Part 4
"Mom, can I get a ride to school?" Faith yelled, coming down the stairs and into the kitchen.
Joyce Summers looked up at the brunette and raised an eyebrow, "School? Faith, are you feeling okay? You do know it's a Friday night, right?"
Smirking, Faith rolled her eyes and walked up to the sofa where the woman was sitting. She shrugged, hearing Buffy coming down the stairs behind her and only quickly turned to look, then directed her attention back to her mom.
"The football game, it's tonight. I really wanna go," the brunette pleaded, feeling Buffy walk past the living room to grab her jacket.
"Well, Buffy's going too, right? I'm sure you can go with her," Joyce responded and turned a page of the newspaper in her lap.
The blonde, upon hearing her name, stepped up next to Faith and looked at her mom while slipping her arms into a GAP jacket, "But mom...I'm going with my friends. I'm not even driving and I can't just ask them to take her."
Looking up Joyce threw her daughter a look and started to say something that was probably going to piss them both off in the long-run, but Faith interrupted, "Yeah, and besides I really don't wanna spend my night with a whole bunch of airheads."
This time it was Faith that received the glare, but Joyce stood up with a sigh, waving at Buffy to go ahead and leave. The brunette threw her a grateful smile and Joyce looked her up and down for a few seconds. Faith was wearing green draw-string pants that looked to Joyce like the military could've put them to good use, a tight, black spaghetti-strap top and black combat boots. Shaking her head, the woman grabbed her jacket, searching for her car keys and threw a glance at Faith as they were about to leave the house.
"Faith, please wear at least a jacket. It's cold outside and I don't want you getting sick."
Grumbling, the brunette grabbed her Sunnydale High Letterman jacket from the coat rack and followed the older woman outside into the cold evening air.
"You call this cold! You should spend a whole winter on the streets in Boston, now that's what I call cold," the brunette exclaimed as she jumped down the steps in front of the house and practically bounced towards the car.
Shaking her head once again, Joyce decided to ignore the comment and got into the car. Faith was already breathing into the air, watching her breath condense with a child-like expression on her face, but the older woman couldn't have been happier to turn on the heater once they were on the road.
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She leaned back, resting her hands on cold metal of the bleachers and took a look around. There were a lot of people considering this was just a High School football game, one of the many High School's in Sacramento on top of that. There was a lot of students, a lot of girls drooling over the team apparently, a couple of guys and even some parents that were probably here to watch their sons play. Sighing, she whipped her hair back, bringing her hands to her face and breathing at them in hope of warming them up just a little.
It was only the end of the first quarter and Buffy was starting to get slightly bored. There hadn't been any major excitement so far, and all her best friend seemed to be doing was constantly pointing out Donnie on the field. Number 43, Buffy didn't think Kyrie was ever gonna let her forget. She sighed again and let her eyes study the crowd; consciously she knew she was looking for Faith but she didn't actually know why. Their relationship had been more than strained these past three weeks; Faith hadn't even been home that often. And the only times she had been home Faith was either in her room doing homework and studying, something that Buffy still found slightly disconcerting, or watching TV with her mom. She missed the ease that had always been between them, even when they'd just been friends and Buffy hoped they could at least get back to that, if not more.
And then she did spot Faith, almost like the whole superstitious thing that as soon as you stop looking you'll find what you were looking for. The brunette was leaning back on her hands that were grabbing the back of the metal-bench and she was laughing; that throaty laughter that came straight from her heart and Buffy shuddered. She shuddered because the laughter wasn't for her or because of her. Watching her ex-girlfriend the blonde couldn't help but also watch the brunette girl next to her, who was glaring at Faith, but then burst out laughing as well. The two girls seemed to actually be enjoying themselves, despite the boring game and Buffy had a feeling it was 'cause they were in each other's company.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head and looked back at the football field. The players were running back onto the field to get into their positions and she could feel Kyrie shaking her arm from her right, exclaiming "Look! There's Donnie!" Rolling her eyes Buffy felt that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to go to the game. She hoped that they'd have more fun afterwards when, as Kyrie had explained it, a couple of guys from the team were going to take them out for a victory dinner. And Buffy had a very uncomfortable feeling that Donnie was going to be there. Sighing for the third time in five minutes she turned her head as Jaycee, Missy and Christy came back from their excursion to get drinks and sat down next to them. 'Let the fun begin' Buffy thought and took the drink Missy was offering her with a smile.
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"...I can't believe he traded you for a game card! That's too funny," Faith was still laughing, ignoring the glares she was receiving from the girl next to her.
"He didn't trade me," Ren interjected, rolling her eyes as the older girl looked at her, then started laughing again.
