The sun’s first, tentative touch upon the eastern horizon was still invisible to any eyes but hers as she walked out onto the beach, her bare feet leaving hardly a trace in the loose, dry sand. Far off to her right she saw a pair of dedicated joggers running down where the footing was firmer, just above the highest reach of the small, tame waves. Behind her, a long line of modest hotels stood shoulder to shoulder; no doubt the throngs of tourists they housed were still sleeping peacefully, still dreaming of what would surely be another perfect California morning.

She looked out at the ocean, breathing deeply of the fresh breeze coming in off the water. It was fresh here; Monterey was a relatively small town, and smog-shrouded Los Angeles was nearly four hundred miles to the south, on the far side of Sunnydale from where she stood.

The young woman shook herself, literally; that wasn’t something that she needed to dwell on, not now. The last two days had been… bad. They had been very, very bad, and she needed to be sure she was all right, that she was wholly in control of herself, before she went back home. Dropping her hands to the waistband of her jeans, ready to slip them off, she hesitated. Her plan had been to go for a swim; ten or twelve miles out and then back would usually burn off enough nervous energy for her to more easily keep her worst impulses in check. The thing was, just now it wasn’t nervous energy that she was feeling. It was more….

She didn’t know what it was. A swim out into the deep, dark ocean didn’t seem like the answer, though. There’d been enough of darkness, lately; more than enough. What she wanted now was something bright and warm.

Lucky for her, she’d come to the right place for that, too.

Sitting down right where she had been standing, she folded her legs beneath her and wiggled her butt a bit until she was comfortable. Breathing in the salt air, listening to the distant cries of just-waking seabirds, she closed her eyes and waited for the day to begin.

The sun was hot on his back, and it threw his shadow, sharp-edged, down onto the sand as he dug the moat deeper; a protective barrier for the nearly finished castle. From all around him came the sounds of people talking, kids playing, and underneath it all the sound of the waves rolling in and dissolving as hissing froth just a short distance from where he was busy constructing his miniature fortress. At least three different boom boxes were blaring out music too, and every one of them was a song he didn’t like.

“Kid, look out!”

Sean glanced up, and just missed being clipped by the Frisbee that came flying past his nose. He ducked; too late if it had actually been about to hit him, and suffered through the resulting flurry of giggles from across the way.

Stupid girls, he thought, staring intently down at the sand and pretending not to hear them. That’s the second time they’ve almost hit me with that, and they think it’s so funny. It didn’t help that the tower he’d finished a few minutes earlier, the one that helped guard the seaward side of the castle, now needed to be repaired after being squashed by his knee when he’d ducked. He sighed, and began looking for the army men that had been stationed atop that tower, and were now buried beneath the warm, pale sand.

Sean decided that he hated those girls. Not because they were girls, though at ten years of age he didn’t really see the point of girls in general. No, he hated them because for the last hour they had constantly laughed, chattered, giggled, and sang along with the loud music from their radio, all of it in a very obnoxious, teenage-girl way. They had also been throwing that Frisbee around, and doing it really badly.

They’re not even trying; all they’re worried about is whether or not the guys are paying attention to them.

The guys were most definitely paying attention; that was a given. The half-dozen high school girls were drawing plenty of looks, with their skimpy bikini’s and oh-so-casual posing. Sean, however, wasn’t impressed.

They all look exactly the same, he thought to himself, stealing a glance up now that they’d lost interest in laughing at him, at least for the moment. The same blonde hair, the same tan, the same shrieky-screechy voices…. It’s like somebody’s Barbie doll collection got loose and came down to the beach looking for Ken.

About that time, three college-age guys casually wandered by, and paused to talk with the Barbie-girls. They listened to whatever it was the guys were saying; smiling, posing, preening, and giggling to each other all the while. These guys, however, apparently weren’t deemed worthy, as they were sent on their way a minute or two later.

Sean didn’t catch any details; he’d plunged back into his sandcastle construction with renewed determination.

…The inner wall here, with a gate tunnel that leads to this courtyard. If the Orcs get this far, the soldiers can shoot them from three sides, and the Keep is still safe behind another gate, and another courtyard. The wall here needs to be thicker, though….

He worked steadily for some time, extending the fortifications that surrounded the main keep, using his plastic shovel to square off the top so that the army men could stand atop it, and finally the highest tower, where the king would stand and survey it all. He was able to get that spire a little taller than knee level, though it looked just a bit shaky. Straightening up, he took a couple of steps back to gauge the overall effect.

The sandcastle wasn’t yet the biggest or best one he’d seen on the beach that day, but he thought it had potential. Two or three hours of work wasn’t really enough time to finish something as complicated as this, though, especially when he had to stop every so often to strategically place his army men just to see if they could properly defend their new home.

And of course there was the matter of the two major battles he’d played out; that had sort of slowed down the construction of the fortress. Now, though, he was close to getting it done. All he had left to do was—

The King’s tower, the tallest one, slid down and collapsed, half-filling the area behind the second gate as the dry sand crumbled beneath its own weight. Sean’s shoulders slumped too, and he sneaked a look over at the Barbies. All he needed was another round of mocking laughter to really make him feel good. Luckily, they were busy with other things. Two of them were putting more suntan oil on themselves, and taking longer than it really needed, as they stared at an especially broad-chested surfer dude who was staring back at them. The other three were back to throwing that darned Frisbee, with much tossing of blonde hair and over-loud calls to each other when someone missed a catch. Grateful that they’d missed his embarrassing construction disaster, Sean picked up the plastic pail that had come with his shovel. A bucket of water added to the sand ought to make it strong enough to rebuild the tower, maybe even a little taller than it had been. His head still turned to regard the damage from the collapse, he took a few steps down towards the ocean… and froze.

