Suddenly, finally, Buffy felt her eyelids drooping.
 
All night and most of the morning, her thoughts had fractured and reformed and chased each other around until she didn’t think she could take it anymore. And on top of that, every time she heard the toilet flush, or steps on the stairs, or the murmur of speech somewhere in the house, her stomach lurched and every muscle in her body seized up for a second of visceral terror she could neither control nor understand.
 
The longer she lay awake in a house full of people, the more she felt like she’d gone six rounds with something big and nasty. She just wished everyone would shut up and go away.
 
But at long last, her body seemed to be relaxing. Unfortunately, after what felt like no time at all, she was jerking awake to the ear-shattering whine of a buzz saw. The noise seemed to go straight through her body. It felt like there should be bruises.
 
All she wanted was to sleep.
 
She’d just forced her eyes closed again when Giles knocked on her door, telling her she really ought to start thinking about going to the hospital to fetch Dawn.
 
Snuggling deeper into her nest of covers and squeezing her eyes more tightly shut, she called out, “Can’t someone else go?” She was embarrassed by how whiny she sounded.
 
“You’re her legal guardian,” Giles said from the other side of her door. “I doubt very much they’d be willing to release her into anyone else’s custody.”
 
Knowing he was right, Buffy dragged herself out of bed and went to her door.
 
Giles immediately felt guilty for making her get up; she looked absolutely exhausted.
 
“Guess I’m hospital-bound-Buffy.” It was a valiant attempt at chirpy that failed dismally.
 
“Would you like me to drive you?” Giles asked.
 
“Nah,” Buffy said. “The walk’ll wake me up.”
 
Giles had a pained look on his face Buffy hadn’t seen since the last time she’d popped bubblegum in his presence.
 
“I doubt very much Dawn will be strong enough to walk home from the hospital,” he said oh-so-gently.
 
All she heard was oh-so-disappointed.
 
Oh god, I can’t do this. How can I be possibly be responsible for another person? Buffy dragged her lips up into something vaguely smile-like. “We’ll get a cab.”
 
“Of course,” Giles said softly. “Have you got cash for the fare?”
 
It broke his heart to watch her realise that she hadn’t.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Tara had opted to go to classes as soon as she and Giles had forced Xander to accept that Willow was getting her control-freak on in the worst possible way. It surprised him at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Tara didn’t really have independent relationships with any of them – she had pretty mush always just been Willow’s girlfriend. He felt a little bad about that – as Willow’s oldest and closest friend, he should know her girlfriend better than he did.
 
Xander was grateful he’d taken time off work to fix Buffy’s house this week. He didn’t think he could have handled the people part of work. And drywall required a lot of very precise measurements and almost no thinking, which meant it was the perfect distraction from the ballet corps of elephants dancing around the room that he was ruthlessly ignoring.
 
But now that Xander was mostly done upstairs – just had to sand, vacuum and paint once the mud was dry – his thoughts were free to dwell while he prepared to start on the downstairs.
 
Buffy’d looked like a reanimated corpse when she’d left for the hospital – although in his opinion, reanimated corpses generally looked way better than she had. What was that line? Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse? Should be the official Sunnydale motto.
 
Giles had left straight after her, saying something about wanting to talk to Anya.
 
Xander was desperately struggling not to imagine how that conversation was going. He didn’t think he could bear it if Giles ever looked at Anya the way he’d looked at Tara this morning. Because he was certain his pity had been Tara’s tipping point. She’d stopped even trying to defend Willow after that, and it had shaken him. Badly.
 
Xander shivered. Willow was like his other half – his better half, even. She was the smart one, the responsible one. His conscience. His solace. He’d arrived at Revello Drive as early as he had mostly because he wanted to talk to her.
 
He wanted so badly to be able to pretend none of it had ever happened, for either of them. He didn’t think he could deal with darkness in her while he was still reeling from the darkness in him.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Every last thing Giles had planned to say to Anya flew straight out of his head when he saw her counting up cash from the register and completely ignoring the two customers milling about the shop.
 
“Anya…” he started, frowning in concern. “Are you quite alright?”
 
She looked up from the money.
 
Her face was … the wrong colour? As Giles got closer, he could see the layers of makeup – particularly heavy under her left eye and around her neck.
 
“What happened?” he asked.
 
