Tabula Rasa
By Lori Bush
~**~
~1~
~**~
Tabula Rasa
~**~
I can see Anya watching me, as Buffy sits just a little too close, smiles just a little too widely. When did my life get so screwed up?
Everything fell apart when Glory showed her face in Sunnydale. We found out Dawn had been planted in our memories, but we couldn't stop caring about her just because we hadn't always done so, the way we thought we had. And Glory wanted to hurt her – none of us could allow that. But it was even more important to Buffy – first Riley left her, then she lost her mom, then she had to save her sister from an all-powerful being. God, the Fates, the Powers That Be – whoever dealt out the hand she held, had really screwed her over.
I almost felt guilty sometimes that my life was going so well. I had a good job – one I liked and was successful at. I had an incredible relationship - Anya and I seemed compatible in every way. She laughed at my jokes, made me feel special. She was gorgeous, and we were great in bed. I had to ask her to marry me – where else would I ever find a woman with all that who actually wanted me? It hadn't ever happened before. The only person I'd ever loved more was Buffy, and that was an impossible dream I'd stopped dreaming a long time ago.
So, to sum it up, my personal life was off the charts great, but the people I cared most about were going through hell, so I stood right there and tried to deflect the fire and brimstone, like I always did. And I did my best, until the world ended.
Buffy died.
When she died, I did, too. I wasn't cold, in the ground kind of dead. I was walking around empty kind of dead. I still had a pulse and a heartbeat and all those things – not that kind of walking around dead – but a part of my heart had gone to the grave with Buffy. And in spite of the fact she'd stopped the world from ending, it ended anyway, for me.
Maybe I should have thought it was weird that Anya understood how I felt. But I really think I know her better than anyone else, and I wasn't surprised she was patient and gentle with me during that time. Say what you will about An – and most of my friends have, even Buffy, at some time or another – but she always knew there were parts of my heart stamped "Property of Buffy Summers," and "Property of Willow Rosenberg," and she just always dealt with it. We even talked about it some, before Buffy died. She and Willow had dealt with most of their issues when Olaf had come to town, of course. Anya told me she knew I loved her, and that the love I had for Buffy was something more than friendship, but would never blossom into a real Relationship (with the capital 'R' and all) because I loved An and was giving her everything that was left of my heart. It made her a little sad, but she knew it was more than I'd ever managed to give anyone else, and that I loved her all I could. I still do, honestly. After Buffy died, and part of me shut off, Anya took care of me, let me talk about it, brought me tissues when I cried for hours, which I could only do in front of her.
But then Buffy came back.
In and of itself, that would have been okay, I'm sure. But the Buffster came back tabula rasa. Before you get all impressed at a carpenter that speaks Latin, don't. Giles called her that, and at my stupid look, he explained it means 'blank slate.' And what that means, exactly, is that the good old PTB sent her back remembering how to slay vampires, and nothing else.
I mean, she's still Buffy. She still has a killer sense of humor and those gorgeous eyes and incredible strength and determination and loyalty and love. She just doesn't remember anything that happened before she died. And I don't mean just before she died, either. She doesn't remember Jack Shit about her whole life up to the point she closed the portal. Nothing. Nada.
She showed up one day at the Magic Box, when just Giles and I were there. I have to admit, I was a little manic about seeing her again, and although G-Man was his usual cautious self, I could tell he wanted to hug her and cry the way I was doing. But he was probably right, quizzing her and testing her humanity before he'd accept that she was really back. It gave me a happy to know I'd been right, and it was the real, genuine article Slayer I'd been clutching to me since she'd arrived.
Once he was sure she was one hundred percent human and completely Buffy (crosses, mirrors, throwing a damned knife at her head, which was pretty much too close to mine for comfort, to test her Slayer reflexes), Giles got all misty-eyed, and took her in his arms. We realized there might be a problem when Buffy said, "So you must be my dad."
"Huh?" I'd never heard Giles so inarticulate before. I'd have laughed at his response if I hadn't been so startled by Buffy's puzzled expression.
