Song is: Heaven by Lamb

~*~

Part 11

Soon, come soon
Sweet so sweet
Fall inside
Between the sheets

This could be
Heaven right
Here on earth
This could be Heaven

"This should be much weirder." Buffy says, her lips close to Faith's ear, their hands entwined under the covers.

"It should be." Faith agrees, "I should be rushing out right now. Places to be, people to do...that's the drill."

"Was that how it always was?"

"Yes." Faith says, "Since I was 12, it was fuck and run...it's easy that way. There's no holding, no talking, just sex and a quick getaway."

"You were 12?" Buffy gasps, "Jesus, Faith."

"Yeah, around that. I was a Liz Phair song waiting to happen."

"How does a 12 year old get into that level of..."

"Not intimacy, B. I've never had intimacy. And it sure as hell wasn't a choice to start at twelve. It was someone else's entirely. Hence the running."

"God."

"I'm over it."

Bufy slides closer to her anyway and a few brief tentative kisses later says, "Don't run this time."

"I wasn't planning on it...besides, all my clothes are in the laundry. Can't run naked...well...I have before. But not really liking the idea as of now."

Buffy laughs and Faith smiles at her and loks over at the clock.

"It's almost 6:30."

"I have to get Dawn to school." Buffysays with a pout. "I don't want to move. I want to stay in bed all day and pretend the world is just perfect."

"How much longer till we have to move?"

"Maybe 15 minutes."

"Can't we just let her off school? Tell the Slayers to take a day off? Send them all to the zoo?" Faith suggests, "Ooh! Maybe we could lock them in the basement with Spike. I've thought about it, and I could take them."

Buffy laughs and shakes her head, "Look at you, with the jokes. Watch it, you might become, *gasp*, cheery. Jolly, even."

"I wasn't joking." Faith replies with a grin. "But...I suppose we should get somewhat dressed."

Buffy nods and extracts herself from Faith, hanging half off the bed and grabbing up their discarded clothes. "Up." She orders, and Faith sits up. Buffy pulls a tank top over the other girls head and Faith takes the other clothes from Buffy, repeating it with the remaining shirt. She slid the shorts over Buffy's legs very, very, unnecessarily slowly, then leaned in for a quick kiss.

"We've put on the wrong shirts." Buffy says when they stand up, arms around eachother, "How very subtle and sneaky of us."

"They won't notice." Faith says, "And if they do...Well, what if they do?"

"Truth. I never told anyone about the *thing* with Spike, and that turned out horribly wrong. This time, honesty. But only if they ask. Let's not get Xander's feathers ruffled just yet."

"Is this a *thing*?" Faith asks, eyebrows raised, and she really does want to know. Because what if it's just a *thing* and she turns out like Spike, stuck in the basement while Buffy's two floors up with someone else entirely, without so much as a by your leave? What if that's all it is?

"No...this is something else." Buffy says, "Dunno what." She kisses Faith one last time, then reluctantly moves away. "Come on...you get to see how well I do as the mother figure. Save the critique for later." She winks and dissappears from the room. Faith looks at the bed one last time before following her out.

The day is long but there are no visions, no voices in her head. There is research, and patrol, and training. The Potentials are improving, beginning to work like on large, well-oiled machine. As Faith watches them run through drills on the back lawn, her head is pounding with a massive headache, but she can't help but feel proud of these girls who are so much a part of her. They *are* her, or what she could have been, and she feels connected to them. The fact that this group of veritable machines will dwindle to only one after she and Buffy have fought their last fights is the only thing keeping her from getting attached.

Her eyes land on Kennedy and her eyebrows draw closer together. Something about her draws Faith in for a moment, and she feels something different...something strong for a split second.

But then it's gone, and he head is hurting a little more.