So far so good...

A fist flies at my face, hitting me hard in the jaw. It forces me to take a half step back and readjust my footing, taking deep breaths in the process.

I think anyway.

I pull my own fist back and send it forward, hitting the vamp just as hard in the jaw but it sends him back stumbling a couple of steps.

We've barely been here twelve hours and already we've run into at least 20 vamps. And the first six hours was just us checking in and getting settled so we could wait for the sun to go down.

He comes at me again but I'm ready for him this time with a quick one-two punch followed by a side kick that sends him crashing into the concrete wall of the alleyway before falling to the ground on his back.

It's actually a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I managed to get an actual fight out of a vamp.

Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pull out my stake as he rolls away from me long enough to get up.

Probably the last time I came here, which has to be at least more than six months ago. Almost makes me miss living in Sunnydale... wow, never thought I'd have that feeling.

The vamp comes at me one last time, this time very unsure of himself and I use the opportunity to throw a spinning back fist to his face before plunging the stake right into his heart. He explodes into dust right in front of me as I step back to minimize the dust I get on my clothes.

I must be having a REALLY good time if I'm having good feelings about slaying vamps in Sunnydale, either that or I'm having a psychotic episode.

My eyes head in the direction of the sounds of fighting further down the alley. It's darker because most of the lights have been either been knocked out or burnt out for one reason or another. I walk towards the fighting slowly to let my eyes adjust the way I'm sure Faith's already have. All I hear are the sounds of fists connecting as a flickering light further down the alley gives me glimpses of the fight. Then all of the sudden when I get pretty close to the fight, I see the vamp get in a lucky kick and Faith comes tumbling in my direction.

Oh, crap...

When she runs into me, I grab her around the waist and try to turn us to put her between me and the ground but she puts her hands against my shoulders and the weight that goes into that, forcing me down first. She lands on top of me and I land on the cold, hard, slightly damp ground.

Ow, I hate it when she does that. We may both be slayers, but she's still got a weight advantage on me. I'll have to tease her about that later.

I look up at her and she's got this grin on her face.

"You should watch where you stand B. If you're not careful, you might actually get hurt."

Letting go of her, I shift my body weight back and forth to try and get her off me and eventually she rolls away and gets back up to fight. After she starts fighting the vamp with a combo of left and right punches, I get myself up slowly to watch now that my eyes are pretty much adjusted fine.

"Or you could try not falling, I hear it's nice and I'd like to try it."

She kicks the vamp in the gut and he stumbles, not attacking right away, which just naturally gives her the opportunity to look over at me and do more grinning.

"Yeah but where would be the fun in that?"

Faith goes back to fighting and I just roll my eyes at her, checking my outfit for anything tragic.

Looks fairly clean, and I don't think I ripped anything. Well there's a first.

"I don't know. I'd have to try it first to find out."

With a few more fists to the face, Faith finally gets around to actually staking the vamp and he turns to dust just like all the others. She makes her way over to me.

"Well, let me know what it's like, cause it sounds like bores-ville to me. But then you always did have a thing for it."

Again I roll my eyes at her.

At least she's having fun. That was kinda the point of coming out here, plus it'll probably make future conversations easier.

Faith stretches out a few of her joints as we both turn to the street at the end of the alley.

"That's why I keep you around F, to make sure I don't die of boredom, because it's not like the life of a slayer gives me any problems."

She playfully punches me in the arm while we make it to the end of the alley and start walking down the street.

"Damn right..."

We walk down the sidewalk together on our non-specified destination patrol. She puts her stake into her back pocket as we go.

"So, what do you say tomorrow we see if we can't find ourselves a nest? That way we can really let loose?"

I take a few seconds to think about it and shrug.

"Well, letting loose would kinda depend on the nest I think, but I'm game if you are."

She smiles at me for a second and I sorta smile back.

"Cool... it's been too long since I had a decent knock down drag out fight with a nest of vamps."

Opening my jacket, I stuff my stake back into my inside pocket.

"Just make sure I don't end up getting drowned again. I hate it when that happens."

My traveling buddy kinda chuckles at me.

"No promises... hey, I'm starting to feel a little hungry, how bout you?"

Hmm...

"I guess I kinda am feeling that urge."

Oops...

She looks over at me with a big grin on her face and I'm pretty sure I know exactly what she's thinking. So I shove her back.

"The urge to eat, with the food that's edible? Not the urge that you're thinking about. That urge is firmly under control thank you very much."

Faith keeps grinning as she looks forward at where we're going.

"Well as long as you've got a firm grip on it."

She always does that.

Again I shove her away from me.

"Shut up Faith... I'm the one with the boyfriend remember?"

Her smile slowly fades after what I said.

Damn it... that couldn't have been more stupid. Can't I go 12 hours without saying something stupid?

"Yeah... right..."

Okay, that's bad, changing the subject would probably be a good idea.

"Uh... so, you wanna go over and see if that diner is still standing since we were here last? What was the name?"

The woman I used to think of as my enemy thinks about it for a second.

"Chrissy's, I think... but I'm not really in the mood for something that greased up tonight. Might be better to call it a night and order some room service."

She doesn't wanna keep patrolling?

"Are you sure?"

She sorta half shrugs, never really looking at me.

"We did some serious damage to the vamps tonight. I'm up for packing it in if you are."

"Uh, okay..."

Faith and I start heading back towards the hotel.

Gee, didn't I find a way to bring down the mood in a hurry? Just great...

"Sure, I can live with letting the vamps live for another night."

Then we just start walking along in silence together towards the temporary home we call a hotel.

* * *

Finally the line picks up and he's on the line.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Buffy..."

The way his voice picks up when he hears my voice makes me smile a little.

"Yeah, I was just calling to see how everything is back home."