He’d forgotten for a moment, and nearly walked right into her.

His nearest neighbor on the well-populated beach, the one he’d dubbed ‘the Quiet Girl’, because not once since he’d picked his spot and started work on the castle had she spoken. For that matter, she hadn’t moved, or even opened her eyes; not once.

She was pretty, and slim, and curvy up top, much like the gaggle of blondes behind him, but those were about the only resemblance to them that he could see. Her hair was dark, a thick mane that spilled almost to her waist and nearly hid her back beneath a dozen shades of chestnut and chocolate. She wore a bikini top, which showed a lot of skin, but instead of a thong she had on a pair of blue jeans that looked like they were brand new. Her feet were bare; toes just barely visible because of the way she was sitting there, cross-legged, back straight and eyes closed, facing the sea.

Sean, who had nearly walked into her just now, froze in place, unsure if he should apologize or just slowly step back. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t said anything, or moved, in the last several hours, it was more a sense he got from her, stronger than ever at this close range. She was, somehow, more than everything else on the beach. Standing there, within arm’s reach of her, even the noise from all around seemed different. Not less clear, just… further away, less important, somehow, when measured against her presence. The very idea of that kind of made his head hurt; he was only ten, after all.

Backing away seemed like the thing to do after all, so that’s what he did. Then he took the slight detour around her, like he’d been doing all day, and went down to fill his bucket with the salty water. It was on his way back that he saw it happen.

Blonde Barbie number three, (did they even have names, he wondered?) was the one with the Frisbee at the moment. He saw her pause, and take a long look at the Quiet Girl, and then she showed her teeth in a nasty little smile. They’d noticed her there, of course; probably everyone along that stretch of beach had at least idly wondered how long someone could sit there thinking, or meditating, or whatever it was she was doing. Somehow, though, no one had tried to talk to her, or touch her, or disturb her in any way. Maybe they felt a little of what Sean had felt, that this was not just some girl who was sitting on the beach; it was someone Important, and therefore whatever she was doing was important too, and not to be interrupted.

Number three, though, seemed to either not share that feeling, or maybe she just didn’t care. Deliberately, and with more skill than she’d shown up until now, she brought her arm back and whipped the Frisbee at the girl’s head. Sean opened his mouth to call out a warning, though he knew it would be too late.

He needn’t have worried. It flew straight and true—and that didn’t keep the Quiet Girl from catching it quite easily. Her head never moved, her eyes never opened. Her hand just drifted up, in a slow, completely unhurried kind of way, and plucked the fast-moving disc right out of the air, just inches away from where it would have struck her in the ear. Sean stood there, his mouth still gaping from the shout he hadn’t managed… and then her eyes did open. She looked straight at him, with a gaze too dark and much too deep for someone who looked to still be in high school herself. He found himself deathly afraid that she thought he’d been the one to throw it at her; not afraid that she would scream or rant or chase him, it was just the idea that someone like this would think badly of him that made him want to hide. Happily, any doubt as to who was at fault was settled just moments later.

“Oops, I guess,” came the call from off where the Barbies had gathered together like a flock of gold-tanned, gold-tressed birds. Number three, nearly indistinguishable from the others when they were together in a group like that, raised one hand. “Sorry about that, and, um, my bad.” She didn’t seem the least bit sorry; it sounded more like annoyance. Waving her hand impatiently, she tossed her hair. “Well? Throw it back, sleepyhead!”

The girl sitting in the sand had turned her head to take this in, now she looked down at the Frisbee she held. Turning it over in her hands, she looked for all the world like someone who was seeing one for the very first time. Sean watched her run her fingertips along the rim of the plastic disc, almost like a blind person would learn an object by it’s shape and weight. With a strangely intent look in her eyes, she flipped it in the air and caught it on the way back down, balancing it, edge on, on the back of her hand.

“Hello?!” came the Barbie’s sharp voice. “Today would be good.”

The Quiet Girl nodded, though she didn’t turn her head to look.

“Crap,” she said, under her breath so that Sean was the only one to hear. “I should have killed Cordelia when I had the chance; now her clones are spreading, and it’s too late to stop ‘em.” That didn’t make any sense, so far as he could tell. It was different, though, when she looked up at where he stood, between her and the water, and said one more word. “Duck.”

He instantly dropped down to his hands and knees, and when she brought the hand with the Frisbee back he couldn’t keep himself from closing his eyes just for a second. The sound it made as it passed close over his head wasn’t quite like anything he’d ever heard before. Maybe a baseball bat, swung full-force into a feather pillow would sound like that, or a samurai sword cutting through a giant marshmallow. It was a soft sound, but with a physical impact that he actually felt, like the way you felt it when someone slammed the door on the way out of a room. When he opened his eyes and turned around, the white plastic disc was already far out over the waves and still moving in a fast, flat line. Traveling just a few feet over the water, it bobbed up and down as it encountered stray air currents, but it didn’t veer and it didn’t slow down for a long, long, long time.

It was pretty amazing; and she’d done it while sitting down, too. More than a few people on the beach nearby were staring along with Sean, and when the Frisbee finally touched down, it was so far out that it was immediately lost from view. He looked back at the girl, and found her regarding the gathered Barbies with an ever-so-faint smile on her lips.

“’Oops, I guess,’” she said. “’Sorry about that, and, um, my bad.’” The blonde girls glared hatefully, especially Number Three, then fell to muttering things among themselves that they didn’t dare say loudly enough for the girl to hear, and that was the end of it.

