So Damn Domestic

Four Days Later. FPOV


Buffy’s in the spare bedroom, she’s been in there for a while now. Well, now it’s a spare bedroom, it used to be my game room, but I sacrificed it for the greater good. That and she told me that if I didn’t have all of that stuff cleared out she’d give it to good will. That would’ve made someone really happy. Yeah, someone who’s not me. Anyway, so now I have the stereo system in the garage along with the big screen, I kept the playstation in the house but I can’t play most of the games that I normally would because they’re very violent and the last night Mattie saw me play one he had a nightmare, remember the whole me not being able to sleep naked thing? Yeah, well that’s because he saw me playing Nightmare Creatures Seven.


So instead of playing the violent games with the playstation, I’m playing a classical, Super Mario Brothers Three on the gamecube. Hey, it’s a great game, what can I say? I look over to my right and see Mattie standing outside the door that’s now our spare bedroom. His ear is pressed up against the wood and I can tell that he can hear everything, slayer-hearing remember? When he sees me watching he backs up and walks into the living room. He sits down next to me so that his body is pressed up against mine. He’s quiet for a few minutes but I can tell he’s thinking about whatever it was that he heard.


“Mama?” he asks and I give out a ‘huh?’ Now that I’ve un-paused the game I’m trying to concentrate. “Mama, what’s a whore?” What the fuck did he just ask! I almost drop the controller, but I manage to hold onto it and pause the game. My eyes are wide and I look over at him. He’s looking at the T.V. He knows he’s said something bad or else he’d be lookin into my eyes, but he’s afraid he’ll get into trouble, or see that I’m mad, which I’m not. Just shocked and surprised. I know I’ve said some inappropriate things around him before and he’s probably overheard about a million more but I’ve never actually heard him say anything bad.


“Mommy said that aunt Kendy.” He’s always had problems pronouncing her name so he just calls her Kendy, she hates it and the look on her face when he calls her it is funny. “Is nothin but a selfish whore. What’s a whore, Mama?” Oh boy. I set the controller down on the floor in front of me and turn to face him. Why couldn’t he have asked me something simpler to explain? Come on Mattie, ask me where babies come from, I can really make your mommy’s face turn red by telling you some stuff about that.


“It’s a very bad word that you should never say. Mommy’s just trying to make herself feel better. Sometimes when a person is hurting because of somethin someone else did it helps them if they say bad things about the bad person. You understand?” He thinks about it for a little bit, digests my words and I can just see the little wheels turning in his head. Then he gets a big, mischievous smile on his face and I know he’s going to say something bad that he knows he’s not supposed to say. Is that the same look I get on face when I’m about to do something kinky to B? Maybe I should get some mirrors and put ‘em on our bedroom wall so I can see.


“Like when you lived at uncle Xander’s and you said that aunt Katie is a annoying bitch with a stick up her ass?” All I do is nod. I think I grumble something about no using bad language but I’m trying to concentrate again. I can feel his demeanor change, he’s serious now and I prepare for the questions that are going to start coming. So far he hasn’t really said anything about what’s going on, other then the whore question. I look over at the clock on the wall. It’s time to take him to school. Buffy’s going to be busy today, which is totally understandable, and I told her I’d take care of Mattie for as long as she needs. So I turn off my game and the T.V. and he goes into his bedroom and grabs his backpack. He yells out a goodbye next to the spare bedroom door. I hear it open and Buffy walks out to give him a hug and a kiss goodbye but as soon as they’re separated she goes back into the bedroom.


So now I’m driving in the car, the sedan because even though I hate it it’s a lot safer then my car. He’s in the back, strapped in his booster seat and he’s being really quiet. Normally when we take him to school he talks none stop along the way about his friend Parker and Stan, and how there’s this little girl named Judy who’s really mean to them. But this morning he’s just looking out the window. His eyebrows are furrowed and I wonder what he’s thinking about. I don’t have to wait long because the questions soon start coming.


“Why is aunt Willow so sad?” Because aunt Kennedy is a selfish whore. That’s what I want to say, but I don’t. I have to give him a good answer that he’ll be able to say in front of someone else if he does decide that other people need to know. I’m quiet for a few minutes while I try to come up with an answer. I’ve never been really good as answering his serious questions. Buffy’s always been the better at that, and he usually asks her and I don’t doubt that if he had the chance he’d ask her but she’s been in that bedroom since late last night. When Kennedy sobered up she went back to her house and I was waiting with a cup of coffee. She told me that she just isn’t happy anymore and if she’s going to find happiness then she has to leave Willow. I told her to be honest because Red is a great girl and deserves it. She agreed with me and waited for Willow to come home that Monday from her business trip. She gave B and me a chance to change my game room into a bedroom, which was good, and then she told her last night.


“Because aunt Kennedy did stuff with another girl that she’s only supposed to do with aunt Willow. And she said that she needed to leave, she didn’t want to be with Willow anymore so she left.” I think that’s a pretty good answer, don’t you? Buffy probably could’ve done better, but I’m new at this so just give me some time. He thinks about what I just told him and he has another question ready.


“What kinda stuff did they do?” Ok, this one is a little tougher. I can’t just tell a five-year-old that she had sex with someone that looked like a Barbie. So instead I go for the more vague answer but he’ll kind of have an idea of what happened.


“Grown up stuff that you’re only supposed to do with your girlfriend, or boyfriend, just depends on what you have. But you’re only supposed to do it with them.” He nods his head because he totally knows what I’m talking about. But I can tell that he’s still a little unsure. I stop at the red light and patiently wait for it to turn green. It always takes forever here, well not forever but like five minutes. I take my hands off of the steering wheel and look down at my fingernails. I need to repaint them. They’re starting to get really chipped, and where did all of that dirt come from?


“You mean like what you an’ Mommy do at night in your bedroom? That kinda grown up stuff?” My face is starting to turn red and I feel the blush heat up my neck. I never used to be embarrassed about sex with B. In fact, when we first starting sleeping together I wanted to broadcast it for the entire world. She wasn’t too open to that idea so I had to settle with telling Xander some of the details. But I guess there’s an exception to everything, and he’s that exception.


“Yeah, that kinda grown up stuff.” He seems to understand that what she did is really horrible. His expression has saddened a lot. He loves Willow so much, the two get along great, she spoils him rotten and does magic for him. Nothing big, but she’ll make things float and make these cool magic sparklers that are wicked fun to play with. For him, I mean, they’re wicked fun for him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Willow so hurt. Buffy said that she isn’t as bad as last time, but we don’t talk about that much. She’s told me about Red’s girl a little bit, but it’s still painful for all of the scoobs and I don’t want to push. I even say the name around Brat and she tears up.


“What’s aunt Willow’s favorite color?” Well that’s an easy one. This is like common knowledge here. Not that I know everyone’s favorite color, it’s just that I’ve gone shopping with Red and B before and I think I heard her say it like a thousand times. I get why she likes it though, it’s more of a personal thing then it is a preference.


“Yellow.” That’s all I say. I don’t like to get into it too deep because I don’t know the whole story and I don’t want him to ask questions that I can’t answer because it would be disrespectful. I mean, I wasn’t around so I don’t know but according to B it was Tara who helped her out when she needed it, when the peroxide pest was taking advantage of her emotionally crippled state after she came back from heaven.


When she told me about dying and coming back, what it was like, how she felt, and the things that she and Spike did. I almost got sick when she started to go into details about the Spike stuff. He’s one fucked up vamp, I’ll give him that. But then she told me how Tara helped her, helped her stay away from Spike, listened to her when she needed to talk to someone. I have mad respect for her, and I only met the girl once back when I was a bitch. Anyway, yellow is Red’s favorite color because yellow topaz is the November birthstone, Tara’s birthstone.


I pull up into the parking lot and find an empty spot and kill the engine. I hopped out and helped Mattie out of his booster seat. He’s not as independent as me and B thought he was. He’s fine when we leave but he won’t walk up to the room by himself. He held onto my hand, wrapped his little fingers around my ring finger and we walked up to his class. I helped him put away his things and then gave him a kiss goodbye. When I kissed him he got a little mad and started to wipe at the spot where my lips had been. It didn’t leave a mark but he was still mad. I think its kind of cute but I can’t laugh, Buffy said something about self-esteem and laughing at them when they do stuff like, I wasn’t really paying attention. I find it very hard to concentrate on anything that she says when we’re watching T.V. and Liza Weil comes on the screen. So I have a thing for blondes? Back off already.


So I leave Mattie even though I don’t want to. I still have a hard time just leaving him here. I get into the car and pull out of the parking lot. I decide to take the long way home because then I’ll have some time to think a little bit. Now that I’ve had some time to digest it, I guess having a second kid wouldn’t be so bad. Mattie seems pretty well adjusted, gets along great with the other kids, has no problems sharing or anything like that. But he’s never had to share us and that’s the thing I’m worried about. I’m afraid that if me and B have another little rugrat then Mattie will think that we don’t want him anymore. But on the other hand, it’s a baby. A little baby that we can watch grow and play with and Mattie would be the best big brother ever. I think I’m warming up to the idea.


I hear my cell phone ring and I pull over to the side of the road. Driving distracted is just as dangerous as driving drunk. Anyway so I pull over and look at the caller i.d. screen, it’s Kennedy. I answer but don’t need to say anything she starts the conversation, and as I’m listening to it, I know that I can’t just cut off her because of what she did to Willow. Sure it was horrible, but Kennedy’s my friend too. I think I’m about to start a third world war but I can’t just leave her while she’s upset, I have to go see her. She needs someone to talk to. So I hang up and start the car and turn around to go in the other direction. I might be a little snippy with her, but I’m going to tell her like it is. If she’s missing Willow, she didn’t say if she is or not, but if she is then I’m going to tell her that it’s her fault because she’s the one that left. I’m going to try and remain as neutral as possible, the last thing either of them need right now is a biased opinion.


I pull into the parking lot at the Holiday Inn hotel where she’s staying at. I don’t get out right away though. No, I want to take a minute to reflect on what’s been happening. Five days ago I thought Kennedy was head over heels in love with Willow. Sure they fought, every couple has a few fights, but I never thought that she’d actually cheat. That’s like one of the worst things a person can ever do. Especially to a girl like Willow. But she needs someone to talk to and what kind of friend would I be if I just left her there. She was crying a little bit when she called. In seven years of knowing her I’ve never heard or seen Kennedy cry, it’s weird and I know that this is hell for her. Walking away isn’t as easy as people think it is. She does love Willow, sure she made a mistake, but she was unhappy, so I guess her leaving now just lessened the severity of the wounds? I don’t know.


