Pairings: See Part 1 of the Prologue (No matter what you think is going to happen - it isn't :). Would I lie to you? Only Bond ever gets the girl in a Bond flick/story. And she usually dies at the end. We wouldn't want to tempt Fate here, now would we?)
AN1: Part 3 of the prologue. 1 to go. Then the fun starts.
AN2: Feedback always appreciated. There were a number of inciteful and interesting comments for the previous chapters. Much to think about.
AN3: 23-Mar-2005 The first conversation between Buffy and Faith was modified to make what they discuss less ambiguous.
Out of the corner of his eye, Bond watched her sitting, unnaturally quiet, in his car, staring out at the city as they passed through it. She hadn't said anything to him after giving him directions to the flat where she'd left her things. Not even the awed reaction Q's exotic car of the month tended to provoke in most of his female acquaintances. He had no idea how to begin talking to her. In the years since Tracy's death his ability to make small talk with his few remaining female relatives had atrophied, and saying anything to a daughter he'd never known about was completely outside of his experience.
M had warned him, none to subtly, that he would have to be very careful with Buffy. He knew M's sympathy for him only went so far. She was more concerned with any effects his possible actions might have on her plans for any relationship between MI6 and the Council of Watchers than how he felt about the sudden complication in his personal life. But he'd taken her words to heart. He'd learned over the years that M's insight into what motivated people in difficult situations was often as perceptive as his own. It was a trait he found disturbing in someone who'd never been a field agent like the previous occupants of her office.
Very few of the men in his daughter's life had ever treated her well, in M's studied opinion. With the exception of several unusual incidents, Her past was shrouded in the mystery that seemed to cloud any attempts to investigate anyone directly associated with the Council.
From the little that MI6 had been able to dig up it was clear that even the most constant male presence in her life, her Council appointed mentor, had abandoned her at least once over the years. And now he, the earliest, most critical of those to abandon her was expected to somehow work with her while dealing with these issues. That he'd never known she existed, and that others had conspired to keep him in ignorance didn't, in his old fashioned opinion, excuse his behavior.
Glancing over at her as they sat in the interminable traffic, he couldn't fathom how to even begin. He'd been very young when he'd run away and joined the Navy. Since then he'd only had three kinds of relationships with women since joining MI6 years before - The working relationship he had with M and Moneypenny, two very different women; the women he charmed during the course of an assignment who were often adversaries or the pawns of adversaries, which, while often resulting in a mutually enjoyable evening did not lead to anything long term; and the women he met while trying to forget the others. Women who had no connection with his past or job and who had no interest beyond spending the night, before moving on with their lives. Her mother must have been one of those, her features blurring into one of many in his past. None of the women in his past or present gave him any idea how to approach the subject with her.
Nearing the flat, Bond recorded the location in the car's navigation system, simultaneously logging the address into MI6's agent tracking system. He often found the intrusion of MI6 in even the most mundane parts of his life annoying but given the number of times it had saved him when an assignment had fallen apart, he knew it had its' place. And, in Intelligence all data had value to someone, even if it was only how long it took to travel from one part of London to another. His simple action would make some number cruncher in MI6 happy. There were times when he wondered where he'd lost the sense of humour that caused the younger 00's to claim credit for raising moral every time they pushed a button on some Q devised tracking device.
"I'll wait here for you." He told her after pulling up in front of the flat. She just nodded before seeming to just flow out of the car and walking up the sidewalk to the door with a grace that few women in his experience could come close to emulating.
It had been close, but even as stressful as the day had been so far, Buffy had been able to keep herself together until she was back in Giles' flat and packing her travel bag. She hadn't originally planned to go back to Rome right after the meeting but she felt an urgent need to put some distance between herself and her new family member. Having him drive her to the airport only increased her desire to be back in Rome with her sister, even if it meant potentially dealing with Faith and her issues.
She gave herself a good ten minutes to cry after she'd packed. She had the feeling that if she took any longer that 'he', this man that someone had decided was now her father, would show up in Giles' flat to check on her. The crying didn't make her feel much better but it had given her a little more control over her emotions. When she was back home in the apartment in Rome she shared with her sister, and she'd shipped Faith back to Giles, then she could really fall apart. With any luck, she could figure out what to tell her sister about the sudden twist their lives had suddenly taken on the plane back to Rome.
