2
(Season 2- When She was Bad)
"Buffy!" yelled Xander, snapping Buffy out of her thoughts.
"Fine! I'm fine!" She answered automatically even though she was anything but. Her nights were filled with dreams . . . No, not dreams . . . but not nightmares, either. Some of them involved The Master, and those were the ones she woke from, a scream trapped in her throat, her body so tense she felt it would shatter if anyone touched her. Then there were the other dreams, haunting, seductive dreams about the man her mind had conjured up when she had died. Those were the dreams she was afraid to wake from.
Xander plopped down beside Buffy and gave her a weird look. "Good. It's good that you're fine." Buffy blushed as she realized that she had answered a question that hadn't even been asked.
"What were you thinking about?" asked Willow.
The word came out far too quickly for it to be true. "Nothing."
"Come on," said Xander, "You can tell us! We're your bosom friends. The friends of your bosom."
Buffy rolled her eyes and Willow said, "Xander . . ."
Before Xander could comment any further on her bosom, Buffy said, "I wasn't thinking anything. Really. Did I have think-face? 'Cause there was nothing going on." They seemed to buy it because they both opened up their brown bag lunches and started to dig through them.
"What'd you do last night?" asked Willow as she held up an apple to show Xander. He held up a granola bar and they tossed them across the table to each other.
"Slept. Had weird dreams," Buffy said, testing the water. She had dreamed about that place again last night and was dying to tell someone about it. She had kept it to herself all summer long, and along with the psychological effects of rising from the dead she wasn't even sure where that left her in terms of sanity. She wanted to tell her friends. After all, they were her friends and they had been through a lot together. Maybe they'd understand.
"Dreams are meaningful," said Xander.
"They sure are. The other night I dreamt that Xander . . ." Willow glanced at Xander, whose head snapped up at the sound of his name, and stopped herself. She backtracked in a very obvious and clumsy and awkward way. "Uh, it wasn't Xander. In fact, it wasn't me. It was a friend's dream, and they don't remember it."
Buffy smiled, "I bet they don't."
"So, Buff, you were going to tell us about your wild and wacky dream. Was I in it? Was I naked? Were you naked? Were you having that dream where you come to school naked and everyone else is dressed like a clown?" Buffy and Willow stared at him as if he'd lost his mind and or grown a second head. "Okay then. Just me, I guess."
Buffy laughed but it felt hollow.
"Is it Angel?" Willow asked, taking a bite of her granola bar.
Buffy looked down at her hands, not sure where to start. She couldn't blame her friends for thinking she was all out of sorts because of Angel. And she was, considering she hadn't seen him at all since she'd been back, but with the nightmares and the painfully realistic dreams her beef with Angel was not so much in the forefront of her mind.
She felt her friends watching her, expecting her to open up and maybe tell them why she'd been acting so strangely. They wanted to know. And she made up her mind right then to tell them . . . at least part of it.
"Xander, when you brought me back . . ." she started and then paused, not sure how to continue.
"Yeah. We were so scared. We thought you were, you know . . ."
"I was. I think. But I saw something."
Willow's eyes lit up and she leaned forward in her seat. "You had a near death experience?"
"Near death? Like angels singing and bright lights and the feeling of love pervading your eternal soul?"
"Pervading?" Asked Willow with a smirk.
Xander shrugged. "Sometimes I remember things."
"It was more like a dark castle full of goblins and chickens and there was a man dressed like a pirate glam rocker who told me I shouldn't be there." Her admission was met with silence. Buffy looked up at her friends and their faces were frozen in disbelief.
Willow shook it off first and asked softly, "Do you think you went to the other place?"
"Hell, Willow," said Xander, "It's called Hell. And it doesn't exist. And even if it did Buffy wouldn't go there. She'd go to the place with the lights and the singing and the happy." To Buffy he asked, "Was it happy?"
"I don't know," Buffy admitted. "I wasn't there long enough to find out. But it was . . . weird."
"What was weird?" asked Giles as he approached the group. He looked more nervous than usual. "Vampire?"
"Buffy was just telling us how she had a near death experience," volunteered Willow. Buffy shot her a glance and she looked down at her breakfast bar and muttered, "Sorry."
"What's this?" asked Giles, "Near death, did you say?"
Buffy shrugged and tried to make light of something that didn't feel light at all. "After The Master bit me and I . . ." her voice trailed off. It felt weird saying these words but she forced her tongue back into action, "After I died . . . Drowned . . . I wasn't dead. Or maybe I was, but it felt more like I fell into another world. I think . . ."
