As Real As This
by Pebblin
Rating: R

Disclaimer: Joss owns all. Except this ass. And the idea of this. No need to sue-- I'm not charging. Well. Maybe for that ass…
Spoilers: Everything up to just before 'The Body' is fair game.
Dedications: Yet more 'propahs' going out to Miss K. Thanks for everything. I wonder what your ego must be like by now… If I can ever do anything to repay you, I'm sure you'll let me know.
Feedback: Has anyone ever put 'no'here? I'm just wondering... if you feel like it.

"This isn't a game!"

"I--" Her mouth works for a moment more before she realizes she doesn't know what to say, exactly. She needs action, 'cause words fail her too often at times like these.

Instead, she grabs me and pulls me close. I just wait. She's shaking now but when she can, she'll talk.

"Nothing… Nothing feels as real as this. Nothing *is* as real as this," she murmurs unsteadily in my ear as her hold on my arms flexes between tight and loose. I don't think she's ever spoken to anyone like this before, had to find words like those and no one here would think her capable.

No one knows that she can be this vulnerable but me.

"I don't wanna lose this," she tells me next in that same, soft, shaking voice as she brushes her lips along my cheek, just before my ear. "But, I know that it won't last. It can't. It never does," she adds before I can say anything to the contrary.

And then she steps even more into me and holds me, such as that's holding a person, and we just stand there, the world be damned around us, vampire or Scooby, watcher or mother. This is *our* moment and I won't ruin it for her.

*****

I can't assure her enough. She thinks that we, like everything else in her life that was worth a damn, will be lost to her; stolen or fucked up by some action of her own, it'll be taken away and she'll never, ever get it back.

After all that went down between us before, it's understandable to have doubts, but these doubts… These were there before we got together, before the idea of 'us', her and I, ever came to be; before we met; before she ever knew that she would love a woman-- that she would ever love anyone at all.

So, there's all this waiting-- my friends waiting for Faith to fuck up; Faith waiting to fuck up; me waiting for Faith to realize that she doesn't have to fuck up.

But it's going to happen-- it's like it's inevitable. Something will happen and her judgment will get clouded and when it's all over, she'll have done something wrong even though she thought she was dong the right thing when all along, she wasn't thinking at all.

As a matter of fact, she's doing it now, and she doesn't even know it.

She's distancing herself from me.

No, it isn't the worst thing she could do… No, wait. Yes, it is-- to me and to her, but not the world. It's all about perspective.

She think she's doing us both a favor by sitting farther away on the couch or sleeping in another room, or sticking her hands in her pockets during lax moments while patrolling so that I can't hold them, but she's not. She's hurting me and she doesn't see that because all she wants to see is the good she thinks she's doing, the *rightness* of withdrawing and that's *all* she'll see until it's too late.

Perspective-- she can't see mine even if I can see hers. She's blind, in a way. Blind to how love can exist forever, blind to the fact that there are people who can be trusted, blind to the fact that I'll know when she is and isn't hurting me-- blind to the fact that she isn't the total screw-up she thinks she is.

All the hurtful things she's done and said, she'd done and said because she was playing a role, being the bad girl everyone had told her she would be and couldn't escape. She'd probably seen enough movies to know how to play the part; she'd been in enough situations where she'd been the victim, so she knew how to make victims of other people-- she knew how to make a victim out of me, but she doesn't need the skill anymore. She never did. I have to teach her that but I don't know how.

She's breaking us up and I'm not sure how to stop it.

There's probably an after-school special on this, on how to get her to understand that she doesn’t need walls, that she can show me all of who she is and not feel so exposed, that there can be a happy ending if she'd just open up to it. But she won't.

Instead, she sits on the couch and watches TV rather than talking to me. Sometimes, I think this is never going to change, that she's never going to snap out of her so-called 'coming to her senses'. I'm scared that I could spend the rest of my short life convincing her that we're meant for each other and I'm not the one she needs to keep secrets from, and she won't even believe it until something happens, until I'm dead or she's dying and it all becomes so clear.

But things are hazy when you don't have threats and death looming over your shoulder; at least, obviously so-- here in Sunnydale, there are always threats, but nothing we couldn't handle together, most of which we could handle alone.

I can't handle *this* alone. But, I have to, because there's no one else. No one who's objective, that is. No one who knows the whole story *could* be. Everyone Faith knows here has been touched negatively in someway by her and she knows that, too. And it makes her hate herself all the more.

I won't ever completely break down that wall.

It's greater than any wall the Chinese ever built, as thick and tough as the greatest vault walls and most of its strength comes from the fact that Faith's on the other side, leaning her own weight against it, because a part of her doesn't want that wall to be knocked down. She's used to it-- it's kept her safe and one thing Faith doesn't want to feel is unsafe.

She probably felt that most of her life up until she became a Slayer. I've been noticing things that I would've let slide before, things that I didn't see because I had my own blindness to deal with: ignorance. The comments she used to make and still make about family and men knock around in my head, sometimes-- those, and how sometimes, lots of times, she doesn't sleep too well and sometimes she says things in the dark, things I'd have preferred not to hear, but needed to. Certain things will happen on a TV show -- abuse of some kind, but always domestic -- and she'll make a fist without knowing it, her expression tightening.

