A/N (for the benefit of anyone who's still around): Sorry this took me so long to update!! I've been dealing with a certain amount of upheaval in my life lately. But the end is near, so the next bits should be following at a much more reasonable pace…

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Buffy couldn't remember anything about the walk home from the graveyard; everything was just a blur of tears and anger and frustration and confusion until she found herself standing on her own front porch, wondering how she was going to hide either the tear-tracks or the bruises on her face. She didn't have the energy to climb into her bedroom window, so she was stuck with going for stealth and hoping everyone had gone to bed already. She tried to collect herself, wiped the tears carefully from her cheeks, and opened the door with the silent skill of many long years of practice.

The house was dark. Good sign. She glanced towards the stairway, knowing she should probably just cut her losses and go to bed, but she realized that even though she felt like she'd just gone a few rounds with Olaf the Troll God, she was still too worked up to sleep. So she ditched her boots and padded noiselessly into the (mercifully clean) kitchen. Hmm. The teakettle was out of the question--not exactly stealthy--but if she put water in the microwave and shut it off before the beeping started, she might get a cup of tea to calm her down a little.

Yes. Calm good. No problem. She took a deep breath, got a mug out of the cupboard, turned the faucet on to a quiet trickle. Her hands shook at first, but stilled as the mug filled slowly. She stared at the flickering stream of water. Deep breaths. Don't think. She opened another cupboard, pushed aside mac and cheese and Rice-a-Roni till she found a box of tea. English Breakfast. Giles must have--ow. No. That way lies badness. But it was too late—her hard-won equilibrium vanished like a dusted vamp. Even if she didn't think about Giles, it was only a short jump from English people to bleached blonde English vampires, and from that to chipless bleached blonde English vampires who loved fighting and loved her and sat in this kitchen with her mother talking about the really tiny marshmallows and made her unsure of just about everything she'd ever thought she'd known, and before she knew it she was leaning her forehead against the cupboard, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears and biting her lip so hard she could taste blood.

That was how Willow found her. The redheaded witch had stayed wakeful until she'd heard her friend come home, then spent a few minutes debating whether or not Buffy would want her privacy before curiosity and concern got the better of her and she made her way quietly downstairs. As soon as she saw the way Buffy's shoulders were shaking, she knew she'd made the right decision.

"Buffy?" she said tentatively, hesitating in the doorway, keeping her voice down so as not to wake anyone else. Buffy whirled around, and the sheer misery on her face shot straight to Willow's heart. Then she saw the bruises marring the Slayer's too-hollow cheeks, and her stomach dropped somewhere down around her ankles. "Did Spike…?"

Buffy was too surprised and too close to the edge to try to hide anything. "No," she sniffed, trying to reassure her friend. Then, reconsidering, "Well, yes, but… it wasn't…" Her face crumpled again as she remembered the end of the fight. "I couldn't kill him, Will."

Willow moved a couple of steps forward, a little at sea. "Well… did he… need killing?"

Buffy laughed breathlessly, a step away from hysteria. "I don't know. He's a vampire, isn't he?"

Willow shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, but…"

"So I should kill him, right?" Buffy continued in an angry, desperate whisper, her voice strangled through the lump in her throat. "Giles told me once that all vampires are evil, without any exceptions. It shouldn't matter who he is, or how he feels, or what we've…" She stopped dead, but she had a feeling she was a few words too late. Her heart pounded as she watched the confusion on Willow's face and waited for the inevitable.

"What you've…?" Willow's brow furrowed. Then she saw the look on Buffy's face--guilt, self-hatred, and pure terror. And she knew. "You… and Spike?" she whispered disbelievingly, eyes growing wide. "There's a… you've… Wow." She didn't even know how to say it. She trailed off as Buffy hung her head, arms dangling resignedly at her sides, and burst into barely-muffled tears.

"Wow," Willow repeated, blinking. She was speechless for a few long seconds, while Buffy continued to sob. Then she huffed out a businesslike breath and moved purposefully towards the freezer, resolve face firmly in place. "OK. Well. This is gonna need a lot of ice cream."

Buffy, covering her face with her hands, could only nod vehemently in agreement.

Willow grabbed spoons, pints and napkins with the ease of long practice, and led Buffy into the living room. Several minutes later, they were huddled on the couch underneath a blanket, face to face, pints settled comfortably between them. Buffy was still crying, but at least she was doing it with a few spoonfuls of Mint Chocolate Cookie in her.

"So…" Willow began finally, when she could see the ice cream starting to work its magic. "I'm not going to be all judgy or anything, but I have to ask… how?"

