Riley lay on his bed, fully clothed, hands tucked behind his head,
thinking. Faith, despite not being scheduled to patrol that night, was
staying at Joyce's house. Sometimes, she just did.
'Walsh is wrong,' he thought. 'My performance has only improved. I'm more focused on the job, and I'm better prepared to do it. Why would she want me not to see them?'
This line of thinking led him other places.
'What if she did order me not to hang out with them. . . not to see Faith? What then?' he asked himself. 'Would she make me choose between serving and her?'
Riley lay there, unmoving, for a while. He then got up, slipped his shoes on and left Lowell House.
* * * * *
*tik!*
Faith was instantly awake.
*tik!*
She turned in time to see another pebble ricochet off her window.
*tik!*
Faith went to the window and flung it open.
"What?" she whispered out to Riley, who was standing there with a hand full of pebbles.
"I need to talk to you," he said, dropping the rest of the pebbles.
"Jesus, Ri, it couldn't wait until morning?"
He shook his head.
"All right," she said. "I'll be right down."
Riley started to go for the front door when Faith, in a tank top and sweatpants, crawled out the window and jumped to the ground.
"What was so important that you had to wake me up?"
"Walsh talked to me earlier today," he said. "Said some disturbing things."
"You got me out of bed to talk about your boss?" she asked. "Oh, your ass is so gonna get it when I'm not so tired."
"No, Faith, just listen for a minute," he said. He walked them over to the bench in the Summers' back yard.
"Walsh was telling me that she thinks my performance has been slipping, that I'm not as focused on the job as I used to be. She was saying that she thinks it's because I'm hanging out with you and the other Scoobies."
Faith frowned. She wondered if this was how soldiers broke up with their girlfriends.
"I disagreed with her," he said. "My physical performance, and that of my teams, has improved since we started training with you guys. We know more about demons, how to identify and kill them, and how they think, how they react. . . we can do our job better now than ever before. But she hinted that she didn't want me to spend time with you guys anymore."
Riley shook his head. "Faith, I have to tell you. . . I don't care what she says. I know what my job is, and being with you guys doesn't interfere with it."
She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"And more than that. . . if it did, I wouldn't care. Faith, I love you."
She started a little at that.
"No," he said. "You don't have to say anything. I know. . . that you're not good with intimacy. I know that you're not ready for that, or whatever, and that's okay. I'm okay with that. But I had to tell you. I love you, Faith. And I'm not going to leave you, no matter what, unless you tell me to, and even then I'm going to fight like hell. I don't know if I'm your soul mate, or what. Nothing Xander has said to me would indicate one way or the other. But I do know that when I wake up, you're the first thing I think about. And when I go to sleep, you're the last thing to cross my mind."
He stopped for a second, then stood up. "I love you," he said, smiling. "I just had to tell you, that's all."
Riley walked off into the night, happy with himself.
Faith sat on the bench, wondering what in the hell had just happened. He loved her? 'Is that even possible?' she thought. 'I mean, we've only been together for. . .'
She shook her head and climbed back into her room.
Three pairs of eyes had watched the exchange, all of them grinning. Two belonged to the other women in the Summers' household. One definitely did not.
* * * * *
"So let me get this straight," Xander said as he bit into a meatball sub the next day at lunch. "You have absolutely no idea what you want to do?"
"Other than turning Amy back into a human? Yeah," Willow said after taking a sip of her drink. "None whatsoever."
"Okay, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this. You, Willow Rosenberg, plan-aheader and future-thinker extraordinaire, have no idea what you want to do when you finish college."
"We've been over this, Xander."
"Have you considered a career in porn?"
"Pay's not good enough, plus the guys are skeezy."
Xander froze, meatball sub halfway to his mouth.
"I'm joking, Xander. I have never considered a career in porn."
Xander shook his head to clear it. "Don't do that to me, Wills."
"Hey, you brought it up, don't blame me."
"On to less scary topics. What are you doing tonight?"
"The Sun is playing The Third Man. Tara and I are going to have dinner then see that."
Xander grinned. "You really like her, don't you?"
"She's great!" Willow said, her face lighting up. "We have so much fun together, and she's so nice."
"That's really great, Willow. I'm really happy you found a great friend."
Willow smiled and bit into her steak sub. "I'm really happy for me too."
* * * * *
"So he just. . . said it?" Buffy asked, leaning over the counter at the Magic Box.
