The Flame
Summary: Companion piece to The Fire.
She was in a private room, the curtains drawn and her eyes only for the crib next to her bed. She was so tiny. Sparse deep brown hair covering her head and lips that promised to pout, just like Faiths.
She was so beautiful. The final piece of Faith. Marie Anne Lehane.
She felt her eyes drift close as she remembered the night she was conceived.
She expected the kiss to be heated, passionate. It wasn't. Soft lips moving against hers as tongues came out in a series of fleeting French kisses. She could feel the heat rise between them, but it wasn't the fire that it was most of the time. It was a gentle flame that curled between them, as they gently removed each others clothes.
When they were naked Faith walked backwards, bringing Buffy with her, and sitting in the middle of the bed. Buffy straddled her lap bringing heated skin flush against heated skin, pressing their molten centers together. A sighed moan rose from them both as they kept kissing, as they moved against each other.
She'd never had it where the end result wasn't the goal. Where it wasn't about the release, it was about the moments before. About feeling the body of the person you were in love with moving against yours. Of knowing you were the cause of those breathy moans and hitched gasps, and feeling them vibrate through your blood stream.
She gently leaned forward and pushed Faith back against the bed, never breaking contact with her lips. Even when Faith release a barely there moan, she kept their lips touching through the slow release of air. She felt if she wasn't kissing Faith she'd burn into dust and blow away.
Slowly Faith wrapped her arms around Buffy and gently rolled them over, running her hand down Buffys side to disappear between her legs.
"It's not enough." She whispered against Buffys lips a second before she slide deep inside. It made Buffy's neck bow, her back arch and a low moan escape her. But even those few seconds were too long to not be kissing her.
With their lips pressed together again Buffy ran her hand down between them, and watched in breathless wonder as Faiths eyes rolled up into her head, as she pushed slowly inside her.
The feel of that burning heat surrounding her fingers caused a shudder to ripple down her spine, a jolt of heat to rock her insides, and then her world blurred at the edges.
She blinked open her eyes, the feel of that heat lingering like the memory it was, wrapping itself around her and squeezing tightly.
She leaned over and gently picked the fussing baby up, cradling her against her chest as she began to feed her. And as she watched her daughter suckle a hand that wasn't hers reached out and softly ran over Maries head.
She looked up startled, because she recognised that hand. The silver ring that adorned the thumb, the small scar the traced the knuckles. And when she did she felt as if all the air was stolen from her lungs.
"Faith.. wha.." the brunette didn't take her eyes from their daughter, a soft smile teasing the corners of her lips.
"Always thought I'd go to hell. I was wrong." Her eyes slid shut at the sound of that voice. Deep and husky and rolling through her body. She thought she'd never hear it again.
"But...you're dead." And then chocolate brown eyes lifted to meet hers, and even death couldn't extinguish the flame that beat inside them.
"This' just a moment B. Where your life and my afterlife meet. Just for a little while, so I can meet Marie." She nodded. If it was just a few moments she didn't want to fill them with explanations. This would probably be the last time they'd ever meet. "She looks like me." A smile curled Buffys lips as she watched her drink in the sight of her daughter.
"Her eyes are green."
"She had to get somethin' from you." Faith brought her eyes back up to her face and in that one look Buffy knew that this moment was over.
"It's not enough time." Her whisper was a broken thing, because she was about to loose Faith all over again.
"I'm always here B. Just in the other room." She leaned forward then and the kiss she gave was the sweetest she ever had. It told her everything that Faith didn't have enough time to say, everything she couldn't find the words for. "Tell Marie someone loves her."
When the door clicked open she was gone. But Buffy knew that for those few moments she'd been real again. Her perfume still hung in the air, and Buffy's lips still tingled from that last kiss.
A single tear rolled down her cheek as she bid a silent goodbye to the only person to have ever really known her at all.
