TITLE: TITLE: Hollow Inside
AUTHOR: Ragna (writinggoddess@aol.com)
RATING: FRT overall, language and sexual references
CLASSIFICATION: Buffy/Lindsey, Buffy POV.
SUMMARY: Buffy doesn't realize how lonely she is until she meets another former Los Angeles dweller while meeting with Giles in England.
SPOILERS: Set after BtVS's "Chosen." Nothing in A:tS's season 5 takes place.
DISTRIBUTION: Any sites with my fic up; you all have unspoken permission. I write it, you can post it. Everyone else just keep my name on it and let me know.
DISCLAIMER: If you don't recognize it, chances are it's my own creation. If you do, I don't own it. Joss Whedon, Kazui Sandollar, The WB, UPN, et. al. most likely do.
FEEDBACK: Please send it offlist and let me know it's feedback; I do rapid delete on my account due to a lot of spam.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I got "Lindsey," "empty" and "curtains" from Challenge In A Can. I figured that I'd write this because I'm a B/L shipper (even though I've got a story started for the B/L ficathon which looks like it's going to be horribly long) and I had a neat idea.

***

I never realized how empty I was feeling until I met Lindsey. And I think I also realized how...I don't know, how much more interesting...how much more...

I suppose I should start at the beginning, you know? I got a call from Giles only a month or so after I moved to Rome. He needed me to come to England. There was a lawyer there, the same one Angel had once told me was trying to get him back for chopping off his hand, who needed to speak with me. He didn't have enough money to go to Rome and besides, Giles added, if there was trouble most of the Slayers were in England for training so there'd be help.

Help. Sure. I mean, the girls had the Slayer powers, but they were untrained, you know? Didn't inspire much confidence in me.

But when I called Faith to give her a heads up and to ask if she could watch Dawn while I was gone, she told me that I could trust the guy. Sure, she said, he was the one who sent her, and I swear these are her own words, "Up shit creek without a paddle or a fricking boat," but she needed to be there, and Angel had told her about having to work with him and that he'd quit the firm after he got his hand back. Went to places unknown, he'd said, with a "Cops Suck" sign on the back of his truck.

I had to laugh. That was showing some growth for Angel, developing a sense of humor. And when she said she'd rather come with to England, she also volunteered Robin to watch Dawn. And he guaranteed she'd get her schoolwork done, so it was a deal.

I met Faith at Heathrow airport. She'd flown in from Australia, I think. Not sure...wherever she was, they didn't extradite, and that was assuming that Angel hadn't already gotten her out of jail, or if anyone even remembered her being there.

She told me a little about the law firm, what all she remembered from her brief encounter with Lindsey and a few others there. Sounded like this group of lawyers lived up to the reputation of all lawyers and then some. But, and I was taking a major leap of faith here, if Angel was in charge now like I'd heard, then maybe he was making some changes. I hoped.

And other than that, we just caught up. It wasn't like I talked to her that often; in fact, other than Giles, I didn't talk to anyone that much anymore. I liked the peace and quiet of Rome and the villa I shared with Dawn and the normal little life I'd started to build there. The fact that I could part the curtains, stare out the window and not see a town that always needed rescuing was a definite bonus.

But once a Slayer, always a Slayer, I realized, and if I was needed I had to go.

***

When I met Lindsey, for some reason, I looked at his hands, trying to figure out which one he'd lost, and I couldn't. I didn't look at anything else, just the hands.

Faith wasn't upset like I thought she'd be. She walked up to him, shook his hand, asked how he was. If I was Faith and I was around the guy that turned me in to the police, I'd have been pissed off. Just goes to show how much Faith had changed, I guessed.

He said he was all right, except that there were some people at the firm who had tracked him down and wanted his help. They'd given him an amulet to send to Angel, but he'd taken it and ran. He made it to England with the guys who wanted him to do this job still on his tale and in a twist of fate, he ran into Giles. Literally, apparently.

Lindsey had apologized, offered to take Giles out for a drink as an apology, and a lot of alcohol later, life stories were being exchanged and Lindsey realized Giles could help him. Giles realized Lindsey might be a valuable asset as well, if we could just keep him alive.

And I swear, I was listening to it all and just staring at his hands.

Faith nudged me into the ribs and hissed "B, pay attention!" I finally looked up and was staring into a set of green eyes more gorgeous than I could describe.

"You must be Buffy," he'd said, and I just nodded, afraid to actually open my mouth to speak. I have never been like that before. Ever.

And that was a sign of what was to come, I swear.

He grinned and turned his head. "Stupid contacts," he muttered. "They're constantly drying my eyes out."

"Thought something about you was different, Lawyer Boy," Faith said. "Could have sworn you had blue eyes."

Lindsey nodded. "Well, I locked the amulet in a bank where they do a retina scan before they'll open it. Yellow contacts, guaranteed to screw up any scan done, so even if I did get caught they couldn't get the scan."

"They could have just killed you and taken your eyes," I pointed out. Wow, and my two cents wasn't just gross, but actually a rather good idea, if I was an imaginative bad guy. Scary how that works sometimes.

"True," Lindsey said. He had finished digging through his multiple pockets (one shirt pocket, and the two front pockets on a rather nice and tight pair of jeans, something I made sure to mention to him later) and pulled out a little contact carrying case. He took the lenses out, put them in their respective sides and turned back to me.

If I thought the green eyes were heavenly, the blue eyes that were underneath the contacts made me rethink my whole "green eyed men are gods" idea.

"Um," Faith said, nudging me in the ribs again. I mentally reminded myself that I had to teach her that a Slayer nudge in the ribs hurt. A lot. "We need to find a safe place for him?"

"Rome!" I grinned. "No one ever bugs me in Rome. He can stay with me. And Dawn."

Faith had shaken her head, grinning. "B..."

"Don't start," I hissed at her.

And all Lindsey had done was simply raised an eyebrow at the two of us.