Prologue 1.

It had been a year since her lover was murdered. On a sunny day in the mountains someone pushed her over the edge. The authorities claimed that it was an accident, but she knew that it was murder.

The body was never found. And that was almost the most devastating part of it all.

Some of their friends and friend's friends decided to take this trip. A cold stopped her from going, but she convinced her lover to go anyway, since she had been looking forward to it for weeks.

Almost every night she saw it happen, she saw someone shove the love of her life in the back and she heard her scream all the way down until she was smashed against the stony ground beneath the mountain.

She and Katie had known each other since she was 15 and Katie was 17. The love between them grew stronger every year they were together. And now she was dead. Today it was a year ago and it still felt like yesterday.

Now she was leaving for a new job at a hospital. She looked young for a doctor and the hospital had been a little reluctant to take her in, but she had excellent recommendations from her internship and even though she was young, her reputation and her academic achievements was larger than her small frame and innocent face indicated.

Her family said she needed to move on, needed to lay her lover to rest for good, but it was easier said than done.

Maybe this new job in a new city was the answer? Meeting new people, making new friends, meeting someone new to love?

No, the last part was NOT something she wanted at all. She still loved her deceased lover with a passion that couldn't be placed on another woman just like that.

Maybe she would never love again….

Prologue 2.

The explosion almost tore her apart. It was so massive, so voluminous that she didn't think she would survive it. But she did. And she saw her best friend fly through the air like a paper doll, her blond her flapping in the wind like the wings of a bird.

They hadn't seen each other for nearly 7 years. After she moved away from her hometown to get her life back on the track, she hadn't been visiting. The memories were still very present there and she wasn't strong enough to face them.

They wrote to each other and talked over the phone from time to time, but it wasn't the same. So this year she decided it was time to visit, time to reconnect with one of the most important persons in her life. Time to face the loss this town and she had to admit that, her friend represented. And she was right. The town looked the same, felt the same and all the beasts in it were the same.

When she saw the sign that welcomed visitors, she was instantly thrown back into the past. She remembered how life as she had known it, ended on that dreadful day and how that day had turned into a row of nightmarish days she couldn't remember much of. It had changed her life forever. And after everything went wrong and left her in hell afterwards, she was forever changed, too.

She returned from England and stayed for a while, trying mend things. And eventually everything turned a little better. At least for her friends…. But she remained in the darkness. Alone…. She wasn't angry anymore, wasn't seeking vengeance or even redemption from all the bad things she did in the name of grief. She became numb.

She stayed a couple of years like that, but couldn't see a way out of it without leaving the horrible reminders behind, even if it meant leaving her friends and family.

So that was what she did. And now she was finally back.

And she came just in time to witness the death or near death of her best friend…again.

She wasn't sure she could take much more….

Prologue 3.

"You're telling me that she's working in some bar near that big hospital under another name? Why is she doing this? I mean, this is NOT like her at all."

"Perhaps she working undercover on a story," the husky voice on the phone tried to reassure her.

"Yeah, right!" snorted her companion, who listened in on the conversation.

"Believe me, honey, she's a failure, a moody bitch, a good for nothing…."

"Shut it, will you! I don't wanna hear it, right now!"

"What?" The voice on the phone asked.

"Sorry, I'm not talking to you. Give me her address and I'll talk to her myself. Maybe she will tell me what's wrong."

"I don't have her home address, but I can tell you where to find the bar. You can start there. She works on the late shift. But I have to warn you, it's a gay bar…a lesbian bar."

"What?" She asked confused. "A…what? A…gay bar?!"

The snort from her companion was even more contemptuous than before. "She's working at a… why? She's not gay, why would she be working at a…gay bar?"

The voice on the phone had no answer to give her. "Do you want me to continue keeping an eye on her?"

"Yes, thank you." She hung up and looked at her so-called best friend.

"I really want to know why she ran away. And my parents want to know. They miss her like crazy. Can't you a least be supportive of that, even if you despise her that much?"

"Okay, honey, I'll go with you. But I won't desist from saying 'I told you so', when this blows up in your face."

"Consider it a payment for you help. If it ends badly you have the right to mock me, okay? I would like to know why she's working at a gay bar. Do you think she has become a… you know…? Perhaps that's why she left, she couldn't face telling us… God, how bigoted does she think we are? She should know better, shouldn't she?"

Another snort was the only response she got.

Prologue 4

It's a wonderful day. The most beautiful and the most exiting day in years… if not in forever…. Feelings she thought were almost forgotten are suddenly there again; the marvelous, exquisitely confusing emotions love graces a woman in love with.

She is absolutely sure that love hasn't hit her like this before and they have only known each other for…what… a month or so? It didn't really matter. It was love at first sight and she is grateful for every thrilling moment of it.

And when she, the woman of her dreams, invited her on this wonderful day on the sea, she instantly said yes. Who would say no to a full day alone with the woman you can't get enough of, even if you normally is terrified of water and can't swim?

'I'll take care of you," her lover had husked. "The sea is a dream this time of the year."

And now they are out on the open, frightfully open, blue sea. Seagulls flying low in the air above them and the sun reddening their skin.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Her lover asks and kisses her softly on the rapidly trembling lips. Knowing hands playfully caress her thighs, making her squirm in need and her pulse increases by tenfold.

She buries her face in the spot between her lover's chin and throat, a wonderful place where the scent is free to intoxicate her and her hands are able to roam where they want.

"Yes…." She mumbles against warm, wonderful skin, just above the pulse point and her lover moans in pleasure.

They shift and her lover presses her up against the gunwale and she feels probing fingers between her legs.

"Oh God…."

She wants to scream her pleasure out, but even if there's no one around to hear her other than her lover, her strict upbringing keeps her from losing the last bit of control. Fingers find the right spot and she swells and become even wetter against them.

"Oh…oh…God….

The soft pumping motion and the thumbs thrumming on her clit is the final straw. The control leaves her body and she trembles violently.

"Oh…God….please… please…." she begs, not recognizing her own voice. It's high, it's breathless, conveying a need beyond anything she has ever experienced before.

She wants to be devoured, eaten alive, thrown into the passion that only this woman can provide. And when she comes with an uncontrolled scream, her lover lifts her up and throws her out of the boat.

The scream of passion becomes a scream of fear and her lover watch her fight for her life, but without being able to swim, the fight is a short one and she drowns as her lover waves a last goodbye.

2 Willow

Willow Rosenberg visited her friend when nobody else was there. In the middle of the tragedy it was pure luck that Buffy was transferred to a hospital near Willows home.

The hospital specialized in injuries like the ones that kept Buffy in a coma, and Willow was relieved that Buffy was transferred immediately, and that she didn't have to stay in Sunnydale longer than necessary.

She tried to steer clear of Xander and Dawn when they visited. Not that they hadn't kept in touch over the years, but the relationship between them hadn't been right since Willow's downfall, since she turned evil and tried to end the world.

To Xander she was still his sweet childhood friend, at least he tried to pretend that she was, but she couldn't see herself that way anymore and it pained her to watch the disappointment grow in his eyes.

And Dawn….

A much more complicated chapter. She, and Tara became like surrogate mothers for Dawn when Buffy sacrificed herself to save her sister from Glory's plans, and even when Buffy returned Dawn considered the two Wiccans a safe harboring a turbulent life.

Willow's addiction to black magic ruined that. When Tara left her, and she went even further down in the dark, she lost Dawn's trust completely, and almost got her killed when she drove a car high on magic, smashing it into a wall.

Dawn had been shaken and scared. Buffy cold anger had been something Willow never thought would be directed at her. It hurt like the hell, more than the pain she was about to experience when she decided to cure herself from the addiction.

It took a long time for Willow to regain some of the lost trust, but she did, and when she and Tara found their way back to each other, Dawn had been so excited and for the first time Willow actually believed that there was hope for them. For the first time she firmly believed that their relationship could survive the betrayals and the lack of trust, and that the love that still existed between them could give them a fresh and optimistic start.

And then Tara died, shot to death by Warren's stray bullet. And Willow was consumed by darkness, wanted revenge and got it. And Dawn withdrew emotionally from her. And Dawn wasn't about to forgive her that easily.

Her crimes against all human decency was much more grave this time and she had scared all of her friends, including Dawn who was younger than the others, more fragile. Even if she had been through a lot, being The Key and living on the Hellmouth, she wasn't as experienced in what the Hellmouth could do to you, as the rest of them was.

And Willow couldn't face that. It was easier to live with Xander's disappointment and Buffy's anger that it was losing Dawns love.

She knew of course that Dawn still loved her, she just didn't trust her anymore and wasn't about to put her heart at risk one more time. And Willow understood that and respected her surrogate daughter's wish and left her alone.

But the pain had been almost unbearable. And it had been one of the main reasons for her to leave Sunnydale for good. Things would never be the same and she couldn't deal with all the memories of a happier time. Of Tara. Of a time when her friends loved her and believed in her unconditionally.

She couldn't cope with the constant reminder that all that was gone. Willow shook her thoughts away and concentrated on Buffy's pale face. She looked so tiny in that big hospital bed. And so young without the evidence of her life as a slayer on the Helmouth lurking in her normally so alert eyes, eyes that had seen much more than a woman her age should have.

Willow looked at the time. She had been granted an hour outside the normal visiting period and it was almost over and she had to leave. She got up, kissed Buffy on the forehead, and silently left the darkened hospital room.

She needed a drink.

A few blocks away she finally reached the place she had been looking for. The Argo Bar was a lesbian bar she had visited a few times. She liked the two British owners and had formed some sort of friendship with them.

Normally she only visited the bar on the shifts where she knew Nikki, and Helen where the only bartenders there. But tonight she didn't care. She just wanted a drink and some people to look at; people with smiles on their faces and a pulse underneath their skins.

She wanted…no, she NEEDED to feel alive….

3 Jess

Jess Sammler was tired but nevertheless restless. First day at work had been busy but interesting and she really liked her new colleagues. She knew that the restlessness really was a covered up nervousness, partly due to the fact that she was going out for the first time in…over a year, to a lesbian bar not far away from the hospital. Reluctantly she had agreed to meet her friend Sarah there.

Normally she wasn't very outgoing and social, and she hated crowded bars and small talk, but a new job in a new city signalized an opportunity for a different approach on life.

Maybe she needed to see the world a bit more like Katie had; like it was one big bowl of fresh fruit, ready to pick up and enjoy, and that the people in it were not a necessary annoyance, but possible friends and people to have fun with.

Katie was a born optimist, in 'the glass is always half full' kind of way. Jess was just the opposite, even if being with Katie all those years had lightened her way of looking at life considerably. Now Katie was gone and she had to find a way to somehow remember that part of Katie's heritage and not give in to depression and unhealthy isolation.

She owed that to Katie. To the memory of their love.

Thinking of Katie increased the aching longing in every part of her body that she had become accustomed to every time she was reminded of her lover.

Her cell-phone buzzed.

"Hallo…oh hi, Sarah…yes, I'm on my way…yes…okay…see you there in a few minutes…bye."

Sarah Grasso had helped her in the painful process of moving away from her hometown, and most of all her family. Sarah lived nearby and had found the apartment for Jess. And now she was gently but firmly pressing her to start living again.

She and Sarah had never been friends before. They moved in the same circles, shared friends, but they always kept their distance.

Sarah had been in love with Katie through her teens and, she blamed Jess for her lack of success in that department.

Sarah, and Katie had been friends for a while, even kissed a little, but nothing serious, and then Katie fell in love…for real, in a girl almost two years her junior, and Sarah had a hard time grasping that. And she resented Jess like she was a plague that had invaded her and Katie's life. She was very hard on Jess for years and tried several times to break them up.

There were times that Jess had prayed that God could make Sarah disappear from their lives forever.

Later on it seemed like she had moved on, found other girlfriends, and she even started acting civilized with Jess.

And when Katie died she became some sort of an unexpected rock, and support system for a devastated Jess. And they formed a friendship that came as a surprise for both of them as well as for most of their mutual friends.

Now Jess Sammler didn't know what she would have done without Sarah, and she thanked God for her presence in her life. How ironic was that? She wasn't sure how Katie would have felt about this friendship. After their so-called breakup, Sarah always made her feel uneasy, and she distrusted her old friend, and resented her for being so nasty to Jess. But everybody could change for the better, right? And back then they were kids, and things change when you grow up.

A lot of people thought that Sarah had a thing for her, and they said that Jess was all too naive not to acknowledge it. But as far as she knew, Sarah dated a woman named… what? Jess couldn't remember. Sarah stated that it was casual, and not serious or anything, but Jess wasn't so sure. To her it sounded like Sarah was a lot more serious in her feelings than this woman was.

She and Sarah were friends. Just friends, despite of what everyone else thought. The line between them had never been blurry or played with. You can't afford to alienate yourself from the few true friends you've got.

Jess had learned that the hard way. Most of the friends she and Katie had were friends that Katie made for both of them. Jess liked being in her own company, and she wasn't very social or extrovert.

Fighting a inherited spark of depression and its various symptoms, like for instance anorexia, made it difficult for her to feel comfortable enough in her own skin to make friends easily. Most of her and Katie's friends didn't really know Jess. They saw her as Katie's lover, a little shy and quiet, but nice and intelligent enough to be tolerated.

