I think I am forgetting. There are bits of things that have happened over the last week or so that keep coming back to me here and there that aren't linking up. Faith remembered Willow walking in on her and I and that happened but in our meeting a couple of days ago I was surprised that Willow knew about Faith and I. I clearly remember her walking in on us. She went in to babble overload then spent the next few days avoiding us. Why is that something I wouldn't remember?

And when I try to remember everything it feels like some kind of dream. Really hazy around the edges and not just with the her walking in on us memory. The meetings are very dream like when I recall them as well. You know like if you are asleep or on the verge of sleep and you think you hear something so you kinda sit up in bed and listen out for more noises and when you don't hear them your brain tells you it must have been part of the falling asleep dream/feeling and you accept it. That is what all this feels like. While they are happening it feels so real but now looking back it feels like a dream.

Everything seems topsy turvey. I thought I had it all figured out. That it didn't matter if Faith remembered or not. I was with her, she was with me and that was all that mattered but now that also feels like a dream. Now I feel like I don't understand a god damned thing. There are holes all over the place...I am sure if you took my brain out of my head it would resemble Swiss cheese.

Then again I could just be thinking way too much. Since I said that they should stop cornering Faith so much with tiny, tiny bits of information they have done just that. It has been 2 and a half days of being cooped up inside this apartment or the gym. We can't go outside as we can't risk her being seen. I could go out at anytime I suppose but I don't really want to be too far away from her, there is also the risk that if part of my theory about this Dollhouse is right they could be waiting to approach me or attack me and if I have a Swiss cheese like brain then me leaving, not such a good idea.

The being cooped up is starting to get to us. I have tried to keep my distance which is strange considering I was all for the getting close with her but again...seems like a dream, a really hot, sexy wet dream but a dream none the less. She can sense something is up with me but just like I am not going o push her, she isn't going to push me. She is still going to her hypno therapy sessions each day but she tells me that she doesn't remember anything. She just keeps telling the Doctor the same thing after each session, like her memory is on a loop of some kind.

That is another thing that gets me thinking. Thinking things like it isn't her. That she is this Echo and is here on some kind of mission. If they can program her to do all these kinds of things, if they have the technology to control a human mind like that then I am sure they have technology that can make her exactly like the person she was, right down to the supernatural link she shares with us. If they are a player in the game that worries Wolfram and Hart then I doubt they are doing anything in half measures.

The sad thing is the more I think about it the more it seems like us being fucked with is the most logical explanation. Faith was stubborn with what she gave out and who she gave it to but this...it seems too controlled. It feels all too controlled. We got so far with research then the leads dried up or things happen that I can't make sense of. It gave us a little to make us think we are on the right track then we were on a cold trail. I have been in this business a long time and while most wild goose chases are planned to confuse us it always came to a logical conclusion in the normal amount of time. That even with the holes we were able to link it up. This time no matter how hard we tried we were unable to find the link.

I told them not to involve her unless they have something concrete so I am now out of the loop as I refuse to be to far away from her. We are unsure if they have any leads or any new information but have to assume they don't cause if they did we would be getting told.

I know I need to talk to someone about what I feel with the forgetting. I want to talk to Faith but I know I can't. Not when I am not sure on what is exactly happening. Not when she isn't sure of who she is, what she is, what we are.

I have been sitting on my bed for the last hour going over everything in my head trying to make it less fuzzy, trying to make it match up, trying to summon up the courage to go and talk to Giles...why do I need courage? Part of me knows for sure that there is a great possibility we are getting fucked up the ass by something and as soon as it comes true the woman who is back in my life will be gone forever. And the selfish part of me doesn't give a crap if I never get her back fully just keep her here with me on the blurred edged of some kind of reality because she will be here with me and that is all I ever wanted. A life with Faith.

I hear the door to my apartment open and close and the familiar hum of Faith being near returns. Making me happy, making me confused. I tune in to my slayer senses just to tune everything else out because I made my head hurt a lot.

I can see her, her head is stuck in the fridge, she is trying to decide whether she should have a beer or a Pepsi. She decides on neither and she shuts the fridge door kinda hard but kinda not at the same time. She runs her hands through her hair more in frustration than anything else. She is restless for sure it is coming off her in waves.

"B?"

I open my eyes ad get ready to answer her

"That is cheating you know" She says appearing in the doorway of my bedroom

"What is?"

"Using the link to see what I am doing and how I am feeing"

"I don't need the slayer link to know how you are feeling, it is hitting me square in the chest"

"You are cheating and you know it"

I give her a little shrug and she walks all the way in to my room and plops down on to the bed beside me dramatically sprawling herself out on her back.

