Adult-FanFiction.org : Buffy

One Clear Shot	By : QueenB Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Buffy > Angel(us)/Buffy Views: 11736 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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She rubbed her eyes and sighed. It was going on close to 2:30 a.m. and she was sure she’d need the sleep for the daylight hours. She had potential Slayers to train, a sister to deal with and a house to clean up (and, judging by the mess in hetherther’s old bedroom, those girls definitely weren’t doing their share). Maybe she could make Faith whip them into line. Or better yet, have Faith doing laundry detail. Heck, she must have done that a few times in prison. This’ll be no sweat for her.
Smirking at the thought of Faith touting laundry baskets, Buffy felt a boost of good cheer. She picked up another diary.
“I’m back. They brought me back. Well, to hear Willow go on about it when she thinks I can’t hear, she brought me back. The others were just candleholders. No one will give me the details except Anya and she says it was a lot of chanting and Willow coughing up snakes. Ewww. I can’t believe she went through that--for me.
“So how can I tell her I’m not grateful? They all think I was in hell and I don’t know how to tell them I wasn’t.
“I was in Heaven and I miss it. Part of me longs to go back so badly I can practically taste it; the world is so damn awful. The colors are too bright and it’s all so loud. And I’m back in the Slayer struggle when I thought I’d be out of it for good. I had my reward, damn it! Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone?!?
“Everything hurts with a constant grating pain that never quits. I get up in the morning and want to scream at the light stabbing into my eyes. Dawn whines because she’s no more a morning person than me and the noise goes through me like a buzzsaw. Thank god for Tara. She’s the only one who can keep quiet. But I can’t talk to her either because she was part of it; they all were. My so-called friends. I know I should be grateful but part of me hates them. I want to pound them with my fists until they’re all just bloody flesh under my knuckles.
“I miss Giles. After I got through all the fumbling, clumsy cheer of ‘Welcome Home, Buffy!’ from the others, I looked around for him. But he’s not here. He went back to England. I guess the others didn’t tell him about the big resurrection party they were throwing for me so he just took off. I just wish he were here to talk to me. There was a--what’s the word for it?
“Balm. That’s the word I want. He was just so soothing, like his words were a healing lotion spread across my frazzled nerves. That’s probably not the right way to say that but it’s what I mean. Having him back would make me better.”
Giles did come back and it looked like things were better--at least for a while. But there were money problems to deal with and the pipes in the basement sprang a leak. The bank refused to give Buffy a loan even after she tangled with a couple of M’Fashnik demons who were robbing the place. Life after death was not the picnic all those religious pamphlets made it out to be.
Then Angel got the news…
“I thought Angel would have shown up before now. But of course he didn’t know I was back. Somebody finally let him know--probably Willow. She doesn’t know about Heaven but she knows something’s off about me. Maybe she thinks Angel will help. Something’s got to. I go around every day with a squeezing sensation in my throat and a hollowness in my chest. I want to scream but that wouldn’t help. I go out patrolling every night, shutting down my feelings and turning into the Slayer, but it doesn’t help.
“But I didn’t tell him. Angel and me started kissing and groping like mad moments after we saw each other. We pulled back before things got too hot and heavy. Can’t risk jogging loose that soul after all. Damn gypsies. Still can’t believe they’d put such a dumb loophole in a curse designed to make somebody suffer.
“He still loved me and missed me. That much was pretty obvious. But it was like there was a part of me missing. I knew I loved him but it was like a memory of love rather than the thing itself. He could sense it, too, but he didn’t say anything. He kept asking if I was all right and all I could do was say I was getting better. Of course, he thought I was in hell, too, and I let him think it. Once upon a time, he would have known I was lying, known all wasn’t right in Buffyworld and kept pushing until he got to the bottom of it. Now it was like he didn’t care.
