Title: Purple Rain (The Story Formerly Known As "That Night")
Author: lilyme
Summary: Set in BtVS Season 3. Can changing one pivotal event be the beginning of something entirely unexpected? Or will things still turn out the same?
Pairing: A slayer and a Witch (OR - two people much more similar than expected)
Rating: PG-13 to R
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, nor do I own any rights to the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". They were created by Joss Whedon and belong to him, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Television, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the WB Network. Thank you all for these characters! Parts of the story line and dialogue taken from the episode "Doppelgängland". No copyright infringement intended!
Schedule: I'm planning to update this on a weekly basis. Unless I don't find the because of...what do you call this again...oh, right, "life"! ;)
Thanks to: My lovely betas Wil-Lehane- and K
Dedication: To the Buffyverse-characters and the people behind them (actors and writers)
A/N: On we go with less German, but more cuteness :) Weird that right this second, that song from chapter 13 is on tv...I swear! Weird coincidence... :P
CHAPTER FOURTEEN -- AWAKENING
Willow slowly woke up when she felt something soft tickling her face. She opened her eyes and could see barely more than brown hair. Thick, beautiful, brown hair…that currently covered an even more beautiful face.
She leaned back a bit to get a better look at the dark-haired girl and to stop her hair from tickling her. But found that she was unable to move away more than a few inches. Faith was still holding her close, almost as if she was holding onto her for dear life. And maybe she was.
The redhead was at least able to move her hands and used this opportunity to brush some of the hair out of the other girl's face. And there she was – Faith, the vampire slayer. Famous, or infamous – depending on your point of view – for her I-don't-care-what-you-think-of-me attitude, her big mouth, her sexual-aggressive nature; the brat, the bad girl, the dark one. A walking provocation.
There were few people who had been given the chance to look behind this hard, cocky facade that she was working so hard to keep up. Too few. Faith was very careful about who she let catch a glimpse of her softer side. 'Careful' being another word for 'afraid'. Letting your guard down meant making yourself vulnerable. And this was something that Faith didn't want to be.
This was just one of the many reasons for why she kept pushing people away. Most of the time.
But Willow was one of those lucky people who got to see that softer side. She could see the little girl under the hard shell. Yes, the little girl. Seeing her here like this – it made it hard to think of her as anything other than that.
Her brows were scrunched together slightly and her mouth was moving soundlessly. She was dreaming. For a second it seemed as if she might be having a nightmare, and Willow was very close to doing something about it, though she didn't know what exactly. But then the lips started to curl and she smirked lightly.
Willow smiled.
Right then she thought that was possibly the cutest thing she had ever seen. And not only because this was the first time she really noticed the light freckles that were usually buried under make-up.
Willow suddenly felt the weird urge to count those little spots. The number of freckles couldn't compete with her own, she knew that, and it was probably one of the silliest things to do, but Willow figured that it was one way to spend the time until Faith woke up.
At first, she counted them only with her eyes, but after losing count for the third time – mostly because Faith would emit some tiny emotion and she would find herself mooning at her and completely forgetting her agenda over this – she decided to use her fingers. For counting.
She moved her hand and touched the oh-so-soft skin, not managing to suppress the urge to cup Faith's face for a minute. The slayer seemed to react to her touch, moved into her hand a little, but apart from that didn't move.
Still asleep…? Willow grinned and after a while went to follow her original plan.
She started at the forehead and soon after moved on to the bridge of Faith's nose where the majority of the freckles were located. Willow was aware that her fingers probably had a ticklish effect, but, in case she was still asleep, the slayer still showed no sign of waking up.
She finally reached the tip of the nose. So far, she had counted 47 freckles. Just a few more and she would know exactly how many...
Faith's nose started twitching. Faster than the average human being could, Faith reacted, removed one of the hands that was holding Willow close and quickly covered her nose. She sneezed one tiny, soundless sneeze and put her hand back in its original place before the redhead could fall off of the couch. One relaxing sniff later, the slayer slowly opened her eyes.
"Hey," Faith grinned and nudged Willow's nose with her own, "and before you apologize, I've been awake longer than you think."
Knew it… "Who says I wanted to apologize?" Willow returned the grin. "I wanted to say 'Good morning', but..." she craned her neck to get a look at the clock on the wall over the fireplace. Faith clinging to her didn't make this task easy. Nonetheless, she could see that it was a quarter past five pm, "...that would be a lie." She settled back into the slayer's overprotective arms. "You do realize that you have to let go of me sometime, right?" she asked with a smile.
Faith pouted candidly. "Do I hafta...?"
"Can't walk around with a slayer attached to my front or back or...," Willow didn't continue her thought as her fingers traced Faith's collarbone. She didn't make eye contact with the slayer. "What would the others think?"
Faith noticed the mood switch and her heart sank. She hadn't even really thought about that yet. The rest of Team Scooby… "You gonna tell them?" she asked softly, unsure if she herself wanted to hear a positive or a negative answer to that question.
"I don't know...Maybe we should wait," Willow replied and met Faith's eyes tentatively. She was afraid of her reaction, but also of the reaction of the others. After her thing with Xander, telling them might be too soon. And Faith was a girl…not that that should be a problem, but still. And there was Oz to consider in all this. A twinge of guilt flowed through her. "What do you think?"
"Hey, whatever you want," Faith said and caressed Willow's chin with the thumb of her still bandaged hand. "Okay?"
"Okay," Willow replied relieved and snuggled closer to Faith. The slayer kissed her forehead and put her arm back around her.
They simply looked at each other for long moments, enjoying their closeness, before Willow tilted her head to out a tiny kiss on Faith's lips.