Stuffing the few possessions that had escaped her earlier efforts into her bag, and taking one last look around, Buffy frowned, looking for the note she'd left for Giles. She sighed with relief when she saw it taped to his fridge where he wouldn't miss it. And with slightly renewed enthusiasm, she stepped out of the flat and looked towards the car. She wasn't happy with this new round of 'Buffy bashing' that Fate seemed so intent on but she couldn't really blame him for it. She just hoped that there was something more to this man than the broody, silent type she'd seen so far. There were already too many men in her past with those not so endearing traits. There must have been something about him that had attracted her mother to him so long ago.
She could easily tell that he wasn't unaware of his surroundings. She'd sensed a slight change in his posture the moment she'd stepped away from the door. Even from a distance his alertness was clearly visible to her, though she expected only someone like a slayer would have noticed. Even knowing nothing about who or what he was, she would have sensed his presence in a crowd. Now that she was more in control of her emotions she could feel something about him that shouted predator to her trained senses.
He continued to read as she approached, stopping only when her free hand touched the car door. Looking at her across the car very briefly, he put away whatever he'd been looking at in the small briefcase she'd seen him put in the car earlier. Before she could say anything he'd jumped out of the car, with a lot more energy than she expected in someone old enough to be her father.
"Let me get that." He requested firmly. "There's room in the boot."
She reluctantly relinquished it to him and watched, puzzled, as he put it in the small car's trunk. Her confusion didn't abate when he then held the car door open for her and gestured for her to get in.
He didn't explained why they'd stopped at a small, secluded cemetery on the way to the airport. He just handed her a thick envelope from his briefcase and told her to wait. After a boring wait that seemed to go on forever but her watch claimed was only five minutes, she gave in to curiosity and opened it. It seemed to contain a large number of photos, most of them of her with her mother, before her parent's divorce. She noticed a large gap starting around the time they'd moved to Sunnydale, with the pictures resuming in LA after the collapse of Sunnydale when they'd destroyed the Hellmouth.
She wondered if he would let her keep them. She'd lost all of her pictures of her mother. And she wondered what her sister would think about them. She was missing from all of the pictures with their mother and the ones she was in were only with Buffy. She snorted in amusement and looked at them again. Some MI6 photographer had been fascinated by Faith. There were more photos of her with Faith than of her with Dawn. She wasn't sure which of them would be offended the most. Dawn because there were so few and none of them with their mother; or Faith because someone had caught her at her most playful, when she wasn't acting tough.
Sitting there with nothing to do except look through the pictures, boredom set in quickly. She didn't think her new father would appreciate it if she started rummaging through his car. Glancing out at the darkening sky, she wondered what was taking him so long. Climbing out of his small car, out onto a stone path, she gazed around. Taking a deep breath, she smiled in welcome surprise. It was one of those rare cemeteries; one that didn't smell of fresh dirt and death. It had probably been twenty years since anyone had been buried in it. Enjoying the smell of fresh cut grass, she headed down the freshly groomed path towards the center of the cemetery.
It didn't take long to find him in the small cemetery. He stood, in something she vaguely recognized as parade rest, staring at a small marble headstone. Walking up next to him, she took note of the name and dates, wondering who it was. Some relative she would need to know about? An aunt? She wasn't sure what compelled her to break the peaceful silence. "I think death is harder on the living. In Heaven everything is peaceful. When you're there you just know that all of your friends, your family, are going to be okay. You can finally rest." She shook off the feeling such thought tended to bring out, even years later. "Who is this?"
Bond looked at her for a minute, eyebrow raised, before turning back to the headstone and answering her innocent question. There had been an unusual depth of sadness in her comments when she'd spoken about Heaven. He couldn't imagine what had put it in her voice or why it seemed she spoke with such authority, but it resonated with his own feelings whenever he visited Tracy's grave.
"She was my wife."
"Oh."
He could tell she was curious and was surprised at the restraint of her response.
"Someday you'll have to explain the whole age thing. If she was your wife the math doesn't work."
"Someday." He acknowledged. She was probably one of the few people he'd met with any chance of understanding what had happened to him but he wasn't ready to share that with her yet. Not even MI6 knew the whole truth.
"This is a peaceful place." She commented on their walk back to his car. "The next time I die I would like to be buried somewhere like this. Not that it'll happen."
He filed her strange comment away in his head for later investigation. "The family plot is up north." He opened the door for her before continuing. "It's been a long time since it was used. My parents are buried in the mountains they died climbing."
