Faith went to get the newspaper from the front lawn, just as she had every day in the two weeks since the trial, and started to read it from front to back. She had been waiting for the right time to let Buffy know that Spike was no longer in the picture, but she didn't want B to be distracted if this case was still open. For all that Dawn was fond of Spike, Faith was less worried about her than she was about Buffy.

Dawn was still a kid. Whatever the Key was, whatever spell some monks had performed to give the Slayer a sister, that didn't matter. So far, the prevailing theory was that the monks were going to make Dawn out of Faith's blood, but they had to shift it over to Buffy midway once they realized that she was in prison. The end result was everyone remembering Dawn as Buffy's little sister, but with both Buffy and Faith having the instinct to protect Dawn borne from blood ties.

All of that aside, Dawn was still just a kid, and she was a kid who didn't see Spike as a threatening presence, but as an actual friend. For Dawn, Faith would have to take a tough love approach. As for Buffy… Buffy was starting to seem a bit better all around, but she was still healing from something that Faith could barely understand, and she probably never would fully heal. Faith wasn't worried that she'd done the wrong thing, not at all. But she was afraid that Buffy would take what Faith had done and that it would take her mind down a dark path.

So it was with a touch of relief that Faith turned the page and saw the article that read 'Bank Robbers Found Guilty; One Confession Key to Conviction.' Faith read the article in its entirety to be absolutely certain that this wouldn't need any more of Buffy's attention. What Faith did read, however, made her think to hold onto the article to show Buffy. She'd really made an impact on this Levinson kid, and since he'd confessed without so much as a plea deal, Faith thought he might just get that third chance he mentioned back in court.

Faith saw Dawn off to school, still wondering at the bonds of blood between the two and how they had come to be, and then headed back home to greet a hopefully-awake-by-now Buffy. Her sleep schedule had been irregular since she'd been resurrected, and Faith could never tell when Buffy would be up at dawn and when she would sleep in until noon.

By the time Faith got back, Buffy was in the kitchen, and so was Willow. "Faith!" the witch said with a warm welcome that would have been inconceivable just a few weeks ago. "How's Dawnie?"

"She's doing fine, Red," Faith said. Ever since Willow had started her self-rehabilitation, her hostility towards Faith had all but disappeared. She'd been hesitant to welcome Faith's advice at first, but that hesitance had quickly faded, and the angry young woman who had greeted Faith at Buffy's graveside wasn't even there anymore. Willow was starting to resemble the young woman that Faith had met almost three years ago, only a bit older and wiser. "How're you doing, B?"

"Not too shabby," Buffy said as she took a bite out of a piece of toast. "What's up?"

Faith laid out the newspaper, turned to the appropriate page. "Thought this might brighten your day."

Willow glanced over the paper first and split into a wide grin. "That's… This is great! Buffy, you got 'em! You went to City Hall, and you won! Only, you were with City Hall, so I guess that's not quite as impressive, and Wilkins isn't around anymore, but you won! You sent some hardened, rough-and-tumble, dangerously violent criminals to jail."

Buffy laughed. "Thanks, Will. Only less with the 'dangerously violent' and more with the 'dangerously brilliant.' Warren might actually be just as smart as you, only he chose to use his smarts for evil instead of good."

Willow's face fell a bit. "Well, let's not give me too much credit yet, okay? After all, look at where all my smarts got me in the end?"

Faith sighed and looked at Willow in the eyes. "You're missing the important thing here, Willow. It's not 'in the end' for you. You messed up, you realized it, and you're forcing yourself to do better. You're not at the end yet, and if I have anything to say about it, the end will keep its damn distance, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Willow said with a mock salute. "No ending of things today, no siree!"

Faith nodded. "Glad to hear it. Mind if I have a moment alone with you, B?"

Buffy and Willow both looked up at Faith. "Well, that wasn't disturbingly sudden at all," Buffy quipped. "Is there a particular reason why you can't share this with Willow?"

Faith forced herself not to break eye contact. "It's about some stuff you confided in me. Privately, I mean."

Buffy nodded. "Will, do you mind giving us a few minutes?"

Willow nodded. "Sure thing, Buffy. A-and if you need to talk about stuff, you can talk to me too, you know?"

Buffy smiled and put her hand over Willow's. "I know," she lied. Faith had come to know Buffy far more intimately than she had ever dreamed of, and while she was grateful that Buffy still trusted her, she was also worried that Buffy didn't trust her other friends the same way yet.

Willow, however, seemed to take Buffy's answer at face value. "Okay, then. I'll just go and make sure I've got all my books, and then I'll mosey on over to campus and make with the classes." Willow laughed a little bit. "I said 'mosey.' The last time I heard that word was the night we first met you, Faith. It feels like forever ago."

