taken about two seconds; again she heard machine gun rounds scythe through the air above her head. Moment’s later fire from three AK’s joined the machine gun. Fast though she’d been the insurgents must have seen their buddy go down and were moving in for the kill. Popping up like a jack-in-the-box, Faith fired off a burst in the direction of the closest rifle man.

A hurricane of fire shredded the bushes around her as she dived to the ground again. Damn-it, she thought, she’d not expected them to react so fast. Still trying to go to her left, Faith crawled on through the bush. With a sigh of relief, she heard the fire shift away from her. Just as she was thinking she’d be able to get to the track behind the pick up and take out the gunner she heard a footfall behind her.

Turning onto her back, and trying to bring her rifle to bear, Faith felt the bullets slam into her body armour. Crying out as she felt a couple of her ribs break, she pulled the trigger of her rifle as another bullet from the AK broke her left forearm. Emptying half a magazine into the insurgent, she watched as her rounds impacted the man’s chest and he flopped to the ground like a puppet that’d had its strings cut.

Crying out in pain, Faith tried to change her magazine one handed, dropping the empty magazine into the sand she fumbled for another. Cursing her luck, she heard the sound of running feet coming towards her. Her hand closed on one of the grenades on her equipment harness just as two insurgents burst out of the bush about five metres to her right. At first they didn’t see her being surprised by the body of their buddy. This gave Faith time to pull the pin and toss the grenade towards them.

There was a sharp crack as the grenade went off and the air filled with dust, smoke and shrapnel. Through her ringing ears Faith could hear someone sobbing and someone else yelling in Arabic. Looking up through blurred eyes she saw an insurgent standing over her pointing his AK at her. Realising she’d lost her rifle somewhere Faith grabbed for her knife as the insurgent brought his rifle up to fire. Yelling a mindless curse at the man with the gun and the world in general, Faith hurled herself at the insurgent knife in hand. Feeling more bullets hitting her she had almost got hold of the insurgent just as the world exploded around her and the lights went out.

Once again, Faith found herself sitting on a blanket in a park somewhere, her father sat next to her watching her with saddened eyes.

“Dad?” Faith looked down at herself; instead of seeing the pretty summer dress that her father had bought her, she saw her blood stained fatigues. “Dad!” Faith saw the blood on her hands as her father held out his arms to hold her close, “Help me Dad!”

“Corporal,” another voice entered Faith’s consciousness, “you’ll be okay,” the voice told her, “we’ll have you in hospital in twenty minutes, just hang tight.”

“I’ll hang,” Faith smiled, everything was alright now her Dad was here, “they can’t kill me.”

After watching the medevac chopper rise into the air taking Faith and Captain Finn to hospital, Scream turned to look at Doublewide and Mrs B.

“You guys okay?” He asked.

“Yes Sergeant,” they chorused.

“Okay,” Scream jerked his head towards the squad’s Hummer, “lets get you back to Liberty.”

He watched as the two young women walked tiredly over to where the rest of the squad stood. If Lieutenant Underpants had let them start out when Scream had wanted to, likely as not they’d have found the women around first light and none of this needed to have happened. Walking back to the Hummer, Scream made up his mind to see the company commander, Captain Baron, about removing Underpants. If that failed, Scream was sure he’d come up with some way of his own to get the Lieutenant out of their hair.

Eventually, after the bodies were placed carefully into body bags and other bodies were burnt and the Hummers were towed from the crater; the desert was left to go back to its own devices. The hot desert wind blew softly raising a little dust here and there and lizards would scurry across the hot sands between the sun dried scrub; other than that nothing much happened…until sunset.

From the west came the sound of helicopters as they flew out of the orange sun and nape of earth across the desert. After circling the crater the great thundering birds set down around their target like six huge metallic dragons that had come to nest in the bowl of the crater. Some of the choppers disgorged troops who ran out into the desert and set up a defensive perimeter. The other choppers disgorged men in protective suits who climbed the wall of the crater and then went down into its interior. They held strange devices in their gloved hands and seemed to be using them to search for something.

They’d only been there for ten minutes or so when one of the searchers found what they were looking for. Taking picks and shovels from a hand cart the men started to dig.

By the time the sun rose over the desert the men and their helicopters were gone and the desert was allowed to go back to the way it had been for thousands of years. The only sign of man’s passing were a few tyre tracks in the sand, a scorched patch where a Hummer had burnt and a scattering of brass cases that glinted in the dust. On the rocks a little, fly blown, dried, blood marked where man and monster had died. A parachute, from a flare, caught on a bush stirred listlessly in the wind and a few discarded MRE pouches littered the ground next to a large, round hole.

Chapter Text

Camp Liberty, Iraq.

“Anybody home?”

Looking up at the sound of the familiar voice, Chris ‘Scream’ Silas turned towards the entrance of his tent to see Faith standing in the doorway.

“Lookin’ good, Sergeant Lehane,” Scream rolled off his bunk and walked the few paces to where Faith stood; he held out his hand.

“Good to be back, Chris,” Faith shook Scream’s hand firmly, “what does a girl have to do to get asked in?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Scream stepped away from opening and gestured for her to come in, “I was just a little shocked to see you back so soon, I thought they’d sent you to hospital in Germany.”

“Nah,” Faith walked across the tent and sat down on a spare cot, “only got to Kuwait, I heal quick.”

“Right,” Scream could tell when someone didn’t want to talk about something, Faith’s experiences in hospital could wait for another time, “so, you’re ready to go back into the meat-grinder?”

“Sure am,” Faith grinned, “how’s things been here? Underpant’s still screwing up?”

“Don’t ask,” Scream sat on his cot and shook his head sadly, “I tried talking to The Duke, but he said he couldn’t do anything, Hunter’s still a failure.”

Raising a questioning eyebrow, Faith waited for Scream to explain.

“He’s failed to get Smoke out of the platoon,” Scream continued tiredly, “and he’s failed to get any of us killed…not for lack of trying though.”

“Hey look,” Faith smiled sympathetically, “if every officer who was an asshole got sent home there wouldn’t be more than what? Two, three officers left on the base.”

“Yeah,” Scream laughed resignedly, “s’pose you’re right.” He paused before asking, “You heard about Mrs B?”

“Rumour has it she went Awol,” Faith shrugged, “an’ she was doin’ good too, I thought she’d got over the hump.”

“Yeah well,” Scream rubbed his face with his hand, “something about her kid and he ex’, I don’t know the full story.”

“I’ll talk with her soonest,” Faith reassured him, “look there’s something I want to ask you.”

“You mean you didn’t come here for my sparkling company?” Scream contrived to look hurt.

“Maybe later,” Faith replied quickly, “ya know that officer me an’ the girls found?”

Scream nodded his head.

“Went by the name of Captain Finn,” Faith explained, “wouldn’t really tell us why he was out there with just two guys…at least nothin’ that made much sense. No unit insignia, told us no one would be lookin’ for him and oh-yeah, he had some real weird lookin’ weapon with him.”

“Weird?” Scream prompted.

“Yeah like a super-taser or something,” Faith added, “’bout the size of an M4.”

“Super-taser?” Scream shrugged, “Never heard of anything like that. As for the other stuff; there’s way too many ‘Black Ops’ goin’ on ‘round here. This Finn guy could have belonged to any one of a dozen semi-secret army units.”

“Damn,” Faith stared at the floor for a moment, “thought you’d say something like that,”

“I can ask around, if you like,” Scream explained and saw Faith’s face brighten, “Whoever these guys are they’ve got to eat and every Supply Sergeant I’ve ever known is a crook, shouldn’t be too hard to find if you know the right people.”

“Thanks,” Faith got slowly to her feet, “if ya ever need anything…”

“All I need,” Scream walked Faith over to the door, “is for you to stop being a hero, you’re turning my hair grey.”

“Sorry Chris,” Faith paused at the entrance, “just can’t seem to help myself.”

Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, New Jersey.

“Riley!” Buffy rushed across the hospital room to where Riley sat on the edge of his bed.

Elbowing the doctors out of the way she wrapped her arms around his neck and engulfed him in a warm, some might say, red-hot embrace.

“I came as soon as I heard,” she said breaking her hold on him for just a moment.

Standing in the doorway, Willow gave the three doctors who’d been trying to examine Riley and were now standing around looking confused and slightly annoyed, an embarrassed smile.

“Hi,” she said, “my name’s Willow Rosenberg and the short, blonde, mad woman attacking your patient is Buffy Summers, Riley’s girlfriend,” Willow looked slightly embarrassed herself for a moment, “I’m sure she’ll let you have him back in a moment.”

“That’s alright,” a young male doctor with an Australian accent turned a dazzling smile on Willow, “we’ll come back later.”

Willow smiled her thanks; unfortunately for him the young doctor’s charms were lost on her, she much preferred the cute female doctor. The three members of the medical profession filed silently out of the room shutting the door behind them. Willow closed the window blinds to give them some privacy.

“BUFFY!” Turning away from the glass partition that separated the room from the corridor, Willow saw that Buffy had pushed Riley back onto the bed and was kneeling astride him still while still kissing him passionately. “Get off your boyfriend this instant, Riley’s not well.”

“Oh god!” Buffy released her hold on Riley and climbed off the bed, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No I’m fine,” Riley grinned, “if that’s the sort of treatment I can expect, maybe I should’ve got blown up earlier.”

The room went deathly silent as Buffy and Willow’s eyes were drawn to where Riley’s right leg ended prematurely.

“Hey sorry,” Riley smiled, “black humour, y’know? I’ve been around soldiers too long.”

“Yeah, right, okay,” Buffy plastered a smile back on her face and sat on the bed next to him, “I’m totally okay with it, you joke as much as you want, I…”

“So, this is the woman who can drive off my entire team,” the door burst open to admit an unshaven man in jeans, t-shirt and expensive trainers. Leaning heavily on a cane, he glared at Buffy, “You must be the girlfriend,” next he looked at Willow raising a hopeful eyebrow, “who are you, the other girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend’s, best friend,” Willow said returning the scruffy doctor’s close examination, “I’m guessing you’re Doctor House, Riley’s doctor?”

“How’d you know that?” House limped across the room towards Riley’s bed and picked up his chart.

“I read your mind,” Willow smiled, “its really very easy.”

“Okay,” House turned to give Willow a hard look, “visiting hours are over, get out!”

“But…” Buffy started to protest.

“OUT!” House pointed to the door, “You can visit with G-I Joe later, now go; and if you happen to see three so-called doctors cowering in the corridor send them back in here.”

“Come on Buffy,” Willow took hold of Buffy’s arm and pulled her towards the door.

“I’ll be back later, Riley,” Buffy called over her shoulder as Willow pulled her out of the room.

Once they were in the corridor, Willow turned to face Buffy who was still trying to see into Riley’s room.

“Buffy Anne Summers,” Willow said sternly, “stop acting like a ditz this instant, what’s come over you?”

“Sorry,” Buffy looked at her feet for a moment and then smiled up into Willow’s eyes, “but Riley’s back! Okay not all of him but most of him and I really missed him Willow, you know?”

“Yes I think I’d worked that out,” Willow put her arm through Buffy’s as they walked along the corridor together, “but you’ve gotta be careful, leave the near rape until he’s recovered, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy took a deep breath and was back to her usual self.

“Good,” Willow nodded her head firmly, “lets go get a cup of coffee or something.”

“Yeah lets,” Buffy agree, “Hey Willow?”

“Uh-huh,” Willow looked up at a sign board, it told her nothing useful and she considered casting a ‘locator’ spell to find the cafeteria.

“When you said you read that doctor’s mind…” Buffy looked at her friend, “...you didn’t, did you?”

“No,” Willow shook her head and pulled Buffy towards where she guessed the cafeteria should be, “I Googled the hospital on the way over. Don’t worry he’s the best they’ve got.”

“Best at what,” Buffy wanted to know as they came to the cafeteria, “precisely?”

“I’ll explain while we’re having coffee,” Willow parked Buffy at a table and then walked over to the service counter for their coffee.

Iraq.

Lying back on a pile of cushions, Faith savoured the smoke from the Cuban cigar she was smoking.

“This is so cool,” she signed contentedly.

“Yeah,” agreed Scream from the depths of another nearby pile, “this has gotta be the best mission I’ve been on since I’ve been in Iraq.”

The squad had found the house only a few hours earlier, they’d been searching a deserted village for suspected insurgents when they’d come across the compound. After breaking in through a side gate they’d found the house. It had its own generator and water supply; it was clean and well furnished in a mixture of western and local styles, but best of all it had a bathtub complete with water heater and gold plated taps.

“How long have ya been over here?” Faith asked, Scream and herself were camped out in what must have once been the owner’s living room.

“Too long,” Scream blew smoke towards the ceiling, “I’d already done one tour when these virgins turned up,” he gestured to the rest of the house where the squad were taking it in turns to use the tub. “I only had a week before I went home.”

“Crap, man,” Faith sat up and looked at Scream, “that’s shitty; you mean you didn’t even get a couple of days R ‘n’ R?”

“No,” Scream sighed tiredly, “straight back out into the field.”

“No one waiting for you at home?” Faith settled back down into her nest.

“No one special, if that’s what you mean,” Scream admitted. “No immediate family, I’ve got a couple of uncles somewhere, but no, no one special nothing to make me wanna rush home, you?”

“Nah,” Faith knocked the ash from the end of her cigar onto the floor, “there’s just me.”

