SUMMARY: Faith & Buffy share a moment, as do Buffy and Angel!
SPOILER: Up to Helpless
DISTRIBUTION: Sure, just email me & lmk where it's going - I like seeing my name in print =)
FEEDBACK: Please, I'd hate to have to Slay for it. =P
RATING: I think this one was TV MA (sex!), others will be worse.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters, Joss Whedon does. If he ever decides to give them to me, that would be nice. =)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: You may or may not have read some of this before--I just retooled it and changed the ending, so I figured I'd repost it. I think it's a repost.

"So Amy's not any better?" Faith asked. She had abandoned the darts act a few days ago for a better activity: friendship. Willow had called her, saying she was sorry she hadn't been in touch, but she and Oz had been hanging out with Xander alot more than usual. Willow said it was only because Xander was lonely, but Faith thought there was more to it. She assumed that Oz was okay with it, figuring this was a perfect opportunity to be sure Xander had the message that Willow was one hundred percent "hands off".

"Well, she can squeak out little incantations now. At least I think that's what she was doing. I was looking up some spells on the Net, and I heard all this squeaking, and then she was sitting on a large cheese wheel."

"It just appeared in her cage?" Faith licked the last bit of salt from her French fries off her fingers and tossed the empty carton in the garbage. It balanced off the other empties and fell to the floor but she didn't notice.

"Yeah, it seems that way."

"One of these days, Will, you're gonna--"

Someone knocked on Faith's door.

"I gotta call you back Will, the landlord!" she hung up before Willow could say goodbye and laid in the bed, pretending to be asleep.

The knock persisted, so Faith began snoring noises. When that didn't work, she shouted, "Go away, I'm sleeping!"

"Faith, it's me."

Buffy. Faith was dying of curiosity to know what was up with her and Giles - Willow said she couldn't really say anything - it wasn't her place - so she rolled off the bed and let Buffy in.

The Slayer sat on the bed, playing with her fingernails, and then stood up. "You know what? I wanna walk."

"So let's walk."

They walked. Once they were a block or so away from the apartment, Buffy let everything spill out.

"Giles was poisoning you?!" Faith was shocked. She knew Giles pretty well, even if no one thought so. She could read him like a book and was sure he'd spare Buffy the inhumane ritual.

"Yeah, and because he told me, the Council fired him."

"GILES GOT FIRED?"

"Shhhh," Buffy pulled Faith aside and they sat on large headstones opposite each other. "You're gonna wake the dead."

"That's a funny one." Faith leaned her arm over her head and killed an oncoming Vamp without even turning her head. Buffy seemed surprised. "I could smell him," she explained. She paused. "Angel should be by soon, no?"

"He's meeting me in an hour."

"Okay, okay, back to Giles." Faith waved her stake around as she talked. "Why would they fire him? What kinda bullshit is that? Firing him. That's insane. Idiotic. It's--"

"Definite. I can't change it."

"Nothing is for sure 'cept death and Vampires." Faith assured her. "I wouldn't worry. Giles is too cool a Watcher for them to just dismiss him like that."

Buffy shrugged. "I saw it happen."

"It won't last." she paused for a few minutes. "You know, B, I really wanted him to be my Watcher."

Buffy's eyes widened.

"No, no, I don't mean instead of yours, I just mean both together. Like we were. I didn't want that to change."

"Everything changes." Buffy stood up and began walking.

"Not everything." she started to pick at a rough edge on her stake. "Angel has loved you through life, death and then some."

"I thought you hated Angel."

"Oh, I do. But you love him, so....." they walked in silence for awhile longer, stopping twice to wordlessly kill a couple of lowly Vamps.

"Faith?" Buffy asked as they were returning to the spot they'd started at.

"Yeah?"

"Did you have to do that? The ritual? That mentally damaging routine?"

"No. I got out of it."

"How?"

"Well, my Watcher was killed, remember? She died when I was still seventeen, I turned eighteen, then nineteen, no new Watcher, no ritual."

Buffy laughed. "I think you're luckier than me."

Faith saw Angel coming towards them out of the shadows. She shook her head. "You've got love, B. You're the lucky one. I'll watch out awhile longer. You go with Angel."

Buffy smiled. "Did I mention you're a really good friend?"

"No, and don't." she half-smiled. "See you tomorrow."

Buffy waved and ran up to Angel. She put her arms around him, holding him so tight, so close. He kissed the top of her head, cursing himself for it afterwards, but he couldn't help it. He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in all his two hundred and forty-three years.

