New Paths

“Buffy!” Tara growls at the slayer as she tries to stand up, but Buffy gently pushes her back into the couch. “I’m not an invalid!”



“And you’re staying on the couch and resting until tomorrow when I don’t have any choice but to let you get up because of your tests.” Buffy growls back at her lover. “The LA gang should be here in about an hour. Mom, Faith and her watcher hopefully are going to be here in the next half hour from picking up the watcher at the airport. You’ve met Faith, but haven’t had a chance to meet the rest of the group.”



Tara pouts and crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m just going to get some juice. My legs are fine as is the rest of my body. The doctor said I’ll stiffen up even more if I don’t move around!”



Buffy groans, her shoulders slumping at her lover’s words. Knowing that the doctor had made those statements, but every time she looks at Tara’s bruised and swollen body and face, she wants to treat her lover with kid gloves and do everything for her. When Tara’s hand clasps hers, she finally looks up into warm blue eyes.



“Honey, I know you’re just being protective. But you’re over-doing it. Let me do for myself, I’ll ask if I need help.” Tara reaches up to cup Buffy’s cheek, smiling softly as she finally sees the acceptance in Buffy’s hazel eyes. “Thank you, sweetie.” Tara leans over and gently presses her lips against Buffy’s.



Buffy whimpers quietly at the soft touch, wanting to deepen the kiss but remembering Tara’s busted lip keeps her from possibly hurting her lover. “I just got you home this morning. I promised the doctor that I’d take care of you.”



Tara chuckles softly at her pouting lover. “I know, honey. And you are taking care of me.” Leaning in closer to her lover, she runs her fingers gently up the slayer’s strong thigh, caressing high on the inner leg centimeters from her lover’s center. “And later tonight, I’ll be thanking you personally.”



Buffy groans and grasps Tara’s hand when it shifts to press firmly against her center. Threading her fingers through Tara’s as she pulls the hand away from her body, she lifts Tara’s hand to press a kiss against it. “Not tonight.” When a low growl escapes Tara’s lips, Buffy shakes her head. “Please listen, honey. You’re hurting and sore. You have three finals to take this week at school. No matter that I would love to make love to you and with you, but the fact is you need time to recover. Giles is bringing the ingredients you wanted from the shop for you to make your pastes and poultices to help with the bruising and swelling. I promise you, as soon as you are healed decently, we can do anything and everything you want. But just give yourself time to heal, okay?”



Tara exhales softly at the pleading look in her lover’s eyes. “How many days have we not made love since the first time, Buffy?”



Buffy blushes and looks down, racking her brain for the total number of days that she and Tara hadn’t been together in one form or another. “Umm… three?” Buffy quirks her eyebrow up questioningly, not really sure.



Tara snorts softly, seeing the uncertainty. “Well, I guess it depends on whether or not you count early Saturday morning as us making love under Friday or Saturday. I consider it Friday, since we hadn’t exactly gone to bed until afterwards. Today’s Sunday, but it technically isn’t over yet.”



Buffy shifts slightly. “Twice, then. The first night during spring break we were staying here is the other time.”



“Until you spent the night and early morning talking me into some serious hot and heavy fun.” Tara grins crookedly at her lover as Buffy blushes. “Now, how do you think you’re going to go four or five days in a row without?”



“I can.” Buffy mumbles the words. “Went two years without, I can make it a few days…” Buffy groans internally as she feels hot breath caress over her ear where Tara’s leaning in, trying to ignore the heat already working through her body.



“Tell me you’re not already aroused, Buffy. Tell me that if I touched you right now I wouldn’t find your flesh coated with desire, aching and ready for my caresses.” Tara smirks as Buffy whimpers loudly and explodes from the couch striding towards the other side of the room while pacing back and forth. “Honey, I can turn you on with just a few choice words, or breathing softly over your ear. What’s going to happen when we curl up in bed together?”



“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Buffy offers, sighing heavily as Tara shakes her head.



“Not an option. You haven’t done anything to piss me off to be on the couch.” Tara’s eyes twinkle as Buffy groans loudly and rubs her face with her hands. “Honey, let’s wait and see what happens later. I may be so tired and sore that all I’ll want to do is curl up and sleep. Or I may want to reconnect with you on a more personal level to settle my own mind.”



Buffy finally nods her head after staring at Tara for a few minutes, realizing it may be something her lover will need to know she’s safe. Her mind remembering how Tara held onto her refusing to let her go last night when she’d come back from packing up their stuff at the dormitory. Seeing the Jeep slowing down to pull into the driveway, Buffy heads towards the front door. “Mom’s back with Faith and her watcher. The flight must have been on time.”



