Xander looked around the bedroom feeling slightly out of place. It was Buffy's bedroom and he had been here several times in his youth not in way he sometimes wanted to, but one can't have everything in life. It looked like it hadn't changed much since he had left as he looked around spotting a picture by the bedside table. It was a picture of the three of them. Buffy, Willow and himself on some sunny day. He forgets when. The original three. Xander sighed looking at it and setting it down. The room might have changed but it was clear that the people in the picture had all changed. He heard a noise and turned to see Willow.

"Hi." He said before looking around rather awkwardly. "I was just passing. Buffy and Faith have gone out in a little patrol aka catch up."

"Good," Willow nodded.

"So," he said after a long moment of silence. "How's- uh, how's it going?"

Willow's large eyes looked at him from beneath thick lashes. She shrugged again. "Okay."

"Good," he said. "That's good. Okay is good."

"I guess."

Xander decided not to question that instead finding the floor interesting. Willow frowned looking at the appearance at her former best friend. Naturally, he was different physically to the person she had grown up with, but it wasn't the physical changes she noted in him. It used to be she could read him like a book. She used to get playfully teased by Buffy about how she always monitored Xander's moods, his health, his blood pressure. But now it felt like she was talking to a complete stranger.

"So… I see you're a mountain guide now," Xander looked at her in a slight confusion and Willow started talking to explain. "I… hacked into some files. I've seen some pictures of you from various climbs… pictures of you and Faith."

Xander nodded. "We are still in the early stages low level guides. It's been slow progress, but we are getting there not much else to do Alaska but climb up mountains, so it made sense from that point of view." He could imagine Faith being mad at him for underplaying it. Climbing had given him focus and purpose. It t is a tough, demanding route, but worth all the blood, sweat and tears as it was a rewarding progress. To play it off so casually seemed unfair to all he had learnt and experienced.

Willow nodded at that. Her mind briefly took her to what she had found online. Pictures of him and Faith on top of various mountains. Both smiling and looking carefree. Both together. Always together. It made her feel uneasy even though she knew that Xander was in no way hers and had not been hers for a long time. "You looked… happy." Willow commented.

"We are," he replied.

"You should not be here Xander," Willow warned him. "It's not safe here. This is serious, worse than we have ever faced."

"Really?" Xander shrugged and looked around. "I tap out and what the whole world falls apart?"

"This is real!" She insisted.

"Felt pretty real up there." Xander told her.

XXXXXXXXXX

Faith landed hard against the wall.

"You're big," she commented looking at her attacker who merely smiled evilly at her. Faith grinned back sweetly before lashing out her foot and kicking him not too softly in the groin. The tall vampire howled in agony as he fell to knees. "Had bigger." Faith grunted getting back to her feet and staking the vampire as she moved past him without breaking a stride.

Faith quickly moved over to where Xander was struggling with a vampire on the ground. She slammed a stake down and the vampire cried out as he turned to dust. "Having fun?" Faith asked Xander helping him to his feet.

"Oh yeah lots of fun!" Xander said looking at her slightly breathless. "Nothing like rolling around in the mud with some ugly vampire who ate way too much chilli for lunch!" Faith paid his complaining no mind handing him his crossbow that he had lost in the struggle. She picked up her axe she had dropped earlier.

"Come on, looks like they found the burial site!" Faith gestured up ahead to where four vampires where frantically digging. Xander nodded and they took off deeper into the coal mine. They had gotten wind of a posse of vampires who were in the area looking for some ancient scroll or text to do whatever with.

Their leader Morgan turned to see the slayer and her sidekick getting closer to him. Morgan a powerfully built vampire sired when the Scottish and Irish settlers led by Miles Macdonell formally take possession of the Red River Colony back in 1812 cursed their very being. Signalling to rest of his posse to get them while he continued to dig. He was close he knew it. The scrolls were just beneath his fingertips and then after performing the ritual he would curse the sky into an ever-lasting darkness. The slayer and her pest would not stop him.

A skinny, fair hair vampire was the first one to reach Xander. He simply fired a bolt into the vampire who burst into ash. But the second vampire ran into the dust roaring at Xander who not having time to reload swung the crossbow at the vampire's head. It broke in two, but he was not fazed. Xander quickly found himself having to deal with a larger opponent than he would have liked.

