It's Not Enough

By:  Morrigan



A/N  Although some of the dialogue was tweaked or omitted in places, much of the middle end of this chapter is taken from *Dirty Girls.*  I agonized over doing this, because I didn't want to use much of the canon BtVS for this fic.  But, for future events that I cannot reveil, I needed a catalyst.  And, this scene that I used, was a great one for it.  Hope you all aren't too dissapointed, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter.

Thanks once more, to all of you who have been leaving such great reviews.  I cannot express how it makes me feel when I log on and see them.  ((Hugs)) to all.

Beta'd, of course, by the fantabulous Blacknblue2, who, by the way, has decided to take part in the joss100 drabble challenge and is posting her solo stuff on her LJ. (Shameless Plug for my beautiful beta girl)  Y'all should check it out.  Good stuff!


Disclaimer:  All characters are property of Joss Whedon and ME.  Why is that, again?




Buffy's eyes narrowed as she looked at the girl whose life mission once seemed to be to make hers miserable.  The only human she had ever been pushed to deliberately harm.

The girl who still held Spike's hand firmly clasped in her own.

"When did you get out?"  Buffy asked her, coolly.  "Last I heard, you were still in prison.  I didn't think we'd see you again, so soon."

"Yeah, about that..." Faith shrugged her shoulders and hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her low slung jeans.  "I got word that things on the outside were gettin' pretty gnarly, so I politely explained to our fine boys in blue, that I had a job to do.

Without looking behind her, she reached back and slid her hand into the pocket of Spike's duster, earning herself a annoyed remark from said vampire.  Deftly plucking a cigarette out of his pack and taking his zippo along with it, she continued speaking.  "Once I was finished pleading the severity of my case, they were cool enough to grant me an extended leave of absence."

Satisfied with her clever response, Faith winked at Buffy before placing the cigarette between her lips and lighting up.  Inhaling deeply, she tilted her face to the sky and moaned appreciatively.

"God," she said, "I don't know what I missed more about life out
here.  This..."

Faith took another drag on the smoke before turning to hand Spike's lighter over to him, her eyes locking playfully with his as their fingers touched.  "Or sex."

"Cut the crap, Faith," Buffy spat. "What do you want?"

She hadn't meant to release as much venom as she had, with her tone. She knew that Faith enjoyed nothing more than fraying her nerves, and Buffy inwardly chided herself for giving her the satisfaction.  But, it had been a while since she had been face to face with her, and she had fallen out of practice.  Not to mention the fact that her flirtation with Spike made her want to rip Faith's smug pretty face clean off!

"Yo B!", Faith chuckled and held up her hands in mock surrender.  "Take a chill...  I just wanna help.  Found someone you might want to see, on the way into town.  Will sent me to come find you.  She's at the hospital."

"The hospital?"  A hundred different suspicions raced through Buffy's mind.  'What did Faith do to her?'  She wondered.  "What is she doing in the hospital, Faith?"  She asked, her eyes narrowing, dangerously.

"She ain't *in* the hospital, B.  And don't think I don't know what you're thinkin'.  I didn't do anything to her.  She's the one that brought me back to Sunnydale.  She and Wolf boy are sitting with a girl we found.  She's cut up pretty bad.  Says she's got a message for you."

'So, *that's* what Willow had to go to L.A. for,' Buffy thought.  She had wondered what had kept her friend away for so long.  When Giles had told her about the phone call Willow had received from Fred, he had said that she planned to return quickly.  But, the very next day, she had called to inform them that there had been a glitch in her plans, and that she would be stuck there for a while.  She had been pretty evasive about the whole thing, too.  Now, Buffy understood why.

As much as Faith could be a benefit to them at this point in their lives, no amount of good-doing was going to make Buffy happy about having her around.

Meeting Spike's gaze, briefly, she attempted to push down the little green monster that had rose up within her, so unexpectedly, before she addressed Faith again.

She offered her a tight-lipped smile and managed a strained, "Welcome back," before motioning for Faith and Spike to follow her as she turned and headed for the cemetery gates.

"Come on," she said.  "If you are gonna take me to see this girl, we need to get cleaned up."

---

Hospitals and Buffy were un-mixy things.

