Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty Nine

It's barely light when he wakes her and he doesn't say a word, just kisses her and while she's trying, through a muzzy fuzz of sleep, to kiss him back, he rolls her to her back and slides inside her.

As good mornings go, it's hard to improve on, but she's too sleepy to do more than make a surprised little murmur of pleasure and arch up her hips to meet him. He's fucking her with an edgy urgency that's a little hard to understand after the day before.

He'd made good on his promise in a way that had left her wrung-out and trembling, aching and sore, but she'd shaken her head every time he'd murmured a questioning, 'Should I stop?' in her ear and he'd carried on, until, yeah, she really doesn't think he missed a spot because his mouth had traveled over her body again and again and his fingers had followed. He'd reduced her to sighs and moans, made her come until each climax blurred and she could only remember the way he kept telling her he loved her, over and over, until she drifted off to sleep with his arms tight around her, his lips against her hair.

She pulls her mouth away from a kiss and bites down on his shoulder, crooking her fingers and raking his back gently with her nails, just hard enough to make him surge forward a little bit faster, a little bit harder...

Still half in dreams, she wants something sharp, something real to puncture the drowsy haze she's in, and she gets it as he pauses and dips his head to lick and bite at her nipple, bringing his hand up to cup her breast and hold it in place. The sharp flash of his teeth digging into her snaps the room into focus and she's abruptly aware of him.

"Wes –"

"Good morning, Faith," he says without raising his head. "I trust you slept well?"

She gets a swift upward glance from him at that, blue eyes gleaming, and she smiles.

"Wore me out, Wes. Got aches and pains all over."

"Oh dear," he says without an ounce of concern, pulling out of her the barest inch. "Perhaps I should stop then."

She curls her hands around his ass and tugs him back inside her, so he's as deep as he can get. "Yeah, Wes, you do that."

There's a stand-off for about fifteen seconds as they stare at each other, narrow-eyed and perfectly still, then he gives this little whimper because she's clenching around him with everything she's got in the way of internal muscles and her hands are still on his ass.

"You win," he whispers and he gives her this smile that's got to be the reason the sun comes up and the gray light in the room turns pink and gold, before starting to move again, with a slow, leisurely thrust that sends a tingle of warmth through her as if her body was waiting just for that to start to come again.

"Love you, Wes," she tells him with a certainty that's just that. "Love you –"

He doesn't take her eyes off her and this close she can see the darkness along his chin that scraped her breast as he kissed it, the faint wrinkles around his eyes, the sweetness of the smile that he saves just for her, that she doesn't think he even knew how to do until she taught him.

She can feel his skin turn warm under her hands, smell him, for once just smelling purely male, all sweat and come and yeah, he smells of her. They'd fallen asleep without managing more than the briefest of clean-ups and though she knows he'll have these sheets swept off the bed and into the laundry pretty much the instant she crawls out of them, for now they're wrapped in the memories of one hell of a lot of sex.

She gives this little shimmy of her hips, and hauls him down for a kiss. "Not gonna break, Wes," she pants against his cheek. "Want to feel you –"

The gentle rocking of his hips continues for just long enough to make her pout then he gives her a grin and speeds up, lifting her ass up from the bed and tilting her so each stroke grabs a different whimper from her, a different sound of need.

He pauses just as she's about to come and turns her over, ignoring her protests. "Shush," he says, positioning her on her hands and knees. "I just want to –"

Wants to slide his fingers deep into the sticky heat of her cunt until they're coated and slick, wants to rub them over her asshole, which he hadn't fucked last night with anything but his fingers and tongue, even when she'd begged him to, because she'd missed that, until the need for more is killing her and she's writhing against his fingers, trying to get them deeper inside her, wants to bring his hand down against her skin, once, twice, three times, striking her with a stinging slap on the back of her legs, well away from where her skin still bears the marks he left.

Wants to tease her with his cock, rubbing it against the open folds of her cunt and her tender, pulsing clit, and letting it slip an inch inside her, no more, while she trembles and tries to stay still, hands clutching the sheets she's kneeling on, crying out in relief as he slams into her finally, over and over again, hands hard on her hips. He's silent until close to the end when his grip on her loosens and his hands run up over her back and he bends and kisses her shoulder. She thinks he says her name but she's so caught up in the demanding insistence of her body, clamoring for an end that's so close she can taste it, that she barely hears what follows that, though it sounds as if he's telling her he's sorry, and she's not sure why until she remembers those three slaps and the sound of his breath catching after each one.

He comes with an anguished, heartfelt groan, as her own climax hits, and they collapse, still linked, to the mattress. She can feel his hand stroking back the tangled mess of her hair so he can kiss the side of her face but the rest of her is this distant tingle.

"I lied," she manages to say in a groggy whisper. "Wasn't worn out before. Am now."

"I'm sorry," he says again, but this time there's nothing but amusement in his voice. "If it's any consolation I think I'm incapable of anything more strenuous than a shower, breakfast and –"

"Oh shit," she says, remembering what's lying in wait on this bright, sunny Monday morning. "What time is it?"

His hand comes to her shoulder, holding her in place as she starts to get out of bed. "It's still early. You can't possibly think I'd allow you to be late?"

"Wish I could be," she whispers, burrowing into the warmth of his body. "Wish I could miss it and just stay here with you all day."

"Well, I wish that too," he says, and there's a heaviness to his voice. "But once put in motion there're some things that can't be halted. You have to be there. It has to be dealt with."

"Yes, Wes," she says meekly, because if it's the last thing she has to do before this is really over, then she'll do it. Got no choice.

"Good girl," he says and lets her slip out of his arms and head to the bathroom.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety

And God, the hot water feels good. She knows she needs to wake up —to get ready for what is sure to be a difficult day. But it's a slow process... She hasn't even been outside all weekend, just spent every minute of it in a delirious haze of acute want and need and her body feels it. She aches all over and she's bone tired but as she leans into the spray and feels it wash everything away it takes her exhaustion with it. And it's so good to feel her body again, to be in the moment, rather than surfing another endless wave of vodka-induced numbness.

Life feels full of possibility again. Yeah, court date looming, but she can handle it. Things are going to be okay. Yeah.

She's just standing there, letting the water pressure pound into her back, her skin getting pinker and pinker with each passing second, when the shower curtain opens and Wes steps in.

"Thought you were gonna have your coffee, shower after me."

He kisses her shoulder. "Didn't want to leave you for a second," he whispers.

She smiles blissfully at that. And when she moves to give up her spot under the water he just wraps his arms around her and pulls her back, holding her to him, so the spray hits them both, washing them clean.


She's wandering around her room and marveling at the way everything she'd hurled out of her suitcase the day he – no, not gonna think about it as the day he threw her out – has been replaced exactly where it belonged.

It means she's got a choice of stuff to wear that'll hopefully make a better impression on the judge than her last outfit did. Maybe it'll even get her a smile from Charles Gunn, now they're not exactly on opposite sides, though if he's still going to be playing snark-'n-smooch with Eve he probably wouldn't notice if she showed up just like she is; damp and pink and naked, with her hair a wildly curling mess.

Well, maybe he'd notice that...

She does her best with her hair but there's no way her mouth's going to look anything but kiss-swollen and her eyes have got this tell-tale satisfied glow to them. She gives her reflection a smug grin and then yanks the brush ruthlessly through another tangle.

When she's dressed in the same outfit she wore to watch Wes demolish Lilah in court, hoping it's a lucky suit, she goes back to Wesley's room. She can smell coffee so she knows he's been downstairs, which explains why she's ready and he's still knotting his tie, lips compressed slightly as his fingers twitch and tweak the slippery silk into place.

There's a neat stack of photographs on the bed and she stares at them. Yesterday he'd whisked them out of sight before she'd had chance to look at them and now, hell, she was nervous.

"Did they – did they turn out OK?" she asks. He gives her a terse little nod, softened by a slight smile. "Oh shit, I don't want to look!" she wails, feeling a flush creep up her face.

"Then don't," he says briskly. "But I assure you that I'm very pleased with them indeed. They're... just what I wanted."

Curiosity wins out over embarrassment and she goes to them, turning her back on him as she skims through them, eyes widening because shit, they're so very...

"Wesley, I told you I had my eyes closed!"

His hand reaches out and plucks the photo from her fingers. "Indeed you did." There's a limitless satisfaction in his voice. "Look at it, Faith," he says, his breath warm as he leans closer, holding the picture up in front of her face. "See how beautiful you look? See how you're so perfectly positioned, just as I'd told you to be? I love the way the sunlight's falling across your breasts..."

She sneaks another look at it. Well, maybe it's not too bad... but fuck, the ones where she's glaring at him, hair all over the place, lips clamped together in a sulky pout – he can't possibly want those!

"Wes, these are just – let me toss them, OK? We can do some more, and this time I'll smile."

"Absolutely not," he says firmly, taking them from her. "I want them all. Every one." He flicks through until he gets to one that puts a genuine, unstudied grin on his face. "Oh, you're so very open with your emotions, Faith. You hold nothing back. That's so very refreshing. And helpful."

"Helpful so you can torment me!" she hisses, digging a finger into his ribs until he makes a protesting sound and steps back.

"Really, Faith," he says. "I can assure you my intent has never been to do anything but make you happy." His hand comes up and cups her chin. "There's nothing that's more important to me than that."

She drops her eyes because, hey, it's barely 7.30 and he's looking so earnest... "Coffee would make me happy," she says. She glances up at him under her lashes. "Maybe a cigarette, too?"

"I wish you wouldn't," he says, frowning. "It's not good for you."

Maybe not, but the cigarettes she's managed to smoke over the weekend, hanging out of a window, have been few and far between and she wants one right now because she's starting to get jittery.

"Just one," she pleads. "And maybe I'll, like, give them up for Lent or something."

His eyebrows snap together. "That's conveniently far away," he says dryly. "Off you go, then. I'll be down in a moment. The coffee should be ready."

She winds her arms around his neck and kisses him. "Love you." Something occurs to her. "Hey! Where's the one I took of you?"

He looks positively shifty. "It didn't come out very well at all. I think your hand jiggled a little."

"Wesley! Give!" she demands imperiously, holding out her hand.

"I slipped it into your purse," he says, giving her a goaded glare. "If you really insist on having it, fine, but I don't want to see it."

"That's fine," she coos, planning on framing it and putting it on her desk. Unless it really did turn out all wrong, in which case she's totally making him sit still for another.

The jitters come back after breakfast when Wesley's wandering around picking things up and placing them back with a fidgety care, sneaking looks at his watch until her nerves are on edge.

"Look, let's just go, shall we?" she says finally, the words bursting out of her. "Rather be early, I guess."

"We've just got time –" he says. "I want you to come into the garden for a moment."

He takes her hand and leads her through the house and into his little garden in the trees. The water of the fountain is running clear; the sound it makes a continual rush that blends with the rustle of breeze-blown leaves above it. All around her the flowers of late spring are showing bright colors and there's a green, fresh smell of earth and plants.

"Will you miss this place? In New York?" she asks him haltingly, because he's holding tightly to her hand and looking so bleak that he belongs in winter and seems out of place in the garden he's created.

"I'll miss a lot of things," he tells her somberly. "I still miss the place I grew up in, even with all the less pleasant memories attached to it." He glances around and then says, "We should go now."

"Yeah," she says, with a sigh. "Guess we should. Leave the garden and go and meet Eve. Maybe I should grab an apple?"

That makes him laugh, just as she knew it would. "There may be one in the fruit bowl," he says, "but I'm not sure who to cast as the snake."

She can think of a few candidates herself and even knowing Liam's dust and bone doesn't stop the fierce flash of anger at the memory of what he did to her.

"I'm scared, Wes," she confesses a moment later as he holds open the car door for her. "Suppose something goes wrong and they just, God, sentence me or something?"

He gives her an incredulous look that's more comforting than a hug. "Faith, I really don't think you pay the slightest attention to me. I've told you –"

She snuggles back in her seat and listens to his voice explain just how impossible it is and how he's sorted it all out, hiding a small smile.

Never gets tired of Wes taking care of her.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety One

What he's saying makes sense as he takes her through the procedure and reminds her that she's to speak clearly, no mumbling, and certainly no slouching.

But court appearances have never held any happy memories for her, apart from maybe that time when she got to watch Wes absolutely decimate Lilah, yeah, that one's right there on her all time Top Ten Of Fucking Good Days. Her tension is telegraphing itself to Wes so even though his hand is resting on her leg like it always does when he's driving, his fingers curl tightly around her knee and she concentrates on that, the bruising grip that keeps her grounded, keeps her reminded that she's got one really unpleasant hour to get through before she can finally put all the shit behind her.

"Can't wait 'til we get to New York," she tells him feelingly. "Gonna be just you and me and I'm not going to let anybody fuck that up for us."

He keeps his eyes on the road and clears his throat nervously. "Well we seem to do rather a good job of that ourselves, don't we?"

"Not anymore," she insists and shoots a look at his clean profile, the slight flare of his nostrils as he takes a corner too fast. "Everything's different now, Wes, you know that."

The grip on her knee upgrades to bone crushing and she can't help the squeak that escapes from her mouth and immediately his hold turns from painful to soothing.

"Sorry," he murmurs, running the tip of his finger over the loose bit of cartilage that floats just left off her kneecap after a serious bike collision with Xander when she was five.

"S'OK," she says, squeezing his hand and fuck, she's so nervous. "So, like, when we're in New York, I'm gonna have all these projects while you're doing the legal eagle thing. Gonna learn to cook so I can make you these three course gourmet dinners when you get home and I'm gonna get a job 'cause I'm not sponging off you and maybe go back to school part-time and…"

"It will be all right," he says softly and she knows he's not talking about her plans to be a genuine Manhattan girl. Because he always knows everything about her. Like she can't stop running her mouth off when she's scared shitless.

"But what if it isn't, Wes?" she gulps nervously. "You've been weird all morning and what if the whole weekend was just to give me enough memories to keep me going 'cause they're going to clap me in irons the minute I get into the courthouse and then they're gonna send me to prison and I'll end up being some butch Momma's bitch?"

He'd been looking all kinds of shifty as she started her Big House speech but now he's giving a startled shout of laughter and throwing her an incredulous look. "Really, Faith. You have a quite worrying propensity for melodrama. Not to mention a particularly lurid imagination."

He's pulling up outside the courthouse now with a flagrant disregard for the 'no waiting' sign and the minute he switches off the engine, she's unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Man, I just wanna get this over with," she mumbles. "What a way to start the week."

"You'll come to the office when you're finished," he says and it's so Wes to make it a statement of fact, rather than a question but she's swiveling round so she can give him a surprised smile.

"You're giving me my job back?"

He's staring out of the window on the driver's side, hands twisting in his lap and she guesses that despite all his talk about legal procedures he's a little nervous himself. "I think after all you've been through lately, you should have a little time off. But there is something I'd like you to do so I'll expect you after you've been exonerated of all charges."

"You promise, Wes? About the whole exoneration thing?" she asks frantically.

He finally turns to look at her and there's something about his eyes, something wrong that she can't quite place or put a name to that her hand's grabbing at his and she's clutching his wrist.

"Faith, stop it. It will be fine. You'll be free of all this, I promise you."

And he never breaks his promises. If he says he's going to make her come so hard that she'll see God, then she does. Though God always ends up looking just like him. And if he says that she'll like chicken cacciatore, then she ends up asking for second helpings so she's nodding and managing to find a shaky smile from somewhere.

"OK, OK. I'm getting out now," she says determinedly. "Sooner I get in there then the sooner this will all be over."

Got her hand on the lock already to slide it open when she feels his hand on her shoulder, the warmth of his skin seeping through her blouse and warming her chilled flesh.

"It's early, we're too early," he whispers. "These things never start on time. Give me a kiss, Faith."

She doesn't need to be told twice. She's already scooting across the seat so she can get to his lips but his hand clamps down on the back of her neck so he can drag her closer and force her mouth open so his tongue can flicker against hers.

For one split second she's worried that the judge, who already seems to hate her, might walk past and see her necking with a member of the legal profession in full view of anyone but then Wes' hand is cupping her breast, thumb rubbing firmly over her peaked nipple and he's fucking her mouth with his tongue like the whole weekend never happened and he's gonna die if he doesn't get inside her.

"My sweet girl, my darling Faith," he breathes when he finally lets her come up for air, fingers pressing against her kiss-swollen lips. "I'm so sorry for everything I put you through, you know that, don't you?"

"Yeah and you know I'm sorry too," she chokes out because having him this close again, this fucking devoted, is still too new, still hard to believe.

"It's in the past and it never stopped me loving you," he sighs, running the back of his hand along her flushed cheek. "You'd better go now before you really are late."

Her hands are trying to calm her hair back into some semblance of order when he drags her back into his arms so he can give her one last soft, sweet kiss, his teeth clinging onto her bottom lip for one small moment that seems to last for an eternity but is over way too soon.

In the end it's her that pushes him away with a giggle. "Jeez, Wes," she grins. "We're gonna get arrested for public indecency in a minute and you won't even be able to represent me."

He gives her a rueful smile and she wishes they still had the Polaroid camera with them because the light's hitting his face, making him soft. Or maybe that's the tender way he's looking at her, like he wants to freeze everything about her from the way she's biting her lip as she jabs the last hairpin in place, to how the stretch of her arms above her head makes her breasts thrust out and she knows that the sheer weight of how much she loves him is shining in her eyes.

"Good luck, Faith. You'll be fine. Just don't slouch or mumble," he orders her.

"Oh, whatever, Wes," she hisses, fumbling with the lock. "Right, I'm gonna go and kick some judgely ass. Any more words of wisdom from Mr Wyndam-Pryce, Esquire?"

He doesn't say anything, just takes her hands off the door so he can kiss her knuckles and then gives her a little push. "Just remember that I love you and you'll knock them dead, Faith," he says quietly and that's worth the tiny frown he gives her as she quickly plants an exuberant smacker on his lips before she's climbing out the car for real this time.

"See you in a couple of hours tops," she reminds him, before she slams the door. He gives her a half-hearted little wave but she's already made him half an hour late for work so it's no wonder that he almost floors the car as he pulls away from the curb and drives off.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Two

The distance from the curb, up the white limestone stairs to the front of the courthouse seem impossibly far, like there's no way she can do it alone. But Wes' parting words light a fire in her belly, pushing her up the stairs and by the time she practically leaps off the last step, she's striding with purpose, head held high, toward the heavy wooden doors. Yeah, she'll knock 'em dead, all right, she thinks, smiling thinly in thanks at the doddering old lawyer who holds the door open for her.