Except, of course, for the fact that Sean had just fallen totally and completely in love. Not that he would ever admit it, of course; he was only ten, and she had to be at least sixteen, maybe even older. So he tried not to stare, and took his bucket of water, and went back to work on that crumbled tower. It wasn’t long, though, before he saw out of the corner of his eye that she wasn’t sitting there facing the sea any more, she’d half turned and was leaning back, propped on one elbow, watching him.

“Sandcastle, huh?” she asked, though it wasn’t really a question. He glanced up at her, daring to meet her eyes, and she smiled at him. “Nice one, guy. I’ve got a thang for castles, ya know? They keep out all the losers and geeks, they’re the biggest digs in town, up on the hill where you can lord it over everybody else,” Her smile turned softer, and it seemed like she was mocking herself. “Yeah, that’s just my style.”

Sean didn’t know what to say to that, though it seemed like he ought to say something. This was, after all, the woman he loved.

“What have you been doing, sitting there all day?” He hoped she wouldn’t get mad, with some little nothing kid bothering her, but she had spoken to him first, so he dared hope she would answer. And she did.

“Just sittin’.” She looked down at where the toes of her left foot were resting on the sand, and she idly moved them back and forth, carving a small furrow there. “Trying to find some focus, or inner peace, or some shit like that. This guy I know, he’s real good at it. Me, though….” The breeze pulled a few strands of dark hair across her face, and she took a moment to tuck them behind her ear. “Well, he says that if I try hard and keep making steady progress, I should have it down in about a thousand years.”

Sean nodded, though he didn’t really get what she was talking about. It was enough that she was speaking to him. Not only was she obviously special, and cool beyond belief, she even had a nice voice. It was deep, for a girl’s, sort of warm and throaty. Not like the high, thin, fingernails-on-a-blackboard sounds that he’d been hearing all day from the Barbies.

Who, now that he thought to look again, had been deserted by number three. He looked around, wondering where she’d gone. There were too many people on the beach now, though, and he couldn’t find her. That was okay with him; more than okay, in fact. He sat down, and looked across his castle at the girl. Rebuilding the fallen tower could wait.

“How come you need… inner peace?” He wasn’t sure what that was, exactly, but he asked it anyway.

What he would have rather asked was her name. Except that he didn’t have the guts to do that, and it didn’t seem like the kind of thing she would ever tell him anyway.

“Well….” She hesitated, and then her lips pressed together and she looked away, still not answering, and he knew that he’d messed up, that this was the thing she wouldn’t tell him. When she sat up, and looked like she was about to get up and walk away, he acted out of desperation and blurted out the first thing he could think of, something he’d noticed an hour or so earlier.

“You’re not sunburned!”

The girl stopped in mid-motion, going so utterly still that it looked like a movie special effect; only her hair moved in the breeze, proving that she wasn’t freeze-framed. When she did move again, it was to ease back down and look at him in a way that was very different from the easy, careless manner she’d had before.

“What?”

He gestured, vaguely, at her bare arms. Even with the blue jeans there were lots of other places on her that were bare or partly so, but the arms seemed safest for him to be noticing.

“You’ve been out here for hours, at least, and you’re not sunburned.” She looked down, at her very smooth, moon-pale skin, then back at him. Sean held up one of his own scrawny arms for example. “See? I’ve got lotion on; my mom slathered me with it before she dropped me off here, and I’m still turning red. You don’t have anything, you’ve been sitting there all day, and you’re not even pink.”

She blinked, then shook her head in amazement.

“Wow. You’re pretty sharp, for a little guy.” She blinked again, then frowned, and gave him a long, speculative look. “I wonder if that’s all it is. I’ve met some people who had ways of knowing more than they should have been able….” Sean was about to ask what she meant by that when she shook her head and shrugged. “No, I don’t get sunburned, I can’t even get a tan; I heal too fast for that.” She spread her hands, the gesture taking in their bright surroundings. “I like the sun, though. It’s warm. Sometimes I spend so much of my time working at night that I forget what the sun feels like.” She smiled, then, and even with her dark eyes and dark hair, and the moody, melancholy way she had, he saw that there was brightness in her. “It’s good. When I can make myself notice something so simple, and I guess… clean. That’s good.”

Sean smiled back, conscious of only two things: she thought he was sharp, and she was really, really pretty. In an odd, offbeat kind of way, maybe, but he didn’t mind.

It was probably because he was so caught up this new idea, that even if girls in general were still a waste of space, there might just be a few that were absolutely fascinating, that he failed to notice the approaching trouble before arrived.

And it arrived in the form of a big, bronzed foot coming to rest on his shoulder and shoving him sideways to sprawl in the sand; not violently, but not quite gently, either. Sean looked up, startled, and saw three figures outlined by the sun. Two of them were big, tanned surfer-types with broad shoulders and incredible muscle definition, and the third one was—

“Hi there, remember me?” asked Barbie number three, splitting her smug smile between him and the Quiet Girl. “I’ll bet you thought it was funny, what you did before.” She tossed her head, which made her blonde hair ripple and shimmer in the sun like something out of a shampoo commercial. “Well, let’s see if you feel like laughing now.”

The dark-haired girl just sat there, looking up at the three with absolutely no expression on her face. When she didn’t say anything, Sean scrambled to his feet and answered for her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about; she didn’t laugh at you before. You were the one laughing, every time you almost hit somebody. And I saw you try and hit her!”

The Barbie made a dismissive gesture in his direction, her attention still on the girl sitting in the sand.

“Shut up, small fry, this isn’t about you.” With that, she raised her head and gave the man on her right a soft, winning smile. “Brad, she’s the one I told you about.” Her fingers played fondly across his bulging biceps, and she all but melted against him as she continued. “Can’t you do something? For me?”