He reached out towards her, but faltered. They didn’t have the sort of relationship that involved comforting shoulder pats. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Anya casually touch someone. When she did make physical contact, it was invariably over-effusive and either painfully explicit or unbearably awkward.
 
Anya hurriedly stuffed the cash back in the register, plastering on a customer-service smile. “Xander and I had a fight,” she said lightly. Her voice was hoarse and strained. It sounded painful.
 
Giles was astonished. “Xander did this?”
 
Anya nodded.
 
“I’ve always known there was darkness in him,” Giles said slowly, his brow furrowing in concern. “But I never … short of demonic possession….” He moved closer to Anya and traced the air above the bruises on her neck that he could only just see through the concealer. Handprints. There were handprints around her throat.
 
“Giles!” Anya said sharply, jerking away.
 
His eyes snapped to hers.
 
She was amazed to see barely contained rage there. “It wasn’t his fault,” she whispered hoarsely but firmly.
 
Giles’ eyebrows shot up. “You of all people ought to realise how that sounds.”
 
“I verbally emasculated him,” Anya said. “Repeatedly and quite viciously.” She grinned – with genuine pleasure. “It was actually quite gratifying to find I could still reduce a man to incoherent violence so quickly.”
 
Giles blinked a few times. “I’m disinclined to ignore this sort of behaviour from Xander a second time,” he said primly.
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever it is, you can’t let this change things,” Anya said, sounding slightly panicky. “You’re his family. He needs to not be that guy with you.”
 
“It is abundantly clear to me that he is ‘that guy’! He might have killed you.”
 
Anya put her hands on her hips and acquired an I’m-about-to-hit-you look that Giles found far more attractive than he was comfortable with.
 
“I stopped counting the number of people I killed hundreds of years ago. Hundreds! Vengeance was my only purpose in life for over a thousand years and I loved every single second of it.”
 
Giles was finding Anya’s strangulation-induced bedroom voice … disconcerting. Particularly coupled with what she was using it to say.
 
“What happened last night is nobody’s business but Xander’s and mine and if I choose to forgive him, you should damn’ well respect that.”
 
“How can you possibly stay with a man who would do this to you?”
 
“I’m not!” Anya said, still angry. “But that’s a separate issue entirely!”
 
It took Giles a while to formulate a response. Finally, he said, “You are a very unusual woman, Anya.”
 
Anya’s glare faltered. “Was that a compliment? I’m never really sure with you.”
 
A wistful smile broke across Giles’ face. “It was a compliment.”
 
“Good,” she said, nodding her head decisively. “Now that’s settled, tell me – what happened to break the protection spell last night?”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Dawn wasn’t sure if it was heightened vampire senses or some kind of arcane vampire-Slayer recognition, but whatever it was, Spike knew when Buffy was coming long before she did.
 
After the doctor had seen Dawn, she’d been allowed to put on her own clothes and move into the “Teen Lounge” – so lame – to wait for Buffy to come and take her home. To her surprise, none of the hospital staff had seemed overly bothered about Spike bypassing all the visitor registration stuff. She was glad – even if it was thrall. She didn’t think she could have handled being by herself in the hospital this long.
 
They’d been playing cards all morning, and when Dawn tried out her still-shaky bottom dealing for the third time there was a bright, shining moment when she really thought she was finally getting the hang of it. But then she saw that Spike’s non-reaction had absolutely nothing to do with her. His eyes were glazed-over and he had that half-dopey, half-hungry look that only ever appeared when Buffy was around.
 
She kicked him. Hard.
 
Spike snapped out of it – although Dawn thought it hurt her toes far more than it hurt his shin.
 
“What the bloody hell was that for?”
 
“You’re drooling.”
 
He glared.
 
And then Buffy came through the door. She looked pale and exhausted.
 
Then angry.
 
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at Spike.
 
“Hi, Buffy,” Dawn said, giving a slow, over-emphasised wave. “I’m all conscious again and feeling much better now, thanks so much for asking.”
 
Buffy flushed with embarrassment and guilt. “Sorry, Dawnie. Do you know when the doctor’s seeing you yet?”
 
“Yeah, like four hours ago.” Dawn said sullenly, slouching further into the embarrassingly hip and teen-friendly sofa, arms folded across her chest.
 
“Shouldn’t they have waited for me?”
 
“Why?” Dawn shrugged. “Spike was here.”
 
