"Thanks again," Faith told him as she slammed the door behind her.

"Yeah, thanks," Dawn echoed, climbing out of the back seat.

"Don't mention it," Shawn told them. "Pleasure to help two such pretty ladies. Good luck, and I hope you get your car fixed soon." With a smile and a wave, he drove off.

When he'd disappeared from sight, the two women began scouring the parking lot for their next ride.

"There," Faith pointed to a tall, scrawny bald guy with a nose slightly too large for his face who'd just exited the restaurant. "Excuse me, sir!" she called, walking towards him.

"Yes?" he asked, looking them over.

"Are you heading south? My friend and I are kinda looking for a ride," she explained.

"Sure am," he replied, giving them a wide grin, which was somehow unpleasant in a way neither could precisely put her finger on. "Going to New York on business, after a quick stop in Hartford. Come on, then." He nodded toward his car, resuming his walk toward it. "My name's Carl, by the way."

"I'm Cordy and this is Anya," Faith told him. She caught the look D shot her, and made sure Carl's back was turned before giving her a grin and a wink.

"Well, it'll be nice to have company for the long drive." He put his food on the roof, unlocked the door, then reached over and unlocked the doors on the righthand side. "You wanna ride the whole way, or get off somewhere in between."

"Maybe somewhere about halfway," Faith decided. I just ran out of New York less than a month ago, so probably not a great idea to go back there just yet, even for a day or two. She opened the back door and motioned for Dawn to climb in, then followed after her.

"What, neither one of you wants to ride up front with me?" Carl asked, sounding hurt, and giving them that unpleasant grin once again.

"Sorry, we'd rather sit together," Dawn said simply, making her first contribution to the conversation.

"Suit yourself," Carl shrugged.

---

Before they had even been on the road for ten minutes, Dawn had scooted over next to Faith, laid her head on the other's shoulder, and fallen asleep, her left hand resting gently on Faith's thigh.

Faith, on the other hand, stayed wide awake and kept her eyes on Carl. She didn't think he was dangerous--at least, not to them--but he wasn't someone she would turn her back on, either.

They had been driving for about an hour, and had just crossed the state line into Connecticut, when Carl yawned, stretched his arms out in front of him, and pulled into the deserted rest stop that came up on their right. "Man, I need a little break from all that driving," he confessed. Faith thought that an hour was awfully fast to get so tired out.

The slowing of the car, and the gentle bearing to the right, would've been almost imperceptible to most any other human, even ones who were wide-awake. The two women in the backseat weren't most other humans, however, even if only one of the two had special powers. Faith was aware the instant that D's eyes opened, scanning the scene to determine what the change in their surroundings was that she had just sensed.

That's my girl, Faith thought without thinking, then repeated the words in her head with something like wonder. "That's my girl?" Oh yeah, I've got it bad. I'm way far gone. Strangely, this was no longer such a scary idea.

"What's going on?" Dawn asked, without a hint of sleep grogginess in her voice.

"Looks like we're taking a break," Faith answered tightly, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on Carl.

"Jeez, how long we been driving?" Dawn complained, looking at the position of the sun in the sky and making an estimate. "What, an hour?"

"'Bout that," Faith confirmed.

They rolled to a stop at the far end of the otherwise empty rest area; the car sat about a hundred yards from the highway, making it very hard for those passing by to see any details of it's interior, even in the scattered sunshine of the partly cloudy day.

Carl opened his door, got out, and closed it behind him. He stretched his arms theatrically, then walked around a bit, making a great show of stretching his legs.

"This what I think it is?" Dawn asked.

"Looks like it. I think Carl wants a little recreation to help get him through the long drive," Faith responded.

Sure enough, he returned to the car, and instead of opening the driver's door, opened the one for the lefthand backseat, sliding in beside Dawn.

Poor Carl just had no idea what type of women he'd picked up this morning.

"You girls feel like having some fun before we get moving again?" he asked, grinning lecherously and placing a hand on Dawn's leg.

---

Faith woke up to the voice of Axl Rose screaming at her from the car radio, and the feeling of someone poking her in the ribs.

