Denial

That night's patrol was…

Anya didn't know the word for it. She felt…good, but not good at the same time. She felt tired, but at the same time she felt satisfied. Grimly, darkly, wonderfully satisfied.

She'd leapt on the vampires and staked them mercilessly, and had even continued jamming the stake into the ground as her victims turned to dust. She pretended that each one she went after was responsible for Joyce being gone, and that she was a demon again exacting vengeance on the woman's behalf. Each one was an unfaithful lover. Each one was Joyce's murderer. Each one got what they deserved.

She hadn't been a human for very long, but she knew how the universe was supposed to work. Bad things happened to those who deserved it. She had become a vengeance demon simply to ensure that that rule of life remained intact. And bad things were not supposed to happen to good people like Joyce. Unless they were done by bad people. And, if that happened, the bad people deserved every ounce of vengeance that turned them inside out or into an entire friend chicken. Xander had got it right when he accused Glory or the doctors, he just obviously hadn't thought of the right demon, and Willow had been silly to dissuade him and Anya had been silly to believe Willow's dissausion of Xander. If something this terrible had happened to Joyce, something equally terrible had to be responsible. That was how the world worked.

And Anya, who felt as powerful and furious as the demon she had once been, was determined to hunt it down and chop its extremities off.

At least, she was. Until, suddenly, everything switched off and when it switched back on again Xander was carrying her out of the cemetery.

"I wasn't done!" she whined.

"Anya, you fainted," said Xander gently. "You're probably wiped out. I know I am."

"Well, I'm tougher than you are," said Anya, folding her arms stubbornly. "Take me back right now."

"No."

She growled at him. "Xander…"

"No, Anya. We're going home."

"No!" Anya beat at his chest, but found that her muscles weren't working right. He barely flinched under the blows, but he did stop walking. "No, no no! Take me back right now! I'm not done yet!"

"Anya, you dusted half the cemetery!" he protested.

"I don't care! I'm not done! I didn't find the thing that killed Joyce yet!"

Xander froze. Anya, startled by this response, looked up at her and he looked back.

She saw that he looked like he was about to cry again, and the sight immediately made one of those uncomfortable egg-sized lumps appear in her throat. But she needed Xander to understand, and gripped his shirt tightly as she continued speaking:

"You…you said it, Xander…something had to have killed her…something did, because Joyce wasn't supposed to die all alone like that…it has to be something's fault, and if you take me home it'll get away and laugh at us and Joyce will still be dead…"

He was crying again, and she was crying, and he was hugging her tightly, rocking her back and forth.

"Anya…Anya, I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, but…it was just an aneurism. Just an ordinary, stupid aneurism…it wasn't a demon, it was…it was just life…just life, kicking us in the teeth again."

"But that can't be right!" Anya protested. "It can't! I was supposed to make sure vengeance only happened to bad people, and Joyce wasn't a bad person! So I need to take vengeance on the one who did this to her, or the universe is going to be all tilted and not right, and…"

"Anya…" Xander whispered. He smiled, through the tears. "Oh, Anya…"

Then, he kissed her on the top of her head. "Tell you what. We'll go home, catch some z's. Then, tomorrow, we'll get Giles very best weapons and come back here to hunt down the demon. Okay?"

She nodded, wiping at her eyes. "Okay. And we'll pack lunch."

"Yeah." He started walking again, and this time she did not protest, instead letting herself get cozy in his arms and feel safe for the first time in hours and hours. "We'll pack lunch. Make a day of it. We'll find that demon, Anya, don't you worry…"

Anya suddenly found her eyelids getting heavy, but she nodded once again. "Yeah…yeah, we'll do that…and then Joyce will be okay, and she can have…" She yawned hugely. "…fruit punch…"

She was glad Xander had seen sense. She hadn't been a human for very long, but he knew how things were supposed to go. Tomorrow, things would be okay again.

With that, she was asleep.