Disclaimer: I own nothing. Every time my mind goes crazy – blame it on Joss.

A/N: Sorry for making you wait so long: guess I wanted this chapter to come out the best it could ;) Feedback is endless love ;)

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Buffy's POV

"Wake up, sleepy, time to kick some major ass!"

I raise my head up and look over at Faith, turning off Xander's van engine. "Did I actually fall asleep in the car you were driving?"

"Guess you did. C'mon, the gals are waiting for us."

Oh, right. After Willow had identified demons who kidnapped Emma as a particularly violent types, Faith called CJ (the slayer in charge of NYC) for support. The girl was almost too eager to help us out. Wonder why.

As I jump off the car, trying to get rid of a nasty little kink placed on the side of my neck, I notice the welcome committee at the end of their underground parking row. The black girl standing in the middle, one wearing a tight tank top and leather pants, must have been CJ, Faith's acquaintance. Where and when did they get… acquainted, by the way? I always thought Faith, a Bostonian to the bone, wasn't particularly fancy of NYC.

The way CJ welcomes the brunette suggests something more than just a slayer-thing.

"Hey there, beautiful," she says, hugging Faith closely before taking a long, careful look at her. "What kept ya away for so long?"

" 'M having some serious stuff to do right now, kiddo," Faith answers shortly, disentangling herself from the girl's embrace. "What d'ya know 'bout the bad guys, huh?"

"Why so professional, Fai?" CJ smiles, but her expression turns to serious as she notices Faith isn't in the mood for joking. "Right, they're in their usual places a coupla blocks away, in an old factory warehouse. Plan's simple: we go in, we tell them they've been bad-bad, we take your friend out, we burn the place down so they'd never come back here again."

"Usual place? And: again?" I come closer to them, furrowing my brow. "You mean they've been here for a while, and you didn't sort it out until now?"

CJ gives me a disapproving look, and I decide I must look like hell. Having spent the greater part of the night with Xander, who had completely freaked out, dozing off on the living room sofa and being waken up by Faith just before dawn, I didn't have much time to overcome her jetlag, or even to apply a decent amount of makeup. Not to mention my hair, probably sticking around my face in every possible direction. Still, it's no reason for junior here to look at me like that!

"And who are you?" CJ asks in a mocking tone, and just I am about to snap back something ugly, I feel Faith's hand touching my elbow.

"This is Buffy, the first an' original Slayer, and you should show her some respect, kiddo. Now, the girl we're lookin' for's her friend's fiancée, so we better get movin'. You can explain us your demon politics on the way."

I can say CJ's not quite happy by being told off by Faith, but she mumbles something that might have been a 'Sorry', and we start marching through the underground corridors under the mall to which the parking lot belongs. There are two other girls with us; one, a short, pale redhead, throws curious glances at Faith and myself: probably she'd never seen an 'original' Slayer before. The other, CJ's lookalike, is far more definite and goes for the bravery. I wonder how they'd do in the upcoming fight. It would be nice to be able to give it up to somebody else for a change – not only because I'm feeling rather wiped out at the moment, but it clearly is an issue.

CJ tells us more about K'Meeshs, eventually. They seem to work a little bit like junkies: no matter how often they're beaten up, or how many of them had been killed, they come back to the very same place they started in, and kidnap some more people.

"They're more like terrorists than demons: they don't eat people, or anything, they just want cash," CJ's friend adds, cracking her fingers. "Dirty little bastards. You sure your friend didn't make some nasty business with them? They're pretty touchy when it comes to money, ya know."

"Thanks for the tip, I'll ask her as soon as we bring her home," Faith answers, sounding slightly irritated. I cannot say whether it's because of the long walk we're being forced to take, or the fact that CJ keeps trying to get a hold of her hand. I'm feeling quite amused by observing Faith flinching.

When we finally get to the place, it all seems to last much shorter than the walking part. CJ breaks the window and we're in; the demons, four of them, rush towards us, and I can see it all coming: the kicks, the punches, the slime coming out of their wounds as juniors cut them expertfully. I'm taking their enthusiasm as a sign to step back a bit, let them have their share of fighting, and look for Emma.

