Triune by TheBear

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: If I owned 'em, they'd have to show it on the Ecstasy Network.
Distribution: http://www.papa-bear.com/
http://mysticmuse.net
Feedback: Feed The Bear!
Pairing: Willow/Tara/Buffy

Summary: Book Three of the Triad Trilogy. Sequel to the Please Trilogy.

"Is it me, or did the creepy 'someone's watching me' feeling go away finally?" Dawn asked, looking over her shoulder at the two adults walking behind her.

They were walking down the street toward the lot in which they had parked their jeep earlier that evening.

Dawn noticed Giles' head swiveling back and forth as he answered, "Yes, I no longer feel the sensation either…"

"Why am I thinking that isn't necessarily a good thing…" Dawn asked. 'something feels wrong…' she thought, unable to define exactly what.

"Perhaps because you are an unusually precocious young woman?" Giles said with a smile in his voice, if not on his face.

Joyce's voice was full of apprehension as she said, "No, it could be a good thing, right? Maybe we lost whoever it was, or maybe there wasn't anybody at all, right? Just a- a little paranoia, right?"

'Duh, can you say denial?' Dawn thought. 'some TV show I saw… they said 'it's not paranoia if they're really trying to get you…' or something like that…' Suddenly she realized what was feeling so creepy. 'It's too quiet…'

At that moment Dawn saw the brake lights of her mother's jeep flare briefly from across the lot as either Giles or her mother hit the door unlock on the remote. She turned to Giles and said, "So whaddya think…"

Everything happened very quickly at that point. Dawn's comment died on her lips when she saw her mother's eyes widen in fear and felt a hand roughly grip her shoulder. "Where did they come from?' she thought when she saw two men suddenly appear behind Giles and her mom, as though by magic. Incongruously, the thought, 'It's like slow motion,' ran across her mind as she watched Giles surge forward and swing his fist at a spot above her head. The hand on her shoulder abruptly disappeared and she heard the watcher's voice shouting, "Run Dawn! For God's sakes, run!"

'Oh God! Oh God!' she chanted in her head as she spun around and took off into the parking lot, instinctively weaving back and forth between the cars. She could feel her heart beating hard and fast in her chest and throat as she sought to evade her pursuers. When she finally chanced to look behind her, there was no one there.

Dawn's brain was still chanting 'Oh God! Oh God!' as she crouched down behind a car and tried to listen for someone chasing her. After a moment of panting and listening, she thought, 'Dammit! I can't hear anything but me!'

She started to feel dizzy and tried to take shallow breaths. After she'd calmed her breathing a bit, she chanced to look over the hood of the car she was crouched behind. 'Where are they!?' she wondered as she looked around, not seeing anything. She slumped back down and tried to collect herself, thinking, 'What do I do now? Oh God, what if they killed mom and Giles!?' Her immediate terror at being chased was slowly replaced with horror as she pictured her mother and surrogate father laying on the ground with their throats cut.

"Oh God, please, no!" she whispered as fat tears began to drop from her eyes, and her gut twisted up in knots. Her breathing began to increase again, and the dizzy feeling started to return. 'Oh god, I think I'm gonna puke!' she thought. 'I'm loosing it! I wish Buffy was here!'

A moment, or an eternity later, she couldn't tell which, Dawn heard a voice call out to her. "Girl, come out. We just need to speak with you."

Dawn felt cold sensation running through her body at the rough male voice, and it seemed like her heart actually stopped for a moment.

"Come child, your mother and the man are unharmed," the voice boomed out. "We come in peace; we only wish to talk."

'Bullcrap!' Dawn thought. Now a fiery sensation of fury began to pour through her, burning away the cold fear as she thought, 'What? Do they think I'm stupid?' As her breathing once again calmed a little, and the feeling of nausea subsided with the hot anger, she moved slowly to the back of the car and peered up over the trunk.

Giles was being held from behind by one man, another was holding the point of a long knife to his throat. 'He looks really pissed!' she thought as she took in the rage on Giles face.

Looking at her mother- who looked slightly faint while she was being held- Dawn noted that man holding her had blood all over his face. 'Way to go Giles!' she thought, 'That must be the one who grabbed me.'

"Child, we mean no harm, but we will be forced to take stronger measures if you don't come out," the man holding Giles called out.

After a second's observation, Dawn saw that the bad guys each had a sunburst tattoo thing on their foreheads. 'Oh, these are those knights guys that Buffy fought. Bizz… something.' She felt another dart of fear spike through her anger as she remembered, 'The guys who want to destroy the Key. Great! Perfect, that's just fantastic, since the Key happens to be me!'

They had made it back to their room at the Hyperion from the club. 'Finally!' Tara thought. 'I thought we were going to end up giving the driver a free show!' Now her two lovers stood before her expectantly, their attention focused on her alone.

"I look at the two of you and… you're so beautiful! Goddess I feel like I'm melting when I look at you." Tara said lovingly. "You make me so incredibly happy, I can't ever get enough of you." She took two steps forward, till she was nearly body to body with them, then she reached up and cupped their faces, her hands almost trembling. 'Goddess, I feel like I'm buzzing with energy!' she thought.

Willow and Buffy stood silently, their eyes wide, pupils dilated as they listened to their lover and Mistress.

"I can't believe what happened at the club tonight! It was so… I could never have imagined doing something like that before, but I loved it! You two make me feel like nothing in the world matters but us," Tara whispered, her eyes moving back and forth between the Slayer and the Witch.

Tara leaned into Buffy and spent a moment kissing the deceptively petite girl, then pulled away to treat Willow with the same.

"Would you help me undress Buffy?" Tara asked, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. 'Like she'd ever say 'no' to that!' she thought with amusement.

Willow's look reinforced Tara's smirk and the redhead's voice was clearly amused when she answered, "You know I can't deny you baby."

"Start with the neck," Tara whispered before guiding by example. She began to kiss Buffy's neck, rubbing her nose and cheek against the soft column of flesh. She briefly noticed Willow copying her actions on the other side of the Slayer's throat as she slid the hem of Buffy's little top up over her chest.

After they rapidly removed the petite blonde's shirt, Tara and Willow began to stroke the flesh of her tummy, and her braless chest. "No bra again? What am I going to do with you Buffy?" Tara whispered in her ear while tweaking the stiff nub of her left breast.

"Umm, I… oh! I- it makes it easier to get n- naked…" Buffy mumbled out between gasps and panting.

"Mmm hmm, but I like taking it off… it's like unwrapping a present!" Tara said with a little pout, and then nipped at Buffy's skin just below her ear, eliciting a loud yip from the Slayer.

Tara moved down to Buffy's chest, leaving a trail of kisses in her wake. 'Goddess, I love the smell of your skin!' she thought as she went. 'and it's so soft, and, mmmm!'

Buffy was breathing hard and occasionally gasping as Tara and Willow laved, nipped and kissed the flesh of her breasts.

"Pant's Willow!" Tara gasped out, pulling away from the nipple she was suckling just long enough to do so. She reached for the zipper of Buffy's leather pants while Willow worked on the button. They had the leather down and off in an instant, time seeming to move strangely as the lust built up inside Tara.

"I'm surprised to see that you wore any underwear at all!" Tara said upon seeing the scrap of black that covered the slayers sex. She looked up at her lover's face and raised an eyebrow, reinforcing her questioning comment.

Buffy's face flushed red and her smile looked guilty as she explained, "I- I didn't want to ruin the pants…"

Tara looked back down to see Willow stroking the Slayer's crotch. 'Goddess! Her fingers are so wet, even through the cloth!' she marveled. "Mmm, don't rush things sweetie…" she said as she caught Willow's hand and drew it up to suckle the wetness off of her fingers. She stared into the redhead's eyes as she cleaned Buffy's syrupy juices from her fingers. 'Oh yes, I know just how I'm going to reward you two…' she thought as she took in the whimpers coming from both her lovers.

Tara quickly pulled off Buffy's last bit of clothing and tossed it aside after the blond stepped out of them. "Now, Buffy, I want you to strip your pet. You can play with her chest for a little bit, but don't waste time, I've got to get something." She stood up and walked over to her case containing some spell components she'd brought. 'Time to try a little something I've been working on…' she thought excitedly. 'This is going to be great!' she chuckled as she rummaged through her bag.

When she turned back to her girlfriends, she paused for a moment to take in the glorious sight of the two wrapped in an embrace, their heads turned toward her as if waiting for the next instruction. "Oh, Willow, I love your pale skin up against Buffy's tan… it's such a lovely contrast!" she breathed out softly, feeling a wave of desire flow through her already sensitized flesh.

Willow blushed pink and grinned widely in that way that made Tara's heart flutter. She resumed her approach and said, "I want to cast a spell, part of my reward to the two of you for tonight, but I need a little blood to cast it… I'll need to prick your finger, both of you, to make it work." She held up a lancet such as diabetics use for testing and searched their eyes for any signs that they were too uncomfortable with this.

Buffy and Willow exchanged a brief glance and turned back to the blond witch. Each extended their hand, finger extended. "We trust you Tara." Buffy said.

Tara's smile returned to full. 'I love you so much!' she thought feeling a warm fuzzy in her heart.

"Ok, what we need to do is, I'll lance your finger, then you dip it in this," she said while opening a vial and pouring out a little pale brown powder in the palm of her hand. "Then, you put your finger in each other's mouth and lick it off…" She paused for a moment then said a brief chant while waving her free hand over the powder in her palm.

"Ok, Willow…" Tara said. She put the lancet on the redhead's finger and triggered it, making a snapping sound and causing her to flinch back, a bead of red on her fingertip. "Ok, dip it in the dextrose," Tara instructed.

Willow dipped her finger in Tara's palm and held it up, looking intently at the resulting reddish brown paste on her fingertip.

"Now you Buffy…" Tara said. She performed the same with the Slayer and then said, "Ok, now each of you licks the other's finger…"

'This is going to be amazing! Tara thought as she watched the girls suckle each other's fingers. 'Of course, they couldn't just do it, they have to make it into foreplay!' she thought, happily exasperated as she watched them erotically suck and lick each other's digit clean.

'Willow the scientist makes an appearance.' Tara thought with amusement as she unthinkingly licked the residue from her palm. "Now, lay back on the bed, both of you- and no touching. I'm going to do all the touching for a while," she said with a predatory smile.

The blond witch slowly disrobed as the other two followed her instructions, lying side by side, but keeping their hands to themselves.

Once she was naked, Tara crawled up onto the bed, straddling her red-haired lover, careful not to actually touch her. She looked into Willow's eyes and whispered, "I love you."

"Oh, I love you too Baby!" Willow whispered back hoarsely, her eyes shiny with emotion and her body twitching.

'Hmm, not easy holding still, is it sweetie?' Tara thought with a smile before moving down to give her a single long lick across one turgid nipple. As she did, she twisted her head to keep an eye on the Slayer, thinking, 'This should get a response…'

Willow's hum of pleasure was drowned out by a sharp gasp from the Slayer, followed by an incredulous, "Oh my God! What? How?"

'Yes!' Tara thought exultantly. "Did'ja like that Buffy?" she asked teasingly, her eyes locked on the stunned Slayer's wide-eyed stare.

"What happened?" Willow asked, twisting under Tara to get a look at her other blond lover.

"Shh, lie back Willow." Tara gently instructed. "I'll show you what happened," she said with a giddy laugh. 'Oh I'm so happy this worked!' she thought as she crawled over to the other side of the bed, hovering over the still shocked Slayer.

Slowly, Tara lowered herself until her entire weight was resting on her blond girlfriend. She grinned as she heard Willow inhaling sharply, thinking, 'if you think that feels strange…' She began to kiss Buffy, licking and sucking on that slightly protruding upper lip for a moment before deepening the kiss and rolling her tongue round and round with the Slayer's.

When, after a moment, she pulled away and turned toward the redhead she saw her staring wide-eyed, her hand against her lips and her face exuding stunned amazement. 'Oh, Willow! Even after all this, you can still look so delightfully innocent sometimes!' Tara thought.

"I felt that!" Willow gasped in wonder. "I- it was almost like you were kissing me! Goddess, how did you do that!?" she demanded, somehow coming across as shocked and amazed and delighted and annoyed all at the same time.

Tara rolled off of Buffy till she was laying on the side away from Willow, so that she could see them both as she answered. "It was the spell sweetie, it lets you feel the echo of each other's feeling…" As she explained, she let one hand move down Buffy's taught abdomen and she began to stroke the blonde's slick nether-lips. "So, lay back and enjoy, Willow. This is gonna get really interesting…"

"Oh goddess! You always find the *best* spells!" Willow said with a whimper as she fell back onto the bed.

'Oh, yeah, this is going to get really, really interesting!' Tara thought as she suddenly realized she was getting a dim echo of the sensation of her fingers on Buffy's wet sex herself. 'Oh, I licked off my palm!' she remembered. 'Oh my, I can't wait till I have them do a sixty nine!' she thought giddily as she slid down to taste her Slayer's sticky syrup directly.

"The gun!" Dawn whispered as she was struck by the sudden realization of what she had to do. 'Giles said he put the gun in the glove compartment...'

She tried to ignore the pounding of her heart, which at that moment felt like it had taken up residence in her throat. 'Ok, where's the jeep?' she moved back to the other end of the car she was hiding behind and looked out over the hood, scanning the parking lot for a moment. 'Come on, come on... focus Dawn!' she thought with frustration as she looked around in vain for several moments.

Struggling against the panic that threatened to overwhelm her as images of the knights hurting her mother or Giles ran through her mind, Dawn closed her eyes for a moment and took several deep slow breaths. 'Ok, slow down. Think! We came in and turned to the left, right against the fence... so it should be...' she opened her eyes and turned to look to her right, seeing her mom's jeep parked two cars away from the one she was hiding behind, not more than five meters from her current position.

Dawn quickly crab-walked over to the jeep, listening carefully for the bad guys. 'they're talking but I can't quite hear what they're saying!' she thought with annoyance. As she reached the door to the jeep she was thought, 'Thank God one of them unlocked this before we got jumped…' Dawn felt a cool sensation of relief flow through her knowing she would at least have something to use against these guys. She felt her breathing and pulse even out as she reached up and opened the door.

"Damn!" Dawn cried softly in frustration and renewed fear. 'The damn car light!' she realized too late. Throwing caution to the wind she yanked the door open and scrabbled for the glove compartment door. The moment it came open she saw the pistol, black and shiny under the bulb in the glove box. She grabbed it and quickly ran, thinking only, 'Got to get away from here before they can get me!'

After the quick sprint and ducking behind another car, Dawn looked behind her and was relieved not to see anyone. 'Ok, slow down. Slow down,' she thought as she once again worked to control her breathing and the pounding pulse in her chest and throat.

"Gone my lord!" came a different voice from the direction she'd run from. Cautiously, Dawn peaked up through the windows of the car she was huddled behind, 'Ok, what would Buffy do? Um, I guess I should, ahh, figure out where I am, and where they are...' she thought.

She saw the knight with the bloody face over by her mom's jeep, and the other two still bracketing Giles. 'Mom's too freaked out to do anything, especially with that knife to Giles throat...' she realized. 'Well, Dawn? You've got the gun... what'cha gonna do now?' she asked herself.

"I grow tired of this, Child." The first knight's voice rang out again. "Come out or the watcher's life is forfeit!"

The threat, and her mother's answering cry of "No, please!" decided her. 'Just like playing quake with Xander...' she told herself, remembering better times playing for hours on end with Xander on his play-station. 'I always did outshoot him... I can do this...' she reminded herself as she tried to quietly move over to the side of where her mom and Giles were standing.

Dawn slowly crept along the row of cars, keeping her head as low as she could. 'I feel like a dork!' incongruously popped into her head as she imagined what she must look like, bent almost in half, but trying to keep her eyes forward as she moved.

Despite her efforts to avoid it, the question kept rising up in her mind, 'Can I do this? Can I pull the trigger?'

Finally, Dawn was within a car length of Giles and the two knights holding him in place. Her hands felt sweaty on the gun as she risked a glance through the windshield and over the hood of her cover and thought, 'Now what?' Her emotions were a rumbling mixture of fear and anger as she considered her next course of action.

All thought fled her mind as she heard a growled command, "Enough waiting! Kill him!"

Something in Dawn snapped and her body reacted seemingly of it's own volition, straightening up and pointing her weapon at the knight wielding the dirk.

'Bloody Ponce!' Giles thought, his mind raging as he longed to unleash the Ripper.

'These damned knights! If that wanker didn't have a dirk at my throat I'd tear them apart with my bare hands! I'll wager you know it too, don't you?' he thought, seeing the focus and determination in the eyes of the man holding him at knifepoint.

"Come out or the watcher's life is forfeit!" shouted the one holding his arms behind him.

