** See Part 1 for full disclaimers and story details

PART 10 NOTES: Thank you all for the wonderful response to Part 9. I'm really behind on replying, but I didn't want to hold up posting because I got swamped this week. I promise I'm working on them even as I hit 'post.' (vbg) Huge hugs and sincere thanks go to Lynette, beta extraordinaire. I haven't finished posting this behemoth and I throw another one her way to start wading through. Her work is never done. Any remaining mistakes are purely mine as I tend to fiddle up until the last possible moment. (g) As always, any and all feedback is appreciated.

Part Ten

Jack's warm voice filled her ear, sending little shivers down her skin. His message was as unexpected as it was welcome. Faith's fingers curled around the cell phone, wishing it was his hand instead. The beep at the end of the voicemail shattered the illusion and her eyes flew open. She saved the message with one quick punch of the number '7' and shoved down the embarrassment trying to claw its way up her chest. So what if she got all moon-eyed over a stupid voicemail? She was in love and going to be married in just a couple of months. She'd get used to the feeling eventually. Probably somewhere around her golden anniversary.

Hurriedly, she glanced at the small readout. 4:45. She grinned as she hit the speed dial. There was just enough time to call before he went to blackout. Talk about perfect timing. She and Buffy had been surveilling Sparks's hidey-hole all day, looking for weaknesses, but the sun was starting to dip below the high ridgeline of the Rockies and they'd decided to go to a more secure location to plan their attack. Between the night before and the hours spent observing today, they had more than enough intel to decide what to do. It was too well defended to just rush in with only the two of them without some idea of a plan. He seemed to have vampire flunkies crawling out of the dark-painted woodwork. A daylight rush was their best option and even then it was going to be tough.

The quiet ringing as her phone dialed broke her train of thought and she pushed the vampires out of her mind. She didn't want them sullying her short time with her fiance. But his expected greeting didn't happen. The phone continued to ring until the base operator recording interrupted to tell her the party she was trying to reach was not available. Would she like to leave a message?

No, damn it, she didn't want to leave a message. But she pressed the correct number anyway and was soon directed to Jack's official voice mail. Before she could figure out what she wanted to say her cell buzzed in her hand, startling her just the slightest bit. She glanced at the readout and quickly hit the button to end her call and change over to the incoming one. "Hey. I thought I'd missed you."

"You nearly did." Jack's voice had an out of breath quality she only heard during rare occasions and the sound sent a tiny flutter down deep in her abdomen. "I was trapped in a briefing until a minute ago. People need to embrace the joy of bullet points."

She giggled, feeling his answering smile even across the cell transmission. "Everything else going okay?"

A painful clatter came from the speaker and she winced her ear away. She didn't know what he'd dropped, but it sure hadn't sounded like a stapler. "Yeah, just a run of the mill thing. Nothing special. I don't even know why they called us in for this one. I'd rather be at home waiting for you to come back to me."

"You and me both, Jack. I miss you already." And vampires merely enjoyed drinking blood and causing mayhem. She physically ached from the lack of his presence. Her chest held a lump of lead that made breathing a chore she pushed though. She'd felt it before when they'd been separated because of his extended exercises, but never to such a painful degree. She didn't want to acknowledge it, yet it was different with her leaving him instead of the other way around. He disappeared into the bowels of the Mountain where she could be near him at least by sheer proximity. In Denver, she was far enough away to feel the distance in her soul. "What are the chances of you having new bruises when I get home?" She didn't bother to mention the strange burns and lacerations he couldn't talk and she didn't ask about.

"Pretty slim. Yours are a whole lot higher. Tell me you won't take any unnecessary chances." Concern filled every word of his hushed order, sliding through her to fill the emptiness just a little.

She noted he didn't ask her to not take any, just to make sure they were the right ones. If she ever saw Whistler again, she'd actually apologize for giving him so much crap the last time she'd seen the annoying little demon. He'd sent her to Jack. No other man could understand her so well or be willing to let her go into danger. "We won't take any unnecessary chances. Hopefully I'll be home tomorrow night." She didn't know who was the more comforted by the thought. Each of them in their own way needed the other.

The sound of muffled speaking came through his pause and she heard him sigh. "I'm sorry, but I have to go, babe. I love you. Be careful."

"You, too. I'll see you soon." Neither said goodbye, a habit she wasn't sure who had started yet both of them followed. She closed the phone with a quiet snap and shoved it into her pocket. She allowed herself one more moment to hold his words close to her heart then secured them deep inside. It was time to get to work.

Faith caught sight of the familiar bobbing blonde ponytail as she neared her car. They'd left it parked a good distance away from Sparks's headquarters, preferring to walk in the cold than give his people something new to wonder about. Her breath made tiny puffs of condensation in the air and she blew out a thin stream of air just to watch it float away. She wasn't crazy about cold weather, but it did bring back what few good memories she did have of growing up in New England.

"I think it's Starbucks time," Buffy said as she drew up beside the other woman. The tip of B's nose was pink and her cheeks flushed a warm red. Whereas Faith had grown up with the cold, Buffy was a southern California girl through and through and had no qualms about letting everyone know it.

