Hey guys, thanks for the reviews for the last chapter. Sorry for the long delay between updates. Life suddenly got busy.

Faith woke bright and early the next morning and stretched languidly in bed. Buffy had never come back down to the kitchen the night before and after an hour she had just given up and gone out on patrol.

She'd found one vampire – one more than the night before – and considered herself lucky. Then she had gone home ready to try the bonding with Buffy thing again.

Buffy still hadn't been around, probably already in bed, so Faith had polished off another preparation dish – still lying around – before going to bed herself. She'd spent a while with Buffy then, if only in her fantasies.

Faith bounced out of bed, more than ready to give it a third go. It was Thanksgiving today and after a quick shower she was planning on going downstairs and making this a day she and Buffy could remember – and hopefully for good reasons not bad.

Kennedy woke up a little startled to find herself in her old bed – Willow's current bed. She'd never meant to stay in the room long, really wanting to go down and see Will, but obviously the stress, the fight, and probably more than that the amount of painkillers she'd taken had knocked her out. She couldn't even remember falling asleep let alone cuddling up in Willow's covers.

She stretched carefully but was happy to find that most of her aches had already gone – power of Slayer healing, she wasn't sure she would ever get used to how cool it was!

Willow wasn't in the bed with her. Had she seen Kennedy here and decided to sleep somewhere else entirely or had they shared a bed but Willow had left really early? It was annoying not to know, but deep down she figured it was probably the first one. She couldn't blame her, it wasn't like she'd planned to have Kennedy in her bed and sharing covers with an ex was always awkward unless you were drunk. Of course it was still awkward even then, but only after you both woke up the next morning.

She got out of the bed a little more gingerly than usual, the deeper bruises still making themselves known – oh how she longed for the day she could give Faith as good as she took – but once she was up she felt pretty okay.

She pulled the curtains open with cheerful enthusiasm and was greeted with a dark, drizzling morning. It dampened her spirits for a moment but then she shook it off. This was a new day, a fresh start. Willow was better, and hadn't kicked her out of the bed even if she didn't sleep in it with her. Things were looking up.

The tavern was noisy and crowded and looked vaguely like Barnies probably would have looked if it had existed two or three centuries ago. Folk music was playing; no actually it was being played, by three men in the corner. The guy with the accordion was wearing a faded felt top hat and doing an energetic jig as his fingers flew over the keys. Some other people were jigging too, mainly women, and the rest of the patrons were drinking… enthusiastically. It was hardly Buffy's first choice for a night out.

Faith, she figured, would probably think it was coolest thing ever. She smiled as she imagined Faith bringing her here, all proud of herself for coming up with such an awesome original date. Like Faith was ever going to ask her out again! With every awkward day that passed she was starting to think that ship had sailed. It hurt but what was she supposed to do?

She didn't doubt that Faith was attracted to her but if the physical was as far as it was going to go she wished Faith would just admit it already and let them both move on. She had obviously been kidding herself that they would ever be a real couple. Faith just wasn't made for serious relationships. And even if she was trying… if this was her idea of trying, they definitely had no hope. Buffy needed more than a sex-buddy – no matter how good the sex would undoubtedly be – and she was really starting to think that was all Faith was capable of being. For the foreseeable future anyway. She didn't want to talk, didn't even seem to want to just hang out anymore… Faith had changed a lot since Buffy had been in high school, but maybe she could only change so much. Maybe she could be a better person without ever losing her old attitude towards relationships…

When had this turned into a good time to dwell on Faith? Shaking off the unhelpful thoughts she followed behind the others as Xander made his way to the bar, hating the way the sticky floor sucked at her shoes and feeling way bad for Willow who was only wearing a pair of slipper socks.

Giles had been right; everyone around them had raucous Irish brogues. They also, for the most part, had long, dirty hair and dull, shapeless clothes. Her first thought was: Who on Earth would ever want to live in the past? Her second was: We stick out, like really. We stick out so much we make sore thumbs look discreet.

And on the heels of that thought the chatter around them died out and the silence spread like a shockwave to the edges of the room until even the music petered out with one last flat note from the piano.