"No!" Giles started to shout, his warning cut short by the feel of the knife tip pressing into his neck. 'Don't do it Dawn!' Giles thought with all his might, as though he could broadcast his thoughts to the youngest Summers woman. His shaking rage allowed him to mostly ignore the feel of something wet dripping down his throat- whether it was sweat or blood he didn't know.

Whether his thoughts were any help or not, Dawn proved her intelligence by not responding to the demand. 'Good for you, Dawn! You're made from the Slayer alright!'

Several moments later, the waiting apparently was too much for the knights. The one holding him growled, "Enough waiting. Kill him!" to the man with the dirk.

The sob from his lover was like molten lava bubbling in his gut as he thought of how his death would effect her. 'Oh, Joyce! I'd spare you this if I could!' he thought as he resolved to sell his life dearly. He tensed, prepared to move as he saw the strike coming from the knight in front of him, when the moment was shattered.

A sharp crack filled the air and Giles eyes widened as he saw the left side of his would-be killer's head suddenly gout blood and gray-matter into the air. "Good Lord!" he whispered, stunned at the sudden reprieve from death, as much if not more than the sudden bloodshed.

The scene swept by in slow motion as he swiveled his head to the left, looking for the face of his savior.

'God in heaven!' he marveled upon seeing Dawn Summers standing there, not three meters to his left and holding a pistol extended in her hands, her jaw clenched with resolve. 'She reminds me of Willow...' he thought incongruously, comparing her expression to the redhead's famous 'resolve face'.

Still bewildered, Giles didn't notice the third knight bearing down on the teenager until he heard Joyce's frantic cry.

"Good heavens!" Giles said in a strangled exhale as he watched the slender brunette spin in place and face the approaching attacker. She didn't even flinch though he was not two steps from her and coming at a full out sprint.

Once again the sharp crack of the pistol filled the night air and once again Giles witnessed the effect that a nine-millimeter hollow point has on the human cranium when fired at point-blank range. 'It's not at all like in films...' he thought strangely as the man's momentum was not swayed in the least. His body continued forward even as his head snapped back and the wet spray of brains and blood filled the air behind him. Fortunately, his aim was sufficiently diverted that he missed the girl, who Giles noticed finally cringed away now that it was far too late for it to matter, and crashed into the parked car just next to her.

All was silence for a heartbeat before Giles snapped into action, breaking away from the suddenly slackened grip on his arms and spinning around to deliver a knife-hand blow to the side of his captor's neck, dropping the larger man like a pole-axed steer. 'Don't know if I'd be better pleased if he's still alive or not!' he thought as the rage still pumped through his veins.

Giles turned to look at Joyce, asking "Are you alright! Are you hurt?" He stepped quickly to her and wrapped her in his arms, hot rage quickly replaced with cool relief and a bit of adrenaline-inspired shaking.

"Yes, no, I mean... I think I'm ok..." she muttered in his embrace, clutching tightly to him. "Oh God, Dawn!" she cried after a moment, pulling away.

Giles let her go, and quickly strode over to the teen, Joyce hot on his heels. "Dawn... Dawn! Are you hurt?"

Dawn was still holding the gun in both hands, though she had it pointed downward. Her head was swiveling between the body at her feet and the one that had been holding a knife to Giles.

'Oh dear, I do hope she's alright...' Giles thought as he stopped next to her, worried at how this would affect her. At the same time, his chest swelled with pride at the marvelous way she'd handled herself. 'I would never imagined you had it in you, child,' he thought warmly. He gently placed his hand on her shoulder and said, "Dawn, look at me."

Dawn slowly brought her gaze up to the watcher's face, still no expression beyond determination on her face.

"It's over, Dawn. Your mother and I are alright. Thanks in very large part to you, Dawn." Giles said, putting all the warmth and pride he could into his voice.

Slowly, Dawn nodded her head. She brought up the pistol between them, still pointed down, and her finger completely off the trigger.

Giles couldn't help but grin a little as he gently took the weapon from her hands. "You did marvelously Dawn." He turned to Joyce and said, "If you're alright to drive..."

"Of course, I'll get the car..." Joyce said quietly, her face a bit slack, but clearly holding herself together for the moment at least.

Giles turned his attention back to the youngest Summers and said, "I'm very proud of you Dawn. Not many people of any age are able to handle themselves in a crisis as well as you did..." His smile fell away though when he saw her eyes widen suddenly and her face grow pale. 'Oh dear, I do believe she's going to be ill...'

"Oh, God!" Dawn whispered, and then bent over and noisily vomited on the ground next to the body of the man that she'd shot right through the middle of his face.

Giles, having been through similar situations in his life, did the only thing he could under the circumstances; he held her long brown hair up and out of the way while he whispered over and over, "It will be alright, Dawn. Everything will be alright..."

Giles didn't react to the knight's protest, he merely continued walking around the bound form, chanting and waving the smoldering sage. 'Focus on the spell, Rupert,' he thought. 'Think about what happened later.'

Upon finding that the knight commander survived Giles chop to the neck, He had loaded him in the back of the jeep and directed Joyce to quickly drive them back to Ethan's apartment. He spent the drive holding a shaking Dawn tightly to him and whispering comforting nonsense in an attempt to mollify the distraught girl.

He'd avoided Joyce's gaze in the rearview mirror, having no reassurances to offer her, none that would have been true in any case.

Finishing his chant, Giles crouched down in front of the subject of the spell and said, "Now then, let's you and I have a little chat."

"Cursed wizard, your spells shall have no effect on me! God shall protect me from your dark magics!" the knight commander sneered.

'Bloody drama queen.' Giles thought of the knight's declarations. "Surely God has no love lost for those who would murder children in cold blood…" he started. 'I hope this spell bloody well works!' he thought, feeling a sense of tightness behind his eyes from the unfamiliar exercise of magic.

"The Key is the Link. The Link must be severed. Such is the will of God!" the knight said with a tone of fanatical certainty in his voice.

Giles steeled himself against the wash of panic that swept through his stomach and bowels at that declaration. 'How the bloody hell do they know?!' the thought furiously.

"What is the Key? And how does murdering an innocent girl have any effect on it?" Giles asked, fishing for any info he could get.

"You seek to deceive me?" the knight asked, his whole demeanor clearly displaying his incredulousness. "We know the monks sent the Key to the Slayer to protect it from the beast, but she will fail. The Key *must* be destroyed! It is the only way to stop the beast!"

'Do they know, or merely suspect?' he wondered. "And again I ask, what does any of that have to do with the girl you wanted to murder? If the Slayer has this Key you're looking for, why go after her sister? Surely you don't believe that she would entrust something so important to a teenage girl?" Giles asked.

The knight's voice was not so filled with certainty as he answered, "We believe the girl *is* the Key."

'Damnation! How?!' Giles raged. Forcing a chuckle out, he filled his tone with incredulity as he asked, "Good Lord man! Why on earth would you believe that? I've known Dawn since she was ten, and I can assure you that she is quite human."

Giles saw the knight's face change, and for a moment he looked confused and unsure. "No… the monks… yes, we were told… the memories were implanted…" the knight mumbled to himself. Suddenly his countenance changed again, suspicion writ large upon it as he met Giles gaze.

"The monks implanted those memories, but you knew that already! You seek to dupe me, but we were prepared for such lies. I have heard the entire story, and I know you are fully aware of the Key and how she came to assume human form!"

"Someone told you Dawn was the Key and sent you here after her?" Giles asked, trying to maintain his act and gain that last crucial bit of information. 'Come on you bloody wanker, just one more answer!'

"No, wizard, I'll answer no more of your questions! I told you God would protect me from your filthy magics!" the knight crowed, not realizing how much he had already given away.

'Doesn't make any bloody sense! No one knows where we are…' he mused while closing and locking the door to the room where he was storing the knight. 'And, the only ones who know about the Key, were the monks, and ourselves, at least so far as we know…' He was still shaking his head in confusion as he returned to the living room.

As soon as he entered the room, Joyce jumped up from where she was sitting on the edge of the couch and quickly moved to him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly.

Joyce moved back enough to look up at his face and he could see the overwhelming concern in her eyes as she answered, "Asleep. Poor thing, she was exhausted…"

"Yes, well this incident has been extremely traumatic for her, no doubt." Giles said, understanding her concern for the teenaged girl. He walked with Joyce over to the couch and looked down at the girl in question with an expression of almost paternal pride. His felt a warmth flow through him as he thought, 'You surpassed my wildest imagination, child; I'm so proud of you. I know Buffy will be as well.'

"Do you remember parent/teacher night at Sunnydale High, oh about three years ago?" Joyce asked in a soft voice.

Giles thought for a moment and then smiled as he answered, "The night Spike led the attack on the high school."

Joyce nodded her head. "That was before I knew anything about vampires or slayers or any of that. I- I was terrified, and Buffy took charge and saved the day… or the night I guess," she said with a brief chuckle.

Giles tightened his one-armed embrace on his lover, not commenting but waiting for her to continue.

"I was so proud of her; so proud that my daughter could handle herself in a crisis like that…" she trailed off.

'I believe Buffy would say, "I hear a big 'but' coming…" at this point,' Giles thought. 'She presents such a strong image for her daughters despite the fact that she is terrified of the dangers Buffy, and now Dawn, must face…'

"But a big part of me wanted nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and hide her from ever having to face danger again for the rest of her life." Joyce finished her thought.

"You're their mother, Joyce. I wouldn't expect anything less of you." He paused for a moment as he experienced the competing emotions of pride and fear flow through him, as they did every time he sent his Slayer out into the night. "Did you know that for the first three years of our working together I made Buffy report in after every single patrol?"

Giles felt her head move against his chest and turned his gaze from the youngest Summers to the elder, seeing surprise in her expression. "I still would to this day; however, when she went to university she explained to me in no uncertain terms that she was an adult now, quite capable of handling herself on patrol and no longer needed to check in with me nightly."

Giles nodded thoughtfully and once again looked down at the sleeping girl for a moment before continuing. "Buffy is the most successful Slayer in all of recorded history, and I still worry every single night. I don't imagine that that will ever change…"

Shaking his head slightly, he changed the subject. "We will help Dawn deal with the ramifications of tonight's events, and we can take some solace in the fact that she is obviously more capable than any of us had ever thought."

Feeling his lover's embrace tighten around his ribcage, he looked back to her and saw the unshed tears in her eyes.

'Thank God!' Giles thought ardently, admitting for the first time even to himself, 'I worried that this night might have ruined us.' He turned to face her directly and cupped her cheek, saying, "I love you, Joyce Summers!"

With that he leaned forward and kissed his lover, letting his actions convey the passion his words often lacked.

"Hey, if you two are gonna make out, could you, like, get a room or something?" Dawn's groggy voice sounded out, startling both of them.

"No Gun! You've got to let Deadboy take up the rear!" Xander's voice rang out as Gunn and Angel came barreling through the doors into the makeshift training area they'd set up. "If worst comes to worst, or someone makes a mistake, he can take a bullet and keep fighting- you can't!" the only remaining male member of the Scooby gang loudly explained.

Tara MacLay was sitting with her girlfriends off to the side of the large room, watching the others practice for their upcoming confrontation with Glory. Xander was guiding Gunn, Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley through their 'assignments'. Faith was pacing back and forth near the triad, apparently too filled with nervous energy to sit.

'We should be nervous too, I guess,' Tara mused as she watched Faith pacing. 'We are going up against a god, after all…' She looked down at Willow, who was leaning up against her, and Buffy who was lying with her head in Willow's lap; she smiled broadly at the way the redheaded witch was unconsciously stroking the blond Slayer's hair.

'How could I possibly be worried? I've got the two most powerful, not to mention beautiful, women on the planet snuggled up right here with me!' Tara thought. 'Goddess, I love you two so much, sometimes I think my heart isn't big enough to hold it all.'

Faith interrupted Tara's reflection, halting her pacing next to the triad and saying, "Hey, B; you wanna patrol or something? I'm gettin' kinda antsy just sittin' around here…"

Tara smiled as Buffy looked up to her, as if asking permission with her raised eyebrows and hopeful smile. 'Goodness, I forgot that Faith and Buffy didn't do any patrolling last night. They're both probably a little eager to slay… especially Faith!' She looked up at the dark-haired Slayer, noting her slight frown as she looked from Buffy up to herself.

'You're wondering why Buffy's looking to me, aren't you?' Tara thought with a smirk. "Why don't you head up front, Faith. Buffy will join you in a minute, ok?"

Faith looked back down to Buffy, and then up to Tara again, her frown growing more pronounced. After a second, she shrugged and said, "Yeah, whatever," and then stalked off out of the room.

After watching her leave the room, Tara turned her attention back to her own Slayer, saying, "Well, I think Faith's gonna want to ask you a lot of questions, Buffy…"

Tara grinned, "I think, secretly, you've been looking forward to patrolling with her ever since Giles brought it up that we'd need her help."

"That's not…" Buffy began, automatically denying the allegation, but her voice died off as Tara raised a single eyebrow and gave her a 'Don't even try to lie to me' look.

Buffy's eyes flicked briefly toward Willow's before moving back to Tara's as she admitted, "Well, maybe a little…" She averted her gaze and whispered, "Are you mad at me?"

Tara felt a little lump in her throat from the emotion rising in her heart. "Oh, sweetie, how could I possibly be mad at you?"

"It's just… slaying with another Slayer, it's… I don't know how to explain it," she explained somewhat sheepishly.

Willow interjected, "I think we get it, Buff. It's like you said… when Tara and I do magic. Even before we were doing… other stuff… casting together was just so…"

Tara nodded in agreement, understanding what Willow was saying. "It was indescribably wonderful. I think if we had been separated for a long time we'd both be really anxious to cast together again, even if we weren't in a relationship. At least I know I would be." She explained.

"Oh me too, totally!" Willow quickly added. She leaned her head back, making eye contact with Tara as she said, "Even without smoochies, I couldn't stand to be away from you for long!"

"Of course, I can't really imagine not having smoochies…" Tara said with a sexy smirk on her face.

Buffy rolled up on to her knees and then popped up to her feet. "You two save some of those smoochies for me when I get back…"

Tara said, "Oh, there'll be plenty of that and more for my hungry and horny Slayer when she gets back, just don't be out all night!" She fixed a hungry look of her own on the blond as she said it.

Willow said, "Just make sure the other Slayer knows your hungries and hornies are already spoken for!"

"Don't worry pet," Buffy said with a feral smile. "Only you two can satisfy this Slayer!" With that she kneeled down and kissed Willow for several moments.

"I love watching you two almost as much as I love participating!' Tara thought happily as her lovers kissed hungrily. Her own heart rate sped up slightly as she anticipated her turn next.

Buffy didn't disappoint. 'Oh Buffy! I can still taste Willow's lip-gloss on your lips!' Tara thought as her tongue passed the Slayer's lips. The realization was accompanied by a warm, gooey sensation in her stomach.

When Buffy broke the kiss, Tara had to blink her eyes several times before she could focus on her smiling pet.

"Mmm, I love witchy kisses!" Buffy said in a dreamy voice. "Don't worry; I'll be back before you know it!"

"Oh, Buffy!" Tara said as Buffy turned to leave. 'Goodness, what an airhead I am, I almost completely forgot why I wanted to talk to her!' she thought.

"Yeah?" Buffy asked, her head turned, but her body looking like she was still trying to head out the door.

"About Faith…" Tara began. "I want you to talk to her… I'm not sure exactly how to say this; but she, I don't know, didn't seem happy enough when we got her out of prison the other day."

Buffy turned back around and kneeled down in front of the two witches. "Whaddya mean?"

"Well, there was the whole drama of seeing the Scoobies again, but even with that she seemed, well, kinda depressed."

'Grrr, I'm saying this all wrong!' Tara grumbled mentally. She took a deep breath and huffed it out quickly, "Ok, it's like this. She was in prison for, what? A year and a half?"

"Well, I just thought… wouldn't you be happy if you got out of prison after a year and a half? I guess I just thought she should be more excited about it, that's all," Tara said.

Buffy's brow scrunched together as she appeared to consider it. After a moment she said, "Well; Faith was never really all hiding her feelings girl…"

"No Faith was definitely all about the revealing… mostly of her boobs…" Willow groused somewhat cattily.

Buffy's eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly responded, "Well, I'm gonna go slay some evil, then I'm gonna come back and let you show me just what you're talking about!" She stood up and looked down at Tara, adding, "I'll see if I can figure out Faith's deal, 'k?"

'Mmm, Willow-mouth… kissing… everywhere!' Tara smiled at the mental image. "Ok, Have fun Buffy," she said, her voice sounding a little distracted as she thought, 'I think I'm going to have to have some witchy smoochies very soon!'

"Uh huh… Just save me some of that redhead for when I get back!" Buffy said in mock-stern voice.

Tara felt her skin flush. 'Busted!' she thought not unhappily. "Don't worry Slayer, I'll be sure to have something for you when you get back!"