Smiling at her friend's exaggerated shiver, she flipped open the passenger lock before moving around to do to the same to hers. The fob lock had long ago died, leaving her old school style. "Come on. I'll buy the first round."

"Good. It'll take at least three before I get feeling back into my body."

She chuckled at the disgruntled tone, completely unsympathetic to Buffy plight. The normal Colorado cold winter couldn't hurt a slayer any more than a spring rainstorm could and they both knew it. It would take temperatures of a far more punishing nature to damage their thick hides. As long as they packed their bodies with calories on a regular basis, their metabolism would keep them perfectly safe. Sugar filled coffee would work just as well as food. It was the calories that counted.

"You know you could have moved to Hawaii instead," Buffy said, blowing on her hands around the words. "I've heard the winters there are just as nice as the summers. But no, you had to go and choose Colorado which has even longer winters than Cleveland."

"But if I'd moved to Hawaii what would you have to bitch about?" There was no need to remind her friend the only reason she'd moved at all was because of Jack. At the thought, warmth puddled in her chest and the corners of her lips tipped upward. "Admit it, it's warmer here than back at your place." She miraculously spotted an empty parking stall directly in front of the coffee shop and headed for it like a bullet. Narrowly beating out a sparkling clean white BMW SUV, she grinned in triumph. "How's that for timing, huh?" Buffy merely shook her head and climbed out of the car, but Faith noticed her friend's frown trying to tug just the tiniest bit upwards.

Entering the Starbucks felt more like what entering Walmart on Black Friday would be, a fate Faith fervently prayed she would never experience. "Apparently everyone else has the same idea we did. Starbucks, the fireplace for the trendies."

She nodded in agreement with Buffy and pointed out a couple tucked away at one of the small tables in corner. "Go grab their seats. I'll wade through the line." With only a nod in acknowledgment, the tiny blonde woman disappeared into the congestion.

Scanning the cheerfully packed crowd around her, Faith tried to remember the last time she'd had that feeling of secure obliviousness. After a long moment, she realized she'd never had it. Her childhood had not been Sesame Street and F.A.O Schwartz, more like Carrie and Dysfunctional Families 'R Us. But, she decided as she crept ever closer to the register, if she was honest with herself she wasn't sure she'd go back and change it, even if the PTBs gave her the chance. Her seriously whacked upbringing had given her a sense of self-reliance, an independence she'd needed as a slayer. If she'd had a normal family-whatever people considered normal these days-she probably would have been killed that first year. No, she'd take her messed up childhood, her bumps, scars and wrong decisions. Mistakes and all, she was a better person, a better slayer, for it.

After what seemed forever, she weaved her way through the tables to the corner. The drinks were a comfortable heat against her palms, warming the residual chill that simply didn't want to let go. "I don't see any bodies littering the floor. I take it you didn't have to resort to violence?"

"Nah. I frightened the hordes off," B said, California sunny good looks laughingly contradicting her words. She took a careful sip of her caramel latte and sighed in appreciation. "Thanks."

Faith saluted her with her own peppermint mocha and drank as well. "So, initial thoughts?" Just like that they snapped fully into slayer mode.

"We can't go in at night. There are just too many of them even with two of us."

She silently agreed. At least twenty different vampire flunkies had flitted to and fro around Sparks's building over the hours they'd watched. They were good, but they weren't invincible. "Do we want to call in for help? Bring in one of the others?"

Buffy mulled the thought for so long Faith was almost surprised to not see smoke puffing out of her ears. Finally, she shook her head. "No. I don't think we can afford to wait that long. We need to go in tomorrow morning. Something's telling me to move on this now."

"Yeah, I hear you," she said quietly. They'd both learned the hard way to not ignore those pushes, no matter how absurd they felt at the time. They each had scars as remembrances, not all of them the physical kind. "Dawn comes pretty early here, but later is better. The mountains tend to eat direct sunlight when you're not expecting it. And we'll need all of it we can get."

For the next hour they plotted and planned, discarded and then finally agreed upon what Faith could only hope was a plan that would end in success. She was too experienced to think for even a breath they'd come out of it totally unscathed. She'd call it a win if they could both simply walk away, even with the other's help. After finishing their third coffees apiece, they headed back to the room they'd rented and crashed. Faith lay in the dark silence for a few minutes, listening to Buffy's breathing even out. Her fellow slayer had always been more adept at turning it off than she was. Once she'd envied the ability, but she'd long ago learned there were advantages to lying still in the darkness. Her brain focused, tightened down to laser accuracy without the distractions of the world calling to her. She used it now to prepare for the coming day. It had been months since her last real action as a slayer. It had been Cleveland and the uber-violent racgang that had sent her wandering down an empty street and straight into her future. And here I am again, she thought into the quiet of the room, staring blindly toward the ceiling. Let's make this one count for the good guys.

With that last encouraging thought, she shut down her brain, closed her eyes and slept.

cont.