She's on fire.

I sit on my tombstone and watch as each fist connects with its target with as much power and strength as she can put into it.

She's like an animal trying to brutally injure its prey before it eats it alive so it doesn't get away. Of course, she did that about 5 minutes ago. That vamp she's pounding on has been even deader on its feet for the past 2 minutes and she's still trying to beat him senseless, which happened 7 minutes ago by my count.

She hits him with a right hook for the third time in ten seconds and it sends the guy tumbling over a headstone to the ground in a heap.

I almost feel sorry for the dead guy. But I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. It's been this way almost every night for the past three months... ever since she left.

She goes over the vamp and picks him up, putting him back on his feet only long enough to kick him square in the gut and send him five feet to the ground.

She's been on a one woman rampage ever since she left and it doesn't look like it'll be letting up any time soon. And I get it. Things didn't really end on the best of terms for them. They didn't kiss and hug and cry as they saw each other off. In fact, they didn't even bother to try and see each other off. But ever since then she's been full steam ahead on almost every vamp she comes within 20 feet of. And this town isn't exactly crawling with vamps to begin with. Not like Sunnydale was.

My eyes drift over to the group of about ten girls standing not far from where I'm sitting.

These girls are never gonna be able to learn if they don't get a couple of decent fights in them. They've gotten a few decent punches in them each at the most. But every time any of them has any sort of trouble, if they misstep and get off balance even for a split second, then she's right in there taking charge and taking over until the vamp is a bloody mess.

Eventually, I go back to watching her beat the vamp to a pulp, which she's still busy doing.

I know that those are the rules and we're supposed to help them out if they get into trouble, but she's being a little liberal with the definition of trouble. It's not helping things. These girls are new to the slaying game. Not like Candy or Temika. They left for college or university about the same time as she did. These girls haven't had time to get the kind of experience that they need to be effective slayers. And they never will if she doesn't learn to let up a little.

Finally, Faith knocks the vamp down one more time before pulling out her stake and driving it with a purpose into the poor dead guy's heart. He turns to dust and Faith turns to me and the girls with a fake smile.

Great, finally...

I look over at the girls and do my best to look like this was part of the plan.

"And that, ladies, for the third time tonight, is known as beating your undead opponent until they don't have the motor skills to put up a fight before staking them."

Some of the girls can't hold back from chuckling a little because they think it's funny.

And it is funny. It was kinda intended to be funny for those girls who don't know Faith well enough to understand what's going on, which pretty much includes all the girls since they barely know anything about her. Faith doesn't make a habit out of trusting new people all that easily. It takes a long time to really get to know her, and even then it can be a struggle. But I get why that is, even if the girls don't.

Faith starts walking back towards the group with that same fake smile.

She got in a decent kill tonight though. Maybe tonight she'll be a little more receptive.

"All right girls, I think that's enough for today. Go and rest up for the night. Tomorrow night could be a more active night."

Not likely, but I have to at least make them think it somehow. Faith isn't exactly helping in that department.

She comes up to me as the girls start to break off from each other and make their way home.

"Hey B, you sending the newbies home already?"

I shrug at my dark haired companion.

"It's getting late, and most of them have school tomorrow."

She gives me a confused look.

"Aww come on, it can't be later than 1:30."

Looking down at my watch, I check the time before showing it to her. She tilts her head to the side to see the time.

"It's almost 3 in the morning Faith."

Her face gets a both surprised and confused expression on it but then she shrugs it off.

"Okay, well a good all-nighter could do them some good. They might be doing it a lot when they actually manage to get good."

If they ever manage to get good at this rate...

"Not tonight, I think it's still too early for something like that. Besides, I could use the rest myself."

I hop down off the tombstone and take a few steps towards home before facing Faith.

"Oh come on, you're not quitting on me already are you B? There's still Thornton cemetery to do. We could do it together, like the old days."

She really wants to beat something else up.

With a glance in the direction of Thornton, I sigh.

"Thornton almost never has any fresh graves, and the obits section was down to less than a page this week. It wouldn't be worth it."

All I can really do is shrug as I take a few more lazy steps toward home.

"Let's not and say we did, Faith. Come on, let's instead both go home."

She kinda follows me a little as I walk a little more firmly.

"What's with the little miss cranky pants routine tonight B? You and your boy toy have a fight or something?"

