Disclaimer: I don't own any of the iterations of Sherlock Holmes that exist in the world, but in particular no the BBC's Sherlock, nor do I own Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Note: I probably should have just posted this epilogue yesterday, but meh. Thanks everyone for reading!
A couple weeks after the mess with Travers, Buffy was enduring a visit from Willow. "So, he's not doing anything for Valentine's?" the witch asked.
"No," Buffy said, "And I'm not going to ask him to, nor am I going to set anything up. There's nothing romantic about being ordered to be romantic by the hospitality industry."
"But you said he doesn't do anything like that. He doesn't get you flowers or chocolate or go on dates-"
"We go to his stable of free access restaurants all the time," Buffy said. "And Angelo is a sweetie, especially now that he's given up on trying to get John and Sherlock together."
Willow rolled her eyes. "Okay, but that's not dates. You said he does that so he doesn't have to cook ever."
"I don't like to cook," Buffy pointed out. "I don't see what that has to do with it."
"You're being stubborn," Willow said. "You know what I mean. A date is something special, not just regular things. And-"
"We went dancing just last week," the Slayer told her friend, wanting out of this argument.
The witch fixed her with a glare. "You even said that was for one of his cases."
"We can't do both?" Buffy asked. She loved Willow, she really did, but the other woman had fixed ideas about The Right Way to do things and didn't like to listen to other people's ideas when they so openly conflicted with hers.
Instead of answering, Willow chose a new tack. "He doesn't even call you by your name!"
"Anne is her name, a middle name is still very much an applicable name and a valid choice, indeed one Anne had been intending to use among official circles upon her arrival in London," Sherlock said upon arrival. "Furthermore, I fail to see how my insistence that Anne carry a name with some dignity-"
"Buffy Saint-Marie," Buffy sang out, their long-term argument continuing as she promptly stood up, heading for the first aid kit to deal with whatever was causing him to limp. "Did you jump off a roof again?"
"Popular music," sneered her detective-boyfriend, "Lacks any and all dignity. And I did not jump off a roof. My ankle was sprained when John pushed me out of the way of the knife thrust."
Buffy snorted. "I appear to personally suffer a distinct lack of your much-vaunted dignity, and as a man who is notorious in our circle for wearing nothing more than a sheet to a briefing at Buckingham Palace, you haven't got a leg to stand on." She unceremoniously, though gently, pulled his foot into her lap and started treating the sprain. "Also? 'Much-vaunted' - totally your fault."
"I will happily take your blame for insisting you demonstrate your intellectual capabilities to their fullest," Sherlock told her.
Willow made an outraged sound. "Is he making you act differently? Buffy!"
Buffy shot Sherlock a significant look and sank deeply back into the Buffy Willow knew best. "Okay, like, seriously Willow. He's not making me do anything. It's like all those times when I was talking to Giles and I'd start using words like 'indecorous' or all that time Dawn spent with Spike and started saying 'bloody' all the time. It's just like a total Giles-y type side effect."
Sherlock twitched slightly under his guise of being bonelessly relaxed on her sofa.
Despite her blind spots, Willow wasn't actually stupid. "Just a little over the top there, Buffy."
Sighing the Slayer pulled her friend onto the balcony. "We get each other, Willow. He's just as dedicated to his stuff as I am to the slaying. When I tell him I can't make a thing because I'm after something, because I have to hunt down something, he just rolls with it and says to text him when I'm done. He doesn't try to stick his nose in to protect me, and he doesn't try to prove he's as good as I am. He's not and he knows it, so he does his own thing instead. He helps when he can and walks away when he can't. I don't have to worry about him the way I did with Riley, I don't have to find things for him to do the way we sometimes had to for Xander because he's able to distance himself enough to see he's not any more help. Instead he'll go and rescue some kidnapped children. I do him the same favour. I can't entirely follow where he goes when he's doing his detective thing and sometimes I'll cause more trouble than it's worth because I'm used to functioning outside the law. When he texts to say he can't make it, I know I can accept it because I've done the same thing."
"But I thought we agreed that we couldn't go dating people who aren't, y'know, in the middle of things," Willow protested.
Buffy shrugged. "I was spoiled by Angel," she said. "Angel got all of me. He understood all the things I hide from people, could follow wherever I went and wanted basically the same things I did. I can't go around holding out for someone who can keep up like that and get me like he did."
"Spike seemed to get you," Willow muttered, slightly resentful.
"Spike got some things," Buffy said. "He didn't get others. I could go hunting with Spike, he understood the way that slaying pulls me on a visc- on a . . . fundamental level." She shook her head as she continued. "He didn't get other parts of me."
The redhead suddenly looked stricken. "You nearly said visceral. You . . . ohmigod, Buffy, did we - I always knew you were smart, did we keep you from . . . from really . . . from being open about it?" Before Buffy could answer, Willow started flailing and gibbering about college courses.
"Wills. Willow!" Buffy cut in. "It's okay. Can we get back to the original point? I don't need my boyfriend to buy me flowers I don't remember to care for, chocolates I probably shouldn't be eating, jewellery that I keep losing in the sewers or on dates that almost inevitably get interrupted by crimes or demons."
When they came back in, Sherlock held out a beautiful collection of throwing stars with a plastic bow stuck on the top one. "When John and I were in Trethewey's home, I stole these for you," he told her.
Buffy smiled in delight even as she heard Willow start to grumble imprecations behind her. "These are so nice! Thank you!"
John showed up with Lestrade in tow to be disapproving of Sherlock stealing the throwing stars, Willow complaining the whole while that Sherlock was a bad influence, and Dawn, Illyria and Francesca just sat down and ate popcorn while they watched the show.
Also, Buffy and Sherlock totally won when they convinced John to take their side against Lestrade and Willow.