Buffy plunged her spoon into the carton again like she was diving for a life preserver. "I don't know," she mumbled miserably around a half-melted mouthful. "He was just always there, with the staring and the helping and the listening and the eyes." She spat each word accusingly, staring vacantly at a spot on the blanket. "And then we…" She could feel herself turning red, but she forced herself to say it. "We kissed, that night with all the musical stuff, and it felt good, like… fire, like something. And then we…" OK, she had her limits. "We… morethankissed," she rushed on, "and then it was like it kept going and going and I couldn't stop it and I didn't want to and why didn't I want to?" She looked up at Willow, pleading. "What's wrong with me?" The tears began leaking again.

Willow was beginning to get the idea this might be beyond even the power of ice cream. She was still reeling a bit from the news, but she could be sure of one thing, anyway. "Buffy, nothing is wrong with you," she responded immediately, putting a hand on her friend's shoulder.

But Buffy couldn't believe her. "Then why am I doing this?" she asked plaintively. "Why do I want this? Why can't I have a normal life, and a normal boyfriend, with a pulse? Is that too much to ask?"

Willow decided to ignore the term "boyfriend" for a minute, and go with what she could deal with. "Normal's overrated," she answered, with a tiny, half-sad smile. "You're the Slayer, Buffy. That's way better than normal."

Ask Willow about normal. God, she hated it when he was right. Still, "OK, so I'm the Slayer," she sniffed, digging her spoon vengefully into the Ben and Jerry's. "What kind of a Slayer am I, sleeping with two vampires? OK, with Angel it was this once-in-a-lifetime Romeo and Juliet type of thing, but with Spike? Giles'd disown me if he knew. I can't even be normally abnormal, I have to be freakishly abnormal."

Willow frowned a little, thinking. "It's not like you've ever exactly been the by-the-book type." Then she smiled. "That's kinda my job."

"Yeah, but this…" Buffy shook her head. She was silent for a moment, then, so quietly Willow could hardly hear her, "He's… dark. And I like it."

Suddenly, Willow sensed, they were on dangerous ground. She wasn't quite sure how to respond. Very carefully, Buffy set her spoon and ice cream aside, unable to meet her friend's eyes.

"Dracula told me the Slayer's power is rooted in darkness," she started slowly. "The First Slayer--and you remember what a fun-lovin' gal she was--said death was my gift. Spike said death is my art. And they're all right. I can feel it, the darkness, creeping up on me, every day, every kill. He makes it sound so easy…" Her voice was distant, dead.

Willow grabbed her arm. "Buffy, stop it. That's not you." Buffy's eyes snapped up to meet hers, challenging. "It's not. Even if it's in you, it's not all of you."

"Then why? Why Spike? Why can't I just do my job and get it over with?" Buffy demanded.

"You're tired," Willow tried. "You've been through a lot, and--"

"And what has it turned me into?" Buffy cut her off, and Willow could see both fear and anger in her friend's eyes. "When I came back--when you brought me back--I couldn't stand to be around anyone but him." She smiled bitterly at the shock on Willow's face. "When he saw me, the first time, my hands were all bloody, and he knew why--said I'd dug my way out of my coffin, and he'd done the same thing. And I was standing there, looking at him and looking at Dawn, and I realized… I had more in common with him than I did with any of you. I'm not just sleeping with him, I… I care about him. Whether I want to or not." She'd never said the words out loud before, but even as they poured out of her mouth, she knew they were true. It only fueled her anger. "He's killed hundreds of people, he might've killed us last night, he might kill us tomorrow. And I care about him. That's what this has turned me into," she finished, with a kind of vicious triumph. "Aren't you glad you brought me back?"

As she listened, Willow had been growing paler and paler, her eyes huge. But at Buffy's final words, and the accusation behind them, she flushed with guilt and fury. "You're still mad I brought you back." It was a statement, not a question.

"I'm mad to be back," Buffy answered, and now the tears were starting again, trickling down her already-raw cheeks. She was amazed she had any left. "Everything hurts, and I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know who I am anymore. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing any of this."

"It was selfish and stupid of me to have brought you back," Willow stated evenly, proud that her voice shook only a little, even though her throat was tight with tears. "You were happy… where you were, and I'm sorry that I took you away from it. But I won't be sorry you're back, Buffy. I won't. Even if I brought you back for the wrong reasons, the world's better with you in it."

Buffy shook her head. "But it's not. I'm not the hero anymore, Will."

Willow laughed incredulously. "Why? Because you're tempted? You think you're so special because you have a dark side? Geez, Buffy, even Xander has a dark side."