With Bond's assistance, she'd managed to exchange her tickets for an earlier flight. They struggled to find anything to talk about while eating an early dinner in an airport restaurant. Just from the way he'd charmed the waitress, and the ticket clerk earlier, Buffy could tell he wasn't used to being at such a loss when talking with women and, taking pity on him, threw him something to work with.
"We'll be back in London after Christmas." She told him. "I'm sure Giles and your boss will make plans for the two of us to get together before then, but maybe you can meet my sister then. She and I really don't need another father figure but she should meet you anyway."
"Your sister?" She couldn't tell what he was think behind his blank expression, so she decided to make it clear the part her sister played in her life.
"Summers women stick together." she told him bluntly. "We're a package deal. Both of us or neither."
At his surprised look, she shook her head. "You don't know anything about her? Do you?" Pulling the envelope from her bag, she looked through the photographs he'd handed her earlier. Pulling out one of her sister, standing next to her in an outfit that told her it had been taken some time during their first visit to the Coliseum, Buffy handed it to him. "She's the tall brunette. I'm sure you can tell which one is me."
He took the photograph. "She looks like my mother." He looked over at Buffy, an odd expression on his face, before returning the photo.
"Not a real surprise." She told him with a shrug. "But I think an explanation for that episode in the 'Tale of Buffy' can wait with all of the rest until after Christmas. But only if she agrees to it." To discourage any real questions, she handed him another photograph, this time one of the ones with Faith. "This person, on the other hand, may not be my sister but if you run into her I still expect you to keep your hands to yourself." "No matter what she says, she's off-limits." She told him in her firmest voice. "She has enough issues with me without you getting in the middle."
Her flight touched down in Rome in late evening, along with what felt to Buffy like half the other planes in Europe. She'd spent the entire flight lightly napping in an attempt to get rid of some of the day's stress. Forcing her way through the crowded airport, Buffy felt herself wishing for some of Faith's seemingly limitless energy. It wasn't age she felt catching up to her, just the day's events.
While a slayer didn't stay at her peak forever, her resurrection and the burst of energy that she'd been hit with by Willow's slayer activation spell had affected the accuracy of the Council's ancient tools for measuring slayer strength, making it almost impossible for anyone to guess when she should retire from active slaying.
From studying Faith, Willow had decided that by the time Faith was thirty five they would both have worn out their bodies ability to handle the constant pressure slaying put on them. She'd decided that the ancient magic that made them slayers could only compensate for the physical strain they were under for only so long. Buffy was certain that Faith had no intention of ever stopping. It was too much a part of her nature. Even though she knew her friends would think she was being selfish, Buffy had no plans to allow her to go out in some apocalyptic, spectacular fashion, leaving her alone as the oldest slayer. If Willow or Giles ever managed to force her into a desk job, Faith was joining her in retiring from field work. Whether she wanted to or not. And not that she planned to tell her any time soon.
She was glad that no one was at the airport to meet her. She needed to sleep on some things before she talked with Dawn, and possibly Faith. She wasn't sure why the revelation that Hank Summers wasn't really her father had thrown her so off balance. It wasn't as if she'd spent very much time with him over the last ten years. But she wasn't ready just yet to jump up and down, throw a party or celebrate in any way. Becoming attached to someone she didn't know just because of an accidental relationship wasn't something she was prepared to do. No one had bothered to tell her what this new person in her life really did for MI6 but she was fairly sure that it wasn't a desk job. For all she knew he did something dangerous and wouldn't even be alive at Christmas to meet Dawn.
Flagging down a cab, Buffy was so deep in thought that she barely noticed that the driver didn't give her a second look once she was in the cab. She was looking forward to prolonged tub time, if she could get both Faith and her sister out of the apartment at the same time. She'd changed her mind about immediately chasing Faith back to Giles but that didn't mean she needed to see her constantly.
By the time they reached the apartment that she shared with her sister, Buffy could feel her hunting impulses start to reassert themselves after the long day as her slayer enhanced metabolism worked overtime. This was one of the few times she regretted living in a city with no real vampire problem. She wasn't in the mood to burn off her frustration at a club, her favorite gym would be closed at this time of night, and she'd be lucky to find anything remotely evil to vent her frustrations on.
