Notes: I must acknowledge solstice’s beautiful story Second String which made me realize the perfect format for this odd, dark, depressing little tale. Really, check out that story. It’s awesome.





    Anyanka sat musing in the Bronze, hoping to get drunk and forget how she was feeling. There was some kind of moony local band playing, the music ethereal and emotive, and it wasn’t helping Anya’s mood. Her magic store – a ruin. Her relationship – slaughtered. Her friendships – gone. She was a vengeance demon, given the district of Sunnydale to “ease into” as she got back into the vengeance gig. This meant that rather than picking and choosing vengeances, as she used to be able to do, she had to go where the vengeance called her, right here in Sunnydale.

    There actually weren’t that many cruel and abusive men in a small town like Sunnydale. She was hard pressed to find them, and even harder pressed to wring vengeance wishes out of the usually forgiving women in the area. The Bronze was the best place to find a woman in a vengeancy mood. She could feel the pain and the betrayals all around her, but most knew vengeance wouldn’t help, or didn’t even really want it.

    One burning spike of Wronged Woman had just slid into the club a minute ago, for instance. And without even looking, Anya knew the wronged party wouldn’t up and wish for vengeance. Shame. Because that would have been the kind of vengeance which would get D’Hoffryn off her back. Performing vengeance for a Slayer... that was the kind of gig that could take a vengeance demon off the B list and get her global clearance again.

    But she knew Buffy was never going to make a vengeance wish about Spike. If she was ever going to take vengeance for any real or perceived wrong, she’d do it herself, with her fists, and have a good time doing it too. Shame.

    Buffy had come in with Xander, which was enough to make Anya wish she herself wasn’t at the club. She thought about getting up and leaving, but she was kind of hidden behind the stairs, and getting up from her corner would put her in full view of Xander. She... she didn’t want to see him.

    Buffy and Xander got drinks and came to sit at their favorite table... the one by the stairs.... Anya carefully didn’t think about the fact that she was sitting in this spot because she’d almost sat at the Xander table herself, through habit, and then intentionally moved over to one... near it, but not too near it. Somewhere she would be able to see Xander if he happened to show up.

    Sometimes Anya wished she could wreak vengeance on herself. She kept betraying herself. She kept loving that bastard... stupid self-deluded vengeance demon. She should have known better. She’d only focused her attention on Xander Harris in the first place because he was her vengeance gig. And then he was cute and funny and nicely shaped and warm and his lips tasted like cherry soda... or they had at the prom, when she’d declared, “Is it customary for this social function that we interact romantically?” and he’d gotten all nervous and blushing, and she’d kissed him to see what it would feel like to kiss someone as a human being. And it had felt... amazing. So potent, so real, so powerful, that Xander Harris had never left her thoughts since.

    But he was still Xander Harris. He’d betrayed Cordelia Chase, and sure enough, he’d betrayed Anya, too. Once an unfaithful bastard, always an unfaithful bastard.

    As Buffy and Xander sat down, it became very clear why Buffy’s Wronged Woman aura was flaring quite so bright. Xander had decided to dredge the whole thing up again. Why couldn’t that bastard ever leave it alone? He had to keep stirring the cesspool to see what would float. Jerk.

    “I just don’t get it,” Xander said. “I mean, why did it happen?”

    “He just didn’t know how to not be evil, Xander,” Buffy said quietly. “He lost it for a minute is all. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

    “I didn’t mean the rape,” Xander said, not noticing how his friend flinched. He could be so thoughtful and insightful, Xander could. And other times – like this – he could be the blindest most self-centered, ham-fisted coxcomb the world had ever known. “I mean, I get that. That’s just evil undead doing what evil undead do. I mean... why did you start... I mean... even in the first place? Why’d you let him think it was ever okay to touch you?”

    It happened because Buffy’s not completely human, and Spike is hot! Anyanka thought to herself. I mean, how much do you need it spelled out, Harris!

    “It’s complicated, Xander,” Buffy said, and took a sip of her drink.

    “What do you mean? I mean, vampire, crypt, bad. You said it yourself.”

    “Well, I wasn’t in a real good place myself,” Buffy said, sounding annoyed. “I mean, I’d been dead, okay? He knew what it was like to be dead, we started talking, it got away from us. All right? End of story.”

    “I just... I just don’t understand it. How anyone could sleep with that thing?”

    Then Anya was sure. It didn’t have anything to do with Buffy. This was about her. Anya was about to stand up and reveal herself, and tell Xander everything there was about Spike which made him a far superior lay to Xander freaking Harris. It would have been lies – she’d never been in love with Spike. He didn’t make her heart flutter and her insides turn to mush. Spike had been drunk and perfunctory and keeping his eyes closed as he drowned in sensation, like he drowned in the drink, and Anya had been doing much the same. As hot as impulsive drunken table-sex could be, as gorgeous and sexy-smelling as the vampire had been, it was not the sweetest memory in Anya’s thousand year existence.

    No. Most of the sweetest memories had been from just before her ersatz wedding day.

    “What does it even matter?” Buffy asked.

    Xander put her hand on Buffy’s arm. “It matters,” he said. “I need to understand.”

    “Why? It’s way over. It was never serious. And he’s gone now.”

    “Right. He should have done that years ago,” Xander said. “I wish he’d never come to Sunnydale.”

    “Then Angel would have destroyed the world,” Buffy said dully. Xander looked up, confused. “Acathla?” Buffy reminded him.

    “Right. Then I wish he’d never come back.”

    “Dawn,” Buffy said. “Glory.”

    Xander looked disgruntled.

    “I know,” Buffy said quietly. “It’s hard to hate him. That’s why.”

    “It’s not hard to hate him,” Xander said. “Not after what he did to you.”

    Buffy didn’t say anything. Anya knew rather too much about the relationship Buffy and Spike had had – Spike had spilled more than he realized while drunk and venting his pain. What Spike had done to Buffy kind of paled in comparison to some of the things Buffy had done to Spike. But like they said in the police force, ‘You can’t pick the vic.’ Not all victims were perfect. Most could be just as bad as their attackers. Buffy still had Wronged Woman flaring in her aura.

    “Just... if he was gonna be so evil and that, and it was gonna mess you up... I don’t know. I just wish he hadn’t been the one you felt you could turn to.” Buffy still didn’t say anything. “I wish he and his wacked out evil-playing-good thing just hadn’t been there to confuse you when you were brought back.”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said quietly. “Me too.”

    That was enough for a vengeance demon. Particularly one as pissed off as Anyanka. She smiled in her seat as the power flowed through her. “Wish granted.”

 

    It didn’t take much to tweak the past. Spike had been an inch away from suicide almost every day since Buffy’s death. One little twist to the timeline, and suddenly there was no more Spike. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, one less vampire in the world.

    It was going to be better. Anya was sure of it. Buffy wouldn’t have been so confused by the demon. She’d have been paying more attention to her friends. Maybe Tara wouldn’t die. Maybe Willow wouldn’t have gone down such a dark path. Maybe... maybe Xander wouldn’t have left Anya. Not that she’d keep him if suddenly they were happily married with a baby on the way or something. She’d divorce him right quick – and make him feel hurt, the way he’d made her hurt.

    But Anya hadn’t expected the wish to affect her. The last time she’d done this – made it so someone just wasn’t there – she walked around the vampire-haunted Sunnydale, observing the changes, and smiled at her work. This time, her own past was dragged into it, along with everyone else’s. She’d been human. She’d been part of this circle. Everything was different for Anya, too. At least, at first.

***

 

    Dawn picked up the phone in Giles’ room. “Hello?”

    “Dawn, it’s Willow. Everything still okay?”

    “Yeah, the hospital’s still on lockdown. No one’s let in or out. Are the demons still... demoning?”

    “Sort of,” Willow said. “They’re dispersing now. They were... were scared off. We’ll be joining you in about twenty minutes. Is Giles still okay?”

    “Yeah. They still say there’s still no swelling to the spinal cord or anything, so... I guess he can say a vampire broke his neck, and he survived unharmed.”

    “Unharmed is a bit of an overstatement,” Giles said from his bed, where he was, as he occasionally described it, “bound and gagged” with a stiff neck-brace keeping him almost immobile. He’d been there for the last week. Trying to hunt vampires with only a robot, two witches, and two base humans (though one was an ex-demon) was not the same as having a slayer, a trained alien-hunting commando, or a vampire of semi-good persuasion at your side. Giles had finally abandoned the idea of keeping up appearances. The Buffybot was almost unusable by this time, anyway – it kept glitching out and going to look for Spike. It was no good telling it Spike was dead. Whenever you did that, it shorted out entirely.

    “He’s going to heal without needing a wheelchair or anything,” Dawn said instead. “Eventually.”

    “Good. Um... Um, can you make it down to the Emergency Room, Dawn? We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

    “Oh, god, who’s hurt?” Dawn asked anxiously. “Tara? Xander?”

    “None of us, though... the Buffybot’s been destroyed,” Willow said.

    Dawn choked.

    “No, no, it’s okay. We don’t need it anymore. It’s just... someone fell off the tower... um... again.”

    “What?”

    “I don’t think she really knew where she was,” Willow said. “Or-or when she was. I think she tried to replay her last moments, but when she climbed up, the tower was unstable, and...”

    “What?” Dawn screeched into the phone.

    “Give me that,” Tara said distantly, and then her voice became louder as she took the phone from Willow. “Dawn, she shouldn’t have told you like that. I told her to just have you meet us at the Emergency Room. Willow performed a spell that brought Buffy back but... it went... um... a l-little wrong.”

    “It did not!” Willow called.

    “Only a little. Buffy’s back, she’s fine, but... but she’s hurt. She got hurt falling from the tower. She’ll be fine, she’s still a slayer. They heal quick.”

    Dawn was crying. “The hospital’s still on lockdown...” she sobbed.

    “Don’t worry about that,” Tara said. “Willow won’t let them keep the doors locked. Not on the slayer.”
 