They never saw the part of her personality that Katie saw.

So when Katie died, the glue that kept them together as friends disappeared with her, and Jess was so faraway in her grief that she couldn't do anything about it. Sarah was the only one who made an effort. No wait, Ellen had been there for her, too.

Ellen worked with Katie, and the three of them formed a friendship based on love for music. They went to concerts together, and talked for hours about the great female voices of blues, and jazz.

Ellen even convinced Jess to sing in her band. But one day, only a short while after Katie's death, Ellen went on a boat trip and never came back. Jess couldn't cope with another grief, and closed herself off even more. And again, Sarah tried to get her out of her self-imposed isolation.

And now she was standing outside The Argo Bar. Her new life waited. A life without Katie….

4 Sam

Sam McPherson was busy. She had been alone in The Argo Bar for an hour or so, and normally it wouldn't have been a problem when the night was as young as it was right now, but for one reason or the other the customers were coming in steady streams.

She had phoned the owners and Nikki was on her way.

A gruff voice demanded another bear. Sam smiled politely and moved to carry out the order. Her eyes caught a new customer coming in. Approximately the same height as her, dark slightly curled hair to the collar of a black leather jacket, and large dark brown eyes with no expression whatsoever. This stranger disturbed her somehow.

She made a mental note to herself to keep an eye on this one. She spelled trouble with capital letters and the way the woman followed her every move was making her uneasy. It made her feel like a juicy piece of meat ready to get eaten by a hungry predator.

The door opened and another customer stepped in. A newcomer, with nervous eyes, and an uncomfortable air about her. Perhaps a little younger than Sam herself. Shorter and very slim. Blond, gorgeous blue eyes, skinny like Brooke, but quite beautiful in a serious, and troubled kind of way. There was something around the eyes, the mouth, and the way she held herself that looked familiar somehow. Not that she knew the girl or anything, but she nevertheless recognized the pain.

"Hey, Sam, get me a beer will you?"

Sam went over to the caller. "You don't drink beer, sweetheart."

"No," Charlie grinned. "I just want you to tell me who the new babe is."

"The new babe?"

"Yeah, the cute one that just walked in. Do you know who she is?"

Sam laughed and shook her head. "Girl, you are incorrigible!"

"Come on, she's adorably cute, isn't she?" Charlie blinked. Her gray eyes shone mischievously. "You're just jealous because it's against Nikki's rules to date the customers."

"Okay, okay, you got me there." Sam raised her hands in mock defeat.

"But I have to disappoint you Mizz Butch Casanova, I don't know her. She's new. At least I haven't seen her here before."

"Hmmm, makes it even more interesting."

"Behave!" Sam growled in a good-natured manner at her favorite customer, and went to service the cute newcomer with the sad, but beautiful blue eyes.

On her way she glanced at the dark stranger at the bar. Her eyes were glued to the newcomer and Sam even thought she saw a hungry look there.

‘Hmmm, not good.’ The blonde woman looked WAY to innocent to handle THAT kind of look. Sam promised herself to keep an extra eye on the situation. Charlie was butch AND charming enough to step in between the two of them, and hopefully scare the dark one off.

With an appreciating half-smile Charlie watched Sam go. She and Sam had become great friends. She was one of the few who didn't seem offended or hurt when Charlie's humor turned a little harsh and black around the edges. Charlie had a reputation as a pussy-hunter. She was tall, dark, and handsome in a butch way that went well with certain women. And Sam was totally unaffected by her charm. Strangely enough, Charlie really liked that. When they first met she had run her normal seduction-show on the new bartender.

Sam had just arched an eyebrow and promptly introduced a new nickname for Charlie: Mizz Butch Casanova, and had added with a charming grin, that Charlie MIGHT look like kd lang, but if she couldn't sing like her, she didn't stand a chance. And unfortunately for Charlie, she was totally tone-deaf, so instead of a short passionate affair, a beautiful friendship grew out of the rejection. And in the long run, that was much better in Charlie's book, friends weren't something she had lots and lots of.

Sam got the cute newcomer a club soda, and she unsuccessfully tried to engage her in some small talk. The newcomer smiled politely, but didn't seem interested in talking. Maybe she was meeting someone? No one comes to a bar, drink s club soda and avoid talking to people. What's the point of going to a bar for that?

Sam went back Charlie. "Her name is Jess," she whispered, "and I think you got your work cut out for you with this one."

Charlie shrugged with confidence. "It's a tough job but somebody have to do it…."

They both measured the blonde up, discretely of course. "Hmmm, she is probably worth it…." Charlie mumbled.

Later a brunette with a morose looking face arrived. She kissed the blonde on the cheek, and started talking. Obviously a friend and nothing more. Charlie followed their interaction with interest. Sam smirked. Charlie would make a move tonight friend or not, no doubt about it.

The door opened again. Sam sighed. Where the hell was Nikki?

Charlie gestured for her to join her, and the two newcomers. And she did. It was always a pleasure seeing Charlie work. This time she was not so aggressive, though, and she was so charming that Sam almost had to laugh. This Jess-woman didn't stand a chance. And the blonde was really nice, and really beautiful up close. The most wonderful blue eyes….

Half an hour later still no Nikki. She had phoned Sam, and told her she was stuck in the traffic, so Sam had to be patient.

She greeted the skinny redhead that entered with a welcoming smile. This one looked familiar. Oh yes, one of Nikki and Helen's friends, Willow or something odd like that.

"Jeez," Charlie whispered. "Is this the night of the brooding, skinny ones?"

And yes, the redhead was indeed skinny, even skinnier than the blonde one. She looked tired and there were gray bags underneath her eyes the size of shopping bags.

Sam saw the dark stranger stiffen when the redhead approached the bar, and then she discreetly slipped further into the room and found the so-called make out spot, where the light was at it lowest. She obviously didn't want the redhead to see her.

What was that all that about?

6 Willow

"I went to The Argo Bar last night," Willow told the unconscious Buffy. "The new cute bartender was there."

A couple of days ago Willow had begun touching and talking to Buffy all the time. She had read somewhere that sometimes people in coma could hear and feel you even if they couldn't response.

She made a deal with the nurses and was now allowed some time with her friend outside the normal visiting hours. She convinced them that her being there could be of some sort of therapeutic use to the comatose patient. They were childhood friends, Buffy was comfortable with her, and maybe some of her stories could ring a bell, penetrate the wall surrounding Buffy's consciousness. And they agreed to give it a try.

And this way she had Buffy for herself and didn't have to face her old friends.

"Then Nikki turned up, you know one of the owners of the bar. She has been in prison for murder back in England. Killed a cop who tried to rape her girlfriend. You'll like her, Buffy. She's tall and dark-haired, and has the most wonderful brown eyes. And she has a very distinct sense of justice that one can only admire, and she has a very protective nature that has a habit of getting her into trouble."

Willow touched her friend's cold hand. "If it wasn't for her more level headed lover Helen…. " Willow mock shivered. "Let's just say that Nikki is very lucky!"

"They met while Nikki was in prison, you know, it's like a real movie-like love story. Helen was the wing governor, shorter, full lipped, you know 'kiss me know'-lips as we used to call them. Not that I would consider kissing them." Willow giggled. "Nik would kill me, she's very possessive of Helen, you know."

She ran a hand through Buffy's damped hair.

"Anyway, she has expressive green eyes with lots of brown mixed in. Oh, and she was straight then, too. And engaged to some gardener or something. Not the best odds for a romance I would say, but they fell in love anyway. Not without pain and hardship of course, a moving love story needs some angst, don't you think? As long as the ending is happy. It's really a beautiful story, Buffy, you can hear the rest of it when you wake up."

"Taking advantage of your sleeping friend, huh? Must be a dream coming true for you, Red? I always knew you had the hots for Buff."

Willow hadn't heard that voice for a long, long time. Not since it had been Buffy that occupied the owner’s body. This couldn't be… could it?

A looming dark shadow in the doorway. Curvy body, thick dark hair, and dark eyes. Leather and cleavage, like in the old days, but strangely enough, no makeup. Her trademark red lips were gone.

"So it's the great slayer of all centuries turn this time around. The Big Buff is in a coma. Who would have thought that?"

Okay, not B now. Buff. Faith still wasn't much for using people's full names. Back in the old days she always used nicknames for everybody, a habit she obviously hadn't lost in prison.

"You're out," Willow voice was a little hoarse.

"Yep, for a couple of years now." Faith moved slowly to Buffy's bedside, and stared down at her former partner in slaying turned nemesis.

"How is she?"

It was a strange feeling sitting at Buffy's sickbed having Faith standing so close that she could smell her perfume. It made her a little bit scared….

Willow cleared her throat. "Physically she's fine."

"She just needs to wake up," Faith said. "I know the feeling."

"What are you doing here, Faith?"

"Ah, I saw you in the bar last night and it made me wonder…."

Willow's brows puckered. "You followed me?"

Faith grinned rakishly. "Something was up, I could sense it, and it seems like I was right." She nodded at Buffy. "It seems like Sunnydale is a slayer short these days."

"Dawn takes care of that, Faith. Buffy trained her well," Willow said coldly.

"I heard the rumors. Deadboy kept me updated on the Sunnydale news while I was in prison."

Willow stiffened.

"Yeah, Red. I know about you, too. Your walk on the wild side. You know the saying that goes something like 'don't judge me until you have walked a mile in my boots'. But I really thought I took my boots with me when I left Sunnyhell." Faith grin became even broader. "And I never thought it would be you walking in them, Red. That really surprised the hell out of me."

Willow felt nauseous and her stomach rumbled uncomfortable. She couldn't even snap at Faith for her words, because what she said had some truth in it. In some ways she and Faith had traveled the same dirty road to evil.

An almost blinding thought entered her mind. "Faith, did you… are you responsible for…." Her mouth had gone so dry that she almost couldn't speak. "Did you have something to do with the explosion?"

Faith's dark eyebrow arched. Her face became hard. "That's for me to know, and for you to find out, Red," she husked. "And perhaps you'll even find the right answer for once."

And then she left Willow alone to sob.

7 Sam

"Hiya Jess, are you all right?"

"Hmmm…." Jess didn't seem to hear her.

"Hallo, bartender to customer, are you in there?"

Jess beautiful eyes lifted, and she stared at Sam like she had grown horns, a bushy tail and a split tongue. "What?"

Sam grinned, and shook her head. "Nothing, princess, you want something to drink?"

'Princess??!'

It hit Sam right in the gut. Brooke. The look in Jess' eyes reminded her of Brooke when the anorexia effected her the most, the pain, and the sorrow that lurked behind the beautiful blue. Brooke had exactly the same look.

Jess smiled and Sam's heart melted. 'I got to make a smile more… a lot more….'

"Just some club soda, please Sam."

Sam nodded. "One clubby coming up."

They were alone in The Argo Bar, so when Sam came back with the drink, she sat down beside Jess, and asked her where her friend Sarah was.

Jess shrugged. "I felt like coming by myself tonight."

"A little after-work relaxation?"

"You could say that."

'Not very talkative that one', Sam mused. 'Something is troubling her, but she's trying to hide it. Just like Brooke.'

Sam furiously shook her brain clear of the intruding thoughts of her stepsister. Thinking about Brooke wasn't a constructive and wise thing to do. It reminded her of too many painful things she didn't want to remember.

"Does it really hurt you to be nice?" Charlie's voice came from outside the bar through the half open door, and it sounded uncharacteristically angry.

"None of your damn business, Charlieboy," a husky voice replied.

Both Sam, and Jess went outside to see what the fuss was about; Charlie and the dark stranger Sam had seen a lot of lately, stood a few inches from each other with flashing eyes and alert bodies. Behind them a young blonde woman sat on the ground sobbing her eyes out. Jess immediately ran over to her and tried to comfort her. The girl cried helplessly into her shoulder.

"She just wanted to say hi, you insensitive fucker, you didn't have to treat her like shit!" Charlie sneered.

Yes, Charlie was a player, a flirt, a skirt chaser, but she always treated those she had slept with, during and after, with respect and friendliness. She seldom slept with the same woman more than once, but she never led anyone on or lied about her degree of commitment. With Charlie you knew what you got.

The dark stranger shrugged. Her full lips twisted in a smile that wasn't nice at all. Evidently she slept with the crying blonde and had treated her badly; at least Charlie thought so.

Sam knew that this could easily end in a fight. "That's enough, ladies. No more of that, please." She placed a hand on each of the tense women, and she felt Charlie relaxed immediately. The dark stranger stiffened, clearly she wasn’t comfortable being touched.

"Come on, a drink on the house if you let this go."

Both woman growled, but finally they agreed and both silently followed Sam into the bar.

Jess got the still sobbing girl a taxi and, watched it drive away with the very distressed young woman.

Inside Argo, Charlie moved to one side of the bar, the dark stranger to the other.

Sam stood in the middle, looking far from amused. These two were bound to end up in a fight someday.

She nodded at Jess when she came back in. Jess blinked when she saw the heated stares the two combatants shot each other.

"A wolf and a bear in the same room," she whispered. "It wouldn’t work at the zoo, either."

Sam giggled. She liked the taciturn blonde more and more each minute.