Walking quietly up the steps and into the apartment, Buffy dropped her bag off in her room and wandered down the small hallway to check on her sister, finding her sound asleep. Faith didn't seem to be anywhere but she assumed that she'd managed to find something to occupy herself with for the evening. Stalking across the room to her bed, Buffy quickly stripped off her travel stained clothes and collapse in an unmoving heap on her bed, laying there for several minutes before finding the energy to cover herself with a flimsy blanket that was more symbolic than anything. Before sleep claimed her, she vaguely noticed the almost familiar scent of another woman on her pillow.
The smell of fresh coffee, brewed American style instead of the espresso that Dawn insisted was required of anyone living in Rome, brought Buffy out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Pulling her head out from under her pillow Buffy gave the dark haired slaying sitting on the end of her bed an incredulous look before pulling the pillow back over her face in an attempt to block out the harsh morning light.
"Go away!" she growled.
"Can't B. You have a package and Giles is expecting a call from you this morning." Faith threw back with an evil smirk.
Scrambling to sit up and remain covered by her thin blanket at the same time, Buffy greedily snatched the steaming mug from Faith's hand, eliciting an amused snort from the other woman. "Who is it from?" She asked after several tongue burning sips.
"Some outfit called 'Universal Exports'" Faith told her.
"Oh." Buffy took another sip and put the mug on her bedside table before crawling back under her pillow.
"Don't you want to open it?" Faith's muffled voice reached her under the pillow.
"No!" Buffy mumbled, feeling childish and pouting into her pillow. "Don't wanna!"
"Why not?" Buffy could feel Faith's movements on the bed.
"Do you have any idea who that is?" Buffy asked, her voice still muffled by her pillow.
"Not unless you tell me." Faith told her. "What do you think it is, B?"
"No idea what it is, F." Buffy answered grumpily. "But that name was everywhere when Giles and I went to that secret meeting. I'm sure they are connected." She took the pillow off of her face. "Giles did tell you and Dawn about that didn't he?"
"No..." Faith admitted. "He just said he needed you in London and that Dawn and I couldn't tell anyone where you were. He wouldn't tell me anything else." She held the envelope out to Buffy; "If you want me to I can open it for you. Dawn saw it show up so you might want to open it now, before she gets home, if there is anything she shouldn't see in it. She was kinda curious about it."
Buffy covered her face back up with her pillow and groaned. "Can't we just send it back? And pretend we never got it?"
"It's your package, Buffy" Faith told her. From the sound of her voice Buffy could tell she was grinning. "Do whatever you want."
"Does it say who it's really from?"
From her answer, Buffy assumed Faith had turned the envelope over and examined it. "It says it's from a Bond somebody."
"Damn." Buffy muttered before sitting back up. "Gimme!"
"Please!" Faith insisted with that mischievous twinkle in her eyes that tended to confuse Buffy.
"Please." Buffy echoed her.
It was a slim package. Other than the originating address and her name on it there was nothing anywhere on it to indicate what was in it. She impatiently tore it open, causing a brown envelope, identical to the one containing the pictures the previous day, and a smaller letter sized envelope with her name on it, to fall between them onto the bed. Ignoring the smaller envelope for now, she opened the larger one and dumped it out in the middle of her bed.
"Pictures?" Faith looked at her in surprise
Quickly glancing through them, there was one Buffy didn't recognize. It was a black and white photo of a young couple dressed in old fashioned clothes. The woman bore an uncanny resemblance to her sister and the man could almost be a younger version of her new father. Setting it to the side she went through the rest a little slower. They were the same ones she'd seen the day before. She handed them to Faith.
Faith looked at them curiously. "Are you in all of these?" At Buffy's nod she looked at them again from the beginning. "You were a cute kid."
Buffy blushed, not used to such sincere comments from the hardened slayer. "Yeah."
"So where did these come from?" Faith frowned in thought. "Didn't you lose all the pictures you had of your mom in Sunnydale?"
"Yes." She sighed. "Do you mind if I only tell you part of the story for now? I think Dawn should be told some things first. And you can't talk to anyone about this. Other than Dawn and Giles anyway."
"Sure thing." Faith nodded in agreement.
"How long can you stay?" Buffy asked her.
"In Rome? Giles wants me back in London next week. I'm free until then."
"Good..." She looked at Faith speculatively. "Can you stay here? With us I mean. I don't think some of the things I need to tell Dawn are going to go over too well. I'm sure she's going to want someone who isn't me to talk to. Giles is in London, and Willow isn't supposed to know yet."