The close, stuffy air inside the crowded foyer nearly snatches all that confidence away though, but she manages to press her way through the throngs of random people and pass through the metal detectors without incident. She even manages to flash a beaming smile at the sour-faced security guard that's still plastered on her face until she spots Eve hovering near the entrance to a conference room, Darla and Xander chatting quietly, heads tilted toward each other conspiratorially.

“Faith!” Eve picks her way through the crowd, her delicate yet surprisingly strong hand snatching Faith's elbow like a vise, steering her toward Darla and Xander, who jerk to their feet and huddle around her, arms open for embraces and pressing kisses to her cheek.

When she finally disentangles herself from Xander's bear hug, Eve's off a few feet down the hall, chatting with Mr. Gunn – and what seems to be a flirty conversation turns in a split second to a defensive one. Even though she can't hear them over the din of the crowd in the echoing marble lobby, she can't help but feel a little sick when Eve takes a step back, shaking her head, mouth soundlessly flinging what looks like a churlish comment in Gunn's face.

“Hey, Faith. Hey!” Her attention snaps back to Xander and she forces a shaky smile. “So you and Wesley made up, huh?”

“Something like that, yeah.” The thought of seeing Wes again that afternoon steadies her nerves considerably, and she swallows thickly. Her heart is hammering somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, but she manages to choke out some small talk. “You have a good weekend?”

“Oh you know, the usual.” He waves his hand carelessly. “Too many pretty boys with too many issues. Thank goodness for sympathetic bartenders, right?”

She nods distantly, still watching Eve and Gunn have at it out of the corner of her eye until Darla starts in on her. “Honey, you look just lovely today...”

“Thanks for coming, Ma. You're looking pretty good yourself.” Which is mostly true – Darla's hair is a little rumpled and her handbag doesn't quite match her shoes, but she looks generally presentable if you look past those nagging little details.

“We'll just see about that!” Eve's voice rings in the air, temporarily shutting down the din of the surrounding conversations until she turns on her heel. Gunn just gives a heavy sigh of resignation, probably because he's used to her outbursts, and disappears around a corner.

“Eve! Is everything all right?” Clearly everything is not all right and Darla's flustered exclamation is already starting to grate on Faith's rapidly fraying nerves. Without prompting, Xander's grabbed her hand in support as Eve sniffs disdainfully.

“The hearing's been postponed...” Darla gives a little squeak, rating a sharp look from Eve. “Look, it's not going to be long, Faith -- a few hours, at most. Some “administrative” snafu on the DA's end. They're claiming they're missing key documents from Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, but most likely Mr. Gunn's paralegal misplaced them. I was told they were in order yesterday after noon and I can't imagine how they could become out of order by this morning.” Her voice drips with sugar-coated venom, and Faith has no doubt that this paralegal's been a point of contention in the past, and not just over missing documents.

“I only got off work until 11...” Darla wails.

“It's okay, mom, really. I'll be fine here. You should get back to work. And I'm sure Xander needs to get back too...”

“But I wanted to be here, baby. Wanted to hear with my own ears that this whole mess is over.”

“It is,” Eve says, rifling through her briefcase, digging through sheaf of folders. “Completely over. This is just one last bullshit hoop to jump through. Aha! Here it is!” She brandishes a sheaf of papers, yanking them from a meticulously color-coded manila folder. “I knew I had this fax. We'll have this finished in to time flat, Faith. But for now, I need you to wait for me in the cafeteria for now. Get some coffee or have a smoke on the patio or something – I'll come get you when it's show time.” Turning to leave, Eve flashes what seems to be her best approximation of an encouraging smile -- which, to be honest, is a little on the cold and fishy side and doesn't exactly leave Faith brimming with confidence. And apparently not Xander either, 'cause he's got one hell of a deathgrip on her hand.

“You're sure you can get this all sorted out?” He's got that protective, brotherly note in his voice – only this time she's all too grateful for it.

Eve just nods primly and disappears around the same corner that swallowed up Mr. Gunn.

“I think I need to sit down,” Darla sighs, sinking back down to the bench.

“Look, I'm sure she's right, I'm sure this will be wrapped up before lunchtime.” Her stomach's churning, but thankfully she's managed to swallow the wobble that threatened to crack her voice into a sob. “Xander, can you get Mom back to work?”

“Sure, Faith. Sure. I may be able to get someone to cover for me at lunch and I can come back then...”

She shakes her head, a little more forcefully than she intended. “No. I mean, really, you guys, I'll be fine.”

“If you're sure, honey...”

“Xander...” she hisses, under her breath, shoving him toward Darla.

He rolls his eyes, but finally gives in. “C'mon Darla. Our Faith's a big girl, and I'm sure she'll be just fine here without us.”



Half a pack of cigarettes, three cups of coffee, and a stale donut fill the next three hours. She even broke down and stole the Arts and Leisure section of the Times from someone's table when they got up for a refill on the coffee and manages to fill in most of the clues with a leaky ballpoint pen she borrows from the cafeteria's cashier.

Eve doesn't show, and worse -- doesn't answer her cell phone or call back on the six snarky messages she leaves. And it doesn't help that when she finally breaks down and calls Wes' office, Harmony's still there -- twittering something about how he's out for the day, and unreachable, and like, wasn't he getting a ton of calls this morning, or what?

And the longer she waits, she's more convinced that something else is wrong and she's just not being told. Maybe they've had to drag Wes in and he's upstairs somewhere, trapped in some judges' chambers, explaining for the millionth time that yes, he really didn't want to press any further charges, and that it was up to the prosecution to complete the appropriate paperwork for a timely release of the accused. And that's when she decides it's way better that she's trapped in this dim, low-ceilinged cafeteria for a few hours than in a holding cell in the county jail. Sometimes it's the little things that get you through the rough patches.



Eve finally appears after the lunch rush, all apologies and cold smiles – but Faith's almost in a charitable mood because she looks frazzled and pissed off to boot.

“I'm sorry I've made you wait,” Eve says, not exactly apologetic. “I was in judge's chambers the whole time. Someone forgot to tell me that Judge Manners doesn't exactly care for Mr. Wyndam-Pryce – something about a case gone awry a few years back. Anyway, he wouldn't take my copies of the documents in for consideration and we had to wait for the courier to deliver them from Mr. Gunn's office.” She sighs. “We're taking a break for lunch while the judge looks over the papers one last time. You'd think it would be easier to get a case dropped, but no. Everyone's suddenly all touchy about the stupidest details – so what if Mr. Wyndam-Pryce's signature wasn't legible on the photocopies...”

“The brown ink...” she smiles, 'cause it's just Wes' damn brown ink that's holding things up. His brown ink that doesn't photocopy, that brown ink that demanded he sign every document individually, instead of resorting to a signature stamp.

“He's so impossibly English sometimes, huh? How do you put up with that? It'd totally break my last nerve.”

Faith's look of death is enough to shut her up for a while, a prolonged silence during which they pick at their wilted chef salads and jello parfait.



Eve's no help again when it comes to the last two clues of Friday's puzzle. Mercifully, the recycling bin hadn't been emptied over the weekend and she was able to dig out all of last week's puzzles, all of them blank except for Wednesday's.

“Tell me again how you get through both college and law school with such an abysmal vocabulary and no absolutely no grasp of popular culture?”

Eve's look of death is almost as potent as her own, she notes, returning to the puzzle, deciding to break down and check the answers, printed to half scale below today's installment. Wes wouldn't approve, but it's starting to look like she's gonna be trapped in this basement for the rest of eternity anyway, so what did it matter now?




And honestly -- when the call comes in that the judge is finally ready as she's carefully making her final cigarette last for ten minutes -- everything after that is a blur.

Eve and Gunn are still fighting over some technicality, which means they're both  rapidly falling straight on to Judge Manners' shit list faster than a brick out the window of a twenty story building.

But then he's banging the gavel and adjourning and Eve's limply shaking her hand while making Bambi eyes at Gunn until she sees him relent to her cheap and tawdry charm.

And at 5pm on the nose, she's finally sprinting out of the courthouse, heels and stripped-off stockings in one hand, her handbag slung over her shoulder and banging at her hip with each stride, all the way back to the office.

And yeah, she could have taken a cab, but she's in no mood to sit idle for another half hour in the standstill of downtown rush hour traffic. She really needs to run.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Three

It's fourteen weeks to the day since she first walked through this door, rain dripping off her, nervous and bored at the same time. Not that long ago, not really – but long enough for everything to change in her world.

She eases her shoes back on and takes a minute to bring down her heartbeat because she can just imagine Wesley's face if he saw her walk in barefoot and breathless. Especially when he's not going to be able to do more than glare at her for another week or so at least.

When she's ready she pushes open the door, feeling like a queen reclaiming her throne because she's so gonna kick Harmony's ass out of her chair and the hell with Wes telling her she needs a break.

Speaking of which...

"Faith! You look –" Harmony gives her a swift up-and-down look, standing up quickly as if she senses Faith's intentions. "Really nice," she says eventually, the note of surprise robbing the compliment of any value.

'Thanks," she says, staring around the office. It looks different. Bare. There are light rectangles on the walls where Wesley's pictures had hung, boxes all over the place...

"Guess the packing-up's started then?" she asks.

Harmony nods. "I've been so busy. You wouldn't believe the hours I've been working. Past six some nights!"

"Slave labor," she says. "You should, like, leave."

Harmony titters. "Well, I am, silly! This is my last day. In fact I'm going right now." She waves an envelope. "Mr. Wyndam-Pryce gave me a bonus, though he didn't have to, me being a temp and all. I guess he came to appreciate me, after all."

"Guess he did," Faith says, with a false, fake smile. "He's in his office, is he?" She was wondering why he hadn't come out, but she thinks she knows why; not like she's gonna be able to stop herself from giving him a victory smooch and he'd be totally freaked if she did that in front of Harmony.

Harmony's forehead creases in puzzlement before she realizes what she's doing to her pampered skin and smoothes it out. "No. I told you; he's gone for the day. Told me to tell all callers he was unreachable and not expected back. He came in this morning but he was only here for, like, ten minutes." She leans over and stirs her fingers through the clutter on the reception desk. "He locked his office. Said I was to give you the keys, all of them, and you'd lock up when you were done." She gives Faith the keys and a pointed look. "So I can leave early for once."

She starts to bustle past but Faith puts out a hand to stop her. "Wait. Wes said he was busy today. Way busy. What do you mean; he's not expected back? Why didn't you tell me that?" She'd been so wound-up she hadn't really processed what Harmony had told her in the phone call; just been disappointed that she hadn't got to hear Wesley's voice drawling out a reassurance that it would all be fine and assumed he'd stepped out for something.

Harmony tries to break free, but Faith's clinging on and won't let go. "Hello? You didn't ask? I told you he wasn't here, and he isn't. I don't know where he went. Not like we actually, you know, talk to each other about stuff. I'm just a piece of the furniture to him." There's affront but no regret in her voice, as if she knows even a chatty Wes and her would have zero to talk about. "He came, he said goodbye, he went." She succeeds in her attempts to prize away Faith's hand and gives her a glare. "And he looked awful. Did you two make up again?"

The implications of that aren't lost on Faith but she figures she's got all she can out of Harmony so she settles for a cool smile. "Looked fine when I saw him last, Harmony. Guess the sight of you first thing was just a bit too much to take on an empty stomach."

"Well, aren't you good at channeling your inner bitch?" Harmony says with a sniff. "I'm leaving." She casts a contemptuous look around. "And my next job better be somewhere that's actually heard of the twenty-first century."

The door slams behind her and Faith's left alone.

Something's hurting her and it takes a moment to realize that she's clutching the key-ring so tightly that she's left deep indentations across her palm. She stares at them, transferring the keys to her other hand. The silence that surrounds her is absolute, thick and airless, so that she finds herself conscious of every breath she's taking and they're hurting too because her chest is tight with a growing, unreasoning panic.

Wes should be here. Should be ready to whisk her off, not for champagne, no, because there's no real victory in her freedom, to the ending of hell of the last couple of months, but to hold her and kiss her and tell her he loves her. It's all that's kept her going through the endless, horrible day; knowing that she's got him to go to.

She shakes herself free of the dark thoughts. He's busy, but he hadn't actually said it was here at the office. He must have a million things to do, connected with the move, and he'd expected her hours before this.

There are holes in the logic of that, gaping holes, but she doesn't poke at them, just starts to walk down the corridor, forcing herself not to run. The door's not locked often so the key's stiff and hard to turn. Wrestling with it, and breaking a nail so she has to take a moment to bite it down to a ragged edge, calms her a little but when she pushes the door open and the room's empty it's still a shock.

The desk, his chair... everything familiar. Nothing in this room has been touched and it's like walking into a half-forgotten dream. She closes the door with a backward push of her hand, the customary creak barely registering, her eyes fixed on the desk.

In the center of the blotter there's a large envelope, bulked out by something rectangular but it doesn't look like a present exactly. She approaches it warily, circling the desk; her fingers trailing over the polished wood, and sits in Wesley's chair.

She looks up and sees herself walking towards this desk, teacup or writing pad in hand, dressed in her office clothes, expectancy brightening her eyes. She's missed that so much. Never knowing if Wes would take the cup with an abstracted word of thanks, his gaze barely lifting from the papers in front of him, or take it and stare at her as he sips it, making her stand, straight and still as he decides how he wants her, so that by the time she's tipped over his knee, or bent over the desk, by the time his fingers touch her, she's wet, a heavy ache of want weighing her down so she moves slowly, perfectly for him.

Empty of his presence, the room feels chill and unfriendly. Without him, this is just one more place that she doesn't belong.

She stretches out her hand and picks up the brown envelope, bulky and heavy, with her name written across the front in his handwriting. She touches her fingers to the ink feeling a comforting warmth fill her just at the sight of it.

She takes every care imaginable as she peels open the flap with an eagerness only he's managed to channel into patience, but it still tears, just a little. Reaching in, she pulls out a book.

"It's not... It's not just any book, Faith. It's a limited edition of the love sonnets of Pablo Neruda. Illustrated with hand-cut, hand-printed, tipped-in plates... There were only two hundred made, the year he died."

She's smiling for the first time since she walked into the office. Their book. Their memory. She flips the pages, intending to turn to the seventeenth sonnet, and like magic the book falls open there and there's a letter folded between the pages.

She pulls it out and taps it against the desk, her smile growing as she imagines what it says; maybe directions to a restaurant where he's sitting waiting, maybe a list of instructions, meant to be followed to each crossed 't', that will leave her stripped and bent over this desk for five minutes, ten, until he comes to find her, reward her, love her.

She unfolds the thick creamy paper and starts to read.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Four

May 24, 2004


My darling girl—

By the time you read this, I'll be on a plane to New York. Alone. I'm not going to send for you. I'm not going to write to you. I'm not going to have a moment of weakness and wire the money for you to join me. It's over.

You will want to know why, given that I love you with all the passion of which I'm capable, I'm on my way to a life that will be spent without more of you than a handful of photographs and a thousand memories.

You have to believe me when I say that it's not because I stopped loving you. I will never stop loving you and it's because of this simple tenet that I've had to leave.

You've made me so very happy. These last few months sometimes felt as if my life could simply be divided into the grey moments when I wasn't with you, couldn't see you or touch you and those when you'd appear and it was as if the monochrome had vanished, swept away in a blaze of colour and you were all there was. More than that, you are the only person who has loved me after knowing me; something I would never have believed possible.

Which is why I've spent far too short a time on my knees to you.

You gave yourself so openly to me, but you must know how difficult it was for me to give to you in return. I am not generous or kind; my eccentricities are not merely charming. Faith, I'm a frustrated, lonely sadist, twice your age. And just as I once said to you, I preyed on your youth and your inexperience. Took advantage of how you've suffered throughout your life through the actions of all those spiteful fools who made you feel less than you really are. And God help me, Faith, you've continued to suffer so beautifully at my hands.

I enjoy hurting you. I'd bruise you and mark you and it made me hard. Your whimpers and sobs were like a symphony to me. I don't think you ever realized how much power you had over me. I'm weak, so hopelessly weak. Not ever as in control as you thought. Instead I relied on you to set limits and boundaries that you had neither the experience nor the maturity to dictate. I'm not any of the things that you seem to think I am. I lulled myself into thinking that I was the man you imagined me to be; that I was wise, that I knew what was best for you and I think we were both blinded by the weight of our passion.

In truth, your willingness to let me drag you down with me, to help me plumb the depths of my depravities excited me and repelled me in equal measure. Which brings us neatly, or not, to what transpired on Friday night. When I accepted your offer, made with all your customary generosity and, yes, naivety, I did so hoping that once more you'd found a way to make it work between us, as you'd done so many times before when I'd faltered, lost the way.

Faith, did you not hear me tell you that you were allowed to say 'yes', 'no' and your safe word? I told you; I gave it to you as an option. You could have ended that punishment after one stroke, after none -- you had that power because I gave it to you, and you didn't use it because you don't understand how this works and you never really have.

You want to please me. I know it and I glory in it but I cannot trust you to set limits for me and I have none, do you not see that?

Now I find that I'm able to summon up the strength of mind to do what I should have done a long time ago and get as far away from you as possible lest I drag you down with me.

I have no friends. I have no family. There's something terribly wrong with me, right at my core, in my soul and I have no wish to burden you with it any longer. I fooled myself for too long that I was lifting you up, making you realize your potential, showing you just how beautiful and special and brilliant you are. But I was just another one in a long line of people who've hurt you and, though I know you'll find it hard to believe right now, I'm doing this because your happiness is all I care about.

I fear that there's nothing for us but a future where you'd try to save me from myself time and again, only to the detriment of your own growth and your own safety both physical and mental.

You're not safe in my arms Faith -- no matter how often you think you are. I'm like a child told to be careful with a fragile object who smashes it to pieces in order to test the veracity of the warning. I've grown weary of my now-predictable ability to take all the beautiful things I encounter in life and subject them to the same treatment.

And it shames me to admit it but Faith, I barely scratched the surface of my darkest desires. I could have done -- wanted to do -- so much more. When you came to me, repentant, on your knees, and told me you'd be willing to let me lock you away from the rest of the world, keep you naked and silent and obedient I -- God help me, Faith but for a moment I wanted to say yes. It wouldn't have been real, it wouldn't have been right, but I wanted you like that, mine, utterly and completely.

If I was ten years younger, I believe that I'd be able to change, to transform myself into the kind of man you deserve. And if you were even five years older, you'd never have given me a second look, not least the myriad of second chances that you saw fit to bestow on me.