Jess shrugged innocently and walked over and sat beside Charlie. Obviously she liked bears. Sam prayed to God that Charlie would be careful with her. And then she saw something strange, something she never had seen happen before. Charlie blushed! Jess said something to her and she BLUSHED….

The skinny redhead, Willow, had slipped into the bar without Sam noticing it. She walked slowly across the room, looking quite beautiful in a tight, black suit, and the red hair stood like an aura around her pale face. Sam looked again. Green eyes, yeah. Tired looking, but adorable nevertheless.

Willow smiled at her. 'Hey, that's a wonderful smile you got there, girl. Lately those skinny girls seemed to have best smiles ever!' Sam snickered inwardly and returned the smile.

She looked around and saw that the dark stranger had disappeared, exactly like the last time Willow arrived.

Hmm, there had to be a story between those two….

Charlie, gallantly as ever, invited Willow to join her and Jess at their table, and the three of them seemed to enjoy each other's company.

When her watch was over she joined them. Fraternizing with the customers wasn't something she normally did, but this time she ignored her own private rule. Nikki's rule only said that DATING customers was a big NO NO, but being friendly with them wasn't.

So Sam was being friendly. Very friendly….

Willow

What it was that made her return to The Argo Bar alone, even when she knew neither Nikki nor Helen was there, she didn’t know. But she did. And when Charlie had asked her to join her and Jess at their table, she nearly said no as she always did when people tried to befriend her. But a part of her must have wanted the contact, wanted to feel as a part of something, someone, because she heard herself say yes to the invitation.

She was tired of being alone, tired of talking to an unconscious Buffy who couldn’t answer. And meeting Faith had somehow shocked her, had reminded her of how fragile life was, how alone she REALLY was, even when she was in the company of others.

Essentially, she had been alone since Tara died, hadn’t allowed anyone to make an impact on her life, or allowed anyone to touch her where it really mattered. She kept her distance… even to old friends and family. Now, finally, she felt ready to be part of the world again, starting slowly with small talking, laughing and dancing. Later on she could deal with the more serious stuff. Nothing serious, just being with other people, feeling carefree… and human again.

Faith’s words haunted her and made her reevaluate the way she had chosen to live: ‘Yeah, Red. I know about you, too. Your walk on the wild side. You know the saying that goes something like ‘don’t judge me until you have walked a mile in my boots’. But I really thought I took my boots with me when I left Sunnyhell. I never thought it would be you walking in them, Red. That really surprised the hell out of me.'

The thought of sharing Faith’s boots scared the crap out of her.

So she said yes to Charlie’s invitation, and later on the bartender, Sam, joined them. And she had danced. First she danced with Charlie who was a wonderful dancer in a dashing ballroom sort of way. And then Sam. In her coloring, dark hair and dark eyes, she reminded Willow a bit of Faith, but her attitude and charm was quite different. Sam, like Charlie, understood how to work a dance floor.

Poor Charlie tried to lure Jess to dance, but the blonde shyly refused, instead Charlie settled comfortably beside the younger woman and began telling her stories that made her laugh. One of the best ways to a woman’s affection is through laughter, and Charlie was good at it.

A real charmer, in a goofy sort of way, that reminded her of Xander. Though Charlie's goofiness was deliberate and a part of her style, Xander’s wasn’t. And Jess was obviously smitten.

Willow liked the shy and taciturn blonde. She had a quiet beauty that tore at Willow’s heartstrings. There was something lost about her and the sadness that lurked in the back of the wonderful blue eyes made her think of Tara when they first met.

And then there was Sam.

It had been a long time since she had flirted with anyone, and now she found herself flirting shamelessly with Sam. And Sam responded favorably. It should have scared her, but it didn’t.

Sam was adorably sweet. Beautiful, too, for that matter. Physically she didn’t look like Tara at all. And that was a good thing. It diminished the longing, the anguish and the pain everything that reminded her of Tara made her feel.

That last dance had been… for the lack of better words… erotic… sensual…. The heat between her legs told its own story. Sam's breath was ragged and her hands wandered wonderfully, mapping her body in an almost innocent way that didn’t scare Willow off. And they hadn’t even kissed.

"Let’s go outside for a moment." Sam’s voice tickled her ear and her nipples stiffened in response.

"Okay."

Sam took her hand and they walked a couple of minutes in silence, until they reached the little green space with a few benches that by daytime was used by the residents in a nearby residential home.

"It’s a beautiful night," Willow whispered falteringly.

Sam nodded and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

None of them seemed comfortable talking. Willow had almost stopped after leaving Sunnydale. If her old friends met her now they would be very surprised how monosyllabic the babbling Willow had become. And right now there wasn’t much to say. The attraction between her and Sam was evident, and they could choose to ignore it or they could embrace it, even if it was only for tonight.

Willow chose to embrace it. She tilted her head and kissed Sam softly on the lips. Sam tightened her hold on the smaller woman and they allowed the kiss to deepen. Hand began to wander and for the first time in years Willow felt a real surge of… of need rush through her, and for the first time in years she didn’t instantly squash it. She felt hands open her jacket and finally touch the naked skin on her suddenly exposed belly. Lips traveled from her collarbone to her throat and then attached themselves to the throbbing pulse point.

She felt tension forming in her stomach, and muscles clenched in sympathy every time a lingering touch heightened the pleasure.

Sam moaned, and Willow wanted to tear her clothes off immediately and… yes… it rudely put, but it was the truth…fuck her brains out.

"Oh my God!" A shrieking voice interrupted her passionate haze.

A blonde woman stared at them with huge disbelieving eyes and a mouth so open that Willow thought she was about to swallow them up.

"Bro…Brooke?" Sam stuttered, her whole body stiffened when she apparently recognized the blonde.

A little to the left, half hidden behind a tree Faith’s smirking face appeared. Their eyes met.

"What about dancing with me, Red?" she mouthed, and her rakish grin made Willow’s toes curl. She could almost hear Faith’s next words on her skin. “I could really show you a good time….”

9 Jess

"I have met this woman," Jess told the unconscious patient. "She's really nice. And funny, too. I always like when people are able to make me laugh. Katie had that quality…."

Jess checked the vitals on the machine, and ran a hand through her patient’s hair.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. You don't know me, and under normal circumstances it's not polite to touch someone you don't know like this, but I promised your friend Willow to talk to you and touch you every time I get the chance. Maybe it will keep you from feeling alone and forgotten in there." She touched Buffy’s forehead gently.

Jess giggled. "But it feels funny talking to you like this when I don't even know what kind of person you are. Willow says you are one of a kind, and she loves you very much, so I choose to believe her."

She was almost done now and her long day at work was over. And she had a date.

"Anyway," this time she took Buffy's hand. "I met this woman, and I'm seeing her again tonight. She flirts with me, but she's very polite about it, and she hasn't tried to kiss me or anything. I'm very relieved about that. I'm not sure that I'm ready for it yet."

Jess shook her head. "No, that's not it. Even if she's very different from the kind of women I thought I would go for, very different from Katie, I find her disturbingly attractive with her kd lang-look and charm."

Last night Jess had found Katie's old CD’s with the singer, and had listened to her all night thinking of the woman the singer resembled. And thinking of the possible consequences of her continuing saying yes to dates with her.

How did that thought make her feel?

Strangely exited. And guilty. Guilty for wanting to know a woman like she had known Katie. It felt like some sort of betrayal even if she knew that Katie would approve. Katie would have wanted her to get on with her life and not live in grief for the rest of it.

"Okay, Buffy, we're done now. I'll see you tomorrow."

She didn't know why she did it, but something made her bow down, and kiss the patient on her pale cheek.

"Kissing defenseless patients now?" Sarah’s voice almost made her jump right up in the air.

"Jeez, Sarah you scared the crap out of me!"

"Do you know this woman, Jessie?" Sarah's eyes narrowed, and Jess had a hard time figuring out if she was serious or not.

"I told you about her, Sarah. The interesting coma-case, remember?"

"And you always kiss your interesting cases?" Sarah's eyebrows raised.

"Now, you got me!" Jess rolled her eyes. "I'm in love with a coma-patient."

She hoped that Buffy wasn't listening in on their conversation.

Sarah didn't respond. She just stared at the pale blonde in the bed. "She's quite beautiful."

"Yes, she is." Jess nodded.

"I haven't seen much of you these past days?"

Jess felt ashamed. The truth was that she had forgot about her old friend in favor of the new ones, especially one of them. It wasn't how she wanted to be, how she wanted to treat friends.

"I have been with this patient," Jess lied, unable to tell her friend the truth. "We give her a lot of attention. Talking, touching things like that. Maybe we can entice her enough to wake up."

"You work with her after hours?" Sarah didn't look pleased. "You're driving yourself too hard, Dr. Sammler."

Jess turned red. She hated lying like this. Why had she started down that road to begin with? She and Sarah weren't dating or anything, it was perfectly all right for her to be seeing Charlie, she didn't have to lie about that.

"How about tonight, Jess? How about a dinner and a movie?"

Oh no....

"No, not...not tonight, Sarah, but tomorrow... how about tomorrow?"

Sarah's face remained emotionless as she nodded her agreement.

"How about if we eat some lunch together now. I'll finish up in here, and then we can go to the canteen. Okay?"

Sarah brightened and they agreed to meet up in half an hour.

"Why do I always end up in messes like this?" she asked Buffy, when Sarah had closed the door behind her. "Whose feelings am I trying to spare?"

She looked at the flowers by Buffy's bed. They needed water.

When she returned a woman stood leaned over the patient's bed. Dark hair, a shapely body in leatherpants and tight red T-shirt. She looked familiar....

"What are you doing here?"

The woman turned around and dark burning eyes met hers, and the pouty lips she had noticed with interest before were twisted in a sneer. The woman from the bar. The woman Charlie had almost ended up in a fight with.

"What are you doing her?" she repeated in a more demanding voice.

The woman grinned and shrugged her shoulders. She touched the patient's cheek and said, "I'll be seeing you soon, Buff" in a husky voice. She walked past Jess, her eyes swept leisurely over Jess’ body and she licked her lips, again pouty and sensual without the sneer, then she winked suggestively, and swaggered out of the door before Jess had a chance to do or say anything.

What in the hell was that all about?

10 Sam

Sam felt sick to the stomach, and she hadn't slept a wink since she came home from the disastrous night at The Argo Bar.

It had started out so well. It had been fun hanging around Charlie and her new friend Jess, telling jokes and stuff. Just like in the more innocent days with friends back home, before everything turned sour.

And Willow. The dancing, the flirting. It had been a long time since she had done any of that without feeling self-conscious and afraid of being seen by anyone. Leaving her hometown and working at The Argo Bar could prove to do wonders for her love life….

Oh, and the walk afterwards. The kissing... almost having sex outside the bar. It felt wonderful....

And then Brooke showed up. Out of nowhere and totally unexpected, she hadn't even known that Brooke had been searching for her. But she obviously had. With success....

If things hadn't been so embarrassing, the look on Brooke's face when she walked in on her and Willow making out, would have made her laugh out loud.

Brooke's face turned redder than anything Sam had ever seen before, her mouth dropped down to the chest and her eyes was so huge and bulging, that Sam was afraid that they would roll out of their sockets and land splashed out at her own shuffling feet.

After that her memory became a little blurred. She remembered apologizing to Willow for the rude interruption, and she remembered that the dark predator from the bar had been watching the situation intensely.

Brooke said nothing. She just stared at Sam like she hadn't seen her before, like she was some sort of strange creature that scared the hell out of her.

And then SHE came out from the bar. Nic. Nicole Julian. Satan herself....

Nic had shook her head in mock concern and then she put an arm comfortingly around her distraught friend’s back. She shot Sam a look that would have split her skull open if Nic’s power had been more tangible.

"So you ran away to have some..." she held an expressive pause, that told Sam a whole lot more than the words did. "fun...?" She shook her head slowly and very deliberant. "That," a mocking eyebrow lifted and she gave Willow a wry look, "was not that kind of trouble Brookie here expected you to be in," indicating that SHE had been expecting something like that, maybe even something worse.

And from then on everything had gone downhill.

Nic had smirked and Brooke had been uncomfortably silent for a long time.

"So what do you have to say for yourself," Nic asked sternly, and grinned like a madwoman.

"Who are they?" Willow whispered.

"My stepsister and her best friend."

"Do you want me to stay or leave you alone with them?"

Sam certainly didn't want to be alone with those two right now, but she also knew that it was the only way she could get Brooke to talk to her, get her out of the trance-like state she seemed to be in.

When Willow had gone inside the bar, Sam turned to face Brooke.

"Why are you here, Brooke? How did you find me?" Maybe some specific questions could wake her up.

Finally Brooke spoke with a shaky voice. "What did you expect, Sammy? You disappear into thin air, and the only life signs our parents get are some occasional letters that doesn't reveal where you are or what you're doing. We were worried, Sammy, it that so hard to understand?"

"And Brookie here hired a private investigator," Nic added sweetly, "and you haven’t covered your track that well, Sammy. I’ll say that you made that investigator-bitch earn her money quite easily. She found you rather quickly, and has been following you around for some time now. Haven’t you noticed?"

"So you're gay?" Brooke blurted out.