"Buff," I said, once I realized Giles was still stunned speechless, "He's your Watcher. The guy sent to train and contain you, although he's better at the first than the second." I snickered at my own joke, and she smiled uncertainly. "He's been closer to you than your real dad, but the G-Man is, and probably will remain, officially childless." I gave him a look. "Unless there's something else about Ripper he hasn't told us." He managed a nasty glare in response.
She turned to me, that puzzled look still on her face. Her eyes were soft, though, and looked at me in a way I'd only seen in my dreams before. "But you are my boyfriend, aren't you?"
When I got over my own bout with incoherence I grinned, but I sure wasn't happy. "You really must not remember anything," I mumbled caustically.
"I don't," she said sadly. "I know what I'm here to do, and
that I was supposed to come to this place and find friends who would help me.
That's all I was told."
For some reason, that made me angry. I pulled my hand away, and turned my back on her. "Someone will fill you in, and you'll realize how much you don't know about me. You deserve better than the doughnut boy, the 'glorified bricklayer.' At least, you always seemed to think so." I couldn't deal, so I headed for the door. I tried not to, but I couldn't help but hear the tears and confusion in her voice as she said, "I'm sorry," just before I went out.
To say I was floored would barely be scratching the surface of what I was feeling. I stormed off, angry, sad, hopeful and horrified. I was horrified because I'd just realized I'd completely forgotten, during that brief exchange with the Blank Buffy, that I had a fiancée. All thoughts of Anya had been totally absent from my mind. All I could think of was how my Buffy was back, how much I wanted her, and how unfair it was that she'd probably regain her memory soon and realize how little she wanted me. I was given hope by the fact that, however briefly, she did actually seem to want me.
But suddenly, the cold truth had slapped me in the face. The fact that I was engaged hadn't come up as a mental objection. How sad was that? I decided I really was a heartless SOB, just like An used to think all men were. But she thought I was different. Crap. I was thrilled Buffy was back, but why couldn't it be simpler? Oh, well, I was reasonably sure we'd be back to being Xander and Buffy shaped friends soon enough.
~**~
Naturally, we had a Scooby meeting that night, at Buffy's house. It was weird, watching Giles "introduce" Buffy to her best friends and all. She'd spent the afternoon getting to know Dawn again, and they seemed pretty comfortable now. I kinda wondered how we were going to handle all the stuff with her dad and Child Protective Services, though. Giles had been dealing with both, and I don't think things were all fine and dandy with Hank yet about this strange Englishman having custody of, as far as he knew, his only surviving daughter. How would he handle the news that Buffy wasn't dead after all (at least he hadn't been at the funeral – maybe we could somehow convince him it had been a memorial service and there really hadn't been a body and a casket and everything), but merely suffering from amnesia, and had now wandered back from where it was she'd been the past few months? I trusted Giles, and I knew he'd manage to stitch together something plausible.
I guess the details of Tara and Willow's relationship were left for another time. Buffy kept looking at me in that searching way she had been since she came back, and it made me nervous. I wondered if she knew about Anya and me being engaged. Of course, as soon as that thought crossed my mind, An had to let her know. I was kind of hoping she wouldn't. I know, more slime-like behavior from the rapidly sinking Xander Harris. But the information, while it seemed to surprise Buffy, didn't change her attitude much. Maybe she was already remembering how little she cared for me in the 'as a man' kind of way.
It wasn't until I talked to Dawn the next day I found out about what Buffy and Willow talked about after the meeting.
~**~
"So, Willow, how long have we been best friends?" Buffy sat on her bed, tossing the stuffed pig back and forth without paying it much attention.
"Since our sophomore year in high school. You, me and Xander pretty much did everything together from the very first day you came to Sunnydale."
Buffy got a distant look in her eyes. "Tell me about Xander," she ordered.
Wills was trying to be fair – this Buffy (no, same Buffy, less memories, she corrected herself) knew nothing about Xander and all he'd been through. She could make him look good; some of what he'd done could make him look awful in a stranger's eyes. And Buffy was, for all intents and purposes, nearly a stranger. Even the unvarnished truth looked different through different eyes. And how much of the real truth about Xander had the Buffy who'd died known, and how much of it did the Buffy who came back need to know? Mental babbling again…
Honesty, as she knew it, was the best policy. "He fell in love with you the first time he saw you," the witch whispered reluctantly.
