Xander really hadn’t expected to see Willow standing outside the door.
 
She looked broken.
 
He knew there was no way they were talking about his problems any time soon.
 
But that was okay. Willow was his family, and right now she needed him to be her conscience, her solace. He could do that.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Dawn was sulky and unresponsive as Buffy wheeled her out of the hospital and helped her into a taxi.
 
Buffy was almost grateful for it. Because while part of her wanted to grab on to Dawn and hold on for dear life, tell her how terrified she’d been last night and how keeping her safe was one of the very few things she actually still cared about, the bigger part of her didn’t even know how to start that conversation. It felt too late to say or do any of those things without it seeming like she’d been shamed into it.
 
Buffy didn’t understand how Dawn and Spike could have such easy physicality with each other. Hugs, sure, in times of great emotional upheaval. She could understand that. But the hair ruffles and the hip bumping and the lingering touches that seemed to be just because?
 
She couldn’t understand how he could do it so easily. She’d had to work so hard to learn not to hurt people accidentally.
 
Stupid vampire.
 
And Dawn had never been touchy-feely before! She’d been completely freaked out the last time Buffy remembered trying to hug her.
 
She looked over at Dawn, slumped against the door, her whole body curled against it to get as far away from her as she possibly could.
 
You’re terrified of hurting her … it’s cutting you both to ribbons. Damn him.
 
Buffy shifted along the seat until her thigh was almost touching Dawn’s, and – very tentatively – started putting an arm around her.
 
The look of distrustful shock on Dawn’s face nearly made her shuffle back to the other side of the car.
 
But somehow she forced herself to keep going, despite the fact that it felt stiff and fake.
 
Dawn … submitted … to Buffy’s arm. She didn’t shrug it off, but her body went totally rigid, as if she was trying to hold herself slightly away.
 
It was almost unbearable.
 
But just as Buffy was ready to give up and move away, Dawn seemed to let go and slump against her.
 
It gave Buffy the courage to relax, too, so the full weight of her arm lay across Dawn’s narrow shoulders, and they were very slightly leaning into each other.
 
Their silence was still uneasy, but the edge had gone.
 
Buffy didn’t remember ever feeling so exhausted.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Giles ground the slice of lemon against the side of the mug with a teaspoon.
 
“Talk me through Buffy’s finances?”
 
He added a spoonful of honey, and passed the mug to Anya.
 
“Well, I got Willow and Tara and Spike to start paying rent, so she would have been okay – just about. But if any of them move out now….”
 
“Yes,” Giles said. “Quite.”
 
Anya took a sip and made a face. “More honey!” she demanded, passing the mug back.
 
Giles complied.
 
“Of course, the rent would never have covered the repairs to the house. I got Tito to agree to a payment plan for the pipes, but Buffy’s still got to give him something; then there’s the busted windows, a new washer and dryer … I’ve got a list somewhere.”
 
“Could you get it for me?”
 
Anya nodded.
 
“If I were to write a cheque….”
 
Anya’s eyebrows shot up. “Lucky Buffy,” she said lightly, if slightly venomously.
 
“I can hardly stand by and watch while she drowns in debt. She could lose the house!”
 
Anya groaned in frustration. “Buffy’s got access to her own damn’ money! It’ll just take time and effort and her dialling down the crazy for five minutes.”
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“Well, she’s still got all of Joyce’s gallery stock. It’s tens of thousands of dollars if she sells it off … even with the terrible returns she’ll get from a bulk sale like that.” Anya looked pained at the thought of the lost profits.
 
“Good Lord,” Giles breathed.
 
“Just getting it out of storage would knock a few hundred off her monthly expenses,” Anya said drily.
 
“I’d completely forgotten we did that.”
 
“I’d like to see the gallery up and running again,” Anya said, a little wistfully. “It would take work to get the clientele back, but it could be done. And if Buffy hired someone to manage it for her on commission, she’d have a steady income without many hours.”
 
“That’s a brilliant idea, Anya.”
 
“No need to sound quite so shocked,” Anya said huffily.
 
Giles swallowed a smile. “Is that it? Or are you about to dazzle me with more of your brilliance?”
 
Anya gave him a suspicious look. “Are you making fun of me?”
 
“I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.”
 