"Any luck in therapy today?" I turn and face her

"Same old loop" She says placing her hands over her face "Someone is fucking with me and I don't like it"

"Tell me about it" I sigh

"That is rhetorical right?" She moves her hands to look at me

"Yep. How many times can we go over the same thing before we go completely loopy?"

"Isn't that the definition of insanity?"

I shrug again

"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result...definition of insanity"

I can think of doing one thing over and over again and always expecting the same result I think looking her up and down.

"And what's that?" She smiles

"What's what?" I ask

"The thing you are thinking of doing over and over to get the same result" She says sitting up

"I said that out loud?"

"Yep" She moves closer to me

Damn...Damn, Damn, Damn. This is so not fair!

"Is it the same thing I am thinking?" She asks

"Uh I don't know. What are you thinking?"

"That the only thing I want us to be doing over and over involves less clothes than this...in fact no clothes at all" She whispers in my ear

I breathe in at the feeling of her so close, so willing

"Do...do you think we...we should?"

"I know we should" She says before pressing her lips to my neck

"Faith" I pull back

"B I have been cooped up in this room for days this close to you and I have behaved. I am frustrated beyond all reasoning with the lack of progress, I am frustrated at the holes in my brain and I am frustrated at the lack of being able to feel like me again and there is one thing that always makes me feel like me and that is you. Being close to you, being able to be as close to you as humanly possible always makes it feel better, makes it feel real. Gives me clarity" She explains while removing my top and bra

"You always said that" Making my hands react the same way hers are

"Said what?" She asks undoing my belt buckle

"That everything always seemed so clear after you came" I move on the bed so I am on my back and she moves between my legs after flicking her shoes off

"I said that?"

"Uh huh" I lift my hips so she can remove my jeans...and panties

"I must have been pretty smart"

"Replace smart with horny"

She grins "The way we fucked everything became so clear we must have been nearly invisible"

"Invisible but noisy"

She kneels between my legs completely naked "So am I invisible now?"

I breathe in "Nope...but everything else is. All I can see is you"

She pushes my thighs apart "All I can see is you"

Now I know this sounds strange considering I am naked but how she is looking at me makes me feel completely naked. I am completely open to her and in more ways than one which she finds out as she slides two fingers inside me. I arch up in to her.

"Did you always get this wet for me?" She asks

"Only ever for you" I manage to groan out

"For me?"

"For you"

She removes her fingers and I go to protest but she rubs her slick fingers over both of my nipples, silencing any complaints I may have had but in a complete contradiction in a matter of seconds I am praising her for her decision as she sucks my right nipple in to her mouth.

For hours we played and teased. We each had turns taking each other to the brink. Showing each other exactly what we felt but now as I straddle her lap and grind my pussy against hers nothing else matters.

There is no Dollhouse, there is no memory loss, there is no her running away and leaving me, there is no me denying what we have, what we should have always had. There are just two sweat slicked bodies moving as one with one objective in mind.

Clarity.

Banging on my apartment door is waking me up way before I am actually ready to wake up. I choose to ignore it and snuggle in to Faith. As I roll on to her side of the bed I feel that it is empty and cold.

I sit up and look around my room. Any remnants of what Faith and I did last night gone...well apart from me and my nakedness. I get up and grab my robe and quickly throw it on and answer the banging.

"About time" Willow says

"What's wrong?"

"Giles has called an emergency meeting"

"About?"

"He didn't say, just said I had to come and get you for the meeting. Ken and I are thinking a breakthrough with this whole Faith/Echo drama"

"Let me get dressed and I will make my way down"

"Okay I will see you two down there then" She says and heads off down the hall

"Right, the two of us" I say and head back in to my apartment.

I quickly dress and make my way downstairs. When I walk in to the conference room there are pensive faces on everyone. Everyone being Giles, Wesley, Willow and Kennedy.

"So big breakthrough?" I ask hopefully closing the door behind me

"I think you should sit down Buffy"

I do as Giles says

"Now I am sure you noticed the lack of Faith this morning"

"Yeah, I checked her room before I headed down here but she was nowhere to be found. I thought she may already be down here" I think I get away with that tiny white lie about checking her room

"I'm afraid not" Giles sighs

"Where is Angel?" I ask "Shouldn't here be here for this?"

"We aren't sure exactly where he is, or Faith for that matter. All we have is surveillance tape from earlier this morning" Wesley says "I arrived for my normal 9am patrol update with Angel to find his office empty and signs of a struggle"

My heart drop faster than that elevator drop ride at Universal Studios.