“What,” Scream sat up a little so he could see Faith more clearly, “no one at all?”

“Look,” Faith sat up and looked around the room; as far as she could hear or see there was no one close enough to overhear her, “as far as I know I’ve not got any family. I had a father or at least I think he was my father, but anyway he’s dead now.”

“No boyfriend waiting for you back home?” Scream asked.

“Nah,” Faith shook her head, “closest thing I’ve got to a family is the army.”

“Shit,” Scream gasped.

“Yeah,” Faith shrugged, “sad ain’t it? I’m thinking I’m staying in ‘til they throw me out; nowhere else to go, see?”

“Yeah,” Scream agreed quietly, “I can see how you’d think like that.” Looking at the glowing end of his cigar Scream thought back on what Faith had just said, “What do you mean, you thought this guy was your father?”

“Look,” Faith glanced ‘round the room again, “don’t spread this around, okay?”

“Okay,” agreed Scream.

“I remember having a picnic with this guy who I think was my dad,” Faith stubbed out her cigar, “Then along comes this woman, girl really who cuts his throat and comes after me.”

“Shit, no way!?” Scream exclaimed.

“Yes, way,” Faith frowned, that was something her father used to say, “next thing I know I’m waking up in hospital eight months later and apart from my name I can’t remember who or where I am or what’d happened before that fuckin’ picnic.”

“Did they ever find this woman who killed your dad?” Scream asked as he sat watching Faith carefully.

“No,” Faith replied simply.

Basically she was telling Scream what she’d told the army, apart from the bit about the memory loss and the coma; she didn’t tell him anything about the detectives who’d visited her in hospital. How they’d claimed her father had died in a gas explosion at the local high school and how she’d better leave town, quick.

“That’s shitty,” Scream didn’t know what else to say, but Faith saved him the bother of saying anything further.

“Like I say,” Faith frowned tiredly, “sad.” Giving a shrug and a smile Faith looked at Scream, “So there it is, my dark secret.”

“Yeah,” Scream nodded, “talking of secrets, y’know you asked me about that Finn guy?”

“Uh-huh,” Faith nodded her head, she’d almost come to believe she’d never find out what that guy’s story was and where the so-called Hellhound things had come from.

“I asked around some of my old Ranger buddies,” Scream began, “and I found out he was part of some super-secret Ranger unit. They’re out of the chain of command over here, their orders come straight from the Pentagon.”

“No shit,” Faith whistled quietly.

“That guy Finn,” Scream added quietly, “probably not even his real name or rank.”

The room exploded just as Scream stopped talking and before Faith could ask him another question. Rifle rounds smashed through the doors and windows as Faith and Scream headed for the floor and grabbed for their weapons.

“Knew this was too good to last!” Faith called as she hurriedly pulled on her body armour.

Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey.

“So, why did the army send you here?” Buffy wanted to know; lying on the bed next to Riley her fingers traced lazy circles across his chest. “I thought the army had its own hospitals.”

“Yeah,” Riley had his arm around Buffy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “but the army doctors couldn’t work out what’s wrong with me.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Buffy lifted her head from Riley’s shoulder, “I thought it was…” Buffy’s eyes drifted down to where Riley’s truncated limb ended.

“My leg?” Riley asked, Buffy nodded, “They think I’ve picked up some sort of infection…”

“Infection!?” Buffy sat up and looked at Riley before she realised what this must look like to him, “No! Sorry!” Buffy snuggled up to her boyfriend again, “I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” Buffy took a deep breath, “...they don’t know what it is?”

“No,” Riley shrugged, “I keep presenting odd symptoms, other times, like now, I’m fine.”

“Maybe it’s something, you know,” Buffy glanced over at the door, it was firmly shut, “maybe it’s something Willow can deal with.”

“I was thinking that too,” Riley replied, “even if its not this guy House is supposed to know what he’s doing.”

“You say sometimes you feel fine,” Buffy sat up again, “like now?”

“Yeah,” Riley grinned.

“Good!”

Jumping from the bed, Buffy quickly crossed the room and locked the door from the inside and checked the blinds were properly closed; she walked back over to Riley’s bed.

“Time for me to give you your coming home present,” Buffy kicked off her shoes and started to remove her jeans.

“Buffy…” Riley wanted to say that this wasn’t the time or place, but he had been away for over a year.

“I want it all this time, Riley,” Buffy pulled off her top and bra not realising she’d just made a double entendre; climbing back up on the bed she pulled Riley’s bedding aside. “This time I want the ring, the roses ‘round the door, everything!” she continued urgently, “This time there’ll be no mad scientist to mess with us or screw with your body.” Naked now except for her socks, she sat astride Riley, “I was stupid to let you go the first time, now you’ve come back I’m never going to let you go again.” Buffy grinned down at Riley, “I always knew there was a reason I liked soldier-boys so much, they always know when its time to stand to attention!”

“Hi,” Willow intercepted Doctor Cameron before her hand touched the door to Riley’s room, “do you have to do that right now?”

“No,” Cameron smiled at the redhead and looked down at the tray in her hand, House wanted more tests done, “but…”

“Could you wait awhile?” Willow looked pleadingly at the doctor, “You see Buffy’s in there and well,” she smiled impishly, “they’ve not seen each other in over a year. They’re sorta getting reacquainted if you know what I mean?”

“But…” Cameron paused and reviewed what she’d just been told, “OH!” her hand went up to her mouth and she nearly dropped the tray, “I don’t think in Captain Finn’s condition that…”

“You know you’re real cute?” Willow completely derailed Cameron’s train of thought.

“What?” Cameron regained control of her tray of medical do-dads; she felt the young woman take a firm grip of her arm and start to lead her away from the door.

“I’m not in a relationship just now,” Willow explained ignoring Cameron’s weak protests, “My last girlfriend and I broke up, nothing messy y’know, we’re still friends, but she’s with someone else now. Are you seeing anyone?”

“Yes!” Cameron tried to pull away but the redhead held onto her tightly, “NO! Look what…”

“Sorry,” Willow gave Cameron a charming smile, “one thing my old girlfriend taught me was that life is too short to wait. I’m hoping you’re gay or at least bi?”

“No!” Cameron succeeded in pulling her arm free from Willow’s grasp.

“Darn,” Willow frowned, “have you ever tried being gay?” She asked hopefully, “Would you like to?”

Chapter Text

Iraq.

Firing long bursts from his SAW, Smoke appeared to be trying to knock down the compound wall with firepower alone. Return fire blazed through a grill in the wall that surrounded the compound; the grill was just wide enough to fire through but too narrow to let a grenade pass, it was also too high to see out into the street properly. There were at least three insurgents behind the wall taking it in turns to hold up their AK’s and fire blindly at the house.

“Sound off!” Scream yelled over the sound of the firing; every body replied except for Dim.

“Where’s Dim?” Scream wanted to know.

“They got him pinned outside,” Faith replied after taking a cautious look through a shattered window.

“Hold on Dim!” Scream yelled over the bursts of gun fire that split the night, “We’ll get to you! Angel,” Scream turned to the sharpshooter, “can you get a clear shot?”

“No Sergeant!” Angel tried to sight on the men behind the wall, “The wall’s too high so as to stop people looking in, it works both ways.”

Outside Dim tried to move under the covering fire of his squad mates, vicious, sustained fire from the insurgents forced him back.

“Every time he tries to move,” Faith called, “they pin him down harder!”

Firing off half a clip at the almost invisible gunmen, Faith couldn’t see a way of getting to Dim without getting her arse shot off. Being fast and super strong counted for nothing when the air was full of high velocity lead. Emptying the rest of her clip she saw the rounds impact just below where an insurgent held up his AK to fire at the house and yell something in Arabic.

“What’s he yellin’?” Faith asked Tariq.

“‘Give me back my house’,” replied Tariq.

“If he wants his house,” suggested Doublewide over the noise of the battle, “let him have it. That boy’s gonna die if we don’t get him out!”

“Won’t be nothin’ left if they keep this up,” Smoke observed before sending a long burst in the direction of the grill.

Taking in the situation, Faith tried to work out what to do; if they didn’t get Dim inside soon the insurgents were bound to hit him eventually. On the other hand both parties could fire at each other all night or until they ran out of ammunition, the wall effectively blocked the fire from both sides. Peeping over the window sill again, Faith calculated ranges and angles; while they couldn’t use a M203 grenade launcher; the range was too short to let the grenade arm itself and anyway Dim had the launcher. If she had an ordinary fragmentation grenade she might be able to lob it over the wall and kill the insurgents that way.

“Grenade,” Faith turned to Scream and held out her hand.

“What y’gonna do?” Scream reached for the pouch holding his store of grenades.

“Someone better do somethin’” Doublewide cried as she fired a burst at the wall, “an’ do it quick!”

“Just give me a fucking grenade!” Faith said through gritted teeth.

A female yell distracted both Faith and Scream, turning they saw Mrs B running towards the rear of the building.

“MRS B!” Scream yelled at the departing young woman.

“Where the hell’s she goin’?” Faith started to scramble after the young woman but was beaten off the mark by Scream.

Chasing Mrs B down a long corridor towards the rear of the house, Scream came to a halt as Mrs B opened the back door and disappeared into the night. Staring out into the dark after her, Scream heard the sound of the Hummer’s engine as Mrs B floored the accelerator and the vehicle shot off across the rear of the compound towards the front wall.

Still screaming in a mixture of fear and rage, Mrs B aimed the Hummer at the wall just below the grill. Rounds impacted the front of the Humvee breaking the windshield and drilling holes in the hood. Screaming like a soul possessed, Mrs B held on grimly to the steering wheel and pressed her foot flat down on the accelerator. The Hummer hit the wall sending dust and masonry into the air. The wall collapsed burying the insurgents under a pile of concrete blocks and killing them instantly.

Breathing hard and shaking like a leaf, Mrs B reached for the ignition with a trembling hand and switched off the racing engine. For a moment everything was quiet the silence broken only by the ringing in her ears caused by all the firing. Suddenly the world seemed to start up again, she could hear the calls of her squad mates as they rushed from the house to see if she was okay. Pushing open the driver’s door Mrs B found herself looking into the eyes of Sergeant Lehane.

“You okay, kid?” Faith asked quietly as the rest of the squad secured the area.

“Check it out,” Smoke called softly from the other side of the wall; three dead bodies lay in the street half covered in building blocks.

“Maybe he did just want his house back,” Angel observed as he came up beside Smoke.

“We can bury him in the yard,” Smoke pointed out, “he can stay here forever.”

“Police up the bodies and put them in the yard,” Scream ordered as he climbed through the hole in the wall, “Tariq you check for weapons and put them in the house, okay?”

There was a muttered chorus of ‘Yes Sergeant’s’ as the squad began to move; Scream turned and climbed back through the wall.

Holding on to Mrs B with her arm around the teenagers shoulder, Faith waited for her to stop throwing up.

“Deep breaths,” Faith advised the girl, “here,” Faith held a bottle of water out to Mrs B, “wash your mouth out an’ take a drink.”

“What the hell was that all about?” Demanded Scream as he appeared in front of Faith and Mrs B.

“Hey!” Faith started to protest.

“The Humvee was right out the back…” Mrs B started to explain.

“You’re a god-damn driver,” Scream snapped.

“Someone had to do some…” Mrs B looked bewildered as she stared at Scream.

“I’m a god-damned Staff Sergeant,” Scream’s voice was getting louder.

“I don’t see what…” Faith began but was interrupted by Scream.

“I’ll tell you when to risk your sorry ass,” Scream informed Mrs B, “you will not go off and be a hero…”

“You’re out of line,” Faith spat the words out as she stepped between Scream and Mrs B.

“What the hell do you think you’re doin’, Sergeant?” Scream glared at Faith.

“I’m lookin’ out for one of my own, Staff Sergeant,” Faith grabbed Scream by his arm and pulled him to one side; hanging on to her temper by a thread, Faith’s voice lowered to a menacing whisper. “You can yell at your guys as much as you like Staff Sergeant Silas, but Mrs B’s one of mine. If anyone’s goin’ to yell at her it’s gonna be me!”

“No one endangers the safety of the squad,” Scream hissed back, “whatever the reason.”

“Fuck-you man!” Faith almost laughed at the look on Scream’s face, “Ya don’t win by doin’ the safe thing.”

“Yeah, but more guys get to go home,” Scream pointed out.

“An’ the war goes on longer,” Faith was almost calm now, “look,” Faith let go of Scream’s arm, “I’m serious about what I said, I’ll deal with B and Doublewide if they need slapping down, leave ‘em to me, okay?”

“Those new sergeant strips goin’ to y’head, Slay?” Scream almost smiled as he said it.

“Nah,” Faith shook her head, “must be gettin’ responsible in my old age.”

“Yeah, okay,” Scream shifted uncomfortably under his body armour, “look I’ll need a report off you for when I put Mrs B in for her Bronze Star.”

“Cool,” Faith smiled and nodded her head, “be right on it.”

Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey

Sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, Buffy watched through worried eyes as Willow performed the cleansing ritual. A couple of hours after Buffy had given Riley his ‘coming home present’ he’d taken a turn for the worst. The doctors didn’t seem to know what was wrong with him and subjected him to a whole new battery of tests. This was the first time since then that Buffy and Willow had been alone long enough to do the ritual.