"Hey! Faith! Wake up, dammit!" Dawn demanded.

"What's wrong?" she asked, instantly awake and alert.

"Christ, you turn this shit on--" she motioned to the radio "--crank it up to full, then fall asleep on me. Anyway, we're almost there, so I need you to tell me where we're going."

"You coulda let me sleep for another two miles," she grumbled. "And don't call this shit; this is good music."

"You say so," Dawn said dubiously, turning the volume back down to a reasonable level.

As she watched her slow the car slightly and maneuver onto the exit ramp, Faith smiled as she remembered D's reaction when Faith told her she was going to have to drive.

"You can't drive?"

"I can, I just... It's not my best thing, okay?" She was proud of herself for getting this out without a trace of a blush.

"You and my sister," Dawn had laughed. "What, is this a slayer thing, or is it just something about the two of you?"

"Just drive the damn car," Faith had growled, but then added a grin and a playful shove.

"Okay, take a right at this intersection," the slayer directed once they'd cleared the offramp and reached the city of Hartford, Connecticut. She continued to give directions, eventually bringing them to a large mall. "Don't park too close to any of the other cars, but not way the hell away from everything, either," she instructed.

"Sure thing," Dawn agreed, bringing them to a stop in a fairly empty section of the parking lot, with at least ten spaces between them and the nearest car. Wordlessly, they stepped out and walked around to the trunk.

Dawn unlocked it and swung it upward, and they were greeted by Carl's muffled cries and the sour reek of urine. The man had his feet bound with one shoelace, while the other had been used to tie his hands behind his back. His navy blue tie with diagonal red stripes was lodged firmly in his mouth, then tied around the back of his head.

"How ya doin', Carl?" D asked.

Faith herself wasn't sure what 'Mmmpphh!!' meant, but D apparently was.

"That's great. I'd hate to think you'd been uncomfortable all this time. I mean, it's not like we're sadistic or something.

"Now, I bet you're thirsty, huh?"

Another 'Mmmpphh!!' which D was obviously able to translate as 'yes.'

"Alright, well, I'll take that gag off and give you a sip of this nice... cool... refreshing... Coke--" Faith withheld her grin at D's idea of 'non-sadism' only with great effort, "--as long as you promise not to yell or scream for help. 'Cause guess what? I don't see another person anywhere in sight." She made a great show of looking all around; Carl, still in the trunk, had no way of knowing that there were several shoppers getting into and out of their cars just over a hundred yards away.

"And if you do scream, well... I'd have to get angry again. You don't want to see me angry again, do you?" His eyes got very big, and he shook his head vigorously side-to-side. "So do you promise?" He nodded just as vigorously. "Okay. But I'm warning you: behave," she told him, and pulled the makeshift gag down.

Faith reached down and pulled him up a little so that he could drink some of the soda from the can. Once he'd wet his throat a bit, he managed to ask, "What are you going to do with me?"

"Nothing!" D said, sounding offended. "What, you think we're gonna kill you or something?" He gulped, and remained silent. "We're going to leave you right here, and eventually someone will come along and find you and let you out."

She leaned forward, and storm clouds began to gather in her eyes. "But when they do find you, let me give you a good piece of advice: the person who did this to you was a really big guy; you don't really remember what he looked like, because you were so scared." She leaned even further down toward Carl's face, and the menace in her voice reminded Faith once again how far this woman was from the girl she'd known back in Sunnydale. "Now, that's the way it happened, right?"

"You bet," Carl agreed immediately. "A great big guy; never really saw his face. No ma'am, not me."

"That's good, then," D praised, and pulled the gag back into place. "Just relax, and someone will find you soon, I'm sure." She slammed the trunk closed again, and the women walked off toward the road, heading for their next destination.

---

Carl was found late that night, after the mall had closed for the evening. The manager of the Wal-Mart was the last one to leave, and wondered about the car in the lot with the Massachusetts license plate, and why it was still here so late after closing. She wandered over, heard the muffled cries coming from the trunk, and had her cell phone out in a flash. Police and paramedics arrived a short time later.