"I think we should watch" Wesley says and points a remote at the giant screen that adorns the wall.

Angel's office comes up and he is sitting at his desk. I assume he is anyway, he doesn't show up on film but I can see a pen writing in a file of some sort. There is a loud bang and then Faith makes her way in to view and when I say makes her way I mean jumps over the desk and holds him against the wall with a stake poised over I assume his heart in one move. One Move!

"Faith?" I hear his scared voice say

"What the fuck did you assholes do to me?" She yells

"What do you mean?" Is his answer

"Don't play stupid...this stake is NOT for show"

"I honestly don't know what you are talking about Faith"

"I can hold you up here all day you undead piece of shit and I know oxygen aint a problem for you but if you don't start talking soon I might have to get my wooden friend here to give you some friendly persuasion"

"I am serious Faith, I don't know what you are talking about. We should sit and talk"

"Talk? Talk?" She laughs evilly "You wanna talk do ya Soul Bitch" She makes a move and it looks like she has just pulled him back and thrown him against the wall

"What should we talk about Angel? About how you are still in love with B despite the bullshit you feed everyone...or how about something a little more in depth? About how you staged that night I took off. How you planed everything down to the last fucking second to screw me over so you could hand deliver me to the Dollhouse yourself"

"Faith I honestly don't know what you are talking about"

"STOP CALING ME FAITH!" She shouts and throws Angel against the wall again

I notice the stake move and I hear Angel cry out

"Are you gonna stop fucking around Soul Boy? Are ya?"

She quickly moves as if she is dodging something and throws two left hooks and a right uppercut, the stake falling to the ground in the process of what I assume is a struggle between them. She seems to take control again though. This time straddling him on the ground from what I can see.

"Make no mistake this is gonna end one way Angel and it is up to you to decide how quickly it happens either way you end up a pile of dust blowing in the breeze"

I breathe in my eyes glued to the screen

"I hope you decide to make it last longer"

"Still in to the torture huh?"

"Nope cause once I hear what I wanna from you, I got a nice little story to tell ya. So good in fact that once I am done dusting you I think I am gonna call up one of the studios that are just down the road cause the shit I know would make an excellent fuckin screen play"

She moves and it looks like she has hold of his head or hair

"So what's it gonna be? Ya gonna talk or ya gonna die?"

"No matter what I do I am dust so you can sit there and spout your bullshit and threaten me all you want. I am not talking"

"Figures. I don't mind doing the talking for both of us cause I know what happened but if I get it wrong please feel free at any time to chime in and correct me"

"Don't count on it"

She raises the hand that is holding on to something and we hear a loud crack. Another assumption for sure but that was Angels head being smashed against the marble floor.

"Uh uh uh, don't flake out on me now Angel that was just a love tap" She slaps the side of his face softly a few times "There's my souled vampire! My savior...tell me oh savior why did you fight so hard to save me? You coulda just let me hand myself back in and I would be quite content in my little 6 x 4 concrete home away from home for the next 30 years but you had to clear my record. Or how about first time around when I asked ya to kill me...that was a great day all you had to do was slide your hands around my neck instead of my back...break my neck instead of saving it. Why Angel? Why did you save me if years down the track all you are going to do is hand me over to some top secret organization that likes to fuck with people's minds? A place that whores human beings out to the highest bidder. Do you know what I have been doing for the last 4 months...who I've been doing?"

I cringe at the last statement.

"Most recently it's been B...the last 12 hours...holy shit that girl has stamina...of course you wouldn't know, you didn't stick around after the first poke to find out. So it makes me wonder...why do ya get your panties in such a bunch? You know you cant have her, you know you cant ever be with her...yeah, yeah, yeah we all know about that prophecy that you will be human again that has come to light but cast your mind back...you left her. You decided that she should have the life that you couldn't give her. So here is B happy as fuckin Larry living her life large and you can't fuckin stand it. Sure I get it with Riley and that fucktard Spike...they were just well who cares what they were but she and I....sorry she and Faith they were in love. And you couldn't stand it. You couldn't live with seeing her so happy again. It took her fucking ages dude! Fucking ages to find that one person you set her free to find and what do you do? You rip that person out of her life and set it up to make it look like they did it all on their own. That they took off all irrational and pissed off and signed their life away"

"Stop" I said wiping away tears "Stop it now Giles"

The screen froze

"Have you already seen this?" I ask him

"Not in its entirety. Wesley and I watched maybe the first 10 seconds then we called the meeting. I didn't know...we didn't know it would go this way"

"Could I...do I...I want to watch the rest alone" I say softly

"You think that is wise Buffy?" Willow asks

"Yeah I do"

Everyone but Giles silently leaves the room

"Buffy do you really think you should be watching this alone?"

