Note: This wasn't supposed to happen. Once I got a post-"Grave" pov from Buffy, though, all the other characters decided to chime in, too. So this is going to be a series of character-pov vignettes, all set after "Grave." Do not, repeat, do not look for continuity in terms of timeline—these will skip all over the place, covering the same events sometimes from multiple viewpoints. Some of them will skip around in time, and some will stay in one place. Expect confusion. If you're okay with that, though, please read on. Anya wants to tell you something.
Anya
I really wish Vengeance Demon powers weren't so limited. If they weren't, I could say, "Repair yourself!" to the Magic Box, and poof! Repaired. But I can't. We're stuck doing things the slow way, with Giles scratching his head a lot and looking skeptical, and Xander standing around measuring things and saying encouraging things like, "Boy, what a mess!" As if we can't all see that for ourselves.
At the very least, Xander could've dragged Willow back here and made her clean up her mess. But no, he had to take her to the hospital on account of a catastrophic drop in her hematocrit. Now she's just lying in a hospital bed staring into space, doing absolutely no one any good. On the other hand, at least she's not trying to kill nerds or throwing people around or controlling demons' minds or trying to destroy the world anymore. Which is a plus.
Still, it's a bit frustrating. If she'd just come to me, I would've taken any vengeance on Warren she wanted. I'd even have done the flaying, if she'd insisted. I don't really like it, but, hey, I'm not supposed to judge vengeance wishes; I'm just supposed to carry them out.
Let this be a lesson to you all, by the way: leave vengeance to the professionals.
Anyway, she didn't, which is why we're all cleaning everything up now. For whatever reason, Xander, Buffy, and Giles decided the first thing to do was destroy the Satanic temple Willow raised. I mean, it was hideous, granted, and the Effigy of Prosepexa did have certain world-destroying capabilities, but hardly anyone's qualified to use it anymore, so I don't see why it was so urgent. Unlike my poor shop, which is losing money by the hour. However, I was overruled, and they blew up the temple, taking out half the bluff with it, and only then did they turn their attention to the Magic Box.
With the five of us—me, Giles, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn—we got it pretty well cleared out in a few days. Rebuilding, though, is going to take more time. And money. Don't forget the money. Giles and I have been in insurance paperwork up to our eyebrows. It's not easy, either. I mean, they understand "Act of God," but not "Act of Willow." We've decided fudging the details is probably a good idea.
It's all really weird, though. Willow's hospitalized in the Psych Ward, Buffy and Dawn seem to be glued to each other, and Xander saved the world. The first is understandable, if not productive, the second is sort of sickly sweet, but also understandable, and the third is incomprehensible. Xander? He walked out on our wedding, but he manages to save the world by telling Willow he loves her. It's all very confusing, and it makes me mad and relieved and frustrated and proud all at the same time.
To think I thought things would get simpler once I became a demon again . . .
Not with this bunch. No, sirree. Never just an ordinary, "Hi, how ya doin', I'm doing fine, see you later." Instead, we've got the, "Hi, there's an apocalypse downtown, why don't you help out?" It's annoying. You'd think I wouldn't feel obligated to help anymore, but I do, chiefly because if I don't, things will get even weirder and more pointless and my shop will never be rebuilt, and even if I did manage it, it'd probably just get knocked down again by the next apocalypse, and besides, I like existing, and some of these things even take out demons. So I help.
Speaking of apocalypses, Buffy's here now. She's rooting through her workout room trying to salvage her equipment. It's as good a chance as any to talk to her, and there's something I need to know.
"Where's Dawn?" I ask her.
"School," says Buffy. "She's still got a week left."
"Oh. Okay. Have you and Xander been having sex?"
Probably shouldn't have asked that while she was taking a drink. Now I'm going to have water damage, too.
She coughs and snorts a bit before answering. "No, we haven't. What brought that on?"
"Just wondering. He's been spending a lot of time with you and Dawn lately, and a girl could get suspicious. You know, with the playing parents to the little girl, and both of you being attractive and lusty and not gay, it's just a small step to him staying a little late after Dawn's in bed, and the two of you watching television together and thinking, 'Gee, it's been a good long while since I had a good—'"
"Anya," she says, interrupting, "it's not like that. Xander and I aren't going that route. Okay?"