***

    Buffy looked around the house. “It’s different,” she said. She’d been barely speaking, and even then mostly monosyllabically. She done little more than stare in numbed shock in the hospital. Finally she felt well enough to walk out – she didn’t check out – and she walked home. Dawn had been with her, and followed her, telling her to go back to the hospital, that there was paperwork, that they didn’t know if she was well enough, that Giles wanted to see her, and he couldn’t leave the hospital yet...

    Buffy hadn’t listened. She’d walked into the house, which was covered with crude graffiti. GOOD RIDDINCE SLAYER and WELCOM TO HELL. Before Willow had placed a general ward on the house, the Buffybot hadn’t been enough of a deterrent to those demons who could tell the difference between a robot and a slayer. The first few weeks, while Spike was still around, the knowledge that the house was under his protection had been enough to keep the vandals at bay. But once he wasn’t in the picture...

    “Yeah, Willow and Tara live here now,” Dawn said. “We... I gave them Mom’s room, ‘cause it was the biggest, really, and... and no one was in it.”

    “My room?” Buffy asked.

    “Yeah! Yeah, your room is still yours. We were keeping Buffy in... Buffybot. We kept her in there... when she... when it wasn’t supposed to be patrolling. Um... you... do you... um... do you want to get some clothes on?”

    Buffy was still in the open-backed hospital gown, which when tied properly actually wasn’t as revealing as comedies always pretended, but wasn’t flattering.

    Buffy didn’t seem to hear. She was staring at her bandaged hands. Dawn still didn’t know how they’d gotten injured. Buffy had been filthy, broken, bleeding, but those bruises on her hands didn’t match the rest of the impact wounds from the collapsing tower. “Can... I help you?” Dawn asked.

    Buffy didn’t answer. She went upstairs, into her room, and closed the door.
 

***
    
    Buffy walked through Restfield cemetery with her friends’ words echoing in her head. “So... we created a monster,” Xander said. “But Buffy killed it, right, so everything’s okay?”

    “No,” Tara said. “Buffy killed the demon. But... she’s not right. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but...”

    She’d fled, desperate for peace and quiet. Everyone kept demanding her attention. She ached for someone to just sit and be quiet around. Even Giles kept demanding answers, wanting to know if she was okay, if her soul felt intact, if she had any strange impulses, and what did it matter? Nothing mattered. Nothing was real. It was just harsh violence and sharp and bright and white noise and... and hell. She was in hell.

    She opened the door to Spike’s crypt, and someone shouted at her. “Ah!”

    An unknown demon surged from Spike’s chair, sharp teeth bared, loose, flaccid skin flapping. At the sight of the slayer, stake newly in hand, the demon’s face melted. A half dozen snakes flared from the gaping maw his face had become, and Buffy knew her place. She was the slayer – this was a demon. She attacked with her stake, even though the demon was backing away from her, his hands raised defensively.

    A moment later she stepped away, the dog-eared demon decidedly dead on the floor, her hands stained with his blood. The snakes on his face hissed a few times, and then fell, sliding back beneath his skin like the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East. The demon looked peaceful in sleep, the lines on his withered face more laugh lines than anything evil.

    Buffy was past caring. She opened Spike’s fridge. There were several dead rats, but no blood. Spike didn’t live here anymore. She left the crypt, passing by a video-rental slip that declared Clement MacDonald had to return his videos by Tuesday, or he’d owe a fee. A single black ace slipped from a fold in the demon’s drying skin, and landed on the concrete floor.

 

    “So... we have... financial... what?”

    Buffy was still wet from the broken pipes, tired from her late night slaying, confused by everything. She’d made herself tell Willow thank you. A cold, cold lie. Without having someone to talk to, the resentment was building harsh inside her. She’d asked after Spike. Somehow she’d felt like he could... she wasn’t sure. Hear her. She’d never been able to fool him, not about anything. But he had disappeared one day. Dawn had found ash on Buffy’s grave. It was assumed he’d waited for dawn, and been taken by the sun.

    Dawn had gone into hysterics. It had taken them a week to get her to talk again. And at first, she’d been willing to speak only to the Buffybot. Eventually she’d cried on Tara’s shoulder, and gotten sort of human again, but it had been a scary month.

    “I’m afraid the mortgage, and the phone bill, and your mother’s hospital fees, and–”

    “I can’t focus on this right now,” Buffy said.

    “But–”

    “You sort it out,” she said.

    “Buffy...”

    “You’ll have to sort it out,” Buffy said, more fiercely this time, but without any real inflection. She stood up and walked out of the room.

    Willow and Xander and Tara were left staring at each other. She just... she didn’t care at all?

    “She can’t just do that,” Xander said.

    “Looks like she just did,” Tara said with a grim certainty. “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

    “So what do we do?” Willow asked.

    “What you should have done from the beginning,” Anya said, kind of annoyed. She had a nagging feeling that this shouldn’t have been quite this hard. Buffy should have been part of this discussion. But... she’d just washed her hands of it. “You’ll have to do something else.”

    “Like what?”

    “Get a job?” Anya said to the two college students.

    The two witches stared at her as if she’d just suggested cutting their own throats. “But... what about college?” Willow asked.

    Anya shrugged. “What about it? You’re the one who insisted we don’t tell anyone she was dead. That would have expunged most of her debts, or transferred them to whatshisname... Hank.”

    “But Dawn...”

    “But Dawn what? If she’s not a key, she’s just a girl, and what’s wrong with a girl living in Spain? Or foster care?”

    “No!”

    “Then you figure out the money problem,” Anya said. “You shouldn’t have let it get away from you this summer. If you’d been focusing on how to make this house work, rather than the resurrection spell, expecting Buffy to just magically make money out of slayer strength the moment she popped up out of the ground, like some kind of magical mushroom, then this wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

    There was a sullen silence.

    “Well,” Anya relented. “There is one other idea. Buffy would have to sign off on it.”

    “What’s that?”

    “Sell the house.”
 

 

***

 

    “So what did you and Angel talk about?” Willow asked.

    “Not a lot,” Buffy said.

    “Well, you went all the way down there.” Willow had felt rather proud of herself, calling Angel. Angel could snap her out of this funk, she was sure of it. But Buffy had come back still pretty funky, and not very communicative. “It must have been pretty intense.”

    “Yeah. It was that.”

    She didn’t sound like she meant it. Buffy had come in to a house in some chaos. Giles had been released from the hospital, but he wasn’t allowed to live alone – and wouldn’t for some months while he recovered and went through physical therapy. So he had been moved into Dawn’s room, and Dawn was still debating staying on the couch, or putting up a camp-bed in the basement. She was not being gracious about the move. Tara had cooked dinner – she was good at that – but Willow and Anya had been discussing finances all day, and they were pooped. They kept squabbling at each other over the table. The squabbles had only barely stopped when Buffy came in.

    “So... have you given any thought about what you’re going to do?” Giles asked.

    “Yeah,” Buffy said. “I’m going to bed.” She looked to Dawn, and it was pretty clear she was forcing herself to do so. “You okay, sweetie?” she asked.

    “Yeah, I’m fine...” Dawn said.

    “I meant, what are you going to do with your life,” Giles said.

    “I’d have meant, how are you going to fix these bills,” Anya pointed out.

    “I don’t... really care,” Buffy said honestly. “I guess I’ll... try and figure it out later.”

    “I thought you could audit college, with us,” Willow said. “College is important.” She glared at Anya as she said it.

    “I suppose it is,” Buffy said. “I guess I’ll do that, then. Goodnight.” She headed up the stairs.

    Dawn followed her. “Buffy... are you okay?”

    “I’m fine.”

    “It’s just... I think we expected you to... I don’t know... be a little bit more excited. By Angel... by everything. I mean, you came out of hell. Angel knows what that’s like, right? Didn’t it help to talk to him?”

    “No,” Buffy said dully. “No, it didn’t.”

    It should have, but it didn’t. She hadn’t been able to tell him the truth. He kept on and on about how wonderful it was to escape hell, and how it was going to take time to adjust to a life without pain. He was so glad she was back.

    Back. In Sunnydale. Alone. While he went back to LA.

    She’d spent the whole visit wanting to stake him.
 

 

***

 

    “So what’s up with you?” the bartender at Willy’s asked.

    “Today totally sucks,” Buffy said through slurred and drunken lips. “Stupid Buffy, too weird for schoolwork, and freak Buffy too strong for construction, and the so-called job at the Magic Box? Busy-work placate labor ‘cause they didn’t know what else to do with me! I was murderously bored even before the hour that wouldn’t end!”

    “So... why take it out on us?”

    “Because you were here!” Buffy shouted. She kicked him in the stomach one more time and hoisted him up to face level. “Tell me! Who’s targeted me! What’s with the time-freaks and the magic mummy hands and the demon attacks! Someone’s gotta know!”

    “I don’t have any idea!”

    “Yeah, lighten up, slayer!” said a demon she’d already beaten to within an inch of his life.

    Buffy casually broke his neck and turned to the rest of the bar. “Anyone else wanna tell me I’m not handling this right?”

    There was dead silence. Most of the patrons were already dead, anyway. What few weren’t piles of dust or gaping corpses or oozing unconscious wounded were staring in terrified silence at the rogue slayer, who had broken the informal truce at Willy’s bar. A lone kitten scampered across the floor.

    Buffy let the bartender live, snatched up a bottle of something alcoholic – she had no idea what – and stalked outside. A black van she’d been noticing all day was parked outside. Okay. Taking a swig of her liquor she went up to it.

    In a cloud of red smoke, a devilish demon appeared out the back of the van. Buffy could barely hear his threats through the ringing in her drunken ears. “Rrrah! You have discovered me! But... but do not try to defeat me, for I have been testing you and I know your weaknesses. Ha ha ha!” Buffy smacked him with the bottle of booze. It shattered over his head, and he fell.