"Yes." That couldn't be denied. She was sort of caught in the act, wasn't she?

"Is it a... a new development?"

"No." Sam’s tongue felt thick and hairy. Sweat poured out of her skin, and her heart was galloping like a horse in panic.

"How long, Sammy, how long have you known?" Brooke looked angry now, and Sam tried to convince herself that it was better than seeing hurt on her face, and it was definitively better than the trance-like state she was in before.

"Always," Sam answered past the suddenly thick and useless tongue.

"Always?!" Brooke shrieked. "Why haven’t you told us? It that why you left us? Because you thought we would... what? Hate you? Despise you? What? How bigoted do you think we are? Hell, Sammy, Dad and Jane know a lot of gay people... I have gay friends...."

"I...."

Nic shook her head in mock wonder. "Monosyllabic now, Sam? That’s not like you at all. Once upon a time your mouth was impossible to stop. What happened?" She smacked her forehead. "Of course, why didn’t I think of that? You found something better to do with your mouth. Something... red-haired and cute... Am I right?"

Sam ignored her and concentrated on her stepsister.

"Let’s talk about this, Brooke."

"Now you want to talk?" Brooke sounded tired. "Why didn’t you do talk before you left?"

"Meet me tomorrow, Brooke, please?" She shot Nicole Julian a dirty look. "Alone."

Nic grinned. "What have I done to deserve this, Spammy?"

"I know this breakfast-place, Princess, " she winced when the old nickname slipped past her lips. "I’ll buy."

"Okay," Brooke said, but she refused to meet Sam’s eyes.

Sam nodded and they stood there like… statues and stared into each other’s eyes.

“Okay,” Sam said weakly.

“Okay,” Brooke repeated.

“Okay,” Nicole shook her head. “I really think we already have established that. Come on. Brooke, let’s leave this sorry ass for now.”

Sam’s eyes followed her stepsister until she was a tiny spot in the distance.

11 Willow

"What? WHAT?!" Willow couldn't believe it. It had to be a mistake. "Are you sure, Jess?"

When Willow came to visit Buffy that morning, Jess, in her capacity as Dr. Sammler, had been there to greet her.

"Someone tried to kill Buffy last night," Dr. Sammler repeated. "Someone tampered with her machines and if a nurse hadn't checked on her she would have died."

"Who... has there been any unusual visitors?" Willow knew this wasn't a demon's or a vampire's work, it wasn't the kind of murder attempt that a slayer was used to. A human was clearly behind this....

Jess hesitated.

Willow took her hand and squeezed it appealingly. "Has there?"

Slowly Jess nodded. "Yesterday. Before I left. I already told the police."

"Who? Someone you knew? Or can you describe him?"

"Her. It's a woman, Willow, and you have seen her, too. Dark unruly hair, dark eyes, dangerous looking. The one you said Charlie almost got into a fight with...."

"Faith," mumbled Willow and her face turned even paler. "I should have known...."

"You know her? Maybe you should talk to the police about this?" Jess voice was strained. "If that woman tried to...."

"We don't know if she has anything to do with the murder attempt, Jess. It's just... I mean, she and Buffy aren't the best of friends, but that doesn't necessary mean...."

But Willow knew that it probably meant exactly that, and she also knew that it could be far too dangerous involving the police. Faith was a slayer, and if she had gone psycho again she could easily get rid of any policeman that tried to ask her unwanted questions. And she could just as easily escape any cell they might put her in.

Willow knew that Faith had stayed and served her entire prison sentence. Why was a mystery, but Willow was sure that Faith wouldn’t be a willing participant the next time around.

She cursed her own thoughtlessness, and knew she had to erase Jess' interest in Faith’s role in the mess, at least for her own sake.

And then she did something she had promised herself never to do again. A hypnosis-spell. Using magic the wrong way had cost her so much, and Tara certainly wouldn't have liked it, but this was for the greater good, to prevent somebody from getting hurt....

When Dr. Sammler’s, Jess', eyes stared unfocused at the wall, Willow left the room. She waited for a few seconds and then she went in again.

"Oh God, Willow, I have been waiting for you." Jess said in a strained voice. "It’s terrible! Someone tried to kill Buffy last night."

************************ ******************

Later that day, after placing a protection-spell on Buffy’s room, something she should have done to begin with, she went to see Sam at The Argo Bar.

The owner Nikki didn’t know where she was. Sam lived in an apartment in Nikki and Helen’s house, and she told Willow that Sam hadn’t been home when she left for work a half-hour ago. That information really made Willow start worrying about her friend.

And Willow had a lot of stuff to worry about these days.

How was Sam doing after the confrontation with her estranged stepsister and her vicious behaving friend? Willow assumed that Sam had run away from her family for some reason, and she didn’t think that Sam had done it out of malice or lack of love. There was some sort of story there….

And then there was Faith. Did she really try to kill Buffy at the hospital? And was she behind the explosion that put Buffy in a coma in the first place? What was the best way to deal with these messy situations… with Faith, the most dangerous one?

And how did she tackle the fact that she had to talk to Dawn, and Xander about the threat Faith probably represented?

This last task almost worried Willow the most....

12 Jess

“You’re thinking a lot about your patient, Buffy, that’s her name, right?” Charlie asked softly. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Jess? Maybe we should….”

“No!” She snapped out of her thoughts. “No, I want to go dancing with you. It’s quite funny, actually. You see, I’ve never been much of a dancer, but you make me feel like I was born on the dance floor.” She blushed and her eyes shyly avoided Charlie’s.

Charlie laughed and took Jess’ hand gently. “Thank you, that was one of the best compliments you could give me.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, I make you comfortable and safe enough to do something you normally aren’t so comfortable doing, that’s a huge achievement and a wonderful compliment. So thank you, Jess.” Charlie kissed her cheek. “And I think you are beautiful, on or off the dance floor.”

Jess’ cheeks turned even hotter, but for the first time in over a year she felt beautiful and attractive. Charlie smiled crookedly, and then she gallantly offered her arm to the embarrassed Jess and led her down the car.

They smiled warmly at each other.

**********************************************

The four weekly dance nights at The Argo Bar was a noisy affaire. On a normal night the place was a little over half full, but on dance nights the bar was packed.

Nikki called the dance nights a gold mine, actually she and Helen could close the bar for the rest of the week for the money those nights made.

Jess looked around, but found no familiar faces other than Nikki and Helen working behind the bar. No Sam, no Willow. She had hoped that her new friends would be there. It had been a wonderful new experience making friends on her own; friends that didn’t primary fell in love with Katie’s charm and outgoing personality, and took Jess as a necessary part of the bargain.

Charlie moved around the place like she was one of the owners. She looked radiant and self-assured, and Jess noticed that a lot of eyes followed the tall, muscular woman with the sexy crooner-look.

“You want something to drink, Jess, before we invade the dance floor, and show them how its done?”

Jess looked at the gyrating couples in front of her and nodded nervously. Right now a drink sounded a lot better than dancing did.

Charlie went to get the drinks and Jess shifted her feet nervously.

“Hmmm,” a voice husked in her ears. “You sure look fucking beautiful tonight, Jessiebabe. Every bucth in here, and quite a few of the femmes, too, would eat you up in a minute if you wasn’t in the company of that big lump over there.”

The woman that Charlie almost got into a fight with some days ago, had moved up behind her and stood uncomfortably close. Jess could smell her perfume. Boss, her brother used that same scent.

“Who ARE you?” Jess whispered angrily.

“The name is Faith,” the woman smirked. “Come and find me if you get bored with good old k.d. I’m woman AND butch enough, if that’s what you’re going for, to show you a good time. A REAL good time, Jessiebabe.”

The full lips parted, and to Jess’ horror a moist tongue showed between them and moved sensually and very suggestive, caressing…slowly, licking first the bottom then the upper lip, leaving Jess no doubt what the woman was offering.

“Hey, get away from her!” Charlie’s angry voice penetrated the aroused haze Jess unwillingly was sucked in to, and with a start she realized how manipulative the woman’s seduction had been. She felt sick.

Faith smiled. Jess had read about smiles like that in the numerous of web-based fanfiction Katie had been so fun of. Feral. Dangerous. Every survival instinct told her that this woman who called herself Faith was NOT to be played with. And if Charlie tried, she would most certainly be squashed like a tiresome bug. Despite her larger frame and well-trained muscles, Charlie would be no match for this woman.

The look in Faith’s eyes reminded her of the dangerous female inmates she once treated when she was an intern on a hospital near a state penitentiary.

“Don’t….” Faith shook her head sadly. “Don’t even think about it, Charlieboy.”

“Someone should….” Charlie was so angry that the words were hard to find.

“Yeah.” Faith’s eyes gleamed, “Maybe, but not If I kill them first.” She winked at Jess. “See you both later,” she said and left a sputtering Charlie behind.

“Did that….” She stopped herself from saying bitch. “Did that woman just threaten to kill me? I don’t fuc…. believe this!”

Jess felt a new presence and nervously turned around to see who it was.

“Nice seeing the two of you here. I thought you were busy, Jess?” Sarah smiled a little stiffly.

Charlie found her manners and smiled politely, still fuming, but capable of hiding it.

Jess blushed and stammered, “I…I….”

Sarah shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, Jess, we have a date tomorrow, haven’t we?”

Jess nodded. “Are you here alone?”

“No, I’m here on a date.”

“A date? Who? Someone I know?”

Sarah grinned happily. “I think you have seen her a couple of times. Ellen’s friend.”

“Who?!” Jess asked bewildered.

And behind Sarah a set of full lips smirked and dark eyes shone of amusement and then they winked at Jess.

Faith….

13 Sam

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hallo lover, long time no see.” She laughed wickedly. “Don’t you miss me, Sammy? Don’t you miss me when you lie alone in this little rat-hole?” She paused for the dramatic effect. “If you lie alone, that is? Or will I find, lets say, red hair on your pillow, lover?”

“What do you want, Nicole?” Sam seethed.

“So its NICOLE now? Don’t you remember screaming NIC out every time you came? Hard. You remember that, don’t you?”

“For the last time, NIC, tell me what want or get the fuck out of here!” Sam waited impatiently for a moment, and then started to close the door.

“Short and sweet, Sammy, I want you to leave.” Nicole said and smiled coldly. “Brookie found you, and now you have to leave again.”

“What?!”

“You heard me.”

Sam wanted to cry. “Why do you want me out of your way so badly, Nic? What threat can I possibly be to you?”

The only reason that Sam had left in the first place was that she didn’t want to jeopardize her highly fragile relationship with her stepsister, and she knew that Nicole could change Brooke’s perspective with a few chosen words, make Brooke despise her or worse. Nicole had done that numerous times with other people, and Sam couldn’t live with it. She would rather let Brooke hate her for leaving, than ruin….

Ruin what? Was there really anything to ruin at all? Maybe this whole thing was a successful scheme Nicole had put together and maybe she had fallen into it without thinking it through properly? That particular thought wasn’t a new one, she had just chosen not to finish it, believing…. No, not quite believing, it was more accurate to say that she was trying to convince herself that this was the easiest way out of a complicated situation that could only end up in someone getting really hurt.

And that someone would most likely be her….

Nicole moved her out of the doorway and strutted into her apartment.

“Nice place you got here, Sammy. On your salary it must be… difficult maintaining a higher standard than this.”

Sam closed the door. Satan was inside and there was nothing she could do about it.

“Left your precious journalism behind, did you?”

Sam shrugged. “For the time being. I wanted to try something else.”

“Sad that you have to leave all this.” Nicole smiled coldly. “It’s SO you, Sammy.”

“I left, Nic, I’ve been gone for months now, and you’re not anywhere near her bed yet, are you? Seducing a straight woman is not so easy as it looks like in porn flicks.”

“No, Sammy, you were much more approachable, that I must give you, and I had the pleasure of fucking you for almost a year. You have a very talented tongue, you know that, right? Redhead knows it too, doesn’t she?”

Sam sighed. “You got what you wanted, Nic, what more could you possibly want? For some insane reason you wanted me out of the way, and I am. I’m here and you two are… there….”

“It’s not insane, dear Sammy. You were beginning to turn Brooke against me….”

“You’re completely blown in the head!”

“You were becoming friends, talking all the time, telling each other secrets. Giggling and whispering like the teenagers you no longer were. There was no room for me, Sammy, you made sure of that. And I love Brooke, and someday she’ll love me back, especially if you’re out of the way and can’t distract her from what’s important.”

“I’m her stepsister, her friend, not a former lover, or anything remotely related to that. And SHE’S STRAIGHT, got me? Can’t you get into your sick mind that I’M NO THREAT TO YOU?!” Sam wanted to smack her, throw her out by force. God, she couldn’t BELIEVE she had slept with that… with that….

“To make a long, troublesome story short and sweet, Sammy. You will leave as soon as possible, or else I will tell dear Brookie about how you blackmailed me into giving you sex, and how you even lusted after your own very straight stepsister.”

Sam closed her eyes. Were all the things she had gone through really worth it? Did she really think that less of Brooke? Brooke KNEW Nic, and KNEW that Sam wouldn’t do something like blackmailing someone for sex, even if some part of the last accusation had SOME kind of truth in it, but Brooke handle that, couldn’t she? Maybe she should take the bull by the horn and talk to her. Brooke wasn’t stupid… or a bigot….

