A Birthday in the Life

by Dan Joslyn

Copyright © 2006

ferociouswalrus@yahoo.com

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All non-original characters herein belong to persons such as Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, WB, 20th-Century FOX, and so forth, and not me. Original "Watchers" characters are the property of CN Winters and the "Watchers" staff… of which I am one, so I get to use them.
Distribution: The Mystic Muse: http://mysticmuse.net
Watchers: http://thewatcherscouncil.net
Feedback: Greatly appreciated.
Spoilers: Through "Meggido."
Author's Notes: For Kurna, who matched the winning bid at my Writercon auction and asked for a story centering around the Faith/Willow friendship. Actually, I think he might have given both Faith730 and I the same prompt, and it's interesting to see how different our two stories are. This story is set one month after the events of "Megiddo", and doesn't deviate from "Watchers" canon…past or future. I got official CN permission to bring this to ya, so enjoy.
Pairing: Willow/Faith

Exactly one month after she had risen from the dead, Faith woke up to find that it was her birthday. People hardly ever remembered Faith's birthday. In the early years of her life this was because no one cared, and then it was because she was in prison, and these days it was because she hadn't told anybody. Plus it was a summer birthday, and they sometimes have a habit of being forgotten. Today, however, was a sort of double anniversary, both of Faith's birth and of her rebirth, and she was sort of hoping someone would remember.

It took her a moment after she woke up to realize that she was alone. Robin had returned from London long before regular transatlantic flights had resumed (the advantages of having your own private jet), but he had since shipped off to Hong Kong, where they were taking longer to rebuild than most. The destruction there had been particularly complete.

Faith had almost gotten used to the cracks in the ceiling. The Council building had been declared structurally unsafe, but it hadn't collapsed yet and Faith doubted it was going to. She yawned, her mouth stretched to the breaking point. It was the sort of yawn a lion might make upon waking. Faith just couldn't work up the proper level of anxiety about the possibility of the ceiling collapsing on top of her.

Ever since she had…returned, Faith's life had felt strange. Somehow, she had expected everything to feel unreal, to feel like she was in a dream. But that wasn't it at all. Instead, things felt too real, too sharp, too bright. She was restless, pacing the broken corridors of the Council late at night. She'd taken to reading the Bible, trying to make heads or tails of things, but sometimes she had trouble sitting still long enough for something to really sink in. It was like the angel had not only returned her life but given her a little something extra.

Faith wanted orange juice.

She pulled herself off the bed and trotted into the kitchen. The electricity had been off and on since the Crisis or whatever Fox News had taken to calling it, but these days it was more "on" than "off", and indeed the refrigerator was making that annoying buzzing sound Robin had never been able to fix. Faith grabbed a glass from the cupboard, opened the fridge, grabbed the carton of orange juice, and poured herself a glass.

She raised the glass to her lips and was about to drain it in a single gulp when somebody knocked on the door. Faith was just distracted enough to let most of the orange juice pour onto her nightshirt. Jumping at the sudden cold on her chest, Faith shouted a curse and grabbed a nearby towel. The slayer dabbed frantically at her shirt, but to no avail. It had apparently decided that it liked being orange and splotchy.

There was nothing for it but to answer the door. "What do you want?" Faith asked before she even saw who it was.

"What?" Willow asked, a little surprised by Faith's lack of tact. "Um…nothing. Well, yes, something. I thought we were going to go building-shopping today?"

Faith had forgotten. She glanced over at the clock for the first time that morning. It was after eleven. "Yeah. Right. Sorry, I was up really late last night."

"You've been doing that a lot lately," Willow said. "Faith, are you sure you're…what happened to your shirt?"

Faith sighed. "Nothing important. Look, I'll meet you down in the lobby in a couple minutes, all right?"

"Okay," Willow said. Faith waited for the witch to leave before closing the door, but instead Willow stayed put, fidgeting a little.

"Red, was there something else?" Faith asked, a little impatiently.

