All Joss' not mine. The formatting is partially lost here as fanfic.net won't recognise ellipsis and I use those to punctuate a lot. If you want to see it with full formatting visit author's website. Thanks.

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So, we were talking about her before right? And sure I know I said I'd make you wait, but what with all my friends falling in love, I figured you might want an explanation as to why I feel the way I do about it. Oh I need to thank Cas... This part has been tough for me to get down on paper and she helped me sort out what I really wanted to say...

In some ways I guess the two of us just got swept up in the whole thing. But then it was way, WAY too easy to get swept up in her. Plus, we both knew exactly what we were doing despite the wild ride. I just wish there was a way to change the way it ended.

The telepathy came and went. We never knew when it would arrive or how long it would last, there'd just be this wonderful moment when she'd just arrive in my head, like this delightfully wicked daydream. She used to sing in her head all the time, god I loved hearing it. Oh and she also used it as a torture device by describing in great detail just what she was going to do to me when I finished doing whatever it was I happened to be doing at the time.

I have to say folks that the really weird thing is that never. ever. did it bother me that she knew exactly what I was thinking and trust me kitty Kats when I say that with some of the bizarro notions flying around in my overactive noggin I should have been. But that was the thing see. She knew every freaky conceit and still wanted my ass. Which I wasn't opposed to in anyway shape or form. And hell I wanted her even more once I knew what she was thinking.

Anyhoo strudels, the reason for the rather ample preamble is that I just wanted to try and give you a flavour of why it was just so damn easy to fall for her. I knew her in every way, I'd shared her thoughts, and feelings and she mine. Oh and when I say fall. I'm talking top of a cliff, smashing into the rocks below sort of a fall.

Ok question for you. You know how they say when you really fall in love you'll just know? Believe it? I didn't. Not for a second. I mean there has to be doubts right. has to be something that could make the whole thing come crashing down round your ears. But that evening as I sat opposite her in Milek's (great demon restaurant. They make the best pleishta you'll ever find in any dimension) Anyhoo. I'd finished my meal and was sat back nursing the remnants of a very good merlot, watching her polish off the last of the champagne sorbet whilst trying desperately not to choke as a result of the giggling fit she was in the middle of once we'd realised that the waiter looked exactly like John Cleese in the Mr Creosote sketch. Try saying wafer thin mint, whilst laughing you ass off. Not easy trust me.

It was at that precise moment, that it hit me. I could never, ever love anyone else the way I loved Finn. But the best thing was that she was in my head as I thought it and I knew that it was the same for her.

Now don't get me wrong pumpkin nuts. I'm not for a moment suggesting that this was some sort of perfect soul mates, never say a wrong word to each other, every moment is heaven sort of a thing. Noooo way. We argued like a couple of Tasmanian devils on speed at times and knew exactly how to wind the other up to snapping point. But despite all of that. Actually in a weird sort of way exactly because of that. She made me so damn happy, that there wasn't a row in the world big enough to spoil that. Because those moments when it worked. Oh god they were worth all the slammed doors and UFHO. Otherwise known as 'unidentified flying heavy objects'. Well I usually identified them after they hit me in the head but. But despite the frequent head x-rays I knew this was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Oh look at me getting sidetracked again, but I wanted you to have a sense of what it was like. Of how this amazing woman came along and blew my mind, well honestly it was more than just my mind, but that's another story.

I remember one morning, she was wrapped in my arms as we lay in bed and the faint scent of lavender and geranium still clung to her almost as tightly as I did. All I had to say was, 'I don't want you to leave again'. She leaned up and kissed me, soft, slow and so fucking sexy I thought I might burst before she returned the smile and simply replied. "Then I won't".

That afternoon we were fighting over closet space and continuing our on going mission to have sex in every single square inch of the club. Gotta have challenges in life right. and hey, we usually only worked on the project when the place was closed and ok that's a total, total lie, but all I'll say at this point is. my club, live with it.

Like I said before, Finn worked as an investigator of inter-dimensional slave trading. Oh please come on people keep up. Finn - the girl I loved, you remember, the reading at Caritas, I told you then. Anyhoo. Her job and the fact that she was a human shacked up with a demon meant things weren't always that easy for us. Mostly it was verbal, under the breath comments, some people just ignored us, pretended like we weren't there, others told us in no uncertain terms what they thought of us, weird thing is the demons were often worse than the humans. There were a number of places where our welcome was revoked the moment people knew we were together. It gets to you after a while but we tended to hang where we knew people were gonna be ok with us. There were a couple of determined fundamentalist groups who messed up the club a couple of times. You know, we'd come back from dinner to find red paint poured all over the bed and 'demon's whore' or other such highly thought out diatribes daubed all over the walls. Real classy work, we were always so impressed with the originality of the insults. It got to the point where every time we went out we'd leave a list of more original ideas for them on the bed, they never took the hint though and it was always the same old, same old. And sure I got warned off a couple of times, took the odd beating, but as time went on, the whole thing seemed to calm down and just about fizzle out.

It was Caritas' second anniversary that month and well on the way to our own first. We had a FABULOUS birthday bash planned for the club and then Finn and I would be off. Two whole weeks on a private island, great weather, great food. and two weeks of expansion for the project, you know the 'every square inch project'. This guy whose daughter Finn had rescued from some unpleasant dimension or other owned the island . Normally she'd never accept any sort of reward, but the guy was real insistent and damn the girl needed a break. She'd been dimension hopping a lot, a draining experience in itself, but the long hours meant she was worn out and needed serious R & R before she blew a fuse.