"If this is going where I think it is I would honestly prefer it"

"If you need me I shant be too far away"

"Thanks Giles"

He squeezes my shoulder then leaves.

I take a few deep breaths and grab a glass of water and scull it down then press play again

"You totally fooled her, you totally fooled me. I bet when I showed up a week or two ago it shoved a super sized spanner up your undead ass"

"You gonna quit your yapping anytime soon?"

"Nope"

"I thought you said you were done with torture"

She laughs "Ya know I forgot what a funny mother fucker you can be at times"

Her right arm goes up and slams the stake down.

I wince as I hear him cry out

"Tsk, tsk, tsk...you got blood all over my stake" She takes it out of where ever she put it and I hear him grunt.

That came out a lot more sexual than it should and I so shouldn't be going there.

"Now where was I?"

"Boring me to death" He answers

"Right, right. So I show up and what do you do? You act all noble. You are a champion after all and ya did save me all those times. You tell B you are doin all ya can to get my memory back and you have all these contacts that can help infiltrate this place. You vow to never rest till you find out exactly what happened to me...but ya already know so you spin your bullshit to the Scoobs knowing that I have no idea why I am here and will just pretty much go along with whatever lies I am fed. Buying yourself time to find out why and how I got back here...the one place you worked so fucking hard to get me out of" She shifts around on top of him "Seems those little sessions with the hypnotherapist totally screwed up with my programming on this mission which is just what you wanted but thanks to B and a moment of clarity seems my mission came flooding back to me" She chuckles to herself "Flooding...B always did get my juices flowing and it seems like she has this thing for moments in the sack...she gives you a happy and your true self is revealed. She gave me a happy...well actually I think it was about 7 happy's maybe 8...not sure if the shower after number 3 counts but I digress...she gives me a happy and whatta ya know my true self is revealed. Only it isn't my true self it is a form of me planted in my brain cause you fucking sold me off to those fuckers all cause you still have a hard on for Buffy"

"You know you could have just given me the cliff notes version of all that...or no version at all cause I did it and I know why I did it"

"I needed a dramatic lead up to the kick ass finale...plus I am sure when Wes comes in for his 9am meeting and sees the signs of a struggle he will go straight to the surveillance tape to find out what happened to their precious cloaked crusader"

"So what is the twist?"

"Well I love this, I really do. Fuck what I was gonna show the Hollywood execs earlier, I think what I am about to share with you IS the story my man. I want them to film it and show it every Christmas it is that fucking good. So would you prefer I give you the cliff notes version on this?"

"I was past caring what you did or said a long time ago"

There goes that stake again and there he is crying out in pain again but this time I don't cringe, this time I am begging her to make it hurt just a little bit more.

"Oh don't say that, I want them to mourn the champion they all knew and loved in the appropriate way. It is what you deserve after all"

"Just send me to hell already...or have you already done it and this is where I am right now. I couldn't think of anything worse for my eternal damnation"

"Nope not in hell yet Soul Bitch...I think when you go to hell...I hope when you go to hell that they have me and B fucking each other senseless on a loop and your eyes are held open with toothpicks and I hope they have the sound turned up so loud that all you hear for the rest of eternity is how good we gave it to each other, how much we loved each other"

"Seriously can this be over with like now?"

"Just a minute, as you will see on the loop in hell I didn't like to hurry the all important climax. When you took me to that facility didn't you ever think that maybe just maybe one day one of the many people you have pissed off over time would be searching for yet another way to end you? Didn't you ever wonder that a day like today would be on the cards?"

"I never thought about you more than I had to"

"Well that is a shame...actually it aint I think this is what would be called poetic justice. The place that you used to try and get rid of me is now being paid to get rid of you"

"You know if you were going to kill me I think you would have done it already"

"I am gonna kill you don't worry about that. I just wanted you to know all this before you went...that Buffy will know what you did... to me...to her. And for what? You wont be able to touch her, you wont be able to kiss her, you wont be able to hold her in your arms and tell her that you love her...you took that away from me so now I have great pleasure in taking it away from you"

She doesn't raise her arm and stake him violently, there isn't some great battle just the sound of a vampire turning to dust as she adjusts the stake that must have been mere millimeters away from his heart and the sobs that escape my throat as I hear my first love in Angel die and see my true love Faith leave my life...again.

Just as I am about to turn off the TV I see her pull out a phone

"Mission complete. Echo returning to base"

THE END