    He looked up in dismay as the van started and drove off, leaving the demon alone with one – as Spike would have put it – incredibly brassed off slayer. “Um... um, wait,” the demon said. “I...”

    She didn’t wait. She broke his demonic neck. It was surprisingly easy.

    It wasn’t until after she’d staggered off that the spell faded, and the dead demon slowly morphed back into Buffy’s old school-mate, Jonathan Levinson. His helpless face stared into nothing, an expression of betrayal and disbelief still painted on it.

    Buffy saw his name on the front page of the newspaper the next day. “Huh,” she said, not really feeling a lot about it. “Didn’t I know him?”

    “He gave you your Class Protector award,” Xander reminded her.

    “Oh,” Buffy said. “I’d forgotten about that.”  

 

    “Janice is dead?” Dawn asked. “What do you mean, she’s dead? You don’t mean dead, do you?”

    “No, actually, I don’t,” Buffy said, looking at Dawn’s best friend. “She’s not dead enough, for my taste. You might want to look away, Dawn. This is gonna be ugly.”

    “What do you mean?” Dawn stared down at her best friend’s corpse. She and Janice had just gone out for a little Halloween fun! It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She’d just wanted to get away from the dark cloud that seemed to surround Buffy, and the constant squabbling that had popped up between Willow and... well, everyone, really, and Giles’s pain-meds, and the knowledge that there was no one you could count on. It was supposed to be a night away! It wasn’t supposed to get all... vampires and evil and... and....

    Dammit. She’d really liked Justin. It had been the first fun night she’d had since before Buffy had died. Having to dust him had felt very traumatic – up until this moment. This moment when she looked down at her best friend, and realized... she’d never hang out at her house again and help her mom make Mexican. Never eat too many nachos with her and get sick at the bowling alley. Never sleep over at her house and juice up on coca-cola and music videos and do each other’s nails and talk about boys. Janice was dead, just like Mom, and Spike, and Buffy....

    Though Buffy wasn’t dead anymore.

    Except... “What the hell are you doing?”

    “I said – you might want – to look away,” Buffy said, sawing through bone.

    “Stop it!” Dawn grabbed her sister’s arm and dragged her and the knife away from Janice’s throat. There was blood everywhere, saturating her sister’s sleeve, no less. Her sister was trying to decapitate her dead best friend! What the hell was wrong with her? “That’s Janice! Stop it!” Buffy tried to pull away, but Dawn fought her, desperate to stop her.

    Buffy slapped her. Dawn stopped dead and stared, her skin tingling, a bruise likely forming. Janice’s blood shone bright on Dawn’s pale face.

    “Her lips are stained with vampire blood,” Buffy said. “I can wait until she turns, and maybe catch her, or I can do this right now.” She hadn’t sent Dawn away. Just said, Look away and thought that would do it. She turned back to the slaughtered teenage girl and sliced through sinew and bone while her sister stood and watched in shock. Janice... her eyes staring... Janice... her face waxy and false... Janice....

    “You’re a monster,” Dawn whispered to her sister.

    “Just figure that out now, did you?” Buffy snapped. She tore off the head and kicked it into the shrubbery. It rolled down the cliff to splash into the creek. “There. It’ll take at least three days to find that, and by that time, there’ll be no chance of her turning vamp on us. Now go the fuck home.”

    Dawn stared at her sister. Not her sister. Who was this creature?

    Buffy was The Slayer. That was all she was anymore. Dawn hadn’t realized it until this moment.

    Her sister was still dead.
 

***
 

Buffy opened her mouth, and sang.

Life's a joke
And I’m the easy mark
Abandoned to the dark
Alone without a spark.
Nothing’s right
When death’s your only gift,
And your friends get all miffed
Because they left a rift

Raging at the skies
Breaking down that wall
One more creature down
One more time around
Again, again...
Bound to these wretched chains
A slayer’s blood inside of your veins
Don't give me lies...
Don't give me lies...

Give me goddamn truth for once!
I need the goddamn truth for once!

Life's a joke.
You don't get to pretend
You loved me till the end
When you won’t let me bend.
Say you’re my friends
But I say I’m a slave,
Unbreakable and brave.
Who’m I supposed to save?

The selfish little witch,
The whiny little bitch,
The stupid wacked out sitch.
Oh, that’s really rich.
You didn’t check to see
Didn’t give a shit about me.
You were afraid
So I have paid.

There was such joy
Such love, such grace
‘Cause I’d found my place
In Heaven.

That’s why I destroy
I’m bound for hell
Thanks to you I fell
From Heaven.

Well fuck your fucking heaven.
Hey, Mister Singer, you got it made?
Have a taste of my little blade.
 

The red-faced demon fell to pieces as Buffy hacked at it, over and over and over. He seemed surprised, as if sure his magic could whip Buffy up into a frenzy of emotion which would have him winning.

    That hadn’t happened. The rage had overcome all the magic. He didn’t watch the slayer burn. She was already burnt.

    “There,” Buffy said, splattered blood across her face. “That’s over. The lady has sung.” She glared at her so-called friends. “Anyone dare to call me fat?” She jammed her blooded sword into the stage and stalked out of the Bronze.

    The scoobies stared at each other. Most of them were crying. “Why is she so angry?” Willow asked.

    “It would be either pain or rage, with that kind of loss, Willow,” Giles said gently. He still wore a neck brace, but at least he was allowed to walk around now. “Right now... it seems rage is the stronger within her.”

    “But... but we meant well. We love her. We just wanted her back!”

    “What have we done?” Xander asked.

    “We didn’t mean to,” Tara said.

    “Well, we probably should have checked,” Anya said. “There were ways. Like that thing Spike and Dawn did. That would have been temporary. We could have made bigger plans after. Hell, even a decent seance.”

    “We didn’t think,” Xander said.

    “No. You didn’t,” Anya snapped. She had the strongest feeling that she’d been here before... and had thought the same thing then, too.

    Strange, that.
 

***

    Joan was already three sheets to the wind when she suddenly came to herself as Buffy.

    She’d been in the middle of trying to explain it to the bikers at the bar she was in. “I don’t know. I woke up with my head totally blank in some kind of magic shop. I didn’t give a shit about anyone there, and I was damn sure they didn’t give a shit about me, so I kinda took off.”

    “What do you think you were on?”

    “I dunno. Must have been something.” She took another drink. “Wish I had some more.”

    “Something like this?” The biker beside her slid a little bag of white powder into Joan’s hand.

     Joan’s first impulse was to ask, What is it? but her second one was, Who cares? “That’ll do.”

    She’d already taken two hits when the memories came back. Anya had had another one of her odd moments of deja vu and made everyone search their pockets. The crystal was discovered, identified from one of Anya’s magic books, and destroyed. The aftermath was exactly what Anya had expected, though it was a shame about Dawn losing Tara in her household – Dawn really didn’t have any reliable parental figures at all these days, bar Giles. And he was leaving tonight.

    But across town Buffy – now only Buffy – stopped responding to the men around her. She stopped answering their flirtatious jibes, stopped teasing them about their supposed prowess with violence or women. When one of them pressed another drink in her hand, she swallowed it without tasting it. When one of them made a suggestion that would have had her breaking his face on any other night, she simply nodded. And when four of them took her into the back room, she only stared up at the flickering neon light and let it happen. Over and over and over again.

    She was the slayer. She was powerful. She was strong. She was clever. She could have fought them off.

    She didn’t even say no.

    There are different kinds of powerless.

    When she felt ready to stand and dress and leave, one of the men was dead beside her. She had no idea how that had happened.

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

Lyrics to Something to Sing About by Joss Whedon shamelessly filked.

    “I told you not to go,” Buffy said.

    “Huh?” The newborn vampire she was fighting looked confused. “You talking to me?”

    “No. Shut up.” Buffy hit him, over and over again. “Have – to stand – on my own! Liar!”

    To be fair, once Buffy had called him on it, Giles had admitted it was a lie. I admit, I don’t like seeing you self-destruct, he’d said. I can’t just sit by and watch it. I have to remove myself from the situation.

    “Remove yourself from the situation,” Buffy muttered under her breath. “I’ll show you removing yourself from the situation!”

    “I really don’t get what you’re talking about,” the vampire said.

    “Hey, dead guy,” Buffy asked, stepping back from the fight for a second. “What’s your name?”

    “Uh... Troy.”

    “Troy, huh? Let me ask you a question. Say you had someone who looked to you as a daughter would.”

    “Uh... I only just started college, but yeah.” He lunged at her, and Buffy smacked him down and straddled him as he lay on his stomach. She wrenched his arm up behind his back in a half-nelson.

    “Okay,” she said into his ear. “Say she was going through a bad patch. Would you then walk off and tell her she had to stand alone?”

    “What? Well, that’s not how they taught us to handle things in peer mediation. Never – oww!– never had a – could you ease up? – a daughter.”

    “What’d they teach you in peer mediation?” Buffy demanded.

    “Oww!”

    “Tell me!”

    “Um... identify depression symptoms, uh... uh... address... any underlying problems... um... lighten workloads, assign a mentor, and... uh... teach meditation... um... and... and peer counseling? Did I get that right?”

    “You tell me!” Buffy barked, twisting his arm.

    “Yeah! Yeah! I got that right!” the vampire said.

    “So tell me,” Buffy said. “When the symptoms are identified and the underlying problem is addressed, and there are no peers left, does it make sense to add to the work load and take away the mentor?”

    “Um... um... no?”

    “That’s right, good boy,” Buffy said, petting the newborn’s head.

    “That leaves meditation,” the newborn said.

    Buffy twisted him and glared into his face. “That’s what I’m doing.”

    The newborn crumbled into dust beneath her as she plunged the stake into his breast.

    “All right, guys.” She looked around at the rest of the nest of vampires she’d uprooted. She’d thought about going after that ice-monster from the museum, but it was too hard to identify. Vampires were just easier to find. “Who’s next?”

    They didn’t look at all keen to come forward. “You said single combat,” one of the newborns said. “Troy was our best fighter.”

