Swallowing loudly, Buffy watched in agonizing silence as Faith took the other end of the scarf and tied it to the wooden headboard, effectively rendering Buffy's arm useless. Her other arm was already in the same position.

"You know," Buffy began, a slight tremble in her voice, "I think this is a little bit advanced for me."

"You're the one that said you wanted to try something different," Faith answered huskily, a sexy smirk on her face as she met Buffy's eyes.

"And my saying that made you think of tying me to the headboard?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"You blinking your eyes pretty much makes me think of tying you to the headboard."

Buffy laughed, nothing but fondness and love in her eyes now as she looked at her incorrigible yet very sexy girlfriend. She wanted to reach out and caress Faith's face but with her arms restrained, all she could do was offer her a loving smile. Returning the smile in kind, Faith leaned in and teased her lips softly over Buffy's, pulling back only when she felt Buffy's arms unconsciously pulling against the delicate silk.

"Okay, B, the name of the game is Don't Rip the Scarves."

"Because Dawn will kill me if she finds out that I ripped her property? And that's only after she's done killing me when she finds out what we used them for?"

"Pretty much," Faith said with a wicked smile. "And also? Cos it'll be kinda fun to see how much control you hold onto when I'm busy making you come nice and hard with my mouth."

A quiet groan escaped Buffy's throat and she pressed her thighs together, trying to get some relief where she needed it the most. Faith looked down to see what Buffy was doing, then back up to her pleading eyes. She slipped her hand between them, coaxing Buffy's thighs apart and letting her hand find a more comfortable place.

Buffy gasped shakily as Faith's fingers dipped into her wetness and slid over and around her clit teasingly soft, just a taste of things to come. They never broke their gaze as they stared deep into one another's eyes, their silence saying more than words ever could.

"How're those scarves holding up?" Faith finally asked as she continued to slip her fingers over Buffy, her voice barely a whisper.

"I never knew bondage fun was this much about restraint," Buffy replied, making Faith laugh aloud.

Faith leaned in and gave her one last kiss before removing her hand and slipping down Buffy's body, stopping to kiss and nibble along the way. Buffy was already charged up and ready to go, so of course Faith chose that moment to tease and see just how far she could push the blonde.

She stopped her descent at Buffy's stomach and proceeded to lavish it with an obscene amount of attention, kissing every inch of her tanned skin and dipping her tongue repeatedly into her adorable belly-button in just the way that made Buffy moan and shudder.

Now, Faith had never been the kind of person to think about anything as sweet or adorable. Hell, she'd never even had bondage fun that was this intimate before. Prior to Buffy, it had been to keep people from touching her while she was getting some; she'd never wanted the distraction of unwanted hands before. She'd come and she'd go, no hassles no drama.

But Buffy had changed all of that. It wasn't about getting some and getting gone anymore. It wasn't solely about her needs – though she did have to admit, tying Buffy to the bed had long been a fantasy of hers that she just couldn't pass up when the opportunity presented itself. No, this was about Buffy; about lavishing her with all of the attention that her body could handle.

Faith wasn't sure when or how but Buffy had broken through her tough shell and had fully penetrated her squishy center, and she wasn't talking about her pussy either, though there had been plenty of penetrating there too. Buffy brought out something in her that she didn't realize she even had or was capable of showing. She couldn't imagine going back to being the closed off girl with the impenetrable walls.

She liked the person Buffy had discovered within her way too much to ever think about going back to her old ways.

Besides, having a kickass girlfriend with a hot bod who let her tie her to the bed? Totally worth sliding a few levels on the badass meter.

Smiling against Buffy's skin as she felt the girl wriggling in need, she kissed down her stomach and over her hips, then down the tops of her thighs as she very purposely avoided where Buffy wanted her attention the most. That could come later. She still had two gloriously tanned and toned legs to worship before she wanted them wrapped around her in ecstasy.

Scooting further down the bed, Faith gently lifted one of Buffy's legs and kissed the inside of her ankle. She burned a trail of blazing hot and open-mouthed kisses up the inside of Buffy's calf and her inner thigh, delighting in the way Buffy was sighing and breathing sexily for her. She knew that she wanted to wait to give her any relief but she just couldn't help herself and placed a big, wet, sloppy kiss right over Buffy's dripping hole.

"Oh baby," Buffy said breathily, her eyes drifting closed. They quickly opened, however, when she felt those wonderful lips disappear from her heated flesh.

"Sorry, B. Got ahead of myself there," Faith said with a sheepish grin.