"I think we've been spotted," she whispered to Willow.

Willow gave her a slightly sarcastic 'really?' look before concentrating on what was being said at the bar.

"We're from London," Giles was saying.

The hush around them got hushier as the barman said, "English, are yer?"

Buffy's slayer instincts detected a familiar shift in the crowd as some of the men reached for hidden weapons and her muscles tightened in response. Obviously Giles had said the wrong thing. She wondered if telling them they were American instead would be better or worse. Had America been discovered yet? And if so, did these guys know that?

In the end it was Willow who saved the day. "We come with a declaration from, uh, from the Queen."

"Oh, aye, and since when does the Queen make declarations to the likes of us?" asked a burly man, standing close enough to breath ale all of them.

"I meant, uh, the King?"

Buffy wished Willow didn't sound so unsure, but at least she was trying.

"Go on then," said the barman. "What's he want from us this time?"

A few in the crowd laughed.

"Uh," Willow said again.

Giles pulled a notebook out of his pocket with a flourish and made a big deal about turning a page and preparing to read. Buffy's eyebrow rose but she kept the rest of her disbelief inside.

"The king hereby offers a truce on all taxes," he pretended to read pompously. "In an effort to bring peace to our two nations."

There was silence after that. Broken a moment later by someone asking:

"What else he got?"

There was more laughter.

"Ah." Giles turned a few pages while he waited for inspiration to strike. "Ah, yes, and that we buy everyone here a… a tankard of your finest ale as a token of his trust."

More silence.

"T-two tankards?" Giles tried.

"Why don't we make it three?" Xander said, pulling his wallet from his pocket. "Just to really seal the truce. The King knows you're all hardworking guys, just trying to make an honest buck like him. He just wants you to know he royally supports you and stuff. So, what do you say, gonna let His Majesty by you a beer?"

There was some murmuring and then the barman said: "For sure, we'll drink the bastard's money, right lads?"

There was a cheer from all sides and the music started back up with even more buoyancy than before. The four time-travellers breathed a sigh of relief as the ale began pouring.

"How much do you think this is going to cost me, Giles?" Xander asked, peering into his wallet.

"Just give him all your coinage," Giles said, "and tell him it's from the King's mint in America."

There was another little confrontation over the money but it was settled quickly thanks to Giles' suggestion and then they were pretty much left alone again. Four tankards of ale were pushed across the bar to them. Buffy and Willow both declined but Xander and Giles took theirs. Xander grabbed the spare two as well.

"Feel like sneezing yet, Will?" Buffy asked as they sat down on squat three-legged stools at one end of a long wooden table.

"No, but believe me, I'm trying."

"Don't force it," Giles advised. "The magick may sense it and quell itself."

"You're talking about magick like it's a living, breathing thing," Xander said as he supped from a tankard. He pulled a little face and then grinned. "This isn't that bad. I was expecting it to taste like boiled rats or something."

"Magick is a living, breathing thing," Willow said. "It just doesn't live and breathe in the same way we do."

"You make it sound creepy," Buffy said without thinking.

As soon as she said it she expected a negative reaction from Willow, but the Witch just shrugged.

"It is at the moment. I don't like the fact that it's working against me right now, that's for sure. Magick is what I am, if it goes wonky, then does that mean I'll be wonky forever too?"

"There's more to you than magick, Willow," Xander sounded a little impatient.

"Like what? I obviously suck at relationships. Kennedy was really into me until we got together and then I blew it."

"First of all, you were with her for months before you blew it, and you didn't blow it, you dumped her!"

"She dumped me!"

"Only because she thought you were dumping her," Buffy said, and knew at once it was a mistake to give an opinion.

Willow rounded on her in a way she hadn't with Xander – that was getting annoying too. "Oh, so it's all my fault again. She just assumed so that gives her the right to finish things between us?"

"Why do I feel like I've had this conversation a million times before?" Buffy looked away exasperated. "If you wanna get back with her, just ask her out again."

"It's not that easy…"

"Trust me, it is that easy. You ask, she'll say yes, you both live happily ever after."

"It's not that easy!"

"Because of Oz," Giles asked, surprisingly.