    Buffy took in a deep breath and tightened her grip on her stake. “Then you’d better all come at once then,” she said. “Step up, kiddies. Thrashings for all.”

    One of the vampires blinked. “You sound like–”

    “Shut up!” Buffy snapped. “Just – don’t – say it.”

 

***

 

    “Dawnie, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Dawnie!” Willow collapsed on the ground in torment, crying.

    “I so don’t have time for this,” Buffy said over her shoulder. “I have to get Dawn to the hospital, you get that?”

    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I–”

    “Shut up!” Buffy shouted. “I’m taking Dawn. Get up and follow, or lie there in the dust!”

    Willow lay in the dust. Alone.

    It wasn’t until several hours later that Willow and Buffy met up at home. Willow dragged herself in. “You look like shit,” Buffy said.

    “Who are you?”

    Buffy stopped. “What do you mean?”

    “You would never have left a friend in need before.”

    Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Before? You mean before I was dragged out of heaven on the whim of a dark witch, drunk on power?”

    Willow gulped.

    “Jeez, Wil. I was supposed to leave Dawn bleeding and in pain because you chose right then to have an emotional crisis? Well, let me take this opportunity to not care.”

    “I didn’t ever leave you behind when you needed me!” Willow said.

    “Yeah, well, you really should have done!”

    “I was trying to help you,” Willow snapped. “I’ve given up my entire life to help you!”

    “What the hell do you mean?”

    “I mean, I’m going to school here in Hell-butt Sunnydale, for you. I put my life on the line, for you. I lost my girlfriend ‘cause of you.”

    “How is Tara my fault?”

    “It’s the magic that lost her, and I learned all that for you!”

    “Hey, I was never the one pushing you to do magic. You did that all on your own. I thought it was the magic that brought you and Tara together in the first place.”

    “It was, but it’s your fault she’s gone!”

    Buffy grabbed Willow and pushed her up against the door. “Oh, so your addiction is my fault, is it?” she snarled. “I’ve heard this one before. Let me guess, I don’t love you enough!”

    “You don’t love at all!”

    “And whose fault is that!” Buffy pushed her again, then released her and backed off. “What do you want from me, Willow? You want me to be the perfect perky little girl I was when you met me? Well, what the hell are you, these days? Look at me! I’ve been living in hell since I was fifteen years old! I finally get out of it, and you drag me back. And you expect me to be who I used to be? You were a little girl who liked math class. Now you’re a crazed dark witch with a martyr complex, who jumps recklessly into any spell that comes to mind! I don’t see either of us is the same.”

    “Is that why you’re diving into the slaying like there’s no tomorrow?” Willow grabbed Buffy’s arm and dragged up her sleeve, revealing the fang marks. There were a lot of fang marks. Buffy had been diving into nests she would ordinarily have been more careful with, waiting to pick off the vampires one by one. She had also been slaying while drunk, or high, and even though Willow didn’t know this, she’d actually started daring the vampires to bite her first, before she started the fight. It reminded her of Riley, but the pain felt so good. It was that or... try to find another tower. “I’m just trying to survive,” Buffy said.

    “But you’re killing me!”

    “You’re killing yourself! You nearly killed Dawn! She’s got a broken arm, and that demon did a nasty number on her face.”

    “I know,” Willow said. “I know....” She crumpled into tears again. “I need help, Buffy. Aren’t we still friends at all? I was trying to save you! I didn’t mean... I only ever wanted to help.”

    “You want help, you stop the magic. Cold. Now.”

    “I can’t! I tried!”

    Buffy hit the wall by her friend’s head, denting it. “Do it! You want me to drag you kicking and screaming? You did it to me!”

    “I... I need help. I need help, Buffy!”

    Buffy rolled her eyes. “Of course you do. Who the hell doesn’t?” Buffy started wrenching magical talismans off the witch – her pentacle necklace, her opal scrying ring. “Fine. I’ll help. But I’m not your fucking savior.”

    “I thought that was your job description.”

    “I’m a slayer,” Buffy said coldly. “Not a savior. You screw up again, and I’ll slay you if you want, how’s that sound?”

    Willow’s face went pale. Even though Buffy was being – clearly – sarcastic, a big part of Willow couldn’t help but believe her.

***
 

    “Hey, Buffy! New job for you. Some invisible demon robbed the... Buffy?” Willow looked around the trashed living room, Buffy sitting silent and dead-eyed in the rubble. “Buffy?”

    Buffy didn’t answer.

    “Buffy, what’s wrong? You haven’t gone catatonic again, have you?” It suddenly occurred to Willow that the damage that had been done didn’t look like an attack. It looked like Buffy had gone crazy, and trashed the place. “Dawn! Dawn, get down here! Is–”

    “She’s gone,” Buffy whispered.

    Willow was startled. “What?”

    “A social worker came by this morning... for a surprise inspection, she says. It was ‘cause of Dawn’s hospital visit, really. But she looked around... she said....” Buffy suddenly looked up. “This is your fault.”

    “What?” Willow said, bewildered.

    “I was living with a woman – a filthy lesbian, she said.”

    “Hey!” Willow said, though she didn’t doubt the social-worker had said that.

    “And she saw your herbs... and all the occult stuff in the box... and then she saw the marks on my skin... she said... I was a bad influence.”

    “Because you live with a lesbian?” Willow demanded.

    “She insinuated that we were indoctrinating her,” Buffy said. “And that we were abusing her. And when she added it all up, she decided this was a place of clear and present danger, and that Dawn... had to be removed.”

    Willow blinked. “She’s taken Dawn?”

    “She’ll be in an undisclosed foster home until they can get in touch with my dad.”

    Since Hank had been pretty much AWOL since before Joyce died, Willow knew that might take a long, long time.

    “They’re collecting her from school. I don’t even get to say goodbye.”

    “They can’t just do that!”

    Buffy stood up. “They already did! They already had a warning flag on her file. They had a copy of my school records from Mr. Snyder!” They both knew what those probably said.

    “So what do we do? I can do a locating spell, and...”

    “No, you can’t. Remember?” Buffy said. “You decided to play games with power and turned into a fucking monster!”

    “Hey!” Willow said. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be the mom, here! You’re the one who should have made sure this didn’t happen! You should have had a solution in place–”

    “I did!” Buffy snapped. “I died.” Willow flinched as if she’d been punched. “What did you do while I wasn’t here to babysit? Went playing in the dark-arts liquor cabinet.” Buffy shoveled most of the magic gear into the cardboard box and shoved the box into Willow’s arms. “Go,” she said. “Dive in. Find the black, and never climb out. It’s the fate you dumped on me!”

    “I saved your life!”

    “You stole my death!” Buffy shouted. “You selfish, raping, whore! Get out! Get out of my house! Go back to the dorm, or move in with your evil rat friend, or go jump off a god damn tower! Just get out of my sight, and don’t come back!”

    “Buffy!” Willow was shocked. “I’m your friend!”

    “You’re my slaver,” Buffy said. “Now I have to try and find some way of getting Dawn back, and I can’t do that with a filthy lesbo in my house. Get out.”

    “But...” Willow couldn’t even think straight, so she jumped on the only thing she could find in the maelstrom of her mind. “My stuff.”

    “You have twenty-four hours,” Buffy said. “Get Xander to help you. I’m done with you. All of you.”

    Willow glared. “You need us,” she said darkly.

    Buffy glared back. “Thanks to you, I live in hell, my sister’s arm is broken, I’m up to my ears in debt, and I’ve just lost the only thing I still even remotely care about. I think I’ll do better without you.”

    “I think you’re gonna die,” Willow said.

    “Good!”

 

    “You’re it?” Buffy asked Xander. The Magic Box was otherwise empty, and he appeared to be manning the store. “Where’s Anya?”

    “Entertaining some vengeance demon named Hallie,” Xander said.

    “Ugh!” Buffy threw the Doublemeat Burger down on the table and buried her head in her hands. “So much for my friends.”

    “I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” Xander said. “Buffy, what did you think you were doing, throwing Willow out?”

    Buffy glared. “She nearly got Dawn killed. Do you get that? I’ve got too many black marks on me, Dawn’s been taken away.”

    “But Willow needs you right now.”

    “Xander... don’t you get it? I can’t have anyone needing me right now. There’s no me left to give.”

    Xander sat down. “Buffy. I get that you’re in a bad space. I really... I really can’t understand what you’re going through. But I can see what you’re doing. And what you’re doing is self-destructing, and you’re taking all of us with you.”

    Buffy glared at him. “How is this my fault? I didn’t ask to be brought back.”

    “We were trying to save your life. You’re one of my best friends, Buffy. You’re alive. You expect me to be unhappy about that?”

    Buffy closed her eyes and tilted her head to the ceiling. “Why am I alive?”

    “Because we love you.”

    “No, because you all wanted me to take care of all your problems for you!” Buffy said. “I’m the slayer, I’m not Mighty Mouse. I’m made to kill vampires, not micro-manage finances that you and everyone else petered away, or analyze your romances before they implode, or baby-sit runaway witches and help keep them off magic.”

    “Willow’s moved in with Amy,” Xander said. “I think she’s back on the magic.”

    Buffy laughed without a trace of humor. “That was even shorter than the first time.”

    “I know,” Xander said. “That’s what I’m trying to say. Willow needed you to be there for her, and you weren’t.”

    “I needed all of you to be here for me!” Buffy said. “To be here, for me. Instead Spike dusts himself, Giles runs away, and you four decide you need me to play mother hen, so you ignore everything until I get back. What part of this is being here and taking care of the world for me? I died for you, for fuck’s sake!”

    “You died for Dawn.”

    “Yeah, and I’ve lost her, too,” Buffy said. “And now I’ve got this job, and these skeevy burgers. I just hoped some one of you could analyze the thing, ‘cause I–” Buffy stopped.

    “What? What’s so skeevy about it?” Xander said with his mouth full.

