DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the slayerettes belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No infringement intended.
CHALLENGE: Submitted for the first International Day of Femslash.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Cut Loose A Little
By Erin Griffin
Buffy stared at the calendar to count the days, not months, until her baby was due. 'No, not mine,' she thought, 'ours.' She thought back on how things have gotten to be this perfect. If anyone were to come up to her five years ago and tell her that she would be a mother, she would have laughed with an unlady-like snort right in their face, and if they would have told her that the 'father' was Faith, the one person in the world she hated more than any demon, well, she would have punched them. After Sunnydale had sunk in, the survivors went to Chicago for a few months to settle down. Giles took over the seach for the new Slayers and made a camp, if you will, for them to train in and learn the basics of vampire slaying. Which left Buffy, Faith, Dawn, Willow, Kennedy, Xander, and Andrew to relax and enjoy being alive.
Robin took off not long after they all got settled in. He was angry that Faith didn't want to go with him. Buffy never really cared what Faith did after that, and so Faith stayed with the original Scooby Gang. Neither one of them knew exactly when their feud had silently become a truce, or when they went back to being the Slayer Sisters, but when Willow and Kennedy went off to live on their own, and when Dawn and Xander both went off to college, the house wasn't so lonely like Buffy had thought it would be. Together, they had an unspoken rule of who was responsible for which part of the house to take care of on the weekends, when Faith wasn't teaching Tai Bo classes and when Buffy wasn't a bartender at the bar 6 blocks away from their house.
Their relationship went from friends to so much more one night out of the blue, when Faith was laying on the freshly mowed grass in the back yard, elbows out, and hands under her head. While Faith was out mowing the yard that afternoon, Buffy was inside cleaning the bathroom. When she saw Faith was finished with her task, and she was done with hers, Buffy had gone to her with a couple of pears as a snack, and without a word, lay beside her, her head rested on Faith's shoulder. 'Sun bathing?' she'd asked, placing one of the pears on the brunnette's stomach. Faith shook her head, grabbing the fruit and taking a bite.
'Cloud watching.' Buffy looked up at the sky, and together they made shapes from the clouds, creating a contest to see who can make out the most animals. Since that excluded demons that had animal qualities, Faith lost.
The clouds moved on, and the sun set. The moon rose, and their cloud watching had become stargazing, and niether woman wanted to get up. It felt right to be where they were, together.
Hearing humming, Buffy snapped out of her thoughts and followed the sound and heard that it was coming from the room across the hall from where the original Slayers shared their bed. That room was to be the nursery for the baby. She opened the door a crack to see that Faith was in the rocking chair, humming some rock song that was popular at the moment, and was expertly knitting what Buffy could see was going to be a pair of maroon baby socks eventually. Buffy's eyes widened. "I didn't know you knew how to knit. It's kind of sexy watching your hands move like that." Faith looked up, startled.
"B," She said, but didn't get any further than that. For the first time since Buffy had told her she loved her that first time, Faith blushed. This only turned the blonde slayer on even more. She sauntered into the room, feeling much like Marilyn Monroe.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday Mr President..." She draped herself on Faith's lap, taking the yarn out of Faith's hands, and kissed her fully. "I won't tell," she whispered in Faith's ear. She bit the earlope lightly, as she knew it would arouse her partner. "I promise."
"B, I-" Buffy put a finger to Faith's lips, letting it trail down to her chin.
"I know, F. I know. You don't have to explain yourself to me." She felt a little bit of nervousness from her partner.
"I know. I just... leanred to do this when I was in prison. It was either that or more therapy, so... I do it now and then when I need to cut loose a little. This baby scares the hell out of me, Buffy. I've fucked up so much in my life, you of all people know that. Who am I to raise a kid?"
"I'll be here. We'll do this together. You can teach them that life isn't always fair, and that life is nothing but unexpected turns, but we will be there for them. We will love them when they get here."
"Yeah, and I ain't going to be like my mother was. This child... she will be loved. I ain't gonna leave her an' tell her she's worthless, because she never will be no matter who she becomes."
"She? Already deciding the gender?" Buffy asked in a teasing tone. Faith kissed Buffy's neck.
"Well, no, but I'm hoping it's a girl. I never have been good with boys- dealing with them, and I read that little boys are hard to deal with." Buffy was silent for a moment. She too, hadn't had too much luck with the male gender, but she didn't really care what gender their child was, as long as they were raised in a loving environment. Looking into her partner's eyes, she knew they would be.
The End