Faith took a swipe with her axe at the vampire in front of her, slicing a shallow gash in its chest. It roared and delivered a fierce backhand to her. Faith lost her grip on her axe and it went down to the ground. Shaking off the cobwebs Faith took a boxer's stance, using her speed to her advantage. She easily dodged the slow swipes of her rival and gave him a spin kick that caused him to fall to the ground crying out. Grabbing her trusty stake from her belt she plunged the stake into the vampires chest and watched with satisfaction as the vampire erupted into dust. She turned to see Xander trying to dodge and weave his opponent's swings but winced every time he was hit. Faith turned back to face Morgan who was there chuckling walking towards her waving the scrolls in one hand. A small dirt covered box lay opened behind him.

"It's cost me much this." Morgan said reflecting on all he had lost in his quest for the scrolls as he tucked them into his back pocket. It was a journey that involved exploring the remote parts of six continents. One that had cost him his sire and his standing within the vampire community but now he would be restored to the stuff of legends. "But I knew if I was patient I would be rewarded and now I get to dine on slayer's blood to toast my success."

Not wanting to let him get away and hoping her toy boy could handle himself a little while longer Faith flung a stake straight at his heart. But Morgan's reflexes were too finely honed and quick for him as he grabbed the stake before it entered him. He thew it back at her and she rolled to the ground before launching herself at the vampire. Morgan and Faith exchanged punches and kicks each equally matched. He threw a vicious kick to her jaw which saw her stagger back spitting blood. Morgan spotted an opening as Faith threw a punch too wide and was able to throw her down on the ground. She tried to get up, but Morgan's heavy boot grinding into her spine pinned her to the ground.

"I have spent decades chasing up every lead for these scrolls and I will not be defeated by the likes of you!" Morgan roared down at the girl, then he bent down and grabbed her by the hair. Faith gritted her teeth and slammed her elbow into his stomach freeing herself. "Is that the best you can do?" Morgan laughed as Faith got back to her feet.

Faith just shrugged. "Got your attention didn't it?" She told him nodding behind him. Morgan frowned turning in that direction only to be met with Xander's axe swinging straight at him. His head came clean off and he was dust soon after.

Xander crouched down trying to get his breath that had been previously been knocked out of him back. Faith looked around making sure there was not anymore strays still hanging around, but it was now just her, her man and a couple of piles of dust. She turned back and saw him look up with a certain expression on his face. Oh yeah, she knew what was coming…

"That one counts as mine you know!" Xander exclaimed straightening back up pointing to where Morgan was standing.

"No way I distracted him!" Faith retorted in jess. "You just swung before I could move!"

"Piff as if! We made a bet whichever one kills a vampire gets to claim it as theirs." He complained like a little child. "As I recall you were the one who came up with that rule cause you didn't like idea of me claiming I had anything to do with kill count!" He waggled his finger at her.

Loving him as much as she does, he is quite the diva when he gets on a roll. Ah well it had been a good swing plus he made her pancakes this morning. "Okay hotshot," she deadpanned. "You get this one! That's like a couple of thousand dead vampires to me and a small handful to you?"

Xander smiled smugly. "I'm catching up." Faith rolled her eyes but gave him a quick kiss, nonetheless. With all the question marks in her life, Xander was her constant. Her love. He held the chain that connected her to the normal world. In what direction she might stray, he could always pull her back. She liked that. Whether by choice or by accident, she could test her boundaries because he was always her home to run back to.

"You know this kind of sucks complained." Faith declared. "Here we are kicking a group of vampire's ass and we are in Alaska. Not once have we come across Big Foot or something unusual like that!"

"What about that Saberwolf we killed a couple of months ago?" Xander remarked "You don't get many of them down in California."

"Oh, please that was just a giant wolf on steroids!" Faith dismissed.

"That was biting people's heads clean off!" Xander shuddered remembering finding a couple of gruesome corpses. They often did this bicker and tease, but it was all in good fun. Picking up the scroll was next to Morgan's ash. He and his lady had gone in without much of a plan and come out on top. A cult of vampires was dead, some magical scrolls were now back in procession of the good guys and the night was still young. All in all, it was a good day.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Back on patrol with B wandering around the same old haunts and dark alleys. She would say it was just like old times, but it was clearly not. Buffy was all business now, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and serious to the point of numb. Even when they were at odds on different sides or when B was jealous of Faith's arrival there was a fire to Buffy. Now that was gone replaced with a coldness.