"It kind of is," Faith agreed. "Now get lost and learn how to save the world with math or whatever."

"What do you think I've been doing with all my classes ever since I met Buffy? If I read it, I think about how it might save the world. And now I'm gonna get lost so you can have your private chat."

"Thanks, Red," Faith said with a smile, and damn, but she felt it reach her eyes, and she knew that she was really, truly smiling. How weird was that?

Faith waited for Willow to leave before turning to Buffy, who had a strange look on her face. "You all right, B?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just I've never seen you smile like that, Faith. It was… You looked really beautiful. And really happy, which is more important, I think. And I'm glad that you're finding things to be happy about. It's just…"

"Freaking you out too, right? I mean, I've never felt this way before, so it must be driving you up a wall."

Buffy winced. "You're not mad?"

"Nah, B. You're five by five. And I think I might be too, and that's both really cool and really scary."

Buffy smiled at Faith. "So. You wanted to talk about something private. What's up?"

Faith sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter, her hands struggling to find a grip on anything behind her. "So, um… You've been looking better, B. And I'm really hoping you're feeling better, too. But I might've done something that you won't like. And you might think that it might keep you from getting back up to your old self, or as close as you can, you know?"

Buffy nodded, her face inscrutable. "Did you kill Spike?"

Faith hadn't expected that. "You knew?!"

Buffy took a deep breath and exhaled. "I've been wondering why he hasn't been bothering me recently, and with what you just said… Well, it wasn't hard to guess."

To Faith's eye, Buffy seemed relatively all right, but she didn't want to take any chances. "I thought you'd be pissed," Faith admitted. "You don't sound pissed, but I can't always tell what's going on inside."

Buffy chuckled of all things, stood up and put a hand on Faith's shoulder. "I'm glad you told me. To be honest, I'm a little relieved. Spike was… I was using him to feel alive, but I hated myself every time I did it. Spike might be – might have been - obsessed with me, but he couldn't feel love without a soul. And I used him, and I let him have his way with me, and it was disgusting and wrong on every level."

Buffy looked up and let out a humorless laugh. "And I kept going back to him. But now, I can't do that anymore. I kept wishing for an excuse to not go and wallow in the gutter with him, and now I have the ultimate excuse. He's dust thanks to you, Faith."

"Well, yeah," Faith said, careful about how she was going to phrase her next words, "but what I'm worried about is whether you still feel you need something to feel alive, or if you really are getting better like you look to be."

Buffy looked Faith in the eyes and smiled. It was a real smile, too, reaching up to her eyes just like Faith's own mouth had obliged earlier. "I think I am, Faith. Or I'm getting there, at least. Willow's on the mend, Xander's about to get married, those three idiots are off to jail, and I have you, Faith. B-but, I need to be clear about something. About us, Faith."

Faith nodded. "I'm listening."

"Well," Buffy said, "I know how much you care for me. I didn't want to believe it at first. I didn't believe it for a while, but I do now. You're in love with me. And I wish I could return those feelings, but I don't feel the same way. You're an incredibly important part of my life. You're more than a friend. You may even be more than family. You're maybe the one person with whom I can truly be myself, no pretending, no putting up barriers, none of that. I don't have to lie to you, ever, and I know you won't ever lie to me, and that's something I've never had with anyone before, and it's strange to have it with you, but it's there all the same."

Sighing, Buffy looked down at her feet. "Despite all that, I don't feel drawn to you. Not like you are to me. I may love you in a special way unique to the two of us, but I'm not in love with you. And I'm sorry that I can't return your feelings, Faith. I really am."

Faith took Buffy's words, endured them, treasured them, and then accepted them. Somewhere in the deepest part of her psyche, Faith had known the truth all along. But hearing it aloud… It hurt like hell, but it was also good to have that uncertainty gone for good.

Finally, Faith found the words she needed. "I get it, Buffy. But I also want you to understand something about me. You and Angel… You can't be together for whatever reason, but you both drive each other crazy, even now that you've broken up. If Angel didn't have to worry about losing his soul, if he were human, and if there was nothing in your way, you'd be at his side right away, wouldn't you? And he'd be at yours, right?"

Buffy nodded. "That's a lot of 'what-ifs,' but if somehow, the world conspired to allow us to be normal and happy together, with no strings attached, then yeah. I'd be with him if he'd have me."

Faith smiled, and dammit, but she was being coy with her grin. "Same thing for me, B. Your feelings didn't go away, and they never will. My feelings probably aren't going anywhere either. Even if we can never be together the way I want… Well, you heard what I sang, and it's about as close to the truth as I can put it. I've always been yours, and I always will be. Doesn't matter if you don't feel the same way, doesn't matter if I can't have what I want. I love you, Buffy, and nothing in the world is ever gonna change that."

