Go-Between
part2

by
Margaux le Gaye
(Margot le Faye's un-twin)

Patrol was unusually quiet. The night before, she had marked some graves her Slayer instincts said held something ripening. Her gut had told her when the newly made vampires within would rise. Tonight there was nothing, not a twinge. The graves might have been empty. But she knew their occupants had not risen the night before. This was weird. A slow night was one thing, but not a single new vamp rising over the Hellmouth? That didn't figure. Faith decided she would have to compare notes with Buffy. Maybe they could get Spike to use his contacts to find out what the up was.

She was almost out of the graveyard when the shadow fell across her path. She pulled the stake from her sleeve, flowing smoothly into combat-ready position. The shadow remained unmoving, and she relaxed as recognition dawned.

"Faith," he said simply.

"Hey, Angel," she returned, slipping the stake back into its hiding place. "Things are awfully quiet tonight. Too quiet. Any idea what's going on?"

"That's why I'm here," the vampire said, walking slowly toward her. He was dressed in a black leather jacket similar to the one he had given Buffy a few years earlier. His pants were tight and dark and he looked damned good for a dead man. Actually, he just looked damned good. He also looked concerned.

"What's the sitch?" Faith said.

"I'll explain on the way to my place. Something I have to show you." Faith arched her brow in surprise. Angel had something to show her? Not Buffy? That was different. Curious, she nodded her head and joined him. As she got closer, she heard a faint growl and he pulled away, keeping a slight distance between them. She frowned and looked at him, but he didn't seem to be in game face. Still, something had clearly spooked him, if not so badly that he couldn’t fill her in on what was happening in the 'Dale as they walked the short distance to the mansion.

"Couple of nights ago, I heard a rumor. Old cult, new members. Branching out in Sunnydale."

"Gee, what are the odds?" Faith said wryly. He smiled as wryly in return.

"Slight twist to this one, though. They aren't interested in the living. They've located the graves of new-made vampires, and stolen the bodies. They'll use spells to keep them inactive until tomorrow night. Then, they'll be allowed to rise. At which point they'll be thrown onto a ritual brazier and burned as a sacrifice."

"Wow, finally a religion I can get behind," Faith said. "Where do I sign up?" But Angel wasn't through.

"Once the sacrifice is complete, the demon they worship is summoned to grant its followers their heart's desires. To get the energy to do that, it first feeds on every living thing within a hundred miles."

"Oh," Faith sighed. "Guess I'm gonna have to stay a heretic, huh?"

"Faith, this is serious," Angel warned. During the remainder of the walk back to his mansion, he went over the details: how many members the cult had, how many of them were required to perform the ritual, the most likely sites for it to be performed and the mystic items needed to see it through.

"So, they can't use any old brazier," Faith said as they made their way into Angel's living room. "It has to be some ancient silver deal they've always used, with the right spells inscribed on it. And they can't use any old stake to do in the fledglings, it's gotta be this equally ancient ritual knife made of ivory, decorated with wood. Again with the symbols?"

"That's about it," Angel said, tossing his jacket aside as he led her to a long table at the edge of the room. Faith discarded her own jacket as she followed. Two linen-wrapped bundles, one very large, one small, lay on the table. Given the bloodstains soaked into the fabric, Faith had a pretty fair guess as to what they contained. How the hell had he gotten ahold of these items, and if he had them, why did he need her? The first question was rhetorical; according to the gang, Angel was still tapped into the undead network and was always producing arcane artifacts at need. Look how he had known where to find the Glove of Myhnegon while the rest of the gang spent days tracking down leads. He'd known how to destroy it, too, where it had taken Rupert Giles days of exhaustive research to find that tidbit of information. The second question faded in importance as Angel flipped back the wrappings, confirming her guess as to what the bundles were.

They not only looked old, they felt it. And they felt…evil. Her Slayer senses were fairly tingling, individual hairs rising on the nape of her neck. Everything inside her was screaming for the destruction of these unclean things now!

"What the hell are you waiting for?" she hissed. "Break those bad boys!"

