Author’s Notes: Thanks again to Kar for beta and youall for the comments. I realize I said that updates would be slowing down, and they will after this. I was keeping this one in reserve, but decided to go ahead and post even though five isn’t quite ready yet.

In our fourth installment, Buffy has a bad day, Spike has a nice evening, and Joyce has a plan.

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Buffy glanced back at the trashed construction site. Vince and the others picked up debris, muttering things she was kinda glad she couldn't hear in her general direction. So much for Day-Labor-Buffy. Her day was going from bad to worse. "I didn't imagine this, Xander."

"I know," he reassured her. "I believe you. In fact, I'm starting to think between this attack and the school thing that somebody's messing with you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Popular pastime lately."

He put a big warm Xander hand on her shoulder. "Would you like to explain that? Because I'd really like to know what's going on with you."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Xander, I'm fine. I'll just get Giles on it. It's no big."

He shook his head. "I'm pretty sure there's a big. You're just not telling me what it is."

It was tempting, it really was, to put her head on his shoulder and unload on him, but she couldn't do that. It was her duty to protect people, especially her friends, even from themselves. No way was she going to break Xander's big heart by telling him what they'd done to her. After all, it had been her heart once, too.

So she fudged, just a little. "Mom's sick, Dawn's in a permanent snit at me, and seeing Angel...." Seeing Angel had given her a stomach ache, but at least the skeptical look left Xander's face. Of course Xander would buy Angel as an excuse for trouble in Buffy-world. It certainly wasn't without precedent. "I guess I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Harris!" Tony bellowed. "Those guys hang that drywall wrong and it's your ass!"

"Go," she ordered gently. "I'll see you at the ‘Box later." She gave him a big smile and backed away quickly before he could protest.

She had hoped Giles would help her look up the melting demons right away, but the shop was bustling, and instead he handed her a 'trainee' badge. And her day just kept on gettin’ better.


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They were all completely off their nuts. Did they really think it would help, forcing her to pretend to be a normal girl? She’d not been a normal girl for years and now even less so.

She’d been a particular state after coming back from her trek to Los Angeles. They’d gotten three blocks from the house when the M’Fashnik crossed their path, and then he’d ended up following her to the Espresso Pump for a latte and a celebratory stack of cookies. She’d been sailing along on a sugar high until she got home to find she’d missed a phone call from Angel. So of course she’d gotten all solemn and gone rushing off to see him and come back sad-faced and defeated.

Not the most propitious time to embark on a new career.

He was just dumb enough to be glad of being her confessor. Just besotted enough not to care that she was only out with him because he didn’t count. She was there, and it was enough.

He guided her stumbling body back toward the house as she muttered on under her breath. Only person I can even stand to be around, she’d called him earlier. Should he be glad of being deemed a person? Christ, she made his head hurt. Her own head was going to be beastly sore in the morning.

“… thought it would help, but she seems to have clammed up even more. She wouldn’t even tell me where she was going tonight, just ‘out’, the way she used to when she was sixteen.”

Joyce and Rupert, having a little summit on Buffy. He stopped walking. Buffy slumped against the tree and slid down on her bum.

“We’ve no idea what’s she’s been through, and she’s clearly traumatized.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried talking to her.”

“So have I. She’s not terribly forthcoming.”

“I don’t think she can talk about it.”

The Slayer lurched up and ambled toward the porch before he could stop her. “I’m fine!” she screamed at them. “Maybe everyone could just let me alone to be fine, and quit telling me what to do with my life because I think I’ve had plenty of other people messing around with my life thanks, and oh! Spinning!”

He reached out to catch her as she pitched forward and looked up to see the two of them staring down at them with matching looks of supreme disappointment.

“Oh, Buffy,” Joyce sighed.

“Lecture later,” Buffy muttered.

“Buffy, this is really--”

“Lecture later,” the Slayer insisted. “Or I’m going home with Spike.”

