Title: Just Desserts (9/?)

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: Wow, thanks for all the lovely fb! Seriously, I wasn't sure if I was getting Buffy right at all…seems I did. Hope everybody had a safe new year! And I researched auras a bit just to make sure I didn't sound like a jackass – but I probably do anyway. Sorry if I got it wrong or you don't find it as amusing as I do.

I was running, running hard, my feet flying more than clattering. Up and down, up and down. My heart pacing my feet, thumping like I was running for my life.

Which, I suddenly realized, I was.

I took the turn a little wide, and had to pick up my pace just to keep ahead. The crazy thought that I should invest in some sports bras flitted through my mind. Sprinting flat-out like this for extended periods tended to make my bra strain a little.

The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't enjoying the chase. The one thing I always loved about being a slayer was the comfortable knowledge that if I couldn't handle it, it was very bad shit indeed. There had only ever been a handful of times – if that many – that the shit had been that bad.

I getting a little tired of irony in my life. For instance, the irony that I was going to meet my early demise thanks to the only thing that had ever set me free – slaying. No matter how jaded I'd ever become, I knew the danger. It was always there, lurking in the shadows, slinking around behind me. And maybe I'd only ever been good at slaying because I threw myself into the fray with abandon. They always say the most ferocious fighters are the ones who have absolutely no intention of ever making it home again.

Some people say that bravery isn't not feeling fear, it's feeling the fear but doing what needs to be done anyway. If that were really the case, then I guess I was one brave soul.

I tripped. Too much thinking, I guess, but one second my feet were flying across the streets of Sunnydale; the next I was flying towards the pavement.

Turning over, I crab-walked backwards in fear, watching Buffy round the corner and see me lying there. Her eyes lit up, and her hand tightened on the blade of my knife as she plunged it into my heart.

I sat up in the bed, breath ripping in and out of my throat, screaming incoherently. Willow was there, on the bed with me, presumably the one who'd succeeded in waking me from my nightmare.

One thing you can say about my subconscious – or any other part of me – is that it doesn't do anything half-assed. If there's something kicking around my head that the rest of me needs to be made aware of, there's gonna be no subtlety about it. Sometimes I wish it weren't so obvious. The word chagrin came to mind.

I scrubbed at my face with my hands, trying to hold in a burst of bitter laughter. I think I'd been crying out in my sleep, because it looked like Red knew exactly what the dream had been about. I wondered what, or who, was in her nightmares that could make her watch me with such understanding.

After the marathon fun-session with Riley and Buffy, I'd cried myself to sleep. Willow had sat with me the whole time, even if she'd had a vaguely uncomfortable look on her face. Giles had disappeared, knowing somehow that I wouldn't want him to see me like that.

Crooking a hollow smile at Willow, I asked, "Feel like getting some breakfast?"

She readily agreed, betrayed initially by her stomach rumbling. We laughed like old friends.

"You mind if Tara comes, too?" Red quietly asked. Of course, she'd want to see her main squeeze. I nodded and maybe even half-meant my smile. From the way her face brightened, I figured that was the right move.

Never having been much of one to enjoy third-wheeldom, I briefly considered bowing out gracefully to allow the couple some time together – that was until I remembered that Buffy was gonna be back sooner or later. Plus I was quite interested to meet the girl who'd won Red's heart, if not completely then at least mostly, away from the little blonde slayer.

I remembered the dirty blonde as quiet, soft-spoken and painfully shy. But there had to be something more there, something that Willow had glimpsed.

When we met Tara at the homey little diner, she seemed different somehow. Maybe I was the one who was different.

I ordered the biggest breakfast they had, remembering the extra money Angel had shoved into my hand. He shrugged his shoulders and gruffly informed me that it was for the brief bouts of slaying I'd caught up on – helping out the gang, he'd said. I couldn't remember why I'd hated him so much before, even at the time he'd been in a hopeless, dead-end of a relationship with the girl I loved so much it hurt. Details, right?

Both Tara and Red looked suitably impressed at my culinary daring. They, of course, ordered some sort of pansy-assed-egg-whites-only-omelette-environmentally-friendly meal. I had to severely bite down on my lower lip to avoid joking about filling certain stereotypes. I'd promised myself I was going to be good.

Of course, that meant that I had no idea what to talk to either of them about.

"So, uh," my eyes darted quickly around, trying to figure out some blithe, witty question to ask, "how are your classes going, Tara?"

She smiled softly at me. At least she was planning on being nice to me after what a royal bitch I was to her when we first met. "Good, yea, you know…good. Very, um, classy." Seems I wasn't the only one at a loss.

The food showed up, and we being one hungry slayer and two broke college kids, made short work of our respective meals. Mine had taken three waitresses to bring out, all of them eyeing me silently. I just smirked and started shoveling. In all honesty, I had to eat that much just to avoid losing weight.