From the moment she stepped through the automatic doors of Sunnydale General, her mind was flooded with memories.  Everywhere she looked had some memory attached to it.  The waiting room couches where she and Dawn would sit for hours, awaiting the results of whatever test the doctors needed to run on their mother, that day.  The phone she had used to call Willow, Giles and Xander.  The soda machine she had kicked before breaking down and sobbing on the floor. Its refusal to render its promise of caffeine filled alertness, in exchange for her money, becoming the straw that snapped her already frayed nerves...

Buffy hated this place.

Now, as she and Faith traveled through the corridors, the sickeningly sweet smell of disinfectant did little to mask the odor of illness and despair that wafted out of the rooms as they passed them.

She followed Faith to the end of the hall to the room where the girl was staying and halted just inside the doorway, closing her eyes for a moment to try and shake the emotions that came along with the faint beeping of the heart monitor, before stepping through to meet her.

After she did so, the first person she saw was a sleeping Oz, propped in a chair, followed by Willow, who was standing at the young girl's bedside.  Faith, who wasn't too fond of hospital settings herself, quietly informed them that she was going back to the house, promising to do a quick sweep through town on her way back, for old times' sake.

Realizing all of a sudden that this was the first time she and Willow had seen each other since she had freaked out in the basement, Buffy blushed slightly and whispered an awkward "Hi," which was returned just as shyly, by Willow, before Buffy turned her attentions to the bruised and battered girl, who was watching her from the bed.

"Hey, I'm Buffy...  I'm the slayer.  You have a message for me?"

---

Buffy felt sick, during the drive home from the hospital.

That poor girl, whose name she'd learned was Shannon, was another
potential.  She had been on her way to Sunnydale when she was attacked and chased by bringers, until a priest pulled up along-side her in a truck.  She didn't realize that this man wasn't at all what he seemed until they were a couple of miles away, and by that time, it was far too late.

He told her his name was Caleb, and that the bringers were his *boys.*  Shannon was burned, stabbed and thrown out of a moving vehicle, just so that she could serve as this sicko's messenger.

Buffy stared, blankly, through the passenger window of the car, seeing nothing but the vision of Shannon's multiple cuts and bruises, her cracked and shaking voice playing over and over through her head.  "He said to tell you, 'I have something of yours.'"

And all she could feel was rage.

---

Spike was stretched out on the cot in the basement, enjoying the rare opportunity of being totally clean and wrapped in nothing but the sheets, while he listened to the hustle and bustle of over-caffinated slayerettes, rough-housing overhead.

He wondered how the newest addition to this already estrogen packed household was going to fit in.  She didn't strike him as the kind of bird to play well with others, and from the stories he had been told, he had little doubt that his impression was anything other than spot on.

It was then, that he heard the basement door open, followed by a less than familiar sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Thou thinketh of the devil, and lo, appears," he murmured into the darkness, too low for her to hear.

She came to a stop near the end of the stairs and, upon sitting down, she lit up a smoke, jumping a little bit as his voice drifted to her from out of the shadows.

"Is this a private party, or can I bum one of those?"

Turning in the direction of his voice, she took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the gloom before breaking into a sly smile, while tapping on the pack she held in her hands.  "Well, I guess I *do* owe you one, now, don't I?"

Standing, she made her way down the remaining steps and across the basement to stand in front of him.   Handing Spike one of her cigarettes, she stopped and regarded him with a wry expression as her attention was drawn to the wall over his shoulder.

Following her gaze, he looked to the chains bolted to the wall behind him, and scoffed a bit, when he turned back to her.  "Oh, those!  They're not what you think."

Holding her hands up, she stepped back, with a grin.  "Yo, man, it's cool.  There was this one guy, who liked me to dress up like a schoolgirl and take this freakin' bullwhip --"

"No," Spike interrupted, "really.  I was hurting people..."

"Huh...  Was this before or after you started workin with the good guys?"  Faith asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"After," he stated, "But I'm all better now."  He took a drag and
settled back against the wall, his posture clealy stating that he had explained as much as he was willing to on the subject.

A short time passed before Spike looked back to her and commented, "You could do better than a guy like that, you know."

Faith shrugged nonchalantly and laughed a little then.  "Ah, it's all old hat.  Scratch the surface of any granola type dude - naughty nurses and horny cheerleaders...  I figure, if you can't beat 'em-"

"Join 'em," Spike finished for her, grinning with amusement.

