A/N: I can't thank you enough for all the reviews!

Xander and Anya hadn't asked Dawn where she was going, and she sure wasn't going to tell them. Tara had asked, and hadn't been satisfied with Dawn's answer that she was meeting friends at the mall, but she'd let her go anyway. Spike wasn't going to tell anyone. She met up with him a block away as he leaned against a tree across from a cemetery, smoking.

"You ready?" He gave her the once-over, suspecting she'd actually raided Buffy's closet for this little slaying party. Raided it on purpose to make sure he kept his promise to take her slaying. Dawn didn't say anything, just nodded as she patted the stake in her pocket. "Right then."

The two of them set off into the graves.

Spike's voice interrupted the quiet. "So do you think they've found her yet?"

The younger Summers looked over at the vampire as he tried to look nonchalant. She shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. Supposedly Faith's helping now." Spike raised an eyebrow at that.

"The rogue slayer?" He took a drag. "Nice."

"Yeah, if she comes back now, it'll probably be in a body bag."

They both walked on in silence for a moment until, out of the corner of her eye, Dawn saw Spike tense and she did the same, pulling out her stake.

"Three of 'em." He nodded to the left. "Comin' that way." He moved around on her left side.

"I can take them, you know." She hissed, not liking the fact that she was now relegated to backup.

He didn't turn around, speaking to her over his shoulder. "Look, I get to hit something and, with you there, can be pretty sure something won't stake me in the back while I'm at it. So it's a win-win for me, you see. If you're in front, I've got to be all wor—"

Spike couldn't get it all out before the vamps were on them, growling at the unanticipated fight in their prey. Given that this was Sunnydale, home of the slayer, they should have done more anticipating, but maybe the word was getting around that the Chosen One had gone AWOL. The first two ran straight at Spike. The third came around for Dawn with a leer. She kicked out at him, landing a solid one in his gut. That surprised him. But, after taking a step back, she knew he wouldn't be surprised again, and she lowered into a fighting stance, vaguely aware that Spike was in the middle of a good wailing on the other two.

The vamp decided on a bull rush, coming at her with superhuman speed as she ducked aside, sticking her foot out to trip him. But, instead of pratfall comedy, she got dragged down with him, rolling over in the dirt, feeling his teeth only inches from her jugular. Dawn fumbled for a good grip on her stake, elbowing him so she could raise up and plunge it down. Only to have the vamp bat it easily away so that it skittered, harmlessly and uselessly, among the gravestones.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spike look over at her and, with a little curl of his lip, finish the last vamp he was working on. "Now see, this is exactly what I was talking—"

But before he could finish, she'd pulled another stake from her boot. One that Spike hadn't seen coming, and one that the vamp under her hadn't seen coming until it was planted in his chest. With a thud she fell into the ground as the dust swirled under her, then looked back up at the blonde vampire.

"You were saying?"

"I felt it, you know. Both times."

When she found the blonde, she was pacing, jittery. Pale and thin. And, looking at her, Faith could see it now. How had she missed it before? As Faith spoke, the older slayer turned big green eyes on her, but said nothing.

"Don't ask me how, but I did." The brunette smiled a little. "Fact you're responsible for one nasty-ass bruise on my head from the first go 'round and my face plant into some meatloaf on the second." That got a little smile out of the other girl. "So next time you're gonna die, do me a favor and give me a head's up so I can scout a chair or somethin'." Now she was trying for that smile, in spite of everything.

And she got it as she saw the other girl imagining her with meatloaf as hair accessory. Buffy cocked her head a little at her.

"What?" Faith couldn't help but smile back. It would be great if it could just go on like this.

"I was just thinking...I don't know exactly where we went wrong, but it's a shame. It would've been good to not be alone." The shadow returned to her face.

"Well, you know, we never do anything by halves." She pointed up at her bruised jaw. "Exhibit A from yesterday. You keep a girl on her toes."

"You know why I did it. Who would've thought you would be so hard to provoke?" She paused for a moment, smiling a little at Faith, then squeezing her eyes shut and turning to look again at the moon. "I'm not going to have to do that this time, am I?" The green eyes shifted back down to hold Faith's. Their intensity was shocking, otherworldly. They did not need to look down to see the stake in Faith's hand because they could see the slayer battling for control in the brunette's eyes. Buffy could almost feel her own body recoiling at itself, so she knew what Faith must feel. Their proximity was difficult to bear.

