Faith never was a morning girl. Mornings were made for the Buffys of the world, perky blonde girls whose hair shone in the sun. Girls who considered yoga a good morning routine over crawling home wrung out from a clubcrawl. Girls who daintily ate a bowl of Special K instead of pigging out on hangover-helping munchies.
Faith really wasn't a morning girl.
But New York City was different from L.A., and even from Boston. Everyone on the streets of New York at dawn looked like they'd rather be curled up in some dark corner. Being up and about at six in the morning was damned unnatural, even if -- like Faith -- they were really ending their day late instead of starting it early.
Unnatural or not, she usually loved her early morning jogs. Especially since the air was getting brisk as fall moved in. Hey, seasons turn, huh? She'd almost forgotten after living the California life for so long, but back in Boston, fall had always been her favorite. Bright leaves, crunchy grass, cool air...even knowing what went bump in the night hadn't ruined Halloween for her. Even if New York didn't have much in the way of grass and leaves, it still felt like fall.
Which was good, because Faith needed something cheerful to concentrate on while sprinting down Broadway after a night full of general insanity.
After busting out of jail, after nearly letting Angelus chew her neck off, after everything she and Angel went through...it wasn't supposed to end with him in some Wolfram and Hart hell dimension. Not that she actually thought they'd all get happy endings complete with riding off into the sunset. But they all deserved better than they'd gotten.
Well, maybe not. All the L.A. gang had gotten pretty damn screwed, but Faith couldn't honestly say she was unhappy with where she'd ended up. Sweet penthouse in New York City, and a sweet guy looking after her. Not that it was gonna end well -- judging by how royally she'd fucked up things with Robin, it was obvious she was pretty much doomed to die alone -- but it was nice to play house and pretend everything was okay.
Xander was curled up on the couch thumbing through a comic book when she got home.
"Hey," she said, bumping the door closed with her hip and pushing a lock of sweaty hair off her forehead. "I thought you were going to sleep."
"I thought you were getting a sandwich." Xander smiled through a yawn.
"You were waiting up for me."
"That's slander and libel and my only answer to that is dragging you into bed."
As he got up and reached for her, Faith recoiled. "Dude, I just ran five miles. Not exactly making with the good hygiene at the moment."
"Oh, please. I kissed you when you were covered in that bright green demon blood a few weeks ago -- you think sweat's a big deal?"
To make a point, Xander wrapped his arms around her and planted a string of kisses along her neck. Faith made a few half-hearted noises of protestation, but couldn't stop herself from smiling and letting him lead the way to the bedroom.
She paused at the door, cocking her head. Across the way, in Cordelia's room, she could make out muffled sobs. "Is she okay?" she mouthed, jerking her thumb in Cordelia's direction.
Xander pulled her into the bedroom and shut the door behind them. Leaning against the dresser, he shook his head and said, "I don't know."
"Should we go and check on her?"
"No." Off Faith's puzzled look, he continued, "Cor's pretty vain, even after all these years. She doesn't like people seeing her rattled, and she doesn't ask for help. If we went in there, she'd just slap on an 'everything's fine' smile, and I think we can all agree repression's not the way to go around here."
"So we're just gonna let her lock herself up in her room and cry?"
"That was the plan."
"For how long?"
"I'm thinking about cutting her off before I have to build and ark and gather two of every animal." Xander paused, waiting for Faith to laugh. She didn't. "Seriously, though," he continued, "I'll give her as long as she needs."
Okay, Xander generally had better instincts about dealing with people than Faith did, this was a given. But she had her doubts this time. Not like she and Cor were the best of friends, because holy shit was that never gonna happen. And yeah, Xander knew her longer, knew her better. Still….
And then his arms were around her waist, pulling her towards the bed. That was something that took getting used to. Sharing a bed. Waking up next to someone instead of kicking them out somewhere around three in the morning.
It wasn't supposed to happen, of course. If she'd learned anything from her time in L.A. trying to bag Angelus, it was that dating co-workers was a bad idea. The mother of all bad ideas, in fact. And Xander? No shortage of issues there. "Hi, sorry about trying to strangle you to death a few years ago, followed up with a little attempted murder of all of your friends. Wanna make out?" Yeah, not so much.
It was weird enough getting paired as Slayer to his Watcher. At first, Faith thought it was some kind of sick joke on Giles's part. But Xander turned out to be good for her. He had her back, made sure she was eating more than pizza every day, patched her up when she came home broken. More importantly, he got her out of the house. He'd always say "All slay and no play makes Faith go crazy. Again," while dragging her out to the loudass club that she loved and knew he hated.