“Spike has no right to be here,” Buffy said through clenched teeth.
 
“An’ yet here I’ve been,” Spike drawled. “Where were you?”
 
All of Buffy’s fight went out of her. Saying that she’d been trying and failing to sleep sounded selfish and awful and she could already feel the weight of accusation in Dawn’s eyes. “Are you gonna be okay?” she asked in a subdued voice.
 
Dawn smelled a golden opportunity to guilt-trip her sister. “Oh yeah,” she said, eyes wide and innocent. “Month off school with full bed r—”
 
“Shut it, you,” Spike said firmly. “Doc said twenty-four to forty-eight hours’ rest, so Dawn’ll be goin’ back to school Monday.”
 
“Okay,” Buffy said quietly.
 
As Spike ran through the aftercare information the doctor had given them, Buffy found herself struggling not to zone out. It frightened her. It had never been this hard to concentrate on the details of her mother’s care – and that had been way more complicated.
 
How did the vampire end up being the responsible one? What’s wrong with me that I can’t look after an injured teenager?
 
Buffy forced her focus away from her own head and that fascinating spot in the middle distance she couldn’t seem to stop staring at and back onto what Spike was telling her.
 
“If I still have a right to, I’ll make sure o’ that much,” he growled.
 
Buffy flinched and looked away. What’s he making sure of now? Panic flooded her system. I. Can’t. Do. This.
 
Spike cocked his head to one side, his anger forgotten as he listened to Buffy’s heartbeat go into hyperdrive and smelled the acrid tang of adrenaline flooding her system.
 
Dawn looked back and forth between the two of them while they stared at each other. Suddenly, she was exhausted and just wanted them to stop whatever weird fight-y, flirty thing they were doing this time and notice she couldn’t actually hold herself upright anymore and to know that what she really needed right then was to go home to her own bed and be out of the stupid hospital!
 
“Take me home now?” she whined.
 
Two sets of guilty eyes in contrite faces swivelled toward her.
 
Spike reached out to ruffle Dawn’s hair. “Course, pet.” He looked back towards Buffy, his face inscrutable. “Meet you there, yeah?”
 
She nodded. “Yeah.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow slept through the morning. She had a vague recollection of having heard her parents get up and leave for work – completely oblivious to any signs she’d come home in the night – but it was fuzzy and indistinct.
 
But then again, everything was feeling a little fuzzy and indistinct – the aftereffects of a powerful spell breaking.
 
It didn’t help that being in her old room again was like being stuck in a time warp. Her good clothes and the objects she cared about had gone with her to the dorms, then to Buffy’s. All that was left here was mid-90s computer parts and programming manuals and her old, painfully embarrassing clothes. You could take out a vampire with the brightness of some of those colours.
 
Willow was suddenly struck by the most jarring difference: there’s no magic in this room.
 
She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever survived a life with no magic in it. It was hard to understand how she and the girl who’d lived in this room could even be the same person.
 
Willow shivered, remembering Giles’ late-night phone call to his pet coven. He– or maybe they – wanted to make it so she couldn’t use magic anymore.
 
Despite the almost physical pain that thought caused her, Willow couldn’t help wondering whether maybe they’d be right to do it.
 
Her intentions had been so good….
 
But Tara had said she couldn’t trust her anymore. She’d looked so hurt, like something inside her had broken. All I wanted was to take back what I did!
 
And Buffy…. All I wanted was a do-over! A chance to … a chance to be there for her when she came back.
 
Dawnie needed to feel safe in her own home again. It had been pure luck she hadn’t died.
 
Maybe if I just—
 
Willow stopped.
 
You know what they say about the road to hell, Willow Rosenberg.
 
Willow finally found a – now very fitted – mid-calf-length black skirt she thought she’d last worn to a classmate’s funeral some time in the eighth grade and a pink Scooby-Doo shirt that was almost cute in a retro sort of way.
 
Examining the outfit in her mirror and feeling slightly naked without any of her makeup or hair products, her knees went weak as she was suddenly overcome by shame for daring to think about something as inconsequential as her appearance.
 
The girl who used to live in this room – the one who didn’t do magic unless it was life-or-death – she’d never cared about stupid things like that.
 
Tears burned at the back of her eyes as she left her bedroom and went downstairs.
 
