Racing the Past by Barnabas

Rating: R
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss, Mutant Enemy, blah-blah-blah. Nobody's making any money off this story (though if someone wants to send me a million dollars, I won't turn it down).
Distribution: The Mystic Muse: http://mysticmuse.net
Author's Site: http://www.geocities.com/barnabas930
Feedback: A few nice words make my week.
Spoilers: Post-Chosen.
Pairing: Faith/Dawn

Summary: Faith encounters a face from her past, and discovers she isn't the only one trying to outrun personal demons.

The fist connected with her jaw, spinning her around, where she struck the brick wall of one of the neighboring buildings.

With her back still turned, she sidestepped just in time to avoid the follow-up punch. Instead of slamming into the back of her head, the vamp's hand impacted solidly with the unyielding wall. He screamed in pain, and there was the audible 'crunch' of bones breaking.

What the hell am I doing? Faith asked herself. Here she was in Boston, the last place in America she'd ever want to be. She'd left a little over nine years earlier, and would've been perfectly happy to have never seen it again in her life. Too many bad memories. God, if only people had known what her childhood had been like... Rather than wondering how she'd gotten so screwed up, they probably would've congratulated her for managing to turn out as normal as she had.

She'd been forced to return "home" when the authorities had closed in on her yet again. This time she had been in New York when the net had started to tighten once more. And really, who else did she have to blame but herself? She could've gone somewhere, some nice big city (like New York, dumbass!), and just laid low, probably staying off the cops' radar scope for years. But no! She still had to go out slaying every night, keeping the city – whatever the current city happened to be – safe from vampires, demons, and other nasties.

Why do I do it? she asked herself for maybe the millionth time over the last five years. Thanks to Red's spell, the world had plenty of vampire slayers running around, keeping the streets safe for democracy, capitalism, and all that other good shit. So why did she do it?

She sighed and thought of Angel, and as always, the answer was obvious. Redemption, of course. She was paying off for all the evil she had done, and she'd keep doing it for the rest of her life, however long it lasted. The possibility of being caught and sent back to prison was a small price to pay when she thought of all the people she was potentially saving with every vamp or demon she killed. Maybe, when she finally did reach the ol' clearing at the end of her path, the lives she had saved might come close to balancing out the ones she'd taken.

Besides, she'd already been to prison, and it wasn't really that bad. It beat the hell out of her brief stay in Cleveland, at least.

The vampire spun and struck out at her with his remaining good hand, his useless one now hugged tight to his body. She ducked this blow easily, then landed three quick strikes to his stomach, doubling him over. Knowing she had him beat and deciding to have some fun, Faith kicked him square in the balls. He uttered a faint 'squeak' and sank to his knees, his eyes rolling up in their sockets.

"Too bad you're gonna be dust in a second, Sparky. I'd love to hear you hit some of those high notes," she chuckled, then withdrew her stake and finished him off.

While she'd been enjoying and gloating over the results of her final blow, two other vampires had silently worked their way down from the other end of the alley. Faith hadn't been in town long, but word had gotten around fast, and the local undead population had decided to take care of the slayer problem before things got too bad for them.

The lead vamp reached out, took rough hold of her by the shoulders, and launched her into the alley wall. She hit it full-on with the top of her head, a blow that would've killed most normal humans. Thanks to her slayer durability, Faith got off with just a severe stunning. She fell to the ground, groaning, hand groping dazedly for her dropped stake. The vampires laughed, each privately a little surprised it had been so easy.

So this was how it was going to end, Faith realized. Back home in Boston, alone, blindsided by what were probably a couple of two-bit, nothing vamps. Her hand found her stake. She clutched it tightly and tried to rise. No good; her body told her sorry, it wasn't quite ready to do that yet.

Unseen by any of the three combatants below, a shape had stepped out of a window of one of the buildings that formed the alley, and onto the fire escape. It stealthily climbed down until it was perched at the bottom of the escape, about eight feet off the ground, and nearly directly above and behind the two vamps.

"Careless, Slayer," the lead vamp chided. "Not watching your back... Very careless. Now you pay for that with your life." The two moved toward her.

"Look who's talking," the shape said, dropping to the ground, landing nimbly three feet from the pair. An arm, stake in hand, came up lightning-quick and dusted the taller of the two vamps, the one who'd done all the talking. The expression on his face in the instant before he disappeared was one of total shock.

The newcomer turned and tried to finish off the second vamp, but he had already recovered from his surprise. He blocked the blow aimed at his chest, then the punch that followed it, coming towards his face. He ducked down slightly, then came back up, uncoiling a vicious uppercut as he did so. His attacker grunted and went flying backwards, feet coming completely off the ground.

"I don't know who the hell you are, but you're gonna be so sor – " he began, then stopped suddenly, a look of surprise and pain on his face. A split-second later, he disintegrated. Faith stood behind him, stake in hand. She still looked a little woozy, but she'd be completely recovered in another minute or two, compliments of her slayer healing.

"I don't know who the hell you are, either, but thanks for the assist," she told the shape getting up off the ground a short distance away.

"Don't mention it, Faith," a familiar voice said. She recognized it right away, but still couldn't bring herself to believe it until the newcomer stepped out of the darkness and into one of the shafts of light spilling into the alley's mouth.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," the other girl told her, a hint of laughter mixed with irritation in her voice.

Faith couldn't get over the sight in front of her. Inwardly, beyond the shock, a part of her was laughing as it took in the younger girl's wardrobe: heavy Docs on her feet, black skintight jeans, dark tank top, topped off by a black leather jacket. She could've been looking in a mirror.

The real shock was the look of the girl herself. Gone was the soft young brat she had known back in Sunny D. In her place was a young woman Faith barely recognized. Her face had matured, hardened. There was a faint scar running from her left ear, down along her jaw, disappearing under her chin. Her gaze was steely and hard. She still had her long dark hair, but it hung down her back in a braid. Even through the jacket, Faith could see how lean and muscular her body had become. She felt a sudden heat between her legs, and did her best to ignore it for the time being.

"I like the look," she said, gesturing to the clothes, so similar to her own trademark image. She hoped Dawn didn't notice the way her eyes lingered on her breasts for a moment.

"Yeah, well, what can I say? It's a classic. It also beats the hell out of pastels for midnight vamp hunting."

"Uh-huh," Dawn said, in a curious tone. Faith, who prided herself on reading people, thought that tone sounded suspiciously like 'drop it.' Interesting.

The two women stood in awkward silence for a moment. Faith sensed Dawn was about to say goodbye and disappear, and was suddenly desperate to make sure she didn't do that. Not yet. Her eyes flickered to the girl's face, bounced down to her breasts, then to her legs, back to her breasts, before finally ending up at her face again.

"Uh, look, I kinda know this neighborhood, and there's a decent bar a coupla blocks from here. Feel like gettin' a drink, catching up on old times?"

She saw Dawn hesitate, seemingly about to decline. "Come on, I'm buyin'. Whaddaya say?"

Heaving an inward sigh of relief that she had managed to keep the other girl in her sight for a little while longer, Faith smiled and led off in the direction of the bar.

The place was about half-full, which wasn't bad for eleven-thirty on a Wednesday night. Faith glanced up at the TV over the bar; the Red Sox were getting the piss walloped out of them on the west coast. Some things never change, she thought.

They picked a dimly-lit booth near the corner that gave them a good view of the room and the front door, and plenty of warning of potential trouble. A tired-looking waitress wandered over a minute later.

"Whiskey. And bring the bottle," Dawn ordered. Faith stared at her, hoping her eyes weren't actually bugging out of her head.

Dawn wordlessly reached inside her jacket and withdrew her wallet, flipping it open and holding it up for inspection. The waitress nodded, apparently satisfied, and left to fetch their order.

"Oh. Okay. Uh, sorry," she muttered. Way to go, stupid, she told herself. You've been here less than two minutes and you've already pissed her off. "Alright, then... D... So what's the old gang up to?"

Dawn looked like she might object to this nickname too, then just shook her head, maybe deciding it wasn't worth the argument. "Well, let's see..."

She was interrupted by the return of the waitress, who set their drinks down quickly and retreated.

Giles had returned to England right after the end in Sunnydale and helped form a new Watchers Council, Dawn told her. Spike had appeared as a ghost three weeks later at Angel's law firm in LA. Xander had disappeared for awhile, though she'd heard from Willow about a year ago that he was currently living in Alaska, running some kind of wilderness expedition business. He'd taken Anya's death very hard, Dawn confided.

"But the two of them weren't even together anymore," Faith protested, a little confused.

"He still loved her," Dawn said simply. They sat in silence for a moment, drinking and thinking.

Buffy, Willow, Dawn, and Kennedy had gone to Europe for nearly a year, she continued. They had traveled around, locating and training newly-created slayers. Willow and Kennedy had broken up during their stop in Germany. She didn't know all of the details, but Dawn thought Kennedy had cheated. Faith didn't comment; she didn't know what Dawn's opinion of Kennedy was and didn't want to piss her off again, but she herself had never liked the girl and didn't think she was a good match for Red.

After Europe, she, Buffy, and Willow had come back to America for a little while, continuing the work with the new slayers. Then it was off to the Far East – Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, followed by a stop in Australia. Though Buffy and Angel almost never spoke, he'd set up an account for her through his law firm that made sure they had all the money they needed.

They were still in Australia when Dawn turned eighteen, and it was shortly after this that she and Buffy had had some sort of falling out. Dawn didn't give specifics and Faith didn't pry, but it was obviously something that still bothered the younger Summers.

She and two of the slayers who'd been traveling with them at the time, an American named Kait, who was Dawn's age, and an Australian named Becky who was a year older, left Buffy and Willow and struck out on their own. They spent several months working countless crap jobs, finally earning enough money to return to the States.

Becky drifted off soon after, but Dawn and Kait had formed a tight team. They traveled around the country on what little cash they could scrape together, battling evil and enjoying the adventure. Kait had begun training Dawn, teaching her hand-to-hand combat and weapons skills, and also coming up with a weight-training program for the two of them that they could do without any actual weightroom equipment, which was hard to come by when you were living in an abandoned bigrig trailer or deserted warehouse.

"You really lived in places like that?" Faith asked, shocked. She just couldn't picture the Dawn Summers she'd known back in Sunnydale living in an old tractor-trailer.

"Not always. Depends how much money we had at the time. Sometimes we'd have enough to afford a room for a little while, but sometimes not. So when we didn't, we just did whatever we had to."

It had been great, Dawn said wistfully, and a sad smile crossed her face. When she saw it, Faith's heart melted just a bit.

Oh Christ, she groaned silently. That is a complication I SO don't need. I didn't come in here looking for an emotional attachment – just a good screw.

It had been great until Miami, ten months ago. They'd found a vamp nest, scouted it out ahead of time, and planned their attack carefully. Only when they'd actually tried to carry it out, the five vampires they had expected turned out to be eleven. They'd done fairly well, given the odds, getting six of them. But the rest had descended on them in a furious mob, killing Kait and seriously wounding Dawn. She had gotten away with a deep cut on her face – she indicated the scar Faith had noticed earlier – and another on her left hip.

She found a place to hole up for the night, hiding from the remaining vamps, who'd stayed out until nearly sunrise looking for her. Once it was safe, she stumbled out, collapsing in the street, on the verge of death from the massive blood loss.

Luckily a car had come by not long afterwards, and the driver had stopped, picked her up, and rushed her to the hospital. They had treated her, healed her up, and then gotten rid of her as soon as they could legitimately get away with doing so – she had no money or insurance, a condition which didn't lend itself to great compassion from the medical community.

She'd spent the next few months finishing the healing process and getting herself into the best shape of her life. When she knew she was ready, she had gone back and finished off the remains of the nest.

"Of course," Dawn snapped. "I had to. Kait would've wanted me to. She would've done it for me."

"She was a slayer, D – you're not." Faith cringed almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

"So?" Dawn asked, anger rising in her voice. "I may not have the speed or strength you do, Faith, or that Kait did, but I can handle myself in a fight. See those guys over there?" She nodded toward a group of four well-built guys standing at the bar. "I could put all four of them in the hospital, and barely break a sweat doing it. Thanks to Kait. What she taught me – and the way she believed in me." The anger was gone now; in it's place was pain and loss. Faith could hear how brittle her voice was, and sense how close the tears were to breaking through the tough facade she had built for herself.

She knew that if the tears did come right now, Dawn would get up and bolt from the place, and she'd likely never see her again. Faith wanted that to happen about as much as she wanted to jam her thumb into her own eye.

She reached out and covered Dawn's hand with her own. Dawn flinched, but didn't pull it back. "Hey. I'm sorry I said that. 'Cause obviously, with the way you saved my ass back there tonight, you know what you're doing." She softened her voice and added, "And I'm sorry about Kait. She sounds like an amazing person."

"She was," Dawn agreed. Faith could see she was pulling herself back together, the impending tears disappearing back wherever they'd come from. "You two would've gotten along good, I think."

"I bet we would have," Faith smiled softly. She became aware of her hand covering the younger girl's, and pulled it back quickly. "So," she said, a little too loudly, "when'd you get to Boston?"

"'Bout a month ago. Heard a rumor a couple of nights back that the local vamps were planning on going looking for a slayer who'd shown up recently and started making their lives miserable. Figured I'd better go find her and save her sorry ass before they got there." She said this with a scowl, but Faith thought she could see the ghost of a smile lurking behind it.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Faith downed the last of her beer and signaled the waitress for another. She glanced over and noticed that Dawn had polished off nearly half the bottle of whiskey, but didn't seem the least bit drunk. As a slayer, thanks to her superhuman metabolism, Faith could drink all night and stay nearly stone sober. Dawn, however, didn't have that added advantage. Faith's respect for, and admiration of, the young woman went up another notch.

"So, I told you my story," Dawn spoke up finally, breaking the silence. "How about giving me yours?"

"Start at the beginning," Dawn told her. "No one ever heard from you again after that day five years ago, when you and Principal Wood left together after the end in Sunnydale."

"Yeah, well you know, bein' a hunted fugitive and all makes it kinda hard to stop and send postcards," she pointed out with a lopsided grin.

"How about Principal Wood?" she asked. "You two still together? Is he here in town with you?"

Faith felt her cheeks grow red, and her gaze dropped to the table in front of her. "Oh, uh... no. No, that didn't really work out, me and Robin."

"Yeah, well, ancient history and all that shit," Faith said briskly, trying to get off the subject. "Well, there's not really all that much to tell. I stay in one city for awhile, slaying vamps and demons and trying to get by, until the cops start to get close again. When they do, I move on. I think I must've been to nearly every big city – and a lot of the small ones – in America in the last five years."

A current of understanding flowed between the two women in the brief silence that followed. They looked at each other and recognized a kindred spirit in the person sitting across from them, someone who knew firsthand what it was like to live the lives they did, the hardship of a life lived constantly on the road, the harsh conditions made just that much worse by the loneliness that accompanied them.

As Faith finished off the beer in her hand and watched Dawn working on the last of the whiskey, she reached a decision. "You have a place to stay?"

"I told you I've been here awhile, didn't I? Of course I've got a place," she answered defensively.

Faith ignored the tone and pressed the issue. "A decent place? You know, with running water and a lock on the door?"

"Don't worry about me, Faith. I can take care of myself." She tossed back the liquor still remaining in the shot glass, then slammed it down on the table in front of her. A couple of heads turned in their direction, before going back to what they were doing.

"I know you can, and I won't be worrying about you, 'cause you're coming back to my place. I guess you're kinda like family, and I'm not gonna let you go spend the night sleeping under some highway overpass. I don't have much, but I'll find room for ya."

Dawn gave Faith a measuring look. Faith tried to figure out what was going through the other's mind, but drew a blank.

Yes, she desperately wanted to get in the other woman's pants; she could hardly deny that, especially to herself. But whatever else she was, she was also Buffy's sister, and Faith wasn't about to let her go spend the night with the rest of the city's indigent while she herself had a not-too-roach-infested motel room, complete with not-too-lumpy bed. She'd give Dawn the bed, and crash in a chair or on the floor tonight.

She stood up and fished out her wallet, dropping several bills onto the table. "That wasn't a request, by the way."

Dawn looked at her a moment longer, her face still unreadable. Finally she got to her feet, with not a sign of a sway from all the alcohol she'd just consumed. "Alright."

Faith unlocked the door and motioned for Dawn to go first, then reached in and flipped the light on. She stepped in behind her and watched the younger woman look around, taking in the room.

It was small and clean, because if there was one thing Faith demanded of her surroundings, it was that they be clean and orderly. A narrow bed stood against the wall to their left; on their right was a desk and chair, and a second, slightly more comfortable-looking chair sat nearby. The window across the room from them looked out onto a solid stone or concrete wall less than five feet away. Beyond the bed, also on the lefthand wall, was a door that led to the tiny bathroom.

"Not bad," Dawn allowed. She took her jacket off and tossed it on one of the chairs. "Nice view." She nodded toward the window.

"Yeah, well, you get what you pay for," Faith laughed slightly. She turned around for a moment, locking the door behind her. "You can take the bed tonight; I'll take the – "

When she looked back at Dawn, her voice cut off like it had been amputated with a scalpel. The other woman had already dropped her tank top to the floor, and as Faith watched, reached back and unhooked her bra, letting that fall, as well.

"Or we could do this, instead," Dawn told her. "Take off your clothes, Faith," she instructed. Her commanding tone caused Faith to open her eyes a little wider.

Dawn silenced her by stepping forward and placing her finger to Faith's lips. "Believe it or not, Faith, I'm not blind, naive, or stupid. I've known all night that you wanted to do this." She took the older girl's hand in hers and placed it on her breast.

Faith's resolve broke as she felt the nipple harden under her fingers, guided over it by Dawn's. She reluctantly took her hand away to shrug out of her own jacket, and a moment later her tank and bra had joined the others on the floor.

Dawn knelt and began to unlace Faith's heavy boots, pulling them off, followed by the socks. Her hands slowly trailed their way up Faith's legs, lingering longer than strictly necessary on the insides of her thighs. She unbuttoned Faith's jeans and slid them down, followed by the panties.