"That's what I'm sayin, B. No prompting, no hints, no nothing. He just said it."
"Okay, and this was, what, when you saw him last night?"
"Uh, well, yeah, but it was. . . not quite like that."
"Huh?"
"He threw pebbles at the window at like 3 am. I hopped down to talk to him."
"Awwww!" Buffy said.
Faith glared. "Would you quit that?"
"I'm sorry," Buffy said, "but that's so sweet. And he didn't want you to say it back?"
"Well. . . I mean, I'm pretty sure he did, but that wasn't why he came by. He just. . . wanted to tell me. Wanted me to know."
"Well, do you?"
Faith sighed. "I don't know. I mean, he's great, yeah. Lots of fun. But I don't know. I mean, I've never, you know been. . . before."
"In love," Buffy said.
"Yeah. That."
"You can say it, Faith," Buffy said. "Talking about it doesn't mean it's true."
"Okay. Well, anyway, I just don't know. What's it like with you and Xander?"
Buffy smiled. "I don't know how to describe it," she said. "Xander. . . he's like my other half. I just feel so at peace when he's near, or when I think about him. But also, it's like he sparks a fire inside me. . . I don't know. I just. . . I feel right when he's around."
"And he's a monster in the sack," Faith said.
"Well, yeah, there is th-" Buffy stopped herself and glared at her sister slayer. Faith just smirked at her.
"Well, anyway," Faith said. "I still don't know."
"Well, you shouldn't go by me," Buffy said. "Love is different for everyone. You could feel about Riley the same way I do about Xander. . . and it not be love. It's just something you have to decide for yourself."
The bell over the door rang and Faith went to work.
* * * * *
"Are you sure it's been quiet?" Riley asked as he and Xander strolled towards the Magic Box. Xander had stopped by Lowell House after work.
"I'm tellin' ya, man. We haven't seen more than a vamp or two in the past week."
"That's so weird," Riley said. "I haven't been out much, but we're getting flooded. Captures all over the place. I saw the holding cells. . . we're packing them in like sardines."
"That is weird," Xander said. "Maybe they all just want to avoid the slayers. Figure they have a better chance against the army. Not to disparage you guys or anything."
"No, of course," Riley said. "I don't know."
"So, you love her, huh?"
Riley smiled. "Word travels fast," he said.
"Well, we have an established gossip chain in the Scooby Gang. Faith to Buffy, Buffy to me and Giles, me to Willow. There are, of course, occasional missteps in there. It also depends on where it all starts. For instance, it could go me to Buffy, Buffy to Willow and Giles, Giles to Faith. Or it could go Willow to me or Buffy, me or Buffy to Buffy or me and Giles, Buffy and/or me and/or Giles to Faith. There are a million permutations of this chain, but. . . what was I talking about?"
"News travelling fast?"
"Right," Xander said, shaking his head. "It does."
"I get that."
"So what now?" Xander asked.
"I don't really know," he said. "I haven't talked to her since last night, so I don't know anything. . . how she reacted, how she feels. . . nothing. I'm a little scared."
"That's to be expected. Mind a little advice? With the warning, of course, that free advice is worth what you pay for it?"
"Be my guest," Riley said.
"Don't let this stew. Talk to her, even if it's just to hear her say 'I don't know.'"
Riley nodded. "I was hoping to talk to her tonight."
Xander nodded, then something caught his eye.
"Did you see that?" he asked.
"See what?"
Riley looked around, looking for something to see. He didn't.
"No idea, Xander."
Xander shook his head. "I'm going crazy in your old age," he said.
"Hey," Riley said.
"Sorry," Xander said. "Cradle robber."
"Hey!" Riley shouted.
"Sorry, sorry. I'm done. For real this time."
"There's not that much of a difference," Riley said. "She's 18."
"And you're 23."
"Right."
"It's only five years."
"Exactly."
"It means nothing that you were a sophomore in high school when she was in grade school."
"Hey!"
"Or that she's as much younger than you as Dawn is younger than me."
"Are you saying you have something for more than one of the Summers women?"
"We're not talking about Joyce refusing to rob my cradle. We ARE talking about how you enjoy robbing Faith's on a semi-regular basis, you lecherous old fart."
"Are you going to shut up, or am I going to have to make you shut up?"
Xander grinned.
* * * * *
Xander and Riley showed up at the Magic Box. They were covered in dirt.
"Oh, god, not again," Buffy said as they tracked said dirt into the shop.
