Even though it’s already March, no one is exactly surprised to see that it’s snowing yet again. It’s all a part of living near the Great Lakes, or at least that’s what all of their neighbors have told them. Frankly, Buffy has been done with winter for over two months now but it seems as though Mother Nature doesn’t really care what Buffy wants. In fact, it seems that Mother Nature is really out to get her. The weather forecast says that Cleveland should expect twelve to eighteen inches of new snow over the next two days.

If there’s really such a thing as seasonal depression, Buffy definitely has it.

She’s been laying in bed watching re-runs of Saved By The Bell and Baywatch for a day and a half now and is refusing to leave the comfort of her warm, warm blankets. She has a beach towel hung up over the window so she doesn’t have to look at any more of the cold, horrible white stuff and not even Faith has been able to rouse her from their room.

“C’mon, B. We can even go to the mall.”

Buffy doesn’t even look at Faith. She keeps her gaze focused on the television, a look of longing on her face as she sees a lifeguard dive into the crystal clear ocean water.

“Points for bribing me with shopping, but I’m not going anywhere until all of the snow is gone.”

Faith sighs with exasperation. “Babe, you know as well as I do that the snow ain’t going anywhere for another month.”

“Then neither am I.” Suddenly a thought crosses Buffy’s mind and she looks over at Faith, smiling hopefully. “But you can go shopping and send me pictures with your phone. You know, just a rack of clothes here, a display of shoes there.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen,” Faith replies sarcastically. She flops down on the bed and steals the remote away from Buffy, frustrated and bored.

“It’s actually a good idea,” Buffy says. She climbs out from under the blankets but wraps them around herself so that she looks like a little Eskimo, kneeling on the bed at Faith’s side. “I can live vicariously through you.”

“Or you can take a shower and we can go together.”

“Please, Faith? I’ll reward you.”

Faith raises an eyebrow and looks at her skeptically. “With what?”

“With sex!” Buffy says excitedly, her smile huge as she realizes that this is probably her best idea ever!

Faith reaches her hand out and pushes Buffy over, chuckling when Buffy loses her balance and lands in a blankety heap at the foot of the bed.

“How about ya shower first, Buffy LePew.”

Buffy struggles to get up but finds that Faith is already off the bed and standing by the door, stopping to take her coat from the hook and put it on.

“You’re really going to go?” Buffy asks with a huge smile.

Faith doesn’t reply directly to Buffy. Instead she grumbles something about being the best girlfriend in the world and walks out of the room, closing the door behind her. Excited, Buffy grabs her cell phone from the nightstand beside the bed and then wraps herself up even tighter in the blankets to wait with anticipation for the first photo to arrive.

Almost an hour later, she hears the telltale beep of a photo message arriving on her cell phone. She eagerly flips it open and clicks on the ‘read’ option.

Faith doesn’t disappoint. She’s taken a picture of a rack of cute little summer shirts, a special preview of the new summer line at Buffy’s favorite store. Buffy squeals with excitement, wishing that the screen on her phone was bigger. She’s not quite done checking out the first picture when her phone beeps again and a second picture arrives. It’s of a rack of newly arrived swimwear and Buffy is jealous that Faith is standing amongst them and she’s not.

“Stupid snow,” she grumbles.

A third picture arrives a few minutes later and Buffy has to struggle to see exactly what it is. She turns her phone this way and that, then finally gets it to the right angle and realizes that she’s seeing the outside of one of the fitting rooms.

“What are you up to?” Buffy asks aloud, trying to figure out exactly what Faith is doing. The store is in the other direction!

And that’s when the fourth picture arrives. Buffy’s eyes widen and she unconsciously licks her lips when she sees Faith modeling one of the bikinis from the second picture in the fitting room mirror. It’s white with tiny gold metal loops around the sides and if she squints enough, she’s pretty sure she can see Faith’s nipples through the semi-sheer material.

She struggles to find the zoom feature on the phone and has to push the blankets down from her body because . . . yep, it’s definitely feeling warmer in her room.

The fifth picture arrives and Buffy has to scrabble around on her bed to pick up her phone which she just dropped. When she has it firmly in her grip once again, she sees that Faith has removed the bikini top and is modeling just the bottoms. She looks absolutely perfect and Buffy has to wipe a bead of sweat away from her upper lip.

Just when she’s sure she’s about to burn up, a sixth picture arrives. Faith is strangely missing from this shot and Buffy frowns with disappointment. Then she notices writing in some fog on the mirror and a reflection of the chair in the fitting room. The top and bottom of the bikini are resting on it and Buffy has to struggle to read the words written in the fog.

I’ll accept my reward now. Come and warm me up.

Buffy blinks once, twice, and then jumps up from the bed. Shopping and sex? It’s her two favorite things in the world all wrapped up in one neat little package!