Recovering her wits long enough to realize what she had to do, Faith knelt and performed the same tasks on the younger woman. She rose, and they stood there at arm's length, just staring at each other.

Faith felt her breathing grow ragged as she took in the vision before her. She had expected Dawn to look like her sister, but that wasn't the case at all. She was taller than Buffy, more muscular, better endowed. Faith unconsciously licked her lips as her gaze traveled over the high, firm breasts, the flat stomach, the long legs...

The thing that was most spectacular, however, was the physique; the girl looked like one solid sheath of muscle. Whatever her percentage of body fat was, it must be ridiculously low; Faith wondered if it was lower even than her own. And unlike the pansy-ass muscles cultivated by body-builders in gyms the world over, which weren't good for much besides showing off, Dawn's gave evidence of the practicality behind them. This was a physique born out of an almost desperate need to survive; these were muscles designed to hurt and kill. Faith's arousal surged higher at this realization.

She gave a start as she realized something else – looking at Dawn was like looking at herself in the mirror. Or herself at twenty-one, at any rate. Same height, same build, same dark hair, same haunted look in her eyes...

Dawn reached her hand behind Faith's neck and pulled her into a passionate kiss. It seemed to Faith that their tongues were in each other's mouths before their lips had even touched. Back and forth they went in that darkness; circling, teasing, thrusting quickly, slowly, hard, soft. It was an endless struggle each fought with every fiber of her being to win, and it was a battle they both knew neither would. Knowing this didn't stop them from trying.

God, this felt so perfect! Faith thought. It had been too long since she'd been with a woman. She really didn't have a preference either way – both sexes brought their own positives to the table – but she did like to keep up the variety and experience both sides equally, something she hadn't been doing of late, somehow ending up with one guy after another. Strictly one-night (and not even the whole night) deals, because that's just the way she operated.

Usually, anyway. She knew already that she definitely wanted D to be there when she woke up in the morning. And the morning after that.

Dawn broke the kiss. "Pretty good, Faith," she confessed with a slight smirk. "But is that all you got, or was it just the pre-show?"

"D, that was nothin' compared to the things I'm going to do to you," Faith responded with a wicked grin.

"Well, then let's see what ya got," Dawn challenged, and pulled her toward the bed.

It was just before sunrise. Dawn had fallen into an exhausted, very satisfied sleep a short time ago. Faith had stayed awake, just lying there, watching the younger woman sleep, marveling at the events of the last few hours. Last night she'd left this room, alone, heading out to battle the forces of darkness yet again, with nothing good to look forward to in this shitty life she'd carved out for herself.

Now, here she lay the next morning with a beautiful woman sharing her bed – a woman, she already hoped, who would be occupying this same spot for the foreseeable future. If not this particular bed, then others, as the two of them made their way across the country together. They shared an identical lifestyle already; was it too much to hope that Dawn was as tired of living it on her own as Faith was?

Last night had been one of the most amazing of her life. She'd had her fair share of sex over the years, but she honestly couldn't remember a time when it had been better than last night.

No, that's not true; she could remember a time that had been better. Sunnydale. Nine years ago. Maybe not by much, but yeah, that had been better.

She looked down at the woman by her side and smiled, a little sadly. Why should she be so surprised that Dawn had come so close to measuring up to that memory from all those years ago? Why, given what her last name was?

Dawn stirred, and was suddenly looking at her, eyes open. Faith filed that away as just one more thing to be impressed by: one instant, sound asleep; the next, wide-awake. This was someone who'd obviously learned the hard lessons of survival.

"I gotta go to work," Faith admitted sadly, wishing more than anything that she could spend all afternoon right where she was. "I managed to get this temp construction gig. Pay's pretty decent, and it lets me afford this place." She gestured around to the room.

Dawn was silent for a moment. "If I ask you something, will you promise to give me an honest answer?" the younger woman asked, staring at her intently.

"I don't know; depends what the question is," she answered warily. "Ask, and I'll think about it."

"When you came to Sunnydale that first time, nine years ago, were you fucking Buffy?" Dawn's blue eyes bored into Faith's brown ones, already searching for an attempt at a lie.

For a moment, Faith was tempted to do just that. Or better yet, tell her it was none of her goddamn business. But when she thought it over, she decided that that probably wasn't a very good idea. She didn't know what she and Dawn had, or what she wanted it to become, but she did know that whatever it was, she didn't want to start it out by lying to her.

"No," she answered honestly. She saw Dawn start to protest, and cut her off. "I wasn't fucking Buffy; she was fucking me." She let that hang in the air for a moment, wondering if Dawn would ask her what the hell the difference was. She didn't. She seemed to sense that Faith needed to tell it herself.

"I was in – I mean, yeah, we had a physical thing back then, but it turned out that what Buffy wanted from it wasn't the same thing that I wanted from it." She felt herself blushing, and looked away.

"Yes," Dawn replied. "You were in love with her, weren't you? You were in love with her, and she just used you as a convenient back-scratcher. 'I'll go over to Angel's for awhile, drool all over his shoes and get myself incredibly turned-on, and since he can't do anything to help me with that, I'll just run over to Faithy's afterwards and let her get me off for a couple of hours.' That about it?"

Faith couldn't meet her eyes; she simply nodded shakily, her face growing even redder. Dawn had just summed it up exactly the way Faith herself had worked it out. Truth be told, she'd worked it out even back while it was still happening, but let Buffy keep coming back and using her, hoping that eventually she'd see how much Faith really loved her. Maybe she'd notice the tender and sweet way Faith tried to make love to her, as opposed to the fast, rough fucking Buffy always gave her in return. But Faith had never had anything tender and sweet in her life, and knew she was making of mess of her own attempts. So really, how could she be surprised that Buffy hadn't noticed?

"Figures. God, she's such a bitch," Dawn murmured. Then, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, she burst into tears.

"Dawnie – Uh, I mean, D – what's wrong?" Faith reached her arm under Dawn, pulling her tightly to her. Immediately she felt warm tears landing on her bare shoulder. "Shh... D... what is it?"

"It's all my fault," Dawn sobbed. "It's me – I got her killed. I KILLED HER! I – " Further explanation was cut off by a fresh burst of sobs.

Faith just held her close, whispering 'shh' along with other comforting – she hoped – sounds. Eventually, the other girl's tears tapered off a bit.

"Don't be sorry. Never. But please, talk to me. What's wrong? Who do you think you got killed? B? Is B dead?"

"No, not her – Kait. Kait's dead, and it's all my fault." She sniffled, still wiping at her red, raw eyes. "God, Faith, when we were in Australia with Buffy, she was so happy. She admired Buffy and Willow so much, and loved training with them and the other slayers we were with.

"But then Buffy and I had that fight... And afterwards I told Kait that I was leaving, and even though she didn't want to, she came with me. Because she loved me; because we loved each other. I knew she was better off with Buffy, that she should keep up her training, but I was so selfish. I loved her, and since I couldn't stay there anymore, I asked her to come with me, even though I knew she really shouldn't. God, I'm such a selfish bitch." Fresh tears began to stream from her eyes, once more landing on Faith's shoulder.

"If she'd stayed with Buffy, she'd still be alive today. She never would've died back in Miami," Dawn finished, and a choked cry escaped her throat.

"There's no way to know if that's true, D," Faith told her forcefully. "None. She might've stayed with B and finished her training, then run into some badass vamp on her first night on the job and gotten killed two years before she did. It sounds to me like no matter how things ended up, you two had a great life together. Try to focus on that, instead of the way it ended," Faith suggested, stroking the girl's cheek, wiping her tears away. Christ, she sucked at this comforting thing!

"I didn't tell you everything, Faith," Dawn said so quietly that Faith barely heard her, looking up at her through tear-filled eyes.

"About Miami. When I went back and cleaned out the rest of that nest, I didn't kill five vamps. I killed six."

"They didn't just kill Kait. They turned her. I had to kill her, too. I had to stake my lover to dust," she said softly, as if just comprehending this fact, then buried her face in Faith's shoulder, great wracking sobs causing her whole body to shudder uncontrollably. Faith realized this was the first time she had let all this emotion out since it had happened.

"Oh God, Dawn. Oh God, I'm so sorry," she whispered, stroking her hair, holding her tightly to her. "I can't imagine how hard that must've been." She wanted to use an endearment, like 'baby' or 'honey' or 'sweetie,' the kind of thing she knew Buffy would say. But she'd lived her whole life without anyone saying things like that to her, or saying them to others, and she felt awkward about doing so now. She cursed herself for her inability to say them, for not being able to help ease Dawn's pain a little more with the comfort one of those words could provide. She was just a lousy fucking coward.

"And that's not even all of it," she confessed when she could finally talk again. "When Kait and I left Buffy, Becky found out we were planning to come back home, and insisted on coming with us. She'd dreamed her whole life of coming to the States, and decided we were her best chance to get here. Kait and I wanted to be alone, and Becky was completely clueless about our relationship, but we liked her, and agreed she could come too.

"I think she figured out about the two of us before long, and didn't want to feel like a third wheel. We woke up one morning and she was gone. Disappeared. We tried to find her, but we never did.

"How do I know she isn't dead too, Faith?" Dawn asked, looking up at her. "This isn't her country; maybe she wound up in a ditch a week after she left us, slayer or no slayer. Did I get her killed, too?"

"No!" Faith exclaimed, staring deep into her eyes. "I'm not going to let you blame yourself for Kait's death, and I'm sure as shit not gonna let you blame yourself for someone's death who's still out there alive somewhere."

"You don't know she's dead," Faith pointed out reasonably. "And since she's a slayer, I gotta say I like her chances. I'll bet you a million fuckin' bucks she's out there right now, in Boulder, Colorado, or Portland, Maine, or Atlanta, making life miserable for some asshole vamps."

"You don't have a million bucks," Dawn argued, and smiled weakly. It wasn't much, but it was a huge improvement over the tears, and it made Faith's heart melt a little more.

"No, that's true," she agreed, grinning ear-to-ear. "But I'll bet you a kiss, instead. And since I already know that I'm right, pay up." She closed her eyes and puckered up comically. Dawn laughed and leaned up, pecking Faith on the lips. Almost instantly, it grew into a deep, heated battle of tongues.

Faith's hands wandered up over Dawn's hips, along her sides, over her stomach, over her breasts. Dimly, it registered that Dawn was doing likewise to her.

"I've got a few minutes before I have to get ready for work," she panted after prying herself away from Dawn's lips.

"Mmm, not much time," the younger woman pouted. "But I think we can put it to good use." She grinned and rolled over on top of the older brunette.

Faith and Dawn stepped out of the room's shower twenty minutes later. It had been pretty cramped with the two of them in there, but they had managed it.

Faith was combing her hair, while Dawn took advantage of the chance to use toothpaste again, obviously relishing the feeling of clean teeth and a clean mouth. Somehow she managed not to get a single cavity and to keep her teeth sparkling white despite only semi-regular access to actual toothpaste.

"Five o'clock," Faith answered. She hesitated, figured 'what the hell?,' and took the plunge. "Umm, D, can I ask you something?" She felt her cheeks glowing again. Damn, how long had it been since she'd blushed this much? Nine years, she thought.

"Would you, uh... Would you maybe stay here? You know... with me?" Her feet suddenly seemed like the most interesting thing in the room, and she stared at them intently, like she maybe expected them to jump off her legs and run away all on their own.

She was still looking straight down when she saw Dawn's legs enter her field of vision, stepping close to her. A hand gently clasped her chin and pulled her face up, bringing her eyes into contact with those just a few inches away.

Faith let out the breath she hadn't known she was holding, grinned broadly, and pulled Dawn into a tight hug.

"We'd better get dressed, though," Dawn added, pulling away and looking down at their still-naked bodies. "Otherwise, I think you're gonna be late for work," she observed with a smirk.

The next two weeks passed quickly. Dawn got a job for below-minimum wage waiting tables in a sleazy diner. She'd taken it because she wanted to help chip in for things, and because it was the only thing she could find during the day that coincided with the hours Faith worked. Something that kept her at work during the night and away from Faith was out of the question, she had explained. Plus, the two of them had other work to do once the sun set.

Although that might not be the case for much longer. In the brief time since they had partnered up, they'd wiped out nearly all of Boston's vampire and demon populations (which hadn't been that large to begin with). Privately, Faith marveled at what a great team they made, and how D seemed to bring out more in her than she had even been aware she had.

With the added income from Dawn's job, they were able to upgrade to a new, slightly-less seedy motel, complete with a queen size bed, which made for more comfortable sleeping at night, and more room for their very frequent extracurricular activities. Faith didn't tell Dawn that the money from her waitress job wasn't quite enough to cover their new digs, and that she'd had to dip into some of the savings her construction job had helped her pile up. But she loved the look of happiness that always lit up Dawn's face every time they came through the door, knowing she had helped them get this place, and wouldn't have spoiled that feeling for the world. She had enough coin to pay for it for awhile longer, and suspected they would be chased out of town by the authorities long before she had to break that bad news to her new honey.

Speaking of which, it was getting to be time to start thinking seriously about that eventuality. Where should she go next? Portland, Maine was a candidate, but she'd been heading steadily northeast for awhile now, so she should probably switch up that pattern and head back west, or maybe south again. Denver, Dallas, New Orleans... It had been awhile since she'd been to any of those three, so it was likely that they would be safe for a time again.

All D's talk of her world travels even made Faith consider heading for another country, at least for awhile. Europe or South America, maybe. Or Japan. She'd always wanted to see Japan. Unfortunately, she knew she didn't have the money it would take to get to any of those places.

A bigger problem was what to do about D. Should she ask her to come with her? That first morning, two weeks ago, it had seemed like the natural thing to do. But if she agreed, wouldn't that make her a criminal for consorting with a known murderer and wanted fugitive? As much as she cared for Dawn and couldn't bear the thought of moving on without her, the idea of D being thrown in jail just because of her association with Faith horrified her. Was it worth risking that happening to D just because she'd miss her otherwise?

What was her alternative? Well, she could always pull the ol' 'Faith Bail & Fade.' After all, it was a classic, and she had it down by now. Which naturally led her to thoughts of New Orleans...

God, how stupid was she to even consider going back there? What was it even doing on her list? Okay, Denver or Dallas then, and fuck New Orleans.

"Sorry to interrupt; looked like you were really concentrating there. I just wanted to ask if you felt like going out tonight?" Dawn looked at her hopefully. "It's just been so long since I've done anything like that. You know, go to a movie or a club or something."

"Oh, uh, sure," Faith agreed, standing up. She tried to bury her thoughts and worries about the future. "Let's, um, hit a club. A few hours of drinking and dancing sounds like exactly what I need right now."

"What were you doing?" Dawn asked, nodding toward the desk where she'd been sitting, engrossed in thought, when the younger woman came in.

"What? Oh! Uh, nothing important. Just, you know, thinkin' about new ways to kick some vamp ass." She smiled nervously.

"Uh-huh," Dawn said, a hint of skepticism in her voice. Faith prayed she wouldn't push it.

She didn't. "Alright, just let me get changed." Dawn turned and walked over to the closet.

The bouncer had waved them through without even asking to see their IDs. They laughed about it once they got inside, commenting that the excessive amount of skin each was sporting, and particularly the impressive amount of cleavage, probably had something to do with their easy admittance.

The place was packed, and their senses were immediately assaulted by the crush of bodies pressing together, the smell of sweat, and the pounding of a bassline.

"Dance!" Dawn yelled back, grabbing her hand and pulling her out onto the floor.

Two hours later they'd worked up a pleasant sweat on the dance floor, and succeeded in getting just about every other woman in the club completely pissed off at them. By the time they had been there for a half-hour, nearly every guy in the place was spending all their time looking at the two of them, causing the rest of the females to begin to feel very neglected.

It was understandable, however; Faith and Dawn were very possibly the most striking couple to come into this particular establishment in months. Long dark hair; incredibly fit, lean, muscular bodies; short, tight skirts; similarly tight halters with plunging necklines that cut off just below their breasts, revealing their flat, toned stomachs; that faint scar on the younger one that somehow added an air of danger, making her just that much sexier... And the way they danced... They moved with such grace, coupled with such passion at the same time. Their bodies seemed locked together for long periods, sliding along and rubbing up against one another, hands roaming freely, not seeming to care who was watching.

The dance floor began to empty out before long, as more and more of the guys watching them decided it might be a good idea to sit down at a table and enjoy a few drinks. It seemed many of them had developed an embarrassing problem in their pants.

So similar did they look, with their long dark hair and nearly-identical builds, that whispers began circulating among the crowd that they were actually sisters. This rumor caused the dance floor to empty even further, as more of the males began noticing the bulges developing below their waists.

Eventually, it was almost midnight, and only four other couples were left on the floor besides Faith and Dawn, and one of these was another pair of women, who's gazes hadn't left the dark-haired beauties for over an hour. Luckily for them, they didn't have to worry about the situation that had caused many of the men to run for the nearby tables.

Even though they remained outwardly oblivious, the two young women were fully aware of the stir they had created, and were loving it. It just pushed them even further. Whenever they looked in the other's eyes, they saw the laughter bubbling up inside, and had to struggle to contain their own hysterics, which would've ruined the atmosphere and broken the spell they had so obviously cast on the place.

"This has been more fun than I've had in forever," Dawn said into Faith's ear, just loudly enough for her to hear. "But I don't have your stamina, and I'm getting kinda worn out. Plus, we should probably do a patrol before we turn in," she pointed out.

Faith sighed, knowing D was right. "Okay, as soon as this song's over, we'll split. Good enough?"

"Hello, ladies," a new voice said. They turned and saw three guys, probably mid-to-late twenties, approaching. The one in front was about six-two, dark blonde hair, well-built. Pretty good-looking, actually, but the smirk on his face instantly put both women on guard, and their dancing slowed almost to a stop. "So can we cut in on this action or what?"

"Sorry," Faith told him with an insincere smile. The two of them stopped dancing completely, and both suppressed a laugh as they heard the loud groan go up from most of the men still in attendance. "Me and my friend were just about to leave," she explained.

"Aww, come on, babies, just once dance," the second one said. He was less good-looking; shorter, dark hair, with a trace of what had probably once been a truly terrible case of teenage acne.

