Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Story Notes: Managed to wrangle my muse long enough to write this. Enjoy.

Can you see I don't wanna be here anymore?

I want out of the darkness in my mind…

~ War Paint by Chasing Jonah

Lesson the First: Denying the truth doesn't change the facts.

Of course, it's best not to tell this to a deeply depressed Slayer in the middle of a mental meltdown. Running my mouth off is a fatal flaw I need to remedy.

I don't notice at first. I'm too busy planning my revenge against Red, for wiping my memory and making me think for even a second that I could be a hero; be someone that Buffy could be proud of, someone she could trust. When I finally notice Buffy kneeling on the ground unmoving, eyes wide and glossy with tears, I know I have to be cautious.

At first, I think she's in shock over her memories of Heaven. But as I approach, I hear her muttering to herself about something else entirely.

"Angel…how could he do that to me…? No, he had a reason… He loves me… He'd never hurt me… But he did hurt me… Why did he hurt me if he loves me…?"

Hearing her muttering my Grandsire's name ignites my insides alight with anger. It always infuriates me, how she says I'm not worthy of her love, yet she's perfectly willing to give it to Captain Forehead. Sure, I don't deserve it, but neither does he. He hurts her over and over and she keeps on blindly forgiving him.

It looks like he's hurt her again, somehow. And it doesn't compute in her brain. I see the denial threatening to set in, protecting her heart from the truth yet blinding her to the harsh reality of what kind of man her "one true love" really is. In a moment of rashness, I decide that her heart needs a good battering. Some wounds need to be ripped wide open in order to heal properly.

"I don't know what bonehead thing Peaches has done now, but telling yourself that he loves you when he only keeps on hurting you won't make the problem go away," I tell her. "It only ensures that the problem never gets resolved. And you'll carry on with a wounded heart that'll never heal, because you're too stubborn to let yourself see the truth."

She looks up at me, and she tries to muster a glare. It doesn't work, not when she looks so devastated. "You don't know him." Not even her words hold their usual bite.

Seeing her look so broken nearly shatters my resolve, but I press forwards. I have to hurt her to save her. If she doesn't listen now when she's vulnerable, she'll never be free of the wanker. "I've known him a hell of a lot longer than you. He didn't become the Patron Saint of Brooding the moment he got cursed, luv. He was a mess. He continued to travel with us – Darla, Dru and myself – and tried to hold onto the way things used to be. Pretty certain he killed, just so he could show his bitch of a sire that he was still the same vamp as before. And when he finally left us, well… You think of him as some bloody great hero who can do no wrong, but he did nothing but sit on his arse for a century before he got the hots for a fifteen-year-old girl with pigtails. Which I might add, is the same age Dawn is now. If some old vamp decided to follow her around, calling her his true love, would you think it was bloody romantic?"

I know I've said enough when I see the denial shatter and her resolve break.

I know I've said too much when she grabs her discarded stake and attempts to plunge it into her chest.

Thank the bloody stars for vampire speed.

I throw the stake as far away from us as I can before I hold her against me, stopping her from hurting herself. She tries to fight me, but her strength is fading and it doesn't take her long to give up. I know I haven't hurt her because the chip doesn't fire.

She cries. And cries. And cries.

I don't know how long we sit there on the ground. Eventually her tears run dry, and she slowly tells me what she saw.

A memory she was never supposed to remember, but had been reawakened by Red's spell.

Next time I see my Grandsire, I'm gonna rip out his spine and beat him unconscious with it.

I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,

but I may snap when I move close…

~ Elastic Heart by Sia

Lesson the Second: Never feel guilty over someone else's faults.

"Slayer, listen to me. It's not your fault."

I can see the guilt eating away at her as she shakes her head. "He was human… We could be together…Bbut he gave it up… He didn't even want to talk about it, he just did it… Did he not want me? Is there something wrong with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you, luv," I tell her. "He's the one with the problem."

The pain in her eyes is unbearable. I keep telling myself that she had to know; had to face the truth about who my Grandsire really is. Doesn't make it hurt less, knowing that I'm part of the reason why she's hurting. I just hope she realizes soon that what happened wasn't her fault.

