.10.



“Well we landed in this kind of field. Except it wasn’t grass, it was this strange blackened stringy stuff that seemed to grab you every time you moved. Spike and Angel were kind of just sitting on the floor, staring at each other in shock. Dru was kind of dancing, singing to these enormous flying things that were circling us like bloody dragons.” She stopped her tale, indicating for them to get out of the car and begin their shopping day.

“And then what?” Joyce asked, curious to know everything now that Buffy had begun to let her in, to explain what kind of torment she had been through to end up this hardened warrior.

“Spike and Angel started to fight.” Buffy continued with a grin, pulling her mother towards a fashion boutique. “And I kinda just sat there and watched, my head was hurting, my whole body was exhausted from the fight. I just let them fight. I figured one of them would probably kill the other but I don’t think I cared.”
Fingering the soft silk of a black halter neck top, Buffy revelled in the luxurious feeling of the material.
“Spike won. Angel cried. It was all damn weird. And still I just sat there.”
Twirling around to face the mirror with the silky material pressed against her torso she smiled at her reflection. She still wasn’t used to seeing herself again.
“I was useless for weeks. Whatever I did, it was like someone was there, in my head telling me it was no use. I should just die. I slayed demon after demon, telling myself that the next one would be the one to get the honour. The honour of killing the Slayer. Spike even offered to do it, to bag his third Slayer, just to get me to react.” She smiled softly at the memory, dropping the halter into her mothers waiting basket.

“And what changed?” Joyce smiled, if she had thought the choice of clothes had been influenced by Spike, she wasn’t wrong looking at the basket of black and red clothing.

“Angel did.” Came the cryptic reply while Buffy made her way to the check out.

“Angel did?”


“He stopped watching me like I’d break. He found someone else to focus his attentions on and I finally realised that no matter how betrayed I felt by him, he was only a man. If he wasn’t going to cherish my love, then I wasn’t going to waste my time competing with Drusilla.” Leaving the store, laden with bags of clothing, Buffy led the way to the next store, Joyce following behind, marvelling at the maturity of her daughter.

“Dru was pretty set on getting her daddy back. Spike didn’t know what to do with himself, having plotted against Angel was an unforgivable sin in Dru’s book. Oohh.” She breathed, wandering into Victoria’s Secret.

Following Buffy into the store, Joyce couldn’t help but think about her brief relationship with her daughter’s Watcher. It was something that had been buzzing around the back of her head for months now. They had been under the influence of youth-inducing chocolate the first time, and every date that followed had been ruined by one fiasco or another until they had reached a comfortable level of friendship.

“Think this suits me?” Buffy asked, breaking her mother out of her thoughts and showing off the lacy, black baby doll that had caught her eye.

“I thought that kind of conversation wasn’t for mothers?” Joyce smiled, joking as he mind flitted from her platonic relationship to Buffy’s obviously sexual one. “How exactly did you start dating Spike?”

“Dating?” Buffy chuckled, her cheeks tinged pink as she added the lingerie to her basket. “We didn’t date.”

“So how did you become his mate?” Joyce queried, adding some plain underwear to their shopping.

“We fell in love. We fought, we argued, we resisted in every way we could, we denied to ourselves, to each other. It was Angel that pushed us in the right direction, that made me let go of everything I know.” She smiled, a genuine smile that lit up her face making Joyce smile right back. “He taught me the truth about myself, about demons and souls and every other piece of crap Giles ever lied to me about.” Shrugging, she carried on dropping scraps of lace and mesh into the basket. If this was a mom sponsored shopping spree, she was certainly going to take advantage of it.

“What did Rupert lie about?” Joyce probed, feeling the need to know the truth once and for all about everything.

“It wasn’t his fault.” Buffy said softly. “The Council, they don’t really know much about anything anymore. They teach all these young girls how evil demons are, training them to kill demons indiscriminately, yet forget to tell the girls that they’re demons too.” She grinned, “Some more than others, depending on the girl herself.”

“Huh?” Was all that Joyce could manage, the idea that her baby was some kind of demon wasn’t something she could easily shake off.

“Take me for example, my demon is close to a vampire, and so is Faith’s. We have a connection that vampire families have. I never had that with Kendra, her demon must have been a totally different species.”

“You’re a demon?” Joyce muttered, looking at Buffy as if she was crazy.

“I’m not.” Buffy assured her mother quickly. “My soul has the essence of a vampire, that I tapped into when I fell in love with Spike. That’s why I don’t find human men attractive. I’m a vampire deep inside and that’s what controls my heart, my soul and everything else that makes me.”

“So Faith is attracted to vampires too?” Joyce questioned, her confusion clouding her mind when Buffy simply shrugged.

“I don’t know everything. Just what Spike has taught me.”

“And you believe it?” Joyce couldn’t help but be sceptical about the whole theory. How was it possible that she had given birth to a human with the soul of a vampire?