    Buffy stared at him. It was eloquent, this moment. The only scooby who actually bothered to show up... and he devoured the only thing she had. “You know what?” Buffy said. “Nothing. It’s just an ordinary burger.”

     Buffy sat back and watched Xander eat.


***
   

    “I’m telling you, you still have a soul, Buffy,” Tara said. “Honestly. I mean, you are a little different, but... that was the whole point of Willow’s spell. To call your soul back.”

    “But I am different? How?”

    “Just... kind of at a cellular level, you’ve got some strange shifts. Nothing that should be affecting your personality or anything. It changed some of your biometrics. Some changes in the energetic balances in your own electro-magnetic field. But nothing that should have broken you or made you less human.”

    “I’m still me?”

    “Yep. Still you.”

    “No. No, this can’t be me,” Buffy said. Tears were starting to well in her eyes. “This can’t be me. This isn’t me, I won’t believe it.”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “Tara... I killed a girl. Two days ago. I... I didn’t even care. There were demons in the woods, and time was all weird, and I hit her, and she went down... and I just looked at her, and I walked away.”

    “You killed someone?”

    “I killed... I’ve been killing all the time,” Buffy said. “Mostly it’s demons, but... but does that make it right? Some of them weren’t even attacking me! They were just... there.”

    “Um... you killed someone?”

    Buffy blinked. “I... I think I did. I didn’t mean to. I was trying to save her. The police... they can’t pinpoint her time of death. They think it was from days before, but... I know it was me. I saw her alive.”

    “Buffy, that doesn’t make any sense.”

    “I don’t make any sense!” Buffy wailed. “What am I doing? Why can’t I stop? Why don’t I care? Why... why I do I only feel like a monster?”

    “You’re not a monster.”

    “I am.” Buffy was crying in earnest now. “I’m a killer and a murderer and a monster.”

    “You’re trying to help people,” Tara said. “Really. It was your calling, to kill demons. It’s okay.”

    “It is not okay!” Buffy sobbed. “Don’t tell me I’m okay! Don’t tell me this is me, don’t tell me I’m normal! Don’t forgive me, Tara! Please! Please don’t forgive me, please! Please!” She fell into the young witch’s lap and sobbed uncontrollably. Even though she’d kind of known this before, it had never hit her quite like this. She was a monster, all by herself. All the death and the sin and the evil... all of that was on her soul.

    She would never get back to heaven. Never, ever again.
    

***

    “Um... happy birthday, Buffy.”

    “Dawn... why?”

    Dawn looked at Buffy through the glass. “I don’t know.”

    “Was the foster family that bad?” Buffy asked.

    “No. Not really. I mean... they’re kind of cold and impersonal, and they were really strict. They made me go to church. But they weren’t why I started stealing.”

    “Why did you?”

    “I don’t know,” Dawn said. “I’ve been doing it ever since Mom died.”

    Buffy blinked. “Why?”

    “I don’t know! I mean, Spike and I broke into the Magic Box to steal Giles’ notes, ‘cause I knew you were hiding something from me. I guess that’s how it started. But then after Mom died I stole the books to try and resurrect her, and then Spike and I stole the egg for that spell, and... I don’t know. It just got to feel like stealing stuff was... doing something. Something to make things better.”

    Buffy sagged. “How much have you stolen?”

    “You mean, all in all, or... or what they’ve caught me on?”

    Buffy closed her eyes. “Both.”

    “Well, I... I kinda lost count, of everything.”

    Buffy swallowed a groan.

    “Some clothes and make-up and art supplies and stuff. But it’s just the ring they got me on, now. I mean, I’ve been caught on some other things before, but it was all petty stuff. But the ring was diamond. I thought it was just rhinestone or something...”

    “Dawn, tell me the truth.”

    “The others were just misdemeanors,” Dawn said. “The ring was technically grand theft. The sentence is a year Buffy!”

    “Well, at least they’re just charging you as a juvenile.”

    “Yeah, but a year in juvie? It’s not fair! Can’t you get me out of it?”

    Buffy stared at Dawn in disbelief. “How?”

    “Couldn’t you just pay a fine or something?”

    “With what money?” Buffy asked. “I killed the demon at the Doublemeat, but they weren’t gonna hire me back.”

    “Well... yeah, but... you’re the slayer! You can do anything!”

    “Dawn... I can’t, baby.”

    “Sure you can. You help everyone with everything, and you won’t help me?”

    “Dawn, what did you think was going to happen? You steal things, eventually you’re gonna get caught. And this wasn’t a one time deal. You’re telling me you’ve been doing this regularly for over a year. You’re already in foster care, that’s one mark against you, and–”

    “And I’ve got you for a crazy sister,” Dawn said with poison in her voice. “That’s gotta be another ten.”

    Buffy was hurt by her words. She kept wishing she’d get too numb to feel pain, but... no. The hurt kept coming. “I can’t do anything here, Dawn,” Buffy said. “You made your bed. You skipped school, you stole, you freaked out all the time. Congratulations, you made it where you were heading.”

    “And you won’t help me?”

    “Help you what? Break out of juvie?”

    Dawn paused, and then shrugged. “You’re strong enough, aren’t you?”

    Buffy lost her temper. “You want me sharing a cell beside Faith? What world do you live in, Dawn? I can’t just snap my fingers and make it so you’re not trapped in there. Not in this world. You’re a criminal. If you get out, you’ll still be a criminal. Call Willow, maybe she can help you become an escaped convict. Hell, you’re a key – unlock your own damn cell!”

    “That wasn’t really what I wanted,” Dawn said, miffed.

    “It sure sounded like it!” She stood up and glared at her sister. “I have enough problems, Dawn. I may end up beside Faith yet. Maybe you’re better off in there.”

    “That’s mean,” Dawn said. “You’re my sister. You’re supposed to help me.”

    “Well,” Buffy said, fighting back the tears. “Maybe you’re better off without me, too.”

 

    “This isn’t why I came here, Buffy,” Riley said.

    “Isn’t it?” Buffy said, looking down on him amidst the broken eggs. They’d been in, of all places, Spike’s abandoned crypt. They’d destroyed the eggs after Buffy had tracked Riley down. The so called “Doctor” was a dead end – he always used local muscle, and had probably skipped town already. Her heart to heart with Riley’s new-squeeze had not been cordial. She’d gone on about how hard it was for Riley to get over Buffy.

    Then why the fuck did he run off? Buffy had gone to Riley to get answers, but all she’d gotten so far was annoying memories of Spike – another asshole who’d claimed he loved her, and then skipped town. Dust still counted as abandoning her, when he’d promised to watch Dawn. She deserved to get something out of Riley for dredging this all up. “Come on, lover. Let’s get it on.”

    “No!” Riley tried to get up.

    “What? I thought this was what you wanted. Me to need you, right? Your blood, your body. Need you the way I never needed you before. Well, how’s this.” She ground her hips over him, and felt his cock give a reluctant twitch.

    He looked disgusted. “Will you get off me! This really isn’t why I came here!”

    “Could have fooled me,” she said. “Oh, Buffy, I have this job, and here change into this in front of me, all adorable and awkward in the car , and oh, I’m married, but I’m not gonna tell you that, or even what the fucking objective was? Isn’t that supposed to be part of the briefing when you call someone in? Bull shit. You just wanted some sweet slayer between your legs.”

    “Get off me, you crazy bitch! I don’t want to fuck you!”

    Buffy got off him roughly enough that he grunted. She must have pinched his balls. “Then why did you come here, Riley? To get under my skin? To show off your new perfect girlfriend and your new perfect job, and show that you didn’t need me?”

    “I... I had this demon I had to...”

    “Bullshit!” Buffy snapped. “You needed me to walk in and break a few eggs? You know you could have called me, and just let me deal with it. My turf remember? Or you could have just come, done your job, and left. Hell, you could have been straight with me when you first walked in the door, instead of being all coy and, ‘I really need your help’ when what you needed was a good kick in the balls.”

    “You’ve always been just fine at that, Buffy,” Riley said with clear anger in his face.

    “Oh, so that’s it,” Buffy said. “You felt your balls all busted, so you came back here to inflate them in my face? Well fuck you, Riley!” Buffy hit him. She hit him so hard in the face that he went flying, and landed against the wall. She came up and stood over him. “You wanted to show me how good you had it, so that I’d feel sorry that I didn’t stop you from leaving. And you want to know what the joke is, Riley? I did.”

    He looked up, dazed. “What?”

    “I ran after you. I pelted with all my pretty little slayer strength and tried to wave down your majestic helicopter, because I was a prissy little girl who thought I needed a normal man in my life, and my friends said you were the kind of guy who comes along once in a lifetime. And you know what I say now? Fucking good!” Buffy bent down and picked him up. “If I never see another pissant insecure fuckhead like you in my life, it’ll be too fucking soon! You lying, cheating, self-deluded addict. You gonna put all your problems on me, you self-centered asshole? Because I didn’t love you enough? I did, Riley. And you know how I know I did? Because I can’t anymore.”

    “What?”

    “That all you can say? What? What?” Buffy mocked. She hit him again, and again. “I can’t love anymore. I can’t live. I can’t breathe. And I can’t even kill myself and go anywhere but hell!” She stopped hitting him. She’d broken something in his face, she knew. “Maybe I should send you there, you self-centered prick. Would you like that?” She came up close to him, held him against the wall, breathed into his ear. “I could bite you. You like that, don’t you. I could bite out your jugular. I’ve seen enough vamp bites, I know how to do it. I’ve got no fangs, but I’m more than strong enough. You like being bitten by murderers, don’t you Riley. Don’t you!”

    “Get away from him!” Buffy turned to see Riley’s wife Samantha with a gun trained on her.

    “Well, if it isn’t the blushing bride,” Buffy said. She stepped away from Riley. “You gonna kill me, Betty Crocker? You know why he came here, don’t you. It wasn’t for your demon.”

    “Riley, get behind me,” Samantha said. “She’s insane.”