"Head is good. Great even. Feel free to give lots of it," Buffy practically whined and jumped when Faith laughed loudly.

"But you have a whole other leg here that's just begging for some love."

"I'd be willing to cut it off if you'd just . . ." her words trailed off and she lifted her hips up, bringing Faith face-to-face with her naked sex.

"Willing to give up a leg just for a bit of action, huh?" Faith asked as she lifted Buffy's leg up onto her shoulder, sucking and kissing her inner thigh and giving her a small hickey there. She finally leaned in and looked up at Buffy, a carnal grin on her face. "We can't have that now, can we?"

And then Buffy's mind went blank as she felt those divine lips kissing over her pussy and her tongue slipping out to taste her juices. Faith teased at first, placing several open-mouthed kissed over her heated flesh everywhere but where she wanted them the most. Her tongue would flick over Buffy's clit once or twice, but she kept reining it in, trying to prolong the experience.

Buffy was far too turned on to get frustrated; she was just glad that Faith finally seemed to be ready to give her what she really needed. When she felt that soft and wonderful tongue circling over her entrance, she just couldn't hold herself back any longer. Ripping her right hand free from the silky scarf, it quickly found its way to the back of Faith's head and directed her to where she needed it the most.

"Please…" she said, her voice shaky. And then that tongue was pushing inside of her, deep enough that she felt teeth bump her swollen clit. "…oh, Faith."

Faith grunted appreciatively, wriggling her tongue as deep inside Buffy as she could get it before stiffening it up and beginning to fuck her with it. Buffy's hips immediately began to move so Faith slid her hands under her legs and up around the tops of her thighs. She pulled Buffy tight to her face, making her tongue push that much deeper inside of her.

"Fuck!" Buffy cried out, her juices spilling over Faith's tongue.

It was a good thing that Faith had slayer hearing because with the way Buffy's thighs were pressed against her ears, she wouldn't have been able to hear the appreciation Buffy was showing, or the requests that her ecstasy-laden brain were making. Faith didn't need to hear the requests though. After spending the last few months getting to know the ins and outs of the wonderful Buffy Summers, she knew exactly what the girl needed and when.

After a few final thrusts of her tongue, she pulled it out of Buffy's dripping hole and slipped it up her slit and over her clit, flicking it nice and hard and slow and fast all at the same time. Her lips and chin were covered in Buffy's arousal but she didn't care; in fact, all it did was get her more turned on if that was even possible.

Buffy's hips were pumping furiously now despite Faith's grip on her thighs. The brunette simply held Buffy tighter and opened her mouth, sucking hard on her clit while continually flicking her tongue over it.

"Just like that, yes!" Buffy practically screamed, her right hand still buried in Faith's hair while the other clung to the headboard as not to rip the one remaining scarf. She had plans for that scarf. If would be around Faith's wrists or covering her eyes, or used in some other sexy way she could come up with just as soon as she was done . . . "…I'm gonna come!"

Faith released one of Buffy's legs then and deftly slid two fingers inside of the blonde's wet sex, pumping them in and out furiously to match the rhythm Buffy was setting with her hips. Her lips and tongue were relentless on Buffy's clit, sucking and licking over it while she felt her inner walls clenching tightly around her fingers.

Curling her fingertips slightly, Faith braced herself as Buffy exploded into a string of sharp breaths and girly moans and sighs, her other hand releasing the headboard and ripping through the scarf like it was made of paper to hold tight to the back of Faith's head. Faith grinned against Buffy's pussy, her tongue slowing down on her clit as she let the girl ride out her orgasm. She stilled her fingers, flexing them ever so subtly as Buffy continued to cling to her and breathe heavily.

"Mmm," Buffy moaned, bringing one of her hands up to her face and biting the back of her index finger lazily.

"Mmm," Faith moaned back, placing a few appreciative kisses over Buffy's pussy and then on the inside of her thigh. "That was wicked sexy, baby."

"You're telling me," Buffy said, her voice low and lazy. "You're so good at that."

Faith smiled proudly and climbed up Buffy's body, resting atop the girl so that they were face to face. "Just one of my many talents."

"Any other talents I should be aware of?" Buffy asked. She brought her hands up to cup Faith's face and ran her thumbs over her chin, cleaning away her glistening juices that still remained there.

"I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue." At Buffy's expectant look, she stuck her tongue out and curled it up, easily touching the tip of her nose.

"Have I ever told you that I love that tongue of yours?"

"Pretty sure you've moaned it once or a hundred times," Faith replied, grinning.