I remember the way I saw her look at my mom once. For a moment, despite the fact that my mom was always in my business, always trying to protect me when I'm the one that's supposed to do the saving and how if she were Faith's mom, she'd totally crimp her style, Faith wanted that: my mom as her mom. Maybe she thinks she'd have turned out a lot differently if she'd had at least that one person in her corner-- or if she'd been able to single-handedly fend off attacks she never should've encountered at her age with the Slayer strength that came too late.

She gets off on that power, what she didn't have at a time when she could have really used it, so she flaunts it now, revels in it. She spends a few moments extra beating the crap out of a vamp or two and while I'm thinking she's just being careless and wild and overly dangerous-- which, she is-- who's to say that she wasn't seeing her father or uncle or neighbor, whoever, lying beneath her at her mercy instead of the other way around?

She doesn't talk about this stuff unless she's unconscious and I don't even know how to approach her on the subject. Even if I did, it's a sure bet she wouldn't say anything. Just like now. She's still watching TV. She popped in a movie-- 'Sugar and Spice'. Her favorite's the chick whose mom is in jail and the girl's dream is to bust her out. That’s right up Faith's alley, though she just can't vibe with the cheerleading thing…and I doubt she'd care enough to spring her actual mother from prison if she were alive.

While she watches, and she isn't guarded, you can see her real age, the age she is inside. She may have grown to just past twenty, but she's not really there. I'd say… Maybe seventeen inside. She's had to grow up fast-- that much is obvious-- but at some point, it's got to slow down and it's doing that. She has to do some of the inner growth thing, some developing, but she's fighting it; that wall's in the way. Not right now, not really, but when that movie's off and I've got her attention, *anyone's* got her attention, those walls close down like security doors during a break in.

I won't interrupt her, though. I won't even go over there and sit down. I'll just pretend I'm being held up and watch her for a little while, because if I'm sitting close enough, those walls will come back, but if she thinks she's alone, she'll be okay. In *that* way, she likes being by herself. Well… Maybe one other…but we don't need to go there.

*****

"God, B, I'm sorry."

That's the fifth time she's apologized in, like, three minutes.

"It's okay."

She doesn't look like she believes me. She's gone pale and that 'I'm such a fucking fuck-up' look is in her eyes.

"It's just a flesh wound." And really not that bad, it's just bleeding a whole hell of a lot. Once it's cleaned and bandaged up, I'll be okay. She knows that, but she can't accept it just yet.

"It wasn't on purpose," she whispers in a small voice, staring down at the blood seeping through the shirt she pulled off her own back to give to me as a rag. She didn't think about it-- just gave it to me. It's her favorite shirt.

I lean over to where she's sitting, so close, yet so far. I kiss on her cheek. "You act like I don't know that," I tell her, almost as softly as she spoke to me, lingering for a few moments before sitting back up.

Her jaw clinches and her eyes close and her breath speeds up, like she's getting something she doesn't deserve and she knows it, but doesn't want to say anything to keep from having it, even though it's fucking obvious she shouldn't have what she's getting, which isn't true at all.

She misjudged, that's all. A vamp was in my face, she had an opening and she took it. It's not really her fault that she hadn't developed her Slayer powers to the point that she could see *through* the vamp to the stake I had stashed in an inside pocket of my jacket and pulled out to kill him with. Thinking I was in trouble, she turned her back on her own baddie and helped me out, even though it got her a sound whack on the back of the head.

Which reminds me… "How's your head?"

She blows it off. "S'fine. We should go look at that." She motions to my arm with her eyes. "C'mon."

Slayer senses… We both have them-- neither of us could ever forget, so why she thinks that I wouldn't notice the blood in the back of her head, I don't know. It's dark, yeah, but there's the moon and street lighting to reveal the fact that there's something wet in her hair. And when I was close enough, I could almost smell it.

We walk in silence. She's definitely not going to hold my hand now. We go back to her place, her old apartment, which isn't going to help 'us', what with the memories. But, I got her to move back here so that she wouldn't have to live off robbing vampires to have a roof over her head-- she'd adamantly refused to move in with me, believing that she didn't have the right to live under my mother's roof, and that rundown motel shouldn't have been home to anyone.

She gets gauze and peroxide and needle and thread. She fixes me up good and gives me some aspirin; asks me if I want something to drink or to lay down-- anything to make me comfortable. I'm okay, I tell her.

She cuts on the TV again.

*****

She's sitting back against the bed, eyes fixed on the screen, zoning out. When my legs slide to either side of her, my feet resting on the floor, she returns to reality and goes stiff. She acts like she doesn't know what to do when it's so obvious that if I were someone else, she'd know exactly what to do. She's the most experienced one here.

When my hands touch her shoulders, she's caught between tightening up even further and relaxing into me. I make the decision for her.

"You were bleeding," I tell her as I reach over to the corner of the bed where the gauze and stuff still is and after figuring out what I was doing, she's suddenly not so worried about me trying anything, at least for the moment, when we both know she's always wished I would.