But I'm not that younger man. I won't change. I can't. There's something very restful about recognizing with a clarity given to few exactly where one's proclivities lie. Mine lie in pain, in control, in the giving of pleasure through those avenues. And at the start between us, that's all it was -- pure pleasure. It wasn't as if I had much competition; you'd been fucked by boys, clumsy and selfish, as young and untried as yourself. I cheated, Faith. Channeled your passions so they flowed beside mine and made you think that it was the only way for you.

It's not.

I'm not.


I have to apologise for my treachery in pretending that I wanted to give you a perfect weekend, knowing full well that I was leaving and that what you thought was a reconciliation was me carefully snatching a few more golden moments with you and hoping that they will be enough when distance finally keeps us apart because we can't do it for ourselves. I must also apologise for the dreadful day you've just had. I'm afraid that the interminable delay at the courthouse was directed by my hand so I could steal enough time to make good my escape.

Stealing -- I don't think this needs to be said, Faith, but for the sake of clearing up any question in your mind once and for all, this is absolutely not about the money. Despite all the heartache and angry words that were thrown about after the fact, there's something heartening in the fact that you were too proud to come to me for help, embarrassed as you were by your father's actions. One fear I had is that I'd isolated you from your former life and friends; made you overly reliant on me, but I think that showed how independent you are and, I hope, will remain.

If you still have any respect or affection for me then I beg you to obey one last order and let this be done. It would be so easy to try and reason this out together, to let myself be swayed by the unequivocal force of your passion, your generosity of spirit, your blind and dogged devotion. But it's over. I beg you, Faith, not to try and contact me ever again. I've made it easy for you by leaving no forwarding address and changing my phone numbers.

I want to come back to you, Faith, want to hold you, brush away every tear I've caused, cherish you, protect you, keep you safe. I want to fuck you, want to feel you move beneath me, want to spank that pretty arse of yours red, tie you up, hold you down with a word. I want you, Faith because I love you so very much, and I'm not going to do any of that because of that love.

I know you'll think this is cruel. That maybe it's another one of my games. A final test. But it's not. Just a clean, brutal break that both of us will recover from given time. You're strong and determined and so much more capable than you even realize. You don't belong in that town and I have no doubt that you'll get out, move on to something better -- to someone better. You deserve to be with someone who can love you with all the honor and respect that you're due. Who doesn't constantly wish to test the strength of your love. Who'll never hurt you either with his hands or his heart. And though I long to be that sweet, kind, unselfish lover, more fervently that you'll ever know, I can't. Not even for you.

I'm just going to ask you —beg you— to forgive me. I'm neither a good man nor an honorable one but this is the first honorable thing that I've done since I met you.

There's nothing else to say. Just I love you, I love you, I love you. But love from a man who doesn't know how to is no gift at all.

Wesley

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Five

The room is darkening in a haze of twilight, and his words blur together and fade. She's hardly been able to read them properly anyway, not since tears filled her eyes when she read the first sentence. The thick cream bond paper is crushed in her hand, crumpled along the edges. After the third reading she'd nearly wadded the whole thing up, meaning to fling it across the room.

She's already done that with the book, hurling it with all her might. It had hit the opposite wall with a satisfying smack and crashed to the floor, the binding twisting and the soft pages bent under the weight of the pretty gilt cover. She'd sent a brass paperweight after it for good measure. It was heavy in her hand and left a dent in the wall before it too fell to the floor, rolling under a chair.

But she can't bring herself to stop reading the letter, no matter how hard she tries to push it aside or rip it to shreds. His voice echoes in her head as she combs through line after line, looking for a clue, a sign under all his circular reasoning that he will come back for her. Come striding through the front door, all the way back to the inner office, sweeping her up in his arms to take her back home.

“This is just another game,” she whispers to herself, fingertips blotting the teardrops that have landed on the page, threatening to smear his crabbed, clear handwriting. “Isn't it, Wes? It is a test. It is...”

She finally sets the letter down, carefully and deliberately smoothing the wrinkles out, pages stacked perfectly.

“No tears, Faith. You know he hates that. Can't be crying when he gets here. Can't,” she mutters, slowly pulling each desk drawer open until she finds what she's looking for. 'Cause she knows they'll be there, even though she's not exactly sure where. Most of the drawers are empty, just a few odd items rattling around inside. A half-used roll of stamps, a pair of scissors, a box of unsharpened pencils. But she's right; there in the second drawer from the bottom on the left. His secret cache of handkerchiefs. Perfectly folded into fourths and crisp with a light starching.

She carefully dabs at her eyes, wrinkling her nose in annoyance when she sees the long black streaks from her mascara smeared across the fabric.

But she can't stop crying. Won't, maybe.

“Fucking uptight frigid motherfucking bastard,” she hisses, the words hanging heavy in the air. “I hate crying as much as you do, asshole. Bet you never knew that.”

The ticking of his three damned clocks provides an off-rhythm counterpoint to her sobs.

He's not coming back, you idiot, chastises a voice in her head. He's not, you know. It's all right there, all spelled out for you.

She tries to blot out the nagging voice with the thought of him brushing her tears away with his warm fingertips, tucking her wayward hair behind her ear, whispering “I love you,” over and over again, breath hot on her neck. It doesn't work.

Not coming back, not coming back. Gone. Forever.

She knows what's in the bottom drawer on the left. The one she didn't open. The tumbler hanging over the neck of the bottle of scotch clanks like a demented bell as she slowly pulls the drawer open.

She stares at it for a long time, deciding whether or not to engage in the politeness of pouring herself a glass, or just start chugging his expensive booze straight from the bottle.

Don't, says a voice in her head. A new one, a nicer one, a quieter one. Not now. Not this time.

“Right. 'Cause he'll be here soon. Wouldn't do to be trashed out of my skull, now would it?” she says aping his accent and slamming the drawer shut, the sound of the bottle banging muffled against the heavy wood.



She rests her hands on either side of the letter, which is perfectly centered on the blotter, which in turn is perfectly centered on the shiny, polished surface of the desk. Waiting. It gets easier the longer she sits there, stock still.

Her tears have dried up long ago, leaving her eyes prickly and hot. The voices in her head tired of whispering. The clocks still carry on their delicate ticking, lightly chiming out the hours. Hours she's lost track of long ago. She'd stared straight ahead, eyes locked on the empty doorway, not allowing her gaze to slip to the edge of the desk in front of her. Every time she does, her brain fills with quick-cut flashbacks, on a loop over and over -- overwhelming, nauseating -- a front-row seat to every act that had ever transpired there. So she just stares through negative space inside the door frame, not focusing on anything but the soft glow light from of the reception area at the far end of the hallway. Waiting.



She doesn't remember drifting off to sleep, her head resting on her still perfectly-positioned hands.

But she does know what roused her. It was the click of the front door opening, confirmed by the inevitable squeak of the hinges that she'd always meant to take some WD-40 to. She smiles, pulling herself up and shaking the hair out of her eyes. She's glad she never got around to it.

Otherwise she wouldn't have known. Wouldn't have been ready, bright-eyed and smiling when he walked through the doorway. And it is him, negotiating the dark hallway, slowly.

That is, until it isn't him. Tall enough, sure. But much too broad across the shoulders.

“Xander?” she rasps as he stumbles through the doorway, the faint light from the streetlight lighting up his face, concern writ large across his knitted brow. “Not supposed to be you. Where's Wes?”

“He's not coming, Faith.”

She shakes her head. “No. He's coming back. He is.”

He crosses the room in a flash, wraps his arms around her stationary body, ramrod-straight spine unyielding to his embrace.

“Faith, he called me. Called me and said to come look after you. He knew you'd still be here.”

“'Course I'm still here.” Her voice cracks a little, still stiff in his arms. “Where else would I be?”

“At home. I've come to take you home.”

Her face brightens a little at that, and she finally turns to look at him. He's so close they're nose to nose. “Will you stay there with me tonight? It's so lonely, that big house, when he's not there.” Her voice takes on a rushed, high-pitched lilt. “There's a TV now. With satellite. We can get totally stoned and watch “Pimp My Ride” and order a pizza and ...”

“We... can't...” he stammers, pulling her closer to him, the chair wobbling on its castors.

“Sure we can! Just as long as we clean everything up before he gets back from New York. Spray a little air freshener around, open a window or two. He told you when he'd be back right? Tomorrow? The next day?”

“Faith, we're going to your house...”

“I know! That's great!”

“No. Listen,” he says a little too sharply, and her eyes widen, startled. “No. I've come to take you back to Darla's house,” he mutters at a quarter of the volume, looking ashamed of his sudden outburst.

“But I don't live there anymore,” she says simply, turning her head back to face straight ahead. “I live with Wesley now. Big house, high on a hill, great views? You've seen it.”

He sighs, exasperated, leaning his head against hers. “Faith, stop it, okay? Stop it. He told me what's going on. He told me about the letter.”

Her hands slide over the cool paper, and she methodically begins to fold it into eighths without looking down.

“Right, the letter.”

He grabs her by the shoulders, gives her a little shake, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Faith, we need to go. You're exhausted and totally delirious. You need to eat something. And the movers are gonna be here to pack up all this stuff in the morning.”

"He wouldn't leave without me. He wouldn't," she whispers, shaking her head. Impossibly, there's a fresh round of tears welling up in her eyes, spilling out despite her best efforts to hold them in. Still clutching the tightly folded letter in one hand and the wadded, streaky handkerchief in the other, she finally wraps her arms around him, face buried in his shoulder. "I can't do this, Xander. I can't be without him. Not again."

"Yes you can. And you will." He holds her tight for a few long moments, then pulls away, planting a chaste kiss on her cheek. "Shit, you didn't get mascara on my shirt, did you Tammy Faye?" She shakes her head, unmoved by his jest. "Well, thank goodness for that. Now, come on, Faithy. Time for the tough love," he says, trying to pull her up, but she hooks her feet under the edge of the desk and refuses to budge. "Get your ass up out of that chair and let's get the hell out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere. Not 'til he comes back."


Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Six

"Which would be never," he tells her. "Faith – God I hate that bastard for what he's done to you, but this – yeah, it's for the best. Fucking typical of him to not have the guts to face you though –"

"Shut up!" She's screaming at him now, feeling dry lips crack and sting as her mouth opens wide. "You don't know him! You don't know anything about him and you don't – you don't –"

He lets go of her and walks away, one step, two, running his hands through his hair. "I'm telling you what he said, Faith. Not me saying it, it's him. It's what he told me."

"I want to know every word he said," she says, her voice calm again, inflexible, the voice Wes uses when she's begging him for something and he's not inclined to give it to her.

Xander turns and looks at her. "Why? What good will it do?"

"Tell me." She's not sure how much longer she can keep up the pretence of calm rationality but she has to know. Somewhere in what he told Xander there's a clue, right? Something only she'll understand, something that will lead her to him, where he's waiting, that smile on his face that he gets when he's proud of her, when he calls her his good girl, when he –

"Faith!"

She blinks at Xander. "What?"

"You just – you zoned out there." He peers at her, sighs and perches on the corner of the desk. His hand's warm against hers when he starts to talk and she's trying so hard to concentrate –

"Wait," she says, getting up way too fast, so the room spins and whirls.

"You want to go?" Xander's sounding all hopeful now.

"No. Just need something." She walks out of the room quickly, snapping on lights as she goes, driven by an urgency that gives her a fleeting strength.

Her desk's a cluttered mess and her lips tighten as she looks at it but there's no time to restore it to how it should be. She sits down, wrinkling her nose because she can smell Harmony's perfume, cloying and sweet, and pushes aside the scattered papers until she finds what she needs. She stands, preparing to go back to Xander, and then notices a folder labeled 'Letters for Typing' in Harmony's ornate, virtually illegible handwriting, all loops and swirls.

It's too thick to be empty and she flips it open, eyes narrowing as she stares at the sheaf of papers covered with shorthand. The dates go back to before the weekend and she guesses Harmony's been letting them stack up because Wes wasn't around. Bitch.

Tucking the folder under her arm, she goes back to Xander who's prowling around Wesley's office, looking at all the ornaments with his hands behind his back, as if he's scared he'll break something.

"I'm ready," she tells him. He turns and she holds up the pad and pencil, dropping the folder onto the desk. "I need to take notes, Xander."

"Jesus, Faith!" He's looking at her as if she's insane. "You don't think this is just a little bit much?"

"No." She wants to sit where she always does, but she can't bear the thought of Xander in Wesley's seat, so she takes it instead. The pad fits neatly into her hand and the pencil's satisfyingly sharp – just how she likes it. "I might forget if I don't. I can't do that. It's too important."

She gives Xander an expectant look and when he's silent, staring at her with his mouth hanging open in almost comical dismay, she changes it to a glare. "Xander, will you just fucking tell me?" she hisses. "Word for word."

It takes him three steps to reach the desk and slam his hands down on it. "For the record? You've lost it, Faith. Totally lost it. You fell for that freak and he's turned you into a freak too."

Her hand meets his face and the sound it makes is one this room's heard before. Hand on skin. Smack-crack-echo.

Xander draws back, eyes wide with shock, the shape of her fingers already starting to flush to life on his cheek. "I can't believe you just did that."

She picks up her pencil again and stares at him, unyielding and unapologetic. He gives her a disgusted look and begins to talk, the words hard as hail, stinging and cold.

"Right. Every fucking word from his fucking mouth. That's what you want? OK then. The phone rings and yeah, thanks for waking me up you shithead when I've just come in off a shift but he's not wasting any time on apologies. Guess that's something else you've picked up from him. So he says, 'Xander?' and I can barely hear him, he's talking so quiet but I know it's him. How many other uptight Brits are gonna be calling me at two in the fucking morning?"

Faith carefully writes down 'Xander?' and waits.

"So I say something like –" And she needs this exactly, but she lets him get away with that as it's only what Xander said and that's not really important. "'Yeah, what is it?' and he says –" Xander's voice wavers a little and he steps back, drops down in her chair with his hand rubbing absently at his face. "He says 'Faith needs you. I hurt her' and I think my heart stopped fucking beating because I knew this would happen, I knew it and I say, 'What did you do to her, you fucking piece of –' Well. Guess you don't want to write that down, do you? You don't like people calling him names. Right. So he waits for me to take a breath and his voice is stronger now and he says, all cold and shit, 'I left her. I'm calling you from New York.' "

There's a silence then as she writes that down and stares at it. Wesley doesn't lie. He evades the truth because he's a lawyer and he's good at that, but he doesn't lie. So she has to look beyond that.

She thinks about the letter. He'd said a lot of things he wasn't going to do (I'm not going to send for you. I'm not going to write to you. I'm not going to have a moment of weakness and wire the money for you to join me) but he'd never said flat-out that he wasn't coming back.

So he's gone, yes, and he's in New York, fine... but he's coming back. As soon as she's worked out the puzzle, he'll come back.

Xander's voice has died away and she gives him a bright, encouraging smile, ignoring the way he flinches. He swallows dryly and carries on.

"So I say, 'Left her where?' and I'm so fucking terrified he's going to tell me where he buried your body or something because he sounds empty, hollow. Like he's dead himself, but he just says, 'I told her to go to my office after the hearing. I left her a letter there. If you haven't seen her –' and I say, 'No', and he just carries on talking as if he didn't hear me, like he's a fucking recording or something. ' – then she's still there. Waiting for me to come back. Thinking it's a game.'"

Xander's lip curls. "You play games like this often, do you, Faith?"

She thinks of Wesley dropping candies onto her breasts and murmuring love poems to her as his tongue flickers over her cunt, feels the blindfold soft against her eyes as she types a phrase over and over as he watches her...

When she doesn't answer, he finishes. "And then he just whispered, 'It's not. It's over.' and put the fucking phone down."

She reads over what she's written and shakes her head. "You missed out something."

"Yeah. The bit where he says this is all a joke and he's heading back with roses? That he loves you? That bit?" Xander shakes his head. "No. I gave you what you wanted, Faith, now you do something for me. You get up and you come home. You cry, yeah, and you can even take another swing at me, if it'll help, but you get out of this place."

She's waiting for the tears but they're not there. Nothing is. No emotion, not feeling, nothing. She stretches out her hand and picks up the folder. "Can't, Xander. Not yet." She starts to sort through the letters. "These should've gone out today," she murmurs. "Wes is going to be so pissed."

"I really don't give a shit about them," Xander says, wrenching the folder from her. "Just you. Even if you've changed so I don't know you any more. I still love you and you're scaring me acting like this."

She's on her feet and he's backing away from her. "Give them to me!"

"Why?" He's honestly confused. "What for?"

She snatches them out of his hand. "So I can type them, Xander. It's what I do. I'm Wesley's secretary and I type his letters."

It takes her three attempts to get the paper lined up perfectly, because her hands are trembling, and the diatribe from Xander as he tries to persuade her to leave isn't helping, but she blocks him out, swivels her chair to the proper height, and begins.

The keys are cool and hard under her fingers and the strike and tap of metal on paper is staccato at first, as she's rusty after weeks of not typing. But even the inaccuracies of Harmony's shorthand aren't enough to stop her body remembering. The taps speed up, punctuated by the whir of the carriage return, and she feels a familiar warmth course through her because her ass is throbbing slightly and isn't that just like normal? Sitting here, expected to work when he's made sure all she can think of is him, his hands on her...

She finishes the first letter, takes it out of the typewriter and stares at it. The words are fuzzy somehow and she holds it out to Xander. "Read it. Tell me if I made any mistakes."

"How would I know?" he protests, but he takes it and scans it. "Looks fine," he says, far too quickly.

"It has to be perfect," she says, sitting up straight – not slouching- hands folded in her lap. "Make sure."

He reads it again and then says reluctantly, "You spelled his name wrong, didn't you? There's no 'h' in 'Wyndam'."

She's nodding frantically; smiling even though the tears are falling now because she's remembering -

"There isn't, there really isn't, and I always do that, I don't know why. I did it on purpose once, just to get him to spank me, but this time I wanted it to be right, I swear I did."

She holds out her hand and takes the letter from Xander and then reaches out for the red sharpie. It makes a protesting squeak as she draws a neat circle around his name and she starts to giggle.

"Faith?" Xander sounds so fucking alarmed now and that's even funnier so she can't stop laughing, not even when she's slamming her fists against the wall behind her, hammering at it until the pain in her hands starts to equal the agony inside her head as she begins to believe that he's gone.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Seven

It's the sight of her blood, oozing from skinned knuckles, that finally stops her. Because Wes doesn't like it when she's bleeding. Not that that really matters because he isn't here. He's…

"Xand?" She turns to where he's standing helplessly next to her and raises her stricken face to him. "He's gone, hasn't he? He's not coming back?"

"Oh, Faithy, baby," Xander breathes and then his arms are wrapped tight round her and it's not right because it doesn't feel like Wes, doesn't smell like Wes. "Are you gonna let me get you to Darla's?"