Giles looked at them disapprovingly over his glasses.
"He called me old," Riley explained.
Buffy rolled her eyes at them.
"Oh, now what the hell am I supposed to do with you looking like that?" Faith asked, coming out of the back room.
"No, Xander, get away, you're dirty!" Buffy was yelling as Xander tried to capture her in a bear hug.
"Don't you want a kiss from your Xandy-bear?"
Faith and Riley laughed as Buffy succeeded in pushing Xander away from her.
"Go change!" she ordered.
Xander grinned, reached behind the counter to grab a spare key and headed for Giles' office, where he kept a duffel bag full of training clothes.
"Hey," Riley said softly to Faith.
She turned and smiled at him. "Hi," she said.
"Got a minute?"
"Sure," she said. "Jeeves, back in a few."
Giles nodded distractedly, then Faith and Riley walked outside.
"Okay, so," Riley said.
"So here's what I figure," Faith said. "I've been thinking about this all day, and this is what I came up with."
Riley nodded, waiting for her to continue.
"You love me. . . and that's great," she said. "it. . . it makes me feel. . . special. I never really got that much, ever."
"Faith, you are so very. . ."
"Just hold that thought, soldier," she said. "Let me get this out."
"Sorry," he said.
"I don't know if I love you," she said. "I don't really know what love is like. I've never been in love. But. . . I do care about you. A lot. You make my life better. I'm sorry I can't tell you I love you back. . . but I don't want to lie to you."
Riley nodded. "Okay," he said. "Well, that's. . . not quite what I was hoping for, but I'll take it. Promise me one thing, though?"
"Shoot."
"When you do know. . . when you do figure it out, one way or the other. . . tell me? If you have to wake me up or drag me out of class, please, tell me?"
Faith nodded. "I promise."
Riley nodded, then leaned in and kissed her.
* * * * *
Faith was on the way back to the Summers house from patrolling. She was fairly happy with how the day had gone. Riley wasn't angry, she'd pulled off some wicked sales and had gotten to dust a few vamps on patrol.
"Slayer. . ." came a deep voice from the darkness in front of her. Faith was immediately on guard.
"Who's there," she called out.
Three pairs of eyes looked out on her from the darkness, all glowing red.
"Your time is up, Slayer," said a voice from her right.
"You're all alone, Slayer," came one from the left.
"Why don't you come face me, instead of hiding in the darkness like a bunch of pussies?"
Slowly, the eyes moved towards her. Three giant demons walked towards her, their heads significantly lower than their shoulders, betraying their actual height. They were covered in scales both black and red, and had razor sharp claws on each hand.
Faith took a half step back. She wasn't prepared to face them. One of the things Giles had been teaching her was to know her limits. If these guys were half as tough as they looked, they were beyond her limit.
An extremely long arm shot out and slashed her across the bicep, causing her to yelp in pain. The wound looked nasty. Faith did the only sensible thing she could think of.
She ran.
The demons followed her closely, faster than they looked, but not quite as fast as Faith. Faith led them through the streets of Sunnydale. At one intersection, she paused and picked up a pebble, then continued on. All three demons were managing to keep her in sight, and she had to time her plan extremely well.
As she passed by a building, she wound up her arm and snapped a throw off at a window. She heard glass shatter and hoped it would be enough. She ran about 50 feet farther, then turned to face them. They quickly caught up to her.
"Okay," she said, panting slightly but maintaining her fighting stance. "So you guys are after me. Any reason why?"
"You must die," said one, his voice rumbling.
"It has been ordered," said another.
"We will not disappoint," said the third.
"Ordered, huh?" she muttered. "I knew some big evil would be brewing."
As one, the three demons lunged. Faith barely managed to get out of the way of two of the blows, but a third scraped across her chest causing her to wince and grunt, but she was determined not to let the demons know how much they hurt her.
Faith lunged back at one of them, catching it off guard. She landed a few solid blows, but only managed to bruise her knuckles.
"Damn!" she yelled, waving her fist to shake off the stun she'd gotten.
"Try something else," she said to herself. She launched a kick at the head of the left most demon. It stumbled this time, but did not seem overly injured.
Faith looked at them. They seemed in no hurry to kill her.
"You guys seem wicked confident," she said.
"Your skills are no match for ours," said the middle one.
"We have defeated slayers before," said the one on the left.
"You will pose no more difficulty than the last," said the rightmost.