I get out of the car and head into the lobby. The first I notice is that my slayer senses are tingling. I feel a demon, but it’s one of those lower level, barely evil things, so it probably just works here. I also feel two other slayers, but it isn’t very strong so they’re far away. I walk up to the desk and ask for the room number of Kennedy Torres. Apparently she’s on the sixth floor, room 35. Ok, but where is the other slayer staying? I always wanna meet the new slayers, especially the ones who haven’t been training for very long. That’s always a kick.


When we, we being Buffy Matthew and me, went to the training facility over in Ohio they looked at us as if they were lookin at celebrities or something. Buffy and me gave a demonstration with the fighting, just a little motivation so they can see that if they train hard enough one day they’ll be as good as me and Buffy. The entire time during the spar I was checking Buffy out and when we locked together I’d whisper really kinky stuff to her, just trying to get her all worked up so that after the spar we could have a different kind of workout in the showers. I think Giles was actually a little glad when we left.


I take the elevator up and walk down the hall. It’s quiet, really quiet. I don’t even see any workers around. That’s strange. Oh well. I stand in front of the door to her room and knock on it a couple of times. There’s no answer. I knock on it again, a little harder this time. But again there’s nothing. I even call out her name but still there’s no response. I think this deserves some investigating. It’s possible that she just stepped out for a minute but the person at the desk said she was up here. I twist the handle hard enough to break the lock, it’s easier then it sounds ‘cause of the slayer strength so to me it feels like opening a regular door. Anyway, I walk in and there’s a light on. The little table lamp next to the bed. The room reeks of booze and I see Kennedy passed out on the bed. There are ten...no wait...thirteen vodka bottles lying on the floor, two are on the bed, one is in her hand, all of them are empty. Whoever said leaving is the easier thing to do is a fucking idiot.


I walk further into the room and close the door. I take the empty bottle from her hand and toss it into the trash. I reach down and gently rearrange her so if she pukes in her sleep she’ll be puking on the floor and she choke on it. I clean up the rest of the bottles and then open the window to let the room air out. I grab the chair at the desk and turn it around so it’s facing the bed. I watch her as she’s unconscious, I can’t help but feel bad. I should have seen something. I should have known that she was unhappy. She’s my best friend, you’re supposed to know when your best friend isn’t happy. Unless she was in denial the entire time and she was lying even to herself, and that Barbie doll was her way of realizing it? Am I being rational about this or am I just making excuses for her? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Well, some stuff, but the rest is completely wrong, all out of focus.


I don’t know if she’s coming to or if she’s just having a bad dream. She’s whimpering and moving around a little. She’s mumbling out Willow’s name and...she’s starting to cry. All of the bottles, a person in pain doesn’t drink that much. A person who feels incredibly guilty however, they’ll drink themselves into a coma to make that kind of pain stop. At least she feels bad about what she did. Does she realize now how badly she fucked up? Is she going to beg for Willow to take her back? Or is she going to move on? Is she going to move away. This town isn’t very big, chances of running into Willow are very high, but will she leave just to avoid Red?


I look over at the clock and I’m a little surprised. It’s already time for me to go and pick up Mattie from school. I’ve been sitting here for almost six hours, it only feels like five minutes. I get up and put the chair back. I go over to the desk and pick up the pen and the post card that the room service people put in while they clean the place. I write her a little note telling her that I stopped by and cleaned up the bottles and to give me a call anytime she needs to, day or night. I put the pen down and take the post card and put it on the bedside table where I know she’ll see it. I gently leave a soft kiss on her forehead and then turn out the lamp and leave the room. This is going to be hell for her, I can tell. And all I can do is listen. She’s going to have to get over the pain on her own. Nothing is going to be able to help her. She needs to understand that or it’ll drive her insane.


BPOV


Willow’s been crying since she got here last night. I finally got Faith to tell me what happened at Kennedy’s and we agreed to turn the game room into a bedroom because I knew that if Willow found out...no...when Willow found out she’d need a place to stay. Even if Kennedy did leave the house Willow wouldn’t want to stay there. Too many memories. I wanted to tell her right away, she’s my best friend after all, but Faith convinced me to let Kennedy come clean so I did. Willow got back from trip on Monday, and Kennedy didn’t tell her until Tuesday afternoon. They fought for a couple of hours and then Kennedy packed her bags and left. Willow stayed at the house for a couple of hours before she finally came over to mine. There was no phone call, no heads up, no warning. She knocked on the door and when Faith answered it she fell into my girlfriend’s arms, sobbing and unable to hold herself up.


I took her into the spare room, well her room, and she’s been in here since. I got her to drink some water so she wouldn’t get dehydrated but she wouldn’t eat anything. I just held her and let her cry on me. She clung to me like Matthew clings to me when he’s upset and Faith isn’t around. Every time she thought I was going to get up she would tighten her grip. Thank God for slayer strength or I might be dead. She cried so hard that made herself sick and after she laid down on the cold bathroom floor and cried some more but it wasn’t as hard. She calmed down a little and let me clean up her mouth. I took her back into the bedroom and laid down with her. She finally cried herself to sleep and I got up to get a snack and take a little break from the heavy emotion.


Faith was waiting for me in the kitchen. She was heating up some left over pizza, she said she thought I was getting hungry. I pulled her into a tight hug, I clung to her like Willow had clung to me, and I cried my eyes out. Seeing Willow like that...I felt like I was dying inside. Seeing her so hurt...I haven’t seen her that hurt since Tara. She’s not as bad as she was when Tara died, but more upset then when Oz left. She’s in so much pain, and I want to make it better, I want to take the hurt away but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do about it, and it’s going to drive me insane.


Faith held me until I calmed down and then I pulled back. I gave her a quick kiss on the lips and told her that I love her. She said it back and I kissed her again. I know she loves me but she doesn’t vocalize it a lot. She doesn’t like just throwing that word around because a lot of people in her past said it to her but they only said it to manipulate her. When I say it she knows I mean it, she doesn’t always say it back, but that’s ok. I don’t always need to hear it like I just did. If she doesn’t say it back then she’ll kiss me deeply and it’s her way of telling me.


After I ate she told me that she would take care of Mattie for the next couple of days, for me not to worry about anything other then being there for Willow. I kissed her again, pulled her really close to me. I pressed her up against the counter and my hands started to wonder. I was so emotional that I needed the contact, needed it more then I’m willing to admit. When we pulled back for air she started to leave feather light kisses on my neck, my cheeks, my lips, everywhere she could reach. But then I heard Willow thrashing around in her sleep and as much as I needed to be with Faith at that moment, I needed to be with Willow more, because Willow needs someone, she needs me. Faith told me she understands, and I know she does. So I left one last kiss on her swollen lips and went back into the bedroom and soothed Willow while she was sleeping. I held her while she slept and even in her sleep she clung to me tightly and wouldn’t let go.


When I wake up Willow’s already awake. Her back is facing me but she’s pressed up against me. She’s being really quiet, which is expected, and the sadness coming from her was so strong I’m sure I’m going to start crying any second. But I can’t break down, I have to be strong because Willow needs me. I turn on my side and wrap my arm around her and pull her closer to me. I feel her start to tremble and she takes in a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm herself down.


“I don’t...understand.” Her voice is so strained that I can barely understand what she’s saying. “I don’t know what I did wrong.” Oh no, no, no, no, no. She is not going to blame herself for what Kennedy did. Even though I understand what it’s like, to blame yourself, to feel like if you had just been better maybe they would have stayed...all of that I completely understand. But I can’t let her think it because it’ll eat away at her and it will prevent her from moving on.


“Willow, this isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She shakes her head a couple of times and then she rolls over onto her back. She stares up at the ceiling, her nose is red, her cheeks are tear stained and her eyes are bloodshot. Her hair is all tangled up, she looks horrible to put it bluntly. She takes in a couple of really deep breaths and lets them out really slowly. There’s so much pain, so much heartache. I just wish there had been some kind of a warning. Kennedy always seemed happy, this totally blind-sided everyone.


“Isn’t it?” her voice raised a little bit. She’s starting to get a little angry, but I know it won’t be for long. She’s just too physically exhausted to be angry right now. “I should have known something was wrong, Buffy. I should have seen that she wasn’t happy. I was with her for seven years, you don’t just live with a person for seven years and not know when they’re unhappy. It’s me, it’s all my fault. I was too wrapped up in my job to really pay attention to what was going on with her.” Tears are starting to leak out of her eyes and she doesn’t wipe them away, she just lets them fall. I don’t even know if she realizes they’re there.


“Willow, this isn’t your fault. You have to know that. If she was unhappy she should have said something. Kennedy is just a spoiled brat. She’s nothing but a selfish whore. She doesn’t deserve you. If she’s going to disrespect you this way...I know it hurts, it hurts really bad, but Will-”


“Don’t. She treated me so good for so long. I don’t want you badmouthing her just for this. I know what she did is wrong, and I should be pissed at her, I am, but don’t say things like that.” She’s quiet for a couple of minutes and then she starts crying really hard out of nowhere. I wrap my arms around her and pull her close to me. She clings onto me again and I almost can’t breathe. “It hurts so bad, Buffy. I miss her so much. I just want her back. I want things to be good again. It hurts. It’s like...she’s gone and now there’s this big hole.” She’s crying to hard now to talk and all I can do is rub her back and make soft shushing sound in her ear to try and calm her down. I want her to eat something but I know she won’t. After Oz left she didn’t eat anything for almost a week. I finally had to force her to eat a bowl of soup. I wonder how long it’ll be before she eats anything this time.


“Mommy,” I hear Matthew call out. I know he was listening in earlier, I hope he didn’t hear anything bad. But I know he did, slayer hearing is very nifty when it comes for eavesdropping. Ever since Willow showed up he’s been really quiet and he hasn’t tried to come in here. I guess he knows, or can feel, that Willow is in a lot of pain and needs her space from everyone else. “Mama’s takin me to school now.” Is it seven already? I give Willow a small kiss on the forehead and then get up. I open up the door and step out of the room. He can hear her crying and he’s starting to get a little upset. I can tell that he’s worried. I close the door a little so he won’t be able to see her and I kneel down in front of him. I embrace him in a big hug and he hugs me back. I give him a kiss on his cheek and he wipes it away. I smile and tell him to have a nice day and that I love him. He says it back and then starts to walk off. I got back into the bedroom and shut the door behind me.


I lie back down on the bed and face her. She’s starting to drift off to sleep again. I wrap my arms around her and gently rub her back. There’s nothing else I can do. I hate this. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything as much as I hate this. I hate not being able to do anything. She’s in so much pain and I can’t do anything to take it away. I can be here for her, comfort her, but the pain has to go away on its own, and only time will make that happen, and I hate it. Seven years together and Kennedy just leaves. No, she didn’t just leave, she had to cheat on Willow just to make it sting that much more. She couldn’t even wait until Willow got back from San Francisco, she just had to make it hurt that much more. As I’m holding my best friend and listening to her cry, hearing her go through all of this anguish, I can’t help but think that if Faith ever left me I’d probably die. I know that’s really selfish of me, to be thinking that while Willow is so hurt, but it’s true, and I can’t help but think it.