And he doesn't call it home anymore and she supposes she should be grateful for that but she's clinging on to Xander because she wants to stay here a little bit longer because this place reeks of him. Maybe if she squints extra hard through her swollen eyes she'll see the ghost of a hundred Wes's.

If she wishes enough then she'll walk back down the corridor and he'll be sitting at his desk. And when she comes in, he'll look up and give her one of those sudden smiles that's like Christmas and her birthday and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.

"Take a letter, Faith…"

"You're making me wait right now, Faith…"

And, God yes. "Assume the position, Faith…"

The moan that escapes out of her makes Xander stiffen in her arms because she sounds like some small animal caught in a trap with no other option but to bite off her own limb to get free.

"Can't leave, Xand," she mumbles brokenly, wishing he smelt of citrus and bergamot instead of laundry detergent and cigarette smoke. "Don't you get it? Once I go, I can't come back. Not ever."

"Look, sweetie, the movers are gonna be here in, like, four hours and…"

"Wes would want me to be here to make sure they do stuff properly," she pleads, because Xander's disentangling himself and placing a hand at the small of her back to give her a push towards the door. And any second now he's going to upgrade it to a full-on shove because she's clutching at the rim of her desk. "He'll get really pissed if they break anything."

Xander's face shifts from concerned into this ugly, twisted mess of snarling mouth and narrowed eyes. "And that's meant to be a bad thing? You know what, Faith? I hope they break every single fucking thing in this place and send it to him at great expense in those crates with the little pieces of polystyrene snow."

"Don't say stuff like that," she snaps at him. "Just because you didn't get Wes. Never fucking did."

"What's there to get? He's a sick fuck who's just left you without even the guts to say goodbye to your face." Xander's ranting while that very face is crumbling and the tears are spilling over again, stinging on the way down.

"How could he leave me?" she begs piteously, collapsing into her chair so she can rest her chin on her hands. "I did everything he asked me to and he kept changing the rules without even telling me! Fuck! He's a fucking bastard!"

She can feel the rage welling up again but it's not whooshing around her insides this time. It's tight and slowly uncoiling so her blood feels like it's itching in her veins.

"He is a bastard, Faith," Xander tells her in a strained voice. "Glad you finally got the memo."

"I typed the fucking memo," she spits and her gaze skitters over the letter she whisked out of the Selectric not ten minutes before and she's snatching it up and tearing it into tiny little pieces which she rains down like confetti on the floor. It's not enough. Not nearly enough. Just as well there's a whole folder full of paper.

"Are we going to have to stay here until you've finished typing them?" Xander asks nervously and her face is splitting into a grin, which makes her muscles ache because they're getting used to the fact that she's probably never going to smile again.

"Not gonna type 'em, Xand," she hisses. "Been fired, haven't I? Got my severance letter and everything. Fired! Gotta love that irony."

"OK, Faithy, you're officially starting to freak me out or maybe I was asleep that day but what's so ironic about being fired?"

She yanks open one of her desk drawers and scrabbles around until her fingers close in on the flimsy plastic of one of the lighters she'd bought by the dozen when Wes'd confiscated her Zippo.

Then she catches Xander's eye and holds it as she reaches for the folder of notes that Harmony left and pulls out the top sheet of paper.

"Used to be pretty good at this," she says conversationally. "Bet I haven't lost my touch." And she hasn't. Just holds the flame against the corner of the sheet and watches as a sooty black line begins to mar the white and then gets chased away by the orange glow. Then she drops it on the floor and reaches for the next piece of paper.

"Jesus!" Xander yelps and he's trying to stamp them out as fast as she can watch them burn and then let them go. "Do you want to add arson to your rap sheet?"

"I haven't got a rap sheet," she reminds him sweetly. "Because good old Wes looked after things. Pity he isn't here to look after his office because I'm going to burn it down to the fucking ground."

Now that she's got a sense of purpose, she feels calmer. Or maybe it's because she's allowed to burn stuff because Wes isn't here to tell her she can't. It used to help before. But she was just singeing the small stuff. This isn't small stuff. It's immense. Bigger than she can carry in her bleeding hands and she's gonna need a truckload of matches and maybe a can of gasoline.

"Where do you think I should start?" she asks Xander who's still jumping around on charred paper and looking at her with bug eyes. "All those books in his office are gonna go up like the Fourth of July."

"Faith…" he begins but she's jerking to her feet so suddenly that it makes her feel dizzy and she brushes past his outstretched hand like it's made of air.

She's back in Wes' office before Xander can even take two steps and filling her hands with files. All those neatly assembled words, marching across the paper. How many fucking blows did she get for each of the letters she's crunching up? And why did she even bother because all it got her was fourteen weeks of some bullshit illusion?

"OK, he's a bastard, I'm completely down with that but I am not letting you torch the place." Xander pants as he skids into the room. "He's not worth going to the big house for, Faith."

She pauses briefly from dragging down the big, heavy reference books from the top shelf of the bookcase. "I need to do this, Xand. 'Cause either I start burning this stuff or I go and throw myself off the top of the nearest tall building. Your call."

He tries to tug Drafting Patent License Agreements out of her hands but she clutches the book tight to her chest and stamps on his foot while he tries to twist away from her.

"I'm warning you, Xand," she snarls, kicking him hard in the shin with the toe of her pointy shoe and feeling glad, so fucking glad when he squeaks and his eyes water because it means that she's not the only one who's hurting. "Going to have myself a big conflagration as dear old Wes would say if he hadn't gotten his fucked up ass as far away from me as possible. He's left me. Left me. And I can't fucking stand it!"

Xander lets go of the book so suddenly that she almost falls over. She staggers a few steps and then drops the book on the little pile she's assembled with a satisfying thud.

"You know what I say?" Xander suddenly giggles like her hysteria has become contagious. "Burn, baby, burn."

"All right, Xand! Good to have you in the game. You wanna start on that cabinet over there while I get the stuff out of the desk drawers?"

Been a while since her and Xander got up to some seriously bad shit together. And the gleam in his eyes has her dancing over to him so she can seize his hands and spin them round until the walls and the floor are rushing to meet them and she's throwing her head back and laughing.

"Gonna burn him out of my fucking life," she promises and she's starting to sound as manic as she feels. "Now where did I put my lighter?"

It takes a good ten minutes of rummaging through the mound of paper and books. Then another five minutes pulling out her desk drawers and leaving them on the floor before she whirls round to where Xander is hovering and fixes him with a steely glare that Wes could take notes on.

"Give it back right the hell now."

"I'm not going to let you fry this place extra crispy," he begins reasonably but she left reason, ooooh, about ten thousand miles back.

"You said! God, you're so fucking chickenshit, Xand. Man, I should have known that you'd wimp out on…"

Xander's holding out his hands in the universal gesture for "stop acting like a demented, crazy lady." "This place got a backyard?"

"Why? So you can go and hide until it's all over?" she asks nastily and she's going to punch him until he hands over the lighter. She's already lost Wes. Losing Xander too would be like a free gift with purchase or whatever.

"No, so we can have a nice, controlled blaze and you can get the fuck over yourself, Faith," he spits right back at her. "You start lighting matches in here, I give it two minutes tops before it's like a remix of The Towering Inferno and the police are on their way over."

And he's got a point. Not like she wants to listen to it but it's a point all the same. So with shoulders slumping all the way down to her knees, she follows him back to Wes' office and even though she's being a bitch on wheels he doesn't even thin his lips when she forces him to make ten trips outside with armfuls of the heaviest reference books.

Wes has taught her loads of useful stuff. How to prepare the perfect cheese plate. How to spell 'precipitancy' and, like, what it even means. How to hold back an orgasm for an hour so she's shaking and screaming but not coming until he's told her that she can. But he's also shown her how to build the perfect fire. She's trying not to think about that, all those cosy evenings in the den watching him carefully arrange balls of paper and chunks of apple-smoked wood into a perfect pile so he could pull her down and make love to her in front of the roaring blaze. So it's kinda fitting that she's using her expertise to construct this neat little structure that's going to turn to ashes all his books. All he ever knew came from a pile of moldering old books.

"Give me the lighter," she orders Xander as he steps through the back door with the last of the copyright texts and she sounds so fucking scary and resolute that he's dropping the books and handing over her cheap, plastic Bic without a murmur.

She's soaked the bottom layers with Wes' bottle of Macallan and they catch immediately. Orange and red and yellow columns of flame snaking their way right into the heart of the stacks she's made out of his life. All those years poring over torts and depositions so he could avenge other people's wrongs instead of dealing with his own. Xander's right. She really needs to get the fuck over herself.

"It's pretty," she murmurs as she takes a step back and lets Xander snake his arms round her waist and rest his chin on her shoulder.

"It kinda is," he agrees. "But if I'd known we were having a bonfire, I'd have bought marshmallows."

It's OK while she's staring into the fire, watching the patterns it makes, which disappear so quickly that she doesn't have to think too hard. The sun's creeping up in the sky, turning everything except the charred, smoldering clumps of paper and cardboard a hazy pink and now what, she thinks? Now fucking what?

"I can’t go home," she says almost to herself. "I don't know what to do."

Xander's hand squeezes hers tightly. "We could get some breakfast. You hungry?"

She shakes her head decisively. Just the thought of food makes her want to puke. "I could stand a cup of coffee though."

He gives her a tired smile. "Cool, you have coffee and I'll have a valium chaser. Wanna throw in this last pile of books for the road then?"

His last load is still lying on the ground where he dropped them and she watches dispassionately as he crouches down and begins tossing them into the dying fire.

"Don't think they're gonna burn," she sighs. "Let me use the lighter."

And she's just flicking the wheel, relishing the heat on her thumb when that stupid sun that doesn't know when it's not wanted glints across the gilt cover of a crumpled little volume that he's pushing right into the middle of the smoking debris and she's launching herself at Xander, mouth wide open on a scream.

"Oh no! No! No! NO!"

"Faith! What the fuck?"

She doesn't feel a thing as she falls to her knees and shoves both hands into the blackened, flickering mess until her blistering flesh closes around the heated foil cover and she's pulling it free.

The spine is buckled and torn from where she threw it against the wall and although the edges of the pages are already singed, it's safe.

"Huh? What did you just say, Faith? Jesus, your hands…"

"I love you as certain dark things are loved," she whispers brokenly because it's open at Sonnet 17 and yeah, it's in Spanish but she doesn't need a translator to spell out the words that are carved deep into her skin, her cunt, her heart. "Secretly. Between the shadow and soul."

"Faith?"

She's stretched out on the ground, like it's a grave, and the sun can't warm her and Xander's hands gathering her up so he can rock her in his arms can't comfort her. He's gone. And now she knows that, she doesn't know anything else.

"Xander, I want to go home now."

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Eight

Home.

What a loaded word. But where else can she go?

Xander drives her. He helps her inside, quietly, so as not to wake Darla. Puts antiseptic ointment on her damaged hands and bandages them carefully up before dosing her with half a Codeine-laced Tylenol and helping her into bed. Everything is as she left it —the sheets all scrunched up in one corner of the bed, pillows askew; there’s even an empty vodka bottle on the floor by the bed— but Xander smoothes out the sheets, plumps up the pillows, and eases her gently down onto them.

Yeah, she’s home. She’s been running away from it her entire fucking life. But as she wraps her quilt around her and closes her eyes, it feels like a haven, one she’s grateful for. She’s even thankful for her silly, shabby little room —with its posters and stickers and all the accoutrements of her not-long-past surly teen years— and her stupid stuffed bunny, the one that’s missing one button eye, that her Gramma gave her when she lost her first tooth. She clutches it tightly to her chest while Xander tucks her in carefully, like she’s a three-year old. Maybe she’s regressing. For a brief moment that sounds like the greatest idea in the world, until she remembers the hell that was her childhood and decides to take her chances with the present —which, thanks to Darla’s not-so-secret secret stash of pharmaceuticals, is looking rosier than it has any right to look.

Through the wonderfully gauzy drug haze, she whispers, “You gonna read me a bedtime story, Xand?” He shakes his head ‘no’, and kisses her forehead. “I’ll read to you tomorrow. You get some sleep, honey.” He sits with her, holding her hand, until he thinks she’s well asleep. That’s when he turns out the light, tiptoes downstairs and out the door, quieter than a church mouse.

And for a while she does sleep like the dead. No dreams, just darkness. It’s when that Codeine begins to wear off that she starts to toss and turn, reaching instinctively for Wes only to find the other side of the bed is cold, empty. She needs the warm reassurance that his body offers —craves it— but knows, knows with a sick-making, heavy dread that he’s gone. She reluctantly forces her eyes open and just lies there, staring at the ceiling.

Gone. He’s not coming back. Not now, not ever. Fucking coward didn’t even say it to her face, didn’t give her any of that famous fucking courtesy did he?

She doesn’t want to cry then, but she does. Wants to scream, “How could you do this to me? To us?” but she’s like a broken fucking record and the sun’s coming up on a new day and it’s high time to get out there and move the fuck on. Somehow.

He can ruin his own life with something approaching practiced perfection but she’ll be damned if she’s going to let him ruin hers.

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


And so every morning when she wakes up, she gingerly prods the gaping wound. Like it's a tooth that's been yanked out without anesthetic and she can stick her tongue in the hole and wiggle it around. It's always the same when she opens her eyes to the sun streaming in through the chinks in the window. Everything feels all right for one second, then two seconds, then three seconds until it all comes crashing back in glorious technicolour and she knows that nothing is ever going to feel good again.

There’s a hole where her heart used to be.

Still, she's gotta find another song. And with Xander’s help she gets a job at the diner, the same one she and Wes used to frequent. The lunch shift is just busy enough that she doesn’t have to think about anything, and that’s good.

Some days she’s just on autopilot. She measures out time in stubbed-out cigarettes and endless cups of coffee. They keep her —distracted, and that’s about the best thing she can say about them. It’s only when she crawls into bed after a long day that she lets herself remember. Doesn’t want to forget a single moment, no matter how painful. Not even the acute sense memory of his fingertips brushing along her stomach, dipping down between her legs, so she almost cries out. But she doesn’t —can’t— relieve all that frustrated, pent-up desire. Is it a point of pride with her? Maybe. All she knows is that every morning she makes the bed —all crisp hospital corners and pillows perfectly aligned— thinking how much he’d approve.

Not too sure that he'd be down with the shadows under her eyes, which are engrained so deep that she's not sure they'll ever fade away. She's got other scars to remember him by though. Despite his assurances, there are four faint lines on her ass like someone's drawn on her and then tried to rub it out with an eraser. It's not right but she's pleased that they're there. She earned those lines. And she's damn proud of them. Keeps herself shaved and smooth too because that's not something she's ready to give up just yet.

It's like she knows he's not coming back. Yeah, she really does. But if he did, then she'd want it to be perfect… she'd want to be perfect for him. She'd take out one of the pretty dresses he bought for her (which turned up the next day, all neatly packed in tissue paper and which have been shoved right to the back of her closet, still in their boxes), put on her pink heels and the red lipstick that he used to like so much and he'd wonder why he could ever have left her.
*******************************************************


Gradually, though, she begins to learn the notes to her new song. Even though her morning cereal still tastes like cardboard and she's taken the shine out of her hair because she can't bear to brush it herself. Life isn't brighter, but it's… manageable.

She and Darla take turns cooking dinner. She manages to improvise some good stuff with the canned, boxed, vacuum-packed junk she finds lurking in the pantry. She even gets Darla to lay off her unfortunate fixation on Lipton Onion Soup Mix and has added some fresh vegetables on to the menu. Xander comes over on Fridays and they rent trashy weepies and eat lots of ice cream and M&Ms until they can barely move. When Darla goes to bed they break out the weed and watch Jackass reruns.

She’s got her routine and yeah, it’s okay. But she wants more. But what? It’s not until she takes a new route walking home and passes the library that she realizes: she misses Wes’ library. And not just for the serious bouts of fucking that went on there. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d come to enjoy having all those wonderful volumes at her fingertips. She’d come to love them in all their gilt-edged, cracked spine imperfection, and their musty, comforting smell.

She starts going to the library every night when her shift is over. It’s quiet and free of distraction.

It feels like home too, somehow.

Deciding on the first book is difficult, but she manages. Brontë seems a good follow-up to all that Austen.

In the dusky light of late afternoon, she opens the book and begins to read.

And once she's done with Brontë and way over-identifying with the mad chick in the attic, there's other books waiting for her. Other lives that are as lousy as her own; Holden Caulfield, Esther Greenwood, Emma Bovary all become her new friends. And she's starting to get why he wrapped himself up in books because it was a different world to live in. A world that he didn't have to control, because the writer had already done that for him. It's such a relief to take time off from being a coffee-pot-toting automaton and lose herself in someone else's pain because she's heartily sick of her own.

On Sunday afternoons, she takes the bus to the bottom of the hill on the other side of town and slowly walks up the steep incline. She doesn't linger by the locked gates, just checks that the For Sale sign is still there and carries on walking.

There's this little grassy nook at the summit and she can curl up under a tree so she doesn't get burnt by the fierce glare of the sun and read her latest book. Every now and again she'll glance down and she can see the drooping leaves of the willow tree in his back garden and if she really cranes her neck, she can just make out the back window that she'd hang out of when she was sneaking a sly cigarette. It's kinda weird that she never used to give it a second thought when she'd tap her fingers over the electronic keypad and gain entry to a house that's now barred to her. That everything changes so fast; how you live, how you love and then it's all different.

Like it's different the Sunday that she comes up the hill to see a Sold sign planted firmly in one of the flowerbeds, which accessorises nicely with the contractors' vans parked outside. Her hands are gripping the metal posts of the entrance gate so hard that it takes a moment to unclench them when the front door opens and she watches a man and woman stroll out, arm in arm. Watches them walk around the front of the house, gesturing to each other until the man looks down at the woman with a smile on his face and kisses her cheek.

It takes her two minutes to run down the hill, her bag bumping against her legs, eyes blinded with tears because she knows she can never go back there. It's not their house any more. Not hers and Wes'. It belongs to other people who are gonna make new memories there, until their presence is banished from the house and the walls aren't going to be able to tell their secrets.

So she finds a new place to go on Sunday afternoons and learns a few more notes to her song. Even tells Xander she might go clubbing with him again if he promises not to leave her on her own for, like, even one second because she's getting better, yeah, but she's not ready to get down on her knees in a bathroom stall like ever again.