“I know it.” Buffy held her mother’s gaze, handing her basket to the cashier. “It’s true. A soul is no measure of anything. I’m sure all the bad guys that start world wars had souls. I know I have a soul, yet I’ve spent the last few years of my life killing things.”

“But you kill demons honey, isn’t that a good thing?”

“I kill demons. I take daddy demons away from their families, mothers away from their spawn. Is that a good thing?” Buffy answered softly, watching as he mother began to consider what she had said. “I know most demons are evil, intent on murder and mayhem, but what about the good ones? The ones I kill on sight because it’s what Giles told me to do?”

“You protect people Buffy. That’s a good thing to do.” Joyce insisted, her rather narrow world view protested wildly at the notion of a million previously unconsidered shades of grey between that simple black and white.

“I do. I saved the world. But now that’s Faith’s gig. Now I get to retire, to see the world, to live out the rest of eternity as I please.” She sighed, taking the bags from the bewildered cashier and led the way to the coffee shop next door. It was probably time to get a few things off her chest before her mom came to those conclusions on her own.

Ordering two large hot chocolate’s, Buffy followed her mom to a quiet corner of the café, placing the bags on the seat next to them and taking Joyce’s hand in her own.

“After we left that field, we spent the first few months on the run, sleeping in shifts, every couple of days as our bodies never really got used to the time difference. We would take it in turns to be on watch, two at a time and me and Spike, being the unloved cast-off’s were teamed together.” Buffy stopped, smiling her thanks at the strangely familiar young waiter. “We had a few eventful nights, barely escaping with our lives, but most of the time, we were able to sneak under the radar of the bigger demons. Those were the nights it hurt the most.” Joyce motioned for Buffy to continue, watching closely as she struggled with her emotions.

“I was yet to understand what I was. What was inside of me and Spike had great fun pointing things out. Things I should have known about myself. Things Giles should have told me.” Grinning up at the waiter who was hovering nearby Buffy finally recognised where she knew him from. “Owen.”

“Owen?” Joyce repeated blankly.

“The waiter. I dated him in school. I nearly got him killed at the morgue.” Buffy clarified, giggling at the look of horror on her mother’s face at this revelation. “Anyway, Spike would taunt me, tell me things about Slayers that no one should ever have to hear. He would do it until I snapped.” Looking down at her creamy mug, Buffy frowned. “I used to beat him so bad Mom. I used to blame him for all the badness that I could feel inside of me. All the things I had been taught were dirty, immoral, disgusting. Giles had told me how evil vampires were and suddenly I was one of them. A disgusting creature, no matter what my Slayer status was.”

“You hurt Spike?” Joyce couldn’t help but wonder at what psychological bullshit her baby had been fed to go so deeply off the rails like she was suggesting.

“I left him for dead. I stuck stakes in his chest, so close to his heart it would have killed him to sneeze.” Her green eyes were blank, her face void of emotion as she spoke slowly and steadily. “I was merciless because all I could see was me. I was that demon. The killer, the dirty person that had bad thoughts about evil demons. I was an evil demon.”

“Honey, you could never be evil.” Joyce was quick to reassure her, but she knew her words were yet to penetrate Buffy’s mind. She was lost in some kind of trance.

“Evil. I was evil. I hurt him because I was him. He was me.” Buffy continued after a second, her eyes staring unseeingly at the swirling foam of the rapidly melting cream atop her mug. Shaking her head she looked up at her mom, large, wide sorrowful eyes pleaded for forgiveness for her multitude of sins and Joyce was helpless against the onslaught of tears that fell from her eyes.

Not knowing if her mother was crying for her or Spike, Buffy continued quietly. “It was Angel that stopped me. He showed me that Spike was right. A soul was nothing. Angel’s soul was a pure soul, stuffed into him by a curse, repressing all the evil his vampire was desperate for. A dangerous way to stop an evil demon, but obviously effective as he was able to use it to control his basic impulses for a century. It wasn’t the soul that stopped him though. It was the war that was raging between his vampire’s soul and the pure one cursed upon him, making him reconsider every single thing he did for almost a century. Spike didn’t have that. He just had a vampire soul and he was good enough, for a vampire. Angel showed me that I could be the same. I could have a vampire soul and still be a good person.”

A sob tore through her small frame and it was all the Slayer could do to stop the tears from falling. Blinking them away she tried to smile at her mother.

“He forgave me straight away. Told me it was okay. Told me we could learn together. He showed me how to be myself and I knew I loved him. But how could I love Spike when Angel was right there?”

She grinned through the tears. “How could I let go of my first love and still cling to my childhood?”

“Oh baby.” Joyce was unable to say anymore. The ability to express herself was lost to her and silently she moved around the small table, gathering her baby girl in her arms.

“I lost everything that day. And in losing everything, I finally found myself.” She straightened her head, gazing into her mother’s eyes. “I finally knew who I was.”