"She just said that we're leaving," Dawn repeated, a stony expression on her face as she crossed her arms over her chest. Faith mirrored this pose.

"Whassamatter? Fuckin' dykes too good to dance with some real men?" Asshole #2 asked. Assholes #1 and 3 laughed.

Then Asshole #2 did it. A little thing, really, but even so it was enough to start the chain-reaction that led to – among other things – an almost-cross-country train ride, a burglary, an attempted rape, and a mixture of both state and federal arrest warrants being issued for Dawn Summers on over a half-dozen felony charges.

Asshole #2 reached out and grabbed Dawn, pulling her toward him and grabbing her breast roughly. "Ooh, nice!" he told her, leering. "See how good us guys can be at this?"

An instant later his head rocked back, blood flying, glittering in the glaring lights before splattering to the ground, forming interesting patterns on the dance floor. Faith followed up the blow that had broken his nose with a kick to the balls. She put every ounce of her slayer strength behind it, and would've been extremely gratified to know that they would be swollen up to the size of oranges for nearly a month afterwards.

"I think she'll stick with the girls, asshole. Thanks anyway." He lay kneeling on the ground, bent over, hands held to his crotch. Unable to resist, Faith threw another kick – she pulled this one a bit, not landing it all-out – that connected with his mouth, knocking out seven teeth.

His two friends just stood there in shock for a minute, unable to believe the ease and viciousness with which Faith had dealt with #2. After her kick to his face, however, they snapped into action. #1 threw a punch at Faith's head that she ducked easily, and Dawn got in before he could deliver another, hitting him with a shot in the stomach that knocked the wind out of him, following it with one to the jaw that produced an audible 'thunk' sound. His eyes rolled up to show all whites, and he collapsed like a sack of wheat.

Dawn turned instantly to check on Faith, and saw she was doing just fine. She'd somehow gotten #3's right arm twisted up behind his back, and if she took it much further, she was going to pull it right out of the socket.

Instead, Faith reached out with her right foot, hooking one of #3's feet out from under him and knocking him off-balance. He fell forward with Faith behind him, riding him down, holding both of his arms and not allowing him to reach out and break his fall. He struck the ground ribs-first, and there was a loud cracking sound. A split-second later his jaw connected with the hard floor, breaking it in three places and knocking him out cold.

"What the fuck is going on in here?" the bouncer demanded, pushing through the onlookers from his place at the door. He was about six-five, looked to push three hundred pounds, and his large earring and shaved head both reflected the flashing lights.

"Those two chicks!" someone yelled from the middle of the crowd. "They just took those three assholes apart! Funniest damn thing I ever saw in my life, dude!" Laughs and murmurs.

"Look," Faith told the bouncer calmly, holding her hands out in a placating gesture. "Those guys hassled us, and we defended ourselves. We were planning on leaving anyway, so if you'll just let us by, we'll be gone, and you'll never have to see us again. Swear to God."

"Sorry, ladies, but I think you'll have to wait for the cops to sort this out," he replied, taking another step towards them.

That was the last thing they could let happen, Faith knew. She'd be headed back to prison before she could even blink, and D would probably be in deep shit too, since honestly, they had used a hell of a lot more violence on those three than they'd really needed to.

"We can't do that," she explained reasonably. "We've got someplace we really need to be. Just let us by and you'll never have any trouble from us again."

"Sorry," he repeated simply, growing more businesslike. "Why don't you two go have a seat at the bar and we'll all just wait for the police, okay?"

"We don't want to hurt you," she told him in a low, threatening voice. He looked at the size of them compared to himself and started to chuckle. A quick look over their shoulders at the three wrecks still lying on the dance floor, however, caused the chuckle to cut off, mid-chuck.

"I know," Faith sympathized. Simultaneously – almost as if they had communicated telepathically – the two girls broke and ran at him. He made a grab for them, and before he even knew how it had happened, found himself flying through the air, then crashing down into the mountain of glass stacked behind the bar. Police would later put it down to unreliable testimony due to the effects of alcohol when several eyewitness claimed the pair of hundred-and-fifteen-pound girls had thrown the three-hundred-and-ten pound bouncer twenty-five feet through the air.

Faith's instincts had been well-honed over the past five years, and as she suspected, the net had been tightening on her again. The Boston police were in fact already actively looking for her.

So naturally, when the report of a disturbance at a nightclub had come in, with one of the suspects matching her description, they had descended en masse, complete with photos of her. And of course, nearly everyone in the place was able to positively identify her as one of those involved. She and Dawn had made quite the impression on the night's crowd.

Patrols fanned out, combing the streets in the surrounding area. Officers began visiting nearby motels and boarding houses. The clerk at the one where the two women were currently staying told them that yes, she and the other broad were renting #19. He collected the spare key and led them off in that direction.

Dozens of fingerprints were lifted from the room's belongings. One set was immediately confirmed as belonging to Faith. It took several hours for an ID to come back on the second set, but when it did, they had a name for suspect number two: Dawn Summers.

It didn't take Faith long to figure it out: the Boston cops had ID'ed her, and they were going to tear this neighborhood apart looking for them, then work outward as necessary.

They had tried in vain several times to get back to their place, collect their things, and change into something a little less conspicuous and better designed for desperately fleeing from government authorities. It was no good. Every time they got near, a squad car would come by, forcing them onto another street and away from their destination.

"That's it; we can't keep this up anymore. There's just more and more of 'em showing up. They're going to pinch us for sure if we don't get off the streets," Faith sighed. She spotted a nearby manhole and pulled off the cover, motioning for Dawn to climb down ahead of her.

"D, our stuff is gone. There's no way we're gettin' back there. And chances are pretty good they've found our place by now. Our stuff's probably already on the way to the state crime lab."

"D, you hardly have any stuff," Faith reminded her. "You've got a backpack full of clothes, and some personal crap that fits into a small purse with plenty of room left over." Christ, what was wrong with her? They were both about five seconds away from being picked up by the cops, and D was standing here whining about losing her hairbrush and a couple of pairs of jeans!

"My jacket is back there, Faith!" Dawn cried loudly. To Faith's eyes, she looked on the verge of tears.

"I'm not leaving without that jacket!" Dawn told her, and this time tears did begin to leak out of the corners of her eyes.

"Kait bought me that jacket!" The tears were flowing freely now. "She knew I'd always wanted one like that, and she couldn't get one for me because we were broke. But she started saving part of her pay any time we got work, even when we were still in Oz. It took her two... fucking... years... but she saved up and found this beautiful one for me in this little used-clothing store. It's the only thing I have left to remember her by, Faith. I don't even have a picture of her; just that jacket!"

"D," Faith stood up, walked over, and put her hands on the younger woman's shoulders, "I'm sorry. I really am. If there was any way in the entire world I could get it back for you, please believe I would. I hate seeing you cry more than just about anything." She reached up with one hand and wiped the tears from first one cheek, then the other. "But we can't go back there. We'd be arrested a hundred yards from the door.

"Now, we need to get out of sight for a few hours, because honestly, we look wicked conspicuous like this." She gestured at their revealing outfits. "I promise you, we'll get out of this city, and wherever we end up, I'll buy you the best damn leather jacket in the whole fuckin' state. How 'bout it?" She smiled at her hopefully.

"I'll get a job as a stripper." She grinned broadly. "Now come on, let's get underground."

"Okay," Dawn agreed. Her tears had slowed to a trickle, and she had pretty much gotten herself back under control. "I'm sorry, Faith, I'm not usually like this. I mean, not anymore. Not since – "

"It's okay, D," Faith said, gently interrupting her. She leaned forward and gave her a tender kiss on the lips. "Never apologize to me for being you."

Dawn smiled, then started descending the ladder into the sewer. When just her head remained visible, she looked up at Faith and asked, "You wouldn't really get a job as a stripper, would you?"

"Hey, if that's what I had to do to keep a promise to you, I'd do it." She smiled and winked down at her, privately laughing at the shocked expression on her face at Faith's answer.

They had been wandering around the city's sewer system for over twenty-four hours. At one point, they'd found a dry, flat, reasonably clean spot, and had taken turns getting a couple of hours of sleep while the other kept watch.

It was now past three in the morning, and they were going to do something about their current wardrobes, in preparation for getting out of the city. They clothes they'd had on the previous night that had opened so many mouths and hardened so many dicks were dirty, torn, and generally a complete mess. And even if they had still been perfect, they were hardly the types of things you'd wear to blend in and disappear in a crowd. They needed to be a lot more inconspicuous.

"How much money you got?" Faith had asked that afternoon, after a quick peek into her wallet.

"Well, you've got me beat; I've only got four," Faith said glumly. She sighed. All her savings – a couple hundred bucks – were back at the motel. "Guess it's back to the good ol' days," she mumbled.

"You'll find out tonight," Faith answered, and refused to say any more. She didn't look happy about it.

Now, Dawn stood at the bottom of a ladder, while Faith popped the manhole cover up an inch or two and looked around. "Looks clear," she called down softly. She raised the cover higher, still looking around. "Okay, it's safe. Let's go, move your ass," she whispered.

Dawn hustled up the ladder, appearing out of it barely an instant after Faith. The slayer slid the cover back into place, and they dashed for the shadows provided by a nearby darkened building. "You know where we're going?" Dawn whispered.

"Yeah, I had a few places in mind. We're going to the one that's closest. Don't worry, this is my old neighborhood; I know where everything is." She turned her head for a moment and offered the younger woman a brief smile.

A minute later, they were there. 'Jerry's Used Threads' the sign over the darkened door read. Faith noticed it and barked a short laugh. "This place used to be 'Tom's Secondhand Clothes,'" she told Dawn. "Either someone's got a wicked retarded sense of humor, or..." She trailed off, letting this sentence go unfinished. When she turned and began walking down the alley on the right side of the building, Dawn followed.

Faith examined the lock on the shop's side entrance for a moment. "I don't know if this place has an alarm or not, so better safe than sorry: get in, grab the first few things you can find, and get out." Dawn's eyes were wide at this prospect – the worst she'd ever done was petty larceny, back when she was fifteen – but she nodded her understanding. "This is the way we used to do it back in the good ol' days, D: want, take, have." Faith sighed and leveled a kick at the door's center, sending it slamming back in it's frame. Sure enough, an alarm began blaring.

They ran inside, grabbed several pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts, sweatshirts, a couple of backpacks, and an assortment of sneakers and boots, shoving everything into a couple of the large cloth bags they found just after entering. The entire thing took less than two minutes.

When the first patrol car finally showed up over five minutes later – this wasn't a high-priority neighborhood – the two intruders were long gone.

One of the improvements Jerry had made after purchasing the shop from Tom had been to have a cheap but effective surveillance camera installed. Before the sun had come up, Dawn Summers was now wanted for burglary in addition to assault.

They went back underground to get clear of the area, then came back up two or three miles away, when they felt they had moved out of the "hot zone."

Luckily, most of the clothes they had nabbed fit, more or less. When they emerged above ground, they were each attired in boots, jeans, t-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts, despite the warm late-September night; Faith's was navy, Dawn's gray. One thing they hadn't been able to get at the store was underwear, which they would have to correct soon. Somehow.

They found an all-nite minimart, and Dawn went in, bought some gum, and exchanged half of their ten bucks in bills for quarters. Faith waited outside, just in case word had gotten out that the cops were looking for two girls matching their description. Hopefully, if they tried to avoid being seen together, people wouldn't even notice them, since they'd likely be looking for a pair.

Dawn came back out, handed Faith half the change, and they headed for the nearest bus stop, walking with almost a full block separating them.

Thankfully, the bus stop wasn't empty, even at nearly four-thirty in the morning. Three young black guys, along with two girls – one black, one white – stood talking loudly with one another, occasionally laughing or giving a playful shove. Faith moved over to the far side of the group and waited, and a minute later, Dawn arrived, staying on the near side. Both kept to the shadows.

When the bus arrived, Faith dashed on board before anyone else, dropping her quarters into the slot. The five young people followed her, and appearing out of the darkness and climbing on just as the driver was about to slide the door shut, was Dawn. They sat as far apart from one another as they could.

The two fugitives tried not to be too conspicuous as they both got off at the same stop. Faith exited from the front doors, and Dawn used the ones near the back. Neither sensed anyone paying any particular attention to them, which was good.

They had reached the nearby city of Framingham, and now found themselves on a business street that was slowly coming to life, the traffic picking up as the sky began to lighten.

What they were about to try was risky, and they had to hope that the two of them hadn't become front-page, headline news yet, or they could be in deep shit. But every day they stayed here increased the danger that much more; Faith told Dawn that they couldn't risk waiting another day. They would still have to do something like this, and the risks tomorrow would be greater than the ones today.

Dawn found a narrow gap between two stores that couldn't even properly be called an alley, and wedged herself into it as best she could. Faith stood by the sidewalk, watching cars pass and looking for a likely candidate. After about three or four minutes, she found one she liked.

"Excuse me!" she called, waving furiously to the driver. He slowed, and then pulled over to the curb, a puzzled expression on his face.

"Help you?" he asked, rolling the window down halfway. He was a young black guy, maybe thirty, well-dressed and driving a Toyota that was several years old, but looked well-maintained.

"Hi," Faith said, putting on her biggest, sweetest smile. "I'd like to ask you a huge favor. You see," she explained, her expression now turning sad, and a little desperate, "my friend and I were supposed to meet my two brothers, who are driving in from Iowa, and they were going to follow us home in our car. Neither one of 'em is all that great at following directions," she confided with a smile. The driver smiled back, and she noticed how his eyes dropped to her chest for a second, even concealed as it was under the hooded sweatshirt. She knew she had him.

"But the thing is, our car broke down a couple of miles back," she continued, growing sad again and looking back in the direction this guy's car had come from. "We can have it towed later today, no problem, but we still have to get to where we're supposed to meet my brothers, or they're not gonna know what to do, where to go, or even what happened to us." Her voice cracked at the end and her lip trembled, as she struggled to hold back tears.

"Where are you supposed to meet?" he asked, his face full of sympathy and understanding.

"The McDonalds at the rest stop just past Wessonville, out on the Pike," she told him. "It's like ten miles from here, right?"

"'Bout that," he agreed. He pressed a button on his armrest, unlocking the two doors on the right side. Faith grabbed the front one and pulled it open, sporting a huge smile of gratitude.

"Thanks so much!" she gushed. She turned and motioned to Dawn, gesturing her to come over. "He'll help us," she said in a tone of obvious relief. "We'll get there; we won't miss 'em after all."

She stifled a laugh as she saw D had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

"Don't mention it," Shawn told them. "Pleasure to help two such pretty ladies. Good luck, and I hope you get your car fixed soon." With a smile and a wave, he drove off.

When he'd disappeared from sight, the two women began scouring the parking lot for their next ride.

"There," Faith pointed to a tall, scrawny bald guy with a nose slightly too large for his face who'd just exited the restaurant. "Excuse me, sir!" she called, walking towards him.

"Are you heading south? My friend and I are kinda looking for a ride," she explained.

"Sure am," he replied, giving them a wide grin, which was somehow unpleasant in a way neither could precisely put her finger on. "Going to New York on business, after a quick stop in Hartford. Come on, then." He nodded toward his car, resuming his walk toward it. "My name's Carl, by the way."

"I'm Cordy and this is Anya," Faith told him. She caught the look D shot her, and made sure Carl's back was turned before giving her a grin and a wink.

"Well, it'll be nice to have company for the long drive." He put his food on the roof, unlocked the door, then reached over and unlocked the doors on the righthand side. "You wanna ride the whole way, or get off somewhere in between."

"Maybe somewhere about halfway," Faith decided. I just ran out of New York less than a month ago, so probably not a great idea to go back there just yet, even for a day or two. She opened the back door and motioned for Dawn to climb in, then followed after her.

"What, neither one of you wants to ride up front with me?" Carl asked, sounding hurt, and giving them that unpleasant grin once again.

"Sorry, we'd rather sit together," Dawn said simply, making her first contribution to the conversation.

Before they had even been on the road for ten minutes, Dawn had scooted over next to Faith, laid her head on the other's shoulder, and fallen asleep, her left hand resting gently on Faith's thigh.

Faith, on the other hand, stayed wide awake and kept her eyes on Carl. She didn't think he was dangerous – at least, not to them – but he wasn't someone she would turn her back on, either.

They had been driving for about an hour, and had just crossed the state line into Connecticut, when Carl yawned, stretched his arms out in front of him, and pulled into the deserted rest stop that came up on their right. "Man, I need a little break from all that driving," he confessed. Faith thought that an hour was awfully fast to get so tired out.

The slowing of the car, and the gentle bearing to the right, would've been almost imperceptible to most any other human, even ones who were wide-awake. The two women in the backseat weren't most other humans, however, even if only one of the two had special powers. Faith was aware the instant that D's eyes opened, scanning the scene to determine what the change in their surroundings was that she had just sensed.

That's my girl, Faith thought without thinking, then repeated the words in her head with something like wonder. "That's my girl?" Oh yeah, I've got it bad. I'm way far gone. Strangely, this was no longer such a scary idea.

"Looks like we're taking a break," Faith answered tightly, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on Carl.

"Jeez, how long we been driving?" Dawn complained, looking at the position of the sun in the sky and making an estimate. "What, an hour?"

They rolled to a stop at the far end of the otherwise empty rest area; the car sat about a hundred yards from the highway, making it very hard for those passing by to see any details of it's interior, even in the scattered sunshine of the partly cloudy day.

Carl opened his door, got out, and closed it behind him. He stretched his arms theatrically, then walked around a bit, making a great show of stretching his legs.

"Looks like it. I think Carl wants a little recreation to help get him through the long drive," Faith responded.

Sure enough, he returned to the car, and instead of opening the driver's door, opened the one for the lefthand backseat, sliding in beside Dawn.

"You girls feel like having some fun before we get moving again?" he asked, grinning lecherously and placing a hand on Dawn's leg.

Faith woke up to the voice of Axl Rose screaming at her from the car radio, and the feeling of someone poking her in the ribs.

"Christ, you turn this shit on – " she motioned to the radio " – crank it up to full, then fall asleep on me. Anyway, we're almost there, so I need you to tell me where we're going."

Faith looked up and read the green reflectorized sign passing overhead: 'Exit 48, Hartford, 2 miles.'