“He was holding himself back from touching me when I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in his arms and all at once I hated him, too. How could he not see how much pain I was in? How could he not want to be there for me? I was there for him, dammit, when he came back from hell. I lied to my friends, my mom, my Watcher to protect him and be with him. I helped him through one of the harshest things someone can go through and still keep their sanity. One meeting with me and he rides back into the sunset. ‘So long, Buffy. Call me the next time you get back from hell!’ What are the chances he’ll actually bother to keep in touch with me?
“So it’s back to the others with my stone-in-the-chest ache and a bucket full of delicious fast food chicken. They wanted to know about Angel. What could I say except that it had been--intense. Definitely an understatement.”
So she was still in love with Angel at this point and this was when? She glanced at the date of the entry: October 16, 2001, over a year and a half ago. The crap with Spike must have started after that.
“There’s something wrong with me and not just because Spike says so. His chip doesn’t go off when he hits me. Somehow Willow brought me back less than human and he knows about it. He taunted me about it as he hit me and something snapped. I couldn’t stand it any longer, the pulling sucking emptiness inside and I knew that Spike could stop it. I started punching him and I couldn’t stop and then in the midst of all his leering mixed with those idiotic spewings about love, we wound up kissing and rolling around on the floor. The building was shaking but I didn’t care. I was tearing and pulling at his clothes and he was ripping mine and all of sudden we were fucking like animals. Fucking--that’s the word for it. Ugly, nasty, raw, vicious sex without an ounce of tenderness.
“We must have done it at least four times that I can remember. I woke up this morning sore and bruised. The building was in ruins. The ceiling had fallen and there was rubble covering almost every surface…and there was Spike, naked as the day he was born, lying beside me.
“God, I feel sick. I am sick. How could I have done those things with him? How could I have betrayed myself and what I stand for? I just scrambled for my clothes and punched him out when he dangled my underwear in my face. I hate him. I know I do. But I hate myself even more. I let him get too close and this is the result. I’m nothing but a stupid vampire whore, no better than Darla or Drusilla. How could I do this to myself--with him?!”
Buffy slammed the diary shut and burst into tears. She muffled her mouth with her hands and desperately stifled the sounds so her sleeping friends couldn’t hear. She could feel bile rising in her throat and gulped harshly in an effort to hold back nausea. In a moment, she was going to lose the battle and throw up on Xander’s carpet. Staggering to her feet, she tiptoed to the kitchen. Maybe she wouldn’t have to run the faucet. Xander might have bottled water in his fridge…
Nope, no such luck. She might have known he wasn’t the bottled water drinking type. She cleaned out a glass as best she could and filled it from the pipe. She swallowed at least three glasses before she calmed down enough to feel steady on her feet again.
This was last year. It’s already happened and Giles said you’re not sleeping with him any more.
Ah, but Giles isn’t sure about that, is he? And from what he says, you’re certainly been drooling over Spike and being pod-Buffy with your friends. Maybe you’re still banging hips with him. Why not? He’s got a soul like Angel now and he can’t lose it during sex. Wait, did Giles tell you that part? Why not find out for yourself?
Snarky inner voice, right on cue. She sighed and resisted the urge to sink into one of the kitchen chairs. If she sat down now, she’d never get back up again. She turned off the kitchen light and went back to the living room.
Onward into the breach. Who said that again? Oh yeah, Peter Cook in that Blackadder show. She picked up the diary by one corner as if she felt soiled to be touching it and went through the rest of the entries.
Any hope that she had bumped uglies with Spike only once swiftly went out the window. There had been numerous times. Occasionally she went to him. Frequently he came and ambushed her. Sometimes there were blows. Sometimes not. He was cruel and hateful to her always with never a kind word. But it seemed that kindness wasn’t what she’d wanted or needed.
Reluctantly she realized that he must have helped keep her sane. Often Spike had shown up when she was feeling at her worst; the thought-degrading sex seemed to be exactly what was needed to keep her from losing it completely.
She frowned and squinted. That had happened before, hadn’t it? Flipping through another of her diaries, she took notes of all the times when she was feeling truly depressed. Her mother’s illness, Riley’s enforced departure, Glory’s attacks, problems with paying the bills--Spike had always been hanging around. As things got worse, his appearances became more frequent, as if events allowed him the opportunity to wedge himself further into her life.