"Yeah, but he's not sleeping with a demon." Willow arched an eyebrow, and Buffy realized what she'd just said. "OK, bad example. The point is, I shouldn't be dark. I'm supposed to be good."

Willow blew breath out between her teeth, frustrated. "God, you and Spike deserve each other. You think it's got to be one extreme or the other. So you started off all glowy and chosen and he started out all dark and fangy. Now you've both crossed a line, and you don't know where you are. Well, welcome to the world the rest of us live in. You're just scared, so you want the easy answer."

"Why not?" Buffy hissed recklessly, throwing out her hands. "It's his nature, and apparently it's mine, too."

"Because it's not supposed to be easy," Willow shot back, eyes blazing. "Seemed pretty clear to you a few months ago, when you were telling me that magic wasn't the answer to my problems. This isn't something to mess around with." She grabbed Buffy's arm for emphasis. "I don't really know what's going on with you and Spike, or why. But I know about being tempted. And I know it's hard, and I know we haven't been there for you as much as we could, and believe me, if I can make it easier on you, I will. But not that way. You wouldn't let me do it that way. And you were right. And if you… weasel out on me now, after all the good you've done, just because some Frank N. Furter wannabe in a cape told you about the Dark Side of the Force, I'm gonna be really disappointed." She released Buffy's arm, and sat back, breathing hard.

Buffy blinked, surprised. "Wow. Way to work the pop culture references, there, Will."

"Thanks," Willow preened, a smile suddenly breaking through. "I did some research on it for the Buffybot." Then the resolve face returned. "But you're not off the hook yet," she added sternly, wagging a finger. Still, when she saw the look on Buffy's face—conflicted, hurt, lost—she couldn't help softening. "Everyone's tempted, Buffy," she went on quietly. "No one can do the right thing every time, not even you. You accept it, and you do your best, and you move on. You're not supposed to give up just because you make mistakes, or because it's hard, or because you're confused. You're stronger than that."

Buffy looked at her, surprised and oddly pleased. It had been a long time since she'd felt strong in any way, besides physically, which was one of the reasons she'd been training so hard. It was strange—and good—to know that Willow still thought of her that way, even if she couldn't quite believe it herself.

"OK," she replied finally. "Point taken."

"Good." Willow let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "My resolve face hurts if it stays on too long." She reached out, put a comforting hand on Buffy's knee. "Besides, even if your mistakes tend to be big, mondo kinds of mistakes, you do big, mondo good stuff, too, so I think you've got some credit in the Bank of Karma. You should get a little slack."

Buffy smiled tiredly, then suddenly started giggling uncontrollably as a thought occurred to her.

"What?" Willow asked suspiciously, eyeing the other girl as if she were a grenade about to go off. There was a distinct edge of hysteria in that laughter, and Willow wasn't sure she could deal with a hysterical Slayer.

"It's just…" Buffy tried to get herself under control, failed, and just choked it out anyway between giggles. "It's just… the next time Dracula stops by, I dare you… to call him… a Frank N. Furter wannabe to his face Can't you just picture…" And then she was laughing too hard to continue.

A moment considering that mental image was enough to set Willow off as well, and before long they were both howling, muffled in the couch cushions, the tension between them slowly melting away. Finally, Buffy took a few deep breaths and slumped back against the couch, wiping her eyes. "Normal. God. My romantic history consists of two vampires and a secret government demon-hunter. You've got a computer demon, a werewolf, and a witch. Xander's got a mummy girl, a preying mantis, a vengeance demon, and a… Cordy. Should've known we left normal several exits back." She laughed again, but even as she did, she could feel the exhaustion creeping back. It had been an incredibly long day. She felt drained, but strangely cleansed, too. "It's like it's all just going to hell," she sighed, throwing an arm back behind her head. "Nothing's like it used to be."

"Yup," Willow agreed philosophically. "You get addition down, and they throw long division at you." Then, as Buffy raised an eyebrow at her, "Hey, there's a time and a place for math metaphors, too."

Buffy rolled her eyes. Then, her smile fading, "I used to know what was right. And now I don't know anything anymore."

Willow smiled a little sadly. "Well, that sounds pretty normal to me."

Buffy's mouth dropped half-open at the revelation. "That sucks," she said finally, indignantly.

Willow couldn't help chuckling at the betrayed look on her friend's face. "Don't worry," she comforted, patting Buffy's hand. "You get used to it."

"Shut up and binge," Buffy muttered sulkily, and reached for her abandoned ice cream.