"You coulda let me sleep for another two miles," she grumbled. "And don't call this shit; this is good music."

"You say so," Dawn said dubiously, turning the volume back down to a reasonable level.

As she watched her slow the car slightly and maneuver onto the exit ramp, Faith smiled as she remembered D's reaction when Faith told her she was going to have to drive.

"I can, I just... It's not my best thing, okay?" She was proud of herself for getting this out without a trace of a blush.

"You and my sister," Dawn had laughed. "What, is this a slayer thing, or is it just something about the two of you?"

"Just drive the damn car," Faith had growled, but then added a grin and a playful shove.

"Okay, take a right at this intersection," the slayer directed once they'd cleared the offramp and reached the city of Hartford, Connecticut. She continued to give directions, eventually bringing them to a large mall. "Don't park too close to any of the other cars, but not way the hell away from everything, either," she instructed.

"Sure thing," Dawn agreed, bringing them to a stop in a fairly empty section of the parking lot, with at least ten spaces between them and the nearest car. Wordlessly, they stepped out and walked around to the trunk.

Dawn unlocked it and swung it upward, and they were greeted by Carl's muffled cries and the sour reek of urine. The man had his feet bound with one shoelace, while the other had been used to tie his hands behind his back. His navy blue tie with diagonal red stripes was lodged firmly in his mouth, then tied around the back of his head.

"That's great. I'd hate to think you'd been uncomfortable all this time. I mean, it's not like we're sadistic or something.

"Alright, well, I'll take that gag off and give you a sip of this nice... cool... refreshing... Coke – " Faith withheld her grin at D's idea of 'non-sadism' only with great effort, " – as long as you promise not to yell or scream for help. 'Cause guess what? I don't see another person anywhere in sight." She made a great show of looking all around; Carl, still in the trunk, had no way of knowing that there were several shoppers getting into and out of their cars just over a hundred yards away.

"And if you do scream, well... I'd have to get angry again. You don't want to see me angry again, do you?" His eyes got very big, and he shook his head vigorously side-to-side. "So do you promise?" He nodded just as vigorously. "Okay. But I'm warning you: behave," she told him, and pulled the makeshift gag down.

Faith reached down and pulled him up a little so that he could drink some of the soda from the can. Once he'd wet his throat a bit, he managed to ask, "What are you going to do with me?"

"Nothing!" D said, sounding offended. "What, you think we're gonna kill you or something?" He gulped, and remained silent. "We're going to leave you right here, and eventually someone will come along and find you and let you out."

She leaned forward, and storm clouds began to gather in her eyes. "But when they do find you, let me give you a good piece of advice: the person who did this to you was a really big guy; you don't really remember what he looked like, because you were so scared." She leaned even further down toward Carl's face, and the menace in her voice reminded Faith once again how far this woman was from the girl she'd known back in Sunnydale. "Now, that's the way it happened, right?"

"You bet," Carl agreed immediately. "A great big guy; never really saw his face. No ma'am, not me."

"That's good, then," D praised, and pulled the gag back into place. "Just relax, and someone will find you soon, I'm sure." She slammed the trunk closed again, and the women walked off toward the road, heading for their next destination.

Carl was found late that night, after the mall had closed for the evening. The manager of the Wal-Mart was the last one to leave, and wondered about the car in the lot with the Massachusetts license plate, and why it was still here so late after closing. She wandered over, heard the muffled cries coming from the trunk, and had her cell phone out in a flash. Police and paramedics arrived a short time later.

Carl was mildly dehydrated, very hungry, and incredibly stiff from having spent over fifteen hours tied up in his trunk. But when the police asked him who had done this to him, he was able to give a very accurate description of the two girls.

When he woke up in the hospital the next morning, two detectives were waiting to show him a couple of pictures. He confirmed that yes, these were the women who'd assaulted him outside a Boston McDonalds, tied him up, and dumped him in his trunk.

Kidnapping, carjacking, and transporting a kidnap victim across state lines were added to the growing list of charges against one Dawn Summers, age twenty-one.

It had been a short walk from the mall to the local freight yards. Faith and Dawn sat in a rusted out, abandoned boxcar on one of the distant sidings, waiting for night to fall.

"You've been here before," Dawn said. It came out as half-statement, half-question.

"Yeah," Faith confirmed. "This was one of my stops on my way to Sunnydale that first time. I hitched my way from Boston to Hartford, hopped a train here that took me to St. Louis, hitched across Missouri and Kansas and into Colorado, then caught another freight in Denver that took me all the way to LA. From there, it was just another short hitch to good ol' Sunnyhell."

They were sitting far back in the car, trying to stay out of sight from anyone who might wander by outside and possibly see them through the permanently-rusted-open doors. It was doubtful anyone came out to this section of the yard very often, but they couldn't afford to take chances now.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, backs up against one of the interior walls. Every now and then, D would lean her head on Faith's shoulder, and each time, Faith felt her heart skip a beat.

Fuck, how mushy and sappy am I? she mocked herself. Getting all gooey just because a girl puts her head on my shoulder! I've had people fuck me 'til I couldn't even stand up for hours afterwards, and I never got this feeling then. So why the hell is it happening now? Why is –

"Yeah," Faith agreed, glad to be snapped out of her current run of thoughts. "We should wait about another half-hour, 'til it's full dark, then we can go find what we're looking for."

"Okay," D said, and put her head back on Faith's shoulder, starting Faith's internal merry-go-'round-of-confused-thoughts once again.

Twenty-five minutes later they were standing up and brushing the rust flakes and other small debris from their clothes, when a noise sounded from outside. A footstep. Then another. Then a rapid series of them.

"Faith – " Dawn called softly, but whatever else she would've said was cut off as the man climbed through the open door of the car.

He could charitably be called human. He was of indeterminate age; he could've been anywhere between thirty and seventy. His clothes were filthy, and his skin and hair were even worse; it was impossible to figure out what his race might be. He had several oozing sores on his face and neck, and a hell of a big one on his lip that disappeared down into the cave of his mouth. On closer inspection, his hair looked like it might be falling out in patches. When he waved his right hand at them, Faith observed the pus that dripped from beneath some of the fingernails. On the whole, though, this was an improvement over the sight of his left hand.

Faith couldn't remember ever being so mad at herself. She'd left herself get so distracted thinking about D and trying to sort out the thoughts and feelings running through her head, that she'd let her concentration on their surroundings drop just a tiny bit, and this apparition had somehow snuck up on them. God, she was such a moron!

"Wow, look at this," the ghoul said. "Two tasty treats, and all for me." The sound of his voice was like a foul wind blowing through spiderwebs. "You two will keep me busy all night, I think." He grinned, revealing several large gaps between the remaining brown teeth.

"Stay away from us if you know what's good for you," Dawn warned, her voice pure ice.

Faith's mind was working furiously, trying to figure out their options. She couldn't do anything at the moment, with him over twenty feet away. As fast as she was, she wasn't faster than a bullet. She would have to get closer, and even then she might have trouble disarming him if he was careful in the way he held the gun on them.

One thing was sure, though: one of them would have to do something before things got to the point that this creature had in mind, because all it took was one glance at him to know that intercourse with him was a guarantee of a slow, putrefying death.

"Who wants to be the first to ride the happy?" he asked, grinning even wider, a sight both women could've done without.

Faith could tell that as anxious as he was to take the two of them for an all-night ride, he was scared of them, as well. That was very bad news, because it meant he'd likely be very cautious with them.

She reached a decision on what she thought their best hope was, and hoped D would play along, because she had no way to let her in on it ahead of time.

"Her!" Faith exclaimed, pointing a shaking hand at Dawn and trying to push herself through the back wall of the boxcar. "Take her first! Please!" She threw her hands up over her eyes and made sobbing noises.

She sensed more than she saw the hurt and shocked expression on D's face as she spun around to look at her. Faith kept her hands up over her eyes, as if trying to blot out the vision of the monster in front of them.

It/he wheezed laughter, saying, "Some friend you got there, missy. Now, c'mere," he instructed. "Ten steps forward." Shaking with rage and fear, Dawn did as she was told.

Knowing his attention would be more on D than on her now, Faith let her fake sobs taper off, and risked a glance between her fingers.

"Take those pants and panties off, then lie down on your back, hands under yer ass. You!" He looked at Faith, and she began to pewl again. "Stay right there, back right up against that wall."

This was cutting it a little closer than Faith had planned. As she watched, Dawn unbuttoned her jeans, yanking them and her panties down around her ankles. The creamy white skin of her legs and buttocks stood out brilliantly in the otherwise dark surroundings. She lay down on the floor of the car, hands under her butt as directed.

Faith tensed; this was it. The would-be rapist – Faith had mentally dubbed him 'Dirty Harry,' although he certainly looked nothing like Clint Eastwood – reached down to his belt and began to undo his fly, using both hands to do so. For a moment, the gun wasn't trained on either of them.

Faith was still nearly twenty feet away, too far to rush him before he could get the gun back up and plug her. That's okay; that had never been her plan. Not all of it, anyway.

When his attention shifted to the tasty young morsel lying near his feet, Faith dropped her left hand to the back pocket of her jeans, withdrew her wallet, and flung it at Harry. The entire thing was done in such a smooth motion, and with such speed, that the greatest wild west gunslingers who ever lived would've just stood there with their mouths hanging open.

The wallet sailed straight and true, striking Dirty Harry dead in the face, stunning him momentarily.

Almost before it had even left her hand, Faith was following it, charging him, exploiting the distraction to the fullest. As she covered the distance between them, she screamed at the top of her lungs; a huge, wordless, inarticulate scream of primal anger and ferocity.

Harry never had a chance. He looked up just in time to get a faceful of wallet, and by the time he'd recovered from that, Faith had reached him, twisting his left hand up behind his back. As she pulled his wrist up closer to the back of his neck, there was a sickening sound like linen ripping. He shrieked, the gun falling from his now-useless hand. Faith pushed him forward, and he went sprawling, the left arm that she had just ripped from it's socket flapping limply.

She leaned down and scooped up the gun; a quick glance behind her showed D already on her feet, re-fastening the buttons on her fly. "You okay?" she asked her.

Faith nodded, and turned around to face Dirty Harry again, raising the gun, staring at it like she'd just recognized what it was and what it was for – and what she could do with it.

"Faith..." Dawn called softly, worriedly, having an idea what was on the other's mind.

Faith had hit her absolute low point eight years ago in a Los Angeles apartment, and then moments later in the alley outside. She had tied Wesley up and tortured him for hours – because she could, and because it had actually seemed like fun at the time. It had been a final, desperate attempt to get Angel to kill her once and for all, but she still remembered how much she had enjoyed all the things she'd done to her former watcher that night.

But instead of killing her, Angel had saved her. As he held her crying form in the alley below, rain pouring down, the evil Faith had died once and for all. From that point on she had dedicated herself to living her life like Angel did, admitting and taking responsibility for all she'd done, trying to make amends for it all, knowing she never would but trying anyway. She really believed now that the new and improved Faith was a genuinely good person.

Unfortunately, she was also learning that the road to redemption was fraught with the occasional setback.

There had been that night in Chicago three years ago, the man she'd nearly killed, leaving him bloody and broken in the street after seeing him beating on a little girl who couldn't have been more than four years old; the two assholes in the club back in Boston; and now, Dirty Harry.

She looked down at him, the ogre who'd been planning a fun-filled night of rape of her and the one person in the world who she cared about more than anything; who certainly would've passed on to them all the terrible diseases obviously running through his bloodstream. Who probably would've shot 'em both dead in the morning after they had served their purpose. The evil Faith, dead and buried though she may be, had apparently decided to show up as a ghost in her head and haunt her for a bit. Her grip tightened around the gun, and she thumbed back the hammer.

Faith looked back at her and saw the pleading look in her eyes; the look that silently begged her not to give up all that she'd worked so hard to become in the last eight years. She could almost hear the words, I just found you; please don't let me lose you back to the darkness now, in those brilliant blue eyes.

She turned to Harry one last time, and nearly went ahead and blew his ass to hell anyway. But at the very last instant, she saw D's eyes again in her mind.

Slowly, very slowly, she lowered the gun and eased the hammer back down. She heard D exhale loudly behind her.

"Thank you, Faith," she said, and came up behind her, wrapping her arms around the slayer's stomach.

"You should just thank your sorry ass that I'm not evil anymore," she told Dirty Harry. D actually managed a soft, relieved laugh at that.

The darkened countryside flew by outside the open door of the boxcar. They'd pass through long stretches of nearly total darkness, which signified woods and farms, then into more settled areas, lit by streetlights, headlights, and the soft lights coming through the windows of homes and small businesses. Finally, the large cities, which were nearly a solid mass of lights of every size and color imaginable, dominated by yellow/white, along with a fair helping of red from the hundreds, or maybe thousands, of automobile taillights.

They had searched Harry and found a cheap-looking knife, which Dawn pocketed, and a wad of bills. Once they had located a westbound train and Faith had broken the lock on one of the car doors, they sat down inside and finally began to relax a little. While they did, Dawn had counted up the money.

"Oh," Dawn had said softly, a look of understanding crossing her face. The realization that they were holding money that had probably once belonged to someone who'd likely been killed to obtain it made it a little hard to savor their sudden good fortune.

It was the middle of the night now, probably past two, and Faith guessed they might be somewhere in Ohio, though it was really impossible to tell. She sat behind Dawn, arms wrapped loosely around her, chin resting on the top of D's head.

"I'm sorry," she told her, breaking the silence that had stretched out for who-knew-how-many miles.

"All of it. What happened back there, how far you had to take it before I could help you; getting you in this mess in the first place... You're still living this shitty life, but now with the added bonus of having the cops chasing you, too. You would've been so much better off if you'd just never run into me back in Boston," she finished, and as she spoke the words she suddenly understood just how true they were. God, it wasn't bad enough she'd fucked up her own life beyond all possibility of salvation; now she'd done the same thing to D, as well. Way to go, asshole. She looked away, unable to meet D's gaze.

"Faith, look at me," D said. The words were soft, but there was no missing the no-nonsense tone of command behind them. Reluctantly, Faith complied.

"All I can say about what happened back in that car is: thank you. You couldn't have done anything sooner, and if it hadn't been for you, it would've gone even further. I don't know if he would've actually succeeded or not, but I'm just so thankful you were there to save me from having to find out. You're like my knight in shining armor or something." She smiled, and gently kissed a stunned Faith on the lips.

"And as for the position we're in," she continued after reluctantly breaking the kiss, "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else on earth right now."

"Faith," Dawn interrupted quietly. "I told you a lie once. That night in the bar, three weeks ago, I said I didn't know you were the new slayer in town that I'd heard about. But that's not true; I actually did know."

"You may do a lot of things well, D, but lyin' ain't one of 'em," Faith confided, and in spite of herself she felt a small smile cross her lips.

"Oh. Well, good. Because then you should be able to tell that I'm not lying when I tell you that this is the place I want to be right now, and you're the person I want to be with. Or am I lying?"

Faith searched her face, and listened to her tone, but couldn't find a trace of a lie. Reluctantly, she admitted, "No, you're not." But how was that possible? D was actually willing to risk going to jail just to be with her? She'd never thought she was even worth risking your library card over.

"I wanted to find you," Dawn said, picking the story up again, "but I had no idea where to look. Tough to find wanted fugitives when they don't want to be found," she told her with a small half-smile. "So I did about the only thing I could think of: I went to Boston. I knew that was where you were from, so I thought eventually you might decide to go back. Imagine how lucky I felt when I found you after just a month."

"You don't know how lucky you were: I only went back there because I had absolutely no other choice. I was on the run from New York, and I'd already worn out my welcome in Pennsylvania before that, so Boston was the closest big city around. Believe me, D, with the way my life was when I was growin' up, I would rather have gone just about anyplace in the world other than back to Boston."

"Because! Because... I just, y'know... wanted to find you," she stammered, blushing and glancing away. For just a moment, she looked like the young teenage girl Faith remembered.

Faith grinned, knowing perfectly well what the reason was behind this awkward response. Well, 'magine that. No wonder she was so quick to shimmy out of her clothes that night.

Suddenly Faith badly needed to lay D out and screw the shit out of her, 'til her eyes crossed and her legs wouldn't work anymore. It had been what, three days since they'd had sex? Way too long, and Faith was getting itchy. She reached further around, cupping D's breasts, and prepared to throw her down on the floor of the freight car and see how loud she could make her scream.

But in the instant before she did, it was like a light went on in the back of her brain, and that strange feeling that had been floating around in her head all day, just out of reach, was clear: she loved D. Completely and totally. She knew she should've seen this coming, but it staggered her all the same. She, Faith, loved Dawn Summers. Holy shit.

Tell her? Faith had never done that before. In the quarter-century she'd been alive, she'd only ever loved one other person, and had never worked up the nerve to tell her.

And of course, people never told Faith they loved her. Christ no! That wasn't what Faith was for. Faith was there to spread her legs and give you a few minutes' satisfaction, then get the hell out of your life. She was just a whore, with the added bonus that she didn't charge. Wasn't she? Hadn't everyone, even her own junkie mother, told her that her whole life?

Well, one person had told her he loved her once, hadn't he? And how had she responded?

What if she told D, and she reacted the way Faith had all those years ago? If that happened, Faith didn't know what she'd do. At this point, she knew that her life wouldn't even be worth living without D by her side. (And as if I needed another problem on top of everything else, I'm also gettin' wicked sappy.)

If she couldn't actually come out and tell D how she felt with words – not yet, anyway – maybe she could show her, at least. The way she'd tried to show Buffy years ago. She knew she'd done a pretty bad job of it back then, but maybe she could learn from her mistakes.

She took her hands off D's breasts, gently stroking her arms, instead. Fucking her brains out on the floor of a moving boxcar was definitely not the way to communicate this feeling – it was hardly the most romantic setting.

She decided she was going to give D a night she'd never forget, a night that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt just how Faith felt about her. And just maybe, if it went as well as she hoped, she'd find the courage to actually tell her, too.

"I'm glad I'm here with you, D," she whispered; it was the best she could manage at the moment.

The bed creaked again, and it's two occupants collapsed on it, completely wiped.

