Authors Notes: I started writing this a while ago, and although I havn't finished it, I have planned it out, soI thought I'd post it and see if you like it or not, that means you have to all review!

Blue Skies and Wet Paint

Chapter 1: It started with a dream

He could see a figure in front of him; she was wearing white again, almost like a wedding dress, almost, but not quite. He knew it was her, just from the way she carried herself, far more graceful than when they first met, but with no less attitude. She was peaceful now, content with her life. It was with no shortage of pride that he knew he was the reason for her happiness.

She turned in slow motion, laughing carelessly, her hair flowing freely down her back. It was longer than he remembered. He tried to walk to her, wanting to touch her, hold her to him and tell her how much he loved her, but as soon as he took a step she vanished.

The dark, ambiguous setting swirled into an abstract of colours, before settling into the scene that was scorched into his mind. He saw the driveway first. Then he saw her standing at the window, waiting for him to come home. She gave him a special smile. One that she had only acquired in the past year, one that was for him only. He noticed that her hair was short again; this was how she had looked that day.

He knew what happened next. Of course he did. Not only had he witnessed it live, he'd been seeing the reruns over and over for two years. And as always, he tried to warn her. He shouted out to her but she didn't hear; she just carried on smiling that smile. He ran out of his car, desperate to get her out of the house, but he wasn't fast enough, he wasn't ever fast enough. He got to the doorway just in time to see the demon run a sword through her chest; she hadn't even seen it coming.

Xander ran to her side as she fell to the floor, he barely registered her attacker flee, he pressed his hand over the wound, trying hopelessly to stop the blood.

"Xan…" she tried to talk.

"It's okay sweetie, we'll get you to a hospital, and you'll be fine," he told her.

"It hurts," her breathing was slowing down s Xander desperately tried to stop the bleeding. She lifted her hand up to his cheek, streaking it with blood.

"I love you Xander." Her hand fell down; she didn't have the strength to keep it up.

"No, you're gonna be fine Faith, just hold on, you don't have to say goodbye."

He watched as a little trickle of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth, and her breathing became ragged. He knew that he would never get her to the hospital in time.

"Faith don't do this to me, come on baby," he begged, never before had he been more desperate and afraid. "Please don't leave me Faith,"

But nothing he could say would change anything, and he watched as the life in his wife's eyes went out, and her breathing just stopped. He begged her to come back, to open her eyes, but she didn't. And then his world went black…

July 2007, Canada

Alexander Cohen woke up as soon as he saw her die. He hadn't had this dream for a while, but the effect had not lessened in that time. He knew from experience that he would not get back to sleep now. Through a bleary eye he saw that it was five a.m. he had to be at work in a hour, anyway. He shakily got to his feet and ambled down the stairs, where Ricky was sat watching jerry Springer.

"Al! Hey man, you working an early shift today?" Ricky asked in his notoriously cheerful way.

"Yeah, why are you up so early? Is Jerry really that addictive that you have to get up at the crack of dawn?" The words came out more aggressive than he meant them to be, the dream, or nightmare, had him all tense, Ricky was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Well, since you asked so nicely, I just finished an essay for a class this afternoon, now I'm too buzzed to sleep. Man, you look like shit,"

"Thanks man, really," Al bit back sarcastically. He knew Ricky didn't deserve it, but Al couldn't help it.

"Chill out man! Damn, you know you need a girl, Al. Two years you've lived here, and I don't think I've ever seen you with a girl. No wonder you're so wound up." He muttered as he walked away from Al.

Al.

He had started going by that name as soon as he left Seattle, a broken man. Just another one of the ways of forgetting who he used to be. What he had. Every person he had met in the past two years had met Al Cohen. And every one who had known Xander Harris would never be able to find him. All it took was a few fake ids and a spell or two. The first year he was alone, he had travelled the country

This man, Al, he had lived in Canada for a little over a year, in a town called Guelph, in Ontario. He worked for a local construction site, taking the longest shifts available. He shared a house with medical students Ricky Knowles and Dana Ellesse, as well as exotic dancer Marie Robson. He considered these people his friends, but they didn't really know a thing about him. Not that they had never asked, they used to, all the time, where was he from? What had happened to warrant the need for a fake eye? Why didn't he go on dates? Well, eventually they had given up, because all they ever got was jokes and excuses.

He knew that they deserved better than that. Despite the fact that they had no idea who he really was, he knew them. He knew that Dana was usually shy and quiet, but she was incredibly focused on her education, she would never let anything get in the way of her becoming a doctor. He also knew that she had had a crush on him for the bet part of a year. Ricky, like Dana was also focused on becoming a doctor, only for him it came second to partying and women. Marie had gone to school with Ricky. She was a stone cold fox, Al wasn't so grief ridden that he hadn't noticed, and she wasn't afraid to use her looks to get her way. And the money she made in tips was unbelievable.