Faith could tell they weren't lying. They knew what they were doing.
As one, they attacked again, each going for a certain area of her body. Again, she was able to block two blows, but this time received a slice to the leg for her trouble.
"You guys are strong," she said, hobbling backwards a little. "I'll give you that."
"You run," said the left one.
"It is pointless," said the right most.
"You will be defeated," said the one in the middle.
"Guys are way synchronized too," Faith muttered. She looked up and grinned.
The demons looked at each other, confused.
A sword sliced its way through the neck of one of the creatures, decapitating it. The other two screeched in pain. Neon green blood flowed from each of their noses and they fell to the ground.
"Good timing, X," Faith said, catching an axe he threw to her. "No B?"
"Not home yet," he said groggily, dropping into a fighting stance. "What's the word on these guys?"
"They attacked, I ran, you killed one."
Xander nodded as the demons stood up.
"I think they got telepathy or something, they're in sync in a scary way."
Xander nodded again and set himself to receive a charge.
"You're talkative tonight," she said.
"Got woken up by glass in my bed," he said. "By the way, that pebble is embedded in my wall."
"Sorry," she said.
He waved off her apology as the demons rushed them. Xander deflected a blow with his sword, then whipped a quick kick to the demons head. Faith simultaneously blocked one with the edge of the axe, cutting into its arm. The demon screeched and attacked with the other arm, which Faith dodged.
Xander deflected blow after blow from the demon, but some were getting through. He was still, obviously, very tired. His movements were slower than normal, and his parries had less strength behind them.
Faith, on the other hand, was tearing into her demon. It bled green from gashes all over its body. Faith quickly gained the upper hand and had the demon on the defensive. She mixed kicks and huge, arcing blows from the axe. She took its legs out from beneath it with a well timed sweep, then rolled forward and buried her axe in its head. She grinned at it, then turned in time to see Xander knocked to the ground, his personal shield flickering.
Faith ripped the axe out of the very dead demon and started off to Xander's aid, intent on putting the last one down, when a gunshot rang out from the darkness. A small hole appeared in the demon's head and it slumped to the ground. Xander managed to roll out of the way and not get covered in incandescent demon blood. He stood up and looked toward the darkness, holding his sword defensively. Faith sidled up next to him, holding her axe at the ready as well.
A man, about Xander's height but a slimmer frame than him, walked out of the darkness, his gun at his side.
"Thanks for the save," Xander said.
"No problem," the man said. "It's what I do." He stepped farther into the light. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a black shirt.
"You do this often?" Faith asked, indicating the demon.
"For about five years now," he said. He held the pistol up sideways. "Not all of us have slayer fighting ability, though."
Faith and Xander were both a little surprised.
"So you know what I am," she said.
The man nodded. "Used to be friends with a slayer. I heard there was one here, so I came to see if it was her. Guess not though."
"We're gonna go in for some healing," Xander said, pointing to his apartment. "You want a drink or anything?"
"Sure," the man said.
Xander, now more awake than during the fight, helped Faith walk to the apartment, the stranger following behind.
"By the way, do you have a name?" Xander asked.
"Yeah," he said. "But I only tell my friends."
"Understood," Xander said, entering his apartment with Faith. He turned around to look at the man who had stopped at the threshold. "Don't expect an invitation, though."
The man smiled and walked into the apartment.
"Just making sure," Xander said.
"No offense taken," he said.
Faith sat on the couch.
"Cokes in the fridge," said Xander. "Or water."
"No beer?" the guy asked.
"I'm nineteen," Xander said. "And alcohol is not something I'm interested in."
"X, you gonna do something about my blood, here?" Faith asked.
"Sorry," he said. He got a washcloth from and let Faith wipe clean her arms, legs and chest. The blood gone, Xander pressed a hand to her wounds then flashed briefly white.
"I see what's going on," said a voice from the door. "I come home late and you're feeling up another woman. Am I that easy to replace?"
Xander grinned and turned to face Buffy.
"Hey," he said, giving her a kiss.
"I expected you to be asleep," she said. "What happened?'
"Faith got attacked and decided the way to win was to shatter our bedroom window and embed a pebble in the wall."
"Hey," Faith said. "Those guys would have seriously toasted my ass."
"Hey, can I take this lemonade?" the guy asked, coming out of the kitchen. He saw who was in Xander's arms and froze.
Buffy looked at the man standing in her apartment and her eyes bugged out.
"PIKE??"
