I Need You

Rating: PG
Disclaimer: All of the materials borrowed from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel belong to Joss Whedon and to the entities and companies associated with their creation. I have borrowed them for creative and entertainment purposes only. No compensation has been or ever shall be received for the writing below. No copyright infringement is intended. Please don't sue
Distribution: The Kennedy Fanfic Archive: http://www.kennedyfanfic.com/fanfic/
Wolf Tales: http://www.elfie.org/~wolfkin/wolftales/index.html
If you are interested in posting my story on your site, please contact me first for permission. I'm okay with the idea, I just wanna know where it ends up.
Feedback: Yes, please. Any type you wanna send. If you ever meet a fanfic writer who DOESN'T want all the feedback they can grab, shoot'em. They're not human anyway!
Spoilers: Show's been off the air since May of 2003. Can they still be considered spoilers?
Author's Notes: I have kept to the BtVS/Angel canon to the end of Chosen and season 4 of Angel. After that, It's my little world! .
F/F romance: This story assumes a loving and sexual relationship between people of the same gender. If this offends or is illegal for you, then please leave. Come back when you are older, have an open mind, moved, or changed your laws.
Acknowledgments: Believe it or not, but this story is *very* loosely based on a scene from Conan The Destroyer
Pairing: Willow/Other, Kennedy/Other, Buffy/Faith/Xander(Mentioned)

Summary: Sequel of sorts to One More Time and Resolutions. Story is set approximately 10 years after Resolutions.

Chapter 1

The guy was in his early thirties and Eddie had seen him in here in the bar a few times, usually with a few, well, friends was probably the wrong word. Co-workers was probably more accurate. Now the guy was alone and had noticed the young, attractive brunette sitting at the corner of the bar.

Eddie knew her only as Kennedy, but she'd become a regular over the last few months. The bartender had watched a lot of guys try to hook up with her, but she always sent them packing quickly. Eddie just figured, despite the lack of rings, the woman had a husband or serious boyfriend somewhere else and was completely loyal to him. With a carefully hidden grin, the balding man leaned back, planning to enjoy the show.

Kennedy took another sip of her beer, then glanced to her left when she saw the bartender glance up. She and Eddie had become very casual friends over the time she'd been in Seattle. Enough that, she could occasionally talk to him about neighborhood stuff without suspicion. Thanks to the clues he'd provided, the Slayer had wiped out the two vampire nests that had infested this part of town and stopped a third from forming. Now, except for the occasional mugging or robbery, this neighborhood was reasonably safe again. Eddie might not know for sure that it was her that had taken out the bloodsuckers, but Kennedy was pretty sure he suspected, since she had only paid for about half the drinks she'd had since the first time she came in.

Now, she noticed the blond guy Eddie had spotted and groaned inwardly. [Not another one,] she growled to herself. Over the years, Kennedy had become very adept at turning down guys, but some, and she could almost always tell them by sight now, some didn't want to take the dismissal gracefully. The ones who did, the brunette took their passes as a compliment. The ones who wouldn't take the hint, those she dreaded and this guy looked to fall into that category.

Raymond Stone looked at the beautiful brunette sitting at the bar once more, then tossed off his drink and thought, [What the hell. I could use a quick screw.] Standing, he started walking toward the corner of the bar where she was sitting. A small part of his mind was occupied with his opening lines, but much more was looking over Kennedy's body and imagining things he was going to do to her and have her do to him. She looked to be in her early to mid twenties, just the right age and thinking about that golden tanned skin with the marks he intended to leave made him start to harden.

The thought that she might turn him down never entered his mind. He hadn't had a woman refuse him since he was fifteen. True, his usual conquests were clients seeking divorces. A few honeyed words, a few compliments, paying attention to them when their soon to be ex-husbands hadn't and he had them. Even in bar pickups, he knew he was handsome and took pains with his appearance. More often than not, it was the woman coming on to him, but this time... Well, this woman intrigued him and he decided to get her.

"Hi," he said, sliding onto the stool beside Kennedy. He smiled with just the right amount of friendliness and appreciation for her beauty. "I was wondering if I could buy you a drink? Maybe talk a bit?"

Holding up her mostly full mug of beer, never even looking at the guy, Kennedy replied, her voice flat, "No thanks." Her tone was completely dismissive.

