Big thanks to the people who are still reviewing, this is proving to be a long episode eh?


Kennedy started to bite her nails as she watched the outside door to the basement, but her nails were already as short as was possible and so she was just nibbling on skin. It was a stupid nervous habit anyway, and one she hadn't indulged in since her pre-teens.

She didn't remember feeling as nervous as this since her pre-teens.

She'd never told someone she was in love with them before, and now she really wished she'd had the revelation while in Willow's arms instead of Buffy's. That way she would have said it spontaneously, it would have come out sounding more sincere, more romantic and it would have saved her this pre-declaration angst.

"Okay, here goes," she muttered to herself, but didn't move from the bench.

She knew Willow was definitely inside the basement, the low rumble of the washing machine could be heard coming through the long narrow ground level windows. This was silly; she wasn't even planning on making the big statement yet. All she wanted to do was ask Willow out on a date! They'd been together for months now, suggesting a quiet drink at Barnies so they could talk really shouldn't have been this hard.

'Maybe it's so hard because it's not meant to be,' a little voice inside her head asked. 'Maybe that's why it was easier to kiss Buffy this morning than it is to go talk with your girlfriend.'

"And maybe I need to go get this over with, before I start listening to myself," she surmised, wiping her palms on her shorts.

She saw Faith coming out of the kitchen. Obviously Alex's visit wasn't to do with the runaway slayer after all – Kennedy had heard the sirens, watched Buffy and Faith's heated exchange from afar, but had been to on edge with her own issues to go see what was going on.

She had hardly spoken to Faith since she'd arrived, not even said hello really. She thought about calling over now to ask the unflappable slayer how she remained so calm around these people all the time. Even this morning, standing bare naked in the kitchen and with a bunch of pervy cadets gawping her – she'd looked in total control.

Faith stood just outside the door for a second, looking this way and that, and Kennedy saw her face. All thoughts of asking for advice swiftly fled. All thoughts of willingly being in the same zip code as Faith also fled. The girl looked mad. Kennedy stayed quiet and just watched her elder stomp away.

Whew, lucky escape! Speaking to Willow suddenly didn't seem as scary as sitting here like a duck waiting for Faith to come and have a pop.

The outside entrance to the basement was on the far side of the house and Kennedy could see into Giles office as she approached. The Watcher was on the phone, sitting at his desk. His large dark green leather chair with the high wings was turned to the side and she could see his profile as he spoke. His conversation floated through the open window and what she heard made her smile.

Giles was talking to a woman by the sounds of it, and by talking, she meant flirting.

'Life in the old dog yet,' she thought, as she took a deep breath and opened the basement door.

"Hello." She called into the dimly lit room.

It was mostly full of empty boxes and packing crates from what Giles had shipped over from England and what the girls had brought with them. Plenty of junk had already been down here when they moved in and more had accumulated in the past couple of months.

It was loud, much louder than what she had assumed from outside. The washer and the drier were battling with each other to see who could make the most noise, and Willow had found a little portable radio, tuned to a country station.

Rounding a pillar with a bright yellow, half inflated dinghy strapped to it, she saw Willow – ironing a pair of Kennedy's good pants and humming along to the music.

Kennedy smiled, pleased that her worse nightmare hadn't just come true – namely finding Oz down here keeping Willow company while she washed his clothes. Now the worst hadn't come to pass, she felt easier.

"Willow."

Willow heard this time and turned around quick to see who it was. "Oh you startled me" she squeaked. "I forgot that door was even there. What are you doing down here? I thought you were busy with the cadets." She was talking really quickly.

Kennedy walked over to the laundry corner and turned down the radio a little. "All done. I said I'd go grab a burger with Rona and Vi, but first I wanted to ask you something."

"Oh, what?" Willow went back to what she was doing.

"Why's it so loud in here?" Kennedy asked, stalling for… well, she didn't know what for, but she knew she was doing it.

"Generator." Willow pointed to a dusty, reverberating thing in the far corner. "We have a power problem."

"Oh. Are you okay doing all this?" Kennedy looked at the washer then the drier, both were ancient models that had been there when they arrived, and they took their time doing their jobs. A pile of clothes – both hers and Willow's – were waiting for their go in the washer and an even bigger pile was still waiting to be ironed.

"Yep," Willow assured her, nodding. "It's nice, calming. Was that all you wanted to ask me?"