I finished before they did. This was one of those fun uses for irony. I sat there, pointedly shredding my napkin into progressively smaller pieces, until I just couldn't take it anymore. "I'm sorry, Tara. About, you know…before." I looked off to the side and winced. I hated apologizing, even if I had been a total shit to the poor girl. My father had once told me that saying you're sorry is a weakness people won't hesitate to exploit. He'd spent hours lecturing me on all the different ways people would screw you over. Remembering the exact effect he'd had on my life, well, that wasn't a pleasant sort of irony.

"Thank you, Faith." She looked me in the eyes then, none of her earlier hesitations and stuttering apparent. It was almost as if she were studying me, looking into my soul and seeing all the blackness. I couldn't look away even though I tried.

After what seemed like eternity – okay, maybe it was a little over a minute – she turned to Willow and said, "You're right about her."

I blurted out the only thing I could. "Right about what? The squirrels taking over the world?"

Red pointed her finger at me solemnly, replying, "You jest, but when the squirrel generals mobilize the troops and they take over the world with their tiny little acorn-bombs, well, missy, you'll be eating those words." I simply watched them both with a raised eyebrow, silently impressed by her repartee. "Or bunny rabbits if you ask Anya. Really, you should ask her about that sometime."

I didn't move a single muscle. Tara, though, didn't have the experience with me to call my bullshit like Willow did, and she broke the standoff. I was gonna win too, dammit. "She said that you're in love with Buffy."

I banged my head on the table. It was the only semi-violent thing I could do that didn't involve throttling Red. Instead of laughing in my face, Willow ran off to the bathroom while trying to hold in her snickering. I glared at her back.

Tara put her hand on mine, where it was resting on the table. I stared at it. Instead of removing it, like most people would have, she waited until I looked back up at her.

"Your aura is bright blue and clean," and she sat there, waiting for her words to sink in. I wasn't ever too clear on that whole mysticism/witchcraft thing, so I just looked back at her blankly. "That means you're a born survivor. A good person."

I scoffed at that, but my chest tightened painfully anyway. She was so wrong, and she didn't even know it. Despite that, my heart felt like it was soaring just a little bit.

"Yeah? What's yours?" Hey, I was curious.

"Mine's green, or at least that's what people tell me. It means I'm a healer." I thought that was fitting just from this one conversation. "Willow's is turquoise, which means that she influences people and is full of energy."

"Angel?"

"Definitely blue."

"Cordelia?"

"Orange. She's inspiring and can control people." We both laughed a little at that.

"Riley?"

"Mustard. He's uneasy and angry."

I wanted to ask what Buffy's was, but I wasn't ready for that conversation.

Clenching my jaw and withdrawing my hand, I sought to build up my defenses again. People will only let you down, my father softly admonished me.

"Willow also told me about your family. I understand, you know." The disbelief fucking shone out of my eyes. "Mine told me I was part demon so I'd come home and play the Stepford Wife." Okay, even I had to admit that was fucked up. She smirked a little then, and continued, "And I believed them right up until Spike punched me and it hurt him. It's different when it's family, isn't it?"

The girl seemed clearly intent on making me cry, she really did. I was grinding my teeth and swallowing hard, but I couldn't look away from her. I think I knew what Red saw in this girl with a heart of green.

She kept talking, though, and her words have haunted me ever since. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, right? Blood may be binding, but sometimes it just isn't enough. People like us…we have to deal with what's given to us, making our own family along the way."

I was stunned into silence. The eloquence, the simple beauty of the words, and the person sitting in front of me – it was overwhelming. I felt my heart stop bleeding. Maybe it hadn't started to heal yet…but it was only a matter of time. Looking in Tara's eyes, I finally believed it.

I wondered if I could ever live with myself, my past.

I smiled at Tara and she smiled back at me. It felt like soaking up the sun's rays.

Willow came back to the table and seemed a little conflicted about how well her girl and I were getting along. But I rolled my eyes at her and raised my eyebrow – she got the hint and blushed a little. I'd never seen two people more perfect for each other than the couple sitting across from me.

No matter how evil people thought I'd been…well, it was never about anyone but Buffy. Despite my best efforts, it might always be that way.

"So I've been hearing these awful rumors that we have our very own psycho slayer back in town. Oh hey, look, there she is!" Willow and Tara immediately got big guilty eyes and whipped their heads to where Xander stood just behind to the left of where I was sitting. I didn't really have anything to feel guilty about. This time, anyway.

I turned and greeted him, trying not to remember why exactly he was so angry at me. "Hi there, Xander."

He tried to do his best impression of B's laser vision, but it didn't cut through me like hers. I wasn't even the tiniest bit uncomfortable and allowed the slightest hint of a grin to pull up a corner of my mouth. Maybe I'd vowed to make amends, but I couldn't always tamp down on my more…playful side.

Xander turned his vision on the two girls, and I could only cringe for them. Red had made it perfectly clear just a couple hours before that she was her own woman. I was glad that I wasn't gonna be hung out to dry alone here.

What do you say to a guy who gave you his virginity? For the record, as stupid as it may sound, I didn't know that's what I was doing that night. But I knew that if I wanted a way to get under B's skin, that'd work. Just another stop on my glorious downward spiral. I felt like I was still circling the damn drain.