Xander sighed and shook his head. "I'm not getting any sleep tonight."
----------
End Chapter 3
'Walsh is wrong,' he thought. 'My performance has only improved. I'm more focused on the job, and I'm better prepared to do it. Why would she want me not to see them?'
This line of thinking led him other places.
'What if she did order me not to hang out with them. . . not to see Faith? What then?' he asked himself. 'Would she make me choose between serving and her?'
Riley lay there, unmoving, for a while. He then got up, slipped his shoes on and left Lowell House.
* * * * *
*tik!*
Faith was instantly awake.
*tik!*
She turned in time to see another pebble ricochet off her window.
*tik!*
Faith went to the window and flung it open.
"What?" she whispered out to Riley, who was standing there with a hand full of pebbles.
"I need to talk to you," he said, dropping the rest of the pebbles.
"Jesus, Ri, it couldn't wait until morning?"
He shook his head.
"All right," she said. "I'll be right down."
Riley started to go for the front door when Faith, in a tank top and sweatpants, crawled out the window and jumped to the ground.
"What was so important that you had to wake me up?"
"Walsh talked to me earlier today," he said. "Said some disturbing things."
"You got me out of bed to talk about your boss?" she asked. "Oh, your ass is so gonna get it when I'm not so tired."
"No, Faith, just listen for a minute," he said. He walked them over to the bench in the Summers' back yard.
"Walsh was telling me that she thinks my performance has been slipping, that I'm not as focused on the job as I used to be. She was saying that she thinks it's because I'm hanging out with you and the other Scoobies."
Faith frowned. She wondered if this was how soldiers broke up with their girlfriends.
"I disagreed with her," he said. "My physical performance, and that of my teams, has improved since we started training with you guys. We know more about demons, how to identify and kill them, and how they think, how they react. . . we can do our job better now than ever before. But she hinted that she didn't want me to spend time with you guys anymore."
Riley shook his head. "Faith, I have to tell you. . . I don't care what she says. I know what my job is, and being with you guys doesn't interfere with it."
She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"And more than that. . . if it did, I wouldn't care. Faith, I love you."
She started a little at that.
"No," he said. "You don't have to say anything. I know. . . that you're not good with intimacy. I know that you're not ready for that, or whatever, and that's okay. I'm okay with that. But I had to tell you. I love you, Faith. And I'm not going to leave you, no matter what, unless you tell me to, and even then I'm going to fight like hell. I don't know if I'm your soul mate, or what. Nothing Xander has said to me would indicate one way or the other. But I do know that when I wake up, you're the first thing I think about. And when I go to sleep, you're the last thing to cross my mind."
He stopped for a second, then stood up. "I love you," he said, smiling. "I just had to tell you, that's all."
Riley walked off into the night, happy with himself.
Faith sat on the bench, wondering what in the hell had just happened. He loved her? 'Is that even possible?' she thought. 'I mean, we've only been together for. . .'
She shook her head and climbed back into her room.
Three pairs of eyes had watched the exchange, all of them grinning. Two belonged to the other women in the Summers' household. One definitely did not.
* * * * *
"So let me get this straight," Xander said as he bit into a meatball sub the next day at lunch. "You have absolutely no idea what you want to do?"
"Other than turning Amy back into a human? Yeah," Willow said after taking a sip of her drink. "None whatsoever."
"Okay, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this. You, Willow Rosenberg, plan-aheader and future-thinker extraordinaire, have no idea what you want to do when you finish college."
"We've been over this, Xander."
"Have you considered a career in porn?"
"Pay's not good enough, plus the guys are skeezy."
Xander froze, meatball sub halfway to his mouth.
"I'm joking, Xander. I have never considered a career in porn."
Xander shook his head to clear it. "Don't do that to me, Wills."
"Hey, you brought it up, don't blame me."
"On to less scary topics. What are you doing tonight?"
"The Sun is playing The Third Man. Tara and I are going to have dinner then see that."
Xander grinned. "You really like her, don't you?"
"She's great!" Willow said, her face lighting up. "We have so much fun together, and she's so nice."
"That's really great, Willow. I'm really happy you found a great friend."
Willow smiled and bit into her steak sub. "I'm really happy for me too."
* * * * *
"So he just. . . said it?" Buffy asked, leaning over the counter at the Magic Box.
"That's what I'm sayin, B. No prompting, no hints, no nothing. He just said it."
"Okay, and this was, what, when you saw him last night?"