Confident that she’d be able to find out if Riley had picked up a magical disease, Willow had placed her charms all around the bed. Incense burnt in several small metal dishes around the room while Willow chanted over Riley’s semi-conscious body. Shaking a sort of rattle affair over Riley’s head, Willow didn’t at first notice as the door burst open to admit Doctor House.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” He demanded as he limped across the room, “What’s all this crap?” He turned to the trio of doctors that seemed to follow him wherever he went, “Why is this woman in here with all her ju-ju beads and toys?”

Crossing the room in an instant, Buffy grabbed hold of House’s arm and coincidentally put herself between House and the increasingly annoyed witch.

“Doctor House!” Buffy smiled as she inexorable pushed everyone back out into the corridor and shut the door behind her so Willow could finish the ritual in peace. “I expect you’re wondering what going on, and I can totally see that you’d be pissed if someone was messing with your patient.” Buffy gave House a dazzling ‘Valley Girl’ smile; it failed to penetrate House’s ‘grumpy armour’ having no effect. “Look,” seeing that charm wasn’t going to work, Buffy changed tactics, “I know what you’re thinking,” Buffy’s face became deadly serious as she spoke.

“Yes, what am I thinking, Miss Summers?” House looked down at her as if she was a bug, “can you read minds too?”

“You’re thinking that it’s an enormous waste of time Willow doing her magic stuff,” Buffy pointed out.

“Magic!” Foreman exclaimed, “You mean like voodoo?”

“Not voodoo,” Buffy replied before spinning off at a tangent, “you know its not very well known but a lot of voodoo practices have their roots in magic from eastern England, did you know that?”

Buffy looked up at the four sets of disbelieving eyes staring down at her, it was like being at the bottom of a very deep well.

“Okay,” Buffy changed tack yet again, “look you don’t believe in magic, but Riley does,” Buffy looked hopefully from face to face. “Wouldn’t it be better if you let Willow do her thing and tell Riley that there’s nothing magically wrong with him than stop her and leave Riley thinking you’re wasting your time?”

Looking from Buffy to the door of the room House considered for a moment.

“You say he really believes in all this mumbo-jumbo?” House asked, a calculating look on his face.

Buffy nodded her head vigorously.

“He’s seen a lot of weird stuff over the years,” Buffy explained, “I think its got to him.”

“And your friend will tell him to let us treat him?” House continued.

“Bound to!” Buffy smiled like a thousand suns had come out, “I mean who believes in magic these days, Willow certainly doesn’t,” she lied, “I mean she just studies it and knows some of the rituals.”

Just as House was about to say something else, Willow came out of the room; closing the door quietly behind her, she walked over to join the group.

“Clean bill of health,” Willow smiled, “whatever Riley’s got it’s not magical.”

“That’s what you told him, right?” Buffy asked Willow pointedly, “Riley really believes that, right?”

“Yeah right,” Willow gave Buffy a puzzled frown.

“Okay,” House started to hobble towards the room, “let’s go people, time for us to do our own ju-ju magic!”

“Oh! Doctor House!” Buffy ran after House and caught him half way towards Riley’s bed, she dragged him back towards the door and stood on tip-toe to whisper in his ear. “Um, Doctor,” Buffy gave an embarrassed glance at the three doctors clustered around Riley’s bed, “You see Riley and me we sorta, y’know…had sex…”

“I’m impressed,” House smirked, “it must be the military training.”

“Hey,” Buffy frowned, “he’s been away a long time…anyway, we had sex then a couple of hours later he got real sick.” Buffy bit her lip in worry, “you don’t think…?”

“No Miss Summers,” House said loudly as he pulled away from Buffy and headed towards Riley’s bed, “I don’t think you having sex with the patient made his condition any worse. But I’ll have Doctor Cameron check you out just in case you’ve caught whatever it is he’s got.”

“Yeah,” Buffy felt about the same height as a Fear Demon, “cool.”

Iraq.

“How you holdin’ up, B?” Faith asked as she sat down next to Mrs B in the darkened interior of the now wrecked house; at some point in the firefight someone had ‘killed’ the generator.

“I’m fine Sergeant,” Mrs B replied quietly.

“You sure,” Faith pressed, “I know ya got problems…ya kid…an’ I happen to know that you went AWOL.”

“They said that…” Mrs B looked wide eyed at Faith frightened that she was going to say something to the rest of the squad.

Mrs B had in fact gone AWOL, but she’d given herself up after only a few days and the army had reinstated her for its own reasons.

“Yeah I know,” Faith said softly, “I’m not gonna tell anyone, that’s up to you, but sergeant’s have a way of finding these things out, okay?”

Mrs B nodded.

“Look kid,” Faith put her arm round Mrs B’s shoulder, “I ain’t Scream, but I’m not your big sis either, right?”

Again Mrs B nodded her understanding.

“I just wanna make sure that you did what you did coz it needed doin’,” Faith glanced round the room, there was no one close to hear what they were talking about, “not coz you wanted to go down in a blaze of glory and get y’self killed.”

“No glory, ma’am,” Mrs B stopped looking so bewildered for the first time since the end of the firefight. “It’s just, what I’d been doin’ wasn’t workin’ out so good, thought I’d try something new.”

“Like drivin’ Hummers through walls?” Faith asked with a smile, “That’s cool,” she shrugged before pushing herself to her feet, “get ya head down for an hour or two ya gotta drive us back to Liberty tomorrow…and don’t call me ma’am.”

Picking up her gear, Faith put it on and took another cigar from the box lying on the floor next to an over turned table. Checking her rifle was loaded and the safety was on she lit the cigar and walked out into the compound. Drawing on the cigar, she nodded to Angel who was on guard over by the hole in the wall. Relaxing against the side of the house she sighed as she savoured the smooth taste of the cigar and looked up at the stars.

Like so many other things, she couldn’t remember if she’d been able to see so many stars from where she’d lived in the States; somehow she doubted it. Out here the desert air was so clear the stars shone out with hardly a twinkle not like at home. Home? Now where would that be, she asked herself. She couldn’t go back to Sunnydale, the cops who’d given her the money and the documents to let her start a new life had been real insistent that she leave and never come back. Anyway, the entire town had fallen into a hole in the ground back in ‘03.

Tapping the ash from her cigar, Faith wondered what she’d do when the time came for her to leave the army, she had nowhere to go, no one to care about. The army had given her a trade, responsibility and the only home she could remember. Faith knew when she was onto a good thing; taking another draw on her cigar she made up her mind. When they got back to Liberty she’d go to see the company commander and extend her enlistment again.

Standing up Faith ground out her cigar under her boot heel and turned to go back into the house. As she did so something caught her eye; stopping she turned and let her eyes run over the compound, there was something missing. In an instant she realised what was wrong. Running over to where they’d left the bodies of the insurgents, Faith stared down at the blood stained blankets they’d used to cover the dead men. The blankets had been pushed to one side and the bodies were gone.

“Okay, Angel,” Faith called as she backed away from the bloodstained blankets, “where’d the bodies go?”

Chapter Text

Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey.

“…when you got on that helicopter, I thought I’d never see you again,” Buffy sat next to Riley’s bed holding his hand in hers.

Over the last few hours Riley’s condition had continued to worsen, House and his team kept treating him for what they thought was wrong, but every time they tried something new it didn’t seem to make much difference; in fact it often made him appear worse. Now he was unconscious and a machine was breathing for him while masses of tubes and wires connecting his body to other machines that beeped around his bed.

“But you came back to me when I most needed you,” Buffy watched Riley’s face for any sign that he could actually hear her; she saw nothing but kept talking anyway. “You gave me something to live for; you made me feel alive again.”

Having heard of Buffy’s death Riley had returned to Sunnydale to pay his respects at her graveside and to check on the welfare of the remaining Scooby’s. What he actually found was Buffy alive but disconnected from her friends and unable to cope with the world. He drafted in some of his demon hunting buddies and took some of the pressure off Buffy while he tried to make her see that life was worth living and that he still loved her.

Slowly, Buffy had come back from the brink as she realised that the people around her loved and cared for her. Once more she took up the responsibility of dealing with the Hellmouth and Riley’s people withdrew, but he kept coming back to her ever chance he had. By the time that he was sent to Iraq in late ’04, Buffy and he were fully committed to each other and were planning their wedding to take place within a few months of his return from overseas.

“Oh Riley,” Buffy couldn’t hold her tears back any longer, “please don’t leave me again…please don’t die.”

Sobbing, Buffy rested her forehead on Riley’s hand it felt so cold as if he’d already died and left her. Too upset to pay much attention, Buffy didn’t hear the door open quietly behind her or the soft footsteps that crossed the floor towards her. Firm but gentle hands rested on her shoulders and Buffy finally looked around at the woman with the sad smile on her face. Standing up, Buffy turned to hug the woman as she buried her face in the older woman’s hair as she cried quietly.

“There, there honey,” Riley’s Mom patted Buffy’s back as she tried to comfort the sobbing girl, “my Riley’s always been a fighter, he’ll not go anywhere without a struggle.”

Looking at her husband over Buffy’s head she hoped that she was telling the truth.

Iraq.

“Bodies don’t just get up and walk away,” Scream glared at the rest of the squad as they gathered around the bloodstained blankets that still lay on the ground in the yard, “one of you musta seen something…Angel, you see anything?”

“No one got by me,” the sharpshooter replied; Faith was inclined to believe in him.

“Look,” Faith stepped forward, “I was out here too. Angel was standing right between the door,” Faith indicated the door they’d blown in to gain access to the house, “and the hole,” Faith gestured to the hole in the wall where Mrs B had crashed the Hummer, “there’s no way anyone coulda got past him…they must still be in the compound.”

“But they’re dead, man,” Smoke’s hands clutched his SAW as he looked around for a target.

“Did anyone check they were dead?” Scream looked from one squad member to another.

“I did, Sergeant,” Dim stepped forward, “best I could tell they were dead.”

“You sure?” Scream demanded.

“Not now,” Dim shrugged under his body armour, “when I checked them I couldn’t find a pulse. But look they must be dead, Mrs B hit them with the Hummer and a wall!”

“Whatever,” Scream rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger, “maybe they were just knocked out or something but we’ve still gotta find them, Slay…”

“I’ll take Doublewide and Mrs B and search the house,” Faith interrupted before Scream could detail them to some out of the way duty, “okay?”

“Sure,” Scream nodded, “do that.”

“Come on ladies,” Faith lead the two women back into the house as Scream detailed off his guys.

Pausing at the door of the house Faith scanned the interior with her superior eyes, she saw nothing out of the usual; she especially didn’t see three walking corpses. The living dead were what she’d almost convinced herself they were looking for. Too much weird stuff had happened over the last few of months for her to completely discount the idea, in the mean time she needed to tell her people something.

“Hey,” Faith walked over to where she’d dumped the rest of her equipment, “remember those dog-men things in the desert that time.”

Doublewide and Mrs B glanced at each other before nodding their heads in Faith’s direction.

“I think this is the same kinda deal,” Faith took off her body armour and put on her camouflaged jacket before replacing her armour. “Look,” giving the two young women a reassuring smile, “I’ve been checking into things and Saddam had a lot of weird stuff going down before we kicked his scrawny ass, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Remember how we chopped those fuckers into dog meat?”

“Sure,” agreed Doublewide, “but Mrs B killed these fuckers once already.”

“Yeah, right,” Faith now fully clothed checked her equipment, satisfied that everything was where it was supposed to be she gave her troops another grin, “so we’ll do it again and again until these motherfuckers stay down, okay?”

“Okay,” Doublewide and Mrs B chorused not sounding as quite as convinced as they should be.

“Good,” Faith nodded her head, her guy’s reply hadn’t exactly filled her with confidence but she was satisfied they’d do their jobs. “We’re gonna search this house; I’ll lead an’ you two follow and watch my back. Stay cool don’t shoot at shadows an’ remember your training, we’ll do this like it’s a drill, you with me?”

“Yes Sergeant!” Came the nervous reply; Faith shrugged, it’d have to do.

“Okay, follow me,” Faith put her rifle to her shoulder and started to move towards the rear of the house with Doublewide and Mrs B close behind her. “We’ll start at the back and work our way towards the front room. We check each room and secure it before we go on to another. If ya see anything that don’t look right sing out.”

By the time Faith had finished speaking they’d arrived at the backdoor, it was still open from when Mrs B had made her run to the Humvee. Looking cautiously out into the back yard, Faith pulled the door closed as she retreated inside the building. Checking the door she saw the lock was smashed but there were two bolts. Sliding the bolts into place she secured the door.

“Back,” ordered Faith and the trio shuffled back down the corridor a couple of yards, “Bathroom,” Faith indicated the door to their left.

Leading the way Faith burst into the huge bathroom with its gold plated taps and marble floor. Moving into the centre of the room she covered the corners as her comrades came in behind her turning to cover the corners furthest away from the bath. Silently Faith indicated a large closet over by the bathtub. They’d taken fresh towels from this closet and it was big enough to conceal at least one averagely sized man.

Slowly, carefully, Faith crept silently across the room towards the closet; she could sense Mrs B turning to cover the corridor from the doorway, and Doublewide going wide to cover the closet from a position where, if she had to fire, she wouldn’t hit Faith. Now Faith was at the closet, reaching out she took hold of the handle while keeping her rifle aimed at the door with her other. Glancing over at Doublewide, Faith silently asked if she was ready. Gulping a little, Doublewide nodded her head and took deliberate aim at the closet. Yanking the door open, Faith stepped back to give Doublewide the widest possible field of fire.