I can’t believe I dozed off. I open my eyes a little bit and I don’t know where I am. I feel something warm lying next to me. I snuggle into it, thinking that it’s Faith. But when I open my eyes a little more and see that it’s red hair draped across the pillow and not brown, well I panic a little. I sit up in the bed quickly and look down at the person I’m lying next to. Oh, right, it’s Willow. God, I completely forgot. How could I forget? I run a hand through my hair and look over at the alarm clock on the dresser. It’s almost one in the afternoon. I must’ve really been tired to sleep that long. Willow’s still sleeping so I think it’s safe if I just sneak out for a little while and get something to eat.


I walk out to the kitchen and Faith isn’t there. She isn’t in the living room and I don’t hear her in the bedroom. I look out the living room window and my car isn’t in the driveway. Did she come back and then leave again or has she been gone all day? I don’t know, I’ll ask her about it later. I walk back into the kitchen and open up the fridge door. Let’s see...left over pizza? No don’t want that. Fried chicken from three nights ago? It’s gross heated up again. Yogurt? Doesn’t seem appealing right now. Hotdogs, bologna, salami, and cheese? I’d rather not. God, we have nothing in this house! I go through the pantry but I don’t have much luck there either. I think I’ll just wait, have Faith make something for me when she gets home. She’s a really good cook, which surprises a lot of people. I love her cooking, especially when it’s just for me.


I remember the first time she ever cooked for me. It was our second date. We moved up here to Shasta Lake about a month before. Even though I confessed my love for Faith on the bus ride to Angel’s place I wanted to take things slow. I didn’t want to rush anything because I wanted to do it right. Anyway, we lived in the same apartment building, only she lived on the fifth floor, I lived on the ground floor and we didn’t see each other a lot because I mostly slept. We went slaying together, but I was making up for lost time in the grieving for my mom and all of the people we lost in the battle. Our first date was the total cliché, dinner out in a decent restaurant and then a movie. Ok, I’m rambling.


Anyway, she invited me over to her apartment. I was a little apprehensive at first because of her reputation that she had built in Sunnydale about being the ‘fuck and run’ kind of girl and I didn’t want her to try to do that to me. But she promised that she wouldn’t try anything that she knows I wouldn’t like. So I agreed. I showed up at her place at seven-thirty like we planned. I knocked on the door but since she knew it was me she called out that the door was open and I walked in. Her apartment was nice, a little lacking in decorations but nice. She was still making the dinner, said that it would only be a couple of minutes and I could wait in the living room for her. Since the apartments were small I’d be able to sit on the living room couch and talk to her while she’s at the stove. What she was making smelled really yummy and my stomach was starting to growl out for the food. She heard it and chuckled a little bit but didn’t tease me like I thought she was going to.


When it was done she put the food on the plates and then walked into the living room. She hated me my plate and then set hers down on the coffee table in front of us. She walked back into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. She filled them both only halfway, that surprised me, and left the bottle in the kitchen. She joined me on the couch and we started eating. She had made cheese stuffed shells with a side of garlic rolls. I had never had food that tasted so good before. Apparently she made it all from scratch but she was being modest about it. It must’ve taken her all day to make this, and she made two batches because of the whole slayer metabolism thing.


The conversation was nice, nothing too heavy. She asked how Dawn was doing, and if I planned on finding a job or not. She wanted to know if I was going to stay in Redding for go to a bigger city, taken some time off. I didn’t really have any answers, except for that Dawn was doing ok, depressed about Anya dying in the battle, but she was adjusting. We finished eating in a comfortable silence and we had another glass of wine. I’ve never really liked wine but I liked that stuff. When we were done I insisted on cleaning up even though she said she’d take care of it later. She made a wisecrack when she saw that I only planned on loading the dishwasher.


Then she walked me down to my apartment. We went really slow so it took like five minutes. We held hands, which was nice. I never realized how soft her hands really are. We stood in front of my apartment door for a few minutes and then she leaned in and kissed me goodnight. I could tell that she didn’t want to leave me, and I didn’t want her to go but she had to. I had to take Dawn shopping for school stuff the next morning and we were going to leave early. I gave her one last kiss before she left, I watched her walk away, ok, well I watched her ass as she walked away, she even put an extra sway to her hips and I just know that she knew I was watching. On our anniversary she always makes those cheese stuff shells, and even though she promised to quit drinking and I stopped drinking after Matthew was born, we always have two glasses of wine. But the night never ends with just too kisses, I’ll tell you that much.


How long have I zoned out? I hear the car pull up in the driveway. Then I hear her get out and then help Matthew out of the backseat. It’s two-thirty already? Damn, I need to get some rest, not just sleep but rest. Yes there’s a difference. I turn my head so I can see the front door and wait for them to walk in. Faith opens the door and lets Matthew in first. He’s holding something in his hand, a piece of paper I think. He either doesn’t notice that I’m here or he has something else in mind ‘cause he walks through the living room and down the hall. He stops in front of Willow’s room. He slowly takes off his backpack and sets it on the ground next to the door. He reaches up and gently turns the handle, like if he makes any suddenly or quick movements it’ll make Willow’s pain that much worst.


I don’t stop him because I know that as soon as he sees that she’s sleeping he’ll leave her alone. At least that’s what I thought, but he’s going into the room. Maybe she’s awake? She probably needs some more water, I better get that for her. I stand up and start to walk towards the room but Faith stops me. She wraps her arms around my waist and gives my neck a quick kiss.


“Let him go. He’ll be outta there in a few minutes. He drew her a picture to try and make her feel better and he wants to give it to her.” I smile at her words but then I frown when I smell her. How did I miss this before? Oh, right, because I was too focused on something else. I pull away from her and turn around quickly. My eyebrows are furrowed deeply and my lips are a thin, tight line. She knows I’m pissed and she’s looking a little confused. She pulls on her shirt so that the collar is right in front of her nose and she takes a little whiff. Then she lets go and starts with the explanation.


“Swear to God, B, it’s not what you think.” She stops to gauge my reaction. I don’t react however, I stand there and stare, the same pissed off look on my face. I may have let her get away with that one bottle because she really did need it, but I’ll be damned if she’s going to start drinking on a regular basis or have anymore. The strange thing though, I didn’t smell any on her breath when she was talking to me. Maybe she had some mints afterwards or something, I don’t.


“After I dropped Mattie off at school I gotta call on my cell. It was Kennedy, she needed someone to talk to, so I went over to the hotel she’s stayin at. There were, like, fifteen empty bottles in the room, it reeked of the shit, but I didn’t have a drop, I swear. And, to answer your question ‘cause I know you’re gonna ask, she didn’t say anything. She was passed out by the time I got there.” I allow myself to relax even though I’m a little mad. I know that Faith and Kennedy are friends and Faith doesn’t just abandon the people she cares about, but I’m still royally pissed off at Kennedy, I can’t help it.


I focus on her face after staring passed her for a few seconds. Her expression is blank, but her eyes don’t lie. I can see right passed the mask that she’s wearing. She’s upset by this too, she’s taking it really hard. She was the one who found out about the afraid, she told me some of the things that Kennedy had said…I’d be really upset too if it had been Willow cheating and I caught her. I step forward and wrap my arms around her very tightly. She’s tense in my arms, she’s keeping all of this bottled up inside and if she doesn’t find a release soon then she’s going to get mean. That’s partly why we have the training room so we can take out our aggression when we’re really pissed off. She pulls back and walks away without saying a word, without giving another glance. Just like that, she’s gone. Ok, maybe I’m over reacting, ok I know I’m over reacting but with everything that happened with Willow and Kennedy…I’m a little emotion right now, and I really need to know that Faith is here for me. But she’s withdrawing, like she always does, and I can’t help but feel like she’s slipping away from me.


I shake my head to try and get rid of the bad thoughts. I sit down on the couch and stare at the clock. It’s two forty-five, I don’t know why that’s important but it is. I look towards the hallway and see that Willow’s bedroom door is still open. I concentrate and focus my ears to search out for the sounds. It only takes a couple of seconds and I can hear everything that’s going on in the bedroom. From what it sounds like Willow had been sleeping and Matthew had been trying to wake her up, and now she’s awake. Should I be mad? Should I go in there in case Willow gets mad at him? I think I’ll wait a couple of minutes, just in case nothing bad happens. I don’t want Matthew to feel bad for trying to make Willow feel better.


“I made this for you today at school.” I smile at the gently tone in his voice. It’s like he knows that she’s going through something so horrible, that she’s emotionally damaged and needs to be handled with care. I hear her shift on the bed, she’s sitting up and she takes the piece of paper out of his hand. Her breathing becomes shallow, and a little ragged. She’s holding back tears. I wonder what’s on the paper. “Mama said that yellow is your favorite color so I drawed you some yellow flowers. You have a lot of flowers at your house so I thought you’d like it.” It takes her a few seconds to respond. Oh God, yellow flowers, not yellow flowers. This could get bad. She got over Tara a long time ago, she grieved and she moved on, but right now that she’s so hurt I don’t think she needs to be reminded of Tara, of better times.


“I love it, thank you.” Her voice is strained and rough from the crying. As much as I want to just leave them to have their little moment I know I need to get in there because if she has a breakdown in front of Matthew then he’ll just get really upset. But I stop when I hear her continue. She sounds a little better, but she won’t be able to hold up for long. “How are you doing, are you ok?” I hear him move around a little, like he’s uncomfortable with the question. No matter what the situation Willow always asks how he’s doing. She wants to make sure that he’s ok no matter what. She really is a great aunt, even if she’s not blood related. He sighs a really big sigh and then starts talking.


“You’re sad and that makes me sad. I don’t want you to be sad anymore. Mama said that aunt Kendy did grown up stuff with the other girl. Why did she do that?” Ok, time to get in there and now. I want into the room and see Matthew sitting on the bed next to Willow. She’s looking away from her, tears are running down her cheeks. She’s trembling violently as she tries to keep the sobs inside. I walk over to the bed and pick Matthew up. His eyes are glued on Willow and I can tell he wants to stay, but he doesn’t fight me as I set him down on the floor in the hallway.


“Why don’t you go see what Mama’s doing? Willow needs to be alone right now, ok?” He nods his head and walks out to the living room. I sigh sadly and go back into the bedroom and shut the door. She’s still holding back her tears and holding in the sobs. She lays back down and faces the wall so all I can see is her back. I lay down next to her and wrap my arms around her from behind. It starts off slow, one ragged breath after another, and then she’s crying hysterically, and shaking hard. All I can do is hold her, and let her cry because that’s the only way the pain is going to get out.