    Buffy laughed. “I really really wish I was. Enjoy him, Betty. Keep him away from vampires. He’s got a nasty habit.”

    “He loved you,” Samantha said.

    “Right, right. Took him a whole year to get over me. Then he shouldn’t have been a mentally abusive prick, crying over his pathetic lot as a normal human – oh, wait – military trained commando, and accusing me of cheating on him, while he was off cheating on me with a bunch of fucking vampire whores.”

    Samantha looked surprised.

    “Oh, he didn’t tell you that, did he.” Buffy smiled as she walked away. “Good luck with him, baby. You’re gonna need it.”

***


    “Why’d you do it, Xander?” Buffy asked.

    “I... I don’t know. I couldn’t go through with it. The wedding... forever. Anya...”

    “The vision was false.”

    “Yeah, I figured that out,” Xander said. “But still, it shouldn’t have been that easy to scare me off. And if it was... I just.... We just weren’t ready. I couldn’t face it, that whole future, stretching out in front of me, like this unending train, and no way to get off.”

    Buffy sat down on the couch next to him. “Yeah. It just goes on and on, down this dark tunnel, and there’s no way to escape. There’s no light at the end, just deeper and deeper into the black...”

    “Oh, god, Buffy, don’t cry,” Xander said. “Don’t cry. C’mere.” He put his arm around her, and pulled her close.

    Buffy was almost angry. Don’t cry. I’m miserable, Buffy thought. At least let me cry! But he’d meant it as a comfort, so she didn’t rip his throat out. She deserved a warm arm and a sympathetic shoulder, and someone to lie to her and tell her it was going to be all right, like Xander was doing right now. “You could step off, Xander,” Buffy said through her tears. “I can’t.”

    “I know,” Xander said. “We weren’t trying to hurt you, Buffy. I’m so sorry.” He kissed her forehead.

    It felt good, and Buffy wasn’t used to good feelings. She lifted her face and kissed him back, warmly, on the lips. Then she did it again, and again, and again.

    Xander’s body reacted as she would have expected it to react, even though he himself seemed a little bewildered by what was happening. “Um... um, Buffy,” he said, as she pushed him backwards on the couch.

    Buffy kissed him and kissed him, pushing up under his shirt, quietly ignoring him as he half-heartedly tried to push her hands away.

    “Buffy... this... uh... this really wasn’t what I came here for...”

    “Come on, Xander,” Buffy whispered down at him. He was hard beneath her – his body wanted her, like it had always wanted her. “It was always this. Wasn’t it always leading to this? From the beginning? The first time you brought me back... your lips on mine... have you ever forgotten?”

    “Oh, god!”

    Buffy knew she wasn’t playing fair. She was pulling up teenage fantasies and manipulating him with them as surely as if she’d gotten him drunk. She was using him. She didn’t want to be with Xander, she didn’t love him as anything more than a friend. But his body felt good, and that felt good to her, and she didn’t care enough. “Fuck me, Xander. Do it. Make it complete. You knew it would come to this. You always knew.”

    Xander was lost. With a groan of defeat he rolled over, kissing her with abandon, his head completely thrown.

    “Harder!” Buffy kept saying. “Harder!” Over and over again. She bit him and scratched him and wrapped her legs around him, pulling him inside, desperate to feel... anything.  

    He was inside her when she heard the crunch. Her legs wrapped around him, her arms around his back, trying to pull him ever closer, hard and harder, in a fury of passion. Something gave, and everything from Xander’s hips downward stopped moving. “Ugh! I can’t move! I can’t move my legs!”

    The doctors said he never would again.

 

    “But something’s wrong!”

    D’Hoffryn looked down at Anya. “You were one of my best vengeance demons for over eleven hundred years,” he said. “And then you failed me. I have only now taken you again into my good graces. And now you tell me you’re unhappy?”

    “No,” Anya said. “I mean, yes. I mean, thank you, oh, mighty D’Hoffryn. But something feels wrong. It’s like there’s some... twist that isn’t right. Like I’ve been....”

    “Caught in your own wish?” D’Hoffryn said. Anya looked up. A wicked gleam was in his eye.

    “Yeah...” Anya stared at him. “Do you know something? Do you know what’s happened?”

    “Anyanka, you were an excellent vengeance demon, but you need to learn how to control your emotions. You failed at casting vengeance on the boy when you were summoned to the aid of his former cast-off lover. You allowed your vengeful fixation to morph and mold into affection, and even love. The target of the vengeance was still marked for punishment. Someone had to suffer.”

    “But me?” Anya asked. “I cast vengeance on him, and I still ended up dropped at the altar? It wasn’t supposed to go this way! Not this time. I know it.”

    “Hm...” D’Hoffryn seemed to search the inside of his eyelids. “I do not see this as vengeance against the boy. It is some other wrong, some other vengeance. Though your anger is laced through the whole of it.” He opened his eyes. “Besides, you cannot cast vengeance for yourself. You can only grant another’s wish, not your own. You already know this, Anyanka.”

    Anya rolled her eyes. “But still... it doesn’t seem right. Even when I was still human, none of it seemed right.”

    “As the timelines converge closer to the time when you originally granted the wish, your memory may become clearer. As it is, you can only observe. You must have had a reason. Perhaps things are better now than they were before.”

    “They’re not,” Anya said after D’Hoffryn left. “I already know, they’re not.”
 

***

 

    Buffy carefully pulled things out of Dawn’s closet. She had a trash can, and three large boxes – STORAGE, DONATE, and one labeled DAWN’S.

    Almost all of the stuff from Dawn’s room was going into the storage or donate bins. She wasn’t allowed much of anything in juvie, and Buffy couldn’t keep her things when she wasn’t even keeping most of her own. The house had found a buyer, and she was going to move in with Xander. He had a small room – he said he knew it looked like a closet, but it could be a room in a pinch. He needed help adjusting to life in a wheelchair. Buffy thought it was the least she could do... and she needed somewhere to live.

    An entire life, packed up and, for the most part, thrown out. The stuff going into storage was mostly going to be sold slowly on e-bay. Buffy couldn’t carry Joyce’s life around with her. The only thing from Dawn’s room that she was keeping were her stuffed toys and her journals and her artwork – sentimental things. Dawn’s clothes – hell, she’d have grown out of them by the time she got out of juvie. And lots of them looked suspiciously stolen, now that Buffy had a chance to examine them.

    She dumped another handful of clothes into the “DONATE” box and reached for the back of the closet.

    Her hand met with soft leather, and Buffy rolled her eyes as she pulled the garment out. More shoplifting. Like Dawn could have afforded a leather coat....

    No. She couldn’t possibly have afforded this one. Buffy felt like she’d been slapped. This was Spike’s.

    Buffy held the decades old worn leather in her hands, and found herself shaking. The scent of him wafted up from the neck of the coat, old leather and cigarettes and hair gel and Spike. The tangy spice of demonic essence – almost an incense – with a subtle musk of male, and something distinctly him. A scent that Buffy had learned almost without realizing from the times when he’d fought with her, or held her, and that moment just as they left her house on her last night alive, when he... didn’t kiss her, but got so damn close she almost wanted him to.

    She’d been told Dawn had found ash on Buffy’s grave. Had Spike left the coat there, too? Had Dawn stolen it from his crypt, before or after he’d gone? Had he left it here, for Dawn? Any of them were possible. Dawn had to know it was there, but she hadn’t told Buffy about it. She’d kept the coat a secret, as she’d kept her friendship with Spike as secret as she could.

    The world seemed to close in around Buffy. She dropped the coat on Dawn’s bed and tried to rub her face, dragged her fingers through her hair, tugged on it in an attempt to yank what she was feeling out of her head. In a world too full of torment, why the hell couldn’t he have been there?

    He promised he was going to be there!

    She found herself rolling and sobbing on Dawn’s bed, clutching the worn leather, the scent of the vampire, the symbol of the slain slayer.

    When Xander and Tara showed up – Tara acting as temporary nurse while Buffy was loading the U-Haul – Xander blinked. “Isn’t that...?”

    “Shut up,” Buffy said, hitching the too-large coat around her shoulders. She packed another box into the moving van.
 

***

    Willow could barely see the real world for all the auras surrounding her. She was drunk on the power. She hadn’t been ‘sober’ since before the wedding. “Xander, you’re my best friend,” she said. “And she–” she pointed at Buffy standing in his living room. “She never really loved you. She breaks you, and now you’re with her?”

    “We’re not together, Willow,” Buffy said. “I’m just homeless, and he’s helpless.”

    “Yeah, thanks, Buff,” Xander said sardonically.

    Buffy shrugged. Their cohabitation was awkward as ass, but the practicality of it was undeniable. Neither of them were carrying illusions about what had happened between them, either before or after what had started to be referred to as “the accident.” Xander was still on outpatient status, had to go back to the hospital regularly to see how he was healing and for physical therapy, and Buffy helped with the day to day stuff. He’d lost his job, but was hoping to take up carpentry, do small things from home. This was the first time he’d seen Willow since the wedding. She’d been told he was hurt, but she’d been too far gone to come by before.

    Now he kinda wished she hadn’t.

    “It’s okay now, Xander,” Willow said, pointedly ignoring Buffy. She staggered as she knelt down. Xander couldn’t help but flinch at the blackness in her eyes. He hadn’t seen her at her worst, unlike Buffy. He hadn’t really believed how bad it had gotten. Willow’s hair kept moving as if stirred by wind, or hot air, but there was no reason for it beyond the power charging through her. “It took me too long to realize... I don’t need to fix you. None of the spells do that... like I couldn’t fix Joyce. I can’t remake your spine. I made Osiris remake Buffy, and I called her soul back. But if I just open a dimension, I can take another body. Like the vampire one that crossed over, mine. But... but I found you a human one, okay? I got the right dimension this time and everything. I’ll call over the new body, and I can just move your soul. That’s easy. The spell’s already set, half cast already. I just need some of your blood–”

    “No!”

