Title: Just Desserts (8/?)

Author: nailbunny617

Pairing: B/F eventually

Rating: PG-13 for now

Disclaimers: No, I don't own any of these characters, I'm just taking them for a joyride and mean no harm. Oh and if girlsmut is illegal where you live, move! If it's not your cup of tea, then I suggest you stop reading right now.

Author's Notes: The saga continues. A big thank you to you all who gave me feedback, both the pleasantly encouraging and the thought-provoking. Oh and in an earlier part I evidently decided to update the timeline to be still in Buffy's 5th season but this year. Sorry for the oversight.

You know how they always equate sleeping good with being dead and/or a baby? And there's that cute saying about no rest for the wicked – or weary, depending on who it is you're talking to. Well, for some reason, tucked safely into Giles' spare bedroom – both he and Willow used their resolve faces on me, what was I to do? – I slept like a goddamn rock.

I was having the most exquisite dream, steamy enough that if I wore glasses, I'd probably have to take them off right now just thinking about it. You know the type, full of smooth, suave moves and all the right words and never-ending flesh. Well, considering how short Buffy is, never-ending might be a bad descriptor.

So, upon waking, when the first thing I saw was B sitting at the end of the bed boring holes into my skull…well, you could say it triggered my 'fight or flight' response. Being a slayer, I'm sure it won't take too much on my account to convince you which of those I reacted with.

What I wanted to do was squeal and back up against the headboard, holding the covers up to shield my flimsy tanktop from the accusing glare.

What I did was the exact opposite – I reacted like I'd had to a couple times when I was behind bars. I had her on the floor, my shaking hand clenched around her throat. It was eerily similar to another pose I'd just been dreaming about, so I released her like I'd been scalded and sat on my haunches.

She didn't say a word, just looked at me disappointed but satisfied like violence was exactly what she was expecting and walked out.

Fucking hell.

I stayed perched there, paralyzed from the suddenness of reality. If I'd let myself slip like that in jail…well, that didn't bear too much thinking about. It was amazing just how much could change in just a matter of days. I had been sitting in my cell, like I had for a year, contemplating how much Buffy must've hated my guts. Fast forward to me sitting there, having irrefutable proof of said sentiment.

I've said it a million times, and I'll say it a million more. To actually hear something, feel it punching all the air out of your lungs and irritating your tear ducts is vastly worse than knowing it's probably coming.

Willow came in, walking stiffly and looking like she was trying not to rub her neck. She'd insisted on sleeping on the couch – moral support, she called it, but we both knew that there was no way B'd let her back in the dorm room. At least she tried the act for my sake.

Maybe old wounds never really do heal. Maybe the scars can never be truly erased. Maybe a part of the redhead would always be watching me from the corner of her eye. Maybe, but I was sure as hell gonna try to mend fences with her. I wasn't expecting Nobel-prize-winning friendship, just more of an I-promise-I-won't-bash-in-your-front-teeth one.

Red sat down next to me and shifted until she found a position that didn't further curve her spinal cord out of alignment.

I looked at her guiltily, knowing the fight she was in was my fault. I gestured to where I could still feel B pacing in Giles' living room, and quietly said, "Will, you gotta know, I'm sorry for all this. I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't," she interrupted me softly, not quite looking me in the eyes. Which only made me feel worse. Sensing my mood, she responded, "No, but I kind of figured this was gonna happen. I made my choice, Faith. Just like you made yours to be here and like she made to be out there. She's wrong and she knows it."

The alloy of steel that twined through her words impressed me more than I can express. I always grudgingly liked that about her, that spunk I could sense lurking beneath the surface – even when she let everyone else make the calls. The resolve face alone was fucking legend.

So I nodded my understanding, and we just sat in the bedroom like lepers getting used to our colony. I could feel B's boots stomping the fuck out of the carpet in the other room, and winced with every step.

"Uh, do you think you could loan me bus money?" I hesitantly said, watching the wall that separated me from my sister in arms.

I think I heard a faint growl – no, in all seriousness, there was definitely rumbling there – and she pinned me with a fine look. "Oh no you don't. You're not gonna run away like this." It went unspoken that that was exactly what Buffy'd done when the shit hit the fan with Angelus or Angel or whatever the fuck you wanted to call him. I didn't say it but we both thought it. "You need this. I need this. The rest of the gang needs this. But, mostly, Buffy needs this." She nodded firmly to further drive home her point.

Rubbing my eyes, I admitted to myself that she was probably right. Which was exactly when I heard Giles trying to talk to Buffy.

"You let her stay here, Giles? Are you crazy?! You and I both know what she did the last time she was in town! She's a convicted felon!"

"Buffy-"

"No! No, there will be no meeting about this. There will be no serious talk about how 'Faith's been a good little prisoner, maybe we should give her a shot.' There is no turning back from the things she did, Giles." I could just imagine that self-righteously pissed off face that she uses when she's convinced she's right and she doesn't give a damn what anybody else thinks. I hate that face.

"You know, the last time we had this conversation, you were the one advocating not jumping to conclusions." Giles' words rocked my world. I fixed big eyes on Willow, and she solemnly nodded at me.

Things really didn't have to turn out the way they did back then after all. The thought hit me broad across the shoulders, adding another layer to my all-too-deep guilt.

Fucking hell.

B interrupted my personal Armageddon, not swayed at all from we-need-to-lynch-Faith-NOW speech. "Last time I tried to give her a chance but then it was all with the fists and the kicking and the running and the holding my mom hostage and – oh yea! Did I forget? – the switching our bodies!" Oh, she could pack her lectures with sarcasm like nobody's business.

