Title: Buffy's Layers

Author: Goddessa39

Emails:

Spoilers: Grad. Part 2. Some other things that actually happened in 'Anne.'

Summary: Buffy's thoughts as she watches him fade away into the smoke.

Timeline: End of Grad. Pt.2

Pairing: BA

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the fic, Liam, and Elisabeth.

Feedback: Please. I need my reason for writing- your ideas and me knowing my work is read.

Rating: (May change. But I cannot write NC-17.)

Notes/Changes: They will be obvious.

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I have layers.

Yes, there are my ordinary layers, the ones that most people have a few of. I can be bitchy or crazy or thoughtful, or even homicidal. There are a lot more. And Im a good actress, not that anyone would notice. I act too much for anyone to know. Does that even make sense?

My layers are the shields that come around me now and hide my gaping soul from the world, while it still remains to look as if it's 'on my shoulder'. I have a lot of different rings and they're all shielding me from the harsh truth that maybe my friends don't know anything and my watcher is almost blind to it. My mommy always ignored it, but that's no excuse for her to not see in the first place.

My first shield came with the fights. My parents would be downstairs and I would be upstairs in my room in my closet pulling Dawnie's hair, and her doing the same. But that didn't last long because the divorce came right after my second shield came up. My 'slayerness' just basically appeared on my doorstep.

Actually, it was the steps to the damn high school that I remain known as a great queen-turned-bad or something. I want to burn the rest down like I got to Sunnydale High. There's memories there that I'd rather forget, and I have no choice but to remember. I hate school. For me, there's no point. Willow and Oz can do that all they want, but it was never something that I looked forwards to.

That's two layers; through the fights and through becoming the slayer. My third came when Merrick died. I never really liked or even respected him, but he cared more then anyone else had. When he died, and Pike disappeared without a trace, another shield went up.

I came to Sunnydale and tried to get back into my LA-Queen-B again, so I had to put up another layer to falsify my life. But it was okay until Giles confronted me with the destiny yet again. The last one crumbled, but eventually got reconstructed when we 'initiated' the scooby core if you get me.

And then I met him and all of that came crumbling down with a single look in an alley behind the bronze that still hold a certain crowbar that I swung on. That was hard to know, that someone could see through all of that down the drain, someone I didn't know but fell in love with before I knew what was happening.

Willow and Xander built up around me and then we had our little gang. We all had a honey to hold when things got rough and then I let passion overtake me and everything went sour. Angelus resurfaced and my Angel was gone. Then the demon wearing my lover's face killed my watchers girl and hurt everyone else. His childe even killed my little sister. No, not Dawn, but Kendra. Doesn't matter how you put it, she was like a little sister.

I bet the Council was just cursing me for that. I lived while their precious slayer that they trained from an infant had to die at the hand of a notorious vampire in a way that she should have been trained to ignore. Although, I did the same thing. The Master killed me, only I had someone who was able to bring me back. The Master was stupid when he didn't drain me and he's probably in Hell thinking the same thing.

I built up a lot of layers in those few months. Nobody was really getting through them, and even Angelus was somewhat oblivious that the mental tortures were only working because, well, they weren't. But he had to kill the gypsy and I had a few seconds of no-shield-Buffy in Giles is arms telling him not to leave me, that I couldn't do it alone.

But they went up right after tears quit falling and I was finally ready to kill him. So we fought and I went outside of them all and I fought back, and was about to win. But fate plays too many cards for the dark side and I felt and saw something run through us and then it's my Angel down on his knees, confused, in front of me.

And I kissed him and held him and told him I love him and then I was forced to shove a sword through his gut. Do you know what it's like to have to kill someone you love, with everything, and send him to hell? No, of course not; Why would you? I am the only one that bad things happen too. Just me, who is supposed to fight, and yet I just get beat even when I'm about to win.

So my shields came crashing down around me and I had to leave. There was nothing else to do. So I went to LA and got a job waitressing as I couldn't eat or sleep. I had to keep moving, never to think about him but it never worked because whether I dreamt or saw someone on the street, all I could think of was him. Burning, slicing, freezing. The blow I gave him is in my head. He reached out for me you know? He said my name like I was the only important thing in the world and had these big sad, confused eyes that just wanted me to tell him what was going on.

You know, I reached out to him. But it was too late and he was gone. The Acathla demon sucked him over and swallowed the soul whole, which left a squiggly feeling in my gut. I bent over and did something until my chest hurt, not that I'd need any help with that. I couldn't feel anything.

I met up with some people, and we became friends. We set up some people to patrol around and stuff and I even went to hell. So as I am goin through these months in LA, my old home town, I built my walls back up and only let Lily, or Anne through. And she held on to my daughter and son for me, to make sure they didn't get hurt. I see them every few weeks and we hang out. They're 1½ right now. Blonde hair and shining green eyes like mine that cloud when I'm unhappy are carried on to both of them. They both have small chocolate brown rings of their father's around the green.

There are only four people that have the ability to get within the safe contains of my walls. One is Lily, or 'Anne'. I call her 'Mushroom' sometimes though. Then there are my children; my little boy, Liam, and my baby, Elisabeth, or Liss.

The fourth is my Angel, but I don't know if he can read me anymore because he is walking away through the smoke and he can't even see that I'm dying.

The End.

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You like it? It's just a short fic on her thoughts and attitudes- her layers. I haven't used the 'onion' layer because that belongs tot eh creators of Shrek.

Then of course, I had to add a little bit of my own world into that.

Queen Boadicea : I realize that I didn't make much sense of that, but here I go. Buffy got pregnant On her 17th, and left them with Lily so that they would be safe- if anyone knew the slayer, let alone the Scourge of Europe, had children, don't you think they'd be in trouble? But none of the other scoobies, Angel included, know about them. And she calls Lily 'Mushroom' sometimes because of how she was going by 'Chantarelle' before.