Author's Note: Written for rosenlight in femslashex 2013. Title taken from the Ani DeFranco song. This started out as a little fluffy coffeeshop AU vignette, and grew a plot (and werewolves) along the way? Oops.

There was a tiny little coffee bistro about equidistant between her apartment and her place of work where Lydia was a regular, stopping in before she went to work in the morning and then again when she was on her way home from work.

It had the worst coffee in all of San Francisco. It was bland, boring, and barely deserved to be called anything above "icky brown water," let alone hold the venerated title of coffee. So, it wasn't like she was drinking it for her health, or anything.

But there was a barista there - she had long brown hair, and a winning smile, and her name tag said Allison in firm, precise letters. And Lydia would force down every cup of horrible, lukewarm coffee just to see that face smiling at her over the whipped cream machine every time.

If only Allison-the-barista knew.

"You're not usually in here this time of night," Allison said, as she ran the rag over the counter, looking at Lydia sitting at one of the tables. There was a couple being touchy-feely in the back corner, and a regular typing away at his laptop - probably composing the next Great American Novel, at least in his mind - but otherwise, they were the only two in the shop. "You're usually in here around 8, and then again around 5:30. And you're always in and out. I think this is the longest I've seen you at one time."

"Yeah, well, my apartment has a water leak," Lydia said, putting her pen between her teeth and flipping through the pages of a well-worn book. "The carpet's all ripped up and it smells like mothballs, so I had to get out of there and find a place that doesn't have Wi-Fi so I could focus."

"You want your usual?" Allison threw her rag over her shoulder and moved toward the coffee machine. "Help you with your - well, whatever it is that you're doing."

"Yeah, sure," Lydia said. She watched as Allison moved behind the counter and made her coffee, just the way she always ordered it. Allison leaned against the coffee machine and smiled that little smile at Lydia, and Lydia felt herself relaxing.

Allison set the cup down next to her, and tucked in a small biscotti next to it. "On the house, for one of our best customers," she said, moving her hand to stroke at the back of her neck, as she sat down next to Lydia. "So, what is it that you're working on? You're a tax accountant as I remember, right? It's September, so it's not exactly prime income tax season yet." She let out a shudder at the words "income tax," Lydia noticed.

Of course Allison remembered her job. She didn't know how long ago she had told her, but the point stood that it had been a while and yet, she still remembered. "Yeah, I'm a tax accountant," Lydia said. "But this is more, uh, for my side job."

"High-powered accountant by day, high-flying superhero by night? I could see that," Allison said, her smile easing across her face.

"Nah," Lydia said, turning the corner of the page. "It's more like, okay, this is going to sound a little crazy."

"Try me."

"There's this town, a few hours from here, okay? Beacon Hills. Quiet little place, at least most of the time. And according to some gossip, there's packs of werewolves wandering around the town and causing a bit of mayhem."

"But that's all it is, right? Just idle small-town gossip?"

"That's what I thought when I first heard about it. A bunch of bored, small-town teenagers making up stuff to make their lives more interesting. And I wouldn't be able to blame them if that was the case."

"But it's not the case."

"Not from what I'm finding, no." Lydia flipped a few pages ahead, and set her pen down on the page. She looked up at Allison. "There really just might be werewolves in Beacon Hills, California."

"I'd heard stories of werewolves when I was growing up, you know?" Allison said, laughing a bit uneasily. Her voice was shaky and quavered as she spoke. "My parents trained me to fight, fearing that the wolves would come, yeah? And I just laughed it off as silly superstitions that my parents believed in but that had no basis in reality. And now you're telling me that they might not only be real, but that they're living just a few hours away from us?" Her eyes grew wide, and she fiddled with her hands on the table.