"It isn't that easy," Angel warned her. "Watch." He set both hands on the brazier and exerted his formidable vampiric strength to crush it. The brazier looked delicate, made of a silver hammered so thin it was almost transparent. He should have been able to crush it into a mass of metal with one hand. Faith watched as Angel's muscles strained, evident through the silk of his shirt, and he grunted with effort, squeezing the fragile-looking metal in his preternaturally powerful grip…

To no avail. The brazier retained its shape perfectly.

"Sorcery," Angel explained, releasing the brazier and moving away from it. "Those things are meant to destroy the dead, so they are steeped in spells that ensure that the dead cannot harm them. Even if I threw the brazier into a metal-smith's furnace, it wouldn't melt. Anything I do to it with my own hands will have no effect. That's the nature of the spell and enchantment that it's under." Faith nodded. That made sense.

"So, why not get someone like Willie the Snitch to destroy it?" she asked.

"More sorcery. Most humans would take one look at this thing and fall in love with it. Even knowing what it is, they wouldn't be able to bring themselves to mar it's perfection."

"You're kidding, right?" Faith said in disbelief. "That ugly thing?" Angel smiled ruefully.

"I said most humans. The legends have it that only a human born to serve the fight against evil can destroy one of these." Faith smiled, understanding at last.

"Ah. You mean, like a Slayer?"

"Exactly like," he agreed with an answering smile…or as close to a smile as Angel ever got. Faith was glad that it would take a Slayer for this task. These things were so evil, she wanted the satisfaction of feeling them break in her own hands. She stepped up to the table, noticing once more that Angel drew away as she approached. She flicked a glance at him but didn't ask any questions. Instead, she set her hands on the silver artifact and exerted some force of her own.

The metal didn't feel cool at all. It felt hot, as if the fires that burned in it had been trapped in the metal along with the burning, damned souls of the demons it had eaten in sacrifice. Faith shivered, her Slayer sense kicking into overdrive. Her instinctive antipathy for this thing was amazing. She was gonna have to ask Angel for details about this cult. Later. Right now, she had more important things to do.

A surge of adrenaline rushed through her as she strove to bend the metal. It wasn't easy. She could swear the inert metal pushed back, resisting her efforts to crush it. She let go and tried again as Angel looked on, concerned. Once again she met that uncanny resistance. Angel whispered to her encouragingly.

"You can do this, Faith," he told her. "You were born to do this."

That's right, Faith reminded herself. I was. She let go once more, but only so that she could get a better grip. She thought about the fires that must have burned in this thing before, about the twisted desires that must have been granted, about the innocent lives taken to ensure those desires. She knew that she was not going to let that happen ever again. With a snarl of rage Faith grasped the bowl a third time, reaching deep inside herself for all the power she could command.

It fought her. There was no other way to describe it. The thing in her grip resisted her as if it were a living opponent. Maybe it was. But its purpose was to destroy the lives of others and hers was to safeguard those lives. Faith, screaming, pushed forcefully, the muscles in her arms and hands and fingers straining with so much effort they began to shake with it. The metal began to heat in her hands, struggling to resist her. Enraged, Faith locked her shaking arms and forced her trembling hands to grip harder. The metal crumpled in her grasp like wet tissue. She moved her hands to another part of the rim and repeated the process, a low growl of satisfaction escaping her lips as the brazier slowly collapsed in on itself. Eventually, it was compact enough for her to lift into her hands and finish the job, turning it into a rather ugly, misshapen ball. A thrill of savage satisfaction coursed through her as she spared a moment to admire her handiwork.

"Good girl," Angel whispered softly. She flashed a cocky grin his way.

"Next," she said, tossing the scrap metal aside and reaching for the knife. "What the hell is this stuff?" she asked as she noted some coarse threads of various color wrapped around the hilt of the knife. "It looks like…hair?"

"From the cult members. They use the knife for a blood bond to the demon and wrap a strand of their hair around the handle, in token of the bond."

"So, like, this cult doesn't take bald guys, huh?" she giggled. Angel said nothing. She sighed. "Okay. But. So, I destroy these things. What's to prevent the cult from just forging another bowl and carving another knife?"

"I said it was a blood bond. Once you break the knife and burn the hair…the cult members will go up in flames."