"Um, Ken had to take off, she's still helping with the rebuilding, but she wanted me to give you this." Willow produced a large magazine from somewhere and held it out for Faith, who took it and nodded. 'Thought you might be interested," she continued. "Anyway, I'll let you freshen up, and I'll be downstairs." Willow scurried off down the hall.

Willow was more on edge than Faith was used to, the slayer thought as she closed the door. It was a perfectly natural reaction to finding out that your dead friend was alive, she supposed. Faith was just surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

She also noticed that Willow had made no mention of her birthday.

Faith glanced down at the magazine the witch had handed her. It was the latest issue of Rolling Stone, a little thicker and more squarish than most magazines. The cover was dominated by a large photograph of Faith, bedecked in a leather jacket and pants. Her arms were crossed, her legs astride her new bright red motorcycle. Below that "SHE'S BACK!" was printed in large block letters, with a smaller subtitle that read "Lazarus in Leather."

Faith grinned as she tossed the magazine onto the couch. She had once wondered what it would take to get herself on the cover of Rolling Stone. As things turned out, it took dying.

Willow was waiting. Faith jogged into her room to change clothes.

"Lazarus in Leather." She could get used to that.

The process of finding a new home for the Council was somewhat different than Faith remembered. Rather than getting shown around abandoned buildings by an evil real estate agent, the Council had taken bids from various cities and neighborhoods around the Cleveland area. Everywhere Faith and Willow went they were greeted by a committee of hopeful citizens, sometimes led by a very friendly Mayor or Councilman.

The quality of the real estate had improved, as well. Brand new office buildings were set aside, suites left unsold until the Council decided whether they wanted to move in or not. Buffy had been surprised by the way these places were willing to bend over backwards to lure them in, but Faith wasn't. It was simple economics: Not only would the Council bring hundreds of new people who would live and work in the complex every day, but now there was the huge numbers of press to consider…it was sort of like getting a new state university in your town, only with extra demon protection instead of lots of drunken college students.

In short, every neighborhood and suburb in town saw getting the new Council HQ as the key to its post-disaster recovery.

One of the advantages of being a superstar is that nobody bats an eye if you show up two hours late, like Faith and Willow did in Independence. The town's mayor was eager to show off a brand new office building, all tinted glass and brass finish.

"There's far more office space than you specified," the Mayor of Independence said as the group stood in the center of the building's huge Atrium. He was a tall man with graying hair. When he shook Faith's hand, she got the feeling that he'd had a lot of practice. The glass walls of ten stories worth of empty offices surrounded the space. "If you'll look up, you'll see a new work from Klaus Bareit hanging ten stories above – "

"Yeah, that's great," Faith interrupted. "How thick is the glass?"

"I'm sorry?" The Mayor looked confused.

"The glass in those windows, how thick is it?" Faith prompted. "Because if, say, a Vutch demon is rampaging through the building, and I don't happen to have a flame-thrower handy, I wouldn't want to get thrown out one of those windows on the ninth floor."

"We could…get thicker glass," the mayor stammered.

"I think it's beautiful," Willow said.

"Well, of course you do," Faith said. "You can just do a spell to cushion the fall. I, on the other hand, would just kind of make a crunching noise and that would be it."

"I could put a spell on the Atrium," Willow offered. "It could slow down any falling objects."

"Like a mystical net?" Faith thought about this for a moment. "Nah, because then some slayerette would get it in her head that it might be fun to just jump from the top, and you and I both know your magic's not infallible, Red."

"Hey, it's a lot less fallible than it used to be," Willow defended.

"Yeah? Well, don't go trying any 'I Will It So' spells any time soon, okay? I heard what happened last time. I don't want to end up kissing Andrew."

Faith and Willow didn't notice the concerned citizens of Independence just staring at them, watching these two go back and forth.

"That was…wow, that was over seven years ago. And I had no idea what I was doing then. I couldn't even change Amy back from a rat into a person."

"You ask me, you shoulda kept her a rat. Woulda saved me the trouble of having to relive my childhood. Not to mention probably saved her life."

"Amy got in over her head, it's true. But how was I supposed to know she'd get all vengeancy?"

"If I could just show you the cafeteria?" the Mayor butted in, not sure whether this conversation was helping or hurting his city's chances of landing the bid.