Raymond stopped, his smile slipping for a second, then it was back, full force. "Yeah, I didn't see the glass. How about a late lunch then? I know this little Italian place around the corner that serves the best lasagna you've ever tasted. What do you say? My treat," he added, trying to appear friendly, inviting and smooth.

Kennedy finally looked at the man annoying her and snorted. [A pretty boy. Natch.] Smirking up at the man, she asked, "So, what's the name of this Italian place? Maybe I'll take my girlfriend there sometime."

Raymond was taken aback for a moment by the mention of a girlfriend, but rallied quickly. He gave the brunette an oily smile. "You have a girlfriend, huh? That's cool. Well, kinda hot, actually. Are you waiting for her now?"

A frown. "No," Kennedy admitted, not sure where he was going, but sure she wouldn't like it. "She's at work 'til five. Why?"

The lawyer tried for a warm smile, but the effect he was looking for was ruined by the fact it never came near his eyes. "Oh, well then, how about we go have that lunch, then meet up with her later. Have a little dinner, then see where the evening takes us." He reached out and ran a hand down the Slayer's arm. "I can promise, I'll show you both what a real man can do."

The dark haired Slayer released a sharp bark of laughter, causing Eddie the bartender to look toward her. Slowly, deliberately, she removed his hand from her arm as she quipped, "Oh, so you keep one on call just for these demonstrations?" Her laughter became more genuine and delighted as his face lost the suave, yet hopeful look, replaced by anger. "Look, you got nothing that interests me and even less of a shot with my girl, so so find some hard up housewife to bother, okay?"

The blonde man snarled his face up, his anger turning to fury in the blink of an eye. Reaching out, he grabbed Kennedy's upper arm in a tight grip, pulling her toward him. Behind the bar, Eddie reached down and grabbed the sawed off pool cue he kept there in case of a disturbance. "No one talks to me like that, bitch! We could've done this the nice way, but now I'm gonna make you wish you'd never been born!"

Eddie raised the pool cue and started toward the asshole, the air of menace surrounding him palpable. You didn't threaten women, not in his place and him not do something about it. He'd only taken a step, though, when he noticed that the small brunette not only didn't react with fear of the much larger man trying to intimidate her, she was getting angry herself and actually seemed to suddenly be more dangerous.

Kennedy's eyes narrowed and she looked slowly down at the hand gripping her arm, then back up at the man it was attached to. "Move it. Now." Her voice never got above a conversation level but, somehow, that made it even more ominous. Eddie felt a chill work its way down his spine at the tone and was both grateful it wasn't directed at him and a little weirded out that it came from the petite woman.

Raymond sneered and tightened his grip a bit. He'd been expecting this bitch to try to bluff her way out of this, but he just wasn't impressed by that. He'd show her she couldn't scare him, then he could teach her a lesson about mouthing off to her betters. Already picturing what he was going to do, he missed the subtle shift in the hard chocolate eyes regarding him steadily.

Kennedy saw the sneer, felt the hand on her arm tighten and inwardly shrugged. She'd given him an out and he hadn't taken it, so anything but killing him was now okay. Twisting her upper body slightly, she lashed out with her left hand so fast Eddie only registered the movement as her hand came back. Cartilage torn and bone broke as the blond lawyer's nose collapsed under the impact of the Slayer's strike in a spray of blood.

Releasing the woman's arm in an automatic response, Raymond clutched both hands over his face at first impact, then the pain registered in his mind. His eyes wide, he carefully felt his face, then looked at Kennedy. Though she was sitting there calmly, seemingly waiting for his next action, he could see the smirk lying under her composed expression. He raised one hand and looked at the blood covering his fingers. His eyes went back to Kennedy and they hardened dangerously. "You bitch! You bwoke my node!"

"Yep. I told you I wasn't interested and you got grabby. Now, why don't you run along and get that looked at and we can both try to forget the other one exists, okay?"

A low, dog like growl sounded from the man and he launched a punch at his tormentor's head. All thoughts of a sexual nature concerning the brunette are gone. All that remained was a desire to repay her for striking him.

