Chapter Four: There's Gotta Be a Change

I'm getting what?

My gaze darts from Doc, to the guard standing at my side with handcuffs dangling from his hand, back to Doc. Transferred. They're transferring me. Here, they'd been telling me I'd be going back to my cell today, and now my cell is in an entirely different zip code.

But Angel said yesterday he'd get me out.

Doc tries to smile, but she winces at my tone of voice. Doc's good people ... which is a phrase I can't believe I'm actually using in real-world sentences. She means well. After all, look who she was nice to. "It's for your own good, Faith," she says. "According to your records, you've got a lot of enemies here. I was going to put you in for a transfer myself, but it's apparently already been set up since the fight."

I'm desperate. I ask to call Angel.

Doc shakes her head. "Not right now. It can wait until you get to your new prison, all right?"

No, it can't. I have to talk to him now. Immediately. Yesterday.

But I don't say it out loud. I stand there, numb, shock keeping me frozen in place as the guard puts the cuffs on my wrists. I thought I'd felt handcuffs on my wrists too many times when I was Buffy. As Faith, it's a daily occurrence. Then again, before she got locked up, it probably was, too.

The guard checks the cuffs, then tugs me towards the door. "C'mon, Willis," he says. "Let's take a joy ride."

This is not good. How the hell is Angel supposed to get me out of here now?

I must have left my brain back at the prison. I don't even realize how out of the prison I am until the guard in the passenger seat asks if we can go through the McDonald's drive-thru.

"New meat," the driver mutters to himself. The guard in the passenger's seat flushes and stares back out the window.

I hear the driver say that you don't take prison transports through fast food drive-thrus, but I'm not really paying attention. I'm starting to get the impression that I am not being transferred. Call it women's intuition. Slayer's intuition. Whatever. Something is just off about this. I mean, seriously, I'm guessing the paperwork situation in a prison has people filling out a form to go to the bathroom, so arranging a prison transfer in, like, four days? Something's fishy and gross in the state of California.

We're riding through the backwoods, past orange groves and one-Starbucks towns not named Sunnydale. I stare down at my handcuffs, thinking about how I could snap them with a little effort and spook the guard sitting across from me. He eyes me suspiciously. He's got every right.

Man, I so need out of here. I'm really getting sick of all the locks. What I need are some people-shaped keys to bust me out.

All of a sudden, the driver slams on the brakes.

I hear the guard in the passenger's seat curse softly, and see the glow of candlelight through the windshield. I squirm a little, trying to see out the windshield, but the guard across from me flashes me a dirty look, and I hold back.

"Hey, Masters, get a look at this," the driver says, a little breathless.

The guard across from me nods, and I glare at his back as he unhooks his seatbelt, gets up, and stands between the front seats to look out the window.

The three guards are clearly stunned at whatever's showing on the Boonie Road Theater. All I'm seeing is candlelight, and all I hear is chanting, in a language I know I've heard before. "What the hell do they think they're doing?" the passenger-seat guard mutters.

The chanting voice, male and old, grows louder and stronger. I think I see the candlelight changing from golden yellow to a crisp, flickering blue-green. Slowly, as the chanting continues, the guards go off somewhere ... Never Never Land, Narnia, Oz. Hell, I don't know. I yank my seat belt so hard it rips in half, and I scramble past the stoned guards to take a peek outside.

I think I've found my people-shaped key.

A man stands in the middle of the road, candles sparking blue-green flames in a circle on the ground around him. One of those one-of-a-kind chock-full-o'-spells book is cradled in his arms. He chants louder, the words sounding more and more familiar to me. I think I've heard Willow chanting them once or twice.

His arm waves, sending the van rolling off the road and into a patch of grass on the side. As we roll past him, I catch a glimpse of him, and my jaw drops so far, I may have to dig it out of my underwear.

Quentin Travers? What's he doing here? Doesn't he have Watchers he has to deport back to England or underlings he has to repress or something?

The van rolls to a stop, and Quentin flings open the front door, as easily as any annoying schmuck holding a chock-full-o'-spells book.

"Sopor!" he yells.

The guards drop like flies. Neat trick, that.

He glares me down, and I bite back the next on my mental list of Snappy Comebacks for Quentin Travers. Jeez ... if that look were any more piercing, I'd look like a ticketholder at a Limp Bizkit concert.

A commotion sounds up by the road, and a pair of figures emerge from the darkness. A young black man, about my age, kinda cute. And ... and Angel.

Oh, God. Angel.

I have to restrain myself to keep from leaping out of the van and grabbing him. A familiar face. A friendly familiar face. A friendly familiar face whom I actually give a damn about.

