Rating: umm...I'm thinking along the lines of PG...in the meantime. Who knows what the future might bring:).
Disclaimer: nope, last time I checked, nothing was mine.
Spoilers: well...better safe than sorry: everything up to the end of season 3 can be spoilery.
Synopsis: I have a strange drive to rewrite season 3 of BtVS. I just don't seem to like the way it ended...beats me why. Anyway, so despite the fact that the original plan was to begin with "Helpless" (that's around the time everything really started getting screwed up B/A-wise), as you can see, plan's changed and I'm going to start with "Anne". If you expect to find in this series events/quotes from the original season....I seriously mean it - I'll try my hardest keeping them to the very minimum. But all in all - it's probably a yet another attempt to end the season on a more "positive" B/A level. See how it goes:).
Pairing: the conventional ships: B/A, W/O, C/X. If I decide to torture any/all of them, you'll be the first to know:).
Distribution: ask first.
Feedback: please, yes, please.

People worry that
I don't do anything
I think they really wonder
Why i'm not like them
They are racing to a prison
They will never leave
Worshipping a system
I don't believe

- Vast, "What Else Do I Need?" "It's just…so weird," Willow peeked over the Slayer's shoulder, while the blonde was fixing her makeup.

"What's weird?" she asked abstractly, not moving her eyes from the small pocket mirror she was holding in front of her face.

"You know…it's been…four days? And you still have that gash on your brow. I mean, it's closed and all, but…"

"It'll go away," Buffy added the final touches in covering the welt. "I just gotta get back to my full Slayer-mode. If it weren't for these drugs, it'd have been gone already." She finally looked up at her friends. "Well?"

"Looks good," the redhead affirmed with a nod.

"Wonder what it looks like without makeup," Xander quipped. "Must be a naaasty cut," he playfully reached for the Slayer's face, but she smacked his hand off before it achieved its destination.

"Well, seeing as the only person who's ever seen me without makeup is Angel, *you're* never gonna find out." She stuck her tongue out at him childishly. "And according to him, I always look beautiful."

"Yeah, well, he's bribed," Xander retorted in coequal impishness.

"And you're mean!" she shot back.

"Umm, guys?" Willow picked that moment to cut in. "I think we passed fifth grade a very long time ago. It'd be much less scary, if you could stop now."

Both teenagers glanced at her once, and quieted, each with a sigh.

"I think you're beautiful," Oz murmured in her ear when she returned into his lap.

"Aww," she moaned, grinning sheepishly. "You're sweet," she leaned down and met his lips in a kiss.

"*Why* do you never tell me these things?!" Cordelia exclaimed, challenging her boyfriend with an unmistakable look.

"I never saw you without makeup?…" he replied lamely, for the plain reason of not having a better line to come up with in such short notice.

"Argh!" the brunette hissed, clutching her hands into fists. "That was *it*, Harris! Why do I even put up with you, at all?!" she stomped away.

"You know, that's the kind of things girls like to be told occasionally, Xand," the blonde remarked.

"Come on, that's my Cordy we're talking about here. She's the kind of girls who like things to be *bought*...not occasionally."

"You'll never know till you try," the witch interjected from her boyfriend's lap.

"It used to be so easy," Xander shook his head in defeat. "I could just buy her something I couldn't afford or take her somewhere I couldn't afford and life would be good," he muttered, standing up and leaving in the same direction where his girlfriend had disappeared earlier.

"I think our little Xander has just discovered the 'perks' of love," the Slayer commented, chuckling.

"Buffy," an outside voice drew her attention and she looked up.

"Harmony," she gave the blonde a long look, it being the last possible person she had expected to approach her and her friends during the lunch break. "And Harmony's herd. Feeling overly lonely today?"

"If it was up to me, I wouldn't be breathing the same air with you and your group of freaks," the blonde retorted, wrinkling her nose as though in disgust.

"If it was up to me, you definitely wouldn't."

Harmony took a moment to consider the remark, then dismissed it and rolled her eyes. "I came to tell you one thing…"

"I'm all ears," the Slayer grinned, somewhat bored.

"Tell the *slut* you're hanging with to keep her hands *off* my boyfriend!"

"You don't have a boyfriend, Harmony. If you had, he wouldn't have been all over Faith in the Bronze the other night," she reminded, with a victorious gleam in her eyes.

Harmony turned red in an instant, unable to squeeze out a word.

"Was there anything else?" Buffy asked, her expression now completely innocent.

The girl huffed and stormed away, her friends instantly following her example.

"Am I the only one who thinks she and Cordy just pulled the same exit?" Buffy remarked.

"Not the only one," Oz agreed.