After I sit up again, I run my fingers through her hair and I can feel her tremble. I'm not trying to torture her or anything, I'm just being gentle, but that alone means a lot to Faith.

I part her hair where I know the injury should be and find a gash that's already starting to scab over. I clean it off as much as I can with warm water and see that it won't need stitches-- Slayer healing will take care of this faster than the hit I took to the arm.

When I'm done, I give a little kiss to the place where she was hurt and again, she stiffens, but only for a moment, and turns her head to just one side as if she wants to look at me, but she doesn't.

I let the movement cause her hair to brush past my lips and I inhale her scent, the perfume she likes and the shampoo and conditioner she prefers over the frilly stuff I've picked up at Victoria's Secrets, though she's used that before in a clinch. It's fresh and clean and it fits her; it's like coconut or cocoa butter, soft, not overpowering. It makes me wish we were lying on a beach somewhere, just the two of us, bikini-clad and sipping drinks with paper umbrellas under the sun.

But that's not going to happen tonight or tomorrow or next week-- what we have, if you can really call it anything, at times, is too difficult for sun-tanning and fruity drinks. That's how *I* know this is real.

I squeeze her shoulders a little, then began to massage. She tries to fight it, but not too well-- she doesn't shrug me off or get up. She leans back, instead, and I'm surprised a little, when she tilts her head back, eyes closed, baring her throat to me. Her hands are limp at her sides, one in her lap, and the other on the floor beside her.

I can't describe what that means to me. If we were out in the wild, this would be the ultimate display of trust, of surrender. Here, in Faith's apartment, it means just the same, even after the good times we'd had just up until this recent depression hit. With her, it can be just moment-to-moment, ya know? One second, she's sure, the next, she thinks she should reconsider everything from scratch.

I bend and whisper my love for her across her lips, then kiss her forehead. Her hand comes up to hold the wrist of my hand that's cupping the opposite side of her face. She's not pushing me away, so I stay close and we stay like that, close, until 'late night' turns into 'early morning'.

*****

They look at her like it's all her fault. About my arm, I mean. Like she didn't do all that she could to keep that from happening or something, that she got too carried away living it up instead of paying enough attention to her partner to watch my back. They can't seem to remember the part where she endangered herself to save my life because it'd infringe upon their 'blame Faith for this, too' binge. But, ya know, after all they've been through, I can't totally blame them.

I used to be on the same bandwagon, myself, and sometimes I wonder how the hell I wound up from hefting a pitchfork at the head of the lynch mob to shielding my previous nemesis from harm.

Faith doesn't look too surprised at the silent accusations and irritated glances her way; she's used to them. She also knows the reaction she'll get if she tries to defend herself, so she doesn't often dispute them anymore because it'll do her little good. I know the truth, though, and she knows I know and that's all that *really* matters to her, which, in a way, is a good thing. She has enough to worry about already-- there's a new big bad in town and, as usual, we're just what the doctor ordered. And she's still jumpy about my arm.

It's demons. They have some weird name I can't pronounce and their exact purpose as of yet is unknown, but we've dealt with that before. We do know that they're looking for something to help them complete their task and we have to find them before they find it, yadda, yadda.

The others research, Faith and I patrol.

She's quiet-- too quiet, of course. Thinking, watching out, avoiding me. It's like last night never happened and we're still in the same spot before it happened. See? Moment to moment.

"Faith?" She doesn't hear me at first, so I have to repeat myself.

She shakes her head a little before she looks at me. "Huh?"

I sigh. "Faith, could we please just *not* tonight?"

"What? B, we hafta find these guys before-- "

"Not them. I mean us. This. You're as quiet as a mouse-- a deaf and mute mouse. Dead, even! How long is this supposed to go on?"

She just looks at me as if I'm Jackie Chan and she doesn't understanding the words that are coming out of my mouth.

I sigh. "You know, sixteen days ago, the world was better than okay again and that was because of you, because of what we had before I told you what it really meant to me and you started pulling away. And now… And now, the world sucks and you know whose fault that is because she's scared and insecure? Care to take a wager?"

She looks at me as if I just insulted her shoes-- her *favorite* shoes. I shouldn't have gone there with her with the feelings and all, I know, but I can't stand this any longer.

"Faith, I love you. I." I point to myself. "Love." With both index fingers, I draw a heart in the air in front of me. "You." I point at her. "And that's not gonna change. Now, if you don't love me back," Oh God, please don't let it be that, "then just say so and stop stringing me along like you don't know how to let me down easy."

Silence. It's suffocating and loud. We're on the street with wide-open spaces, several directions to run in, and Faith looks like she's just been boxed in, and by Kakistos, no less, bigger and better than ever. This has to be discussed, though, and why not now? This is the reason for her latest, strongest doubts and it needs to stop.

She opens her mouth to say something after a long moment and by now, she's got on her 'I don't want to do this now' face, but she's interrupted by the sound of movement near a side alley. Suddenly, the conversation is put on pause and we rush over to peek around the corner to see some distinctly non-human individuals coming out of a door leading into who-knows-what, one of them carrying something that looks heavy enough to give him a hernia.