"Do you want me to stay and help? Vi and Rona can always go into Boudenver without me?" Kennedy offered.

"It's okay, you go and enjoy yourself," Willow said brightly. Looking up sharply she suddenly asked, "Oh, unless you meant, like, you wanna have the…"

"No! No, that's not what I meant, I promise," Kennedy quickly reassured her, not wanting to have that argument again. "I just meant help with the getting our clothes clean."

"Well then no, it's not really a two person job," Willow shrugged. "Although maybe when you get back from your burger you can carry it all up to Faith's bedroom for me. You can probably do it in half as many trips."

"Sure." Kennedy nodded. "Will, there was something else I wanted to ask you."

"I'm listening," Willow said, but she didn't look up from sliding the black pants onto a hanger.

"I know we don't go on dates much, at least not since we left LA." Kennedy tried not to fidget as she spoke. "Everything always seems so hectic all the time and with patrolling six nights out of every seven I haven't been the most thrilling girlfriend just lately…"

Willow shrugged. "It's okay, I understand. Buffy had the same problem in high school, and its not like we haven't been on any dates recently, we went for that picnic last week?"

"Yeah, and it was nice – very nice – but one date in a couple of months isn't good enough. And we're obviously suffering for it," Kennedy said quietly but clearly, looking Willow dead in the eye.

Willow flinched slightly and looked down at the ironing board. "It's just been a weird few days," she muttered.

"Well let's draw a line under it." Suggested Kennedy, taking Willow's hand where it rested on the brightly patterned board. "Come out with me tonight? Nothing fancy, just a quiet drink at Barnies, just the two of us, to talk… please?"

Willow didn't answer right away, Kennedy's hearted started sinking, thinking it was already too late.

"Yeah okay," Willow's resigned voice didn't do much to reassure Kennedy, but then she squeezed slayer's hand firmly and gave her a smile. "A drink and some us time sounds good."

"Great, is half seven okay? That way we'll have the whole evening to ourselves." Willow nodded and Kennedy leaned in to kiss her quickly on the lips. There was a basket of neatly ironed clothes beside them and Kennedy grabbed it. "I'll take these now."

"Thanks sweetie."

Willow smiled until Kennedy left the basement, this time going up the stairs to the kitchen. As soon as the door closed again the smile dropped, in fact her whole face did.

The date idea was nice and all, but if Kennedy started being all nice to her, the guilt was going to become unbearable. Willow at least wanted a few days of Kennedy continuing to be a brat so that she could justify her terrible actions to herself a little better.

And what exactly did Kennedy want to speak so seriously about anyway?


Faith stomped across the lawn towards the woods with half a mind to just keep going. Her and Buffy weren't going anywhere, no one else wanted her here, and the locals were all asses, so what exactly was the point of sticking around?

There was a gap in the long hedge she was walking by, through it her eye caught a glimpse of one reason to stay around – one reason to stay around tonight anyway. He was a nice guy, he had a hell of a lot of stamina and she already knew he liked her – enough to tell Buffy they were going out that night.

Fine, if he was already telling people he could handle her, who was she to turn down a little fun.

She slipped through the gap in the hedge and Robin spotted her immediately. "Faith," he smiled warmly.

There were three girls in the field with him, none of them could be older than sixteen, and they were all going at thin air freestyle with a mixture of weapons. Or they had been. As soon as she appeared, they all stopped and pinged to attention.

"Whoa, what's this about?" she asked Robin, eyeing the girls suspiciously.

Robin grinned. "They're the first of the resident slayers and I think they've heard of you."

"Yeah, well I ain't no one special, make 'em stop eyeballing me." It was creepy, the way they were all looking at her, a blend of awe and fear on their little fresh faces.

Robin shrugged his shoulders. "Somehow I don't think they'll listen to me."

Faith dug deep within herself, trying to find whatever she'd discovered inside that had given her the strength to play leader for a while back in Sunnydale.

"Okay chicas let's get the intros over with. I'm Faith, but I'm guessing you know that already. And you guys are…" She pointed at a girl with really black hair.

"Miranda," came the almost inaudible response.

She pointed at the next girl in line, the one with short reddish hair.

"Cici."

"With a name like that I bet you and B get along great," Faith smirked at her and pointed to the last girl.