"Uh, well, yeah, but it was. . . not quite like that."
"Huh?"
"He threw pebbles at the window at like 3 am. I hopped down to talk to him."
"Awwww!" Buffy said.
Faith glared. "Would you quit that?"
"I'm sorry," Buffy said, "but that's so sweet. And he didn't want you to say it back?"
"Well. . . I mean, I'm pretty sure he did, but that wasn't why he came by. He just. . . wanted to tell me. Wanted me to know."
"Well, do you?"
Faith sighed. "I don't know. I mean, he's great, yeah. Lots of fun. But I don't know. I mean, I've never, you know been. . . before."
"In love," Buffy said.
"Yeah. That."
"You can say it, Faith," Buffy said. "Talking about it doesn't mean it's true."
"Okay. Well, anyway, I just don't know. What's it like with you and Xander?"
Buffy smiled. "I don't know how to describe it," she said. "Xander. . . he's like my other half. I just feel so at peace when he's near, or when I think about him. But also, it's like he sparks a fire inside me. . . I don't know. I just. . . I feel right when he's around."
"And he's a monster in the sack," Faith said.
"Well, yeah, there is th-" Buffy stopped herself and glared at her sister slayer. Faith just smirked at her.
"Well, anyway," Faith said. "I still don't know."
"Well, you shouldn't go by me," Buffy said. "Love is different for everyone. You could feel about Riley the same way I do about Xander. . . and it not be love. It's just something you have to decide for yourself."
The bell over the door rang and Faith went to work.
* * * * *
"Are you sure it's been quiet?" Riley asked as he and Xander strolled towards the Magic Box. Xander had stopped by Lowell House after work.
"I'm tellin' ya, man. We haven't seen more than a vamp or two in the past week."
"That's so weird," Riley said. "I haven't been out much, but we're getting flooded. Captures all over the place. I saw the holding cells. . . we're packing them in like sardines."
"That is weird," Xander said. "Maybe they all just want to avoid the slayers. Figure they have a better chance against the army. Not to disparage you guys or anything."
"No, of course," Riley said. "I don't know."
"So, you love her, huh?"
Riley smiled. "Word travels fast," he said.
"Well, we have an established gossip chain in the Scooby Gang. Faith to Buffy, Buffy to me and Giles, me to Willow. There are, of course, occasional missteps in there. It also depends on where it all starts. For instance, it could go me to Buffy, Buffy to Willow and Giles, Giles to Faith. Or it could go Willow to me or Buffy, me or Buffy to Buffy or me and Giles, Buffy and/or me and/or Giles to Faith. There are a million permutations of this chain, but. . . what was I talking about?"
"News travelling fast?"
"Right," Xander said, shaking his head. "It does."
"I get that."
"So what now?" Xander asked.
"I don't really know," he said. "I haven't talked to her since last night, so I don't know anything. . . how she reacted, how she feels. . . nothing. I'm a little scared."
"That's to be expected. Mind a little advice? With the warning, of course, that free advice is worth what you pay for it?"
"Be my guest," Riley said.
"Don't let this stew. Talk to her, even if it's just to hear her say 'I don't know.'"
Riley nodded. "I was hoping to talk to her tonight."
Xander nodded, then something caught his eye.
"Did you see that?" he asked.
"See what?"
Riley looked around, looking for something to see. He didn't.
"No idea, Xander."
Xander shook his head. "I'm going crazy in your old age," he said.
"Hey," Riley said.
"Sorry," Xander said. "Cradle robber."
"Hey!" Riley shouted.
"Sorry, sorry. I'm done. For real this time."
"There's not that much of a difference," Riley said. "She's 18."
"And you're 23."
"Right."
"It's only five years."
"Exactly."
"It means nothing that you were a sophomore in high school when she was in grade school."
"Hey!"
"Or that she's as much younger than you as Dawn is younger than me."
"Are you saying you have something for more than one of the Summers women?"
"We're not talking about Joyce refusing to rob my cradle. We ARE talking about how you enjoy robbing Faith's on a semi-regular basis, you lecherous old fart."
"Are you going to shut up, or am I going to have to make you shut up?"
Xander grinned.
* * * * *
Xander and Riley showed up at the Magic Box. They were covered in dirt.
"Oh, god, not again," Buffy said as they tracked said dirt into the shop.
Giles looked at them disapprovingly over his glasses.
"He called me old," Riley explained.
