Title: Our Little Movie Ending

Summary: "You leave tonight or live and die this way" Buffy/Faith. AU.

A/N: OK, you're gonna have to suspend your disbelief for a while…Not really sure why I wrote this, but I found the song (which I lurve) and sorta based a fic around it! Much love to all my faithful readers who leave positive comments; you don't know how much I appreciate them and I always try to read your Fuffy fanfiction too! Remember, this has some bad words in it…so watch out all you vulnerable people! This is set in the season four episode "Who am I?" just after Buffy and Faith have switched back bodies in the Church…I know the sitch with Adam wouldn't allow this to happen so wow - he's not around! It's fanfic so let your imaginations run wild! And I know Buffy's obligations would feature, but lets forget about them too…there'd be no Fuffy fun otherwise!

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I could feel the pain. Instantly. It shot down me like an arrow, tingling through my arms and finger, down to my legs and the end of my toes. I realised the truth at those harsh words I threw when I was inside Buffy…I knew I hated myself. Who wouldn't if you were me? But I never realised how much.

She looks at me, those innocent green eyes staring down into my own. I suddenly want to tell her everything; why I did this to her, the reasons why I've done all those crappy things in my life, why I listen to music that reminds me of her, why I always carry that picture of us around in my pocket…and I want her to care. I want her to listen to my apologies, and know that I mean them. That those few days in her body changed me more than I ever could have imagined. And I'm feeling way more screwed up than before.

She gets up slowly… her brow furrowed like she's trying to decipher some foreign language or answer an equation that she just doesn't get, and I want to touch it. Feel how her skin rubs against my own. I'm not sure what this means, what this epiphany signifies, but I know it isn't good. And my mind scans over the last months, her figure haunting my every waking moment. Yet, I'd relish the thought of her as I woke up in the morning, the only thing keeping my through those dark days. But seeing her with Riley, Beefstick, tore me up inside…knowing she would rather hang off his arm like a trophy than be with me…

Yeah, unrequited love's a bitch.

That thought sends shivers through my brain. Is that what this is? Love? If I'm honest, I don't know. I've never felt it in all my years on Earth. That's hardly surprising though, I suppose. I wasn't brought up in sunny Smallville like B.

I get up from the floor, torn between throwing harsh insults and fighting with her or confess my undying love. But it seems I made that choice, walking past the pews with a heavy mind, resigning myself to the fact that I'm never gonna be part of B's life. Maybe Boston is the way to go…catch up with some ol' "buddies" of mine. 'Cause however much I've changed, I'm not going back to the jailhouse.

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She walks through the Church, past those pews and out of my life, most likely forever. If I was Willow or Xander, I'd be doing a victory dance. So why aren't I? Why does it feel like with every step she takes, I'm losing a part of my soul? Why does it feel like I'll be missing my other half, that some piece of me will always be with her? I know Riley's outside, pacing up and down in his Sunday best. Yet the mere thought of Faith looking at me with those eyes, leaves me forgetting him completely. He's devoted to me, but he's not the love of my life.

She tosses her hair behind her shoulder, exuding confidence yet I feel like I know what she's thinking. That really she wants to stay. Some deeply hidden domestic part of her wants to live in the clichéd suburbs with the perfect children and the white picket fences. The whole deal. Sure, it's a small part, but its there. I know it is. And God, why do I feel like I should be the one to give it to her?

Her hand touches the top of the last line of pews, stopping momentarily to look behind, staring at me with an almost forlorn expression…like she needed me to say one thing, and somehow it would have changed.

That's not the Faith I knew.

"See ya around B." She says simply, practically giving me a wink. As she opens her eye again, she stares at me intently. Like seeing me for the last time, memorising details inscribed on my face.

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The shape of her lips. The light in her eyes when she speaks. The smile she has on her face when she laughs, the echo bouncing off the walls. I could live on that laugh forever. I won't remember this as I sleep in a grimy motel room, wallpaper peeling and yellowing ceilings. I'll treasure those times when we were friends. No, it'd be the those moments, just moments when she'd look at me and I'd feel like I was wonderful.

Looking back, I should have realised then. Probably would have saved me a lot of heartache. I turn around, getting ready to run like hell outta Sunny-D.

"Wait." Her voice rings in my ears. I think I imagined it, my fantasies coming to the fore of my consciousness, and I know if I'm imagining things, then I really have it bad. "Faith…wait." I can hear her tentative steps approaching.

I need to leave. I have to leave. I have to leave. So why aren't I?

"Don't go." She says simply, her hand moving to rest on my arm. I tense at the contact, wincing at the tenderness in her touch; its so long since I felt this from her. And its only now that I realise how much I crave it. "Stay here."

Turning around hesitantly, I look at her pleading face. Damn, she almost looks convincing. "Yeah B, 'cause you really want me around." My words are unintentionally sarcastic. I want her to deny it fervently, tell me how much she missed me, whatever I've done, however evil I've been in the past that she knows I can reform. Be a better person.

"I need you around." Words falter me, I feel like she's yanking my chain…she knows my weakness and she's exploiting it. "I need you in my life."

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Why can't I shut up? Why am I doing this? My mouth is running off independently of my brain. But do I even want to stop it? I need to hear this as much as she does.

"Why B?" She asks and I'm surprised that she's even listening to my frantic words. "Why the hell would you want me around of all people?"

Because I love you, my mind answers, Because I think about you when I'm sitting in class, your face appearing in my mind at regular intervals, your name jumping out in everything I read…Because I love you…isn't that enough? But I'm silent, my mind wordlessly answering questions that Faith needs to hear.