Carl was mildly dehydrated, very hungry, and incredibly stiff from having spent over fifteen hours tied up in his trunk. But when the police asked him who had done this to him, he was able to give a very accurate description of the two girls.

When he woke up in the hospital the next morning, two detectives were waiting to show him a couple of pictures. He confirmed that yes, these were the women who'd assaulted him outside a Boston McDonalds, tied him up, and dumped him in his trunk.

Kidnapping, carjacking, and transporting a kidnap victim across state lines were added to the growing list of charges against one Dawn Summers, age twenty-one.

Oh, and another charge of assault. Just for kicks.

---

It had been a short walk from the mall to the local freight yards. Faith and Dawn sat in a rusted out, abandoned boxcar on one of the distant sidings, waiting for night to fall.

"You've been here before," Dawn said. It came out as half-statement, half-question.

"Yeah," Faith confirmed. "This was one of my stops on my way to Sunnydale that first time. I hitched my way from Boston to Hartford, hopped a train here that took me to St. Louis, hitched across Missouri and Kansas and into Colorado, then caught another freight in Denver that took me all the way to LA. From there, it was just another short hitch to good ol' Sunnyhell."

They were sitting far back in the car, trying to stay out of sight from anyone who might wander by outside and possibly see them through the permanently-rusted-open doors. It was doubtful anyone came out to this section of the yard very often, but they couldn't afford to take chances now.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, backs up against one of the interior walls. Every now and then, D would lean her head on Faith's shoulder, and each time, Faith felt her heart skip a beat.

Fuck, how mushy and sappy am I? she mocked herself. Getting all gooey just because a girl puts her head on my shoulder! I've had people fuck me 'til I couldn't even stand up for hours afterwards, and I never got this feeling then. So why the hell is it happening now? Why is--

"It's getting dark," Dawn observed.

"Yeah," Faith agreed, glad to be snapped out of her current run of thoughts. "We should wait about another half-hour, 'til it's full dark, then we can go find what we're looking for."

"Okay," D said, and put her head back on Faith's shoulder, starting Faith's internal merry-go-'round-of-confused-thoughts once again.

---

Twenty-five minutes later they were standing up and brushing the rust flakes and other small debris from their clothes, when a noise sounded from outside. A footstep. Then another. Then a rapid series of them.

"Faith--" Dawn called softly, but whatever else she would've said was cut off as the man climbed through the open door of the car.

He could charitably be called human. He was of indeterminate age; he could've been anywhere between thirty and seventy. His clothes were filthy, and his skin and hair were even worse; it was impossible to figure out what his race might be. He had several oozing sores on his face and neck, and a hell of a big one on his lip that disappeared down into the cave of his mouth. On closer inspection, his hair looked like it might be falling out in patches. When he waved his right hand at them, Faith observed the pus that dripped from beneath some of the fingernails. On the whole, though, this was an improvement over the sight of his left hand.

Because in his left hand, he held a gun.

Faith couldn't remember ever being so mad at herself. She'd left herself get so distracted thinking about D and trying to sort out the thoughts and feelings running through her head, that she'd let her concentration on their surroundings drop just a tiny bit, and this apparition had somehow snuck up on them. God, she was such a moron!

"Wow, look at this," the ghoul said. "Two tasty treats, and all for me." The sound of his voice was like a foul wind blowing through spiderwebs. "You two will keep me busy all night, I think." He grinned, revealing several large gaps between the remaining brown teeth.

"Stay away from us if you know what's good for you," Dawn warned, her voice pure ice.

"I think you're what's good for me right now, sweetheart," he told her.

Faith's mind was working furiously, trying to figure out their options. She couldn't do anything at the moment, with him over twenty feet away. As fast as she was, she wasn't faster than a bullet. She would have to get closer, and even then she might have trouble disarming him if he was careful in the way he held the gun on them.

One thing was sure, though: one of them would have to do something before things got to the point that this creature had in mind, because all it took was one glance at him to know that intercourse with him was a guarantee of a slow, putrefying death.

"Who wants to be the first to ride the happy?" he asked, grinning even wider, a sight both women could've done without.