At least now I have backup. I took her back to the shop, and she told her little band of Scoobies what happened.

Some good's come out of it. The Watcher tore up his plane ticket and is planning on driving straight to LA to give my wanker of a Grandsire a piece of his mind. Harris is going with him. I want to join them, but I'm afraid of leaving Buffy; afraid of what she'll do without anyone watching her. She's already tried to end her own life once tonight. If she tries it again, I'm the only one who's strong enough to stop her.

Glinda and the Nibblet are gathered around Buffy, comforting her. I wager they're both trying to take their minds off Red's spell. The relationship between the Wicca lovers is over.

Speaking of Red…

"I don't understand." Her eyes are red from crying. She didn't take the break-up very well. "He tried to do what was best for Buffy. He sacrificed his chance to be with her-"

I'm about to interrupt her, but Dawn beats me to it.

"Shut up!" she yells. "Just…shut up! Buffy shouldn't be taking advice from someone who thought it was OK to wipe her girlfriend's memories. Actually, no one should take your relationship advice. You're the one who told her to date Angel and Riley, and look how well those relationships blew up in her face."

"What Angel did was wrong, Willow," Glinda adds. "He violated her mind and took away he right to make a decision. A relationship works both ways. You can't decide what's best for someone without consulting them. Angel's choice concerned Buffy as well, but he went ahead and made the decision without her. You don't treat your loved ones that way."

"He didn't treat her like a girlfriend," says Dawn. "He treated her like a child."

In the background I see Harris frown and glance at his girl. Maybe he'll learn a thing or two from all this, because there's been times where he's treated Demon Girl like a child.

Speaking of Anya…

"And he completely failed his mission. He said that the Oracles agreed to change him back so he could stop Buffy from dying. But he didn't. She died. He didn't even come back to Sunnydale. How was he supposed to protect her all the way from LA?"

The room goes silent.

I watch as the pain in Buffy's eyes shifts into something else.

Boiling rage.

'Cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell,

I had to learn how to fight for myself…

~ Praying by Kesha

Lesson the Third: Being angry is human.

People always say that anger is a sin and it's better to forgive, but that's what got Buffy in this mess in the first place; forgiving her ex all the time instead of getting angry at him. And between letting it out or bottling it up, it's better to let out your anger and get over it. Especially if the wanker you're angry at deserves everything that's coming to him.

Said wanker is chained to a chair, covered in bruises and cuts. Rupert and Harris kidnapped him from LA and brought him here, and the three of us had our fun venting years' worth of issues on him. We didn't spend too long; just enough to rough him up a bit before Buffy has her turn. We can't have Angel's gang from LA storming in to rescue him before she's satisfied.

I ask if she wants to be alone with him, but she shakes her head. We all stay, and the only one not in attendance is Red. She's back at the Summers' residence, packing up her things. About time she stopped living there rent free.

For a split second, my Grandsire's eyes light up when Buffy enters the room, but the light is extinguished just as quickly when he sees how angry she is. He tries to say her name, but can't, courtesy of the gag Harris shoved in his mouth.

The Slayer stands before him, vibrating with righteous anger. Bloody hell, she's gorgeous.

"I never knew you, Angel," she says. "You were always a mystery to me. I used to think that was romantic, but now I see it doomed our relationship. To love someone is to know someone. I never knew you, and now, I don't want to know you. You've done nothing but feed me crap, and all it took was one little memory for me to realize it. One memory you wanted me to forget."

His eyes widen with realization.

"It's my job to fight demons," she continues. "Yet instead of waking me up that morning and telling me there was a demon to fight, you left to fight it yourself. Why the hell you'd do something so stupid is beyond me. Sure, you said you wanted to protect me, but in the end, I had to save your sorry ass. I'm not some fragile china doll who needs protecting from the big scary monsters. The big scary monsters are supposed to run from me, remember? But this epic disaster of a failure gives you the idea to change back; to not be human anymore. A Slayer having a human boyfriend is dangerous, right? But wait, oh yeah, you said that our love was a freak show and that I deserved to have someone normal. That's a big fat contradiction, isn't it? I can't be with a demon because it's wrong, but I can't be with a human because it's dangerous. I wasn't even with Riley for a year before it ended for that very same reason."

