Crossover - LFN/BTVS/DA

Author's Note: Ok, I have taken *major* liberties with the time frame (actually that is an understatement lol), but I am putting this in the Dark Angel time period. So the date is 2019 and the world is recovering from chaos because in 2009 a terrorist group emitted an electromagnetic pulse, which completely destroyed any thing electronic -i.e. computers, phones, etc. The world is just beginning to recover. I am completely pretending that BTVS and LFN also occur at this time in the future (work with me on this ;)). The scene is set in a coffee shop in Seattle, Washington. It takes place a month or so after the DA episode 'Out.' As for BTVS, you can either pretend that Angel never left Buffy or that after enough penance in LA, he finally returned to her. LFN definitely occurs at least during S4, but it is up to you whether it is pre or post-FLYF. Just have fun. I did. :)

***

At the ringing of the bell hanging over the entrance door, Jon looked up from his newspaper to see a young woman with shoulder length hair as dark as bitter chocolate stride confidently into his coffee shop and take a seat at the back booth, facing the entrance. Glancing down at the date at the top of his paper, he realized that today must be the date of 'their' monthly gathering. The brunette was the first to arrive today, which was unusual because that was normally the older blonde's habit. He continued to watch the beauty across the way, knowing not to approach until her friends arrived. She would not order anything until then anyway; none of them would. Shifting restlessly, Jon concluded for the millionth time that the woman was definitely a looker. Actually, as a long time observer of people, being in the restaurant business and all, the brunette and her friends were some of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen, electric pulse or not. Once, in the beginning, he had tried to make a pass at her, but one look at the glaring, dangerous cast to her sable colored eyes and he retreated immediately. Her eyes did not merely say "back off," it was more like "back off because you couldn't handle me even if you wanted to." In truth, all three of them had that air about them. It was almost...spooky.

The women had first started showing up to the coffee shop about six months ago and so far had not missed a month yet. They never met on the same date or at the same time twice, but they always met once a month. Having cornered the last booth as their own, they held hushed conversations among whispered laughs and soft smiles, never allowing their voices to become too loud so as to be overheard. Suddenly the doorbell jangled again and Jon snapped his head away from his admiration of the young woman to watch her two companions entered the shop. The younger of the two blonde women entered first, immediately catching the eyes of the few men in the coffee shop with her shoulder length, honey blonde hair and just-above-the-knee-length skirt. Of course, the attention focused on her did not last long as the door closed and the view of the woman behind her became clearer. Older by only a few years, the young blonde's friend towered several inches above her, probably at least six feet in heels. Unlike the younger woman, this towering Amazon had almost white blonde hair, cut extremely shorted in layers that framed the edge of her face. Instead of a skirt, she wore tight, chocolate brown leather pants and a long, caramel colored buckskin-esque coat. Catching sight of their brunette friend in the back, both women unhurriedly walk through the maze of tables, chairs and a few patrons and took a seat in the booth, very aware the entire time that every eye in the place was on them. A nod from the brunette cued Jon that they were ready to order and so he slid out from behind the counter and strolled over to their table.

"What can I getcha?" he asked.

"Just a coffee. Black. Lots of sugar," the brunette answered, which was no surprise because she always ordered the same thing every time.

Pondering her options a moment, the younger blonde, with the hazel eyes, replied, "I'll have a Coke and French fries."

Finally Jon turned his eyes to the last woman, the one that always left him unbelievably horny for at least a week after the monthly gathering, so much so that his video rentals increased exponentially. Staring into her ice blue eyes, he almost missed her order of an herbal tea and bagel with cream cheese. Finished taking orders, he quickly retreated to the kitchen to place the order as well as regain a sense of stability. He did not know what it was, but being in the presence of those three women always threw him off balance.

***

"Okay Max, spill it," Buffy demanded of her friend sitting next to her.

Max flashed her two friends an innocent look and replied, "What?"

"Don't give me those puppy dog eyes of yours and say 'What.' What's happened with you and Crusader boy since we last met?"

Sighing, Max glanced at the woman sitting across from herself and Buffy, silently begging for a reprise, but only encountered a small shoulder shrug and a large dose of amusement emanating from her eyes. Defeated and without any support, Max finally gave in to Buffy's badgering.

"Alright already. Chill B. I'll spill all the gory details, but I'm telling ya, there ain't much to tell."

"So...you had dinner again, yes?" Buffy questioned, filling in the events discussed from their last coffee talk approximately two weeks ago.

"Yes."

Rolling her eyes and giving an exasperated sigh, Buffy shoved her friend slightly in annoyance and prodded, "And...?"

"And what?" Max countered defensively, "We went out. We ate. We talked. End of story."