He willed them to open their mouths, but they seemed to have taken her seriously. He readjusted his grip and helped her up the stairs. “Come on, Slayer.” He coaxed her into drinking some water and then deposited her on the bed.

“You were right,” she sighed. “That was kinda fun.”

He grinned down at her and she grinned back.

“I’m going to pay for this tomorrow, right?”

He chuckled at her. “Yeah.”

“Spike?” Her tone was serious. He braced for a rejection the whole time as he lowered himself to sit next to her on the bed. Huge eyes and furrowed brow. “I can’t tell them.”

“Go to sleep, Slayer.”

She nodded and curled up atop her bed clothes. “You can go out the window, if you want to avoid the parentals.”

“Good plan,” he acknowledged.

He smoothed back her hair and got a tired smile before letting himself out. She’d had a good time. With him.

Now it was time to find out who was messing with his girl.

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Sometimes they seemed to forget, all of them, that she’d known her daughter longer than any of them. It took a lot of effort to smother a laugh when she saw the look on Spike’s face when he realized his getaway wasn’t going to be clean.

“Joyce.”

Oh, he was going to play it cool. A nod, followed by patting his jacket down for cigarettes, then lighting up and leaning back against the tree.

“Look Spike, I really appreciate everything you did for us this summer—“

“Right,” he cut her off. “So this would be the ‘stay away from my daughter’ speech then?”

Joyce sighed. “Somehow I don’t think that would have much affect,” she admitted. For better or worse, he wasn't Angel and she wasn't even going to try to run him off. Besides, Buffy needed someone to watch her back, at least until she got back on her feet. And Spike was certainly willing to watch her back. It was the amount of attention he paid the rest of her that worried Joyce.

She watched him waiting for her to go on. It was so hard to get a read on him. How old was he? Well, old, she knew that. At the moment though, he seemed like a nervous teenager, all jumpy but full of swagger.

"Buffy talks to you," she pointed out. "There's something she isn't telling me, isn't there? Something she's told you."

He looked so nervous that she knew it was true. "I can't--"

"I'm not asking you to," she assured him. "I just needed to know. Goodnight, Spike." She left him to contemplate his smoke and went up to check on her daughters.

Dawn was snoring softly, gangly legs tangled in her bedspread. Buffy was staring at Mr. Gordo in the dark. "Sweetie?"

"Hi Mom."

"Can I get you anything?"

"No."

There was so much misery in her daughter's voice. She took a seat on the bed and pushed a few damp strands of hair off her daughter's wet face. She felt Buffy's shoulders hitch under her hand. "Buffy, if there's anything you want to tell me..."

Buffy pushed herself up and scrubbed at her face. "I'm not supposed to be here," she sputtered out.

Joyce gave her arm a squeeze. "Oh, Buffy."

"I can't go back," she sniffed.

"No, of course not, baby. No one's going to send you back to that place."

At this, Buffy's tears began again and she sobbed against her mother's shoulder. Joyce gathered her in close and rocked her until she could feel her slump against her neck, asleep.

She rubbed her daughter's back gently, the way she had when Buffy was a child and would wake up with nightmares. She'd been tempted to do the same a few times with the robot, who had looked so much like Buffy. Finally, she had told Willow to either move it to the basement or she and Tara could take it back to their dorm room, but she wasn't letting it sleep in her dead daughter's bed anymore.

The real, living Buffy felt hot under her hand. Maybe they had pushed her too hard, urging her into a new routine when she was still reeling from her resurrection, but sitting at home all day staring at the walls wasn't healthy either. And Buffy was keeping something from her.

Her head throbbed. The doctors swore the shots and pills were working, but she was dubious. She needed some relaxation and so did Buffy. Halloween was coming up, the official Slayer's Night Off. Maybe they could hit the spa, come home all refreshed and spend the night watching old movies. Maybe she'd even relax enough to tell her mother just what was going on with her.

And if it didn't work, at least she'd have a fresh manicure at the end of the day. It was important to look on the bright side. For one thing, it was a lot less cluttered.