Lydia nibbled at the biscotti as Allison talked. It was better than the coffee, that much was for sure. In fact, if the coffee was half as good as the biscotti, she might genuinely like coming here for the drinks, and not just the ambiance and the employment. "Yeah, that's what I'm telling you," she said, taking a swig of the coffee. Nope, the coffee was just as bad as always. "Care to drive down there this weekend with me and check it out?" Okay, so it was a little more daring of a move than buying crappy coffee twice-daily for the sake of seeing her, but she seemed like she could be genuinely interested, and -

Allison cut off her train of thought, and patted the table next to Lydia's hand. "Yeah, sure, why not? I don't work on the weekend anyway," she said. "Want to meet here Friday night after my shift's over?"

"Sure," Lydia said. Friday night. Date night. She was going to be spending it in a car, with the woman she had been secretly crushing over for months now. All because of werewolves. "Sounds like a plan."

"It's a date, then," Allison said, grinning. A customer came to the counter, and tapped his foot impatiently, as he cast his glance over to their table. "I'll be right with you, sir."

Lydia waved her hand. "You go deal with the customer, I'll be here." She ate the last bite of the biscotti. "And," she said, digging into her purse for a little change, "when you come back, bring me another biscotti?"

"Count on it," Allison said with a smile, walking away without taking Lydia's money. "Welcome to The Daily Grind, and how may I help you?"

Oh, Lydia was in deep.

And did she say that this was a date?

Allison looked in the backseat of Lydia's car as she got in, throwing her duffel bag back there with a pronounced thud. "You brought a lot of books," she said. "Planning to run a library out of the back of your car?"

"I wanted to make sure that no matter what we ran across while we were there, I'd have the right research to deal with it," Lydia said. "I wasn't sure if my research was thorough enough to rely on my notes alone."

"I'm sure your notes were great," Allison said. "I brought some of my smaller weapons, for if we do run into something. My parents made sure that if their daughter was going to leave their pseudo-military fortress and live in the big city, that I'd be suitably defended."

"A werewolf in San Francisco? I'd be more worried about rapists and murderers, personally," Lydia mused, as she drove the car out onto the interstate.

"I guess their lessons would work on creepy humans too, come to think of it."

"You have a point." Lydia turned to Allison and offered her a tentative smile. "I wasn't really anticipating you to say yes when I mentioned this. It's not like Beacon Hills is Las Vegas or anything."

"So what made you so interested in figuring this out? An accountant like you, I doubt that werewolves are really that good with filing their taxes."

"No, they're really not." Lydia threw her head back and exhaled. "You know how there's that theory that if you hear something enough times from enough different people, that there's some degree of truth to it?"

"I've heard that," Allison said. "I never believed it, though, because then all the conspiracy theories are right, and then Jordan really was into me in high school, and I don't know what to do with the world then."

"Right." She was going to ignore the comment about Jordan - she'd known enough Jordans of both genders to know that there was no way to accurately discern anything from that aside. "Well, I had a client come in from Beacon Hills once. A Mr. Stilinski. And he told me, as we were going through his potential deductions for the year, about how he had known a pack of werewolves in high school. Even imitated a werewolf baring its fangs, which I found more amusing than scary."

"And you didn't think he might be crazy?"

"I thought about it, but he seemed relatively normal otherwise, so I did a little more research to satisfy my curiosity. Met a few more people from Beacon Hills. All of them corroborated that there was something weird there. A few mentioned excessive wolf howling around the full moon. I think one or two others mentioned werewolves. So I started doing some more digging."

"And -" Allison turned toward her, her eyes focused entirely on Lydia telling the story.

"And I can't prove anything conclusively from books, which is why I've wanted to drive down. And with the full moon being tomorrow night, I thought this would be the perfect time to do it."

"And you invited along your favorite coffee barista for the ride," Allison said. "Oh, I forgot, by the way, I brought you some more of those biscotti you liked." She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a small paper bag with six or seven sticking out.

Favorite in more ways than one, but those were things that she didn't have to know quite yet. "Yeah. Thanks, by the way," Lydia said, sliding one out from the bag and tentatively nibbling at it. "These are really good."

