“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!”