“Clear!” Doublewide called her relief evident from the way she started to relax.

Stepping in front of the closet, Faith checked up and down and right to the back just to be sure, she turned to smile at her ‘squad’.

“See?” Faith relaxed a little, “Easy ain’t it? Ya just gotta remember ya drills and we’ll be okay.”

Doublewide and Mrs B still didn’t look one-hundred percent convinced, but they were getting there.

“Right,” Faith headed back towards the door that Mrs B was still covering, “only have to do that another six times an’ we’re home free,” she stopped next to Mrs B before going out into the corridor, “All clear?”

“Clear Sergeant,” Mrs B nodded.

“Bedroom,” Faith indicated a door on the other side of the corridor and slightly further along towards the main room. “Close the bathroom door behind us, B.”

Waiting for Mrs B to squeeze past her and cover the corridor towards the living room, Faith turned to see Doublewide get into position to cover her when she kicked in the door. *Ready?* she mouthed and received answering nods.

Lifting her leg, Faith kicked in the door, half a second later she was inside the bedroom. Freezing for just an instant she found herself staring into the dead, white eyes of one of the Iraqis, Mrs B had killed earlier. More by instinct than conscious thought her finger jerked on the trigger of her rifle.

The room lit up from the muzzle flash as the sound of her firing beat against her ears in the enclosed space, it was like she was being hit by a hammer. Wide eyed, Faith saw her rounds impacting the Iraqi’s chest blasting pieces of flesh and bone across the room, but the zombie-like Iraqi didn’t fall, in fact it opened its mouth in a soundless scream and reached for Faith just as her clip ran dry.

“BACK!” Faith back peddled bumping into Doublewide as she tried to change her clip; still struggling with her clip, Faith yelled at Doublewide, “SHOOT GOD-DAMN-IT!”

Closing her eyes, Doublewide pointed her rifle and fired. Again, like Faith’s before her the rounds hit the zombie full in the chest, apart from knocking the horrifying creature off balance a little all the rounds Doublewide was putting out didn’t slow it one little bit.

“BACK!” Faith yelled again as she pushed Mrs B down the corridor before her.

Judging that they’d out run the walking corpse, Faith turned to face the living horror once again. Giving up on her rifle she cast it aside and drew the pistol from the holster on her thigh. Holding the weapon in a two hand hold she looked down the corridor. To her dismay she saw that Doublewide had retreated towards the bathroom and the zombie was going after her.

The corridor was unnaturally quit as no one was firing, she could hear Scream yelling outside and the sound of running feet as they got closer. She also heard Doublewide’s sobs as she repeatedly smashed her rifle butt into the foul creature’s face. The creature which had once been a man paid her attacks no heed as he cornered her against the backdoor.

“Wait here,” Faith told Mrs B as she started on down the corridor.

“FUCK THAT!” Cried Mrs B as she followed Faith towards the monster.

By now the zombie had knocked Doublewide’s rifle from her hands, it had her trapped in the corner made by the corridor wall and the backdoor. Faith rushed along the corridor with no clear idea of what she was going to do once she got to where Doublewide still struggled with the creature.

The zombie had Doublewide by the shoulders and was slowly bringing its open mouth towards Doublewide’s face. Frantically, Doublewide sobbed with fear as she pushed with her forearm trying to keep the vile creature’s teeth from touching her flesh; it was a fight she would inevitable lose.

Sprinting along the corridor, Faith reached up and took the Iraqi by the collar of his ragged, bullet riddled shirt. She heaved with all her strength sending the zombie flying down the hallway towards Mrs B. The teenager, seeing the creature fly through the air towards her threw herself to one side and watched as the zombie crashed to the floor by her feet.

“GET DOWN!” Scream appeared at the other end of the corridor his rifle at his shoulder, unable to get a clear shot he didn’t fire, but watched in horror as the bullet riddled corpse climbed to its feet and started back towards Doublewide with single minded determination. Only this time Faith stood between the zombie and her soldier.

Lifting her pistol Faith aimed at the creature and shot it in what remained of its chest, still it came on. It reached for her with claw like hands as Scream yelled at her to get down. Staring into the eyes of death, Faith suddenly knew what she had to do; shifting her aim just a little she fired. Firing until the clip was empty, Faith watched in satisfaction as the mostly headless corpse fell to the floor.

“What the fuck…?” Scream ran up the corridor towards Faith covering the zombie all the way, “You okay?” His staring eyes searching Faith’s face hoping for an affirmative answer.

“Five by five,” Faith replied with a relieved grin; her smile faded from her lips as she registered Doublewide’s continuing sobs from behind her.

Turning, Faith saw the mechanic curled up into a ball on the floor hiding her face from the world.

“B!” Faith called, “Give me a hand with Doublewide.”

The teenager pushed past Scream as she went to help Faith lift Doublewide to her feet.

“Angel, Dim,” Scream called over his shoulder, “help Mrs B with Doublewide, take ‘em into the main room. Smoke cover that,” Scream gestured to the body on the floor, “thing. If it so much as twitches shred the fucker. Tariq, check the room but be careful okay?”

The squad took up their new positions and Tariq reported the room clear.

“What the fuck was that thing?” Scream demanded as he took hold of Faith’s arm and pulled her away from the body and Smoke.

“Zombie?” Faith replaced the empty clip in her pistol with a fresh one, “Fucked if I know, man. It wouldn’t die so I thought ‘zombie’ and shot it in the head like they do in all the movies.”

“Well it worked,” Scream sounded more than just relieved, “you think the other two are like that?”

“Could be,” Faith shrugged, “if they are we better tell the guys to shoot the fuckers in the head.”

“You hear that?” Scream called down the corridor, “if any more of these walking nightmares show up, shoot the motherfuckers in the head, right?”

A verity of acknowledgements drifted up the corridor from which Scream surmised that the squad had got the picture. He bent his head down so he could talk to Faith without being overheard.

“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Scream asked quietly.

“If you’re thinking this is something to do with that Finn guy,” Faith replied, “then yeah I’m thinkin’ that.”

“What is all this shit?” Scream pushed his helmet back off his forehead a little, “As if insurgents an’ IED’s weren’t enough now we have to fight fuckers that won’t die?”

“Looks like,” Faith agreed, “what do we do now?”

“We barricade ourselves into that main room and wait for dawn,” Scream said levelly.

“I’m cool with that,” Faith agreed.

“Sarge!” Dim’s head appeared around the corner of the corridor.

“What now?” Scream sighed.

“Bunch of Humvees heading right for us,” Dim reported.

“Come on Slay,” Scream walked wearily towards the front of the house, “let’s see who these guys are?”

“Right behind you, Sir,” Faith followed Scream towards the front door.

“Don’t call me ‘sir’,” Scream glanced over his shoulder at her, “I work for a living.”

Casting each other nervous glances, Faith and Scream watched as the mysterious soldiers loaded the three dead Iraqis into the back of a Hummer. One they’d only had to shovel up off the floor from where Faith had shot it; the other two had been zapped by the super-tasers that the soldiers carried in addition to their normal weaponry.

The squad had been herded into the building to be ‘debriefed’ by a woman wearing Lieutenant’s bars. Faith and Scream being senior non-coms had been told to wait outside where they were eventually approached by a man who had Major’s oak leaves on his collar. Faith noted that the badge’s of rank where the only identifying marks on the officer’s uniform. There were no unit insignia, no name tag and most strange of all, no Stars and Stripes on the shoulders of his uniform.

“Staff Sergeant Silas, Sergeant Lehane?” The officer demanded more than asked.

“Sir,” Faith and Scream came to attention in front of the man.

“Listen up and listen good,” the officer looked at them as if they were a couple of recruits and gestured over his shoulder at his own men. “This never happened, I was never here, my unit was never here, do you understand and let me remind you that the only acceptable answer to my questions is ‘Yes Sir’!”

Glancing at each other again, Faith and Scream chorused, “Yes Sir!”

“Good,” the officer almost smiled, “now I will tell what actually happen; earlier tonight you were attacked by three insurgents who you killed, roger that so far?”

“Yes Sir!”

“Later you were attacked by larger, better equipped force who you fought off, this time with the aid of a passing, foreign, Special Forces unit,” The officer paused to take a breath, “unfortunately the insurgents managed to recover their dead comrade’s bodies, do you understand?”

Scream opened his mouth to ask a question but the officer seemed to be able to read his mind and glared him into silence. Jumping into the following pause, Faith reassured the Major that they’d understood him with a crisp cry of ‘Yes Sir!’

“Good,” the officer smiled, but not in a nice way, “a full report will be forwarded to your company commander by the C/O of the said foreign special forces team detailing the gallant part your squad took during that action.”

“Yes Sir,” Confirmed Scream.

“Thank-you Sir,” Faith added.

“But,” the officer was suddenly in there faces once more; “don’t think you can sneak off and spill your guts to some embedded reporter. We will find out if you do and you will find yourselves in a world of pain and I really do mean a world…Staff Sergeant you are dismissed!”

Giving Faith a worried look, Scream turned smartly to his left and walked away towards the house.

“Sergeant Lehane,” the officer sounded almost pleasant now Scream wasn’t about, “I have a question for you.”

“Sir,” Faith replied, the word could have meant anything at this point.

“I just wanted to ask, what made you shoot the insurgent in the head?”

“Nothing else seemed to be working, Sir,” Faith replied honestly, “and it always works in zombie movies.”

“Is that so?” asked the Colonel.

“Yes Sir.”

“No special insights you want to tell me about,” the Major studied her carefully for a long minute.

“No Sir,” Faith repeated, “just saw it at the movies Sir.”

“Fair enough,” the Major shrugged, “get back to your people and pass on a ‘well-done’ from me would you?”

“Sir,” after coming to attention again, Faith walked over to where Scream and the squad stood waiting for her.

“What was all that about?” Scream asked as they watched the mysterious unit drive away into the early morning sunrise.

“Just wanted to know how I knew to shoot the fucker in the head,” Faith watched as the Humvees disappeared in their very own cloud of dust, “I told him what I told you.”

“Yeah, good,” Scream turned to the squad, “listen up people, like the man said; this never happened…”

“What never happened?” Smoke asked innocently.

“Nothing,” Scream raised an eyebrow at Faith and shrugged, “okay, lets get the area policed up and get outta here!”

“Yes Sir!” Chorused the squad.

“Whatever,” sighed Scream as he walked away to collect up his gear.

Chapter Text

Camp Liberty, Iraq.

Standing at attention in her best set of DCU’s, Faith wondered why the army had got an Air Force Colonel to pin the Purple Heart on her; didn’t the Army have enough Colonels of its own? Was there a shortage or something? The Colonel, an attractive blonde woman with more than a few medal ribbons of her own (Faith recognised the Air Force Cross, they didn’t hand those out for just having shiny shoes), stepped away from Faith and turned to face the rest of the company who were there to watch the proceedings.

“In addition to the Purple Heart,” Colonel Carter announced, “I have one other award here for Sergeant Lehane. I’m not sure she knew she was getting this one,” Carter gave her audience a small smile; “I believe her squad-mates wanted to keep it as a surprise.”

A quiet murmur of amusement greeted the Colonel’s words; a staff NCO stepped forward and handed Colonel Carter a small box; she opened it and took out another medal.

“At the request of her Squad Leader, Staff Sergeant Chris Silas and her Commanding Officer, Captain Jonathan Baron; and in recognition of her personal heroism in the face of enemy fire during an effort to save the lives of her team-mates. It is my honour, on behalf of the Armed Forces of the United States of America; to award Sergeant Faith Lehane the Bronze Star, she is here after authorised to wear the Combat ‘V’ for valour.”

Turning towards Faith, Colonel Carter pinned the medal on her chest, she took a half step back and smiled warmly at Faith.

“Well done Sergeant,” Carter said quietly after shaking her hand, noticing the tear in Faith’s eye, “You want me to stand here and fuss another minute? I’ve got the time.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Hidden from her comrades by Carter’s body, Faith raised a hand and wiped the tears from her face.

“Anytime you’re bored with what you’re doing here, Sergeant,” Carter said quietly, “come and see me.”

“I’m army, ma’am,” Faith lowered her hand; once again she was in full control of her emotions.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Carter nodded her head, “I can find you a job, hell I’ve even found work for Marines. You ready now?”

“Yes ma’am, thank-you ma’am,” once again Faith stood properly at attention, she saluted the Colonel.

After returning Faith’s salute, Carter turned away and let Faith get back to her buddies. Watching as the young soldier was surrounded by her team-mates, Carter smiled and wondered if she’d ever take her up on her offer. Having seen Faith’s record Carter had decided that she was just the right sort of material they needed in the SGC and damn-it-all, there simply weren’t enough women at Cheyenne Mountain.

After all the congratulations had stopped and everyone who was anyone had shaken her hand, Faith walked away from the crowd to be by herself for a moment. But, she was out of luck, hearing footsteps behind her she turned to face a tall, thin, older woman in civilian clothes.

“Congratulations, Sergeant,” the woman held out her hand to Faith.

“Thank-you, ma’am,” still feeling a little numb, Faith took the offered hand and shook it.

“I’m April Hart,” the woman announced, she fell in besides Faith as they walked along the dusty track between the lines of tents. “I’m a reporter for the Boston Globe.”