"No, he had you go on a date with a total freakazoid," the brunette grinned, looking at Ren who glared at her, but couldn't keep it up and started laughing as well.
"Yeah, Louis really makes me want to hurt him sometimes," Ren responded and sighed, watching as Faith turned her head to look at the field where the game was already continuing.
"Well, if my brother ever decided to do that to me...," the taller girl started, but Ren cut her off with a confused glance.
"You got a brother?"
Faith looked back at her and grinned, shaking her head, "Well, no...but if I did!"
Ren smiled back, watching the game for a few seconds and winced as a player took an extremely hard tackle. She looked around her, seeing a couple of familiar faces, along with a lot of strangers. People were wrapped in coats and hats; a cold front had just moved in and everyone seemed to get ready for winter. And now with the sun gone it was getting even colder, her breath condensing in the air before her and Ren rubbed her hands together to warm them up. She should've listened to her mom when she had told her to take a jacket, the sweater-jacket she had decided on was definitely not keeping her warm.
"Girl, don't tell me you're cold!"
She snapped her head over to look at Faith, who was grinning at her like a fool, sitting there wrapped in a comfy, warm-looking letterman jacket. Ren raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the girl completely before speaking, "Yes, I'm cold. And if you're gonna tell me you're not, then may I remind you of the jacket you're wearing?"
Faith looked down at herself, as if she didn't even remember wearing a jacket, then slipped her arms out of the sleeves with a shrug. She pulled off the jacket and handed it to Ren with a smile, feeling the cold air caress her bare skin. Seeing the skeptical look Ren was giving her she urged the girl to take the warm jacket, eventually throwing the brunette a pleading look.
"Just take it, I really don't need it. I wouldn't even have taken it if my mom hadn't made me. I'm Boston-grown, I have a thick skin," she grinned and shrugged, pushing the jacket at Ren who reluctantly took it.
The younger girl pulled on the jacket and immediately felt warmth settle around her body, and somehow Ren had a feeling that it being Faith's jacket only added to it. She looked at the other girl who actually seemed intent on watching the game for once, her eyes grazing Faith's bare arms, the way the brunette's hair swept around her shoulders that were only covered by two black spaghetti straps. Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Ren turned her head back to the game field.
She couldn't believe she'd just looked at Faith's body like that, they were just friends. Glancing over quickly Ren studied the girl's dark features, the deep brown eyes and lips that had actually been left make-up-less tonight, and once again she was sunken deep in her thoughts.
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Buffy looked at the boy sitting across from her and burst out laughing, almost spewing milkshake all over the table. Kyrie was elbowing her in the ribs and she threw a look at the other girl, and they both started laughing. Yeah, she thought, this was definitely turning out to be a good night. After the game had ended five of the players had met them outside the locker rooms and taken them to this popular hang-out. It was somewhere along a burger-shack, a lot of kids from their school where here to hang out, but out of all of them their group was definitely the most popular and therefore they were pretty much being left alone. And as Buffy had suspected Donnie had been one of the guys, of course, but she didn't seem to mind it as much anymore.
She turned her head as a kid ran past the rows of tables screaming and sighed as she realized who it was. Throwing a quick, sympathetic glance at Donnie, she watched as his little brother ran to the arcade section of the place, barely dodging a waitress with a tray full of food. Sometimes she wondered who let kids like him into places like these. Glancing at the door she was just about to go back to her conversation with the guy named Chad, when she saw Faith walking up to the place, looking as hot as ever.
Buffy watched the brunette's familiar sway, and Faith walked into the diner, hands in her pockets and looked around before turning. Behind her the blonde could see that Ren-chick and a weird-looking blonde she thought she'd seen around school once or twice. They made their way over to a booth near Buffy and her clique and as they got closer the blonde recognized the shorter brunette wearing Faith's jacket. The letterman jacket Faith had gotten from Sunnydale High and always bragged about since she'd been the only freshman on the Varsity soccer team.
Swallowing hard, Buffy watched them for a few seconds, telling herself she had to breathe. In High School wearing someone else's letterman jacket usually only meant one thing...you were going out with them, and Buffy so desperately did not want that to be true. This was getting a little bit too much as far as revenge plans went...even for what she'd done. Buffy glared down into her milkshake so she didn't have to see the two girls, knowing that if she did, she might do something out of anger that she'd probably regret eventually.
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The air in the burger shack was sticky, humid almost with the heat of teenage bodies crammed inside to escape the biting cold. And with the bodies came the noise: a couple of kids cheering on someone breaking a video game record, a group of jocks shouting at each other about tonight's tackles to impress their dates, waitresses yelling orders at the cooks who added their own clinking of pots and pans.