But Buffy couldn't stop herself from closing that distance even more.

Faith watched the older slayer in front of her. Could almost see the caged animal in her, even as she knew Buffy wanted her to see it, wanted her to see what she needed to see so that Faith could take care of it for both of them.

But it could not be that easy.

"Yeah, I heard you callin' me this time, too. Figured what you wanted—" She continued to eye the other girl carefully. "—so I brought my bag of tricks." She twirled the stake in one hand. "But you gotta tell me why I should."

Buffy blinked. Startled by the question's obvious answer. So obvious...did it need to even be said? "Because of what I am...I deserve to die."

A long pause. And then Faith slid the stake back in her boot, nodding as if she knew she'd get that answer. "Which means you don't."

The blonde's eyes flashed at that and the shadows on her face, the angular shape of her bones, looked even more forbidding in the moonlight. She stepped forward, into Faith's personal space. "You have to! I can't live like this!"

Faith used her tongue to deflect her nervousness and stood her ground. "Don't mean to be picky, but you ain't livin' anymore." The blonde slayer was almost shaking in front of her, pupils wide and black, a hair's breadth away from lashing out. "And you can try to wail on me again if it makes you feel better, but I'm still not gonna do it." She softened a little. "Look, you've lost a lot. I know." Those words hit Buffy in the stomach. "I know, and you and I are finally both in the same place, hovering right about at nothin' to lose." She paused, looking the other girl dead in the eye. "But, close as you are, I can tell you haven't lost everything with...this. So I'm not gonna be the one that takes what's left. Not again."

The last two words were an apology, a challenge, a promise. And Buffy picked up on all of it, her anger cracking into a slow hysteria with the strain of all of it at once. When she spoke her voice was choked.

"I felt you, too, you know. That night. On the rooftop. I felt what I did." She reached out a hand, fingers finding their way under the material of the shirt to brush across the scar she'd given the other girl, one of the visible ones. The shock of cool on hot hit both of them.

And at that shock, Buffy shied back from how close they were. How close she was. She looked away, her body shivering from the feeling of that heat and the blood that provided it. Faith stepped forward, drawn in. Buffy began to panic, her eyes running over Faith's body before she forced them to look into the dark of the night instead.

"Faith, please!" The words were a hiss.

The brunette was watching her closely, eyes shadowed at first with desire, but then opening wide as they took in the hollows around the older slayer's eyes, the gauntness of her frame.

"Shit, B! You haven't— It's been how many days since—" Reaching out for Buffy's arm. The blonde shut her eyes against the blood she could feel under the skin of that hand.

Desperation. "I can't!"

"You have to!"

"I can't!" But against her will, despite the control she'd exerted so far, her face shifted, teeth elongating in the moonlight. Buffy tried to shake it off. Revert. But Faith was too close, she had waited too long already.

"You'll go insane! You're fuckin' on the edge already!"

Buffy could feel her knees weakening as Faith held the two of them close. She could feel that edge.

"I can't!"

A pause. "Let me help."

The older slayer's wild eyes shot up to meet her own, lips parted a little. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. "No, no, no, no..."

"For fuck's sake, B, I didn't ask you to take it all! But, if you don't take some right now, you'll do something worse..." A pause, quieter. "You know I can stop you."

She brought her forehead against the other girl's, choking the slayer in her down. And in that proximity, she leaned forward, touching her lips to the other girl's, feeling Buffy's groan into her mouth. And her own, answering. She reached up to take the back of Buffy's neck, holding her into that kiss, even though neither of them wanted to leave it. The desperation in their mouths! Faith raised her chin a little so that the smaller girl's mouth found its way down her neck, a trail of icy fire against her skin that made Faith's own knees weak, until she stiffened as Buffy's lips trembled over the spot in her neck that she'd found in the dream. Trembled there as Faith quivered herself with the need to run away and the need to be right there.

And then Buffy could hold out no longer and Faith felt the teeth slide in, urgent and painful.

She hoped that what she'd said about stopping had been true.