She steps closer to Peaches and her glare intensifies. He winces. "You know what I think? I think you wanted to have me without actually having me – and only wanted me in a certain way. You wanted to be the hero; be the one to save me. And when you realized that you couldn't have that without superpowers, suddenly being human wasn't so appealing. And then you had the gall to say you were doing it to protect the innocent. Newsflash, you don't need superpowers to do that. Xander's been fighting the good fight for almost six years, no powers, and he's doing just fine."

The boy smiles and holds his head high at that.

The Slayer continues, "But you didn't want to lose me. So, you insisted I had to be with someone normal, knowing full well I'd either get my boyfriend killed or he'd leave me. Making me forever yours. Even though we live in different cities and lead different lives. Which reminds me."

She punches him in the face. Hard.

"Thanks a bunch for keeping your promise and making sure I didn't die! Oh, wait. I did die. Just like the Oracles said I would. Where oh where was my handsome protector, who personally promised the Powers That Be that if they turned back time, he'd make sure that didn't happen? Am I only your "one true love" when it's convenient for you? When it benefits your road to redemption? Am I just a reward for you? Yeah, yeah, you said that we had to live apart because it was too tempting being so close, but I think the threat of me dying would have given you some fucking priorities. Also, your self-control? Seriously lacking. There are ways to avoid the temptation of sleeping with me outside of killing yourself. Even Spike has better self-control than you! Spike!"

The wanker's eyes flicker towards me, and I growl. I know he wants to comment, probably say I'm an evil demon who can't be trusted. Pillock.

"But do you know what the worst part about all this is? We were supposed to be in a relationship, and yet you made a vital, life-changing decision that concerned both of us, without me. You didn't even ask my opinion, just made it without consulting me under the belief that it was for my own good. When you did that, Angel, you weren't treating me like a fully consenting adult. You treated me like a child. And then you made me feel weak and stupid because I'd wanted you to talk to me about it first, and you said it just would've made it harder for you. Like it wasn't hard for me too. You acted like what you wanted to choose was the only choice on the table, and everyone else's opinions were invalid. It wasn't even the first time you did that! The day before, you came into my town without asking, and stalked me behind my back! And then acted like it was your God-given right to do it! But when I said it was wrong, and you agreed and apologized… Well, you definitely didn't mean it, did you? Because you went and did the exact same thing twenty-four hours later!"

She punches him again.

"You're incapable of learning a lesson no matter how many times people tell you it's wrong. You'll always do this to me. You did it back in my last year of high school; you broke up with me without talking to me, just giving your final word on the matter and expecting me to go along with it. It's funny, because I ended things with you months earlier, but I actually came to you and talked to you about it. How did you react? You refused to accept it and kept pestering me until I changed my mind. Only for it to end anyway, when you wanted it to. Seems to me you were the only one allowed to make decisions in our relationship."

She takes a breath and lets it out again.

"You don't love me, Angel. I'm just a reward for you; a possession you can play with when you feel like it, and toss aside when you need to go play hero for other people. You expect me to do whatever you say and let you toy with me. You're happy to break my heart when you want to do your own thing, and believe that I'll forget what you did and love you again when you come back. I've been playing your game since I was sixteen, but no more. I'm done. We're officially over, forever. I'm the Slayer, I have my own destiny, and it's got nothing to do with you. Go make yourself feel better by saving puppies in LA. But if you ever set foot in my town again…I'll consider you an enemy vamp, and stake you."

Addressing the rest of us, she says, "Get him out of my sight."

I'm more than happy to oblige, stepping forwards and punching the wanker's lights out.

I feel so cold in this dark room, everything is falling,

I'm screaming, I can't see anything…

~ Come to Me by Really Slow Motion

Lesson the Fourth: If someone's depressed, make sure they're not lonely.

The days after the Slayer exorcised Peaches from her life, she returns to the state she was in the days and weeks after her resurrection. Like her old, innocent, teenage love for my Grandsire had been another kind of Heaven that had been ripped away from her. But she's not as bad as before, and I hope she understands that where she was before was a Hell under the guise of Heaven.

