No one had heard from Buffy in three days, by the time she'd finally showed back up again at Wayne Manor. Calls hadn't been returned, and everyone but Dawn and oddly, Bruce—had been out of their minds with worry.

And one person in particular had been riddled with guilt.

When she walked into the house, it was dinner time and everyone was sitting around the table including Malcolm, Tommy and Oliver. Several sets of eyes locked onto hers, but Buffy just nodded at Faith and headed upstairs, clearly intent on not engaging anyone.

Very early the next morning Buffy decided to head down to the batcave for a workout when she ran into Thea Queen, who was sitting by herself in the music room reading a book.

"Hello."

"Hey." Buffy replied, and then quirked a brief smile as she noticed the book Thea was reading. "That's a pretty interesting read."

"Oh? You took Psychology in College?"

"I did. Mind you, my Professor ended up being the head of a super-secret military initiative, but I wasn't grading on a curve."

Thea's eyes widened and then she snickered. "Even College was filled with weird stuff, huh?"

"You have no idea." Buffy bit back in good humor. "You been up for a while?"

"Yeah, Ollie's been brooding and Tommy's not been much better. Even Mom seems off."

"I'm sorry. You're welcome to join me if you want. I'm just going to do some training."

"Really? You don't mind?"

"No, it's fine. Have you ever learned to spar?"

"Heavens no! Ollie'd have a coronary."

"Good enough reason for me to teach you then."

Thea gave her a funny look, but closed her book and followed Buffy down into the batcave. Once they were settled on top of the platform, Buffy handed Thea a staff.

"What's this?"

"These are called 'Kali' sticks and they are used for fighting. It's a good way to learn both offensive and defensive styles of sparring. Normally I'd start with hand to hand combat, but something tells me you're going to be a natural at this."

"Okay." Thea smiled and then grabbed the stick Buffy held out for her, watching closely as Buffy showed her how to hold it properly.

"Good. Now first it's important to always remember your surroundings. This space is yours to work with, but as you get better at combat, you will learn to use your opponents space against them. We will start with defensive stances as well as styles so you can feel comfortable defending your own space. It's always important to remember three basic things in combat. First, is to always be aware of your surroundings. Never let your guard down for a second. Two, is never let up on your opponent until they are fully incapacitated and three, is to use your surroundings to your advantage. You may not always have a weapon handy, but sometimes you might find something else to use. When you're fighting for your life, anything is fair game, got it?"

"Got it!"

"Good." Buffy nodded and then took the first position. "Follow my lead. You like to dance?"

"Yeah, took enough dance lessons as a kid."

"Think of fighting like a specialized form of dance. When you watch my movements, imagine yourself doing them. Visualize it...then put that into practice until it becomes instinctive."

"Okay!"

Buffy led Thea through an hour of movements—using footwork, turns, fluid arm movements and body lunges so Thea could work her muscles in different ways. After Thea had gotten the first set of movements down, Buffy faced her.

"Do you have it down?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'm going to do the countermoves and you're going to allow your muscle memory to take over. Don't overthink it...just feel it."

"Got it."

Buffy lunged and Thea parried the first blow effortlessly, and as each hit came—Thea became more confident; and it wasn't until the end that Buffy decided to mix it up and throw in a few unrehearsed moves at the girl, pleasantly surprised when she blocked them instinctively.

"Good job!"

"That was awesome!" Thea grinned widely, and she hugged Buffy—who returned the gesture. When Thea looked up over Buffy's shoulder, she was surprised to see Oliver standing here with Tommy and her Mom. Buffy had sensed them and knew they'd been standing there for a while, but all she said to Thea was, "Same time tomorrow?"

"Works for me!"

Buffy patted the girl on the shoulder and took the Kali sticks, before making her way across the bridge and back into the caverns. She walked right past Oliver and ignored him, but smiled slightly at Tommy. Moira however, stopped her.

"Miss Summers, might I have a word?"

Buffy turned to the older woman and smirked.

"Sure."

She waved her hand to let Moira Queen know to precede her towards the elevator and left Thea with her brothers as they stared after them.

Once they were back in the music room, Moira turned the full force of her stare on the Slayer.

"Just what gives you the right to teach my daughter how to fight?"

"You really don't get it, do you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb it doesn't suit you, Mrs. Queen. You're a tough woman, smart and cunning. I can't imagine that you haven't figured out Ra's endgame."

Moira blanched but she didn't reply causing Buffy to sigh.

"I figured some of it out the moment Faith realized just whom Thea's biological father was. Once I really thought about it these past few days, everything fell into place. The sabotage of the yacht, Merlyn, the League...all of it. Ra's tried to take over Gotham once by trying to bankrupt Wayne Enterprises and my guess is he tried the same tactic with your family's company. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps Malcolm Merlyn has been playing you all for years?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Mrs. Queen, for a man so obviously distraught over his wife's passing that he left his son in your care for years, didn't you ever wonder why all of a sudden, he'd not only returned to Starling City, but engaged in an affair with you? If it was me and I was Ra's, and I wanted a way into both companies and to control Starling City? What better way than to demand my number one lackey manage to procure an offspring with the wife of the man who runs the biggest company in Starling City?"