It looked like she had found her Ken at last, and of course Ken would always do what Barbie asked.

“Look,” He said, speaking to the Quiet Girl. “How about you just pay her for the Frisbee you threw away, huh?” She didn’t answer, she didn’t do anything at all, except to look at him with that non-expression. She didn’t seem nervous or scared at all. That didn’t sit well with the blonde.

“Then make her swim out and get mine back!” she snapped, angrily stamping one foot in the sand. She stopped, suddenly, stamped her foot again, and then smiled broadly. “Or, I guess it would be okay if you just made her pay in another way.” She looked down at Sean, and at what he’d spent the last three hours building. “How about if we just smash your little brother’s stupid sandcastle? I think that would just about make it even.”

Sean stared up at her, unsure of how exactly she’d come to the conclusion that he was the other girl’s brother, but both of the guys stepped forward to do as she’d said. They probably welcomed the chance to end the confrontation without having to beat up either a girl or a little boy; neither one would have gained any fans for that one. Plus, most people got a secret thrill out of smashing things, so long as it wasn’t something of theirs.

Both men strode through his castle, kicking down towers and crushing walls like a pair of gleaming bronze Godzillas. Throughout it all, the Barbie laughed with glee. Sean just looked at the Quiet Girl, waiting for her to do something… but she didn’t. He knew she could have stopped them at any moment, that strange certainty was back, telling him that whatever power she had, it could run off the three of them without even trying. She didn’t use it, though. She just sat there, not moving, not speaking, not even blinking, until they had trampled his castle into a stretch of unrecognizable ruin.

When they were finished, the blonde girl stepped daintily across the uneven sand, and slipped her arms through those of the men.

“I hope you’ve both learned something,” she said, looking back at Sean and the girl. “Maybe next time you’ll do the right thing, instead of being so mean to people who are only trying to have a little fun.” With that they walked off, down the beach.

He stared dejectedly at where his castle had stood. Here and there, an army man’s arm, or leg, or head stuck up out of the sand, casualties of a war they couldn’t win. Except that there had been someone there who could have stopped it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, softly.

He didn’t look at her. He was so mad that he was nearly in tears, and he didn’t want her to see that.

“You could have done something; I know you could have done something.”

He heard her sigh.

“Yeah, I could have. I know it wasn’t your fault; I’m the one who threw the fucking thing in the water….” From the corner of his eye he saw her punch her fist into the sand, gently, once, twice, and then she let her hand fall. “You can’t fight everybody, you can’t fight over everything. Well, you can, I can, but you’ve gotta draw the line someplace.”

He gave up, and looked at her. She’d been expressionless before, now she wasn’t. She looked tired, and frustrated, and more than a little angry. She also had a fist full of sand, and didn’t seem to know what to do with it. When she raised her head and met his eyes, he saw shadows there, and pain. “It’s not all about kicking ass, you know? That’s what all this Zen shit is supposed to be teaching me, anyway.”

Sean didn’t know how to answer that. Obviously, whatever it was that she was talking about was more important than one smashed sandcastle, and in his head he could understand that. It was just…. He’d worked hard to make something, to build something, and someone else had kicked it to pieces. And she’d let them. It didn’t seem worth starting over, if something like that could happen. He looked at the ruin that was left, and she looked too. After a minute, though, she surprised him by crossing the sand on her hands and knees to sit beside him.

“Looks like you’ve got a lot of work to do, with the rebuilding.” She cocked her head and nudged him gently in the side. “Need any help?”

He wasn’t sure what to make of the offer.

“I don’t know. It’s just a stupid—“ he started. She overrode him.

“C’mon, man! We can’t leave the border undefended! Let’s see what we can do, here.”

With that, she started piling up sand, and he couldn’t do anything except pitch in and start with the scooping himself. What followed was the best hour he’d had so far in his short life. She was funny, and soon had him giggling so hard that his chest hurt, even if his mother would have been upset with all the bad words that were used. She was smart, too, pointing out all kinds of things that a castle needed that he hadn’t even known about; cisterns and stables and sally ports… it turned out that she really did have a thing for castles. And finally, she had the most amazing trick, a way of compressing the sand between her hands until it was halfway to being concrete; sturdy enough to hold its form in amazing shapes and heights.

“What do you think for here, another gatehouse?” she asked, and he nodded, dumping more water in the waiting pile of sand.

“Yep, otherwise the Orcs can get through here and attack the front, see?”

She obliged, her strong, narrow hands deftly shaping a structure that was so neatly formed that it almost looked like a miniature from a movie.

“You need another courtyard, too,” she added, still working but straightening up just a little so that her long hair didn’t trail into the sand. “And storehouses, to keep grain and food in, for a siege.”

He looked up from where he was working on the front wall.

“Huh? The king and the soldiers have their food in the keep, where they live.”

She raised her head so she could look at him, and nodded.

“That’s right. So what do the people eat? Not the king, not the soldiers, the people from the town, who came to the castle for protection when the Orcs showed up. What do they do?” Sean didn’t know how to answer that; it had never occurred to him that anybody but soldiers would be in the castle when it was done. She pointed to a spot off to the side of the main keep, where she’d smoothed the sand flat. “We’ll make them a courtyard here; out of the way if anybody does break down the gates and try to fight straight through. Cellars underneath, for them to hide in if fire or arrows start coming over the wall, a storehouse here for their food, pens for the livestock….” She sat back on her heels, and gave him a level, sober look. “It’s not enough to have a castle, you’ve got to have a reason for it to be there in the first place. If you’ve got a strong place, if you’re a strong person, you’ve got to have a reason for being there.”

He squinted up at her; she still had that feel to her, like she was the most important person on the beach.

