Touched [you say that I am too]
At my signal, unleash hell. -Gladiator

My head was spinning as I stood in the library at school with everyone just standin' around looking at me. Suddenly I was reminded of standing in Buffy's living room, givin' out orders and waiting for people to die. It suddenly occured to me that was exactly what I was doing again. Kinda just wanted to hide behind B, let her take on the whole leader role but they were my family, I felt responsible I guess. Man, times like these almost make me wish I was still evil. At least then things were mostly black and white. I do what I want, when I want.

Serenity and Grace were sitting next to me and B was kinda hovering around a little bit behind me. Harry, Angel and Spike were in the back leaning against the bleachers like the fact that they were in a gym full of slayers made 'em wicked nervous. And then there were the slayers, rows and rows of them lookin' at me, trusting me. Some of 'em were gonna die tonight. Might be me.

"Alright. Here's how it's gonna be. We have to go on foot, cause I get that they seem to know everything that's going on but the less warning we give 'em? The better." I said as I looked at the blueprint of Wolfram and Hart's building that Harry had managed to get.

"Mostly what we're up to is distracting and defending. The spell takes a little while to work but while we're doing it, we don't want demons tryin' to get all up in our grill. Me, Serenity and Grace are gonna go in here." I said, indicating a door around the back through the parking garage where we could take the stairs u to James' office. "James is here and that's where we're gonna do the spell." Hopefully I could hold James off long enough for Grace and Serenity to do the magick type stuff. I got the upper hand with him once though and that was a good sign.

"This is Dom's office. Kennedy and Angel? You guys are probably best going through the front door actually. Just try and be as stealth as you can. Know it's gonna be hard with Harmony sittin' out there but hopefully almost everyone will be gone for the night." Stealth? Kennedy and Angel? The drama princesses of Los Angeles? Yeah, right. But they had a personal score to settle with my aunt and I figure that little extra fire in their bellies are gonna do 'em good. "Whatever you do, don't let her get you in her little magick room of tricks or else it's all gonna be over." I locked onto Kennedy's eyes before I looked up at Angel and moved on quickly. I wasn't much for the speech givin' and I just wanted this night to be over already.

"Aidan's on the other side of the building. So, Lily and Buffy? You guys can get in here and should be able to sneak in through the back door of his office." I was mostly focused on Buffy cause I was nervous about sending Lily in with Aidan. I'd pretty much just found out that Lily had some kinda relationship with my uncle. At this point I couldn't hold it against her, she was good to Tyler and I had stopped being mad at Kennedy about Dom. We'd all made mistakes. Still, I hoped B would keep an eye on my son's girlfriend.

"Lexi and Sophia are probably up in the penthouse. Spike, you and Harry have got the gliders so you should just be able to sail right up through the penthouse windows and jump 'em there." I forced my mouth into a thin line as I looked over at Harry. "Try and chase 'em out of the building cause I got the feeling that if this mojo actually works? We're gonna be in for some serious fireworks." Harry and I were never gonna see eye to eye on Alexia. I'd decided a long time ago I'd rather see my daughter dead and buried than watch a monster walk around in her body but it wasn't really up to me anymore and Harry had made that clear. Now all I could do was trust him to make sure that she never hurt our son.

"Everybody else? We're gonna gather outside, follow Connor. I don't know how far back we're gonna get pushed with this but I figure we're up against some heavyweights and once they figure out what we're up to they're gonna come up swingin' pretty hard. Be prepared for anything and everything." I didn't know what else to say to them and I just looked at Connor and let my mouth twist up into a slight smile. Without him none of this would've even been possible. Thank you

"Uhhh....Faith? What can I do to help?" A voice piped up from the back behind the three vampires and I looked over, surprised to see that Alec had walked in. Hadn't he left town? I kind of wanted to kick his face in but right now I didn't have time and he was a wicked strong ally to have.

"You can help Connor if you can pull your head out of your ass." I smiled at him sarcastically before I looked at everyone else again. "Seth's gonna be here on the radio, so be sure you have one on you before you leave. That way we can stay in contact and if plans change Seth can let everyone know." I couldn't believe I was trusting this job to Molly's geeky little boyfriend but she promised he wouldn't fuck it up so what choice did I have? We obviously couldn't put the kid on the battlefield. He'd get eaten alive.

"That's it, unless anyone's got anything else to say." I said looking around at everyone knowin' this was the last time I was gonna see some of 'em. I figured B would pipe up with some kind of annoying inspiration cheerleader driven speech but she kept her mouth shut surprisingly enough. "Alright." I nodded. "Let's go."

The room erupted into quiet talking and shuffling and moving around. I had started to make a beeline towards Tyler when B suddenly grabbed my arm. Turning around I gave her a quizzical look.

"Don't die." She said to me, echoing the same sentiment from the night that I'd killed Kakistos. Smiling a little bit I nodded at her before I pulled away and headed into the crowd. I'd catch up with my sisters in a minute but for right now I needed to see my son and know that he was gonna be okay. He had to be right? Harry and I had tried to convince him to leave town but he was being stubborn. I couldn't really blame him. I was stubborn too.

He was heading towards the door after Connor when I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him easily back into a hug. Careful not to hurt him I squeezed him tight for a second.

"Don't die."

That's the plan.

Don't die.