By the time it gets to early September and the town is getting emptier because all the students have fucked off back to their colleges, she thinks she might almost have her groove back. Though it's a quieter, more wordy groove than she used to have. She's standing behind the counter on a quiet Wednesday morning rolling her eyes at Billy Blim, the short order cook, who's trying out some really lame pick-up lines on her when the bell above the door jangles and she looks up just in time to see Lilah walk in.

Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety Nine

And the diner, like all diners everywhere, nearly, has that one rule of seating: If there's a table open or an empty seat at the counter, it's yours.

Faith knows Lilah's never really one to look out of place anywhere, with her self-possessed airs and all, but it really is almost funny the way she contemplates a booth by the window or a seat at the counter, like she's choosing between diamonds and emeralds at Harry Winston or something. She finally settles on the booth, carefully arranging herself on the squishy seat and brushing invisible crumbs off the table before consulting the menu.

“Hey Faith, you use Windex to wash your clothes? 'Cause I can totally see myself in your pants!”

“Yeah, that's a great one Billy, but I'd only give it 6.5 for artistic merit,” she yells over her shoulder as she heads to Lilah's table, glass of water in one hand, coffee pot in the other, 'cause she can see that Lilah's already tipped her cup upright in its saucer. She kind of looks like maybe she's been pulling too many late nights preparing for a case or something – which is to say, she kind of looks like crap – and Faith sure as hell doesn't feel one ounce of sympathy when that thought crosses her mind. But she's not getting any majorly hostile vibes off Wes' ex-wife for once, and hey, if Lilah's here to pull any shit, she can always go all The Big Heat on her ass, toss the coffee in her face or something equally melodramatic. She's secretly pleased at how that thought straightens her spine and lengthens her stride as she weaves between the tables to reach Lilah's booth.

“Seems that young man in the back is sweet on you, Faith,” Lilah says, looking up from the tattered menu, sliding it back between the crusty ketchup bottle and the napkin dispenser. It's also almost funny how her insults always sound like a hollow echo of Wes' best tart remarks.

“Billy's relatively harmless. A big talker, mostly.” She plasters on her best fake waitress smile, sloshing coffee into the cup, careful not to let any splash into the saucer. “So, Lilah, didn't ever think I'd see you in this part of town ever again.”

“Client consultation.”

“Big case? Late nights?”

“Something like that,” Lilah says with a sigh, brushing her perfectly highlighted and coiffed hair off her forehead.

Billy rings the bell in the service window. Table three's order is up and it's the sound of salvation from what's rapidly turning into one of the most awkward conversations she's ever had. “Not to rush you or anything, but you gonna order, or do you need some time?”

“Coffee's good for now,” she says with a thin smile. “I have something to discuss with you, Faith. Do you have a break soon?”

“Don't really have anything to discuss with you, Lilah,” she hisses, lowering her voice so as not to disturb the three other customers in the diner. The weekday breakfast crowd's been a little sparse lately. “So you can just put that idea right out of your head. I'll pour you coffee and wait on you this one time, but I want you out of here as soon as you pay your bill, and I really don't want to see your uptight ass in here on one of my shifts ever again. Is that clear?”

Lilah's face is completely blank, so what she says next is a little startling. “I came to apologize, Faith...”

“Really?” She peers at the older woman suspiciously. “That's not like you at all, Lilah. Suddenly, after all these months, you're feeling some remorse? You think that an apology is just gonna make everything all better? Take back everything you did to sabotage what Wes and I had? Bring him back from New York; bring my father back from the dead?” She laughs harshly, setting the coffee pot down on the table so hard Lilah flinches, plainly expecting it to shatter. Billy rings the bell again, a little more insistently this time. “On second thought, scratch that last part. They should both stay right where they are.”

Lilah actually grins at that last part. “Good, you're still angry. I was worried you'd just become complacent, taking a job in a place like this.”

“Of course I'm still fucking angry...” she sputters, frustrated and confused. Actually, she hadn't felt much of anything in months, sequestered away with her books and her routine. But she's sure as hell getting angry now and pushes out a frustrated sigh because Lilah's still looking up at her with a serenely malevolent face. “Look, I've got an order up. I can take a break in about half an hour; things are slow before the lunch rush starts. If you wanna stick around, we can finish this conversation then.”

“I can wait.” Lilah casually dumps two packets of Equal in her coffee, gives it a quick swirl with her spoon, and takes a sip, nose wrinkling in distaste. “By the way, Faith, this coffee's a bit burnt. You may want to brew up a fresh pot.”

“Right, I'll do that,” she says bitterly, turning on her heel and flashing an apologetic smile at her regulars at table three before hurrying back behind the counter to retrieve their breakfast, right as Billy decides to bellow out another tired pick-up line for her approval.



A half an hour later, as she'd predicted, Lilah's the last customer left in the diner, furiously scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad and brusquely fielding calls on her cell phone.

Armed with her own cup of coffee, Faith slides into the other side of the booth, feeling slightly ridiculous in her crisp uniform with the ruffled apron, Peter Pan collar, and tacky etched nametag. “I really shouldn't do this, but like I said, we'll be pretty dead for the next hour or so...”

"That's how you look." It's said softly and Faith's not sure she heard it right. There's something in Lilah's eyes that might be pity, but then it's drowned in a sparkle of spite. "Trust Wes to tarnish the shine, hmm?"

And Faith's remembering Lilah's fingers, tipping up her chin as they had that brief confrontation in the office, when Lilah had asked her if she loved Wes, and when she'd said yes, giving her this sad little smile and telling her she was stupid. It's that same mix of concern and cruelty fighting it out, and with Lilah the cruelty usually seems to win.

"What do you want, Lilah?"

“You want to just skip the small talk? Okay. Whatever you went down between you and Wesley must have been pretty bad. He didn't leave town when we split, that's for sure.”

“Great way to cut to the chase, there...”

Lilah cuts her off with a wave of her hand. “Look, I can't say I know what you've been going through, but I have a pretty good idea. Wes is a past master at cutting his losses when the going gets rough.”

“You could say that, yeah...”

“I've been thinking about you, Faith. Yes, I know; I'm only supposed to think about number one, but contrary to what he might have told you, I do have the odd moment when I resemble a human being."

There's enough hurt there to make Faith wince a bit. She's never going to forget what Lilah did to fuck Wes up, but now she's been on the receiving end of his attempts to make things better, she's willing to admit if there was ever a man to inspire extreme reactions, it's him.

"I don't – look, what went on between you two; I've only heard his side of it, but you weren't exactly nice to him, even cutting you all the slack in the world, so why are you even here?"

Lilah looks out the window, avoiding the question, letting a long silence swallow it up and erase it from the conversation. “I know you won't believe it, but I was a wreck when Wes and I split up...”

“Really? I had no idea,” Faith spits back, sarcastically. Oh, she'd heard how much of a 'wreck' Lilah had been, how she'd done stuff that made that little bonfire action pale in comparison. Hell, she'd seen some of that residual bile up close and personal, even.

“You have every right to be angry with me, you do.” A cold smile crosses her lips. “But I want to make things up to you.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that, but like I said, I'm a little unclear how that's gonna happen.”

“You're too good to be working here, Faith. You're a clever young woman, pretty and sharp – you've got a great future ahead of you. For all the ... nonsense that went on in that office, Wes trained you well. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find competent legal secretaries these days...”

Just for a second, she lets herself believe it – that she's better than this, that she can go back to making something of herself, maybe even take some classes, pass some exams, the way Wes always said she should... but the table's slick with years of grease beneath her fingers and she can see her reflection in the napkin holder. She's a world away from the young woman who walked, back straight, head high, around Wesley's office, demure black dress concealing wet-dream undies. She's back to nylon and cotton now, not silk and satin, and her eyes are tired, older eyes.

She's starting to look like her mother.

“Uh, thanks -- but no thanks. No way. I'm not working for you, Lilah.”

“Oh no!” She's laughing, actually freakin' laughing. It's sharp and hardly mirthful, but it does soften her face a little, Faith notices -- makes her look a little more pretty. “You wouldn't be working for me – I really don't think we'd last a week in close quarters, do you? But there's more than one lawyer in this town, and with Wesley gone, this particular one's benefiting. Seems Wes told most of his old clients to go to him. Can't imagine why he didn't recommend me, but there you go."

Faith's nodding now, remembering some of the letters she typed for him just before –

"Mr Rosenberg, right? He's the grandfather of someone I knew at school. She was – well, she hung around with some girls you'd really get on well with, but she was never quite as a big a bitch as them."

"That's him. Sweet old guy. It held him back but I don't get the feeling he ever wanted to go anywhere, so no loss." Lilah tilts her head. "And that nice man's swamped now. Too sweet to turn people away, but he's not a firecracker like our Wesley –"

"Don't call him that."

Wes might not be hers, but he sure as hell isn't Lilah's and never really was.

Lilah's lips thin in a smile. "My, we are touchy, aren't we? Anyway, he's not the sort to work late and weekends, like some people we know, and he needs some help. He asked me if I knew anyone and what can I say? I thought of you."

“So what's the catch?” She's back to peering suspiciously at Lilah, but she's even more impossible to read than Wes ever was. She can't believe that she's not entering into some sort of Faustian deal here, with Lilah coming to collect the marker on her soul in a few years or something.

“No catch. Just a job. If you don't want it, I'll understand -- and you'll never see me again.”

Well, that's a tempting offer as well, she thinks, but Lilah does have a point. She's coping, she's getting by, but she's bored to tears. Even though Lilah hasn't mentioned the salary, she has no doubt that she'd probably make enough money to start putting something aside again to replace her savings – and in her relocation fund as well. She'd been thinking about trying LA or Seattle or Chicago – pretty much anywhere but New York, really. Anywhere but this godforsaken town that was too full of memories and ghosts and snotty girls from high school who came into the diner just to point and giggle and leave crappy five cent tips on their bottomless cups of coffee and slices of mediocre, warmed-over pie.

“I'll think about it," she says, letting caution guide her.

Lilah stands up. "Sure. You do that." She hesitates. "Look, I'm probably going to regret this –"

"Lot of that going around," Faith says sourly.

"I'd like – " Lilah's flushing now, natural color rising up under the perfectly-applied blush. "Could we- could we talk maybe? Somewhere that isn't here?"

Faith frowns. "About what? I've said I'll think about it. I know where his office is; I'll maybe go over; I'm off tomorrow. Not promising –"

"About Wesley."

"What?" Faith's on her feet now, glaring. "What about him?"

Lilah's control snaps back into place. "I'm really not going to go into it here." Her eyes stay on Faith's as she pulls out a card from her purse. "Here's my address. If you want to come by around eight, say, I'd be... grateful. I've just done you a favor; you owe me one."

"That's the way it works for you, isn't it?" Faith says. "Never something for nothing."

Lilah smiles. "Wes was always the one who did the pro bono, if that's what you mean. I like a check, not heartfelt thanks."

Faith stares at her and Lilah reaches out and pats her arm. "You know you'll come."

"Why?" It's getting hard to answer Lilah because she's saying Wesley's name too often and each time she does, it hurts, it stings.

"Because you want to talk about him as much as I do." Lilah doesn't make it sound even vaguely like a question. "And who else have you got who wants to listen?"

Darla's eyes glazing over when she mentions him... Xander's endless supply of cutting remarks... how long has it been since she's done more than whisper his name in the dark? And it hurts to say it, hurts to hear it –

"Nine." Faith meets her eyes and nods slowly. "I'll come at nine."

Because Wesley's taught her that pain isn't something you hide from, isn't something you fear, and something in her is flushing warm, burning bright at the prospect of finding out more about him.

Chapter Three Hundred

She takes care dressing for the first time in a long time, slipping into clothes that still, if she brings them close to her face, smell of Wesley's home. She's not trying to do more than look presentable; not trying to compete, or seduce, the way she normally is when she dresses up, but it's a little like preparing for battle. Liam used to always laugh when Darla was getting ready to go out – hey, a happy memory of her dad, who'd have thought it – and say she was putting on her war-paint, and Faith had peered at the shabby cosmetics bag, wide-eyed and confused because the worn down lipstick and bright-blue eye shadow didn't look like paint.

She gets it now. It's armor, it's a shield. It, like the plum dress, is something to hide behind.

She doesn't wear the pink shoes though.

Lilah's home isn't just in the good part of town; it defines where the good part is. She's name-checked through a reception area by a security guard whose eyes look as if he wants to find a reason to strip-search her, though his mouth calls her 'Miss' politely, and ushered into an elevator.

Lilah lives high, penthouse high, in a loft apartment, all pale wood, glowing in the light of a few scattered lamps. Empty spaces and shadows create an effect where other people would have hung paintings, put up shelves.

There's a small oasis of plush, deep sofas, angled for conversation, and a low table between them set out with small bowls of nibbles. Faith doesn't do more than glance at them. Her stomach's churning with nerves.

"Look, maybe this was –"

"A mistake?" Lilah shakes her head. She's dressed in soft, old sweatpants and a simple white tee and Faith, wrong-footed from the start, smoothes down her dress defensively. "Second thoughts aren't usually the ones you should go by."

"My first and second thoughts were not to come," Faith tells her. "Still not sure what good you think this'll do."

Lilah shrugs. "I'm not, either. Call it an impulse. And after all –" her eyes gleam with amusement, "let's face it, you can't hate me more than you do right now, so what do I have to lose?"

Faith studies her. She can think of a few things but she's not sure how to cope with Lilah in this mood.

"I need a drink," Lilah says abruptly. "Somehow Wesley and alcohol go together, don't you think?"

She's said his name and it's all that's needed to have Faith drift over to one of the couches and sit down.

"Guess they do." She pauses and then says, offering it up just to see if she'd got this right, if this was what Lilah wanted – "I once made him drink a chocolate vodka milkshake."

She has; it is. Lilah snorts with sudden, delighted laughter. "No! Oh God, I'd have paid to see his face! Once this client came over at Christmas with a bottle of sherry because he said Wes, being English, would love it. It was sweet, cheap stuff and he drank two glasses smiling all the time –"

"Yeah. Too good-mannered not to," Faith says softly.

"It was a big account," Lilah says dryly, "and the face he pulled as soon as the man left... you'd think he'd been forced to drink lemon-juice."

A straight swap of memories and a silence falls, still awkward but guarded, not unfriendly.

"What can I get you to drink?" Lilah asks. "Not sure I can manage a milkshake –"

Faith shakes her head. "Don't want one."

Lilah nods, going over to an impressive row of bottles. "I know. It reminds you of him, so you stop eating it, drinking it, wearing it... with me it was a restaurant; the one where he proposed. Can't walk past it without getting a cold shiver."

There's a fierce pang of envy at that. Not that she'd ever thought that far ahead and she wasn't sure she was cut out for tacking 'Mrs' onto her name, but still... "I'll have a vodka tonic," she says.

Lilah sighs. "He drinks those," she says patiently. "Can't you even come up with a drink of your own?"

Faith's on her feet. "Look, just give me a drink, will you? No, don't bother –"

She's half way to the door when the pop of a can makes her turn. Lilah's pouring tonic into a tumbler frosted with ice, garnished with lime. "Oh, come back and stop being dramatic."

It's a long walk home to an empty house and Faith sighs and kicks off her shoes before curling up on the couch again. "What the hell..."

Lilah waits until Faith's glass is at her lips before raising hers in a toast. "Bottoms up," she says, eyebrow quirked, a sly smile on her face

Faith chokes as the double meaning hits her, vodka forced into places it was never meant to go. "You're a bitch, you know that?" she says, but as Lilah carries on smiling, she can't help grinning back because, yeah, it is kinda funny.

"That was the trouble with Wesley," Lilah says, fishing out her slice of lime and nibbling away at the sweetly-tart flesh. "He takes everything so damn seriously... He's got a kink; fine – who doesn't? I could tell you stories about some of the men – and women – who run this town that'd make the games you two got up to look tame. But no, he's all determined to see himself as the only freak and get a kick out of that as well as... well, out of everything else he does."

Hard to argue with that, though Faith's wondering just how much Lilah knows. The way Wes told it, she'd never gone along with it, just found out and reacted really badly.

"You never guessed? Before you got married? When you were fucking?" she asks, taking refuge in deliberate crudity.

"What turned him on?" Lilah shook her head. "He got a little rough at times, but –" There's a secret, remembering smile on her face and Faith looks away. Too much. Too intimate. "I like that. Don't want a man who's afraid to touch me... and Wesley – God, the things he can do when he's in the mood!"

"He's... " Faith grinds to a halt. She can feel Wesley's mouth on her, feel his hands... "Oh God, I miss him so much!"

"Now, see, I don't," Lilah says, her voice cool enough to freeze-dry Faith's tears at source. "Seeing him around – and a place this small, that happened way too often – well, it just reminded me of what a fool I'd been, falling in love with him." Her gaze sharpens. "Did he tell you what I did when I found out?"

She feels disloyal even nodding because she can feel his hand gripping hers tightly as he chokes out the words, tears wet on his face.

"That was me feeling hurt," Lilah confides. "I don't deal with rejection well."

"Never would've guessed," Faith mutters.

"I heard about the mess you left at his office, Faith, so don't get all holier-than-thou on me," Lilah says snidely. "Think that's one thing we've got in common, don't you? We know how to hurt him. You destroyed his books and me, well I tipped gallons of his wine down the sink." She takes a slow, reflective sip of her drink. "I lined up all the empty bottles, nice and neat, just the way he likes things, and when he walked in and saw them, I tipped one over and watched them fall."

"What did he do?" Faith asks curiously. There's a difference between Wes in a mood to spank and Wes stone-cold angry...

Lilah shrugs. "Wasn't much he could do, was there? Just gave me only of those fucking English looks; you know –" Yeah. She does. All tightly-buttoned up and you can feel the heat simmering beneath the frosty-cool crust. " – and says, 'You always did have excellent taste in wine, Lilah. Judging from the gaps on the shelves you chose very well. Very well indeed." Then he nodded and said in this creepy, quiet voice –" And, fuck she knows that one too – "'If you're still here when I've finished cleaning this up, Lilah, I'll break you as you broke these bottles.'"

Lilah finishes her drink and stands up, reaching out for Faith's glass. "Bastard made me believe it, too." She walks over to mix up more drinks. "Did he ever scare you? I mean, all the stuff he did – he tied you up, right? So you were helpless and all at his mercy... and you never once got worried he'd do something, go too far?"

"He didn't –" Faith hesitates. "I had – there was this word..."

Lilah's eyebrow arches. "Well, yes, I imagine there was. But this is Wesley we're talking about. He can give you a chance to escape just because it's so much fun when you try and use it and find it leads to nowhere. Bet you never used that nice shiny word of yours often. He wouldn't have liked you spoiling his fun that way."

This is getting too much and Faith backs off a little. "You married him. Why?"

