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Pieces of Me by xaphania
 
Chapter Two
 
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Chapter Two

Buffy managed to give Spike some pathetic excuse about needing to be home for Dawn before hightailing it out of Restfield and towards Revello Drive, her new Imaginary Friend hot on her heels.

She’d left Spike standing next to the Anderson crypt, scratching his head and the cutest look of confusion on his face. She frowned as her thoughts caught up with her. Bad Buffy, no thinking Spike is cute!

Ned trotted alongside her, chattering about his previous assignment – a seven-year-old girl in New York, who’d been recently orphaned, who he’d stayed with for a year until she settled with a foster family. Buffy tuned him out when he started talking about a game he and little Stephy had played, and turned her thoughts to more pressing matters.

She was a recently deceased twenty-year-old vampire slayer with a mystical Key for a sister, a lovesick vampire hanging on her every word, a power-hungry witch as a best friend, and now she was all that and had an Imaginary Friend. Life sucked.

Just the fact that Ned had been sent to her in the first place threw her for a loop. Yes, okay, she had issues but didn’t everyone? Xander had issues – big, life-changing, marriage issues – but did he get an Imaginary Friend? Surely Dawn was the poster-child for the soul-searching services of Ned McNabb, not her?

She sighed.

“What’s up, darlin’?” Ned asked.

“Nothing,” Buffy said, “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Ned sighed. “First rule of having me as your Imaginary Friend: no lying. You lie, we get nowhere, I stick around for years and years. So you tell me what’s bothering you, and I try to help. See?”

“Fine,” she heaved a sigh and gazed at the surface of the road. There were potholes. “I guess I just don’t understand why I of all people need the Imaginary Friend – there are plenty of others out there with problems, too.”

“And a whole host of them will be getting help from one of us, too,” Ned said.

Buffy stared. “This kind of thing happens a lot? Why don’t I ever see other people talking to thin air then?”

“Because once most of them realise what’s going on, they tend to keep their conversations with their Imaginary Friend private.”

“Oh,” Buffy frowned, “but what if I need to talk to you when there are other people around? I can’t tell them I have an Imaginary Friend, they’ll think I’m nuts.”

Ned shrugged. “Them’s the breaks, darlin’. You want to make a start on sorting out your troubles?”

“Nope, we’re home now, and my bed is calling to me. I need to at least try and get some sleep.”

“Not been sleeping well, huh?”

“I was resurrected from heaven less than a month ago. What do you think?”

“No need to get all sarcastic on me. See, we’ve already found your first issue, and it’s an easy fix.”

“It is?”

“Yep. Come here,” he beckoned her over and placed his hands on either side of her head. Buffy flinched, not entirely comfortable with Ned getting so close to her. “Relax, this will help.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Okay, done. You’ll sleep easy tonight.”

“You never told me you had magical powers.”

“You never asked,” Ned grinned, “and that’s one problem out of the way. You’re one step closer to getting me out of your life forever.”

“And that makes for a happy Buffy.” She yawned, and felt a prickling behind her eyes. “Guess it worked.”

They had arrived at the house a few moments before the mind-meldy sleeping pill, so Buffy stumbled through the front door, feeling sleepier with every step she took. She peeked in at Dawn, who was snoring away, then staggered to her room and collapsed on her bed.

“Sweet dreams,” Ned whispered, as he faded into the shadows.

***

“So, what are you dressing up as for Halloween?” Ned asked, grinning at her in the mirror as she applied her make-up.

“I’m not,” Buffy replied wryly. “Me and Halloween are like chalk and cheese. You wouldn’t want chalk with your cheese for a buffet, and you wouldn’t want Halloween with your Buffy.” She frowned. Not quite the analogy she was going for.

“Aw, come on! It’ll be fun. Tell you what, we’ll get matching outfits. I’ll be… Superman and you can be Lois – or, hey how about James Bond and one of his ladies? A classic.”

“No one else can see you, remember? So I’m thinking that matching costumes? A big waste of time.”