I stop by the house as often as I can. It's turned into a sanctuary; a safe place. Dawn and Glinda don't pressure Buffy into anything. Red's gone, and the Watcher is making plans to send her to a coven in England where she can learn some restraint.

"Your witch was so preoccupied with whether she could, she didn't stop to think if she should," I quoted one evening in the Magic Box, and Harris actually gave me a bloody nod of respect for it.

The bloody world's probably gonna end any day now.

I make a pact with Dawn and Glinda to never let Buffy be alone, not until we know she's not going to hurt herself. Glinda said that even the loss of something that was causing nothing but pain can cause a downturn in mood, especially if the pain's been there for so long it's become part of her.

Easing her loneliness will help, she also said. Hence the pact.

I walk in one night after patrol and find the three of them sat down in the living room. I know Buffy has already sensed me, so I don't try to linger and listen in on their conversation. She keeps talking, and I take that as a hint that she doesn't mind me hearing what she has to say, so I make my presence known to the other two.

"He held you back, Buffy," Dawn says after she nods at me in greeting. "Every time it looked like you were moving on and getting over it, he'd show up and turn you into a sixteen-year-old bubbling mess with a gaping hole in your heart."

"Constantly re-opening old wounds is abuse," says Glinda. "From what you've told me about him, most of what he did was textbook emotional abuse. My family used some of the same tactics he did. They made me feel like I could only rely on them, for starters."

"He made me feel like I could only rely on him when it came to slaying; like he was the only one who understood that part of my life," says Buffy. "Riley was different but the same; he wanted me to give him all my undivided attention, to put him above everything else. They both wanted me to rely on them. With Angel, I didn't know any better because it was the first time I was in love, and I thought that's what it was all about. With Riley, I was desperately holding onto him as my chance for a normal relationship, and I let him get away with trying to change me. Until he went too far."

"I let Willow get out of hand," Glinda adds. "I could have stopped her from abusing magic a lot sooner, but she was just so happy with her achievements and I was so grateful to have found someone who loved and understood me…"

"It's funny, how easily you let your partners get away with bad behaviour," I speak up. "That's what love does to you. Dru would sleep around with every demon that caught her fancy while I stayed faithful to her. Ripped my un-beating heart out every time she did it, but I always forgave her. Think I moulded myself into what she wanted. Feel more like myself, now that I'm away from her. It's freeing."

"It's lonely," says Buffy. "Sometimes I think about him and how he used to be my everything, and then I'll remember what he did and I'll feel like I'm falling into this dark, cold pit of despair, where no one can hear me screaming. I know loving him was bad for me, but it still feels like I've lost something."

"You just need to fill up the hole with something worthwhile," I tell her. "Like love. Not right away, or else you'll get a rebound. Closing your heart will make things worse. Open it up, and you might end up finding yourself something better."

Buffy gives me an odd look, and I wonder what she's thinking.

Wake me up inside,

call my name and save me from the dark…

~ Bring Me to Life by Evanescene

Lesson the Fifth: Adjustment to change takes time while your life reconstructs around you.

It took me a while to get used to the chip in my head. Spent a century killing people to eat, and to have that suddenly taken away from me was an adjustment to overcome. Looking back on it all, I'm angry at the army wankers for taking away my ability to fight back (against humans, at least), but I can't bring myself to regret that it happened. Without it, I would never have stopped seeing the Slayer as my enemy and her loved ones as food.

Life's like that, I suppose. A horrible change can lead you down a path of happiness.

I don't realize just how much of Buffy's life is reconstructing around her, changing for the better, until I walk into her kitchen one evening and she smiles at me in a way she hasn't before. A quick sniff confirms this isn't the bloody Bot, and my head tilts.

"Haven't seen you smile like that in a long time." And she's smiling at me. This has to be a dream…

"We realized something today," she says. "Had the whole…Angel thing not happened, I probably would have ignored it. But I can't. And… Ugh, I'm not good with words… First off, I want to say I'm sorry for the way I've treated you. I told myself that it was OK to treat you horribly because you weren't a person, but now… I can't believe I was such a bitch to you, all because I couldn't let this one little thing go…"

"Pretty sure I did plenty of things worthy of your anger," I tell her. I can't believe I'm hearing the words coming out of her mouth. Definitely dreaming.