I find her in a dirty, smelly room at the back of the warehouse, still tied up to a chair, pale and looking quite miserable. She looks at me with a mixed expression of fear and fury, and I kneel next to her, undoing the knots.

"It's okay," I say, as she massages her wrists and tries to stand up, hissing as shifts her bodyweight onto her still sore legs. "We're here to take you home. I'm Buffy Summers."

She looks blankly at me for a while, before a glimpse a realization flashes in her eyes and she takes my pre-offered hand, allowing me to help her out. "Thank you," she says; her voice is nice, deeper and warmer than Anya's. This is the first time I realize I'm actually comparing them, two vengeance demons, two lovers of my close friend. "Let's get the hell out of here."

I really like this idea.

As we come out of the room, three of the demons are already lying on the ground, very obviously dead. The girls are alright, though the youngest one is sitting on some old box, and CJ's friend is patching up a cut on her arm. I suddenly feel pretty bad about the idea of that girl going into fight. Yes, she might be a slayer, with all her powers awoken, but primary she's still a child, a teenager who doesn't know what to do with her new abilities. I doubt that she has a watcher – I had one, and it took me ever so long to discover what I could and couldn't do, and how to fight in order not to get myself killed or injured. I can't say much about CJ, apart from the fact that she's seriously hitting on Faith, but she doesn't seem to be the right person to educate girl like that one.

I make a mental note to call Dawn and discuss sending over some of the Watcher newbies. They have to learn a lot, too, but it might be a better idea to have them around here, to support the slayers. I do wish that little girl there found somebody she could count on.

I look around to find Faith, and there she is, pushing her knee against the chest of the last demon, the only one that succeeded in remaining alive. From the look on her face, and the way CJ's holding a knife against its throat, I'm guessing they're not discussing weather. I walk over to them, Emma still hanging from my shoulder, and the kink in my neck getting more and more annoying, especially since I'm still sore from the fight.

"You okay?" Faith asks as we approach her, without even looking back. Slayer connection can be quite useful when you're intimidating people slash demons and don't want to break eye contact.

"Five by five."

"Cool. Get the keys and go ahead, I'll be right in." She hands me over the keys to the van, and I take them thankfully, leading half-conscious Emma back to the van. It takes us fifteen minutes to get there, and when we finally do, my mental and physically exhaustion kicks in, and I slide down on the front seat as soon as I've made sure Emma is alright in the back. I take Faith's cell from the locker and dial Xander's number. He picks up right away.

"Are you okay?" he asks, pretty frantic. "Is she—"

"She's asleep in the car, with me," I say, interrupting him. "Faith's still giving the moralizing speech to the last bad guy, but as soon as she's done with it we're coming over to you. Don't worry. Just make sure there's hot water waiting in the bathtub."

"Thanks, Buff," he says and I can feel his relief. I smile inwardly, and end the conversation as I see Faith coming back, CJ on her heels. They say goodbye, and though I cannot hear what they're saying, I see Faith's irritation, and it's starting to affect me, too. Why can't the girl just leave us alone?!

I mean, Faith. Why can't she leave Faith alone?

Sometimes I hate Slayer connection.

"Hey," Faith says as she slides into driver seat. "Tired?"

"A bit," I admit and close my eyes, glad that I can finally lean on somebody. Faith's going to take care of everything, I say to myself; the feeling gets even stronger as I feel her jacket being wrapped around my shoulders. She remembered I'm getting cold easily. I smile a small smile and drift away.

- - - - - - - -

There is water in the bath when we reach home, but it's not for me. Xander makes sure his girlfriend is the first one to get in, and some part of me knows it's right. The other one wants him to at least say 'thank you' again, even though he'd done it once already. Guess I'm just unbearably tired.

I so hoped for a moment of peace after we come back, but apparently there are no chances for that – Faith and Willow began their evening together with a major fight over Chris. Apparently, Faith asked Willow to take the baby out for a walk (which is usually her responsibility, as far as I understood it) before the weather gets really awful. It's been a beautiful day, maybe the last one this season, but Willow got so involved into her new project that she'd –

"Forgot about your own child, huh?"

"Well excuse me, Faith, but some people have to actually work in order to bring money home!"