She sighed, shrugging out of the jacket that had definitely gotten too warm for inside the restaurant and looked at the girl sitting across from her. Her best friend Ruby was talking about a new boy band with the excitement of a five-year old locked in a candy store, but Ren couldn't have cared less. Sure, it had been her who'd asked the blonde to come along after they'd seen her at the game, but now she was wondering just why she had done it. Remembering correctly, Ren could've sworn Ruby just about invited herself and the brunette didn't feel as bad about wishing to be alone, but she couldn't help and hope Ruby would leave.
Suddenly someone nudged her side and she looked to her left, staring into a set of gorgeous brown eyes that held her gaze with a twinkle in them. Snapping out of her daze Ren raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'what?' to Faith who was smirking relentlessly. Her eyes followed Faith's outstretched finger, and it took Ren a few seconds to realize what it was that was on the brunette's plate. Ren started laughing as she saw the fry-tower with a lettuce leaf roof and ketchup pool; apparently Faith was as bored as her. She was just about to make a quiet comment about the food-art, when someone else sat down at their table and, not to their dismay, interrupted Ruby.
"Uh...hey guys," the person mumbled and Ren stared at her brother skeptically. Louis was never up to any good, he'd basically never done a good thing in his life. 'That's not true', she reminded herself...he had been the one that caused her to meet Faith, however coincidental that might've been.
"Louis," she sighed and looked at the boy who was fiddling with the saltshaker, "what do you want?"
He looked up, a goofy grin on his face and he pulled his hands away, wiping them on his shorts, then looked at Faith, "I uh...want to talk to Faith. It won't take long I promise."
Ren threw him a wary look and turned her attention to the drink in front of her, suddenly very interested in the ice floating around in her cup. Louis cleared his throat and she knew Faith was trying to hold back a chuckle, Ren didn't even know how she knew; it was more like an intuition.
"I just...wanted to say that I'm real sorry for telling you about my brother and uh...your girlfriend, you know, getting you all upset and stuff. It wasn't right and I'm sorry," the brown-haired boy said, looking up at the taller brunette with an almost questioning look on his face.
This time face couldn't keep in her chuckle and she smiled, shaking her head, "Don't worry about it, L. It was probably for the better anyway, else I don't think I ever would've found out."
"So, we're cool?" Louis asked, cocking his head slightly as his hands grabbed the saltshaker once again.
"Yeah, five by five," Faith laughed upon seeing the confused looks she was getting, then nodded, "we're cool."
"Good...'cause I'm glad my sister's finally found some cool friends," he said and stood up as he saw the look his sister was throwing at him, then looked at Ruby with a crooked smile, "Oh...no offense to you Ruby." And before anyone else had a chance to say anything he was gone.
Ren shook her head in despair, Louis was going to drive her insane one day, but Faith was still grinning, "You know, I kinda like him."
The look she received almost made Faith want to take back that statement. Almost.
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The girl looked up and outside her window to glance at the half-moon almost hidden behind a tree. Sighing, she laid her head back onto her pillow, not even bothering to close her eyes to get some sleep. She'd been lying in her bed for what seemed like hours, trying to fall asleep. But it seemed hopeless; her mind constantly reminded her of what she'd seen tonight and what she'd probably lost.
Buffy turned onto her back and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. The rest of the evening she had spent flirting with anyone within her reach, mostly the guys at their table, though. She knew why she'd done it, too, it was a 'two-can-play-that-game' type of thing; the whole time she'd hoped Faith would see and be extremely jealous. But it hadn't quite worked out that way; Faith hadn't even seen her and all Buffy had gained was the knowledge that teenage guys were about the horniest beings on the planet.
Sighing, she thought of what had happened between them. There was no way Faith could've just dumped her and not cared. Buffy had expected this to be the kind of break-up where you just take it slow for a few days and then get back together. Almost every good couple in High School had at least one of those, it would've been their first and all. But no, that no-good, overzealous, in no way pretty nerd had to come between her plan. Faith wasn't supposed to ogle someone else, she was supposed to forgive and forget so they could get back together.
A low growl rose from the blonde's throat and she thought about who she was. Buffy was a popular girl, liked, or at least admired, by pretty much the whole student body, but being popular also meant you had learned to be a bitch. And she definitely knew how to defend her turf. The blonde could barely believe that she had almost let Faith slip through her hands for a lack of fighting, but now she was ready to declare war. She wasn't going to win Faith back by moping around and letting that little bitch move in on her territory. No, she, Buffy Summers, was going to bring out the worst in herself and fight for her woman.
Chuckling at that quietly she finally closed her eyes and drifted off to a very relaxing sleep.
More to come...