AUTHOR'S NOTE Sorry for the delay! This chapter's a little longer – hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMER I own nothing canon from Twilight or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy stared out the tiny airplane window. They had flown from Heathrow to New York and switched planes, now headed nonstop for Seattle. From there, they'd finally head for Port Angeles. They were headed backward through time zones, so the sun was only just falling toward the horizon.

The flight was nowhere near full, so Willow, Xander and Oz had found empty rows where they could stretch out and go to sleep. Giles refused to lie down, but he had fallen asleep sitting up in his chair.

Faith flopped down in the seat next to Buffy. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Not tired?"

"Nope." Buffy had spent the first half of most nights since she was fifteen out patrolling streets and cemeteries. Whether it was part of her Slayer-ness or just her, she didn't sleep much anymore. "You?"

Faith shook her head. "Slayers don't really need sleep, right?"

Buffy shrugged, staring at the rosy clouds outside. "Guess not."

"What's go you all stoic?"

With faith, an honest answer never seemed to faze her. Buffy looked at her. "Being dead."

Panic, then worry flashed across the other Slayer's face. "Way to keep it light, B. What brought that on?"

She was torn between wanting desperately to talk about it and still wanting to keep it secret. After a minute, she said, "Remember that dream I told you about?"

"The one with the seven different graves?"

Buffy nodded. "The last one wasn't exactly a grave. It was a churchyard with this statue. Then when I woke up, I could see the same church out the window."

"That's where you disappeared to this morning?" Faith asked.

"Yep." She turned back to see the sun finally set. "The statue was a memorial to this guy named Carlisle Cullen who died way back in the 1600s. He was a vampire hunter."

"Oh." Faith watched her carefully for a minute. "And so why does this have you thinking about being dead?"

"He died doing what he believed was right." Buffy's voice was wistful. "He found peace. I miss that."

If she had said that to Xander or Giles or Dawn, their eyes would have filled with tears as they reminded her of all the things that she had to live for. But Faith just leaned back in her chair and said, "I do, too."

Buffy turned to frown at her. "Huh?"

Faith sighed. "You have no idea how much easier it was to be evil. To not have to worry about consequences or a conscience."

Out of unspoken courtesy, they never talked about Faith's dark period. Buffy just stared at her as she added, "It was total escape."

"Sometimes, that sounds good," Buffy admitted softly.

Faith grinned dryly. "You, well, prison? Not as much fun as you'd think. There were times in there that I wished I was dead."

"Wow," Buffy said. "Listen to us. Good thing the girls can't hear us. We'd never get them to listen to us again."

"You think there will ever be a day when we can just retire?" Faith asked.

Buffy stared out the window once more. "You mean when the other Slayers are enough to protect the world without us? I hope so."

She managed to fall asleep on the last flight from Seattle to Port Angeles and the next thing she knew, they had landed. Stretching, she grabbed her bags and followed the others into the terminal. "You know Giles," she said. "The Council ought to look into getting its own jet. Doesn't hurt to travel in style every once and a while."

"Yes, well, as soon as you can afford the jet fuel," he said tiredly, "let me know."

She smirked and tried to catch Willow's eye to share the joke, but her best friend was paying her no attention. Instead, Willow seemed awfully preoccupied with following Oz to the baggage claim. Buffy raised an eyebrow. Interesting.

Giles had arranged for two cars, one rented in his name and the other in Oz's. As they started to divide their luggage between the two, tension started to spring up around them. Xander immediately threw his suitcase in the trunk of Giles's car. Faith glanced at Buffy and shrugged, then climbed into the backseat of Oz's SUV.

Buffy glanced at Willow, who looked torn. She figured that she would make it easier, so she said, "Faith, I guess I'll ride with you guys." As she climbed into the car, she missed the angry look that Willow shot her.

It was a long, uneventful ride from Port Angeles to Forks. Faith fell asleep in the back, leaving Buffy and Oz to sit in silence as the suburbs faded into towering, dark pine forests.

"Thanks," Oz said after awhile.

She looked at him. "For what?"

"For coming all the way here. I know one cluster of vampires is probably no big deal."

Buffy shrugged. "Don't mention it. Besides, sometimes one bad cluster of vamps is all it takes. You know that."

He nodded. "What did Willow mean about enough Slayers?"

"It's a long story," she said, uncomfortable with any topic that included Willow.

"Short version."

Buffy sighed. "Short version – there was a battle too big for me to face, Will pulled off an überpowerful spell, and every single girl in the world who might have ever been called as a Slayer was made one. Now there are hundreds of us. Maybe thousands, we're not sure."

"Wow," Oz said. Then, so quietly that he obviously didn't intend for Buffy to hear, she added, "That's my girl."

Inwardly, she groaned. Perfect. He was still in love with Willow.

Forks was even smaller than Sunnydale had been. They checked into their two rooms at one of the town's few motels and tried to settle in for the night.

Buffy, Willow, and Faith had two beds and a couch between them. Faith was already asleep again, fully clothed, on the first bed.

"You can have the other one," Buffy said.

Willow glanced at her, slightly suspicious of the peace offering. The two of them hadn't really spoken to each other since that morning. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Buffy pulled her jacket back on. "I'm going on a quick patrol, you know, try to get the lay of the land."

Giving her a small smile, Willow said, "Okay. Be careful."

"You know me."

She slipped out the door into the cold night air. There was a white sliver of a moon high in the sky and the snow on the ground glowed in the faint light. She pulled her jacket tighter around her and headed down the silent road.

There was definitely some kind of presence in Forks setting off her Slayer sense, but it seemed awfully faint for a place supposedly overrun with vampires. Maybe if she could track down the nest tonight, they could spend the rest of their time in Washington as a vacation.

Following the feeling that tugged at the back of her mind, Buffy hardly noticed that she was heading farther and farther out of town. She only saw one car go past and the driver paid no attention to a girl walking alone on the forest road.

The driveway she found was almost hidden. It would for a long time through the dark woods and finally ended at a house. She whistled. It was a nice house.

There were definitely vampires in there – that much she was sure of – but it was not a place she had expected to find them. She slid her stake out of her shirt sleeve and crept toward the front door. Either this was a nest of vamps with impeccable architectural taste or whoever really lived in this house was in danger.

The door opened easily. There were no signs of life. Buffy moved silently through the front room, around the side toward the back of the house.

A young blond man stood calmly in front of the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. He smiled slightly when she came to face him. "You're not who I expected."

His voice was like music and he was impossibly beautiful. At first she thought he looked familiar, but she saw his pale white skin and yellow eyes and gripped her stake firmly. "So who were you expecting?"

"It doesn't matter." He looked thoughtfully at the stake in her hand. "I'm not sure you know what you're doing."

She could sense several other vampires in the house, but for the moment, she kept her focus on the one in front of her. "You should talk. Killing a family who lives in a house with huge windows all over the place? I've never met a suicidal vampire before."

That was a lie. In fact, she had known two suicidal vampires once upon a time, but that was a long time ago and she tried to think about either of them.

To her irritation, the gorgeous vampire chuckled. "You have been watching too many movies, my dear."

He was making her angry. She took another step toward him, stake raised. "I'm too tired for small talk."

He tensed and crouched defensively, but another voice stopped her dead in her tracks before she even got near him. "Buffy, don't."

She turned to where he appeared out of the shadows, her mouth slightly open in shock. "Angel?"