"Wow. Harsh," she said as she digested that piece of information. She examined the knife, found a week spot and broke it off. She repeated the action several times, where the ivory was thinnest, until she had broken it into several large, non-functional pieces. She pried the inlaid wood out of the haft and handle and from the blade itself. Walking over to the fire place, she tossed the matted hair and chips of wood onto the flames.

"Not undeserved, though," she said calmly as they burned. Eerily, the hair screamed, as if the cult members themselves were burning before her. Given the nature of magic, perhaps they were. Faith felt only an abstract pity for the suffering she knew she had just caused. Whoever they were, they were human. But, whoever they were, they had been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for their own gain. They were only reaping what they had sown and she was only doing her sacred duty. Faith dispassionately watched the fire burn until the screams were silenced and there was nothing left but ash. Then she turned back to Angel.

"So, what'cha gonna do with that thing?" she indicated the ruined silver brazier.

"Now that you've destroyed it, the spell is broken. I'll take it to a jeweler, have it melted down. I'm sure you could use the cash."

"Thanks," she said, a bit surprised. "Is that why you asked me to help, instead of Buffy? 'Cause I could use the cash?" She wasn't too upset by the idea. She didn't like charity, but she was pragmatic. And it wasn't like she hadn't done anything to earn it. She figured saving the lives of everyone within a hundred square miles was worth a few bucks. But his answer, when it came after a moments silence, did upset her.

"I didn't tell Buffy because it's too hard to be near her," he said bluntly. Faith felt stupid. That should have been her first guess. She moved toward him again, reaching out a hand to offer comfort.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I should have figured-" the words died on her lips as he pulled away once more. This time the deliberation of the action could not be missed. Nor could the unmistakable growl as he turned his back on her.

"Angel, what the hell is wrong?" Faith demanded. "You haven't come near me all night. And when I've come near you, you've been growling like a mastiff." His voice, when it came, was harsher, deeper, and Faith realized uneasily that he had slid into game face.

"I can smell her on you," he said. The words were simple. Stark. Shocking.

Faith's face flamed bright red in embarrassment. Stupid, stupid, she should have known. She had gone down on Buffy not once, but twice, bringing her to completion both times. And Buffy was always so very, very liquid, especially when she came. With his preternaturally keen vampiric senses, he had probably smelled Buffy on her from halfway across the room. No wonder he hadn't wanted to get too close, hadn't wanted to be reminded…

"I'm sorry," she whispered. God, this was awful! She knew how deeply Angel loved Buffy. And while Buffy was free to turn elsewhere for comfort, Angel was not. He could not risk falling in love, could not risk the moment of peace that would tear his soul free of its moorings, and leave the demon Angelus unhindered to terrorize the world. This had to be hell for him.

"Don't be sorry," he said. His voice sounded more normal, and Faith realized he had fought back his demon. "I've known about you…from the first, I think. I came by to check on her…I saw you making love in her living room." Faith's embarrassment deepened. They had only made love in Buffy's living room the first time. Angel had indeed known about them from the beginning.

"But you never said anything to her. I mean, she'd have told me, and-"

He turned back to her, his face human, a rueful smile twisting his mouth. "What was there to say? I love her. She knows that. I want her to be happy. If you make her happy, then, I want you to be together."

"And you can't tell her that yourself because…?"

"Because when I am near her, I am in a hell that torments me more surely than the tortures I endured in the demon dimension. I love her. I want her. I can never have her again." The words, so simply spoken, broke Faith's heart.

"I'm sorry," she found herself saying again. The words were, she knew, inadequate.

"No need," he said brusquely, coming forward to gather the remaining pieces of the knife and wrap them up in the linen shroud once more. "None of this is your fault. Or hers."

"It's the gypsies," Faith said. "Stupid idea, that clause. Why would they do anything to unleash the very demon that had hurt them once he was out of the picture? It's really all their fault."

"No," Angel disagreed. "It isn't. I…had hurt them. They did what they did, not just for revenge, but to protect themselves."

"Then they failed," Faith pointed out, "because you ended up killing two more of their tribe." The Scoobies had told her the whole sorry tale.