Tara carefully stands heading towards the door behind Buffy. “Do you know whether or not Cordelia and gang have talked Faith into going to LA with them?”



Buffy sighs quietly and shrugs. “I don’t know. Faith’s got it in her head that she needs to stick around here and make up for what happened before. But I did talk her into discussing it with her watcher. Cordy believes that Faith’s supposed to go to LA and take over for Angel.”



Tara looks down, shifting uncomfortably at the remembrance of the vampire giving his life by protecting her from Riley. She and Buffy hadn’t spoken of it yet, and she doesn’t know how her lover feels about what had happened.



“He’s responsible for his choices, Tara. You’re not to blame for what happened. And to be honest, if you haven’t noticed no one seems to be completely heartbroken about what happened.” Buffy points out softly, hopefully reading her lover’s look correctly.



“I haven’t really talked to anyone but you and your mom, Buffy. A little bit to Faith.” Tara unconsciously twists the bottom of her top in her hands.



“Trust me, Tara.” Buffy whispers, seeing the worry and sadness in her lover’s eyes as she gently wraps her arms around Tara. “Cordy admitted that he was being a real pain when he came back from Sunnydale. She and Fred talked to mom and got the story from her, so they know more or less the biggest portion of it. I don’t think he ever would have accepted the fact that you and I were together. It would have been just a matter of time before he did something stupid. And honestly, though I was royally pissed at him for the way he acted and treated you, I wouldn’t want his death on my conscience. I know you, and also know you wouldn’t want it on yours, either. So him going out doing the right thing is for the best.”



Faith, hearing the discussion between Buffy and Tara, holds the two women back with some stupid questions and comments just to distract them and give the other slayer time to finish talking to Tara. Having discussed what was going on with Elizabeth on the trip back from the airport, the watcher actually thinking it would be a great idea to work in LA, it being close enough to the Hellmouth to be there in a couple hours if needed yet far enough away to keep the two slayers separated to where they won’t butt heads. Seeing the vintage convertible coming down the road, Faith smirks. “Here’s the LA contingent comin’ now.”



Elizabeth quirks an eyebrow and turns to look at the car that pulls into the driveway behind the Jeep, blushing lightly as she sees Wesley Wyndham-Price step out of the vehicle, the scruffy beard, jeans and tight t-shirt he’s wearing definitely an improvement over the former clothes the ex-watcher used to wear. Quickly regaining her composure over seeing the man she’d dated for a couple months before he came to Sunnydale then disappeared, never hearing from him again.



Faith nods to the group, before turning her gaze back to her watcher, surprised to see the blush on the woman’s cocoa colored skin. “Let’s head in and get the pizza’s ordered and discuss what we’re gonna do.” Faith grunts out loudly, her eyes curiously on the group, noticing Wesley lagging behind and his eyes on Elizabeth. Snorting quietly as she realizes that the two probably know each other, Faith shakes her head and spins around on her heels to head towards the house.



***



Tara watches quietly as the rest of the group talks over each other, throwing out thoughts and ideas, Faith trying to stay adamant that she wants to stick around at least for a week here on the Hellmouth to make sure everything is over and done with regarding the Initiative while Cordelia and the rest of the group want to head back to LA.



Buffy rests her chin on Tara’s shoulder while barely running her fingers over her stomach, keeping her lover cushioned with her body in the corner of the couch. “Faith, I think it’s under control. Not that I don’t like the fact of you being here to help out, but it’s almost summertime and the Initiative had pretty much demolished the majority of the demons with their experiments. So it’ll probably be pretty quiet now.”



“How busy is it in LA at this time of the year?” Faith turns and looks at Cordelia.



“It’s usually calming down on the demon front, but it picks up on our paying side of the job.” Cordelia admits. “We help regular humans as a detective and protective agency, more or less to help feed us and pay for the necessities.”



“Are we going to keep the hotel?” Gunn questions, leaning forward. “Hell, did Angel actually buy it, or did we just kinda take it over?”



Cordelia chuckles quietly. “He bought it. I found the paperwork on the hotel and if anything happened to him he had Wesley and I both as a power of attorney over his affairs.”



“He owns the mansion here, also.” Buffy finally admits quietly, her eyes looking at the group as they stare at her in shock. Shrugging she blushes lightly. “I asked him once and he admitted that he’d bought it. I never could understand why he didn’t work on it to keep it up, though.”



“Where did he get the money to buy these things?” Joyce frowns at the thought, knowing even the mansion in the disrepair it was in and the pricing of property here in Sunnydale, had to cost around a million dollars if not more.