Kennedy sighed as he went to hit her. Her Slayer reflexes, trained by over a decade and a half of fighting vampires and demons and a decade before that training to be a Slayer makes his clumsy attempt look like it's coming in in slow motion. Slipping a little to the right, she grabs his right wrist in her left hand and twists it to just before the breaking point as her right hand comes up like a striking cobra and wraps around Stone's throat.

Eddie and the bar's few other patrons all stand or sit where they are, mouths gaping at how fast this both happened and turned against the large man.

Teeth gritted, Kennedy looked directly into her opponent's eyes and growled, "You ready to stop this now?" She gives his arm just a little more twist, causing the ligaments and bones to creak ominously and the idiot they belong to to whimper involuntarily. When the man said nothing, Kennedy allowed a bit more anger to seep into her voice. "Look asshole, you can't hurt me and I have no intention of ever going anywhere with you, so unless you wanna wake up in the hospital a couple days from now, you'll walk away when I let you go. Understand?"

Stone said nothing, just continued to stare at Kennedy with hate and pain filled eyes. Kennedy sighed and twisted just a tad more on his wrist. A small crunching noise sounded like a gunshot in the quiet bar. "All right!!" The man's half screamed, half moaned words echoed for a moment as Kennedy studied the dark blue eyes in front of her, then she nodded and released the man, taking a step back as she did.

Raymond Stone cradled his injured arm to his chest and used his left hand to wipe at the blood still flowing down his face. It was a futile gesture he knew, but he seemed to do it almost automatically. Looking down at his hands, he looked at his wrist, now swollen to nearly twice the size it should be and at the blood coating hs left hand and something snapped inside him. It was obvious, to anyone in the room, even to himself that the petite brunette was completely in command of the situation, but it didn't matter. Stone was no longer thinking, he was reacting and running on instinct. With one thought in mind, [Kill her!], he started swinging wildly at Kennedy, the pain of his wounded arm forgotten.

Quickly blocking the first two punches, Kennedy decided that enough is enough. She'd given this idiot three chances to walk away with minimal injuries, so to hell with it. Waiting for her chance, she blocked his wild swings until he presented her with a perfect opportunity. Rearing back slightly, she used a decent fraction on her Slayer strength and caught the guy on the point of the chin with an uppercut.

His feet literally leaving the floor, Stone flew backwards several feet and measured his length on the floor, already unconscious.

The Slayer took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself and convince her adrenal glands that the crisis was over, so they could stop now. After one more breath, she looked at the bartender and smiled a little. "Sorry 'bout this Eddie."

The balding man shook his head, still not really believing what he'd just seen, nor how quickly it had all happened. If all that had taken over two minutes, he'd eat the beer taps. "D-," he coughed a little, clearing his throat. "Don't sweat it, kid. He had it comin' and I'll testify it was self defense if the cops give you a hard time."

Kennedy smiled at him. "Thanks, Eddie. You might wanna call the moron an ambulance, though. I know he's got a badly broken nose and sprained wrist." Walking over to Stone, she squatted down and heard his labored breathing, frowning, she suddenly realized what was wrong. Rolling him, she allowed the blood still sluggishly leaking from his nose to stop pooling a the back of his throat and run out onto the floor. "Hey Eddie! I need a towel." She grinned and looked at the older man with a playful growl when a soft cloth wrapped around her head.

Shaking her head at Eddie's smirk, Kennedy put the towel under his face so it would catch most of the blood, then frowned again. Gently running a finger over the man's lower jaw, she shook her head, humor and annoyance with herself warring on her face. Standing, she turned back toward the bar. "Tell'em he's got a broken jaw too."

Henderson's eyebrows went up as he calculated the force necessary, considering the type of punch, to break a jaw. His estimation of Kennedy's martial arts prowess went up another couple notches and he resolved to see if the young woman wanted a part time job. Once word got around about her and that she worked here, even the occasion fights he got now would evaporate.

A little over an hour later, the EMTs were taking Stone away, one of them still shaking his head at the amount of damage done. The lecherous lawyer had a broken nose, a sprained, possibly broken wrist and a jaw that was broken in three places and dislocated on both sides. The disbelieving EMT's partner had rolled her eyes when she saw Kennedy. She'd been to a couple "muggings" that had left the victim alive and this girl was always nearby. All those victims had told tales of deformed people attacking them and a woman who chased them away and helped them. Pamela Sawyer had no doubt that the small brunette was that person and she believed what the people in the bar said about what had happened.

