SUMMARY: Post-Ep to "Normal Again." A side effect of the antidote to the monster venom is that Buffy's Slayer powers are temporarily disabled – allowing her to call names and pull hair without inflicting lethal damage. SPOILERS for everything up to that point.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Buffy or any of the characters, and I'm not making any money with this story. No copywrite infringement intended.
A/N: For Annie – because we should both get out of season six exactly what we want to see.
A/N: Although this story is set in canon, I'm aware that the end of "Two to Go" might not have gone exactly as it had, if this fic had also happened. My answer is that neither Buffy nor Willow was able to use her powers in this fic, therefore it wasn't a real test for the Slayer or the Sorceress. Plus, with her selective memory in "Two to Go," Willow didn't remember the events of this fic.
Pulling Hair
by Alicia
Dawn would never forgive her. That was Buffy's first thought, closely followed by the fact that she hoped the antidote wouldn't stain her hair the same color as her demon-blood-coated hands. After that followed the thought that Joyce was calling her, Joyce was there, no, Joyce was dead, Buffy had killed her all over again, Joyce was dead and Willow and Dawn and Xander and the others were alive, and Buffy had tried to kill them, she had tried to kill them. For a moment, Buffy thought it would be logical to drop to the ground and rock with her hands over her ears the same way her alternate reality self had done mere moments before. But there were apologies to be made.
"It's going to be okay, Buffy," Willow called again from the other room. She returned moments later with another coffee mug of obnoxious brown liquid. The mug said, "Kiss a librarian," in large faded red letters.
Buffy wondered if she even needed the antidote. It seemed the hallucination had run its course when Buffy had made her final choice – I killed my mother, I killed my mother again, I kill everyone I love – but since the others were all watching her with unblinking, fearful expressions, she thought it best to cooperate. She held her breath and drank the liquid.
"No more hallucinations?" said Willow.
"No more asylum," Buffy said. She could still smell the rubbing alcohol and fresh linen. "No more asylum." That time it came out with more conviction. She was so tired.
"I'm glad you're okay. I have the, um, thing, um, I have to go," Tara said, not meeting Willow's eyes – or anyone's. "Call me," she delivered finally. It could have been directed to Willow, or to Buffy, or to the room at large, but Tara vanished up the stairs before anyone had a chance to answer.
"Well, as long as the Buffster's going to be all right," Xander said, slapping Buffy on the shoulder with force that nearly sent Buffy to her knees, "I think I'll just go, um,"
"Change your pants?" Dawn said acidly.
Buffy flinched. This wasn't right, there was so much hatred in this room, it was her fault, all her fault.
"Toss the icky demon body in the graveyard where it belongs," Xander said, addressing Buffy while pointedly not looking at Dawn. "I'll be by to check on you later, okay, Buffy?" Another shoulder slap, which Xander certainly meant to be affectionate, which hit Buffy with far more force than it should.
"Come upstairs, Buffy," Willow said. She took a step toward Buffy, but then turned, glancing over her shoulder at Dawn.
"Save Dawn," Buffy said.
She hadn't thought her voice had been louder than a whisper, but Dawn retorted, "I can save myself, thank you," and turned and vanished up the stairs.
Buffy tried to run after Dawn. Her legs gave out. She fell to her knees. They hurt. A lot. She struggled back to her feet. Huge red welts spread across both knees where they had made contact with the dirty basement floor.
Willow lifted Buffy's arm and draped it over her shoulders, then guided Buffy toward the stairway.
"I can walk," Buffy said, pulling away. She had only fallen because she'd tried to run on uneven ground. It was an accident anyone could have. Anyone – just not The Slayer. Well, they'd given her a lot of drugs in the hospital. No, that hadn't happened. An image flashed across Buffy's memory. Giles with a case of syringes. "You poisoned me."
Willow still followed two steps behind until Buffy was safely in her own room.
"Will?"
"Yeah?"
"Would that antidote you made also stop my Slayer powers?"
Willow deliberated a minute, one hand on the doorknob, the other on the light switch. "Yes," she said. "It's the same magical base as the shots Giles was giving you. You'll have your powers back in a few hours."
"Good," Buffy said. She lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. Sterile white gowns swam through her mental vision. These people were real: Willow, Xander, Dawn. "Tara is real," Buffy said softly.
"She's real," said Willow, firmly. "Don't think about your imaginary world. It's not real. It never was."
"You didn't have to send Tara away." The words felt like they washed out of the place between wakefulness and sleep.
Willow's response jolted Buffy to full consciousness. "I did not send Tara away. In case you didn't notice, she left all on her own. If anyone drove her away, it was you. She might as well be dating you now." She flipped the light back on and dropped her hands from both doorknob and light switch.