Faith could tell that as anxious as he was to take the two of them for an all-night ride, he was scared of them, as well. That was very bad news, because it meant he'd likely be very cautious with them.

She reached a decision on what she thought their best hope was, and hoped D would play along, because she had no way to let her in on it ahead of time.

"Her!" Faith exclaimed, pointing a shaking hand at Dawn and trying to push herself through the back wall of the boxcar. "Take her first! Please!" She threw her hands up over her eyes and made sobbing noises.

She sensed more than she saw the hurt and shocked expression on D's face as she spun around to look at her. Faith kept her hands up over her eyes, as if trying to blot out the vision of the monster in front of them.

It/he wheezed laughter, saying, "Some friend you got there, missy. Now, c'mere," he instructed. "Ten steps forward." Shaking with rage and fear, Dawn did as she was told.

Knowing his attention would be more on D than on her now, Faith let her fake sobs taper off, and risked a glance between her fingers.

"Take those pants and panties off, then lie down on your back, hands under yer ass. You!" He looked at Faith, and she began to pewl again. "Stay right there, back right up against that wall."

This was cutting it a little closer than Faith had planned. As she watched, Dawn unbuttoned her jeans, yanking them and her panties down around her ankles. The creamy white skin of her legs and buttocks stood out brilliantly in the otherwise dark surroundings. She lay down on the floor of the car, hands under her butt as directed.

Faith tensed; this was it. The would-be rapist--Faith had mentally dubbed him 'Dirty Harry,' although he certainly looked nothing like Clint Eastwood--reached down to his belt and began to undo his fly, using both hands to do so. For a moment, the gun wasn't trained on either of them.

Faith was still nearly twenty feet away, too far to rush him before he could get the gun back up and plug her. That's okay; that had never been her plan. Not all of it, anyway.

When his attention shifted to the tasty young morsel lying near his feet, Faith dropped her left hand to the back pocket of her jeans, withdrew her wallet, and flung it at Harry. The entire thing was done in such a smooth motion, and with such speed, that the greatest wild west gunslingers who ever lived would've just stood there with their mouths hanging open.

The wallet sailed straight and true, striking Dirty Harry dead in the face, stunning him momentarily.

Almost before it had even left her hand, Faith was following it, charging him, exploiting the distraction to the fullest. As she covered the distance between them, she screamed at the top of her lungs; a huge, wordless, inarticulate scream of primal anger and ferocity.

Harry never had a chance. He looked up just in time to get a faceful of wallet, and by the time he'd recovered from that, Faith had reached him, twisting his left hand up behind his back. As she pulled his wrist up closer to the back of his neck, there was a sickening sound like linen ripping. He shrieked, the gun falling from his now-useless hand. Faith pushed him forward, and he went sprawling, the left arm that she had just ripped from it's socket flapping limply.

She leaned down and scooped up the gun; a quick glance behind her showed D already on her feet, re-fastening the buttons on her fly. "You okay?" she asked her.

"Fine," Dawn nodded shakily. "Thanks."

Faith nodded, and turned around to face Dirty Harry again, raising the gun, staring at it like she'd just recognized what it was and what it was for--and what she could do with it.

"Faith..." Dawn called softly, worriedly, having an idea what was on the other's mind.

Faith had hit her absolute low point eight years ago in a Los Angeles apartment, and then moments later in the alley outside. She had tied Wesley up and tortured him for hours--because she could, and because it had actually seemed like fun at the time. It had been a final, desperate attempt to get Angel to kill her once and for all, but she still remembered how much she had enjoyed all the things she'd done to her former watcher that night.

But instead of killing her, Angel had saved her. As he held her crying form in the alley below, rain pouring down, the evil Faith had died once and for all. From that point on she had dedicated herself to living her life like Angel did, admitting and taking responsibility for all she'd done, trying to make amends for it all, knowing she never would but trying anyway. She really believed now that the new and improved Faith was a genuinely good person.

Unfortunately, she was also learning that the road to redemption was fraught with the occasional setback.

There had been that night in Chicago three years ago, the man she'd nearly killed, leaving him bloody and broken in the street after seeing him beating on a little girl who couldn't have been more than four years old; the two assholes in the club back in Boston; and now, Dirty Harry.