Looking slightly mollified, Anya continued. “Well, I called the CSSD about child support payments for Dawn. They said the money’s been coming in every month since Joyce died, but no one’s filed change-of-custody paperwork, so there’s at least seven thousand dollars just sitting there plus another thousand every month ‘til Dawn’s eighteen.”
 
Giles sat down abruptly. “Seven thousand dollars?”
 
“So if you really want to write a cheque, I think I need it far more than Buffy does.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Xander watched Buffy and Dawn stumble awkwardly into the hallway. It was obvious Buffy was practically carrying Dawn.
 
They both looked exhausted, and Dawn was almost the same colour as the white bandage on her neck.
 
Willow shifted a little from where her face was semi-buried in Xander’s chest and saw them. She let out a gasp. The noise was enough to make the girls turn toward where she and Xander were sitting the sofa.
 
“I – how ya doin’, Dawnie?” Willow asked tentatively, pulling herself upright and uncurling her legs to put her feet on the floor.
 
Buffy stared down at Willow’s shoes where they lay discarded on the hall floor. She didn’t know how to feel about Willow anymore.
 
Dawn did. “You keep away from me,” she said, fear leaking through the edges of her righteous indignation.
 
Willow crumpled back onto the sofa. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I screwed up. Everything. If something had happened to you last night, something worse….”
 
“What, like if I’d been totally drained instead of just mostly?” Dawn said, her voice cracking with emotion. Buffy could feel her whole body vibrating.
 
“I’m sorry,” Willow said. “I never thought – I never meant for – I’m so, so sorry.”
 
“C’mon, Dawn,” Buffy said quietly. “Let’s get you upstairs.” Buffy was amazed by how calm she sounded. “You need to rest.”
 
Buffy hadn’t looked at Willow once.
 
Willow collapsed into tears again. But while Xander had been willing to just hold her while she cried the last time, now he pulled back.
 
“Willow,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You need to stop the pity party. As much as it hurts, you are not the victim here.”
 
“I – I know,” Willow whimpered. “I – I d-don’t m-mean to be such a basket case.”
 
Xander sighed. “I just don’t get it. I love you and I trust you, but … some of the stuff Giles and Tara said this morning … and after what we did to Dawn? You’re kinda scaring me.”
 
Buffy came back down the stairs just in time to hear Willow say, “Everything’s been so wrong. I just wanted to make it right again.”
 
The apathy that was sucking Buffy under more and more every day had already absorbed the faint stirring of anger she’d felt before taking Dawn upstairs. She leaned against the doorframe to the living room.
 
Xander thought she was holding herself upright through sheer will power.
 
“Why is there a bar on Dawn’s door?” Buffy asked, her voice calm and even.
 
Xander was shocked. “Bleach boy didn’t tell you?”
 
Buffy shook her head no.
 
The dread building up in Willow’s stomach was starting to be overwhelming. Her face crumpled.
 
“B-Buffy, I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
 
“Okay,” Buffy said. “So you’re sorry. That’s … nice for you, I guess.”
 
And then they told her.
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
“Don’t you think it’s a little odd that Bohdan showed up when he did?” Anya mused.
 
“Perhaps,” Giles said. “But when would it have been less odd? While Glory was alive? Or perhaps in six months’ time? When I’m sure we’ll be stopping some other idiot from destroying the world.”
 
“Why show up at all, though?”
 
Giles sighed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
 
“I think there’s something he isn’t telling us.”
 
“I expect there are a great many things he isn’t telling us. But Spike seems to—” Giles stopped in shock. “Do you know, I was just going to say ‘Spike trusts him’ as if it meant something? I must be going mad.”
 
Anya snorted. “Name three people Spike trusts.”
 
Giles scowled.
 
“Oh, come on, Giles!” Anya groaned. “You’re too smart to believe the Council’s party line about vampires. If their minds survive that first bloodlust, it’s just how people deal with power. No more, no less.”
 
“I am very aware how … simplistic … official Council doctrine is,” Giles said stiffly. “But I also truly believe it is for the benefit of the Slayers. They cannot afford to think of them as people. The psychological toll alone….”
 
Anya sighed. “Murder changes you. Of course it does.”
 