"Alison." She was the only one to look Faith dead in the eye, a smirk of her own showing through, although there was a healthy amount of admiration there too.

"Okay, now we all know each other, get your butts back training." She snapped at them.

Alison started to swing her battle axe again and Cici made some tentative thrusts with her spear. Miranda continued to stare at Faith, starry-eyed, a slight smile on her face as her broad sword hung limp in her hands.

Faith glared at her. "You speak English right?"

"Oh sorry, yes." Miranda mumbled, and started swinging the sword, nearly taking Cici's ear off.

"And the fate of the whole world could depend on her some day," Faith muttered.

"It's only been a few months; I think most of them are still finding their feet." Robin grinned. "So, are we still on for pizza tonight?"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"Don't worry I'm ain't bailing on ya." Even though she didn't remember making the arrangements in the first place. "It's just, there's this disco thing at the local bar and everyone's going; and I was wondering if you wanted to check that out instead. It's just… it's my first night back with the fam—" she enthused with full on sarcastic emphasis "—and I kinda feel I should try and be part of the gang. I'm pretty sure it'll blow up in my face in the first hour but…" she shrugged.

"At least you'll have tried," he finished for her. "That's fine with me Faith."

Somehow she'd known he would approve.


The film was half over. The popcorn they'd shared was gone, the big greasy tub now on the floor between their seats, when Dawn took a deep shaky breath and slowly slid her hand across the armrests.

Reece didn't even flinch as her fingertips timidly touched the back of his warm hand and she had to stop herself from doing anything as lame as looking to see if he'd even noticed.

She missed at least three minutes of fast paced dialogue as she counted her heartbeats, the pounding in her head making her feel dizzy as she forced her hand to relax over Reece's; and then, she nearly pulled it away again in shock as he turned his hand to hold hers, casually entwining their fingers.

She sighed as quietly as possible, 'Totally worth all the nervous energy!'


Buffy stopped just outside the living room. Frozen in something like fear, she whispered, "Did I just say date?"

Closing her eyes, she rubbed her forehead in alarm. "I did, I said date!"

What had possessed her to say, of all things, that?

Okay she knew it was the half-formed – half baked – plan that was unfurling at the back of her seething, jealous brain that had pushed those words out of her mouth.

'Now what did I do?' she wondered as she went up the front stairs, mindful of the missing step. 'The words are out there. If I go back into the kitchen and tell Alex I made a mistake I'll just embarrass the both of us.'

She'd never meant for Alex to be her revenge date. In truth she hadn't had anyone in mind when the evil plan had started brewing, just a faceless shadowy figure that was, obviously, better than Faith in every possible way. Alex would have been the last person she chose though, and not simply because she wasn't attracted to him, but because he always seemed like such a big softy – like a giant bearded Care bear – despite his profession, and using him like that just seemed cruel.

"Should have thought of that before I blurted the word date out." She sank down on the edge of her bed.

It was all very well being wise after the event, wasn't it? But it didn't matter how wise she felt now, she still had to find something date-worthy for tonight from her paltry collection of outfits. She did have a few nice clothes now – short skirts, skimpy tops, that kind of thing – but they'd been bought to be worn for Faith, not Alex.

As she sat there morosely mulling it over, she figured she had two options: she could flesh out her half-baked plan and embrace it, or she could fake an illness and stay home.

If she faked an illness and stayed home, everyone would know that was what she was doing – everyone, but mostly Faith. Everyone else might think she was doing the honourable thing – which would be the case – Faith would think she was chickening out, and would also know for sure that Buffy had only said it in the first place because she was jealous.

She bit her lip, tapped her foot on the carpet, fidgeted uncomfortably and then went to her closet.

She'd already had her passport to Slutville stamped earlier in the day; she might as well go ahead and take the citizenship test.

And Alex was a nice guy. Tall, muscle-y, probably handsome underneath all that hair… she wrinkled her nose a little. Beards just didn't do it for her. Did that make her shallow? It was personality that counted, right? So to dismiss someone on facial hair alone had to be pretty shallow.

Tonight she would learn to love it, well, like it anyway, and tomorrow she would have grown as a person, which meant that something good would have come from this little charade.

And if she and Faith were truly over, then getting back on the dating horse – even with a guy she was pretty sure would never be more than a friend – was not a bad thing. It was a good thing, a moving on with a smile thing, and a thing she should have done a good few months ago.

