Author’s Note: Thanks as always to Kar for the quick turn around. Thank you to my readers and reviewers. I have half of the next chapter written, so hopefully I’ll be posting again soon. Feedback is treasured.

In our twelfth installment there are quarrels, questions, and rather more sex than I’ve written in a while.

Chapter Twelve: Enough

Willow brushed a leaf out of her hair and blinked, hoping her vision would clear enough to look at her watch. It had to be tomorrow. It had been the wee hours when they had ducked into their little morbid love nest, but it had to be the less wee hours now. Willow had classes and Scooby duties and she needed to bathe. She could feel the fabric of the quilt she'd created underneath them starting to unravel. She was tired.

Faith looked slightly phased too, at least. So she didn't have to be quite so embarrassed. Of course Faith had taken out a good dozen lesser demons and two Turok Han, so Willow had to admit that she probably couldn’t take the credit for wearing Faith out.

"We should probably get up before the blanket disappears," she warned, still breathing hard. "There are definitely parts of me I don't want touching a crypt floor."

"Guess your knees aren't on that list," Faith shot back.

Willow knew she was turning red, and knew it was stupid. Faith laughed, which didn't help. Her tongue between Willow's shoulder blades was somewhat more helpful though. "Like it when you turn all red, Red," she teased. "I know you're tired," Faith spoke into her skin. "So you just relax, Herm."

"Don't you ever get tired?" Willow sighed, but she had already dropped onto her back.

Faith's hands moved down to her hips and tugged. "Not really. You complaining?"

Willow licked her lips and hoped the quilt would hold for another hour or so. "Nope." She closed her eyes and pushed aside the guilt at not doing her work like a good girl to instead concentrate on the feel of her very own personal bad girl. Or demon or whatever, which was another thing she probably should have been working on.

She had managed to push that thought away too, and really get into the moment, when Faith pulled back and asked, “Never? Really? Not even just a one-time thing?”

The blanket fizzed out, a lot like the mood. Willow scrambled up before crypt dust adhered to anything intimate and shook out her dress.

Faith just sighed and started putting her pants back on. “I don’t see why this has to be such a big thing?”

Willow spun around, dress still only half on, eyes wide. She yanked it down the rest of the way, inhaled a deep breath through her nose and waved a finger at Faith. “The big is that I do not have sex with men, Faith. Nor do I want to participate in the having of sex with men. As I have made clear on several occasions.” She tried not to yell, but she could hear how shrill her voice was. “If you want to sleep with Principal Wood, just leave me out of it.”

She grabbed her shoes and looked hard at Faith’s face. “Whatever,” her lover replied.

“Whatever, well, that’s helpful. You know what? Just leave me out from now on and do whatever and whoever you want.” She slammed out of the crypt before Faith could say anything else. The cemetery grass felt good sliding between her toes. It was still chilly in the January morning though, so she slid her shoes on for the rest of her walk to the Magic Box.

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Once he had been washed and magic-bond, Andrew was really pretty useful, Anya had to admit. He cooked, he cleaned, and around the store he actually said things like 'could I help you find something' and 'please let me check with my manager.' It was a nice change from the Watchers, who still milled around pretending to work. But really Dawn and Andrew were the only employees worth anything.

Dear Xander,

We had a good holiday season this year. Sales were up from last year. I didn’t put up a tree or hang stockings, but I did watch your movie with Willow. We both miss you. Our anniversary is coming up. I know you said you wrote something on our wedding day to give me this year, but I don’t know what you did with it. I suppose it doesn’t matter, really. There’s an awfully big apocalypse coming. I might be joining you soon.

“Anya, there’s a lady looking for essence of water buffalo. Also, could I be excused for a little while?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Willow still kinda freaks me out.”

Anya looked over to where Willow was sitting, huddled intently over her book and paying no attention to Andrew whatsoever. She was also disheveled, and wearing the same dress she’d been wearing the day before. Perhaps Tara had noticed too, and that was why she kept looking at Willow, looking away, and turning pink.

“Sure, go downstairs or something after you check out the customer at the register,” Anya allowed. Dawn was there too, after all. And she could find the water buffalo in her sleep.

“Oh boy!”

Anya turned back to Willow and found her staring at the book with a slightly queasy expression. Giles, the witch, and the younger Watchers had been working on the text for ages, but since no one knew where the useful parts would be, it was taking time to gain useful information.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked, very carefully placing a hand on Willow’s shoulder.

Willow nodded slowly and pointed at the page she was reading. “I think I just found out what Faith is now.”

Tara looked over her shoulder and read, “Y’w is a sky god, and he shrouds his people in a great cloud, so they say. The women, so the tales tell us, cried out to Y’w for a champion to protect their young from the Halflings. Thus did Y’w give a piece of his cloud to the priests and they did feed the cloud of Y’w to a girl to make the first living Weapon. Wow. Buffy said the shadow man called it the heart of a demon.”

Anya shrugged. “Demon didn’t always have the negative connotations it has now. It used to just mean any old kind of spirit or supernatural being. A lot of what humans call demons have nothing to do with the Old Ones or their descendants.”

Tara furrowed her brow. “So, Faith’s infused with a god now?”

“I just dumped a god,” Willow whispered.