Moira's face paled in shocked realization.

"I'm sorry, you might think this isn't my business, but your daughter is a sweet kid and a sitting duck. She needs to be able to protect herself."

"And you're just going to take it upon yourself to do so?"

"Someone has to."

Moira sighed and then pursed her lips in irritation, but her words were thoughtful as she considered the young Slayer before her.

"I'm truly sorry if I came across.."

"Like a mama bear?"

"Yes."

"It's okay, really. Thea is lucky to have you. My Mom was the same way with me."

"Oliver told me about your loss. I'm very sorry."

"Thank you. Some days are better than others, but I would give anything to have her back. I don't know what kind of game Malcolm Merlyn is playing here, but I do know he can't be trusted."

"I agree."

At that moment the bookcase opened and out walked Thea with Tommy and Oliver at her heels. The young woman's expression was concerned, but Moira just enveloped her into a hug and nodded at Buffy politely, before taking her daughter out of the room. Tommy patted Oliver on the shoulder, winked at Buffy and followed—which left Buffy alone with the one person she didn't want to talk to.

Unfortunately, Queen had other ideas.

"You got a minute?"

"If I said 'no' would you let it go?"

"Probably not."

"Fine, say what you have to Queen."

Oliver sighed and gestured for Buffy to take the seat where Thea had been sitting earlier, and she did—watching warily as Oliver took the spot adjacent to her.

"I owe you an apology."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"And just what are you sorry for?"

"I assumed things that I shouldn't have. Faith set me straight of a few things too."

"Lucky me."

Buffy went to stand up, but Oliver reached for her to stop her from leaving—his blue eyes pleading.

"I didn't understand, about being a Slayer. Not really. I erroneously assumed Faith was the original Slayer and when I saw her fight with Danthalzar..."

"You'd assumed that what? That I chose not to go? That I was too weak to fight with her?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what?"

"You were right. About all of it. My attraction to Faith, my elevating her into some preconceived ideal of what a Slayer was and is. Keeping secrets and how they come out at the worst time." Oliver shook his head in disgust. "I wasn't prepared for there to be two Slayers. I wasn't prepared for you."

"I'm sorry that my presence has been such an inconvenience for you, Queen."

Groaning in frustration, Oliver stood up and started pacing. Nothing he wanted to say was coming out right and by the look of anger on Buffy's face, he knew he was screwing this up even more. So he decided to try honesty, as much as he loathed the idea in general, but figured that since Buffy had done so, even if the circumstances surrounding those revelations had been because he'd been an ass, he owed it to her to reciprocate.

"You were right. I was a poor little rich boy." At the shocked look on Buffy's face, Oliver cracked a baleful half-grin. "I was pampered, and adored by both my parents and my sister. I had a good woman in Laurel, but I was too selfish to see it. I wasn't ready for the commitment of a real relationship, so I invited Sara on my Father's yacht. When she died right in front of me as she was sucked out of our stateroom and into the ocean, I realized in that moment that I hadn't done a single solitary thing in my life that was worthwhile." He sat down in his original spot and stared over at the bookshelves where the batcave entrance lay beyond, and he could feel Buffy's eyes on him but he didn't have the courage to face her.

"I ended up in a life raft with my Father and someone else. When my Dad realized we didn't have enough food and water for all of us to survive, he told me that he hadn't been the one to build our city, that he'd failed it and he wasn't the only one. He begged me to right his wrongs and then he took out a gun and shot the other man on the life raft with us before he turned the gun on himself. His last words to me were to 'survive' and everyday since that day, that's all I've tried to do—is survive, and get back home to my family."

Buffy was quiet as she watched Oliver struggle with the truth and her heart went out to him. She couldn't imagine what that must've been like, watching your own parent sacrificing themself, so that you could survive.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly.

"Thank you." His tormented blue eyes turned to her. "When I washed up on Lian Yu, and what came after changed me irrevocably. I did join the League of Assassins to save myself, but my family as well. Talia threatened my Mother and Sister, and it wasn't until she didn't come back after she'd left for Gotham, that I'd realized I could finally come home, and it was safe to do so."

"So that's why you were gone for so long?"

Oliver nodded. "I wasn't always on the island. Talia sent me to Russia for a time. I worked with the Bratva and became a Captain in their ranks."

"I've heard of them." Buffy admitted reluctantly, "There are three tests you must pass to become a member, from what I recall."

