Faith's POV
I wonder when Buffy's getting home. There's only so much late night TV a girl can take before it starts to bug the crap out of me. And hey, already there. There's some chick on Leno, or Letterman or whatever, they all look the same to me. Anyway, this kinda hot chick, Charisma something is talking about how she took her clothes off for Playboy. You know, something about her reminds me of Cordy. Bah, whatever... I don't care.
I start flipping through the channels again.
There's only one girl that's ever on my mind.
The front door opens.
Speaking of which...
I jump to my feet and walk over there to get some TLC from my one and only. The sight of her makes me stop in my tracks, in a really bad way. She's hunched over slightly, holding her wrist and limping. There's a huge bruise on her face but I get the impression that's not the only one from the pained look on her face.
"B... oh god what happened?"
I rush to her side and put my arm around her to keep her upright.
"Where's Dawn?"
Dawn?
"What does Dawn have to do with anything?"
"Where is she?"
"Upstairs, sleeping. Same with Joyce."
"Okay... good... good..."
I lead her over to the couch to sit down.
"What's this about?"
We sit down and I lean her against me.
"I just... I don't want them to see me like this... it would only make them worry."
"Well I wasn't about to jump for joy about it myself. What happened?"
I put my hand against Buffy's cheek and gently turn it to look in her eyes.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah I'm, I'm fine baby... I just... no major injuries to speak of."
I run my hand against her mid-section to check for sore spots.
"Are you sure?"
She pulls my hand away and looks down at the floor.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just a little sore is all."
Sore?
"Anything I can do to help with that?"
"I, I think I just wanna go to bed. Do the sleepy healing thing."
"Okay sure... on one condition though. What did this?"
"I... I don't know. Some evil demon chick, I don't know what she is. I've never, faced anything like this chick. She's really strong, stronger than me, maybe stronger than you."
Not likely.
"Well we'll go after her, together. You and me'll take her apart piece by piece."
"Okay... but not tonight."
"No, of course not. Tomorrow, we'll hunt her down and kill her to death."
"Okay..."
I help her to her feet and we head upstairs. We get to the top and make our way to our room.
"Wait..."
We stop in front of Dawn's room.
"What?"
"I... I have to see her first."
She looks over at Dawn's partially open door.
"She's sleeping B."
She straightens up and starts limping to the door. I start to the door myself but Buffy puts her hand up to stop me.
"It's okay, I can go by myself."
I stop and watch her go in.
What's that about?
Once she's in I walk over and peer in the door. I watch as she limps her way to the bed and sits on the edge next to Dawn. She reaches down and combs a hair out of her face before leaning over and kissing her forehead. My slayer hearing picks up four whispered words.
"I love you, Dawn."
After a few more moments she stands up and heads this way. I back up and she comes out.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine. Let's go to bed."
We head to bed.
Things are far from okay. Buffy's pretty beat up, and something happened tonight, something that Buffy doesn't want me to know.
We walk into our room and get ready for bed.
It has something to do with Dawn but she won't tell me what.
I climb into bed first.
I thought we were past this. I thought we weren't going to lie anymore. I thought we trusted each other enough to confide in each other. I thought we loved each other enough to tell each other everything.
She climbs into bed, into my arms.
I guess maybe I was wrong.