"What do you mean another world?" asked Giles as he perched on the arm of the couch where Willow was sitting.
"I don't know, exactly. There were little monsters and chickens and a guy who looked like he lived the glam rock lifestyle without irony. He threw a crystal ball at me and then I woke up, thanks to Xander."
Xander laughed nervously and said, "So Heaven is peopled with angry, fortune-telling rock gods? Who knew?" but it did nothing to break the tension.
Buffy could feel the eyes of her best friends and her Watcher boring into the top of her head, waiting for her to elaborate, but she had nothing more to add. Although, she figured she may as well tell them the entire story.
Willow piped up then, bubbling with excitement as if she had just stumbled onto some brilliant new scientific theory that was bound to go screaming over the rest of their heads. "Maybe it was a Hell dimension? Those exist, right Giles?"
"Oh, I don't know if I'd call it that, but it is an interesting theory," said Giles, but it wasn't Giles' voice. It was the droll voice of the man from the hell dimension, or heaven, or hell, or near death experience, or whatever.
Buffy's head shot up, expecting to see that sardonic grin she had been dreaming about all summer long, but instead she saw Giles, looking worried, as usual. "What's the buzz? You look worried."
Giles shook his head. "Aside from your . . . stint into the netherworld . . . The vampire activity. I think I know what they're up to.
"Well," said Buffy, "Don't' stress. We'll deal."
"I hope it's that simple."
"It is not to sweat. Trust me." Buffy sounded more confident than she felt and hoped the others couldn't see through her words.
"I don't know. I mean, I killed you once. It shouldn't be too difficult to do it again."
"What?" Buffy asked, not sure if she had heard him correctly. Instead of answering, however, Giles punched her and Buffy flew backward and landed on the coffee table between the couches. In an instant he was on top of her, his hands wrapped around her throat. Buffy clawed at his arms but he didn't even flinch. Her head felt full and the pressure mounted with each passing moment.
On either side of her Buffy could see Willow and Xander, smiling at each other and talking as if Buffy wasn't being strangled right in front of them, and Buffy wondered why they wouldn't help her. She reached up with weak arms and tried to scratch at Giles' face, hoping the pain would snap him out of whatever had overcome him. Instead her fingers found the flesh pliant and she gripped it and pulled and Giles' face came off as if it were a mask. Buffy's eyes widened in horror as her fading vision took in what was underneath.
It was the Master. And he was killing her. Again.
"So this is the demon that plagues your unconscious mind."
Buffy turned her head to the side to see the glam rocker perched beside a clueless Willow, his leg thrown over one arm of the couch. "Excuse me," Buffy said, able to converse just fine in spite of the hands locked around her throat. "Do you mind? I'm fighting for my life here."
"By all means, my dear. Please continue your eternal struggle."
Buffy gripped the Master's wrists and manage to pull his hands away from her throat just enough for her to choke in a breath before his grip tightened once more. Her eyes watered and her face throbbed from the pressure.
"Is this how you ended up in my world?" the man asked.
"Not quite," Buffy gasped. His world, she thought? What was this guy?
"But this beast was the perpetrator?"
Buffy would have sighed in exasperation if she could have. Instead she answered, "If you insist on sticking around would you mind giving me a hand and I'll tell you everything you want to know?"
The man's face, as well as the rest of the world, was a blur to her but she could still tell when a grin split his face. "All you had to do was ask."
In an instant the lights went out and The Master disappeared. Buffy took a deep and shuddering breath, then choked on it for several seconds before her trachea stopped spasming. She was about to sit up when her body started to tingle, sensing the proximity of something hovering just over her.
"Hello?" she said. Her voice was hoarse and throbbed with pain. She cleared her throat. It hurt worse. "Gypsy guy? You still here?"
"Yes." His voice was close, right before her left ear and she jumped. "Though the moniker 'Gypsy Guy' leaves much to be desired."
"I don't know your name."
"How strange. You come to my world yet you do not know me?
"Nope. Sorry. Should I? I mean, I know I'm not all hip to the oldies but—"
He cut her off. "I am Jareth, the Goblin King."
What the hell is a Goblin King, Buffy wondered. Whatever it was she certainly didn't want to be In the dark with him anymore. "Well, um, Jareth, thanks for the assistance, I guess."
"Your dreams are telling."
The voice was father away now and Buffy sat up slowly, expecting to bump into something at any moment. "What do you mean? Can you turn the lights back on?"
The Goblin King answered one question and ignored the other. "Your fear is thrilling."
Buffy scowled at the darkness. "That's reassuring. So glad I could thrill you."