"It wasn't their fault, it was mine," he said again, roughly, tossing the bundle aside and turning to face her. His eyes were haunted, a little wild. "You don't know what I was, the things I did. Believe me, I deserved every moment of torment they visited upon me." His eyes held secrets she did not want to learn, secrets no soul should harbor. But then, that had been the problem. His soul had been gone, leaving a demon free to roam the world in his body. That Angel's soul was heir to those secrets was a cruel punishment for what had been, after all, the most common of transgressions. He had wanted to partner Darla in bed, not in murder. The demon had done both. She could only imagine the horrors Angel remembered and only guess the depth of guilt he felt. But Buffy, she knew, was being punished as surely as Angel had been, and there was nothing fair about that at all.

"Maybe that's true," Faith allowed, holding his gaze with her own. "Maybe you deserved to be tormented by your curse. But Buffy didn't."

"Buffy..." Angel repeated. The wildness died out of his eyes. But the haunting sadness remained. Funny, she had always thought his eyes were brown. But this close, she could see they were the deepest, most gorgeous shade of blue. And deep as they were, his sorrow was deeper. "I can't do it any more," Angel said after a moment's silence. "Can't stay in the same city she lives in. I wake up and I know she's out there. That I should stay away. But I can't. I follow her, sometimes, on patrol. And I tell myself that it's just so I can back her up if she needs me, but the truth is, she almost never does."

"Almost," Faith said gently, coming a little closer. She kept looking him in the eye, instinctively keeping that connection, as if he would lose himself in his own pain, drown in remorse, if her eyes didn't throw him a lifeline. "I know you've saved her once or twice since you came back," she told him now.

"Once or twice," he agreed. "But she'd have managed okay without me."

"Maybe. But... how are you managing?" Faith asked softly, concerned. She stopped just in front of him.

"I miss her," he said as quietly. "I'm empty and I ache and there isn't a moment, awake or asleep, that I don't miss having her in my arms. The feel of her flesh, the smell of her skin, the taste of her…" He fell quiet, his eyes still locked to Faith's.

She was never sure afterward who moved first. Maybe they moved at the same time. But she hurt for him, hurt for both of them, for Buffy and for Angel and for everything that could not be between them, even though the impossibility of their love had made Faith's own love for Buffy possible. Maybe that was it. Maybe she felt she had a debt to pay since her own joy was at the expense of Angel's soul-deep sorrow. But it seemed, at that moment, the most natural thing in the world, the only gift she could give him in return for his having gifted her with the woman she loved.

Faith deliberately closed the distance between herself and Angel. This time he did not move away. She reached up, burying her hands in his thick, dark hair and gently pulled his head down to her own. Then she touched her lips to his so that he could savor, however faintly, the taste of Buffy on his own mouth, the scent of her rising off of Faith's skin.

The kiss was gentle. Angel's passion was for Buffy, not Faith. But it could not stay gentle. Faith was Angel's link to Buffy, the closest he could ever again come to the woman he loved. So Faith opened her mouth and gave him her tongue, letting him slide his own tongue over it, letting him taste every bit of Buffy she could yield to him. Angel's arms came around her, pulling her closer, lifting her to his hungry mouth. He was a tall guy, and though Faith had an inch or two on Buffy, it was nothing compared to his greater height. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Faith allowed it, understanding his need, beginning to share it. He slid one arm down her body and beneath her knees, lifting her in his arms. Faith deepened the kiss. Mouths still locked together, he carried her up the stairs.

The bed on which she was eventually set down was wide and deep, the mattress firm beneath her back. Buffy, she knew had never been in this bed. Now, Faith lay here in her place. It felt oddly right. Buffy belonged in this bed, belonged with Angel. Something in Faith recognized that now in a way she had never fully understood before. But Buffy could not lie in this bed, so Faith had to be here for her. Because Angel was hurting so badly, Faith wasn't sure he would survive to leave Sunnydale if something didn't give. So, she decided to give herself. As much for Buffy's sake as for Angel's. If Angel didn't survive, something in Buffy would die as well.

