* * * * *

I had a daughter called her Annabelle
tried to give her something like I never had
didn't want to ever hear her cry

* * * * *

Faith's lace-up black boots kicked at the dead leaves as she walked past the gravestones in the Boston cemetery. The place was fairly large, larger and more open than Sunnydale's. On her discman she listened to The Blue Heelers, one of her favorite bands. Behind her Buffy trailed in a white sweater coat. Together the slayers bestowed blueberry and vanilla to the clear groggy atmosphere.

She switched off the discman, wearing a violet glass ring; taking it from her ears, her chocolate horizontal tear-drop eyes stared at the four-year-old gravestone: Madchin Ambrose, Beloved Watcher.

"I didn't care what anyone thought," Faith said, glancing at Buffy behind her.

The blonde-haired slayer stood with her hands in her pockets, her luminous hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"It's been a while since I've been back here," Faith said, "home, I guess. Hey B, thanks for coming with. I mean I know it's kind of late, but I needed to do this, you know. October the seventh. That was the day she died, the day I ran. Shit-"

Faith sighed, licking her lower cranberry glossed lip. She pushed back her long brunette waves and took a string of pink pearls from the pocket of her dark denim jacket. In her palm she looked at them.

"I thought these were the prettiest thing in the whole world. She wore them to bed and never got caught in 'em. She wasn't wearing them that night."

Around her wrist she wore a silver bracelet with a small rhinestone "F" charm.

Kneeling, Faith's bare knees sunk into the dirt. With her left hand she smoothly clawed the soil away from her Watcher's grave. When she got a decent hole she placed the necklace down into the cool ground, patting the dirt over it.

"I don't need them, anymore," Faith said, standing and wiping her hands on her short black satin skirt.

Tucked away in her blue musical jewelry box at home in Los Angeles, Faith still had the empty blueberry lip gloss container Madchin had lifted for her on their first meeting.

"Want, take, have," whispered Faith. "Do you think she's in heaven like you were?"

Faith was twirling the tiny lavender rhinestone horseshoe pendent she wore around her neck.

"Yeah, I do," said Buffy.

"Maybe pink pearl heaven . . . do you think Giles will come back?"

Buffy paused, wondering, shivering, "I don't know. How's Tara?"

"Five by five - well, no, but you know what I mean. She'll be with me, Oz, Lissa for a while. Did Red say anything about her taking Miss Kitty Fantastico? Oz offered her his room, but she's sharing with me. It's kinda nice, like old times, sort of . . ."

"Yeah," said Buffy.

Faith looked at her Watcher's gravestone one last time and said, "Hey now Madchin."

*Lyrics from "Annabelle" written by Gillian Welch.