'Damn, boy,' Faith panted, grinning. 'Do you ever get tired out?'

'I think the answer to that right now is an obvious "yes,"' Robin answered, rolling onto his side and slipping an arm around Faith's sweat-covered stomach. 'But I admit, you do inspire me to new heights.' He leaned forward, brushed the wet hair out of the way, and kissed the back of her neck.

'Yeah, well, you do a pretty good job of getting it done for me, too,' she told him, taking the hand on her stomach and moving it up until it rested on her breast.

'I don't think I've told you before, Faith, but these last few months with you have been some of the best of my life.' He gently kissed her neck again. 'I love you, Faith,' he said softly.

Faith froze; she became as stiff and as still as a corpse. Loved her? What kind of shit was this? No one loved her – she was Faith. She wasn't built for love, just sex and kicking the shit out of vampires.

So what kind of game was Robin playing? They'd had a good enough thing going, she'd thought. They hung out together, they slayed vamps and demons, they wore out countless mattresses in countless motel rooms. So what more was he looking for from her? What was he expecting from her, demanding from her?

She heard Robin's breathing slow as he waited nervously for her response. When more and more time went by and none was forthcoming, she felt him begin to tense. Eventually, he took his hand from her breast, got up, and left the room. The sound of the shower running in the bathroom became audible.

When he returned, he climbed under the covers, keeping a distance between them, and rolled over so that he was facing away from her. After what seemed like an interminable wait, she heard the slow, regular breathing that indicated he had fallen asleep.

Faith slowly and carefully got up from the bed, making sure not to wake him, and began to collect her stuff. She didn't bother with a shower.

Robin awoke the next morning to discover he was alone in the room. He looked around and saw that all Faith's belongings were gone, as well. A piece of paper lay on the nightstand.

I dont know what to say. The last few months have been great but I think you obviously want something from me that I cant give you. I think I should leave before I screw up your life any worse.

Robin crumpled the paper up and fired it across the room. Some unknown amount of time later, he felt the traces of wetness in the corners of his eyes.

Blinking it away, he got up and started packing his own things.

Faith awoke in the first light of dawn, the sweat the nightmare had caused already drying, the image of the New Orleans motel room fading.

Faith looked up, noticing that D had pulled her head into her lap sometime after she'd fallen asleep. Now, the younger woman looked down at her, an expression of concern and sympathy on her face.

"Ancient history," Faith replied, sitting up. Ignoring the funky taste in her mouth, she gave D a long, thorough good morning kiss.

"I think, wherever we're going, we're almost there," Dawn reported. "We've been slowing down gradually for awhile now."

D was right, Faith saw as she looked out the open door. They weren't traveling as fast as they'd been when she went to sleep, and they were passing through the outskirts of another large city. In fact...

"Holy shit!" she marveled, then fell silent. She took in the sights passing by, trying to confirm her suspicions.

"It's St. Louis," Faith told her. "I managed to catch the same damn train nine years later."

"Cool," Dawn said, not sounding all that interested in this little piece of trivia. "Are we stopping here?" she inquired.

"Uh, no, I think we'd better go a little further west," Faith decided after a moment's consideration.

"Gonna be a little tough hopping a new train in broad daylight," Dawn pointed out.

Dawn, with Faith keeping a firm grip on her, leaned a little ways out the door and looked ahead. When Faith pulled her back in, she reported that she thought she could see the train yards in the distance. Faith nodded. "Close enough," she said, and slid the door nearly all the way closed, so that only a couple of inches of daylight remained visible.

The train came to a stop a few minutes later. No one was in sight when they cautiously stuck their heads out, so they quickly climbed down, making their way across several pairs of tracks, trying to stay close to buildings and train cars and away from open areas where they could be more easily spotted.

After a short search, they found another freight that was pointed west, with engines that looked like they were warming up and preparing to leave. A couple of dozen cars back from the head of the train, Faith again broke the lock on a car door, and they climbed inside.

They had to wait for about an hour, but soon they found themselves traveling west again, before many of the residents of St. Louis had even had breakfast.

Wherever they were, they arrived there in the middle of that night. Faith declared that yes, they'd gone far enough. They made their way out of the yard, a task that was much easier to do at night than in daylight.

"Well, guess that answers that question," Dawn said, pointing to a newspaper dispenser. 'Houston Chronicle' the legend on the side announced. "Been here before?"

"Once upon a time," Faith replied. "Decent amount of vamp and demon activity here as I remember."

They walked several blocks before they finally found a motel. Rooms were twenty bucks a night, the greasy, overweight guy behind the desk told them. They paid for a single room for two nights. Neither one could possibly miss the look he was giving the two of them, or the way his eyes kept traveling up Faith's body, down Dawn's, then back up Dawn's, down Faith's, then repeating the circuit.

Dawn leaned over the counter, motioning to him with her finger to come closer. He did.

"I just have this feeling you're already thinking of excuses you might find to hang around outside our room, maybe thinking you might hear something interesting through the door or see something even more interesting through the curtains. You should probably know ahead of time that if I find you within twenty feet of room number – " She glanced down at the key in her hand, " – nine, you'll be picking your balls out of your nostrils.

"Have a nice night!" she said sweetly, turned, and walked from the office. Faith gave her a huge grin, then slapped her firmly on the ass as she walked by, smirking at the clerk as she did so.

He sat and watched them leave, his chin nearly scraping on his desk. He decided he'd stay as far away from unit #9 as he could.

"Wonder if that guy's ever had a boner and been terrified for his life at the same time," Faith chuckled, shutting the door behind her.

She had barely turned around before she was practically knocked off her feet. She stumbled backwards, hitting the door hard, D's tongue seemingly trying to push it's way completely down her throat and into her stomach. "Mmmnnhh!" she said, surprised, then brought her hands up to clutch D's back, and began returning the kiss.

She was so lost in the feel of D's lips, her skin, her hair, that she was absolutely stunned when she looked down and noticed that they were both naked. When did that happen?

"As great as this is, we're both filthy," Dawn observed when she managed to catch her breath.

"Shower," Faith replied, a bit breathless herself, nodding toward the door on the back wall. That single word seemed to be all she was capable of at the moment.

"Thank God," D said. She took a step back, clearing a path for her lover. "Now, get in that shower, woman," she instructed in a voice that was barely more than a growl. "You're going to get me nice and clean, and I'm going to do the same for you." Her eyes were heavy with desire, burning with lust.

"And after we're done with that, I'm going to eat a nice, long, sweet breakfast," she added, her hand coming to rest between Faith's legs. "Now go!"

Faith wasn't sure her legs were going to carry her all the way over to the bathroom door; they felt awfully wobbly right now. One thing she'd learned during the last three weeks was that while D didn't get like this often, when she did, Faith responded to it like she'd never have believed possible.

"Okay," she agreed obediently, gazing back at Dawn through suddenly heavy-lidded eyes.

Her legs didn't collapse on her, and the two women emerged – eventually – from the bathroom feeling cleaner than they had in days. They also emerged feeling more aroused than they had in days, as well, and spent a long time afterwards doing something about it.

They woke up late that afternoon from the first good long sleep they'd had since the night before their ill-fated trip to the club back in Boston. Faith suggested they go do some shopping, pick up some necessities, and Dawn agreed, saying she had an errand she wanted to run, too.

They stopped at a nearby drug store and bought toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, hairbrushes, and a few other items. Next up was a department store where they picked out clothes that were a little more their style, and finally managed to solve the growing underwear crisis.

It turned out that Dawn's "errand" was at a little hole-in-the-wall place imaginatively titled 'Dan's Pawn Shop.' She walked up to the counter and unwrapped the bundle in her hands, which had been wrapped in one of the spare t-shirts she'd filched back in Boston. It was Dirty Harry's gun, unloaded and carefully wiped clean of fingerprints (the bullets had been thrown out of the speeding boxcar somewhere in northeastern Texas).

"Twenty bucks," the clerk – Dan, presumably – offered in a flat, businesslike voice.

"Fine, sixty-five," Dan agreed, taking the gun and placing it behind the counter. He counted out the correct amount, then wrote out a claim stub which he handed to Dawn. She thanked him, and they turned and left. She balled the stub up and tossed it in a nearby gutter.

With the cash they'd taken from Harry, and the money they'd just made off pawning his gun, they were much better off financially than they'd been a couple of days ago. But the room, and all the stuff they'd bought this afternoon, had cut a large chunk out of that amount, and they knew that one or both of them would have to find work soon, or they'd be living under a bridge less than a week from now.

Dawn ducked, and narrowly missed being beheaded by the demon's foot-long razor-sharp claws.

"Shit, Faith, I can't fight mine and worry about yours at the same time! Take care of your own damn demon!" Apparently trusting that Faith would do just that, Dawn turned back to concentrate on her own opponent.

Their first full night in town, and their first patrol, and they'd run into a pair of demons that neither could identify. They'd come prepared to fight vamps and most average demons, but not something with four claws on each hand, all of them over a foot long and incredibly sharp. They had stakes; what they needed were swords. Big ones.

"First thing tomorrow – " Faith yelled, sidestepping a thrust aimed at disemboweling her, " – we're going to the nearest army-navy surplus, and picking out two of the biggest fuckin' Bowie knives you've ever seen." She leaned further backward than any normal human could, thanks to her slayer agility and balance, and the claws headed for her throat missed by less than two inches. Almost immediately, she jumped high into the air, avoiding the razors coming towards her knees.

"Good idea," Dawn agreed, doing her best to hold up against the onslaught. She didn't have Faith's slayer abilities – or the right weapon – and she was having difficulty just keeping her insides from being let out onto the ground in a steaming pile, and her parts all attached in the right places.

Faith's demon made a diagonal slash at her, and she saw her opening. She caught it's right wrist in her grip, twisted it so it was pointing at it's stomach, then kicked it's foot out from under it. As it lost it's balance, she yanked it forward, causing it to come crashing down on it's own hand, the long claws slicing right through it's stomach. An instant later, it was dead.

"D!" she screamed, as one of the claws on it's hand got past Dawn's defenses and slid deep into her side. A look of shocked amazement crossed her face, and her hands fell limply to her side. The demon roared in triumph, and raised it's other hand up, preparing to strike and finish her off.

Just before it could, however, Faith blindsided it with a jumping side-kick that sent it sprawling. D screamed again as the claw was pulled free of her body.

Fueled by her rage and her need to get to D and take care of her as soon as possible, Faith made quick work of the second demon, inwardly cursing herself and pointing out that if she'd been this quick and efficient with the first one, D wouldn't be bleeding to death a few feet away.

The creature hadn't even finished it's last breath before Faith was at Dawn's side, inspecting the wound, telling her that she was going to be fine, that she'd be up and kicking ass by the end of the week.

And when she got Dawn's shirt up a little and uncovered the wound, she saw that that might actually be true. Well, maybe not the end of the week part, but the rest of it. It was deep – it had gone completely through her, in fact – but not wide, and she'd been lucky and agile enough to avoid the other three claws on the hand. And if it had hit an artery, D would probably already be dead.

Faith ripped the bottom half off of both hers and Dawn's tanks, balling the rags up and pressing them against the entry and exit wounds, trying to staunch the bleeding.

She was never able to remember quite how she'd done it afterwards, but somehow Faith managed to get Dawn back to their motel a few blocks away without hurting her too badly, and keeping the makeshift bandages held firmly in place.

When she was able to look a little more closely, Faith felt pretty sure that D really needed a few stitches to close each wound, but was terrified to risk taking her to a hospital. She thought they'd be safe enough here in Houston for awhile, but not if they went walking into someplace so public as a hospital. After all this, could they let it end with the cops arresting them as they sat in some examining room while a bored doc sewed D up?

No, she'd give it a couple of days, and see how she healed on her own. If there was no marked improvement, she'd consider taking D to a hospital at that point.

In the meantime, she did everything she could for her. As soon as she'd made sure D was comfortable in bed, Faith ran out to the drug store, buying alcohol, bandages, and some pills to help with the pain. She disinfected the wound, applied the bandages, got her to swallow a couple of the pills, then stayed up all night, watching over D while she slept.

Two days later, as Faith had feared, things hadn't improved much. D needed real medical help.

Even worse, they were nearly out of money. Getting a job would mean leaving D alone all afternoon, and she couldn't do that. Dawn couldn't make it that long on her own yet; she needed someone there to look after her, get her food and drinks, help her to the bathroom.

So Faith could get a job and leave her alone for hours and hours each day, a situation she knew the younger woman wasn't able to handle at this point; or she could stay home and take care of her, and they'd be living on the street in a couple of days, something that definitely wouldn't do much for D's recovery.

Or she supposed she could just go mug someone, but she reluctantly dismissed that option. Being evil was just so much more convenient sometimes, she realized with a sigh.

When the answer hit her, it was so stunningly obvious that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it sooner. In fact...

"D? Do you think you'd be alright on your own for about an hour? I have to go take care of something."

"Yeah, go ahead, Faith. I'll be fine." She smiled bravely, but there was no mistaking the weakness in her voice.

She stopped first at the local library, and used one of their computers to do some research on the internet. This wasn't something she'd had much experience with, and it took her a little longer than it would have for most people; especially since she could hardly ask for help, given what it was she wanted to look up.

When she finally found what she was looking for, her worst fears were confirmed. She turned off the computer and left the building in a hurry, more intent than ever on finding a phone – and quickly.

"Information, please. I need a number in Los Angeles," Faith told the operator. She gave her the name. "Something toll-free would be best," she added. A moment later, she was copying it down on a scrap of paper.

"I'm sorry, but Angel has a very busy schedule and can't personally take an interest in every case we handle. Would you like to make an appointment to meet with one of our junior partners?" the annoyingly pleasant, yet completely dry and businesslike voice asked.

"Listen, lady, I need to talk to Angel, and I need to talk to him right... the fuck... NOW! So get on your little intercom and tell him Faith is on the phone and wants to speak with him. Because if you don't, when I finally do get in touch with him, I'm going to tell him all about how the numb bitch who answers the phones there wouldn't let me through, and I know enough about how things work at that place to figure out what'll happen to you then!" Faith fumed, unconsciously clenching and unclenching her right fist; the left held the phone in a deathgrip. Somehow she'd expected things would still work like the old days at good ol' Angel Investigations: call up and ask to talk to the boss, and they'd put him right on.

"Umm... just a moment, please," the voice replied, sounding nervous and uncertain now. Canned muzak came on, and Faith waited for what seemed like a half-hour.

"How are you? Is everything all right?" Angel inquired, obviously concerned. Man, it was so good to hear his voice after all these years!

"No, everything isn't. I've got a problem I need help with. Christ, for a little while I didn't think they were going to let me talk to you," she confessed. "When D told me you were running that place, I didn't really believe it. What the hell are you doing there, Angel?" she asked. She just couldn't figure out why Angel would agree to take over the law firm otherwise known as Evil Incorporated.

"Doing the best I can, Faith, but it's not easy some days. Anyway, if there's anything I can do to help you, you know I will.

Faith sighed, and started at the beginning. She told of meeting Dawn in Boston, the run-in at the nightclub, the incident with Carl, and the accident of two nights ago that had the younger woman in bed with two holes in her side. She left out the more personal aspects of their relationship, figuring Angel didn't need to know quite that much.

"I just did a little research, Angel, and Dawn's wanted on a whole shitload of charges. Twenty-or-thirty-years-in- prison kind of stuff when you add it all together. And none of it's her fault. About the worst thing she did was help me steal some clothes from that store back in Boston. The rest of it... the thing at the club, she just knocked her guy out; he was probably fine the next day. I'm the one who lost it on the other two.

"Carl, well, he caused the whole fuckin' thing. D just got him under control and out of the way for a few hours; she didn't even hurt the asshole." Faith was rambling now.

"Angel, she can't go to jail for piddly shit like this. Is there something you can do about it?"

She heard Angel sigh. "I don't know, Faith. This sounds pretty damn serious. I believe you about all of it, but if the warrants have already been issued, then the authorities apparently don't think her role was quite so minor." He paused, and sighed again.

"Okay, listen, let me talk to Gunn, have him look into it and see what he can do."

"Gunn?" Faith was confused. "I'm sorry, but how exactly is Denzel going to help in this situation?"

"Long story. Short version is, he's the best lawyer we've got. If anyone can get Dawn cleared, it'll be him."

"Not quite," she replied. "Uh, look, the thing is, we're kinda running low on cash. I can't get a job and leave D alone all day, but if I don't, we're gonna be out on the street in another coupla days. We could really use a little to tide us over until she's okay. Then we can look out for ourselves, like always."

"Wire it to me here in Houston, under the name of, uh, Dixie Riggins," she instructed. Dixie had been her cellmate, once upon a time.

"You can't. Too risky. Do you have a direct number I can use, so I don't have to go through the stupid bitch at the front desk again?" He gave it to her, and she wrote it down on her scrap of paper. "Okay, great. I'll call you back tomorrow at about this time."

Faith returned to the motel, figuring she'd give Angel a couple of hours to send the money before she went to collect it.

She really hoped Angel – and Gunn, apparently – could get the charges against D dropped, but that was a distant, long-term worry right now. The immediate concern was their cash situation, and hopefully she'd just solved that for the time being.

And she'd decided that no matter what she heard from Angel tomorrow afternoon, she was taking D to the hospital right afterwards. It would be better if she wasn't a wanted woman any longer at that point, but no matter what, Faith wasn't letting it go any longer. In fact, she was beginning to seriously consider just saying 'fuck it,' and taking her in right now. Only her faith in Angel, believing he might really be able to help them, was stopping her.

Of course she knew that even if D wasn't wanted anymore, there was still the chance they could be identified and she herself could be caught. But that possibility was much easier to live with if it was just her, knowing that D would still be free.

Faith gently sat down on the bed and carefully leaned herself against her lover. "Any change?"

"Nope," Dawn told her. After a minute, she added, "Thanks for doing all this for me, Faith."

"Hey, that's what I'm here for, D," she replied lightly, then grew more serious. "If I'd been quicker, you wouldn't even be in this position."

"That's not true; you did the best you could. Thank you." She gripped Faith's hand and held on tightly.

Faith interrupted her. "Nothing's going to happen to you, D. You're going to be fine. I personally fuckin' guarantee it," she told her forcefully.