'Damn, I guess we know who wears the pant in that family!' Faith thought as she paced the lobby waiting for her sister Slayer to catch up. 'Jeeze B, Blondie's got you wrapped around her little finger… never thought I'd see that happen… sure as hell never thought it'd be another girl that did it!'

Faith stopped pacing as her focus turned inward. 'Kinda always wished I…' Suddenly she started pacing again, her heels stomping and her steps rapid as she thought, 'No! No freaking way am I goin' there! I pissed away any chance of that a long time ago and I ain't gonna let it play with my head!'

"Come on B, I need to stake some vamps pretty soon here, or I'm gonna pop!" she growled impatiently.

After a few minutes Faith heard the sound of a door opening and closing down the hall from the stairs. "'Bout fricken time B," she mumbled. 'S'matter, B? Had to get a little 'unh!' to tide you over?' she thought with a grin.

"Ok you wanna tell me what that was all about?" Faith asked as soon as Buffy finally entered the hotel lobby. "You gotta have Blondie's permission to go patrol?

'What the…?' Faith shook her head, a little taken aback. "Are you kidding me? Blondie has to ok it for you to go on patrol?" Faith asked with her mouth stretched into a truly predatory smile.

Buffy blushed even harder, but made no effort to deny Faith's words. "Look, you wanna go kill some vampires, or discuss my love life?" the blond Slayer asked at last.

'Oh baby! I smell blood in the water!' Faith thought, almost giddy with anticipation now. She walked over to the blond and put her arm around her shoulders, leading her to the door as she said in a conciliatory voice, "Come on B… No reason we can't do both!"

"Don't worry B, we'll start off slow. Tell me everything that happened while I was… sleeping."

As they jumped the fence into the Rosedale Cemetery, Faith's emotions were in turmoil. 'Damn, B. Didn't pull any punches there…' she thought as she tried to process the two and a half years of Scooby history that Buffy had just dumped on her.

They walked in silence for a minute until Faith said, "I'm sorry I missed all that."

Faith felt her face get hot, and she ducked her head sheepishly and added, "The parts where I wasn't there making things worse, I mean…"

Buffy kept up her uncomfortable stare for several moments before answering. "Yeah, well… I missed you Faith. I- I wish things had gone differently in that alley that night…"

Faith didn't need to ask to what the Slayer was referring. "Yeah… I've dreamed about that night pretty much every night since…"

"Forget about it, Faith. You can't fix anything in the past, just concentrate on what you can do now." Buffy said. "You wanna do some good now? I think you're about to have a chance…" she added looking back over Faith's shoulder.

Faith shot a look behind her, and sure enough there were five gang-banger looking guys strolling towards the slayers. 'A little pale for black guys…' she thought. "Kinda gives a whole new meaning to Bloodsucker…" she said quietly to Buffy.

"Bloods-suckers!" Faith chuckled, waving her hand to indicate the vamp's blue gang-colors. When Buffy didn't respond, Faith turned to her and said, "You really do live a sheltered life, B."

The vamps stopped a couple meters from the slayers, standing in a shallow 'V' formation.

Faith smirked at the look of outrage on Buffy's face, but before the blond Slayer could comment, the apparent leader of the vamp-bangers spoke up.

Faith said, "If this is the best public education can do, I'm glad I dropped out!"

Buffy looked to be fighting a grin of her own as she answered, "Seriously Faith, do you really believe these guys went to high school?"

The vampire that had spoken looked confused for a moment, then he looked angry. "Hey bitch, I'm talkin' to you!"

Faith continued her banter with Buffy, saying, "Well they sure as hell didn't go to charm school…"

The lead vamp morphed into game face and shouted, "I'm gonna tear out your heart!"

Buffy Rolled her eyes and said, "Jeeze, it's like they've got some kind of 'pathetic, cheesy threats' handbook or something! Come on, this is LA, you'd think they'd turn a few writers, or something, and get some better material…"

Faith interjected, "That's enough foreplay for me, B. I've been looking forward to this for, like, eighteen long-ass months!"

With that Faith snapped forward into a full-speed sprint, lashing out with a straight jab right into the lead vampire's face. There was no art to it whatsoever, but it was done with such surprise and ferocity that the vamp didn't have time to react.

The loud, wet, crunching noise carried in the night air, sounding like a dozen eggs being smashed simultaneously as the lead vamp hit the ground like a sledge- the entire facial bone structure of his skull shattered beyond repair.

Since she was turned half way to her left from the punch, she drew her arm back to the right, striking that vampire with a backfist, dislocating his jaw and sending him to the turf with a groan of pain. At the same time, her left foot struck the number two vamp in the side of his knee, destroying the joint and knocking him over.

All this happened so fast that the two remaining vampires were standing still, apparently shocked by what had just happened.

Faith looked over her shoulder, noticing that Buffy hadn't joined her. "Hey B, you wanna get in on this or what?" she asked, her face glowing with a feral smile.

"Nah, you go ahead Faith. Consider it my gift to you," the blond Slayer replied.

Faith felt a warmth wash through her momentarily. 'She really means that!' she thought. In all seriousness she answered, "Hey, thanks B! That's real thoughtful of you!"

Buffy looked down at the ground with a sheepish smile and kicked at the grass a little bit, saying, "I figured you'd enjoy a little scuffle after being away from the game for so long."

By this point the remaining upright vampires regained enough of their limited senses to charge the dark haired Slayer.

Faith dropped to the ground in a squat, and pushed back, rolling over in a backwards summersault and ending up straddling the lead vamp.

With a comical-sounding 'Thunk' the two that were charging Faith collided head on in the space she'd just vacated.

Faith whipped a stake out of her belt and dusted the one she was straddling. She thought, 'I'm gonna have to be nice to B for this…' She rolled over to the one with the destroyed leg and quipped, "What's'mater baby? Do I make you all weak in the knees?" She staked him before he could answer. '…but not before I get the low down on this triad thing!' she continued her thought.

Spinning on her back and flipping to her feet, Faith snap-kicked the number three vamp, shattering his dislocated jaw and sending him back to the ground after he had barely made it to his feet.

She ducked a clumsy haymaker from one of the two noggin-knockers and punched him in the chest with her stake. She spun and paid the same favor to the other before he could even throw a punch.

"They go down fast and easy…" she trailed off long enough to bend over and stake the last remaining vampire, '…and when you're done you wish there were more!' she finished with a laugh!

Walking over and putting her arm in Buffy's, leading them off down the path, Faith said, "Ok, so now tell me how it is that you have to ask permission to go slaying?"

"Oh Dawn, honey! Are you ok?" Joyce asked, falling to her knees beside the couch and reaching out to touch her just waking daughter, brushing a lock of hair from her face and generally exuding a level of maternal concern that bordered on panic.

"Sure, I'm fine, mom. Just a little tired, you know?" Dawn said reassuringly. "I just needed a little sleep…"

Dropping her eyes to her lap, she thought, 'yeah, that and a great big rewind button so I could start the day over…'

"Oh honey, I was so worried… what with everything that happened…" Joyce continued worriedly.

'Oh God!' Dawn thought as the mental picture assaulted her again. She felt cold fear flush through her body at the images. 'Their heads! They just… just… it was like the end of a Gallagher show,' she thought as bone, brain and blood sprayed across the screen in her own little mental motion picture.

"It's all kinda a blur, Mom. I mean, I know what happened, but it's like the whole thing is some kind of fuzzy… I don't know. It's all real vague, you know?" Dawn said, lying through her teeth. 'God, I can't let mom know, she's already totally freaked out!' she thought. 'Not every day your daughter blows two guy's heads off right in front of you, I guess…'

She had to clamp down on the laughter that tried to bubble up out of her at that thought.

"Dawn, can I… are you hungry, or thirsty? I could make a sandwich, or- or some tea? Something warm?" Joyce rambled, clearly upset herself and scrambling for something she could do.

'Oh God, no food.' Dawn thought, feeling nauseous at the idea of eating anything at the moment.

She looked into her mother's eyes and saw the emotions there. 'Poor mom…' she thought. "Tea," she said softly.

Dawn watched her mother as she moved to get up, but then suddenly found herself enveloped in a tight hug. She heard her mom whispering quietly, but intensely, "Thank God you're ok! Thank God!"

Dawn sat up and crossed her arms under her chest, hugging herself tightly. 'Not gonna cry, not gonna cry!' she thought to herself angrily for a minute before she could look up at Giles without bursting into tears.

Looking up at his face she saw something in his eyes, but wasn't sure what it was. 'I never could read Giles… except when he looks at Willow and Tara,' she thought with an internal smirk. 'which is the same way he looks at mom now… which is kinda 'eww' now that I think about it…'

Dawn dropped her eyes to the floor and suddenly noticed little speckles on Giles' shoes. 'Eww! gross!' she thought when she figured out what it was. "Sorry about that…" she said softly, the words popping out before she could censor herself.

"Sorry for what, Dawn?" Giles asked, equally softly- his voice low and even, thought displaying a slight surprise at her comment.

"Your shoes," she explained, waving one hand toward the footwear in question. "You know, the whole… 'puking' thing," she clarified, feeling embarrassed both at having been seen in such a state, and now for bringing it up. She continued the verbal hemorrhaging, "And, thanks too… you know, for holding my hair and stuff…"

'Oh God, please shut up! Mouth, stop moving!' she raged silently. 'Great and now I can feel myself blushing like some little kid or something! Good one Dawn!' Her mouth continued to spew forth nonsense, seemingly out of her control entirely, "Cause, you know that's a whole 'above and beyond the call' kinda thing, really…"

"Dawn," Giles interrupted, sitting down next to her on the couch, but at an angle so he was looking at her more straight on.

Her eyes seemed to be glued to the floor and it took actual effort to drag them up to meet the Watcher's. "Um, what?"

"You remember everything quite clearly, don't you?" he asked in a quiet tone which yet brooked no dispute.

"I…" Dawn trailed off, unable for some reason to lie. She felt again the cold wash of emotion flow through her at his question, and when she closed her eyes, she again saw the images. 'Jeeze, it's like fricken Imax theater or something!' she incongruously thought as the mental replay went by in slow motion, showing every last detail in supersaturated color and high contrast.

"Please, don't tell mom?" she begged. She opened her eyes and met his, feeling the tears in her own. "Please? Giles, she'll freak… she's already freaking out."

Hastily wiping away her tears, Dawn plastered a fake happy look on her face and said, "Really, I'm ok. See? It's going to be fine…"

"Listen very carefully Dawn. You can get through this, and you will be ok, but only if you are absolutely honest with both yourself and with me."

'God, no please you can't! She'll… she'll lose it!' Dawn thought. She inhaled sharply to protest, but he cut her off.

"I will make sure your mother isn't overwhelmed with the details, Dawn. However, you must agree to discuss this with me…"

He leaned in until his face was about a foot from hers, and she could see both strong emotion and resolve in his eyes.

"Dawn, I know from personal experience what you are going through right now… You're seeing it all over again, every time you close your eyes; adrenaline is coursing through your body like a bucket of cold water poured down your back, but from the inside…"

Dawn's eyes went wide. 'Holy crap!' she thought as he described almost exactly what she was feeling and experiencing. He squeezed her hands hard, almost enough to hurt, as he continued.

"Living in denial; avoiding the pain of dealing with this experience… well that is what led Faith to her dark path. I trust that you are smart enough to learn from her mistakes," he said.

Dawn shook her head quickly, "No way Giles! No way am I gonna turn out like Faith!" she hissed angrily.

'If he knows what I'm feeling…' Dawn thought, part of her desperate to reach out for help, though mostly she wanted to crawl into a hole and pretend it never happened.

She could hear his sigh, and he let go her hands before he spoke. "Dawn, the first thing to remember is this: You saved my life. You saved your mother's life. And, you saved your own life as well. They would certainly have killed us all."

She flinched a little as he reached to her face and tilted her chin up till her eyes met his own.

Giles smiled warmly and said, "Dawn, I am so proud of you! It was a terrible thing that you had to do it, but it made all the difference. These were not innocents, Dawn. They would have taken our lives without a thought if you hadn't saved the day."

"I.. I did kinda rescue you guys didn't I?" she asked tentatively. A slight warmth flushed in her, pushing back a little of the cold as she looked at his face.

"You certainly did, honey!" Joyce said as she set the tea set down on the coffee table.

'Hey, she's smiling!' Dawn thought, relieved not to see that 'scared-mom' look on her face. She looked back at Giles and nodded slightly before accepting the tea her mom was handing to her. 'Ok watcher-man you win… I'll play along so long as we can keep mom happy and get these damn pictures out of my head!' she thought, slightly hopeful instead of paralyzed by the horror that had infected her since the second body had hit the pavement.

Faith and Buffy hadn't made it twenty yards from the scene of Faith's first post-prison slayage when her mind and body came to an abrupt halt. She wanted to know what the story was between Buffy and her lovers- why she had to ask permission to go out on patrol. "Uhh…" she said helplessly.

Buffy stopped after a couple steps, apparently just then noticing Faith's predicament. She turned back to the brunette Slayer and Faith could see the embarrassed blush on her face fading rapidly. Soon there was a naughty smile gracing the blond Slayer's face.

'Oh God!' Faith thought as Buffy reached out and traced down her cheek with a single finger.

"What's'matter, Faith?" Buffy said, sounding like a little girl as her voice became high and breathy. "Does the thought of me all naked… and chained up… with Mistress Tara whipping my smooth, round butt with a riding crop… tears running down my face as I scream in pleasure and pain… does that make your mind go all wonky?"

Faith shivered in lust at the mental image Buffy was painting for her. 'Oh my God!' was all her brain could muster in response.

"Or…" Buffy continued, drawing her hand back and rubbing her stomach in a slow, deliberate circle as she whispered, "Is it the thought of me, cuffing my naked little pet Willow all spread-eagled to the bedposts… and then straddling her face, grinding myself into her hot little mouth… riding that long, strong tongue- until I'm screaming my brains out… Maybe that's got you all worked up?"

For several moments Faith stood there slack-jawed and completely brain-shocked while she watched Buffy's hand moving on her belly.

The taller Slayer immediately snapped her mouth shut, embarrassed to find that Buffy hadn't been kidding. 'If this is how I made Spike feel at the bronze last year… Jeeze, I almost feel sorry for the guy!'

Taking a step forward, Faith became immediately aware of another embarrassing wetness. 'Crap, these panties are ruined for sure!' she thought with a grimace.

Suddenly Buffy started cackling at the top of her lungs. "Oh my God! You should have… you should've seen your face Faith!" she cried out between peals of laughter.

'Jeeze I can't even be pissed, she got me too fricken good!' she thought ruefully. "I can't believe I heard those words come out of the mouth of little miss goody-two-shoes Buffy Summers!" she complained half-heartedly as she began to walk down the path once again.

Still wiping tears out of her eyes, Buffy said, "Yeah, well, I'm not quite as uptight as I used to be…"

"That ain't no fricken lie!" Faith said vehemently. Her body was still buzzing with a combination of amazed shock, and unresolved sexual tension.

"Hey, you wanted to know! If you weren't ready for the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question." Buffy said with just a hint of smug superiority in her voice.

Shaking her head, Faith thought, 'Still trying to wrap my mind around the concept… B is playing BDSM games with her girlfriends. B! Ms. Follow the rules, good girl B!' Her emotions were churning between lust, surprise, envy, desire, embarrassment, and confusion as she continued to muse on the subject, 'Not only is she doin' all that… jeeze, I never ever figured I'd hear stuff like that come out of her mouth even if it was true… I don't know which is freaking me out more!'

"I just figured you were pussy-whipped," Faith muttered, bemused. "I didn't think it was literally!"

After walking in silence for a few more minutes Buffy spoke again, her voice sounding somewhat tentative as she asked, "Faith? Can I ask you a question; a- a personal question?"

'Share, share; that's fair I guess…' Faith thought. "What, you wanna know if I was playing queen of the prison cotillion or something?" she asked sarcastically.

Taken aback slightly, Faith frowned and slowly answered, "Uh, sure B. Five by five." After another moment she added, "That's the personal question you wanted to ask?" 'Ok, my mind must still be mush from the B in bondage thing, cause I don't get that at all…' she thought.

"Um, well. Tara said that… when they got you out of jail you were… well, kinda depressed…" Buffy mumbled, apparently as uncomfortable with discussing Faith's feelings as Faith was herself.

"Yeah, well… prison's not a very happy place B." Faith said, somewhat annoyed. 'Last thing I want to think about right now is that fricken place!' she thought, feeling the cold knot in her gut that still hadn't completely undone since leaving the California Institute for Women.

Buffy looked down, mumbling, "You know what? Forget it Faith. I'm sorry I brought it up."