And I can't do anything about it. I have to play dumb. And not even normal dumb. Like, Harmony dumb.

"Do you know how many strings we had to pull to get you out of here?" Quentin grumbles. Typical Quentin.

What would Amnesia Faith do in this situation? She doesn't know who any of these people are. They've come to save her. Quentin talks first.

Oh, this'll be fun.

I launch myself at Quentin and wrap my arms around him in a big bear hug. I can hear Angel holding back a laugh as I forget my strength -- hey, why the hell not? -- and squeeze hard. Quentin makes a whining noise and wriggles in my arms.

I say thank you. Just a general all-bases-covered thank you.

Angel nods at me, but nothing more. A sharp stab of pain rips through me when he doesn't sweep me into his arms and hug me tight. "We'll explain everything later, all right? Let's just get the hell out of here," he says. "Gunn, do you mind?"

"No, man, I've got her." The black guy -- Gunn, I'm guessing -- slips my arm around my neck as he slides one of his around my waist. He helps me out of the truck, and leads me through the thick roadside grass towards a pair of vans parked nearby. He offers me a smile as he helps me and my sore everything walk towards the vans. Good. Nice to know someone likes me.

We head for the one parked in front, and I sneak a peek at the van behind it. It's practically party central back there. I spot a trio of men in black holding a female body, her long dark hair swinging as a short, thin man in glass holds her hands, her face, her sides. What is this, group molestation therapy or something?

As Gunn and Angel load me into the first van, the three men in black lug the girl towards the prison van, and I get the idea. Trade you one Faith-shaped Buffy for one girl who looks kinda like her.

Don't know how they're going to pass her off as me ... Faith ... whatever, but I've got to give them credit for trying.

Gunn gets me settled in the back as Angel gets in the driver's seat and Quentin sits uncomfortably down on the floor next to me. We wait a few seconds, and I wonder what's the what. A moment later, the man with glasses gets into the back of the van and shuts the door behind him. I take one look at him as we drive off and I nearly scream.

Oh, God. It's the cheese man.

It's that guy from the dreams we all had last year, with the First Slayer thing. What the hell is he doing here?

Luckily, I don't say it out loud. Faith wouldn't know who he is, anyway.

"Give him your hands."

I ask why. Angel doesn't answer. When I don't move, Quentin grabs my hands roughly and drags me towards the man. I can tell Gunn wants to complain at how they're treating me, but he says nothing.

The little man smiles at me as he reaches out and grabs my hands in both of his. My fingertips tingle as soon as he takes them, and I try to tug them away. He won't let go, and the tingle turns into a burning. I wince at the feeling in my fingertips, something crawling underneath the skin in my hands.

As soon as the little man lets go, I shrink away from him, rubbing my hands together furiously.

He's not finished.

There's not very far I can go in the back of the van, and I can see Angel watching helplessly as the little man crawls over to me and takes my face in his hands. Once again, there's the tingling, that numb pain of needles on my skin and tiny things crawling under it. My ears even tingle a little. I hear myself moan out a no before he lets go of me again.

He pats my face gently, trying to reassure me. Yeah, right. I barely restrain my anger as I ask him what he did to me.

He hands me a compact mirror from his pocket.

I don't have the sarcasm quotient at the moment to ask why a guy's carrying a compact. I'm too worried about what this mental patient did to my face.

Oh, wow.

I'm pretty sure Angel and I say it at the same time, as I crack the compact open and get a look at myself. I'm Faith, but then again, not. I can see Faith in the mirror, if I look for her. But he's changed a couple of things ... the cheekbones, the lips ... just enough so that I bear a striking resemblance to the woman whose body I've stolen.

This, I say, is exceedingly strange.

Quentin grunts. Angel nods, not taking his eyes off the road. Gunn just shakes his head.

I can't help but look at my fingertips, wiggling them to make sure they're still five by five. I don't even notice myself thinking in Faith terms as I stare at my fingers. He must have changed my fingerprints. I remember something Willow said once about how earprints can be just like fingerprints, and I think I know why my ears were tingling a moment ago.

I'm a new person. Again. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad.

The little man across from me smiles once again, then vanishes into thin air.

I look around, and I don't have to fake being scared. Quentin ignores it and shrugs. "Jerzyk demons," he mutters. "What are you going to do?"

I shrug, helpless. I've got two levels of Miss Long-Term Memory Loss I can go to -- a level where I remember demons and vamps, and a level where I don't. I need to get back to Sunnydale and take over my job again. I don't need a two-week concentrated course on how to live my life again.

So, I take a deep breath, and say what I'm almost a bit afraid to say.

I say, Yeah. Demons and dependable just never share sentence space, do they?

Chapter Five