The Slayer glowed with happiness. "I knew it. He was my boyfriend. Why wouldn't he admit it?" Buffy's face fell. "Oh, no – Willow, did we break up before I died?"
The redhead stared incredulously. She'd have laughed if she weren't so stunned. "Y-y-you, you never broke up with Xander. You never dated Xander."
"Huh? Why?" Dawn, listening in, grinned. The question she'd
always entertained, finally coming from her sister's mouth. Why hadn't Buffy
ever dated Xander? Just once, even.
"There were lots of reasons, I guess. First, you never noticed him that way – you even called him 'one of the girls' not long after we all met."
Buffy was on the defensive. "Did he ever ask me out – let me know how he felt?"
Willow nodded slowly. "You told him no. That night, in the face of your rejection, he saved your life, and you never really even thanked him, now that I recall." No way she was going to mention the disastrous dance at the Bronze where that had come up. Willow pressed on. "And there was the thing with me…"
"You told me earlier that Tara was your girlfriend, that you're gay. Did I swing both ways or something?" This time Willow did laugh, at Buffy's stunned expression.
"That would be me, not you," she admitted as she settled down. "The thing with me and Xand, I meant. I toted a huge Jones for him all over the place since about the age of five, and he was oblivious. Not that I ever said anything to him. You knew how I felt, and may have been trying to protect my feelings." The redhead sighed. "Not that things really worked out once he did notice me that way."
"So you dated Xander?"
"Sneaking kisses behind our respective boyfriend and girlfriend's back wasn't exactly dating," Willow informed her. "We really messed up the whole group dynamic for a while. Cordelia dumped him, almost died, Oz and I… and… you have no idea who any of these people are I'm talking about, so I'll just shut up now."
Buffy grinned sadly. "It's gonna take a while to get me back up to speed." Suddenly, the Slayer's body sagged, and she looked immensely tired. "Maybe I need to take the Buffy Saga in chapters. Being brought back from the dead takes a lot out of a girl."
Dawn peered through the crack, and saw Willow nod, and stand up from the bed. Her desire not to get caught eavesdropping overcame her curiosity, and she scurried off to her own room before the door opened.
~**~
We began proper patrolling again, which was fine with me. Her Slayer-ness seemed to be the one thing she still felt comfortable and confident with. NO lost memory there. Instead of excluding me, Buffy seemed to always want me along, which was okay with Anya at first, as long as she got some time off. We were far enough along in our relationship she didn't feel the need to be with me every minute of every day, and she hadn't been around Buffy enough yet since her return to realize that there was something a bit different about how the Slayer acted around me, now.
I've tried to define it, to give it a name. I've turned it over, around and upside down in my mind, and even looking at the back, the sides and the bottom of it, I can't describe exactly what's changed in my relationship with Buffy. It just feels different. In a better sort of way.
I still make the jokes; she still laughs. She still kills creepy things, while I watch, only pitching in when she's kind of heavy in the undead department. I'm not the Zeppo anymore, but I hadn't been for a while. When things are slow, just like we did before, we talk.
True, we now talk about things she doesn't remember, where before, we talked about Angel, or Riley, or Dawn, or whatever other relationship Buffy was stressing over at the time. I was usually Buffy's Relationship Guy – she could talk about important stuff with me, because she didn't feel anything for me. Okay, that's a little harsh. She's always cared for me. I finally figured out that some of the times she'd hurt me the worst were because she cared. But she didn't know me, really, and in her ignorance, she hurt me. In her defense (I'm always doing that, Anya would complain, if she heard me say that), Buffy was pretty busy, what with saving the world and having a doomed relationship with a vampire, and starting college, and all the million things in her life that were infinitely more interesting than I was. But for whatever reason, I was her sounding board, and I was happy with that job, most of the time.