FPOV


She tries to comfort me but when I get like this I don’t like to be touched. But I let her hug me because she needs it right now. But I feel like I’m suffocating, like I’m trapped and the only thing that I can do to keep from panicking is pull away. She looks hurt and I feel a bitch. I don’t say anything or even look at her as I walk away. I need to get this smell off of me. Now that I know I smell like vodka I feel dirty, like slime is crawling under my skin. I go into the bedroom and pull out my workout clothes, a pair of shorts and a sports bra. I got into the bathroom and turn the water on as hot as it’ll go. I step under the spray and wince as the scolding water comes in contact with the skin on my face. But I don’t cool it down, all I do is grab the soup and a washrag and try to scrub away this feeling. I stop when I’ve rubbed a spot on my arm so hard that it’s raw and bleeding.


I turn the water off and step out. I grab a towel and dry myself off. I dry my hair almost violently but I don’t care, as long as it gets dry enough so I don’t drip all over the place. Once that’s one I slip into the shorts, but it’s a little hard because of the humidity of the room. I have to calm myself down or else I might rip them in half trying to pull them up. Once I have those buttoned and zipped up I put on the sports bra and go to the training room. It’s not much really. We have a magically reinforced punching bag, some gym mats for when me and B spar, some weapons over in the corner, stakes of course, blindfold and a punching ball, we also got some punching pads in the little cabinet along with some knives and swords and stuff.


I need to get some of this out of me before dark. Tonight I’ll patrol, we live in a small town, a little bigger then Sunnydale, but still kind of small, but it’s crawling with vampires. Between Ken, B and me we’ve kept the undead population at an all time low, but the pests just keep on coming. I stretch out my arms and my legs, but I don’t spend too much time on it. I never used to stretch until one day while I was sparring with Buffy I pulled my shoulder muscle, somehow, and she did the whole ‘I told you so’ routine. The muscle healed within a couple hours, not a big deal, but now I stretch to keep her quiet. I know she only bothers me about it because she worries that one day I’ll really hurt myself. We may be slayers but we’re the oldest to ever live, and even though we’re aging great, still really hot, we’re still aging and our fighting just isn’t what it used to be. I think it has to do more with us having a kid together. It’s calmed us down a lot, domesticated us, and even though we still patrol and slay on a regular basis we’re more about getting the pointy end of the stake into the vamp’s heart then having a good time.


Anyway, I walk over to the cabinet and pull out the tape. I wrap it around my knuckles and the top of my hand for some protection. I may be pissed and want to get out all of this negative energy but patience is another thing I’ve learned in the five years of parenthood. When that’s done I go over to the corner of the room and slip on some socks and jogging shoes. Then I go over to the bag. I stare at it for a few seconds and concentrate hard. I get the visual that I get every time I come out here to get out the anger and the stress. As soon as I see that face in my mind, as soon as I hear that angry voice I start throwing punches left and right. Four punches with the right, a backhand with my left, three kicks with my right foot. This isn’t helping.


In my mind I can still hear the yelling, I can see smell the booze, I can still see her face. I start hitting harder, and harder until it feels like the bones in my hands are going to crack, but I don’t stop. I can still hear the screaming, I can still feel the fear, can still see her face, her angry hateful face. My blood starts to boil until it feels like there’s lava flowing through my veins, but I keep on swinging, I keep on moving, because when you move they can’t get ya. I’ve come up with about a hundred or so theories in my life, that was my very first. And I keep on moving, I keep on fighting. I focus on nothing but the bag and the screams and the angry voice and the look on her face, the hateful look in her eyes as she reaches for the belt.


I scream and punch the bag so hard that the chains that have been magically altered to withstand the power of a slayer, snap like a thin little rope, and the bag flies across the room. I can see the bag fly and then fall to the ground but it doesn’t process in my mind. Because instead of seeing the bag being thrown across the room, I see myself, I see my arm break and the blood come out. I hear myself scream, and I hear her yell to be quiet. I see myself, a younger me, crying and holding my arm while she leaves the room. She just leaves me there. I see the younger me get up off of the floor and run out of the house. I run to the neighbor’s house, the only ones that are still up and they offer a ride to the hospital. I turn down the offer because they’re fucking tweakers and I’d rather not get in a car accident. So I walk the two-hour walk to the hospital, lucky to get there alive.


I scream again, and start kicking the bag. But instead of the bag, I see her body. I see her lying there, passed out yet again. I feel the bag break, my foot is lodged inside of the padding and it takes me a minute or two to get it out. Once it is I can feel the strain that I’ve put on my muscles finally catch up with me, now that the adrenaline is less and the rage is just a little bubble. I sit down on the couch, my entire body is sticky with sweat and my breathing is shallow, and a little erratic as I force myself to make the memory end. It’s tough because it’s so fresh in my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever remembered that much of it before. The hate, the anger and the yelling yes, but not the beating, not the broken arm. I almost forget that even happened. I look down at my left arm, if I look closely and concentrate on the spot, I can see a tiny little scar where the bone stuck out of the skin.


So I stop with the morbid thinking and get up. I forgot to bring a towel, how could I forget that after watching that South Park episode? I chuckle to myself, I am one silly bitch. Ha, ha. Anyway, I get up and walk out into the hall. I hear voices in the kitchen, and not Buffy and Willow. Well, ok one of them is Buffy, but unless Willow has something she’d like to tell us that other voice is definitely a man, and not one that I know. The voice does sound familiar, I know I’ve heard it somewhere before, I just don’t remember where. It take me all of two seconds to feel that cold tingly sense we slayers get whenever a vampire is nearby.


Ok, so is it Angel? No, no doesn’t sound like Angel. How did a vampire get in here anyway it’s still...oh, nevermind, it is dark outside. So I was in the training room for like four hours at least, no wonder my arms are still sore. I don’t want to look all gross in front of a guy that I don’t know so I go into the bathroom and take a quick shower, concentrating mostly I washing all the sweat out of my hair. When I’m done I dry my hair and body and then sneak into the bedroom to change. I put on some hip huggin jeans and a tight shirt. I decide that barefoot is the way to go because I don’t plan on going anywhere tonight, at least not for another hour or so.


So I walk back down the hall and can see the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Buffy and the mystery man are sitting at the table now, I can see their shadows on the floor. I walk by Mattie’s room just as the door opens. He looks tense and uneasy, he can feel tha it’s a vampire too. He looks up at me and his eyes are so intense I’ve never seen them look that way before. He doesn’t ask me who’s out there or what’s for dinner or any of the other questions he would normally be asking me right now. He’s silent and as we walk towards the kitchen he isn’t walking like a five-year-old boy, he’s walking like a slayer. His shoulders are low and a little forward and his legs are tense, like he’s getting ready to pounce. I can’t help but be amazed. I know you’re probably saying: ‘only girls can be slayers, that’s how the prophecy reads’, and I’ve given that a thought myself. But Willow’s spell made every potential a slayer and for some reason the spell that the mystery witch cast allowed B and me to have a boy. One in a million chances of that, but whatever. He’s a boy and he’s a slayer, one of a kind.


As soon as I step into the kitchen and see who’s sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee with my girlfriend I stop dead in my tracks. Every muscle in my body tenses up and I get this really cold feeling in the pit of my stomach, like someone forced down some cold bile or something. I feel Mattie next to me and he’s tense too. I guess he can feel that I’m uncomfortable and ready to kill, and his little slayer instincts are kicking in. I can’t help but be a little bit proud, but I’ll reflect on that later.


“What the fuck is he doing here? Why did you invite him into our house?” I practically spit out. Buffy gives me this death glare, like she did at that parent teacher meeting when I told Derrick that Buffy’s mine and he doesn’t have a chance in hell getting into her pants. Buffy said that from now on she’ll go to the meeting and I can stay home. I look into the blue eyes of the bastard sitting in front of me. He tenses up I can feel his demeanor change from relaxed to threatened. This asshole is in my house and he feels threatened by me? Oh yeah, that’s fucking rich. I outta stake his ass right here, right now. All of that rage that I worked off on the punching bag is starting to build up again, and I know this isn’t going to end well at all.


“Now, now don’t be rude. Wouldn’t want to set a bad example for the boy now would you?” he asks sounding smug. God I hate him. I hate his stupid blue eyes, and his stupid ugly hair and his stupid...stupidness. Ok, that was lame I know, but I’m too mad to really think of anything. I’ve always hated Spike, always have always will. I tolerated him back in Sunnydale because we were in a tight situation and we needed the help. But he’s a vampire, so I was always cautious around him even though he has a soul. Just because someone has a soul it doesn’t make them a good person. I got the scars to prove it. And do you really think he sacrificed himself because it was the noble thing to do? Fuck no. He did it because he knew that Buffy wasn’t going to be with him anymore and he wanted to do something great so that maybe she’d forget about all of those sick things he did to her. I mean, he tried to rape her for God sakes, and she just let him get away with it. Spike has always been a sore spot for me because he did so much worst then I did and she hated me for it, but she never hated him.


He stands up and I don’t say a word. He looks me right in the eyes and smiles that smug smirk. Now I know why Buffy hates it when I smile like that, it’s annoying as hell. I don’t pay attention as she starts to explain why he’s here. All I can focus on is the vampire in our house, who’s standing up in front of me, using his height to make me feel small, but I don’t. I know I can take him out, he just needs to give me a reason right now so that Buffy won’t be pissed at me for killing him for shit he did in the past. I don’t care how remorseful he is, or that we weren’t together when it happened, but nobody tries to rape my girl and gets away with it.


He looks down to my left and he smiles wide. I look down too and see Mattie standing there, staring at Spike with this intensity, this fascination that he’s never showed before. He’s never seen a vampire before, we’ve never allowed him to be around anything evil, so I’m sure he’s confused by what he’s feeling, but if he is he isn’t showing it. He’s being a little cautious and he’s eyeing Spike up and down, looking for a weakness probably. He tenses up, his little fists clench as Spike starts to bend down to be eye level with him. I’m on high alert as well. Just because Buffy trusts this thing doesn’t mean I’m going to, especially around our son. So anyway, Spike’s crouched down and he smiles a little bit, trying to make himself seem non-threatening, if it’s possible.


“Hi, my name’s Spike, and what’s your name?” he asks and he holds out his hand for Mattie to shake. He’s shaken people’s hands before. Mattie always shakes people’s hands when he is first introduced to them. He’s in no way a shy kid but because he can feel that Spike is a vampire, he can feel the evil inside him, he’s quiet and tense and when Spike holds his hand out Mattie mistakes it as a threatening move, either that or he’s running on nothing but instinct and his instinct tells him that it’s a threatening move. Anyway, when Spike reaches out his hand Mattie punches him right in the nose. A good clean, slayer strength punch, and Spike’s nose starts bleeding as soon as his little fist connects.