To them, he was an enigma. He appeared out of nowhere, answered their advert for a housemate, and enjoyed drinking more than Ritchie. He didn't talk about himself, and constantly made jokes, yet always seemed to be surrounded by an invisible dark cloud of melancholy. He hadn't been on a date since he had lived with them, which had occasionally led them to believe he was gay.

'Al' was a fake, a façade to cover up a broken man. But that façade was starting to slip.

Al Cohen was a mystery; plain and simple. To every one else, at least, in his own mind he was just broken, going through the motions, but not really existing at all. And hating him self for it. He knew that it wouldn't be long before he broke down; these dreams were driving him mad. And he couldn't help but think that he needed help, that he had to deal with the past, before it killed him.

His day from then on went as usual. He went out to work, renovating an old, disused factory into overpriced executive apartments. He built walls, poured cement, chatted with colleagues, even eyed up the women who passed with the other guys, all for the sake of going through the motions. Sometimes he wondered if he played the part for long enough, would he actually become Al? And if he did, would it be worth it, not feeling the pain, but not having the memories either?

Later on in the early evening, he was home again, body aching and tired from the abuse of the construction site. He went and grabbed a beer right away, not seeing Dana's worried look as he passed her in the kitchen, and then moved to the living room, fully prepared to veg out on whatever crappy TV was on. Ricky and Marie had beaten him to it, as they were already seated in front of the latest reality TV show.

Then, just as he had settled comfortably, Dana came in and switched off the TV, and the three of them turned to look at him. Midway through a gulp of beer, he eyed them suspiciously. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Um, look Al," Dana began, nervously, "the thing is, that we've noticed recently that you've been a little self destructive."

Clever girl, Al thought, except his self destruction wasn't a recent thing, he had been this way all the while he'd lived here. The three of them were looking at him expectantly. Al stayed silent, and took another swig of beer. He saw from the corner of his eye that they shared a panicked look, before Ricky picked up where Dana left off.

"Al, we're your best friends, but you never talk to us. We wanna help you, but how can we if you don't tell us what's wrong? Look, we're all off work tomorrow, so how about the four of us get out of town for the day, a mini road trip, what do you think?"

"No. I already have plans tomorrow." He told them shortly.

"Can't you cancel them?" He just glared; he may have already started to tell himself that he needed to move on, but as soon as they ganged up on him like this, he immediately became defensive, and closed of a little more. Another one of her habits that had rubbed off on him.

"Al, honey," Marie's turn now, "I think some time away would do us all some good. And let's face it, the beer ain't helping."

Yes it was. Beer was his friend, it helped him forget her. And made him hate himself for wasting to.

"Don't take this personally guys, but I don't want to. And like I said, I have plans." He repeated before getting up, he figured it would be easier to walk away than to get into a fight.

"Don't you fucking dare leave this room Al!"

He stopped as though he had been punched in the gut. Sometimes Marie reminded him of Faith. She was beautiful, not that she looked like Faith, but they were both very beautiful, Marie could also curse like a sailor, and they had both had one of those smoky voices that even Jessica Rabbit would be envious of. It was the first time Marie had ever yelled at him like that, and in that particular moment, it could have been Faith.

The room was silent. Al's friends had expected him to just carry on walking. They didn't know what to do when he just stopped dead; he looked like they had just betrayed him, he looked wounded.

Al looked at Marie; he had to blink, because for a split second, he saw Faith looking back at him, her beautiful brown eyes full of fire, like when they had had their first fight…

June 2004, Somewhere in Texas

"So, just how long have you been doing this? What, do you call them every week or something? Jesus Faith, we've been gone a year, is that how long you've been giving Giles progress reports on me?"

Faith knew he was angry, and she knew it was her fault, if he had done the same thing to her, she would have gone nuts.

"Xander, I'm sorry I just-"

"So what did you tell him in these secret little phone calls? Did you tell him that we've been fucking for the past three months as well?"

Faith flinched, and backed away. Their relationship may have started out because they were both lonely and broken, but it meant more to her than that now, and him referring to her as just someone he was 'fucking' really hurt.

"Fuck you." She whispered. "You are a real fucking bastard you know? They're your family, and I know that you couldn't be around them after the First, but that doesn't mean that they forgot about you! So I called Giles every now and then to let him know that the man who is like a son to him is okay, because I know that one day you're gonna wanna go back to your family. I wanted them to know that you're safe because they love you! And dammit, because I fucking love you too!"

He looked up at her sharply. That was the first time she had told him that she loved him. He looked at her, breathing heavily, eyes wild, fists clenched at her sides. Passionate and angry and beautiful. He didn't know what to say. His anger melted away .The past three months had been nothing short of amazing, because he was falling in love with her. But he had never been naïve enough to believe she was falling for him, until now.

"What?" he asked, needing to know for sure. She ran her hand through her hair and turned away from him. "Faith?"

