Disclaimer and Author's Notes:

Veronica Mars is property of Rob Thomas and the CW, et al. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series are property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No profit is being made from this work.

Story and Chapter titles are taken from songs written and performed by the Gipsy Kings. No infringement is intended.

Veronica Mars goes AU from Season 2, Episode 17 "Plan B".

Buffy the Vampire Slayer goes AU after the Season 7 series finale, "Chosen".

Angel the Series goes AU from Season 4 Episode 22, "Peace Out".

While small details from the BtVS comics and AtS season 5 may come in to play, I am completely ignoring all major plot points, such as Twilight, Wolfram & Hart, Illyria, and the Circle of Black Thorn.

__________________________________________________________________________________

It was late. Too late, and too dark for the young woman walking down the manicured, well-maintained streets that housed the finest mansions in Neptune to look anything but suspicious. She traveled at a normal pace, wisps from her dark braid catching in the breeze from the ocean, dancing around her face. It was obvious to anyone looking that she didn't belong here. Good thing that it was late. Too late for anyone to be out and about, unless they, too, didn't belong.

Faith Lehane fought the urge to check her PDA for the thousandth time. The address she was looking for in the prestigious 90909 zip code hadn't changed. The mansion hadn't moved in the last four minutes, and wasn't likely to in the next four. Scanning her surroundings, she paused, and let out a snort of disbelief. Directly across from her, eight foot wrought-iron gates declared "KANE" in giant letters.

"Yeah. Like I was going to miss that," she muttered to herself. Rolling her shoulders, Faith bounced on her toes once or twice.

"Security, security.... hm." she thought. Assessing eyes darted quickly over the visible measures.

The gates were locked, with a large, state of the art camera and intercom system attached. Spreading out from there was a ten foot high brick privacy wall, with attractive shrubbery breaking up the lines in a yuppy, Feng-shui kind of way. Also, it provided ample space for checking out the interior grounds, if you were a good climber. Which Faith was. Or a good jumper, at any rate.

A quick hop, fueled by supernatural strength, and she was perched atop the wall, glancing around. Looking, always on guard, for anyone that might notice, anyone that might see. So far, so good.

Trespassing on private property was sort of a theme in her line of work. Not that she was a criminal. Well, at least, her felony of past choice wasn't B&E. No, her current line of work was investigative. A freelance troubleshooter for the New Reformed Council of Watchers – a council of eight whole watchers. Ever since the closing of the Sunnydale Hellmouth, the survivors of the battle with the First Evil had been working hard to figure out the new rules of the game. Buffy Summers, the most senior Slayer, was mostly retired, doing a whole lot of international travel with a side of club hopping. Rupert Giles, the most senior surviving Watcher, had been spending his time setting up a new base of operations in Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. Home of the other Hellmouth.

Faith had put in her time – two years, in fact – as a teacher, a trainer, a live-in 'bad example' with the NRCW. Frankly, as soon as she could hit the door without being arrested, she was begging Giles for some kind of roaming assignment. Anything that would give her a chance to live anywhere other than a houseful of hormonal, temperamental, super powered teenage girls. It wasn't as bad as her stint in prison, though she joked otherwise. But it still wasn't the sort of thing she was made for.

It took every minute of that two years to get back the trust. She was never going to be a "Scooby", and frankly, at this point, she had accepted that and moved on. But when push came to shove, and the apocalypse season heated up, Giles, Xander, Willow and Dawn all knew they could count on her to do her best for them. She only had to save Dawn two, three times before Willow relented and used her techno-witchy ways to solve Faith's little "fugitive from the law" problem.

So it seemed ironic to her that within a year of being on the road, looking for new Slayers and fixing demon-y problems, she was relying more and more on her old-school, pre-teen penchant for illegal behavior.

At least she wasn't breaking onto the Kane estate to steal. She was breaking in because a girl had been murdered here. A girl who just might have been a Slayer.

Faith dropped soundlessly to the grass. She was quick, she was quiet – she was completely confused that the motion-activated ground lights hadn't engaged.

"Now that is effin' weird..." she thought.