Giles darts a glance at Wesley and Elizabeth, smirking at the sight of the two looking back at him. “He’s like a lot of the older vampires. Eventually he started to tuck away art, jewels and other easily sellable items from his victims. Not counting what he outright stole. He actually owns property all over the world.”



“A lot of the properties are probably in disrepair, because he wasn’t worried about keeping up on them, but it might be best to sell the majority of them and either invest in bringing the hotel up to par as possibly a viable income or sell it and use the money to buy some place that everyone can work out of.” Wesley looks at Cordelia, since she’s the other person that has a power of attorney over the dead vampire’s affairs.



“We don’t have to decide this right now.” Cordelia blinks at the thought of the vampire having the money and properties that he obviously does. Wondering why he always bitched and groaned whenever he had to spend out money for anything. Sighing heavily at the thought, she shakes her head. “Right now we need to get prepared to head back to LA. We left a couple clients hanging loose that we need to do some work for, and honestly we will probably need your help, Faith.” Cordelia looks at the dark-haired slayer standing at the mantle, somewhat surprised that the slayer hadn’t said a lot during the latter part of the conversation.



Faith purses her lips as she looks at the group that she’ll be working with, her eyes silently asking Elizabeth for her honest opinion on what she should do.



“This is uncharted territory, Faith.” Elizabeth admits softly, shaking her head. “Taking over an Investigative company from a now deceased vampire isn’t something that’s ever happened before. Going to LA feels right, we’ll still be close enough to Buffy and the Hellmouth to be able to come running if they need help. This town is honestly too small for two slayers, though you do have a lot of demon activity because of the Hellmouth.”



Buffy smirks at the look Elizabeth sends her. “But a lot of the vampires and demons probably go through LA on their way here. How many have they kept from coming here already and if Faith is actively patrolling LA she with the rest of your help will probably keep a lot more problem children from coming this way.”



“I ain’t callin’ ‘em the Scooby’s.” Faith warns softly, though her eyes are twinkling as she looks at the group that she’s going to be working with in Los Angeles.



“Of course not, my gang is the Scooby’s.” Buffy sticks her tongue out at the slayer, chuckling as Faith snarls her lip at her before grinning.



Fred stays quiet as she sits in Gunn’s lap, lost in her own thoughts as she thinks about the dead vampire. Trying to understand why no one seems that heartbroken over him having died. Rubbing a hand over her head as she thinks about the time since Angel had saved her on Pylea to now, she sighs softly. The good he’d done since she knew him far outweighs the questionable things he’s done and said since she’s known him.



“What’s wrong?” Gunn questions softly as he feels Fred fidgeting in his lap.



She looks up at him sadly. “No one’s mourning Angel.” She whispers softly.



Gunn hugs Fred gently and eases her from his lap. “We’re going to get something to drink. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Gunn smiles at the rest of the group as he urges Fred towards the kitchen.



“I, I just don’t understand. It’s like it’s not that big a deal. I mean, he helped save me from Pylea, and he’s done so much good.” Fred rattles off quickly, frowning at Gunn.



“Honey…” Gunn pulls Fred to him and hugs her gently. “That’s not all he’s done. He’s done a lot of good in the past, but he’s done even a lot more horrible, heinous things. You really need to read up on the Watcher’s books about Angelus to get an idea. Talk with Cordy about when he lost his soul and the killing spree he went on here in Sunnydale. Everyone had more or less forgiven him for what happened, but it’s still there in the back of their minds. When he threatened Tara, he cut his ties completely with the group here in Sunnydale, and honestly I wasn’t exactly happy with his attitude.”



Fred hugs Gunn tightly. “I know. He did seem a little more… short-tempered than he normally was.” Fred finally admits, remembering how quickly Angel would yell or blast any of them with snide, sarcastic comments before he would disappear for a few hours.



“It’s okay to mourn him, honey. And I’m sure everyone else will mourn him to a certain degree, some of us more than others. You have to remember Angel wasn’t always an angel. And other people have seen that side of him that you never really did.” Gunn offers softly. Shifting back, he gently tilts Fred’s chin up to look into her sad brown eyes. “We’ll work through it, Fred. We’re survivors, and we have a lot to fight for.”



Fred lifts up on her tiptoes and kisses Gunn firmly on the lips. “Thank you.”



“Anything for you.” Gunn kisses Fred on the forehead. “Let’s get something to drink before we head back into the living room.”



Fred nods her head and hugs Gunn firmly before releasing her boyfriend.