"Until we meet again," he said. The statement was punctuated by the sound of flapping wings that grew louder and louder until Buffy felt like she had to duck and cover her face to avoid whatever was flying around in the darkness.
Buffy woke from the dream in an instant and waved her arms in the air to protect herself from the rogue bird as the sounds of wings faded slowly into the sounds of crickets and rustling trees. Once she realized that she was awake she sat up in bed, panting, her heart racing.
Buffy's eyes did a quick, panicked scan of her bedroom but nothing was out of place. Though in the dark, after that nightmare, she wasn't entirely sure what she could be sure of anymore. She sniffled and ran her hands through her hair. The nape of her neck was sweating and she lifted her hair off of her neck to cool it, then rolled her head in a circle. It felt stiff. She felt stiff, as if she had been running a marathon or doing some heavy lifting instead of sleeping.
Well that solves that, she thought. I certainly won't be telling anyone about any of this. And why did the Goblin King have to end up in her nightmare about The Master, anyway? He didn't belong in the same category of abject fear and hatred as The Master did. He wasn't even real, anyway, just a misfiring of her oxygen-starved brain cells.
Whatever. She sighed and scowled inwardly as her stupid, wayward brain.
A noise from the window startled her and she glanced over to see the shadow of a body crouched outside the window. After a moment her eyes adjusted to the dim streetlights and she recognized Angel perched on the roof.
"Hello," she said, her heart speeding up in a completely different way as nervousness replaced the fear leftover from her nightmare. She wasn't ready to have whatever conversation they needed to have, especially not at night, in her pj's, with bed-head and sleep-breath.
"Mind if I come in?" Angel asked.
Buffy shrugged. "Be my guest."
He stepped into her room through the window and Buffy clenched her hands into fists to prevent herself from running them over Angel's chest. He walked to her bed, all grace and sexiness, and stood there in awkward silence.
"How are you?" he asked.
Buffy had imagined their reunion many times over the summer and none of them had gone like this. She had expected to be excited and giddy to be near Angel again. Instead she was angry, which surprised her. Her head was so full of images and emotions she wasn't even sure what he could have done to make it better but she wasn't in the mood to give him a pass. She responded with a terse, "Peachy," not because she wanted to be cruel but because she didn't know what else to say.
After a few moments of silence, during which Buffy unfairly blamed Angel for not stepping forward and embracing her, she decided to move this scenario forward. "So, is this a social call? It's kind of late. Or, it is for me. For you this is, what, lunch hour?"
Angel frowned at her and even in the darkness his irritation was clear. She had hurt him. Part of her didn't care. "It's not a social call," Angel said.
"And that means grave danger. Gosh, it's so good to be home."
"I'm sorry. I wish I had better news." Buffy could hear the remorse filling in the spaces between the words. He was sorry about so much more than just being the messenger carrying bad news. It didn't matter.
"Let me guess. Some of your cousins have come for a family barbecue, and we're all on the menu."
"The Anointed One. He's been gathering forces somewhere in town. I'm not sure why."
"I guess I'll find out soon enough." Buffy folded her arms across her chest.
"You don't sound too concerned."
I'm terrified, Buffy thought to herself. But she said, "I can handle myself. After all, I died and spent some time in what I assume was a hell dimension. I hung out with a crazy demon king guy that followed me back and is now infecting my nightmares, so I could use a little action."
"What? You went to a hell dimension?" Angel asked, concern and confusion breaking through his all-business façade. "You never said anything."
Buffy sighed. "You never asked. And it doesn't matter anyway. My questionable mental state and nocturnal disruptions can't possibly be as important as the Anointed One." She made sure to roll her eyes at the mention of her new supposed nemesis.
"Don't underestimate the Anointed One just because he looks a child. He has power over the rest of them. Its source is deep, and old. They'll do anything for him."
Buffy narrowed her eyes. If Angel wasn't going to bring up his two month silence following her death and resurrection, then neither was she. "After you die and come back the big bads just don't pack quite the punch."
"Buffy," Angel started but she cut him off.
"Is that it? Is that everything? 'Cause you woke me up from a really nice dream."
Angel looked at the ground and muttered, "Sorry. I'll go." Buffy lay back down and turned away from him as he started toward the window, then paused. She listened for the sound of his departure but instead heard him say quietly, "I missed you."
Buffy froze and tears stung the backs of her eyes. She knew that she was being unfair to him and then he went and said exactly what she needed to hear. After a moment she turned, ready to face him, finally. "I missed—" she started but the words died in her throat.
Angel was gone. She wished he wasn't.