But now, she has me talking more than she does when we're together, and it isn't just fluff. She asks me deep questions about my life; my past; my plans. And now she really listens to my answers. She's still pretty busy, but, it seems, never too busy to listen to me.
Of course, her life is somewhat less complicated. For one thing, she's not in college anymore. What could she do, show up at the registrar's office and say "Hi! I'm Buffy Summers, and I dropped out last semester because I was dead. I'd like to re-enroll?" Even in Sunnydale, that probably wouldn't fly. So she's not in school, and not working, either. We need to figure out how to re-activate her Social Security number and revoke her death certificate first. It was a whole lot easier last time, when she was only dead for about five minutes. Less paperwork, and the only real challenge besides Buffy's brief Bad Attitude was Slayer multiplication.
She still talks to me about Dawn, though. The love that led her to throw herself into the portal instead of letting her sister die seemed to have come back from the grave completely intact. She's crazy about the kid, and I quickly let her in on the poorly kept secret that I was, too. She's asked a couple of questions about Giles, although I think, from some of the things they've both said, she's rediscovering her connection with Willow on her own. But she's never asked me about Anya, or for that matter, Tara or Spike, either. I have to wonder if she came back with some kind of shadow memory, like people have shadow pain when a limb is removed. Her shadow memories are of the original four of us – the nucleus of the Scooby Gang. Which makes me wonder if she'll remember Angel when she finally sees him again.
Sometimes it seems she really doesn't want to know the "Buffy Saga," as she referred to it that night with Willow. She'll get me started talking about her past, but manages every time to twist it so that I'm telling her about me. Stuff I never even told Willow, or Anya, or Jesse. She managed to worm out of me how I really feel about my parents, and why I never tried hard enough in school to make the grades to get into college. Not all of it's that serious – like she asked about my favorite movies, and had me going for over a half an hour on why I related so much to Han Solo, the selfish smartass who couldn't stop himself from fighting with the good guys no matter how hard he tried. I admitted to her that he'd pretty much been my role model growing up – I learned early a snappy comeback could cover a multitude of failings, or at least distract others until you could kick the dirt under the rug.
Then she insisted we rent the movies, and after patrol was done, we went to her house and watched them. It was a Friday night, and even though An whined about me not coming home, I sweet-talked her out of really being upset at me, and woke up Saturday just before lunchtime on the couch in Buffy's den, realizing I'd fallen asleep halfway through "Return of the Jedi." Buffy told me later she'd watched the entire trilogy through twice before they had to be back at the rental store, because she wanted to understand me better. Buffy Before would never have done that.
I've started thinking about her that way, you know – Buffy Before, and Buffy Now. She was the same, but different, and sometimes she seemed like two separate people. I liked Buffy Now a lot. But I had, at least once upon a time, loved Buffy Before. I kept trying to push that thought away.
See, the past couple of days, since the movie thing, now that I think of it, Anya's started to notice how much time Buffy and I are spending together. We've talked about it. Well, once she stopped yelling we talked. And she's right, of course. An is my fiancée, my intended bride, my betrothed. She threw out a few more terms while we were discussing the situation - I wasn't really taking notes. But suddenly, she's not quite as cool and confident with the whole idea that I've loved Buffy since, well, forever. But I really do love An, honest. And after the shouting, and the tears, I managed to convince her, by doing that thing with…
I've been letting her rub off on me, if I was about to spout off about that. Suffice it to say, we made up.
But right now Anya's behind the counter at the Magic Box glaring at me, and I'm sitting at the table beside Buffy, who is acting way too interested in me for me to casually blow it off, although, trust me, I'm gonna try. See, I know she needs me right now – she's told me so. And although she thinks she has this thing happening with me - and God knows, I wish she'd thought this a couple of years ago - I can't, and she won't, as soon as she's back to herself again. But without me to help her along, she'll never get back to being like she was. Me, and Willow, and Giles, of course – not just me. I love Anya. I'm gonna marry her, right? I love Buffy, too, but not the way she thinks. Not the way I used to. I swear!
My life is so screwed up.
~**~