Author's Note: Thanks again to Kar for the beta job. I don't think I'll always be posting chapters so rapidly, but I had a few near ready when I decided it was time to take the plunge and post already.

I was also thrilled to see reviews! Please, keep the feedback coming.

In our second installment, Buffy makes with the true and false confessions, but are all the Scoobies buying it?

As noted in the summary, dialog may be familiar in the early chapters. There will be greater divergence from canon soon, I swear…

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So much expected of her. To function like a normal adult. No crawling into her mother's bed at night or hiding in her room all day. No, time to pick up the sword again, and fight evil again, and shop and talk and bleed and live again.

She'd come back from Spike's crypt into a war zone. Maybe she would just go back there. It was cool and dark and he seemed happy to love at her from a distance instead of having to cuddle and coddle and pepper her with questions. She had her own questions. She missed Giles. Did he know she was back? Did her dad know? Did Angel? Did they even know she'd been gone?

She wanted answers. They wanted thanks, so she gave it to them.

"Look, you guys, um, there's this thing..." She faltered. " I'm just gonna say it. You brought me back. I was in a ... I was in hell. I, um, I can't think too much about what it was like. But it felt like the world abandoned me there. And then suddenly, you guys did what you did."

Tara looked so sincere in made her chest hurt. "It was Willow. She knew what to do."

"Okay. So you did that. And the world came rushing back. Thank you. You guys gave me the world." She had to stop to breath. It hurt so much, and it was so much work. "I can't tell you what it means to me. And I should have said it before."

Willow was near tears. "You're welcome."

"Welcome home, Buffy." Xander put one gentle hand on her shoulder and it became a group hug that she forced herself to endure.

He was waiting outside, of course. She got the impression he was never far away.

"Spike," she paused and tried to sound like a normal person. "It's daylight and you're-"

"Not on fire? Sun's low enough, shady enough here. I was gonna go inside, but I overheard you and the Superfriends exchanging a special moment, and I came over a bit queasy." He paused to take a drag. She watched the smoke curl up; weird to see him against the sunshine. "Say, aren't you leaving a hole in the middle of some soggy group hug?"

She shrugged. Why did he have to be right about everything? "Just wanted a little time alone." She saw him start up and waved him off. "That's okay. I can be alone with you here."

"Thanks ever so."

She ignored his tone. She so didn’t need his issues on top of her own. "Right."

"Buff-- Slayer? Are you okay?"

She sighed. She was getting tired of sighing. “I don’t have any clothes.”

He gave her the eyebrow. “I’ve had this dream before.”

The sound she made was something between a laugh and a snort. “I mean Mom gave my stuff to Goodwill. Except for like four outfits the robot picked out.”

He had the good grace to look a little embarrassed at that. She saw it again, the busted bot, pieces of herself scattered on the asphalt; her own vacant face staring up at her. And how weird that it had been with her family all summer, like some sort of ghost in cute boots making terrible puns with a dead girl's voice.

Sensing her change in mood, Spike called her name.

"I'm here." She kicked at a chunk of broken sidewalk. "I'm good."

"Buffy,” he went stammering on, “if you're in ... if you're in pain, or if you need anything, or if I can do anything for you..."

She wouldn't scream. It wasn't his fault. "You can't." Well, maybe he could. It would hurt, of course, all that electricity bursting through his brain, but then again her blood would heal him right up. But he’d never do it. Because he loved her.

And vampires who loved her could never give her the things she really wanted.

“What you said in there…” he trailed off and took a deep drag, like maybe he’d thought better of whatever he was going to ask her.

“What, Spike?”

“On the tower, you asked me if this was hell…”

She took a deep breath. He was asking for the truth, and for some reason she wanted to tell him. "I was happy,” she announced to the wall behind him. No way could she look at him and keep her voice calm. “Wherever I was, I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time ... didn't mean anything, nothing had form, but I was still me, you know? And I was warm and I was loved and I was finished. Complete." She shivered from the memory.

"I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or ... any of it, really. But I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out. By my friends. Everything here is ... hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that ... knowing what I've lost..."

She walked into the sunlight where he couldn't follow. She didn't dare look back. "They can never know. Never."

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His brain hurt.

Buffy was back, and she was okay. They’d gotten her out of hell, and she was okay.

Only she didn’t seem okay. She didn’t really seem happy either. You’d think a person would be thrilled, or at least relieved, to be back from hell. They should be having a celebratory pizza or whooping it up at the Bronze over beers. Instead she’d made her big announcement and then disappeared.

Nobody else seemed bothered. Anya was riffling through receipts, and Willow and Tara were flipping through some spell book and flirting at each other like it was just another day. At least until Willow mentioned a forgetting spell, an idea Tara wasn’t too keen on. Him either.

He found himself looking at Willow and wondering when they’d stopped being best buds. Did he even know her anymore? The blood and the snakes; what had that all been about? And he hated – really, really hated – to have to actually consider that Spike might have said something worth hearing, let alone agree with the guy. But, had Willow known what could happen? And if she didn’t know, was that worse? After all, bringing someone back from the dead? Thorough research would seem to be called for.

Anya was changing on him too. His frugal sweetheart was suddenly determined to throw away their savings on one big lace-covered, champagne-soaked day. Couldn’t they just go to Vegas? And was she serious about D’Hofryn giving her away?

Spike was lounging in the alley when he brought the trash out. He thought about making some crack about how the trash was already there, but Spike looked like he might have been crying which was freaksome, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Slayer went home,” Spike informed him.

He wiped his hands on his thighs and studied the sunlight. He needed to get to the job site. But maybe he should blow it off and go find Buffy. Or maybe if she'd wanted to talk, she wouldn't have left the place where her talking buddies were assembled. The giving of space seemed to be called for.

“Did she seem okay to you?”

Spike gave him a look long. “Not really, no.”

And again with the Spike agreement.

His brain really hurt.