Looking at Buffy's open mouth, Faith guessed that she was lost for words. Hell, Faith couldn't blame her after what she'd just said. "So, um, B," Faith said, hoping that changing the subject would make things easier, "I'm guessing that most everyone will be okay with Spike being gone, but I dunno about Dawn. I can be the bad guy here, since I did the deed. But I'm thinking that she might take it a bit better if you broke the news to her. If I told her, she'd probably run away and-"

"Get kidnapped? Again?" Buffy said with a smile. "I think you're right. I'll try to find the right time and place to tell her. What about the others?"

Faith shrugged. "Your friends, B. You should be the one."

Buffy laughed a musical sound, and Faith was taken aback, but not quite on guard. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit, Faith. You've been there for me like no one else. You've become a sister to Dawn. You've been a great friend to Tara, and you helped pull Willow back from the brink. Xander's happy to see his best friend getting better, and Anya never had anything against you in the first place. I hate to break it to you, Faith, but you're one of us now."

Faith blinked once. And then again. Then she pinched herself a few times. She wasn't dreaming. This wasn't some strange spell at work. She really was finding herself accepted by a group of people who had once hated her like nothing else.

"Need a drink?" Buffy offered, fetching a can of beer from the fridge and handing it to Faith.

Faith smiled as she took the can from Buffy, popped the seal, and chugged the can of cool liquid in a series of desperate gulps. Finally, she put the can down on the table with a satisfied 'ah' escaping her lips. "Thanks, B. And I appreciate the whole 'part of the club' thing, save for one little thing. I'm glad that you're all accepting me and everything, but I'm not ready to be part of a club that has Xander as a member. Not until he owns up to the song-and-dance demon and the people that it killed."

Faith wished she could be surprised by the sad look on Buffy's face, but alas, it was all too predictable. "Xander made a mistake-"

"No, he didn't," Faith shot back, her voice starting to rise along with her temper. "If Xander was just a kid, or if he was new to the whole slaying gig, then it'd be a mistake. But he's not a kid, and he knows better. It wasn't a mistake. It was just stupid and dangerous. Oh, and it was also lethal, B! I saw the bodies. I smelled them. Burned, smoking, charred and crisped like something on a grill."

Buffy shook her head. "Yes, he should have known better, but he didn't mean to hurt anyone. It was an accident."

"And Alan Finch wasn't?"

Buffy's face visibly paled, and Faith was glad of it. She might be head over heels for Buffy, but she wasn't going to let her live in denial. "Let's play back that evening," Faith said. "You and I were hunting vampires. A guy came at us in the dark. You tossed him to the ground. And you tried to stop me just before I staked him. I thought he was a vampire, but he wasn't, and I killed him. According to my lawyers, it was involuntary manslaughter, and you were the accessory that I refused to name, which didn't make the judge happy at all. If I hadn't been pardoned, I would've been doing extra time for covering up your role in that accident. The same accident that had you so full of guilt that you couldn't take it. Yeah, I screwed everything up, but that was my issue. I owned up to it, I confessed, and I was ready and eager to spend the rest of my life behind bars. How dare you let Xander get away with a higher body count than me just because it was an accident?!"

Faith hadn't realized that she had risen to her feet. She hadn't realized that she had backed Buffy into a chair. She hadn't realized that she'd literally been talking down to Buffy full of fury. Then she came out of her anger-induced haze and saw the terror in Buffy's hazel eyes. Faith hoped like hell that Buffy was scared of her own misguided logic and not the one pointing it out to her.

Suddenly very self-aware, Faith raised her arms off to the sides and took a step backwards. "Anyway… Yeah. Being accepted is nice. Having people to care for and about is nice. You've come a long way, B. So has Willow. Xander probably thinks he did nothing wrong since he never looked into the eyes of the people he killed. 'The demon did it,' he can tell himself. But the demon would never have been there if he hadn't called it. So until he fesses up to what he did – if he even can – then I'll be here for you, Buffy. I'll be here for Dawn and for Willow and for Tara. But so long as that boy refuses to grow up, I'll never be a 'Scooby.' No chance in hell."

With her piece finally said, Faith decided that she and Buffy both needed some time to themselves. Before Buffy could say anything to make her think twice, Faith grabbed her house keys and hurried out the door, then started to run. When in doubt, run for a while. Don't think, don't let emotion in. Just run. Not away from anything, not toward anything. Just run.

Hopefully, it would calm Faith down and help her focus, just like it always did. So Faith started running at about nine o'clock in the morning.

Finally, Faith completed her run and went back home to 1630 Revello Drive. A look up at the night sky made her swear. The monsters came out at night, so she was on the clock. "No rest for the wicked," Faith muttered to herself as she meandered over to start her patrol. "No rest for the wicked unless your name is Xander Harris."