The cafeteria was spectacular. It was more like a Food Court, really. There was supposed to be a Burger King and a Pizza Hut, all ready to move in as soon as the building opened.

"This doesn't seem very healthy," Willow remarked.

"Who cares, Red?" Faith asked. She was having visions of late night Whoppers, paid for with her Council expense account. "Slayer metabolisms, remember? The girls'll be fine."

"Need I remind you, little lady, that many of us working here will be of the non-Slayer persuasion," Willow said with an impish grin. "Watchers need their brain-food."

"Actually," cut in the Mayor of Independence, "there's a Jamba Juice planned for right over there." He pointed to an unused space on the far side of the cafeteria.

"Oh," Willow said. "Well, I guess that's all right then."

All the talk of food made Faith wish the place was in working order. The bid committee had indeed laid out a spread on a nearby table, but it was mostly carrot sticks and celery. The Mayor, it turned out, was a vegan. Faith found herself fondly remembering her own Mayor. This guy might have been quite the politician, but his smile just wasn't the same as the one Faith remembered.

Faith wondered what Richard Wilkins III would think of all this. He probably would have told her to eat the celery.

She gave Willow a light elbow to the rib-cage. "They expect me to eat this stuff? I think they've got a thing or two to learn about slayer eating habits."

Willow rubbed her side a little. A light elbow from a slayer was probably nothing to sneeze at, Faith realized in hind-sight. But Willow, probably used to this after all her years with Buffy, just nodded. "I think the tour's over. We could probably check out if we wanted."

"Cool," Faith said, checking her watch. "It's about time for lunch, and I kinda skipped breakfast. We could head back to the HQ, see what Andrew…"

"No!" Willow exclaimed, a little too quickly and a little too loudly. What was up with her? The witch obviously realized what she had done, and quieted down a little before explaining. "I mean…it's a little far, isn't it? Why don't we just eat somewhere around here?"

Faith sized Willow up for a moment. Sometimes, when two people are friends they know everything about each other, how the other thinks, how they feel. One can hear a song on the radio and instantly know whether the other will like it, or one can pick a restaurant based on what the other would want. Faith knew her thing with Willow wasn't like that. A lot of the time, she had no idea what went on under that bundle of red hair, which meant that life was still full of surprises. Faith liked surprises, as long as they didn't have claws.

"Yeah, okay."

The selection of restaurants on Rockside Road was not as great as it had been pre-apocalypse, which was why Faith wasn't particularly surprised when Willow pulled the Council van into a parking space in front of a Panera's. Not exactly Faith's usual beat, a lot of deli sandwiches and soup served in bowls made out of bread, but she knew Willow liked the place, and got out of the car without a fuss.

"Yes, we're open!" proclaimed the big white letters painted on the front window of the café.

"Looks like life's finally starting to get back to normal," Willow said as she opened the door.

"Yeah, now that the trendy bistros have re-opened," Faith replied.

The two girls walked up to the counter. Faith placed two palms down on the glass surface, absent-mindedly reading the menu behind the cashier's head.

"Can I he…"

Faith didn't notice that the teenager behind the cash register hadn't finished her sentence. "Yeah, do you have anything with meat in it?" She looked back down at the girl. "I mean, I know that bread is kind of your thing here, but I kind of missed breakfast, and I'm really looking for something, more, y'know, large."

The cashier, a pretty enough girl with a purple streak through her black hair, said nothing. Her mouth was hanging open a little.

Faith tried again. "Hello?"

"Oh. My. God. You're Faith."

Not this again.

"THE Faith. Faith Lehane?"

"That's me," Faith said, throwing her hands up in frustration.

The girl turned and called into the kitchen. "Kara! You have to get out here."

"Can't take you anywhere," Willow whispered to Faith, who sighed. Sure, this had been nice at first. But all Faith really wanted was to get back to her real job, the smushing of the bad guys. And she couldn't do much smushing if the bad guys were warned off by the distant sound of fangirlish swooning.

Kara had appeared out of the back, and Faith politely signed autographs for the two girls on a couple of napkins.