Buffy had thought he'd keep out of this conversation. Annoying relationship chat not really being his thing.

"No, because…" Willow looked like she didn't have an answer, but then said. "… Because we want different things."

"You want her and she wants you," Buffy said. "Different, sure, but not exactly incompatible."

"She's young and rich and a slayer, and I'm… not so young, with no money and a… a wonky witch!"

"Sounds like a match made in one of the more lenient heavens," Xander joked.

"She goes into things fists first with no thought of the consequences," Willow tried.

"Yeah, well you used to go into things with wiggly fingers first with no thought of the consequences," Buffy countered.

"Should have known you'd take her side," Willow muttered.

As Xander shook his head and Giles raised his eyes to the low ceiling, Buffy nabbed one of the spare tankards from in front of Xander and muttered a "Whatever." back.

She sank back a little on the stool, wanting out of the conversation that never went anywhere, for this round at least. The ale really wasn't that bad. A little rougher on the palate and a little sweeter than she was used to her beer being, but it was stomachable. It occurred to her that stomaching too much wouldn't be a good idea. Next time Willow sneezed they might end up in a pit of fire demons and she'd need all her wits about her to make up for the fact her slayer skills were probably a little rusty. Not gone, or even dampened, but she just didn't use them as much as she used to.

She still sparred with Kennedy regularly but she hadn't actually patrolled for, what, three weeks? And she hadn't actually slayed anything then either, she'd let Kennedy have the single demon they'd found. Giles kept saying that any day now they were going to get swamped by demons and the undead, as those that had fled Sunnydale made their way to the Cleveland area. It wasn't happening though. Either evil was taking its sweet time in getting there or their Hellmouth was defective. And even her training of the newbies and the watcher babies was mostly just a lecturer's role. She shouted out instructions from the side and occasionally demonstrated something, but that was it.

And she was happy with that, right? Out of the game was what she had always wanted after all. Except she wasn't out of it, just on the sidelines. She was close, but not close enough and not far enough away at the same time. It was maddening.

Maybe if Faith was never going to change and be the perfect girlfriend, she should be the one to change… change something anyway. Get out of the way of the game once and for all. Do something different. Get a nine-to-five job somewhere, settle down with a nice Riley-type and have a couple of kids that she could pass her Mom's turkey recipe onto. Or travel the world with a backpack. Ride the Orient Express, work on a yak farm in Asia, live in Italy for a year… The possibilities were endless…if Faith couldn't change.

Buffy sat back on the stool a little more, sipping from her tankard, letting her eyes drift across the room as she contemplated a life without Faith after spending the last six months building a life with Faith in her mind.

"Look, I'm sorry," Willow said without sounding it. "I'm just freaking out a little here." She lowered her voice. "I have a chaotic-nerve spell inside me and I keep teleporting through time and space every time I sneeze! How would you feel?"

"A little grateful that my friends came along for the ride?" Xander sniped.

"I am grateful, but let's not forget you didn't come along willingly."

"Hey, we all saw your sneeze brewing. I could have let go in your bedroom but I didn't."

"Let's all just calm down," Giles said. "Obviously all of our nerves are running high but bickering won't help. We need to…"

Buffy nearly fell of the back of her stool when the profile of a man on the other side of the room caught her eye. "…Oh my God!"

"What is it?" Willow asked as they all tried to see what she was seeing.

The angle was wrong for them though so she was left staring in shock alone. It couldn't be, it was too weird. She willed the well-built man to turn towards her but he was too busy… carousing was probably the technical term… with his drunken buddies.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Buff," Xander said, craning his neck to see.

She would have laughed at that if it had filtered through her shock enough. Definitely not a ghost. Definitely flesh and blood and breath and… a heartbeat? This was too weird!

"Buffy?" Giles asked with concern.

"Angel," she replied, her voice sounding faraway.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh my God, she's right!" Willow said as the man turned towards them to catch a buxom waitress around the waist.

"No its not," Xander said. "Angel, for all his many many faults, is cleaner than that! And his hair is all sticky up at the front not long and messy."

"You look at him and tell me that's not Angel," Buffy said with a good attempt at calm.