This was important, she just knew it. Her defenses were low and the demon took advantage. Hey, isn’t that what Angelus did when he treated you like shit after the sex and went on a killing spree with The Judge? He was so sure you’d be down for the count with your weepy, poor-little-girl ‘tude. You showed him, though, didn’t you? Kicked him right in the balls--and then walked off and let him kill Theresa, Jenny Calendar and who knows how many others. Oh, yeah. Spike had you pegged all right. Get the Slayer when she’s down and she won’t be able to say no. You slut.
Ouch. They say that nothing hurt like the truth and here it was in all its unadorned pain-givingness. She heaved a deep sigh and turned back to the diary.
She’d ended it--finally. It took Riley coming back to Sunnydale on some mission to track down an egg-laying demon or other to do it. But she did end it. She told Spike the affair was killing her and that she was using him.
A profound snort greeted that. She was using him? Like that wasn’t a certain amount of using on his side. Why she took on all the blame on herself she didn’t know. But at least it was over. Then why was he back in her life now?
She was barely making it through the days but at least she wasn’t joined at the hip with the chipped wonder any longer. He’d threatened to tell her friends about the two of them but hadn’t put it into practice even after she broke it off.
Then he did. Xander caught sight of him screwing Anya and Spike ratted her out. The bastard. Buffy scowled and wished she could reach back through time and hit Spike so hard his pointed fangs would fly out of his mouth.
“Buffy?” She started. Willow was standing near the couch, her red hair rumpled from the bed. “What are you doing? It’s almost four in the morning.”
“I-I was…” She tried to shove the diaries out of sight but the wiccan had already seen them.
Willow smiled faintly and waved back at her. “It’s okay, Buffy. I was just going to the bathroom and I saw the light on. Guess I shouldn’t have drunk all of Xander’s milk before I went to bed. I’ll just be going now.”
“No, Willow! Wait. We need--we need to talk.” Buffy patted the couch and invited the woman to sit beside her.
The redheaded woman raised her eyebrows but made no comment as she sat beside the Slayer. She had noted the reddened eyes and blotchy cheeks that signified a real crying jagfest that she hadn’t been part of. Maybe Buffy was going to be share girl and let her in for a change.
Buffy chewed her bottom lip and fidgeted. She didn’t really know where to start. “Willow, have I--have I been a real mega bitch to you guys lately?”
Willow rolled her eyes and sniggered. “Oh yeah. You just getting that?” Noting the stricken look on Buffy’s face, she sighed and tried to revise her statement. “But, hey, you’re talking to somebody who tried to destroy the world. We’re talking a whole other level of comparison here. Besides, it’s totally understandable if there has been friction on the Buffy homefront. You were ripped out of Heaven--by me,” she concluded and Buffy didn’t miss the dark, unhappy look that followed.
“Hey. You thought I was in Hell. I don’t know if you actually checked or not…”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.” The flat statement, represented without apology or excuse, rattled her for a moment and then she forged on. “Whatever. You thought I was in Hell and you pulled me out. I read about it,” waving her hands at the scattered diaries on the floor. “I understand there were…snakes in the procedure?” She couldn’t help shuddering and Willow smiled. It was weak but a smile nonetheless.
“I was being tested by Osiris to see if I was worthy to receive such a great gift. It was more draining than painful. I was so woozy afterwards I couldn’t even really stand for awhile. Good thing the others were there.”
“Yeah. It’s good to have friends around.”
“Way good.” They sat in silence and let the moment stretch itself out. Buffy couldn’t remember when she and Willow had talked like this; reading the diaries made it seem almost a lifetime ago and a world away.
The exhaustion from the emotional strain brought on by reading the nearly unending tale of woe was almost physical. But she struggled against sleep; she had another thing on her mind. “Willow…about this thing with you and Kennedy…”
“Yes?” Willow couldn’t help feeling tense and nervous. She remembered how freaked Buffy had been about her and Tara. Was she about to go through all that again? Her lesbian status was something she’d come to terms with long ago; she didn’t want to have to rehash it.