"Okay."
She stops what she's doing and comes over to me. "What's this all about, anyway?"
She's being really nice, and I don't think it's fake. She sounds really concerned, so I decide to just tell her. "What if Xander decides to get even with me for the sex with Spike? What if he has sex with another girl? I wouldn't like it. Especially with you. And the thing is, you are Spike's ex, and therefore the perfect person to have sex with in order to get back at us both."
"You know Xander better than that," says Buffy. "You should know me better than that, too."
"That's true," I admit. "But then, I didn't think you'd have sex with Spike in the first place, and you did."
"Yeah, I did." Buffy looks away from me, and I can feel emotions bleeding off of her. The need for vengeance isn't the only human emotion I can sense, although it comes through most strongly. Right now, Buffy's sort of sad and angry and hurt. That's a mix I can understand. "I did have sex with him. Hell, I had an entire fling with him, and before I died, I'd have told you that was positively the last thing I'd ever do."
"So why did you do it?"
Buffy sighs in that way people do when they're about to start talking and not stop. "I came back, and things were so hard. Everything felt wrong. I had all these responsibilities, and I didn't even feel like I was really here or really me. It seemed like . . . like Spike was the only one who really understood. He didn't expect me to be happy with having just crawled out of my grave. He didn't need me to be, not the way Xander and Willow did. And he was the only one I could talk to, since he hadn't been involved in raising me."
"Why didn't you talk to Giles?" I ask. "Seems sensible to me."
"I couldn't," she says. "He had a huge fight with Willow right after he got back to Sunnydale. I knew that if I told Giles what had really happened . . . it would only have made things worse for her. For all of you."
"I get it," I say. "Spike hates us all anyway—well, except for me; he told me I was the only one he wouldn't bite if he had the chance, which I thought was really sweet of him—so you could talk to him."
She gets this crinkled-forehead look. "I hadn't really thought about it that way, but actually, you're right. I wasn't changing Spike's opinion of any of you guys by talking to him. And I was attracted to him, and I knew I shouldn't be, so I kept yanking him closer and pushing him away, and finally, I just said 'Screw it,' and . . ."
"Screwed him?"
"Pretty much." She wanders over to a pile of salvaged books and starts flipping through one. "Actually, though, I don't think it was him I was screwing. It was myself."
Okay, now that's confusing. "I don't get it. If you were wanting to screw yourself, why didn't you just—"
She stops me by holding up a hand. "I don't mean screwing myself that way. I'm the Slayer. Spike's killed two Slayers. The first time I had sex with him was after I found out he could hurt me. If that doesn't shout 'self-destructive tendencies,' what does?"
"You have a point," I say.
"Not only that, but while I was with him, I could ignore all my other responsibilities—to Dawn, to the world in general, to my friends, everything. While I was with him, I felt something. I wasn't numb."
"I get that," I say, and I do. "A good orgasm or three does make you feel better."
Buffy makes a sound like a laugh, only I don't think she's finding anything funny. "Yeah, but it doesn't last long. And the sex was about the only part of our so-called relationship that was good. I was using him, and he wanted to possess me. Not a good combination." She kind of shrugs. "I called it off when I realized just how bad it had gotten. I was using and abusing him, and he was letting me. Not doing either of us any favors."
"Oh." I guess I understand. Human relationships are always so complicated. Of course, so are demon relationships. I remember this one time, a demoness conjured me because—but I'm going off on a tangent. "He did love you, you know," I tell Buffy. "Demons can love."
"I know," she says, looking sad. "I know he loved me, and I know you love Xander."
Hey, when did this get to be about Xander and me? "Why'd you say that?"
She smiles. "It's kinda obvious, the way you two have been dancing around each other. The way you've been so angry at him—you wouldn't feel that way unless part of you still loved him. And he loves you."
I don't know what to say. The problem is, I think she's right. Love kind of explains why I can't stop thinking about Xander. All day, all night, in the shower, when I'm doing business, it's Xander, Xander, Xander. I wish I could just flush him out of my skull.
Buffy comes closer, and something goes crunch under her foot. I take a look. Oh, good, just another of those trendy little glass spheres that looks cool but doesn't actually do anything. I get them from a wholesaler in Santa Monica and resell them to the gullible for a tidy little profit.