The remnants of the torn silk scarves on Buffy's wrists tickled the sides of her face and she giggled almost uncharacteristically. She leaned down and kissed Buffy soft and deep, their tongues sliding over and around each other. Just that simple action had her fully turned on again. No way was she done with Buffy yet. Scarves or none, there was still worshipping to be done.

"Yunno," Faith began as she pulled back, looking down at Buffy with a look of mischief upon her face, "I've always thought that the best things come in pairs."

"I'm not sure whether you're talking about my breasts or those chocolate ho-ho's you love so much."

Still grinning, Faith flexed the fingers that were still buried deep in Buffy's wet sex, making the girl gasp quietly.

"I was actually kinda thinking about orgasms, B," she said. Feeling Buffy's arms wrap around her back, she leaned down and kissed the girl on her opened mouth, sucking on her bottom lip softly.

They both heard a noise somewhere out in the hall but both girls decided to ignore it, hoping that whomever it was would just continue along on their way. The footsteps continued to grow louder and closer though and with a sigh of frustration, Faith rested her full weight down on Buffy and buried her face in the crook of her neck.

"Always when we're fuckin," she breathed out, annoyed. "Your friends have the worst timing ever."

"Why are they your friends when they do something good and my friends when they do something bad?"

Before Faith could answer, there was a tentative knock at the door.

"Buffy? I hate to interrupt, especially after the last time with the shower and the nakedness," Willow called and Faith lifted her head from Buffy's shoulder, wriggling her eyebrows at the girl as she recalled their shower-sex session from just a few nights before, "but there's an issue that I think we need to address."

"Can't it wait, Wills?" Buffy called out, trying to hide the annoyance in her voice while ignoring Faith's pervy grin. "I'm . . . a little bit tied up."

Faith nearly burst out laughing and instead buried her face between Buffy's breasts to stop the laughs that wanted to come out. Buffy tittered too, the silk scarves still hanging from her wrists.

"Far be it from me to want to interrupt your bondage fun, but . . . well, I really think you're gonna want to see this Buff. It's . . . well, I really don't know how to explain it or what to think of it."

Buffy ignored the quip about bondage fun and decided that there were some things that her friends needed to learn to deal with without her.

"Is the castle under attack?"

"No."

"Has Dawn turned into a goldfish?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no."

"Has Andrew finally come out of the closet and you're throwing a big gay parade for him?"

"Not yet."

"Then can't it wait, Wills?" Buffy whined, her bottom lip coming out in a pout knowing that Willow wouldn't have interrupted her unless it was really necessary.

"Buff . . . it's about New York," Willow replied cautiously, listening carefully as she waited for a response.

Buffy and Faith's eyes met then, a steely determination suddenly set in both of them.

"We'll be down in five minutes."

Xander and Willow, along with a handful of the younger slayers and several of the young witches-in-training, sat around the control room and anxiously awaited Buffy and Faith. Willow's training exercise with the young witches had unearthed a discovery that couldn't be taken lightly given all that had happened in New York months back. There was the slightest chance that it could've been some kind of weird magical blip that amounted to nothing. Willow knew better though. She could practically feel it now that she knew what she was looking for.

It didn't even take Buffy and Faith five minutes to reach the control room. All eyes were on them as they walked in, an air of determination around them.

"What's going on in New York?" Buffy asked immediately, her arms crossed over her chest as she stopped just in front of her friends.

"We're not really sure yet. We only just found out about it right before Willow let you know there might be a problem. The squad in New York hasn't been able to verify anything for us yet but Robin said all's been quiet there," Xander offered.

Ever since the showdown had happened with the FBI, Robin and the squad of slayers in New York had kept a vigilant watch over what was once the Dollhouse. The building had been completely emptied out except for the few FBI agents that still remained working on the scene. Even the accounting firm on the lower level had been shut down and investigated.

The Dollhouse, for all intents and purposes, was no longer.

"Then what seems to be the problem?" Faith asked, her arms crossed over her chest in the very same stance that Buffy was in.

Willow stepped forward and beckoned Buffy and Faith closer to the monitor that was just behind them. They leaned down to have a closer look while Willow began to explain.

"The coven and I were working on some spells together, you know, just basic stuff to help them learn. We did a bit of conjuring but the girls have gotten so good at it that we decided to try something a bit more advanced. I thought it might be a good idea to teach them how to read essences so that they can help to locate specific slayers while in battle."

"You can do that?" Buffy asked.