Walking over to the officer in charge, Pamela asked if it was okay to take the "victim" away now. The cop nodded in a distracted manner and returned his attention to the woman and bartender. Like Pamela, he'd seen the Slayer around, but he had a better idea of what went on at night. He didn't know for sure that this... he consulted his notes, "Kennedy," no last name, was involved, but he did know that the deaths from "muggings" had dropped off immensely since he'd first noticed her around. For sergeant Waters, there was no such thing as coincidence.

Add that the fact that all the witnesses had been adamant that the petite woman had given... Stone three separate chances to walk away and he'd kept pushing. She obviously had martial arts training and nothing done to the guy was permanent damage, so Waters figured it was open and shut. Knowing the guy Stone was a lawyer, he also figured he'd eventually be in court anyway. "All right, Miss... Kennedy. Sounds like you only did what you had to and I got a feeling you could've done the guy a lot more damage if you'd'a wanted to."

Kennedy said nothing, just gave the policeman a little smile.

Answer obtained. "All in all, what with the reports of the witnesses, I can't see any charges being pressed. Just in case, this is your current address, right?"

Kennedy nodded. "And that's my cell number. If you need anything, call and I'll come to the station."

Waters nodded and smiled. "Good enough. Thank you, miss. I doubt you'll hear from us, but that guy was a lawyer, so you never know."

Kennedy made a little moue of displeasure. "Yeah, that's true. Is it okay if I go now?"

"Sure. Have a nice evening." He nodded to her and glanced at his partner, heading for the door.

Kennedy looked at Eddie and flipped him a couple hundreds. "Here you go. To help clean up the mess."

Henderson waved at her, making no move toward the money. "Not your fault, kid. No reason you should pay for it."

Kennedy smiled. "That's not quite true. I helped make the mess and we both know you'll never get any money out of that asshole, so..." She pushed the bills closer. Pride warred with practicality on the older man's face and he finally, reluctantly took the money, promising himself it would be a long time, though, before the young woman in front of him paid for another thing in his place. Kennedy grinned at him. "Hey, if he ever comes back in, you can always charge him double for every drink, right?"

Eddie gave a snort of amusement. "That's for sure, assuming I don't toss the jerk back out on his ear!"

Kennedy laughed, then drained the last of the soda she'd ordered when they'd called the police. "Eddie, it was fun..." She smiled at his look of admonishment. "Okay, it wasn't, but I need to get home. Catch you next time!" She smiled again and walked out.

Eddie raised a hand, wanting to bring up the idea of maybe working here a little, but she moved too quickly. Shrugging, he resolved to mention it the next time he saw the intriguing brunette.

Walking out the front of the bar, Kennedy growled softly to herself. She was thinking about what the EMTs had said and how badly she'd hurt that guy. Even if he did deserve a little pain, she was still a Slayer, sworn to defend humans, not break them. Her self recrimination was interrupted when she noticed something fluttering on her bike.

Cautiously, the Slayer approached and saw that someone had taped a folded piece of paper to the leather seat. Looking quickly around, Kennedy didn't see anyone and the sun still shining down on her said it couldn't have been a vampire, so she didn't know where it could've come from. It certainly hadn't been there when she'd got off the bike hours earlier. Taking one more look around, she pulled the note from the seat and looked at it.

All the breath left her body and she felt her knees weaken as she recognized the handwriting on the paper, even though it had been the best part of twenty years since she'd last seen it. Moving jerkily, her eyes never leaving the paper clutched tightly in one hand, she forced herself to climb on the bike so she was no longer in danger of falling down. With trembling hands she opened the folded paper. Inside, she found some more writing, but only three words made any sense to her.

I need you.

Chapter 2

Another part of the brunette's mind was busy trying to figure out if she had enough money for food and gas on her or did she need to hit a cash machine on the way out of town. Most of her, though, was remembering everything from years before and wondering what the note truly meant. Raising her hand, she smoothed it out and read it again.

Kennedy,

I need you.

Please come soonest.

