-1-

"Oh my God," Buffy breathed as soon as they opened the door of their LA apartment.

Willow had left a couple of days before to visit Giles in England; she'd be gone until after New Year's. But before she'd left, she--with help from Lorne, Andrew, and a reluctant Spike--had decorated the entire place, floor to ceiling. It was almost impossible to find a square-inch that didn't have some type of Christmas decoration: lights, garlands, fake snow, four-foot plastic snowmen... There was a tree over in the far corner that had to be at least twelve-feet tall, with several presents already under it. And someone had even managed to hang a large plastic Santa, sleigh, and nine reindeer--including Rudolph--from the living room's ceiling, two stories up.

"How did they...?" Buffy started, dropping the luggage in her hands and slowly walking deeper into the apartment. Realizing Faith wasn't beside her, she turned and saw the look of fear on the other woman's face. Thank God for the talk they'd had two weeks earlier; Buffy understood perfectly what was wrong.

"Faith!" She dashed back to the door and took her brunette slayer's hands in her own. "I know what you're thinking. But it's not going to happen again. I promise. You hear me?" She captured Faith's eyes with her own. "I promise! Do you believe me?"

The fear slowly faded from Faith's face, replaced with love for her blonde slayer. "Yeah, B, I believe you. I trust you."

Buffy beamed, and placed a kiss on the tip of Faith's nose. She pulled her inside, closed the door, and kissed her again, this time on the lips. Their mouths opened almost immediately, and the kiss progressed from tender and sweet to heated and passionate.

"How long's it been?" Buffy asked, already panting softly. Her hands came up to cup Faith's breasts.

"I don't know," Faith replied, gasping a little herself. "Eight hours, maybe?" Her hands dipped down to B's ass, grabbing it and pulling B's pelvis tighter against her own, and she started to grind slowly up and down against her.

Buffy moaned. "Way too long."

"Totally agree."

The bedroom was just way too far away, and besides, the hardwood floor of the foyer wasn't that hard...

-2-

They had over three weeks until Christmas, and they spent most of that time shopping. Unlike two years ago with D, there was no three-gift-limit this year. They were running out of room for all of them under the tree--and this was a big tree.

Buffy was still shocked by what her sister had done to Faith, and was extra-determined to make sure that this Christmas went perfectly. She knew she'd gone a little crazy on the presents, but hey, Faith deserved this.

Finally, it was Christmas Eve. Buffy had been tempted to take them out for an elegant night on the town--an expensive dinner, followed by an evening of dancing. She'd wanted to exorcise those bad memories and replace them with good ones when morning came and Faith saw she was still there, that she wasn't going to leave. But Buffy wasn't sure whether this would work like she planned or backfire horribly, and decided it wasn't worth the risk. Instead they stayed in and ate a casual Christmas Eve dinner cooked by Faith, the master chef.

"B?" Faith asked as they lay in bed that night.

"Yes, Faith?"

"You think Santa will bring me any presents tonight?" She grinned to show she was kidding... mostly.

"I don't know. Have you been a good girl this year?" Buffy inquired with a teasing smile.

"I don't know; you tell me." Her fingers started toying with one of B's nipples, which grew hard almost instantly.

"Yeah, pretty good, I think," Buffy managed in a slightly-breathless voice. "Faith?"

"Mmm?"

"I'll be here in the morning."

"I know." She looked at the clock on the nightstand; 12:12 am. "By the way, Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Faith."

-3-

"Faith, wake up!"

"Hmm?" Faith murmured, rolling onto her stomach and trying to ignore the finger softly poking her in the ribs. "G'w'ay," she mumbled into the pillow.

"Faith, it's Christmas!"

"Christmas?!" Faith was instantly awake, sitting up and looking at B with a huge--and slightly goofy--grin on her face.

"I think I heard Santa a couple of hours ago. Wanna go see if he brought us anything?"

"Let's go, B," Faith agreed, holding out her hand. Buffy took it, and they ran for the stairs and the living room, stopping only long enough to grab camisoles and sweatpants, which they'd put on when they got down there.