"Sure. However long you need me around." She lay down on the bed facing Buffy. "So what's the deal with the pictures?"
"We had a meeting with some British government spies."
"Cool!" Faith blurted out, grinning at Buffy with excitement. "Did you get to see any spy toys? I bet they have a bunch of things we could use."
"No 'Andrew'." Faith glared at her and she stuck her tongue out at her before continuing. "No spy toys. Just your basic boring, stuffy meeting." She rubbed her back, trying to get more of the lingering, travel induced stiffness out of it. "The old Council owed them and they wanted to collect."
"Figures." Faith groused. "Travers sticks us with the bill even when he's dead."
"That was Giles' thought also." Buffy smiled at her. "Are you spending too much time around him? Maybe you should come to Rome more often to get away from all that watcherness." She laughed at Faith's disturbed expression. "Anyway... they want us to teach them everything we can about demons. I guess something's been snacking on too many of their secret agents. I'm not sure of the exact details. Giles is going to work it out with them and let me know."
"And the pictures?"
"Mom met one of their spies a few years ago. In Paris. And someone decided they needed to keep an eye on her afterward." Buffy frowned in thought for a moment. "I guess they were afraid she would try to blackmail him."
"And they're still taking pictures of you?" Faith shook her head and laughed. "I knew your mom was special. This spy guy didn't just buy her a drink, did he? Or should you be calling him 'Pops'?"
"You know, I really don't want to talk about my mother and sex." Buffy objected, relieved that Faith didn't need everything spelled out. She was worried enough about Dawn's reaction without having to explain the details to Faith.
"Did you get to meet him?" She asked Buffy, looking at her curiously.
Buffy nodded, and handed her the last photo. "He looks sort of like that, except a little older."
"He must be really old now." Faith mused.
"He is and he isn't." Noticing Faith's confused expression she explained as best she could. "He must be in his 70's but he looks younger than Giles." At Faith's startled look, she answered her unasked question with the only answer she had. "He hasn't explained yet."
Faith looked intently at the picture and, looking back up at Buffy, laughed. "Huh. Figures. Even your father isn't going to be exactly normal." She looked back at the photo. "Not bad for an old English guy. When do I get to meet him?" The smile on Faith's face was what Buffy always thought of as her most predatory.
"Hands off Faith!" Buffy shivered. "That's just ewe..."
Faith laughed at her expression. "Who's this next to him?"
"That's a picture of his mother and father." Buffy corrected. "You'll probably meet him in December when Dawn and I head back to London for Christmas. Notice the resemblance to someone you know?"
"Why does she look like Dawn? Only taller?" Faith looked up at Buffy for a moment before looking back at the picture, obviously trying to figure it out.
"Well, that confused him also." She chuckled at the memory. "Dawn will have to explain it to you. I haven't figured out what, if anything we're going to tell him about it."
"Why?"
"I promised her. It's her secret, not mine." She gazed thoughtfully at the brunette. "Did anyone ever really explain why I died that time in Sunnydale?"
"You mean the 'swan dive' into a portal?" Faith shook her head. "No. Other than you did it to save Dawn from some crazy goddess. The whole thing never made much sense."
"That's because you missed Dawn's part of the story. If you can get her to tell you it'll make more sense than it probably does now. And it'll explain the whole picture thing."
Looking forlornly at the now empty coffee mug, Buffy rolled off of her bed and padded over to the small closet to find something to wear. She blushed and grabbed her robe from its hook on her bedroom door when she realized she'd walked half naked across the room, right in front of Faith, without even thinking about it. At Faith's smirk she raised an eyebrow as if in challenge but Faith didn't say anything. Buffy wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. "Interested in an early lunch?"
"Sure."
"Okay. I think I need to take a shower and give Giles a call. Then we can go." And she headed towards the bathroom, leaving Faith still staring at the pictures on her bed, the smaller envelope forgotten.
After a quick lunch at Buffy's favorite cafe, the two slayers spent the early afternoon wandering aimlessly around Rome, Faith following Buffy's lead. Deep in thought, she would occasionally answer a question from Faith but they spent most of the time in a companionable silence.
They'd been walking for several hours when Buffy realized that Faith was being extremely patient with their lack of destination. Looking around the small square they were crossing, she spied a small stone bench shaded from the afternoon sun. Steering Faith towards it, she collapsed as gracefully as she could manage on one end and motioned Faith towards the other.