“Do you love her?”
Okay, she hadn’t been expecting that question. “Love? Well, no, it-it’s too soon for that. We just got together and I like her a lot. Really, I do. She’s smart, tough, funny, sexy and she gets the wiccan thing. Well, she’s getting it. She’s more of the physical, hands-on type of gal--I don’t mean that type of hands-on although she is. I just don’t mean it that way. She just has trouble handling the concept of magic so she’s in no way l-like Tara which is good because it’s not like I was looking for a replacement for Tara or anything--”
“Willow. Relax. Breathe before you pass out.” At least the beloved Willow babble hadn’t changed any. And she had her answer. Buffy sorted out her next question carefully in her head. “I’ve been reading my diary and it says that Tara died back in May. I thought you’d have wanted to wait awhile before plunging into a relationship so quickly with somebody else.”
“How long did you wait after Angel left before taking up with Scott? Or Parker?”
Willow could have bitten her tongue when she saw the hurt on Buffy’s face. The next moment, the blonde girl got her feelings under control and tried to answer. “I guess I deserved that. But I don’t remember Scott or Parker and, from what I read, there wasn’t really anything to what I had with them. Scott and I never made it past sharing popcorn at the movies and Parker was the biggest jerk alive. Second biggest,” she amended, recalling Spike.
“What about Riley? I know you don’t remember him but you were pretty miserable after he left, take my word for it.”
“But was it the same kind of misery as when Angel left?”
Willow had to admit she was right. Score one for Buffy. “No, guess not. In fact, you bounced back from Riley pretty fast.”
“So maybe you’re jumping the gun with Kennedy here. She could be to you what Riley was to me.” Buffy stopped and braced herself for a load of denials.
Instead Willow just sat there with her hands folded in her lap. She glanced up at Buffy and shrugged. “You could be right.”
“Huh? I could? But…just now you said…”
“I said that Kennedy has a lot of great qualities. And she does. But those are the things you say about people when you like them. Someone asks you what you like about a person, you start running down a list. But love doesn’t have any qualifications. If Xander and Anya had stayed together, for the rest of his life he would have had people asking him, ‘What do you SEE in her?’ because she’s a rude, thoughtless, annoying, critical, crass, full-of-herself, money-obsessed, sex-driven bitch and nobody can really stand her conversation.”
Buffy gaped in surprise. The Willow she remembered didn’t use words like ‘bitch.’ It went against the Willow Code of Babble. But she was curious to see where she was going with tho sho she kept quiet.
“That’s why no one could ever LIKE Anya. But when it comes to love, all the rules fly out the window. Somebody asks Xander why he loves her and he’ll shrug and say ‘I just do’ ‘cause love makes you do the wacky. And you have to accept that. If anybody had asked me how I could switch from boys to loving Tara, all I could say is ‘I love her’ and that would be that. So I guess all the reasons I gave about Kennedy show reason--and that ain’t love.
“Tara was--” Her eyes misted over and they glistened as she recalled the blond and what she’d meant to her. “She was my everything, you know? In a way that Oz never was. When I saw that Oz had been with Veruca, I was furious. I wanted to cast a vengeance spell on them both.
“But in the end I didn’t go through with it. It wasn’t just because it was wrong. It was because I-I didn’t think it was worth risking my soul for--that he was worth risking my soul for. That idiotic ‘Will Be Done’ spell was the only thing I could manage and I couldn’t even get that right.
“But when Glory attacked Tara and when she died, I just totally lost it. I tried to take on a god and end the world. If that’s proof of love, then I guess I loved her. I’m thinking that maybe Xander’s just that crazy about Anya.”
“Yeah, I am.” The two women looked up and saw Xander. His hair was even more of a mess than Willow’s, flattened at the side and sticking up in the back. He was also wearing dark sharkskin blue pjs. Buffy blinked at their shiny brightness and wondered if his ex had picked it out for him or whether Xander’s notorious fondness for Hawaiian shirts had undergone a bizarre transformation.