After numerous years of training and forced habit of studying human nature, the woman across from Max, who silent until this point, realized that her friend was not telling them the whole story and called her on it.

"What else, Max?" Nikita asked with a small smile in her voice, unable to contain her amusement at Max's diversion tactics. While they might allow her to be an excellent genetically engineered solider, those same diversion tactics were useless against her girlfriends on a quest for gossip.

"Oh alright. Jeeze. You'd think you were interrogating a prisoner or somethin' Nik," she responded and then taking a deep breath, Max launched into her recitation, "Like I said, we went out to dinner. A very nice, but out of the way restaurant - gourmet India cuisine. We talked. He paid. Then he took me to an old haunt of his, where he used to hang with his fellow reporters. It was an old jazz club, all smoky with undistinguishable lighting. I mean really. It was a health hazard waiting to happen. Do you know how many people keep tripping over the small step-up leading to the bathrooms?"

"Max," Buffy droned, interrupting another of her friend's attempts to delay the part of the story she obviously did not want to tell them.

Flashing a quick smile to Nikita in admittance that she was merely teasing their friend, Max continued with her tale. "Ok, so we finally get a table, in the back, nice and secluded. Order drinks. Listen to some good jazz. By about the fourth song in the set, he has my hand in his and he begins to lean every so slightly towards me..."

"And?" Buffy and Nikita exclaimed at the same time.

"And then his damn cell phone rings," Max replied, slumping in her seat at the memory of such an ill-timed interruption.

"Let me guess," Nikita said, "One of his contacts?"

Max merely tapped her nose in response, indicating that Nikita had guessed correctly. No one said anything for a moment, mutually wallowing in Max's irritation and frustration with the situation. Both Nikita and Buffy understood what she went through because they had been there before, one too many times.

"So then what?" came from Buffy.

Before Max could answer the question and carry on with her story, Jon arrived with their order. In silence he placed the various dishes and cups down in front of the women. When everyone had her correct order, he quickly inquired if they needed anything else. Receiving polite responses of 'no' from all three women, he once again extricated himself from the table and went to check-up on the other customers.

The silence at the table ensued for several minutes as all three women prepared their various drinks and food. Once done Buffy and Nikita returned their attention to Max, eager to hear the conclusion of the story.

"So anyway, turns out the contact has some information on this baddie Logan's been trying to catch for like forever. But until that call, no suck luck."

"What changed?" Nikita asked.

"The contact had concrete proof that this loser, who was kidnapping runaways and killing them for their organs, had been spotted in town. Until then he had managed to remain completely out of sight, relying on a currier network."

"So you had to go."

Nodding her head in agreement with Buffy's statement, Max commented, "Yeah, of course. We got him too. The contact was right. He made the mistake of visiting his sick daughter. Cute, huh?"

All three women just shook their heads in disgust, not surprised that such an ugly human being existed, but still disturbed nonetheless. Grabbing her large coffee mug to warm her suddenly cold hands, Max stared down into the swirling black liquid and contemplated the 'what ifs' of that night, wondering if she and Logan would be in a different place right now without that phone call interrupting their evening. Watching her carefully from across the table, Nikita gleamed, from the look in Max's eyes and the shape of her posture, that the situation had not gotten much better since that night. Having been in that place one too many times herself, she asked, "How long did you stay angry with him?"

This brought a laugh from both Max and Buffy and the three women smiled in unity, joined in the knowledge that each one of them would have had the same response in that situation. Sitting up straighter, Max answered, "Not long. After a hard ride on my bike and a long hot bath the next night, I realized it wasn't really his fault this time. It was more like what followed, or didn't follow in this case, that I blame him for."

This time it was Buffy's turn to postulate on what happened next, commenting, "Let me guess. Nothing. Not even a mention of the dinner."

"Nope," she sighed, "Logan went right back to being Mr. Obsessive Crusader Boy."

Munching on a French fry covered in ketchup, Buffy questioned, "So how long before you call him on it?"

A soft smile crossed Max's face and she replied, "I already did."

This answer did surprise her two friends and in return earned Max two sets of piercing stares as her friends waited for details.

"Yesterday we were working on another case of his, when I sort of just...," she began before petering off in slight embarassment.

"'Sort of just what?'" Buffy demanded.

"Lost it."

"What happened?"

"Oh you know. Logan was droning on about the case and another horrible crime some evil guy was up too and I just lost it. I was so sick and tired of hearing about another case that I let him have it. Got him really good too. He didn't even speak for a full five minutes. And then, when something finally did come to mind, I kissed him."

"On the lips?"

"Oh yeah. A big old smack and then walked out the door. Haven't spoken with him since."