Faith stopped walking and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. 'You know, I need to learn to stop being such a bitch, at least accidentally,' she thought.

"No, B. I'm the one whose sorry." She opened her eyes and sought out her sister Slayer's gaze. "It's just… I really don't like thinking of that place. But, you wanna know something, you go ahead and ask. That's, like, the least thing I owe you."

"Then why were you depressed *after* they got you out? I figured you'd be all with the Woo Hoo! I know every time I've ever been locked up somewhere, I was always really, really happy to get out, you know?" Buffy began verbally hemorrhaging at the mouth.

"Ok, I get it B. Yeah, I was pretty excited to get out… and, you know, to get the chance to apologize to you guys and maybe even get a shot at clearing up a couple karma points for helping you guys take out the hell bitch and all…" she trailed off, thinking, 'Christ, I didn't want to think about this any sooner than absolutely necessary!'

"Then what happened, Faith?" Buffy asked softly, stepping close to her younger counterpart.

Faith dropped her eyes and whispered, "It just makes it that much harder when I gotta go back." She turned around, not wanting to see the pity on Buffy's face.

"Why?! Whaddya mean, why? It's like a taste of freedom and something good and then I'm gonna have to give it up all over again! I mean, you know, the first time, I didn't know what I was getting into. Easy enough to turn myself in, I was feeling all guilty and stuff, and I figured, 'Jail… how bad could it be? I'm the Slayer and all, no one's gonna get in my face…' but it ain't the threat of being jumped that makes prison so fricken horrible, B. It's like this big rock tied to my chest, crushing me down when I'm in there… you can't possibly imagine it, how bad it is B…"

Faith cut her off, spinning around and looking straight in her eyes. "I don't know if I can do it, B," she whispered, feeling all the horror and pain and fear come rising up inside her. 'Christ, I feel like pukeing!' she thought.

Faith's eyes wandered back to Buffy's face, and she again interrupted, whispering intensely, "I don't know if I can make myself walk through those fricken gates! I don't…"

"Faith!" Buffy shouted, again shaking the stricken Slayer. "You don't have to go back!"

"I don't know…" Faith was still muttering, her mind and emotions battling as she argued in her head, 'Can't be a fugitive, I'll never atone if I… What did she say?'

"Giles told us, he said the only way to get you out was, I guess the watcher's council had something on Davis, something about electricity and kickbacks… I didn't really pay attention… but they got the Governor… Faith are you listening?"

'Jeeze, I thought the Buffy in bondage thing was hard to understand,' Faith thought incongruously as she tried to pull herself together. Blinking her eyes a couple times and shaking her head to try and clear it, Faith refocused her attention on Buffy's face. "What… what are you sayin' B?" she asked in a breathless whisper.

Buffy's face split into a huge grin as she said, "Faith, you were pardoned. You're free!"

"What do we do now?" Joyce Summers asked her lover with a fearful note to her voice.

Rupert Giles walked out of the bathroom, rubbing his hands together to get the last bit of moisture that the towel missed. His internal ramblings caused him to miss his lover's question.

'More blood on your hands, Ripper,' he thought with a grimace, even while his inner predator howled in delight at being allowed to come out and play for the first time in many years. 'How do I face her after what I've done, what I've had to do?' he agonized.

"Rupert?" Joyce asked again, this time laying her hand on his arm to get his attention.

"Yes?" Giles asked, startled by the contact. His eyes met hers only briefly before dropping down again.

"Rupert, are you alright?" Joyce asked, her voice suddenly filled with concern as well as fear.

He glanced toward the room containing the captured knight. After putting Dawn to bed with several cups of brandied tea in her, he had returned to that room to get the rest of the story from the knight. 'Unfortunately in the end, trickery and a truth spell weren't sufficient to pry loose his tongue…'

Bringing his attention back to his lover, he thought, 'Sadly, I'm less bothered by the torture, than I am by the thought of you ever finding out just what I've had to do.' Out loud he said, "I apologize, Joyce. I fear that I am somewhat distracted… What was your question?"

Joyce was silent for a moment, then her grip on his arm tightened and she said, "Rupert, look at me."

Giles forced himself to school his features into their normal, placid appearance, and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. Seeing the love shining there almost broke his resolve. He swallowed heavily, trying to push down the lump in his throat that sorrow and rage had formed. "Joyce, I..."

Joyce covered his lips with the fingers of her free hand and interrupted, "Rupert, I don't know what happened in there… what you had to do to get the information we need... I probably don't want to know. But I know that you did what you had to do to protect Dawn and myself." She moved her fingers from his mouth to cup his cheek as she continued, "I can tell that it was bad; that it's hurting you… I don't know what to say to make it better, but I do know that I love you, and I'm so grateful that you're here to take care of us and protect us!"

Giles could feel a tear slip from his eye, echoing the moisture he could see welling up in hers. "Oh Joyce…" he said, his voice ragged with emotion.

"Rupert, that… monster wanted to murder my little girl! Whatever happened in there," she said, gesturing toward the room containing the captured knight, "He brought it on himself!"

Giles pulled Joyce into a fierce embrace. He felt overwhelmed with emotion, thinking, 'I'm not certain what I've done to deserve such a wonderful woman as you Joyce, but I shall spend the rest of my life trying live up to it!'

He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes and, his voice laden with emotion, he whispered, "I do so love you Joyce Summers!"

Giles couldn't help but smile as Joyce's lower lip began to quiver and her eyes let go the tears she'd been holding back. He leaned in and tenderly kissed her- caressing her lips with his own as he communicated his emotion and love to her. 'Good Lord, how I have missed this…'

He forced aside the worry that came with extending his heart to someone- both times in recent years that he had done so, it had ended badly. First with Jenny Calendar being killed by a monster; and second with Olivia being driven off by monsters. 'I must do a better job this time around!' he decided, resolving to protect Joyce and her daughters with his life.

Finally after untold minutes of kissing, Joyce pulled away and asked, "So, what do we do now? Do we need to leave? Do they know where we are? Are more coming?" Her voice once again was laced with fear and worry.

Giles led the distraught blonde over to the couch and sat her down. "I believe that we are safe here, for now. While it seems our attackers did find this place, they didn't communicate that fact to anyone else. In fact, it seems they have been unable to reach any of their compatriots in Sunnydale as of late."

"It would appear that a group of perhaps a hundred knights had indeed taken up residence in Sunnydale, however they are unaware that Buffy and the others have relocated," he tried to reassure her.

"But when they come back?" Joyce asked with a quaver in her voice as she wrung her hands together.

Taking her hands between his own, Giles said, "We will send Willow a message, and make sure they know not to return to the house, or to any other place known to the knights. However, that precaution may be unnecessary. Either the knights have moved out of Sunnydale, without contacting their team here- a possibility that I find unlikely- or…"

"Or what?" Joyce asked anxiously, her eyes searching his face as thought trying to find the reassurance she needed.

"It may be that they met up with Glorificus," he said. 'No need to explain what that would mean…' he mused.

Giles had conflicting emotions himself on that issue. 'On the one hand, I should be horrified at the thought of Glory slaughtering a hundred humans; on the other, those humans are all seeking to kill Dawn, and anyone else who would stand in their way…'

Joyce's head tilted back up and, looking him dead in the eyes, she whispered, "Rupert, How did they know? How did they know where to find us? How did they know that Dawn…"

Giles sighed and took off his glasses, letting go her hands in order to perform his standard cleaning ritual. "I don't know Joyce. Apparently someone came to his superiors with information, someone he referred to only as 'the traitor.' After that meeting, he was instructed to take two men to Las Vegas and begin searching for us. He was told that the Key was the little girl under the protection of the Slayer's Watcher; however it appeared that they weren't entirely certain that the information was credible. They didn't entirely trust the traitor, but couldn't pass up the opportunity…"

"Who could have betrayed us?" Joyce asked in horror. "Who would do such a thing?"

Giles shook his head, "Unfortunately, the more important question is not who would, but rather who could?"

"Only we ourselves and Quinton knew that we are in Las Vegas, and while I wouldn't put it past Quinton to try and take Dawn's life if he knew she was The Key, the fact is that he does not know that," Giles explained.

Giles finished his ritual and slipped his glasses back onto his face. "Quinton Travers is an arrogant ass, and a generally poor example of humanity, but he is not a skilled liar. As of our conversation yesterday, I can be certain that he did not know about Dawn's origins. If he had, he wouldn't have sent the Knights of Byzantium, he'd have sent a council team. And, frankly speaking, we'd have been less likely to have survived the encounter."

"Therein lies the problem," Giles said with a sigh. "Only our immediate group knows about Dawn. Even Angel's group has been kept in the dark- they know that you and I and Dawn have The Key, they don't know that she is The Key."

Joyce lifted up Giles arm and snuck under it, cuddling herself up against him, apparently seeking more comfort than his words carried. "What do we do now?"

Giles held his lover close to him and kissed the top of her head, then rested his cheek upon it as he softly answered back, "We stay here, inside where it is safe, until we know the outcome of tomorrow's battle."

"Shh," Giles interrupted her. "This place is very safe. It would take a powerful mage or witch to breach the barrier without knowing the exact combination of spells- which only I know, now that Ethan's gone. The knights do not utilize magic- they believe all magic, and magic users, to be 'spawn of the devil'," he said with a dry chuckle at the knights' ignorance. Even if they were interested in coming after Dawn, The council doesn't employ anyone of sufficient power to breach it…" He trailed off as he heard a slight snore coming from Joyce.

'Stress exhaustion…' he thought. 'I should get up and…' his thought's tapered off as she snuggled up even tighter to him in her sleep. 'Perhaps I'll just stay right here,' he decided.

Tara gently kissed the pale, freckled skin on the nape of her girlfriend's neck as the redhead shuddered and quivered through her orgasm. "I've got you, sweetie!" she whispered as she held her lover tightly.

They were laying on their hotel bed. Tara spooned up against Willow's back. The blonde had her arms around the redhead, one hand cupping her small, shapely breast- the other cupping her sex. Her right leg was propping up Willow's, allowing her hand to roam freely over the redhead's wet, swollen flesh.

Willow's hands were cuffed to the headboard so that Tara could enjoy her lover's body as slowly as she wanted, with no 'assistance' from the impatient redhead.

"See, sweetie? Wasn't it nice to go slow?" Tara asked impishly. 'I do love hearing you beg and whine!' she thought, suppressing a mischievous chuckle as she teased her lover.

"Oh, Goddess!" Willow sighed as she panted to get her breath back. "You are a wicked, wicked witch, Tara MacLay! I thought I was going to die there for a while!" she exaggerated.

Willow shivered as Tara slowly withdrew her fingers from the red witch's slick heat. "Not so petite!" she huffed.

"I would have thought you were used to it," Tara said with a smile and another soft kiss to the nape of Willow's neck. "My cruel little Slayer makes you wait forever to cum sometimes!" Immediately images of Willow writhing and straining as Buffy put her through her paces ran through the blond witch's mind. 'Oh goddess, I love watching that!

"Hmmm" Willow hummed as she pressed herself back against the blonde witch. "It's different when we play. When I'm in that place, time doesn't really mean anything- it's… it's… I don't really know how to explain it. It's just different. Pet can easily do anything that Mistress commands her to do. Willow isn't so patient," she explained.

'Yes, and that makes no sense at all!' Tara thought. 'But, Buffy says the same kind of stuff to me, so I guess it's just something you have to experience… I just don't think I could ever…'

Feeling dark and unpleasant emotions threatening to rise up, Tara dismissed that line of thought and instead focused her attention on unbinding Willow's hands.

"I hope Buffy's having a good time with Faith," Tara said to change the subject while she unhooked the straps on the leather cuffs.

'Uh oh,' Tara leaned up on one elbow so she could look down and see Willow's face. "Sweetie, you aren't still worried about Faith, are you?" she asked while searching the redhead's face for any resentment or ill will. 'I really don't want a jealous, pouty Willow on my hands here…' she worried.

"Strangely, no," Willow answered. "I think we came to an understanding and I... I think she's gonna be ok."

Tara pouted slightly and said, "Sorry, sweetie. I just know you have some Faith-issues…"

Willow's smile became more genuine as she cupped Tara's face. "I do, but… we talked, you know; worked out a couple things…"

"You mean you threatened her life if she messed with your girlfriend, right?" Tara asked. She wasn't able to maintain quite the level of sternness she was shooting for, apparently, because Willow's response was less sheepish and more humorous.

"There *may* have been some gentle words of caution involved in the conversation; you know just like friendly advice kinda stuff…" Willow said, obviously loosing her fight to hide a wide, teeth-baring grin.

Tara's mouth quirked up in a lopsided smile as she said, "Uh huh. And was there by any chance maybe some magical energy displayed in this friendly conversation?"

"Well, you know how I feel about a vague disclaimer…" the redhead said with a pout on her face.

Anything Tara might have said at that point was interrupted when the hotel room door swung open, and a cackling Slayer stumbled through it.

"Where do you think?" Cordelia answered from her usual position; sitting in front of the desk, leaning back with her legs stretched out in front of her and looking at the ceiling with a bored expression.

"Which is it this time, Buffy and the witches, or the fact that Xander kept calling him dead-boy?" Gunn asked as he unconsciously took up his resident spot- leaning against the wall next to the door.

"Yes, well. There is certainly no love lost between Angel and Xander," Wesley said contemplatively from behind the desk.

"Hello? Understatement much?" Cordelia asked. "They teach that in British schools, or is it a watcher thing?" she added, mocking the Englishman.

"What's up with that, anyway?" Gunn asked. The Girls from Sunny D don't act like it's anything, but…" he trailed off, hoping for a little enlightenment. 'I don't know jack 'bout Angel's past... this'll be a good way to find out some stuff, hopefully' he thought.

Cordy turned to look at Wesley for a moment, but must not have found whatever she was looking for there, because she sighed dramatically and said, "Xander… just really hates vampires."

Gunn waited a moment for the normally verbose brunette to expand on that statement. When nothing else seemed forthcoming, he shrugged and said, "Yeah, and? Who doesn't hate vamps?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes and said, "Duh, Angel's a vampire? Remember?" as though that explained everything.

Gunn's eyebrows lifted involuntarily and he looked to Wesley, silently asking, 'Do you understand anything she's saying?' Looking back to Cordy, he questioningly said, "Yeah… But Angel's different, right? He's got a soul? He hunts vamps?" Looking back to the former watcher, he said, "Help me out here Wes."

Wesley pursed his lips, as he usually did before expounding on some subject or other, and Gunn smirked, thinking 'Drama Queen!'

"Yes, well. I haven't known Xander as long or certainly as well as Cordelia, of course; but it has always struck me that he either cannot or will not take that fact into account. To him, Angel is little, if any, better than any other vampire."

"Man that's crazy! I've seen Angel take out vamps and demons that we'd a never took out without him. How's anyone gonna say that don't make a difference?"

"I have to agree with you, Gunn. I believe it makes all the difference," Wesley said, nodding his head.

Gunn looked back to Cordelia, thinking, 'I know Cordelia's gotta be down with that…' seeing the pensive look on Cordelia's face he was surprised. '…or not?'

"No, I do… but it's not that simple. Not for Xander, not for Buffy or Willow… not even for me," Cordelia said quietly, her eyes down.

"You know you can't leave it like that!" Gunn said after another moment of silence. His curiosity was fully aroused now.

Gunn reached over, grabbing the only other chair in the room and spinning it around in front of him so he could straddle it and lean forward against the chair-back. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Wesley leaning forward also. "Come on Cordy, spill."

Cordelia briefly looked up at Gunn and then shot a glance toward Wesley before her eyes dropped again and she watched her fingers as they played with the hem of her shirt. "I'm pretty sure it kinda started when this guy named Jesse got turned. He and Xander and Willow were, like, the biggest dorks in school, but they were really close with each other."

"So his best bud got turned… I can understand that…" Gunn mused softly, remembering his sister's abduction and turning. 'I still have nightmares about that…' he thought. Suddenly his jaw clenched as the familiar fury swept through him. 'God Damn vampires!' he silently raged, his hands tightening into fists around the spindles of the chair's back.

"Angel told us about your sister…" Cordelia said very quietly. "Xander had the same thing happen to him with Jesse- he staked him, his best friend. I was there, but I didn't see it, mostly because it was the first time I'd ever seen a vampire and there were all these vampires trying to raise some moldy old vampire by draining a bunch of people- including yours truly!"

'Not the time to relive this right now,' Gunn reminded himself as he pushed the memories back into the little box he kept them locked in- during his waking hours anyway. Shaking himself loose of the recollection, he said, "That still don't explain it…"

"Well, then about a year later, Angel lost his soul and turned into Angelus," Cordy said offhandedly. "Serious badness there, with the murder and torture and all."

'Lost his soul?' Gunn thought with a sudden shock. "Hold on, whaddya mean 'lost his soul'?" he asked with a great deal of concern in his voice. "How do you lose your soul?"