“Oh, hey, Xander. Did we wake you up? I’m sorry.” Oh shit. Did he hear what I said about his ex? Please please please…
“No, the old bladder woke me. And I agree with everything you said about Any, Willow.” The redhead cringed. He ignored it to squeeze in between the two women. “But you left out a few things. She’s loyal, funny and straight talking. I know that translates into unfeeling bitca every now and again but most of the time there’s no malice in it. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body--”
Willow coughed and Buffy caught her eye, choking back a smirk. Xander gave them another one-eyed scowl and then grinned. “Right. Eleven hundred years of assorted male torture aside, she’s really sweet and doesn’t wish any harm on anybody. Well, maybe she does wish but she doesn’t mean it.”
Willow scooted over to give him room. “So why did you leave her hanging, Xander? You never really told us and I must have asked you a dozen times.”
“Actually it was only a couple of times, Wills. I was sorta distancy Xander and not in share mode so I wasn’t about opening up.”
“And now?” Buffy was almost afraid of talking to them. These were the two people with whom she’d shared practically everything and, according to Giles, it had all fallen apart. The main burden for that lay on her and she was nervous that horning in now might drive them even farther away.
“Now…I guess it’s the end of the world so why not?” He sighed and leaned back and the two women waited for him to talk.
“Buffy, you don’t remember this but there was this guy at my wedding. Well, not a guy guy, a demon guy--one of Anya’s old victims. She’d cursed him and he escaped from the demony pit he was being tortured in. Guess they don’t build torture chambers as well as they used to if the victims can get out, huh?” He chuckled but the women with him didn’t smile back.
He sighed and continued. “Anyhow, ole Stuart had a major beef against Anya and decided a little payback was in order. Vengeance against a vengeance demon. Major karma brouhaha. He showed me this vision of my future: me drinking and out of work, Anya bitter and pissed about it, unhappy kids--like the Harris family home life all over again. I-I couldn’t let that happen to Anya.”
Willow rubbed his arm in sympathy. She’d been witness to quite a few Harris spats in the past and knew how much Xander hurt because of them. But she hadn’t realized his insecurities ran so deep. “But it wasn’t real, Xander, you know that. You’d never be like your father. You don’t have it in you.”
“But that’s just it, Willow. I do have it in me! I’m a Harris man! After Buffy kicked that demon’s ass, I looked over and saw Mom and Dad going at it again just as if they were at home and not a public place like a wedding hall. How could I do that to Anya? At least if I didn’t marry her, she’d never have to go through that.”
“Xander, how’d you lose your eye?” Wow, that was majorly blunt. The other two on the couch froze and stared at her. Buffy shrank inwardly but she had to know the complete story.
“You took Faith, some of the Potentials and Xander into the Vineyard. It was all part of this plan you had to take on this preacher guy, Buffy.”
Buffy’s gaze never wavered from the man sitting beside her. “I don’t want to know your version, Willow. I want to hear Xander’s.”
“You’d come up with this plan. You’d heard that Caleb--that priest guy working for the First Boredom--had something of yours. So we followed a Bringer to his hideaway. There was a fight and a few of the girls died…” Xander’s voice trailed away and his hands started to shake imperceptibly.
“We followed a Bringer? Where was he, in a sewer or underground cavern?”
“He was just walking in the open. You know, like he was taking a stroll to the mall. I’ve been wondering about that, by the way. How do these guys get around without eyes? Do they go shopping, you think? Somebody’s got to make those robes for them. It’s not like they can sew with that eyeless look they’ve got going.”
Buffy ignored the trademark Xander humor. “This guy’s just walking along above ground and I followed. That was so obviously a trap. Why didn’t anybody say anything?”
“We did, Buffy. You weren’t listening. You said somebody had to lead and you were it.” Willow didn’t want to sound condemning but that was the bare truth of the matter.