"Yes. First, an initiate must fight Bratva members and be the first to ring a bell placed behind them. The purpose of this test is to measure your intellect and to see if you can create a strategy to pass all the obstacles. Those who fail to ring the bell are killed. The second test is to face your comrades while they each have a knife and they use this knife to cut into your back. The meaning of this test, is to trust that your brothers will not kill you. The last test requires an initiate to perform a hit successfully. The obvious meaning of this test is to make sure you will do as you're told. Bratva members will be able to trust in you if the results of the hit are carried out successfully."

"You have the mark?"

Oliver nodded again and unbuttoned his dress shirt and pulled it to the side, displaying the badge of Bratva for Buffy to see.

"I've done terrible things in the name of survival. All to get back to my family and honor what my Father asked of me."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you deserved the truth. All of it. I've never done something as noble as dying to save the world. If anything, I've been rather selfish in my motivations."

"I don't think that's true," Buffy admitted, "you've helped people and you want to make Starling City safer, just like Bruce has done with Gotham. Penance is a funny thing, but the truth is that the only forgiveness that matters is your own. You need to learn to forgive yourself, because if you don't, then you're just another glorified vigilante scraping around for your own gratification. That's what the League teaches. But something tells me Oliver Queen, that deep down, that is not who you want to be."

Oliver stared at the woman who despite his earlier presumptions, seemed to intuitively know so much.

"You're right, it's not." He said at last.

"Then fix it."

"You make it sound so simple."

"It's not, but nothing in this life worth having is simple. I meant what I said. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. I've spent most of my life going through the motions and something tells me you have as well. I wish I could tell you how to fix it for yourself, but I'm afraid I'm still trying to learn how to fix my own mess."

Oliver chuckled, thinking that Buffy was right about this too. He had no idea how to fix himself.

"Maybe you might start with being open with your family and stop trying to spare them." Buffy said at last. "A burden shared, is a burden halved...or some other psychological mumbo jumbo." She lifted up Thea's Psychology book and tossed it to him. He caught it and lifted an eyebrow at the title.

"Psychology and You."

"Freud had an Oedipal complex but he wasn't completely useless."

"You took Psych in College?"

"Yep. It's where I met Riley actually. He was a Graduate TA in the class."

"I noticed a bit of your history with him. He wasn't a vampire."

"Nope. Human. A genuinely nice guy." Buffy laughed lightly. "Faith liked to call him, Captain Corn-Fed Iowa. That was likely after she'd body-swapped with me and had sex with my boyfriend. You'd have to ask her for the particulars, though."

Buffy took a bit of perverse pleasure in watching Oliver's eyes widen at her admission.

"You two have had quite an interesting history?"

"That's one way to look at it."

"And yet you're here and you've helped Faith despite everything that has happened."

Buffy sighed as she gave Oliver a measured look. "I've made mistakes. Many of them, especially with Faith. I'm not excusing what she's done, but our dynamic as screwed up as it's been, didn't happen in a vacuum. That being said, being the Chosen One, my responsibilities to not just Faith, but to all the potentials—I took very seriously. This calling, isn't something you wish for someone else. It's not a gift, it's a curse. The power is heady and sometimes you can get lost in it if you allow the darkness to consume you, and Faith did that for a time. I had friends and a family that kept me grounded, but there were times even I entertained giving in to my baser instincts."

"What stopped you?"

Buffy paused and seriously thought about that question as she had never really questioned it before, but after several moments she said simply, "If you'd asked me before I died in 2001, I would've probably given some righteous speech about good versus evil...blah...blah...blah..."

Oliver chuckled and Buffy grinned, but he asked, "and now?"

"That even though there's so much ugliness in the world, there's beauty too. When I was ripped from heaven, and I returned here—everything hurt. I can't explain it better than that. Everything here was too bright, loud, angry and hard. It was like every part of my body was being flayed open with something, but even back then I felt wrong. I felt that way for a long time until Faith died. When the powers were returned to both Faith and I, it was like I was reborn back to the Buffy I'd been before my death. And I had to learn how to readjust. I think I'm still readjusting."

Shaking his head in wonder, Oliver had no idea how hard that must've been for Buffy to live through that kind of change not once, but twice. There was one strange thing though, he'd been mulling in his mind since Buffy showed him her memories.

"Can I ask a left field question?"

"Okay?"

"What was with the singing and dancing?"

"In my memories?"

Oliver nodded.

"Demon, called Sweet. He brings the fun apparently, until you sing and dance yourself to death. Spontaneously combust. Good times."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

Oliver whistled in wonder. "That's really odd."

"That's nothing. Remind me sometime to tell you about the Gentlemen."

"Excuse me?"

"Fairytale monsters. Sucked all the voices out of all the people in Sunnydale and then they went around cutting the hearts out of people while they were still alive."

"I'm sorry?"

Buffy shrugged. "Welcome to the life of a Slayer, Queen. The good times keep coming."

He laughed.

"Something tells me I'm going to get an up close and personal view of that soon enough."

"Probably will, if we ever find Ra's."