Wesley interjected, "A hundred years ago, Angelus killed a gypsy girl, who turned out to be rather important to her particular tribe. As retribution, the tribe's witch cursed him with a soul."

Remembering a comment Angel had made the other day, Gunn nodded his head and said, "So that's what he meant the other night when he said Willow did that curse on him…"

Wesley leaned back in his chair and nodded in agreement. "Yes, the Romanii curse."

"Ok, so I get that the gypsies gave him a soul, and Willow gave it back to him when he lost it, but how did he…" Gunn started to ask.

Gunn nodded, "Yeah, I'd kinda like to know how that happened- you know so it doesn't happen again."

Gunn could actually feel his eyes bugging out as he choked. 'Jesus Cordy!' he thought in shock. After recovering his breath, he rasped out, "Uh, that's pretty much not a problem…" He looked over to Wesley, thinking, 'Help me out here, Wes!'

With a brief glare at a snickering Cordelia, Wesley explained, "Apparently on the night of Buffy's seventeenth birthday… she and Angel…"

Another glare from the Brit to the seer and then, "Yes, well… In any case, it appears that the gypsy's curse included a loophole in which a single moment of perfect happiness causes it to become null and void."

"Instant Psycho-sadistic Vampire, just add Buffy!" Cordelia said with some bitterness.

'Damn, that sucks!' Gunn thought, feeling some pity for the souled vampire. 'All that guilt, plus no sex for, like, ever?' Images and feelings from his tryst with Faith the night before began to play across his mind and he thought, 'I couldn't go a couple months without that, let alone centuries!'

Cordelia brought Gunn's thoughts back to the original subject as she said, "Plus, Xander had this big crush on Buffy, so that's another reason he doesn't like Angel much…"

"Yeah, I guess I can see that," Gunn said with a nod, but mostly he was thinking about the souled vampire's situation. 'Oh man, Angel, it must really suck to be you!' he thought pityingly.

Buffy was laughing so hard that Tara could see tear tracks on her face. She smiled, thinking, 'Slaying must have gone well, I do so love seeing you laugh!'

Buffy sobered slightly, but was still grinning madly when she said, "Ooo, sexy naked witches! Lucky me!"

Tara smiled even more as she watched her Slayer hurry to get naked. Her arousal was already high from what she and Willow were doing before Buffy had entered. Seeing the blond yanking her clothes off did nothing at all to diminish that arousal. "Naked happy Buffy is a very wonderful thing!" she whispered sotto-voice to the redheaded witch in her arms.

"Oh yes!" Willow breathed, obviously quite turned on herself, despite having just had a powerful orgasm.

'You're such a glutton for it, baby!' Tara thought happily, kissing the redhead on the neck. "So, I take it you and Faith had fun?" she asked.

Tara wanted to ask what that meant, but she and Willow were both overcome with laughter as Buffy began hopping on one foot, while trying to get her tight jeans down past the other foot. "Sweetie, be careful!" she choked out as the Slayer's hopping began to take her in circles while she yanked on the material.

Buffy growled at her jeans as she gave one final, hard jerk. The force was enough that it freed the stuck material, and spun her around in a full circle, leaving her standing awkwardly with her body leaning one way, and her leg sticking straight out the other way.

Tara took in the sight of her lover, dressed only in her panties and one sock, the socked foot up in the air and her arms flailing a bit for balance, and began laughing uproariously. Willow immediately joined her in laughter and they both began to clap, offering applause for the fact that Buffy had managed to remain on her feet. 'Well, on her foot actually!' Tara thought as she gasped for breath.

Buffy tried to frown at the applauding witches, but the humor of the situation was apparently too much for her and she gave in to laughter herself. She put her foot down and took a bow, saying, "Thank you! Thank you very much. For my next trick, watch me make two witches orgasm simultaneously!"

"Oh, I wanna see that!" Willow said, clapping excitedly and virtually bouncing in place.

Tara saw the predatory look in Buffy's eyes and felt a shiver run down her spine. 'Oh, my, she looks hungry!' she thought excitedly. "Yes please! You can tell us all about the slaying a little later…"

Buffy dropped her panties and quickly pulled off the one remaining sock. She breathed deeply through her nose and her eyelids drooped with arousal. 'God, the air smells like sex!' she thought as arousal suffused her. She made eye contact with her lovers and growled, "You two smell so good! I just want to eat you up!"

Both witches were nodding slightly and their eyes seemed focused on Buffy's mouth as she licked her lips. "Mmm, Tara… keep Willow against you like that and roll over on your back," she instructed with a low, breathy voice. "I want you both at the same time!"

Willow whimpered as Tara pulled her up on top of herself, and the sound traveled straight down to Buffy's sex. 'God, Will! Even if I wasn't already horny as hell, just that sound would turn me on!' Buffy thought. 'Mmm, before I start, I wanna kiss!' she decided.

Buffy walked over and leaned down to the bed, kissing Tara for a moment before pulling away and whispering, "Love you Tara!"

"Oh, goddess, I love you Buffy!" Tara whispered back, her eyes shining with emotion.

Buffy caressed Willow's cheek with the hand she wasn't using to hold her up, and then kissed her passionately for a few moments.

Willow spoke first when Buffy pulled back, her voice high and breathy, "I Love you Mistress Buffy!" Her eyes too were filled with deep and powerful emotion.

Buffy smiled, feeling completely filled up with happiness, and whispered, "Love you too Will!" She straightened back up and went to walk to the foot of the bed, when a thought struck her, 'better let Willow know now, or I'll forget in the middle of things…'

Buffy grinned and in a little lighter voice said, "For the rest of the night, you can cum whenever you feel like it, baby."

Willow looked like she might burst into tears as she cried, "Oh thank you Mistress!"

Buffy walked to the foot of the bed and paused for a moment, looking at the sight laid out before her. 'Willow, you look so damn sexy, laid out on Tara like that! Mmm, all I can see of my Mistress is her hands playing with your nipples, and her legs spreading you open like a present! Oh it's all mine!' she thought, feeling happy, horny and possessive of her girlfriends.

The Slayer playfully smacked her chops and whispered, "Mmm, dessert!" before crawling onto the bed and beginning her oral assault on the stacked witches.

Buffy started by running her tongue along Willow's inner thigh. Tara's legs were pushing the redhead's widely apart, and Buffy took advantage, focusing her attentions just inside the little hollow spot where the tendon pulled the skin taught. 'Oh pet, I so love the way you shiver when I touch you here,' she thought, happily watching the pale, freckled flesh tremble as she licked.

Skipping her pet's sopping center for the moment, she treated the other thigh the same way, with the same result. 'Shiver and sigh, oh pet; how well I know your body! Oh, and you smell so good!' she thought. 'Mmm, better not taste, or I'll never get to poor Tara!' she decided.

Cupping her pet's sex with one hand, Buffy began to move the soft flesh in gentle circles, 'That'll build you up real slow, give me time to please my Mistress first.'

Buffy placed a chaste kiss against her Mistress sex, reveling for a second in the closeness and intimacy of her position. 'Love you so much Tara! I never knew how much I needed you in my life, and now I know I couldn't live without you.'

Buffy laid her tongue flat against the bottom of her Mistress swollen lips and ran a single slow, warm, wet lick up and over Tara's sex. 'Oh, there's that groan! So low and sexy and I can feel the vibrations all the way down here!' she thought exultantly.

Moving back down to the bottom, Buffy again made a slow sweep with her tongue, but this time she narrowed it and delved in between the blonde's puffy outer lips, sinking into the savory syrup that lie waiting for her beneath the surface.

Tara's groans grew in volume and frequency as Buffy continued to search out her feast, going farther with every pass until her tongue was buried deep inside the blonde's core, and her face was pressed hard into the witch's sex. 'I would never have guessed how much I would love doing this!' Buffy thought joyfully as she felt Tara moving closer and closer to her release.

'Mmm, wanna feel it on my tongue!' she decided, moving her thumb on her free hand to manipulate Tara's clit rather than withdrawing her tongue for the task. Only a minute later, her desire was fulfilled and she felt the blond witch's inner muscles begin to shudder and grasp at her tongue. She hummed delightedly as Tara's release filled her mouth and she swallowed it down.

Rather than let her Mistress go with but a single release, Buffy slid two fingers inside to replace her tongue as she pulled away. She looked up at her right hand- which was still moving Willow's increasingly slick flesh in a circle- then down to her left- which was pumping in and out of Tara, while her thumb rode back and forth across her Mistress' stiff nub. 'I think Willow would call this 'multitasking'!' she thought with a giggle. 'Thank God for Slayer dexterity!'

As Buffy looked up a little higher, she noticed that Tara was pulling and twisting rather insistently at Willow's nipples. 'That explains why she's whining so loudly!' she thought, having wondered at the disparity of the redhead's noisiness with what she was doing to her. 'Well, time to give her a reason to cry! Uh, but in a good way,' she corrected as she realized how she'd worded that thought.

Buffy stopped the circles, and used her thumb and forefinger to open Willow's weeping sex. Immediately she began to lave the entire surface with her tongue and lips, slurping up all of Willow's sweet honey; suckling her inner labia and clit with abandon.

'Can anything really be this good?' Buffy wondered happily. 'The way you taste, the sounds you make, the way your body quakes and shudders at my touch… God even the scent of Willow is nearly overpowering!'

"Mistress! Oh goddess, Mistress I'm cumming!" Willow suddenly screamed as her body shook like an earthquake.

'Hello, newsflash pet, I could tell!' Buffy thought with a smirk as Willow thrashed about. That, coupled with the fact that the redhead was laying on top of another quivering, shuddering, orgasmic witch made it impossible to maintain oral contact with her pet, so Buffy slipped a pair of fingers inside to ride out, and extend her climax.

"This is the most beautiful, amazing thing I think I've ever experienced!" Buffy whispered as she watched and listened to the pair crying out their mutual release.

Tara smiled with satisfaction as she watched Buffy moaning and panting, trying to catch her breath after the two witches had paid her back for the 'stack of witchy goodness' as she had laughingly called it.

"What's the matter Buffy?" Willow asked in her most saccharine little-girl voice, causing Tara to giggle.

"Big, bad Slayer not up for a little tag team action?" Tara teased, crawling up to lay along Buffy's right side. She looked at Willow, who was laying alongside Buffy's left side, and said, "I think we wore her out, sweetie."

Buffy laughed along with the redhead, and said, "Oh you wicked witches! Give me a couple days to recover, and I'll…" she took a deep breath and released it before continuing, "…I'll gladly let you do it all over again!"

'Mmhm, I have no doubt of that!' Tara thought smugly. "That was a great idea, sweetie!" she said to the grinning redhead.

"It just came to me, you know, with the taking turns kissing thing, I figured, 'hey, she's got more than one set of lips to kiss! So, why wait? And, we can still take turns!" Willow said with a happy sounding giggle.

The three lay snuggling for a minute before Tara said, "So, the slaying must have gone pretty well; judging by the way you were laughing when you came in…" she twisted to look at the clock and her eyes widened when she saw the time, "…oh, about three hours ago!"

"Three hours?!" Buffy said, sounding shocked. She pushed herself up on her elbows so she could see the clock herself. "Four in the morning?"

"Yeah, I guess… we don't really need to leave until three or four, so we can still get plenty of sleep…" Buffy said.

"So, not going to be a problem…" Willow huffed with a very satisfied looking grin on her face.

"I want to hear about the slaying before you doze off, Buffy," Tara said. "What happened that was so funny?"

Buffy's face broke into a smile and she answered, "Well, I found out why she was so depressed…" and then launched into a description of the night's events right up until the dark haired Slayer had passed out.

'Why would that upset her?' Tara wondered. 'She sounds freaked, although not so much in an angry way, more like shocked, I guess…'

Willow's face changed, softening from the outrage to a more neutral mien as she said, "No, not that! The whole touching and teasing thing! I told you to make sure she knew your hungries and hornies were spoken for!"

Buffy grinned unrepentantly, "Oh, but you should have seen her face Will! I *so* wish I'd had a video camera or something…" she laughed out loud.

"I can imagine…" Tara said, picturing a dropped jaw and glazed eyes. "I bet she never expected you to say something like that…"

Willow grinned a little herself, though it looked grudging. "So you were still laughing at that when you got back?" she asked.

"Oh no!" Buffy said, suddenly laughing even harder. "No, that was hilarious, but it got way better than that!"

"What happened?" Tara asked feeling intensely curious at what had her Slayer crying in laughter.

It took Buffy a couple minutes to choke it out through the laughs, but she said, "When she came to… she was so… excited… she started, she started… Oh, God! She started doing… cartwheels!"

Tara and Willow looked at each other over top of the laughing Slayer, clearly not seeing the full humor here.

Buffy finally was able to continue, though she was still giggling madly. "She, she was flying along… doing cartwheels! And- and then…" she had to pause for a moment to laugh wildly some more. "She cartwheeled right… right into… this open grave!"

The image hit the two witches simultaneously, and they began cackling right alongside their lover.

Xander Harris was sitting with his back against the parapet that surrounded the roof of the Hyperion, looking up at the sky.

'God, between the smog and the city lights, it's almost like there's no stars at all,' he thought morosely. "That fits I guess. Not a lot of heaven looking down on Hell-A, I guess…'

Unable to find sufficient distraction in the night sky, Xander's mind returned to the subject he'd been trying to avoid. 'Tomorrow night, bout this time…' he thought. 'Jeeze, I hope I don't feel this crappy then!' he worried, feeling his stomach churning.

Unbidden memories from the soldier persona he had once been flashed through his consciousness, almost making him wince at the blood and violence. 'That's different.' he thought to himself after a moment. 'I didn't really kill those people… and still I have nightmares.' Turning his face back to the occluded sky, he softly whispered, "How am I gonna handle the real thing?"

Xander tried something he used to do in high school. He closed his eyes and imagined his friend Jesse was still alive, pretending that he was talking to him about this new problem he had.

Xander couldn't help a little grin at the thought. 'Yeah, I wish. No man, its something worse.'

'There's this big fight comin, Jess; biggest yet. And, the only way to win is for me to… kill someone. Not a demon, a real person.' Even though it was just in his thoughts, actually verbalizing it made his stomach roil even harder.

'It's complicated, Jess. If I don't, Dawnie won't be safe… and that means Buffy won't be safe. I'd give my life a hundred times to protect them.'

'It isn't a question of whether or not I have to do it… It's more, how do I live with it after…'

After a moment of silence, both internal and external, Xander thought, 'Well, that didn't help.' Blinking his eyes open, he mumbled "Now I know why I don't, Gahh!"

Xander jerked back, striking his head on the brick parapet. "Ow!" he moaned, grabbing his head with both hands.

Faith laughed and stood up from where she was crouched in front of him. "S'amatter, Xan? Cordy kick you out and Angel made you sleep on the roof?" she said, her voice full of humor.

Xander slowly climbed to his feet, still rubbing his head. 'What, I haven't had a concussion in the last week, so it was just time?' her grumbled to himself.

Xander stopped rubbing his head and narrowed his eyes at the dark-haired Slayer. 'I'm thinking that I haven't seen you this happy… pretty much ever!' Xander thought with sudden suspicion. "Ok, either I hit my head harder than I thought, and I'm hallucinating, or…"

Xander's train of thought completely derailed and he stared at the girl in front of him with his jaw dropped. "Uhh… are you on something?" he asked, stupefied by the behavior she was displaying.

Before Faith could answer, Xander snapped his fingers and pointed at her "Willow!"

"You did something to piss off Willow, and she cast some kind of spell on you, right? She cursed you!" Xander said, his momentary certainty fading as he added, "With, uh, a happiness curse… yeah, that makes sense…"

"Xander!" Faith laughed again. "No curse, no spell, no drugs. I'm just Free!" She spun in place, like a pirouette, as she said the word 'free'

"Ok, you are seriously freaking me out here, Faith!" Xander said, his voice quavering slightly as his nervousness became overwhelming.

Faith laughed again and then jumped, landing right in front of Xander, grabbing both his shoulders and bringing her face to within inches of his. "Don't'cha get it? Prison. I'm out. For good! I don't have to go back!"

'Must not upset insane Slayer…' Xander thought fearfully. Tentatively he nodded his head and said, "Uh, I know? I was, uh, kinda like there for the whole thing, Faith…"

Faith let go of his shoulders and cupped his face, pulling his cheeks forward and causing his lips to pout exaggeratedly. "You don't get it. *I* didn't know! I didn't know it was for good!"

Xander blinked, confused by her words. 'She didn't know it was for… Oh, God!' he thought. His eyes widened in realization, but before he could say anything, Faith gave him a big, wet, loud kiss on his pouting lips.

Faith stepped back a couple paces, some of the giddiness in her expression gone, but Xander could still see a deep and powerful joy radiating from her.