    Tara stood behind Willow. Willow stood up and blinked at her former lover. “Excuse me?”

    “No, Willow. I’m not going to let you do this.”

    “What are you doing here?” Willow asked. “How did you get here?”

    “I had a divination on you, in case you were going to do something really dangerous.”

    “You set a divination on me?” Willow looked angry. “After bitching about memory spells, you set a watchward on me?”

    “It was to make sure you didn’t try to do something like this,” Tara said. “Shunting around souls, opening dimensions. I shouldn’t have let you do it to Buffy.”

    “Let me? You helped me!”

    “And look what it did to you,” Tara said. “I can’t let you do it again, honey. I can’t.”

    “You don’t get to stop me.”

    “Yes. I do. I have to.”

    “Forget it!” Willow snapped. She looked at the magics surrounding her and found the odd thread among them. “There’s your watchward. I say that to your watchward!” She grabbed the thread and pulled it out.

    She could have just cut it off her, like any other witch would have, but she was angry. Instead she yanked, dragging the magic that empowered it out of Tara.

    It wasn’t until after she’d sucked it in that she realized what she’d done. Tara wasn’t as powerful as Willow, not by a long chalk. The only way she could power a spell on a witch as strong as Willow was by using her own life force.

    Tara went white, gasped once, and without another word, the young witch fell like a stone.  

 

 

    “No!” Anya shouted. “I can’t let you have those books, Willow.”

    “I need more power.” Willow’s intonation seemed to rock the Magic Box, and Anya was shaken. Was this what had ultimately come of her wish? Willow, black hair and dark eyes, reaching out the blackest of black magics. Anya had almost expected it, but... things still seemed off. It was too soon... or wrong... or... something didn’t seem right. Willow was not feeling vengeful. She should have been feeling vengeful. Instead there was a hatred and a self-loathing that Anya couldn’t sense with her vengeance-demon-powers, but could almost taste in the air rolling off the witch. Willow put her hands into the tomes and sucked up all their magic through her skin.

    “Why?” Anya asked. “I mean, if you wanted to take vengeance, I get that, but what–”

    “Shush,” Willow said. “Osiris!” she shouted. “I demand you come to me now!”

    “It won’t work,” said a clear British voice from the door of the magic box. Giles stood there, Buffy behind him, panting. She’d run all the way there at Giles’ call. Xander had been left at home, dealing with the aftermath of Tara. “The coven sensed you were about to crack,” Giles said. “We’ve sealed off the realms of the gods. Locked all the doors between worlds. You will not be able to contact Osiris again, and all the power in the world won’t force his hand. They sent me to contain you before–”

    Willow didn’t even let Giles finish talking before she moved her hand and ripped his head off. It was visceral, bloody, nothing like what cerebral Willow would have done. “Willow!”

    “Did you know rats will eat each other?” Willow said conversationally to Buffy. “Tear each other apart and nibble nibble nibble. Amy taught me that. I needed her power to cast the spell on Xander. She didn’t want to give it to me.” She lowered her head and looked up at Buffy through dark eyes. “Did you know how delicious someone’s soul can be?” she said. “Do you know? Do you know what I did? What I’d done? I was going to make Xander better. I can make Tara all better.” She looked at Giles’ decapitated corpse as if she herself were only a rat.

    “The dimensional doors are locked, Willow.”

    Willow’s head tilted again. “Then all I need is a key.”

    Without warning Dawn stood there in the middle of the Magic Box, still in her yellow Juvenile Detention uniform. She blinked, and then looked happy to see Willow and Buffy. “Willow? Buffy? You got me out!” Then she looked nervous. “Um... maybe.... Thanks. I’m sorry I was so mad, but... it’s only a year, and... they’ve taken time off already, ‘cause I’m doing good in my school work.” Buffy ran up to her, terrified. Dawn hadn’t caught on to what was happening to Willow. “No really, Buffy, it doesn’t look so bad these days. The counseling sessions are helping a lot. Like, helping me deal with Mom and stuff. It means a lot you came to get me, but maybe you should put me back?”

    “I’ll put you back, Dawnie,” Willow said with disturbing charm. “I’ll put you right back where you came from.”

    Buffy caught on to what Willow intended a second before she did it. “No!” she shouted, as Dawn dissolved into a glowing orb of green energy, which sank into Willow’s hands.
    

***
 

    Anya picked herself up from the pool of blood left by Giles’s corpse and forced herself to look at the fell creature in the center of the room.

    Willow was very dead, that was clear. She was almost a burnt husk. Dawn was still there – sort of – hovering as a green light between the dark slayer’s hands. Anya had only caught glimpses of what happened. Willow dissolved Dawn, to get the power of the key so she could open the dimensional walls to get Tara back. But then Buffy had grabbed for Dawn, and seemed to be sucked into the witch along with the key’s energy.

    Anya had seen things like that before – those monks had tapped into Buffy’s blood energy, and with Buffy touching Dawn, Willow had tried to draw in the slayer, too. Like she’d drawn in Amy. But Buffy was the personification of strength. Connected by the key, the two were as one for a single moment, mirror images of power. Once the witch and the slayer had the same power, none of Willow’s grief and self-hatred could withstand Buffy’s.

    Willow had fried before she’d even known what she’d done.

    Buffy stood staring at the power left in her hands. Her own blond hair had gone white – not the clear white of purity, but the death-white of age. With Spike’s coat around her shoulders, she almost looked as if she were trying to become him, but even with his game face, Spike had never looked so deadly.

    And the truth clicked in Anya’s head. That was her vengeance spell. She didn’t have all the details yet – time hadn’t caught up completely. But whatever the vengeance was supposed to be for must have been meant to happen tonight, or soon. It was Spike. He had done something to wrong Buffy, and left the doors open for a vengeance spell.

    And whatever that wish had been, had left the world like this. Anya felt actively sick.

    “Dawn...” Buffy whispered. Her eyes glowed bottle green, like the power in her hands.

    “It isn’t supposed to be like this, Buffy,” Anya said. It was the bravest thing she’d ever done, drawing the attention of that dark force.

    Buffy’s eyes twitched toward Anya, and two laser spots of green touched the vengeance demon’s face. Anya swallowed. “It wasn’t supposed to be this bad. We’re all caught in a wish. A vengeance wish, that I cast.”

    “You granted a wish?” Buffy asked. “Whose?”

    “Yours, I think,” Anya said.

    “Vengeance? Against Willow?”

    Anya shook her head. “No. Spike. I don’t know what happened, I got caught in it too. But the time line has been changed. All of this... Willow, Giles, Dawn... none of them are supposed to be dead.”

    “Why not?” Buffy asked dully. “Death comes to everyone, right? Death is my gift. That’s what I bring. I wished Spike dead? And everyone died, right? I’m a slayer,” she said. “I slay. My gift... but not my gift. My gift has been taken away. My chance at peace... my only chance...”

    “I can take the wish away, Buffy, but you have to wish it, too. If you still want to keep the vengeance, it’s stuck. You have to change your mind.”

    “Change my mind? For something I can’t even remember? Forgive a crime when I don’t know what it is?”

    “How bad could it be?” Anya gestured around the charnel-house of the Magic Box. “Yeah, I guess you wished him dead, but what the hell are we in the middle of now?”

    “Hell,” Buffy said. “We’re in the middle of hell. I knew from the moment I opened my eyes.”

    Anya took a step toward her. “Just let me undo the wish, Buffy,” she said. “The power’s eating your mind, corrupting your soul. Willow, and Amy, and Tara, and Giles and Dawn, they’re all in you now. If we kill this wish, maybe we can bring some of them back–”

    “Bring them back?” Buffy said. “Bring back the dead? Let’s just bring them all back, why don’t we? That’s what we do, right? Bring back the dead?” She looked down at her hands. “I have the key. I went through that door. The door’s still there.” She could see it, in her mind, there beneath the earth, the path her soul had traveled to return to her body, lodged in its coffin. It was sitting there, glowing, a bright golden light in her awareness, halfway across town. All she’d have to do is put the key in the lock... put her hands on the earth... and the gates of heaven would open again.

    She couldn’t cross through, of course. Her soul was too corrupted. But... why not make heaven on earth?

    Or at least... bring everyone in it down to hell.

    Buffy started to move, and the world shifted with her. It didn’t feel like walking, or flying, just as if she leaned forward and the world shifted to put her where she wanted to be. She stood in the moonlight before a headstone which no one had bothered to take down.

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS

She saved the world a lot.

    Buffy stared at it for a moment, still feeling the path beneath her feet, the door locked, just waiting for the key to open Heaven. She pointed her hands at the ground. The energy poured from her like blood (like blood, like Dawn’s blood) and pooled around her, and the door quietly opened, like a budding flower. Souls, invisible, but with a weight of eternity clinging to them, began to pour out. Buffy could feel them. She could hear them. Screaming.

    The earth trembled under their weight.

    “Slayer,” said a voice behind her. “I think that’s my coat.”

 

    Buffy stared at the apparition, power crackling off her fingers. Spike, black shirt, tight jeans, his blue eyes bright and sad. “Where the hell did you come from?” Her voice sounded a thousand miles away, rumbling like it came through a dark tunnel.

    “Dunno,” Spike said. He spoke very softly, as if before a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. “One second I was staking a fledge who’d come to spit on your grave... and the next I was here. Looking at... you. Now since it was the end of summer, and with those daffodils over there this is obviously spring... I must have skipped something.”

    “You’re not supposed to be here.”

    “Neither are you,” he said. He took in Buffy’s bone-white hair and her crackling fell power. “You don’t look so good.”

    Buffy’s head tilted as she stared at him. “They said you’d dusted,” she said, low rumbling roar of power.

    Spike shook his head and took a step forward. “Had to watch the bit, didn’t I?” he said. “I promised. She had my coat, there’d been a chill the night before. She’s okay, yeah?”