Weirder still, there was a muffled thumping coming from around the side of the mansion, from the pool area that was her goal.

Crouching low, she darted from decorative bush to shrub, staying as hidden as possible. Her information stated that the residents of the Kane mansion were out of the city, and had been for quite some time. There was no reason for anyone to be here, especially at two in the morning, unless they were up to no good. Or they were a Slayer, trying to check out an old crime scene.

Faith found a good vantage point on the roof of the pool house, and scaled quickly up the side. Hopefully, she could remain unnoticed here. Worst case scenario... well, Giles said he'd be good for bail money, as long as she was on the job.

Her eyes narrowed as she settled down to watch. Two men in dark clothes were digging a hole near the pool. Not a big enough hole for a body, but for some kind of small bundle that lay near them. She had no idea what they were doing, but was pretty sure it wasn't good. And to top it off, while these yahoos were digging up the yard, she couldn't do her own checking around.

A silent debate began. Should she confront them, smack 'em around a little, maybe find out what they were up to? Or should she slip away, and find some way of notifying the authorities?

The sight of a holstered gun at one of the men's sides quickly decided her in favor of leaving as soon as possible. She might be fast, but she'd never met anyone who could outrun a bullet. Besides, she had more than one reason to be in Neptune, and checking into this Lilly Kane thing was at the bottom of her list of priorities.

It didn't take her more than five minutes to slip back off the property, and pull out her phone.

"Angel Investigations – wait," a gruff, sleepy voice answered. "What time is it?"

"Hey, Gunn. It's me. I need a quick answer."

"Faith? 'What the hell' o'clock is not the time for you to expect me to be quick about anything," Charles Gunn replied. "I am not a 24 hour service."

"Was there a home phone for that detective agency in Neptune you guys network with? Maybe a PI on call? I need some local intel in the next ten minutes, or-"

"-is the world going to end?" he interrupted. "'Cause if it's not, I'm gonna be pissed at you for waking me up."

"Yes. Yes it is," Faith deadpanned, crossing her fingers.

"Gimme a sec." There was some rustling, and the faint sound of a laptop booting up. "Um... Here we go. Mars Investigations. Keith Mars."

"I already know that," she began.

"Then 411 his ass or something! I just have the fax and office numbers. Damn, girl. Why did you call me?"

"I guess I shoulda thought of that," Faith tried not to laugh. "Sorry."

"Yeah, you better be," he grumbled, then hung up.

Moments later, the information operator connected her with a residential line. It took six rings for another sleepy person to pick up.

"Mom?"

Faith blinked a few times at the young female voice.

"I'm trying to reach Keith Mars, of Mars Investigations?" she replied politely. There was a long moment of silence on the other end.

"This better be worth the fee... hang on. DAD!"

The brunette winced at the shout coming through the phone. Fumbling. A click. Her third cranky, sleepy person of the night picked up.

"Keith Mars... this had better be good."

"Mr. Mars? I'm really sorry for calling you at home-" she began.

"That really is why I keep office hours," Keith responded with a bit of an edge.

"I'm going to go ahead and fast forward through the part where I apologize some more, and you get crankier, and you ask who I am, and we finally wind our way around to my point, which is that right now, at this exact moment, there are two guys who I'm pretty sure don't belong there digging a hole in the backyard of Kane Manor. Now, I guess I could call the sheriff's office, but word is that the man is a moron. Since you were the one who caught Lilly's real killer, I figured you might know who these bozos are, and what should be done about them." Faith held her breath, hoping that she'd made the right decision.

Silence. A throat clearing.

"What?"

"Two dudes. Digging. Kane place. I think they're burying something by the pool. If you want to do something about it, I'd suggest putting a rush on it. No idea when they'll be done."

"I don't suppose you have a good reason to know this-"

"Did I mention steppin' on it? Look, I'll be square. I was doing a little snooping myself. My name's Faith, and I'm happy to come by the office sometime and tell you all about it. I swear I'm not making any of this up, and I really didn't know who else could handle this. Please tell me you can handle this." Faith clapped a hand to her forehead. Could she sound any more suspicious? Probably not.

