Fanfic / The Faith Chronicles

The Faith Chronicles by fmfan1980 is a spin-off of An Extraordinary Journey, which looks at a reality where Faith’s departure from Sunnydale led to her travelling to Colorado Springs. After SG-1 witness Faith fighting off a Watcher’s Council strike team while she’s working as a waitress in O’Malley’s Restaurant, Samantha Carter’s curiosity about her leads to the discovery that Faith Lehane is actually Ellie Carter, the daughter Sam had as a teenager but believed was stillborn. As mother and daughter learn more about each other’s worlds, the SGC becomes increasingly opposed to the Council’s methods, while Faith’s relationship with the Scooby Gang becomes increasingly complex as the SGC expose the cracks in the Council’s actions.

There are two stories: Born Into Darkness, which is complete, and Out Into the Light, which is incomplete and on hiatus.

The Faith Chronicles contains examples of:

• Absence of Evidence: Granted, one that most would have overlooked; when the Council fake Faith's death with a mystically-created clone, Janet realises that the clone is a fake because the clone's stomach is empty; prior to her abduction Faith had eaten a full steak dinner, which should have still been in her stomach if she'd been killed for real.
• Acting Unnatural: Willow is perfectly willing to lie, but has so many tells that her friends can realize instantly she's doing it. This becomes a problem when she learns Classified Information about the SGC. She solves the problem via self-inflicted Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Action Mom: Sam quickly falls into this as she accepts Faith back into her life.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Buffy is gay. Or maybe bi. At any rate, by the end of the first story, they want to explore a relationship with Willow.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Quentin Travers, head of the Watchers' Council, wasn't exactly a good guy in Buffy canon, but he certainly didn't try to kidnap babies.
  • Kennedy is willing to manipulate Willow into killing a transformed Oz and later turns Willow into a Manchurian Agent with the goal of killing Faith.
• Alien Abductees Fight Back: Faith, when Loki kidnaps her to experiment on her.
• Almost Dead Guy: In this reality’s version of “2010”, the Faith from 2010 makes it through the gate with the note about the Aschen, then promptly dies from previously-sustained injuries.
• Anachronism Stew: Sam tells Faith/Ellie that her (Sam's) high school boyfriend is listed on Facebook as being married with children. Facebook didn't even launch until 2004, and only allowed everyone to sign up in 2006. Faith meeting Sam occurred during the SG-1 episode “Shades of Grey”, which was set in 2000.
• Artificial Human:
  • Ella Carter is a 4-year-old clone of Faith made by Loki. He didn't mean for her to be that age, but didn't bother to check that the cloning went correctly before switching her with the teenaged Faith.
  • The Watchers' Council pulls this on Sam with “Ellie's” stillborn body, then again with “Faith's” body when they kidnap her.
• Baby Morph Episode: Subverted when Faith has apparently been de-aged to a 4-year-old, losing all her memories of everything after that point in the process. Except it's actually a clone that Loki screwed up making, and the original Faith is still around.
• Badass and Child Duo: Faith and Ella.
• Badass Boast: When The Cavalry in the person of Thor arrives to rescue Faith, they get to give one to the Watchers' Council.
• Badass in Distress: Faith almost gets kidnapped by a Watchers' Council Special Operations team shortly after the start of Born Into Darkness. SG-1 steps in. The Council succeeds later on and plans to kill her after a show trial. Sam calls in Thor.
• Beyond Redemption: Quentin Travers, head of the Watchers' Council, has this opinion about Faith. On the flip side, the Scoobies come to regard Kennedy this way after the battle with Glory. By contrast, someone realizing Faith isn't this is a good indication of Character Development.
• Big Sister Instinct: After Faith's clone Ella joins the family, Faith privately vows that Ella will never know what she had to deal with growing up, content that Ella will live a happy life with Sam as her mother, Jacob as her grandfather, the Carters as her extended family, and the staff of the SGC as various assorted uncles.
• Big Damn Heroes: Thor personally serves this role after Faith gets kidnapped.
• Bitch Alert: Kennedy amounts to this as the storyline unfolds.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: This is Kennedy's stated reason for turning Willow into a Manchurian Agent with a mission to kill Faith. Whether she actually believes it or not is unclear.
• Break the Badass: Sam when the Watchers' Council supposedly kills Faith.
• The Cavalry: General Hammond, Faith, and various SGC people arrive just in time to lay a verbal beatdown on Quentin Travers and whisk Dawn (and Joyce) away to a place she'll be safe from Glory (and the Watchers' Council).
• Clone Angst: Fortunately avoided for Ella Carter, a clone of Faith created by Loki who is basically the double of Faith when she was five years old. Once all parties have established that Ella is a distinct person from Faith, Ella seems to be too young to really comprehend the idea that she is a "clone", with all others content to consider her Sam's younger daughter and Faith's little sister.
• Closet Key: Willow for Buffy.
• Contrived Coincidence: What are the chances that Faith would randomly pick Colorado Springs to run away to? After she gets there, what are the chances she gets a job at her birth mother's favorite restaurant and wind up waiting SG-1's table at the exact time a Council wetworks squad tracks her down?
• Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story:
  • After Faith leaves Sunnydale, Oz leaves to go spend time out of contact in the middle of nowhere in Canada. Of course what actually happened was Willow used magic to kill him while he was transformed, then begged everyone to not tell Faith because Willow didn't want people to think she was like Faith.