"I just did." When Buffy glared at him he shrugged. "I'm not saying the resemblance isn't freak-worthy, but how can it be?"

Buffy shrugged, staring at her possible-ex again. He was pulling the wench onto his lap. She tried to struggle away, squealing with laughter when he wouldn't let her. Buffy frowned.

"Perhaps a descendant," Willow suggested.

Buffy shook her head. "I never knew Angel's exact date of birth, and I don't know what year this is either for that matter, but I do know that's either the twin brother he never told he had, or…" she took a deep, disbelieving breath. "…It's him."

"How can you be sure?" Giles asked curiously.

"He's the love of my life!" Seeing all eyes turn to her, she corrected herself. "Was, whatever! The point is I'd know him anywhere – three hundred years notwithstanding. Uh, and if you could all not tell Faith that, that would be good," she added in a quiet rush.

"He's not acting very Angel-y right now," Willow said, waving a hand to where Angel was now dry humping the struggling wench he was hanging onto.

"Yeah, who knew becoming a vampire would actually make him more of a gentleman," Xander added.

Across the room Angel raised a tankard to his mouth, gulping down its contents. The bouncing around he was doing made most of it pour over his face and the waitress finally managed to wriggle away. She wasn't finding it so funny now and once on her feet turned and slapped him across the face, sending his tankard flying.

"What do I do, Giles?" Buffy asked.

"Not a thing," he replied sternly. "To interact with a figure from our past may alter future events drastically. Engaging with Angel at this time may change his path in any number of ways. We can't risk that."

"Maybe we can change it in a good way," Willow said.

"Like telling him to avoid any mysterious blonde girls named Darla?" Buffy said. "We could save him from being turned into a Vampire?"

"We probably could," Giles said. "But if we did that he would be dead long before you met him."

Buffy frowned but Xander spoke before she could, sounding far too enthusiastic.

"Yeah, but if we could save him from being killed. Surely that's of the good. I mean, isn't that what we do? Save people from Vampires."

"Xander," Willow began. "Think of all the times Angel saved us. Without him we would have died in Marcie's gas leak, or you might never have found Buffy in time to give her CPR, or Faith's fake Watcher might have fried me with her scary glove-thing!"

"Yeah, but think about all the people who wouldn't have died when Buffy made him lose his soul!"

Buffy would have snapped back at that if she hadn't been too busy thinking: No Angelus meant no Drusilla, no Spike… her whole life after arriving in Sunnydale would have been completely different. Maybe worse, but… maybe better? No heartache from losing the love of her life to an evil, soulless monster, with the added bonus of no lifelong hang-ups about sleeping with the people she loved. That would certainly come in useful right now. Perhaps, even, with no Angel on the scene she would have realised how she felt about Faith right from the start. Faith might never have gone bad – saving her from a life full of hang-ups too. And it wasn't as if she'd be killing him, the opposite in fact, and she'd be saving him from the pain and regret he lived with every day now.

Could she imagine a life without Angel in it, though? Was she really prepared to choose a possible past with Faith over her actual past with Angel? Faith had been anti-relationship right from the start; would she have changed if Buffy had been into her back then? Could she change?

"Jenny might still be alive," Xander was saying.

Buffy caught Giles' hurt expression and despite being mad at Xander his words, they added a little cement to her currently shaky thoughts.

Willow was on a whole different thing though. "How can you say that? Just because you never liked Angel doesn't mean you can just use Jenny's name in vain like that!"

"It wasn't in vain!" Xander said. "It's a valid point!"

"Yeah, but what's the point of Jenny being alive if the rest of us are dead!" Willow turned quickly to Giles. "I didn't mean that the way it came out."

"I understand. I think it would be best if we all got up and left now before this conversation goes any further," Giles said, his voice tight.

Buffy wasn't so sure. About anything right now. Angel had stood up and chased the serving wench, making a grr-ing sound his drunk self probably thought was hilarious. He only went a few steps though before giving up and falling back on his stool, laughing uproariously as he stole someone else's tankard. As he lifted it to his mouth, he turned slightly and his eyes met Buffy's.