They walked through the night, and Angel didn't realize until they were almost there that she was leading them back to his mansion. When they were safely inside, she lit a bunch of candles and sat on the floor. He sat next to her and put his arms around her.

"I don't wanna stop here," she whispered.

"Buffy...."

"It's my birthday. Well, it was yesterday."

"And....we both know what happened.....last year." he blinked back tears.

"And we don't know the full extent of the curse, either."

He grabbed her and kissed her harshly, passionately. When they finally pulled away, she looked long and hard into his eyes. "Angel?"

"Still here," he whispered, touching her cheek.

She spent the night lying in his arms, occasionally kissing him. She was so torn by how she felt about being there. Her head told her if she gave in to her heart, she'd lose him forever. And her heart told her she was denying their love--and fate--by not going further. She rested her head on his chest, wishing she could trade anything she owned to make Angel human.

"Buffy," Angel gently shook her awake.

"Hmm?" she didn't open her eyes.

"Buffy, sweetheart, you'd better get up. Willow was just here. She says you and Giles need to keep training like you were."

Buffy opened her eyes and sat up. "I don't want to," she pushed her hair off her face and rubbed her eyes. "It's my after-birthday, and evil ruined my birthday, so I'm callin' in sick. I'm not here. I should call my mother though."

"Already did."

Buffy smiled at him. "You always know what I need." she leaned forward to kiss him, but he pulled away. "What?"

"You know what," he stood up and walked away from her. He had to, he knew he'd live to regret it otherwise.

"We were kissing last night."

"That was different."

3 Buffy jumped up and tried to pull him back to her. Her Slayer strength hadn't been regained yet, and she was as weak as she could be. She gave him a Look and he walked back over to her, facing her, placing his arms around her waist.

"I want you to make love to me." she used her no-resolve voice, the kind she used when she was referring to Vampires and other evil yuckie. She smiled at him before grabbing the bottom of her tank top. She pulled it off and stood there before him in her bra.

"Buffy, I can't do this." he walked away from her, his eyes burning for him to look back.

"You don't have a choice," she ran and stood in front of him. "If I was up to the norm, I'd have you pinned to the ground so fast your head would spin."

"Well, you're not, so...."

"When are you gonna stop being so God damn responsible? I know you're an old man, but I'm a teenager! Eighteen. TEEN! That's the important part of the word. I'm supposed to have fun and do what I want to do. You know how I spent Homecoming. You know how I spent my birthday. Those are big teenage things. And now I just wanna be with you. That's all I ever want."

"Buffy, we both know--"

"That things can change," she reminded him, slipping her arms around his neck and pulling herself closer to him. Her satin covered nipples were just barely touching his bare chest. "We don't really know what the spell Willow cast did to you. You could be fine."

"But I bet I'm not."

"Never know until you try."

"What if I'm not okay? What if I go nuts and I kill you?"

She smiled sweetly at him. "I'll kill you first."

"You couldn't do it again." he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." he took a deep breath. "God, it's so hard to say 'no' to you."

"Then don't." she pressed her body against his and kissed him intensely. The next thing she knew, they were on the floor and she was trying to push his silk pajama bottoms down with her feet. Finally, she gripped the waistband between her toes and pushed them down to his ankles. While she worked and those, Angel was softly kissing her breasts. She pulled his lips up to hers and kissed him while moving his hands to the waistband of her pants. She didn't have to push - he slid them and her underwear down without a hitch, kissing down her legs as he went. He pulled them off her ankles and threw them across the room.

Angel stood at her feet for a second, watching her lying there, waiting for him. He laid down on her gently, and kissed her neck, her breasts, her lips, her hair.

She gripped at his butt as their bodies grooved together as one.

"See?" she asked when he was holding her later that day. "You're fine."

He laughed. "How do you know it's not just some trick I'm playing on you."

She touched his cheek. "Your eyes. They say it all."

"What do they say?"

She looked deep into them for a second. "That you need me as much as I need you."

He rolled on top of her and began to kiss her passionately. She glanced around the room and noticed that something - probably her underwear - had landed on one of the candles and started a fire. She watched it for a second. The fire wasn't growing with intensity - they had plenty of time before they actually had to put it out.

Smiling, Buffy closed her eyes and made love to her Angel.

*****

"What did you and Angel do last night?" Willow asked several hours later when she was accompanying Buffy on patrol.

"Why?" she asked.

"You have this gooney smile on your face that just won't go away."

"We didn't do anything, honest," Buffy said as she pulled out a stake to attack a vampire doing something unGodly to a cat. "We just started a fire, that's all."

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