“What’s the reason?” he asked. She shrugged, like the answer should be obvious.

“To protect the people in the town.”

Sean looked at the new incarnation of the castle, now more massive, and far cooler than the first one had been.

“From the Orcs?”

She laughed, loudly, and gave him a brilliant smile.

“Sure, from the Orcs.”

They got back to work, then, and if he had one complaint it was that she was too good, and too fast, and they got done too soon. When it was finished, they stepped back and looked it over. The main walls were now as high as his waist, and the gate arch was big enough for him to crawl through. The complex of walls and miniature buildings covered as much ground as a small garage, and the new King’s tower was taller than Sean himself. They’d even managed to find most of his army men, though they were almost lost in the hugeness of their new environs.

The girl held up her hands, regarding the sand-covered fingers for a moment before giving a rueful little laugh.

“You know what? If I’m going to have something all over my hands, this is a lot better than my usual.”

He looked at her, so tall and beautiful, and suddenly knew that even though it was just mid-afternoon, the day was nearly over.

“You’re leaving now.”

She nodded, brushing off her hands.

“Yeah.”

He wished he could make her stay; he wanted to understand her, to know what she wasn’t telling him about her life, and what she was feeling. More than that, it felt… unfinished, like there was supposed to be more than just an hour or two of them knowing each other.

“Am I ever going to see you again?” he asked, then blushed as he realized that it sounded like something a boy might say to a girl in one of those date movies. He hadn’t meant it like that, even though he did love her deeply, and had for the last hour. To his great relief she didn’t laugh. She started to answer, then stopped and seemed to consider something.

“Call me crazy,” She said, the words coming slowly, “and believe me, it wouldn’t be the first time, but I think you will see me again. Not anytime soon,” she warned, when she saw his face brighten. “But I get ‘feelings’ sometimes, too. So.” She gave him a small, lopsided smile. “In a few years, when you’re legal… come and find me.”

Sean was torn between being ecstatically happy, and deeply confused.

“I don’t even know where you’ll be, how will I be able to find you?”

She only shrugged.

“How the hell should I know? I hit people, I don’t do any wacky-Wicca stuff.” He just looked at her, waiting, and she heaved a sigh. “Here, try this.” She reached out, and took hold of his hand with hers. “Now, if you had to take a guess, right now, where would you look for my house?”

That seemed kind of strange, even if he did sometimes get strong hunches about people. Still, he closed his eyes and tried. And somehow, maybe because there was something so different, and so strong about this girl, something came to him immediately. He saw himself, standing in front of her, like now, only the picture in his head was—

--“North. North of here, next to water. It’s not the ocean, but it’s close to the ocean. Your house.”

She let go of his hand, and he opened his eyes. She nodded.

“Good enough. I don’t think you’ll have any problem finding me, when it’s time.” She leaned forward, and kissed him on the forehead, her lips just brushing his skin. “Now get busy and start growing, I can’t wait to see how tall you’ll be.” She stepped back, and gave him a measuring look. “And grow up good, just not too good.” One last smile, this one truly wicked. “’Cause being too good; that’s no fun for anybody.”

With that she turned, and headed off down the beach. He watched her go, a little dazed by all that had happened, but mostly by that vision he’d seen when she held his hand. It had been so much stronger than anything he’d ever seen, and he hadn’t even told her the really strange part. He had seen her house, by the water… and he’d seem himself, standing with her. He’d been older, maybe nineteen or twenty, his face very different though it was still recognizably him. Her, though….

She’d been the same. Not just recognizable, but exactly the same as she was right now, not a bit older even after ten years had gone by.

That was weird, and he would have to ask Faith about it, when he saw her again.

Sean froze for a moment with the realization that he knew her name now, even though she’d never told him, then laughed out loud. There would be time enough to start growing up tomorrow, right now he had a sandcastle that needed defending from the invading monster army. The Orcs didn’t stand a chance.

Faith was definitely in a better mood now than she had been back in the pre-dawn darkness. That kid had been completely unexpected… and exactly what she needed.

See, world? She mentally called out as she wandered along the crowded beach. I don’t always break what I touch, or magically turn the good things into shit with just a look. The world didn’t answer back, which was probably just as well. Faith looked down, realizing that she was idly fingering the silver rings she wore on her left hand, using her thumb to rotate them around her fingers. Hm. Dumb luck that I met him here, today, or was it some more of that ‘fate’ stuff I keep running into? She touched the one ring with her thumb, and it changed from silver to copper, touched it again and it was silver once more. Magic. All the magic I’ve got is how hard I can hit, how fast I can run, how quick I can heal…. If the kid does grow up to be a spell-slinger, and if he actually likes me after that crush goes away; well, friends are nice to have. I guess we’ll see, eventually.

She walked on, enjoying the sense of having no pressing need to be anywhere in particular, the sensation of the sand between her toes, the feel of the hot sun trying its best to make a dent in the bare skin of her shoulders.

The little guy was quick, too, noticing the no-tan thing. Stupid healing; I’m gonna be stuck with using bronzer for the rest of my life, whenever I get tired of being as pale as a vamp. Faith traced the line of her arm with one finger, remembering someone else’s smaller, pale-gold arm. She was always trying for tan, either with make-up or the tan-in-a-tube stuff, and she always made it look good, too. Me, though… I never had much luck with either one. Maybe it was the cheap junk I was using, but it always looked funny on me. Even here, even over something so trivial, Faith found herself feeling like the poor relation. Screw it, I don’t really care. So I get to be orange, when I’m not white; it’s not like it matters to anybody at all.