“I can be very convincing, Sammy, and I have witnesses if she doesn’t believe me. Do you dare take the chance on losing one of the few things you value? For good….? And you have always kept a certain distance to her, not telling her the really important stuff going on inside you. Brooke felt that, Sammy, she knows she really doesn’t know you at all. That makes my story easier to digest. Your dishonesty put you in this mess, Sammy.”

“I know you love her, Nic, in your own fucked up twisted way, and I know that you would never hurt her where it matters.” Sam swallowed, and felt tears sting in her eyes. “If I wasn’t so sure about that, I wouldn’t have left her with you in the first place. Never! I would have fought you instead of letting you win that easily.”

Nicole smiled mockingly. “But you chivalrously saved Brookie the pain and the discomfort.”

“Life hasn’t been easy on her, we both know that, sometimes live eats her up, and we shouldn’t be adding to the pile of shit she has to fight her way through to live. We both want her to be happy, right?”

Nicole nodded.

“And you promised me that you will back out if she ever fall in love, if she really falls….”

Nicole smirked. Sam wasn’t sure how to interpret that smirk.

“Now go,” Sam mumbled tiredly.

“Not a quick fuck for old time sake, lover?”

“GO, damn it!!!”

14 Willow

Willow knew something bad was about to happen. Living on the Hellmouth her whole life had honed her instincts in that area. Over the years she had learned to read the omens, sniff the trouble, so to speak, before it happened.

It was just bad luck that it wasn’t possible to use her famous sniff to pinpoint exactly when, and from which direction the trouble would come from. She had a suspicion, though, and it had everything to do with a certain brown-haired, brown-eyed sociopath.

As usual Willow held Buffy’s hand and stroked her hair, but she didn’t speak. Her thoughts were way to dark too let the defenseless Buffy share them.

Jess had a day off and she missed their talks about the people they met at the Argo Bar and about how Buffy was doing. After hours with a silent interlocutor, it was quite refreshing when Jess had time to sit beside her, and Buffy for a while.

She heart upset voices outside the room.

“We need to find Dr. Sammler NOW, nurse, it’s very, VERY important. Which part of that sentence don’t you understand?” The angry British voice belonged to Nikki Wade, owner of The Argo Bar. Helen Stewart had a soothing hand on her arm, trying to cool her hot-tempered lover down a bit.

Instead Helen tried to reason with the nurse. “If you can’t tell us where she lives, could you at least phone her for us and tell her that one of her friends is hurt?”

The stuck-up nurse was a pain in the ass. Willow knew firsthand how difficult she could be when she wanted to. Unfortunately for everyone she loved being obnoxious and tiresome when she got the chance.

Nikki’s soft brown eyes were dark with anger, and Helen had a tough job keeping her in place.

Willow thought it would be a good idea to tell them that she knew where Jess lived.

“Nikki, Helen,” Willow greeted them. “What’s wrong?”

And then they told her.

*************************************************

It couldn’t be Faith, could it? Maybe it really WAS a simple, ordinary case of eating to much cyanide by accident, right? Yeah, right! Hiroshima was an accident, too, right?

Faith had indeed threatened to kill Charlie, hadn’t she? And they had been in ‘almost fights’ several times. But Faith wouldn’t use poison; she would just smack Charlie’s face in, rip her arm off and beat her to death with it. Poison was not Faith’s usual style.

She knew that the only answers to all her questions were a confrontation with Faith. She had been dodging the issue far too long, maybe putting people in danger doing so.

Faith had always been some sort of an enigma to the Willow and her friends. Nobody really knew anything significant about her, except that she was a slayer, a slut and a potential bomb, just waiting to blow everything to pieces.

Willow guessed that Faith’s life hadn’t been an easy one. When Faith came to Sunnydale she had the signs of an abused and mistreated teenager written all over her. But Willow hadn’t recognized it back then. She had a lot of experience with Hellmouth-trouble, and being neglected by parents, too, like she and Xander had been.

But Faith had probably gone through a lot worse than her parents not remembering her best friend’s name and them never being home or, like Xander, slapped around a bit by a set of very indifferent parents. But Faith had a taste for violence, a hatred for the world that had to come from somewhere.

Buffy was the one who got to know her best, and Willow had been jealous of the connection between the two slayers. In hindsight she realized that Buffy most likely had a crush on Faith, and that Faith probably wasn’t opposed to the idea of having sex with her blonde counterpart.

The sleeping, or most likely the repressed, gay part of Willow hadn’t awakened for real yet, but somehow she still sensed the sexual tension between the two slayers, and resented it.

Why?

Most of her friends, even Tara at some point, thought that Willow had been a little in love with her best friend in the beginning of their friendship, but that hadn’t been the case.

If she should choose one slayer to be attracted to it would most probably be Faith that fit that role.

The thought still shocked her cold, but at that time the highly sexual bad girl-image Faith cultivated to perfection, stirred something up inside the, in so many, many ways, innocent and easily duped Willow.

And she had reacted by hating and despising the rogue slayer, and she had resented her for trying to be part of the little tight group the Scoobies represented.

Later Buffy had told her that the line between them being friends and being… something else nearly broke at lot of times for the slayers. They flirted like Buffy hadn’t flirted with anyone before, and the feelings confused her profoundly, still being in love with Angel and being in the middle of all the high-strung emotions connected with that.

Maybe that was the reason Buffy kept a certain mental distance to Faith, never letting her become a full-blown member of the Scoobies, never really trusting her and always treating her like ‘the second slayer’ and not an equal partner.

The Gwendolyn Post mess, when Buffy had lied to Faith and fought her to protect Angel, had cemented that fact for Faith. In hindsight it was probably that incident that made Faith lose an important battle against the darkness within her. Before that she had been a rebel, a undisciplined troublemaker, a unpolished street-kid, but after… Faith lost her trust in Buffy after that, they still flirted and everything, but somehow Faith knew that she NEVER would be totally accepted by the other slayer, or her friends.

Angel would always come first in Buffy’s heart, and Buffy was willing to hurt Faith, maybe even kill her, for his protection.

Seeing the events through the knowledge she had now, made the whole thing much clearer and very understandable for Willow; back then she put all the blame on Faith. Now she admitted to herself that they had let Faith fall without seriously trying to help her, back then she thought they did everything they possible could, and Faith had paid them back by betraying them.

After trying a downfall of her own, everything wasn’t black and white anymore. Faith’s perspective became a lot easier to understand.

But besides all that, Faith was still a dangerous killer, and there was a possibility that she still was bitter and hateful towards the whole Sunnydale-thing, despite the fact that she chose to go to prison when Buffy asked her to.

And even if she HAD turned sane over the years, she could very well be raving mad again…. Something could have tricked her, like it had when she killed Allan Finch by accident.

Yes…confronting Faith…getting answers…easy job, right? Not for the first time since this ordeal had begun, she wished that Buffy would wake up and do…what Buffy do best…solve everyone else’s problems….

So… where to find a gorgeous, but extremely dangerous slayer, who might be a raving psycho on some sick trip nobody but Faith herself would be able to understand?

The Argo Bar of course, a place Faith seemed attached to these days. Come to think of it, something she shared with Willow herself.

15 Jess

Jess looked down at the pale and sleeping Charlie in the hospital bed. It was a close call, but she was going to be okay. Cyanide. Someone gave Charlie potassium cyanide, obviously trying to kill her. Jess shivered.

“Oh my God, Jessie, this is terrible,” Sarah said from behind her. “I’m so sorry for your new friend.”

“Thank you, Sarah.”

“How is she? She doesn’t look so well.”

Jess stiffened. “She’s going to be fine, but she could have died, Sarah. She should have been dead.” Tears formed in Jess’ blue eyes. “The amount of poison in her body should have killed her, it’s a miracle that she’s still alive.”

Sarah held her close while she cried and Sarah didn’t let go until her beeper went of and startled them both.

Sarah kissed her wet cheek and said softly, “I’ll be back,” and then she quietly slipped out of the door.

A small grunting sound from the bed almost made Jess lose the little composure she had left.

“Charlie?” she whispered breathlessly. “Are you awake?”

“Yep, I think so,” Charlie replied with a rusty voice. “But I must say that my body feels like it’s still in the middle of a nightmare.” Her smile almost made Jess cry again.

Jess told her what had happened to her and Charlie was quite shocked. “Someone out there is trying to kill me?” She shook her head. “I think my Casanova days are over, if this is the result.”

“What? What do you…?”

“Nothing, beautiful.” Charlie took her hand and squeezed it gently. “How are you doing? You look tired.”

“I’ve been so worried,” Jess confessed shyly and averted her eyes. This felt weird… but wonderful, caring like this… having butterflies flying around like they were on speed.

Oh Katie, I miss you and I don’t think I can do this to you….

“Jess, who was she?”

“What…what do you mean….”

“The woman that brings you that much pain.”

Jess stared at Charlie in shock. How did she know? She hadn’t told her anything about Katie. How….

“Easy now,” Charlie smiled. “I haven’t been spying on you or anything. I just heard some of the nurses talking and the pain in your eyes told me the rest…. Who is she, Jess?”

And Jess told her about Katie. How they met at school, slowly becoming friends. How she began noticing Katie’s hair, her eyes, how she looked in a tank top. How Katie suddenly became the center of the world and how suddenly the best days were the ones they were together, days when they talked for hours, looking each other deeply in the eyes and holding hands like innocent teenage girls often does.

And then Jessie’s stepsister told her that Katie was gay. Her world collapsed because there was a truth in that statement that she wasn’t ready to face, so she did the meanest thing she could do and began avoiding her best friend.

It caused Katie a lot of pain and despair that Jessie didn’t acknowledge. No, that was not quite true. She saw the pain in her friend’s eyes, but the thought of what it all meant made her run and hide.

A letter from Katie threatened to drown Jess in emotions. It told her how Katie felt, how madly Katie had fallen in love with her and how hurtful Jessie’s recent behavior was. In the letter Katie begged her to forgive and forget about the unwanted love. She hadn’t meant for Jessie to ever find out, but now that she did Katie had to be honest about her feelings, even if Jessie didn’t return them.

The letter had blown Jessie’s mind and her emotions were reeling. Things were never easy for Jessie. Her mind always got in the way of the easiest solutions.

Jessie had been different all her life. A child in a broken family and even if that wasn’t so uncommon, she still felt guilty somehow. And different. The pain of always being separated from one of her parents didn’t make things easier.

She had always been ‘the sensitive and smart kid who had a touch of her mother’s depression’ and everybody treated her like she was a fragile piece of porcelain. And then of course she became ‘an anorectic’. And she had always been ‘a monosyllabic loner’ without many friends, who actually seemed to prefer her own company. And there were probably a lot more that Jessie didn’t want to think about.

A lot of stigmata for such a young person. Was she ready to take on another and very life-altering one?

She loved Katie, no doubt about that, and she never understood when her classmates had obsessed-like talks about boys. And kissing? She never got that. Kissing Tad had been like… kissing her own hand. She felt nothing.

And then Katie came to her room in the attic to get her sweater. Or at least that was the reason she gave. They started arguing or discussing or whatever it was they did. And they ended up hugging, finding each other again, agreeing that they were still friends.

And then, out of the blue and totally overwhelmed by the emotions Katie ignited in her, Jessie had kissed Katie. Briefly, almost innocent. The intensity had shocked her, made her lose both breath and words, but Katie understood.

And Jessie kissed her again, more solid this time, and everything inside clicked. Doubt vanished and for the first time in her short life that hollow spot inside her that she had learned to fear, didn’t feel cold and threatening. It tingled with warmth and anticipation.

And then they stood forehead to forehead for a long time enjoying the wonderful feelings that passed between them. Katie smiled and held her tight. Jessie felt like flying, like she was walking on fluffy clouds. And it wasn’t just a banal cliché, she grinned inwardly, who would have thought….

And then they kissed again. This time more passionate, tongues playing, hands caressing every available spot. Her breath came back with a vengeance and she felt a sudden flush of blood heading south, making the seldom touched spot between her legs tighten and pulsate with….want… with need….

And then finally Jessie KNEW, she GOT it; she understood what the other girls talked about. It felt absolutely mind-blowing wonderful!

And she knew that even if she wasn’t ready yet, Katie would be the one that made her ‘a woman’, cliché or no cliché.

“You loved her very much,” Charlie whispered, after Jess had told her about Katie’s death and how devastated she had been.

“Yes, I did.”

“I’m not trying to replace her or anything, Jess, I respect the love you shared, but let me be your friend, give yourself permission to live a little. The way you describe Katie, I think she would approve.

Jess nodded. She and Charlie hugged for a long time.

And then, softly, giving Jess every opportunity to move away or say no, Charlie brought their lips together in sweet kiss.

“Oh….” Sarah’s shocked voice startled them both. Both Sarah and Jess blushed furiously. Charlie smirked; finding it hard not to show her mirth, even though she knew it was highly inappropriate, but she was so pleased that Jess had kissed her back, that she almost couldn’t contain herself.

Sarah was pale as a ghost.

Jess started giggling nervously.

***************************************************

And the next morning Charlie was dead.