Buffy rolled her eyes at them.
"Oh, now what the hell am I supposed to do with you looking like that?" Faith asked, coming out of the back room.
"No, Xander, get away, you're dirty!" Buffy was yelling as Xander tried to capture her in a bear hug.
"Don't you want a kiss from your Xandy-bear?"
Faith and Riley laughed as Buffy succeeded in pushing Xander away from her.
"Go change!" she ordered.
Xander grinned, reached behind the counter to grab a spare key and headed for Giles' office, where he kept a duffel bag full of training clothes.
"Hey," Riley said softly to Faith.
She turned and smiled at him. "Hi," she said.
"Got a minute?"
"Sure," she said. "Jeeves, back in a few."
Giles nodded distractedly, then Faith and Riley walked outside.
"Okay, so," Riley said.
"So here's what I figure," Faith said. "I've been thinking about this all day, and this is what I came up with."
Riley nodded, waiting for her to continue.
"You love me. . . and that's great," she said. "it. . . it makes me feel. . . special. I never really got that much, ever."
"Faith, you are so very. . ."
"Just hold that thought, soldier," she said. "Let me get this out."
"Sorry," he said.
"I don't know if I love you," she said. "I don't really know what love is like. I've never been in love. But. . . I do care about you. A lot. You make my life better. I'm sorry I can't tell you I love you back. . . but I don't want to lie to you."
Riley nodded. "Okay," he said. "Well, that's. . . not quite what I was hoping for, but I'll take it. Promise me one thing, though?"
"Shoot."
"When you do know. . . when you do figure it out, one way or the other. . . tell me? If you have to wake me up or drag me out of class, please, tell me?"
Faith nodded. "I promise."
Riley nodded, then leaned in and kissed her.
* * * * *
Faith was on the way back to the Summers house from patrolling. She was fairly happy with how the day had gone. Riley wasn't angry, she'd pulled off some wicked sales and had gotten to dust a few vamps on patrol.
"Slayer. . ." came a deep voice from the darkness in front of her. Faith was immediately on guard.
"Who's there," she called out.
Three pairs of eyes looked out on her from the darkness, all glowing red.
"Your time is up, Slayer," said a voice from her right.
"You're all alone, Slayer," came one from the left.
"Why don't you come face me, instead of hiding in the darkness like a bunch of pussies?"
Slowly, the eyes moved towards her. Three giant demons walked towards her, their heads significantly lower than their shoulders, betraying their actual height. They were covered in scales both black and red, and had razor sharp claws on each hand.
Faith took a half step back. She wasn't prepared to face them. One of the things Giles had been teaching her was to know her limits. If these guys were half as tough as they looked, they were beyond her limit.
An extremely long arm shot out and slashed her across the bicep, causing her to yelp in pain. The wound looked nasty. Faith did the only sensible thing she could think of.
She ran.
The demons followed her closely, faster than they looked, but not quite as fast as Faith. Faith led them through the streets of Sunnydale. At one intersection, she paused and picked up a pebble, then continued on. All three demons were managing to keep her in sight, and she had to time her plan extremely well.
As she passed by a building, she wound up her arm and snapped a throw off at a window. She heard glass shatter and hoped it would be enough. She ran about 50 feet farther, then turned to face them. They quickly caught up to her.
"Okay," she said, panting slightly but maintaining her fighting stance. "So you guys are after me. Any reason why?"
"You must die," said one, his voice rumbling.
"It has been ordered," said another.
"We will not disappoint," said the third.
"Ordered, huh?" she muttered. "I knew some big evil would be brewing."
As one, the three demons lunged. Faith barely managed to get out of the way of two of the blows, but a third scraped across her chest causing her to wince and grunt, but she was determined not to let the demons know how much they hurt her.
Faith lunged back at one of them, catching it off guard. She landed a few solid blows, but only managed to bruise her knuckles.
"Damn!" she yelled, waving her fist to shake off the stun she'd gotten.
"Try something else," she said to herself. She launched a kick at the head of the left most demon. It stumbled this time, but did not seem overly injured.
Faith looked at them. They seemed in no hurry to kill her.
"You guys seem wicked confident," she said.
"Your skills are no match for ours," said the middle one.
"We have defeated slayers before," said the one on the left.
"You will pose no more difficulty than the last," said the rightmost.
Faith could tell they weren't lying. They knew what they were doing.