She wove her way among the sunbathers, trying not to be jealous of the well-tanned ones, and stopped for a minute to watch a game of sand volleyball that someone had organized. It went without saying that she could have stepped up, challenged the whole lot of them to a match, and utterly destroyed them. And, much like the ass-kicking thing… it wasn’t about that. At least, it didn’t have to be. Yes, she could have done that, but it was much nicer to just stand and admire the flexing muscles on the guys, and the way the swimsuits showed off the taut, toned bodies of the girls. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for her those sights to rouse her from the sun-induced laziness that she’d been feeling.

Yum; I want.

Which was just too bad, since she knew very well that she couldn’t have any of them. Normal humans were just too fragile; at least for someone like her, who tended to lose an already tenuous self-control in the heat of passion. Big, muscular men were actually worse that way than women, since they tended to freak out more when they realized how helpless they were in her arms. The more they struggled and fought, the more it stimulated her need to dominate them, and that seldom ended well. Which is why she’d endured a long streak of celibacy that had lasted until very recently.

One more reason to go home. Well, two more, really; boyfriend and girlfriend, most definitely twice as nice. Plus there’s Alex and Kelly there too, they’ll be worried if I don’t get back soon. Reluctantly, and not without real regret, she turned away from the studs and babes on display. It’s not half-damn fair; all the pretty boys and girls, and me with this stupid habit of breaking them. I think it was more fun when I was evil, and didn’t care as much about the ones I hurt.

Faith walked on, distracting herself with thoughts designed to substitute lesser cravings for the more insistent, more dangerous one.

I want a cigarette. I want half a dozen cheeseburgers, and a six-pack of beer to wash ‘em down. I want to be heading home, on my motorcycle, doing a hundred and forty along the coast highway.

That worked well enough; she really did have more willpower than some people credited her with. Yeah, that hadn’t always been the case; she’d been all of fifteen when the Slayer thing had gone down, when that particular twist had been added to what was already a severely fucked-up life. Had anybody seriously thought she would handle it as well as, oh, a certain well-adjusted, upper middle-class child of suburbia? Apparently they had, and from the somewhat wiser standpoint of the seventeen-year old that she was now, Faith could only shake her head and mentally give them the finger: the Watchers, Angel, and… that certain other one.

Huh, she thought, then, with a sudden realization. Speaking of that bunch, here I am heading South. Home is North, and I’m walking south. If I stay on this beach, and keep going for another couple hundred miles, I’ll end up walking right into Sunnydale. How do I feel about that? She wasn’t sure. This was the closest she’d been to the ‘dale in months, since the afternoon when she’d hopped aboard a freight train and fled, after yet another sound defeat at the hands of everyone’s favorite Slayer. Things had changed for her since then, changed in virtually every way. Did that mean her feelings about the place, and more importantly, it’s inhabitants, had too? Let’s see. Willow? Still hate her, that one’s easy. She doesn’t even realize that the reason she never liked me is because she was afraid I’d be the girl Buffy fell in love with, instead of her. I wonder if she’ll ever figure that one out, or if she’ll stay with that Tara chick and keep hiding what she really wants from everybody, even herself?

Out of nowhere, a man who looked to be twentyish or so walked up and smiled at her, interrupting her musings.

“Hi there. Listen, if you’ve got a few minutes, we need another girl for a touch-football game we’re setting up.” He pointed down to where a small crowd of young people were gathering. “You seem like you’re in great shape,” he paused, and she reflected that this was probably true. Though he was no midget she was a couple of inches taller than he was, with shoulders nearly as broad, though not as heavily-muscled. His smile widened, though there was more than a little shy humor to be seen there. “And I have to tell you, I’ve always dreamed of having a running back who looked exactly like you.”

She sighed. He seemed nice enough, but there was still that problem with the breaking of pretty boys.

“Sorry, some other time, okay?” She tried not to seem curt, it was just so frustrating, to be as oversexed as she was and not be able to indulge it. He nodded, looking a little crestfallen, and she kept going.

Crap, he might not have even wanted to lay me, maybe he just wanted to hang out and have a good time. As unlikely as that seemed, what with the way she looked, and guys being how they were, it still took her mood through a turn towards the sour. Which naturally led her back to thoughts of Sunnydale, and specifically to thoughts of—

Xander; now there’s somebody I wouldn’t mind playing with until he was all bloody and broken. I still get all tingly at the thought of that, actually, the pretentious, mundane little shit. None of which even gets close to the whole Angel thing….

She had to stop that line of thought right there, or she would most definitely end up in a for-real murderous frame of mind, and not just a hypothetical one. If there was one single individual who had utterly, completely, and irrevocably derailed any chance of Faith and….

Of there ever being anything lasting, and perfect between Faith and….

She stopped, and stood there, shoulders hunched and teeth clenched.

Her name’s Buffy. Buf-fy. And I still want her to… I want her to….

I want her. She doesn’t want me, I know that. I’ll never be able to change that. But I have changed, since the last time. I was never as bad as she thought I was, but I did need to figure out some things, to get my shit together, and I have. If I went back, then I could at least make her see that, make her see me, like I really am, and not how she thinks I am. There was a dangerous, seductive appeal in that notion, that she could go there, right now, find the other girl, and make her understand. I could do it; I’ve come so far, since she saw me. I know things, I can do things, that she would never see coming. I wouldn’t hurt her any more than I had to, either, and then….

Faith shook her head; she knew bullshit when she heard it, even from herself. She wasn’t going back to Sunnydale; no way, no how. Not ever. She started walking again, cracking her knuckles meditatively as she went.