She looked down at him, the ogre who'd been planning a fun-filled night of rape of her and the one person in the world who she cared about more than anything; who certainly would've passed on to them all the terrible diseases obviously running through his bloodstream. Who probably would've shot 'em both dead in the morning after they had served their purpose. The evil Faith, dead and buried though she may be, had apparently decided to show up as a ghost in her head and haunt her for a bit. Her grip tightened around the gun, and she thumbed back the hammer.

"Faith," D repeated softly. "Don't. Please."

Faith looked back at her and saw the pleading look in her eyes; the look that silently begged her not to give up all that she'd worked so hard to become in the last eight years. She could almost hear the words, I just found you; please don't let me lose you back to the darkness now, in those brilliant blue eyes.

She turned to Harry one last time, and nearly went ahead and blew his ass to hell anyway. But at the very last instant, she saw D's eyes again in her mind.

Slowly, very slowly, she lowered the gun and eased the hammer back down. She heard D exhale loudly behind her.

"Thank you, Faith," she said, and came up behind her, wrapping her arms around the slayer's stomach.

"You should just thank your sorry ass that I'm not evil anymore," she told Dirty Harry. D actually managed a soft, relieved laugh at that.

---

The darkened countryside flew by outside the open door of the boxcar. They'd pass through long stretches of nearly total darkness, which signified woods and farms, then into more settled areas, lit by streetlights, headlights, and the soft lights coming through the windows of homes and small businesses. Finally, the large cities, which were nearly a solid mass of lights of every size and color imaginable, dominated by yellow/white, along with a fair helping of red from the hundreds, or maybe thousands, of automobile taillights.

They had searched Harry and found a cheap-looking knife, which Dawn pocketed, and a wad of bills. Once they had located a westbound train and Faith had broken the lock on one of the car doors, they sat down inside and finally began to relax a little. While they did, Dawn had counted up the money.

"Eighty-seven dollars, all in ones and fives," she reported. "Not bad."

"Yeah, great," Faith had agreed, sounding anything but happy.

"What?" Dawn had asked.

"How do you think he got that money, D? Paper route?"

"Oh," Dawn had said softly, a look of understanding crossing her face. The realization that they were holding money that had probably once belonged to someone who'd likely been killed to obtain it made it a little hard to savor their sudden good fortune.

It was the middle of the night now, probably past two, and Faith guessed they might be somewhere in Ohio, though it was really impossible to tell. She sat behind Dawn, arms wrapped loosely around her, chin resting on the top of D's head.

"I'm sorry," she told her, breaking the silence that had stretched out for who-knew-how-many miles.

"'Bout what?" Dawn asked, craning her head around to look at her.

"All of it. What happened back there, how far you had to take it before I could help you; getting you in this mess in the first place... You're still living this shitty life, but now with the added bonus of having the cops chasing you, too. You would've been so much better off if you'd just never run into me back in Boston," she finished, and as she spoke the words she suddenly understood just how true they were. God, it wasn't bad enough she'd fucked up her own life beyond all possibility of salvation; now she'd done the same thing to D, as well. Way to go, asshole. She looked away, unable to meet D's gaze.

"Faith, look at me," D said. The words were soft, but there was no missing the no-nonsense tone of command behind them. Reluctantly, Faith complied.

"All I can say about what happened back in that car is: thank you. You couldn't have done anything sooner, and if it hadn't been for you, it would've gone even further. I don't know if he would've actually succeeded or not, but I'm just so thankful you were there to save me from having to find out. You're like my knight in shining armor or something." She smiled, and gently kissed a stunned Faith on the lips.

"And as for the position we're in," she continued after reluctantly breaking the kiss, "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else on earth right now."

"No, D, if--"

"Faith," Dawn interrupted quietly. "I told you a lie once. That night in the bar, three weeks ago, I said I didn't know you were the new slayer in town that I'd heard about. But that's not true; I actually did know."

"I know."

"You knew? How?" Dawn demanded.