She's done some things in her time, things that I can't forgive her for. Killing a man, aligning herself with the Mayor…stealing my body. Death and destruction. Yet all these things don't take away the passion, the love that I feel for her. And its screwing me up inside knowing that she'll be gone.

"Because I love you."

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"Then leave with me." I say instantly, my mind not even comprehending that she feels something for me. Something other than hate. Pausing, I think what she said to me. I love you How can anyone love me when I hate myself so much?

After everything I've done to B, and all the people around her, you'd think she'd kill me dead. "Leave with me."

Buffy's face falls, biting her lip and looking at me, begging. Maybe this is my perverse way of showing her this could never work. Showing her that whatever she feels for me, we'd be one fucked up couple.

"How can you ask me that?" She says, nearing me slowly. "I have a life…"

I snort, yeah, a life Buffy. Whatever you say. You gotta preppy boyfriend, college and friends who are drifting away. Whatever you say B.

"Riley? He's your life is he?" I counter, anger seething in my mind. That night I went to his bedroom and had sex. With him. Confessing his love, and for a moment, just a small moment, I could see Buffy looking down on me. "Have a great one B."

"Faith, please!" Buffy pleads with me. The earnest appeal in her voice causes me to stop, pushing my hair back and sitting on the church pew. She looks pleased, that somehow she's got me to listen. She sits on the pew opposite, her hands clasped between her knees. Almost nervously. "You have to stay here. You could get a job or something…"

"And watch you and your latest boy toy have 2.4 kids? Me standing at the side, staying cause of what you said years ago? Not my idea of fun B." I sigh, knowing this is the last time I'll see her. In a few years, maybe I'll come back. Maybe she'll be married or pregnant.

Maybe I won't go back at all.

Silence fills the church and can hear the sirens outside. They'll soon burst in the doors with confused faces, wondering where the men went. And I'll run out the door, taking a last look at her and vanishing without a trace. I can her breathing, measured and even as though she's considering every movement of her lungs.

"Where would we go?" She whispers quietly, and my head spins.

"Wherever B. Wouldn't matter if you were with me." I say in a rare moment of honesty. Would she ever say yes? Would she ever leave the life I envied so much to live with me of all people?

"What about my mom? Dawn?" She says again in a quiet voice, her words almost being carried away by the wind. She still looks at the floor, not looking in my eyes. For that I'm grateful, mainly cause if she looked at me with those emerald eyes, I'd agree to whatever she said.

"I'm not holding you hostage." I say, with a hint of anger. "You could come back and visit whenever B." I pause, "All I know is that I can't live without you, but I can't stay here."

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She wants me to leave. Leave this all behind and take off with her in a cloud of dust in the sunset. Our little movie ending. I love Riley. I. Love. Riley. Maybe if I say it over and over again, I can make it true.

And "I love Faith" slips into mind so comfortably, like it was always there but it's just taken me a while to realise it.

People run through my mind, people I'd be abandoning like before. And we all know what happened before. Dawn, Mom, Giles. Willow, Xander. These people love me. And I love them. Yet I'm ready to give it all up. For her.

What would it be like with her? Living in crappy motels, barely enough to eat. Watching movies together, our hands tangled up in the back row of the cinema. Eating in the café opposite our apartment just revelling in being together as we stuff our mouths with croissants. Smiling every day. For no reason apart from the fact that I'm in love.

I don't hate my life. It's comfortable; I have friends, a family. A Watcher who by any other name would be my father. But with Faith, it'd be exciting, fulfilled. And I'd be with her.

I can feel her eyes on my head, almost willing me not to look up 'cause she thinks she knows my answer. My hair covers my face as I look towards her and she swallows, then winces, preparing for the rejection and ready to flee the church as quickly as she could.

"I want to come with you."

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The wind runs through my hair as we pass the dusty plains of an unnamed town. Cacti dot the landscape, providing a change in scene for my tired eyes. I can't remember how long we've been driving, but we've been talking for hours. And I feel good. I feel like for the first time I'm free. Free to love who I want, free to be who I want.

At the last truckstop I phoned mom. Her voice was scratchy, she'd been crying. And I knew that Giles had told her what I'd shouted to them as I fled the church, hand in hand with Faith. She told me that I was stupid, and naïve. But that she loved me and wanted me to be happy…I think Dawn had calmed her down significantly. My sister came on the phone next, whispering for mom's sake until I presumed she took the phone into another room. She told me that when I came back, she was going to kick my ass. I smiled. It was so like her…normally I would've told her that I'd kick hers into next Friday, but I played along instead, making her laugh as I pretended to be worried.

I told her our plans, finding a place to settle down where Faith could get a job without official documents. And we'd rent a place, somewhere nice. And after a few weeks, we'd go back to Sunnydale. I told her we'd come back, and we'd come back often.

Before she hung up, she told me that she loved me. And that I may have been stupid to fall for Faith, but that it was one of the least stupid things I'd done in my time.

Faith laughed at that as we made breakfast the morning after, promising to thank "Squirt" for her approval.

And as I sat in the kitchen of the house we'd managed to rent bottom dollar 'cause Faith promised to be a temporary caretaker, I watched the birds flying in the sky without a care in the world. I felt her sling her arms round my waist and I nestled into her embrace. Maybe I was like those birds; I wasn't without a care, but I was free.

And with the woman that I loved. Everything was right in the world.

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"And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder

And I had a feeling that I belonged

And I had feeling I could be someone…

You got a fast car

But is it fast enough so you can fly away?

You gotta make a decision

You leave tonight or live and die this way"

Tracy Chapman, Fast Car

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