“OW, BLOODY HELL!” the vamp yells but Mattie just stands there, holding his ground as Spike falls backwards onto his ass. I can’t help but inwardly laugh as the blood continues to rush out. My boy did that, and it feels great to be a witness to it. Buffy rushes up out of her chair and starts coddling Spike. She helps him up and then shows him to the bathroom and gives Mattie a little glare as she passes him. Oh she so fucking did not just do that. I’m getting angry all over again. The initial surprise of seeing him here is gone and now it’s rage that he’s here and anger because Buffy invited him in. And she had the nerve to glare at our son for doing what his little natural instincts were telling him to. He’s never seen a fucking vampire before, he doesn’t know why his body is telling him to attack Spike. Ok, before I get ahead of myself maybe I should ask Mattie about it. So, I bend down so that we’re eye to eye and he turns to face me.


“Mattie, I’m not mad.” In no fucking way am I mad because he did that. I’m proud, and glad and I want to see it again. “But why did you do that? I just wanna know why you did it, I won’t get mad, I promise.” He looks down at his feet as he thinks about what he’s going to say. He shuffles his feet a little bit and he looks up at me through his eyelashes. I melt at the sight, he’s just so confused right now, and he regrets what he did, I can tell. It’s not really his fault for doing that, at least I don’t think so.


“Because he’s bad, I can feel it, I know it. He’s bad and he was gonna hurt me. I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t mean ta hit him.” I pull him into a hug, and whisper in his ear that it’s ok, that he doesn’t have anything to be sorry for. He calms down a little bit and pulls away. I tell him to go wait in his room because I want to talk to Buffy. She’s pissed and I know she’s going to yell at him for hitting her precious vampire. God I hate Spike! She walks out of the bathroom and looks over at me. She sees that Mattie is gone so she goes straight for his room, but I step in front of her, blocking her from the door. She glares at me, gives me this look that I dare question her authority.


“Don’t.” She goes to say something but I stop her. I grab her by the hand and pull her into our room and close the door. If we’re going to have this fight it isn’t going to be in front of the pest. I won’t give him that satisfaction. “He didn’t mean to hit him, Buffy. He knows that Spike’s a vampire, he can feel it. He thought that Spike was going to hurt him so he defended himself. You can’t go in that room and yell at him because he was doing what felt right. You’re a slayer too but you know what a vampire is, you’ve been around them.” You’ve fucked them. “You know what that feeling means when you feel a vampire. Well he doesn’t. He was just doing what his slayer instincts were telling him to do. And I swear to God that if you go in there and yell at him for it I’ll leave and take him with me.” Did I just say that? Because I totally did not mean to say that. But I did, it’s out and she’s looking at me like I just shot her puppy.


“You’d take him away from me? You’d really try to take our son away from me? What gives you the fucking right to decide that? I wasn’t going in there to yell at him, but thanks for jumping to conclusions and labeling me as the bitch mother, it really makes me feel warm and tingly inside.” There’s a short pause as I think of something to say. I can feel the vampire standing outside of our door and it’s only pissing me off. But I calm down and start over.


“Look, I didn’t mean to say that. I wouldn’t take him away from you, I’m sorry I said that, it just slipped out. I’d never just take off with our son.” Well, I would but only if I had a really good reason to. “But you can’t go in there angry, and you were still angry. He feels bad for hitting Spike.” Though I don’t know why. “I asked him about it, he thought that Spike was going to hurt him. And, I was just wondering, thought it’d be nice to know.” Maybe I should stop being sarcastic she’s getting irritated. “But why the fuck is Spike here?” I pause but continue before she can answer. “You just invited him in our home, where we live with our kid and-” Oh fuck, I left Mattie alone. I rush out of the room and bump into Spike. We fall up against the hallway wall and he wraps his arm around me to keep me from falling. I look up at him and he smirks.


“Sorry Faith, you’re hot an’ all but not my type.” God, what a creep! I push off of him and walk away. I’m not going to react to that because that’s why he said it, to get a reaction. I won’t satisfy him in anyway. I go into Mattie’s room and he’s sitting up on his bed flipping through a picture book that Buffy got him a couple weeks ago. It’s pictures of all these large cities in the U.S. and some Asian countries. He stops at a particular picture and studies it for a few seconds. He doesn’t even look up as he talks.


“Mama, what’s this place?” he asks. I walk over to his bed and sit down on the edge of it. It’s a little uncomfortable because it’s plastic, but I ignore that. I look down at the picture. It’s an aerial view of a city. A park with lots of grass and some trees, also some paths for bikes and stuff. There are large buildings on either side of the park, also in the background, there’s a harbor and on the other side there’s more buildings. My eyes water up but I force the tears away. He just had to ask about that picture didn’t he? No, I can’t blame him, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about my childhood. He’s asked about it before but I changed the subject and fast. But with all of that anger in the training room and all of the anger with seeing Spike, seeing this picture is fucking with my emotions big time.


“It’s the Boston Harbor, baby.” Yeah, he just had to stop at that picture. I remember being a preteen, running through the streets with the people I thought were my friends. We caused some trouble, petty theft and shit like that but never anything serious. We used to get in fights though, with the kids that thought they were better then us. The little fuckers that lived on Comm Ave. Just because they’re parents had money it didn’t make them better then us. Ok, gotta calm down. I’ve given up using my Boston slang, mostly because Buffy doesn’t understand it and I end up having to explain what ‘calm your liver’ means or the difference between a FBI and a ABI. I still use the word wicked though. I have to pay some respects to my heritage.


“You’re from Boston, huh Mama? That’s what Mommy told me. What’s Boston like?” Oh God, oh God, oh God. I need to get out of here. I’m starting to get angry, the memories are starting to come back. I can feel the phantom pain from that broken arm and I think I’m going insane. I need to get out of here, I can’t breathe. He can tell that I’m starting to panic, or at least he knows that something’s wrong. I don’t say a word as I run from the room. Look at me, not only am I a lunatic, but I’m a fucking coward as well. Looks like some things never change, huh Faithy? As I’m running towards the front door I can feel the phantom whiplashes on my back, on the backs of my legs, on my ass, on the back of my neck, the backs of my arms. Why is this happening today? What’s wrong with me? I trip on something and stumble forward. I fall against the front door and stay where I am. I don’t move, I just try to remember how to breathe.


“Faith? Faith are you ok?” I hear Red ask. Buffy must be out back with that thing. I don’t answer just nod my head yes. I think you have to breathe before you can talk, and I’m having a big problem with the first so there’s no way I can do the second. I guess she sees how tense my muscles are, can see that I can’t breathe, that I need my space because she stays a good distance away. I can hear the screams, hear the shouts and the pleads for her to stop as she whips me with the belt. No, no, no, no! Make it stop! I throw the front door open and take off running. Willow’s calling out for me to come back but I don’t.


I can feel the asphalt on my bare feet and I’m sure I look as crazy as I feel. I run down to the end of the street and bang a left. STOP TALKING LIKE THAT! I keep running, all the way out of our neighborhood and down the street. I run over the overpass and up the asphalt hill. I turn right and just keep on running. I don’t even know where I am but I can’t stop running. I pass a house that has a couple of horses in the yard, but still I can’t remember what street I’m on.


I pass the side of the high school, but still I can’t remember. I turn right at the corner instead of going straight and now I’m running in front of the high school. I turn another right and now I’m running up a hill. A car passes me and honks the horn, a guy in the front seat says something crude but I don’t pay attention to it. I turn right away and now I’m running on some really raw asphalt, there’s some rocks, a couple potholes and a nail digs into my foot. I reach down while hopping on my right food and pull the nail out of my left. I throw it to the side and keep on running.


I make a left at some cluster mailboxes. It’s a dead end street, I can tell but I don’t care, I just keep going. I run down to the end of the street, I can either keep going straight and round the turn up there, but it’s gravel and I’d rather not. I can also turn right at a, is that a cactus? Ok, I can turn right at the cactus and run down some small gravel that doesn’t look as painful. Small gravel it is. The house by the cactus, a white with blue trim, looks empty, deserted but recently abandoned because it’s still nice. I run down the street and it’s a dead end. I didn’t come far because I can see the high school on the other side of the chain link fence. But that’s like fifty feet, maybe more, away. I look around and see the backyard of the abandoned, but not rundown, house. I jump the gate and run over to the shed. The door isn’t locked so I go inside. It’s dark and it’s small and it’s bringing up even more memories, these ones aren’t as bad as the others, well, it depends on how you look at them.


It’s empty and there are some stairs, a two-story shed, who knew? I climb up the stairs that are more like a latter, and I crawl to the very back of it. There’s not enough room for me to stand up so I have to crawl whether I want to or not. I sit against the back corner and stare into the darkness. I left the door open and the cool night air is making its way in here, making the room seem less stuffy, less suffocating. I take in a deep ragged breath and try to calm myself down, but there’s no calming down now. The memories are flooding my mind, too many at once, and then I’m thrown into one, one that I’d rather forget. One that I really wish didn’t happen.


I can hear him, I can see his face. He’s only a little older then I am, a year maybe two. I’ve known him for almost six months. We’ve caused some trouble together and I know he’s been looking at my growing body. Gotta say this growth spurt hurt but my hips and tits look wicked, and it’s easier to get stuff if I just flirt a little, show off some skin. It wasn’t before because they all thought I was just a babe, ya know, a baby? But he noticed me in a different way, I can tell. He doesn’t just like me for my body like the rest. He likes me because I have those good old-fashioned street smarts and I’ve helped him out of a few jams. We’re hiding in a small dark room, it smelt a lot like the place I’m in now, and he’s really close to me. I looked into his eyes, his crystal blue eyes that I just wanna get lost in.


“We’ll probably be here for ‘while. Staties are still lookin’ for us, so we’ll just stay here till they back off, then we’ll use the money you got to get a couple whoopie pies.” I didn’t verbally agree with him, just nodded my head. I didn’t really want to be in there with him because of the close small space, having him so close to me was doing some wicked fucked up shit to my body. I felt all tingly, especially between my legs. Now I wasn’t a hoodsie so I felt kinda like a whore for liking him and looking at him the way I was. Things got tense, wicked tense and he locked eyes with me. He broke the contact to look down at my lips that were painted up red. He looked back into my eyes, I felt myself growing nervous which was weird because I always felt so safe around him.