"Better than the coffee," Allison said. "You don't have to lie to me, Lydia, I know just how terrible the coffee is there."

Lydia let out a sharp laugh. "Wait - you - you mean that you know and haven't said anything?"

"You wonder why you never see me - or anyone else who works there, like Danny - drink any of that stuff? It tastes like what I imagine sewage tastes like," she said, wrinkling her nose. "But we're not supposed to insult the product to the customers, and it's a paycheck, so I don't complain. Too much."

"But I'm a customer."

"I'm in your car on a Friday night headed three hours out of town. I think it's safe to say that you're not just a customer anymore," Allison said, and Lydia saw the fading light of the sun twinkle in her eyes. "I'm trusting that you're not going to do anything too terrible to me."

"You said you have weapons in your bag, anyway, so even if I did, you could defend yourself," Lydia said, and her breath caught in her throat.

"True. But I still trust you," Allison said, gently moving her hand to rest on top of Lydia's. The car fell silent, and the motion of the wheels underneath was all that could be heard as Lydia let her hand relax under Allison's.

They checked into a motel room in Beacon Hills, just outside of downtown. As they pushed their way into the room, Lydia's library in tow, Lydia apprised the bed situation. Two queen beds, although it was readily apparent that cleanliness was not high on the Beacon Hills Motor Lodge's list of priorities. She could see the dirt from across the room.

"Ew," Allison said, setting down her bag on top of the short dresser. "I guess this is what we get for going with 'whatever's cheapest' instead of springing for luxury."

"I doubt we'd even find luxury in this town," Lydia said, taking a towel from the bathroom and trying to scrub at the worst of the dirt. "It's a roof over our heads, and at least we have a place to sleep."

Allison nodded and flopped down on the bed furthest from the door. "And that's about all that can be said for these mattresses, by the way," she said. "It feels like I'm laying on a tree trunk."

Lydia laid down on the other bed, and wrinkled her nose at the feeling. Allison was right. "Yeah. I - yeah. You're right." It was distinctly wooden, and she could barely tell at all that there was supposed to be sheets and a mattress between her and the floor.

"We'll make the best of it, right?" Allison asked, propping her head up on her hand and looking across the gap at Lydia. "You want to pass me one of those books you brought?"

"Why? I thought you were Miss I-Was-Born-to-Fight-Werewolves." Even as she asked it, she reached across the bed and grabbed the top book off the pile.

"I might have tuned out a lot of my parents' lectures back in the day, and I could use a refresher." As Lydia handed her the book, Allison smiled. "Thanks. You planning to go to bed, or stay up and keep me company?"

"I'll stay up."

She tried. She really did try to stay up, but the combination of the early morning she had had, a long day at the office and the drive to Beacon Hills tired her out, and before she realized it, she was resting her head against the entirely-too-flat pillow and fading off to sleep.

It was sometime around six in the morning when she woke up and rubbed her eyes. Once she remembered where she was - which wasn't altogether too hard, because her bed at home was like sleeping on a fluffy cloud - she turned over, and saw Allison poring over one of the other books, surrounded by piles of them. "Good morning, sleepyhead," Allison said, teasing her. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, you could say that, I guess," Lydia said, contorting her neck to relieve some of the built-up tension. The easiest part of sleeping had been the fact that she knew Allison was right there. "Learn anything new?"

"I've been studying the nuances of the differences between alphas, betas and omegas," Allison said. "It looks like there won't be any real way to tell if we're dealing with a beta or an omega, unless we can find Casper the Friendly Werewolf to help us out, but it's all in the eyes. And in the form. These drawings of alphas are just as scary as I remember them to be."

"I should have contacted Mr. Stilinski to see if he could give us any guidance," Lydia said. "You want to rest for a few hours before we hit the streets?"

"Point me in the direction of the nearest coffee shop and I'll be good to go," Allison said, her lips twitching into a smile. Allison's smile was infectious, and Lydia found herself reflecting it.