"You may do a lot of things well, D, but lyin' ain't one of 'em," Faith confided, and in spite of herself she felt a small smile cross her lips.

"Oh. Well, good. Because then you should be able to tell that I'm not lying when I tell you that this is the place I want to be right now, and you're the person I want to be with. Or am I lying?"

Faith searched her face, and listened to her tone, but couldn't find a trace of a lie. Reluctantly, she admitted, "No, you're not." But how was that possible? D was actually willing to risk going to jail just to be with her? She'd never thought she was even worth risking your library card over.

"I wanted to find you," Dawn said, picking the story up again, "but I had no idea where to look. Tough to find wanted fugitives when they don't want to be found," she told her with a small half-smile. "So I did about the only thing I could think of: I went to Boston. I knew that was where you were from, so I thought eventually you might decide to go back. Imagine how lucky I felt when I found you after just a month."

"You don't know how lucky you were: I only went back there because I had absolutely no other choice. I was on the run from New York, and I'd already worn out my welcome in Pennsylvania before that, so Boston was the closest big city around. Believe me, D, with the way my life was when I was growin' up, I would rather have gone just about anyplace in the world other than back to Boston."

"Oh," Dawn whispered, digesting this information. "Lucky me, then, I guess."

"Why were you looking for me?" Faith asked softly.

"Because! Because... I just, y'know... wanted to find you," she stammered, blushing and glancing away. For just a moment, she looked like the young teenage girl Faith remembered.

Faith grinned, knowing perfectly well what the reason was behind this awkward response. Well, 'magine that. No wonder she was so quick to shimmy out of her clothes that night.

Suddenly Faith badly needed to lay D out and screw the shit out of her, 'til her eyes crossed and her legs wouldn't work anymore. It had been what, three days since they'd had sex? Way too long, and Faith was getting itchy. She reached further around, cupping D's breasts, and prepared to throw her down on the floor of the freight car and see how loud she could make her scream.

But in the instant before she did, it was like a light went on in the back of her brain, and that strange feeling that had been floating around in her head all day, just out of reach, was clear: she loved D. Completely and totally. She knew she should've seen this coming, but it staggered her all the same. She, Faith, loved Dawn Summers. Holy shit.

Okay, so now the question became, what did she do about it?

Tell her? Faith had never done that before. In the quarter-century she'd been alive, she'd only ever loved one other person, and had never worked up the nerve to tell her.

And of course, people never told Faith they loved her. Christ no! That wasn't what Faith was for. Faith was there to spread her legs and give you a few minutes' satisfaction, then get the hell out of your life. She was just a whore, with the added bonus that she didn't charge. Wasn't she? Hadn't everyone, even her own junkie mother, told her that her whole life?

Well, one person had told her he loved her once, hadn't he? And how had she responded?

What if she told D, and she reacted the way Faith had all those years ago? If that happened, Faith didn't know what she'd do. At this point, she knew that her life wouldn't even be worth living without D by her side. (And as if I needed another problem on top of everything else, I'm also gettin' wicked sappy.)

If she couldn't actually come out and tell D how she felt with words--not yet, anyway--maybe she could show her, at least. The way she'd tried to show Buffy years ago. She knew she'd done a pretty bad job of it back then, but maybe she could learn from her mistakes.

She took her hands off D's breasts, gently stroking her arms, instead. Fucking her brains out on the floor of a moving boxcar was definitely not the way to communicate this feeling--it was hardly the most romantic setting.

She decided she was going to give D a night she'd never forget, a night that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt just how Faith felt about her. And just maybe, if it went as well as she hoped, she'd find the courage to actually tell her, too.

"I'm glad I'm here with you, D," she whispered; it was the best she could manage at the moment.

"I am, too, Faith. More than anything."

The freight train thundered along under the dark Ohio sky.

---

New Orleans, late-2003

The bed creaked again, and it's two occupants collapsed on it, completely wiped.

'Damn, boy,' Faith panted, grinning. 'Do you ever get tired out?'

'I think the answer to that right now is an obvious "yes,"' Robin answered, rolling onto his side and slipping an arm around Faith's sweat-covered stomach. 'But I admit, you do inspire me to new heights.' He leaned forward, brushed the wet hair out of the way, and kissed the back of her neck.