"If you drop that, I will kill you. Understand? Fucking *kill* you."

There's three of them and they all look like giant iguanas.

The speaker, if I'm seeing this correctly with only the moon to light the way, is an Al Pacino wannabe in a white suite with a black shirt, complete with big collar and matching hat-- fedora, I think. And when he threatened one of his lackeys, said lackey dressed in one of those shiny suits you see thugs wearing in mob movies, he pointed at the guy with both hands, assuming a pose that was probably supposed to seem cool, but really wasn't. Not anymore, anyway.

"I didn't come all this way to Slayerville, risking my ass, to have everything ruined by your clumsy ass. I don't know why I let my sister talk me into giving you a job. Jimmy, help your cousin out, okay?" And, okay, but that New Yorker accent was a little overdone, thank you…

Jimmy does as Pacino says, helping his cousin load whatever it is they have in that box into the back of a big white Caddy parked near the door.

"I want that box, B," Faith says before she launches into the alleyway.

I roll my eyes. Anything to avoid an in-depth conversation… I plunge in after her.

*****

"So, um. What is this, exactly?" Xander wonders.

I shrug. "You got me."

We all stare down at…whatever it is in the box we opened right after we got back. When Giles returns, he has, as per usual, an old dusty book with him to help illustrate what he's going to explain, which is the thing we're all staring at.

It's ugly, for one thing, green and gold and brown and just too gaudy for words. It looks like some ancient's idea of modern art, a funky shape with no meaning anyone but the creator, and whoever he told, could understand.

"It's called an 'Ahkathrak'. It's hailed as a holy possession and can be used to grant certain wishes, depending upon the rituals it's used in. It's capable of great power, indiscriminate of whether it's used for good or evil."

"And it's destroyed, how?" Xander asks, waiting for Giles to get to the point already.

"Well, there are several ways to go about rendering it useless, all of them requiring elements that I don't have right off hand."

"Tara and I'll get on it," Willow volunteers with a nod of her head.

"I'll protect the money." Anya puts on her own resolve face as she hovers over the cash register.

"Um, yes. Right. You do that," Giles says, adjusting his glasses before stepping off to the side to list the things we'd need for destroying the…thingie to Willow and Tara.

"I'll get some weapons together. Pretty sure the baddies will come looking for their…thingie. They always do." Xander heads for the back room.

That leaves Faith and I alone again. As of late, she wasn't liking the idea of that.

"So?" I prod, arms folded as I turn towards her.

"So what?"

"Don't give me that, Faith," I say tiredly, rubbing at my forehead. "Do you…or don't you? That's all I'm asking-- and do *not* pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."

This time, she sighs. "Why're you doing this?"

"Doing what? I'm not the one that's doing anything!"

"Yes, you are. You know *exactly* how I feel."

"And how would I know that? It's not like you ever told me."

She growls a little. "Dammit, Buffy!"

Everything goes silent again. All the background noise of Xander shifting around in the back, Giles, Tara and Willow going over needed supplies in quiet voices and Anya opening and closing, then reopening the register again as if she thinks the money inside will decide to up and run off while she can't see it, comes to a screeching halt.

Faith drags me over to a corner for more privacy. "Don't play me like that. Don't *you* play me like that!"

"I'm not-- "

"Yes, you are," she hisses, stepping closer to me with fire in her eyes. "Don't tell me you think I'm acting like I don't care about you because you know *exactly* what I'm doing and why. What you didn't know is what to do about it so now you're trying to manipulate me into feeling bad enough to give in, to stop. I want *you* to stop."

"Faith--"

"No! It's not gonna work this time, B. You can't pout and get your way. Don't expect me to melt this time. Don't try to blame this on me when it was *you* that changed things." She pauses for breath for a second before continuing, looking just slightly panicked, desperate…regretful. She licks her lips as if they're dry, but with that lipstick on, it's doubtful. "You didn't hafta say it. Things could've been fine--"

"No they wouldn't have. It was all just a game to you-- you had no idea what it was turning into. You didn't want to know!"

"No, B," she admits. "I didn't. I liked what it was. It was fun, a surprise, you and me for more than just a one-time thing I didn't think I'd ever get, but I wasn't ready for the rest of it-- I'm *not* ready. Emotions… They're messy, B. And when you add that to the mix, someone's going to get hurt. I didn't want that to be--"

"You?" I ask coldly.

"No." She wags her head. "You," she whispers. "It's happened so many times before. I've seen the way you look after your heart's been broken and I wasn't about to be the next fucker in line that did that to you." Her voice catches and there are tears in her words, if not in her eyes. "I don't want to hurt you anymore, B."

I melt this time. I rush over the few feet between us and cup her face with both my hands. She tries to pull away, but I won't let her. "No, Faith, no. That won't happen." I smile, looking up into her eyes, but I can see that it's going to take a lot of time and effort to get her to believe me, but it's not as if that's any different from the usual.

"It will." She closes her eyes and lowers her head, still pulling away, but not quite as much as before. "I will. That always happens, too. I'm not good at this-- I just wasn't made for it."

"That's just your mother talking."