“Ma’am?” Faith wondered what a reporter wanted with her, “How can I help you?”

“I’d like to write a piece about you,” explained the reporter, “you know the sort of thing…women in the modern army, how you live here in Iraq how you feel about being in the firing line. That sort of thing, you know?”

“I’d don’t know, ma’am, I…” Faith hesitated.

“It’s alright I’ve cleared it with the Divisional Press Officer and your Company Commander has signed off on it,” the woman smiled, “I’m not out to make you look like a baby killer or anything like that. I just want to get a woman’s perspective on the war.”

“Wouldn’t ya do better to ask one of the officers’ ma’am?” Faith asked.

“What, and get the ‘party line’?” The reporter grinned conspiratorially, “No, I want to hear what it’s really like from someone who’s been in the thick of the fighting. How did you feel when you saw those insurgents come after you? What was it like to put yourself between your friends and the enemy.”

“I don’t know,” Faith shook her head, “I’m still a little…” Faith searched for the right words, “numb, y’know?”

“Look,” Hart knew when not to push too hard, “you think about it, talk to someone if you like, see your C/O. I’ll be around for a couple more days or so.” Looking at Faith, Hart could only guess how she was feeling right now, “You’re a real hero, Faith,” she told her finally, “people want to read about heroes.”

Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey.

To be honest, Willow was bored, she knew she shouldn’t be, but she was. They’d been in Princeton for nearly four weeks now and they’d had to move into a nearby hotel. But, Riley was on the mend and there were things that needed doing back at Cleveland and Riley wasn’t her boyfriend and…

Halting her mental babble before it could really get started; Willow sat down in one of the hospital waiting areas and admonished herself for being a selfish, heartless, witch. Buffy needed to be with Riley and she should be there to support Buffy…however. Mr Finn had gone home to the family farm leaving his wife to look out for Riley. Willow started to wonder; couldn’t Mrs Finn keep an eye on Buffy too? It wasn’t as if she wasn’t doing that already.

There was also no problem about Buffy or Riley or his mom getting attacked by anything that might think they could kill ‘The Slayer’ or her boyfriend. Very soon after arriving at the hospital, Willow had arranged for three of the roughest, toughest slayers to come to Princeton and guard Buffy and Riley. Telling herself that Buffy didn’t need her support anymore, Willow decided that she’d talk to Buffy about it and then head back to Cleveland, she was sure Buffy would understand.

Glancing over her shoulder, Willow could see one of the ‘guard slayers’ hovering protectively near the door to Riley’s room. That meant that Buffy was still ‘visiting’ and would be some time yet. Settling back in her chair, Willow looked at all the papers and magazines scattered about the area. After spending a couple of minutes tidying up, she picked up a copy of the ‘Boston Globe’; she checked the date on the paper. Seeing it was only a couple of days old she began to read.

Turning the pages, Willow came to a long article about women soldiers in Iraq, her curiosity piqued she began to read the piece. Her eye drifted to the picture of a young woman having a medal pinned on her chest. Her blood nearly froze in her veins as she read the caption; ‘Sergeant Faith Lehane receiving the Bronze Star for Valour…’ Willow didn’t read the rest of the article, instead she stood up and walked quickly towards Riley’s room.

Waiting for the doctors and nurses to finish poking and prodding Riley, Buffy stood impatiently by the door. After what felt like an eternity they all got up and left taking all their medical paraphernalia with them. As the last nurse left, Buffy closed the door behind her and crossed the room to sit down next to Riley’s bed.

“How do you feel today?” she asked taking his hand in her own.

“Apart from losing all my hair,” Riley stroked his bald head with his free hand, “and feeling as weak as a kitten, fine.”

“Kitteny weak I can deal with,” Buffy smiled wryly, “I’m not so sure about the Kojak look though.”

They both laughed quietly, Buffy could tell that Riley was starting to feel trapped lying here in hospital.

“House says it’ll all grow back,” Buffy pointed out reassuringly, “you’ll be out of here soon. I can tell that you’re on the mend ‘cause he’s losing interest in you.”

“Yeah,” Riley sighed, “the day I get out of here can’t come too soon. I need to get fit again.”

“Oh don’t you worry about that,” Buffy announced joke-seriously, “between your mom and me we’ll soon have you back on your feet…”

Buffy froze at her inadvertent slip of the tongue.

“You mean foot,” Riley corrected her lightly.

“Yeah,” Buffy glanced away for just a moment; she knew that if she looked at Riley right now she’d make a fool of herself by bursting into tears again.

Why couldn’t she accept the loss of Riley’s leg? He could, or so it seemed, she didn’t want a non-existent leg to come between them.

“So,” Buffy changed the subject, “once your mom and me have got you all un-kitteny again and you’ve got one of those bionic leg things, what are you going to do?”

“After we get married you mean?” Riley squeezed her hand.

“And the honeymoon,” Buffy added.

“I thought I’d go back to the army,” Riley informed her.

“But…” Buffy’s eyes were drawn back to where Riley’s leg should be.

“Look,” Riley started to explain, “I realise I’m never going to go back into action, I know that and I accept it. I may not like it but, that’s the way the cards fell.”

“I wish I could be so sanguine about it,” Buffy chuckled quietly, “hey, listen to me, sounding like Giles,” she took a deep breath, “So what can you do in the Army?”

“There’s still a lot of work to do tracking down and fighting demons,” Riley explained, “I can help organise that.”

“But…” Buffy opened her mouth to speak but Riley interrupted her.

“But nothing,” Riley told her, “I know with all the extra slayers in the world things should be easier, but you guys are stretched pretty thin.”

What Riley was saying was true and Buffy knew it, the total number of slayers in the world amounted to only a few hundred, certainly less than a thousand. Whatever the exact number it added up to ‘not enough’.

“You know,” Riley said quietly knowing that Buffy wouldn’t like what he was going to say, “A lot of countries have their own anti-monster squads, wouldn’t it be sensible for all of them and the slayers to work together.”

“I don’t know, Riley, I…” Buffy still didn’t fully trust the American military and she seemed to tar everyone else’s military with the same brush; she was even aware of a few slayers who’d been recruited by their country’s ‘Monster Squads’.

So far none of them had been locked up in a lab and experimented on, but Buffy always thought it was only a matter of time. For every honourable officer like Riley, there was one sneaky politician who’d want to use the slayers for their own political gain.

“Look,” Riley squeezed her hand again, “lets not talk about it now we’ll have plenty of time later.”

“So,” Buffy decided to try and lighten the atmosphere, “what shall we talk about?” Buffy grinned wickedly, “We could talk about weddings and dresses and receptions and…”

Suddenly the door burst open as Willow stormed into the room.

“Willow!” Riley gasped slightly at her sudden entrance, “Just in time to save me from…”

“Buffy!” Willow ignored Riley and passed Buffy the newspaper she’d been reading, “you need to see this!”

Frowning, Buffy stood up and took the paper from Willow’s hand; she started to read the article.

“The picture, Buffy,” Willow said urgently, “look at the picture.”

“Oh my god!” Gasped Buffy her hand going to her mouth as if to trap the words inside her.

“What’s wrong?” Riley looked up at the two women.

“Faith!” Buffy said quietly as the blood drained from her face.

“Who’s Faith?” Riley asked waiting for someone to explain things to him.

“So,” Riley looked from Willow back to Buffy, “this ‘Faith’ is the psycho slayer that was helping Mayor Wilkins?”

“That’s right,” Buffy nodded her head realising that some time very soon she was going to have to explain all about Angel.

“Anyway,” Willow continued the story, “Buffy and Faith had this big fight which Buffy won…”

“Obviously,” Riley interjected.

“It ended with Faith falling off the roof of her apartment,” Willow continued.

“She hit a truck or something and her body got carried away,” Buffy explained.

“We all thought she was dead, until…we…” Willow looked at Buffy panic in her eyes; she didn’t want to say anything out of place.

“We found her in a coma in the hospital,” Buffy took up the story without a pause, “no one ever expected her to wake up again.”

“One of us used to check on her every week,” Willow pointed out.

“Make sure she was still there,” Buffy added.

“Y’know, I would have thought the old Council would have picked her up or something,” Willow shrugged, “but it looks like they didn’t.”

“Remember when we were first,” Buffy blushed a little at the memories, “y’know, dating?” Riley nodded his head. “It was just after Adam escaped.”

“Well things got a bit confused,” Willow spread her hands helplessly, “and no one checked on her for several weeks.”

“It must have been then that she woke up and disappeared,” Buffy hung her head.

“People don’t just get up and walk away not after eight months in a coma,” Riley sounded confused.

“Slayers do,” Buffy pointed out, “we also think she had some help. The Mayor still had some friends in town.”

“Yeah, one of her doctors told us she was visited by a couple of detectives one evening,” Willow shrugged helplessly, “the next day she was gone.”

“She claimed to have lost her memory,” Buffy frowned, “but she was probably lying.”

“Now she’s in the army having medals pinned on her!” Willow sounded betrayed, “She’s a killer, Riley, who knows what she’s been doing.”

“Let me look at that picture,” Riley held out his hand for the newspaper, “maybe I’ll recognise something or someone.”

Handing over the paper Buffy watched as Riley scanned the article and studied the picture; she became concerned as the frown lines grew between Riley’s eyebrows.

“Well,” he sighed and put down the paper, “I thought the name sounded familiar, but she was only a Corporal when I met her.”

“YOU MET HER!” Buffy and Willow shrieked in unison.

“I can also tell you how she got that medal,” Riley lay back on his pillows.

“It was one of those black ops things, wasn’t it?” Buffy said refusing to believe anything good about Faith.

“No,” Riley shook his head and smiled, “when I met her she was a driver and mechanic in a motor transport unit attached to an infantry battalion.”

“FAITH!?” if Willow’s voice had gone any higher only dogs would have heard her, “A mechanic?”

“So how come she got a medal,” Buffy’s frown was getting deeper by the minute.

“She carried an injured man on her back for nearly five miles,” Riley explained quietly, “then she turned around and attacked an insurgent force that had been trailing her team. I heard later that she’d been seriously injured before the rest of her squad turned up and took out the last two surviving insurgents.”

Buffy and Willow stared at Riley in shocked silence.

“Yeah,” Riley nodded his head, “if it hadn’t been for your rogue, killer, slayer I wouldn’t be here today.”

“You mean…?” Buffy sat with her mouth open in shock, Riley couldn’t help but smile.

“Yes,” Riley confirmed Buffy’s worst fears, “I was that soldier.”

Chapter Text

‘The Road to Nowhere’, Ozzy Osbourne.

Iraq, 26th October, 2005.

Tapping her hand impatiently against the steering wheel, Faith waited for the convoy to move off. The platoon was providing security for an important civilian convoy which meant Faith had the dubious honour of driving Lieutenant Underpants’ Humvee. The man himself was standing head and shoulders out of the roof hatch behind the armoured shield of his .50 cal machine gun. This made Faith smile, Underpants probably thought himself safe behind the machine gun’s shield; however the rest of the vehicle was un-armoured so the lower half of his body was as vulnerable as she was, probably more so, at least she had the Hummer’s engine in front of her.

Up ahead stood the truck containing Scream and the other guys with Doublewide and Mrs B up in the cab. Faith couldn’t help thinking that having an unprotected truck leading the convoy was pretty stupid. Surely there should be an armoured vehicle or something to take the lead. Knowing that her two friends would be the first to be hit in any ambush didn’t improve Faith’s feelings of impending doom and disaster.

Dim stuck his head out of the back of the truck and looked around.

“We’ve been waiting here for two and a half hours, god-damn-it!” Dim yelled at the world in general, “We could’a slept to oh-six-hundred instead of three-god-damn-thirty!”

The guy had a point, if it wasn’t for the fact that she didn’t need as much sleep as everyone else, she’d be pretty pissed right about now too. It seemed to Faith that everything that could have gone wrong with the convoy had; they’d waited three hours to form up then another two hours at the airport to collect a cargo. It stood to reason that every insurgent within fifty miles knew that the convoy was on its way and it was carrying something important.

Eventually, Underpants gave the order to move. Starting the motor, Faith waited for Doublewide to move off before driving off herself. For a fleeting moment, Faith considered accelerating really hard then braking suddenly. This would’ve had the effect of throwing Underpants backwards and forwards in his little turret. Sighing, Faith decided that the moment’s pleasure she’d get from seeing Underpants with a bloody nose wasn’t worth the almighty chewing out she’d no doubt get later.

“Why do they call you Doublewide, Doublewide?” Mrs B asked, today she was riding shotgun instead of being in her usual place behind the wheel of the truck; Doublewide glanced over at the girl uncertainly as Mrs B continued speaking, “If you were fat it’d be obvious, but you’re not fat.”

“Sure you wanna know?” Doublewide asked her eyes on the road ahead.

“Oh yeah,” Mrs B grinned, “everybody wants to know.”

“Are you askin’ on behalf of everybody?” Doublewide wasn’t sure she wanted everyone to know how she’d got her nickname.

“Me!” Mrs B turned towards her friend, “I’m askin’ on behalf of me.”

“It has to do with something that happened in high school,” Doublewide said after a short pause.

“Well, now I gotta hear it, Doublewide,” Mrs B laughed.

“I’m not sure I want it published to the entire battalion,” Doublewide frowned.