'Yeah, well, you do a pretty good job of getting it done for me, too,' she told him, taking the hand on her stomach and moving it up until it rested on her breast.

'I don't think I've told you before, Faith, but these last few months with you have been some of the best of my life.' He gently kissed her neck again. 'I love you, Faith,' he said softly.

Faith froze; she became as stiff and as still as a corpse. Loved her? What kind of shit was this? No one loved her--she was Faith. She wasn't built for love, just sex and kicking the shit out of vampires.

So what kind of game was Robin playing? They'd had a good enough thing going, she'd thought. They hung out together, they slayed vamps and demons, they wore out countless mattresses in countless motel rooms. So what more was he looking for from her? What was he expecting from her, demanding from her?

She heard Robin's breathing slow as he waited nervously for her response. When more and more time went by and none was forthcoming, she felt him begin to tense. Eventually, he took his hand from her breast, got up, and left the room. The sound of the shower running in the bathroom became audible.

When he returned, he climbed under the covers, keeping a distance between them, and rolled over so that he was facing away from her. After what seemed like an interminable wait, she heard the slow, regular breathing that indicated he had fallen asleep.

Faith slowly and carefully got up from the bed, making sure not to wake him, and began to collect her stuff. She didn't bother with a shower.

Robin awoke the next morning to discover he was alone in the room. He looked around and saw that all Faith's belongings were gone, as well. A piece of paper lay on the nightstand.

Robin,

I dont know what to say. The last few months have been great but I think you obviously want something from me that I cant give you. I think I should leave before I screw up your life any worse.

Robin crumpled the paper up and fired it across the room. Some unknown amount of time later, he felt the traces of wetness in the corners of his eyes.

Blinking it away, he got up and started packing his own things.

---

Faith awoke in the first light of dawn, the sweat the nightmare had caused already drying, the image of the New Orleans motel room fading.

"Bad dream, huh?" Dawn asked.

Faith looked up, noticing that D had pulled her head into her lap sometime after she'd fallen asleep. Now, the younger woman looked down at her, an expression of concern and sympathy on her face.

"Ancient history," Faith replied, sitting up. Ignoring the funky taste in her mouth, she gave D a long, thorough good morning kiss.

"I think, wherever we're going, we're almost there," Dawn reported. "We've been slowing down gradually for awhile now."

"That musta been what woke me up," Faith mumbled.

Unseen by Faith, Dawn looked at her skeptically. "Uh-huh."

D was right, Faith saw as she looked out the open door. They weren't traveling as fast as they'd been when she went to sleep, and they were passing through the outskirts of another large city. In fact...

"Holy shit!" she marveled, then fell silent. She took in the sights passing by, trying to confirm her suspicions.

"Uh... hello? 'Holy shit!' what?" Dawn asked, sounding irritated.

"It's St. Louis," Faith told her. "I managed to catch the same damn train nine years later."

"Cool," Dawn said, not sounding all that interested in this little piece of trivia. "Are we stopping here?" she inquired.

"Uh, no, I think we'd better go a little further west," Faith decided after a moment's consideration.

"Gonna be a little tough hopping a new train in broad daylight," Dawn pointed out.

"Yeah, unfortunately."

Dawn, with Faith keeping a firm grip on her, leaned a little ways out the door and looked ahead. When Faith pulled her back in, she reported that she thought she could see the train yards in the distance. Faith nodded. "Close enough," she said, and slid the door nearly all the way closed, so that only a couple of inches of daylight remained visible.

The train came to a stop a few minutes later. No one was in sight when they cautiously stuck their heads out, so they quickly climbed down, making their way across several pairs of tracks, trying to stay close to buildings and train cars and away from open areas where they could be more easily spotted.

After a short search, they found another freight that was pointed west, with engines that looked like they were warming up and preparing to leave. A couple of dozen cars back from the head of the train, Faith again broke the lock on a car door, and they climbed inside.

They had to wait for about an hour, but soon they found themselves traveling west again, before many of the residents of St. Louis had even had breakfast.