12.       "Will she be OK?" Jimmy asked for the fifth time.

            "Yes!" Buffy repeated for the fifth time.

            "Jimmy, thank you for your concern, but you don't have to worry.  We have Dawn's condition under control…well, except when she wakes up whether or not she'll faint or want to kill Whistler…" Willow babbled.

            "Which is impossible, I'd just like to mention," aforementioned demon inserted.

            He received several threatening glares, but nobody commented.  It was night now, less than half an hour after Dawn had fainted and Buffy, Willow, and Jimmy had "awoken".  Jimmy Olsen was ecstatic.  He could remember his name, he could remember portions of his past…his childhood anyway, and the last couple years that he'd had amnesia.  He also remembered the event, although not the person, that had caused his memory to be wished away in the first place.

            He had kissed another girl, and then had broken up with the woman that he had truly loved, even though he couldn't even remember her name, let alone her face.  Despite the guilt he was still feeling over his stupid, male, egotistical actions, the elation at having even a portion of his memories back was too powerful to ignore.  So, for the time, he was ecstatic.

            And concerned.  For some reason, seeing Dawn like this, all helpless and pale looking on the cot reminded Jimmy of his baby sister when she'd had the flu…even though he could just vaguely remember having a sister.  Jimmy shook off the overwhelming feelings and went back to the large oak table next to the bookshelves to think better.

            "Hey B, couldn't you go into Dawnie's head like ya did for the uber-man wannabe?" Faith asked suddenly.

            Buffy frowned, instinctually scanning Dawn as she thought about Faith's question.  She shook her head silently.  "No, there's something blocking me besides.  Not to mention I had Jimmy's permission to enter his mind.  I don't on Dawn's.  But don't worry, she'll be waking up in the next few minutes…hopefully."

            Faith saw the look on her sister Slayer's face and reacted purely instinctively.  She immediately walked over to Buffy and embraced the enhanced Slayer from behind.  Buffy eased back into the embrace and held her hands over Faith's, clasped in front of her.  From pure instinct, she leaned her head back to support on Faith's shoulder, her smaller body fitting formlessly into Faith's.

            "Since when did you switch sides Buffy?" Tara asked, uncharacteristically brazen in her question.

            Buffy smiled at the angelically smiling witch.  "I'll have you know Tara that I've been bi for a long time now.  Ofcourse I lived in total denials-ville for a long time, thanks to both my so called "friends" in LA, and Mom, and the whole society trip.  When Faith rolled around…I kinda felt what I know now to be my first leanings towards a member of the same sex.  Unfortunately, it wasn't until my own 'Bad girl' days that it focused on Faith.  Before then…it was for Willow."

            That startled everybody, most especially the woman that now held the Slayer.  Before anybody could react, Buffy continued.  "But after she and Oz got back together, I knew that I couldn't ever be in her life like that, and I wanted her friendship more than anything else.  Besides, I got smoochies from Faith a couple nights a week, and there was that one time when Angel had completely broken up with me…"

            Faith suddenly blushed.  "Just be glad I didn't mention that when you were trying to kill me," she quipped.  Buffy smiled over her shoulder at her fellow Slayer and then did something very unexpected.  She kissed the Dark Slayer on the cheek.

            Faith's eyes went wide, and her blush went up a factor of nine or more, but she didn't change anything about their position or anything.  Then smiling, and feeling a wave of contentment that had been sorely lacking for most of her life, Faith placed her chin on Buffy's shoulder, while Buffy laid her head back on Faith's.

            "So…bi huh?  What's the difference?  Not that either is a bad thing!  In fact I think both are very good things!" Xander asked.  He added very quickly when he saw the potential of a beating from four very powerful females.  Despite his new Superman-ness.

            "It means Xander, to use a vernacular," Buffy answered, "me and Faith are switch-hitters, while Will and Tara bat for the home team.  In case you've forgotten, Riley and me weren't exactly quiet about our relationship, and as you know from personal experience Xander, Faith also is into driving stick.  But we also find each other attractive…in both a sexual and a relationship kinda ways."

            Relationship? Faith asked quietly, knowing Buffy would hear her, and quirking her eyebrows.

            Buffy smiled back at Faith and answered, privately, the same way.  Yeah.  Relationship.  Gotta problem with that? she mock-challenged.  Faith smiled broadly and answered back, Nope.  Not a one.  She then kissed the gold Slayer with a deep and slow kiss.

            "Whoa!" both Xander, Whistler and Jimmy all unconsciously said aloud and at the same time.

            "Oh, cool it down you two, Dawn's waking up!" Tara reprimanded the two Slayers.

            Buffy looked sharply at Tara.  "Hey, how do you know that?"

            "Because her hand is twitching," Tara answered logically.  Leaving Buffy to mouth an inaudible, "Oh."

            The young girl moaned as she came around, surprised that she had fainted at all.  She raised her hand to her eyes to wipe away any sleep that remained, at least subconsciously relieved that she found her hands unfettered and everything working with her body as it should be.  She moaned again when she sat up from the small cot she had awoken on, surprisingly stiff, as she assumed it was one of the same cots the others had woken up on, but again there was no way of knowing how long she'd been lying there, and they were sort of all "Super-people" now.

            She swung her legs around and got into as comfortable a sitting position as the small cot could manage.  Which is when she opened her eyes for the first time.

            Good news…  She was alive, not caged, tied up, or degraded in any of the slightest possibilities.

            Bad news…  She was nowhere near Earth.  A good judge of that would be the four green moons in the open night sky, a very unfamiliar sky as she caught sight of a nearby nebula.  Another real big clue was the seven floating giant blue heads arranged symmetrically around the large stadium-like room she had woken up, quite literally, in the middle of.

            "Oh boy…" she muttered before feeling like passing out again.

            Luckily, she did not.  Instead, gulping nervously, she tremblingly got to her feet and faced the closest, or maybe just the biggest of the blue heads.