New York 2009
The end of summer sun was still relatively bright and high as Buffy walked off campus. She could hear rhythmic bass pounding from dorm rooms, as students began their Friday night partying early and energetically. It was the first weekend all the students were back on campus, and Buffy was not surprised that they were already well on their way to drunkland. After all, she had done the same, hadn't she, when she was an undergrad. As much as she had very strongly disliked college, she had enjoyed the parties. She and Willow had gone out when they could. Whenever her fighting the forces of darkness schedule and homework would let her. True that batch of bad beer and becoming B.C. Buffy had made her not such a fan of alcohol, but she had still loved to go out and party, dance, have a good time. Parties had made her feel like a normal girl. At least until the evil party crashers showed up, which they inevitably did. So, she guessed, so much for normal.
Knowing that the rest of her classmates would be out with friends, boyfriends, and one-night-stands, Buffy felt her loneliness engulf her. She would be all alone tonight and the next night and the night after that. She didn't have any friends here. In fact the only people she could even consider friends on this continent were in Cleveland and L.A. And she wasn't sure that 'friend' was a title she was comfortable using when it came to either Faith or Angel. Extremely messy past. Former enemy. Current ally. Check and check and check. Friend. Not so much. So okay, they weren't friends exactly, but still, she would have given anything to have them here with her now. Anything was better than this suffocating feeling that she was alone.
She would go out on patrol later tonight, once the sun went down, and she hoped she would run into some baddies. Demons. Vamps. It didn't matter. At least they would be a bit of company before she killed them. She groaned. Oh god, her social life had been reduced to monsters. She was actually looking forward to the exchange of her witty remarks and their not so witty retorts. She was officially lame. Her life had come to a state of sadness that she so did not want to think about. For the millionth time that day she wished that Giles had given her the green light to go back to England. At least in England there were people, non-dead and non-demon people, to talk to. At least in England she could pretend and almost convince herself that she was not completely alone.
She was almost to her apartment when her phone rang. It was Dawn. She so did not want to talk to her sister right now. She laughed harshly to herself. Here she was complaining about being alone, and then when someone reached out to her, she refused to connect. She sighed. It was a typical Buffy move, she guessed. Bitch about the loneliness but keep yourself aloof. Apart. Alone. Still, she could not bring herself to answer her phone, and she let the call go to voicemail.
Her phone beeped once, indicating that her sister had left a message. "Hey Buffy," Dawn began. "I know that you are totally ignoring my call, because, please, what could you possibly be doing right now? Anyway. I really need to talk to you, so please please please call me back. Or better yet, I'll just keep calling you until you decide to stop being a bitch and answer your damn phone. Love you. Bye."
Just as Buffy finished the message and ended the call, her phone rang again. Dawn. So she wasn't kidding about the continual call back threat. Buffy sighed, fine she would answer. She didn't want her incessantly ringing phone to drive her any crazier than she already was.
"I thought the annoyingness was supposed to decrease as you got older," Buffy answered the phone.
"Its not annoyingness, its persistence," Dawn countered.
"That's just another nicer sounding word for annoying."
"Maybe. But whatever you want to call it, it works."
For a moment silence hung around them, neither sister knowing exactly what to say. Buffy so did not want to tell Dawn about everything that had happened with Spike. Her sister did not like, did not approve of the vampire. Not anymore. At one point Dawn had been Spike's number one supporter. The president, secretary, vp, and treasurer of the Spike fan club. But all that had changed. And Buffy did not want to give her any more reasons to dislike him or any chance to say I told you so.
"So, I know why you are in total avoidance and mope mode," Dawn finally said. "Giles told me."
"Great. Glad to hear my romantic drama made the Watcher gossip column."
"Oh please. We don't have Watcher gossip columns," Dawn responded snippily. "We blog. Or use good old fashion word of mouth, you know how stodgy some of those watchers can be." She paused, "But seriously, Buffy, its Giles, we're talking about. He's not exactly crank up the rumor mill guy. He's just worried about you."
"I'm fine."
"That is such total bullshit, Buffy. God, I'm your sister. Okay, the sister formerly known as big-green-energy-ball. But still. I know when your fine. And when you're not. And I definitely know when guy trouble has got you all angsty and depressed. And right now my sister instincts are screaming that you are the total opposite of fine."
"Okay, so maybe I'm not fine right now. But I will be. Soon. Just give me a few pints of Ben and Jerry's and a few demons to take my aggression out on. You know, normal girl pity party stuff. "
"Yeah. Right. I also know that you have some pretty fucked up ways of dealing with break ups. Case in point, demon fighting as therapy."
