Chapter Three: There Was a Girl.

One fist whistled past her ear, and she laughed as she grabbed his arm and used it to flip him flat onto his back. The stake was magically in her hand, produced from God knows where, and she staked the vampire in one smooth motion, already looking away to the other two that were hesitating in the mouth of the alley. Faith could see their tiny little minds debating- run, or maybe get free dinner? She could see them decide to try for dinner, and grinned to herself from her hiding place.

Vamps were all the same. Fucking stupid to the bone.

It was over in less than a minute, of course. London was filled with very young and very stupid fledges, and these were prime examples of their breed. Clumsy punches, thinking that speed and strength would give them the advantage, and too slow to realize that Buffy was stronger and faster and had years of training to boot. Of course, they also thought that they had the advantage of numbers, but Faith saw no need to interfere in Buffy's victory.

Dust scattered around her, and Faith stepped out of the shadow she'd been standing in, clapping slowly. Buffy's face darkened for a moment, and Faith wondered what memory she'd accidentally touched. Her ironic grin softened, and she reached out to touch Buffy's cheek gently, hesitantly. Buffy smiled at her, shaking off whatever spectre of her past that haunted her tonight, and closed her hand over Faith's, pulling her close. Faith wrapped her arms around the slightly shorter woman, and just… held her close.

"I love you, you know," she said, almost conversationally, and she felt Buffy's sigh feather against the sensitive skin of her throat.

"I know you do. I'm fine. Just… So many people gone. So many people lost to the grand Slayer's purpose of saving the world."

Ah.

"Spike came back," Faith pointed out. "I know you know because Giles told you weeks ago, and you called LA a few days back."

"Can't stop thinking about him," Buffy admitted. When she felt Faith tense she ran a soothing hand down her spine, letting her hand linger and shed heat into the small of her back. "Not like that. Whatever it was that we had, it's gone now. Or at least changed. I'm not in love with him anymore, and though he didn't say anything about it, I think that he's not in love with me either. Dying and coming back really tends to change your perspective on things."

"Wouldn't know," Faith said, trying for levity, "so I guess I'll have to take your word for it."

Buffy pulled back far enough to look her in the eye, and smiled her sweet smile, the one that she reserved for Faith and particularly tender moments with Dawn. "I think I forgot to mention," she said deliberately, "that I love you too."

"Oh, well then," Faith said, and smiled back at her. "That's acceptable, I guess."

"You guess?" Buffy demanded with mock outrage, and Faith was quick enough to grab her hands before they could go for her sides in a tickle attack. Faith grinned at her, a wide smile that was hers alone, and said, "Well, there was that whole debacle with the ice cream last night. I had to rethink things for a moment after that."

"Rethink things?" Buffy growled, and Faith was glad that she'd already grabbed her hands because she was pretty sure that Buffy would have punched her.

"Only for a moment," she said hastily. "Honest."

Buffy snorted, but she relaxed. "You haven't had an honest moment since you were born, Faith," she said, and Faith's eyes widened in mock outrage before she took her hand-holding advantage and dove for Buffy's ribs.

Buffy shrieked with laughter, and Faith grinned at her for a split second before Buffy tackled her, knocking her straight down onto the hard cement of the alley ground. She let out an "oof" as the wind was momentarily knocked out of her, and Buffy promptly turned the tables and started to tickle her.

The war was on, and they rolled across the dirty ground as they each struggled for advantage over the other. Buffy eventually ended up on top, just like Faith had been aiming for her to do, and she pinned Faith's hands over her head with a triumphant smirk.

"Oh, well then," Faith said casually. "Look at this. I'm at your mercy. What are you going to do about it?"

"Oh, I've got a few ideas," Buffy said. Faith cocked a challenging eyebrow.

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"I'm gonna eat you alive, for starters," she said, and stopped Faith's burgeoning smirk cold when she simultaneously started kissing down her neck and sliding a cold hand up under Faith's shirt.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," a different voice, male, said from the mouth of the alley, and the two of them rolled instantly to their feet. A vampire was standing there, licking his lips with anticipation for a double delight snack, and Faith was so pissed off that he'd interrupted her incipient sex that she started towards him, intending to kill him slowly.

Buffy breezed past her and launched herself at the vamp, landing a flurry of angry blows that was impressive, even for her. Faith stood back and watched, arms crossed over her chest, and started to grin when she heard what Buffy was growling as she beat the shit out of the interloper.

"You. Interrupted. Sex. Now you're going to fucking die."

Buffy staked the bastard, and Faith fell instantly for the satisfied smirk that was on her lips when she brushed her hands together to free them of the remaining dust. Her stake went back to wherever she kept it, but Faith wasn't paying a lot of attention because Buffy was stalking towards her, and the look on her face said that they were going home now, and Faith wasn't gonna be able to move for a week when they were done.

Faith couldn't wait.