Am I afraid that if I did go back, she’d beat me again? She could be honest with herself about that; after month of wrestling with the question, it wasn’t even that difficult. Yeah, I am, a little. One thing about B, she’s good at winning. Mostly, though, I just don’t want to go back again. To that place, those people, the part of me that wants to do those things. Everything I’ve learned since I left has been about growing past that, about knowing that I’m not about that, anymore.

None of which, as cosmically-profound and soul-baringly truthful as it was, really put her in a great mood. So when she saw the blonde girl from earlier, smiling, and giggling, and basically rubbing herself all over the two big jocks who’d done the sandcastle demolition at her urging, she found her path veering in that direction with no internal debate at all.

Oh, now I remember why I came this way.

When the girl noticed the dark-haired girl walking towards her she must have somehow believed an apology or plea for forgiveness was coming, because for a moment she sported a smug, satisfied smile… and then Faith’s own smile must have registered, because the blonde stepped back and grabbed at both her accompanying hunks.

“Brad, Mitch…!”

The two of them didn’t seem to understand why their beach babe was so nervous all of a sudden, but then, big men didn’t always appreciate danger when it didn’t come in the form of another big man. All they saw was an unusually tall, obviously-fit young woman, the same one that had sat passively earlier, when they were bullying a little boy. Faith understood their lack of concern perfectly. Over the last month or so she’d put on muscle, her body changing with a speed that only her obscenely-overpowered metabolism made possible. She still didn’t look like a female bodybuilder, though, and never would. Either one of them outweighed her half-again over; they had no reason at all to feel worried.

The bigger of the men, Brad, took a step forward to meet her. He, too, had seen the look on her face, and held out his hand as he blocked her from the blonde.

“Hold it.” She stopped, quite obediently, and he nodded his approval. “All right, now why don’t we skip the catfight? Just turn around, walk away, and we’ll forget all about it.”

Faith considered him, shook her head, and raised one hand.

“Nope, can’t do it. I’m afraid my little brother back there needs some payback.” She showed him her index finger. “Just a little vengeance would be enough, though. How about… this much?” She curled her fingertip back against her thumb, poised to flick him, and extended her hand until it rested against his forehead.

He grinned at what he thought was a joke, and made a show of planting his feet in the sand and bracing himself.

“Okay, babe; hurt me.”

Faith could feel her eyebrows rise just a fraction.

Gee, talk about asking for it….

She obliged him.

*POK*

The sound was something like a ball peen hammer hitting block of wood, and he just folded to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head as he sprawled there. Looking at the two still standing there, she tried to sound as friendly and reassuring as possible.

“Don’t worry, he’ll live.” There was a fast-swelling knot already visible in the exact center of his forehead, but his breathing seemed steady enough. “I’d get him to a hospital, though. I think I concussed him.”

The blonde girl shrieked, ear-piercingly loud, and the other surfer came at Faith.

He came in cautiously, in balance, with his feet spread wide and one far in front of the other. She recognized it immediately, and felt the world slow down as she moved into her combat mindset.

He’s got some Karate, maybe Shotokan, from the looks of it. Still in kiba dachi, the ‘low stance’, he lined up on her, and she humored him, giving him all the time he needed. He really wasn’t very good; she saw the kick coming a full second before he launched it, and Faith tried not to sigh out loud. Yoko geri, a front kick that would have planted the hard edge of his foot deep in her solar plexus, came her way with merely human speed and strength, and she replied in the same style. Geden barai, the lower body block, used her downward-sweeping left arm to send his foot off to the side, and pulled his body out of line along with it. Since she already in Shotokan mode, she followed through with Oi-tsuki, the front-lunge punch, her right fist crashing into his stomach. She pulled back on that punch a lot, obviously, since even at half-strength she would have ruptured half a dozen of his organs. This wasn’t about killing him, she was just a little ticked off. He tumbled away and stayed where he landed, gasping for air, and she straightened up slowly, satisfied she’d avoided seriously injuring him.

See there? I’m just chock-full of self-control, these days. When I’m not being totally fucking crazy, anyway.

The blonde should have run while she had the chance, instead she’d stayed, frozen in place as she watched her two defenders go down. Now, as Faith came within arm’s reach, she started to babble hysterically.

“My god I don’t know what you want whatever it is I’ll get it I’ll do it please don’t hurt me touch me and I’ll sue you blind you brown-haired bitch I swear I’ll make you wish you’d never been born oh please don’t hurt me I don’t even know these guys please god help—!“

Faith slowly laid one hand alongside girl’s face, her fingers just lightly touching her cheek.

“Hey, I didn’t want any trouble with these two. I just wanted to come and see you.”

She didn’t buy that, not when matched against whatever it was Faith’s face looked like at that moment.

“I—I didn’t wreck your brother’s sandcastle,” she managed, in a faint whisper. The taller girl wasn’t in the mood for lame excuses.

“No, you didn’t. You told these two to do it, though.” Both of the surfers were still on the ground, the one with the bruised forehead looked to be regaining consciousness, slowly. Faith smiled softly at the girl, and while her fingers caressed the sculpted softness of the blonde’s face, her other hand came to rest at the small of her back, just above the swell of her golden backside, shown to nice effect by the black thong she was wearing. The girl twitched, looking profoundly uneasy, but her fear held her motionless in the taller girl’s arms. Faith was well aware that the two of them were drawing a lot of looks from people all around them, and she ignored the stares as she gazed into the wide eyes of her captive. “They smashed the sandcastle, but you laughed while they were doing it. I think that bothered my little brother as much as the rest of it. It bothered him to be laughed at, so here’s what we’re going to do.” Faith’s smile turned into a grin. “We’re going to teach you a little life-lesson here, real quick-like. Starting with this.”