"Hope that wasn't anything important," Buffy says.
"No, just something to swindle New Agers with," I say.
She blinks at me, then gets back to the subject. "I don't mean to pry into you and Xander's . . . thing, Anya, and I know it's none of my business. All I need to know is if someone's going to get hurt." She looks at me. "You're a demon now. Are you going to hurt him?"
"I can't," I say. "Tried, couldn't. I can't exact vengeance on behalf of myself, so don't worry about his skin rotting or his spleen exploding. Besides, I'm not even sure I want to. I mean, if my original plan had worked, where would we all be now?"
"It sure as hell wouldn't have solved anything. Vengeance never does." Something in her eyes changes. I have a feeling we're about to talk business—her business. "You're back on the clock as a Vengeance Demon again now. What's your body count?"
"Just two," I tell her. "I mean, I've only done two curses, but neither of them is dead. One was this stupid high school boy who dumped his date for the Prom—on the day of the Prom—because someone hotter wanted to go with him. His original date wished he had the world's worst case of acne. It's not pretty, but he'll clear up sooner or later. The other is Parker Abrams."
Buffy's eyes go kind of wide. "Oh."
"He was kind of a curse waiting to happen, actually. Want to know what I did to him?"
Buffy's got this funny look on her face, like she wants to know but wishes she didn't want to know. Finally, she just shrugs. "Sure."
"The girl in question wished he'd be unable to perform whenever he sweet-talked a girl into bed with him. Needless to say, that's put a crimp in his social life."
"Oh," says Buffy again. She looks like she's trying to be stern, but suddenly, she starts snickering, then laughing, and pretty soon, she's sitting down in the middle of the floor, howling. It takes her a couple of minutes to pull it together. When she finally gets up, she says, "Okay, we're still good. Just as a warning, though: guys do stupid things. It doesn't mean they deserve to die. I don't want you going around ripping out intestines or boiling brains on account of a guy having a bad judgment day. If I do get wind of it . . . we'll have problems. I don't want that."
I've seen what Buffy does to her enemies. It makes me not want to be one of them. "I don't want that, either."
"Good. Then we understand each other." She relaxes, and suddenly, it's like she's Buffy again, and not the Slayer. It's a relief. "I'm still your friend, Anya. I'm very grateful for the way you helped us when we fought Willow."
"And the Spike thing?"
She waves her hand. "Totally understandable. Yes, Xander was hurt, but that's you guys' issue, not mine. And I'm not with Spike anymore." Her eyes go hard. "I'm not going to be with Spike again. Ever."
"Do you know where he is?" I ask. I kind of feel responsible for him leaving town.
"No idea. He and I had a . . . confrontation, and he skipped town. Clem seems to think he'll be back sometime. I don't know."
There's more to this than Buffy's saying. She's feeling rage, betrayal, and hurt. It's a combination that makes the demon in me perk its head up.
"Wish I could do something about him?" I ask. Hey, it's my job, after all.
She shakes her head. "No. No, I'm gonna have to do the dealing with Spike myself."
"Good. I didn't really want to hurt Spike anyway." She looks at me. "He was just . . . so nice to talk to that night we had the bad-judgment sex. It felt good to have someone who understood, you know? Really understood."
Buffy's emotions change again. She's got more hurt than anything, kind of an empty, achy feeling, like she lost something and can't ever get it back.
"I know," she says. "I know how that feels." She takes a deep breath and looks at her watch. "School's out. I need to get home to meet Dawn." Buffy smiles at me. "It's been good talking with you, Anya."
"It has been," I say. She turns to leave, but just before she gets to the door, I remember something. "Buffy?" She turns. "Do you think—do you think that Xander really does still . . . you know, love me? Even though I'm a demon?"
"I'm sure of it," Buffy says, and she sounds sure.
She leaves, and I go back to working on my shop. Xander said he'd be here with some lumber this evening. Maybe he and I can talk while he's working. I could ask him about Willow, and if she's still staring into space. Or maybe we could talk about what's been happening on FarScape. Maybe he'll invite me to the apartment, or ask me out to a movie. Maybe things can change, and in a good way for once.