Her eyes flash back up to mine, shocked, and I don't know what's going to happen next if I have to judge it from that look.

"Don't bring her into this," she murmurs, and breaks contact with me.

"I didn't, but you did. You carry her everywhere. She's been dead for years, but she still rules your life. She tells you how to act, how to feel-- every limitation you think you have came from her and you *let* her do it because it's so easy. I'll accept the fact that her being your mom also has a lot of pull-- that's just a fact-- but don't pull this 'I don't want to hurt you' play on *me* because you need a 'good' excuse. If you're scared or if you just really don't want to, say so!

"But don't act like all you're thinking about is me because we both know that isn't true. That night you came to me with the nerve to ask for what you wanted, you didn't want 'no' for an answer. I surprised you, though, and I gave it to you-- I'd give it to you *now*. Just… just, please, Faith. Give me *this*. Stop killing us like this and let it be okay to be in love if that's what we are."

I can see it warring on her face, behind her eyes. She wants to say yes, wants to reach out like I've seen her almost do so many times before, before we were together and after it'd began to crumble. Part of her is pissed, though, 'cause maybe my suddenly yanking her mother in unexpectedly was a low blow, but I had to. I needed to shock her enough, make her see that I do know *something* about what she went through and still know that her reasons for ending us aren't enough.

I see her shoulders sagging and she takes a step back, sighing as she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, and runs a hand through her hair. This…could be bad.

"B…" Her voice cracks a little. This could be very bad.

I think she's still going to say no. What else can I possibly say to her?!

I don't get the chance even if I could think of something-- the front door to the Magic shop is broken down and things rush in; the shiny suits and Pacino are nowhere in sight. These guys look a bit more vicious than they did, too. I glance at Faith for a moment, and she's already got her back to me, but I can see a bit of her face, and there's…relief there.

Well, she isn't the only one.

We spring into action. It's something we're both positively unanimous on. We'll always have that if nothing else.

*****

Battle.

Half the shop got thrashed before we could force them out onto the street, Anya yelling behind us, "Stay away from the money!!" and then into running away.

Faith loves the running, you can tell. The second she realized a chase was upon us, her eyes lit up, and after what just went on inside pre-interruption, that's saying a lot.

We'd catch up, we'd fight…we'd exchange banter, they'd go on about how they wanted their thingie back and how it needs to be returned promptly and unscratched or we'd pay the consequences. We'd kick more tail and they'd start running again.

The end came at a cemetery. It was down to just a couple of them left over during the 'picking off' episode that went on through the trees, versus us, which wasn't as easy as one would hope as these last two were apparently the best this little cadre had to offer.

They kept the seven of us on the ropes so long I thought we were gonna start to get burns.

When Xander got knocked unconscious in an attempt to blindside the guy, we went down to six-- then five when Anya realized her man was out for the count and went to help.

Tara got tagged out while trying to recite a spell during a time she and Willow got separated, and was surprised when one of the baddies actually had some magic of his own to use against her.

This, of course, pissed Willow off. She tried to go rogue with the black magic and whatnot, producing some weird blast that I had to dive out of the way of. It should've fucked the guy up-- he deflected it, though, mumbling something that none of us really heard and turning it back on her. Luckily, it just barely missed her on its way back or she would've been dead.

Actually, there was no luck-- there was Faith. Well, there were both, kinda. She'd just gotten tossed away when Willow took her chance, so she was close enough by to push Will out of the way.

"Watch yourself, Red-- it's bad enough having one Wicca down," I heard her say before she went back to the fighting again.

Of course, while that was happening, I was left open.

*****

"Shit," I hiss under my breath, as they take advantage of the other Slayer's absence. The moment Faith is knocked aside, her opponent is now mine, too, which sucks because I'm just holding my own with the one I'd been taking on.

Her guy tackles me like Faith did with Willow, and then they're both on me, raining down fists on me.

It hurts.

It's like their knuckles are made of the same shell thingies that make up their heads underneath the skin and they're trying to do as much damage as they can, tag-team style, before they're caught. What I block from one, gets through from the other.

I'm barely conscious when it begins to let up, which is also saying something, because as long as it seems it's been going on, it's only really been seconds. But along with being very strong, they're also pretty quick.

I hear Faith yell, "Get OFF her!"

That's when one of them is flung off me, but see, the *other* one's still here. I can fend off some of what he's doing, but then he starts with the kicking, and when he connects just right, I'm lifted off the ground and pitched, hard, into what I'm sure is marble.

Wonderful…

Again, with the pressing of advantages… I hardly make a move to stand up before I'm being yanked up and thrown back into the wall. A giant fist plunges into my stomach and then, I'm no longer breathing. I can't. I'm too stunned. Which means I'm not moving much. I slump over.

"This could have been easier on you, Slayer."

I don't know why it occurs to me, why I can even recognize it, but he sounds just like that guy who plays a shape-changing alien bad guy on 'X-Files', the one with that bulging jaw. Know who I mean? No wait-- Luke. That guy! That's who this one sounds like.