Her hand slipped down the blonde’s back just a little, to the top of her thong, and before the girl had time to guess at what was coming, Faith had grabbed hold of the fabric and yanked. It was an expensive swimsuit, and the fabric held as she inflicted an uber-wedgie upon the smaller girl, actually pulling her off the ground, and holding her there, as the scanty bit of fabric lived up to its nickname of ‘butt floss’.

“Yeaaaaaaaaieeeeeee!” The blonde girl’s shriek split the air, drawing the attention of anyone within a hundred yards who had not yet noticed the confrontation. As she drew breath for another scream, Faith, still holding her aloft by the thong, began lightly bouncing her. Raising her a couple of feet, suddenly dropping her, then abruptly arresting the fall at the bottom so that her feet never quite touched the ground, the girl’s screams turned into a series of strangled squeaks.

“eeeAH! eeeAH! aaaOW!”

Faith turned slowly in place as she continued the mini-wedgies, letting everyone on that stretch of beach get a good look at the blonde. The crowd, cruel as most crowds tended to be, was laughing hysterically at the sight. Even those who had winced in sympathy at the rough treatment were grinning ruefully at how ridiculous the girl looked, dangling like that with her feet flailing in the air.

The dark-haired girl leaned in close and whispered in her ear.

“How’s that feel, babe? Not the thong riding up your ass so far that it’s in your colon, I mean the way they’re all laughing at you. Fun, huh?” The golden girl tried to give her a glare, but there was too much fear and shame in her eyes for it to be very effective. She tried to fight her way free, too, and sure, that was going to happen. Faith nodded fractionally. “And, secondly, it’s not nice to pick on people who’re smaller and weaker than you are.” Unless you’re me, of course. Everyone knows I’m not nice. “Here, let me show you what it’s like!” She let go of the bikini, flipped the girl around so that she was laying in both of her arms, and heaved.

“Ohhh myyyyy gaaaawd!”

Faith hadn’t really gotten good leverage into the throw as she tossed the girl upwards, and as a result the blonde only went about fifteen feet up before she dropped back into her waiting arms. For the next one, the tall girl bent her knees, took a deep breath, and really gave it a go. “Noooooohhhhhhhhh!” That time it was more impressive; she actually had time to straighten up, dust off her hands, and watch appreciatively as the girl reached the top of her flight to much oohing and ahhing from the onlookers… and then started back down. The falling girl unknowingly endangered herself; she was flailing her arms and legs around so much, twisting about as she screamed, that Faith had to work hard to catch her. She managed it, barely, and it was a good thing she did. Sand or no, if blondie had hit the ground after falling from that height there would have been broken bones. That thought sobered Faith a bit, as she held the now-sobbing girl.

Okay, time to wrap this up. Any more and I’ll be the one who’s guilty of getting off on being a bully.

“Are we clear on all this?” she asked, looking down at the other girl’s tear-streaked face. “Do we understand, now, that nice is better than mean?” Her answer came in the form of a sharp-nailed hand clawing for her face.

“Bitch! I’ll make you wish you’d only had to swim out there to get that fucking Frisbee!” Faith avoided the attack easily, though she winced a bit as some of her hair got yanked, hard. “You’ll be in prison for so long, they’ll name a wing after you!”

Well, some people you just couldn’t reach.

“No thanks,” Faith said, as she walked down to the ocean’s edge. “Me sitting around in prison for a few years, until I decided to walk out of the place, would be big waste of time. I’ve got better things to do.” She juggled the still-struggling girl in her arms for a moment, maneuvering her around until she was positioned properly. With her right hand between the blonde’s thighs (though not taking any liberties there; she wasn’t that evil, these days), and her other hand gripping both of the girl’s small wrists, she leaned their weight back on her rear foot, and paused. “I’m tired of messing with you, babe; but if you want the damned thing so bad… go and get it!”

This throw was more like a shot-put, though the girl was much prettier than the cannonballs that she’d seen the jocks tossing around back at Sunnydale high. She flew, squalling and flailing all the way, a good fifty feet out—to smack, face-first, into the low wall of an incoming wave. Faith felt a bit bad about that, and stood there for a moment to make sure the girl would come to the surface afterwards. She did, her features already looking a bit puffy, and her blonde hair as bedraggled as a wet cat, but she seemed basically unhurt.

Faith sighed, and turned away.

Hm. Blonde hair, only her eyes are the wrong color…. If they’d been green instead of blue, I would have kissed her before I did all that. Guess I still have some issues that need working out.

Walking through the onlookers, she reached out and crushed a video camera that had gotten too close a look at her before heading up the slope towards the parking lot where her motorcycle waited.

That was kind of harsh; she really is gorgeous. It’s just a shame she had to be such a bitch, but what can you do? Evil gets punished, I learned that first-hand. Those bystanders who had seen first-hand what she could do made a point of getting out of her way, and she soon left the sounds of the girl’s sobs and half-hearted threats behind. She even got off kind of easy, if you think about it. At least I didn’t go and blow her father-figure into little pieces.

A policeman nearly ran into her as she reached the asphalt at the upper edge of the beach.

“What’s happening down there?” He demanded of Faith, even as he peered past her.

She turned to look too.

“Not sure.” He hurried on, down towards the crying girl, and Faith called after him. “I think it’s something about the Zen shit not working!” She sighed, then, and walked to her waiting bike. “Not yet, anyway.” Stepping astride the machine, she kicked it to life. Her boots would have to wait until she got out of the area, and she never bothered with a helmet anyway.

A thousand years before I get it right, huh? Sounds about right.

It could have gone better, this day. Still, she felt better now than she had when the sun had risen. That was probably the best anyone could hope for. She revved the bike, and turned it toward it North, towards home.