16 Sam

During the funeral she had a lot of time to think. Thoughts about her dead friend, who died under mysterious circumstances, thoughts about Nic’s threats and…Brooke.

Everybody around her began to sing and the high-pitched noise interrupted Sam’s thoughts. She had Jess on her left side and Willow on her right. Jess’ friend Sarah had her arms firmly around the stony faced blonde, who obviously did everything to keep her emotions in check. Huge blue eyes were the only thing that blew her cover, the barely hidden pain in them that Sam had noticed before, told everybody that cared enough to take a closer look, that this woman was about to shatter into millions of devastated pieces.

This woman reminded her in so many ways of Brooke. Always hiding the pain, fragile and sensitive, letting it all eat her up from the inside.

But like Brooke she was probably stronger and more capable than one would think. A paradox that fascinated Sam the most about Brooke.

She heard sobbing and crying from people around her. Charlie was a wonderful person who had a lot of friends and ex-lovers, and a good part of both were here today, crying their eyes out.

Sam’s eyes were dry. She had cried the whole night before and wasn’t about to let the whole world witness her grief.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted… Brooke… and… the troublemaker that Willow called Faith. How dared she? She had tried more than once to pick up a fight with the normally so good-natured Charlie and now she had the gall to come to Charlie’s funeral. And what was Brooke doing here…together with HER?

Sam bit down on her rising anger. She didn’t want to see Brooke again, they had talked and nothing good came out of that. Why didn’t she go home?

The morning after Nicole told her to leave; she and Brooke ate breakfast together, trying to ‘solve things’ as Brooke said.

But they hadn’t ‘solved’ a thing….

Brooke wanted explanations and Sam couldn’t give it to her. She knew she had been stupid listening to Nicole, let her control her life like that. But done was done and she had to live with the consequences of her misjudgment.

And Brooke looked so hurt… it almost killed her being unable to make it better. Then they moved into more familiar territory and started yelling at each other.

And then Brooke cried….

And then Sam left without making things better.

And now Brooke was here, at Charlie’s funeral, in the company of a woman of questionable virtue and capable of violence and God knew what else….

“What is Faith up to?” she heard Willow mumble.

********************************************

After the service Willow and Sam stood by the buffet the family had put up, and they watched with concern a still stony faced Jess apparently listening to a very talkative Sarah.

“You got to tell me more about this Faith-woman,” Sam said quietly.

“I saw her with your sister….”

“Stepsister.”

“How do they know each other?” Willow shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought….”

“Thought what?” Sam asked.

“Your sister….”

“Stepsister.”

“Faith is not that kind of woman I would have thought your, as you put it, ‘very straight and narrow sister’… sorry, stepsister, would…befriend. And they seem to know each other rather well.”

The women in question entered the room, talking comfortably with each other.

“And why are they here?” Willow studied Faith closely. “As far as we know your sister….”

Sam started to correct her, but Willow stopped her.

“Brooke didn’t know Charlie, right?”

Sam nodded her confirmation. She was pretty sure of that.

“And Faith and Charlie wasn’t, let’s say, the best of friends, right?”

Sam nodded again.

“She’s up to something, but what?” Willow was talking to herself now and Sam just listened, hoping to get some of her own questions answered.

“I don’t believe for one minute that all this is one big innocent coincidence; Buffy being blown away, then Faith shows up, then someone try to kill Buffy in the hospital, and after Charlie and Faith almost fight several times, Charlie ends up dead.”

“What is it with that woman?” Sam sounded afraid now.

“She has killed before, but…I don’t know….”

“Why? If you think she’s a killer… a murderer or whatever, what….”

“Killing by poison or tamper with Buffy’s machines isn’t Faith’s style, she’s more of an hands on kind of woman, so to speak. I must be missing something….”

“She needs a motive, too, doesn’t she? Getting into fights with Charlie shouldn’t be enough, should it?”

“The Faith I knew was highly irrational and had her own codex, her own way of viewing things, she doesn’t need a plausible excuse… at least she didn’t use to.”

Sam didn’t know what to do with all these new information. She watched Brooke and Faith prepare to leave, and she winced at the possessive hand on Brooke’s lower back.

Willow and Sam followed the two woman from the window and watched them walk over to Brooke’s car.

They talked for a couple of minutes before Brooke kissed Faith softly on the lips and drove away alone.

If Willow hadn’t been there to steady her, Sam would have fainted on the spot.

What the hell is going on?!!

17 Jess

Jess was drunk. For the second time in her young life she was so drunk that she could hardly stand.

Sarah had been a pest all night, clinging to her like Jess was too unstable to leave alone for a second. She was so damn tired of it! And when Sarah went to the toilet, Jess split the bar they were at and headed for a more familiar bar.

For some reason Sarah never liked Argo, but Jess did and right know she wanted to do things that SHE wanted, not what her friend expected from her.

After Charlie’s funeral Sarah had barely left her side and Jess was beginning to feel a little bit claustrophobic. Sarah tried to control Jess’ every movement, following her closely and not allowing her quiet moments to think and grief. Jess was beginning to fear that it wouldn’t take long before Sarah would be feeding and bathing her like she was a baby. And Jess was really starting to resent her friend’s way of overprotecting her.

Had Sarah been like this when Katie died? Jess couldn’t remember, at that time she had been totally numb and completely lost, and she hadn’t exactly been very observant, so she couldn’t really tell how Sarah had acted, how smothering she had been.

To hell with it. All this could be considered and dealt with in the morning, right now she wanted to get more drunk, forget the feelings that were beginning to develop between her and Charlie before she died, and forget the almost devastating need to talk to Katie. To feel Katie’s loving warmth engulf her, tell her everything about Charlie, hoping and knowing she would understand, and then reassure her that even if she ever managed to fall in love again, Katie would always be ‘THE ONE’ in her heart.

Something or something made a noise behind her. She shook her head a couple of times, trying to clear the alcoholic fog messing with her senses.

“Someone there?” The sound of her own voice surprised her. It was high and shaky. It didn’t sound like her at all. She giggled.

In front of her the warm glow from The Argo greeted her and told her that she was welcome.

Suddenly she felt a presence very close to her. She turned around, feeling scared for the first time. Would they hear her at the bar if she screamed?

She turned around, but saw nothing. She narrowed her eyes, trying to penetrate the darkness. Still nothing.

Maybe it was the drugged senses that went amok? It was stupid walking alone at night in a town she wasn’t familiar with yet. Katie always said that she wanted to live in Europe, because in most Vest-European capitals, at least that was what someone had told her, women felt that they could walk alone at night. They could leave their children unattended in a baby carriage outside stores and restaurants. Jess didn’t think one could do that in Chicago. In this town? Probably not.

Something touched her shoulder and she almost fainted. Stiff with fear she turned around, expecting to see a monster of Stephen King-proportions.

“What are you….”

A strong hand in a glove covered mouth and a blow to the side of her head stopped her from saying more.

18 Willow

When Willow came to visit Buffy to tell her unconscious friend about Charlie’s death, about Faith’s possible role and how Willow wanted to confront the dark slayer… that is if she could find Faith, her friend was not alone.

“Hallo, Willow,” Dawn said. “It’s been a while.”

“Dawn?” Hot and cold shivers of chock ran through Willow’s body. She wasn’t ready for this confrontation, wasn’t ready for ‘the talk’.

‘When will you be ready?’ an inner voice whispered. ‘You have been dodging this for years.’

“How did you know…” Willow scanned her brain for the right words.

“How did I know you were here?” Dawn smiled, a lopsided grin that settled with a painful thud in Willow’s chest because it reminded her so much of Tara.

Willow nodded.

“F….” Dawn hesitated for a moment. “Someone told me you visited Buffy everyday.”

“Someone? One of the nurses? Jess?”

“It doesn’t matter, Will.” Dawn dismissed the questions with a hand gesture. How have you been? You haven’t been writing or phoning much these past years.” There was no bitterness in the tone of her voice; she just stated a fact. “Not that you ever ask for me when you call….”

And no, Willow always talked to Buffy when she phoned Sunnydale, and no one else. After she left for good all communication with Dawn or Xander went through Buffy. She couldn’t face the distrust still lurking in the back of Dawn’s gaze, and the ‘I want it to be how it once were’ in Xander’s.

And essentially there wasn’t any more words left in her, she was no longer the Willow her friends used to know and love.

And she couldn’t bare the thought of their disappointment when they finally realized that.

And she couldn’t take on much more hurt and pain. Keeping the past in the past would be better in the long run. For them, too. She hadn’t anything left to give.

For a short while she had thought it could work out, that she could start living again, maybe even love again, making new friends and meeting Sam had… but it was a scam, a delusion, a….

“I’ve missed you, Willow,” Dawn said and smiled, a sad smile without much hope for a getting a positive reaction out of her old friend.

Willow blinked, tears stung behind her eyelids, a lump formed in her throat and it was rapidly reaching a size that threatened to choke her.

“Dawn….” she managed to get past the lump. There was a plea in that one word, despite the fact that her voice had lost all strength and authority. Willow hoped that Dawn would understand some of the things she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Someday she might be able to do it, but not now.

“When are you going to forgive us, Willow? We miss you. I miss you.”

“WHAT? What do you mean? Forgive you? You’re not… I am…WHAT?” Willow babbled.

Dawn giggled at first and then she smiled, a full smile this time, and Willow couldn’t help but smile back, a little nervously but a smile nevertheless.

Dawn turned serious again. “Can you ever forgive us for not being there? We… I didn’t understand what you were going through with the addiction, with Tara’s death, maybe I was too young, but we should have been there… we should….”

“But you were, Dawn, there wasn’t anything more you could have done.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Dawn….” Willow wanted to cry, wanted to run, not necessarily in that order.

“I know,” Dawn nodded sadly. “Promise me that we’ll talk later. Please, don’t run away. I know we have other things to deal with now, but promise me… please?”

And Willow promised….

And then she told Dawn about the attempted murder on Buffy, Charlie’s death by poison and how Faith had lurked around it all, behaving very suspiciously.

“You really think she got something to do with all this?” Dawn asked skeptically, clearly not agreeing with Willow’s assessment.

“I will know for sure when I find her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet, but somehow I got to make her talk.” Silently Willow hoped that she didn’t have to use magic on Faith, but she intended to get the truth out of the dark slayer, one way or the other.

Dawn nodded in agreement. “I think you should give her a chance, Will, talk to her. I’m sure that she has nothing to with it. Prison changed her.”

“We’ll see. I have to find her first.”

“I know where she stays.”

“What?!” Willow was stunned.

“I know where she stays,” Dawn repeated.

19 Sam

Sam was at loss.

A moment ago, when she had been outside Argo to dump some trash, she heard something. A noise that sounded like a muffled scream. Quickly she ran out on the streets trying to determinate where the sound came from, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the empty street. No people around, no cars driving by. Nothing.

She tried to laugh it off, tried to convince herself that her mind was playing tricks on her, but deep inside she was sure the scream came from Jess. If someone asked her why she was so sure of that, she wouldn’t have an answer to give, she just KNEW.

So now she was at loss.

She couldn’t go to the police with only a ‘feeling’ to back her up, but she couldn’t ignore her instincts either and she somehow KNEW something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” Nikki asked.

“I’m not… I’m not feeling well… I think….”

“Go home, Sam, I’ll cover for you. Helen will be here soon, she can help out if it becomes necessary.”

Sam smiled gratefully at her employer. “Thanks, Nikki.”

Nikki shrugged. “Can’t lose my best bartender, can I now? By making her work when she should be home in bed.” She grinned. “Alone, that is!”

Sam blushed and made a face. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

“Just get better, then everything is good. Now shut your gob and go get some sleep.” Nikki pushed her gently in the back. “The door is THAT way.”

Sam placed an exaggerated kiss on Nikki’s cheek. “Helen is right, you know. You’re really incredible nice, thank you.”

Nikki shushed her. “I have a reputation to protect.”

**************************************************

For a long time she sat in the car contemplating what to do, hoping that an answer would pop up and solve everything with one brilliant idea. None came. None whatsoever….

A car came into her line of sight. It looked familiar. Sam narrowed her eyes. Brooke. When the car passed her she could see that there was two people in it, Brooke and a dark-haired woman…Faith, most likely. Sam shuddered.

She hesitated for a moment before she made a decision. She started the engine and followed Brooke’s car.

They stopped at a seedy hotel in a part of the town Sam never dared visit before. She had a hard time understanding Brooke’s actions, and her being in a place like this. ‘That Faith-woman must have some sort of hold on her, that’s the only reasonable explanation….’

Brooke’s car parked behind a tree and Sam couldn’t see a thing. She cursed softly and opened the door. A brutal pull almost made her lose the grip on the door and practically fall out of the car. A very intimidating Faith grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and dragged her out of the car and up on her feet.

“Why are you following us?” she sneered. An eyebrow lifted when she suddenly recognized Sam and an amused expression spread on her face. “Hey, it’s you, well hallo, Sammygirl, how can I help you? Aren’t you a little out of your usual hunting ground?” Sam cringed at the nickname both Faith and Nicole seemed to like so much. “Faith, what’s going on?” Brooke’s voice. “Why are you…. Sam?! I that you?” Sam chose not to say anything. There wasn’t anything to say really. This was NOT a perfect situation to get caught in, she had no plausible excuse for being here.