"The whole thing was just so freaky," the cashier was telling her. She had told Faith to make her napkin out to Madison. "There were these huge slimy monsters, like, attacking our house. But then you were on the TV and I just thought, whoa, maybe we aren't all gonna die, y'know?"

"But, I mean, it was like this huge deal for us," Kara said, "but you saved the world. What was that like?"

"You should ask Red here," Faith pointed a thumb over at Willow. "She did most of the world-saving. I was busy being dead at the time."

"Willow Rosenberg?" Madison gasped, the tone of her voice the same one she might have used to announce she had just won the lottery. "I can't believe I didn't see you there." Willow offered her hand, something which Faith now knew to be a classic rookie mistake, and nearly got her arm taken off by the enthusiastic girls.

"Madison here's a big fan," Kara said helpfully.

Madison leaned towards Willow conspiratorially, her voice lowered. "So, I have to know, the lesbian thing, that's not just a statement, is it?"

Willow and Faith exchanged a glance. "No. No, it's not," Willow said firmly.

Madison clapped her hands together gleefully, making a sort of "squee!" noise. Faith and Willow both took an involuntary step backwards.

It took some extensive wrangling, and a few more autographs, but Faith eventually managed to order a ham sandwich.

"Eventually it'll die down," Willow told her as they sat down at a secluded table in the corner. "Or at least I hope so. Madison there has a heck of a grip."

"She's a big fan," Faith teased. "So, whaddaya think the odds are that she lives on the Sapphic side of the street?"

"It's pretty likely," Willow agreed. "My Batwoman sense is tingling." Her tone grew more serious. "I keep getting these letters from girls, telling me that I inspired them to come out, or telling me how they finally stood up to the kids at school who hated them."

Faith smiled. "Very occasionally, this job doesn't suck."

"Occasionally," Willow agreed coyly. Then she frowned. "It must be worse for you, though."

"Whaddaya mean?"

"I mean, I've read your magazine interviews. Great job in Rolling Stone, by the way."

"I try."

"And all they ever want to talk about is how you died. Of all the questions to keep getting asked, over and over…" Willow trailed off, and Faith took another bite of her sandwich to think things over.

"Ever since I came back," Faith said, "it's like things are more overwhelming than ever. I feel like, yeah, okay, I've gotten a reprieve. Now it's like I have to spend all my time doing something spectacular or I'm letting the Powers down or something. Does that make sense?"

"Definitely," Willow nodded, "but you'll only drive yourself crazy thinking about stuff like that."

Faith watched the witch sip a big spoonful of soup. She missed a little and a line of broth curled down from the corner of her mouth. And all of a sudden it felt like the one thing Faith really needed to do was talk to somebody.

"You know what the hard part is, of this whole thing?" she asked.

"My guess would be dying," Willow ventured.

"Nah, that was easy," Faith replied. She tried to force a grin but it didn't quite work. "It's…okay, everybody's telling me I'm so great, that I'm, like, the second coming or something." She glanced up into Willow's big, round, listening eyes. "But I'm not the second coming. I'm not even a good person. I mean, how big would my fan-club be if everybody knew all the details?"

"I'm in the Faith fan-club, and I definitely know all the details," Willow said. "So is Robin. Heck, so is Kennedy."

"Even after I beat the crap out of her?"

"Even after," Willow confirmed. "Anyway, I think I have Ken beat in a forgiving-Faith contest. I seem to remember you holding a big ol' knife to my throat." Somehow, the witch almost made it sound like a fond memory.

"Yeah, well, you hit me with your bookbag," Faith rejoined. "That thing was heavy. How many books were you carrying around?

"I forgot about that!" Willow grinned. "That was in my firebrand freshman days at UC-Sunnydale."

For some reason talking about their mutual antagonism was Faith and Willow's equivalent of talking about the good old days. Their lives were just not the same as other people's.

"So," Faith said, changing the subject, "whaddaya think of the building?"

Willow sighed. "I don't think we've found the place yet. It seemed a little…big for our purposes."

"And unsafe!" Faith agreed.