Willow

1782 Hillcrest Lane Cleveland, Ohio

The Slayer stared at the message for several minutes before carefully folding it and slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans. Starting her bike, she pulled on her helmet and started for home. As she rode, she thought about the message and what it might mean. The thought that she wouldn't go never even entered her mind. Willow needed her, she was going, it was that simple. And yet... in some ways, it wasn't that simple.

On the one hand, she had a good life here. Enough vampires and demons to keep her and the other two Slayers in the area busy without overwhelming them. She'd yet to see an apocalypse on the level that Buffy had seemed to suffer on a yearly basis, so that was good. She got along with the other two Slayers and the Watcher assigned to help all three of them. Jared was a good man, really gifted at piecing together obscure clues and coming up with the right demon and how to kill it. He knew when and how to push to get a headstrong Slayer to listen and not go charging off without a plan, but also when to back off and let his Slayers handle things.

Mandy was a good partner, strong by herself, but able to work with others. Gretchen was young and still not very sure of herself, but had spirit. She tended to let Kennedy or Mandy take charge if two or more of them got together, but she kept her neighborhood safe and hadn't had any really close calls. Kennedy liked the teen and was sure she'd be fine, once she got a little more confidence in herself and her abilities.

Kennedy had acquired a good bunch of friends in the time she'd been in Seattle. True, she'd met most of them in the course of Slaying, usually by keeping a vampire or demon from killing them. Or their customers, in the case of Eddie or Jack, who owned the nearby neighborhood grocery store. Most of all, though, she had Kat. Even with the turmoil Willow's note had caused her emotions, Kennedy smiled as she thought about Kat.

She'd originally come to Seattle over a year and a half ago chasing a group of demons that had escaped her. The Slayer had come across them in Colorado when they'd tried to reopen a collapsed hellmouth. They'd fled when she stopped the ritual, but their leader had been one of the ones to escape, so Kennedy had decided to chase after them and kill them all. After three months, she'd finally run the last three to ground in Seattle and, after a two week search, she managed to kill the last one, the leader.

The petite senior Slayer had taken a couple days to rest, then started to look around the city. It had been nearly six months since she'd stayed anywhere longer than a few days, so she thought it over and decided to settle down for a while. As had long become her custom, she quickly found a furnished apartment with a six month lease and paid all six months up front. She'd found it made things easier if she suddenly had to leave before the lease was up and kept old landlords from coming after her or messing up her credit rating. A few days and she had a comfortable apartment, set up the way she wanted it, so the Slayer started wandering around various parts of the city looking for trouble.

She'd found it, but not as much as she'd figured. A minimum of research(and a call to Giles) let her discover that Seattle already had two Slayers living there. She'd called each one in turn and set up a meeting during daylight, having met up with other Slayers before and knowing that the ones who had only minimal contact with a Watcher sometimes had trouble figuring out their Slayer senses. She'd nearly been staked once before she could convince a girl she had a pulse. Another hadn't been convinced until she'd called her nominal Watcher and been assured that Kennedy was indeed a Slayer, second only to the originals, Buffy and Faith, in deadliness. Not knowing the score, she'd contacted the first of the two girls and set up a meet for a couple days later, to give her time to ascertain that Kennedy really was a Slayer. Or, at least, she'd tried to.

The first girl, Amanda, or Mandy, as she preferred, said she didn't need any time, she knew all about Kennedy the Vampire Slayer and was Kennedy free for lunch? Accepting the invitation, Kennedy soon discovered the platinum blonde had taken to being a Slayer as enthusiastically as Kennedy herself had all those years ago. Mandy had studied everything she could find about Slayer history, particularly anything and everything she could beg, borrow or wheedle about the fight with the First and the aftermath.

The excited young woman asked question after question about that time. What was Buffy really like? Did she and Faith really once have a fight to the death? Were they really complete opposites? And had she(Kennedy) really been in the same room when the witch had cast the spell to activate all the Slayers? Had she really seen and held the legendary scythe?

Kennedy listened to the rapid fire questions for a moment, a slight pang of longing hitting her as a distant memory of Willow's babbling crossed her mind. Waving the younger girl to silence, Kennedy had shook her head, then answered some of the curious blonde's questions, steering away from the ones concerning Willow from long habit. The brunette had been a little uncomfortable to discover that the young Slayer had a small case of hero worship going on, but quickly found out that Mandy's Watcher had stressed modern Slayer history along with lessons on combat tactics and martial arts, so she was very well versed in everything that had happened since Buffy had first been activated.