She wouldn't have been feeling so bad, she decided, as she went to her little en suite bathroom and started to run a bath, if Faith had at least wanted to talk about them, but she'd made no effort to at all – not last night and not today.

Buffy knew she hadn't made it easy, but she hadn't made it easy on purpose! Faith was the one who kept pushing her away the more Buffy tried to pull them together. She'd really hoped that if she backed off, Faith would care enough to try and fix them herself – or at least want to talk about fixing them!

Instead, she'd made plans to go out with Robin as soon as he arrived; and that was even worse than coming on to her little sister and trying to seduce her parole officer… hang on, maybe not worse, they were all pretty bad and gave Buffy the message loud and clear.

Faith wasn't even bothering to confront her about arranging a date with Alex; that showed just how casual she felt about them. Buffy had really come to believe that that had just been an act back in Sunnydale – now she realised that she'd just been fooling herself all along.

And the strangest thing? She wasn't even surprised that Faith was acting this way. The only surprising thing was that Buffy had really thought that she might not act this way. That this time something beautiful would come of the connection they shared, instead of the usual bitterness and bloodshed.

"And then the ozone layer will grow back and vampires will lead anti-violence rallies," she muttered to herself as she undressed and got in the tub of hot water.

Maybe she was being too harsh on Faith. After all, the other woman had never promised her anything. In fact she'd made a big point of not promising her anything. Going so far as to say she didn't even know if she'd stick around after her release. Yet here she was, a week later than she was supposed to be, maybe, but here all the same. And perhaps that was enough.

The idea of the two of them having a relationship was laughable anyway, so maybe they were better off just giving up right now. Being housemates was going to be challenge enough without adding more pressure to it. Or maybe Buffy could adopt Faith's casual attitude and they could just be housemates who had sex occasionally, or a lot, Buffy was easy.

At least she certainly seemed to be today.

Groaning at the confused mess of her mind, she sank down beneath the water, trying to wash it all away.


It was only when everyone else was busy getting ready for the Deputy's disco that Faith realised she still hadn't had a shower, and she didn't have anything to wear. This made her sit up in front of the television – there was nothing on worth watching anyway – while she tried to decide what to do.

She couldn't go out stinkin' and there was no way in hell she was going on a date wearing B's cutesy sweats; not even on a date with Wood who was about as interesting to her right now as the television.

Standing up, she wondered who to hit up for some clothes.

Giles was the physically closest person – he was getting ready in his own bedroom which was on the first floor next to his office. She didn't want to be stuck wearing tweed though, so he was out as a donor.

Dawn's stuff would fit her, and she wasn't the worst dresser in the world – the girl actually had some style – but she had a lot of ground to make up with Buffy's little sis and borrowing her clothes without asking wasn't a good way to start.

Most of Willow and Kennedy's clothes were still waiting to be washed.

Faith smiled as she realised there was only one person left to ask.

Turning the television off with the remote, she bounded up the front stairs. It took her a minute of wandering around the gloomy upper hall, getting more confused with every bend in the corridor before she finally felt like she was outside the right door.

She knocked gently, and then a little harder. There was no answer. Buffy had probably finished getting ready ages ago and was downstairs in the kitchen. Getting in, getting a shower and getting some half decent clothes was Faith's priority now, and if she could do it all before Buffy realised that would be great.

Opening the door, Faith stood on the threshold as she looked around, details from the night before rushing back to her. The bed was made now, and her own clothes were no longer on the floor or hanging from plants around the room. She couldn't see them anywhere, not that she cared.

Closing the door she came through, she spotted the door to the bathroom – the one she'd left through earlier, giving Dawn one hell of a surprise – and then went to the third door in the room.

"Be a closet!" she muttered to herself as she pulled open the door.

A rack of clothes greeted her. Not nearly as much choice as she expected, but most things looked brand new. She grabbed the sexiest stuff she could spot – a blue denim mini skirt and a white halter neck number – and closed the door again. Buffy would never even know she'd been there, well not until she saw Faith wearing her stuff anyway. Faith grinned at the thought.

She'd already decided to take her shower in the main bathroom, not wanting to push her luck in Buffy's personal space too much, but she still needed to grab underwear first. She could forego a bra – the backless top pretty much called for it anyway – but no panties with a skirt as short as this one was going to be on her? There was no way Robin was getting that lucky.