"You're going to have to do better than that," Keith began, when the young female voice from earlier broke in.

"Dad, I already called Clarence Weidman. Listen, lady, if this is a joke, we'll find you. If you're telling the truth, we'll still find you. Your best bet is to find us first. At the office."

"Veronica! What do you think-"

Faith rolled her eyes to the heavens in thanks, and quickly hung up. She was not good at this whole phone thing. Hopefully this Clarence guy could do something. Just in case, though, she did a quick sweep around the estate, and wrote down plate numbers of everything within a few blocks. She was just heading back to her ride when her phone buzzed with an incoming text from an unknown number..

I DID MENTION WE'D FIND YOU.

She grinned. This Veronica chick seemed like fun times.

Morning came early in the Mars household. It came even earlier when Veronica couldn't sleep after a weird, middle of the night tip about shenanigans at the Kane's. A bowl of Fruit Loops sat in front of her untouched, growing slowly soggier as she watched the kitchen clock tick ever so slowly towards seven.

At seven, she was going to call Clarence Weidman. At seven, she was going to get some goddamn answers if she had to kill somebody to do it.

Her milk turned red, then kind of a greenish brown as she tried to make time move faster by sheer willpower alone.

"This sucks." Halfheartedly, she dug her spoon around the bowl. Her nose wrinkled as the cereal rings turned to mush. Veronica let out a frustrated noise, jumping to her feet and yanking her breakfast off the table. She had to leave for school at eight, and had plenty of time to get ready. But first... first, she desperately needed to know what happened. She could find out at seven. Seven seven seven seven.... Soggy cereal went down the disposal, and Veronica took a kind of joy in the loud, obnoxious whir the machine made. It was over too quickly.

Seven. Not yet.

She made herself wash out her bowl. Slowly. She walked to her room. Slowly. She brushed her teeth and ran some gel through her hair. Then she flossed. And hunted for blemishes on her nose. Applied some eyeliner. Picked out her clothes. Anything she could think of to take up precious time before she could make that damn call. She was just about to rearrange her textbooks in alphabetical order when her phone started playing "Secret Agent Man".

Veronica froze. Counted to five. Took a deep breath, and answered as casually as she could.

"Hey, Clarence... calling a little early, aren't you?" She faked a yawn, congratulating herself on her nonchalance.

Clarence Weidman, head of security for Kane Software and all-around problem solver, chuckled softly. "Are you trying to convince me that you haven't been waiting by the phone for me ever since you called last night?"

She scoffed. "I have my curiousity well in hand. My mild curiousity. It's kind of a vague interest, really. But if you're in a sharing mood..." she trailed off.

"Well, a pair of gentlemen were, in fact, apprehended at the Kane estate last night. So your tip was good."

"And?"

"And I assume that's enough to take care of 'vague interest', to know your informant was telling the truth. But if you're curious..." There were few things in life that gave this man more joy than yanking Veronica Mar's chain. At this exact second, he had the upper hand, and even though they had established a kind of truce during the hunt for Amelia DeLongpre, he was enjoying listening to her squirm.

"Okay. You win. I'm dying here. Tell! Tell!" she broke after a long pause.

Clarence laughed. "They were trying to bury Aaron Echoll's Oscar statue. It had some blood and hair on it that I sent off to be analyzed. I'll know more in a few days."

"What? Who would do that? Why would they do that?"

"That's what I plan to find out. They're not talking. Yet."

Veronica swallowed hard. It wasn't too long ago that she watched him dangle a college student out of his dorm window. She didn't want to know what he would do to get answers out of the trespassers.

"Good luck with that, then..." she trailed off.

"I'll be in touch. Oh, and Miss Mars?"

"Yes?"

"I'd appreciate if you could let me know where you got your tip from. Professional courtesy and all. It seems that we're on the same side in this, once again."

"I'll see what I can do," she replied softly, before hitting the button to end the call. More questions.

"That is exactly what I need," Veronica spat out sarcastically. She glanced at the clock. There was still an hour left before school.

"AARGH!"