"While others make them save the money by not having to pay for a babysitter."

"And you think I'm not grateful enough? Well, I am grateful, Faith, but I cannot let you accuse me for not doing something that could as well be done tomorrow."

"Unless it rains like hell, that is."

"Look," Willow says, running her fingers through her hair, and I can see she's a little bit ashamed, though she'd never say that aloud, "I really have to finish this project by tomorrow morning. You can take Chris out tomorrow, and if it rains you can always stay at the veranda. I have to go back to my work, sorry."

With that, she leaves the kitchen. We sit there, on the opposite sides of the table, in silence, and Faith lowers her head so that I cannot read her expression through a curtain of hair. "C'mon," she says finally, and grabs my suitcase that's still lying by the door, where I left it the day before. "You should get some rest, or I'll be the only original Slayer left standing. I'll show you your quarters, princess."

We go down to the basement, and Faith turns the light on. I'm surprised by the neatness of it: I expected Faith's place to be all cluttered and filled with electronic devices I wouldn't understand, but no, what I see before me looks quite… zen, in fact. There's a great TV, of course, with a Playstation set next to it, and a comfortable couch in the middle of the room, but apart from that it's just a regular basement-type of an apartment. Wait, no – there's also a small work-out space by the window, some mats, a boxing bag, weights. The walls are creamy white, furniture black or in a deep shade of brown, accessories – such as tons of pillows lying on and around the couch – crimson red. A big, black-and-white photograph of an industrial town (Boston?) street is the only thing covering the walls.

"Where are your rock bands posters?"

"Left them in my old apartment." Faith puts my bag next to the bed standing in the faraway corner behind a brown paper screen – a low, comfortably looking piece of furniture, loaded with pillows (how surprising) – and pulls some sheets out from the wardrobe next to it. "Look, I don't think it's the best time to create you some actual living space, and you really look like you needed sleep, so let's just say you'll stay here for tonight. Go take a shower, I'll make something to eat and then we'll take care of that bloody thing in your neck.

"How did you--?"

"Oh, I do notice things sometimes, B," she answers and hands me over a towel and a tee: thank God for that, I'm way too tired to face my own suitcase. I go into the bathroom, and roam between Faith's cosmetics: lots of comforting, sweet-scented things. No harsh body scrubs, no grey soap. I'm impressed.

After a long, hot shower, I decide to experiment and rub some of Faith's body milk into my skin. It's the first time I've seen this particular brand; it smells of something delicate and soft, and it has small droplets of gold in it. As I watch it glitter on my skin, and admire the overall sensation, I suddenly catch myself wondering how Faith's skin must feel if she applies it every night…

Stunned by the thought itself, I quickly put on the tee she'd given me, and exit the bathroom. I find Faith in a small kitchen just next to it, finishing a vegetable and cheese omelet. A cup of chamomile tea with a drop of milk is waiting for me. "I am so not drinking this."

"C'mon, B, give it a try," Faith smiles at me, and eventually I give up and take a sip. The tea is surprisingly good, and I drink some more of it, waiting for Faith to serve me my dinner.

"I'm kinda surprised by how homey you've become," I say, after complimenting on her cooking skills. She shrugs and eats a bit of her work, though she doesn't look actually hungry.

"Ya know, B, eventually you realize you need to quit junk an' start eating real food in order to keep yourself sexy and smooth."

"Right."

We finish our meal in silence. As I watch Faith doing the dishes, I suddenly feel a massive wave of dizziness coming over, and yawned loudly. Faith shoots me a glance and comes over, drying her hands with a piece of cloth.

" 'Kay, you, 'm gonna go take a shower, and when 'm back we're gonna fix that ugly bitch in your neck," she says and pats me on the shoulder on her way to the bathroom. I wonder whether she remembered about the towel, and slip in to bed feeling just a little bit curious. Am I to see Faith naked on our very first night together? And after I'd done that, to receive a massage from her? The thought makes my skin tingle: I couldn't say whether I'm being nervous, or rather… excited by the perspective. Still, tired as I was, I thought dizzily I'd rather have a quiet, uneventful evening…

My wish is granted.

I fall asleep even before Faith comes back.

TBC…