"According to you, every place we've been to has been unsafe," Willow grinned. "Sure you're not being paranoid?"

"Dying will make anybody paranoid," Faith answered.

"I didn't see a big space for the library," Willow said, "I'm not sure how happy the watchers would be."

"Speaking of watchers, where's your girlfriend?" Faith asked. "Figured she'd want to be involved with this, help check places out."

Willow hesitated. "She's…she's busy with press briefings."

"Seems like that's all she does these days." Faith licked her fingers as she polished off her sandwich.

"You know, she says she hates it," Willow said, "but I think she really loves the attention."

"Can I have your autograph?" asked a dark-haired man, maybe thirty years old, who was suddenly standing at their.

"Who doesn't?" Faith asked Willow rhetorically as she reached for the man's pen.

The afternoon schedule called for a stop at another potential site, near the middle of downtown. Kennedy had been pushing for a more centralized spot, but Faith had a feeling that was because she wanted to be within walking distance of the House of Blues. Anyway, it made sense, and if this one was even close to some of the others it would probably go to the top of the list.

The building's parking garage was underground, beneath a park across the street from the compound itself. The wide, gray-blue expanse of Lake Erie was clearly visible from the top of the ramp. The local delegation was waiting to meet them at the garage entrance. It mostly consisted of local businessmen and women, led by an African-American City Councilman named Parks.

The building itself was a big, blocky tan structure, the upper floors over-hanging the bottom few, supported by columns. The dominant themes inside were glass and wood paneling. The lobby was much more modest than the building in Independence. A tasteful front desk was backed by several video screens…it occurred to Faith that it might not be the best idea to let Andrew decide what those screens showed. A bank of elevators opposite the desk led to the rest of the building.

"Hey, elevators," Faith said, pointing. "Beats that big front staircase all to hell."

"You sure they're not unsafe?" Willow chided.

"Hey, those stairs were never the safest place to be," Faith sighed.

"Nowhere in that building was," Willow agreed. "Unfortunately, I doubt the new place will be any different." Faith silently nodded. It did seem unlikely that their lives would get appreciably less violent any time soon.

The group took the elevator up to the second floor and beyond, where Parks acted as tour guide, showing Faith and Willow a series of spaces that could be used for briefings or as classrooms. Faith commented on how compact the whole complex seemed.

"The design was partly based on the FBI headquarters in Washington," Parks said. "We figured you would prefer functionality over a lot of frills."

Eventually, they were brought to a large room with one end raised onto a separate level. Faith and Willow looked at each other and said "Library." At that point, the issue was pretty much settled. Of course, it would have to be put to a vote, but Faith and Willow had two of the three votes, so…

"Too bad B's not here," Faith said. "I bet she'd love this place."

"Yeah," Willow nodded. "You two might actually agree for once."

"For once." Faith was never sure where she and Buffy stood, not even these days. Sure, she and Willow might have had their issues, but they were never really mortal enemies like she and Buffy. It was also true that Faith's betrayal of Buffy was greater, more primal, because their connection was greater. No matter how many slayers there were, they would always be the Chosen Two.

Heck, they even had opposite hair colors.

"Where is B?" Faith asked. "You'd think this would be important enough to draw her skinny ass out of hiding." Buffy hadn't been seen much by the outside world since the big crisis. It was understandable, of course; the Council had to be rebuilt almost from scratch, and somebody needed to head that up. But the media was starting to get restless when it came to the invisible Council Chair.

"Dunno," Willow shrugged. She was turned away from Faith, possibly examining the wallpaper. "Sure she's busy, though."

"Yeah," Faith nodded. She made a mental note to take Buffy out dancing or something. The girl needed to unwind. More than usual, that is. Faith couldn't blame her, really. No slayer likes to fail to prevent the apocalypse…at least Faith has managed to die heroically in the attempt.

When the tour came to a close, both Faith and Willow thanked Councilman Parks. Willow gave the man a wink as she shook his hand. "My guess is you'll be hearing from us soon."