“You catch the Sox game last night?” I asked breaking some of the tension but most of it was still there. He just shook his head no. “Really? Bastard Yanks won by three. I swear it we’ll break the curse next year.” He laughs a little. Boston isn’t ever gonna break the curse of the Bambino, just no way. My blood started to rush a little faster, pump a little harder as he leaned forward. I’d never been kissed before, never really had an interest in boys or anyone else for that matter.


With my mom being my mom I didn’t really want to have sex, because she got used so much. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I was gonna wait until I found the right guy, found someone to love. I knew it would never happen so I had nothing to worry about. I would never have sex and I wouldn’t get hurt. But as soon as his lips touched mine, gently, softly, sending all sorts of tingles to every nerve ending in my body, I knew right then that this little celibate plan was gonna be wicked hard to keep.


I pulled back after a few seconds to catch my breath. I’m breathing like I’ve run ten blocks, but he’s just a little above normal. He leaned in again, this time getting his body closer to mine. I felt his hardness brush against my leg and I jumped back. Little naive me didn’t know what that was at the time. I wanna laugh. Anyway, he looked into my eyes and saw that I was a little scared. He smiled a little, breathing harder now. He sat down on the ground and gently held onto my hand. He’s never done that before, said hand holdin is for saps.


“Don’t be scared Marthie.” That’s his little nickname for me because I was always talking about how when I get rich one day I’m gonna take a trip to Martha’s Vineyard and if I catch any of the richies talkin shit about the poor I’ll give ‘em a good punch in the head. “Just relax. You know I’d never let anythin bad happen ta ya, right?” I nodded my head and looked into his eyes. He leaned forward again and pressed his lips against mine. I kissed him back and after a few seconds he pulled back. “Just go with it, I’ll take care of ya.” I nodded my head again and he leaned forward yet again. Only this time he opened up his mouth and gently rubbed his tongue against my bottom lip. I opened up my mouth a little bit and he slid his tongue inside. He swirled it around mine and it felt weird, but a good kind of weird. He leaned forward, pushing me back. He was trying to get me to lie down. I pulled back and looked at him, a questioning look was on my face. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, just go with it.”


He reached for the hem of my shirt and slowly took it off. I allowed him to and as soon as it hit the floor he was kissing my still growing breasts. There was a throbbing between my legs and what he was doing felt good but at the same time I wanted to slow down. I didn’t want to seem like a wimp though, so I did as he said and just went with it. He reached around and unhooked by bra and slowly took it off. He took one of my nipples into his mouth and I moaned out. It was too much to handle and I pushed him back. He looked at me with some confusion and just a tiny, just a tiny little bit of anger.


“Maybe we should just go. It’s gettin late, my mom might be passed out by now.” My voice was trembling and he reached out and gently caressed my cheek. I leaned into his hand at the gentle touch. I’ve never been touched like this before, it was loving, not violent, and even though it scared me I wanted more of it. I closed by eyes when I saw him lean forward and he kissed me again. Then I felt his hands wonder down to my breasts and he started squeezing and massaging them. I didn’t like that, his hands were rough because of the calluses of always climbing fences and stuff like that. He continued to kiss me as his hands left my body. I heard the sound of a zipper and I pulled back again. He had unzipped his pants and I saw his hard cock. I looked up at him wide eyed. This was all new to me, I was a little scared. He smiled again, that sweet smile that always makes me crumble.


“I’ll be gentle, k?” he asked and I didn’t move a muscle, didn’t say a word. He reached out and gently laid me down on my back, and I let him. It was like I was in shock or something. I wanted to say something, anything to get him to slow down, but I couldn’t, I just went with it. I felt his hands on my jeans and he slowly unbuttoned and then unzipped them. I lifted up my hips, still in a daze as he pulled them down. I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards me. I kissed him deeply, searched out the hidden secrets of his mouth and he took my pants off. I felt his hands toying with the waistband of my panties, but he didn’t pull them down. I remembered something in health class and I pulled back and looked into his eyes.


“What about a condom? I don’t wanna get pregnant.” He shook his head and kissed my neck. I moaned again at the feeling, and felt little shivers go up and down my spine. I wanted him to stop because of the lack of a rubber, but I wanted him to continue just as much. I hated feeling torn like that but it’s how I was feeling, I couldn’t help it. He pulled back again and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I tightened my legs together and he felt it, he was lying beside me, so that is left thigh was against mine, his torso was over mine, but he was still off to the side from the waist down.


“I’ll pull out right before, none’ll get in you, promise.” I was still nervous and he could tell that. But he was being so gentle, so loving. I didn’t want him to stop, I didn’t want him to leave. I still had a couple of concerns that I was more then willing to keep to myself but because I was so damn nervous things just started to slip out.


“It’s gonna hurt, I heard some of the hoodsies talkin in gym, they said that it hurts, and that sometimes there’s blood.” He looked a little grossed out because of the blood part, he hates blood, can’t stand seeing it. He kissed me again and all of my concerns started to slowly wash away. He deepened the kiss and things were starting to move forward a little more. One of his rough hands was rubbin the top of my thigh, slowly working its way to my inner thigh and then he added a little bit of pressure to try and spread my legs, but I wouldn’t and he pulled back.


“There might be some pain, but I’ll be gentle, promise.” I nodded my head and he started kissing me again. He ran his hands up and down my torso, massaging my breasts and then gently caressing my stomach. The throbbing between my legs was starting to become unbearable. I felt his hands back on the waistband of my underwear. I pulled away, breathing erratically and I nodded my head, barely. He slid them off of me, crawling down my body a little and he left a kiss on my bellybutton. I giggled a little bit, my stomach has always been very ticklish especially my bellybutton.


I watched as he took off his pants and boxers until he was completely nude. I looked away, blushing wicked hard and he chuckled a little bit. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out some napkins that we took from a McDonald’s earlier, he didn’t need to tell me what they were for. He got back on top of me and I felt his cock on my thighs but I still hadn’t spread my legs for him. He started to kiss me again, gently, lovingly like everything else has been. Then he pulled back and I looked into his eyes. They were so soft, so caring, I couldn’t help but feel special.


“Just close your eyes and take a deep breath. Just relax, it won’t hurt as bad if you’re relaxed.” I nodded my head and tried to relax but it was difficult. He started to kiss my neck again and rubbed the tops of my thighs with his hands. He stopped moving them, he rested them near the top so that his thumbs were pointing towards my private area. He gently put pressure on his thumbs and I slowly started to spread my legs open. He kept kissing my neck. He was getting a little faster but still soft and gentle, never a bad touch, never a painful touch. “That’s it, come on now, just wrap ‘em ‘round my back.” I felt the tip of his cock at my entrance as I lifted my legs up and wrapped them around his lower back. He gently entered me and I cried out in pain. “It’s ok, I’ll wait.” He was inside me but he wasn’t moving as my body got used to this new type of invasion. When my breathing started to slow I opened my eyes and slowly nodded my head.


He started to slowly thrust inside of me. Every movement hurt but I didn’t stop him, didn’t go against what he was doing. I just went with it. He was kissing my neck still and leaving little love bites. I was moaning out, mostly in pain, but a little in pleasure. He knew what he was doing, he’s been with girls before, I knew this but I didn’t care. I felt like I was the only one. The only one he’s ever touched, the only one he’ll ever touch again. He was groaning and he started thrust a little faster. I winced out in pain but he kept up the pace, didn’t slow for a second, never stopped kissing my neck.


It felt like I was doing the splits for the first time, it hurt but now that a little time passed it wasn’t as bad. He never said anything during, just kissed my neck, and I was running my hand through his hair a little, at the back of his neck. My heels were digging into the small of his back and he started to go a little faster. Then he pulled out suddenly and I gave a little sigh of relief. I kept my eyes closed and I felt him lie down next to me. I tried to snuggle up against him. This was all so new to me and I wanted to be held but he tensed and pulled away. I opened my eyes and looked at him. His soft blue eyes went a little cold. His blonde hair was a little messy because of me. I smiled at him and he didn’t smile back. He sat up and started to get dressed. I was a little confused as I watched him pull up his jeans and then put on his shirt.


“Get dressed, we gotta get outta here.” I got a little mad because of his tone. He’s never talked to me like that before. I sat up and grabbed my shirt and covered up my breasts with it. I closed my legs so he couldn’t see me, not that it mattered I guess. Kind of hard to be modest when you just got done fucking. Because that’s all it was. I could pretend all I want that it meant something, that it was loving and special and that to him it was more then just screwing, but it wasn’t. It was just a teenage boy who noticed that his female partner in crime was starting to develop so he fucked her before anyone else got the chance.


“Wait, just give me a fucking minute.” I didn’t sound mad, just overwhelmed. He shook his head and waited for a couple of minutes but he was irritated. What did I do wrong, was I not good or something? He comed so I must’ve done something right. But like I said earlier, little naive me just didn’t understand. “Was I not good or something?” I had to ask because I always asked the questions that I thought I should, even if the smarter thing would have been keeping my mouth shut. He gave my body a once over and smiled wide, I smile back but then he speaks.


“Yeah, you were real good. You were so fuckin tight. Maybe we’ll do this again, but right now we gotta go, so get your ass dressed.” I looked away from him and he let out an irritated sigh. “Fine, walk back ta your house by ya self.” And he left. I waited a few minutes before I got up. I slowly put my clothes back on, my eyes were starting to water up but I kept swiping the tears away. I looked down on the ground and saw the napkins just sitting there, mocking me. I broke down, starting crying like a little baby. My knees gave out and I sunk to the floor. I curled up into a little ball and cried myself to sleep.


Almost a year later is when I became the slayer. Not long after that I made my way to Sunnydale. I used my body to convince guys to hitch rides. I never had sex with them, just let them think that I was going to. I didn’t sleep with anyone until Sunnydale, when it all became too much to take because of the slaying. I let everyone else believe that I was a lot sluttier then I really was because it was easier that way. I made up stories that they would want to hear and I acted a lot tougher then I really was. When I did have sex it was rough and raw and I was in control, I called all the shots and I told them just to go with it. Since that night no one’s ever touched my bellybutton, not even B. I haven’t told her why, haven’t really told her anything about my past, except for that my mom was, or still is I’m not sure, an alcoholic and she was abusive. I haven’t told her how abusive, and I probably never will.


I’m sitting down in this little shed, crying, trying to hide inside of myself. I want to disappear, I want to go away. I want to take so much back but I can’t. I want to undo what I did that night with him, not because he took my virginity, not because it hurt or because I felt like whore afterwards, or because I never saw him again. It’s because for a few minutes during, just for a few minutes, I thought he actually cared. I thought he loved me, if just for second. I thought he would take care of me. But he didn’t, and I sealed myself off from everyone else. Buffy was the first one I’ve ever let in. She’s the only one that I allowed myself to love and let them love back because I know for a fact that she’ll take care of me, that she cares for me, that she loves me. I feel my eyelids getting heavy and I don’t fight them as they slowly close and I drift off to sleep.