  • How Faith dealt with Glory. She told the Scoobies she dropped Glory in a volcano on Hawai'i, which would leave no corpse. What she actually did was get Glory hit by the Stargate's kawoosh, then sent her through the wormhole to a Death World.
• Crash-Into Hello: Faith meets Tara when she's running down a stairwell, trying to get out of the hospital and they collide. Faith takes Tara's clothes, money, cards, and keys, then books it out of town. They eventually become friends and, possibly, a couple.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Faith goes back to Sunnydale to help deal with Glory.
• Crossover Relatives: Sam Carter and Faith Lehane are mother and daughter.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Kennedy uses magic to impersonate Oz, whom Willow killed in ‘self-defense’, in some phone calls to Faith.
• Death by Adaptation: Happens to Oz due to Kennedy manipulating Willow into it.
• Demoted to Extra: Pete Shanahan meets Sam in what would have been the fifth season when the two of them visit Sam’s brother Mark at the same time, but Pete swiftly tries to reveal that Sam’s newly-discovered daughter ‘Ellie’ is actually wanted criminal Faith Lehane. By this point, not only are the SGC all aware of Faith’s past, but her record has been cleared to the extent that Pete would have had to break the law to find any evidence of Faith’s past crimes, thus ending any possibility of he and Sam having a relationship.
• Despair Event Horizon: Teenaged Sam when she loses her baby.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Glory. Faith engineers things so Glory gets hit by the activating stargate's kawoosh, which vaporizes the hellgoddess' skin. That doesn't kill her, but the pain distracts her while Faith kicks her through the gate to a Death World.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Sam, General Hammond, the President, and the PM all warn the Watchers' Council to stop going after Faith. They don't listen, and Sam calls in Thor.
• Doorstopper: At over 300,000 words, it qualifies^note Not quite up to the level of the 1.5 million-and-counting words of the main story, but, still...
• Engineered Public Confession: After Kennedy brainwashes Willow into attacking the five-year-old Faith, Buffy confronts Kennedy with Jack O’Neill’s phone in her pocket set to record to get her confession. This culminates in Kennedy being zatted and taken to prison in Area 51 by the SGC once they have a recording of the confession, with the Prime Minister confirming that he will have key members of the Watcher’s Council arrested for their role in the attack.
• Extremely Protective Child: Faith develops this towards Sam, making it clear that nothing will keep her apart from her mother.
• For Want Of A Nail: Kennedy engineers things so Willow kills a transformed Oz.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Kennedy is ultimately this to the rest of the Scooby Gang. Buffy, Anya and Tara have no faith in the Council after what they have learnt about their role in Faith being taken from her mother as an infant and Giles simply tolerates her presence because he has to put up with the Council's orders. While Kennedy is dating Willow, it's soon made clear that she is emotionally manipulating Willow with the goal of basically using the witch as a weapon for the Council given her magical potential, and Xander is soon forced to face that his own friendship with Kennedy was mainly based around Kennedy encouraging his own hatred of Faith, which Xander gets over when the rest of the Gang make their own changed opinions clear.
• Good Is Not Soft: Everyone warns Travers to stop messing with Faith. He doesn't listen, so Sam calls in Thor.
• Grave-Marking Scene: Sam has made a habit of regularly visiting Ellie's grave. She stops once she finds out Ellie is alive.
• Heartbroken Badass: Sam when the Watchers' Council supposedly killed Faith.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Sam when her daughter is stillborn. It happens again, years later, when she realizes she wasn't stillborn and Faith is that daughter. And yet again when the Watchers' Council kidnaps Faith and leaves a magically-made corpse duplicate behind.
  • Willow after she kills Oz.
• Hypocrite: Faith basically accuses the Scoobies of this when she learns that Willow killed Oz by accident, as they condemned Faith for basically the same thing and yet assure Willow that what she did was an accident (although it's later revealed that Willow was manipulated into it by Kennedy).
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: During Born into Darkness, the Council's various agents in the American government are constantly undermined in their efforts to regain control of Faith as they don't realise just how dangerous the 'Deep Space Radar Telemetry' project can be.
• Internal Reveal: Various scenes as Sam tells others the truth about Ellie/Faith.
• It's a Small World, After All: What are the chances that Faith would randomly pick Colorado Springs to run to? The only place where it would even be possible for her to encounter her birth mother.
• It's All About Me: Kennedy doesn't even care when her machinations almost get a 4-year-old girl killed, so long as she obeys the orders of the Watcher’s Council.
• Kangaroo Court: The Watchers' Council, when their ‘trial’ for Faith consists of basically declaring she’s guilty.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: The Watchers' Council gets away with kidnapping newborn Potentials born into military families for a long time, though the only known case so far is Faith. When SG-1 runs into Faith, it starts a chain of Disaster Dominoes that involve getting the President, the Prime Minister, and Thor pissed at them. It's worse than just killing people; the PM has them audited.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Kennedy when she turns her girlfriend, Willow, into a Manchurian Agent with implanted orders to kill Faith.
