June 2000

So the Scooby’s are still a little weird around me. Weirder than usual that is. T-T-Tara is clinging closer to Red, if that were possible. And Ex-Demon Chick is cracking more than her usual quota of inappropriate conversation stoppers. Having a knock on effect on Xander so he spends more of his time looking lame than even he is used to. But I have to admit, they are trying to gloss over the one week only appearance of Bitch Faith, and whether that is all down to how B reacted towards me yesterday in the magic shop, I don’t care. Finally that sinking feeling has stopped, and I’m back to being on red alert every time she walks into a room, in case this is the time that the big sack of muscle inside my body commonly known as the heart, decides to ignore the Government Health Warning my brain is giving it and actually....

....does what, actually? Lays a fist in Army Boy’s face and tells her she’d be better off with me? Swoops in for a moonlit kiss across the tombstones down at Vamp Central? Pins her against the hobby horse in the training room so she can feel how much I want her? Asks her why she looked so relieved yesterday when I finally showed my sorry ass in daylight again?

I want to do all of these things. Yet I want to do none of them. I want everything to go back to the way it was before I realised she’d become my prime reason for hanging around this shitty town, before I realised she’d become my prime reason for just hanging around - period. But I also want things to stay as they are now, and I want them to change again. How’s that for fucked up?

I’m in new territory here. Yet it all looks the same in the daylight. But everything has changed, and its like I'm the only one who notices it. For once I'm one step ahead of the class, coming out on top in the SATs instead of just getting a point for marking my name down right. Who’d have thought Faith would be the one to know stuff no-one else does? And I wonder how long its gonna be till everyone else figures it out. How long it will take for Red to see the way I look at B sometimes, is the same way she used to look at T-T-Tara before they got horizontal with each other. Hell I could recognise what she was thinking whenever T-T-Tara walked into the Bronze, like I’d been able to read her prim little thoughts. Don’t know how the rest of them missed it, cos it was right there from the start. And Red getting all wiggy sometimes when T-T-Tara took her hand in her own when she thought no-one was looking. Man, how come it took Wolfman showing up to make her admit to herself that cute stuttery wicca was the one that got her juices flowing? She could have come to me and asked me what I thought and I could have saved her a whole heap of time and trouble. Only Red would never do something like that, turn to me for help. Yeah right, like I am a person that anyone comes to for help. Sure Faith’s good in the old slaying and staking arena, and she can even show the town hookers a thing or two about fashion, but personal stuff? Deep, life changing, mind blowing I'm in love with another chick kinda stuff? Nah, Faith ain’t your gal. Accept I am. I was before my eyes opened up to B. It's easier to recognise something when you’ve seen it around before. There’s a reason why people say, read the book, seen the film and bought the t-shirt you know? I haven’t just read the fucking book, at one point I wrote the damn thing. Whilst I doubt Red will be able to believe what she's seeing when one of these days I let my guard down and what’s getting harder to ignore in my heart makes it debut on my face, she will recognise it all the same. Just like I did with her.

And what will happen then?

Part of me wants to find out and part of me wants this to stop now. New territory is never easy ground to stand on. Last time I came across some new turf was the first time I held a stake in my hand and a vamp turning to dust on the end of it. And I don’t think I'm exaggerating here when I say its not exactly been an easy ride over the terrain since then. What will happen if my sole occupancy of this space that’s in my head, in my heart, in the goddamn air that I breathe, gets invaded by Red or one of the other Scooby’s?

What will happen if it gets invaded by her?

A rough ride, or a smooth jaunt in Giles sports car to the coast?

Don’t think I'm ready to find out yet. Yeah back to the non-ready of emotions with this one. Back to five by five, and hey what’s happening, and not letting my guard down again. I can do it. I did it before after all. Before Sunnydale was more than just a place on a map, before the only demons I had to worry about were of the two-legged variety mom dragged back with her, before I ever knew Buffy Summer’s existed.

Start as you mean to go on right?

In that case……

Five by five.