"Why not? Saves paying two rents -"

Faith shakes her head. "No. That wasn't it. If you're going to play this game with me, you've got to tell me straight."

"Oh, we're playing, are we?" Lilah purses her lips. "He attracted me. Mysterious, foreign – God that voice of his –"

"Fuck, yes," Faith says, rolling her eyes. They share a look.

"And who doesn't want to be the one who glues a broken heart back together," Lilah says lightly. "I'm assuming if you got all the dirt on me, he was equally forthcoming about Ms Burkle."

Their eyes meet and they chorus, "Stupid bitch," and dissolve in giggles only partly vodka-induced although Lilah's mixed them strong and Faith's already feeling a buzz.

"I mean," Lilah says, "can you imagine? She had Wes in love with her. Totally devoted, head-over-heels and she just –" She makes a 'pfft' sound and downs half her drink.

"Why do they do that?" she asks Faith. "Why do they fall in love with those faux-naive little tarts who don't know a good deal when they see it?"

"You didn't think he was that good a deal," Faith reminds her.

Lilah gives her a jaundiced look. "Well, he wasn't in love with me, honey. Never. Makes a difference."

"He loved me," Faith says and there's a quiet certainty to her voice that has Lilah's gaze sharpening.

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"But he left you."

"It's why he left me."

"God," Lilah says in disgust. "They just don't get any bigger idiots than when they're trying to be noble."

"Tell me about it." Faith looks around and sees a silver-framed photograph pushed far back on a low sideboard. "Is that –"

Lilah follows the direction of her gaze and nods. "Our wedding day, yes. My second, his first. No white dress, no church... hell, I think we even put in some hours at the office that day." She shrugs. "Take a look if you want. See what Wesley looks like on the happiest day of his life."

Faith stands up and goes over to it, glad that her back's towards Lilah. She's worn the edges soft on the single photograph she has of Wesley, staring at it for hours in the early days of their separation, searching his face for some sign of what he'd had planned and finding nothing but a loving, slightly embarrassed smile. Now she stares down at a younger Wesley, impeccably clad in a dark suit with his one concession to the day being a white carnation through his buttonhole that looks wildly out-of-place. He's standing beside Lilah, who's breathtaking in a green dress that manages to look special without being too much. A wide-brimmed hat is in one hand; her other is resting on Wesley's shoulder.

He's half-turned and smiling at her, but he's not touching her and there's something closed-off and distant in his look.

"Romantic, wasn't it?" Lilah says into Faith's ear. Faith jumps and drops the photograph which falls with a clatter. Lilah reaches past her and sets it upright again and then pushes it back, almost hidden behind a vase. "He tried, I'll give him that. But you can tell when someone's just not there when you're kissing them."

"'These poor half-kisses kill me quite,'" Faith murmurs, the words swimming up from her memory.

Lilah pulls a face. "Is that a quotation? Don't tell me he used to read you those deadly-dull books of his; forget the spanking; that's cruel and unusual right there."

Faith frowns. "Yeah, it is; Michael Drayton, but Wesley didn't tell me that one." And when she'd got to the final line, 'Come, nice thing, let my heart alone, I cannot live without thee!' she'd started to cry right there in the middle of the library with a wide-eyed toddler staring at her in silence, his thumb rammed in his mouth. "You – you didn't like it when he read to you?"

"You did?"

They stare at each other across a gulf and Faith turns her head, scanning the apartment. No bookshelves anywhere... no wonder it feels kinda empty. "You don't like reading?"

Lilah snorts. "I read all day; why would I want to do it for fun? Oh, the odd blockbuster, or if there's a book everyone's talking about I'll skim it; you have to keep up with these things... but read the books he does? Classics and poetry? No thanks."

"Not even the porn?" Faith says with a sidelong grin that fades as she recalls curling up in the library with one of Wesley's leather-bound books, illustrating elegant perversions in text or art that seem all the more shocking because the people in the books are Jane Austen old and it's fucking weird to think of them doing stuff that'd look so dirty if it was a photograph, and looks so erotic in a delicately tinted drawing.

Lilah's lips thin down. "Wesley's taste in porn isn't something I like to think about."

It's a weak spot and Faith can't resist pressing down on the bruise. Maybe it was seeing the photograph, but she's all jangled nerves and jitters. "Yeah, he said you went rooting around and found his stash." She frowns severely. "I never did that. Saw his books, but they're not hidden, and he doesn't go in for anything in the way of toys or stuff, so what -?"

There's a splash of tonic and a long gurgle of vodka as Lilah freshens their glasses. "He probably got rid of it," she says tiredly, pressing her glass to her forehead and sitting down. "I ripped up a lot of it."

"You ripped up his books?" Faith says incredulously. She'd burned his office books but she doesn't think she'd have been able to consign any of his personal ones to the flames, no matter how hurt she was.

Lilah sniffs. "Not books," she says. "Porn. Really sick stuff, too."

Faith considers that. "What would you call sick?" she asks cautiously. Lilah doesn't strike her as the prim-and-proper type but maybe she's all talk...

Lilah gives a short laugh. 'I tell you, and you're going to say, 'Oh, yes, we did that every second Thursday' aren't you?'"

"Don't know," Faith tells her. "And I'm not really comfortable telling you what we did. It's... private, you know?"

"Fine," Lilah says, meeting her eyes and with a flush burning scarlet on her face. "So let's go with what you've already told me. At the court that day you said I should've let him fuck my ass." She barely waits for Faith's nod before hurrying on. "He asked – hell, he just went ahead and tried one night when we were both drunk, and I nearly took his head off I slapped him so hard."

"Oh..." Faith murmurs, lost for words. She'd been a bit freaked when he mentioned it but it'd been good, like everything she did with Wesley.

"But you let him, didn't you?" Lilah demands. "You let him do – anything."

"I told you; not up for discussion. That – yeah, we did. But I'm not saying anything else."

Lilah smiles. "But I want to know," she says softly. "We – it was good at first. He was so sweet, so – but it wore off. He was just pretending, just being kind. I couldn't give him what I wanted; didn't even know what it was because he never fucking shared that little secret with me."

Unbidden, Faith feels pity rise. She remembers how incalculable Wesley could be. If he hadn't made it pretty plain with that first spanking what got him off, would she have worked it out? Probably not.

"So I want to know. Everything he did; everything he asked you to do. I want to know for sure that even if I'd known what he wanted, I wouldn't have wanted to give it to him."

Lilah's eyes are glittering with tears now, but they're angry tears and her teeth are digging into her lip.

"You wouldn't," Faith says slowly, groping for the right words. "You're just not like me. You're too... you're too much like him." And why does she suddenly feel that of the three of them, she's the fucking adult? Wes and Lilah, circling each other, eyes closed, reaching out and never touching...

"Are you going to tell me?" Lilah demands.

"No." Faith's voice is flat, uncompromising.

Lilah nods as if she'd been expecting that answer and walks over to a desk, taking out a thin, blue folder. "Know what this is?" she says, holding it up.

"If this is more fucking blackmail -" Faith says, struggling to stand up.

"No. It's not." Lilah taps the edge of the folder against her palm and Faith finds herself straining to hear that faint, regular sound over the rush of blood in her ears. "It's an exchange of information, that's all. What I want to know for Wesley's contact details. Where he works, where he lives, phone numbers, his email – God, I can't believe that last one – the man didn't even own a TV for Christ's sake."

Faith's lips part and close but Lilah notices. "No. Don't tell me. He didn't?"

Faith shrugs apologetically. "Widescreen, surround sound... the works."

"I don't fucking believe it," Lilah mutters. "He wouldn't hear of it when I wanted one. Lectured me about it being mass-produced pap for the proletariat or some crap like that."

She takes three swift strides and thrusts the folder at Faith. "Oh, take it. Use it if it you want or trash it. I give up." She gives Faith a lop-sided smile. "Look his company up when you get a chance; he's got a page on the website all to himself. Guess he turned out to be their blue-eyed boy as well as our - yours."

"I don't have a computer," Faith tells her absently, fingering the cover of the folder gently.

"You will have on Monday," Lilah tells her. "I took the liberty of assuring Mr. Rosenberg that you were so perfect he didn't need to interview you. You start at nine. Don't be late. He won't spank you if you are, but he gets this sad look in his eyes and you'll feel six-inches tall."

"I hadn't decided to take it," Faith says indignantly.

Lilah gives her a skeptical look. "You were all but drooling at the thought of getting out of that place, honey. Don't cut off your pretty little nose, hmm?"

"Thank you," Faith says awkwardly. "It's – he knows I don't have a reference?"

"Thanks for what?" Lilah shakes her head. "He owes me; you owe me... I like that. No need for thanks. And I'm your reference, so don't let me down."

"You didn't have to give me this," Faith says, glancing down at the folder. "That was – nice of you, though I don't know if I'll use it."

Lilah's eyes flicker. "Right. Because you're just going to let him walk away."

Faith shrugs. "I might," she says, and she means it. Not sure she wants to chase Wes, not sure at all. "But it's good to have the option. So thanks. I owe you."

"You could've found it out yourself," Lilah says dismissively. "Well, maybe not the name of his cleaner, tailor and chess partner..."

Chapter Three Hundred and One

She should be worried about the new job. Feel guilty about leaving the diner with two days notice and just about enough money to retrieve her work clothes from the back of the closet and get them dry-cleaned. Hell, she should even be worried that she might have forgotten how to 75 words per minute her way to a better life.

But how can she freak out about any of that when she's freaking out about the three sheets of paper in the blue folder that Lilah gave her? It was game over as soon as she had it in her hands. Lilah was still up for another thrilling installment of scenes from her marriage but she drained her drink in one gulp, got to her feet and made her excuses while Lilah sat there almost forlornly like she thought they were going to be best buddies and get their nails done together on the weekend.

She'd seen Faith to the door, pressed a wet slither of a kiss against the corner of her mouth and it was probably just too much vodka and coincidence that her arm brushed Faith's breasts for five seconds too long as she reached for the latch and husked in her ear, "Don't forget, Faith, you owe me."

But the way Faith sees it is that Lilah still owes her bigtime. Sure she's got her some fancy new job and three pieces of paper that are making her sick just thinking about them but that doesn't even begin to make right all the wrongs she's done her.

It's not until Saturday morning when she's back from the dry cleaners but still has an hour to kill before her haircut that she retrieves the folder from under her mattress, locks herself in the bathroom and finally opens it with a shaking hand.

For a moment the words don't make sense. They just swim in front of her like Times Roman little fishies and Lilah could have just written, 'Sucker!" in six inch high letters for all the sense they make. Then she's picking out a word here and there. A sentence, an address, a life that he's carved out for himself far away from her.

It's not a life that seems to involve the brownstone in the West Village that overlooks a garden square. It's hard to tell but isn't East 77th Street kinda uptown? It's so weird to think of him living somewhere that she can't picture. Has he still got space for all of his books? Does he still prefer to sleep in a south-facing room? Has he got some fancy stainless steel kitchen where he doesn't have time to do anything but boil up a kettle because she heard somewhere that New Yorkers eat out a lot. He'd like that but then sometimes he'd get in and he'd just want to make something plain and easy, maybe some pasta and pesto, one of those foofy bottles of imported beer and a football, what the fuck? soccer match on the big TV, if he hadn't sent that back because he didn't have to entertain some 18 year old piece of ass anymore.

The email and the website address are easy to skim over though she knows that come Monday, before she's even found out where the john and the coffee maker is, she's going to be doing things she wished she hadn't, but there's phone numbers. All she has to do is pad back into her room, get her cell phone, press in, like, what, ten numbers and she can speak to him?

It can't be that easy. Life isn't that easy. And as soon as she thinks that she hears the phone ring in the front room and she bites her tongue so fucking hard that it makes her eyes water.

She hears Darla pick it up and it's gonna be Wes. Not just because she thinks that every time the phone rings or the doorbell goes or she catches sight of someone lean and dark but because he's her fucking soulmate and he knows. Knows that they're meant to be together. But it's not Wes. It never is and Darla's banging on the door.

"Faithy, you in there? That was Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow. Can you get there in ten minutes, honey?"

And her eyes are watering again because even after three months and two weeks and five days (and can it really be that they've been apart longer than they were together?) she's still fucking stupid enough to believe that he's going to come back to her. But he's not, because her loving him so much that she could just about have died from it wasn't enough. She wasn't enough.

So that's why she doesn't *89 and start heavy breathing down the phone the minute he picks up and says, "Pryce here," in his velvet and broken glass voice. Nope. She shoves the folder back under the mattress and when she's sitting in the chair and Dru, her stylist, asks her what she wants, she takes a long, cold look in the mirror at the girl with dead eyes staring back at her and says, "Cut it all off."



Luckily Dru knows a thing or two about bad break ups and she doesn't have to turn up at Rosenberg, Flutie and Snyder with a short back and sides. Her jaw length bob is pretty stylin' and if Wes was here to see it then she'd be able to forget sitting down for the rest of the week.

She catches sight of her reflection in the plate glass of the door as she takes a deep breath and steels herself to walk inside. She's wearing the jet black pencil skirt from what she's come to think of as her court suit and her black and white polka dot blouse, kitten heels and a nervous smile.

"OK, Faithy. If he offers to spank you for every typographical error you make, then you're outta here," she tells herself and steps inside.



But Mr Rosenberg is like the anti-Wes. She can tell that from the beaming smile he gives her before he opens his mouth and says, "Faith? Boy howdy am I pleased to see you. And Lilah never mentioned how pretty you were."

If there was a picture of a sweet, old man in the dictionary next to 'grandad' then it would like just like Mr Rosenberg, though he's already said she can call him Monty. He doesn't even look at the resume that she typed up on Xander's flatmate's Mom's computer, just ushers her into his office where yellowing paper seems to have gone to die and asks her hopefully if she can do shorthand?

And who knew that lawyers could give dictation and spell all the difficult names without being asked and not sigh heavily when she asks them to slow down and then give her a cookie when she reads the letters back because "you've done such a good job, sweetheart?"

The morning just flies by. She does the dictation and fields five phone calls from Mrs Rosenberg who asks her to remind Monty to take his pills at 11'o'clock and to make sure that he doesn't have more than one cup of coffee "because his bladder isn't what it used to be, dear and we're so glad that you're here because he's been absolutely snowed under."

It's not until three in the afternoon when she's picking at her sandwich, chicken and lettuce and tomato on rye, no mayo, that she has a chance to click on the Internet Explorer icon that's been taunting her all day and access her gmail account.

She doesn't even have to get the folder out of her bag to type in his email address. It's already written on her heart. She even manages to type in "Dear Wes" and then she's staring at the blank screen and wondering what the hell to do now.

Chapter Three Hundred and Two

The first draft is full of bile.

Dear Wes:
Hey, remember me? The girl you fucking abandoned after breaking her heart and stamping all over it. Just thought I’d say howdy, you fucking bastard.

And then she’s writing 'fuck' and all variations thereof as fast as her fingers will fly across the keys and when Monty steps out of his office she gets one of his gummy smiles because he thinks that she’s pounding out another deposition, not writing an email full of hate and vitriol to her rat fink ex-boyfriend, ex employer.


She stares at the little window full of hateful words that aren't entirely true, and right before hitting 'discard', she hits 'save draft' instead. Something tells her that she's gonna accumulate quite a few letters never sent in the drafts folder.
The next try is too sappy, too simpering.

She basically just cuts and pastes 'I miss you' a hundred times, until she has a thick block of text that's shimmering and insistent with longing. Probably not the best tactic either, she thinks, swooping the mouse to select all the text and deleting it into oblivion.

Honesty is the best policy, Faithy. If there's anything you've learned from him, it's that, right? She sighs, starts again.

Dear Wes,
I know you asked me not to contact you ever again, but this seems safe, right? I mean, you can read this, or ignore it, or delete it, or whatever. It's not even like, a solid thing, just words on a screen. Ephemeral, right?

And anyway it’s really not your decision to make. You left me. Didn’t get any say in that, did I? Didn’t get any say in a whole bunch of stuff that you threw at me in that letter? So if I want to send you an email then I think the least you can do is respect the fact that maybe there were things I wanted to say to you too.

You'll have questions about how I got your email address. I'll get to that later. And you'll probably have questions about how I've got access to a computer. Yeah, yeah. I'll get to that too.

Anyway. What's up with me? I've been reading a lot. And I guess I’ve increased my word power a lot since you were with me. You’d be pretty impressed at how creative I’ve got when it comes to thinking up names to call you. Seems like I've always got my nose in a book, except when “Pimp My Ride” or “Jackass” is on. I liked Wuthering Heights and went right on to Madame Bovary after that. Like, can you say over-identify? What else have I read? The Bell Jar, Catcher In The Rye but you might not have heard of them, seeing that they were, like, written within the last 60 years. I'm trying Henry James now. You'll probably laugh, but I can totally relate to Isobel Archer, y'know? Does that make you Ralph Touchett? Feeling consumptive?

Up until a few days ago I was working at the diner. Yup, the one across the road and I looked really fetching in that uniform, let me tell you. It was a riot. And everyone's favorite short order cook only asked me out like, a thousand times the first day I was there. By the way, thanks for remembering to give me a reference, it really made the whole job search a walk in the park.

Anyway, who should saunter in one day but your friend and mine, Ms. Lilah Morgan? And she was just full of surprises. I bet your ears were burning, Wes. But I’m not going to kiss and tell. Didn’t with Lilah, well not really. I guess I owed you that much and now Lilah reckons I owe her too because she found a job for me.

Turns out all that business you sent to Mr. Rosenberg has like, totally swamped him. So I'm working as his secretary now. You know, you could really learn a lot from his deskside manner, Wes. He has awesome things like a computer and a copier, even! I have to admit I kinda miss the old Selectric but I’m never going to miss using those nasty, annoying carbons. Just hit print two and wait until the laser printer spits 'em out. It's pretty awesome, but I bet you're finding that out in your new office. By the way, Wes, congratulations on finally getting to grips with a computer. How are you finding the 21st Century?

Oh yeah, that reminds me, speaking of law stuff. Sorry about what I did to your office. At least, I think I’m sorry. You’d just bailed out on me after letting me think everything was going to be OK. Like, life was going to get good again so I was pretty fucked up. Hey, that's the best you're gonna get out of me for now, so take it or leave it.

I got one other thing to tell you. I cut all my hair off. It’s not like you’re here to brush it and it’s hot out here in the sticks in September. ‘Sides, I like it. Still haven’t come to a decision about the tattoo and the piercing. Why don’t I get back to you on that?