  • Earlier, everyone in Sunnydale agreed not to tell Faith that Oz was dead. The charade was kept up via magical voice manipulation on phone calls.
• Kill It with Fire: Faith kills Glory by teleporting them to Hawai'i and dropping Glory in an active volcano. At least, that's the cover story. She couldn't very well tell everyone she had them beamed in front of a Stargate, had Glory get hit by the unstable vortex, and— while the hellgoddess was distracted by the intense pain of having her skin destroyed— kicked her through the gate to a Death World.
• Knight Templar: Kennedy's loyalty to the Watcher's Council is so great that she is willing to betray the gang by telling the Council the truth about Dawn, even though this will almost certainly result in Dawn being killed or outright erased from existence in the name of preventing Glory from finding the Key. She even goes so far as as to emotionally manipulate Willow into a relationship so that she can influence Willow's exploration of her magic, culminating in her briefly brainwashing Willow to try and kill Faith (made worse by the fact that the brainwashed Willow ended up attacking Faith's five-year-old clone who had legitimately done nothing).
• Knight Templar Parent: The Watchers' Council tries one time too many to mess with Faith, ignoring numerous warnings, including from the President and PM, not to. Sam ends up calling Thor to get them to back off.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Watchers' Council has agents in place with easy access to various world leaders who have magical trinkets that they can use to invoke this trope when the leader in question learns something the Council doesn't want them to.
• Long-Lost Relative: Faith is actually Sam Carter's daughter Ellie, whom she thought was stillborn.
• Magic A Is Magic A: In Born Into Darkness, the SGC are able to make Marcie Ross visible using the TERs, even though Marcie's invisibility isn't the same as the Reetou.
• Mama Bear: Sam towards Faith and, later, Ella. Aunt Betty also deserves mention: when she hears that Ellie is alive, her first reaction is to yell at Sam for sitting around talking to her instead of going to get her daughter.
• Manchurian Agent: A spell cast by Kennedy turns Willow into one; Kennedy wants Faith dead, and is willing to brainwash her own girlfriend to achieve it.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Kennedy convinces Willow to learn ever more powerful and dangerous magic, manipulates her into killing Oz, and also turns Willow into a Manchurian Agent in an attempt to kill Faith.
  • Quentin Travers, head of the Watchers' Council. He ensures that any potential Slayers born into a military family are kidnapped, with the parents being convinced, through magic, that the child was stillborn. When the President and Prime Minister find out and start calling him out on it, he has their memories wiped. Then there's all the crap he pulls trying to capture or kill Faith.
• Mind Rape: Kennedy uses a spell to turn Willow into a Manchurian Agent and kill Faith.
• Mugging the Monster: The whole Watchers' Council doesn't regard the SGC as a threat. As far as they know, they look into “Deep Space Radar Telemetry”.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: The view of the Watchers' Council regarding disobedient Slayers.
• No-Sell: Glory is immune to staff blasts and Zat bolts. Unfortunately for her, she's not immune to the unstable vortex from an activating Stargate.
• Note to Self: An unintentional example convinces the President that Hammond is telling him the truth and the Watchers' Council wiped his memory.
• Oh, Crap!: When the Watchers' Council is looking to execute Faith after a show trial, Thor shows up and tells them that she is under his protection.
  Councilor: Okay, we just pissed off a god.
• Ominous Message from the Future: The message sent back in this reality’s version of “2010” differs from canon in two ways: Faith's double manages to carry the note through the gate to the past before dying, and Faith added “The Aschen are assholes” to the note.
• Outside-Context Problem: Glory has no way to find the Key when Dawn is being hidden on another planet. Nor does she have a way to defend against getting hit by the kawoosh of a Stargate, then being kicked through the open gate.
• Over-the-Top Secret: The President creates a file so secret, only he knows about it. When a Watchers' Council operative gives him Laser-Guided Amnesia, that file helps him realize what's going on.
• Overnight Age-Up: Inverted when Faith wakes up four years old with no memory of anything that happened after that point in her life. This version is later found to be a clone created by Loki, who Sam and Faith decide to name Ella.
• Papa Wolf: Jacob quickly becomes this when he learns about Faith's rough childhood, making it clear on several occasions that anyone going after his new granddaughter will have to answer to him.
• Parent-Child Team: Sam and Faith.
• Parents Know Their Children: Downplayed; Sam feels like she knows their waitress, “Ann”, but doesn't realize who she is. Of course, that's probably because the Watchers' Council used magic to make Sam think her daughter was stillborn.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Faith delivers one to the Watchers' Council when they intend to have her executed.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When Sam is informed that Faith is dead, she tries to attack the nearest representative of the Watchers' Council despite being currently part of a meeting with the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Britain. Once Sam’s collected herself, she apologises for her actions and states that she’ll understand if they want to file a report on her misconduct, but both world leaders assure her that nobody will hold it against her for reacting that way after losing her daughter again.
• Reformed, but Rejected: The only members of the Scoobies who believe Faith’s Heel–Face Turn from the start are Tara and Anya.
• Shaped Like Itself: Faith/Ellie while aboard Loki's ship;