I could just hear Giles' lenses squeaking from all the cleaning. "Everyone deserves a chance to make amends, Buffy."

"No, not Faith." I swallowed hard, taking the emotional lashing with as much strength as I could muster. Red put her hand on my shoulder and I didn't punch her, so I guess that was a good thing for her to do.

"But you gave Spike one." The logic of his argument made me smirk just a little.

"Spike's a vampire, he can't help his evilness. Faith's human, she made every one of her choices." I think I stopped breathing.

"No, I rather think the difference is that you don't care about Spike."

The words hung in the air like a huge pink fucking elephant, waiting for her reaction. I wished I could've seen her face, then. And from the strangled noise Willow made, she did too.

Therefore that was exactly the moment that Beefstick burst onto the scene. As if the day couldn't get any worse. Willow and I groaned in unison, and we probably would have laughed had we been able to find any humor in it.

We didn't.

But it wasn't like we had the time, what with Riley rushing in and trying to grab me. I roughly shoved aside his hand – hey, just because I thought B deserved to give me shit didn't mean anybody had a right to lay a finger on me – and growled at him to back the fuck off.

He advanced on me threateningly, which was amusing because I knew for a fact that Buffy'd kicked his ass before – not even on purpose – and she was the shorter of the two of us. Beefstick cocked his fist, and I just looked at him disbelievingly. But then I shook myself loose, and said, "If that's how this is gonna play out, bring it."

And he'd have brought it, too, until I saw a tiny hand on his oh-so-manly shoulders – pause while I gag – and spun him around. I'd have laughed at the oddity of the action, but I figured B'd lay into me enough as it was. Hell, she'd probably blame me for his little temper tantrum.

I didn't really catch the beginning of the conversation, but I'm pretty sure I got all the really juicy parts.

Like when Riley accused B of not telling him I was back in town. Which was really quite reminiscent of the happenings of the last time I'd met him.

I wasn't really surprised, then, when Buffy refused to look him in the eye and quietly told him, "You wouldn't understand."

"How can I when you don't give me a chance?" I wanted to punch him in the face.

"It's a slayer thing, Riley. This is between me and her and I just can't explain it to you." I think she couldn't explain it to him because she couldn't understand it herself. But she was right, no one who wasn't a slayer could ever possibly understand. The connection, the rhythm, the bond. Sharing a destiny where you know for sure that you're gonna die an early, gruesome death tends to make things seem more special.

Sacred almost.

The Scoobies thought that they understood, having tagged along for at least a handful of apocalypses – but the truth was they didn't. Knowing that your friend's gonna meet an early demise is definitely different from knowing that path lay in your immediate future. You know that anonymous poem that tells you to live like you'll die tomorrow? I've always had this sneaking suspicion that a slayer wrote it.

All the same, I couldn't blame Riley for his frustration. He caved at her words, knowing that this was a battle he was never going to be able to win, and pinned me with a glare. I'm sure the average girl would have found it intimidating, but I just thought it was sad.

"This isn't finished, Faith."

I didn't respond. I had a million witty comebacks on the tip of my tongue – believe me, I've even practiced a couple and they'd have been wicked cool. But it all came down to the fact that I pitied the guy too much to rub it in his face. He never had a chance with B and he knew it. He had to have known it.

After the earth-shattering, legend-inspiring, breaking-all-boundaries love affair Buffy'd shared with Angel…the boy simply didn't have a snowball's chance down under. I'm not sure if anyone did – even Angel himself.

Willow stood next to me. Not Buffy. Me. We watched him walk out the door while Buffy watched her shoes. The guy was so vanilla he couldn't even muster the indignation to slam the door.

Maybe that was why B was with him. He was safe. He was comfort food. He'd never hurt her, but he'd never inspire any other kind of passion either. She'd already had enough passion in her life.

Shit, did I ever feel sorry for him.

The whole situation made me think of a movie I'd seen once. I don't know if it was before or during my extended stay with the corrections staff of LA County, but that's not what matters. The flick was about this crazy future society that was so desperate after a near-miss of nuclear Armageddon that they'd created this wonder drug – which was oh-so-subtly named something similar to Prozac. Prozium, I think it was. The drug neutralized all anger and rage and jealousy; but in so doing, it also eradicated joy and happiness and all the other emotions too. They'd convinced themselves that in order to survive, they'd had to kill the very reason for human existence. But in the end, the people had realized that there was no point to life if they shut off that crucial part of who they were, so there was a huge revolt and a lot of crying. Coming back to humanity after a long period as automatons, they'd cried because they were so overcome by the beauty of everyday things – the rain, a rainbow, the sun.

I wondered if I'd had anything to do with Buffy's nuclear Armageddon. I wanted to be part of her revolt. Hell, I wanted to be her rainbow.

I just watched her, trying to gauge if I should ready myself for another fight. The blows she would inevitably manage to land wouldn't be physical, and therefore that much more painful.

But the words never came. Instead, shoulders slumped, Buffy turned around and made her way towards Giles' front door. She paused, her back to us, and stopped like she wanted to say something. I'll never know if she was actually gonna speak because the next thing I knew, the door was swinging shut.

Willow offered me tissues to blot away the tears I didn't know I was shedding.

A/N: The movie I referenced was the beautiful Equilibrium starring Christian Bale. You should check it out.