“We could be Luke and Leia, or hey – how about Batman and Robin? I’d be Batman of course…”

Buffy rolled her eyes and left the room, leaving Ned to his delusions. No force on earth could get her to dress up for Halloween this year, not even her annoying Imaginary Friend.

She knocked on Dawn’s bedroom door. “Dawnie, you up? I’m making breakfast.”

Her sister’s muffled voice mumbled something incoherent, and Buffy sighed.

“Fine, get your own breakfast, see if I care.” She headed downstairs to the kitchen, grumbling under her breath all the way, only to find Ned perched on the kitchen counter.

“How did you get down here?”

“Teleportation,” Ned winked, “perk of the job.”

“Great.”

“You all right, darlin’?”

“I’m great. Everything’s great, just great.” She slammed an empty bowl onto the counter and poured a small amount of cereal into it, topping it with yoghurt from the fridge.

“Cereal?” Ned asked, “Not very substantial.”

“If Dawn had bothered to get up then I’d have done pancakes or something. But no, she gets to lay in bed whilst the rest of us have to deal with life.”

“You could do with feeding up a bit, darlin’. You’re all skin and bones.”

Buffy glared at him, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “That couldn’t possibly be due to the fact that not too long ago I was all skin and bones now, could it?”

“I’m just saying,” he held his hands out in a placatory manner, then took a small spiral-bound notebook from his pocket and started scribbling in it.

“What are you writing?” Buffy asked, trying to peer over his shoulder.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Well you’re obviously writing something, and it’s obviously about me. So fess up, let me see.” She clenched her fist threateningly.

Ned sighed, and handed her the notebook, muttering under his breath.

Really wish I’d got that murderer in Kansas.”

Buffy glared at him and glanced down at the oddly neat script on the page.

1. Sleep issues – prescribed one small dose of tinneas-cadalach, will enable her to sleep better at night for some time
2. Sister issues – seems to feel resentment to sister for being a teenager
3. Post-resurrection issues – has not come to terms with liv


She turned seething eyes on Ned, and threw the notebook back across the counter.

“So nice to see that my issues can be condensed down into neat little sentences. I don’t resent Dawn for being a teenager, so you can cross that off your little list. And what’s this tinnitus thing anyway? What did you do to me?”

Tinneas-cadalach – it means sleeping sickness.”

“You gave me a sickness? Yeah, okay, it was nice to sleep through the night for once but you didn’t have to give me some disease-”

She cut off as the back door slammed open and Spike ran in under the cover of a steaming blanket.

“And my morning is complete,” she threw her arms up in the air in frustration. “God, save me from skinny annoying men!”

“All right, Slayer?” Spike asked, shucking the blanket onto the floor and arranging himself in a highly casual pose by the fridge.

“No!” She pressed her palms into her eyes and took a deep breath. One thing at a time. She turned to Spike. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Got bored. Couldn’t sleep.”

“So you thought it would be a good idea to go out in the sunshine? Cos you know, vampires who take daytime strolls usually have a dusty ending.”

“Got my blanket, don’t I?” Spike smirked. “Worried about me dusting, are you?”

“As if,” Buffy snorted, then saw Ned writing something in his little notebook. “What are you writing?”

Ned glanced up sheepishly, but didn’t try to hide the book. He’d obviously learned that he didn’t want to get on her bad side.

“Writing?” Spike had an oddly guilty expression on his face. “Who said I was writing anything?”

“Um… not you. Nevermind.” She peered over Ned’s shoulder to see that he’d added a number four to his list.

4. Unresolved romantic issues with resident vampire.

“I suggest you put that away and get the hell out of my sight,” Buffy said slowly, her voice tight with suppressed anger.

Ned sighed and stuffed the notebook back in his pocket, before popping out of existence. Buffy closed her eyes in relief. One down.

“Well fine!” Spike cried, and Buffy turned to see that he’d rummaged in the fridge and found a donut. He threw it down on the counter, gave Buffy a look that was half-disgust, half-lust, picked up his blanket and stormed out into the daylight.

Buffy sank down onto one of the stools and glanced at the kitchen clock. Only nine forty-five, and already the day from hell.

At least it couldn’t get any worse.
 
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