As the two girls walked back through the tunnel to the parking garage, Faith looked up at the nondescript white walls and suddenly wondered how many times she would make this walk to get to one of the vans, or her cycle, and who would be with her when she made it. Who else would she meet? Who would she lose? And exactly how much time had the angel managed to give back to her?

One thing Faith had immediately noticed upon her return to the land of the living was that she was not quite the same person she had been before the experience. Yes, she was a little hyped, but at the same time she was more introspective, spent more time thinking about things. You would have thought she would have had more than enough time for that sort of thing in prison, but this was somehow different. It was as if she was more aware of everything, the world, herself.

The trouble was, when the newly-aware Faith turned that gaze inwards, she wasn't sure that she liked what she saw.

She checked her watch. Four o'clock, or close enough as to make no difference. "We should be getting back," Faith said. "Pretty soon the girls'll be expecting me to post the patrol schedules."

Willow checked her own watch, and Faith noticed the witch's eyes pull an infinitesimal double take. When Willow looked up, she had managed to fix a smile across her face.

"Oh, c'mon, it's way too early to head back," Willow said. It was nothing of the sort, but Faith came to the conclusion that the witch was up to something, and let it slide. "Long as we're down here, we could do some shopping. I haven't been to the Galleria in…forever!"

Yep, something was definitely up. Willow was a lot of things, but a compulsive shopper was not one of them.

"Galleria'll be closing before too long," Faith replied. "What about the Arcade?"

Willow looked down at the floor, and as soon as Faith asked the question she regretted it. The Arcade was one of the main attractions at Tower City, and Willow hadn't been back there since…

"I'm sorry," Faith said quickly, "I forgot."

"No, it's okay," Willow said, looking up but still not catching Faith's eyes.

The slayer reached out and placed her hand on Willow's arm. "Hey, I've been there. You ever need somebody to talk to…"

"Yeah," Willow nodded. With a little effort, she managed to regain at least some of her composure. "Goddess, I must look all depressing."

"No, you look great," Faith told her.

"Thanks for saying it," Willow replied, walking off towards the van, "but I think maybe I should do some retouching before I show my face in public again."

"No, I'm serious," Faith said, jogging to catch up with the witch. "If I weren't so straight, I'd bang ya like a screen door."

"How sweet," Willow deadpanned, opening the driver's side door. "And what would Robin say to that?"

Faith hopped into the van. "He'd probably ask if he could watch."

The Galleria wasn't as crowded as it had been in the heady days before the Arcade had opened up a few blocks away, but it was still a little too upper-classy for Faith's tastes. She had always wondered why malls had quite so many clothing stores. Surely it couldn't be very profitable to have twenty stores all trying to sell trendy blouses to skinny women? However, even the apocalypse seemed unable to deter Charlotte Russe from opening up next to Rue 21.

But Willow made a show of having a good time, and, patrol schedules or no, Faith wasn't about to say no to shirking work once in a while. Most of the stores interested neither of them, but when the two girls walked by Hot Topic, Willow grinned and dragged Faith into the place. Faith let herself be pulled along, but nearly ran into Willow's back when the witch stopped suddenly.

"Dawn?" Willow asked in surprise, having spotted the younger watcher inspecting a Napoleon Dynamite t-shirt. "What are you doing here?"

Dawn put the t-shirt down and waved as she walked over to the two older girls. "Hey, guys! Actually, I just realized I had totally spaced on getting – Ow!" She was cut off when Willow elbowed her hard in the arm.

"Sorry!" Willow exclaimed, a little panicked. "I lash out, I don't know my own strength!"

"What'd you do that for, Red?" Faith asked.

"Um…reflex?" Willow answered. Faith remained unconvinced. Willow turned back to Dawn. "You okay?"

Dawn rubbed her arm, but nodded. "Yeah, I'm cool. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but elbows can never hurt me. Actually, I'm not sure the sticks and stones could do much these days, either."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Nobody was quite sure how to handle Dawn's whole immortality thing, so most of the Council was dealing by not talking about it. Anyway, Faith didn't quite understand why Dawn was so stressed about it. As punishments go, Faith would have been thrilled to pull that one out of the hat. Beat fire and brimstone all to hell.