"You must be very bored." She told her.
"No..." Faith answered, laughing at Buffy's raised eyebrow. "Really. Having a chance to relax like this is great. Sure, I couldn't take doing it every day but it's a lot better than hanging out waiting for someone like I did yesterday." She winked at Buffy. "And the company helps, of course."
"Unless you want to spend your days wandering around ancient monuments, churches, and musty libraries, there really isn't much for a slayer to do in Rome." Buffy shrugged. "The watcher types love it because they can dig around in musty old books without worrying about vampires and demons. The Vatican did something to protect the whole city from non-human evil a few centuries ago. The occasional demon still wanders through but it's sort of like an anti-Hellmouth."
"I was wondering why the night life here was so quiet." Faith admitted. "It's not the only city like this, is it?"
"Nope. Giles says there are a couple others; one in China, Jerusalem, and some place in Ireland." She frowned in thought. "Rome does have other issues but it is really the only one he considers safe enough for slayer vacations though."
"What slayer has time for a vacation?" Faith scoffed. "Even with dozens of us now there's plenty of evil to go around to keep us all busy. I'm not sure how you managed to get Giles to leave you alone here... you can't spend all day just keeping an eye on Dawn."
"Before she started her internship, we spent the time wandering around, exploring Italy and Greece. Finding and getting to know the local slayers. Making sure they are being taken care of. That kind of thing. We don't have enough watchers to go around. Especially in this part of the world."
"And now?" Faith asked curiously.
"We still do things together on weekends if we can, and when she has the day off. But I'm mostly doing some research for Giles. Someone found a couple prophecies..."
"Nothing new there, B." Faith laughed. "Can't one of the research tweeds running around the London or Cleveland offices do that kind of thing?"
"I wish..." Buffy sighed. "But that isn't really what I'm doing. Giles thinks we need a better slayer support structure for the entire Mediterranean than the old Council version. One that works with all of the different cultures. So I've been learning as much as I can about the area and the kinds of people a slayer has to work with. If I come up with a workable plan we'll start putting it together next spring."
"Okay, the old Council made a mess of things but why a special plan for here?" Faith asked.
Buffy looked at her for a moment before answering, giving her question the consideration it deserved. Faith wasn't unintelligent by anyone's standards and tended to go straight to the heart of an issue. Buffy knew she couldn't have survived her childhood and Sunnydale otherwise. "It's an experiment. We're starting with a blank slate here. We finally have a chance to do things right. Before the new Council has a chance to turn into the old one. And hopefully everything will be in place for those prophecies in a few years when they are supposed to happen. If it works out we'll try it in other places like Africa and the Middle East."
"That's kind of ambitious." Faith gave her an amazed look. "But better you than me. And how does this whole secret agent father thing affect that?"
"I don't know." Buffy told her honestly. "We've only known about it since yesterday. We'll see after Giles has a chance to absorb the idea into that watcher brain of his. He's meeting with them again next week to discuss possibilities. Fortunately, he doesn't need me there for that one. And don't get too cocky. You might be the person running whatever we end up with."
She smirked at the horrified look Faith gave her.
"No way! I'm a slayer, not a leader." Faith protested.
"You can't fool me." Buffy told her. "I've seen you working with the newbies. You are at least as good as I am. And Giles knows it. In fact, you are probably a lot better at it."
"No..." Faith protested again.
"Anyway, we can talk about that if Giles ever actually retires." Buffy nodded at Faith's surprise. "You know he can't keep doing it forever. He's already planning for it." Buffy stood up, stretching her arms above her head. "If you're interested I have a training room at a local gym permanently reserved for a couple hours every afternoon. Want to go burn off some of that energy? You might even meet a local slayer or two and their watchers."
"Are they cute?" Faith asked with a smirk.
"Which ones?" Buffy asked. "Watchers or slayers?"
"Does it matter?" Faith winked at her. "Have you ever met a slayer who wasn't a hot chick?"
"Faith!" Buffy swatted her companion. Chewing on her lower lip and frowning, Buffy pretended to think about it before answering. "I guess not."
"I take that as a yes." Faith grinned, not taking the bait, before adding, "But if they aren't, you owe me dinner."
Getting quickly to her feet and pulling Faith up with her, Buffy just shook her head. "Come on... we can pick up something for dinner on the way home afterward. I still need to talk with Dawn."
TBC in "If this is Rome, it must be Tuesday."