Nikita and Buffy just sat there, stunned, utterly amazed at Max's actions. Entertained by her friends' reactions, Max smiled slyly and then grabbed a couple French fries from Buffy's plate to munch.

The first to gain her voice back, Nikita inquired, "So what now?"

Max shrugged her shoulders in response, uncertain of what she would do next - either wait for Logan to make a move or take the initiative herself. Tired of being the sole focus of her friends, she licked the last of the salt from the fries off her fingers and turned to them, saying, "Well...."

"Well what?" Buffy asked.

"What about you guys. It's only fair. I talked about Logan, now it's your turns to spill."

"Nothing new in Sunnydale. Big surprise there though."

"Yeah," Nikita concurred, adding, "You're not the only one whose S.O. has been rather 'focused' lately."

"Michael pullin' Machine Man again," Max commented.

Nikita chuckled lightly at Max's comment and muttered, "Something like that."

"Do tell g-friend," the youngest of the group encouraged.

"It's not anything really. Rather dumb in fact."

"Spill Nikita," the slayer demanded.

"The other night Michael and I went out."

"You mean on an actually date?" Buffy interrupted.

"Yeah," Nikita answered laughingly, understanding her friend's disbelief. A date was not something she and Michael did very often. "Anyway, we went to some French film noir festival, which actually turned out to be really interesting. During one of the intermissions, I bumped into this woman I see at the market sometimes and we started talking, right through intermission."

"Let me guess," Max interjected, "Michael freaked."

"For Michael, anyway. He came striding out of the theater, in full attack mode. Nearly scared the poor woman to death. You know how he can be."

Both Max and Buffy murmured their agreement, well acquainted with an intimidating Michael.

"Of course I was furious with him. I mean I was only a few minutes late. I apologized to the woman, made our excuses and got the hell out of there. I was just thankful that he didn't pull his gun."

"How did he react when he saw that you were okay?"

At that question from Buffy, Nikita snorted in irritated amusement, answering, "He had the nerve to angry with me."

"Typical," Max commented, "Because you made him worry, right?"

"Exactly."

"What is with men? Why is it the minute they even think you are in danger all logical thought leaves their brain, completely forgetting that you can take care of yourself?" Buffy inquired of her friends.

"Beats me," Max responded.

"Must be a testosterone overload," Nikita chimed in.

Buffy's question gave them all pause to think as they sipped their various beverages and pondered the often annoying, but incredibly lovable behavior of the men they loved. A loud shout from the restroom area disrupted their pondering as all three automatically went on full alert for trouble. Seeing that the noise came from a man in the back using the payphone who was arguing with the person on the other end, Nikita reassured her friends with a look that there was nothing to worry about.

Focusing her attention on the young slayer in front of her, Nikita asked, "So Buffy. What about you and Angel? What's your grievance this week?"

"Oh the usual. I patrolled. Fought a couple of demons. Got a slight stab wound. He freaks out and becomes like a shadow when I patrol now. Ya know, no biggie."

The other two women cannot help but bust out laughing at her casual description of the events in her life, as if fighting demons and getting stabbed was a common occurrence in everyday life. The fact that it was in all of theirs was another matter entirely.

"But you are okay, right?" Nikita questioned, concerned.

"Of course," Buffy reassured her friends, "It was nothing. The claws of this demon caught my arm. A few scratches, but the way Angel behaved you'd have thought I had been...well...slayed."

"Why do we even bother with them?"

"Wish I knew."

"No clue what-so-ever."

After a moment's pause Buffy whispered, "Well, they are kinda cute."

"Their over-protectiveness can be sweet," Nikita added.

Then, in only a manner that could be completely Max, she announced bluntly, "And they're damn convenient to have around when you need to get laid."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, all three women began laughing hysterically and every time they came close to stopping they would look at one another and begin all over again. Tears streaming down their faces, the friends clutched their stomachs in pain from laughing so long and hard. When they did finally manage to control their outburst, they still continued to grin profusely and every once in awhile a giggle or two would slip out.

Over at the counter, Jon watched in amazement at the burst of laughter and rioting from the woman who had never displayed such an explosion of emotion before. He just shook his head in wonder at what had caused such a display, realizing that he probably did not really want to know at all. Burying his head in his paper, he chose to ignore the women until about thirty-minutes later when he observed movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, he watched as the women slipped out of the booth, still chatting quietly as they paid the bill he had left on the table earlier and then made their way out the door. In the wake of their passing by him, he could smell a sweet blend of all their perfumes; a scent that never ceased to turn him on and comfort him at the same time. He was never sure when they would be back, just that the three beautiful, mysterious women would be and it was a fact he counted on.

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