  Faith/Ellie: God of Mischief, huh? Well I'm Ellie, Mistress of Pain. Very, very painful pain...

• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Faith to the Watchers' Council when they are about to execute her after a show trial.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: The Watchers' Council to Faith after her "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Starting a New Life: Faith once she learns who her real mother is.
• Survivor Guilt: Sam after her daughter is stillborn.
• Tear Up the Contract: When Travers comes to Cheyenne Mountain and presents General Hammond with a copy of the agreement with the Watcher's Council that prohibits a Slayer serving in the armed forces, Hammond tears up the contract and throws the paper in a bin as he makes it clear to Travers that as far as he's concerned, he is protecting Ellie Carter rather than Faith Lehane and there is no agreement authorising the Council to take children away from their families.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Scoobies and Kennedy with Faith while they're dealing with Glory.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Particularly applies to Glory; after she has been worn down by a spell from Willow that destroyed her clothes and hair and taken a beating from Faith, she's teleported right in front of the Stargate so that she's caught in the kawoosh. This leaves Glory without her skin but still conscious, until Faith kicks her through the Stargate, leaving her on a world with no human life and binary suns so hot that she will quickly die whenever she reverts to her human identity.
• Tragic Stillbirth: The Watchers' Council uses magic to convince Sam that her daughter was born dead.
• The Unapologetic: Kennedy never shows any remorse for goading Willow into killing Oz, or turning Willow into a Manchurian Agent to kill Faith.
• Underestimating Badassery: The Watchers' Council to the SGC in general and Sam Carter in particular, constantly assuming that Deep Space Radar Telemetry doesn't have the connections to be dangerous to them. At one point the Council's agent in the White House intends to use a memory spell to frame Faith for an attack on the President, but she is swiftly outmanoeuvred and caught by Teal'c before she can start the spell.
• Vehicular Kidnapping: Attempted by the Watchers' Council against Faith in Colorado Springs. SG-1 foils the plot, which kicks off the story.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Faith to the Scoobies, Tara, and Kennedy after she finds Oz's grave.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Watchers' Council to both Faith and Dawn. The former they steal from her mother and give to abusive parents, the latter they are willing to kill to prevent Glory from getting The Key. At one point, Willow nearly kills Ella, a five-year-old clone of Faith, but on this occasion she had been brainwashed and programmed to kill Faith and was just reacting to that programming, and is horrified and disgusted once she returns to herself.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: The SGC basically use this against the Watchers' Council after they abduct Faith by calling in a favour from Thor so that he will confront the Council during Faith's trial in his 'god' form and order them to leave Faith alone. The result is so effective that Tara calls Faith afterwards to mention that her mother must be a very powerful witch to have invoked Thor himself in that manner, although she also advises that Sam avoid such powerful magics in future.

---