A couple of days before the party she came back from yet another dimension hop totally despondent and exhausted, I'd never seen her looking so lost, like she didn't believe she could make a difference anymore. They'd managed to rescue ten people from a trader, but another fifty had been slaughtered for meat only hours before they got there. The poor thing was sick too, it happened sometimes, you went to a new dimension and there were a whole host of mutated or even totally new illnesses for visitors to bring back with them. Still the docs had checked her over and other than throwing up and feeling crappy she was doing ok. I just. I felt like she was hiding something, when I talked to her about it she'd just tell me not to be crazy, how could she keep anything from me when at any moment I might be able to see inside her mind. I wanted to believe her, as I stared into those amazing eyes I wanted to so much. I knew that she loved me. that she wanted me. that whatever the problem was it wasn't about us. But there was something and for whatever reason she wouldn't or couldn't share it with me. Maybe if I'd pressed more, kept bugging her I could have. I don't know. At the time I just figured she had enough to deal with and that she'd more than likely tell me once we got on vacation.

By the time the big b-day approached she was pretty much back to her normal self. Well Finn's normal is much like mine in that it's about as far from the usual definition of normal as you can get but that was one of the main things I adored about her. As for me. I was like some whirling dervish thing, shooting about the place trying to sort out the 6,345,231 things that needed doing before the big shindig and on top of that I kept having to exchange her anniversary gift what with the telepathy and all.

I remember we'd had this magnificent row, over the entertainment. One of the acts had cancelled and we needed a quick replacement. So, the blazing row ends with me pouting, and Finn reeling off the most amazing string of curses I'd heard in years. Damn she was just spectacular when it came to losing her cool.

Anyhoo the final, final conclusion of the row was us, in the storeroom screwing each others' brains out for a couple of hours. Funny our rows often ended that way. A friend of mine laughed at me when I told her this. She said yeah Lorne it's known as make-up sex and the whole world does it. When I told Finn she did that raising her eyes skywards in disgust thing and said for it to be make-up sex something would have to be broke. And it wasn't. I've mentioned that I loved this girl right? Well screw it I think it warrants another mention.

So when we finally reappeared from the storeroom at lunchtime I get the short straw and have to head out for food. Why the short straw? Well it was a rule. Whoever got the last registered orgasm was short straw person and had to go get food, drinks, whatever. Hey couples would stay together much longer if they employed the short straw rule.

I didn't put up as much of a fight as I normally would, even though I was sure that she'd. Well thing was I needed to get her final present. Sure it wasn't our anniversary for almost two weeks but as we were going away straight after the party I needed to pick it up.

I was gone for about an hour I guess, give or take.

1. Present

Finally, after weeks of searching I managed to get something she hadn't guessed. An exact copy of a pendant she'd lost on a rescue mission, she'd tried for months to replace it. It was pure luck that I'd found one just like it. If I'd known that was all the luck I was allowed I'd have never bought the damn thing.

2. Food

For someone so tiny Finn ate like a carthorse. I went to Frankie's and picked up a hamper, so I'm an old romantic, sue me!

3. Home

As I headed back, I made one phone call. I'd decided not to cancel the Steinway. She'd seen it in my head, but we both played so what the hell. If you'd ever heard her version of 'ain't that a kick in the head' you'd know why I was willing to pay so much for a piano. True it helped that she was wearing only her tattoo and a smile. She had a hell of a voice though. I always said we should have an act. Finn would just shrug and say that my ego couldn't take the competition. Ok am needing to mention the loving this girl thing again here.

Three things - about an hour, hour and a half tops.

That was all.

"Ok so we're getting the piano, its gonna be here in a couple of hours." I waited for the laughter and the inevitable. 'I knew you would. I just knew you couldn't resist.' Maybe she hadn't heard. Maybe she was sleeping.

Maybe.

They say the human body holds about nine or ten pints of blood. But I swear it looked like 50 or 60 times that as my brain tried to comprehend the mess they had made of her.

I knew she was dead. Not through any psychic powers or anything like that. I just knew. She wasn't there anymore. But I still needed to hold her, needed to feel like I was doing something anything, to find a way. A way to bring her back. A way for this not to be real. I. She was still warm. So she hadn't been gone long.

I remember being shocked that her eyes were closed. Somehow it felt like they should have been open. A part of me couldn't stop wondering if whoever did this to her had closed her eyes after.

I can't cry. Not cause I didn't want to or whatever, but Pyleans don't have tear ducts see. I think I screamed maybe. shouted something. I dunno, pretty much everything about that is hazy.

"Please don't leave me. please. Finn. Please."

Don't get me wrong, I knew it was futile, knew she couldn't hear me. But I. I had to let her know. All the things I'd never be able to tell her again, how much I loved her and how I still couldn't work out what the hell I'd done to deserve her. How she was the most beautiful woman I ever met and how she made me more complete than I'd ever dreamed possible. So I just sat and whispered them in her ear over and over because I knew that before long they'd come and take her and that it was my last chance to know how her hand felt against my face, how soft her hair was. My last chance to soak up any last trace of her that was left, because what I had now had to last me a lifetime.

I'd been holding her for what seemed like an age before I even noticed the blood that had seeped through my clothes, at the time I just knew she was getting cold and wanted. needed to keep her warm. I teased her hair over the hole in her skull, I didn't like being able to see the tiny flecks of brain matter that peered out from within.

Sal, a dear old friend who used to work at the club, told me they found me there with her at 4pm when they came to prep for the party. I was still totally out of it from what he said.

Only thing I know for sure. As I lay there, willing this not to be with every ounce of strength I had, I could still smell geranium and lavender.

I found her gift to me three weeks later. She'd hired these three sisters who could cast a sanctorium spell. To prevent all demon violence in the club.

I still miss her.