"All we wanted was the artifact and we would have let you be, but as usual, you had to be difficult." Another thing-- this guy doesn't have bad breath, which is weird, because a lot of the time, they do. He's kinda minty fresh. Weird.

He grabs me by the throat with the hand responsible for me forgetting what it was like to have oxygen flowing freely through my lungs and reacquaints my back to that hard surface. It's cold, too, which also adds to the suckage.

"Know before you die that you were a worthy opponent that I would have been glad to overlook, but your interference leaves me no other choice."

"Don't…cry for me, Argentina," I gasp, as I hang there, holding onto his wrist. Cracking a smile, I feel so… So like Faith. It's good.

He just looks at me for a moment before realizing that was a pop reference. Rolling his eyes-- he's kinda right; it wasn't that good of a joke, I guess-- he pulls back his other hand, and, surprise: a knife. Joy.

"Perhaps we'll meet in your Valhalla," he well-wishes me.

"I don't really think she'll end up there, Dork. She's not even a Viking and you're not human!"

I blink and see Faith standing behind my would-be killer. I don't care that what she said was wrong-- hell, I can't even remember if she's actually right -- I'm just glad to see her.

My boy turns and risks a glance to his remaining brethren and finds him dead on the ground, sans his head. And a hand.

"You, too, shall die for this, Other Slayer."

Faith snorts. "You guys always do that."

He grins. "You do not like the name, Other?"

She shakes her head. "Not that. Hesitate. Gloat. I love that-- gives me the chance to fix things, save the day, all that, ya know?" She swings something at him, a mace. As he's standing sideways, one arm holding me to the wall, he has a free hand to actually slice the wooden handle of the weapon.

However… He's not quick enough to get his arm back to ward off her next attack-- she's got a knife too; I see it from the corner of my eye. I think, for a fraction of a second, that that's it, it's over, he's dead.

He's not stupid, though. He swings *me* into Faith's knife, so I'll be facing him when it goes in and he can see the look on my face when I'm stabbed, half his work done for him.

I distantly wonder where everyone else is as this is going on-- just before I remember I might die, and the more pressing matter retakes my attention.

I feel the tip of the blade in my back and my eyes snap shut. A prayer flashes through my mind and I wait for more pain, but other than that prick, all I feel is something warm smacking into me and that's it.

I also hear Faith's gasp and after that, all goes silent.

I open my eyes to see a little disappointment on my demon's face and he pulls me toward him to look behind me, to see what's wrong--

To see that Faith had let go of the knife as it plunged ahead and without her to guide it, it lost enough of its momentum to not do too much damage when it hit me.

"Motherfucker!" Faith screams and she's *so* pissed now.

Her fist flies past my shoulder and gets him in the teeth. He stumbles, his head snapping back, but doesn't let go.

She throws a kick to his vulnerable midsection, then the side of his head, making sure not to hit me, too. "Let GO!"

He doesn't listen, holding on even tighter even as he's rebounding off the same wall I'd been getting all too familiar with earlier. I wanna ask him how *he* likes it, but nothing comes out; I don't exactly have the air for it.

"Fucker!" Faith's talking enough for the both of us, I guess.

He lifts his other fist to take a swing at her and he's still got his knife-- damn, but this boy has a good grip, and I should know-- but he's going for blunt force. Faith blocks, though, and kicks him square in the gut, which gets a groan out of him and lucky for me, also causes his hold on me to falter. I tear into his hands with my nails, but he doesn't seem to feel it.

Before he can tighten his grip again, Faith's on him and she's kicking ass, not giving a fuck about names. He has to let go of me if he wants to properly defend himself, which he does, though he has little choice in the matter-- Faith keeps on attacking and his hand spasms open.

I fall to the ground…and I just wanna lay there. Faith's so riled up, I don't think she'd mind if I just…let her have this one. She's having fun…I think.

"Kick your-- fucking ass-- Motherfuck!" I hear her grunting and growling.

Yeah. Fun.

She's really going at it, I'm sure. Before, we were both about even with those demons, and now… Now, Faith's like this force and it was me that got her that way. Me. No one else, 'cause she loves me.

I'm smiling. The lights are going out and I'm smiling at the sounds of my girl kicking the shit out of the last half of the demon pair that kicked my ass tonight.

I'm smiling because this is the moment. This. Ours. What I've been waiting for. When this is over, when Faith's won, she'll pull me into her arms and she'll look at me and she'll tell me, she'll say, "I'm sorry for being such an ass," and I'll know that really means that she loves me and she wishes that she hadn't waited until now to admit it. And she'll say that it's okay, accept that it's always been okay, and that we can be together again and it'll be good, better than good, even, and things will be like they were before and better.

I just really hope I'm just passing out and not dying…

*****

"B?"

I open my eyes and everything's a blur. "Wha'?"

"B? You hear me?"

I blink hard and that helps. There's Faith hovering above me. Her hair's messed up, her nose is a little red; there's also a cut at the corner of her mouth and a bruise building on her forehead. "Faith?"

She sighs in relief. "How you feel?"

"Okay, I think." I try to sit up, wince all over, and then fall back down. I'm alive, then. Yay! "Where are we?"

"Try to stay still. Sunnydale General. You were kinda banged up."