"Oh shit," she said, too quietly for the others to hear her.

If she had been in any doubt before she wasn't now. His eyes were definitely his eyes. He dropped the tankard back onto the table and leered at her.

Look away, look away, look away!

She didn't. "Will, now would be a really good time to sneeze."

"Why? Oh. Oh!"

Angel was standing up again, wiping his face off on his poufy sleeve. If she ever saw him again in the future she was so going to make fun of his dress sense.

If? She definitely would… unless? Was she really contemplating this?

"Oh crap!" Xander saw him making his way over. "Are we one hundred percent sure he's not a vampire yet? Because we probably look pretty fresh and tasty compared to everyone else."

"We're sure. Look at the colour in his cheeks," Giles said and pushed his tankard away from him. "I think now would be a good time to go. We are not achieving anything in here anyway."

"Maybe we are," Xander countered, catching sight of Buffy's expression.

So did Willow. "Buffy, no! You love him, remember?"

"If I love him, wouldn't I want to save him from a life of torment? Wouldn't I want to remember not sending him to hell?"

"You'll still remember it," Giles said hurriedly. "But when we eventually return home everything will be completely different. Completely, Buffy! We may not even have a home. We may have been dead for six years!"

"I've come back from the dead before," she said, eyes on Angel who was almost at their table now. "I can show you guys how it goes."

"Buffy!" Giles snapped.

"Please?" Willow begged.

"Too late," Xander said, and he actually sounded scared now of what he might have set in motion.

Buffy didn't have time to answer any of them as Angel fell onto the stool next to hers and leaned close, nearly crushing her with his scent. Her nose wrinkled and she did her best not to gag. Ye gods! Dirty sweat, charred meat and stale ale assaulted her senses and the next time she saw him, if she saw him, it wasn't going to be his clothes she made fun of after all.

"Hello," she managed, leaning back a little.

"Ello, and ain't you just a pretty young thing, now."

"Am I? Thanks." She leaned back further.

He leaned closer. "To be sure. Saw yer looking at me from other dare. So I thought I'd come an' interduce meself."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Glad yer t'ink so. Me name's Liam. What's yers?"

"Bu…Um… Joan."

"Joan? Well, dat be a nice name now. Can I buys yer a drink, Joan?"

"Uh…?"

"Bu… Joan, we have to leave!" Giles snapped.

"Now hang on justa minute, gran'pa," Angel, or Liam, said genially. "Yer got yerself a fine young lass dare." He waved a hand at Willow. "Let's not be greedy now."

"Now look here," Giles began to stand.

Xander pulled him back down as Buffy said, "Its okay, Giles."

"See, Goiles, Joan says it's okay. So how about dat drink?"

"Maybe we could talk first?" Buffy said, ignoring Giles warning glare and still not entirely sure she was going to go through with this anyway.

True, she would be doing the world at large a huge favour by not letting it suffer through Angelus, but did she really want her last memory of Angel to be of his all-consuming stench? Seriously, it was making her eyes water!

He smiled in what he probably thought was a benevolent way and said, "Sure, I like lasses with a bit of a mind to them."

She returned a grimacy smile and… nearly took a deep breath but remembered not to just in time… and began. "I'm not sure how to explain this but at some point in the next few days or weeks or… or months… or maybe years… uh…"

"Yer not makin' a whole lotta sense dare, Joan," he said laughing.

"I know, but, this is important…" she paused, doubting she could go through with it after all.

She tried to steel herself, thinking about how much better this would be for him and so many other people even if she wasn't one of them. She thought of Jenny. She thought about Spike and the sweet person he had probably been before he had been vamped. The sweet person Angel had told her Drusilla had been before he made her crazy. Of all the lives he'd destroyed. She thought about how much simpler, how much better things could be between her and Faith right now if he had never been in the picture.

She thought of all that, but she couldn't help thinking about their first kiss too, or okay, their second kiss had been better, and all their kisses after that. Of all the times Angel had held her when she'd been scared of her calling, of all the times he'd held her just for the sake of holding her. She thought of all the good times they'd had and wondered if it was really fair to rob him of those as well as herself. Lastly she thought of Giles' warning of messing with the past and the possible dire consequences it could have.