"Pretty quiet mostly. Most of the girls are disappointed they aren't going to get a chance to do any real patrolling until you get back, but I don't think it's anything that will need a stirring speech or a strong warning when you get back."

That's good, they're following the rules.

"Okay, good... but you and Trina are still keeping an eye on them right?"

"Of course... so when are you getting back?"

"Hard to say at this point, why? Do you miss me?"

"Do I miss having a woman as beautiful and gentle and sexy as you lying next to me in bed? No, of course not why would I miss that?"

I kinda have to smile and chuckle a little at what he says.

"Well I'll try to get back as soon as I can. But I need to get Faith to talk to me first. Get her past whatever's bothering her so she can move on. Maybe have a good cry about it."

There's silence over the phone for a few seconds.

"Faith?"

He's got a point.

"You're right, maybe the crying part is too much to expect. I mean it's Faith after all."

He doesn't say anything and I sorta roll over on my comfy hotel bed, letting my head drop to the side so I'm looking at the door to our adjoining rooms.

"It would be nice though, in a strange kinda way."

"What's that?"

"To see her cry about her problems for once, to know that she wasn't some stone cold slayer. I mean, I've seen her in some weak moments over the years, but in the entire time I've known her, I've never seen her cry about anything."

"So, you wanna try and make her cry?"

"Not intentionally, obviously, but, well... whenever I've had a relationship fall apart, I cried about it. But Faith, she just seems really angry."

"Maybe she did cry about it and you just don't know."

"Maybe, but... once you cry about something, you don't usually get angry about it. You kinda let it go. And I don't really see any letting go in Faith. If I knew that she cried over Dawn or at least wanted to talk about what happened with someone then I'd feel better about leaving her to deal with everything on her own. But ever since it happened it's almost like she's just bottled it all up and that has me worried."

"Well, you're doing the best thing you can right now."

"Really? Cause right now it feels like I'm doing nothing."

My boyfriend on the other end of the hotel's line lets out a short laugh.

"You're there for her, showing her that you weren't just her friend because she was dating your sister. That isn't nothing. That's something."

Running a hand through my hair while holding on to the phone with the other, I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling as I let my head fall over the side of the bed.

"I guess... I just hope it's enough. I really wanna be able to help her."

Something about the way the moment of silence is over the phone makes me think that he's smiling at what I just said.

"I know. You always want to help the people who matter to you. It's one of the things I... uh, it's one of the things that makes me care about you so much."

There's a little bit of an uncomfortable silence because of the way he hesitated for a second.

"Right, well... thanks for listening. You have no idea how much I appreciate the fact that someone doesn't think I'm crazy."

"No problem..."

After another couple moments of uncomfortable silence, I take a deep breath.

"I should probably get some sleep. We're planning on finding a nest or something tomorrow and I'm expecting a pretty big fight."

"Okay, get some rest. And make sure you're careful tomorrow."

I smile at his concern.

"I will. Night..."

"Goodnight..."

A click on the phone makes me pull the cordless hotel phone away from my ear and press the hang up button before dropping it on the bed next to me. Closing my eyes, I take another deep breath that ends in a sigh.

He almost said it again. This is starting to get more awkward. Every time he tries but stops himself I feel kinda guilty. I know he wants to say it, but I think I'm holding him back. I've been holding him back for a while. Ever since we had that conversation back on our... sixth date I think it was, when I realized that things were starting to move into serious territory. I had to. I didn't want this to be like the rest of my relationships. I wanted it to be different. So I had to tell him all about where I was.

I had to tell him about how I wasn't looking for anything serious or long term, but that I wouldn't hate it if it went that way. I just wasn't interested in it right then. And I'm still not. At least, I don't think I am. I honestly don't know where I am in a relationship-y sense anymore. But I do know that Derrick was probably gonna say that he loves me for the way I always try to help people, and for some reason that scares the hell out of me. Mostly because I'm not sure that I could say it back to him if he did.

I'd kinda like to. But I'm just not sure that I feel the feelings behind the words, and I wouldn't want to say them to him and not mean them. That would be leading him on. I know I care about him, and I like being with him, but what he and I have is completely different then all of my other relationships, so I don't know if that makes it love or not. What we have isn't wild and passionate and painful like the way things were with Angel, or Spike. But it's not almost normal and simple the way things were with Riley.

We're in some sort've weird middle place, except it feels totally natural and non-weird. There's definitely this feeling between us that makes me wanna be touching every time we're within touching distance of each other the way it was with Angel, and sorta with Riley and Spike. But the sex doesn't involve ripping and biting and the pulling of muscles the way it did with Spike, and the way I always wanted to try with Riley. The sex is good though. Sometimes it can be really good if we're both in the mood.

But despite the good sex, I still feel like I can talk to him about anything the way I can with Xander or Willow. Of course... I don't want to have sex with Xander or Willow, but I do with Derrick. Geez, no wonder it's so hard to figure out how I feel about him. I have no idea how to feel about him.

With a sigh, I roll over onto my stomach and find myself staring at the TV in front of me.

I need to stop thinking about this for a while. Maybe I should watch some TV or something. What time is it?

Looking over at the clock, I notice it's almost 2am.

That's weird. It's been at least 30 minutes since I ordered food from room service. I know it's late, but they're usually pretty quick about the food around here, even at this time of night. I wonder if I should call down and find out.

My eyes move to the door that joins Faith's room to mine.

I wonder if Faith's gotten hers yet. I know she didn't just go right to bed after the kinda slays we had tonight.

Getting up off the bed, I head over to the door.

If she got hers, then maybe I can mooch off her until my food comes. Then I'll let her mooch back. That's friendly, I'm sure it'll help.

I reach the door and gently knock.

"Hey Faith?"