So, like I said, not much going on with me, really. Just trying to save money to get out of here because Darla and Xander, they mean well, but they're totally driving me nuts. Always asking me how I'm feeling and looking a little too concerned when I don't go out, or if I have a stinking glass of wine, like I'm heading for a drunken mental breakdown at any minute. Which I'm totally not, you know. I'm fine. I'm doing just fine.

So, Wes, what about you? You’re not living in the brownstone - I guess I can understand why. Sounds like you've got some nice penthouse apartment overlooking the park. And your office is downtown, isn’t it? Do you take the subway with the unwashed masses? Or does a big black Cadillac with a uniformed driver from your new fancy law firm wait by the front entrance for you every morning, ready to whisk you to that the big corner office? Do you know your doorman's name? I bet you do, and his whole history and his kids' names and that his wife wants to leave him. Five bucks says you've already totally helped out when his brother got brought up on some petty larceny charge in Queens. 'Cause I get that now too, Wes. You like helping people out like that. That's one of the nicer things I remember about you.

Does that sound mean? Well, what the fuck do you expect? Because really, Wes, this is me trying so hard to be nice, because I can do that now. I've got good at pretending, good at hiding the way I feel. You used to always say I was, oh, transparent, yeah, that was it. That you could see everything I was feeling in my eyes, on my face. Guess you could, but it's hard when we're this far apart, so I'll help you out. Want to know how I feel?

I'm so furious with you that I can't bear it. How dare you think you know what I want or what I need? What gives you the right to know what's best for me, for us?

Did you think I'd just cry into my pillow for a week and then everything would be OK? That I'd be able to even know what happy is any more.

Are you happy there in New York, in your fancy Upper East Side apartment and your fancy new job? I hope so because everything here sucks, sucks, sucks. Everywhere I go people give me weird looks. Still. Like they all know what happened, every intimate detail, even though no one ever says anything to my face. I hate that you left me here to deal with this mess. I hate that you're there and I'm still here and there's nothing I can do about that. And I can't forget you because everything here reminds me of you. Even stupid things like the grocery store, and the movie theater, and that street corner where you picked me up after we had that fight and I was running away from you in the rain. Remember that? I hope you do. Sometimes when I walk by there, I think I never should have got into your car when you stopped for me, that I just should have kept running and never looked back.

And I hate that I want to hit delete because I know this email will have made you angry and that you might not even have read this far. And I hate that I can't hate you even now. And I hate that this email will be with you in seconds while I'm stuck here when I still love you and wish that I could say something or do something that would bring you back to me.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. If you've got this far you're probably totally mad at me. Or maybe you're just rolling your eyes and sighing because my little cyber hissy fit just reminds you how young and stupid I am.

Also, before you can think that I'm, like, stalking you, you should know that Lilah gave me your email address plus your address and your phone numbers and stuff. Not like I'm gonna call you or turn up on your doorstep. I'm making great strides in self control these days. But if you're pissed that I've written you, feel free to take it out on her.
Wouldn't kill you to write me back though. Just to let me know that you're OK and maybe you think about me sometimes.



Faith

It takes a long time for her to decide to send it, and she spends another twenty minutes after she's done checking the spelling and debating how to sign off. With x's and o's, or “love,” or “yours”? In the end she decides on neither of those options and almost has to close her eyes to hit send. But her stomach's all churny and she doesn't want to accidentally hit 'discard' and lose the whole thing.

And as soon as it's gone off into the ether, she's checking the sent mail folder to make sure it went through, and hardly gets any work done for the rest of the day, because she keeps hitting the refresh button on the inbox, over and over again until she has to make herself stop, because Monty has some filing for her and the only email she's getting now is the occasional stupid penis enlargement ad that slips through the spam filters, which she doesn't find amusing in the slightest.

Chapter Three Hundred and Three

Monty's tutting and shaking his head when he arrives at the office the next morning and finds her waiting for him outside– has been for thirty minutes actually- but there's an approving smile on his face too. She squashes down the guilt as he compliments her on being so keen, and salves her conscience by not logging on to check for a message until she's started off a pot of coffee and sorted the mail.

Which means a delay of eight minutes and it's pure torture.

She's still a mass of nerves because she was waiting all evening for a phone call. Hell, for Wes to do what he'd do if this was a movie, and run out of his office five minutes after getting her email, dash to the airport, and be there on her doorstep a few hours later. He could have. There was time. He really could have.

He hadn't though and she'd lulled herself to sleep by telling herself she was a fool for ever thinking he would. But writing back to her, yeah, he can totally do that, right? Rude not to reply, and God knows Wes is never impolite. Sadistic, yes, but in a totally fucking courteous way.

When she's sorted through the spam and she's left with no new messages, it's like a slap across the face, and her hands are trembling as she logs off.

Oh, by lunchtime she's come up with a dozen excuses; he's busy, he's on a trip, he's so fucking dumb he doesn't know how to hit reply... but she doesn't believe any of them. His silence is as eloquent as he's going to get, and that's that. Fuck, for all she knows he's turned into a computer genius and figured out how to block her, so she slips into the spam with the rest of the trash. And isn't that a teeth-grinding thought.

Monty goes out after lunch to meet a client and, shame-faced as if she's hitting an XXX site, she logs on, sneers bravely at the lack of Wesley messages and types in the address of his law firm's web page. It loads in seconds, all quietly elegant font and photographs that get across just how prestigious Travers & Giles are and how any client of theirs should feel lucky to have them. They've got an office in London too, and she wonders if they'll ever send Wesley there, and if he'd go if they did.

There's a list of names of partners and she clicks on his, feeling a tension that's so tightly-wound she gives a little shriek when the phone rings. Turning away from a page that's taking forever to load, she fields a call from a client who's in total share-mode about a messy divorce and then takes a deep breath and turns back to the screen.

Wes. Blue eyes, faint smile, perfectly-knotted tie. Sitting at a desk – fuck, she's whimpering now – a silver pen held loosely in his long fingers. Behind him there's a kick-ass view of the city and a tall, stacked bookcase over to one side.

There's a page of text too and when she can drag her eyes away from his face, she reads it, finding out shit he'd never got around to telling her, like he'd once written a law book - although given that the title's thirteen words long and half of them are in Latin, she doesn't think it made the best seller list – and that he'd been on the British Olympic rifle team when he was at university. Her jaw drops at that, which means it's perfectly positioned for the discovery that Wesley's hobbies include collecting rare first editions and botany.

Biggles and porn have never sounded so classy.

She's about to log off and actually do what she's paid for when she notices a news item on the home page, side-by-side with the latest celebrity break-up. Seems they're auctioning off the first printed pornography at Sotheby's, dating from 1670, and it's expected to go for $70,000 or so. She reads the description which includes rave reviews about it being 'notorious' and 'the quintessence of debauchery,' and can't resist.

Hey Wes.

I saw and thought of you. Going to be saving up your pocket money for it? Or is it a bit out of your price range?

Can't help wondering what you've been doing to scratch your itch since you left me. Found someone else? Asked around and got hooked up with a hooker? Or are you back trawling the clubs for just-past-jailbait like I was?

Can't see you staying satisfied with your own hand for long. I sure as hell haven't been. Going to see if Xander's in the mood and go into the city this Friday. See what it's like getting kissed by someone who doesn't give a fuck as long as he gets one.

Faith.

She's shaking when she hits 'send', jumping up and pacing around the office, nibbling away at her fingernail until it's a ragged mess. Her heart's jumping too, thudding unevenly until she feels sick with the need for a cigarette. Propping open the window, she lights up and leans out, watching the smoke curl up and drift away and regretting pretty much everything she's done in her life, starting with the first time she cheated in class – and copying off Xander so they both got the exact same answers wrong wasn't the brightest idea ever – and ending with that press of a finger against the mouse button five minutes ago.


Xander. Always there when she got in trouble. She's getting sentimental now, just thinking about what a good friend he is, even if he's been totally pissing her off by being really fucking negative about her new job because she'd had to tell him about the Lilah connection.

Monty's car pulls up and she hastily hides the evidence with a spritz of air freshener, and she's the perfect, dutiful typist, tapping away industriously, when he comes in, beaming at her and telling her that she's working too hard.


She doesn't know what she's doing with these emails but as the days flick past with no response and Friday night approaches, she gives it some thought. Is she trying to piss him off? Should she get more and more outrageous – and she's got some fucking good ideas, up to and including sending him a picture of her new hair style so he can see how well it goes with the pink shoes, which'll be all she's wearing – or should she dial it back? Will it work to break his silence the way her disreputable wardrobe and behavior did, way back when, or just convince him he's made the right call to ditch her?

Impossible to tell. Wesley's stopped being someone she can predict – not that he ever was, not really – and started to become shadowy and mysterious again.

A couple of ignored emails don't qualify as a conversation; takes two players for that. But neither of them has bounced back, and she figures Wes still knows her well enough to think up effective ways to shut her up if he really wants to.

An email from his secretary, maybe: Mr Wyndam-Pryce is in receipt of your communications of the blah-blah and regrets to inform you that he is unable to enter into a non-business related dialogue at this present time. Thank you and fuck off.

Yeah, that'd work and it's cold enough to fit right in with the Wesley who could get on a plane and fly off, leaving another disaster he'd caused to sort itself out without him.

But he hasn't, and the silence almost – almost – becomes encouraging.

She's drunk when she writes to him next though, and the lack of response is pressing down on her until she can't breathe for waiting and wanting.

Wesley, Wesley, Wes. Hey. It's me. Faith. It's three in the morning and I'm so fucking drunk I might throw up on the keyboard if the screen doesn't stop flashing like that....

Not at work. No. I'm at Steve's. Steve's nice and he says I'm pretty; see? Nice. You'd like him. No. You don't like anyone. Don't like any of my friends. Don't like Xander and guess what? He doesn't like you. That's kinda funny, huh?

Steve's just fucked me, Wes. Just taken ten minutes tops out of his life to fuck me and now he's asleep and I'm awake and I'm using his computer to tell you that I fucking hate you more than I've ever hated anyone even my fucking vile, shitty father.

Cause he dances good – way better than you – and he bought me drinks all night because he totally thought I needed cheering up and he brought me back to his place and he's nice but he's not fucking you. No one's you but you and I want you and I'm so fucking sad because what the fuck have I done?

I've had his fingers in my cunt and his cock – not bare, like yours used to be. No way. Though seeing the tarts you fucked from the clubs, maybe I shoulda made you bag it too, huh, Wes? Safe words with you, safe sex with him, and God it didn't save me, did it? I taste of him. God, I swallow and it's all I can fucking taste. Really am going to throw up, really am, and he didn't know I didn't come, 'cause guess what, I can fake it real good these days. You'd have known if I was faking it, wouldn't you Wes? Never did with you. Promise. Never did. Never had to.

It was horrible, Wes and I'm gonna have to stay awake long enough to delete this so he doesn't read it and get hurt, because that's what you do, not me. You're the one who hurts people you fuck so they can't do anything but remember the pain. And that's going to make you feel bad because you're gonna think I mean pain like when you left me bleeding or my ass was so bruised I slept on my front two nights straight and it's not that. Never minded that, Wes, you know that. Never minded it at all. Miss that. Yeah. Miss your hand on me, Wes, miss the sound of it connecting, and we did, didn't we, Wes? We connected then and it wasn't lonely. It's lonely now, Wes. Always.

God, Wes, you gave me so much to remember and it's not fair. Not fucking fair.

It was dark when he fucked me, so he never got to see the marks you left on my ass. Four of them, Wes and I don't think they're going to go away. Just as well he didn't. Think he'd have freaked. Guess not everyone's got your sophisticated tastes and thank fuck for spell check cause that looks majorly wrong now, but it won't when you read it.

If you do.

Miss you, Wes. Love you so fucking much.

Love you. Love you. Can't fucking stop.

You know I can't.

Have you?

Faith


Chapter Three Hundred and Four

His silence is deafening.

It pierces right through the throbbing headache she wakes up with the next day and makes it easy to ignore a week's worth of phone calls and texts and emails from Steve who for some totally weird reason actually wants to see her again.

And even though it makes her feel sick, she forces herself to check her gmail first thing every morning, once at lunchtime and just before she leaves at night, just to have proof of what she already knows. He hasn’t replied to any of her emails and after the way she cut out what was left of her heart and bled all over his inbox, he’s not going to.

She tries to tell herself that it’s better this way. That Wes’ radio and TV and every other kind of silence is going to force her to be strong and get on with the rest of her life because it’s going to be spent without him. But she’s, like, so pathetic that having to abandon her one-sided correspondence of bitchy emails is almost as heart wrenching as being dumped in the first place.

At least Monty loves her. Like a lot. Really a lot. He calls her into his office on the Monday morning of her third week and clears a little pile of papers off a chair so she can sit down.

She sits there with her perfect posture, back straighter than a Mormon preacher, knees pressed tight together, shorthand pad and pencil clutched in her hands and looks at Monty expectantly.

And Monty looks right back at her completely without guile, which is still taking a hell of getting used to.

“Did you have a nice weekend, sweetheart?” he asks her and sounds like he actually wants to know.

She thinks back to the Saturday spent reading Anna Karenina and bawling her eyes out before crying off (quite literally) an evening clubbing with Xander and his new boyfriend because she can’t trust herself not to get blind drunk and end up fucking someone who’s never going to be able to replace the Wes-shaped hole in her life or between her legs.

At least on Sunday she left the house to meet up with Dru to go to this flea market upstate. And that was just, like, not so much with the good ideas. Because Dru’s boyfriend, Spike, came along with his stupid bleached hair and his even stupider British accent. And while Dru bought these creepy Victorian dolls for some performance art show or whatever that she’s doing on Halloween, Faith talked to Spike about punk rock and Mariah Carey and filter tips on cigarettes. Not 'cause she gives a fuck about any of them but if she didn’t look at him, just listened to him instead and pretended that his accent was a little smoother, a little bit more cultured then it was almost like Wes was there too. Except who the fuck was she kidding?

“Yes sir,” she says to Monty. “I had an OK weekend.”

“Call me Monty,” Monty cries for the fiftieth time. “When you say sir it makes me feel like I’m some ancient old coot. And are you happy here, Faith? Settling in all right?”

“Yes sir, I mean Monty,” she assures him, summoning up the shaky smile that’s about 50% less effective than it used to be. “My last job? There wasn’t even a photo copier and no cookies either,” she adds, reaching forward to snag a Tollhouse cookie from the tin that’s Monty waving in front of her.

“Well, you’re doing a wonderful job, sweetheart. I’m just worried that you’re sitting out there bored to tears.”

And how can she tell Monty that boring is good? Boring suits her just fine right now. So she just shoves half the cookie into her mouth so she can only shake her head and try not to spray crumbs all over him.



She’s pretty proud that she’s managed to get through the week without clicking send on any inflammatory emails to wwpryce@traversgiles.com. She’s also pretty proud of the fact that it’s Sunday night and she’s managed to get through another weekend without getting drunk or getting fucked. Treated Darla to movie and a meal at the Olive Garden on Friday and went to some lame, Emo gig with Xander the night before so it’s not like she’s sitting at home like a total loser.

Still, she can’t help being slightly freaked out by just how psyched she is to have finished Anna Karenina though she really is going to have to call a time out on any more books with psycho heroines in them.

She really should turn out the light ‘cause she’s trying to get eight hours sleep a night and repair some of the damage caused by three months of insomnia and crying but she can’t help poking through the pile of books on her nightstand to try and decide what to read next.

Tropic Of Cancer looks kinda promising because there is no way in hell she’s reading Lolita. Doesn’t even know why she checked it out of the library but she’s already scanning the first page Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul - oh, so not going there, she thinks with a shudder, when her cell starts ringing.

She picks it up, eyes still skimming through the opening paragraph and hits the green button. “Hey.”

There’s no answer and she wonders if there’s a bad connection when she hears that teeny hiss of static on the line that happens when no-one’s saying anything.

“Who’s there? Xand, is that you? You recreating the opening scene from Scream again ‘cause, like, it wasn’t funny the first forty seven times, y’know.”

And there’s this tiny sound, like someone catching their breath, and she knows as clearly as if he’d just said her name who’s on the other end of the line.

The book’s open on the bed in front of her and there’s a million things she could say. A million things she wants to say. Maybe she’d start with sorry and end an hour later with I love you but she doesn’t speak. Instead she starts to read.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

There’s another little hitch of air in her ear, a start of recognition or it could be a reaction to the sound of her voice and she sits up straighter so she can sound clearer and carries on.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.  She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms, she was always Lolita.”

His breathing is slightly ragged. He’s drunk, or certainly he’s been drinking, and she can see him so clearly like he’s lounging at the foot of her bed, tumbler resting loosely in long fingers, skin burnished in the glow of her bedside lamp and he was never in here, which is just another regret to add to the all the others that she wears like her favorite perfume and she wishes that he had been. Just like she wishes that things aren’t so fucked up and messy that she’s not allowed to…

Fuck it! Just fuck it. And she’s putting the book down and clutching the phone tighter so she can say, “Hey, Wes. You gonna say hello?”

There’s a click that sounds louder than a gunshot and she’s just a stupid girl holding a silent phone up to her ear like she can hear the sea if she listens hard enough.

Chapter Three Hundred and Five

It seems like just as she's finally gone to sleep, drained of tears, the alarm is squawking and dragging her out of bed.

“All night crying jags are so not good for your complexion, Faithy,” she mutters to her puffy reflection after stepping out of the shower, dark smudges around her still red-rimmed eyes announcing like a flashing neon sign that she's had an hour of sleep, at most.

The more makeup she piles on, the worse it gets, until she gives up with a harumph and scrubs her face clean. The only thing getting her dressed and breakfasted is the dim hope that because he's probably in his office way before she arrives to work at 9:30, there'll be an email from him when she logs in. He'd look as shitty as she does -- maybe more so 'cause he'd be hungover too, pecking at the keyboard two-fingered, a cup of black tea with lemon the only thing holding him upright.

She walks a different route to work every day, peep-toe heels tucked in her bag, Chuck Taylors measuring out each step to Monty's office. She doesn't pause to think about the seemingly serendipitous timing of his call, only ponders the why and the how. Wonders how many nights he's almost done it, almost punched her number in or half-dialed it and then chickened out at the last moment. Wonders if he'll do it again now that he's over that first hurdle.

But of course, there's no email. Well, not from him anyway, but there's a chipper invitation to a party at Spike and Dru's ("We've got enough goblets, but bring your own wine!") and a comprehensive list from Xander of all the upcoming activities he's going to subject her to over the next few days: A gallery opening, three more rock shows, and the gentle suggestion that maybe she should sign up for a speed-dating session at the faux Irish pub downtown on Thursday night. She types back a one line reply, in all caps: AS IF, DUDE, and punching the send button gives her the momentum to open up a blank email, only typing a 'w' before gmail fills in the rest of the address for her: wwpryce@traversgiles.com. Stupid technology, being all enable-y like that.