She thought about all of that and still didn't know what was the best thing to do.

"Well, Joan, what was it you were wantin' to be sayin'?" Angel put his arm around her possessively, releasing strong waves of his overpowering smell into the atmosphere.

"Um, just that..." she had to stop talking to gag suddenly as his odour hit the back of her throat. "Oh God!"

"Yeuck," Willow said, getting hit with it too, her nose wrinkled and then she gasped and then, urgently, she yelled, "Hold on!"

"Huh?" Buffy asked, turning to her. Seeing the other two grab suddenly at Willow's arm and shoulder, she said, "Oh shit! Sorry, Angel!" and grabbed onto her best friend's wrist.

"No ones ever called me an angel before," Angel said, amused by her antics.

"They will," Buffy promised, and then smushed her ear to his smelly smock-shirt.

She heard three beats of his heart before Willow sneezed.

Faith was in the kitchen, frowning around at the mess when she heard someone in the doorway. She looked up, hoping it was Buffy, but it was just Kennedy so she went back to frowning.

Kennedy stopped on the threshold, holding the swing door open; hesitating about coming in when she saw only Faith was in the kitchen. Then she kicked herself for showing weakness and let the door swing shut behind her.

"Buffy's not one for clearing up after herself then."

"That makes two of you," Faith jibed but there was no real feeling in it.

"I wasn't going to grab a mop after you'd just beaten me to a pulp," Kennedy started to argue.

Faith held a hand up. "Can it, we might have bigger problems."

Concerned by her tone, Kennedy surveyed the mess properly, seeing just how bad it was. "Did a demon do this?"

"Don't think so. It was nearly this bad before I went patrolling last night, but…" Faith turned around on the spot. "…even if B did get away with leaving it like this Giles probably woulda cleaned it up."

"Nearly this bad?" Kennedy went to set some coffee going seeing as no one else had bothered to yet. "So Buffy came in and made it worse overnight?"

"Doubt it, unless she deliberately dropped the pie dish on the floor and spread the crumbs all over the place."

Kennedy frowned for a second and then rolled her eyes. "The pixies."

"What?"

"The pixies must have been on a food raid over night."

Faith frowned at her now. "Any part of that sentence supposed to make actual sense?"

Kennedy gave her an impatient look before realising Faith really didn't know what she was talking about. How could she not know about their housemates? True the little purple menaces had been making themselves scarce since the night they'd attacked – even Kennedy had only caught the occasional glimpse of them as they darted from here to there like mauve mice – and it was unlikely Faith went anywhere near the woodshed, but still she'd been there a couple of months now.

Faith was still looking at her quizzically, but she wasn't in the mood to enlighten her.

"Ask Buffy," she said instead.

"I would if I could find her."

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon. I waited for her last night for hours but she never showed."

"Never showed once in the kitchen she's frantically trying to prepare a Thanksgiving meal in?"

"Not while I was here. And she's not here now, obviously, when you'd think she'd be going into meltdown mode clearing this shit up so she can start all over again."

"That's weird," Kennedy admitted. "Or maybe she's just a flaky chef."

Faith shrugged. "Well, if so she picked a hell of a day to flake."

"Maybe she's just still in bed. All the cooking yesterday wore her out."

"Maybe." Faith started for the stairs. "I'll go check her room." As Kennedy followed her, she turned on the first step. "I don't need a chaperone."

"I think Willow might have slept in there too."

"And seeing as those two are hardly speaking, why would you think that?"

"Because I don't think she slept in our room… her room." As Faith raised an eyebrow, she added, "Because I accidentally slept in there."

"Accidentally, right." Faith gave her a grin that was more big bad wolf than camaraderie but said nothing else as Kennedy followed her up the stairs.

She knocked once but when she got no answer she pushed the door open without bothering to try again. She was barging in because she had a legitimate concern. If that meant she caught B in her undies? Well, she could always apologise later.

She didn't because there was no one in there. Kennedy followed her in to make sure Willow wasn't hiding in the corner. The bed didn't even look like it had been slept in but Buffy could have made it before she left.