“I can keep a secret,” Mrs B shrugged as she tried to reassure her friend, “I’m a criminal.”

Not replying Doublewide watched the road ahead, realising something was wrong, Mrs B turned away from her friend and looked out the windshield; she saw a small figure standing in the road.

“Something up ahead,” Doublewide said slowly.

“I see him,” Mrs B confirmed.

A small figure in a green and yellow soccer shirt stood in the middle of the road waving his arms at the approaching trucks.

“It’s a kid,” Doublewide said slowly, “Jesus, god!”

“Our standing orders are to run down anyone trying to stop the convoy,” Lieutenant Underpants’ voice came over the radio loud and clear to the two women in the cab, “So keep it moving, over.”

Doublewide picked up the walkie-talkie from the dashboard and spoke into it, “I’m not doing it, Sir, over.”

“I said,” Underpants was starting to sound angry now, “run him down. They’ve used children to ambush convoys many times, over.”

“I’m not running down a kid, over!” Doublewide repeated.

“I’m ordering you to do so, OUT!” Underpants yelled into his microphone.

“I’m with you,” Mrs B said quietly, “whatever you do.”

Swerving across the road Doublewide tried to avoid the child, however the boy moved across the road to once again stand in front of the oncoming trucks.

Following Doublewide’s erratic course, Faith kept the Hummer behind the truck; she’d been following the incident on her own radio so she knew roughly what was going on up ahead. The lead truck started to swerve back onto its original line and Faith started to follow it.

“Keep going straight ahead, Sergeant!” Underpants yelled down at her.

Keeping the Hummer on the wrong side of the road, Faith caught her first glimpse of the kid as Doublewide tried to steer around the child again. Nearly jumping out of her skin in surprise, Faith heard the .50 cal go off as Underpants shot the boy. She saw the big machine gun rounds hit the kid’s frail body and literally blow him apart. Hot cases tinkled onto the floor behind her as Faith slowly brought the Hummer in behind the lead truck again. For a moment everything was quiet except for the noise of the vehicle engines as they drove on past the red stain on the highway. Concentrating on the truck in front, Faith listened as Underpants made his report to battalion headquarters.

“Fuckin’ murderer,” she muttered quietly.

The convoy rolled on along the ribbon of black through featureless miles of semi-desert. Lost in her own black thoughts of the child lying on the sun baked highway, Faith didn’t know what to think or what to do. There’d been a slim, very slim, chance that there wouldn’t have been an ambush if they’d stopped for the boy. The chances were that had they stopped they’d have been attacked. In a strange way Underpants had probably saved their lives, but there had to be a better alternative to shooting small boys. Deep inside, Faith knew that the real people to blame were the men who’d told the boy to try and stop the trucks. But they were savages; Lieutenant Underpants should have known better and not lowered himself to their level.

The familiar sound of an RPG whooshing by made Faith blink and start to pay attention to the world outside the Humvee. Sensing Underpants turning the gun turret behind her, Faith was ready for the noise of the Ma Deuce when he started to fire it again. Straining to hear over the roar of the heavy machine gun, Faith listened as the radio burst into life with demands to know what was going on.

“You want us to keep moving, Lieutenant?” Scream’s voice came loud and clear over the radio.

“No! Stop, pull over!” Underpants called back as he fired off into the desert to the right of the convoy.

Looking out of her windshield as she brought the Hummer to a halt, Faith and Scream’s eyes locked for a moment. It was all going to happen again, Underpants was bringing them to a halt in the middle of an enemy kill zone.

“PULL OVER!?” Faith could hear the disbelief in Scream’s voice even over the radio, “This is a god-damned ambush!”

“PULL OVER, GOD-DAMN-IT!” Repeated Underpants. “Let the trucks that aren’t damaged go by, but we’re pulling over. OUT!”

“Pull over Doublewide, get outta the truck and take cover…” Scream’s voice was lost to her as another RPG flashed by between the truck and Faith’s Hummer.

Watching as her squad-mates jumped from the back of the truck and headed for the ditch on the left hand side of the road, Faith didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Should she join her buddies in the ditch or did she need to stay in the Hummer with Underpants? He wasn’t telling her anything; he appeared to be far too busy spraying the countryside with rounds to bother about his driver.

The Hummer rocked gently as a huge truck thundered by as it accelerated down the highway. Reaching for her rifle, Faith noticed that the .50 cal had stopped firing, Turning, half hoping to see Underpants’ body slumped on the floor of the vehicle, she was shocked to see that Underpants had gone. The bastard had got out of the Humvee without telling her, leaving her to fend for herself. Furious, Faith climbed up behind the machine gun and got her first real look at what the hell was happening.

Looking up and down the highway, Faith ducked instinctively as the squad’s truck exploded hit by an RPG. Behind her several civilian trucks had been hit one of them a gas tanker. It sent great billowing clouds of black smoke into the air making it difficult to see what was happening. Looking out to the right, where the main force of the ambush seemed to be, Faith saw indistinct figures running between the bushes as they closed with the stalled convoy.

Small arms fire started to crack over her head as Faith fired a few bursts at the figures that appeared and disappeared on the low ridge that over looked this stretch of highway. Smiling as she saw a figure throw up its arms before falling out of sight, Faith took a moment to glance behind her. As best as she could tell the squad was getting itself organised in the ditch. There appeared to be more smoke down at ground level than there was up by her, so Faith decided to stick with the Hummer. From here she could give her buddies covering fire as they prepared to counter attack the ambush.

After firing a long burst at the enemy positions, Faith realised that the box of machine gun ammunition was empty she ducked down into the crew compartment of the Hummer to grab a fresh one. Looking out her side window she saw the figure of an insurgent running by and crashing into an American soldier. The two men struggled for a moment before rolling out of sight. Heaving the box of rounds up onto the roof, Faith was just about to follow them when her whole world turned orange.

There was a rushing, whooshing sound, sounding strangely like a vacuum cleaner and it took Faith a fraction of a second to realise that the Hummer had been hit and was on fire. Scrambling out onto the top of her vehicle, she found herself lying on the roof next to the hatch. Vaguely aware of flames leaping out of the hatch and bullets whistling by her head, Faith looked down at herself to see flames licking at the leg of her fatigues.

Quickly she rolled off the Hummer and onto the ground narrowly missing being flattened by a passing truck. Beating at her burning fatigues with her hands, Faith managed to put out the little flames that had been rapidly consuming her uniform. Taking her chance, she rolled across the road and into the ditch beyond.

Lying there in the dust and the roadside litter, Faith tried to take stock of her injuries. Looking down at her legs she saw that a large hole had been burnt in the left leg of her camouflaged trousers exposing an area of burnt skin. Her right hand didn’t look so bad only burnt around the thumb and wrist. Looking at her left hand, Faith swallowed hard, her entire hand was blistered and red raw, a large flap of skin hung from the back of her hand as blood and plasma dripped from the wound.

“Oh, shit!” she groaned softly, knowing that very soon everything was going to start hurting real bad, she could already feel the skin on her face start to sting and she realised that her face must be burnt too.

“ARE YOU OKAY, SLAY!?” Suddenly Scream was at her side pulling her body upright.

“It fuckin’ hurts!” Was all she could say in reply.

Someone else joined them and Faith tried to turn her head to see who it was, she thought it was Angel but she couldn’t be sure, it could easily have been Smoke. Feeling someone wrap her left hand in a dressing, she tried to fight off the waves of pain that threatened to overwhelm her. There was a sharp stabbing sensation in her thigh and she looked down to see Scream inject her with morphine.

“That’ll keep you comfortable for a while,” Scream explained to her, “you’ll be safe here,” Scream pulled her pistol from her holster, pulled back the slide loading it and then placed it in her hand. “Stay here and keep your head down, I’ll send someone back for you as soon as I’ve found the rest of the squad, okay?”

“Okay,” Faith nodded and tried to smile to reassure the man she be fine, “you go get the motherfuckers,” Faith told him, “I’ll be fine.”

The next thing Faith knew she was alone, she was half sitting up with her back against the side of the ditch. Relaxing as the warm glow of the morphine spread through her body, she was startled awake again as something solid came between her and the sun. Blinking her eyes open she looked up to see a figure standing over her. For a moment she thought that it was one of the squad sent back to help her, but then she caught a glimpse of the figure’s rifle.

Something in her drug numbed mind told her that the weapon was the wrong shape. Slayer reactions started to take over as her mind registered that there was an insurgent standing over her, grinning as he brought his rifle to bear on her head. With the merest twitch of her hand she brought her pistol up and shot the man in the crutch. He screamed like a girl as he clutched at his ruined testicles. Falling to his knees on the road surface he rocked back and forward as he clutched at himself trying to stem the flow of blood that gushed from his wound.

Pushing herself up on her left elbow, Faith pointed her pistol again and shot him in the head. Only a quiet yelp escaped the insurgent’s mouth as he toppled over to lie on the highway. With her head feeling as if it was full of cotton wool, Faith crawled out of the ditch being careful to keep her left hand off the ground. Slowly she forced herself to her feet and looked around. There was smoke and flame everywhere. Nearby the tanker truck lay burning half in and half out of the ditch its cab a blackened ruin.

Somewhere she could hear the voice of a man coming over a radio; he was pleading with someone to come and help him. He sounded in pain as he recited the names of his wife and children before saying there was someone outside his truck. There was a muffled bang and the radio went dead.

Staggering across the highway, Faith searched desperately for her squad mates. A figure loomed out of the smoke, her eyes picked out the AK47 he carried, raising her pistol she shot the man between the eyes. Turning away from the body, Faith stumbled between the wrecked trucks looking for her friends.

Sliding into the ditch, Scream looked around trying to get his bearings. Smoke clattered into the ditch next to him and set up his SAW on its bi-pod. Next in were Dim and Angel supporting Tariq between them. He’d been shot not long after they’d cleared the truck, but the round hadn’t penetrated his body armour. It had, however, knocked him off his feet and bruised his ribs he was lucky it hadn’t broken them.

“You okay?” Scream asked; the young Iraqi-American nodded his head in the affirmative.

Lastly Doublewide and Mrs B scurried up the ditch looking no worse for wear.

“Everybody get down,” Scream ordered just as Underpants put in an appearance at the head of another group of men from their platoon.

“We have to make our way to the rear of the column,” Underpants announced as he jumped into the ditch beside Scream.

“Why?” Scream wanted to know.

“That’s where we’ll make our stand,” Underpants gazed out across the highway.

“Our stand!?” Scream looked as if he was going to shoot Underpants right there and then, “Who are you, General Custer?”

“That’s where we’re going, Sergeant,” Underpants started to get to his feet, “Now get your people together and move.”

Rushing off into the smoke with his party, Underpants left Scream and his men in the ditch.

“We can pretend we didn’t hear him,” Dim suggested.

“No, we can’t,” Scream replied slowly.

“What do you think we should do?” Dim turned to face Scream.

“Comfort the dying,” Scream checked his equipment.

“Who’s dying?” Angel asked.

“Some of the civilian drivers,” Scream explained, “I heard them on the radio.”

“Could the Lieutenant hear them?” Dim wanted to know.

“Yeah.” Scream got to his feet, “LETS GO!”

The sound of firing was getting closer and heavier, Faith could hear the sounds of AK’s very close to her and the answering fire of M4’s and SAW’s a little further off. As if in some sort of waking nightmare she walked around the cab of an abandoned truck to see four insurgents standing in a group firing at something further down the highway.

Without even thinking about it she raised her pistol and shot the first two in the back of the head. The third man started to turn but received a bullet in the mouth before he could bring his weapon to bear. The fourth man was faster or luckier. Faith’s shot at him, missed but made him flinch away from the pistol firing ‘infidel whore’. His finger jerked on the trigger of his rifle sending a wild burst in Faith’s direction just before she shot him in the heart. The insurgent crumpled to the ground to lie with his comrades as Faith fell against the truck and groaned as she clutched at the big red hole in her leg; she didn’t even notice the matching hole in her arm.

“God-damn-it!” Faith screwed up her face at the pain as she slowly slid down the side of the truck to sit on the highway. “Motherfuckers are trying to kill me by inches,” she told herself as she tried to tie a field dressing around her leg.

Not being able to get her left hand to work properly and the fingers of her right looking and feeling like sausages, Faith eventually gave up trying to administer first aid on herself. Forcing her finger back into the trigger guard of her pistol and slowly wrapping her swollen hand around the grip she climbed back to her feet. Leaning against the truck, she looked around trying to decide what to do. Part of her said she should just stay where she was and wait for someone to find her. Another part of her told her to push on and find the rest of the squad. An insurgent ran by, again Faith lifted her pistol and shot him in the base of his spine.

“Guess that about makes my mind up for me,” giving a low resigned chuckle, Faith pushed herself away from the truck and headed off in the direction she thought her squad-mates had taken.

Limping on down the highway, Faith manoeuvred herself around burning trucks and dead bodies. Once or twice insurgents loomed up out of the smoke; she shot them down with hardly a second glance. Each insurgent receiving one round in some vital part of his anatomy. Hearing the sound of firing coming to a crescendo, Faith slumped against the side of a still smouldering truck and listened.

Slowly the firing died away to nothing, three insurgents ran towards her out of the smoke, she guessed they must be retreating by the way they kept looking over their shoulders. Three sharp cracks from her pistol sent the gunmen sliding across the road surface to lie dead at her feet. Looking down at her pistol she saw that the slide was locked back on an empty magazine.