"We should have introduced Harmony to Spike." Two pairs of eyes sharply turned at the Slayer. "Really," she went on, clearly impressed with her own idea. "Remember the time he showed up here a couple of months ago, after loony-Dru had dumped him? Well, it just occurred to me he'd have gone after Drusilla a lot sooner if we had only introduced him to Harmony. *And* he wouldn't have caused so much trouble. Where was this idea when i needed it?" she mused, no longer talking to her friends.

Willow grinned at the thought, but her inward contemplation drifted back in time to that day, wondering how many things would have changed by now, had she only given in back then and kissed Xander…

"Speaking of boyfriends," she abruptly snapped out of the past. "I recall a certain date someone still hasn't told me *anything* about," she grinned pointedly at her best friend.

Buffy beamed, knowing exactly what Willow was referring to. "It was great. We actually did it right this time."

"This time?" Oz inquired.

"Well, yeah…first time, once we got ourselves a dead Taraka on ice, we though - rain check."

"It was so sweet of him to take you ice-skating," Willow observed with a smile. "He knows how much you love it, and on your birthday and all…"

"Not *on* my birthday," the Slayer remarked, then grinned. "Three days after. But it was great. *He* was great. I had no idea he could skate like that, I mean…he can actually…*skate*."

"Maybe he picked it up over the years," the redhead suggested with a shrug.

****

"Open!" Angel called, after a knock on the door, moving back into the shadows. After the person came in, the vampire frowned, appearing a bit confused. "Faith?"

"One and only," the brunette Slayer replied, proceeding farther into the mansion. "You cook?" she sniffed the air.

"Ah, it's-it's for Buffy," Angel replied, still a bit thrown with the Slayer's presence in his house.

"I bet it is," she remarked dryly. "I kinda figured you're not the eater."

"She's not here."

"I know that," Faith shrugged.

"You do?" Angel backed away from her as she moved closer, and though he was mostly acting upon impulse, his rational side was perfectly aware of what he was doing. The signals and vibes he had recently been receiving from the brunette Slayer were not at all to his liking, and a part of him genuinely longed for her to return to hating him anew. He had recently been doing all that was in his power to not let Buffy out of his sight, or rather, not let himself out of hers, but it didn't seem to change Faith's attitude towards him one bit. She had most certainly missed the message, and if she hadn't, she had made sure to ignore it.

"I came to see *you*," she grinned up at him.

The vampire released a strained sigh, subconsciously backing away even more. "What did you want?"

She was just about to answer, when they heard someone unlocking the front door.

Angel emitted a sigh of pure relief when his girlfriend was the one entering through it.

"Hey!" her face lit up when her eyes found him and she shut the door behind her, dropping her school bag to the floor. Angel walked over to her and met her lips in a lingering kiss, wrapping his arms around her.

"Well, good to know at least someone missed me," the Slayer grinned, turning in his embrace and pressing her back to his wide chest as his arms closed on her around the waist. "Hey, Faith," she finally acknowledged the brunette's presence in the mansion. "Whatcha doing here?"

Faith gazed at her for a moment, then glanced up at Angel, whose chin lay atop the Slayer's head, eyes intently boring into hers. She swallowed hard, then forced a grin on. "I…actually, kinda came to see Angel."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I…was wondering how you were doing. Wanted to ask if you were okay, you know…" she faltered.

"Careful, Faith, I might actually think you like me," the blonde Slayer remarked with a grin.

Faith smirked, exchanging a glance with Angel again. The way he was holding Buffy alone was enough to aggravate her beyond belief. And moreover, his gaze seemed to be a bit *too* challenging, as if he were daring her to tell his girlfriend the truth.

Well, it wasn't going to do him any good. "Seeing as I'm gonna go through the same crap as you did in a few months, unless I use your experience to work my way out of it, I might as well stick around. But now I'm off," she made her way to the door. "Catch you later, B.."

"Oh, Faith, wait, before you go!" Buffy grabbed her sleeve when she passed by her and Angel. "I have a message from Harmony for you."

"Who's Harmony?" Faith frowned, having no idea what her sister-Slayer was talking about.

"Bronze? Last night? Rings a bell?" Buffy smiled pointedly.

"Oh that bitch," the brunette waved her hand.

"The one," the blonde confirmed with a nod.

"What'd she want?"

"I'll take a wild guess and say her boyfriend…"

Faith rolled her eyes. "I did her a favor. Besides, you can tell her majesty she can have her boy back, I got what I wanted, anyway," she winked, then turned around and simply walked out of the door.

"What was that about?" Angel asked his girlfriend.

"Faith had a little *too much* fun last night. With Harmony's boyfriend," she added casually, as she slipped out of his embrace and proceeded towards the kitchen, pulling his hand after her.

"She has that touch," the vampire muttered to himself, but the Slayer either didn't pick it up, or chose to ignore the remark.

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