Cold was how to describe the welcoming she and Xander got when they walked in the door. Willow was predictably hostile not surprising given their history. Last time they had seen each other Willow had all but glared at her into death. Dawn too wasn't rushing to greet her with open arms. Faith couldn't catch a break it seemed like monks had created a little girl to hate her out of some ball of energy. But then the kid did always seem to hover around Xander when she had seen them together. The Summers house was full of potentials, preslayers who stared at Faith in awe and suspicion, so Faith was happy to go out in a short patrol away from their eyes.

Xander was back at Buffy's house no doubt being dissected by the others about the life they had built for themselves. From becoming a mountain guide, to getting a small flat together in Anchorage, arguing about cartoons, going to a few gigs and just living their life. A life that involved a good job, her own place and a man who she loved all of which meant she found another emotion creeping up on her. One that she had never felt before.

Self-respect.

The woman she saw in the mirror each morning these days was still the same. Xander loved and cherish her for who she was and who she had ever been. Even the dark stuff. The dark thoughts and impulses she confided in him through tears and a lot of screaming and yet he never walked away. Never let her go not even when she threatened him. He stay with her probably too stubborn to walk away.

She liked it. She liked caring that much about him. She liked knowing him better than anyone else and liked how he knew her just as well. She liked being sweet and corny with him or teasing each other back and forth during the day. She could see how he tighten up and grew tense as they drove to Sunnydale. He felt as out of place here as she did. It was all business in Sunnydale. No kinks or vanilla. All the energy and fun had been drained from this place. In its place was distance and the cold.

XXXXXXXXXX

Faith frowned when she entered their living room/kitchen. Xander was to the left of the couch having just answered the phone that she had heard go off. There was the TV playing some other cheesy cartoon. She liked her man but sometimes she wanted to strangle him over some of the stuff he would watch on that thing. She pressed the buttons to change the channel on the Sony TV's remote, but nothing happened. She pressed them again and came close to throwing the remote at the wall until she remembered the promise, she made to her boyfriend she wouldn't throw any more TV remotes at any walls ever again. He got so tired of fixing the big holes.

Turning to look at her boyfriend when she heard his call finished. Something ugly and fowl clenched in Faith's throat when she saw the weary face of the man she loved. Slowly rising from the couch, she saw that he looked every bit as foreboding and sombre as the weather in winter. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. "Babe?" She asked him in a very small voice.

Xander looked as white as sheet, completely shell shocked and cradling the phone as if it would fall out of his hands at any second.

She walked slowly towards him, now worried. Only upon closer inspection did she realises that tears were beginning to form at his eyes. Suddenly, she felt sick, and didn't know why. "Xander," she spoke his name in a whisper. "What..."

"Buffy died," he somehow managed to say, only to wonder who in fact said it because those words were disgusting and could not possibly be true. But they were. "That was Giles… they were fighting some big bad… Buffy died."

He and the phone crumbled to the ground in total shook and she could only stand there and try to process all of it. B had died fighting, protecting others and saving the day. That's what she did. That's why she was a legend by the time Faith first met her. But she wasn't supposed to stay dead. She would always get back up, back on her feet and go another round. She had that inner strength inside her something that Faith lacked. Faith had ran to Buffy in need of her protection after Kakistos had murdered Faith's watcher. Faith wasn't strong enough to face him alone, so she required the great Buffy Summers to defeat him. Slowly she moved down until she was on the floor holding Xander. Her baby was hurting.

Buffy's dead. Giles had made it clear that it was that simple. Her body was now lifeless, and his friend was gone. He felt like throwing up, he felt like he wanted to hold Faith forever, felt like crying and felt like he should curse Buffy's name. They should have called him. He would have dropped everything to help her, she knew that right? Stupid pride keeping him at a distance. After all they had experienced with them now his closest friendships Willow and Buffy had fallen into a quick awkward phone call every other month and maybe a postcard. Pride and stubbornness were familiar feelings in the Scooby Gang. He knew he was more than guilty of both one several occasions. He can feel tears run down his face. Why hadn't they called?

She felt awkward as he cried. It was like his grief stripped him naked, and he melted in her arms, hiding nothing. Xander always tried to be so strong, covering up his pain with sarcasm or silence. But this was different. She had never seen him cry before. She should say something comforting. That is what one does right? Say some soothing words to make it all sound better but she couldn't think of any. B would know what to say. B always knew what to say. When the chips were down, and things looked grim B would stand tall. That's what heroes do… so she has been told.