“Damn-it,” she cursed quietly, “now I’ve gotta reload.”

Forcing her thumb to move she ejected the clip, then with infinite slowness she made her left hand function and pull a spare magazine from its pouch. Gritting her teeth against the pain she tried to insert the fresh magazine into her pistol, her hands trembled preventing her from sliding it home. On the third attempt and with tears rolling down her burnt face she finally managed to slide the magazine into her weapon. She felt the seer catch the magazine and hold it in place, once again forcing her thumb to move she released the catch that held the slide to the rear. Breathing out the breath she’d been holding, Faith heard the slide spring forward loading her weapon. Pushing off from the truck, Faith continued her odyssey in search of her friends.

Leading the squad around the rear of an orange panel van, Scream found himself face to face with an insurgent; firing without thinking he saw the man go down. As the rest of the squad arrived so did a large force of insurgents. The two sides exchanged fire, men yelling and falling on both sides until there were only Americans left standing.

“Hot damn,” Smoke cried as he lowered his SAW, “Never seen that before, untrained guys stand and deliver like that?”

Looking into the van, Angel saw the driver and his partner dead, slumped across their seats their blood staining the windshield.

“Boys in here are dead,” he reported back to Scream all the time wondering what was so important about this truck. “I hope there’s a reason for this…don’t you?”

“You’re god-damn right I do,” Scream replied through clenched teeth.

Suddenly, Underpants was there stepping over the bodies and heading towards the back of the panel van. Letting his rifle hang on its sling, he pulled open the rear doors to expose the crates full of bank notes that lay there.

“What the hell is this?” Scream demanded as he looked over the officer’s shoulder into the back of the van.

“Three-hundred-and-forty-million new Iraqi dinars,” Underpants announced proudly. “Printed in England paid for in the United States.”

“Money?” Dim asked incredulously.

“Money truck, son,” Underpants replied condescendingly, “comes in every week.” Turning towards his men, Underpants smiled, “Ever heard of the ‘bottom line’?”

“You gave up four of your own guys for this money truck?” Dim gestured at the dead American soldiers lying on the road. “How much does that make their lives worth?”

“You watch your tongue, soldier,” Snapped Underpants, “Or I’ll Article 15 your ass.”

“What for?” Dim wanted to know, “Doing the arithmetic of war? How much is your life worth Lieutenant?”

“Sergeant,” Underpants looked at Scream, “arrest this man.”

“No, sir,” Scream shook his head and turned away.

Before Underpants could speak again a bullet ricocheted off the side of the van. The first bullet was followed by others as the insurgent’s launched another attack in an attempt to capture or destroy the money van. Forced back by the weight of fire the squad took cover and fired blindly through the smoke at their unseen attackers.

“Give me a break,” Faith groaned as she took a breather leaning against the side of an orange panel van at the rear of the column.

There was no use denying it, Faith was at the end of her tether; she hurt, she felt tired and weak from loss of fluids and shock. Just as she thought she’d found the rest of her squad some asshole was shooting at her again. Firing into the smoke she smiled as she heard someone scream in pain. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, Faith decided she couldn’t stand here all day.

Coming around the side of the van, Faith saw an indistinct figure doing something at the back of the van. Pieces of brightly coloured paper, which some part of her mind recognised as money, floated by her face. To her misted over eyes and drug and pain numbed mind it looked to her as if an insurgent was helping himself to the money in the back of the truck. Raising her arm she shot the insurgent in the back at point-blanc range. Once again the slide of her pistol locked back exposing an empty magazine and chamber.

“Oh fuck this,” Faith sighed as she let herself collapse onto the ground, “I can’t…I…”

Resting her head on the road, Faith finally gave up, she’d had enough she almost wished someone would come and shoot her dead; at least that way she could get some sleep. She never saw or heard the RPG that hit the van destroying it and sending bank notes flying high into the air all around her.

Coming around the wreck of a Humvee, Scream saw the body lying in the road behind the ruined van as the expensive, colourful rain fluttered to the ground all around him.

“Its Underpants,” Scream knelt next to the body to examine it, “he’s been shot in the back.”

Turning slightly he saw the battered, burnt and bleeding form of Faith lying in the road her empty pistol still in her had.

“Its Slay!” Scream immediately forgot about Underpants and moved to see what could be done for his friend.

Helping hands turned Faith onto her back as dressings were applied to the wounds in her leg and arm, someone else called urgently for medevac. Amid all the confusion, Scream’s eyes fell on the pistol Faith still held in her burnt and swollen hand. He looked over at Underpants and the hole in his back, again his eyes fell on Faith’s weapon. Reaching forward he gently eased her fingers from around the grip. Standing up he threw the weapon into the still burning cab of a truck.

“What did you do that for?” Dim asked from beside him.

“Do what?” Scream replied before going back to organising what remained of the now officerless platoon.

Chapter Text

‘Shades of Grey’, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

Camp Liberty, Iraq.

Looking down at the piece of paper in his hand, Captain Jonathan Baron tried to work out what the hell was going on here. The paper told him to extend every courtesy to Ms Summers and co-operate with her investigation, it was signed by the Divisional Commander himself. Glancing up from under his brows, Captain Baron (‘The Duke’ to his company) studied the woman again.

Early twenties, he guessed, but seemed older. Short, blonde and an air of complete confidence in her own abilities and the ‘rightness’ of what she was doing, she must be some sort of Fed…so why was she wearing a British desert camouflage uniform, right down to the little Union Jack on her shoulders? There were no other badges on her shirt, Baron knew that the British weren’t as big on badges as the US army were but there wasn’t even a divisional flash under the national flag. Shaking his head slowly, he put the paper down and looked up into the woman’s eyes once more.

“Something wrong, Captain?” she asked confidently.

Was that a hint of a threat in her voice wondered The Duke?

“No nothing…” Captain Baron changed his mind there was something wrong, none of this felt quite ‘right’ to him. “With your documentation, but…” Baron took a deep breath, “Look the Faith Lehane that you’re talking about doesn’t sound anything like our Sergeant Lehane. I know ‘Lehane’ isn’t a common name but are you absolutely sure you’ve got the right woman?”

“Trust me, Captain,” Buffy’s voice was low and full of ill concealed menace, “I’ve got the right woman.”

“I’m sorry, Ms Summers,” sighed Captain Baron, he spread his hands in a helpless gesture, “but I’m not so sure and I’m not going to hand over one of my people to some organisation that doesn’t even have a name and hides behind the uniform of one of our allies.”

“But, Captain…” Buffy began but was waved into silence by Captain Baron.

“Have you seen Sergeant Lehane’s record?” Baron wanted to know.

“No,” Buffy frowned, this was all taking way too long; she should just have come in here with a bunch of slayers and just snatched Faith from the camp, “what difference would that make?”

“Look,” Baron picked up a tan coloured file and opened it, “Sergeant Lehane has a long list of ‘Excellents’ and ‘Exemplarys’ on her appraisals; no record of trouble with the civilian police either. True she had a few minor discipline problems in boot camp, but that’s often the way. There was that business with the Marines in Kuwait, but from what I hear the Marines were asking for it. Between the two of us,” Baron placed the file on his desk in front of him, folded his hands together and leaned towards Buffy slightly. “If it’d been any woman other than Sergeant Lehane, those Marines would’ve had to face some very serious charges for what they were planning. In a sort of twisted way Sergeant Lehane saved their careers and the Army and Marines a lot of embarrassment.”

“Oh,” Buffy frowned, Faith saving anything and anyone just didn’t sound right.

“She’s already been awarded the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart…”

Buffy watched as Baron searched in a drawer for something; Riley had told her a Bronze Star was pretty important and you got a Purple Heart for being wounded.

“…look at these,” Baron placed several sheets of hand written notes on the desk in front of her.

“What are these?” Buffy glanced at the official looking papers suspiciously.

“Witness statements;” Baron explained, “my recommendation for her Silver Star,” Baron paused for a moment before adding quietly, “go ahead, read them and tell me if that’s the Faith Lehane you’re looking for.”

Picking up the first sheet of notes, Buffy started to read.

…Sergeant Lehane remained with her vehicle giving covering fire to her squad mates, only giving up her post when her vehicle was hit by an RPG setting it on fire. Sergeant Lehane suffered burns to her face, hands and left leg.

After receiving first aid, she became isolated from her squad. Armed only with her 9mm sidearm, Sergeant Lehane continued to fight the battle killing several insurgents in her attempts to rejoin the other members of her unit. During this time she received several additional wounds, including gunshot wounds to her right leg and left arm. She only succumbed to her injuries and allowed herself to be evacuated after she had rejoined her unit and after having expended all her ammunition…

Putting down the first sheet, Buffy picked up another. Unlike the Captain’s report this one looked like it had been written by a child.

…me and my buddies was pinned down by a bunch of insirgants and we couldn’t move. I saw Sergent Lahane… some one had put ‘Sergeant Lehane’ in brackets after the spelling mistake; …come up behind these assholes and shoot them fuckers in the back with her side arm. The last guy managed to get off a few rounds at her and hit her in the leg I think. By the time me and the guys got over to where she’d been she was gone…

Another read …I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it with by own eyes. How anybody could operate their weapon with injuries like those received by Sergeant Lehane is beyond me. Even the simple action of reloading her pistol must have caused her extreme pain…

The final piece of paper read; …Sergeant Lehane showed great fortitude and bravery during the action of the 26th October, 2005. Her boldness of spirit and courage exemplify the very best traditions of the US Infantry…

Putting down the document, Buffy felt the first seeds of doubt germinate in her mind. Perhaps she’d got this wrong, maybe she had got the wrong woman. Like the Captain said, Lehane wasn’t a common name but it was possible that she’d got it all wrong somewhere; after all that picture in the newspaper…

No! Buffy told herself firmly, they’d found the original photograph and it showed Faith clear as day. Hadn’t Riley confirmed it, all be it reluctantly; even he didn’t believe that this Sergeant Lehane was the same woman as the Faith she knew. Buffy didn’t know what game Faith was playing but there had to be a reason behind this deception because that’s what it had to be. Faith was dangerous and needed to be locked up.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Buffy stood up slowly, “Faith Lehane is a dangerous woman, she’s killed at least two innocent people and she needs to be brought to justice.”

“And you’re the woman to do it?” Captain Baron got to his feet a look of disgust on his face.

“Believe me Captain, I am,” Buffy looked at the officer and could see the disappointment and anger on his face, “now if you’ll take me to Faith?”

“Sergeant Field!” Captain Baron called; a female soldier marched in and stood at attention. “You’ll forgive me Ms Summers if I don’t accompany you to the hospital, I have important work to do…and I don’t care to see a brave woman falsely accused.” He turned to the soldier, “Take Ms Summers to the base hospital, don’t bother waiting for her, I’m sure she can find her own way back.”

With that Captain Baron dismissed Buffy from his mind, sat back down behind his desk and picked up the phone.

Standing to one side of the narrow corridor, Buffy let the group of grimfaced soldiers pass her by. They’d obviously come to see an injured friend as they all looked sober and sad. None of them spoke and Buffy noticed how one of the female soldiers at the back of the group was crying; silently wiping away the tears that rolled down her face. Once the soldiers had disappeared around a corner, Buffy slowly walked into the little ward. Twelve beds in two neat rows against the walls of a prefabricated hut, only one bed at the far end was occupied.

“Hello?”

Buffy turned at the sound of the voice to see a woman dressed in a white nurse’s jacket, camouflaged trousers and desert boots; Buffy smiled at the incongruous style of the woman’s uniform.

“I’m here to see Faith…Faith Lehane,” Buffy smiled shyly at the woman, always a good way of gaining someone’s confidence

“Oh, Sergeant Lehane,” the nurse led Buffy slowly towards the bed where Faith lay, “the sergeant is popular today, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t visit for a little while.” The nurse’s eye flicked over Buffy’s uniform and she frowned for a second, “Are you British?”

“No,” Buffy smiled disarmingly, “I’m sorta attached to them if you see what I mean.”

“Okay,” the nurse shrugged accepting Buffy’s explanation, “look, don’t tire her out and try not to get her too excited. We’ve given her a sedative but she keeps fighting it, if you can try and persuade her to sleep?”

“How badly hurt is she?” Buffy glanced over to the woman in the bed.

“Actually she looks a lot worse than she is…the burns you know?” The nurse consulted the chart in her hand, “Burns to her face, hands and leg; fairly superficial, scaring should be minimal. Gunshot wound to the right thigh another to the upper left arm, both through and through’s, some muscle damage but no bones broken. There’s some minor shrapnel wounds and a couple of cracked ribs.”

“Jesus,” Buffy gasped in spite of herself.

“Yeah,” agreed the nurse, “she’s pretty badly beaten up, but she’ll heal…I’ll leave you alone then,” the nurse started to turn but stopped and looked back. “Oh one other thing, try not to look shocked when you see her face,” the nurse smiled reassuringly, “like I say it looks worse than it is.”

Walking the last few yards towards the bed, Buffy looked down at Faith; she could feel the odd sense of familiarity she always got around slayers. She saw the tattoo around Faith’s right upper arm and any doubts she might have had left her. This was Faith, rogue slayer and murderer.