BPOV


Faith’s been gone all night. After she left the bedroom and bumped into Spike she went into Matthew’s room and I kicked Spike out of the house. I let him in because he needed to tell me something, he said that Angel had sent him. So I let him in. But he never told me anything about Angel or anything that Angel had said. He sat at the kitchen table and just kept talking about stuff that I didn’t really care about. After she walked into the room and Matthew hit Spike she dragged me off to the bedroom and yelled at me. I got pissed but I could understand where she was coming from.


Anyway, I kicked Spike out and went looking for her. But I couldn’t find her. Her car or bike wasn’t gone, she wasn’t outback because that’s where I had just been, she wasn’t out front and she wasn’t in the training room. I saw that the punching bag was knocked to the ground, the chains had been broken. I remember doing that before the fight with Glory. But that’s the reason why we had those chains magically protected, nothing should be able to break those. But it looks like Faith did, and she left a lovely hole in it as well. I can understand her being upset by the Kennedy/Willow situation but that pissed off? Something else is definitely going on.


I walk towards the living room and hear Matthew quietly crying in his bedroom. I stop cold and walk into his room. He’s lying on his bed, the book that I bought him is opened and his knees are pressed up against chest and he’s holding onto his legs tightly. I walk in and sit down next to him. He looks up at me and lunges at me. He wraps his arms around my neck and I hug him back. I start to slowly rock back and forth, and rub up and down his back gently. What the hell happened? He isn’t still upset about the Spike thing is his? Does he think I’m going to yell at him or something?


“Shh, shh, what’s the matter baby?” I ask and he cries a little harder. He starts coughing really hard and he pulls back away from me. He starts crying again but not as hard and he’s wiping the tears away from his eyes. I gently reach out and use the back of my hand to wipe some away. “What happened sweetie? What’s wrong?” He looks down at the book and my eyes follow his gaze. It’s opened up more towards the middle. On the right side of the book there’s a picture of Tokyo, Japan, it’s night so the all of the city lights are on and it looks beautiful. On the other side of the book there’s a picture of the Boston Harbor during the day. I sigh a little and can only guess what’s coming next.


“Mama saw this. She got mad and she ran away. I made her mad and now she’s not comin back.” He starts to cry really hard again. I pull him to me and rest his head against my chest. I start rubbing his back again and let him cry. I know that if he’s crying this hard then he won’t be able to hear me. I wait a little bit and when he’s calm he pulls back from me. I let go of him and close the book and put it on the dresser next to his bed. I stand up and open up the top drawer of his dresser and pull out a pair of his pajamas. I sit back down on the bed and slowly take off his shirt and put on the pajama shirt and then do the same with his pants, his shoes were already off. I take off his socks and then pick him up again. He clings onto me and I pull back the covers and gently lay him down. He’s tired, he’s cried himself out but I need to talk to him before he falls asleep.


“Mama didn’t run away because of you. She’s not mad at you, ok?” I ask and he shakes his head no. He doesn’t believe me and now I really wish I had been there to see Faith’s reaction to seeing that picture. “Matthew, Mama had a bad childhood.” Should I be telling him this? Should I tell our son some of the secrets that Faith told me in confidence just to make him feel better? I don’t know, and I really wish I did because I’m going to and if he ever says anything to her about it I pray that she understands my reasoning.


“Her mommy was mean to her and she didn’t have any friends. People used to hurt her, and whenever she sees a picture of Boston she remembers all of the bad things that happened to her. Mama isn’t mad at you for showing her that picture, she’s mad at all of the people that used to hurt her. Understand?” He takes a few minutes to digest what I’ve told him. He doesn’t question me and I thank the heavens for that because if he had asked for specifics I wouldn’t have told him. Not only because he’s only five and shouldn’t hear things like that but because Faith hasn’t really gone into it. “Goodnight baby, I love you.” I lean down and give him a little kiss on the forehead. He kisses me on the lips and I smile at him. He hasn’t done that for a while. He says a little ‘love you too’ but it’s barely there because he’s already half asleep. I get up and leave the room and turn out the light on my way out. I walk out into the living room, Willow’s sitting on the couch, thank God she’s out of that room. At least she’s feeling a little better.


“Hey Will, how are you doing?” I ask as I sit down next to her. I’m getting a little hungry. We haven’t had dinner yet and I wonder when Faith’s going to get back. I know I could always heat something up but after a trying day like this I’d rather have something homemade. She looks a little grim but I don’t really pay attention to it. I don’t expect her to look happy for a while. She looks over at me, and there’s worry in her eyes. Now that’s a little strange. What’s she worried about? From the looks that she’s giving me it doesn’t look like she’s worried about herself or Kennedy, it looks like she’s worried about me.


“I’m fine, better. Thanks for letting me stay here.” I’m about to say something, to tell her that it’s no problem whatsoever, but she keeps going. “I saw Faith a few minutes ago. She was leaning up against the door. I don’t know for sure, but I think she was having a panic attack.” What? Faith doesn’t have panic attacks. That’s crazy. But then again, she was angry enough to kill the punching bag and then she saw Spike and got really angry about that and then Matthew showed her that photo of Boston. Maybe all of those things put together was enough to send her a panic attack. “She took off running down the street, she’s been gone for like five minutes.” Now I’m worried. She just took off? Just like that? Well if she’s really upset then I better go find her. I look over at the hallway, I can’t just leave Matthew here though. He was so upset because Faith let, what if he wakes up and sees that I’m gone, what will he do?


“It’s ok, I’ll watch him for you. I already took the liberty of uninviting Spike, hope you don’t mind. I hear you arguing with him earlier and you told him to leave and never come back so I thought I’d go ahead and put the block back up.” I give her a small hug and tell her thank you. Then I slip my sandals on and grab my car keys off of the table. I leave and lock the door behind me. I get into my car and start to drive around. I go to the park first because that’s where she goes when she needs to think. But she isn’t there. I check some of the bars thinking that maybe if she had a panic attack she’d go out and drink to help take the edge off, but she isn’t anywhere. I look everywhere I can think of but I can’t find her. So after two hours of looking I finally go home.


When I get back Willow’s already in bed and the only light on is the little table lamp on the end table next to the couch. I take off my shoes and sit down on the couch. I pick up the remote and start flipping through the channels. My stomach growls out for food but I don’t want to eat anything. I’m too worried about Faith to eat. I know I should go out there right now and patrol, look around and see if maybe she just hit the cemeteries, but I don’t. I can’t just leave because Willow’s in bed and I don’t want to leave Matthew alone. It’s not that I don’t trust Willow because I do, but she’s asleep and she doesn’t have a slayer’s hearing so if something happens, if someone breaks in or something she might not hear it. So I channel surf and the last thing I see before I go to sleep is the memory of the panicked look on her face when we were in the bedroom when she realized that she had left Matthew alone when Spike was in the house.


When I wake up I’m in my bed. How the hell did I get here? The last thing I can remember is looking for Faith. I sit up really quick and see that the bedroom door is open. There’s no sound whatsoever and it’s really starting to creep me out. I look over at the clock, it’s nine pm. How is it nine pm when I didn’t get home until around ten? Oh God, did I sleep for eleven hours? I think I did. My head hurts a little bit, probably from all of the stress, but I feel a little better. I get up and go into the kitchen. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I see Faith, sitting on the counter like she knows I hate, eating something out a bowl. I can tell that she’s already gone patrolling. She looks a little distant, a little mad but distant.


“Hey baby, when did you get home?” I ask and try to sound as neutral as possible. I want to know what happened to her but I don’t want to push it. I don’t want her to withdraw and I don’t want her mad at me. I just want to take her back to bed so I can cuddle with her because I really need my Faithy cuddles right now. She doesn’t answer me, just keeps staring straight in front of her. Her eyebrows will furrow and then relax every couple of seconds, like she’s remembering something. “Baby, you ok?” I take a couple of sets closer to her but she still doesn’t look at me. I’m standing right in front of her now and it’s like she’s looking straight through me, I might as well rename myself to Casper. “Faith. Faith, hello? Earth to the space cadet.” I wave my hand in front of her and still nothing. Damn, when she zones out she really zones out. I put my hand on her shoulder and I finally get a reaction, but a bad one. She winces and pulls back and she drops the bowl and it shatters on the floor.


“Buffy, didn’t see you there. When did you wake up?” she asks, looking a little embarrassed. Something’s wrong with her, that much is obvious. I bend down and start to clean up the glass very carefully. I see that she, hopefully she, has changed me into my carebear pajamas. Shut up, a girl is never too old for carebear pajamas and I don’t care what you think. Anyway, I clean up the glass and then stand in front of her. She hasn’t moved from her spot on the counter. I wrap my arms around her waist and rest my head on her shoulder.


“A couple minutes ago.” I say very sweetly. I can almost taste the sugar on my tongue it’s said so sweetly. “I missed you last night. Is everything ok? Willow said you looked a little...” I need to put it delicately or she might bolt. “Upset. Wanna talk about it?” I feel her tense up a little but I pretend not to notice. Don’t really know why. Usually when she tenses up I’ll pull back a little, give her her space but not tonight. Right now I just need to feel her against me, even if it’s her just holding me like this.


“I’m fine, just stressed ‘cause of all the shit that’s happenin.” I can tell she’s lying. She’s always been a bad liar. Her voice always gets a little more high pitched when she lies and she holds her breath for a few seconds afterwards, like she’s bracing herself for the person’s reaction or something. I let her get away with it, we can talk about it tomorrow I guess. Right now I just want to go back to bed. I can feel her heat up against my stomach and it’s starting to drive me a little crazy. Might as well help her take care of those post slaying hornies. The work of a slayer is never done, yeah right ‘cause I really look at hot lesbian sex with Faith as a chore, get a grip. I feel a little yucky though. I need to get a shower, I feel like I’ve been sweating, and there’s almost nothing nastier then the feel of dry sweat.


“Baby, I’m gonna go get a shower, why don’t you wait for me in the bedroom?” I say in my naughty voice. She always likes it when I use my naughty voice. I guess tonight is the exception. She lets go of me and I back up. I look up at her and she has this totally fake smile on her face, like everything is just right with the world. She leans in a puts a soft kiss on my forehead and then slides down off of the counter. Her body presses up against mine but either she doesn’t care or she pretends not to notice. She steps around me and walks off to the bedroom. Ok, that was fucking weird.