She bypassed the kitchen – the thought of making the effort to feed herself just made her feel selfish. Anything she did now was just putting off going back to Buffy’s: to face them, and accept whatever punishment they wanted to give her.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
“So Spike thinks it’s Jenoff?” Anya looked thoughtful. “Losing his contracts would make him go off the deep end. And he can certainly afford the Order of Taraka.”
 
“You know him?” Giles asked, surprised.
 
“Everyone knows Jenoff’s Casino. It’s where you go ‘to get what you need’,” Anya said scathingly. “He came up with that line sometime in the twenties.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s pathetically proud of it.”
 
“Yes. Well. Presumably, once we’ve confirmed who has paid the Order, we can end the contract. It would be infinitely preferable not to have assassins continuing to pop up willy-nilly.”
 
Anya made no effort to hide her surprise. “Frankly, I’m amazed you’re not suggesting we wrap Spike up in a bow and leave him out for them.”
 
Giles frowned. “Spike has been an … er, ally … for quite some time.”
 
Anya snorted. “Only because Buffy wouldn’t let you kill him.”
 
“I don’t recall you ever being particularly vocal in his defence,” Giles said drily.
 
Anya’s eyes darkened. “I’m a survivor, Giles. Or I was, before I became human again. And I may never have spoken up for the vampires, but when it’s my turn, I won’t be waiting around to hear who speaks for me. I’ll be long gone.”
 
“Stop being so melodramatic,” Giles chided. “Niemöller? Really?” He gave her a sidelong glance. “I’m impressed.”
 
Anya looked embarrassed. “I don’t know the guy. I think Spike said the original piece to me once.” She shrugged. “We were reminiscing about war.”
 
“Ah,” Giles said.
 
Anya let out a happy sigh.
 
Fond remembrance, Giles thought with a shudder.
 
“You know, Bohdan’s convinced the whole job was a set up.”
 
“Have you spoken to Spike about this?” Giles asked sharply.
 
“Haven’t had the chance,” Anya said, shrugging. “I don’t even think he knows we’ve been paid.”
 
“You’ve been paid?” Giles asked incredulously.
 
“Why does everyone find that so hard to believe? Yes!” Anya’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not giving it back.”
 
Giles gave her a disapproving look.
 
Anya sniffed haughtily. “I’m still not quite sure how and why Bohdan got involved in the first place.”
 
“He’s been watching Dawn and the people around her since June,” Giles said absently.
 
Anya opened her eyes wide. “Spike said he thought someone was following him. I thought he was just being paranoid.” She sighed. “I hate it when he’s right. He gloats. It’s very annoying.”
 
Giles found himself letting loose a tiny snigger. Spike did gloat. And it was very annoying. “How on earth did you end up doing business with him in the first place?”
 
Anya shrugged. “He had a pair of Krolgarth claws. Do you have any idea how much just one of those sells for?”
 
“Some idea, yes.”
 
“It was good business, Giles. Spike has a real gift for killing things and stripping them for parts.”
 
“It’s good business to launder money through my shop?”
 
She looked affronted, rather than repentant. Giles wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything else.
 
“Your shop? You signed over day-to-day control to me. And you made it abundantly clear that you didn’t want to be called once you’d gone.”
 
Giles shifted uncomfortably.
 
“It’s all commissions from stuff Spike does, and he doesn’t legally exist! It was far easier to just create a second ledger for the human system.”
 
“You might have told me.”
 
“I send you financial reports every month,” Anya said angrily. “Truthful ones!”
 
Giles looked sheepish. “I’m sorry if I’ve been … remiss.”
 
“Good. You should be sorry.”
 
“Yes, well.” He harrumphed. “Er, more tea?”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow goggled at the smoke and soot damage to everything within a fifty foot radius of Buffy’s house, and the near-total absence of fire-y destruction to the house itself.
 
That musta been a doozy of a spell.
 
Willow semi-successfully squashed the tiny voice inside her saying it should have been her and Tara doing it, not Giles and Anya.
 
How did I not notice any of this last night?
 
They still hadn’t replaced the door.
 
Of course, no front door meant it was no longer a problem that she didn’t have her key, and – added bonus – there could be no door-face slamming-type incidents.
 
Taking a deep breath and trying to control the sick lurching in her stomach, Willow walked up the steps to the porch.
 
“Hello?” she called out, her heart in her mouth. “Anybody home? It’s Willow.”