Dating Tara. Dating. Sleeping with. Breath and pain and dizzying sensation. Hot on cold on hot on cold. It looks different when you're under it. "I'm dating S—" Buffy said. "Someone. A long time ago." She felt her face flush. She wasn't dating Spike. She'd never dated Spike. She'd never loved him. I'm using you. And it's killing me.
"Tara doesn't come over to see me now. She just talks to you. You want her at your party. You want her to meet you at work."
Buffy rolled off the bed in one fluid motion, pleased to see that at least her hours and years of training hadn't vanished with her powers. She stood in a loose fighting stance. "Maybe that's because Tara can't talk to you. You went all wooo-woooo," Buffy said with her best annoying finger-waving impression, "and cast spells on her memory. Not fair that we all have to lose her too."
Willow's face reddened and she took a step toward Buffy. "Maybe I wouldn't have been so desperate not to fight with my girlfriend if my best friend hadn't hated me."
Xander? Hated Willow? Xander had never hated Willow. Buffy took a step backwards, tripping into the bed. "Huh?"
"You wanted to leave me alone again. You wanted to go back to that creepy demon dimension of yours."
Everything is bright, and cold, and violent. This is hell. "How dare you?" Buffy said in a very low voice. "You know I was happy. Tara cried when I said I was happy."
"And I'm horrible because I didn't cry," Willow said, advancing another several steps toward Buffy.
They were in each other's faces, and Buffy was unbalanced. "You did," Buffy said very softly. "But you never said anything."
"What was I supposed to say? I'm sorry I dragged you out of Heaven because I'm so selfish I need you to keep from falling apart?"
"I didn't even want you to know," Buffy said, feeling her voice rising to a shriek with the satisfying sensation that she didn't care. "I was protecting your selfish feelings. After you destroyed the only chance I'll ever have."
"Chance for what?"
"Being with Mom! Having all the people I love be okay! Not getting everyone I touch killed." "You have a world of strength in your heart," Asylum-Joyce whispered. "I'm sorry, Mom." Buffy whispered back under her screams at Willow. "Not coming back wrong!"
"You didn't come back wrong! And you nearly got us all killed by not being here! For all you care, when you kill us to stay in your fantasy world!"
Buffy's right knee chose that moment to twinge painfully, and with the pain came the sweet knowledge that she didn't have powers right at this moment. She was just a normal girl. She took a step toward the head of the bed, righting her balance, and then reached out and grabbed a lock of Willow's hair. She pulled.
Willow yelped. Then she slapped Buffy on the cheek.
Again relying on the body knowledge from the years of training, Buffy easily leaned back with the force of the slap. Once Willow's weight had carried her forward, Buffy grabbed the arm which Willow had used to slap and pinned it behind her back.
Willow mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like Latin, but all that came out that Buffy could hear was "you wear frumpy clothes and you're a party pooper."
Immobilizing Willow's arm, Buffy used her other hand to pull Willow's hair again.
Willow gave another satisfying yelp.
"You drink sissy drinks."
"The last thing you drank was Tylenol," Willow said. "Uncle. I can't feel my hand."
Buffy let go. She took a step back, waiting for Willow, who'd been bent over the bed, to get properly to her feet.
Willow stayed where she was, and after a moment Buffy realized she was crying.
"Will?"
Willow held up her hands as if to push Buffy away, although considering she'd just lost the fist fight, she probably wouldn't have gotten very far. "No. Go away. No, I'll go away, considering this is your room and all." She sniffed. "You're right. It was selfish of me. I should have left you in Heaven."
"Will?" Buffy said, reaching out again.
"Go away!" Willow pushed Buffy's hand away. "You weren't here before. That night when I told Giles I was so powerful he shouldn't cross me and…" she hiccupped, and the rest was lost.
Dimly, Buffy registered that normally she'd just have gone away and let Willow get control of herself. But she was angry, she was angry and she was free to slap, and she felt something. "Excuse me if I was trying to pay all the bills you didn't pay while I was dead."
"Excuse me if I was dealing with the kind of guilt like you will never understand."
"Because of what you did to me!" Buffy flew at Willow. This time she knocked her friend on to the floor, and covered her with a rain of random slaps, deliberately open handed since Buffy didn't trust her shaky control of her limbs.
Willow hit back, still more feebly than Buffy, but with enough force that Buffy could continue.
Neither one of them was sure afterward whether Buffy started sobbing first, or whether Willow's tears renewed themselves and this time set off Buffy. Perhaps they were sharing a brain again, Buffy would observe later; perhaps they were just doing things together, Buffy and Willow again, the pair who chose each other's prom dresses in the face of a demon apocalypse.