It was not much more than a brushing of their lips. But it felt so good, and Faith returned the kiss equally as softly. Softly. So very unlike her…And it was all Willow's fault. Sweet little Willow…
Never before in her life had Faith let anyone get this close to her – emotionally. And saying that this scared her a little was an understatement. As long as I don't screw things up we'll be okay, I guess...I hope. I don't want to hurt her any more. This would be a fresh start for them, and she wanted to do it right.
Willow was more worried about the reactions they would get from the others. She thought about Oz and her betrayal towards him. Not that he is around much...and even when he is... he's never really there for me...Stupid brain! You can't justify all this by blaming him...it's not right.
She broke their lip contact and pressed her forehead against Faith's. The slayer frowned a little, but remained still.
God, how can I ever look him in the eyes again without feeling like the worst criminal ever... Well, the others will maybe accept it after a while...I don't even wanna think about the things that Xander will imagine after he finds out...you just know what he'll think. And Giles will need some new glasses, because you can only clean your glasses ever so often…
She had to grin at that thought and looked at Faith who was smiling back at her, relieved. "Something funny?" the brunette asked.
"Nah. I was just thinking about Giles' glasses," she explained and got a blank expression from Faith. "You'll understand it soon enough, trust me."
"If you say so," Faith replied, trying to think of something that might be funny when it came to his specs.
But Willow moved on to the next topic and Faith thought that it was better to focus on her instead, especially since Willow was tickling her side with her finger now, maybe on purpose, maybe not. "You know what I wanna do right now?"
"Hm...," Faith pretended to seriously mull it over. She had some ideas that could be fun. Her hands were wandering over the redhead's back and she grinned naughtily. "Not sure. You have to tell me...," her left hand reached the hem of Willow's shirt and slipped under it.
Willow's breath hitched slightly and she had to close her eyes. Oh, gosh, what'd you expect, Rosenberg? Early morning slayer horniness...no, afternoon...24/7...yeah, that's it. 24/7 slayer horniness. What have I gotten myself into...? I mean, this feels nice...but I still need to...
"Not that," Willow croaked out and felt bad when she got a pout from Faith. "I, uh...," Willow blushed, "I really need to pee."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Faith shook her head, grinning. She let go off Willow and the redhead slowly sat up.
"No, I am. Stupid body."
"I like your stupid body," Faith replied with a dimpled grin. Willow actually managed to blush a little more. God, this girl really has a one-track-mind...
"But speaking of bodies...I'm kinda hungry. I haven't eaten since yesterday. You must be starved, too." A low grumble from Faith's stomach confirmed her presumption. Hungry and horny, of course. Huh. And without having gone slaying earlier...Go figure, Willow thought.
"Yeah, that'd be great," Faith said and patted her stomach, "and then you have to explain to me what I saw last night."
Willow realized that Faith had still no idea what happened yesterday. "Oh! Of course! But now I really need to...," she got up from the couch and was about to exit the living room when...
"Oh. Hey, hey, c'mere!" Faith indicated with her hand that she should come back.
"Can it wait?" Willow asked as she turned around with a pained expression on her face. She should have told Faith sooner that she needed to go somewhere. It was getting urgent.
But Faith had none of it. "No! It's really important. C'mere."
Reluctantly Willow went back to the couch. Faith tugged on her arm and forced her to kneel down. "How many did you count?" the brunette asked smirking and put her arm around Willow's neck, bringing them together nose-to-nose.
"You're mean," Willow whimpered but grinned nonetheless. "And you interrupted my counting-session."
"Your own fault."
"Huh." Willow frowned. "I guess. Well, we'll just have to repeat that some time."
"But then I get to count yours, too," Faith kissed Willow softly.
"You bet," Willow smiled and disentangled herself from Faith. "But I'm warning you right away. It will take you a couple of hours, probably."
"Don't have a problem with that." And again there was this naughty, sexy grin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Willow kissed one of the bandaged hands before she stood up again.
Faith made herself more comfortable on the couch. She gave Willow a light pat on the behind and sent her off to the bathroom. "Now go, before we have a problem in here."
Willow ran off and Faith rolled onto her back. Her hands still hurt a little from holding Willow close for so long. But somehow hurting had never felt so good.
One minute earlier
Oz made his way over to Willow's house. He thought he'd surprise her with an early return from his trip. He walked up the front steps and stopped when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
He smiled, thinking his girlfriend was bustling about the living room.
Through the big front window, he saw Willow getting up from the couch and hurrying out of the living room. Almost frowning, though his face didn't actually allow him to, he noticed that Willow was not alone when a bandaged hand shot up from behind the backrest of the couch.
The couch's back was turned towards the window so he couldn't see who exactly was lying on the couch.
Reluctantly Willow came back to the couch and the hand gently, yet resolutely pulled her into a kneeling position. Now Oz could see barely more than her head. He backed up against the wall of the house so that Willow couldn't see him but he could still look in. He knew something was up.
The unknown person – to Oz's eye it looked as if the arm belonged to a female person - put their arm around Willow's neck and drew her in close, out of Oz's line of sight.
A few seconds later, he saw Willow's smiling head reappear; his mind went blank when he saw Willow kissing the hand softly before she got up.
The hand gave her a pat on the butt and sent her out of the living room.
Oz stood paralyzed. For a couple of minutes, he stared; he wanted to see who the person was. The person…whose hand Willow had been kissing, and possibly more, though he did not have hard proof for this.
When he didn't notice any movement for several moments, he turned around and left.
On the outside he seemed calm, on the inside he was caught between hurting, resignation and anger, an emotion he barely know.
What had he just witnessed? Who was this person, with whom Willow was… And since when was this going on?
Or was he maybe reading too much into it? As much as he wanted to believe that…he had a feeling that he wasn't.
to be continued...