"That's right," she smirked, "Just long as they know who's on top."

"That, I'd guess, would be you," Spike answered.

Faith nodded and broke into a wide smile.  "You'd guess right," she agreed.

A few loud thumps and giggles from the potentials, upstairs, drew their attention to the ceiling, and Faith nodded her head toward the stairs, saying, "It's crazy up there, man.   They need to lay off the Starbucks."

Spike grinned and nodded, cringing slightly as a loud crash sounded from above.  "Yeah, sounds like they're set to tear the place apart."

Stepping back a bit, Faith made herself comfortable on a large trunk that was placed across from him.  After shedding her jacket, she raised her arms above her head, arching her back in a languid stretch.

Sighing, she dropped her arms back to her sides, and said, "They're alright though.  Just green, is all."

"So then, why aren't you up there with them?" Spike asked, quirking one brow at her in curiosity.

"Nah, not me," she replied, shaking her head.  "Just spent a long incarceration surrounded by a whole slew of female types.  The whole girl bonding thing, I'm kinda over it."

Spike smiled knowingly and gazed at her for a moment before
responding, "You could have walked out any time you liked.  No one could have stopped you."

"*I* stopped me," she declared abruptly.  "I needed to be there.  I got... dangerous, for a while."

Spike nodded again.  It sounded as though the two of them had a little more in common than he had originally thought.

Suddenly, a new gleam lit up in Faith's eyes, her lips curling up in a seductive smile as she rose from her seat and walked over to Spike's cot.  Crawling up beside him, she leaned back against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with him and said, "You know, we've met before, right?"

Spike shot her an odd look in response, and waited for her to
continue.

"It was a while ago...  I was kinda wearing a different body."

After she said this, Spike turned away and rolled his eyes to the
ceiling.  "Ah, the body swap... with Buffy.  Yeah, I heard about that."

"She told you?"  Faith asked, turning a little on her hip to face him.

"She told me enough," he responded, "Didn't take me long to fill in the blanks from there."

"Well, do you remember what-"

He turned toward her then, his face bare inches from hers as he
repeated her words to him.  "Said you could ride me till my knees buckled.  Squeeze me till I popped, like warm champagne...  Not the sort of thing a man forgets."

She turned away from him, grinning smugly at the effect she must have had on him.  "Yeah, I should have known you'd figure out that it wasn't her.  Buffy would never throw down like that."

"You really *have* been away, haven't you?"  Spike asked her, pointedly.

Faith's eyes grew wide, and her jaw dropped in surprise before she
shoved him playfully on the arm, exclaiming,  "Oh, no!  Don't
tell me little miss tightly wound has been gettin' her naughty on!"

It was Spike's turn to smirk smugly, before turning away.  "Not so much, as of late," he began before stopping.  "A lot has changed since you've been gone...  You'll find most everyone here isn't anythin' like you once might have perceived them to be..."

His words stopped short as he looked up at the figure who was now standing, arms folded, in the center of room.  He was surprised that he hadn't realized she was there, and felt a little uncomfortable, although, admittedly, somewhat flattered by the suspicious look in her eyes.

"Well," she said, "It's nice to see that you two are getting along so well."

"Yeah," Faith agreed, casting a hesitant glance in Spike's direction geared specifically to make things look suspicious, "You know all the cool vampires."

Buffy's grin was as hard and cold as ice.  "Yeah."  Was all she said in return.

Silence hung heavily in the air, each one lost in their own thoughts.  Buffy watched as Spike busied himself with scratching the back of his neck, while fiddling with an invisible snag on the sheets.   Everything about his demeanor screamed *busted* to her.

'But then,' she reminded herself, 'why would he feel on the spot?  It isn't like he has anything to feel guilty about...  It's not like he belongs to me or anything...'

Her eyes flitted back to Faith, who was now standing in front of
Spike's trunk, and pulling on her jacket, a smug smile still tugging at the corners of her scarlet mouth.

Buffy felt as though her blood was boiling.  'Same old Faith,' she thought, 'Still chasing after the men in my life, like a bitch in heat!'  Looking between the two of them once more and settling her gaze back on Spike, she was overcome with a feeling of possessiveness and made a silent vow to herself.  'But, he's never going to be hers.'

Finally breaking the quiet, Faith turned to Buffy and asked her, "So, what's the sitch?"