"I never left with you thinking that I was gonna fall for you." She turned around to face him and she held her arms out, it was her silent way of showing that she was baring her soul to him. He knew not to take that for granted. He knew that she must be struggling to come to terms with how she felt, loving someone went against everything she knew.

"No, neither did I." he told her. She looked up at him, right into his eyes, looking for a lie. "I'm in love with you Faith." She didn't see any lies. He reached out for her hand and gently brought her towards him, giving her enough time to pull away, when she didn't, he held her tight, and felt her hug him back just as tightly. It was the first time in a long time that Faith had felt that safe, and she knew that things would be different from no on, because somebody loved her, because it was Xander who loved her.

Shaking his head clear of memories, he looked up he wanted to say something, but the words caught in his throat, all these emotions coursing through him, he just couldn't voice them, couldn't explain to his friends, even though he owed them it. So instead he left, he walked out of the room and up the stairs where he locked himself in his bedroom.

He stayed leaning back against the door, but sunk down heavily to the floor, with his head resting in his hands. Things were starting to spin out of his control, and all he seemed to be able to do was watch, as once again his life fell apart. His anger had faded to despair. He felt bad for treating his friends like that, all they were trying to do was help him, get to know him even, but, once again he had thrown it back in their faces.

The pat two years that he had lived without Faith, they were hell. She had been everything to him. Without her he was just going through the motions, he ate worked, paid bills and made excuses. If friends or colleagues asked him to go out, he blew them off, his sex life was non existent, because it would have been like cheating on her. And a lot of the time he just got really fucking drunk.

He sighed against the door. It really was time that he got his act together, he thought; this was no way to live. Getting up, he made his way over to his closet and pulled a shoebox down from the top shelf. After having his wife die in his arms, he had been so engulfed in grief, that he never noticed when two large chaos come at him from behind, they knocked him out cold in a second. When he came round, two days had past and he had been dumped somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and when he got back to where he had been taken from, he found that his home, their home, had been burned to the ground, destroying any evidence that he and Faith had ever lived there. That was when he had become someone else.

Opening the shoebox he saw everything that he had left of his life with Faith, which wasn't much at all, and he hated that. Sitting on his bed, he slowly looked through the box. There were a few photographs, his favourite was of the two of them on a beach in Miami, and not just because Faith was wearing a very tight bikini, but because she had a huge, genuine grin on her face, something that he had learned not to take for granted. Then there was her lucky stake, it was Faith's Mr. Pointy, except she had never christened it with a name, but it was the stake that she had favoured most during their time together. Finally, there was his wedding ring. Not much at all, but all that was left. It was everything he had on him when their house had been blown up, everything else was destroyed.

He put the ring on his finger, finding it still fit. Not that he expected that it wouldn't, but living a lie like he did, sometimes he believed that the man that Faith had married, who's finger she had put this ring on, had never existed at all. Initially he thought that it would be easier if it was true. So he made believe he was someone else, worked to forget his past had ever happened. The only trouble was, it was impossible to forget, because there was a mutinous part of him that didn't want to, that refused to let it go, and so he was constantly in conflict, trying to forget, and at the same time, not ever letting her go. And it was destroying him.

He pulled the ring off of his finger and put it back in the shoebox. He slowly, almost reverently, replaced the other keep sakes and closed the lid. He knew it was time; this was no way to live, so he had to move on, while he still had the choice. With one final, longing stare at the box, he rose off his bed; time to face the music.

Downstairs, his flatmates were in similar positions to the ones they were in when Xander had made his dramatic exit, looking deflated and depressed. They looked up, stony faced as he re-entered the room. He held his hands up as a gesture of peace. Taking a deep breath, he began to explain.

"I'm really sorry," he looked at them, anxious to explain, and for them not to hate him. "You guys didn't, don't, deserve to be treated the way that I've been treating you. You're my best friends, and I treat you like shit most of the time." He saw that their expressions had softened somewhat since he began. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and sighed.

"The thing is, before I moved up here, I was someone else, a different person. But then, a lot of really bad stuff happened, and I didn't want to be that person any more. I don't want to, I can't, go into specifics just yet, and I'm not ready for that. But I do want to move on, and that has to start with me apologising to you lot."

After a short silence, Dana smiled at him, "We just wanna help," she said.

"I know, and I really am grateful for your support, I just need a little time," he pleaded. The girls seemed to be more understanding, Ricky, however, was being a little more inpatient.

"Al, you moved here two years ago, that's a long time to keep all that shit bottled up for, man. That ain't healthy." He told him.

"I know," Al responded, "it's really hard, though, letting go." Taking a deep breath he decided to jump right in. "Look, how about, tomorrow night, the four of us go out for pizza and see a movie, or something?" he breathed a sigh of relief as his flatmates agreed to go. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Same time, San Francisco, CA,

In a none descript, rather run-down diner, Faith LaHane sat nursing a bottomless cup of coffee, leafing listlessly through the local daily paper.

TBC...