Giles flinched – more from the knowing look in Anya’s eyes than from her words.
 
“I can understand why you’d want to save her from that,” Anya continued, almost gently. “But there are worse things than learning to live with murder.”
 
“She’s fighting a war,” Giles said quietly. “A Slayer’s life—”
 
“Is brutish and short. Yadda yadda.” Anya huffed. “So stop trying to protect her from a reality no one can change and start helping her deal with it! Buffy’s already broken and halfway crazy, Giles.” She shivered. “You don’t want another Elizabeth Báthory, do you?”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Willow couldn’t understand it. She’d expected anger, recriminations, tears, something! Buffy was never this calm. “D-dontcha wanna yell at me?”
 
Xander laid his head in his hands. This was not going well.
 
“Is that why you came back? To be punished?” Buffy asked lightly, still staring at Willow with flat, expressionless eyes. “Sorry, not really in the mood right now.”
 
Willow was lost. She couldn’t figure out what was going on in Buffy’s head. It was so tempting to just follow the path back into her mind, use the connection she’d made last year…. She was halfway there before she realised what she was doing and pulled herself back. Once upon a time, Buffy had confided in her willingly. And more than anything else, Willow wanted to have her best friend back.
 
“I j-just wanted you to be happy again,” Willow said softly.
 
Buffy flinched. Happy. She just wanted me to be happy. How ironic that Willow should pull her out of heaven and then take away her memories so she could be happy. Buffy thought about laughing, but found she lacked the energy.
 
Then she thought about sharing the joke with Willow.
 
Willow’s eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, her skin blotchy and mottled. She looked anguished and guilty and in pain. Buffy felt absolutely nothing.
 
‘You do everything for love’, my foot!
 
Spike was right about one thing, at least: the truth made a fine weapon.
 
Willow started to feel uncomfortable with the way Buffy was looking at her. It felt almost … predatory.
 
“I thought I could make things better,” Willow said softly.
 
“Go poof, all better?” Buffy’s lips twisted into a bitter half-smile. “Don’t you know it doesn’t work that way? It never gets better. You just get used to the pain.”
 
“Buffy….” Xander started.
 
“Gonna defend her, Xand?”
 
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m worried about you. You just get used to the pain? You never used to think like that.”
 
Buffy stared off into the middle distance, while her two best friends watched her uncomfortably. I’m not who I used to be.
 
“But … aren’t you happy to be back?” Willow asked finally. “I mean, I get that the journey was kinda traumatic … but this has gotta be better than where you were. Right?”
 
There was another long silence, while Buffy shut her eyes and desperately tried not to think of where she’d been, because if she did she was afraid she’d start crying and never be able to stop.
 
There was a sudden explosion of noise and movement as Spike burst into the hallway in a riot of clomping boots and smoke.
 
He shook out the blanket he’d used to dash from the sewer and draped it over the newel post.
 
It was disconcerting how little Buffy reacted.
 
Spike came to stand just behind her, his chest a whisper away from her back, one hand cupping the air just above her shoulder.
 
Buffy shivered. She even said, “Don’t touch me.” But she didn’t move away, and she barely seemed aware of his presence.
 
Spike let his hand drop, but didn’t move from his position at Buffy’s back.
 
“She said don’t touch her,” Xander said, standing up and taking a threatening step towards the doorway.
 
Buffy was still staring off into the middle distance.
 
Spike stepped back, hands up. “Fine. Bollocks to the lot of you.” He turned on his heel and went upstairs. They heard him opening and closing a door – presumably Dawn’s.
 
“Buffy?” Willow said tentatively.
 
“You need to leave, Will,” Buffy said, finally. “I can’t trust you around Dawn anymore.”
 
Xander sighed. He’d expected this. Looking at Willow, she clearly hadn’t.
 
“B-but—”
 
“No, Wills. No arguments,” Xander said. “C’mon, I’ll help you pack.”
 
 
 
------------------------------------------
 
 
 
Buffy spent the next few hours in her room, hiding from all of the things she knew she ought to be doing, while they were done by someone else.
 
When Xander finally went home, and there was no more movement in the house, Buffy decided she should probably fulfil the slaying part of her responsibilities. She was good at killing things, even if she was worse than useless at everything else.
 