But Dawn saw things differently, and Faith knew that well enough to decide it was time to change the subject. "So, how's Skye doing these days?"

"Thought you hated her," Dawn said. "All the slayers do."

"Yeah, but I'm trying to do the whole politeness thing," Faith replied. "I hear it's nice so…pretend I care."

"She's doing fine, actually," Dawn answered. "It looks like Willow's spell is working, so they're saying maybe they'll take off the slayer guard in a few days."

"You two have been talking a lot lately," Willow said. "You know how Buffy feels about you and – "

Dawn waved her off. "Yes, yes, I know. Unlike some of my siblings who shall remain nameless, I don't have an undead fetish. Skye and I are just friends. Sort of. Maybe not quite friends. I mean, how could I really be friends with an evil…it's complicated."

"I know," Willow said, an understanding smile on her face.

"Hey, maybe we should head back to HQ," Faith said. "They're trying to close the store."

"Actually, I think that's because they noticed you were here, and wanted you to feel more comfortable," Willow pointed out.

"What?" Faith looked around. Sure enough, the manager was smiling and walking over towards them.

"Buffy will flip when she hears about this," Dawn grinned. "They've never closed a store for her."

"Miss Lehane," asked the Hot Topic manager, his deferential manner contrasting with the stud in his nose, "is there anything we can help you with?"

"I, um – "

"It's okay," Willow said, checking her watch, "we were just leaving. Sorry."

As the trio walked out of the store, Faith noticed it re-opening behind them.

She and Willow followed Dawn home to the partially destroyed hulk of the Council HQ. Faith looked up at the listing building as she got out of the van. "You know, in spite of everything, I'm going to be sorry to see this place go."

"It's home," Willow said, as if that explained everything. And maybe it did.

"Had a good time today, Red," Faith said as she, Willow, and Dawn walked up the front steps. "It's nice to just have a normal day in the middle of all this freaky, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know," Willow said as she opened the door, a strange smile on her face.

The front lobby was dark. Faith's first thoughts were as follows: Why is the front lobby dark?

Then the lights flicked on, and something leapt out in front of her. Reacting completely by reflex, Faith landed a right hook on her attacker.

Kennedy lay on the floor, looking a little stunned.

"What the – " Faith began.

Then: "Surprise!" People popped out from behind chairs, from behind the front desk, from under the stairs, from the adjacent hallways. Faith paused to look around at the room. Streamers hung from the cracks in the ceiling. Balloons floated unescorted around the room. About a ton of silver confetti had blown into the air from somewhere. On the wall next to the stairs, someone had painted "HAPPY BIRTHDAY FAITH" in big, red letters.

"Surprise," Kennedy managed from her place on the floor.

"I am so sorry," Faith told the younger slayer, helping her to her feet.

"Yeah, well, I jumped out at you in the dark, it happens," Kennedy shrugged. "Happy Birthday, by the way."

Faith noticed Robin standing behind Kennedy. "I thought you were in Hong Kong," she said, surprised.

"What, like I'd miss this?" he grinned. He put his warm, strong arms around Faith and kissed her. He tasted nice.

When Faith pulled back, she looked around. Xander and Buffy were talking excitedly over by the desk, while Rowena looked on approvingly from the top of the stairs.

Vi walked over and handed Faith a drink. "The first of many tonight, I hope," the redhead said playfully.

"You guys painted the wall for me?" Faith asked. She was surprised to hear how spacey her voice sounded. She was actually a little in shock. Wow.

"Yeah, well," Vi said, "we figured we were gonna knock it down in a week or two anyway, so…"

Faith turned to Willow. "You! You were in on it the whole time."

"Actually," Kennedy said, "Will here was the evil mastermind behind this little conspiracy."

"Really?" Faith asked. Willow looked a little embarrassed as she nodded, but Faith decided to hug her anyway. "Thank you."

"We're just…really glad you're here," Willow said sincerely. She and Faith looked at each other for a long moment. And Faith was glad she was here, too.

"All right, enough chick-flick moments!" she yelled. "Let's party!"

The End

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