"If something happens to me," Dawn repeated patiently, "I need you to find my sister and give her a message. Maybe you're right; maybe I'll be fine. I hope so. But I could recover completely, and get killed by something completely different next month. Or get hit by a bus. Now, will you promise?"

"Tell her I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did three years ago, and tell her that I wished nearly every day afterwards that I could take it back. I even blamed her partly for Kait's death, because I knew that if we hadn't had that fight, Kait never would've ended up dead two years later. So tell her I'm sorry for that, too, because it wasn't Buffy's fault; it was mine." Tears were leaking from Dawn's eyes, but she wasn't crying yet.

"I told you before, D, Kait's death wasn't your fault," Faith told her, gently but firmly.

"Aren't you going to ask what happened between Buffy and me? What the fight was about?" Dawn asked a short time later.

"I didn't think it was my business, that you'd tell me if you wanted me to know."

"What was it?" Faith asked. She was mildly curious, but mostly she realized that D needed to tell this story now. The answer she got was one of the greatest shocks of her life.

Faith tried to think of something to say, but couldn't. Buffy had had a picture of her? Why? Maybe just to remind herself what a bitch Faith was? 'Note to self: don't end up like her,' that kind of thing?

"I found it in with her stuff one day when I was looking for something she'd asked me to get for her," Dawn continued, now looking away and missing the stunned look on Faith's face. "She came in and found me holding it, and flipped out, yelling at me for looking through her stuff instead of just getting the thing she'd sent me for.

"I asked her why she had it, and she got all flustered. She said she must have hundreds of pictures, so of course she was bound to have one or two of you. She told me that if I looked hard enough, I could probably even find one of Principal Snyder, too."

Faith had managed to wipe the stunned look off her face, and replace it with one that revealed nothing of the whirlwind of thoughts blowing through her mind. 'Buffy kept a picture of me' was the one that kept repeating the most often, as if trying to convince herself it could possibly be true.

"I pointed out that she didn't have a picture of Snyder in with her personal stuff," Dawn was saying. "In fact, the only others she had in there with it were of me and Mom. Not even ones of Willow, Xander, Angel, or Spike. She grabbed it out of my hand and screamed at me to get the hell out of her room."

Dawn's voice had taken on a flat monotone, almost as if she was relating a story that had happened to someone else.

"A couple of months later, I wanted to look at it again. I snuck into her room and went through her stuff, but she'd put the pictures of the three of us somewhere else. But I kept looking, and eventually I found them. I was just going to look at the picture and then put it back, but for some reason, I put it in my pocket and took it with me, instead.

"Buffy found out it was missing the next day, and went crazy. She screamed and yelled and demanded I give it back, saying she knew I'd taken it. I denied it, and said I didn't know what she was talking about." Faith could hear the faint traces of oncoming sobs in Dawn's cracking voice.

"I was going to give it back. I didn't even mean to take it; I don't know why I did. But when she confronted me, I just got so scared and denied the whole thing. She yelled and screamed, and I yelled and screamed, and finally I told her that if she thought I was just some lying little thief, then she could just kiss my ass. I stormed out of there, and never saw her again.

"I went back the next day... and-and she wasn't there... so I f-found Kait and told her I w-w-was planning to leave," The tears were flowing freely now, and Dawn's voice was starting to break up as the sobs gradually began, "and she s-said she'd c-come w-w-with me, and if sh-she h-hadn't, she'd still be a-a-a-alive!" Dawn finished, burying her head in Faith's shoulder and crying openly.

"Shh, D, it's okay... Shh, it's okay," Faith repeated over and over, gently stroking Dawn's long hair, telling her it wasn't her fault, that she'd give the message to Buffy, that Dawn was going to be fine and could give it to her herself if she wanted.

After what seemed like an hour – but was probably closer to twenty minutes – Dawn began to get herself back under control. "I'm sorry, Faith," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I don't think I've cried as much in four years as I have in the last four weeks," she admitted, blushing a little.

"Hey," Faith admonished, pushing D's hands away, and lovingly wiping the tears away herself, "didn't I tell you once: never apologize to me for being you. I like that you're not afraid to show me who you really are, or tell me things about yourself that you wouldn't tell anyone else. Thank you for trusting me," she said, and delivered a long, slow kiss that was enthusiastically returned.

"Now tell me the truth," she continued, grinning, "Why did you take that picture?"

"I told you, I don't know." Faith just stared at her, expressionless, waiting patiently, and Dawn blushed again. "Well, I guess I always thought you were kinda, y'know... hot. Except for the times when you were trying to kill my sister," she added quickly. Faith looked away, embarrassed to be reminded of that. "And in that pic, with your leather jacket on and all..." She trailed off, and the traces of lust were now visible in her blue eyes.

"That picture! Kait saw that picture, and that's how she knew you wanted a jacket like that! Isn't it?" Dawn looked away and said nothing.

"Hey! 'Fess up! That's it, isn't it?" Faith persisted, nudging Dawn's knee repeatedly with her own.

"Yes! Yes, that's it. I showed her the picture, and told her how much I liked your jacket, and that's why she bought me one," Dawn admitted. "I think she knew I had a crush on you, too, but she never acted jealous."

Faith laughed softly, and they sat in a comfortable silence for awhile afterwards. Finally, she decided she'd given Angel enough time to take care of the money. Time to go pick it up.

"I gotta go run another quick errand, D. Will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes?"

"Great. I'll be quick. And when I get back, I think I'll have good news." She got up slowly from the bed, being careful not to jostle it and cause D any unnecessary pain.

"When you showed Kait the picture of me, did she think I was hot?" she asked, grinning.

"Figures. This girl obviously had taste," she said, gesturing to the two of them.

She picked the money up at the Western Union office, noting how thick the envelope was as she slipped it into her backpack. What'd they do, give it to me all in fives? she wondered to herself. She didn't open it, however, because even if you're a slayer, you don't stand on a street corner counting a large sum of cash in your hands. She'd open it when she got back to the room.

"Surprise!" she yelled as she opened the door, withdrawing the envelope from her pack and holding it up triumphantly.

"Gift from a friend," she told her, handing it over and sitting at the foot of the bed.

Dawn opened it, and Faith burst out laughing at the expression of shock on her face. "Faith, where did all this come from?" she demanded, holding it open so that the slayer could see all the greenbacks inside.

"I told you, it's a gift from a friend. So I guess we don't have to worry about rent for the next couple of weeks, huh?"

"What?!" Faith demanded, standing up and moving to the top of the bed. Dawn handed her the envelope, and Faith looked inside. It was nothing but fifty-dollar bills. Dozens of them. "Holy shit!" She sat down, took them out, and began to add them up.

"Huh? Oh, Angel and his spooky law firm," Faith answered absently. "Don't talk for a minute; you'll make me lose count."

A short time later, she reported they now had ten thousand dollars. They sat staring at each other for a moment, then burst into a fit of hysterical, relieved giggles, sounding for all the world like a pair of fourteen-year-olds.

"I think you need to pay closer attention to your accounting, Angel. I asked for three or four hundred, and you sent me ten grand. So when the bills come every month, do you pay 'em over twenty times what they're asking for?"

"I guess you got it okay," Angel said, and Faith could almost hear the smile in his voice.

"So how 'bout the rest of it? Can you do anything?" She held her breath as she waited for the answer.

"All charges against Dawn Summers have either already been dropped, or will be by late this afternoon," Angel reported matter-of-factly. He said it in such a way that, for a moment, Faith wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly.

"I'm sorry – what? All charges? As in, she's free to go?" she asked, wanting to be completely clear on this.

"You don't even want to know," he told her. "Part of it was Gunn and his legal maneuvering, and part of it was the fringe benefits you get from running an evil law firm with lots of mystical know-how."

"I wouldn't say that... exactly," Angel said, and Faith could picture him sitting in his chair, squirming. "Nobody got hurt, but the result is, Dawn's no longer a wanted fugitive. Isn't that good enough?"

"Angel, that is so much better than good enough!" she gushed, relief flooding through her, making her want to both laugh and cry at the same time. Now, hurry up and get her to the hospital, you moron!

Just as she was about to say a hurried goodbye and go running for the motel, a couple of other things occurred to her.

Five minutes later Faith was running flat-out from the phone booth for the motel. Thanks to their new riches, she was able to call a cab, and gingerly placed D inside, instructing the driver to head for the hospital. On the way, she explained Angel's great news on the legal front, doing it quietly enough so that the cabbie wouldn't overhear.

After they'd spent seemingly forever in the waiting area, they were finally shown into an examining room, where a doctor inspected Dawn's side and confirmed that yes, she did indeed need several stitches. No problem, he told them. She'd be healed up and on her feet in a couple of weeks.

Once he'd finished sewing her up, Faith thanked him profusely, seeming even more relieved than Dawn herself. She paid their bill on the way out, then stopped in at the hospital's pharmacy to have Dawn's prescriptions filled.

The next day, Faith made another call to LA. Angel told her that he had taken care of her first request, and they were still working on the second; she should try calling back again in a few days. She thanked him once again and hung up, then immediately ran over to the post office to sign up for mail delivery under the same assumed name.

Things settled into a routine in the following days. Dawn had to stay off her feet, so they stayed in bed all day – usually with very little on at the time – watching TV, listening to music, finding all the possible ways to be intimate that wouldn't interfere with Dawn's recovery, or just talking to one another.

During these conversations, Faith told Dawn more about her life, and particularly her childhood, than she'd ever told anyone before. Dawn listened, at times shocked, horrified, angry, sad... and always sympathetic. She told Faith repeatedly how brave she thought she was to have lived through all that and become the woman she was. Faith blushed and mumbled, embarrassed by Dawn's praise.

She'd opened up more than she ever had in her life, but Faith was still unable to tell Dawn she loved her. Part of her was still convinced that if she did, Dawn would leave her, just bail the way she herself had in New Orleans. Not surprisingly, she didn't tell Dawn about New Orleans, although she told nearly every other story from the last five years.

The day after they'd gone back to the hospital and been told Dawn was healing right on schedule, Faith made another phone call. Angel had come through. She jotted down a phone number, thanked the vampire again for all his help, hung up, and dialed the new number.

She explained who she was and why she was calling, then asked if it would be okay if she called back in about an hour. It was. Next stop was the post office, and sure enough, the package Angel had arranged for had come in.

"Surprise again!" Faith said, coming through the door with a large box. It wasn't the same one she'd just picked up, however; she'd stopped and gotten a new empty one, transferring all the items over to it in order to avoid having the return address give it away.

"Absolutely," Faith replied. Her grin felt so wide that she was becoming worried that the ends would meet around the back of her head, and everything from the nose up would just topple off onto the ground.

Dawn grabbed it eagerly, easily ripping through the couple of small pieces of tape Faith had used to seal it up. Faith had made sure, as she was moving everything into the new box, that the most important thing was right on top.

"Oh my God, Faith," Dawn exclaimed softly, lifting the leather jacket out of the box. "It's beautiful. You really did buy me one, just like you prom... Hey – wait a minute..." Faith hadn't thought it was possible for her grin to get any bigger, yet somehow it did as she watched the comprehension spread across her lover's face. "Faith! This is my jacket! The one Kait bought me!"

"Where did... How could... I mean, how did you..." Dawn stammered, unable to take her eyes off the garment.

"Angel helped out a little, actually," the slayer explained. "After he got you cleared of all the charges, well, there was no reason for the cops to be able to keep your stuff, right? So he arranged to have it all sent to him, and then he shipped it to me. Keep looking: all the rest of your stuff's in there, too."

"Oh my God," Dawn whispered again, peering inside the box and pulling out the rest of her old clothes and personal effects. Among these was a picture of Faith that had once belonged to her sister. "I should find a way to send this back to her," she said quietly, almost as if speaking to herself.

"We can probably do that," Faith said. "And I'll make sure I replace it for you. With a pornographic one, if you want," she said and winked. Dawn laughed, and threw a mock-slap at her.

"Somethin' like that." Faith punched in the last number and handed the phone to Dawn.

"Becky?" Dawn whispered in disbelief. The eyes she turned to Faith looked as big as coconuts.

"I told you she wasn't dead," Faith told her softly, again wearing a huge smile.

Dawn and Becky talked for over an hour, laughing, telling stories, crying over Kait. Dawn apologized over and over for driving Becky away from them, and again and again Becky told her that that's not what happened, that she saw Kait and Dawn together and just wanted to give them the privacy she thought they deserved.

Dawn was thrilled to learn that Becky had settled down just outside Boise, gotten a job that let her live pretty well, and had met a nice guy who she'd been living with for three months now. Boise didn't have much of a vampire problem, but she still managed to put her slayer abilities to occasional use.

Dawn responded by telling Becky all about Faith ('that girl you kept the picture of?'), and their adventures together over the last month, and how happy she was again, finally. When she hung up, her jacket still clutched firmly in one hand, Dawn looked happier than Faith could ever remember seeing her.

Faith explained how she'd asked Angel to track Becky down, so that she could prove once and for all that the missing slayer was still alive. She hadn't had anything to go on beyond a first name, an approximate age, and the fact that she was Australian and a slayer, and couldn't ask Dawn for more details, as that would've given the surprise away.

Angel had contacted Willow, Faith continued, who was able to provide Becky's last name. From there, it was just a couple of days' work to track her down in Idaho and get her phone number.

"Faith... This is just..." She couldn't finish, couldn't find the words to express it. She settled for grabbing Faith and pulling her into a long, slow, passionate kiss that conveyed all her gratitude for everything Faith had done for her, all the lengths she'd gone to, just for her.

"Now, you still want to be cautious for the next couple of weeks," the doctor admonished. "Nothing too strenuous for a little while longer, hmm?"

"What about... I mean, uh... you know..." Dawn turned a deep scarlet and glanced away. Faith grinned and contained her laugh only with great effort.

"She wants to know if it's okay to have sex, doc," Faith supplied helpfully. At this, Dawn turned purple.

"I think that should be fine, provided she remembers she's still on the mend and controls herself." He turned and addressed Dawn directly. "You're obviously someone who's used to keeping herself in excellent condition. So, jogging should be okay, but no heavy lifting of any kind for at least another month, alright?"

"Fine, then I guess that's it," he said, closing the folder he'd been holding. "If you have any complications, come in immediately. Otherwise, it was nice to meet you, ladies." He smiled, shook their hands, and left the room.

"I can't believe you did that to me," Dawn accused as she finished re-doing the last couple of buttons on the men's work shirt she had on. Faith noted there wasn't any real anger in D's tone; just embarrassment, and a trace of laughter at Faith's forthright way with people.

"What?" Faith feigned indignation. "You obviously weren't going to get it out, and didn't you want to get an answer to the question?"

"Yeah, but I'm your bitch," she agreed, grinning and pressing up against Dawn's side, making sure her breasts brushed along D's arm. "Hey, come on. We're going to go celebrate you re-joining the land of the healthy." She grabbed D's hand and tugged her from the examining room.

"You're honestly going to eat all that?" Dawn asked, gaping at the large plate of ribs, along with barbecued duck, sitting in front of Faith. She took a bite of her brisket and nodded her approval.

"Hey, what can I say? Slayers have big appetites," Faith explained, digging into her pile of ribs.

Faith had taken them to Goode Company Barbecue, which she promised was one of the best restaurants in town; she'd eaten here several times during her first trip through Houston, nearly five years ago. In fact, she'd developed a strong love for barbecue during her time in the southwest, and missed it when she'd been forced to move on to other areas of the country – barbecue in Seattle just didn't come close to measuring up to that in Texas or Kansas City.

"I've never heard of anyone eating barbecued duck," Dawn observed between bites.

"It's good, though," Faith told her. She cut a small piece off and held it out on the end of her fork. "Go ahead, try it."

Dawn hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and plucked the morsel off the fork. She chewed cautiously, then smiled. "Yeah, not bad."

"Here, want the rest?" Faith offered, reaching down to pick up the plate with the remainder of the duck on it.

"Oh, no! No, thanks, I'm good with what I've got, and I don't have your appetite," Dawn replied.

They ate in comfortable silence for several minutes. The sounds of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline playing in the background were hardly to either woman's normal tastes, but they found they didn't mind; it just added to the pleasant atmosphere of the place.

"It's not that late yet," Faith said, breaking the silence and looking at the clock on the wall, which read 6:44. "There's a theater a few blocks from here, and probably a few movies starting at seven-thirty, if you felt like catching one."

Dawn looked at her for a moment, then began to grin. "Is this a date?" she accused, giving Faith a sly look.

"What? No!" Faith protested, her face beginning to turn the same shade that Dawn's had in the examining room earlier. "Well, you know, it's just we never really did that kinda thing, and I thought..."

"What, our fun-filled night out in Boston doesn't count?" Dawn asked, and after a moment's hesitation, they both laughed.

"Well, I guess it could, but I think when you end it fleeing from the cops, it sorta loses most of it's date-like charm," Faith decided with a grin. "But we can count it if you want, and make this our second date. So how 'bout it: will you go to the movies with me, D?" She reached across the table and took the younger girl's hand in hers.

They walked hand-in-hand to the movie theater, turning often to look at one another, smile, and turn back to see where they were going. They were mostly oblivious to the stares they were getting; some angry or disapproving, some jealous, but mostly just small, knowing smiles from folks who appreciated seeing two people together who obviously made each other so happy.

Dawn told Faith she could pick the movie, and so naturally they ended up with something action-packed, with plenty of gunfire and explosions.

The movie quickly became irrelevant, anyway. The two of them had taken seats way in the back, and almost before the previews had ended, their lips were locked firmly together, Faith had undone three of the buttons on Dawn's shirt and slipped a hand inside, and Dawn was busily trying to undo Faith's fly one-handed, while her other twined itself firmly in the slayer's long, thick, dark hair.

What they did over the next ninety minutes was actually pretty tame compared to the standards of Faith's past, but when they sensed the end of the film approaching and had to pull themselves back together, she couldn't ever remember being more aroused in her life.

As they dragged themselves out of the theater and towards their room, hands clasped tightly once again, Faith realized that she was going to have to get them back here and take in a couple more movies. Romantic ones this time, something she would never even have considered sitting though a couple of months ago. And not only that, she was going to have to find a way to avoid a repeat of what happened tonight, so that she could actually watch them – or more accurately, study them.

