Rosebud...conclusion

Air Date: 29/01/2001

Aug 26 2000, saturday night

(This is a test. Hello Cameron!)

• Running back to psych building. Casey is confused about what is going on, but is fine to just deal today and get explinations tomorrow.
• Oh bugger. Conrad! Faith! Doh!
  • Into the office. Faith seems unsteady and unstable, ranting about 'where is it?'. She is looking for the anti slayer drug, she takes a needle full and smashes the rest.
  • Faith rants something about Alex's bruising "That one's for being a Watcher, that's for not being evil, dead or pathetic and that's because I hate you".
  • Mary tries to explain about the posession and stuff, "Its over now." Casey disagrees and gets a lecture about dealing with hostage situations.
  • Faith doesn't buy it. She points to her own bruises and rants "I dont trust you all. I don't understand you. I understand bruises and blood though, they don't lie, 'you're welcome to stay with us', 'you had friends like Buffy', 'come here Faithie, I won't hurt you.'"
  • Angel supports the Scoobies story and the continual pleading and crawling ;) seems to get through to her. She moves into the front office, summons Jayde and Gemma and Conrad too ("No surprise Conrad's round with both of us here, eh?"). She then says that she wants to just run, but she wants to wait 'till her power returns.
  • Faith says that Conrad is always armed, probably against us (us being both slayers and the scoobies). That and if Jayde 'dies' then she is pretty sure that Conrad will make sure that Faith lives.
  • Jayde spits it and tells Faith to just go. Faith drags Alex and the others out to the front of the building. Taking the guns off Conrad, Faith tells Casey to inject Jayde with the anti slayer drug, but he refuses. Jayde pulls out a gun and points it at Faith. Gemma talks Jayde into dropping the weapon. Faith goes to take Alex away, saying that she wont kill her, she just wants to leave, but as Faith is distracted starting the car, Angel leaps in through the window and tackles her. Jayde pulls a shaken Alex from the car.
  • Angel stuffs a struggling Faith into the back of the car and everyone drives off to Caseys place. Angel stays and looks over Faith who is now a broken down wreck. People go off to sleep.
• Returing to the party with chips in hand as a cover, the twins find that Billy and Portia have left together, Belinda has had second thoughts about Dustin and Miram and Thomas are chatting meaningfully in out in the garden. Jayde absorbs the gossip and sinks back into her natural environment.

Aug 27 2000, Sunday

Everyone rises late. Alex has a real shiner and has had a chat to Faith, who apologised. Faith seems to have healed up. People are just considering breakfast when the rest of the scoobies roll up with donuts for people and blood sausage for Angel.

People stand round and talk about what happened with the ghost thing and is it over? Well the bathroom seemed to figure large once people were inside, but it is unlikey to be the cause. Alex and Casey say they will pop into the VC's mansion and try and clense the room.

People discuss the possible causes and actions from here:

• Stop cards
  Education of people in the park. Pressure civil liberties groups to try and get the stop cards blocked.
• Expand sports courts
  The uni has plans to expand the courts. Gemma is going to make an anti-feasabilty study.
• Homeless people
  Hmm.
• Freebox
  Doesn't seem to be especially under pressure.
• Drug sellers
  Try and report any evidence against them
• Cops
  Help copwatch in reporting bad cops. Also try and create a 'good cop' list. What happened to the cop was involved?
• Vamp Cops
  Check out roster for police to try and identify the policeman in question.
• Rosebud
  Apparently angry and afraid.

All of this will take the scoobies time in the background in the future.

Casey catches up with Faith.
Casey passes Faith the needle with the anti slayer drug in it. "Here, don't ask me to do that again"

Faith looks at Casey and takes the needle. "How about we keep quiet about this?"

"Cool."

Later...

Faith catches Casey alone and asks "Err... you serious about needing another flat mate? I just came into some cash and.. well I think it might be best if I got out of the preppie's hair, you know, with what just happened an all."

"Well.... well, yeah. I need someone else to fill the house or we lose it. And I couldn't help noticing a bit of tension between you and superJayde... So basically, I need a housemate, you need somewhere to stay, other people would like you to not go away, and... yeah!"

"Thanks, that'd be wicked, but you should probably know some stuff about me before you decide." Faith looks pensive, "Er, I, um. Ok, I'll just say it, I'm a murderer. They don't want me to go away because they think that I'll go crazy and, well you know, go all killing spree on them or whoever." She shrugs and puts her hands away in her pockets. "Guess it's not unreasonable thing to fear. Figured that you'd wanna know."

"Er... you mean like vampires and stuff? I thought they were unredeemably evil... except for this Angel guy"

"Yeah, well I accidently did this guy back in Sunnydale and, well, the little superfriends group there went all moral and.... well I ended up working for the Big Evil there. Did some bad stuff. Err, yeah, bad bad stuff. Anyway, stuff sorta went down hill from there. Guess that bein' unredeemably evil isn't limited to vampires. Look, I don't wanna get all deep and meaningful about it, ok? I know that if I screwed with you or your little stalker girl, Jayde 'd come get me thats not a complication I want just now. If I cross Jayde then the Watchers come after me again." She looks at you and shakes her head. "This was such a bad idea."