I get my shower, this one is a long one. I usually take really short showers but tonight the water feels really good on my back and on my scalp and I don’t want to leave it. It only takes me like fifteen minutes to wash my body and my hair, the other thirty is simply spent letting the water pelt my back and shoulders. I get out after the water is running ice cold. I dry myself off and then towel dry my hair. I put the pajamas back on because I know they’re probably not going to be on for long and I can’t help the little cringe at the gross feeling that the insides of the fabric has on it because of the sweat. I feel like taking another shower, but I’ve made Faith wait long enough. Maybe she’s already started without me. I like catching her, it’s fun to tease her about it because she gets all embarrassed and it’s so cute.


So I walk into the bedroom still dabbing my hair with the towel. The lamp on my side of the bed is turned on but hers is off. She’s under the covers, facing me, and she has that distant look on her face again. The white part of her eyes is dark and there are some tears running down her face and they land on the bed. She does nothing to wipe them away. It’s like she doesn’t even know I’m here or else she’d try to hide them because she doesn’t like to cry in front of me. I close the door and sit down next to her. I gently reach forward and cup her cheek with my hand. She flinches so I pull my hand back. She’s never done that before.


“Faith, what’s wrong?” I ask but she doesn’t answer. She sniffles and she wipes the tears away from her eyes and she glances at me for a second but then she looks forward again and starts staring. I reach out and put my hand on her hip, I need to touch her to try and comfort her, but again she flinches. It’s like some part of her subconscious thinks I’m going to hurt her or something. “Baby please, what’s the matter?” She just shakes her head no and doesn’t look at me. If she won’t talk to me then I can’t help her. I can’t make the hurt go away. I get up and put the towel on the back of the chair that’s at the little vanity desk.


I crawl under the covers but leave the light on. I turn so that I’m facing her back. I know that she’s knows that I’m watching her because her back muscles tense up a little bit. I reach out and gently touch the tight muscles, to try and massage the stiffness away but again she flinches. Ok, this is just getting annoying now. I ask her what’s wrong one more time and again she remains silent. I can only wonder as to what’s going on in her mind. And if she doesn’t want to tell me then I can’t help her. I feel a little rejected as I turn around and face away from her. The heel of my foot accidentally brushes against her calf and she fucking flinches again. What is wrong with her? I turn out the light and lay my head down on the pillow. I can hear her sniffle, hear the beginning of a sob but she holds it in. I close my eyes and try to ignore it because if I try to help her when she’s like this then a big fight will happen, I know it.


I open my eyes again when I feel movement. I look over at the alarm clock and it reads eleven thirty-five. Somehow I must’ve dozed off. Seems pretty impossible after sleeping for eleven hours but whatever. Anyway, I feel her moving around, and I know she’s asleep because the movement is a little twitchy and erratic. I roll over and I see her lying on her back with her hands above her head. The covers have been kicked down so they’re by her knees and I can see that her legs are spread open a little bit. She’s making this small moaning sound and then a couple of winces. Is she having a sex dream? Hmm, I wonder if I’m the one she’s dreaming about. I scoot over so I’m only an inch or two away from her. I slowly lean over and place a small kiss on her neck.


“No.” She says and she sounds like she’s gonna cry. What? What is going on inside of that head of hers? “No, please.” Is she dreaming about being raped or something? Was she ever raped? I don’t know because she refuses to tell me anything about her past. “Don’t just leave me here.” Ok so it isn’t a rape dream but I still want to know what’s going on. I don’t like not knowing when I’m this curious, it really pisses me off. “Billy please.” Ok, I don’t know who this Billy person is and the fact that she’s calling out to him or her in her sleep is making me a little, annoyed. I know you can’t control what you dream, but I would like her to be dreaming about me because I dream about her. Maybe this is from her childhood? I don’t know. I reach out and gently shake her shoulder.


“Faith.” She still sounds like she’s going to cry. She’s whimpering a little bit and her legs are thrashing around a little. “Faith, sweetheart, wake up. Faith, it’s just a dream. Faith.” She finally starts to wake up and when she does she looks confused, like she doesn’t know where she is. It takes her a few minutes to realize that it’s me lying next to her, and that she’s in our bedroom. She breaths in a deeply and lets out a sigh. She’s sweating and her breathing is still a little labored. “Wanna talk about it? Please baby, tell me what’s been bothering you.”


I want her to open up to me, I want to know what’s been eating away at her, what got her so pissed off that she broke a magically reinforced punching bag. But she doesn’t. She looks into my eyes for a few seconds with this look of sadness and hurt and then she rolls over so she’s facing away from me. I feel very rejected to say the least. I roll over onto my other side so I’m facing away from her. If she doesn’t want to tell me, then fine, she doesn’t have to tell me. She can just let it all build until she drives herself insane.


I feel her move again. She’s rolling over on the bed so that she’s facing my back. I really don’t want to look at her right now. I feel her move my hair away from my neck and she starts to kiss the now exposed skin. Her lips are a little dry and her breath is really hot. She snakes her arm around and lets it rest on my stomach. She starts to trace the outline of my bellybutton with her thumb. Then her hand moves up and she pushes on my shoulder so I’m lying on my back. She keeps kissing my neck and my body starts to react to her touches. I’m already getting wet and my legs are automatically spreading open a little, waiting for her to go lower. I try to get her to stop because this isn’t like her. She’s usually talkative and at least makes sure that I’m still awake before doing this.


“Faith, wait.” I say and press up on her shoulder but she doesn’t stop. She isn’t being very gentle about it either. She’s usually so gentle with me in the beginning and she doesn’t get rough unless I want her to. But now, it’s like she doesn’t even know it’s me. It’s like she’s treating me like one of her conquests, like she just plans on using me then losing me. “Faith, stop. Stop it.” I push up really hard and she backs off. She looks confused and I know I look a little mad. She sits up and then cups my cheek with her hand like I had tried to do earlier.


“What’s the matter, B?” Ok, I need her to be a little more serious right now. I sigh and I place my hand over hers, the one that’s still cupping my cheek. I gently rub the back of it with my thumb and I see her smile. Maybe it’s just me, maybe she wasn’t acting strange just now and I’m just a little sensitive because of everything that’s going on? I don’t know.


“It’s just…” I don’t really want to tell her in case it was just me. But I do because we’re girlfriends, lovers, partners, whatever you want to call us, and we’re supposed to be honest with each other. “You were being a little rough, that’s all.” She smiles a sweet smile, the smile that I can never say no to, and I always crumble under. She leans forward and gently brushes her lips up against mine. It’s a nice, slow, tender kiss and I quickly get lost in it. I open my mouth to deepen it and she pulls back. She starts kissing my neck again and I get wrapped up in her touch. This feels good, it’s just what I needed. After dealing with all of the stress and hearing all of the sadness it’s good to know that you’re loved. She bites down on my skin and I wince in pain. She usually nibbles, just tiny little love-nips, but this was a full on bite. “Be gentle.” I tell her but she either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to.


“Just go with it, B.” She tells me and my brows furrow. She climbs on top of me and starts to slowly grind against me. It feels pretty good that is until she starts to speed up. Her movements are rough and hard and it’s starting to hurt a little. I grab onto her hips to get her to slow down but then she grabs onto my wrists and holds my hands above my head. She’s still kissing my neck as she continues to hump me rough and hard. She lets go of my wrists and reaches down and starts to pull off my pajama bottoms. I stop her and she looks at me with that confused look again.


“Faith. You’re not being gentle. You’re hurting me a little bit. Please, just don’t if you can’t calm down.” She smiles again, that smile that I always crumble under and I find myself becoming very…crumbley. She reaches down and continues to pull on my pants. I help her take them off because her touch is a lot softer now. Then she takes off her underwear, and then mine. She sits up so she can lift off her shirt, and I help her take off mine. Her lower body is on my thigh and she’s lightly grinding up against it, smearing her wetness all over it as she softly kisses my neck. She’s a lot calmer now, a lot gentler and I sigh a small breath of relief. That is until she bites me again. I very painful bit right on the side of my neck. I think she’s been hanging vampires for way too long. Maybe it is time we retire as slayers.


“Ow, Faith, don’t do that.” She licks the mark that she’s left on my body and the pain lessens. She starts to ride my leg a lot harder. I feel one of her hands snake its way down my body. She scrapes her fingernails on my abdomen and it hurts a little bit and I wince. I’m about to say something, to get her off of me, to try and get her talk to open up, but before I can she enters me with three fingers. “Ow! Faith.” She takes that as a sign to continue, at least that’s what it seems like and she starts thrusting into me very roughly. She’s sucking on my neck now and it doesn’t feel pleasant like it normally does. She takes her fingers out of me to my relief but then she slides off of my leg. She spreads my farther apart and positions herself so that we’re clit to clit. The kisses on my neck have softened a lot but I doubt it’ll stay that way for long.


“Faith, please.” Before I say anything else she’s thrusting against me, rough and raw. It hurts, I don’t think this has ever hurt before but it does now. She clamps down on my neck, she bites but she doesn’t let go. “Ouch! Faith stop!” I scream and she finally stops moving. She looks up at me the confused look is on her face again and I just want to smack it off. I push her off of me so she’s lying on her side of the bed. She asks what’s the matter but I ignore her. I roll over onto my side so I’m facing away from her. I grab onto the covers and pull them up my body and hold them tightly against me. Her touch comforted me earlier in the kitchen, and I craved more of it. Now her touching me is the last thing that I want her to do. I asked her to be gentle, to calm down how many times? I can’t take this. I can’t take it and I start to break down. My sobs are quiet at first but they get louder and louder until I can’t hear anything else. I feel her hand on my side and I flinch and pull away.


“Don’t fucking touch me!” I get up and run out of the room. I’m still nude but I don’t care. There’re towels in the bathroom along with one of my bathrobes so when I leave there that’s what I’ll put on. I close the door and lock it and then turn on the shower to help cover up the sounds of my tears. I can’t believe her. What happened that was so fucking horrible that she treated me that way? Was that her revenge for inviting Spike into the house? First she threatens to take Matthew away and now she makes me feel violated? I hear someone knocking on the bathroom door. It’s not Faith because I can always feel when she’s near, the same goes for Matthew.


No, this is Willow, but I don’t want to see anyone right now. Apparently she doesn’t care that I want to be alone. She magically unlocks the door and steps into the room. I’m sitting on the floor, my legs tightly pulled up to my chest to cover my nakedness. I’m leaning up against the sink, my face is buried in my knees and I’m sobbing very hard. I look up when I feel her wrap something around me. It’s a blanket, I guess she just assumed I would be naked or something. She sits down next to me and wraps her arms around me and pulls me close to her. I rest my head on her shoulder and cry. Kind of funny if you think about it. Earlier I was comforting her because her lover left and now she’s comforting me because mine wouldn’t back off. I want to ask her if this is some type of sign. I want to ask her if Kennedy was acting strangely before she left because I’m seriously starting to think that Faith is going to leave me soon.