For Mandy, having one of the survivors of the battle with the First, a Slayer who knew and was trained by the Original and her watcher was an opportunity she wasn't going to waste. She'd asked question after question, frowning when Kennedy corrected her misconceptions, but accepting it nonetheless. Kennedy had indulged the girl as much as she could, asking her own questions at the same time. The brunette Slayer had learned that the other Slayer in town was seventeen and a senior in high school and that there was a local Watcher named Jared. After nearly two hours, Kennedy had parted from the younger woman with a promise that Mandy would arrange for Kennedy to meet the other girl, Gretchen and their Watcher within a few days.

Returning to her apartment, the Slayer had changed clothes and, armed with a street map and what Mandy had told her, she started exploring her new, if temporary, home. Eight vampires and a pair of Fyarl demons later, she headed back home, confident that she could handle what Seattle had to offer in her sleep. Over the following weeks, she met both the younger Slayer and their Watcher and settled into a routine.

Gretchen had been happy to see her and even happier that she was going to stay and help out. Kennedy learned that the honey blonde teen was in a bit of trouble at school from her grades falling and her frequently missing classes, so, to her, Kennedy was a godsend. At first, the veteran Slayer had been uncomfortable with the girl's effusive thanks, but quickly accepted it. Gretchen was one of those people that was impossible to not like.

And then, there was her girlfriend. Unlike most of her previous lovers over the years, Kennedy hadn't saved Katherine 'Kat' Richards from a vampire, though a rescue had been involved. One of Kat's friends had set her up on a blind date who had turned out to be a bit more controlling that the strawberry blonde was comfortable with. When Kennedy had intervened, the other woman was drawing back to hit Kat, simply because Kat wanted to end the date and go home before she was ready to let her. The dark skinned woman, Kennedy had never learned her name, had tried to hit the smaller woman, but suddenly found her arm in a vise of steel. Whipping her head around, the bully locked eyes with Kennedy and demanded to be released. Ignoring her, the Slayer asked Kat if she wanted to be where she was. After a quick glance at the woman threatening her, she shook her head and said no, so Kennedy informed the blind date that it was time to go. She'd tried to threaten and bluster her way out of it, but decided to leave when she felt the bones of her wrist compress painfully to just before the breaking point. Cradling her sprained arm, she'd slunk off, running to the bouncer and trying to get Kennedy thrown out. Instead, the man told her he'd seen the whole thing and escorted her to the door with a warning to not come back.

Kennedy had smiled and turned to leave, but Kat offered to buy her a drink as thanks. Automatically, Kennedy started to turn her down, mostly due to the fact Kat was a redhead. In the fifteen years since Willow had left her, she'd never dated or slept with another redhead, but, for some reason she couldn't define, she'd ended up accepting this redhead's offer and they'd talked until the bar closed. Kennedy had suddenly asked her to dinner as they parted and Kat had accepted. Three months later, Kennedy moved into the young architect's home, where she'd been ever since.

Right from the first, this relationship had been different from all the others she'd been in since that fateful day, even discounting the fact that Kat had red hair. Since Willow, Kennedy had never had a relationship that lasted more than seven months, eight tops. She'd always gotten the itch to break things off about then, always started feeling guilty about being with someone other than Willow about then. It was ridiculous, of course, since she'd seen Willow only once since the morning her world had changed, had lost all color and meaning.

And yet, for a woman chronically incapable of committing to a long term relationship, she and Kat had celebrated their one year anniversary a couple months earlier and still the brunette felt no urge to end things. Most of her was still waiting for the feeling that would tell her it was time to move on, but a small part of her, a part buried for nearly half her life had began to hope, began to heal.

Refocussing her attention, Kennedy noticed that she was sitting in her driveway with absolutely no memory of actually covering the distance between Eddie's and home. Shrugging, she cut her bike off, locked the handlebars and climbed off, shucking her helmet at the same time. Taking the note from her pocket and looking it over once more, she made her decision.

To Be Continued...

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