Faith never had to be told to have more fun, but her time with Robin had made it too easy to sink into a life that revolved around slayage. Xander reminded her there's more to life. Meanwhile, being her Watcher gave his life meaning or whatever, so everything worked out great.
They were gonna remain friends in the non-bouncy way. It was going well, too, until Xander somehow snagged a date with some skinny redhead on week four. Faith wasn't exactly hard-up for manly attention, even if she'd been choosing to not act on it recently, so why should Xander getting a little action bother her so much? Not that it bothered her a lot, she just patrolled extra hard that night. When Xan and the new woman went on their second date, Faith raided a nest in Chinatown and staked 12 vamps. After his third date, Xander found Faith whaling on a Chorkach demon in the middle of Washington Square Park.
Back at the apartment, one long talk and a bottle of vodka later and Faith was making her favorite mistake ever.
She'd been thinking friends-with-benefits, because she so didn't do relationships. Robin had proved that, not that there'd ever been any doubt. But a few weeks later, Cordelia showed up, and it somehow seemed only natural for Faith to give Cordelia her room and move in with Xander.
This new arrangement was making it hard for Faith to pull her usual running-away tactic, which was turning out to be kinda good and bad. Sure, waking up next to someone and getting breakfast in bed was great and all, but eventually Xander was gonna get over this dumb puppy-lust stage and see her for what she was. And where would Faith be then?
Dusk was already falling by the time Faith woke up. Or, by the time Xander woke Faith up, because there was no way she'd ever get up on her own.
"Dinner's on the table," he said as she padded past him.
Faith cautiously sniffed the air. "I don't smell anything burning, so I know you and Cordy didn't cook. Takeout?"
"Just for that, smartass, I'm not letting you steal any fries from my plate the next time we dine Chez McDonald's. But to answer your question, no. Gunn came over earlier with NYC's newest crazies in tow. Cordy ceded control of the spatula to him, claiming he makes, and I quote, a wicked stir-fry." Xander followed her down the hall towards the living room. "So if we all get food poisoning, blame Cordelia."
"Always do. How did Spike get here? Sun's still kinda up and all."
"Great thing 'bout the city." Spike's voice carried down the hall, and when Faith turned the corner she saw him splayed out on the couch. "No one's subjected to any nasty sunlight unless they go looking for it. Bet all the pasty folks running about makes your job a mite harder, though."
"Naw, the vamps are still easy to spot. They're the only ones not checking themselves out in every available reflective surface."
"I know you're not referring to me," Cordelia said, brushing past Faith. Her eyes had that definite up-all-night-crying darkness to them, but otherwise she looked impressively fresh for someone who'd just found out most of her friends were dead and that she might or might not be some spawn of evil.
Queen C graced the room with a brilliant smile before settling down in a chair, her body carefully angled away from where the overgrown Smurf was standing near Spike. Hard to look at the thing that killed your friend - Faith could get that.
She ignored the stomach rumbling induced by the great smell wafting from the kitchen and walked over to the couch, swatting Spike's legs off and plopping down beside him. "So what gives? I feel like I'm back in Sunnydale, constantly sitting in a house full of do-gooders."
"Tell me about it," Spike muttered. "Anyway, Big Blue here's got the beat on the PTB."
"Can we try that again in English?" Xander said.
Gunn bumped the kitchen door open with his hip and mopped off his forehead with the back of his oven mitt. "I think Spike's trying to say that Illyria knows how to contact the Powers That Be."
Cordelia's eyes widened. "You can do that?"
Illyria sniffed. "Of course I can, although I do not know why I should wish to want to."
"Because it would help our girl here suss out what's been happening to her for the past few years," Spike said.
Gunn nodded. "And it can help us track down Angel."
"I still do not see how--"
"Greater good, pet. Let's leave it at that."
"We'll figure it out later. For now, can we eat?" Xander said, leading the way towards the dining room.
Spike stood up, stretching his arms above his head. "For once, Harris, we're in total agreement." As Gunn disappeared back into the kitchen and Illyria and Faith headed over to the table, Spike clapped Cordelia on the arm and grinned. "Just think, princess -- this time tomorrow, you can be face to face with the buggers who did this to you."
Cordelia gave him a weak smile. "Yay."