"Well, yeah, you did, but you also did plenty of things worthy of forgiveness, and I never let myself…" She shakes her head. "OK, I'll start from the beginning. When Angel first came back from Hell, he was all feral and "grr, arrg". He attacked me because he didn't recognize me, and I had to knock him out and chain him up. He did kinda save me from the monster of the week, but only kinda, because the monster was in his line of sight. If he'd seen me first, I don't doubt he would've attacked me instead. I really should've realized then just how out of control his demon was, but I was so shocked that he'd come back…"

"It's understandable that you'd be shocked," I say.

She nods. "Back then, Giles said that this is what demons are like when you strip away their human parts. He said the same thing again today. Willow was trying to weasel her way out of going to England, and Giles yelled at her about how badly her recent spells could've gone wrong. He said that if the memory spell had hit everyone in Sunnydale, it would've reduced the vampires to uncontrollable feral animals; if their human memories were taken away, they'd be left with nothing but the demon and its natural urge to kill everything around it. Three years ago, I would've bought it. But something didn't feel right. And that's when Anya spoke up."

Giving her best impression of the former demon, she says, "Hey, wait a minute! If that was true, why didn't Spike turn feral and try to kill us? He wouldn't have known he had the chip. He didn't even know he was a vampire! He acted like…a guy. A normal, human guy."

My eyebrows rise. "And you're surprised by this?"

"After all the crap I was fed by Angel and the Watchers Council? Yes and no. Surprised I hadn't realized that until now, and not surprised by the people who fed me that crap." She sighed. "Everyone was silent for a solid minute. Giles looked really embarrassed that he hadn't realized, and even Xander didn't know what to say. But she's right, Spike. When you had your memories stripped away, you weren't a feral animal – you weren't even the old evil you. No soul, no moral compass, yet you didn't have any drive to be evil. You instead acted like the rest of us; like any normal person would with memory loss. You didn't even know you were a vampire, and when you found out, you just assumed that you were a Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire with a soul who helped people!"

"If you're comparing me to Peaches-"

"I'm not," she says. "But even if I was, you'd come out favourably. Strip away his memories, and he becomes a feral animal with no drive to do anything other than attack anyone who gets in his way. When you had your memories stripped away, you were still…you. Deep down, you'll always be the adorable goofball Randy Giles was."

"Oi! Nothing adorable or goofy about me!"

Before I realize what she's doing, she crosses the space between us and encircles her arms around me, pulling me close to her. "I like it when you're adorable and goofy."

"…Adorable and goofy, that's me." I return the hug.

She giggles, which fades as she hugs me tighter with strength that would squeeze the life out of a regular human. "I'm sorry I didn't treat you like a person. I promise that I will, from now on. I'm wide awake now, and I see who you really are."

And that's all I could've ever asked for.

You remind me of a time when things weren't so complicated,

all I need is to see your face…

~ Breathing by Ariana Grande

Lesson the Sixth: Acceptance begets hope for the future.

I watch Buffy breathe in and out. She's sat on the grass in the middle of her back garden, legs crossed, eyes closed. The sun is low on the horizon, and I linger in the shadows of the porch. Not that I'd want to disturb her anyway.

It's something Glinda advised her to do, to keep a level head and deal with the stress of her life. Hard to imagine something as simple as focussing on her breathing can help so much. But I know it helps her; she's far more relaxed than she was before.

I feel like I'm intruding, so I turn to go back inside. But before I can, she says, "Stay." She doesn't move, doesn't open her eyes, just speaks one word and that's enough to convince me to obey.

A little while later, her eyes open and she gets to her feet. She smiles when she steps up beside me on the porch.

"You wanted a word?" I ask. It's the only reason she'd want me to stay.

But she shakes her head. "No. It's just easier to breathe when I can sense you nearby. It's weird that a vamp can make me feel…alive. But I guess my life's always weird, so it totally makes sense."

Before I can form any sort of response to that, or begin to hope what her words mean, she leans in and presses her lips to mine.

And I know that my broken Slayer has glued herself back together.