Buffy had cried once since coming back, leaning over Tara's lap and begging Tara not to forgive her for using Spike, for letting Spike hurt her, for being so desperate to feel that she'd kiss a vampire she hated. She'd cried more often in her dreams, the kind where she'd be suspended in timelessness and completeness until the bright harsh light of this world would burned her skin away and she'd awaken with hot tears on her cheeks. This was different. This felt more like the time Buffy and Dawn had fallen to the floor on their doorstep in each other's arms, knowing a cold horrid caricature of Joyce had very nearly walked through that doorstep and both Dawn and Buffy would have welcomed it. Buffy felt the same overpowering, overwhelming sensation, and it had been so long since she'd felt that she rode the waves like a child in a life preserver. She cried for the lingering horror of the asylum, for the way that she still felt trapped in her own clothes and had to keep looking down to be sure there were no restraints on her arms. She cried for her mother, newly dead in this moment. She cried for the very selfish lost sense of Heaven, for the job she had to do, for the way that she still had no idea how to be a grown up, for every bitter look Dawn had thrown her way. And for Spike, for the horrible things Buffy had let him do to her, for the pleasure she had taken away while giving so little in return, for the shadows Buffy couldn't return to.
"I'm so sorry," Willow gasped out. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry I didn't see what you were going through," Buffy said. "I'm sorry I let you get so bad. I'm sorry I let Tara go away."
"That was my fault. I'm sorry I blamed you. I'm sorry I let her go. I miss her every minute. It's like having my legs ripped off."
"I know," Buffy said softly. Able to surface slightly herself, she wrapped her arms around her friend, and they rocked back and forth, sitting cross legged on the floor. "I know how much it hurts."
"I didn't even notice. When Riley left. I was so in love with Tara."
"She's an easy person to fall in love with. Relax, Will. I've got you." And for a moment, they were Buffy and Willow again.
Long moments later, Willow sniffed again. She drew back, and met Buffy's eyes for the first time since Buffy had emerged from that asylum. "Are you sure you're all right again?"
Buffy had been about to lie and say yes.
A voice came from the somehow-now-open doorway. "You know, the rest of us miss Tara too. At least, when we're not trying to kill her."
Buffy was sure that Dawn intended to do what she'd done in the past: deliver the cutting remark, stalk off to her bedroom, throw herself on the bed, and shriek until everyone went away – or until everyone paid attention to her just to get her to shut up, Buffy was never sure. This time, instead of letting Dawn get away with it, Buffy let go of Willow, darted for the door, and caught a handful of long dark hair. She pulled Dawn back into her room.
Dawn screamed just like she'd screamed when she'd been five.
No, not my sister, the monks made her, but I remember her shrieking like this, I remember chasing her running away from Daddy where the first one of us to get caught got tickled.
A master at slapping and pinching all her life, though, Dawn turned and yanked on Buffy's hair.
Buffy screamed. Dawn wasn't nearly as strong as Spike – Buffy hastily pushed that thought away – but in this moment, Dawn was stronger than she was. The fragile little sister who Buffy had to protect from the Glory-shaped shadows was stronger than Buffy was. Buffy rolled out of the way and continued to slap, giving less than she got.
Willow grabbed a pillow from Buffy's bed and threw it between them. "Dawnie, if you were listening…"
Dawn gave Willow a sullen look, but stopped slapping Buffy.
"You know Buffy's sorry for trying to kill us," Willow said.
Buffy dropped her hand, which had been poised to hit Dawn, and mouthed, sorry for trying to kill us? at Willow.
"She doesn't want to be here with us," Dawn wailed. "She'd kill us to go back to her ideal world."
"No. She chose us," Willow said quietly. "Didn't you see it? One minute she was hiding from the demon. The next, she said something, and then suddenly she took out the demon. Before it hurt us."
"I said 'You're right, thank you,' and 'goodbye,'" Buffy said. The images swam before her eyes. She shut them, but that made it worse. Her cheeks stung. Her nose stung. That had been from her real sister slapping her in the real world, and crying real tears in the real world for the first time in forever.
"Who—" Dawn said with a nonplussed expression, which had to be a first in recent history for Dawn. "Never mind. Okay. So it wasn't your ideal world?"
"Not even close," Buffy said. "Is it safe to put my hands down?"
"I won't slap you again," Dawn said. "I make no promises about tickling."
"Eeep," Buffy said, mimicking the sounds she'd made during such games before she was the Slayer. She tried to jump back.
Besides being stronger than Buffy, Dawn was also faster. She had a good hold on Buffy's shoulders before Buffy could move too far. Dawn wrapped her arms tightly around her big sister. "Stay," she whispered. "We need you."
Buffy lay her head on Dawn's shoulder. "Okay."