Sitting down on the bed next to Faith’s, Buffy studied her for a long moment, she appeared to be asleep but Buffy didn’t drop her guard; Faith had walked away from hospital after eight months in a coma, she might do anything…mightn’t she? Buffy wasn’t so sure now she saw her up close. All the way over to the hospital she’d thought of what she was going to say and do; she’d never expected to find Faith looking like a piece of badly cooked hamburger.

Watching Faith’s raw swollen face, Buffy saw that scabs had already started to form around her nose and on her lips. Her eyes travelled down Faith’s body to where her hands lay in plastic bags half full of cloudy plasma. Under the sheets and blankets Buffy knew that there’d be bandages and needles going into her veins as they delivered fluids and painkillers.

Again doubt entered Buffy’s mind, she remembered everything Captain Baron had said; what he’d told her and those papers he’d shown her. That didn’t sound like the Faith she knew. What Riley had told her didn’t sound like the Faith she knew either. Riley had been adamant that the woman who’s disobeyed orders to save his life couldn’t be the same woman that had tried to kill Angel; the woman who’d fought to the death with Buffy.

“Do I know you ma’am?”

Buffy blinked at the sound of the voice she knew so well and looked down into the brown eyes of the woman in the bed. She saw not a flicker of recognition, not a sign that this woman recognised her in anyway. Remaining silent for a moment longer Buffy studied the woman’s poor battered and burnt body for what felt like a very long time, finally she spoke.

“No,” Buffy smiled and placed her hand gently on Faith’s arm, “you don’t know me…but you know my fiancé.”

“I do?” Faith frowned as she tried to think of who she knew that would be marrying this pretty blonde woman.

“Do you remember Captain Finn?” Buffy asked quietly, Faith nodded, “We’ll be getting married as soon as he’s learnt to walk on his new leg.”

“Yeah,” Faith tried to smile but her lips split and she winced, “congratulations, sorry about his leg, ma’am.” Faith licked her cracked lips, “You came all this way to see me?”

“Sort of,” Buffy rapidly thought up a believable story, “I’m a reporter embedded with a British unit, I was in the area. I thought I’d drop by and see how you were and say thanks.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Faith’s eyelids started to droop as she fought to stay awake.

“Hey look,” Buffy stood up, “the nurse said you should sleep, so I’ll be going. I really only came to say thanks for getting Riley back to me. Look,” Buffy smiled down at the wounded soldier, “you get well again and next time be more careful, like totally remember to duck, eh?”

“On it, ma’am,” Faith smiled sleepily.

“Good luck, soldier,” Turning away, Buffy walked quickly towards the door she nodded to the nurse who hovered protectively by the exit and left.

“Captain Baron?” Buffy walked uncertainly into the office-like tent that Captain Baron inhabited, she saw him where she’d left him, sitting at his desk.

“Ms Summers?” He didn’t bother to stand up to greet her; Buffy could read his dislike of her in his eyes.

“I came to apologise,” Buffy stood in front of Baron’s desk looking down at him, “you were right and I was wrong. Your Sergeant Lehane isn’t the same woman as the Faith Lehane I’m looking for. I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble, Sergeant Lehane is a fine soldier, a hero even, you’re right to be proud of her. I won’t bother you any longer,” turning away she walked from the tent without another word.

Outside, Buffy looked across the tops of the tents at the setting sun and sighed. In her life she’d forgiven so many people who’d done worse things than Faith ever had, so, why couldn’t she forgive Faith too? Faith was just as much a victim as Angel, Willow or even Spike had been, so why not let her get on with the new life she’d made for herself? Of course she’d keep an eye on things, watch the news just to make sure that she was right; but Buffy really didn’t think she’d ever hear from Sergeant Lehane again.

Chapter Text

‘Over There’, Chris Gerolmo.

A Bar, Washington DC, Christmas Eve, 2005.

Walking into the bar, Faith paused to brush the snow from her shoulders; taking off her beret she shook the half melted snow onto the floor. The bar was full of thirty-something office workers having a final Christmas drink with their work buddies before heading home for the holiday. Although the room was crowded and the air was full of the sound of conversation it wasn’t so crowded as to make her want to turn around and go back to her lonely, little hotel room.

After recovering from her wounds, the army had sent Faith home on leave for a couple of weeks. Not knowing where else to go, Faith had decided on Washington as her destination, as far as she knew she’d never been there before. The fact that she’d been told that various people in the Pentagon wanted to speak to her had also influenced her choice of destination. This was why she was now standing in a bar dressed in her Class B’s after a long day talking to officers who appeared to have nothing better to do.

The day had gone by with almost everybody who was anybody trying to recruit her for their own special unit or project. The only offer she’d had that had even slightly interested her was from the Air Force colonel who’d pinned Faith’s Bronze Star on her. Colonel Carter had offered Faith a job as part of some all service special forces unit. Faith had been told that it would involve a lot of travel and at times it would be incredibly dangerous but it was also very worthwhile and rewarding work.

Other than this the Colonel hadn’t told Faith much, in fact she’d been pretty tight lipped about what she’d actually be doing. When, Faith tried to press her for more information Carter had changed tack and tried a different approach. Suddenly she’d became less formal and put on some sort of ‘all girls together’ act, saying that there needed to be more women in her unit and how Faith was just the sort of woman who’d fit right in.

By the end of the interview, Faith still hadn’t made up her mind. All she really knew was that she wanted to do was get back to Iraq and see her buddies again. Promising Colonel Carter that she would give her offer serious consideration, Faith saluted and left the office. Leaving the Pentagon as fast as she could Faith’d headed for a bar to think over what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Jacket and beret in hand, Faith made her way towards the bar; no one seemed to notice her as she squeezed between the suit clad drinkers. They were probably used to seeing service personnel of much more exalted rank than some lowly, newly minted, staff sergeant and she doubted any of them could read the medal ribbons on her blouse. Finding an empty stool at the bar, Faith hung up her jacket on the hooks provided under the bar top. Sitting down she smoothed her skirt straight and then, just as she was about to try and attract the barkeepers eye the man sitting on the stool next to hers turned and spoke to her.

“Can I buy a soldier a drink?”

Sliding around on her stool to face the man, Faith saw a handsome, dark haired guy of about her own age sporting a piratical looking eye patch. He smiled at her and his surviving eye seemed to twinkle with silent amusement.

“Harris,” the guy offered her his hand, “Xander Harris…its Staff Sergeant, isn’t it?”

“Lehane,” Faith nodded and took Harris’ hand, he had a firm, friendly hand shake; Faith felt the calluses on his palms, this guy obviously worked hard for a living, “Faith Lehane.”

“Nice to meet you Staff Sergeant Faith Lehane,” again there was the friendly smile, “now what about that drink?”

“Beer,” Faith returned Harris’ smile, “thanks.”

After ordering their beer, Harris turned back to face her and Faith felt like she was being minutely examined. Noticing his eye flick down to her chest, just for a moment Faith thought he was checking out her boobs, but then she noticed that he was studying her medal ribbons.

“That’s the Silver and Bronze Stars, right?” Harris asked; Faith nodded and accepted her beer off the barman. “Plus two Purple Hearts! You’ve seen a lot of action, am I right?”

“Yeah,” Faith felt unaccountably embarrassed, “Were you in the service?”

“Nah,” Harris shook his head, “I had an uncle in the Marines, he was in Vietnam; he taught me some stuff when I was a kid and it sorta stuck.” Harris paused and gestured to his patch, “This was a work accident, I run my own construction business over in Cleveland, I’m down here on a Government contract.”

Even after reading a copy of Faith’s army record and talking to Buffy, Xander hadn’t truly believed that Faith was a different woman; he had to find out for himself. Now Buffy was almost ‘Mrs Finn’ it had been fairly easy to find out where Faith was. When Riley reported that Faith would be in Washington over the Christmas period, Xander had decided to check things out; he had to know the truth. Was Faith faking it or had she really forgotten her past and become someone better?

At the back of Xander’s mind there had always been a feeling that they, the Scoobies, were somehow responsible for what happened to Faith. Perhaps if they’d been more welcoming, more understanding, tried harder to accept the new slayer and seen through the facade she presented to the world…well, maybe things would have been different. There was also the memory of the couple of hours he’d spent in Faith’s bed, she’d been his first. Okay, so she’d dragged him back to her room to satisfy her own needs, but…she had still been his ‘first’. Guys didn’t forget things like that, at least guys like Xander Harris didn’t. Maybe if things had been different, they’d…

No, Xander shook his head; it would never have worked out between them. One way or another he’d have still ended up in the parking lot clutching his clothes. It was best not to dwell on ‘what might have beens’ and just make sure that the young woman sitting next to him wasn’t a danger to anyone other than the enemies of the United States.

As the night passed, Faith found herself telling Xander about her time in Iraq. About Doublewide, Mrs B and all the other guys. She told him about all the stuff she’d seen and done; she even told him how much she missed her buddies, how she somehow felt she’d deserted them.

“Yeah,” Harris nodded his head, “I know what you mean, I’ve got some friends like your buddies. I miss ‘em, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed, “its real crappy being away from ya friends this time of year.”

“Hey!” Harris looked up and around, he’d not realised how late it was; he looked around the bar to find it was almost empty, “It’s late I better be going.”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed as she looked around; there was hardly anyone left in the bar, she placed her hand on his arm, “look, this doesn’t have to end here if you don’t want it to.”

“Eh?” Harris looked at Faith his head cocked to one side.

“Hey, I don’t normally try to pick up guys I’ve only just met, but, you’re cute and seem like a nice guy,” Faith took a deep breath, “my hotel’s close by. If you want you could come back with me, y’know?” Faith saw the hesitation in Harris’ eye, “Look, I’m going to the restroom,” she pointed across the bar. “If you wanna say no, just don’t be here when I get back, okay? I’ll understand, you’ve probably got someone waiting for ya at home.”

Jumping down from her stool, Faith headed towards the restroom.

Watching Faith leave, Xander pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialled, he waited for a moment before his call was answered.

“Buffy?” He said, “Look I can’t talk long, I met up with Faith, I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure she doesn’t know who I am. I don’t think she’s faking…I’d think I’d know if she was…look, maybe the people upstairs are blocking her memories or something, I don’t know…hold it, she’s coming back, talk to you later, gotta go…bye!”

“Still here?” Faith asked, “Who were ya talking to?”

“Old school friend,” Xander smiled, “you said something about a hotel?”

The next morning, Xander awoke to the smell of coffee; lying in bed he let the memories of the previous night return. The sex had been good, not like the wild animalistic sex he remembered from the last time he’d slept with Faith. It had been fun; yes it could safely be said that fun had been had by all. What was more, he didn’t feel like he’d been used like some kind of sex toy…and oh-yes he wasn’t standing shivering in the parking lot holding his clothes in his hands.

“Sorry it’s only instant,” Faith sat on the bed next to him.

“Not a problem,” Xander sat up and took the cup from her hand; he found his eye drifting over her naked body. He saw the scars on her legs and arm; the way the skin on the back of her left hand had a sort of translucent look to it. He’d read all the reports about her bullet wounds and burns, seeing them in the flesh, as it were, sort of brought it all home to him.

“Hey! Stop that,” Faith grabbed her robe and wrapped it around her shoulders covering herself up. “I know, I’m a mess, ya probably regretin’ coming back with me.”

“No I don’t,” Xander shook his head, “I think you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

“You do?” Faith looked and sounded truly stunned by the comment, “Gee thanks.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes as they sipped their instant coffee.

“Look,” Faith said quietly, “I wanna say thanks.”

“Thanks?” Xander smiled, “Was I that good?”

“No…Yes!” Faith frowned as her tongue tied itself in knots, “Look what I meant to say was thank-you for the beer and coming back with me and…and, well being my buddy for the night and listening and understanding…and the sex was pretty good too.”

“Only pretty good?” Xander looked shocked then nodded his head in understanding, “But now you want me gone?”

“Umm, yeah,” Faith sounded genuinely sorry as she twisted the hem of her robe into a knot between her hands, “look, it was great an’all but it was just a one night stand,” she wondered who she was trying to convince, “and I’ll be goin’ back to Iraq and it’d never work out between us and…maybe if things were different and I’d met you some other time. Don’t take it personnel, you’re a nice guy and I don’t say that often and…”

Xander laughed.

“What!?” Faith demanded angrily, here she was pouring out her heart and this guy just laughs at her!”

“No, look, I’m sorry,” Xander shook his head, “I have a friend who babbles on like that, you reminded me of her there for a minute.” Sighing Xander swung his legs out of bed and started to pull on his pants, “Look, I understand, let’s just remember this as a good night when we both met someone and we both had a good time, okay?”

“Yeah,” Faith sounded relieved, she’d not wanted to upset this guy, he was nice and there weren’t too many nice guys in her life, at least not any she could remember, “thanks.”

“Glad to have been of service,” Xander was more or less dressed by now, “here,” he searched in his jacket pocket and brought out a business card, “that’s got my e-mail on it, anytime you want to talk you can get me there. I’m betting you don’t have anyone to write home to…am I right?”

“Thanks,” Faith took the card and watched as Xander headed for the door, he paused and turned back to look at her his hand resting on the door knob.

“Nice to have met you, Staff Sergeant Lehane…Faith,” he raised his hand in a casual salute, “you look after yourself over there.”

“Well,” Xander smiled wryly to himself as he walked along the corridor away from Faith’s room, “at least this time I got to get dressed before she threw me out!”