"You can't imagine what a freaking relief it is. God, I was dreading going back to that place so bad, it was like it hurt just to breathe! Man! I feel like… I dunno. I don't think I've ever felt this good before!"

Xander was still stuck on the fact that she hadn't known she was pardoned. 'I can't believe we didn't… I, it just never came up I guess.' He mumbled. Looking up at Faith, he said, "I'm sorry, Faith. I- I can't imagine how… we should have told you! I mean, jeeze, you'd think we would have remembered to say something as important as that!"

"Hey! Nothing to worry about X-man," Faith said, giving him a playful shove on his shoulder. "It's all good now! 'Sides, just think if it had been the other way around!"

'It must be contagious," Xander thought as some of Faith's joy seemed to echo in him, pushing away some of the melancholy. "Yeah, that would have sucked, big time!"

Faith threw her arm over Xander's shoulder and began to lead him back towards the stairway entrance. "So, what were you thinking about all serious like?" she asked.

"Uh, just stuff…" Xander said. 'Don't really want to bring that up right now… or, like, ever!'

She must not have noticed, because she just said, "Don't sweat it X-man! Me and the witches'll get B all supercharged up; then you guys turn the little minions into kibbles and bits, and B'll kick Glory's spam-sucking, trailer-park-trash ass back into her little meat-shell for good!"

The mood was somber as the Scoobies and the gang from Angel investigations entered the Crawford street mansion.

"This place is marvelous!" Wesley gushed as he looked all around, an expression of awe plastered to his face.

"Nice digs, man," Gunn said, not quite succeeding in looking less impressed than Wesley.

Tara noticed Willow looking at Buffy with some concern. She looked at the blond Slayer and noticed that she was keeping her head down. 'I know she wanted to go home and get some things, but Mr. Giles warned us not to go where the Knights might be looking for us…' she thought. 'But this seems like something else…'

"Wow, this place must bring back memories…" Cordelia said with a note of wonder to her voice. "I've never actually been here, but I remember all kinds of stories about stuff that happened here.

Tara saw Buffy flinch slightly when Cordelia mentioned memories. 'Oh. Not good memories then I guess,' she thought sadly.

Suddenly Faith burst out, "Yeah, whatever. Can we get on with the whole fighting the hell-bitch thing, cause right now I don't need a trip down memory lane, ok?" The dark-haired Slayer's body language was screaming her discomfort and desire to be anywhere but here.

'This is about to become very ugly,' Tara thought. Seeing Faith tense Tara was about to intervene when Angel beat her to the punch.

"That's enough Cordelia, Faith's right. Let's just get ready and get this thing done, ok?" Angel snapped angrily. He also looked uncomfortable being in his old home.

"Good plan Angel," Buffy said, lifting her head, but not really looking around much. "You guys get ready, I need to go to the magic box before we go…" she turned to look at Xander and asked, "Do you remember that thing I found at the warehouse… when I first fought Glory?"

Xander nodded his head, "Glowy golden ball thing, right? In the basement. I'm pretty sure I remember Anya putting it down in the basement."

"Ok, you drive, then. We'll grab that and get back here. Will, Tara; you guys do the thing to see if Her Unholiness is home, and when we get back we'll hit the road," Buffy said in a commanding tone.

Tara smiled, pleased to see her lover taking charge. 'She's always most confident when the decision is made and she's ready to act…' the witch affectionately thought of her Slayer. "Buffy, be careful, remember what Giles said about the Knights…" she cautioned.

Buffy's face softened as she looked at the blonde witch. "Right, we'll watch out for the bizarre ones. They'll get a turn when we're done with Glory."

Their drive to the magic box had been made without a word, as Buffy was wrapped up in her thoughts about the coming fight.

Looking up at Xander, she gave him a small smile and said, "Yeah, I'm ok. Just thinking about tonight."

Xander looked back to the road in front of him and nodded his head. "Yeah," he said. After a moment's pause, he added, "I just thought… I dunno, you didn't look real happy back there, and I thought maybe, you know, bad memories…"

Buffy shook her head, "Not really. I mean, yeah there's the not-so-good times I had there… but I'm pretty much over that stuff, as much as you can get over that kind of thing, I guess."

Xander had a frown on his face as he turned the car into the parking space at the Magic Box, "Faith? Why?"

Buffy was silent for a moment, thinking, 'Poor Faith. How do you get past the kind of stuff she did?' She turned in her seat to face Xander and tried to explain, "Most of the bad memories I have from that place are because of stuff that happened, I don't know, to me, I guess. Things that I was involved in, but I didn't necessarily… cause them to happen… or at least not intentionally."

Feeling silly, Buffy chuckled at herself. "I'm not sure, does that make any sense at all?"

Xander smiled warmly and nodded. "Yeah, I think I get it. You get to remember being the hero; Faith remembers being the villain."

"I did a lot of stupid stuff in my life… things I regret, stuff I wish I could go back and do over… but I never did anything that I thought was… I dunno, evil I guess. At least not on purpose… Maybe I was just fooling myself sometimes, but I never thought of it as evil… Faith, she did stuff knowing it was bad, like she planned to hurt people, even kill them. She was going to torture me to death, she did torture Wesley."

Buffy shook her head and a single tear fell from her eye as she thought, 'God, what would it be like to have memories like that?'

She felt Xander's hand on her face, his thumb wiping the tear from her cheek. She looked back up at him and her voice was sorrowful as she whispered, "I don't know how I'd ever get past that… I don't know if she can…"

Xander interrupted her. His hand moved from her face to grip her shoulder, and his voice carried a sense of conviction as he said, "She can. She will. Faith will deal; we'll help. Yeah, maybe it'll be hard, but she'll be ok in the end."

Buffy was surprised when Xander laughed out loud. "What?!" she asked. 'What did I say that was funny?' she wondered.

"Buffy… this is, what, our fourth or fifth apocalypse?" Xander asked, still smiling widely.

Buffy felt thrown by the non-sequitor. "Uh, this will be nine, actually…" she said. When Xander's eyes widened in surprise, Buffy grinned and said, "Willow and I were counting them this morning…"

"Counting apocalypses is why you two were screaming like that?" Xander asked, teasing the blonde.

Buffy felt her face get hot, 'Stupid, I should have expected that,' she thought, annoyed that he'd caught her like that.

Xander laughed in the face of her glare and said, "Seriously Buff, We've faced the end of the world eight times, and guess what? World's still here."

Back to confused again- and wary of another verbal trap, Buffy slowly said, "Yeah, so…"

The quality of Xander's smile changed from humorous, to warm and caring. "So… If we can face that and still be alive, let alone sane… mostly… then we can face one guilty-feeling Slayer and help her find a way to move past all the crap and be ok."

'You really are the sweetest guy…' she thought as she suddenly wrapped Xander in a warm embrace. "You know, you're a pretty great guy, Xan." She whispered in his ear before releasing him.

Xander was blushing when she pulled away from him, and he did what he usually did when emotions began to run high, he joked. "Sure, now you realize that… now that you're all shacked up with two women!" Xander said in mock outrage.

Buffy laughed as she got out of the car, saying, "Sorry Xander… Now I bet you wish you were still 'just like one of the girls'!"

"Argh, you're a cruel, wicked woman, Buffy Summers!" Xander lamented as he stood up and closed the car door behind him.

Buffy laughed and turned to walk to the shop when she noticed that the lights were on. "We didn't leave the lights on, did we?" she asked with a note of caution in her voice. Before Xander could answer, she said, "Wait here," and slowly walked over to the edge of the window, peering in.

Buffy was very surprised to see a woman, on her knees, scrubbing the floor with a brush. 'What the…?' She turned and waved Xander over, saying, "Who the heck is that?" she asked him as he got to the window.

Buffy looked at Xander, surprised by his certainty. "How can you tell? She's facing away…" she trailed off as Xander smirked at her with one eyebrow raised. "Oh, right…" she mumbled, feeling stupid.

Xander chuckled at her discomfiture and strode over to the door, entering unhesitatingly while Buffy scrambled to catch up.

"Well, if it isn't Anya, my dear ex-girlfriend," Xander said cheerfully. "What brings you back to our lovely little town?"

The figure on the floor stopped scrubbing and looked over her shoulder at Buffy and Xander. If they hadn't been able to tell who it was already, her response would have given it away. "Oh sure, now you get here! Where were you when all the heavy lifting had to be done? Not to mention all the cleaning and scrubbing! Men! You're only good for your penis, but now you won't even give me that any more, so what good are you?"

"And you!" Anya continued, seemingly without breathing, as she turned to the Slayer. "What are you doing with him? I thought you had given up on the penis-bearing gender."

"Though Xander does have a very nice penis," Anya continued as though speaking only to herself. "Still, his penis was supposed to be for me only!"

Buffy felt her jaw drop. She tried to say something, anything to shut Anya up, but the only thing that came out was a startled squeak.

"And do your lesbian witches know that you're playing with Xander's penis?" Anya continued. "Are they playing with it too? Oh I see, everyone gets to play with your penis except me, is that it Xander?"

'Oh. My. God!' Buffy thought. 'Xander, please! Make her stop!' Buffy cried out in her mind, her mouth still unable to form any coherent sounds.

Finally, Xander began shouting. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Enough with the penis talk, Ahn! Buffy and Willow and Tara are not…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "You know what? We aren't even having this conversation."

"Fine, tell me to shut up. You never liked hearing anything I had to say anyway!" the ex-vengeance demon complained bitterly before turning her back on the two Scoobies and resuming her scrubbing.

'I have no idea!' Buffy thought, shaking her head. She managed to shut her sagging jaw, but still didn't have any control over her vocal cords yet. 'How did I ever get used to that?' she thought wonderingly.

"Anya, what in the *hell* are you doing here?" Xander asked, having regained control over the volume of his voice.

The verbally improvident blonde continued to scrub as she answered, "Well, obviously, I'm trying to run my shop, or I would be if I wasn't having to clean up after those foolish metal-covered persons who obviously decided that this would be a good place to be slaughtered!" Anya stopped and sat up on her knees, adding, "Though, I do have to admire a good slaughter. It reminds me of the time I set loose a b'Ytmí demon on that bunch of Carpathian soldiers; one of them had been sleeping with a young girl in his village and decided to share her with his friends… their armor held the prettiest twisted shapes." Turning to once again look at the Scoobies over her shoulder, she said, "It was very artistic!"

Buffy still hadn't managed to find her voice and she once again stared at Xander in wonder at his ex-girlfiend's unabashed insensitivity.

Anya picked up her brush and bucket and stood up, stretching mightily as she re-approached the subject at hand. "Of course, these bodies weren't nearly as artistically arranged."

"Anya, for the love of God!" Xander exclaimed loudly. "Will you please explain what you are yammering about? And try not to bring up some horrible anecdote from your past while you do it!"

Anya rolled her eyes and sighed heavily in apparent exasperation. She went into the utility room at the back of the store and got rid of her cleaning implements as she talked. "You know those idiot knights that have been wandering around the past couple of days?"

Finally finding her voice, Buffy said, "Knights? Like those three I met a couple of weeks ago?"

Anya nodded her head as she walked back into the main room. "Yes, the Knights of Byzantium."

"Well, that's just perfect!" Xander groused. "More fun enemies in Sunnydale to keep us all entertained, which is great, 'cause we were running low!"

"Oh, I stopped counting at around a hundred; it's so hard to tell with all the parts all over like that…"

Buffy turned back to Xander and said, "We'll need to make sure we don't run into them before we can deal with Glory…" She trailed off when Anya's comment sunk in. 'Huh, parts?'

"Oh, you won't run into them, I sold them to a family of ghouls that live under Sutter's Park!" Anya said happily.

Xander looked horrified. He stammered, "Y- you *sold* them? You sold people to some family of demons!?"

'Oh, oh. Xan's gonna pop!' Buffy worried. She grabbed his arm and said, "The bodies, Xander. She sold the dead bodies…" Turning to Anya she added, "…and can I just say 'Eww!' to that?"

"Well, of course they were dead. Everyone knows ghouls don't eat live flesh," Anya said as though they were daft.

At Xander's look of disgust, the ex-demon whined, "Well, what else was I supposed to do?" Waving her arms, she explained, "I mean, I walk in here and there's dead corpses all over the floor. It was wall-to-wall blood and guts in here; and ghouls are very efficient at removing that sort of thing."

"It's just too bad they couldn't take care of the blood stains," Anya lamented. "I've been scrubbing for hours! Look I even broke a nail!" she said, holding up her finger to illustrate. "Frankly, I think they were very inconsiderate to do their dying here. They could have had the manners to go out in the alley or someplace more appropriate," she finished in a huff.

Buffy guided him to a chair before he fell. "Glory," she said quietly. "It had to be Glory.'

Anya concurred. "Yes, that seems very likely. At first I thought it might have been you; after all, you're the one they're looking for. Well, you and Dawn, really. But then, I realized- though you have many, many flaws, untidiness isn't generally one of them… What?" she asked as Buffy glared at her.

"You know, Anya. I always tried to be relatively nice to you, out of respect for Xander. But, right now you're treading very close to the edge," Buffy said, her annoyance with the tactless girl at an all time high.

"I don't understand why you would be angry with me!" Anya whined loudly. "Is this some kind of territorial Slayer behavior? Because Xander's giving you his penis now, and he used to give it to me?"

'I'm gonna kill her! I swear, I'm gonna kill her!' Buffy thought, outraged. "Enough with the penis talk! I am going downstairs to get what I came for, and when I come back up, you will be gone. You can walk out on your own, or I can throw you out. Your choice."

With that, Buffy took Xander's hand and pulled him up from the chair. She led him downstairs, ignoring Anya's muttered, "We'll see about that…"

'God Xander, how did you manage to live with that for so long without going insane?' Buffy wondered as she tromped down the stairs.

'Man, this sucks.' Faith thought as she looked up at the sky, the stars just beginning to show in the onset of darkness. 'They go to all the trouble of getting me pardoned from prison for the biggest fight, like, ever…' she glanced back in to where she could hear Willow and Tara chanting their incantation as she sulked. '…and I'm relegated to the Sabrina section.'

Faith let her gaze wander through the room she'd abandoned in favor of the fresh air of the walled garden. 'Wes looks like the nerd in gym class. S'amatter, watcher-boy, they didn't teach you about guns in jolly-old?' she thought with a snicker. 'G looks like he's held a shooter a time or two in his life… The boy damn-sure knows how to use that gun he's packing,' she thought, smiling warmly at recent memories.

Faith's smile curdled, however, when her focus moved across to where Cordelia was standing. 'Bitch!' she thought as she forced herself to refrain from flipping off the ex-cheerleader. "I don't know how Angel puts up with you!" she muttered as she turned her back on the room, once more focusing on the depths of outer space.

She jerked in surprise when a voice came out of the shadows by the stairs, "It isn't always easy…"

"Jesus, Angel!" Faith groused. "Don't you know that's a good way to get a stake in the heart?"

Angel ignored her complaint, saying, "What is it with you and Cordy? Every time you two are in the same room, I get the impression that you're having to restrain yourself from…"

"Bitch-slapping her till she sobs like a little girl?" Faith said with no little rancor. 'Damn! She gets on my last fricken nerve!' she thought huffily, wrapping her arms around herself and turning away from the vampire.

"What is it about her that pushes your buttons so hard, Faith?" Angel asked softly.

Faith flinched when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off and walked away, saying, "I gotta have a reason? She gets on my nerves, it happens. She's a bitch, always has been, always will be."

She put her hands on her hips and smirked a little as she went on the offensive. "The way I hear it, you oughta know exactly what I mean!"

At his befuddled look, she thought, 'Gotcha, fang-boy. Let's see how you like talking about the hard stuff…'

"Yeah, I heard you got your panties all in a wad over seein' B with her new gal-pals," Faith crowed.

"Oh, so you didn't throw a fit in front of the whole Scooby gang? You didn't try get into it with B, just to get yourself taken to school by little miss bewitched in there?" she said with her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing back toward Tara.

'Ok, didn't expect that reaction!' Faith thought at seeing a warm smile cross Angel's face.

"You weren't wrong about that part, Faith. But what you don't see, is that it was a big deal. What Mis… Tara did was huge." He started to explain.

'Holy Crap!' Faith could feel her eyes widen at the normally-broody vamp's slip of the tongue.

Angel continued, his sublime smile never faltering. "I was completely out of control, and I could have hurt someone. I'm ashamed to say that I did try to hurt Tara, but fortunately she was stronger than I was."

'Jeeze, knock me over with a fricken feather…' Faith thought as her jaw sagged open.

"The anger I was feeling was a big deal, Faith. Fortunately, someone was able to help me deal with it before it caused bigger problems," Angel finished.