She hadn't given up on her plan, formed in a boxcar traveling through Ohio a few weeks back, of giving D a great romantic evening, and showing her just how much she really loved her. To do that, she was going to need some pointers.

They stumbled through their door, all over each other once again, and made the bed creak steadily and loudly until the first rays of sunlight were shining through the curtains the next morning, and they'd collapsed into a totally spent, thoroughly contented sleep.

The next day it was Dawn's turn to decide what they'd do, and so they went to the zoo.

At first, she refused to believe Faith when the slayer admitted she'd never been to a zoo before, but then apparently re-considered what she'd learned of Faith's past, and changed her mind. "Well, then it's about time you did. Trust me, you'll love it."

And, a little surprised, Faith realized that she did. The large predators were impressive – the various bears and large cats, along with the giant snakes and alligators – but she was most surprised to find that her favorite animals were some of the "cuddlier" ones. She laughed in delight at the antics of the penguins (not noticing the look of happiness on D's face as she observed Faith), admired the balance of the flamingoes as they stood on just a single leg, and stared up in awe at the giraffes with their incredibly long necks.

After they'd been there awhile, Faith began to notice how D kept bringing them back to the panther exhibit. "You really like these guys, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah, you know, they're..." She trailed off and looked away, cheeks flushing slightly. "They kinda remind me of you," she whispered as she looked back at the slayer.

Faith stared down at her shoes, embarrassed. "Wow, um, thanks, D," she forced out, giving the other girl a small smile.

Finally, it was time to go; D had one more stop in mind for that afternoon. But before they did, Faith insisted they stop in at the gift shop. She looked around for a long time before finally finding what she was looking for: a stuffed panther about a foot tall.

She caught up with Dawn, who'd picked out something of her own to get Faith. "No way! I am NOT wearing that!" Faith protested, horrified.

"C'mon, you gotta! Please?" Dawn whined. Faith had no hope of refusing D when she pouted like that, and she knew it.

"Fine," she grumbled – but making sure she did it an a way that let D know she wasn't genuinely mad.

Next up was NASA's Johnson Space Center. Faith was positive everyone in their tour group was staring at her in her new t-shirt, which sported large cartoon penguins on both front and back, along with the words 'I'm Crazy About Penguins!' on the front. She felt like a ten-year-old – or at least, a ten-year-old who was wearing skintight black leather pants under her too-cute t-shirt.

She glared at D every chance she got, who just grinned back at her, shrugged, and kept telling her how cute she looked. Faith knew she loved her, but in the hour they spent looking at pictures of old astronauts and spacecraft, along with looking in on Mission Control, she thought she could easily have strangled D, as well.

Faith and Dawn spent their afternoons sightseeing, shopping, trying various restaurants, or just staying in all day and getting good and sweaty.

At night, Faith would go out and patrol for an hour or so. Dawn naturally wanted to go along, but Faith absolutely refused, and no amount of whining, pouting, or yelling on Dawn's part would change her mind. Not until her stitches had been out for at least a month, she told her, and simply wouldn't budge.

Dawn responded by insisting that Faith – until she had Dawn there backing her up – get herself out of any fight against three or more vamps, or two or more demons.

"Bet your ass I do. Now promise," Dawn had told her. Faith promised, reluctantly.

And even though they still had most of the money Angel had sent them, they eventually decided they should both get day jobs. It was fun living like a couple of rich slackers, but it would be better to save that money for emergencies, or for special situations. In the meantime, they'd each get jobs and use the money from them to pay the rent, buy food, etc.

Dawn got another waitress gig, and Faith hired on down at the docks, helping to load and unload ships, and move heavy cargo around. She told a laughing Dawn about how all the big, brawny guys looked at her the first morning like she was insane for thinking she could do this kind of work, and how, by the end of the day, they were coming to her and asking for her help.

Their combined salaries were actually more than they were spending on rent and food, and as a result they were now adding to their savings.

Finally, the month was up and Faith let Dawn go out on patrols once again. She was rusty and not up to full strength yet, but Faith didn't think either problem would last long. She was right.

She was beginning to wonder what she and Dawn should do for Thanksgiving, which was coming up very soon, when she started to get that sense that it might be time for her to think about moving on soon, that the cops might be closing in on her again.

Reluctantly, because they'd enjoyed their time in Houston so much, they withdrew their money from the bank, packed up their stuff, and bought a couple of tickets on the next bus bound for Denver.

For the last two or three days, she'd been sneaking around, going behind Faith's back running mysterious errands, and grinning mischievously at Faith whenever she noticed the slayer staring after her.

They'd been in Denver just over three weeks. They were staying in another slightly-better-than-a-rattrap motel, because neither wanted to dip too far into their supply of cash. Years of living on the road, scraping by with just a few dollars in their pockets, had given both women a slight miserly streak. They had no qualms about using it to do something nice for the other, but spending it on themselves, or using it on something as mundane as a room, was something that was very difficult for either to do.

Well, whatever it was that D had been doing over the last few days, Faith figured she was going to find out about it tonight. D had just kicked her out of their place, telling her to go out for a couple of hours, and absolutely under no circumstances to come back early. Faith was intrigued, and of course did as she'd been told. She had business of her own she needed to take care of tonight, anyway.

"Yes, please," Faith requested. The woman nodded and began to wrap the small box in red paper, with little Santa Clauses all over it. She also handed Faith a tag to write out. 'To D, From F,' she scrawled.

She gave the tag to the clerk, who attached it to the package, then tied a narrow green ribbon around it. Faith thanked her, paid, and left the store. She stood on the street outside and checked her watch. Still another hour to kill.

She slipped the small package into the pocket of her leather jacket, then began to walk slowly down the street, gazing into the windows of the various shops. In front of a women's clothing store, she came to a halt. Two of the dresses on display in the front window had caught her eye: a short black number that showed plenty of skin, and a slightly more modest one of a deep, royal blue. Simple but elegant, both of them. After a moment's hesitation, Faith opened the door and went in.

Her first thought when she returned to the motel room was that they'd been robbed. All of their stuff was gone, as was D herself. Then she spotted the note on the bed, and the two room keys.

Surprise! We've moved. Come to the Hyatt Regency, 1750 Welton Street, Room 512. Here's the key.

P.S. Drop off the room key from this dive on your way out, would you? Thanks. :)

Faith turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and then just stood in the doorway in complete disbelief.

The room was better than anything Faith had had in... well, maybe ever. There was a comfortable-looking queen size bed, a desk, a TV complete with satellite hookup and DVD player, a large closet, and a bathroom that, from where she stood, looked like it might be bigger than some of the motel rooms she'd stayed in over the years.

The real shock, however, was what Dawn had obviously been spending the last couple of days working on. Christmas decorations were everywhere; red, green, gold, and silver garlands hung all around the room. Large cardboard Santas, elves, and reindeer decorated the walls, and a three-foot-tall Frosty the Snowman hung on the bathroom door. A CD player, which looked suspiciously brand-new, played the Chipmunks' Christmas album.

The centerpiece of it all was the six-foot Christmas tree in the corner, where the right and back walls met. Ornaments of all kinds hung from the branches, more garlands wound around it, and dozens of lights blinked on and off at her. Faith even spotted a small, wrapped box under it.

"Damn, D," Faith whispered, stepping inside and still trying to take it all in. "It's amazing."

"When we celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago and you mentioned it was your first one, I figured you probably hadn't had many Christmases, either," Dawn said quietly. She closed the door, stepped behind Faith, wrapped her arms around her waist, and rested her chin on her lover's shoulder.

"Just one other," Faith replied softly. "My first year in Sunnydale. B invited me over for Christmas dinner."

"Relax, Faith. We can afford it. And it's only for a couple of weeks, 'til Christmas is over. We're spending Christmas in a nice place, and if you try arguing with me about it, well, I'll just have to kick your ass." She looked at Faith and grinned.

"Oh, really? Then I guess I'd better just keep my mouth shut," Faith agreed with a grin of her own.

"Well, I don't know about that," Dawn pouted. "I happen to like open-mouthed Faith when it comes to certain things." She leaned forward and plunged her tongue deep within Faith's open and waiting lips.

"Mmmhmnhm!" Faith said finally, and pulled away, much to their mutual disappointment. "I have something for you." She took the box out of her pocket and handed it to Dawn.

"Well, no," Faith told her. "I mean, yeah, but no. It's a Christmas present, I guess, but you don't have to wait 'til then. Go ahead, open it."

"No way!" Dawn put on a look of mock horror and outrage. "This is going under the tree, and I'll open it on Christmas Day." She turned and walked over to the tree, placing the new gift next to the other one.

"Fine," Faith sighed, disappointed. She'd really been looking forward to seeing Dawn's face tonight when she gave it to her, but if D really had her heart set on doing the whole Christmas thing, then she guessed she could wait. Actually, the more she thought about it, and admired all D's hard work, she was starting to look forward to it herself.

Dawn returned, and Faith eagerly folded her back into her arms, planting soft kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, her chin, her mouth. "You really did all this for me," she whispered, still finding it a little hard to believe anyone would go to so much trouble for her. "How long did it take, anyway?"

"Well, I got the room, bought all the stuff, and started decorating two days ago. I finished the decorations yesterday, and then needed to get you out of our old place for a little while tonight so I could pack up our stuff and move it over here. The tree took the most time," she explained. Faith could see why; there must've been dozens of ornaments on it, along with all the lights.

"I wanted to get a real one," Dawn said with obvious disappointment. "But the hotel said no way. So, it's fake, but it looks good, I think." Faith agreed. "Notice what's on top?"

"Yep. I guess we kinda have him to thank for all this, so it just didn't seem right to use a star."

"D, this has to be one of the amazing things anyone has ever done for me." She stared deeply into Dawn's blue eyes. "Thank you so much." She pulled the younger woman into a tender kiss that became more and more fierce as it continued to stretch out. Eventually, they had to come up for air.

"You know what I noticed about this room besides the beautiful decorations?" Faith asked.

"I noticed that this nice, big bed looks pretty damn comfortable. Wanna find out?" she purred.

"I think that sounds like the best idea I've heard all day," Dawn agreed, pushing Faith's jacket off her shoulders, and reaching down to tug the slayer's shirt over her head.

"Yeah, seems pretty comfortable to me," Faith announced, as Dawn pushed her backwards onto it and immediately went to work on undoing her boots. "D, are we really gonna do this with the Chipmunks playing in the background?" she asked a split-second before her jeans were ripped from her body.

In the two weeks leading up to it, Faith felt sure D had taken them to every single holiday attraction in Denver. She took them on a short railroad trip through Santa's Magic Village. She got them tickets to a live production of A Christmas Carol. It snowed one afternoon, and she insisted they go to the park and make snowmen (which had naturally ended up in a snowball fight). The only thing Faith had absolutely refused to do was have her picture taken with Santa, and no amount of pleading by Dawn would change her mind.

Also, thanks to the job Dawn had gotten at a video store, Faith thought they must've seen every single Christmas movie ever made. It seemed like D came home with three new DVDs every night, and they somehow found time to watch them all. Dawn had been horrified to learn that Faith had never seen A Charlie Brown Christmas, and naturally came home with a copy the very next night.

She also wasn't kidding about the kinky thing, which was a side of her Faith hadn't seen before. A couple of nights ago, she'd shown up with two Santa hats, and insisted they wear them all night while they had sex. It had been decidedly weird, Faith thought, but hey, she was very willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths if it made D happy – except having her picture taken with Santa, that is.

No, she corrected herself. We didn't have sex two nights ago. We made love. They hadn't had sex in quite awhile now; at some point she couldn't even remember, it had ceased to be sex in her mind, and become making love, a definite first in her life.

While the 'L' word still hadn't come up, she thought D might feel the same way about their physical relationship, that it might be more than just sex for her now, as well.

Faith was getting very nervous with the big day just two days away. What if D hated the presents she'd gotten her? She had almost zero experience in the present-buying area, and the last thing she wanted to do was to spoil D's perfect Christmas with her crappy gifts.

And just to give her one more thing to be wiggy about, tomorrow was the "big night." What if it went badly? What if she managed to screw Christmas up even before it got here? Should she postpone her plans?

No, she couldn't do that. She'd planned it this way on purpose, deciding a couple of weeks ago that Christmas Eve was the perfect night for it. This was just last-minute nerves talking. Have some guts for once, you asshole!

She pulled D, who'd fallen asleep ages ago, closer to her and finally drifted off herself.

"Get out. I need you to get out of here for a couple of hours while I do something," Faith explained. "I did it for you, so now it's your turn."

Dawn's look of shock and confusion turned to a mixture of understanding, curiosity, and excitement. "Oh. Okay, no problem. When should I come back?"

"Alright. Then I guess I'll just... see you then." Dawn picked her jacket up off of the chair where she'd taken to leaving it, gave Faith a quick peck on the lips, and left.

Faith waited two minutes for Dawn to clear the hallway, then sprang into action. She grabbed her own jacket and, making sure she kept an eye out for D as she moved through the city, ran several blocks to a store which had been holding a certain two items for her for the last two weeks.

The boxes clutched tightly under one arm, she returned to the hotel, hopped in the shower, got dressed, and went to work on her hair, not something she normally spent a lot of time on. It looks great on it's own; why mess with it? she asked herself with a grin.

At seven-twenty, room service arrived and began setting things up the way she'd ordered. They finished with a few minutes to spare, and Faith popped the CD she'd picked up the day before into the player, setting it on continuous play.

Finally, it was seven-thirty, and Faith was amused that D actually knocked softly on the door. "Come in," she called.

Dawn stepped inside and gasped, one hand actually coming up to cover her mouth (which Faith found absolutely adorable).

A small table had been set up at the foot of the bed, along with two chairs. Two places were set. The lights had been dimmed, making the two flickering candles near the table's center the brightest sources of light in the room. Soft, romantic music played in the background.

Outwardly calm and with only a hint of a smile, Faith was grinning ear-to-ear when she observed D's reaction to Faith herself. The slayer stood near the table, dressed in the short black dress she'd bought two weeks ago and had just picked up tonight. Her long dark hair hung freely down her back in soft curls. She hadn't had much time, money, or reason for makeup over the last few years, but she'd taken the time for it tonight, and had stayed away from her once-trademark near-Goth look, going instead for something soft and understated.

Simply put, she would've been the most stunning woman in the room at the most elegant party in the entire city.

"Oh my God," Dawn mumbled. She suddenly looked down at her own clothes, and Faith knew exactly what she was thinking: with her heavy boots, worn jeans, hooded sweatshirt, and leather jacket, she wasn't exactly dressed for the occasion.

"It's okay, D," Faith told her, smiling softly. She gestured to the bed, indicating the dress she'd gotten Dawn, the deep royal blue one that had caught her eye two weeks before. "If you wanna change, I'll call room service and order our food."

Dawn just smiled, still slightly embarrassed, and collected the garment, heading for the bathroom. Faith picked up the phone.

When D stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, Faith was momentarily afraid she was going to pass out. She felt certain she had never in her life seen a sight this beautiful.

D's dress was slightly longer, and covered a little more than Faith's did, but it clung tightly in all the right places, and as Faith had expected, the effect of the blue dress with her blue eyes was stunning. Her hair, much like Faith's, flowed unbound down her back, and she'd obviously taken the opportunity to use a little of the makeup Faith had bought for herself.

A neutral observer would've had a hard time deciding which of the two was more magnificent; of course, both thought the other won that battle hands-down.

They sat down to a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey, stuffing, a nice ten-year-old Merlot, and pumpkin pie for dessert.

There was almost no talking during the meal; both women just stared at one another, with nearly identical looks of happiness tinged with wonder on their faces.

Faith couldn't stop grinning. She'd tried to banish it, thinking it didn't necessarily fit with the mood she was hoping to set, but it kept coming back. When she'd first planned on giving D a night like this, in that long-ago boxcar, this was all she could've hoped for. The nice room, D's Christmas decorations, the wonderful dinner, how beautiful D looked in the candlelight, how amazing she looked in that dress, how happy she looked... It all gave Faith an immense feeling of pride that she'd been able to give this to D. She deserved this. No one else had ever treated Faith like she did, like she was a real person who mattered, and not just some fuck-toy. Even Robin, who she now knew had really loved her, hadn't made her feel like this, like she was really worth something.

Dawn finished the last of her pie and stood up. "May I have this dance?" she asked, holding her hand out.

"Uh..." Faith listened to the slow, romantic music – that she'd picked out, dammit! – playing in the background, and reluctantly admitted, "I don't really know how to dance to this stuff, D." Christ, she should've known she'd find some way to screw up the otherwise-perfect night!

"I'll show you," Dawn offered, continuing to hold her hand out. Hesitantly, Faith took it.

Dawn led them over to the small piece of open area left in the room, and lifted Faith's arms up to drape over her shoulders, then gently rested her own hands just above Faith's waist. "Now, watch my feet," she instructed.

Faith looked down and carefully observed how D's feet were moving. In no time, she had it, and they were dancing. After a little while, Dawn's hands drifted down and softly cupped Faith's rear.

While she had certainly heard the expressions about losing yourself in someone's eyes or arms, Faith had always thought they were a bunch of bullshit cooked up by some sappy loser. Not anymore; now she understood exactly what they were talking about, because as the dance continued, she lost herself in Dawn's gentle grasp. The way they moved in perfect synchronicity, the feel or her body pressed so close up against Faith's, the incredibly soft texture of her hair against Faith's check, the smell of her that was just uniquely "D."

As they danced to the smooth tones of a romantic instrumental melody, Faith realized that this woman wasn't the same one she'd met in a Boston alley in mid-September. That woman had been hard, bitter, tired and battle-weary. That woman would never have taken Faith to the zoo and bought her a ridiculous t-shirt with cartoon penguins on it. That woman would never have spent two days putting up Christmas decorations. That woman would never have put on a dress, sat down to a romantic candlelit dinner, and then slow-danced afterward.

With a growing sense of awe, Faith recognized that the D she was dancing with now was someone who'd been shaped by her relationship with Faith. And while Faith loved the D from that first night in Boston, she knew that the D here with her now was a better, more well-rounded person.