“You followed us?” Brooke’s surprise was evident. “What in the hell is going on?”

Faith grinned. “Come on, girls, let’s take this inside.”

************************************************

“So?” Brooke clearly demanded an answer.

Sam winced and tried to be even smaller on the chair she was sitting on.

Faith kept on grinning like a highly amused maniac. Sam felt a nervous knot of ice tighten in her gut. This woman really rubbed her the wrong way and the look in Brooke’s eyes made her very uneasy.

“So?” Brooke repeated, clearly expecting an answer.

“W.well,” Sam stuttered and flushed a bit. “I….”

“Let me,” Faith interrupted her pathetic attempt of finding words. “You were worried that I hurt your sister, right?”

“Stepsister!” both Sam and Brooke quickly corrected her.

Faith rolled her eyes and smirked. “Stepsisters…” The word rolled from her lips like it had four highly sexual letters instead of ten.

“Sam?” Brooke’s eyes bored into hers.

“I…”

Brooke laughed. “She works for me, Sam?”

“What?!”

“Faith is working for me. She’s the one who tracked you down.”

20 Will

It took some time to persuade Dawn to stay with Buffy and let her speak with Faith alone, but in the end Dawn relented and let her go to Faith’s hotel by herself.

“Try the civilized approach, Will,” Dawn had suggested only half in jest. “Don’t dismiss her because of her attitude. Give her a chance, she might surprise you.”

“Tell me about you and Faith, Dawn. How did you meet her? Are you friends? Does Buffy know? What about….”

Dawn sighed. “I will explain it all, Will, but not now. Later, when everything is solved,”

*************************************************

And now Willow and Faith stood staring at one another. Faith’s surprise had been evident when she opened the door and found Willow standing outside.

“What the fuck….!” Dark eyes widened and Faith’s usual smirk was nowhere to be seen.

What Willow saw behind Faith almost made her fall on her ass. Sam’s questioning eyes met hers and further to the left Willow saw Sam’s sist…uhm stepsister.

Faith gathered her wits and… smirked. “Well, well, well,” she bowed and let Willow enter her room. “Welcome to the party, Red.”

******************************************************

Two dumbfounded women listened to Brooke telling them that Faith was the private investigator that Brooke had hired to find her stepsister. And that the seemingly very incompatible women had become very good friends during the months of Faith’s search for Sam.

Willow had some difficulties combining the Faith Brooke befriended with the one she knew when she was a teenager. And the Faith Brooke talked about was indeed very different from the regular customer from Argo Bar who picked up fights and girls with ease, had a dirty and spiteful mouth on her and seemed to be around when everything bad happened these days.

Faith saw her doubt and when Brooke and Sam started arguing, she came over and sat beside Willow.

“You don’t trust me, do you, Red?”

“Should I?”

“Maybe you should try something bright new, then?”

“I haven’t had any reason to trust you before,” Willow said coldly. “You are not the most trustworthy person I have met in my life.”

Faith shrugged. “I suppose not.”

Their eyes met, both of them trying to gauge the other’s intentions, motives or whatever else they could get a hint of.

“You think I’m behind Buffy’s accident?”

Willow flinched.

“That’s what I thought.” Faith smirked, but her eyes had a strange expression that Willow couldn’t interpret.

“Are you?”

“Would you really believe me if I say no?”

“Probably not,” Willow admitted.

Faith flashed her humorless smile. “I can’t win, can I? You have a very cemented view on who and what I am, based on your well-founded experience with the teenager I once were. And I have no fucking chancel to change that, have I? But I can sure have some fun with it. You are so easy to wind up, Red.”

Willow’s angry eyes bored into Faith’s. “You think it’s fun to joke about who put Buffy in a coma? Or that Charlie is dead?”

Faith eyes narrowed. “Fuck, Red. You think I killed Charlie?!”

“You tell me!” Willow snapped.

Faith laughed and shook her head. “I didn’t kill her, Red, you should know that poison is not my style, but I intend to find out who did, with or without your help.”

“Why in the hell…? Why, Faith?”

Faith shrugged. “My good old instincts, combined with my, if I may say so myself, damn good investigation skills, tell me that this murder is somehow connected to a murder I’m interested in.”

Willow was very skeptical; she wasn’t sure what to believe. Years of distrust and hatred were a huge barrier to overthrow. Faith sensed her turmoil and continued her explanation:

“A friend of mine died. She disappeared during a trip on the sea. The police called it an accident, but I don’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“She was afraid of water, never learned to swim properly because of that. I don’t think for a single fucking minute that a woman afraid of drowning will get out on her own on a boat and then fall overboard without a west. That sounds fucking weird to me.”

“Not a demon's work, then?”

“Nope.” Faith flashed a mischievous grin. “Pure human, Red. Evil runs in people, too, you know.”

Willow averted her eyes and whispered: “I know….”

“Lately I have tried to connect all the blurry dots I have collected, and I think I’m closing in on the truth.” Faith’s eyes turned steely. “So help me with it, Red, or stay out of my way!”

Sam and Brooke were quiet now; both of them listened with interest to the two other women’s conversation.

“What’s going on, Faith?” Brooke asked. “Is this about your friend Ellen’s murder?”

Faith nodded.

“I…t..think I have to t..ell you s..something,” Sam stuttered nervously, her previous anger and hurt forgotten.

Willow took her hand and Brooke’s eyes narrowed in disapproval. “You are pale, Sam, are you okay?”

“I d..don’t know… Jess….”

“What about Jess?” Suddenly Willow felt a chill run down her spine. Even before Sam said a word, she knew something was wrong. The way Faith’s whole body tensed, it was obvious that the slayer’s instincts told her the same.

“I think s..something bad happened to Jess.”

21 Sam & Willow

Sam

After a heated and nonproductive discussion about Sam having absolutely NO right to follow after Brooke and about her even lesser right to have an opinion about who Brooke chose to befriend or not. AND of course after Willow and Faith stopped their arguing about who caused Buffy’s coma and Charlie’s death, Sam told them about her experience outside The Argo Bar, how it told her that something was wrong with Jess.

It surprised her how easily Willow and Faith believed her, Brooke was a bit more skeptical.

“You never actually SAW your friend Jess?” she asked. “When you heard that noise?”

“No, but I’m sure about this, believe me, I have never been more sure of anyt….”

“Have you been to her place? Contacted work or family?” Brooke continued like a sledgehammer. “Have you even tried to find out if she’s all right?”

“No, I….” Sam couldn’t get herself to remind Brooke of a dark-haired woman in Sam’s stepsister’s car that made her forget about her friend and made her follow the car instead. Brooke would not be pleased….

“Brooke got a point there,” Faith said, let’s get out of here and see if we can track Jessie down.”

***************************************************

Willow

Jess was gone, nobody knew where she was and no one had seen her after she left the bar drunk.

“Can’t you try some tracking spell or something, without Sammygirl or Brooke getting a clue?” Faith whispered and pointed to the sleeping forms of the women in question.

Willow couldn’t help but notice that Brooke was the only one Faith didn’t give a nickname. Good friends, Brooke had said, but knowing Faith there could be something entirely different between the two.

“Red?”

Her own budding romance with Sam had somehow died down since Brooke showed up and Charlie died. It made her a little sad thinking about what could have been.

“Red?!” Faith repeated irritated.

“What? Y..yes, I probably could, even if I don’t know her that well, maybe I can get an idea about where she is, in what area of the town or something like that.”

“And then we do good old footwork for the rest of it?”

Willow nodded tiredly and sighed. And for the first time since Willow knocked on Faith’s door, the two women smiled at one another, a short moment the history between them was forgotten, both set of eyes softened slightly and for the first time ever they relaxed in each other’s company.

A slight moan from a sleeping Sam, snuggling closer to Brooke on the bed they reluctantly shared, brought Willow mind back to the problems they faced.

“Let’s get to work, then,” she husked. The tone in her voice almost made her flinch out of her skin in surprise, but she chose to ignore it and begged that Faith hadn’t noticed.

Faith’s grin told her that she wasn’t that lucky….

‘I really hate that woman,’ Willow seethed inwardly.

*****************************************************

Sam

Sam woke with her head on Brooke’s chest and an arm around her midriff. One of Brooke’s hands rested in San’s hair and the other one attached to a very insistent arm hugged her closer.

This was a very compromising situation to be in. Nicole would hate her to death if she knew. Sam giggled, but stopped immediately when she felt Brooke move a little. She didn’t want the closeness to end, so she kept her breath until Brooke sighed in her sleep and snuggled even closer.

“Get up, lovebirds, we got work to do,” Faith’s shouted across the room.

Brooke awoke with a start and stared confused at Sam, clearly not comprehending the way they were tangled up.

Sam quickly released her and practically jumped from the bed.

A smugly grinning Faith told them that she and Willow were on their way out. “We have some ideas to the whereabouts of Jessie.”

“How? How can you….”

“Just trust us, Sam,” Willow said. “We know what we’re doing.”

“I’m going with you,” Sam said determinedly, she couldn’t let what she had experienced in the dark outside Argo go that easy. She had to help find Jess.

“Me, too,” Brooke said, to Sam’s horror.

Willow sighed and looked at Faith who nodded slightly. “Okay, you’re coming with us.”

“Let’s talk to Jessie’s friend before we do anything,” Faith suggested.

“Sarah?” Sam asked.

Faith nodded.

“Let’s go, then,” Willow said. “We don’t have any time to spare.”

22 Willow & Sam

Willow

Sarah wasn’t as cooperative as Willow had expected she would be. Her whole attitude was distrustful and condescending, and she irritably explained that Jess often went away on her own. Jess was a very private person who liked solitude. She pointed out that Jess HAD taken some time off from the hospital and that they should stay out of things that weren’t even their business to begin with.

At one point it looked like Faith was about to smack her former date’s face in, and Willow found herself gently touching the slayer’s tense arm soothingly several times, trying to calm her down.

She found it a little weird to be in this position, working together with Faith was the last thing she ever thought she would do, but actually Faith behaved very professionally despite her being close to whacking Sarah. Faith seemed to know her job and Brooke had praised her highly, her company had apparently used Faith’s services on several successful occasions.

This was obviously a grown-up and responsible version of Faith. The provocative street cat from The Argo Bar was gone. And they hadn’t even argued since they left the hotel….

She had actually started to like this Faith a little… A TINY… little…bit….

Who would have thought that could ever happen?

*****************************************************

Sam

Waking up all tangled up with Brooke had made this day an extremely awkward one. Brooke refused to meet her eyes and kept a physical distance that almost felt like a blow to the stomach every time Brooke hurried away from her with a blank expression on her face.

Sam knew that they needed to talk, she just didn’t know how to begin the dreaded conversation. And Nicole…. She hung over both of them like an axe waiting to either decapitate Sam or ruin everything trying.

And Brooke was completely unaware of what had happened between Sam and her so-called best friend. How would she react when she heard about the whole sordid affaire? With hatred and disappointment? Or would she believe Sam’s version and understand… at least SOME part of the horrendous story, and not join up with Nicole and help her lead the axe to its very fragile target?

Sam wanted to run, hide her head deeply in the sand, and never ever feel like this again.

******************************************************

Willow

“Let’s ditch the lovebirds and nail the sick chick.” Faith whispered.

“What?!” Willow almost dropped her coffee. “What are you talking about?”

“Everything points in her direction, Red.”

“You mean Sarah?”

Faith nodded. “I fairly sure she killed my friend Ellen and probably one woman before that, and I’m damn sure she either killed Jessie or is keeping her somewhere. I think somehow Jessie is the connection to all the murders.”

“How? What do you know?”

“I tell you later, but first we have to get a car so we will be able to follow her when she leaves the hospital. If she keeps Jessie alive somewhere, she will be going there after work. But we can’t take those two with us.” She gave Sam and Brooke, sitting far away from each other in Willow small living room, a wry look. “They don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“I think I have an idea that might keep them occupied for some time.”

********************************************

Sam

Brooke’s fingers worked the keyboard very efficiently. Willow had asked them to find out everything they could about Sarah.

“I never liked her, never understood why Jess befriended her. A common background as childhood friends I suppose.” Sam thought of Nicole and Brooke and smiled a little. “But it’s very disquieting to think of her as a murderer, and it’s really shit that we can’t call the police.”

Brooke shrugged and kept on working the keyboard. “The police can’t do a thing with what we got. Even if Faith is fairly sure that Sarah killed her friend Ellen, there isn’t any proof.”

“What’s the story?” Sam asked.

“Ellen was apparently very much in love with Sarah and she dreamed of their life together like it was a fairytale bound to happen. Faith didn’t trust Sarah and tried to warn her friend. She told me that all her instinct went nuts when she was around Sarah.”

“Her instincts?”

“I don’t know, those feelings that makes her a great investigator, I guess. Anyway, Sarah told the police that she was prevented from going on that boat-trip with Ellen, and that Ellen went out on her own.”

“And the police believed her?”

Brooke smiled. “Everybody believed her, including her friend Jess.”

“Jess knew Sarah AND Ellen,” Sam said thoughtfully. “A connection there.”