"Sure Will ain't in her room?"

"I think I'd have seen her if she was."

Faith loitered in Buffy's room for no good reason but to look around, and subtly sniff lingering traces of Buffy's perfume out of the air. "Thought she was sick?"

"They did a spell to cure her last night. The herbs and stuff are still all over the bed."

"Think it worked?"

"Well, I assumed that's why she wasn't there."

"Let's go ask Xander."

She knocked on his door but barged in this time without even giving him a chance to answer. He wasn't there anyway. His bed was messy but then without Andrew here to make it, it often looked like that.

"Maybe he started work already," Kennedy said.

Faith glanced at the alarm clock on his chest of drawers. It was a little early for that. Plus, he'd told Faith he was going to Barnies last night and that usually meant he slept in until his alarm clock couldn't take being snoozed anymore.

"Maybe," she said, leaving the room. "But he said we weren't working today 'cause of Thanksgiving."

"So maybe he just wanted to finish something before he took the rest of the day off."

"Maybe," Faith said again. "Let's try Giles."

Downstairs in the living room, Faith rapped on the door to Giles' bedroom. This time she did wait for an answer, not wanting an eyeful of the Watcher in his undies, not because she didn't think he probably still looked good in them, she just didn't need that kinda awkwardness.

After knocking three times and getting nothing, she opened the door and poked her head around it. Seeing no one in the bed she went in.

"Giles isn't here either," Kennedy stated the obvious.

"Try his office."

Kennedy went next door and he wasn't there either. She looked at the mess of books and papers over the desk, seeking a clue to where everyone might be. It was all about Willow's illness as far as she could tell. A lot of stuff about the ritual he'd been planning last night and a list with accompanying notes about possible magick practitioners in the area that could help. She recognised the name of a witch Willow had talked about that lived down by the lake and the wizard guy from Wooster. The others she'd never heard of.

Faith stuck her head in the door. "Well?"

"Does it look like he's here?"

Faith bit back her retort, making a big effort not to start bickering and a heavy sigh was the result. "Anything useful I meant?"

"Possibly." Kennedy picked up the notebook with the list in it and left the office.

Back in the kitchen, Faith fixed herself a cup of coffee while Kennedy read over the list again.

"What if Giles couldn't cure it himself so they went to one of these guys?"

"Makes sense why they weren't here last night. Doesn't explain why they're not back yet though."

"Maybe it's taking a long time. Giles never bothered telling me the details."

Faith looked over, sensing the bitterness in Kennedy's voice. She could relate to that feeling when it came to the Scoobs. She made her a cup of coffee too and brought it over to the table.

"You believe that?" she asked.

"I can't think of another reason why they all wouldn't be here."

"Unless they did cure Red and they all went out partying to celebrate without bothering to tell us," Faith said only half joking, as she sat down.

"I wouldn't put it past them." Seeing Faith's curious look Kennedy forced a smile as she sat down too. "Which is cool. After all, they are all bonded tighter than most blood-relatives."

"I know. It's annoying." It was Kennedy's turn to look curiously at Faith, and she hurriedly added with a wave of her hand, "But, ya know, cool for them I guess."

They both sighed, slumping down in their chairs as they sipped from their coffees.

After a while, Kennedy said, "So we should just wait for them."

Faith nodded. "Yeah, they're either gonna come through that door all happy that Will is cured, and then we get to celebrate with them. Or they're gonna come through it as hung over as hell and then we get to rightfully bitch at them for forgetting us. It's win win."

They slumped further in the chairs as another silence stretched on.

"Want some breakfast?" Faith asked eventually.

"Yeah."

Faith pushed one of the dishes of practise food towards her and grabbed another for herself. Seeing Faith start eating with her fingers, Kennedy gave a shrug and did the same.

After a few mouthfuls she stopped. "Wait. Maybe we should save some of this for dinner. Just in case Buffy isn't back in time to cook."

Faith swallowed irritably and pushed her dish away. "Okay, this is worse than prison! At least I knew in there the yam burgers and lumpy mash potatoes were a done deal!"

Kennedy started laughing.