Casey frowns. "Hmmm. Let me think about it. Its not like my last housemate was Mr Shiny... um, but I don't think he killed anyone. Probably. Yet." He looks her straight in the eye. "Why? ....cos, basically, if the why has gone away, and its something that you think was a fucked up thing to do.... then I'm willing to see how it goes... .... hey, stalker chick? What stalker?"

"Yeah, well it doesn't really go away, see. I know you aint exactly Hank's greatest fan at the party, but you didn't seriously consider smashin' his head into the wall, did ya? Used to be that I had pretty low standards for who deserved gettin' smacked, but these days my standards are way lower. Seems most people are just askin' for it and its just so easy." She shakes her head, "How stupid is it for me to hang round here with your little stalker girl waitin' for me to screw up so she can go dob me in to the Scooby Gang and get rid of the competition."

"Ah. You mean Mary. She's more chill than she seems. There's some... unresolved issues there, yeah, but I'm not exactly running away from her either, so that means she's not really a stalker... she's just um focused. Um, competition... mmm. Yeah, hell, I'm interested in getting to know you, even without the supernatural stuff. I'd like you to stay. I mean it." Casey sort of frowns. "The other stuff... we can see, right - its not like you're signing a contract or anything. If you decide that it sucks, or we decide you suck, we can go our seperate ways. But we can decide from now, not from stuff that happened beforehand - I don't think I've ever taken Jayde's advice on who i should be allowed to talk to, and I can't see it starting now. We can compare headsmacking lists or something - cos mine's pretty short, y'know."

"Sounds cool. Hey, I can't sign any thing anyway 'cause I'm dead an' underage. So, cash ok? Once I work out how to get to my money that is." She smiles, "I ain't ever been rich before. Think I like the feelin'. Was gettin' sick of sleezy motels anyway. My head smackin' list is pretty long, probably quickest to just list who isn't on it. Err, Gemma is a stuck up little preppie, but she tries. You seem ok, for a pointdexter that is. Alex, I'm not sure about, she's all over me tryin' to get me to talk about my feelings or some crap like that, but she's a Watcher and I owe them some major pain in payback. Oh yeah and Mary." she laughs, "She's too harmless to even bother about. Oh and I didn't mean competition in that way. Supernatural strength and stamina, Casey boy.", she says, flexing her arm and looking at the muscle, "I think I'd break you sometime before I even broke a sweat. That and I think Mary 'd pop somethin' when she found out."

"How old are you? I'm just curious... but I think I'll reign that in when it comes to where the money came from."

Faith laughs, "Well, I feel like I'm about 80 sometimes, but I'm just over 17 and a half. But you shouldn't count the last year, coz.." She starts to laugh hard, "check this out and see if it sounds like some crappy TV show or somethin', I spent 8 months in a coma after I lost a knife fight, then two months in jail before I got busted out so the Watchers could experiment on me. Don't worry about the money, it's from a dead guy who left it to me." she goes quiet and serious "Sorta family, I guess. And No, I didn't kill him."

"Oooo. Amazing stories. I'd just tell people that you've been in Utah, sounds like about the same thing. Hey, I didn't think you had... I figured something like you nicked it from a vamp or something..."

Faith's features stay serious "Yeah, whatever."

Casey shrugs. "I've always found that unless they're in your face, you get way ahead of the game by just letting them slide right on by. They'll grow up with their woodpaneled station wagons and mortgage, get old and die while we take the stars. Where's the edge in hanging around them just to put the boot in.. I mean, I'm happy for them to wake up one day and say "I've been lame" and catch up with the rest of us..." He shrugs again and grins. "There's plenty of neat people around anyway. Some of them tend to spend chunks of time here, so you can meet them or ignore them as you see fit."

"Yeah, I'd like to leave 'em alone, but they really piss me off. Take my word for it, it feels good to put the boot in sometimes, most people are arseholes. Or maybe thats just because it's what I'm built for. My one true skill."

"Well, you're welcome to chill until everyone who's giving you grief has gone west. Um, space. Glitch had the big room, so grab that one. The other guy who used to be here might be coming back anyway, so it just happens to be the biggest. Might take a while to sort out Glitches stuff... er, I'll put most of it in storage somewhere and you can move in."

"Hey, I don't need much space, just a bed, food, stereo, err, some gym stuff maybe. Hey you wouldn't have a play station would ya? Hey, you seem like a geek, you're probably up on all that nerdy crap an' whats cool an' stuff. Wanna come shopping and help me spend some ill gotten gains?"

"Geek? Me? Ha. ok, yeah, I have a playstation. And some games. And a... nevermind, gimme the marker, I'll put geek on my head."

"Shopping sounds cool - what you need and we can work out where to go first. Avoid Jayde if nothing else" Casey grins. Casey starts to head towards Glitch's room, thinking about what's there and speculating where to put it. He stops and looks back "And as for the breaking me - well, maybe that drug of Alex's has a good side as well" Casey grins and ducks into Glitch's room.

Faith walks into the doorway "Don't mention that poison again, right? Thinking about, err, Utah ain't healthy." She smiles at Casey and snibs the door behind her, "Besides, if without my super powers," she moves up close to Casey and with an effortless push sends him flying backwards onto the matress, "I couldn't do this." A hungry smile spreads over her face and she slides over to the bed.

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