He felt Faith's arms around him, and he is grateful for her presence. She is here with him. Has always encouraged him, believed in him and helped him grow. He can tell this foreign for her. He leans into her touch accepting it and almost reassuring her that it is welcome and healing. She is Faith. She is all he ever wanted and all he needed. He never felt better when he was with her. He reaches up to caress her face, sweeping her hair back away from her forehead. "You know how much I love you, right, Faith?" he asks softly. The idea of losing her, losing all that he built with her, all that he discovered about himself was too great.

Her heart freezes for about half a second. I've never heard those words being spoken to me before Faith thought to herself. And where before it might have scared the hell out of me, now it only reassures me that I'm where I need to be.

"I know you do, Xander," She admits and takes a deep breath, look him straight in the eye, and confess what's in her heart. "And I love you too."

XXXXXXXXXX

Andrew Wells was in the kitchen with the potentials clearing enjoying holding a captive audience. "Faith." Andrew spoke as if he was the voiceover guy you get in a trailer before a film. "Her name alone invokes awe. Faith. A set of principles or beliefs upon which you're willing to devote your life. The Dark Slayer. A lethal combination of beauty, power, and death. For years and years or, to be more accurate, months, Faith fought on the side of good, terrorizing the evil community. But like so many tragic heroes, Faith was seduced by the lure of the dark side. She wrapped evil around her like a large evil Mexican serape. She became a cold-blooded killer. Nobody was immune to her trail of destruction. Not friends, not family, not even the most pacifist and logical of races."

Amanda broke up his little fantasy. "What the hell are you talking about?" She exclaimed. "I thought Faith killed a volcanologist."

Andrew Wells realised he might have had gotten a little side-tracked. "Silly... silly... Amanda." Andrew laughed, letting go Rona who he had been using as part of his demonstration and put down the knife he was holding. "Why would Faith kill a person who studies Vulcans?"

"He studied volcanoes. He was a professor?" Amanda corrected.

"Ah, yes..." Andrew admitted sheepishly but cleared his throat trying to get back on track. "Well, regardless – "

"I thought you weren't supposed to be doing this anymore—making up stories." Molly cut him off.

"I'm not. This is true." Andrew whined. "Except for that...possible...word misunderstanding." He sighed to himself before looking back at the girls. "They're the things you need to know about." He said turning to look out the window at Faith working out in the back yard. "Faith...has a history not to be taken lightly." He turns to face the girls. "She's a killer. Never forget that. You must stay on guard around Faith at all times. Your very lives may depend on it." He warned them.

A cough came from the doorway and the group including Andrew turned to find Xander standing there holding two cups of takeaway coffee and a bag of doughnuts with a slight annoyed expression on his face.

Andrew gulped in fear suddenly wondering where Buffy, Willow or Mr Giles was at this current time. Xander merely rolled his eyes with a scowling moving past the group and out of the back door to the back garden. What did they do take an ad out in a paper? He wondered trying to recall how that blond guy Andrew fitted into everything.

"Coffee is here!" he announced as Faith spun around from her exercises to see Xander walking up to her.

"Thanks!" Faith said as he came over but noticed his slight mood. "What's up?"

"Nothing just that Andrew guy… I think I have been replaced." He pouted slightly passing her a cup.

Faith looked at him with a mock look of sadness on her face. "Aww poor baby! Don't worry you'll always be a dork to me." She winked grabbing a doughnut and taking a bite. "Mmmm these are good!" She said happily with her mouth full.

"Well, I had some practice finding the best one." Xander quipped munching on one himself still a little bit on edge Faith noted.

"So, you upset about what geek boy was saying about me?" She asked casually. Xander turned to her surprised but Faith just gestured to her ear. Slayer hearing was the message. "Can't say I'm that surprised." Faith said casually.

"He has no right." Xander complained. "He doesn't even know you. He wasn't there during all that. Plus, from what I understand he killed his friend Jonathon in cold blood. Hardly makes him Dudley Do Right."

Faith just smiled at him and gave him a peck on the cheek. Bless him for trying but really what was he trying to achieve? Her sainthood? Not a chance. Here she was a bad hat, a tale to tell the girls about what happens if you mess with the darkside. A cautionary tale. Before she went bad, they barely tolerated her. She was the second Slayer, the second best. The one they called when the going got tough and they needed someone to babysit or lend a hand.

She was never going to fit in here not after everything that had happened.