As one, they attacked again, each going for a certain area of her body. Again, she was able to block two blows, but this time received a slice to the leg for her trouble.
"You guys are strong," she said, hobbling backwards a little. "I'll give you that."
"You run," said the left one.
"It is pointless," said the right most.
"You will be defeated," said the one in the middle.
"Guys are way synchronized too," Faith muttered. She looked up and grinned.
The demons looked at each other, confused.
A sword sliced its way through the neck of one of the creatures, decapitating it. The other two screeched in pain. Neon green blood flowed from each of their noses and they fell to the ground.
"Good timing, X," Faith said, catching an axe he threw to her. "No B?"
"Not home yet," he said groggily, dropping into a fighting stance. "What's the word on these guys?"
"They attacked, I ran, you killed one."
Xander nodded as the demons stood up.
"I think they got telepathy or something, they're in sync in a scary way."
Xander nodded again and set himself to receive a charge.
"You're talkative tonight," she said.
"Got woken up by glass in my bed," he said. "By the way, that pebble is embedded in my wall."
"Sorry," she said.
He waved off her apology as the demons rushed them. Xander deflected a blow with his sword, then whipped a quick kick to the demons head. Faith simultaneously blocked one with the edge of the axe, cutting into its arm. The demon screeched and attacked with the other arm, which Faith dodged.
Xander deflected blow after blow from the demon, but some were getting through. He was still, obviously, very tired. His movements were slower than normal, and his parries had less strength behind them.
Faith, on the other hand, was tearing into her demon. It bled green from gashes all over its body. Faith quickly gained the upper hand and had the demon on the defensive. She mixed kicks and huge, arcing blows from the axe. She took its legs out from beneath it with a well timed sweep, then rolled forward and buried her axe in its head. She grinned at it, then turned in time to see Xander knocked to the ground, his personal shield flickering.
Faith ripped the axe out of the very dead demon and started off to Xander's aid, intent on putting the last one down, when a gunshot rang out from the darkness. A small hole appeared in the demon's head and it slumped to the ground. Xander managed to roll out of the way and not get covered in incandescent demon blood. He stood up and looked toward the darkness, holding his sword defensively. Faith sidled up next to him, holding her axe at the ready as well.
A man, about Xander's height but a slimmer frame than him, walked out of the darkness, his gun at his side.
"Thanks for the save," Xander said.
"No problem," the man said. "It's what I do." He stepped farther into the light. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a black shirt.
"You do this often?" Faith asked, indicating the demon.
"For about five years now," he said. He held the pistol up sideways. "Not all of us have slayer fighting ability, though."
Faith and Xander were both a little surprised.
"So you know what I am," she said.
The man nodded. "Used to be friends with a slayer. I heard there was one here, so I came to see if it was her. Guess not though."
"We're gonna go in for some healing," Xander said, pointing to his apartment. "You want a drink or anything?"
"Sure," the man said.
Xander, now more awake than during the fight, helped Faith walk to the apartment, the stranger following behind.
"By the way, do you have a name?" Xander asked.
"Yeah," he said. "But I only tell my friends."
"Understood," Xander said, entering his apartment with Faith. He turned around to look at the man who had stopped at the threshold. "Don't expect an invitation, though."
The man smiled and walked into the apartment.
"Just making sure," Xander said.
"No offense taken," he said.
Faith sat on the couch.
"Cokes in the fridge," said Xander. "Or water."
"No beer?" the guy asked.
"I'm nineteen," Xander said. "And alcohol is not something I'm interested in."
"X, you gonna do something about my blood, here?" Faith asked.
"Sorry," he said. He got a washcloth from and let Faith wipe clean her arms, legs and chest. The blood gone, Xander pressed a hand to her wounds then flashed briefly white.
"I see what's going on," said a voice from the door. "I come home late and you're feeling up another woman. Am I that easy to replace?"
Xander grinned and turned to face Buffy.
"Hey," he said, giving her a kiss.
"I expected you to be asleep," she said. "What happened?'
"Faith got attacked and decided the way to win was to shatter our bedroom window and embed a pebble in the wall."
"Hey," Faith said. "Those guys would have seriously toasted my ass."
"Hey, can I take this lemonade?" the guy asked, coming out of the kitchen. He saw who was in Xander's arms and froze.
Buffy looked at the man standing in her apartment and her eyes bugged out.
"PIKE??"
Xander sighed and shook his head. "I'm not getting any sleep tonight."
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End Chapter 3