There's an understatement… "You, too. Why hasn't anyone-- " I reach up to touch her face and she pulls away from me.

"Doesn't matter. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

I smile and I'm surprised that it doesn't hurt when so much else of me does. "Well, I am, so you can get all that looked at, okay?"

She shrugs and looks away. That's a maybe, not a yes. Swallowing hard, she looks back at me. "I'm sorry," she whispers. She's trembling. That and the way her hair is falling into her eyes and how she's almost hiding behind it, is kinda adorable.

"It's okay."

She shook her head. "No. I-- I left you. You got hurt 'cause of me. Again."

"You saved Willow's life, Faith. That was kind of a good enough reason."

"If I were fighting better, he would've been smoked by that spell. He had enough time to turn it back on her, B. He *shouldn't* have."

"Hey. It's not like I was doing much better."

"You *did*. It wasn't your demon that came after me-- it was mine that had free shots at *you*. MY fault," she breathes.

That was only because you were helping Willow! "It could've gone the other way, Faith--"

She shakes her head. "No."

I shake *my* head, trying to sit up and tell her that she's wrong and she has no proof that she's right, but instead, I bite my lip to keep from hissing in pain.

"Stop that," she tells me. "Just lay back, relax. This won't take long."

I go still. There's this sinking feeling. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She gives it to me point blank. "I'm leaving."

No. This isn't cute at all. "What?"

"I need to get outta here."

This isn't the way it's supposed to go. "Why?"

"I hurt you. I'm like…a danger. They were right-- I mess up the rhythm around here. I… I…"

No! "That's not true." You're not realizing that we belong together! WHY aren't you realizing that we belong together?!

"It is. You don't hafta spare my feelings, B. I can take it." She smiles this time and it squeezes my heart.

"Don't leave me," I blurt out.

"I gotta." She stands up. "I'm so sorry. I got you hurt again, and…" She shakes her head as she backs away. "I'm *so* sorry." She turns, almost running away.

"Faith!"

She turns back once and her eyes… They're glistening. Tears? "I'm sorry."

She's gone.

I don't call for her again, because I know she won't come-- her mind's set. She doesn't want to or have to, but she thinks she has to go. She thinks she's doing the right thing. She's hurting me again.

This isn't the way it's supposed to go.

*****

It's so hot in the shower that the steam engulfs the small bathroom, pressing out into the cool air of the main portion of the room as if it's too crowded inside. Faith doesn't seem to feel that way-- she's been in there with that steam for almost twenty minutes. She's in no hurry and why should she be?

It's a half hour total before she comes out, a towel wrapped around her. Pushing hair back from her face, she heads for the bed where her stuff is strewn across the spread, not caring about the less than clean carpeting she's walking across, barefoot and wet.

She's digging through her bag, oblivious, when I speak.

"Didn't think you'd get away that easily, did you?"

She jumps, whirling around. In her mind, I'm sure she's thinking what I did earlier-- this isn't the way it's supposed to go. I shouldn't be here. I should be back in SunnyD, getting over her, realizing that she was right, as hard as that might be for me.

But, that's *not* how it's supposed to go. I worked too damned hard for this to have it just end without getting any say. I'm here and I'm not leaving until I get what I want.

I push off the wall right next to the bathroom door where I'd been waiting and stand to my feet to take a step forward and she can see how stiffly I'm moving. She flinches a little around the eyes.

"Thought I'd just let you run off, never to see you again?"

She looks around as if she's expecting my Scoobies to be there behind her, fencing her in. It's just me, though. Then her eyes shoot to her stuff and maybe she's wondering how fast she can get dressed so that she can run again.

"You broke us up once-- it's not gonna happen again." I feel so Stalker-Buffy…and it feels so right.

She gulps. "You should be resting."

That was particularly lame. I had two whole days! "Try again."

Her eyes fall. Now, she's probably wondering how much she'd mind it running in just a towel. Hell, with all those nude-slaying stories, maybe she wouldn't mind too much at all, but who knows if all that's just hot air? Only she would. I've never pushed her on the issue-- those are just stories.

What we feel for one another is a whole different level.

"You shouldn't be here."

I snort to myself, rolling my eyes. Folding my arms, I cock my head to one side. "If I believed that, I wouldn't be. Oh-- you can get dressed now if you want."

She looks up at me, one eyebrow fighting not to arch when I grant her permission to clothe herself and I want to laugh, really I do. As bad as she feels, she'll always *be* bad.

Unable to resist, she lets her towel drop to the floor, giving me the full view, looking me right in the eyes before she bends over to rifle through her things.

I should've known she wouldn't play fair.

"How'd you find me?" she asks after she's already found and pulled on some underwear.

"I can feel you."

That makes her stop and then look up at me, puzzled.

I move closer. "I followed it here. You can't run from me-- you're too close. I'll always find you," I add in a whisper. Again with the Stalker-Buffy; it's giving me a buzz.

She looks like I just threatened her. Either that, or she's jealous 'cause maybe she can't feel the same thing. Yet, anyway.

"Maybe you oughtta see about having that shut off."

I smile softly, dryly. "Never."