"Language. And killing evil things can be very cathartic. And this wasn't a break up. News flash, we were not dating. We never dated. We might have had sex. But never dates. You don't go on dates with vampires."
"I don't, but you do. And by the way Buffy, you're actually not supposed to have sex with them either. That's definitely somewhere in the Slayer handbook. Rule # 173 or something. But you never followed the rules. Besides you went on plenty of dates with Angel."
"And we all remember how well that worked out. Half of our dates ended in bloodshed anyway."
"So what does it matter if you went on dates with Spike or just went out on patrol. It ends up being the same thing."
"No it doesn't and its not."
"You love him."
"Maybe I do. Maybe I always will, no mater how hard I try not to. But right now that's not really the point."
"Then why are you giving up so easily?"
"Huh?" Buffy was unlocking the door to her apartment building. And she was sure that she must have miss heard her sister.
"I said, 'then why are you giving up so easily?'" Dawn repeated slowly.
"What do you care? You hate him, remember. Shouldn't you be happy that everything you said ended up being true?"
"Buffy, you're miserable. How can I be happy about that?"
Buffy paused for a moment, "When did you get to be all grown up and with the matureness and everything?"
"Three years and eighty-three days ago. And stop trying to change the subject."
"There is nothing more to say on the subject."
"You still haven't told me why you're giving up without any kind of a fight at all."
"Oh we had a fight. A big one."
"Not what I meant."
"You wouldn't understand, Dawn."
"Try me. Mature adult now, remember?"
Buffy sighed. "The truth. Is that he hurt me badly enough that I don't want to fight anymore. I give up. I've been fighting my whole life. For you, for mom, for my friends, for myself, for the world, for him. I just don't have any more fight in me."
"Just because he has a girlfriend?" Dawn inquired skeptically.
"Not just a girlfriend. A perfect, impossibly gorgeous girlfriend, who is actually nice to him. There is no way I can compete with that Dawn. I'm so old and worn out and wrinkly. I have fucking crows feet."
"Oh shut up Buffy. You are just as beautiful as ever. I saw you a month ago and you looked stunning and totally wrinkle free. So you can just stop with the excuses and just tell me the real reason, okay?"
"That is the real reason."
"No, its not."
"Yes, it is. I just can't compete. She had all of the advantages. She even has bigger boobs than I do. It is totally not a fair fight."
"Please Buffy, you love an unfair fight. It makes you feel all scrappy and underdog-like and you give very long inspiring speeches. Besides, this is Spike we are talking about. He's been totally obsessed with you forever and totally in love with you only a little less than that. She so does not have all the advantages. Spike never could resist a Slayer. And you know all of this. You really have no reason to be jealous of this girl."
"Huh. What? No. No jealousy. I am so not jealous."
"You absolutely are. You are totally jealous. But that's still not everything. So the real reason, at any time, would be nice."
"Fine Dawn. You can be such a pain in the ass. You know that?"
"I count on it. Now. Spill."
Buffy took a deep breath and then gave into her sister's request. Dawn would not stop being annoying or persistent or whatever she called it until Buffy confessed. No use dragging this melodramatic conversation out any longer. "Okay. Its not just about the girlfriend, although that's definitely a major part of it. It's that he waited to tell me about her until after I had told him how I felt. I admitted that I loved him, and then he dropped the g-bomb on me. And then Buffy go boom."
"Did you ever think maybe he was just nervous? That he didn't want you to react like this. That he was afraid to tell you because he didn't want to summon the wrath of the Slayer?"
"Of course I thought all that, Dawnie. I haven't been able to think about anything else. The point is that he has run out of get out of jail free cards. He does not get to pass go and collect his two hundred dollars or whatever. Its totally over. We're over. I can't go through this again with him."
"Am I allowed to say 'I told you so' now?"
"Hey, what happened to the adultiness?"
"I'm still you're little sister."
"So what you're saying is that you'll always be a little brat faced pain in the butt?"
"Pretty much. But it also means I'll always love you. No matter how stupid you are about vampire boys."
Buffy smiled sadly to herself. "I love you, too." She paused, "Thanks for making me talk to you. I feel a little bit better."
"That's another thing sisters are good for. Besides, you've saved my life how many times? The least I can do is pull you out of your self-imposed solitary confinement once in a while."
"Well, thanks, Dawnie. But we are so still not even," Buffy joked.
"The way I figure it, we never will be."