-4-

Santa really had come; the pile of presents was even bigger than when they'd gone to sleep. Of course, both women knew that in this case Santa wore all-black, used hair-gel, and had fangs, but it was the thought that counted, right?

Buffy had had the idea a couple of weeks ago to set aside a few of the presents she bought Faith, address them as 'From Santa,' and give them to Angel. On Christmas Eve, he'd sneak in during the night and drop them off. Buffy had asked Angel to go to Faith and propose she do this, also, and pretend it was his idea. Faith had loved it, and had eagerly gone along. As a result, each slayer now had nearly ten new presents from 'Santa Claus.'

-5-

Torn wrapping paper, bows and ribbons, and opened boxes were everywhere. A small mountain of clothes, jewelry, weapons--they were slayers, after all--and other assorted items had gradually grown up beside the tree over the course of the morning, and Buffy and Faith were currently in the middle of a traditional Christmas breakfast of cookie dough, milk, and chocolate bars. Only a single present remained unopened, for Faith from Buffy, who had insisted she save it for last. Faith sensed how nervous and excited the other was about it, and she was dying to find out what was inside.

"Okay, last one," Buffy said when they'd finished off the last of the food. She pointed to the small box on the table in front of Faith, then held her breath and waited.

Faith disposed of the last of the paper, opened the small cardboard box, and took out a dark-purple jewelry box. Buffy held her breath.

When Faith hesitated and looked up at her with an unreadable expression in her eyes, Buffy felt like her heart was literally in her throat. She was more nervous than she'd ever been in her life--by far.

Faith opened the box and revealed the diamond ring inside.

Buffy had spent the last two weeks trying to think of what she wanted to say at this moment, but couldn't come up with anything great. She'd finally given up on working anything out ahead of time, and just decided to say whatever came to her at the time. But now the time was here, and she was drawing a complete and utter blank! Feeling like the world's most foolish idiot--foolish mute idiot--Buffy took the ring from its holder and slipped it onto the fourth finger of Faith's left hand, then simply looked up at her hopefully and smiled.

"It's... It's..." She drew a blank on describing it, and instead turned her eyes from it to the woman in front of her and asked, "What's it for? I mean, what does it mean?"

Now something came to Buffy; a couple of things, in fact. The first was that Faith's response seemed eerily familiar, like this was the beginning of a scene that had already been played out somewhere once before. The second was what her answer was supposed to be.

"You know what it means," Buffy told her. She raised the hand to her lips and gently kissed the back of it.

"But... But I don't have one for you," Faith said in a suddenly-horrified voice. "You need one, too, so I'm gonna have to--"

"Faith!" Buffy took the slayer's right hand, as well, and held them both as she stared directly into her eyes. "You don't have to give me anything. Just wear that, and be mine, and let it tell the whole world that you're mine, and that'll be enough. That'll be more than enough." She didn't know where the words had come from, but they felt right. They felt like Summers words, somehow. And when they talked about it later on, she would learn that Faith had had the same feeling, as if she had been speaking words that weren't originally her own.

The dark-haired slayer felt herself standing on the edge of an emotional precipice, with B on the other side and a ten-thousand-foot drop separating them. She'd come so far out from under the awful shadows of her past, but this was the final hurdle, that last big leap necessary to become the truly strong woman--inside and out--that she'd always been capable of becoming. But it was a hell of a big leap. What if she took it, and then things didn't work out between them? That could happen; she knew she could be a total bitch sometimes, and--

"Faith?" Buffy asked, beginning to look worried. "Is it... too much? Do you..." She swallowed hard, and extra moisture started to build in her eyes, "...not... want to?"

It'll never last! a tiny voice promised from deep inside her. You'll never make her happy!

Oh, just shut the fuck up, Faith shot back at it. It did, and she never heard from it again.

Inside her head, the Faith standing on the cliff's edge looked across at B, took a deep breath, and jumped.

"I want to, B."

Anxiety turned to relief on Buffy's face, and relief quickly gave way to happiness. "Really?"

She nodded, and now began to smile herself. "Really. Merry Christmas."