She sighs and removes some pants to put on. To my surprise, they're a pale colored pair of jeans, Levi's. "I'm not good for you. I'm not good for anybody."

"So you say."

"So I know. I always fuck up. It's getting worse."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" She's halfway into her pants when she stops to look at me again. "If I'd been on the fucking ball, you wouldn't have been in the hospital *again*. And so soon after your arm the night before?" Her voice breaks. I hate that.

"That happens, Faith. It just…does." I shrug. "You can't be perfect. God knows I'm not."

"He's the only one," she murmurs sarcastically before getting all the way into her jeans and reaching for a shirt.

I frown a little. "Faith." We've been here before, too many times and it always ends the same way: a dead end. One of us has to compromise so that the argument will end for the time being, but we always get back around to it. The only difference is who'll give in next. "Don't change the subject."

"It doesn't change. It's always the same. I'm just… I'm just not good enough and it's time you opened your eyes to that."

By now, she's about fully clothed. She has on a white form-fitting tee too, now. Surprising me somewhat again, she pulls her hair back into a ponytail and goes for her boots in a corner. This is starting to unnerve me.

"You *are* good enough and it's time you stopped closing your eyes to *that*. So, you're not perfect. Even if you were, maybe that still wouldn't have been good enough at the time. We don't know that! All I do know is that you saved my life and Willow's that night. You took on two of those guys when I could only just barely handle the one. You think you're saving me by going, probably that you're saving us all, but that's not true. You're not helping-- you're *hurting* us. You're hurting *me*." I look into her eyes, deep into them, willing her to really hear what I'm saying. "Why can't you see that?"

She closes her eyes, but I reach out and take her face in my hands, knowing that it'll make her open them again.

"Look at me. Don't shut it out. Don't try to go wherever it is that you go to find reasons to refuse to come back with me. I'm not gonna give up on you and I'm not gonna let you believe all that bullshit your mother drilled into you or whoever else. You're a Slayer, Faith. You were chosen for a reason, I know that now-- I've known it for a while. You have a duty to the job…you have a duty to me. You love me, don't you?"

She can't say no. She'd better not say no.

"Don't you?"

She's shaking and I'm waiting for her to speak. Her eyes are on my chin-- she can't look much of anywhere else. I move even closer, tilting her head down so that our foreheads touch. "Faith?"

She nods, unwilling to hear me ask again.

"Nothing hurts me more than when you're gone. Believe me?"

She nods again. I wonder if she's just humoring me.

"You said that nothing is as real as this. Was that a lie?"

She shakes her head. I can feel her face burning beneath my hands.

"I believe you. I believed when you first said it. Why can't you believe me when I say that I know we're destined? That this goes beyond the Slayer thing? That I'm not saying this out of pity or just because you're good in bed--"

"I'm *great* in bed. Fantastic. This one guy, he said 'awesome cubed' and he would know-- he was a fucking stallion, but he *still* blacked out and…" She trails off when she sees my face. It'd been funny to start with, but when she added in those other unnecessary details… I got a little jealous. And she *knows* she shouldn't have done that, but I know why she did. "Sorry."

I just shake my head, smiling slightly at how only she could do something like that at a time like this one.

"I'm not letting you go."

She just looks at me.

"Running didn't work for you before and it won't work now."

"B…"

I press my thumb across her lips. Her…soft-soft lips. No. Pay attention, Buffy… "Nope. No arguments. I'm right. And even if I'm not, I've got the better Slaydar and if you want yours as good as mine, you need me to help you," I tease.

She rolls her eyes. I shouldn't have said 'better' in relation of me to her, but it's a challenge, which she can never resist-- unless, of course, she's afraid of it.

"It'll probably develop on its own," she argues weakly, the movements of her mouth brushing against my thumb in a very nice way. Pay attention!

"Maybe." I say, in a highly doubtful tone, though she's most likely right. "But, do you really want to take that risk?"

She looks like she wants to say yes.

"I'm pretty positive I can keep you alive long enough to get it."

She takes that almost as a dig.

"You know what I mean. Pack your stuff-- you're coming home and I'm not taking anymore no's. Just like when you came for me, I'm here for you. This ends, now. It's time for us to begin again." I let her go. I nod to her things. "Well?"

She sighs heavily, tilting her head back to the ceiling for a moment before letting it fall forward…and onto my shoulder.

Her hands wrap loosely around my arms.

Deja vu hits me when she steps even more into me and holds me, such as that's holding a person, and we just stand there, the world be damned around us, vampire or Scooby, watcher or mother. This is our moment and *she* won't ruin it for *me*.

"Okay," she whispers. Yes. "You win." I knew it! "But, don't say I didn't warn you."

I want to swat her, but she needs positive reinforcement, so I duck my head and angle my mouth towards hers instead. She hesitated to return with me, but she'll never back away from my kiss.

"I don't need a warning-- I need to know how much time you have left in this room so that we can put it to good use."

That surprises her. "But… B, you're hurt."

"And you…" I stroke the side of her face with the back of a finger and give her one of my best impish grins. "You can be so gentle when you want to be."

And, she is.

The End