"Easily. Reading essences is one of the first things a Wicca learns. Locating that essence across a distance and transmuting that image to another medium is where it gets tricky. That's what I was teaching the girls to do, and that's when we stumbled upon this."

She looked down at the monitor which showed a basic outline of the map of the world. Most major cities were labeled on it, as were individual countries. Standing out from the basic image, though, were four bright white lights that shimmered and glowed.

"What are those?" Faith asked, pointing to one of the shimmering white lights.

"Well," Willow began, "the girls were getting really good at locating and transmuting the essences to the screen, so I decided I needed to toughen it up for them. I remembered that after we left the US, we were worried that the demon population was going to gun for Buffy. We needed to distract and divert their forces so we made decoy-Buffy's. Now, in order to trick any demons that had essence reading abilities, we had to transfer some of Buffy's essence to the decoys. It acts as a magical masking device. Sabrina in Rome has been acting as a retired Buffy on the surface world, and Joanna has been acting as Buffy in the demon underworld in Brazil. The demons of the world have been none-the-wiser to our little ruse."

Buffy and Faith shifted their attention from the shimmering white light hovering over Rome to the same shimmering white light hovering over Brazil as Willow explained. Sure enough when they looked up to Scotland, there was another shimmering white light that was just the tiniest bit brighter than the other two.

None of that, however, explained . . .

"So who the hell is this one?" Faith asked, tapping the shimmering white light over New York that matched the light hovering over Scotland perfectly.

"We're not sure yet. All we know is she's definitely not one of ours," Willow said quietly, carefully watching Buffy's face for some kind of a reaction.

"I think we're all making the same assumption here," Xander said. When nobody replied, he looked suddenly embarrassed. "Wait, we are all making the same assumption, right?"

All gazes fell on Buffy again who was still staring at the monitor, her jaw clenched tightly. She leaned down, rested her palms on the edge of the desk, and exhaled loudly through her nose.

"I've been cloned."

Startling everyone, she banged her palms loudly on the desk. A moment later, she straightened up, turned around, and walked out of the control room.

Echo awoke with a start, the sheets clinging to her sweaty body as she sat up on her bed. She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she recalled her dream. Faith had told her about slayer dreams. Hell, she was sure that she'd had her share of them. She'd watched Buffy die and Kendra get called. She'd watched Kendra die and herself – Faith – get called. She'd seen all manner of slayers in her dreams through a landscape of different times and places. The dreams had been a bit disorienting at first, sure, but none of them had ever scared her.

She was strong. Fast. She knew that there was nothing that could stop her . . . almost nothing that could stop her. Was it that way for all slayers?

Faith, wait!

I know you. I know your face. I feel you.

We have to help her!

Quickly closing her eyes, Echo shook her head and tried to erase the image from her mind. No slayer dreams had ever been like that before. None had ever showed her something that hadn't happened yet.

Heck, for all she knew, it wasn't a slayer dream. Maybe it was just a nightmare; a good, old-fashioned nightmare. If that was the case though, why was her body reacting in the way it was, and why did she keep having the same dream over and over?

Sighing deeply, she reached over to her nightstand and grabbed her mobile phone. There was only one number programmed in it, and only one number that she ever dialed, so she hit the send button and lifted the phone to her ear without even watching the screen.

There were a series of clicks and connecting beeps before the line began to ring and finally a gruff voice answered, "Yeah?"

"It's me," Echo said tentatively. She didn't like the tone of Faith's voice.

"Oh, hey," Faith replied, the dark tone in her voice lightening up just a little bit. "What's up?"

"The usual."

"Usual can be good."

"Yeah, definitely."

There was a bit of an awkward pause as suddenly neither girl knew quite what to say or how to proceed. They were generally quiet when they were around one another, but this kind of awkwardness was new, unwelcome. Faith tried to change that.

"How's the house coming along?"

"Slowly. It's a process."

"You just don't like drivin' down to Bernie's cos you know he's itchin to fix ya up with . . ."

"Do you ever have nightmares?" Echo interrupted, unable to hold in the question any longer.

"Life of a killer," Faith said after thinking it over for a moment or two. "Kinda figure it's part of the price, yunno?"

"Yeah," Echo answered and a brief silence fell over them again. "But like . . . your slayer dreams -- do they ever show you things that haven't happened yet and then turn into some kinda big crazy nightmare?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. She knew that Faith was still there, could hear her breathing. She could practically hear the wheels turning in her head through the silence.

"What are you dreaming of?" Faith asked, her voice dangerously low.

And really, how could she explain it all? She didn't understand what she was seeing or how or when. There was only one thing she knew for sure.