Now if B had been the one who'd asked her out – it probably would have been weird and awkward. Faith didn't usually date; she just went out and hooked up with whoever she chose – but that aside, she wouldn't have had to think twice about forgoing the panties too.

She was getting horny just thinking about it, or maybe it was that she was routing around in Buffy's underwear drawer now – her hands fumbling with both sexy thongs and old lady panties in the messy space as she tried to find a pair she liked.

"Okay, you have thirty seconds to come up with an explanation that won't make me kick your ass into next week."

Faith spun around at the voice right behind her, her hands full of Buffy's underwear. "I… I can explain."

Buffy stood there, wrapped in a fluffy red bathrobe, her arms firmly crossed as she glared at Faith. "And you now have twenty seconds to do it in."

"That wasn't ten seconds," Faith protested, her arms fell to her sides and she forgot she had fists full of Buffy's panties.

"Okay," Buffy conceded, "but it is now, more even, so start getting 'splainy before I…"

"I wanted to steal some of your underwear," Faith shrugged.

It was the truth after all, and Buffy had emerged from a steam-filled bathroom in just a robe. If she decided to try and hand out an ass-whuppin', Faith would be forced to defend herself and the robe was bound to loosen up some, the belt didn't look expertly knotted, maybe it would even fall open altogether.

"To go with my clothes you're stealing?" Buffy spotted them hanging over Faith's arm.

Faith looked at them, there didn't seem a lot of point lying, and she wasn't going to give Buffy the chance to say no. "No, I'm just borrowing the clothes."

Buffy shook her head, as if dismissing the subject altogether and went to sit at her vanity table. Faith stuffed all the underwear back in the drawer except a pair of plain black bikini briefs.

"Isn't it traditionally my dirty underwear you stalker types like?" Buffy asked suddenly, surprising a chuckle from Faith.

"Well I'd wait around for the ones you're wearing, except you're not, are you?" Faith teased, sitting on the end of the bed to watch Buffy in the mirror.

"No, I'm not…" Buffy met her eyes coyly in the mirror and held them for a beat. "Because I just had a bath! Do you wear stuff in the bath?"

Faith thought back to one particular bath she'd taken; it seemed such a long time ago now. "Once upon a time I wore a great big smile."

From the look on Buffy's face, she didn't get it. Not that there was any reason she would, and Faith wasn't going to enlighten her.

She watched Buffy quietly now and if it bothered the other slayer, she wasn't showing it as she deftly applied product after product, a little of everything, but nothing overdone. She was really making an effort tonight, meaning she must really like the hairy cop dude. It weighed on Faith's mind, souring everything she thought about saying. Light conversation, like the kind she wanted to make to try and ease the tension between them, wouldn't come when her lips just wanted to blurt accusations ranging from 'how dare you pretend to love me?' to 'how can you think being with that dude is better than sex like we had last night?'.

Neither seemed appropriate small talk, so she kept quiet and just watched.

Eventually Buffy stood again, holding the robe together tightly with one hand even though it was still cinched closed by the belt. "Do you want to take a shower?"

The direct proposition caught Faith off-guard and she stood up too, "With you, now?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, "Yes Faith, I just spent thirty minutes creating this work of art that is my face, and now I want to go scrub your back so it can all wash off again."

"Well, B, if you wanted to scrub my back so much, why didn't you suggest having a shower before you put your make up on?" Faith asked, refusing to be cowed by Buffy's patronizing sarcasm.

Buffy stared at her. "How can you do that?"

"Do what?"

Buffy shook her head, breaking eye contact. "Never mind. I'm going to get dressed now, so you can either go through that door or that door." She flicked her fingers between the two doors. "And if you go through that one, Robin will probably thank you for it. There's shampoo and shower gel on the shelf and clean towels in the cupboard… and don't put cigarette burns in my clothes, I haven't even worn them yet."

Seeing as she still didn't have any cigarettes, Buffy had nothing to worry about. Faith wasn't feeling the cravings yet, she'd had to go a few days without more than once in Stockton, but Buffy mentioning it made her want one. She pushed it to the back of her mind.

"Thanks, I appreciate the loan." Faith said, walking into the bathroom.

"And no fishing my panties out of the laundry basket!" Buffy called through as the door shut.

Faith chuckled as she started to strip.