Angel broke the kiss, moving away from her to strip out of his clothes. Faith sat up in the bed and began to take off her own. She watched him though, watched him remove shirt and undershirt with smooth grace, like a gymnast, or rather, like the swordsman he must have been trained to be in life. He kicked off his shoes as he unbuckled his belt, then slid the pants off his body. If he wore briefs or boxers, they came off with the pants. Her own clothing was now all off and tossed to the floor beside the bed. He too was naked when he approached her, naked and aroused and the most magnificently male creature she had ever seen in her life. Of course Buffy loved him, Faith thought. How could she have helped herself?

Faith, kneeling in the center of the mattress, opened her arms to him. Angel joined her on the bed, but did not immediately enter her embrace. Instead, one of his large, strong hands came up to meet hers and carried her hand to his mouth. Closing his eyes he kissed her fingers, fingers which had been buried deeply in his beloved's core. Then he took each finger separately and deliberately into his mouth, savoring the lingering taste of them. Faith shivered in response to the cool, wet worship of her hand. Angel opened his eyes, his gaze locking on Faith's, and she was amazed at the pure, carnal hunger in the look he gave her. The look would have weakened her knees and driven her to the floor had she been standing. As it was, she opened her arms again. This time he came into them, once again taking her mouth with his own. He gently lowered her to the bed. Then his kisses moved from her mouth up to her hair, his tongue darting out to lick sensitive patches of her skin. She knew he was questing, seeking, searching out the faint traces Buffy's lovemaking had left on Faith's own flesh. Angel unerringly found every one.

There was no question of risk here. Faith wasn't Buffy. No way could she give him a moment of happiness, or peace. The best she could hope for was to dull a little of his pain, a pain that she knew instinctively had been mounting to deadly proportions.

Faith felt no guilt as she parted her thighs, allowing him to settle between them, feeling his roused flesh hard against her belly. Damn, he was big! Faith thought, shivering, devoutly grateful she was a long way from virgin. How the hell had tiny Buffy managed to handle that in her virgin state?

She learned, quickly. Angel began to make love to her with all the cherishing tenderness he felt for Buffy. The gentle touch of his mouth against her skin, pressing light kisses as if his lips were learning the texture of her flesh. The delicate stroking of his hands over every inch of her as he learned the terrain of her body. Everything was done with consummate tenderness. Buffy had taught Faith that physical union was at its best when expressed as an act of love. Now, Angel taught her that physical union, when expressed as an act of love, could also be an act of worship.

It was with the reverence of a pilgrim before a sacred shrine, reached after a long and perilous journey, that Angel approached her. Each kiss lingered, savored, adored, each touch caressed, soothed, aroused. She knew that for him, it was the act of tracing over every path his beloved's hands or lips or tongue might have taken, seeking union with her even in this most attenuated manner. But for Faith, the result was that every nerve in her body was awake and alive and aware, every inch of her attuned to his gentle, devastating ministrations. Faith was aroused, wet, ready. And still he made no move to enter her, still he continued with the delicious torment of seeing to her arousal.

His strong, gentle hands skimmed just above the surface of her flesh, making her nerve endings tingle, desperate to feel the full weight of those hands against her skin. She began whimpering, needing a more deliberate touch. The butterfly-light kisses along her face and neck, seeking trails blazed by Buffy, were no longer enough. She needed his mouth crushing against hers. But he wasn't ready for that yet, wasn't willing for things to move too quickly.

Faith lost track of time. Time had no meaning outside the limits of this bed. Time was measured by the length of a kiss, the duration of a caress. Faith was one long aching nerve, striving toward a completion that was being withheld and denied her. She did what she had never, ever done in her life, what she would have sworn she would never, ever do.

She began to beg.

"Please, Angel," she heard herself saying. "I need you inside me."

"Not yet, love," he whispered. "Not yet." And this time his kisses were more deliberate, his mouth opening on the sensitive skin of her throat, sucking delicately. Faith whimpered and arched her neck to him. In that moment, if she had found she had miscalculated and that it were Angelus, not Angel with her, Angelus about to drain her of her life, she would have opened her arms to him and held him to her as he fed.

But Angel, if he felt such a desire, did not yield to it. He swirled his tongue over the yielding flesh, finding exactly the spot where Buffy had kissed before him, but he did not vamp out, did not allow his fangs to graze where his lips savored.