Damn, I thought she might be more talkative after a good slay.

"No, things are fine with me and Derrick, and he's my boyfriend, not my boy toy."

"Right, right... any second now I promise to remember that."

She didn't used to call him that. She used to talk about him like he was a person, but ever since Dawn left...

"You can't bail on me now B. It'll take 10 minutes, tops."

"I appreciate the offer, but I'd rather just go home."

She starts walking backwards ahead of me as I turn to walk properly where I'm going.

"What did I do, B? Did I do or say something to piss you off? Cause if I did then you might wanna fill me in because I'm drawing a blank here."

"You're fine. Just go home, get some sleep, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Faith shakes her head at me.

"No way B, you haven't been this much of a wet blanket in years. What's up?"

All right, if she's gonna push the issue.

"Faith, this was supposed to be the girls' first real outing. At least one of them was supposed to get into it with a real vamp and hopefully get to stake one."

"Yeah, and sometimes they ain't ready for that B. These girls weren't, but at least they got a decent look at a real free range vamp this time."

I stop and face Faith fully.

"But how do you know they weren't ready exactly?"

"Hey, I've been doing this almost just as long as you have B. I think I'd know."

"Well maybe you should've paid a little more attention to their training then, cause these girls were ready. But you didn't really give them a chance to prove it. Every time one of them tried, you kinda stepped in and took over."

"I was trying to give them a hand and keep them from screwing up too badly. Those are the rules remember? You did write them yourself."

"I know, but the rules also say that we have to let them fight their own battles instead of doing it for them. Otherwise they'll wind up dead. That was one of the rules you insisted upon. I don't remember seeing you follow that rule tonight."

She rolls her eyes at me.

"All right, fine, I'm sorry okay? I got a little carried away. I won't do it next time all right?"

She got a little more than carried away tonight, and it's not just tonight. But if I say that then I'm only gonna end up pissing her off and making things worse. Better let everything else go for now.

"Thank you, I'd appreciate it."

Again she rolls her eyes at me.

"You're welcome."

There's a silent moment between us for a second.

"We good?"

For now...

"Yeah, we're good. I'll see ya tomorrow, okay Faith?"

She stops following me and starts heading the other way.

"Sure, yeah... see ya tomorrow B."

I start heading back home but can't help but glance back in Faith's direction.

She's heading towards Thornton cemetery.

Part of me has to sigh in a bit of frustration at the sight.

Sometimes I wish we were still at each other's throats trying to kill each other. At least then she was more honest with me.

Running a hand through my hair, I take a deep breath and continue on my way. Then I reach for my cell phone and pull it out.

I probably shouldn't at this time of night, but he's never minded before and he knows the kinds of hours I work.

I open up my phone and speed dial Derrick's number. It rings for a few rings before he picks up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you this late."

"Buffy? Is everything all right?"

"Uh, yeah, for the most part... I just called because, well, this is probably a stupid question but, are you doing anything right now?"

* * *

His arms hold me firmly and I can't help but feel safe and warm in them.

I really needed this.

I get comfortable in his arms and take a long deep breath.

I just kinda wish it didn't have to be this late.

"I'm really sorry about this Derrick."

He kisses me on the top of the forehead.

"You're sorry about asking me to come over and hold you in the middle of the night? I must be doing something wrong."

That makes me laugh a little bit.

"Heh, no, I meant... you're doing really well with the holding part. It's mostly the middle of the night part that I'm sorry about. I know you have work in the morning and you need your sleep, but I was feeling kinda needy and..."

A gentle hand strokes my cheek and I turn my head up to look at him.

"Don't worry about it. I know the kind of hours you work, and your job doesn't exactly lend itself to a low stress, low impact environment. I'm a man of the new millennium, I understand."

He's so great.

Making sure not to ruin the hold he has on me, I wiggle myself up enough to give him a kiss on the lips.

"Thank you."

Derrick smiles at me happily and I go back to burying myself in his arms.

"No problem..."

We lie together in silence for a while.

"Plus, there's no way I'm passing up an opportunity to lie in bed with my girlfriend at her place, pajamas or no pajamas."

Again I have to laugh at his words for that.

"Well, I promise, you've earned yourself a night of non-pajama fun for this."

And he so has.

"Either works for me, but that's good to know."

