The Courtship of Buffy Summers

When Buffy got home that afternoon she was still angry. After she stormed out of the library Cordelia Chase confronted her about the gym locker incident and she was not at all nice about it. The spat with Cordelia only added to her angry and she just wants to curl up under her cozy covers and cuddle up to her Care Bear and take a nice long nap and forget this crappy day ever happened.


She walks up the stairs to her room and pulls the binder paper out of her back pocket. The folded piece of binder paper that she and Faith had been communicating on. She can’t help but smile at the memory of the look on Faith’s face when she was concentrating on making her handwriting look better. And you can see it. In the first message by Faith the writing is very sloppy, but after Buffy’s passage her writing is neater, and it’s clear that she took her time to make every word look a little better.


She stops cold in her bedroom doorway when she sees her mother sitting on the edge of her bed. Not only is she sitting on the edge of her bed...‘shouldn’t she be at work?’...but she’s idly toying with the right foot of Buffy’s stuffed bear. The same stuffed bear that one Faith Lehane had won for her at the carnival just last Friday. ‘Ok, this is not good, what the hell is going on? Why is she in my room and why is she messing with my bear? Oh God, did a family member die?’


“Mom, what’s going on?” she asks startling Joyce a little. She gives her mom a small apologetic smile and walks into the room. She sets her bag down on the floor and becomes nothing but serious when she sees her mother’s expression. She looks a little uneasy, a little worried and Buffy is taking that as a very bad sign. She sits down on the corner of her bed, a couple feet away from her mother and she waits for the explanation.


“Nothing’s going on. It was a slow day, and we didn’t get any shipments in so we closed the gallery early. I wanted to talk to you about something, and I’m not sure how open you’re going to be about it. Honey, you do know you can talk to me about anything right?” ‘Oh God, she knows. She must have seen Faith kiss me. That’s why she went way overboard with the mother daughter bonding time over the weekend She wanted me to open up to her, and I didn’t even see it. How dumb am I? Please don’t answer that.’


“Is this about Faith?” Buffy didn’t mean for her voice to sound so small and scared, but it did and she’s mentally kicking herself right now. Joyce nods her head and gives her daughter a knowing look. Buffy tries to swallow down the lump forming in her throat. She did not think this conversation was going to happen so soon, or like this. In fact, she never even thought this conversation was going to happen. It’s still too soon for her to figure out Faith’s intentions and she never planned on telling her mother that they are more then just friends. “Well, how much do you know?” ‘Figure out all the information she knows, there’s no need giving away details that she doesn’t need to know about.’


“I saw you two kiss when she dropped you off. But it’s more then that, Buffy. The way you two act around each other it’s obvious there’s more then just a potential friendship between the two of you. And you only put down this bear at meals or when you go to the bathroom.” It’s true, Buffy didn’t want to put it down for a second because Faith’s perfume still lingers on it, but taking it into the bathroom would have been a little insane and she didn’t want to get it dirty by accidentally dropping food on it or something. “She won it for you, didn’t she?” Buffy looks into her mother’s soft eyes and she knows she isn’t going to react badly to what she has to say.


“Yeah, she did. And she carried it around for a while. Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about Faith, but I’m not sure where it’s going and I didn’t want to tell you before I know for sure. We never even talked until Wednesday when she asked me out, and I was so caught off guard. But she’s so nice, and funny, and we had a really good time, and her lips are…” ‘Ok, Buffy, no need to over share, this is your mom remember?’ She blushes a little and Joyce smiles a soft smile at her.


“You don’t need to be embarrassed. I know it seems unthinkable, but I was once sixteen too, you know. I do understand about things like these. But you like her? You’re falling in like with her?” ‘Falling in like? What has she been watching? Sometimes I can’t understand half of what she says.’ Buffy nods her head and gets a dreamy smile on her face, and a look in her eyes that tells her mother that she’s very far away from the conversation at the moment. But she snaps Buffy back to reality in the worst way possible. “You’ll have to invite her over for dinner on Friday.” The dreamy expression is replaced by one of panic.


“What? Mom, I can’t invite her over for dinner. We’ve only been on one date, don’t you think it’s a little soon for her to be meeting you? I mean, she’s already met you. You’ve already been introduced. I’m pretty sure introductions were made.” Panic, it’s sheer panic on Buffy’s part. Her mother, however, is somewhat amused by the look on her daughter’s face. But the amusement goes away and she becomes serious. Buffy notices the expression change and gets nervous, thinking maybe her mother isn’t as ok with this as she first seemed to be.


