Nadira is on a street corner, yelling. She’s not in the best of moods. In fact, she’s fighting with four other girls, all Slayers. Her friends. She yells at them to back away from her, already pinning one girl’s arm to the wall. As the fighting threatens to escalate, Faith jumps into the fray from over a nearby wall. She knocks Nadira to one side. “Every time I see you, you’re kicking someone’s ass who doesn’t deserve it. Or mine.” She offers herself out to Nadira. “Let’s do this.”

Nadira has absolutely no hesitation in her movement as she parries her sword, thrusting it straight in Faith’s direction. Faith counters with her own blade. She blocks the blow easily, ducks down and slides through Nadira’s legs. “This is getting old,” the older Slayer says. “I know your squad died in front of you. I’m sorry. But pounding your friends isn’t gonna fix it.” Nadira tells her that her friends attacked her, but one of the Slayers points out that Nadira has been beating people, almost to death! “Vamps, demons, humans… she put three blokes in hospital! And they can’t even give her what she’s after! No one knows where to find Pearl and Nash.”

Faith sighs again. “I told you I’d find them,” she starts to say, as Nadira catches her with a headbutt. Faith struggles to maintain her balance, and, only just, sweeps back away from Nadira’s blade. As it is, it slices the front of her jacket.

Nadira is frantic now. “It’s been weeks. You’ve no idea what it’s like knowing they’re out there!” Another Slayer tries to step in, but Faith warns her not to. She needs to do this alone. She continues to block every strike that Nadira throws her way, telling the Slayer that she gets the revenge thing – she really does. “It’s rough. But this isn’t about them. You’ve got survivor’s guilt. Bad.” She grabs a hold of Nadira’s wrist, having disarmed her.

Faith twists Nadira until her arm is behind her and forces her to the ground. “You don’t think you deserve your friends, so you’re running them all off. Better that than they figure out what a piece of crap you are and leave, right?”

She’s been there, Faith explains. She knows it’s not fun. It’s stupid and selfish, she says. She still hasn’t let Nadira up from the ground. “How do you think you’ll find Pearl and Nash faster? Alone, or with an army of Slayers helping out? You really wasn’t to avenge your sister or just pitch fits?”

Nadira has stopped struggling, although Faith keeps her pinned. “I want it to stop,” Nadira sobs, tears flowing and mixing with the gravel on the ground. Faith helps her up, releasing her grip: “There’s better ways than suicide by Slayer.” Nadira nods. She knows. She just wants Pearl and Nash dead. Faith asks her what she would do if Faith could help Nadira take away her pain?

Faith broaches the subject of releasing her trauma via the Lorophage. It’s not a memory wipe, but it wouldn’t affect her emotionally anymore. Nadira asks her if she’s serious, a deadly, angry look on her face, and, without warning, she punches Faith in the face.

“I want it to hurt. I want to hold onto exactly how it felt to watch them die. I want it to eat at me until I avenge them Then eat at me some more so I make bloody sure it never happens again.”

Faith tells her that she’ll end up dead as well, but Nadira shakes her head. She tells Faith one thing: “You’re right. I do need friends. People I can trust. I thought you were one of them.”

With that, Nadira walks into the shadows, away from the Slayers, Faith and her destiny.

Returning home, Faith finds Angel. He’s on his way home from his encounter with Drusilla. As soon as Faith sees him, she tells him that he looks like he either had the best night of his life or the worst. Angel tells her that she doesn’t look that much better. Before they can exchange any more, a crash is heard from inside the apartment.

Her father is in the study. When Faith opens the door, she finds Pat Lehane on the floor, cross-legged, smashed glass all around him. He’s cradling a very expensive and very old bottle of whiskey. He promises he’ll replace it, but Faith grabs the bottle from her father. She calls him out on drinking, but her father insists that he wanted to drink so badly, he had to smash all the bottles. Remove the temptation. He looks his daughter straight in the eyes. “Faithie,” he says quietly, “I’m in trouble.”

Angel doesn’t look surprised and asks what kind. Faith automatically thinks cops. Pat turns and says it’s nothing like that. It’s a guy named Jimmy Mulligan. He owes him, large, and it’s a point with ‘Handsome’ Jimmy that he never lets his debts slide.

Faith is almost speechless. “You’re in trouble with the Irish mob so you run away to England. The Lehane genius at work.” She should’ve known, with him turning up out of the blue, that there was a problem. “Fine. You got what you came for. I’ll cover it. I can afford it now.” She turns to a window, visibly upset at the betrayal.

Pat tells her that she has the situation wrong. He meant every word about being sober and starting again. He went to meetings, he wants to change. But Mulligan won’t let him out until he’s dragged back down. He knows too much stuff about Pat and his past. “He’ll never let me go. Never.” He fearfully tells his daughter. “I didn’t come here for your money Faith.”

“I want you to kill him.”

Angel looks worried. Faith is stunned. “I’m a Slayer, not a murderer.” Pat tells her that he knows about her time in prison: she can’t scam a scammer and since Angel has no reflection, Pat’s betting he isn’t so angelic either.

Pat promises that Mulligan is not as important as a deputy mayor: no one is gonna miss the guy. He asks her to do it, one last time. Not for him. But for them. “For Us.”

Faith points towards the doorway with no hesitation: “Get out.” Pat puts his hands to his head. He looks at her, frantic now. “I know I’ve been a lousy dad, but if you kick me out you might as well put a bullet in my brain.” Jimmy has found him in London, and is already coming after him!