He's been so understanding about the whole slayer gig thing. It makes dating him so much easier then it probably would be otherwise. The fact that it turns out his little sister is a slayer probably helped a little in that department. It gave me the chance to open up the slayer topic without looking like a freak science experiment or something. He started talking to me about the weird bursts of strength and speed that his sister was having all of the sudden and how he was worried that she might be sick or dying or something. Naturally, my slayer-senses were tingling, I made one call to Giles, and the proof was in the seers' eyes.

It took him about a month or two to get used to the idea that both his sister and his girlfriend were both slayers and it made things rough for us for a while, but eventually he came around to convincing his parents to let Trina enroll in my after-school classes. That also kinda forced a jump ahead in our relationship, since his parents insisted on meeting me to make sure I wasn't some kind of whack job or scam artist or something. But they're actually really nice people and I think I made a good impression, as a teacher and as a girlfriend. At the very least, they know I'm not nuts, which I'd take as a check in the plus column any day of the week.

They were less impressed with the impression Faith made on them, but she kinda did that intentionally I think, and I'm pretty sure they were more understanding when I explained later on that she was going through some stuff, relationship-wise. So I think in the end it came off as even though we're slayers, we're still human beings with problems. That's something important that they needed to know too. I just wish that Faith had found a less hostile way of proving that to them.

His chest rises and falls against mine in that really soothing way that it does.

"So, did you want me to just hold you all night or did you want to tell me what has you so stressed out?"

I take a deep cleansing breath and hold him a little tighter.

"It's Faith..."

He lets out his own deep breath.

"Again eh?"

I feel kinda bad putting this on him again.

"Yeah... she did it again tonight. She pretty much ruined the first field trip we had planned for Trina and the girls."

"Well, you know how I feel about my sister fighting and everything, but she's pretty gung-ho about it so I know she'll need the experience. Have you tried talking to Faith about it?"

He adjusts himself on the bed and I readjust myself to be comfortable.

"I kinda tried tonight, but after the way things ended the last time, I decided to give my chin a bit of a rest this time."

There's a few moments where neither of us says anything.

"Well, what can you do about it?"

Another deep cleansing breath is needed at this point.

This is the part I don't like.

"Honestly? I've been thinking about maybe asking her not to come on the next outing with me and the girls. But I don't want to do that, because that would be like leaving her out in the cold. And with our history and the things that she's going through lately, I really think that has to be the worst idea ever."

"Yeah, I still feel bad about you telling me about Faith's past and asking me not to tell her I know. But with the way she's been acting, I kinda get why it's best for me to keep it a secret. As for what to do about Faith, you're right, leaving her alone is probably not the best idea in the world. And if talking to her is out of the question, then maybe there's a different approach you could take."

I move to look up at him again.

"Did you have something in mind?"

He kinda shrugs with me in his arms.

"I don't know. I was thinking about it the other day, and maybe here isn't the best place to get Faith to open up about her problems."

Not here?

"Sorry, what?"

"Well, Faith and Dawn have a lot of history in this town. They were together for almost a year and a half or something, if you count the time they were broken up and got back together. Maybe every time she looks around this town, she's reminded of Dawn in some way and it makes her clam up the way she's prone to doing."

He does have a point there. They did go somewhere almost every night together here. Maybe if we got away from here for a day or two I could get her to open up.

"I could take her over to Trentville where the demons have a little more fight in them and there are a couple more to shake a stake at. She likes when we do that sometimes."

"Sure, get away from here for a while and see if that helps any."

It's a great idea, if she'll go for it anyway. But with her need to pound on something bigger and badder lately, I don't see why she wouldn't.

"That could work. Plus I wouldn't mind getting my hands on something big and hard. Thanks..."

I think that came out worse than I thought it would.

He smiles at me as we kiss softly.

"No problem... although you don't really need to go out of town for something big and hard."

The smile turns into a grin and I kinda blush when he says that cause I know I walked right into it.

"That's true..."

With my hands firmly around his stomach, I pull myself to him, pressing my hips against his and rubbing my right leg between his. He keeps grinning at me when I take my right arm from around his stomach and start to slide my hand down his stomach to where our hips meet. I can feel his hardness against me and that makes my own smile turn into a grin.

"I thought you were saving the non-pajama fun for another night?"

Then I grab the sheets and throw them up over my head as I make my way downward on the bed.