“Buffy, you either invite Faith over for dinner or you won’t be going on any more dates with her. I know it seems unfair, but this is just the way it has to be. I’d be even stricter if you were dating a guy, so don’t even go there.” Buffy closes her mouth at that. She was going to protest that her mom is just being overprotective because this is the first girl that Buffy’s ever had this type of interest in. But it is clear that our bottled blonde friend will not be getting out of this predicament, and no matter how embarrassing it may be she will have to invite Faith over for dinner.


The next day the bottle blonde waits a little impatiently by her locker. Faith had said yesterday that they would meet here and then leave for lunch, and she’s been waiting for fifteen minutes now. Luckily they get an hour lunch so hopefully they’ll have some time to eat and get back before the bell rings. She’s about to give up and go to the library and hang out with Willow and Xander even though she’s still a little mad at them. If they weren’t so stubborn it wouldn’t be so bad, but once they have something in their minds they won’t let it go.


“Hey, B, sorry to keep you waiting. Had something I had to take care of,” Faith says as she walks up to the shorter girl. Buffy notices that something isn’t quite right. Faith’s clothes look a little ruffled and the knuckles of her right hand are red and a little swollen. The brunette ignores the blondes questioning looks and holds onto her hand. “Lets motor before we run outta time. We need to be back a couple minutes early.” Buffy feels a little tug on her arm when she hesitates to start walking with the determined girl.


Faith didn’t start to slow down until they were walking down the sidewalk, and Buffy didn’t want to ask about the other girl’s condition. She doesn’t want to prove Willow and Xander right. She doesn’t want them to be right that Faith is a shady person who should be doubted. Ignorance is bliss at this point. If Faith wants to talk about it Buffy won’t stop her but she isn’t going to ask.


She takes in her surroundings as Faith leads her to a little diner at the very end of a dead end road. Buffy isn’t too sure about this place. It doesn’t look too clean for one thing, but if Faith says it’s good she’s willing to trust her on it. Buffy allows herself to be led to the far back corner of the room and they sit down at the booth. She notices that Faith hesitates before she sits down, as if she isn’t sure which side she should sit on. So just to be safe she sits on the opposite one of Buffy.


“Don’t worry, B, this place doesn’t look great, but the food’s really good. Just whatever you do don’t order the BLT. Ovid the BLT no matter what, got that?” Faith says in a very serious tone. Buffy nods her head yes and decides against asking because she really doesn’t want to know why. The blonde barely listens as the brunette starts to talk about her mode of transportation. She says she wants to get rid of her truck and get something better, but she’s had this one for so long she doesn’t want to part ways with it. ‘Does she honestly think I care? God, and Willow and Xander said she like a player or something. Does she just bore a girl until they’re finally like, ‘ok, let’s fuck so you’ll go away.’ Because I’m seriously starting to think so.’


“Faith,” Buffy says, sounding momentarily irritated but she makes it go away, and tries for a more softer tone. ‘Don’t want her thinking I’m a total bitch.’ “There isn’t any reason to panic or anything, but my mom saw us kiss when you brought me home from the fair.” Faith freezes completely and watches Buffy very intently, but she doesn’t say anything or give off any other indication that she’s freaking out. “And she said that if I ever want to go out on a date with you ever again you have to come over to our house, preferably this Friday, to have dinner with us. It’s just some lame ‘I wanna know who’s courting my daughter’ type of thing, and I’ll understand if you don’t want to come-”


“Don’t worry about it, B,” Faith says and smile at the waitress as she gives them two menus and then walks off. “You’re mom just wants to make sure you’ll be safe. I totally get it. Besides, how bad can it be?” ‘Did she really just ask that? You’re never supposed to say something like that out loud. Great, now my mom is going to do something really embarrassing like show Faith my baby pictures or something. I hope she doesn’t have any naked baby pictures because that would totally suck.’


“It’s just we’ve only had the one date and I don’t know if it’s too soon for you to be coming over for dinner for an interrogation. I mean, my mom never even met any of my boyfriends.” ‘Great job, Buffy, bring up your ex boyfriends, I’m sure she’ll feel totally non-threatened by that.’ But Faith gets a little grin on her face and orders a cheeseburger with no pickles, and a large Coke when the waitress comes back. Buffy orders the chicken sandwich and a large Diet Coke and the two pick up their conversation after the waitress leaves.


“Well, then I feel honored. So it’s not every day that your mom meets the person trying to ‘court’ her daughter, huh?” she asks with a little wiggle of her eyebrows. Buffy just smiles and shakes her head and takes a bite of her sandwich so she won’t have to reply. She still isn’t too sure about Faith’s intentions, and that’s the main reason she doesn’t want to invite her over for dinner to meet her mother. She doesn’t want her mom to start liking Faith and actually caring about their relationship when she isn’t even sure if they’re going to have a relationship or if Faith is doing nothing more then trying to get into her pants. Try saying that sentence five times fast.