Anya noticed that Tara’s hand was still on Willow’s shoulder. “Well, let’s hope Y’w is one of the merciful ones, then.”


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Dawn had intended to watch the training session, but there wasn’t really a lot of training going on. There was some half-hearted sparring between Deirdre and Solana, and Octavia was whapping the hanging bag around, but the other girls weren’t even pretending. Mostly what was going on was gossip.

“So is Faith your new leader now?” Andrew asked. “Buffy seemed like a good leader. Her hair is very shiny and she was always thwarting our evil schemes. Back when I was evil. Which I’m not anymore.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I think Buffy’s still the boss,” she informed him.

“Yeah,” Connie agreed. “Although you’d think being filled with a god or demon or whatever would make her in charge.”

The girls kept talking, but Dawn was only half listening. She was bummed. Jeremy Sutter had been seen making out with stupid Melody Kendall at Kristen’s party on Saturday. Not like she cared about Kristen’s stupid parties or the fact that she never got invited. Or that Janice went anyway. Or what Jeremy Sutter did with his lips because it wasn’t like they were going out and they definitely weren’t going to be now, because who hadn’t made out with Melody Kendall? She’d pass on those germs.

“Perhaps Faith, she finds the responsibility of leadership unappealing?” Yvette suggested.

“Wait, shouldn’t it be a bigger deal, what she’s all filled up with?” Octavia asked. “I mean, god or demon, that doesn’t seem like a small question.”

Dawn shrugged. “Why? It’s not like god equals good, demon equals bad.”

“It doesn’t?” Andrew piped up.

“No, there was a god a few years back who wanted to open a gateway and let hell dimensions spill all over earth so she could get back to her home dimension. She wasn’t exactly friendly.”

“So what is Faith now?” Solana asked.

Dawn shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

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Among the many pros to the handcuffs, they really showed off his arms. Buffy hadn't really thought of herself as an arm girl, but with his hands bound to the headboard, she was free to run her hands and mouth over the muscles there. Which she did. Several times. Ignoring his squirming and his pleas for her to apply herself to other body parts, despite the fact that he was clearly enjoying what she was doing.
"You don't get to give the orders here," she reminded him pertly. She ran one stocking-clad foot along his leg to make him jump again.

"No." He gave her one of his saucier grins. "But I do beg rather nicely, don't I, love?"

She had to give him that. Buffy leaned back down and bit him on the neck, hard. He gasped and trembled underneath her. When she pulled back, she could see that helpless look she liked in his eyes.

Where had he learned to beg so nicely? She couldn't imagine that Drusilla had taught him, and it was a very bad idea to think much about the other obvious possibility. Still, she couldn't help thinking about it. And how they'd both referred to Angel as his sire, how in a weird way Spike and Drusilla had seemed like Angel's abandoned children.

"Where did you go, pet?" he whispered.

She smiled and lowered her face back to his neck. She nosed the silver necklace out of the way and ran her tongue over the skin she'd uncovered. "I'm right here," she assured him. By memory she located the key on the nightstand. She smiled when his arms went around her.

"Tired of me already?" he husked into her ear.

She still wasn't good with the dirty talk, not when sober and/or visible. Instead she guided one of his hands between her legs to show him that tired was really not the word. "I just... wanted you touching me."

Spike smiled and slid his fingers over her clit. "Like that, slayer?"

She laughed lightly. "Yeah, that'll work."

He kissed her then, his fingers still working. His other hand found her breasts and then so did his mouth. By the time he had worked his way down to meet his other hand she was already so close that it was hard to breath.

A few flicks of his tongue and she was churning underneath him, calling his name. She could feel him grinning, knew he had that 'I am so good' expression on, and it just made her hotter.

"Oh god!" She clamped her legs around his head to hold him just there, and then time stopped for a moment while sensation ran up her spine and exploded through her brain.

Before her head had cleared, he was over her, in her, everywhere. Spike guided her limp legs up over his shoulders, and she felt his breath through the silk on her skin. He fell forward, folding her nearly in half. She wrapped her hands around the bars of the headboard and hung on as he moved faster and faster.

She squeezed him just to hear that helpless groan and see the way his eyes went dark as he took her in. Buffy had some idea of how she must look, panting for him, breasts bouncing with each thrust. "You look delicious," he confirmed. He hit against just the right place and she moaned, bucking against him.

She locked her eyes to his, desperate to watch him watch her as she came. The way Spike still looked awed that he was in her bed, in her body, making her shout and thrash under him. She whispered his name and she felt him going too.

Buffy wrapped him in her arms and held him, trying to hold the feeling too. Aftershocks tripped through her and she felt him hardening again as she contracted around him. In his embrace she felt safe, loved, oddly warm. It was the second-best sensation she'd ever known.

In fact she wasn't all that eager to feel the other again. She was going to survive this time, they were going to win, and she was going to celebrate with her vampire. She just still had to figure out how.

Maybe she'd been stupid, maybe she was wrong and she should have been more like Faith. That fact was, she already had a demon that was part of her. Actually, at the moment, she thought with a slight flush, she had as much demon in her as she ever wanted. For the first time in a long time, she wasn't looking to be anything other than what she already was.

She was Buffy, the slayer, and that was enough.


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Part of what I wanted to do in this chapter was show where Andrew is fitting in. There will be more plot movement next chapter.