She crept downstairs, went to the weapons chest and pulled out a stake. As she slipped it into her waistband, she felt the telltale vampire tingle behind her.
 
“Not lettin’ you go out like this.” Spike said, stepping between her and the door.
 
“You won’t let me?”
 
She was nowhere near as outraged as she should have been.
 
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” he shouted, his frustration getting the better of him. “You’ve been actin’ right weird all day.”
 
Buffy shrugged. “I’m fine.”
 
“Bollocks!” Spike’s every instinct was screaming ‘prey’. “You smell like a victim,” he sneered.
 
“I’m no victim,” Buffy said quietly, staring at her stake.
 
He watched her for a few seconds. She was shifty, guilty. “There was something off about you before your little visit from the super friends,” he said slowly. He groaned. “This is about killing that poor defenceless human assassin, innit? Bet you’ve decided you’re not worthy or some such. You selfish bitch.”
 
“How dare you call me selfish? You’re a vampire!”
 
“Look at yourself,” he sneered. “Today is any fucker’s good day, right there for the takin’. You wanna wallow in guilt? Fine! Do it in the soddin’ bathroom. Make yourself bleed again. Do whatever the fuck you have to do so’s you don’t lose the first fight you get in and abandon us! Again!”
 
“How dare you!” Buffy sputtered.
 
“Biggest threat to a Slayer’s her own death wish.” Spike put as much disdain into his voice as he could. “You couldn’t fight off a kitten, the place your head’s at right now.”
 
Buffy broke his nose with her perfect little fist.
 
He didn’t even flinch; he just kept staring at her while he readjusted the cartilage. “Weak.” He licked a trickle of blood off of his upper lip. “Now you gonna tell me what the fuck it is about killin’ this bloke’s sending you off the soddin’ deep end?”
 
Buffy seriously considered just punching him until he stopped talking. Her arms and hands itched with the desire to lay into him. How dare he talk to her about killing people?
 
“You’ve killed human Taraka assassins before – must’ve done. Don’ recall you bein’ racked with guilt about them.”
 
Buffy punched him again, but before she connected, he moved, faster than she could see, and when he came to a stop, her fist was cradled in his hand, and he was standing two feet to her right.
 
His thumb started stroking hers. Its gentleness was totally at odds with the way he was staring at her. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
 
“He gave me an out last night,” Buffy said finally, reluctantly.
 
Spike sighed. “After which, you left him unconscious, not dead. I was wrong about you, Slayer. You’re not in half in love with death, you’re fully in love with sodding guilt!”
 
“Where do you get off telling me how to feel? Do you even know what guilt is?”
 
“Course I do! I’m a monster not a bloody robot!”
 
Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “If you had a soul you’d understand.”
 
Gentling his voice slightly, Spike said, “That assassin tried to burn the house down, Love. With all of us inside. An’ when that didn’t work, he threw a door at Tara an’ tried to take Willow’s head off with a poker. Then he dislocated your shoulder. How was killin’ him by sodding accident not self-defence?”
 
“It wasn’t an accident! I wanted him dead.” Buffy wouldn’t look at him.
 
Spike had a sudden wonderful, terrible idea. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”
 
“Yeesh, full of yourself much?” Buffy didn’t quite manage the nonchalance she was trying for.
 
“It hurts you that much to admit you care whether I live or die?”
 
“It hurts me that much to admit I care so little for my duty!”
 
Spike cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “So killin’ someone with a soul’s fine so long as it saves someone else with one?”
 
Buffy nodded.
 
“Last I heard, the witches were soulful as they come. Rupes too.”
 
“None of that would’ve happened if I’d just let him kill you at the laundrette!”
 
“Ah! Now we get to it.” Spike laughed. “You protected your family. It’s what you do. Who you are.”
 
“You’re not my family!” she shouted.
 
“I was when you killed him!” he roared.
 
Buffy reeled back as if he’d hit her.
 
“But we won’t ever talk about that, will we, Love?” He was staring at her so hard, it felt like he was drilling into her soul. “What we had … what we lost.” Spike shut his eyes, unable to bear seeing her any longer. “Would you really rather I was dead?”
 
When Spike finally looked at her, there were tears in her eyes.
 
“Guess that’s somethin’,” he said.