“Yes.” Brooke hesitated. “I don’t know how much I should tell you. Faith is very secretive with stuff like this.”

“We’re in this together, aren’t we? All of us.”

“Okay.” Brooke eyes met Sam’s for the first time since they woke up in each other’s arms. “Jess’ lover Katie, have you heard about her?”

Sam nodded. “She died a year ago or so.”

“She disappeared on a trip with some friends in the mountains. Faith was there with Ellen when it happened, and Sarah, too. The day before she disappeared Sarah told everybody that she had to go home and finish some business, but Faith thinks she stayed and killed Katie.”

“Why? W.why did she..? W.what made her..?” Sam blinked, trying to fit all the pieces together in her mind.

“Faith thinks that she’s somehow obsessed with Jess, and she’s not happy when people get to close to her… obsession.”

“Charlie….” Sam breathed.

Brooke nodded.

Sam couldn’t help herself, she had to know. “You seem to know a lot about all this, about Faith….”

“We’re very close friends, Sammy.” But Brooke’s reddening cheeks told Sam that there was more to it than that. A knot of ice formed in her gut.

Brooke’s face was blank for some time, and then she seemed to come to a decision. “We have been on and off lovers since we met.”

“You….” Sam couldn’t find any usable words anywhere near her vocal chords.

‘Your oh so straight and narrow stepsister, for whom you have had a serious crush on for years and years, tells you that she’s involved with a beautiful, skilled and very dangerous woman, WOMAN is the operative word here. Where do you find the right response in a situation like that?’

“You….” Sam tried again. “You….”

Brooke smiled, or at least she tried to. “Yes, me.”

“You…. you love…love her?”

“Yes I do, but not in the way you imply. I love her like the wonderful friend she is, AND I find her very attractive, but I’m not IN love with her.”

“You think she is…attractive?”

“Yes, don’t you? She looks a lot like you, don’t you think?”

“L.like…m.me?” Sam choked out.

They stared at one another for a very intense moment, then Brooke turned away to focus on her computer again.

Silently Sam followed her fingers dancing, not knowing what to say, if anything….

“There’s something here,” Brooke pointed at something on the monitor. “She owns a cabin outside the city.”

“Jess could be there?”

“If she’s alive…. Do we tell Faith and Re…Willow about this?”

Sam wasn’t too keen on seeing Faith right now. “They are waiting for Sarah outside the hospital. No need to disturb them now. We can go and take a look.”

Brooke nodded. “Great idea.”

23 Willow & Sam

Willow

“What did Dawn say?” Faith stretched her body as much as the car allowed.

“Buffy is beginning to respond to stimuli,” Willow answered with tears in her eyes. “I’m sure she’s on her way back to us.”

“Great!” Faith’s smile almost cut her face in two.

Without thinking they hugged each other. Willow stiffened and pulled back. “Sorry,” she murmured.

“Are you?” Faith asked darkly. “Then I’m sorry, too.”

The next minutes were spent in an uncomfortable silence.

Finally Faith broke it with a question: “ Do you still think I put her in coma?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore….”

“In a way I did.” Faith eyes were unreadable.

Willow eyes widened and her whole body tensed.

“She shouldn’t have been there, Will.”

“What do you mean?”

“Buffy shouldn’t have been there.” Faith eyes shone with a mixture of guilt and pain. “I was in Sunnydale on a job. I met Dawn at some café and we started talking. We saw each other almost everyday while I was there, eating breakfast together, dinners…. She convinced me that I should talk to Buff, and finally I gathered my courage and did it.”

And then Faith told Willow how she and Buffy slowly, very slowly, became some sort of friends, tentative friends, but nevertheless friends.

When Faith left Sunnydale they promised to stay in touch and help each other out when it was necessary.

Faith was the first one asking for help. She phoned Buffy and asked her to look into something for her. The East European Mafia, or in this case East European Slavers, sold their women to brothels throughout the States and Faith heard a rumor that a group was based in Sunnydale.

Buffy went to check their hideout, to see if something was going on. The slavers knew that Faith was on their trail and they knew she was WAY more dangerous than anything they had dealt with before, therefore they were prepared for the worst.

“They thought she was me, Will. They thought she was me. She wouldn’t be in a coma if it wasn’t for me.” There were tears in Faith’s eyes. And in Willow’s too for that matter. The discomfort between them was temporarily forgotten, and Willow took the crying Faith into her arms and comforted her the best she could.

********************************************************

They sat as far away from each as the car made possible for them.

“You’re not ready to see me as anything but the psycho slayer, are you?” Faith asked hoarsely.

“I don’t know…” Willow hesitated and the sighed softly. “I never expected to… I don’t know….”

“See me again? Work with me? Like me?”

“Yes….”

“What?”

“You didn’t have to… to…”

“Kiss you? I know, Will. Gut reflex when I have a beautiful woman in my arms, I’m sorry if I offended you.” Faith sounded hurt and Willow flinched at the harshness in her voice.

“Faith….”

Faith closed her eyes and visibly tried to calm herself down. “No, Red, you’re right. I’m sorry. We have work to do and I’m behaving like a fucking amateur. I’m sorry, okay?”

Willow nodded. Her heart constricted at the use of Red instead of Will, symbolizing a backlash to the progress they had made on their way to being friends.

Faith looked at her watch. “Shit, she should have been here a long time ago. Willow phone the hospital.”

Sarah had left an hour ago.

**************************************************

Sam

“This is really a perfect place if you want to hide someone. There’s not a neighbor in sight.”

Brooke shivered. “I don’t like this, Sammy.”

“Me neither.”

“It was your idea!”

“Are you sure?” Sam feigned surprise, trying to lighten the situation they were in. “I’m certain that you….”

A little crooked smile on Brooke’s otherwise serious face, told Sam that had succeeded.

“Let’s try and find a way in,” she took Brooke’s hand. “We’ll be okay. Sarah is at the hospital, nothing bad is going to happen.”

They found a door that conveniently enough was open.

“We can’t just walk in,” Brooke whispered. “Can we?”

“It’s probably not the most legal thing in the world.” Sam grabbed Brooke’s hand. “But let’s do it anyway. If Jess is in there….”

“It would be worth it, right?”

Sam nodded in agreement.

And then they slowly opened the door.

The room was quite dark, but they saw a suitcase in front of them. The room had a certain feeling about it, like someone had just been there.

“Sam!”

“Oh, shit….”

24 Jess

*Something touched her shoulder and she almost fainted. Stiff with fear she turned around, expecting to see a monster of Stephen King-proportions.

“What are you….”

A strong hand in a glove covered mouth and a blow to the side of her head stopped her from saying more.*

***********************************************

‘Water….’ She moaned when pain penetrated every part of the brain that was still functioning. Not that much seemed to function at all, but that was beside the point. The pain was unbearable and she wanted to scream, go back to the state of unconsciousness she had been in moments before, anything that could get rid of that insufferable throbbing mixed with sharp stabs of white-hot pain.

Slowly and very carefully she opened an eye. And quickly closed it again. ‘God, it hurts!’ She tried one more time. The world was a blur of light and dark, and she couldn’t make sense of anything in her surroundings. ‘Where am I? What happened?’

“Good morning, Jessie,” a familiar voice made her open both eyes, WAY to fast. The dizziness almost made her faint, and she closed them against what she expected to be bad news.

“Come on, honey, open your cute blue eyes.”

Jess tried to put it all together, but it was very difficult to concentrate.

“I’m waiting…” the voice said impatiently.

And the whirling clues in Jess’ confused brain connected and she flinched when reality blew her mind open.

“Sarah,” she gasped, suddenly remembering how she ended up tied to a bed and with a splitting headache. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Profane, Jessie, that not like you at all.”

Focusing on Sarah finally made the blur disappear and it almost made her forget the pain. Her friend, or former friend was probably the most accurate term, sat on another bed a few feet away. The bed had a device, that looked like the ones they put patients in that needed respirator to stay alive.

Sarah smiled, and Jess felt a fearful shiver run up and down the spine. This wasn’t at all the Sarah she thought she knew.

It hit her deep in the gut that this was the Sarah that Katie had feared, the one Katie didn’t trust.

When they were teenagers Katie had talked about how she was a little scared of her old friend, that Sarah buried a lot of hatred inside, but Jess hadn’t listened.

When they got older Sarah remained a part of their social circle, mainly because they were all gay and befriended the same people, but they were never close. Katie didn’t want her closer than she already was.

Jess had thought that Katie’s reservation was born out of their mutual history. Sarah had once been in love with Katie and had done all she could to split the pair up when they began dating, and she treated Jess badly for years after that. And she even continued after she knew that there was nothing she could do to damage the love between Jess and Katie. But maybe Katie sensed something else?

Maybe Katie had sensed that madwoman sitting a few feet away; smiling broadly, almost radiant, like knocking out and tying up her friends was a normal thing to do.

“This is how it’s supposed to be, Jessie,” she said and nodded confidently. “You’ll see.”

Jess chose to ignore that statement. Clearly Sarah had gone over the edge of sanity, and Jess wasn’t sure how to handle that.

Sarah made a gesture towards the bed she was sitting on. “I had a dream for years about her seeing us making love for the first time, Jessie.” She smiled happily. “And now it’s finally going to happen. I want her to watch the beauty we can create without her interference.”

‘Her? What is she talking about?’ Another thought came to her and she just HAD to ask. “You killed Charlie, didn’t you?”

“She was getting to close, like Ellen did, she could have spoiled everything, spoiled our happiness, and we deserve being happy, don’t we?”

‘Oh God…. This can’t be… it just can’t….’

Sarah moved the devise over the bed, and revealed a body lying there attached to all sorts of tubes and machines.

Jess stretched her body as far as she could, and saw a glimpse of a very pale face with unhealthy dark circles around closed eyes. Dirty blonde hair chopped short with no care for how it would look. A very thin arm with needle marks all over it, rested on the blanket that covered the body. It twitched, like its owner tried to wake up.

“She’ll be awake to see us making each other very happy, Jessie. She’ll be awake when you reach the ultimate high. She’ll listen to your moans, your pleas, she'll hear you screaming my name in pleasure… Isn’t that GREAT?”

And then Jess recognized the broken body on the bed, and a combination of despair, agony and shear happiness went through her like a blazing fire.

And then she tumbled into darkness.

And temporary oblivion….

25 Willow & Jess

Willow

When Faith and Willow reached Sarah’s cabin, they found a frantic crying Brooke with an almost unconscious Sam in her arm. Blood was running from a nasty looking wound and the dark hair was more dark red than brown.

Willow quickly examined the wound and it seemed superficial. Sometimes blows to head seemed a lot worse than they were, because of all the veins there that can burst and make it look like a bloodbath.

It took some time for them to get Brooke calm enough to tell what had happened and WHY they were at the cabin in the first place.

"We didn’t think there was anyone here," she explained. "There wasn’t any car out front or anything."

But when they opened the door Sarah’s staring eyes had met them. At first she had been as surprised as they were, but she recovered quickly, and she evidently decided that her luck had run dry, her cover was blown and the only sane thing to do was escape.

Unfortunately Sam tried to stop her and Sarah hit her over the head with something heavy.

"And then she pulled a gun," Brooke shuddered. "I thought she would kill us." She pulled Sam closer to her for comfort. "But she took our cell-phones, our money and the car keys."

"Can you track her?" Faith asked Willow.

"I can try," Willow answered, "but I think she’s too fragmented… I’ll check the house for something to use."

And Willow wasn’t prepared for what she found inside Sarah’s cabin. Not prepared at all….

*****************************************************

Jess

At the hospital Jess refused to leave Katie’s bedside. Being a doctor helped her case a lot and she monitored her lover’s progress closely.

Katie was sleeping soundly, but without the sedation Sarah had given her, it was a healthy sleep that sooner or later would make her better, make her wake up and realize she was free. Of that Jess was certain.

No one knew what Sarah had poisoned Katie’s body with throughout the year Katie had been her prisoner, and how the massive drug intake had effected her brain, but physically she would be okay.

Jess couldn’t believe it. Some part of her wanted to cry and yell and scream from all the emotions swamping her, another part of her was close to numb and very disbelieving of it all. That part was scared to death. She was afraid of hoping too much, of feeding herself with lies about how she and Katie would be together again.

What if Katie’s brain had been damaged? What if she had to be tied to tubes for the rest of her life?

Jess felt fresh tears in her eyes, and she moved closer to her lover. She just had to touch Katie all the time, reassuring herself that she was real, that she was breathing and that her heart was beating steady and strong.

"Jessie…."

Jess felt her heart stop. Carefully she touched lover’s cheek. "Katie?"

"Jessie…." The warmth and love in the weak voice almost made Jess break down for the umpteenth time.

Katie was dreaming. Dreaming of her.

Her heart threatened to burst in the middle of the cold hospital room, the throat constricted and burning tears reached shivering lips.

She buried her face against Katie’s throat, feeling hope as the pulse kept tapping against her lips as a sign of survival, a second chance.

Everything was going to be okay. A fragile hope had changed to a solid belief.

26 Sam

Barely conscious after they had spoken with the police, they went straight to the closest bed, and that meant the bed in Brooke’s hotel room. They fell on it exhausted, without talking much, and they didn’t question the sleeping