Buffy's smile got big enough to split her face clean in two, and when it ran out of room to expand, erupted in a joyous laugh. She pulled Faith down on top of her and kissed her, rejoicing in the knowledge that there would now be an infinite number of kisses to follow it. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together.

-6-

They sat on the couch a long time later, holding hands and staring deeply into each other's eyes. They hadn't spoken since Faith's acceptance.

"Wow," Faith said at last.

"I'll see your 'Wow,' and raise you an 'I don't believe it.'"

"Definitely. I tell ya, I imagined my life turning out a lot of ways, but I never saw myself sitting on this couch here with you, wearing something like this." She looked down at her left hand for the four-zillionth time that afternoon.

"No? So is this better or worse than the other things you imagined?"

Faith cocked one eyebrow and gave Buffy a 'Don't-even-give-me-that-shit' look. "Any that didn't have me in jail or dead by now, those were the good ones. But this?" She looked down at her ring again; four-zillion-and-one. "This is like... so too good to be true. I keep waiting for the guards to come by and wake me up, 'cause this is all just some delusion I'm having after being cracked on the skull too hard and thrown in solitary for the weekend."

"I'm pretty sure that that's not what's happened."

"I know. But things like this don't happen to people like me."

"You mean, the beautiful, sexy, strong, brave, caring, thoughtful, and all-around adorable kind of people? Maybe not. But I wouldn't know, because you're the only person I've ever known like that."

Faith blushed and smiled shyly. After looking away toward one of the windows for a moment, she returned her eyes to her lover's face. "That's not totally true. You're all of those things, too."

"Love you, Faith."

"And that's right back at you, B." They shared another long, tender kiss.

"So, who should we call first?" Buffy asked.

"Umm, I guess Angel or Willow? You have the number in England where Red's staying, don't you?"

"Uh-huh," Buffy confirmed. "Okay, let's start there. Oh, and make sure we remember to wish her Happy belated-Chanukah."

They called Willow (and Giles), then Angel, then Xander, then everyone else they could think of. They laughed, and cried, and basked in the love of their extended family. Now, after all these years of standing on the outside and looking in, Faith was finally part of that family, as well.

After they'd run out of people to tell, Buffy grabbed her slayer and dragged her back upstairs. They made love until neither one could move any longer, then fell into a thoroughly-exhausted and blissful sleep, and didn't wake up again for over eighteen hours.

It had been a good Christmas.

-7-

If the first day of January was a time to look forward to the future, then the last day of December was a time to say goodbye to the past. And on the final day of this both awful and wonderful year, two women walked hand-in-hand through the grounds of a Los Angeles cemetery, prepared to do just that.

They'd been here before--more than once--but something was different about it this time. And it was more than just the new grave marker; there was an odd feeling in the air, which both felt but neither could name.

"That's better, huh?" she asked quietly, staring down at it.

"Yeah," Faith agreed, and squeezed B's hand a little tighter.

"You didn't have to do that, B."

"True. But if I was going for total accuracy, then yeah, I did. It looks better like that, anyway. Like it's finished, I think. Like maybe now she's finally at peace."

They stood in silence for a little while, gazing down at the small plot and thinking about past mistakes, lost opportunities, and second chances. Eventually Faith withdrew her left hand from her pocket and held her ring up for display.

"Check it, D: I think I really got my happy ending, after all," she said to the name chiseled on the stone. Buffy looked up and smiled at her. "Amazing, huh?"

"Yes, you are," the other slayer told her, still smiling softly.

After a few more minutes spent in quiet reflection, they turned to leave. As they walked back toward the car, Faith had a question.

"B? You think things happen for a reason?"

"I do." Her left hand still held Faith's right, and she brought it to her mouth and kissed the back of it. "Absolutely."

At almost the same moment, both women were at last able to identify that odd feeling that they had been experiencing since they arrived: hope. No--it was more than that; it was hope... and optimism. The reason they hadn't known what they were at first was because these were feelings that neither had ever had before. But now they had both, thanks to their trust in a brighter future together.