A couple of hours and two non-sewage-like coffees from Beacon Hills Java later, the two were combing the streets of Beacon Hills, driving up and down the carefully-manicured streets and studying the structures on either side. "It says that werewolves like abandoned structures they can make their own. Old businesses, abandoned homes, whatever," Allison said. "And what are we planning to do when we find them? Take their pictures and write an exposé for the Chronicle? Go all Interview With a Werewolf? Fight them?" She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small silver mace.

"I was thinking that I'd know it when I see it," Lydia said, turning a corner a little sharper than she had intended.

"And if that means running scared into the night?"

"That means running scared into the night, and writing a panicked post on the Encounters with the Supernatural forum I visit sometimes, when I get back to San Francisco." Lydia felt her bravado slip just a little bit. It was easy to formulate all these fantastic plans when it was just her and her books locked up alone in her apartment. But when it was her, Allison, and actually being there, it all felt too real. "But hopefully we won't."

They spent most of the day driving around town and getting the feel for the place, before they finally settled in at a diner to watch the sun set behind the tree line. "So, we're going to go back out again once the sun sets?" Allison asked, poking a fork at her side salad and spearing a lonely lettuce leaf.

"Yep, and see if we can't find them then," Lydia said, swallowing a bite of her chicken. "I think if we drive out to the woods, we should be able to find them. We were out by there earlier today, and I have a spot I want to check out."

They finished their meal, paid their bill, and went back out to the car. As they drove toward the woods, the last rays of the sun setting below the trees, Allison clenched a silver blade in one hand, almost reflexively. Lydia guided the car down a Forest Service road that ran just off the main paved road. "Ready?" Lydia asked, in a low, hushed whisper. She found a small thicket that led to a clearing, and through the windshield, she could see the full moon casting an eerie glow over all that was below it.

"Ready." Allison turned to Lydia. "Lydia, this has been - really fun - getting to know you outside of taking your order," she said, her breath catching on the words. She bit her lip, and Lydia found that she couldn't look away from the motion even if she tried. "You're, uh, really cool."

"Yeah, it really has been," Lydia said. She felt the tips of her fingers tingling, and she dared to reach out for Allison's free hand, the one not currently grasping a deadly sharp blade that could cut off her fingers with a single slice. Allison folded her hand against Lydia's, interlocking their fingers, and she squeezed gently.

Lydia couldn't tear her eyes away from where Allison's lips parted under her teeth, and she took the moment to lean forward and close the gap between their faces. She brushed her lips against Allison's, as if she was asking a question without finding the words to say aloud: is this okay?

Allison let the blade fall into her lap, and she moved her hand to tangle in Lydia's hair. She grasped at ringlets of hair, wrapping them around her fingers, and she opened her mouth to Lydia, letting her inside. Yes.

Lydia's hand fell to Allison's chest, resting just above her heart - she could hear her heart beat so fast, so incredibly fast, and she let her hand rest there, just feeling Allison's heart beat under her touch.

They stayed like that, Allison's hand in Lydia's hair, Lydia's hand above Allison's heart, their lips kissing and meshing and flowing against each other, slow and languid, for what seemed like hours. And then - they heard a loud thud from outside the car. "What was that?" Allison asked, breaking from the kiss to look outside the car. There was a dark form crumpled on the hood of the car.

"That," Lydia said, peering out the window, "appears to be a werewolf. Or what they claim to be one."

"Oh."

Allison grabbed her blade, and Lydia grabbed her camera, and they each opened their respective doors. They gingerly stepped outside the car, and walked closer to further inspect it. Lydia caught Allison's gaze over the figure's crumpled form and gave her a smile. It was easy to smile when Allison was around, even if there was a potentially-dead but probably-just-stunned werewolf on their car.