She stares at the screen for a long time. It's a habit she's starting to loathe -- but Monty's out in court, the phone hasn't rung since she arrived, and there's nothing to type up, nothing to file. She's been the picture of efficiency over the past few weeks, and they're all caught up from the mess of work he was buried under before she arrived. Absentmindedly, she recalls that the plants need to be watered, but after that she could surf style.com and lust over clothes she'll never have, or she could write this email. And it's not exactly Sophie's choice or anything.

Wes:

And here I thought you'd be creeped out that I was stalking you. Nice heavy-breathing act last night. Might not hurt you to say a few words next time, okay? “Hello, Faith,” is a great place to start, but hey, that's just a suggestion. Whatever works for you is good. You know, as long as it involves something besides heavy, dramatic sighs. That's getting really old already.

So, as you've now heard, I'm reading the great literary classics of the 20th century. Didn't get much further in Lolita last night, though. Why, you ask? Because I was up crying all night. That's right, I was crying all night over you, you stupid fuck and now I'm sitting here at work looking like shit warmed over because you're being a stubborn idiot hiding behind your games. Again. Like I should have expected anything different from you. Nice to see those great leaps in personal growth you've taken there, Wes.

At least I'm getting out every now and then. It's not much, but it's a start – even made a few new friends. Unlike you, I'm not sitting home nights with a bottle of expensive scotch, downing it like it's gone out of style. 'Cause that's your routine now, isn't it? Ordering in from that bistro at the end of the block – the one where they know your name and the pretty waitresses bring you extra clotted cream for your scones at Sunday brunch. And you spend all evening looking out the windows at your fabulous view, listening to Elgar or Shostakovitch on your expensive stereo when you could be down at Carnegie Hall hearing it in person. 'Cause there's some sweet new associate at your firm, right? She's blonde and perky and loves classical music, and it took her a week to get up the nerve to ask you to join her, and you turned her down flat, without even an excuse.

Did I nail it or what? Do I get extra points for accuracy?

At least I'm making an effort here, Wes. Are you?

I didn't think so.

Faith

She's gotta smudge the tears out of her eyes before she hits send, but she almost feels a little better. Not exactly like, vindicated, or anything. More like secretly pleased.

If there's anything she does know, even with the distance between them, it's how to prod him into action -- and she's gonna sit at that computer every day and write him and prod and prod until she gets results. He's cracked that door open just a teeny bit with his phone call, that door he had slammed shut the day he left.

And she's got just the tip of her shoe between the door and the frame and she's gonna keep trying to kick it open, no matter how hard he leans on it. No matter how hard he tries to hide away again – it's too late now. She's not giving up, nohow.

Getting up for a cup of coffee, she decides that maybe she will try that speed dating thing after all. Bet he'd just love to hear about that, in gory detail. And there's the added bonus that he always turned up his nose at that faux pub, railing against its very existence every time they'd passed it.


Chapter Three Hundred and Six

Thursday night finds her hovering outside the Fiddler's Green wondering what sick bastard dreamed this idea up anyway. Only the sure and certain knowledge that she's gonna be walking out of here with a wrist aching from circling 'no' very firmly on a dozen score cards lets her push open the door and walk in. Xander's bailed on her, pointing out that he's not likely to find anyone for himself and seeing him snickering into a pint of Guinness wouldn't help her concentration.

Yeah. Like she needs it to talk to a complete stranger for seven minutes and then move tables to the next one. Or sit still as the faces across from her change. Whatever.

She takes a seat at the bar and downs a vodka and Red Bull so fast the glass stays dry.

The second one she sips, and she's got enough of a sneer on to sit back and study the crowd. Most of them are boys in packs, girls in pairs. There's enough giggling and pushing going on to bring back memories of seventh grade and, small town and all, she realizes with a sinking feeling that she's not amongst strangers. Not really. In fact the seventh grade is pretty well-represented. The losers from it anyway.

Oh fuck. She's so outta here...

"You're here for the speed dating, aren't you?"

She turns and meets a friendly smile and the guy must have some kinda hypnotism deal going on, because in under three minutes she's filling out forms, avoiding a sticky puddle on the bar as she uses it to lean on. Within five she's clutching a score card, a cute little red pencil with gold hearts marching up it, and an ID number of 13 which just says it all.

She gets to stay sitting and they bring the guys to her which suits her fine. She's grabbed a third drink before settling down at the small table with two chairs and she's feeling mellow.

But not mellow enough to be kind. A whistle shrills out – and isn't that going to be fun every seven fucking minutes?-  and she leans over and blows a kiss at the first loser – sorry: prospective love-match and mate for life.

"Well, aren't you just so cute I could eat you up?" she murmurs, running the tip of her tongue over glossy red lips and looking up through flirtatiously lowered lashes.

Wes would've given her an old-fashioned look and told her tersely to take that ridiculous pout off her face. This guy swallows, blushes a discordant red, and sucks nervously at the straw emerging from a drink that he's going to be wearing on his shoes by the time the night's over.

"Would you use salt?" he chokes out after an eternity of effort, looking so pleased with himself for being born with the gift of repartee that she's torn between pity and the urge to ruffle up his gelled back hair.

The gel's sticky but by then she's clutching his damp hand so she's got more to worry about than that.

"No way. When I find someone as sweet as you, I'm just going to indulge myself." She widens her eyes and glances down. "Wanna know where I'd start licking, sugar?"

By the time the whistle ends his torment she's starting to enjoy herself.

The next guy's too average to be worth teasing and there's something about him that tells her he's done this before. He sums her up in thirty seconds of rapped-out questions and they have a silent staring match for a while until he grins, looking friendlier.

"First-timer?"

"How'd you guess?"

He shrugs. "Experience. You walked in looking nervous. Don't know why. You're the prettiest girl here." She smiles at him but he carries on: "And you're going to get rejected by most of us." Letting her see what he's doing, he circles 'no' on his card next to her number and gives her a shrug.

She takes a gulp of her drink and gives him a glittering smile. "Go on then. Tell me why."

"Say 'please'," he counters and for a second she's lost in a memory of Wesley's voice drawling that out as she squirms and gasps under his teasing mouth. But Wesley had almost meant it because he'd said it after she'd screamed, 'Fuck me now, God, I'm fucking dying here!' and he'd been so pissed by what he called her 'peremptory and entirely too noisy request' that he'd called a halt for ten minutes while he lectured her, his fingers two agonizingly distant inches away from her throbbing clit.

This guy's just looking smug and her low-voiced 'Bite me,' is lost in the whistle-blast.

She's so annoyed that she actually makes an effort to be sweet to the next two and even gets talking to the third; not about dating but about books of all things, as it turns out he works at the library and remembers her checking out a stack of books and dropping three of them when a guy who looked a little like Wes walked by. She's kinda sorry when he goes but he still gets a 'no'.

And that's when she realizes she's wasting her time. Because none of them are going to make her heart flutter. None of them are going to make her wet and none of them deserve her scorn because hey, they're just looking for someone and so was she once.

She just hopes when they find theirs they don't lose them as fast as she did.

The room's dark enough that it's hard to work out how much longer she has to endure this. One more, maybe? She'd stand up and go, escape the over-heated room for the cool fresh air, but it'd fuck it all up for everyone playing and she's got enough consideration not to want to force someone to sit staring at emptiness for seven minutes because she's taken off.

Wes would. Wes totally would.

And it's just as she thinks about him that the seat's filled with the final hopeful.

"I know you," she says abruptly, her eyes narrowing. "Warren, right?"

He nods, dark eyes watchful, and she holds back a shiver. Never liked him. Science geek with delusions of coolness, and a taste for bullying. Weird combo and he gave her the creeps.

"Yeah, well I'll save you the trouble. Not interested. So we can sit here and talk about the weather or the last movie you saw, or –"

"Oh, this really isn't the place for you," he interrupts with a leer.

"Got that right," she mutters, glancing around at the shamrocks rioting on every surface.

"Want me to tell you where you belong?" he asks.

She yawns with her mouth closed and feels her ears pop. "Sure," she says, fiddling with the napkin her drink came with and tearing off confetti-sized shreds.

"On your knees at my feet," he says casually, eyes fixed solidly on her breasts.

Shock makes her first reaction a giggle but there's something so fucking scary in his eyes that it dies away.

"In your dreams, geek,” she retorts.

"Now, now. Feisty. I like that.” He smiles slowly. “I think I know exactly what you want. It’s written all over your pretty face."

"And what's that, ass-wipe?" she snaps, groping for her purse which has fallen under the table.

"You want someone to call 'master,' sweet thing," he says in a voice so slimed with insinuation she wants to throw up. "And guess what; it's your lucky day. You found one."

For a split second she can see herself flinging her sicky-sweet cocktail right in this smug, twisted wanker’s face but in the end she decides to take the high road. This unimaginative, fucked-up little man doesn’t deserve the full force of her anger —and anyway, she’s saved it all up for someone else.

“Oh, did I now?” She stands up, slings her purse over her shoulder, and reaches for her drink. “Well, guess what, junior —you don’t know the first goddamn thing about me. And you sure as hell aren’t going to get anywhere with that tack. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

“I’m going to teach you some,” he says, grabbing her wrist and looking her up and down peremptorily like she’s a prize heifer at the county fair. For the briefest moment she’s transfixed, mostly by his sheer cojones. She’s sure Wes’d have this fucker out cold in no time flat. But then, if Wes were around, she sure as fuck wouldn’t be wasting her time with this bullshit.

She shakes him off angrily, gets right in his fucking face. “You still spend your Friday nights in your mom’s basement jerking off to Babylon Five, Warren? Or have you moved on to scrambled porn?”

That shuts him right up. There's a flicker of anger in his eyes but she sees defeat too and it's all the revenge she needs. Channeling her inner bitch, she does a perfect, swift three-point turn on her nosebleed-high heels, letting him get a good look at her ass as she sashays resolutely away from him.

—and right out onto the outdoor smoking area in the back. God, she’s never needed a cigarette so badly in her life. Her nerves are raw and when she tries to fish a cig from the pack her hands are shaking. She manages to get the cigarette to her lips, and is just about to grab for her trusty Zippo when she’s surprised by a hand proffering a light. She looks up to find—

“Holden.” She’s actually pretty fucking happy to see him for once. Well, relieved, anyway. “You here for the horror show?”

He laughs while he lights her cigarette in one fluid motion. “Pretty awful, isn’t it? I have no idea what the hell I was thinking coming here. At least I ran into you. I was starting think only crazy women came to these things. Hey, you want a drink?”

“Yeah, I would. Thanks.” He looks at her expectantly. It’s funny —she realizes that she was totally waiting for him to choose a drink for her. She’s on her own now, got to make the big decisions along with the small. “Um, margarita? Yeah. Rocks, salt.”

He goes off to the bar and she leans against the wall, smoking furiously and trying her level best to project untouchable vibes to all and sundry. ‘Cause she’s definitely had enough for one night. Warren, like every fucking guy here, is just ramming it home that there's only one Wesley in the world and he's not here in hers.

She feels her mouth twist in disgust just thinking about Warren. Fucking creep. Xander probably thinks Wes and Warren are the same, which just goes to show how little he knows. For all his determination to cast himself as the monster, for all his reserve, there's nothing grubby or furtive about Wes and she starts to feel better just thinking about how she's gonna describe Warren to him and how he'll do that fastidious little shudder of distaste. And, yeah, get a little bit angry, too. There's something comforting about remembering all the times he protected her, like the time he practically broke Liam's nose.

Some creepy guy is circling and moving in just when Holden comes back with two margaritas and some nachos. They get a table and whadda ya know, there aren’t sparks exactly but it’s low-key and relaxed and he seems genuinely interested in her life. The oh-so scintillating details of her day-to-day existence. He’s really listening, too, not just waiting for a moment when he can make his move. There’s a certain comforting, puppy-dog quality to him that’s kind of annoying most of the time, but right now it seems to be exactly what she needs. It sure goes well with her margarita.

Oh, no, Faithy, she thinks to herself. Not going there. One drink with him, some nice amiable chit-chat, and that’s fucking it. You are not going home with him. Repeat: not.

By the time he buys her another drink she’s really not so sure anymore. And when he stands up and says he's gong to make tracks, she plants a kiss right on that friendly, smiling mouth.

She doesn't know what she expects him to do but stepping back and shaking his head ruefully wasn't on the list.

"Faith, let's not pretend you want this to go any further," he says.

"I don't?" she says – yeah, OK, slurs. One too many drinks to be anything but mushy-mouthed.

His smile gets too kind and she's feeling the familiar prickle of tears because he doesn't have to be nice to her and he is anyway. "You'll thank me in the morning, trust me." He gets close enough to kiss her cheek. "We've done this all backwards; the goodnight kiss is supposed to come after I've walked you home and said thanks for saving me from terminal boredom."

"You don't have to –" she begins.

"Walk you home?" He nods. "No, I suppose I don't. But I'm still going to." He gives her a quizzical look. "You can tell me all about him and cry on my shoulder if you like. I get that a lot."

"I bet you do," she murmurs, studying him. "You're just too damn nice, Holden. Thanks, but I'll pass on the crying."

She saves that for after she's curled up in bed wearing the little red silk slip Wesley had once asked her to put on for him, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, hugging every memory of him and trying not to mind that they're fading and slipping away from her like the autumnal leaves on the trees outside.

Chapter Three Hundred and Seven

Of course, she hasn't even been in the door more than five seconds on Friday morning before she has to tell Wes all about it. He'd want to know that…


…this fucking creepy little sci-fi geek who used to burn insects with a magnifying glass when we were in elementary school thought I might like to be his bitch. And not in a hot biker Momma way either. Thought I should call him 'master' and shit. Like, even you couldn't have pulled that off. Not with a straight face anyway.

Wish you'd been there, Wes. And not just 'cause you'd have rescued me from a lame night having to be nice to a bunch of lame losers. And not just 'cause if you'd been there, it would have meant that you'd never left. But man, I'd have loved to see you get that cruel smile on your face before you opened your mouth and totally annihilated him with some elegant line. Can't think exactly what but you're good at that, aren't you? All that wordy stuff except for now when you're silent and it's driving me fucking mad.

So I'm gonna make it easy for you, Wes. I'm gonna phone you on Sunday night. And there's no need to start freaking out about me screaming obscenities down the phone or expecting you to make promises that you're can't keep. 'Cause that never turns out well, does it?

I just want to read to you. And all you have to do is pick up the phone at 9pm and listen to me. I've got, like, every right to expect a bit more from you but you're a stubborn fucker and I'm starting to see how that isn't one of your better qualities.

I've got to go now. I have a ton of work to do and Monty always gives me Friday afternoons off, which is some kind of Jewish thing. Did I tell you how he's the best boss a girl could ever have?

Anyway, Wes, Sunday night, 9 pm. Just pick up, OK?

Faith

Then she presses send before she can even bang her head against the desk because she's obviously lost her mind.



The weekend is something she manages to get through. Which is so different to how it was when she was greedily reveling in two whole days of having Wes all to herself without competition from his law books and his casenotes.

And if he did have to bring work home, he'd always make it up to her. Even if making it up to her meant forcing her to stand by his desk completely naked with his fingers buried in her soaking cunt while he dictated a memo. Happy days…

Going to a poetry slam with Spike and Dru on Saturday night doesn't really match up but it gets her out of the house because Darla's got some friends coming over from work. Though her idea of a dinner party mainly consists of concocting this weird jello salad thing, which makes Faith gag every time she opens the fridge.

She gets through Sunday by alphabetizing her CDs, organizing all her drawers and then exfoliating, depilating and moisturizing every inch of herself. Can't help but flashbacking to their little phone date that time he was in New York when she'd got herself ready like he was gonna wine and dine and fuck her but it's not going to be like that this time.

Instead she's sitting fully-clothed and cross-legged on her bed at 8.59pm, sucking nervously on a cigarette and staring down at the book that she's going to read from. Not like she needs to. The other thing that's got her through from Friday night to now is making sure she's word perfect. That she can get every intonation and nuance right. So she can, like, wow him with her prose-reading abilities and awesome diction. Like, whatever.

All she's got to do now is to stop her fingers from shaking so she can dial his number. Got that memorized too.

It takes her three goes before she manages to press down the right digits in the right order and then she listens to it ring. Imagines what it sounds like echoing through his fancy New York penthouse. Is he there? Did he jump when he first heard it like he'd expected her to never have the guts to go through with it? Or has he gone out because he hasn't the guts to…

It stops ringing just like that because it's clicked and then there's silence before he says, "Hello?" He says hello. He fucking says hello and she's so shocked that she takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it in disbelief.

"Hello?" He says it again and she's swooning from five letters, two syllables delivered in a crisp, English accent and she tries to tell herself that he has to say something cause, like, he could be expecting the local pizza place to call and tell him that they've run out of anchovies but Wes doesn't do pizza and the hello is just for her.

She quickly holds the phone to her ear again before he hangs up because he so would.

"Wes, it's me," she croaks and gets silence this time. 'Cept not because she can hear him breathing, hear the air echo around where he is and it's enough. "Said I was gonna read to you so I hope you're all comfy. I'm still doing the American greats and this seemed kinda appropriate…"

"I went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to see without being seen. She was still on the stairs, now she reached the landing, and the ragbag colours of her boy's hair, tawny streaks, strands of albino-blond and yellow, caught the hall light."

She reads five pages of Breakfast At Tiffany's to him and OK, she stumbles every now and again because the sound of his deep, even breathing makes her feel a little giddy and she has to stop a couple of times because she loses her place, but the weird thing is she can hear him listening to her. He even gives this tiny, muted chuckle when she does her slightly breathless Holly Golightly voice which she's going to be living on for the rest of the week.

"I guess I should stop now, Wes," she says finally when her mouth is dry and her throat is parched from talking too long. "I'm trying to go to bed early on Sundays because there's always lots to do in the morning. S'pose it's the same for you, yeah?"

He doesn't say anything and she knows this is as good as it's going to get. But he picked up the phone. Gave her fifteen minutes of the life he said he was going to spend without her and that's gotta count for something.

"Good night, Wes. You don't have to say anything but it's pretty fucking rude to not even say goodbye, you know," she finishes with a flash of anger because she always has to ruin things by running her mouth off.

"Good night, Faith," he says, drawing her name out like he still loves the taste of it on his tongue, the sound of it on his lips and before she can beg him to say it again, he rings off.

Part Twelve

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