Faith was weeping now. Her feminine core wasn't merely wet for him, ready for him, she was aching to be filled by him, her body nearly in pain because it lacked his.

"Please," she begged again, "please…" she wasn't able to articulate more. He continued to deny her. His mouth found her breast, and she screamed as a wave of pleasure coursed through her blood. Angel suckled at her breasts for long moments dividing his attention equally between the two plump mounds, with their berry-brown crests. She wasn't sure if it was only because he could taste where Buffy's mouth had been before his, or if it was because he knew how much this delighted Faith. Both, probably. Faith had never been so close to orgasm just from the wet, delicious savoring of a mouth on her swollen nipples except for the very first time with Buffy.

He wouldn't let her come, yet, though.

Faith's hands had tangled in his hair, pressing him to her breasts as she struggled to force him to complete what he had started. But even her Slayer's strength was no match for his vampiric determination.

Angel's tongue swirled across her breasts, tasting the sensitive undersides. Then he licked downward, across her ribs, dipping into the ultra-sensitive pool of her navel. She screamed again, but he didn't linger. He kept going, tasting the flesh of her belly, her hips, her thighs.

Faith parted her legs for him, desperately hoping he would set his mouth on her femininity, knowing that with one touch she would explode. But although he set teasing nips along her thighs, although just from his caresses she had been brought to the very edge of ultimate pleasure and although surely, surely he knew that Buffy's mouth had certainly lingered long there, he would not take that final step to push her over the edge.

It was a damned good thing that the mansion was isolated, Faith thought later, when she was capable of thinking at all. She began screaming for him in earnest. Begging. Pleading. Threatening. Cajoling. Until finally he decided it was enough, finally he decided to appease the hunger he had raised to voracious proportions.

When he came over her, when he began to ease just the tip of himself inside her drenching sheath, Faith could have wept in relief. His size no longer mattered: the pain of having him inside her could be nothing to the pain of not having him there.

But pain didn't have anything to do with it, after all.

Angel pushed easily, slowly inside her, until he was so deep he touched the mouth of her womb, and everything inside Faith clenched around him, holding onto him, everything inside completed at last, at last. Each nerve ending that had been aroused to fever pitch was satisfied in that instant. And as the heated craving that had been ignited inside her was sated, Faith reached an orgasm so intense her consciousness could not comprehend it, and waves of velvet darkness enfolded her.

When she came too, he was still over her, still deep inside her, his weight balanced on his arms, to spare her. She could tell by the corded tension of his muscles, by the sweat on his brow, by the look of fierce concentration on his face that, however long she had been out -which surely could not have been long- he hadn't moved at all.

Faith was awed, a little humbled by such selflessness. Instantly, she raised her beautifully muscled legs to wrap around his waist, her arms to pull him down to her. Her hips rose, giving him permission to move as, with a soft murmur of his name, she fused her lips to his own.

And now, finally, tenderness yielded to hunger, gentleness to passion, desire to raw and aching need.

Angel was as ruthless with Faith as she could have wished, his body possessing hers with avid power. He spared her nothing, forcing her to climax again almost at once, then forcing her to climb that incredible peak once more. She met him as completely as she could, yielding to him the way she had only ever yielded to Buffy before.

Because Buffy, root and core, was at the center of all they did together, now.

Angel's mouth devoured Faith's, kissing ruthlessly, tongues entwined in desperate battle. Faith knew he was drinking the taste of his beloved from her own mouth and could only offer more. His body thrust powerfully within her own, as if he could find surcease from his need for Buffy inside the body Faith had given to her. Before the force and depth of his hunger, Faith yielded like a leaf in the wind, tempest tossed in a storm of passion she could only endure and never control.

But this time, she vowed that he would share the height with her and with her, endure the storm. Faith contracted her inner walls around his manhood, stroking him with her strong internal muscles, delivering nuances of pleasure that must sate even his vampirically driven needs. She was rewarded by his groan of pleasure and a renewed energy to his thrusts. As compellingly as he built her own spiraling rapture, she fed his. Hunger and passion and need consumed them until she felt his body tense in her arms, everything within him straining toward completion, until her own pinnacle was reached, and her body tightened helplessly around his in her climax, forcing him that last bit higher, bringing him with her into the heart of the storm.