The dark haired Slayer stood there silently. 'Jesus, Angel. Talk about surprising…'

"Why Angel? Why did it get to you that hard?" Faith asked, now concerned for the one person who was willing to believe in her when she was out of control and lost in the darkness.

"Unh uh. I already answered your question. You want to talk about my jealousy, fine. First, I want to know what's going on with you and Cordelia. Unlike Tara, Cordelia can't defend herself if you lose control."

Faith felt her muscles tense involuntarily as the subject came back to the seer. "I ain't gonna lose it…" she started to argue.

"Oh no? You've been around her for what? Five or six hours, spread out over three days, and you already look like you want to hit her on sight." Angel countered. His voice displayed no anger, only sympathy. "So, what is it Faith? Why do you get so angry at her?"

"God Angel! You act like it's some big thing. She is a bitch. She's a bitch to everyone around her! Christ, the whole time she was dating Xander, she treated him like crap! And then she's all shocked when he ends up playin' tonsil hockey with Red!" Faith was pacing now, throwing her hands in the air as she hissed out her diatribe.

"Oh, and don't get me started on how she acts around B. I seen it myself, and I heard a bunch more. Total bitch; always looking down her nose… actin' like she's something special… like It ain't enough that B fights vampires, or that she saves the whole freakin world! Sorry we don't all have rich daddies to buy us clothes and cars and stuff! She looks down on us like we're…" she shook her head, abandoning that line of thought.

Faith stopped pacing and faced the vampire, her chest heaving against the tight, burning sensation stretched across it. "Way I heard it, little miss muffet in there nearly died from vamps the first week B was in town, but did she ever even get a 'thanks'? No! Ungrateful little…"

Faith turned away from Angel and once again wrapped herself with her arms and held on tightly. 'I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!' ran through her mind like a droning hum.

She felt Angel's hands on her shoulders and heard his whisper in her ear, "What about you, Faith? What did she do to you?"

"You know the first words I heard out of her mouth?" Faith asked quietly, not entirely ignoring his question, but shying away from a direct answer. "Check out the slut-o-rama…"

"There I am, hooking up a vamp on the dance floor and takin' him outside before he finds a midnight snack to nibble on, and I hear that voice… And, she never changed. Didn't matter that I'm the chosen one, or, or that I saved her life plenty of times… all she saw was a gutter-trash Southie."

She interrupted, "And now all she sees is a piece of garbage ex-con. Like I'm disposable or something."

Faith spun around and away from his hands, her anger once again rising up as she gritted out, "You're damn right I'm not. I'm the fricken Slayer! Yeah, I screwed up, and I gotta take my lumps, so if B or Red or You or Wes wants to bust my chops, you got the right. But Queen C? Hell no! Worst thing I ever did to that bitch was pop her in the nose that once. And, she had that coming for years! God! I get more slack from Wes, and I tortured him till he was almost dead!"

'S'amatter Angel, not what you expected?' Faith thought, feeling the pleasant burn of anger and violence flow through her veins. 'Difference is, now I'm in control…'

"What?" Faith asked. "You thought we were gonna have a moment here? Trust me Angel… I've spent enough time in the shrink's office over the past year and a half. I don't need any help 'understanding my rage.' I understand it real good, and I control it, not the other way round."

She almost laughed out loud at the look of shock on his face. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the hell out of what you did for me… It made all the difference in the world, knowing that someone really thought I could make it. But, I'm not that person now. Oh, I'm all about the redemption gig, and making up for the horrible crap I did; but that don't mean I'm gonna be all this fluffy-bunny girl all of a sudden. I'm still the dark Slayer, just not the evil one."

Turning away and looking up at the sky again, Faith said, "You and me; we're cool Angel. And, Queen C gets a free pass until we deal with the hell-bitch. Then you can take her back to LA and there won't be a problem at all."

"You don't understand! This Key-person is far too dangerous to be allowed to live. What if Glory should get her hands on her? That'd ruffle that calm, cool, annoyingly sexy British attitude of yours, mister!" Anya practically screamed into the phone.

Even over the phone Anya could hear the exasperated sigh the preceded his response. "Ms. Jenkins… Anya, please. I *did* take your information to Mr. Travers, as I said I would. He decided that it would be most prudent if we allowed the Slayer to confront Glorificus as planned before taking any further action. Should she fail, there will be ample opportunity to destroy The Key…"

"Well, clearly this Travers person is not in his right mind. Now is the right time, not later. Later could be too late! You need to change his mind, Jeremy, or else…" Anya ranted.

Jeremy once again spoke in soothing tones, offering reassurance, "Right now, The Key is safely in the care of Mr. Giles, several hundred miles away from Sunnydale and Glory. Really, Anya… there is nothing to be done until…"

The ex-demon came to a rapid standstill. "Really? Are you sure? How do you know that? are you watching them? Has there been any sort of attack, or perhaps a kidnapping attempt? Or, would that be Keynapping?" Anya wondered aloud.

The watcher's response was slow in coming, "Ah, no… not as such. Why, do you think there will be?"

Anya paced furiously back and forth in her bedroom, not mollified in the least by the voice on the phone. "Why? Only because I'm very unhappy at the prospect of my home, or my place of business being sucked into a hell dimension! And your sexy British accent isn't going to make me feel any better about it, so don't even try!" she cried petulantly."

There was a pregnant silence, then the watcher's voice whispered, "I miss you too, Anya. I've thought of little other than our time together since I got back to London."

Anya smiled slightly; she tried for a sexy, come-hither voice as she said, "Yes, the orgasms were very nice. I think you should go to Nevada, blow up The Key, and then come here and give me many more orgasms!"

Jeremy's voice was apologetic, "Anya, I wish I could, but I cannot do anything until…"

Anya lost patience. She screamed, "You know what I want, now do it! Don't talk to me until you do!" and slammed the phone on the ground. "Stupid men!" she growled, feeling very frustrated. "This is why I spent eleven hundred years punishing them!"

"Who's idea was it to file it under 'G'?" Buffy asked as they walked up the stairs and into the magic box proper.

Xander shrugged, "Well if it wasn't under 'G' for glowy or golden, I was going to look under 'B' for ball…"

'Ah, he gets the laugh!' Xander thought happily, having achieved his goal. "Well, Buff, you just have to know how Anya thinks…"

"No, thank you. You know, I don't mean to sound cruel or anything, but…" she began, as she looked around the empty shop.

"But, how the hell did I stay with her so long?" Xander asked, finishing her question with a knowing smile.

Buffy turned to him and put her hands on her hips. With her face grimacing in a strange look of curiosity and just a little disapproval, she said, "Please tell me it wasn't really just the sex. I mean, I get that that was a huge part of the relationship, but how good could it be?"

Xander had to fight the evil chuckle that threatened to rise up in him when he responded. "Oh, Buffy. You have no idea."

'She looks like she's watching a train wreck! Can't turn away, can you?' Xander thought evilly.

Buffy immediately slapped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, interrupting his description by shouting "Lalalalalalala, I can't hear you!"

Xander began laughing out loud, causing Buffy to stamp her foot and point at him threateningly.

"Ahn had the longest tongue…" Xander said, reminiscing with a mock-wistful tone.

"Eww, Eww! God! Xander! Don't say another word! I'm sorry I asked!" Buffy said, throwing her hands up in disgust.

'Uh huh, I see that grin threatening to show!' Xander thought, still chuckling at the look of horror on her face.

Xander looked around the shop as Buffy stamped her way back to the training room to grab some weapons. 'Oh, I wonder if that might be useful?' he thought as his eyes lit upon one of the displays. His arm gave a sympathetic twinge as he remembered Olaf the troll breaking his wrist.

'It may have been insane troll-logic, but I wonder what would have happened if Buffy hadn't shown up… could I ever get over watching him kill her?' Xander's good mood evaporated and he sadly thought, 'Even when I thought I loved Ahn, I couldn't have let Will die.

Xander jumped just a little, not having heard the Slayer approach. "Just remembering. And I thought maybe you could use that," he answered, pointing at the Troll-Hammer.

"Yeah, that's a great idea Xand!" Buffy said happily. She walked over and grabbed the hammer out of it's display case, hefting it a couple times as if to get the feel.

Buffy looked up at Xander with a wicked smile on her face. "Let's go. Glory's not gonna know what hit her!"

Xander smiled in response. 'You know, I'm really starting to believe that!' he thought as he followed the Slayer out the door.

Xander Harris stood stiffly, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. His hands were sweating inside his gloves as he tightened and loosened his fingers around the pistol grip and fore-end of his H&K MP5SD2 assault weapon. 'Ok, seriously nervous now,' he thought as the countdown to action grew shorter and shorter. 'Don't think I was this bad even with the mayor! 'Course, didn't have to kill a guy after fighting the mayor…' he thought, heart pounding and stomach churning.

He had taken up position at the end of the hall, where it turned to the emergency stair landing. He had yanked the wires to the fluorescent lights at the end of the hall, leaving him in a pool of comforting darkness some twenty meters from the door to Glory's penthouse.

Another fifteen meters past Glory's ornate doorway was the entrance into the apartment where the rest of the Scoobies and the AI team had set up.

'A sit-rep would be nice, anytime now…' Xander thought impatiently, waiting for the witches to finish their spell which would let them know exactly how many minion they were facing, in addition to the primary target of Glory herself.

'Be cool, Xan,' he tried to reassure himself. 'They'll call as soon as they're done. Don't want to let the troops know you're so nervous you're about to piss yourself!'

Xander jumped slightly when Gunn's voice whispered in his ear, "Alpha lead, this is two."

"Team Wicca finished their recon- show twelve bad guys plus the big bad bitch herself."

'So much for radio discipline,' Xander sighed. "Roger Two, count twelve Deltas and one Bravo- thirteen total targets, confirm."

Xander could hear the smirk in Gunn's voice as he responded, "That's a big 10-4, Lead."

"Seriously, Xander, Is all this really necessary?" Cordelia's complaint rang in Xander's ear.

"Sit-rep Alpha Four!" Xander hissed. 'For the love of God, just once will you please shut up and do what you're told!' he yelled at her mentally. 'Of course, I could never actually say that out loud…' he realized sheepishly.

"Geeze, don't get all pissy, Xander. I'm laying here pointing my gun at the door like I'm supposed to be!" Cordelia said defensively.

Xander took a deep breath, 'It's not worth it…' he thought as he reigned in his desire to snap back at his ex.

'Leave it to Wes to be the only one to take radio discipline seriously…' Xander mused.

"I'm ready, Xander," Buffy said. "Tara says it'll take two minutes to do the spell," she added.

"Ok, go for it Tara," Buffy responded. "I Love you too," she said a moment later.

Xander smiled, feeling a moment of warmth and humor in the midst of his extreme nervousness, and he couldn't help saying, "I appreciate that, Six, but let's cut the chatter- remember your mic is voice activated."

At that moment, the doors to Glory's apartment burst open, causing Xander to immediately flinch back around the corner and out of sight. He looked up at the small mirror he had affixed to the wall across from him in his little vestibule, allowing him to see the hallway without being seen by those in the hallway.

'Thank you soldier memories!' he thought as he took in the scene. "Team, this is lead," he whispered very quietly. "We have activity, four Deltas have just exited the target apartment. Standby…"

'Damn!' he thought when the four minions split into teams of two and began opening apartment doors, rushing in, and then back out, obviously searching for someone or something. 'Ok soldier boy, what now?' he worried, furiously trying to think of a plan.

Taking care to be very quiet, Xander whispered, "Ok, we've got two Deltas headed your way, Team. Four and Five, hold your fire, we need to do this quietly, do you copy?

"Ok," Cordelia said, sounding a little nervous, rather than bitchy, for the first time today.

"Alpha Five copies; will hold fire until otherwise instructed, Lead." Wesley said, obviously taking his role to heart.

"Two and Three, take them fast and quiet!" Xander instructed, feeling the adrenaline pumping strongly through his body now.

"Three. Copy." Angel said curtly, apparently still not altogether pleased to once again be following Xander's lead, but complying.

"I got it, Two, just get yours," Xander said. 'Hope I sound confident at least,' he thought, feeling the thrill/terror that precedes combat. Somehow it felt different this time than normal patrols ever did.

'I can't believe they don't hear me!' Xander thought as the two demons got closer and closer. The sound of his breathing and heartbeat was incredibly loud to him. 'Man, everything sounds loud!' he realized. The sound of the demons breaking down the doors, their footsteps on the marble tile of the hall, their movements in each apartment as they rushed from room to room looking for something, 'Glory must have detected the spell, just like Tara and Will thought she would…' he thought.

He was alternately wishing that they would never reach him, and at the same time, that they would hurry up so he could get this over with. In the mirror he saw the two at the far end of the hall enter the team's location, coincidentally at the same time his two entered the apartment two doors down from him. 'Perfect!" he thought excitedly.

Xander flipped the safety from 'off' to 'burst', setting the weapon to fire three rounds with each pull of the trigger. 'Gotta make sure it's a kill shot!' he thought. He knelt down on one knee and braced himself against the wall and waited for the two demons to exit.

"Gotcha sucker!" Gunn's voice came loudly across the earphone of his radio. "That's two Deltas done whacked, nice and quiet, Lead!" he added happily.

Xander felt his focus narrow to the scene in front of him, one eye looking through the peep sight on his weapon, the other open to keep from falling into tunnel vision. As happened on occasion, his body fell into habits that only his soldier persona could ever have learned. His respiration evened out into slow, deep breaths, and he acknowledged the radio without conscious thought. "Standby team," he whispered, waiting for his targets to enter his line of sight.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Xander watched his first target break the plane of his line of sight. As if on autopilot, the sight of his weapon locked onto the demon minion's oversized head and followed it out into the hallway. Time seemed to stretch as Xander began to slowly squeeze the trigger, delaying long enough to see the other demon exit the apartment in his peripheral vision.

The minion in his sights turned toward Xander's position and had just glanced down, it's eyes only just beginning to widen in surprise when the trigger broke. Three 9mm hollow-points launched across the intervening distance, stitching a rough line from the creature's nose to its forehead.

The resulting explosion of red and gray barely registered on Xander's consciousness other than the one word, 'Kill,' that popped into his head as he moved his weapon's sights to the right, focusing on the second demon's wide eyed and open mouthed face. It wasn't battle cry, or a celebration, but rather a cold tally-mark in his mind; 'Kill' one down, one to go.

Before the remaining minion could do more than gape soundlessly, Xander had again pressed the trigger on his finely engineered instrument of war. This time the muted clack and suppressed 'pop' sound that his weapon made registered in his ears. Another line of three red holes, this time beginning below the creature's right eye and ending by bisecting its left eyebrow appeared as if by magic. The accompanying explosion of flesh was both impressive, and repulsive.

Xander's senses snapped back to normal and he couldn't suppress a soft "Whoa!" at the sight before him. Fortunately he regained control of his vocal cords before voicing the 'Eww!' that was his next thought.

'Damn, what am I gonna do with the bodies?' he wondered for a second, then the adrenaline kicked in again. 'Oh man! That was awesome! I kick ass! Way to go soldier boy!'

He had to restrain himself from jumping up and down and pumping his fist in the air. 'Yes! Zeppo no more, I am a kick-ass, demon-killing machine!' he thought, ecstatic with the easy victory.

'Of course, now I've got to do something about the mess…' he realized, watching the twin pools of blood merging as they grew together. 'Eww! At least vamps have the courtesy to dust when you kill 'em…' With a resigned sigh, Xander let his MP5 hang from it's sling while he walked over and grabbed the feet of one of the minions and began to drag it into the open apartment.

"Six, what's your status?" Xander asked in a grunting whisper as he manhandled the dead demon out of the hallway.

"No superslayer yet, still just regular Buffy. Tara and Willow are still doin' the chanting thing," Buffy answered.

"Hey Lead, if there's only eight of these things left, why don't we just go in there and rock and roll on these suckers? We take 'em out and stick around to help out with Hellbitch?" Gunn proposed suddenly.

Xander was tugging on the second minion's feet, trying to avoid stepping in the smear of blood and gore left behind when he dragged the first one away.

'Dammit Gunn, this is not the time to be cocky!' Xander fumed. "Negative, Two! Stick to plan, we need to get the Deltas out of the way so SuperSix can have room to wail on the Bravo. Plus, you need to be in place to make sure Six stays super- we don't know if there are more deltas that might return to the scene!" he said, trying to keep his voice down. 'We don't need any cowboy crap screwing thing's up now!'

'Be pissed, I don't care; just do your fricken job!' Xander thought angrily, his emotions magnified by the stress of the situation. He deliberately chose not to think about the fact that he would probably feel the same way, were the positions reversed.

Xander had nearly finished rolling up a large area rug in the abandoned apartment's foyer when Buffy's voice, sounding strangely hollow and boomy- even over the radio- suddenly resonated in his ear, "It is time!"