    “Yeah...” Buffy said, opening up her hands. “She’s right here.” Green energy shimmered around her hands. Spike’s eyes widened in horror. “I can’t bring her back. But I can bring Tara. And Mom. And everyone. The door’s right by my feet,” she said. “All I had to do was use the key. Open the doors of Heaven, and everyone can come here.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I can’t get back. But I can bring it... here.”

    “And what’ll that do to here?”

    “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “Destroy it, I hope. This place is hell.”

    “It can be pretty bad sometimes,” Spike said carefully. “You got brought outta heaven, then. Knew that’s where you’d be.”

    “Did you?” Buffy said coldly. “You were the only one.”

    Spike shook his head. “Nah, niblet and I knew where you’d be. Had to be, didn’ you.”

    “I’m not there now,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be.”

    He took another step toward her. “Sure you do,” he said. “You’re the slayer. That’s your gift. Your final reward. I always knew that.”

    Buffy took a step back. “Slayer of slayers. You can’t send me there. Not any more,” she said. “My soul’s black as hell. I don’t deserve heaven. No one deserves it.”

    “Course not,” Spike said. “If anyone really got what they deserved, it wouldn’t be  heaven, would it. No one’s a saint.”

    “You’re not,” Buffy said.

    “Preaching gospel, there,” Spike said. “But what brought that on?”

    “Anya says I wished you vengeance.”

    Spike raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What for?”

    Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know. You did something horrible to me. You wronged me.”

    Spike gazed at her. “I don’t doubt it. So what am I doing back here?”

    “I don’t know,” Buffy said. “I thought I’d wished you dead.” Whatever she’d wished, it hadn’t been for Spike’s death.

    She was curious about that, actually. Power was sluicing off of her. She caught a thread of it and pulled. Find the wish. An image appeared just at the edge of the grave. There she was, her and Xander at their favorite table in the Bronze, chatting sadly over drinks. “Just... if he was gonna be so evil and that, and it was gonna mess you up... I don’t know. I just wish he hadn’t been the one you felt you could turn to. I wish he and his wacked out evil-playing-good thing just hadn’t been there to confuse you when you were brought back.”

    Buffy’s eyes were distant.“Yeah. Me too.”

    The vision faded out.

    “That was your wish?” Spike asked.

    “Must have been. I guess this is when you stopped being there to confuse me.” When the wish had run its course, and Anya had remembered she’d cast it. It was all the same thing.

    “So you popped me out until the time you weren’t confused by me anymore. And... that did this, did it?” Spike asked. The earth rumbled beneath their feet. The gates of heaven were opening. Hundreds of millions of souls from Buffy’s own corner of heaven, screaming as their peace was dragged away. Earth could feel their horror. It groaned in torment.

    “Yes,” Buffy said.

    “Is there any way to stop it?”

    Buffy shook her head. “Anya says she could take it back. But I don’t want to.”

    Spike looked at her. “You’d rather do this?” he asked. “Dawn naught but green energy, Tara... gone, apparently. Dead?”

    “And Willow and Giles and Amy. Whoever was in your crypt. I’ve been killing... people. I broke Xander’s back.”

    “Sounds fun. And what about you?”

    “I’m just a slayer.”

    “But what about Buffy?” Spike asked.

    “I am The Slayer.”

    Spike nodded. “So Buffy too, then. The world cracking open. That’s better than what I did, is it?”

    Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know what you did.”

    “Sure looked pretty peaceful,” Spike said. “You, the whelp, a good drink. Can’t have been all bad.”

    “You did me wrong,” Buffy said. “You hurt me.”

    Spike blinked. “And you’re not hurting now?”

    “How can you tell?”

    Spike almost laughed. “Oh, Buffy, I can always tell. You reach right inside me and tear me right through whenever you’re hurting.” He took another step toward her, and she didn’t back away. “I’ve never seen you hurting so bad.”

    Buffy’s face crumpled, but she still didn’t cry. “I hate you,” she whimpered.

    “Good,” he said. “Buffy... it’s all right. If you need to turn me into a monster, to keep yourself from becoming one... I can do that.”

    “What?”

    Spike took one final step, and then he was right there. His hand reached out and gingerly, ever so gently, cupped her cheek. His cool fingers smelled of cigarettes and she could feel... she could feel them. She could feel him. “If you can take it back, take it back,” he whispered. “Hate me. Be confused by me. Whatever I did, why ever I left, it can’t be worse than this. Can it?”

    Tears slid out of Buffy’s eyes. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

    “You scare the hell out of me, slayer,” Spike said. “What do you say you take it back? We can be scared and confused and hate each other together. I’ll do you wrong. You’ll do me wrong. And in the end you’ll sit around a table in the Bronze with your mates and bitch about what an awful guy I am, deal?”

    “I don’t know what happened.”

    “Whatever it was, it was with us together, right?”

    Buffy shook her head. “You might be dead.”

    “I’m already dead,” he said. “This,” he glanced around at the groaning earth and the wind whipping with screaming souls. “This is what happened when I wasn’t there. Look back... to when you were brought back, however that happened. What do you wish?”

    Buffy looked back. Giles, injured and bitter. Non-violent demons, dead at her feet. That night in the bar. That girl in the cemetery. Dawn taken away. Willow, lost. Riley. Xander. Anya. Tara. Dawn...

    She’d just wanted someone to be quiet with. Someone who understood what she was going through. Someone who knew the darkness inside.

    “I wish you’d been there,” she whispered.

    “Me too, pet,” Spike whispered. He leaned forward to kiss her, gently, chaste, smooth cool lips against hers. “Me too.”
 

 

***
 

    Buffy came back to her own reality with a bump. She stood up from her chair at the Bronze and turned to glare at Anya.

    The vengeance demon stood up from her shadowy corner and faced Buffy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know how bad it would get. It was your wish! I was just giving you what you wanted!”

    “You nearly ended the planet,” Buffy snapped.

    “Buffy, what are you talking about?” Xander asked.

    Buffy blinked, already unsure. Things were going fuzzy, as if she was trying to remember a dream. Only disconnected bits and pieces fluttered like mad bats in her memory.

    “To be fair, you weren’t any worse than crazy dark Willow,” Anya said.

    “I was breaking dimensions, not just this world,” Buffy said. “I was about to open... to open....” She couldn’t remember.

    Anya recognized the confusion in Buffy’s eyes. “Don’t worry about it. The memory’s gonna fade really fast. Even mine’s getting murky. I’ll remember enough not to do that again, but I was human for most of that too, you know. I won’t be able to hold it for long.”

    “Buffy, what happened?”

    “She cast a vengeance on Spike!” Buffy snapped.

    “And I took it back!” Anya said. “I’m not supposed to do that. D’Hoffryn’s gonna be pissed as all hell. You owe me!”

    “You know, Anya,” Xander said, getting up and asserting himself. “I’m sorry, but you’ve just about used up your sympathy vouchers!”

    “Oh, go screw yourself, Xander,” Anya barked. “Better yet, go screw her!” Anya grabbed her purse and stalked off.

    Buffy blushed.

    “Um... what is she talking about?” Xander asked awkwardly.

    “I don’t really remember,” Buffy lied. Except by the time she said it, it wasn’t even a lie anymore.

    “So she let us wish Spike gone?” Xander asked. He scoffed. “Shoulda let it stand.”

    Buffy felt too cold and still to respond. Without a word she turned and walked calmly away.

    She walked home slowly, trying to pin down the memories in her mind, but they were elusive. Dream-like, by the time she got home, all she really remembered was the emotion. Such loneliness and emptiness. Such a profound sense of something missing, it left her feeling almost hollow inside.

    Dawn was in her room when Buffy got home, reading a magazine, sucking on a popsicle and listening to some rock-band playing too loud on her CD player. “You finish your homework?” Buffy asked.

    “I still got some reading to do,” Dawn said without taking her eyes off the magazine.

    “That it?”

    “Its nearly summer!” Dawn whined. “Can’t I skip it?” Buffy turned off the music and Dawn rolled her eyes. “Buff-yyyy.”

    “You do your homework, and look nice and pretty for the social-workers, so I look like a model parent,” Buffy said. “You don’t wanna get taken away.”

    “I’m not gonna get taken away,” Dawn muttered, even as she reached into her backpack for her school book.

    “You’ll end up in juvie, you delinquent,” Buffy laughed.

    “Pest.”

    “Brat,” Buffy said.

    “Oh, Willow called!” Dawn called after Buffy as she left the room, and Buffy popped her head back in. “Message by the answering machine. She said she sensed some kind of time-flux?”

    “Just a vengeance wish,” Buffy said. “Already sorted.”

    “Anya again?”

    “It’s done,” Buffy said. “Finish your homework. Night Dawn.”

    “Night!”

    Buffy went into her room and shut the door. Then she went to her closet.

    The memories were almost completely gone by now. Even the hollow sense of loss was muted. Nevertheless, Buffy reached into her closet and pulled it out. The coat Spike had left, the night he ran away.

    The coat was heavy in her hands, solid, like a body. There was so much pain associated with his memory. So much anger, so much confusion. That moment in her bathroom still scraped her raw, and haunted her sometimes when she closed her eyes. It hadn’t been so very long ago. “You monster,” she whispered to the coat.

    Then she held it to her nose and breathed in the scent of him – old leather and cigarettes and hair gel and his unique demonic essence. Other memories washed over her – his quiet wonder as she came down the stairs, his earnest grief as he spoke to her in his still crypt, the awe on his face when she’d finally claimed his body in the abandoned house. His stunned sadness when she told him it was over. And that moment in the Bronze when he had caught her. Caught her before she could burn to cinders. You’ll get along. The pain that you feel you only can heal by living.

    “Tell me again why I could never love you,” she whispered.

    It didn’t matter. It was what it was. She just wished... she hoped... he was still out there somewhere. Alive. Getting into trouble. Being confusing, goodish and evil and everything in between.

    It didn’t seem right, Spike not being there.