Title: Rain On My Parade
Author: Lowdeen
Disclaimer: The characters and show all belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, and Mutant Enemy. The story contains love between two women, so if such things offend you, don't read it and upset yourself.
Spoilers:Up to and including the fourth season
Rating: PG

The figure of the young woman wasn't so much sitting in the diner's booth as much as slouched in it. She'd occasionally glance out the plate glass window, almost as if she were waiting for someone...someone who was apparently very late cause she'd been sitting there since 10 and it was almost two in the morning now. The same cup of coffee she'd nursed for an hour sat in front of her on the table, half full and no doubt bitter and cold by now. The only waitress working at that hour didn't even bother asking her if she wanted anything anymore---didn't look like she had any money anyway. But it was only a couple cups of coffee and she didn't feel like hassling the girl about it---not tonight anyway. The weather was just too damn miserable.

The rain was relentless, sometimes easing up to a sparkling drizzle, most times, coming down in a drenching downpour. It was the kind of rain that could make you shivering wet even if you carried an umbrella. As it was, the girl in the booth didn't carry an umbrella and when she'd stepped through the diner earlier that night, she'd been a dripping mess, soaked through to the bone. She was decked out in denim and cotton---faded denim blue jeans, denim jacket that was a darker shade of blue and a cotton white T-shirt that clung to her skin and showed the lightest hint of pink wherever it came in contact with flesh. Her long, brown hair clung about her face and gave her a waif-like quality...little girl lost. And maybe she was lost. Her eyes certainly said so. But her mouth only asked for a table, preferably with a view of the street.

Denim doesn't dry very well or very fast. Even now, four hours later, she fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the dampness she felt all around her. Occasionally, she'd blow on her hands as if she couldn't get warm enough even though it was a mild 70 degrees inside the diner. Her eyes never wandered from her study of the tabletop except when she would look out into the street. The waitress at the counter had long since put this girl from her mind, instead turning her attention to the newspaper someone had left there from this morning. The big story was some fire that had started in a warehouse across town. Supposed to be the handiwork of some street kids who were using it as a squatter site. Not that she really cared one way or the other. It was just something that happened and if it didn't directly affect her, it was relegated to the back of her mind where all interesting tidbits went, to be forgotten in a couple of day's time.

The sound of the door opening brought her eyes up from reading the sport's scores. A blonde girl was standing there in front of the entrance, shaking raindrops from her red umbrella. Her shoulders, sides, legs, and shoes looked soaked. It must be raining hard again. Her eyes scanned the interior, landing briefly on the portly woman behind the counter before sliding off to lock with the only other occupant in the room.

"What'll you have Hon?" The question broke the silence, along with the gaze.

"Coffee," came the trite reply and as the waitress shuffled off to fulfill the request, the blonde walked stiffly towards the occupied booth. Whether the stiffness was from the cold rain seeping through her clothes or something else entirely wouldn't be too clear to a casual observer. But she wasn't walking towards a casual observer. There was nothing casual when the person looking at you knew you from the inside out---knew you so well that they'd left their initials on you, carved out and crude and all the more violating because they they *were* able to do it.

They sat across from each other: one dark, one light, one hard, one soft and both invariably drawn together. The red umbrella laid on the table, an unusually appropriate centerpiece. They didn't say two words to one another. Not when the waitress came to place a mug of black coffee in front of the blonde. Not when she wandered back to contemplate why it was that the Lakers had lost another home game. Not until the light haired girl began stirring in sugar and milk to make her drink the slightest bit more palatable...that was a whole heap of sugar she poured in, at least five tiny white single serving packets.

"What do you want to see me about?" The question held no emotion, giving nothing at all away.

The brunette raised her head from where she'd been staring transfixed by the stirring spoon. "I didn't think you'd come." Her voice faltered at the beginning with a combination of apprehension and the barest hint of bitterness buried underneath it all.

"I wasn't *going* to come."

"What changed your mind?"

A shrug. "Does it matter? I'm here now, aren't I? So tell me what you want so I can go." Hazel eyes shifted, breaking the gaze to stare out at the rain coming down in fat drops.

"Do you know what hurts the most?"

No answer came.

"It's not that you hate me cause, fuck, everybody hates me...even my own damn self hates me. But the thing that hurts the most is that I hurt *you* so much..."

No answer came. Hazel eyes still stared somewhere to the right.

"Cause I love you."

Hazel eyes blinked in shock and surprise as they swiveled back to pin a pair of dark brown. She got up halfway as if to slap the other girl for telling another lie only to sit back down a few seconds later in utter, shattering defeat. A small, fine boned hand came up to swipe angrily at a tear that slipped out. But she couldn't catch all the tears that slid past her defenses. Her lips pressed together into a thin, red line as she tried to hold in the sobs that were shaking the rest of her body, trying in vain to hold back crashing waves of emotion.

"Please don't...no...please don't cry." The brunette was frantic. She started shoving napkins towards the other girl. Shouting, she expected. Physical violence, harsh words aimed at open wounds, whatever. But not crying. Not this. She stood up, walking to the other side of the booth to put an arm awkwardly across the blonde's trembling shoulders. Her arm should have been shrugged off, slapped off even but it wasn't and so they sat there together. An unexpected pair made more so by their past history. An unexpected pair that found each other through the rain slicked streets of the city that named itself fit for angels.

****

They departed the nearly empty diner for a nearly empty bus station instead. It just seemed a more appropriate place to be when you're wet, cold, shivering, and crying...all at the same time, no less. The gray emptiness wasn't so much different than the outside, only without the accompanying constancy of the rain falling from the sky. When they'd left to get here, the downpour had again switched to a mild drizzle, maybe to make up for how merciless it had been all night. They no longer sat together but still close enough to keep an eye on each other. Occasionally, the blonde would play with the piece of paper in her hand, twisting it and rubbing it between two fingers as if to make sure she still had it.

"I'm going back." The shorter girl nearly expected an echo from her words but this wasn't the kind of place that would readily oblige.

"Kinda guessed that what with being at the bus station and you holding a ticket and all." Still with the wiseass remarks although not delivered with the same smirk or the intent to hurt.

She looked down, again fidgeting with the ticket. "Do you want to come with me?"

Brown eyes looked on with shock. That request couldn't possibly have been heard right. "What?"

Two pairs of eyes met again, both probing and unsure. "Do you?" A hand reached into a back pocket, producing another piece of paper that on closer inspection turned out to be a ticket. "Do you?" The question came again.

"You had this planned?"

"Plan B."

"What was Plan A?"

A shrug of the shoulder that indicated it was a plan better left untold.

"Why?" It was a logical question to follow with but not an easy one to answer.

"The way I see it, if Angel believed in you..." That was the first time his name had been brought up by either of them. "And we're about even now anyway, don't you think?"

"Forgiven but not forgotten."

"Something like that, yeah."

"Don't think I'm not appreciating all that but...why would you want me to go back with you? Why would you even want me near you?"

"You don't want to come back with me?" A question answered with another question. This was turning out productive.

An anguished look like she'd just been sucker-punched but it was gone just as quickly, replaced by indifference. Then a hand was on her arm, the heat from it warm, even through the material of her jacket. That was the first time she'd felt warmth, real warmth, all night. A ticket was shoved into her hand and she instinctively gripped the paper tight. They didn't talk. There wasn't a need to. A gesture was made and received. What else was there to do but wait to board the bus?