Willow, however, was glaring right back at him. After a couple weird head movements caught my attention, I noticed that Tara was not-so-subtly trying to get us to leave the diner. That was more than alright with me, so I dug out a few bills and tossed them on the table while nodding a goodbye at Red.

The blonde and I made tracks, but I couldn't resist taking a last look back at the lifelong best friends. He'd sat down on my side, squirming uncomfortably where he could feel my body heat. Good, let him squirm a little. Willow had her best resolve face on, solemnly talking to him and gesturing mildly.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look at the blonde. "She'll get through to him, you'll see," she reassured me. I didn't want to admit that I was a touch worried about just that, but I knew Tara'd see through my shit anyway so I just nodded at her.

We walked for a while. I scuffed my boots along the pavement and Tara didn't seem to mind the meandering pace. She was peeking at me out of the corner of her eyes when she didn't think I'd notice.

"Go ahead and ask." I thought I had a pretty good idea what exactly she was thinking, what she wanted to know. How I could do it. Any of it. The betrayal, the lies, the pain. But I didn't know how I could answer her.

"No, I wasn't going to ask you anything. I…I was just wondering how they could have thought that you were evil."

That stopped me cold. "Well," I said, scowling at my confusion, "I kinda was."

She shook her head, not deterred at all by my words. "If you really had been then, you would still be now."

"You weren't here then. You wouldn't be saying that if you had."

"No, Faith, if I had been here then, I would have seen the real you. Just like I'm seeing you now. Like Willow is beginning to see you."

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Every fiber in me was screaming, screaming for her to stop, to be quiet, to let me be. If she kept going, maybe I'd believe her. And if that happened, then everything would be wrong, everything that I'd believed and lived would be false. Just another lie.

If I didn't deserve everything that happened, if I really didn't, then I'd go crazy.

She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it a little. "But none of it matters if you can't see yourself."

I was going to go stark raving mad if this rollercoaster didn't fucking stop soon.

We sat on a bench on campus, just shooting the breeze.

"No way, those two are totally hot for each other." I leaned back after making my proclamation, crossing my arms with confidence.

"I don't think we're watching the same show at all, Faith, they're always yelling at each other."

"Uh huh, and me thinks they protest too much."

"Shakespeare probably wouldn't agree with your assessment. Not to mention he'd probably object to you misquoting Macbeth."

"Don't squabble, you know they're boinking each other."

"Okay Faith, if you say so."

"Now you're just humoring me, and that's not fair."

"I'm not humoring you, I saw the light. Really." She nodded at me with her patented 'I believe in you' face. That girl's too sweet for her own damn good.

"Now, come on, I'd think you'd be first in line to shout that they're fuck buddies."

"Just because I'm a lesbian doesn't mean I think every attractive woman on tv is too."

I didn't even bother to respond to that, I just left my arms crossed and stared at her. Tara gave in way too easily, blushing hard, and muttered, "Okay, well, maybe in a perfect world, there'd be lots of fun girly loving…"

"Ha! I knew it!" I crowed with glee.

"You knew what?" Willow questioned, glaring at me slightly. She probably thought this was a repeat of that night at the Bronze. I wondered if I could use the excuse that while most of the time I'm not in my right mind, that night I wasn't in my right body. I bet nobody'd laugh.

I grinned, replying, "Well, see, Tara just admitted that she thinks that any show where there's two hot women…she'd like to see some – what was it? – hot girly action."

Tara raised her head. "That's not what I said!"

Xander, who had been standing slightly behind Red, rolled his eyes. "Come on, Tara, I'm a hot-blooded male; you two are lesbians; and you?" he said, looking at me, "Well, I'm sure you could appreciate it." From the lascivious grin on my face, everyone assumed correctly that I certainly would.

Instead of continuing the conversation, Willow watched Xander and pushed her head in my direction. He kicked the ground for a little while, looking up to see Red with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot on the ground.

"So, um, Faith, you, uh, back for good? I mean, er, you know, ha!, good purposes? Good as in no more helping out the crazy evil but somehow eerily polite mayors intent on killing loads of people?"

"Yea, Xander, I promised Red here that I'd be good. I hear she's first-rate with shovels." And from the big eyes the hacker was sending my way, she didn't know that Cordy'd passed the enjoyable tidbit onto me. I'd have paid to see her say that to Beefstick. "I'm…I'm sorry for everything that went down before."

I didn't want to get into specifics with Tara and Willow watching intently. The last thing a guy ever needs is to be emasculated like that in front of his best friend and her girlfriend. He got what I meant.

"Eh, it's okay, you know, because when Dracula came to town I ate bugs and wheedled. You're nothing by comparison." Confused silence on my part, Willow and Tara trying not to laugh. "No offense, I meant in the evil-that-will-scar-me-for-life kind of way. You know, like I still get the jones for beetles sometimes…and that was an overshare."

That was an understatement.

He continued anyway. "So are we, um, square?"

I laughed so hard I could barely wheeze out, "Yeah, we're five by five."