Xander paused in his actions for a moment and said, "Then go! Two and Three, you stay on her, and remember- fire on Bravo, don't kill any Deltas where they might get in Six's way!"

Xander grinned and proceeded to drag the rug out into the hallway. 'Gotta cover that up before the fit hits the shan!' he thought, running through a mental checklist of what was supposed to be happening next. In the back of his mind was a quiet mantra, 'Do a good job! Do a good job! Oh, God, please do a good job!'

He could hear the door open down the hall, and forced himself to concentrate on getting the rug positioned right before rolling it out. Afterwards, he stood up to see Gunn, Angel and Buffy all looking down at the rapidly soaking rug. Gunn was the only one with a smirk on his face. When the bald warrior's eyes lifted to meet his own, Xander just shrugged and gave the three a thumbs up before hustling back to his position.

His eyes fixed on the mirror, Xander watched tensely as Buffy raised her hands and a visible shock wave sprang forth, imploding the massive doors into the hell god's penthouse apartment. 'Dammit! Save it for Glory!' Xander thought, annoyed with the overly dramatic entry. 'I think Willow's trying to show off…'

Following the clattering sound of the doors- now reduced to little wooden chunks- raining down to the floor, a loud, petulant female voice rang out, "Hey! That was rude! How am I supposed to have any privacy now with…"

The voice was interrupted by the clatter of small arms fire as Gunn and Angel followed their part of the plan.

"Guns? That's your big plan, Slayer?" Glory's voice mocked. "Minions, kill them! But, save the little blonde for me…" her voice ended in a purr.

'Damn, and I was worried that she'd be too smart to fall for that!' Xander thought, feeling a measure of relief as he watched Gunn and Angel come tearing out of the apartment, demon minions hot on their tail. 'Deadboy even remembered to let Gunn go first!' he thought, pleased that the plan was proceeding fairly well after the initial snafu. "Four and Five, heads up- they're right on Three's tail!" he spoke tersely into the mic.

The mental image of Angel taking a stray burst entered his mind briefly. 'Nah,' he thought after a second's hesitation. 'Not worth it if it puts the girls at risk…'

"Well, it's just you and me, Blondie," Glory's voice started once again, only to be cut off once more by the sound of sustained gunfire as Wesley and Cordelia opened up on the minion blitz.

"*That* was the sound of your little minions being turned in to demon-flavored cat-food!" Buffy's voice boomed.

'Ooo, surround-sound Buffy!' was the absurd thought Xander had as her voice came through the radio and from the doorway into the penthouse. He looked back down the hall just in time to see one minion stagger back out of the fire-sack they had created.

Xander immediately leapt from his position to deal with the threat. He made it two steps when he heard Angel's voice growl, "Oh, I don't think so!" followed immediately by the rapid chatter of a sub-machinegun.

The minion briefly danced like a marionette in the hands of a three-year-old on a sugar high before collapsing to the ground in a bloody heap.

"I am going to… beat my Key out of… of…" Glory's voice came from the open doorway, suddenly not quite so loud or confident.

"Alpha Four, give me a sitrep!" Xander snapped, his attention diverted by the weak voice of the hell god.

"I count seven heads here, plus the body in the hall. Add the two from earlier and your two and they're all accounted for, Lead" Angel's voice reported.

"Copy. Sit tight and keep sharp people," Xander said, as he slowly moved down the hall, hugging the wall across from the penthouse.

'What are you doing Xander?' he asked himself rhetorically. 'You're not holding your position…' he told himself.

'Geeze, she sounds like she's got Barry White doin backup vocals…' Xander thought, his mind finally supplying an image that described the sound of SuperBuffy's voice.

"Maybe you're all broken hearted over the loss of your precious minions?" Buffy continued to taunt.

'I wonder if the whole 'taunt the baddie' thing is a Slayer thing, or a Buffy thing?' Xander wondered as he took in the altogether familiar scene; Buffy standing defiantly, one hand on her hip, palming the Dagon Sphere, the other holding the Troll Hammer cocked over her shoulder, and the quips flying fast and furious.

"Are you stupid or something?" Glory asked rhetorically. "Like I care that you killed my minions. Do you think I'm scared?" the hell god asked, the bitter and hateful look on her face twisting her otherwise beautiful features into an ugly mask of rage.

"No, I think you're weak," Buffy quipped, bringing her hand up to show Glory the glowing sphere.

Glory actually flinched slightly at the sight. She hissed, "Where did you get that!?"

Buffy began tossing the sphere up and down slightly in her hand, with Glory's eyes tracking it's every move. "Oh, you know. The monks left it for me. I hear it's supposed to repel you? It must be working; I certainly find you repellant!" Buffy taunted.

Then she suddenly threw the sphere right at the hell god, saying, "I wonder what happens if you actually hold it?"

Glory jumped sideways to avoid the sphere, her eyes still following it as if flew by. "Ha! Did you actually think…" she started to crow when she was suddenly cut off.

Buffy had used Glory's distraction to swing her hammer in a vicious uppercut, catching the hell bitch right in the chin as she turned back.

Glory's body lifted from the floor and flew five meters across the room as though propelled by a rocket. She struck the junction of the wall and ceiling some four meters above the floor with enough force to punch through the plaster crown-molding, leaving a Glory-head sized hole behind as she fell to the floor.

"Ow! I bith my thoung, you bith!" Glory yelled, clearly enraged. "And, you completely messed up my hair! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get plaster out of your hair!"

'She's just standing there!' Xander thought, incredulous that the hell god wasn't fighting back.

Buffy moved almost faster than Xander could see, executing a beautiful spinning kick that struck Glory square in the face.

"Holy Crap!" Xander whispered, the words startled out of him as he saw Glory's body shatter the stone wall she was leaning against, punching completely through it and into the next room.

Xander couldn't help smile a little himself. 'Busted!' He answered, "Holding her own, Two."

Glory reappeared at that moment, punching a new hole through the wall, rather than coming through the first one. Her face was bloody, and her nose appeared to be broken.

"That actually hurt!" she bellowed. "You are going to pay for that Slayer!" The hell god launched a flurry of punches, none of which landed solidly as Buffy twisted and blocked.

Xander actually winced at the flat smacking sound made when one of Glory's punches landed solidly on the Troll hammer Buffy raised to block it. The hell god pulled back, shaking her hand.

Buffy took that opportunity to swing the hammer for another blow to Glory's head, but this time the hell god was ready. She caught the hammer in her uninjured hand and used the momentum to pull the Slayer off of her feet and send her flying across the room.

Buffy calmly stood up and reached out towards Glory with her right hand. "Not for long," she said evenly.

Glory was jerked off her feet when the hammer suddenly leapt toward Buffy, landing in her outstretched grasp. The hell god was in the midst of pushing herself up when Buffy reached out with her left hand.

'Ha, be like Spike!' Xander thought with a snicker as Glory found herself suddenly hanging in the air, upside down.

"Batter up!" Buffy shouted as she cocked the hammer back like it was a baseball bat. With a loud grunt, Buffy swung the hammer, pivoting her body through her hips like she was about to knock one out of the park. She struck the dangling hell god in the head with an enormous, resonant 'thunk', sending her flying through the marble wall and adding a third Glory-sized hole to the structure.

When Xander managed to snap his attention away from the hole in the wall, he noticed that the head of the hammer was laying at Buffy's feet, while she stared at the handle with surprise.

A very bloody Glory took advantage of the Slayer's distraction, this time utilizing one of the already-existing holes. She charged out through the wall and struck Buffy with a ferocious punch, sending the petite blond flying.

"Jesus Christ!" Xander shouted, recoiling in fright when the Slayer struck the wall immediately next to him.

"Hi Xander!" Buffy quipped, appearing not at all bothered by the fact that she'd just been knocked a good eight meters through the air.

"You know, I really really am," Buffy answered, not so much with surprise, as with unexpected pleasure.

'Carrie much?' Xander thought upon seeing the blood-soaked hell god as she stomped out of the apartment. 'Holy Moly! That last hit tore her up!'

Sadly, Glory was still trying to intimidate the Slayer verbally. "No more hammer, Blondie! What'cha gonna do now, bitch?" she mocked.

Xander looked back to Buffy as she stood up away from the wall, leaving a three inch deep indention behind her. 'Great googly moogly,' Xander thought, feeling a chill run through his body at the sight of the Slayer's eyes- totally opaque with little blue arcs of electricity playing across them- and her truly feral smile.

He dragged his gaze back to the beaten and bloody figure across the hall as Buffy raised her hands to chest height and answered Glory's contemptuous question with one word. "This!"

The stink of ozone filled Xander's nose as tendrils of blue energy reached out and wrapped around Glory's body. 'Like an octopus on some old horror flick!' his mind supplied the simile at the picture before him.

He had to cover his ears when the hell god let out an agonized shriek, the sound piercing his brain like ice-picks thrust through his eardrums. "Oh God!" he exclaimed in a horrified whisper as one tendril of energy climbed up to Glory's face like a questing serpent, slithering into her mouth and cutting off her shriek with a gurgling, choking sound. 'Oh, God… I… oh please, don't throw up…' his prayed silently as he tried to swallow down his gorge.

Glory's skin began to blacken, and the smell of ozone was replaced with the scent of burning flesh and hair as the hell god was virtually cooked. When one eyeball exploded outward, spraying the hallway with blood and fluid, Xander lost control and turned away, retching noisily on the marble tiled floor. 'Crap! Where's soldier boy when you need him!' Xander growled at himself, as mortified by his loss of control as he was horrified by the sight he'd just taken in.

As he spat the bile from his mouth, Xander heard two thumps, one right after the other, behind him. He spun around to see both the hell god and the slayer laid out on the floor. As he quickly knelt down to check on Buffy, his radio crackled to life.

"Lead, the girls are down, they all just collapsed!" Gunn's voice shouted in his ear.

Xander quickly checked for a pulse as he answered, "Six is down…" He felt Buffy's pulse beating strongly under his fingers, and he saw her chest moving up and down slightly as she breathed. "Thank God!" he whispered fervently, feeling relief pour through him. "Six is alive, just unconscious. Check their vitals Two. Make sure they're ok!" he instructed.

Xander's attention turned from the unconscious Slayer toward her fallen foe. 'Oh God, let her be dead already…' he hoped fervently as he walked across the hall toward the body on the floor.

The horrifying damage that had been done to the hell god by SuperBuffy's spell was barely in evidence. 'She must have absorbed most of the damage when she went wherever the hell she goes… Heck, I've looked worse after patrol some nights!' Xander thought, seeing Ben's body laying amidst the charred remains of Glory's dress. A few ugly bruises, some cuts here and there… the worst of it was the ruined eye and the blood-matted hair that came from a large cut on his forehead which was still bleeding a little.

'If he's bleeding, it means he isn't dead yet…' Xander thought, feeling his stomach sink in dread. 'Under normal circumstances that'd be a good thing.'

"Lead, they're all alive, just unconscious," Gunn's relieved voice came over the radio as Xander was contemplating Glorificus' mortal host.

"Roger. Get everything packed up and figure out who's carrying who. I'll be there in two minutes," Xander instructed. His voice maintained and even, commanding tone despite his feelings.

Ben's eye suddenly snapped open to meet Xander's considering gaze. He tried to speak- his mouth moving- but only a harsh, rattling cough came out.

'Oh no… God, I didn't want it to be like this!' Xander thought with a terrible sense of despair, as though begging for clemency from the deity that he only barely acknowledged.

'I can't… I can't do this!' he thought, dismayed by the task Giles had sought of him, the task he agreed to do. 'I can't just murder someone!'

Ben made an effort to look around, apparently trying to figure out what was going on, as he wasn't able to verbalize any questions.

Xander had almost made up his mind not to carry out his mission when an image crossed his mind's eye. 'Dawn… Oh God,' He saw a scene wherein a recovered Glory held Dawn captive and struggling. 'No! No, not Dawnie!' he imagined the hell god driving a knife into Dawn's heart, purely out of spite for being denied the ritual she had sought.

In his mind, Dawn's eyes bulged with terror as her life's blood poured forth onto the ground before her. The last thing he saw on her face was her horror at his betrayal.

Glory's mortal vessel must have seen something in Xander's eyes as he met the Scooby's gaze. He began weakly shaking his head and mouthing "No! Please no!" over and over.

'For you. I'll do it for you,' Xander thought, steeling his resolve and drawing a long dagger from a sheath on his left leg.

Ben was too injured to manage more than a snail-like crawl in his effort to get away. Xander opened his mouth to say something, anything… 'What the hell could I possibly say?' he realized. He dropped to his knees and thrust the knife into Ben's chest. Using both hands and putting his body weight into it, he drove it through till he could feel it hit the stone tile on the other side. He watched as the man's eyes fluttered shut and his last breath came rattling out.

After checking for any pulse and coming up short, Xander rose to his feet. He grabbed the corpse by it's feet and dragged it to where the two minions were laying in the entrance hall of the apartment down and across from Glory's own. He left the third body draped over the other two and then reached into his small utility pack and pulled out one of the roughly spherical objects he was carrying.

"What are what for?" Xander asked flatly as he tucked the items in question into his pack.

"The grenades," Gunn had explained, obviously missing Xander's point. "The ones that have WP stenciled on the side?"

Xander stopped what he was doing and stared directly into the taller man's eyes as he slowly and deliberately said, "What grenades?"

Gunn quickly blinked several times before it sunk in. His eyes opened widely for a moment, the he nodded slowly a couple times and simply said, "Ah," before walking away.

Returning his focus to the three bodies in front of him, Xander stuffed the metallic egg underneath Ben, between the two demons, and pulled the pin.

Xander slammed the door shut behind him as he double timed it out of the apartment and down the hall toward the unconscious form of one of his two best friends in the whole world. He knelt down and pulled her limp body over his shoulders in a fireman's carry and stood up, musing, 'So much power… and you weigh, like, nothing!'

He heard a loud 'Whump' behind him as he carried his friend down the hall. "Alpha Team, this is lead. I'm about to enter the apartment, so let's safety those weapons!"

He heard a chorus of acknowledgements just as he approached the now heavily-ventilated apartment door. "Coming in!" he shouted as he toed the door open and entered.

The sight that greeted him made him forget his unpleasant feelings for a moment and smile with pride.

Wesley, Gunn and Angel each stood several feet apart with an unconscious form draped across their shoulders. Angel had the blond Wiccan, Gunn the dark haired Slayer and Wesley the red headed witch.

Cordelia was standing in front of the group, her M16 pointed right at him as she looked at him over the iron sights. 'And, she remembered to keep her finger off the trigger!' Xander thought happily. Tilting his head so he could make out the other side of the receiver, he noted her thumb was resting on the fire selector, ready to flip it off safe and onto the tri-burst setting if necessary.

Cordelia blushed as she pointed the barrel at the floor, but appeared to take his compliment as he had meant it.

"Alright everyone. Damn fine job! We saved the world," Xander said with a teeth baring grin. "Again."

"Cordy, take point. Then me, Wes, and Gunn. Angel, you're the rear. Let's get the hell out of here!"

The two slayers were awake, if not quite lucid as their rental van turned the corner onto Revello Drive.

"We kicked her friggen *ass*!" Faith muttered, for the fifth time since coming to a few minutes earlier.

Xander had swiveled the captain's chair around to face the van's occupants as Wesley drove them back to Buffy's home. He rolled his eyes at Faith's repeated boast, as well as Buffy's recurring answer of, "Yup, we did."

The two witches were still sleeping in the back seat, next to Cordy and Gunn. Angel had the middle seat, next to the two incoherent slayers. He ignored their ramblings, while Gunn chuckled each time and the former cheerleader seemed content to simply glare at Faith.

Xander was distracted when Wesley suddenly whispered, "Oh my!" and slowed the van to a stop in the middle of the street.

Xander spun his seat around and looked out his window. "Ye God!" he exhaled softly, taking in the sight. "Oh man, Buff! It looks like either Glory or those Knights weren't too happy to find you not at home!"

All that remained of 1630 Revello Drive was a low pile of rubble, surrounded by some yellow police tape.

"I don't remember your house bein' this run-down, B!" Faith slurred, and then chuckled at her own joke.

After another moment, they all suddenly jumped a little when Angel broke the silence.

"They say you can't go home again… I guess they were right," the broody vampire intoned, quoting the old cliché.

'What the hell?!' Xander thought, surprised by the vampire's quip. "Would somebody please stake deadboy?" he sighed rhetorically.

As the van pulled forward again, Xander turned back toward the rear. He saw Buffy's head swivel to keep the remains of her home in sight.

When they finally turned another corner, losing the view, the blonde Slayer turned back around and looked right at Xander. Her voice sounded more like a scared eight-year-old than a battle-hardened warrior as she whined, "Mom's gonna kill me!"

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Triune

by The Bear

Copyright © 2003

TheBear@papa-bear.com