Lydia turned on the camera, making sure that the night vision mode was turned on, and began filming. "We're just outside of Beacon Hills, California, where we have found what appears to be a werewolf, ladies and gentlemen," she said in a hushed whisper, stepping closer to the figure, trying to catch its face in her frame. "Look at it - oh." Its eyes flared open and she heard it growl. She started backing away, but still keeping the camera trained on the werewolf now coming to before her eyes. She stepped on a stick and heard it crunch under her feet, and the wolf flashed its yellow eyes at her. "I - It looks to be -" She fumbled with the camera in her hands, trying to get it to focus as the wolf stretched its legs and leaped off the car, lunging for her. She fell to the ground, and closed her eyes. She'd let this tape serve as her eyes, if she managed to survive long enough to watch it.

Quick as anything, she heard a whistle of movement through the air, and the werewolf stopped moving, although it had landed on top of her. Her eyes flew open. Werewolf stench was a very powerful thing, which was not something she had picked up on from the books. That was the first thing she noticed. The second thing she noticed was that it wasn't moving. She wriggled out from underneath the werewolf's limp form and stood on shaky feet, planting the palm of her hand on the hood of her car. "I threw my blade at it," Allison said, with a faint bit of pride shining through her words, as she came around to Lydia's side of the car and embraced her. "I didn't want it to hurt you, oh my God, I thought -"

"Let's go," Lydia said abruptly, twisting the blade out of the werewolf's back and frowning as she handed it back to Allison. It was caked in werewolf blood, and would probably drip on the floor of her car, but that wasn't what was important. She could take it in to be cleaned one of these days here very soon. She took her camera from where it landed on the ground and hustled back toward the car, barely stopping to catch her breath.

Maybe this had all been a mistake. Maybe she should have kept on being a boring tax accountant in San Francisco who never did anything more exciting on a Saturday night than order in Vietnamese food from the place down the street and eat spring rolls until she fell asleep in front of her laptop.

And then, as she got in the car and saw that Allison was sitting next to her, the light of the full moon reflected in her eyes, a wide grin across her face, she realized: without this trip, Allison would still be Allison-the-barista, and not Allison-the- ...shit, whatever she would be considered now. Dare she say girlfriend?

"Let's go," Allison said, echoing Lydia's earlier words. She brushed her hand against Lydia, easy as anything. Lydia could get used to this new closeness, she definitely could. "And Lydia?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time we come to Beacon Hills, let's get you some self-defense classes first. I'm not always going to have my killer aim to save the day," Allison said, burying her face in Lydia's shoulder.

"Okay. But -" Lydia paused for a second, letting the intent of Allison's words soak in, "next time?"

"Yeah. I figured since we didn't really get to do what we came down here for, that you'd want to try again sometime. And I'm saying that I'm in."

Any doubts that Lydia could have had that nothing had changed between them, and that this weekend was some weird fear-induced hallucination, were gone in an instant. Maybe things wouldn't go back to how they were. Maybe she could say girlfriend after all.

Monday morning, bright and early, Lydia strolled into the coffee shop. She saw Allison from across the counter, and Allison's smile could have lit up the entire shop on its own wattage. "Hi, Lydia," she said, and if it was possible to hear a smile, that was what Lydia felt as though she was hearing.

"Hey," Lydia greeted her with a smile in return. "I'll have my usual."

"You sure about that?" Allison asked, propping her chin up in her hands on the counter.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Lydia said. As Allison moved to take the cup off the stack of cups and fill it up, Lydia stood there and watched appreciatively. She took in the fluid motion of Allison's movements.

Allison turned back to her, coffee in hand. "One coffee, just the way you want it, and one biscotti. On the house." She leaned forward and kissed Lydia softly, her hair brushing against Lydia's cheek. Lydia detected a faint floral scent in her shampoo, which was something that was quickly going to be filed away in her mental list of things she loved about Allison. "And that's on the house too. Have a good day at work."

"You too," Lydia said, barely able to tear her eyes from Allison long enough to walk out the door. As she opened the door, she turned back just in time to see Allison sway her hips and wave goodbye.

Lydia blew her a kiss, and strode away into the morning rush, a wide grin on her face.

She could get used to this newest change in her life.