Faith had known for awhile that D felt sad that Faith had been denied a normal childhood, and that she was trying to share with her some of the things she'd missed out on. Was it possible that in doing so, D had re-discovered some of her own innocence? She was no longer the brat from Sunnydale, or the angry, battle-scarred warrior. Instead, she now had most of the best traits from each of them.

A lifetime of putting herself down made Faith want to think that she hadn't had anything to do with that, but the evidence here in her arms made it hard to deny. God, she loved this woman!

She knew now that she wanted to wake up every morning with D in her arms, and go to bed at night the same way. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with her, until they were both old and gray and sometimes had trouble remembering their own names, but always remembered how much they loved the other.

Faith stood, slowly revolving in those arms, and knew she had found the one place in all the world where she truly belonged.

"Hmm?" Faith pulled herself away from her thoughts and looked at the clock; they'd been standing here, dancing, for over an hour!

"What?" Faith asked, stepping back to look at her. "But it's only Christmas Eve." Tonight's been so perfect! What if she hates the presents I got her and it ruins everything?

"When I was in elementary school," Dawn explained softly, "I had this friend – Kelly – and in her family, they all got to open the presents they'd gotten for each other on Christmas Eve, then 'Santa Claus' would come for her and her brother on Christmas morning. I always thought she was so lucky, getting half of her presents a day early like that," she admitted with a smile. "It would be okay with me if we opened all of ours tonight. I mean, tonight's been so amazing, that it just seems like the perfect time to do it; it'd be tough to top this tomorrow."

"Um, okay, D, if that's what you want to do," Faith agreed, and walked over to the tree, scooping the six wrapped items out from underneath it and trying to hide her nervousness. Don't be nervous, you moron! Everything else has gone well so far, hasn't it? Have some confidence in yourself for once in your life!

They sat on the bed, and Faith handed D's three presents to her. They'd agreed on a limit of three each; partly to avoid spending a fortune on each other (their cash did have it's limits), and partly to make it easier on themselves, so that they weren't spending nearly every minute obsessing over what to get the other, buying one gift after another. Actually, for Faith, three gifts seemed like an incredible number. She wasn't sure she'd gotten three gifts total in her previous twenty-four Christmases.

"You first," Dawn insisted. "This one." She handed Faith the second-largest of her three gifts; it was about the size of a hardcover novel.

Faith eagerly ripped the paper off, revealing a plain white box, which she opened. She gasped when she saw what was inside.

It was an antique silver frame, five inches by seven. Inside was a picture of Dawn, one obviously taken by a professional photographer in a studio. She sat looking into the camera and smiling softly. A faint twinkle showed in her eyes, as if she were enjoying a private joke. Much like tonight, her hair hung loose around her shoulders, and the small amount of makeup she wore produced a stunning effect, since it was something she so rarely bothered with these days. She wore only a simple blouse, open at the neck, but it somehow fit perfectly with the rest of the setting.

"Wow," Faith said, unconsciously echoing her observation from earlier in the night. "D, this is... I mean, God, you're so beautiful." When she finally looked up from the photo, she saw Dawn blushing happily. "This is a new picture; when did you have this done?"

"About ten days ago," Dawn told her. "On my lunch break from the video store. The frame they gave me for it was okay, but then I found this other one that I liked a lot better, so I replaced it. You really like it?" she prodded.

"Like it? God, I love it! This has to be the best gift anyone's ever given me," she said truthfully. Of course, she knew D had to know that the list of all the gifts she'd gotten in her life couldn't be very long, so there wasn't exactly a lot of competition for that top spot. Dawn smiled happily anyway, apparently satisfied that Faith really did like it.

Faith crawled over and put it on her nightstand, so that it would be one of the first things she saw in the morning, and one of the last things she saw at night.

"Okay, your turn," Faith told her. "Open that one." She pointed to the biggest of Dawn's three boxes.

"Oh, this is great, Faith," Dawn told her enthusiastically after opening the box. Inside was a Sony Discman and a half-dozen of the latest CDs, artists Faith knew D liked.

"Not all that personal, I know," Faith admitted, a little embarrassed. "But it's just, I know how much you love music, and how bummed you've been about what happened to your old one..."

Dawn had told Faith awhile back about how her previous Discman, and her collection of about eight or ten CDs – she couldn't really carry more than that around with her, given how she and Kait were living – had been stolen over a year ago. She'd been CD-less since. 'I'd had it since Sunnydale,' Dawn had told her with clear disappointment about losing this link to her childhood.

"No chance! It's totally personal. You knew how much my old player meant to me, and how much I missed it. You also knew just what CDs to buy," she added with a grin, holding up the handful of albums.

"Yeah, I guess I did," Faith admitted, feeling a little better. She could tell D really did like them, and this wasn't even her best gift – those two were still left – which was why she'd had D open this one first.

"Alright, your turn again," Dawn prodded. She directed Faith to open the largest box, one that looked big enough to contain a football.

"You told me about how much you got to like reading while you were in prison," Dawn explained in a rush as Faith pulled out the two hardcover books, before she could say anything, "and I haven't seen you read anything since we've been together, but I just thought you might like these two," she finished lamely, dropping her eyes.

"I know how much you enjoyed A Christmas Carol last week, and Great Expectations, is supposed to be Dickens' best," she told Faith. "And you also told me how you wished you could go to Japan someday, and so I thought you'd like Shogun. Willow made me read it while we were there. I didn't really want to – reading's not really my deal – but I ended up loving it. It's all about samurais and stuff." She stopped talking finally, and waited nervously for Faith's reaction.

"D, these are so great. No one else would ever know me well enough to buy me something this perfect." Faith saw a relieved smile cross Dawn's face. "You're right: I haven't been reading much lately, but that's because I've had you around, and believe me, it's not hard to find things to do with you." She darted forward and planted a quick kiss on the lips of a surprised-looking Dawn. "I'm going to start both of these tomorrow, and I know I'm going to love them."

It was Dawn's turn next, and Faith directed her to a long, thin box. She held her breath; this was the one she was most nervous about.

Dawn unwrapped the box and withdrew the business-size envelope inside. Before she opened it, she gave Faith a small, curious smile, which Faith wouldn't understand for another few minutes. She pulled the single slip of paper from inside, and just stared at it. The pit of Faith's stomach began to drop. Oh God, she hates it, she's pissed at me, Oh God, I really did fuck it all up.

She was on the verge of grabbing the paper, ripping it up, and begging D to forgive her, when she noticed the tears beginning to leak out of the corners of her eyes, and the smile starting to form at the sides of her mouth. She pulled her gaze away from the paper with the address on it, and looked up at Faith. "This is really...?"

"Yep," Faith confirmed. "That's B's current address and phone number. Angel got them from Willow; B has no idea. So you can contact her if you want, and if you don't want to, she'll never know. Red says they should be good through the middle of February. After that, they'll probably be on the move again."

"Faith, this is just..." She couldn't finish. The tears began to fall in earnest, and she pulled Faith into a long, tight hug. Finally, she let her go, looked her in the eyes, and simply said, "Thank you."

"Welcome, D," Faith responded, happy and incredibly relieved at the response this gift had gotten. This was the one she'd thought had the greatest chance of royally fucking things up.

Faith picked up her last gift, a long, thin, box that seemed to weigh nothing. She discarded the wrapping paper, opened the top, and found a business-size envelope. "This isn't your sister's address and phone number, is it?" she asked Dawn with a smirk.

And Faith could already tell that that was true; this envelope was thicker, and obviously contained a lot more than just a single slip of paper. She opened it up and pulled out a folded set of legal documents, probably over a dozen pages long.

She began to skim the words, feeling more and more confused with each paragraph. She thought she understood them, but obviously she didn't, because there was no way... She must just not be able to decipher this legal crap.

Faith looked up from the papers and stared at Dawn, mouth slightly agape, waiting for an explanation.

"Your previous sentence was reduced to time served. All new charges, from the prison escape right up through that thing with Carl, have been dropped. You're completely, one-hundred percent a free woman," Dawn explained with a huge smile.

"D... How can I... I mean, I can never... This is just..." Faith couldn't find the words. Instead, she grabbed Dawn and wrapped her into a fierce hug, and began laughing as the relief spread all through her body. After all these years... Free! No more running. No more finding a nice place she was happy in and then having to leave because the cops were getting close. She could really live like a normal person again.

"And I was thinking," Dawn continued, "that maybe now you might be able to think about getting your GED – after all, you love to read, so you might even enjoy studying now. And once you'd gotten that, there'd be so many better jobs that you could apply for. No more having to just settle for work where you can use your slayer strength," she said with a wink.

"Yeah," Faith whispered. That actually sounded like a cool idea. She'd hated school back when she'd been going, but over the years she had realized how much she'd missed out on. She was tired of feeling like an idiot when people talked about things she didn't understand because she'd dropped out too early. "Yeah, I think I might do that."

She tried to recover from the enormous shock she'd just received. "Thank you, D. This is just... It's like getting your life back."

"Thank Angel and Gunn; they did all the work. I just had the idea," Dawn protested, blushing.

"Believe me, I will. But it all happened because of you, so thank you." She clasped her lover's hand and squeezed it gently, always mindful of her slayer strength. "Now go on, you've got one left."

Dawn didn't need any encouragement. She picked up the small package and tore the paper off, revealing a jewelry box. This was the item Faith had picked up a couple of weeks ago and tried to give D then, only to have her insist it wait until Christmas.

"Faith, this is beautiful," Dawn whispered. She lifted it out of the box, turning it over in her hands, admiring it. It was a silver crucifix, and at the point where the crosspieces met, a small locket was located. Dawn very carefully opened it.

Inside was a picture of Faith. Obviously not a professional photograph, but she looked amazing nonetheless. Her hair flew wildly in the breeze, and she was staring off at a point to the left of the camera, laughing at something.

On the inside cover of the locket was the inscription '9-14-08, D-F.' "The night we met, back in Boston," Dawn mumbled.

"Yeah," Faith confirmed quietly, still holding her breath, not entirely sure yet if D liked it.

Faith let out a relieved breath. So, it looked like she'd actually done a good job picking out the presents, after all. D still couldn't lie to her without Faith knowing, and she could tell that Dawn was being completely honest about how much she liked her gifts. Nice going, she told herself, and realized with a start that she couldn't remember ever mentally praising herself when she hadn't been doing so sarcastically.

D had unhooked the clasp, and was trying to fasten the cross around her neck. "Let me," Faith offered, and moved around behind the younger woman. She brushed her hair out of the way, her fingertips trailing along the soft skin of D's neck and shoulder, and re-fastened the clasp. "There."

D craned her neck around to look at her, and the sudden passion, lust, need – and was there even the slightest chance that could be love? – blazing in her lover's eyes caused Faith to gasp softly.

Dawn got up from her sitting position, rising to her knees and putting herself on a level with Faith. Her hands came to rest on Faith's waist, then slowly began to travel upwards. As they did, Dawn pulled Faith into a kiss, tongue seeking and gaining entrance.

Faith gasped softly again into D's mouth as the hands found her breasts. A moment later, they were slipping the thin straps of her dress off her shoulders, and she found herself being gently laid backwards on the bed, her head coming to rest on the pillow. The dress was carefully tugged down and off her body, and her panties followed.

When Faith opened her eyes, she saw D's equally-naked form hovering above her own. D leaned down for another kiss that stretched out for an eternity.

Since the night when one of the men Faith's mother had brought home had forced himself on an unwilling, crying twelve-year-old girl, Faith had had sex hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. Boys, girls, men, women, all races, all ages. It was fair to say Faith had quite a bit of experience in this area. But she had never felt anything like this.

Her whole body seemed to be on fire. Every single cell, from her hair down to her toenails, felt like it had been doused in gasoline and set on fire. But instead of the intense pain that would go along with this metaphor, she was feeling a pleasure so great she didn't think she'd ever find the words to describe it, even if she'd gone to college for a hundred years.

She was intensely aware of every single thing going on around her; she'd never felt so acutely alive. She could feel her own heart pounding, hear D panting in her ear, feel D's body pressing down on hers, feel D's rock-hard nipples as they occasionally rubbed against her own (producing whimpers from both of them every time), hear every single separate instrument in the music coming from the CD player. The blinking lights from the Christmas tree seemed as bright and enormous as searchlights, and when she looked up at the amazing face of D above her, she wouldn't be surprised if she would soon be able to pick out the atoms forming all the separate molecules in her skin. She was also pretty certain she could feel her own hair and nails growing.

God, she was so close! She wanted to get there more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life, but at the same time, she also wanted to prolong this, to keep it going forever, if possible. Right now the whole world was just her and D, and she'd never been happier and more content.

"Now, Faith. Please," D whispered simply, her hand increasing to a near-frantic pace.

Faith was transported out of their bed in their Denver hotel room. She was now standing in the hot desert sun of Arizona. At the Grand Canyon, to be exact. She distantly heard the words – "Now Faith. Please," – and as soon as she did, she took off at a sprint for the cliff's edge.

At the instant her physical body reached it's climax and went stock-still, stiff as a board, Faith's mind reached the edge of the Canyon and soared out into space. She hung there seemingly forever, with the most wonderful feeling of happiness and peace running all through her. Finally, gravity began to re-assert itself, and she slowly began falling. Back in Denver, her physical body began to buck and shudder in the throes of the heights Dawn had brought her to.

Faith fell and fell, the wonderful feeling of delight not tapering off in the slightest, even as the ground rushed up toward her. Somehow, the idea of being splattered all over the floor of the Grand Canyon didn't worry her. In the instant she hit the ground, she opened her eyes and found D's sweat-covered face staring down at her. Safe and sound, back in Denver.

"That was..." Faith panted, but couldn't finish. She just clutched D tight, leaning over every now and then to plant a soft kiss on her face whenever she'd summoned up enough strength to do so.

Finally, she rolled over on top of Dawn. "Let's see if I can show you just what that felt like," she offered with a smile, and placed a soft, closed-mouth kiss on D's lips. Her hand trailed downward, between her breasts, over her incredibly-toned stomach, past her too-adorable belly-button...

Minutes – ... or hours... or days… – later, Faith was greedily drinking in every sight and sound as Dawn, lying below her, took her own leap off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

It was impossible to tell what time the two were finally unable to go any longer, and collapsed back on the bed, completely and totally spent.

Faith's arm draped across D's chest, and she played absently with one of D's nipples, an activity she never got tired of. As she began to drift off to sleep, she wondered if she would ever again in her life have a night this wonderful.

She was in that halfway place between sleeping and waking, and drifting further away by the second. With most of her brain thinking it had already fallen asleep and was now speaking at the start of a great dream, she mumbled, "I love you, D," then completed the nightly trip to dreamland, a soft smile still on her face.

She didn't see Dawn's eyes, which had been closed as she also approached sleep, snap open. She didn't see the sudden fear blossom in them as she realized exactly what it was Faith had just said, and as certain truths about her own feelings came crashing to the surface.

Faith awoke with a feeling of numb soreness in her entire body. But it was a pleasant soreness, not an uncomfortable one. She smiled as she remembered everything that had happened the night before. She thought she might even finally be able to tell D she loved her this morning – she had no memory of what she'd said in the instant before sleep took her last night.

With a twinge of disappointment she realized D wasn't in her arms. This happened every now and then, but usually they woke up with one of them holding the other. Faith had come to regard it as one of the best parts of her day, waking up and knowing that she was with D. For awhile after they'd gotten together, she'd had to restrain herself from throwing open their door in the morning, still nude, and screaming to everyone that Dawn Summers actually wanted to be with her!

She reached out for Dawn and came up empty. Opening her eyes, she saw she was alone in bed this morning. Maybe D had gotten up already to take a shower; but she didn't hear any water running, and they nearly always showered together. Or maybe, knowing D, she'd gotten up to spring some Christmas morning surprise on Faith.

She smiled and sat up, wondering just what D had planned. The smile died on her lips as she looked around. All D's things were gone. The closet door stood open, and only Faith's clothes were visible inside. Faith's eyes began to frantically search the room. Whatever D was up to, this just wasn't funny.

With a trembling hand, she reached for the sheet of paper on the nightstand on D's side of the bed. She tried to read it, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn't make out any of the words. She had to put it down on the bed before she could finally begin reading it.

First, please believe me when I tell you how sorry I am. I'm sorry I have to do this at all, and I'm a hundred-times sorrier I have to do it after what we just shared. That was the most magical night of my whole life.

Please know that I love you too. I think I have ever since that first night in Boston, and probably long before that. The problem is, I don't think I ever consciously admitted it to myself. In spite of how great what we've had has been, I think I've been trying to tell myself that it was just a good time, not anything serious. But when you told me you loved me last night, I finally had to be honest with myself and admit that yes, I love you, as well.

No. No, please tell me I didn't say that, Faith thought in horror. I don't remember saying that so HOW COULD I HAVE SAID IT?!

I wish more than anything in the world that I could stay with you, and live the rest of my life with you. But I love you too much to put you in that kind of danger.

See, the last person who told me she loved me, I got her killed. I got her killed because I wasn't quick enough or strong enough to protect her, just like I'm not quick enough or strong enough to protect you. She counted on me backing her up and I couldn't get the job done, and eventually I know you'll come to count on me the same way, and I'll end up letting you down, too.

I'd better stop writing now. If I don't, you'll be waking up soon, and if that happens, I'll lose my nerve and stay, and someday you'll end up dead because of it. Thank you for everything you've done for me, Faith. These have been the best three months of my life – I mean that with all my heart.

Faith finished the letter, then went back and re-read it, as if somehow hoping the awful words would say something different the second time around. They didn't.

She turned to her nightstand and picked up the picture that D had given her the previous night, and just stared into that beautiful face. She looked deep into the eyes, as if begging them to offer her some explanation for why her world had so suddenly and unexpectedly come crumbling down around her. The laughing blue eyes and soft smile didn't seem to have anything to say.

Then, something happened that hadn't happened in over eight years. Not since a lonely, scared, confused girl had been wrapped in the arms of a vampire with a soul in a Los Angeles alley.

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Racing the Past

by Barnabas

Copyright © 2004

Barnabas930@yahoo.com