Swept by that storm, he tore his mouth from hers, flinging back his head, and she heard him whisper, brokenly, "Buffy," and again, "Buffy."

Faith held him, hurting for him. She felt the cold rush of his seed burn deep inside her womb and forced her sweetly aching core to tighten around him further, until every bit of him was drained into her and every shade of rapture had been given to him. She clung to him, no longer sure if she offered comfort or took it. No longer sure it mattered.

When both of them were spent, he still tried to protect her, tried to roll aside rather than collapse on her. But she knew, instinctively, that she had to keep him from pulling away, had to keep him from sinking, once more, into despair and loss. Faith tightened her legs around his waist, her arms about his shoulders, pulling him down as she whispered soothing reassurances into his ear. "It's okay, baby," she found herself murmuring over and over. "Shhhh."

He took the comfort she offered. After a while, she realized it was all right. Faith's legs slipped from around his waist, sprawling bonelessly to either side. Angel raised his face from where it had been resting in the crook of her neck and smiled down at her, with just a bit less sadness than he had shown before. Faith smiled back.

"Hi," she said, stroking her hands soothingly down his back. "You okay, now?"

"Now," he agreed, dropping a gentle kiss on her lips. She understood that this was the most temporary of respites for him. But she was grateful to have been able to offer him even that much. She let him go and he moved off of her. But he didn't go far, pulling her into his arms, so that the were in a companionable embrace. Her head fit just beneath his chin, and if they were not quite a perfect fit for each other, they were achingly close to it.

"So…when do you plan to leave?" she asked.

"In June," Angel said. "After she graduates. She's never spent a summer in Sunnydale, we've never spent a summer together. It'll be…easier."

Faith nodded agreement, keeping her private doubts to herself.

"You have to tell her," she said. "It has to come from you."

"I know," he whispered. Faith heard a world of reluctance and pain in his voice.

"She'll be done with patrol by now," Faith continued. "And she'll be wondering what's going on. Maybe you should tell her about the cult. And tell her about leaving."

"You're right," he agreed. "But…there's still some cleanup to do. The ones about to rise…"

"Oh, right," Faith grimaced as she remembered the bodies stolen from the graves and kept inactive by sorcery. Had her destruction of the knife ended the enchantment and released them? Had she allowed a host of innocents to die while she took her pleasure with Angel? As if he read her mind, Angel offered her reassurance.

"The spell will keep them inactive until tomorrow night. But it would be best if you got to them before then. In their current state, they are near enough full vampire for a stake to end them."

"Do you know where they are?"

"I know where they are most likely to be." Faith nodded. He ran down the list of possibilities once more. Mentally, she planned the route she would take from the mansion on her way home, to cover as many of the possible locations as she could. She kissed him again, a kiss in parting, and left the bed. She began quickly pulling on her clothes.

"Damn, I have to stop screwing and running," she joked. "I reek of sex." Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. Faith didn't think of sex as something dirty, something to be scrubbed from her flesh like an unwanted stain.

"Do you want to use the shower?" Angel offered. Faith cast a glance at the bedside clock. It was on the late side.

"Nah. I want to get this done. I'm not planning on running into anyone other than vampires. And I'm not particularly concerned about how they react. Plus…it isn't a bad scent, at all," she said cheekily. He grinned in response, almost humorously. "I might put off the shower 'til tomorrow. You gonna grab one?" Angel nodded. She smiled ruefully. "Wish I could stay," she said. He smiled as ruefully. But what had happened between them, what might happen again someday, did not include such carefree lover's games. They both understood that.

Angel got out of the bed, pulled on his pants while she finished dressing, then walked her down the stairs and out to the door of the mansion. They were silent, no words needed between them, now.

"Faith," he said, just before she left. She turned to him, quirking a brow. He looked calm. Peaceful in a way she didn’t think she had ever seen in him before. "Take care of her." She smiled sadly at him.

"Always, big guy," she said tenderly. She kissed him lightly goodbye, then headed out on her mission.

Part 1                 Femfic               Part 3