“So you followed me anyway, Xander. Why?”
“Like Willow said. We needed a leader…”
“So you just tag along? That doesn’t sound like the Xandman. If you just caved in to leadership, you’d never have become the Key guy with the grad students when we were fighting the Mayor. You’d never have defied prophecy and come down to the Master’s cavern to give me CPR. You’re not just a dumb jock playing follow-the-leader. So what makes you stumble into an obvious trap?”
Xander closed his eye again and Buffy wished she knew what he was thinking. He was always there for her with his advice or pep talk or simple asinine humor. This Xander looked like a worn-out stranger who’d seen too many battles and gotten too little compensation for them. But she could sense he was still good ole Xander underneath it all; it was going to take some digging to find him, that was all.
When her friend spoke again, his words were slow and thoughtful as if he’d planned a speech in his head. “I had to believe that whatever you were planning was the right thing to do.”
“Believing in me is one thing. Blind faith is another. So what makes sensible Xander follow Buffy into the gates of stupidity?”
“It’s you, Buffy. I told you once that you’re my hero. Whenever I was tempted simply to chuck it all up and quit because I didn’t have superpowers or wiccan magic or Gilesian knowledge, I’d look at you and see everything you’d ever given up to be the Slayer and think that I couldn’t let you go it alone. I could always get that normal life; you couldn’t. So who was I to just run out and be selfish like that?”
“Is that how you saw marrying Anya? As being selfish?”
“No! She’s the woman I love! I wanted to make her happy.”
“But you were going to leave me to be with her. Willow saw that vision of you in the future. You were planning on leaving Sunnydale.”
“I would never leave as long as you needed me, Buffy.”
“Then you would have been there for me and Anya--no matter what.” Buffy summed it up with a broad smile.
“Ye--hey, wait a minute, that’s not what I was trying to say here!”
“But you said it. You could never be like your dad, Xander. I doubt Mr. Harris would lose his eye in a noble cause. A bar fight maybe but not going toe to toe with great big naughty evil.” Willow couldn’t help feeling smug as she pointed out the difference between her Snoopy dancing best friend and his sodden louse of a father.
“Maybe you’re right. I’m not saying you are, and I think it’s way too late for me to patch up things with Anya, but you may be right.”
Buffy deadpanned. “I may be crazy.”
“But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for,” Willow sang.
“Turn out the light.” Xander waggled his eyebrows and pinched Willow’s butt causing her to squeak.
Buffy leaned over and hugged him. “Aw, don’t try to save me.”
Willow shoved Xander in the side with her elbow. “You may be wrong for all I know…”
“But you may be right!” They all finished the last line together. There was a thumping on the wall and Xander grimaced.
“Right. No a capellas after 10 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Bobbins!” The brunette Scooby sighed and darted a swift kiss on the cheek to a surprised Buffy. “I don’t know about you but all this soul-bearing has made me wiped. I’m going for that potty break I scheduled before the girltalk sidetracked me. The loss of an eye means I can use up my sick days--what few I’ve got left. I’m sleeping until noon unless somebody calls me. Don’t get me up for anything short of an apocalypse. ‘Night, ladies.”
Willow and Buffy watched him go and then looked awkwardly at each other. When she heard the toilet flush, the redhead sprang up and said, “My turn. I need to catch my zzzs, too. I was planning on making funny-shaped pancakes in the morning and that takes wiccan-sized concentration.”
She stumbled after Xander, yawning mightily, only to halt when Buffy caught her hand. “Willow--we’re okay, aren’t we?”
The wiccan blinked her luminescent green eyes at Buffy’s pleading gaze and her own softened. “Yeah. I think we’re okay.”
Buffy let her go and clicked off the lamp. Randomly stuffing the diaries back into her bag, she collapsed onto the sofa. Thoughts about Spike and his souled status faded away. He wasn’t important. Whatever they’d shared didn’t matter. She remembered what her friends meant to her. She drew the blanket over her head and yawned mightily. She thought she could sleep now.

TBC
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One Clear Shot