And as the words come out of his mouth, Handsome Jimmy Mulligan pulls up to the townhouse of Faith Lehane. “This is it,” he tells his henchmen.

Before they can knock on the door, they’re approached by Angel and Faith. Jimmy recognises her from when she was a youngster. Faith, strength in her voice, tells him that that girl is gone.

Jimmy looks Angel up and down and calls him a pretty boy. The vampire is not impressed, telling him he’s a bad stereotype of the Irish. He hands him a box and tells him that there’s enough money in it to pay off Pat Lehane’s debt, with interest. “You’re done with him. Forever.”

Jimmy actually pinches Angel’s cheeks. “You look half retarded so I’ll explain it slow. I say when I’m done with somebody. Old Pat. He’s caused me a lot of headaches over the years.” He figures since Faith is now rich, this is the perfect time for Pat to start solving his problems instead.

In response, Angel vamps out. “Or I could.” Jimmy instantly yells out, recognising a vampire and ordering his men to shoot Angel in the head. Angel disarms the gangsters, crushing their firearms with his bare hands. “That’s zombies,” he states. Jimmy doesn’t care. He pistol-whips Faith in the back of her head, as Angel is shot and goes down, large hole in his check. “Zombies, vampires,” Jimmy says, as he aims his gun at Angel, on the floor. “Blow off the head, problem solved.”

Before he can take his shot, Faith comes from above, slicing his arm, taking his hand off at the wrist, gun with it. As his hand falls away, Jimmy screams, more in shock than pain. Angel tells him to shut up and starts to control the bleeding. He starts to ask Faith for help, but she just stares at Jimmy, cradling his bloody stump. She drops her sword to the floor with a clang.

Angel tells Jimmy’s henchmen how to stop the bleeding, showing them how to torniquet the wound. He tells them to keep the pressure on and tell the police anything except the truth. He vamps out and throws the box in Jimmy’s direction, grabbing a hold of his stump. “Take your money, go back to Boston, never bother us again. Cause what I’d really like to do with this arm is drink from it like a hose.” The threat is taken seriously, a scared henchman nodding profusely and agreeing with Angel’s every syllable.

As they go back inside the apartment, Angel asks Faith if she’s okay. Pat has emerged from the kitchen, saying that he heard the screaming, and assumes that the Irish are dead?

Faith grabs her father by the collar. “What did you do?” Her father looks at her, a slight grin in his face. “What I had to. To provide for you.” Faith once again tells him to get out.

Pat looks at her, surprised for a moment. He then sneers at Faith, looking her square in the face. “Look at you. Got some money now. Living in England. And you think you’re friggin Princess Di. But I know where you came from. I know what you really are.” He grins and gestures down towards Faith’s hands, covered in Mulligan’s blood.

She looks down at her palms. She’s shaking slightly. Then she stops, and punches her father straight across the face. As he recovers, he looks up at her, dazed. “I’m what you made me, you son of a bitch,” she says, glaring at him, hate on her face.

“All my life I’ve let people use me. Cause I’m so desperate for a family they can taste it. You should’ve seen the Daddy Figure I picked in Sunnydale. He wanted to wipe out the whole damn town. And he was still more of a father to me than you! I killed for him. Without thinking. Twice. Been trying to kid myself that that was a different person.”

By now she has physically picked her father up off the ground, his feet now not touching the floor. “Then you show up.” She has tears cascading down her face, and makes no attempt to wipe them away. “You’re right. I am what I am. Cause of you. And nothing I do will change that. So why even try?” Her hands close tighter and tighter around her father’s throat.

Angel puts his hands on her shoulder. He looks at her. Just one look. Faith lets go, the tears still falling and she steps away, leaving her father recovering, coughing and sputtering on the floor. Angel picks him up and opens the door, pushing Pat Lehane through it with a warning: “You ever contact her again… I’ll show you who I really am.”

Faith watches in tears from the window as her father walks out of her life again.

By the time Angel comes inside, Faith is gone. He quickly searches the apartment, but finds nothing but her bloody hand prints, leading to the roof.

Angel starts racing across the roof tops: Her girls. The Slayers. She’d go to them. Please.

The Slayer Squad are elsewhere, occupied with two zompires. The four Slayers, surrounding the final vamp, agree to strengthen their patrols to deal with the feral creatures.

Across down, at a nightclub that used to be a church, the heavy oak doors slam open. Drusilla, in a white gown, Lorophage next to her, addresses Faith by name before she even walks into her presence. She tells Faith that she has looked forward to this visit, having seen it coming.

Faith asks if that means Dru knows why she’s there. Drusilla says that now that she is not mad, her visions are more empathic, leading her to strong emotions. “Still,” she gestures,” I’d like to hear it from you.”

Faith looks down at the floor, scared of feeling and looking vulnerable. “I’m tired” she sobs. “So damn tired of feeling like this.”

She points to the Lorophage. “What you’ve been doing to people. Taking the pain away… I want you to do it for me.” Drusilla asks her if she’s certain.

Faith tells her yes. She can’t keep going through the pain, working past it, and then get knocked back to the finishing line by one visit from her pathetic father. She doesn’t want anyone to be able to reduce her to that feeling again. She doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

Angel runs towards the club. As he walks into the main chamber, he sees Faith. The Lorophage has it’s needle-like fingers inside Faith’s brain. Drusilla smiles, one hand on Faith’s shoulder. “Just take it away,” Faith cries, as the treatment begins.