Chapter 20: Confessions of the Much Belated Kind
"Buffy?" Tara called softly, nimbly juggling many orbs and magick ingredients in her arms. She peered into the training room where Buffy sat hunched on the couch. "Buffy?" Tara repeated, ducking her head to inspect her.
Buffy gazed up and Tara and she could see that Buffy had been silently sobbing, her eyes blurred and face swollen. Hurriedly wiping away her tears, Buffy sprang up from the couch and weakly smiled. "Ummm, what's u-up Tara?"
"Are you okay Buffy?" Tara's face shone with concern.
"I'm f-fine. How are the ritual plans going?"
"Good. Everyone is mostly here already." Following Tara out into the main shop, Buffy gazed at the whole Scooby gang, minus Spike, which both relieved and pained her.
"Look what Commando Xander's got!" Xander exclaimed, but his voice pitched slightly as Anya slapped his ass. "No, not that Commando Xander," he corrected Anya nervously. He held up a series of tasers, like the ones Spike used on Buffy that one time with Drusilla, she remembered. Memories of Spike, even sordid ones, made Buffy ache inside slightly. "Got them from my army buds I made back when I had to stock up for Graduation Day." He frowned as he reflected on times past. "Ahh, the days of my youth, spent carefreelly battling apocalypse after apocalypse. Hmm, much like the current day. What, so this makes in end-of-world number . . .?"
"Seven," Tara, Buffy, Angel, Dawn, Cordy and Anya all chimed in unison. Xander whistled.
"We need to get like, a millionth apocalypse consolation prize. Well here you go guys, I stocked up aplenty. These should keep those possessed buggers in tandem, and plus, they're refreshingly murder-free."
"Is there one for me?" Dawn asked eagerly, fingering the load of weapons on the table. Buffy cut her a sideways glare.
"Ummm, let me speak for all when I say hell no, munchkin," Xander replied. Dawn pulled her face into a scowl. "You're a little too young to be fighting to forces of darkness here, Dawnster."
"Am not. I'm almost the age Buffy was when she became the Slayer," Dawn pointed out. "And in the last brink of apocalypse, I was key player." She almost looked proud at her role in the whole Glory debacle. "So cut me some slack here guys?"
"You can help me with the spell, Dawnie," Tara said, not looking up from her magic book. "Help me set up the ingredients and that sort." Dawn smiled happily as Buffy maintained a suspicious frown. Just then, Spike burst into the shop, glowering.
"So what, when do we get started with the killin'?" he asked brusquely, hopping up on the front table next to cash register. "I'd like to get a move on, I got other places to be." He avoided Buffy's pained glance.
"We have a couple hours until Venus rises. We have to get Willow from the hospital and prepare the ingredients." Tara's voice had acquired a sort of new, authoritative firmness to it that had before been limited to Willow and Buffy.
"Willow. But isn't she still unconscious?"
Tara nodded. "You'll have to find some way to get her out of the hospital without endangering her too much, Buffy."
"That'll be tough, considering all the nurses around and everything," Buffy pointed out, frowning.
"I can go with you, if you need help," Angel offered. Spike grunted and made it a point to get up loudly. Buffy hesitated and looked over her shoulder at a sulking Spike.
"Umm, that's okay, maybe you should stay here. We'll need someone really strong to stand guard if any of Rack's gang comes to hassle you guys. Xander, you come with me."
Xander grimaced. "As if my fiancée already doesn't do her part to thoroughly make me feel like a woman . . ." He sighed begrudgingly and followed Buffy out the door.
Xander and Buffy walked into the brisk Sunnydale night in silence. Xander, confused and often alarmed by long stretches of silence repeatedly glanced over to his side, where a hard-faced Buffy stomped alongside him.
"S-So, Buffy . . . not with the lesbiantrics, huh?" Xander cringed at his pitiful attempt to reach out to his friend. He was beginning to sound as curtly tactless as Anya.
Buffy curled her lip into a disapproving half-frown. "Xander . . . you have got to stop believing what your delusional fiancée spouts. I mean, the girl is obviously not right. She thinks Bugs Bunny's the spawn of Satan."
Xander let that one slide. "I'm sorry Buff," he sighed. "Is just that . . . we kept thinking you were hiding something from us. Ever since you came back . . . you've been totally secretive and distant."
Buffy frowned when she heard the tone of hurt and disappointment in her best friend's voice. "I know Xander," she replied quietly. "I had . . . a lot of stuff to work out." She twitched when reflecting that "stuff" included the one person Xander would have most liked to stake off the planet. She was almost crestfallen when she found that Xander had no idea about her and Spike. Not that it mattered now anyway, Buffy told herself, melancholically. "But still," she sighed, wrinkling her nose, "How did you guys ever get the idea that I was gay?"
"Well you weren't reaching out to anyone of us except Tara. And Anya was all hyper-perceptive with the perhaps overzealous gaydar in her regular, un-p.c. fashion. A guy can get confused you know!"
Buffy grinned at Xander and his endearing impishness. He smiled back, but his face grew serious. "But Buffy, really . . . what was going on? We wanted to be there for you, we really did. But you just kept pushing all of us away, even your own sister. I mean, the only people you ever talked to were Tara and Spike. If you weren't involved in something with Tara then . . .?"
Buffy had not heard him. She had stopped dead in her tracks when Xander had spoken Spike's name. The mention of him made her eyes flash with hurt and she closed them briefly when remembering his promises on skipping town. He can't do this, she was screaming to herself urgently, he can't be just one other man to do this to me again. Opening her blurred eyes as she surfaced out of her thoughts, she met Xander's face, a pallor of ghostly shock and recognition. She groaned.
"NOOOOOOOO . . . ." Xander wheezed. "Y-you and . . . S-S-Spike?????"
"Xander I don't want to talk about it . . ."
"Ugggghhh. Highly disturbing visions clouding my pleasantly homespun mind. Just think happy thoughts, Xan, think happy thoughts." He rubbed his head frantically.
"Xander, can we really focus on the task at hand?" Buffy asked urgently, pointing to the hospital they were approaching.
"Task?? Task?? My main task right now is to eliminate the very, very, very bad pictures I have of you and the blond ghoul stuck in my cranium." He clutched and clawed at his head in an exaggerated manner before turning back to her. "Buffy!!!! Spike????? What compelled you to make this frat-boy, binge drinking hangover of a mistake?!!" Xander's eyes were bulging and a vein was pumping prominently in his left temple.
Buffy sighed. "That really isn't much of your business, Xander," she snapped, walking away from the motionless Xander on the sidewalk.
"Uh yeah HUH it is! I mean, it is usually is standard that I make it my business in cases where I go kick the ass of the aforementioned person!" he cried frantically, following her.
Buffy grabbed his arm. "Xander, no," she insisted. Xander just gaped at her.
"What do you mean NO? The guy's obviously drugged you, made you turn away from your family and friends, put some crazy-ass spell on you. Or worse, he found a way to program you, just like the Buffy-bot. Damn technology and it's perverse ways!" he exclaimed.
"Are you quite finished?" Buffy glared at him pointedly. "Look Xander, I'll admit . . . me and Spike had a thing together-----" she winced as she struggled to voice the dysfunction that was her and Spike.
"And by thing you mean lots and lots of sex right?" Xander interrupted, gagging. He rolled his eyes into the back of his head dramatically. "Oh God, take me now, my apocalypse has come." He contorted his face into one of horror and disgust as a light bulb went off in his head. He started to gesticulate madly when it registered. "Oh—Oh! I don't know why I didn't see it before!" he was saying. "That time Spike brought the bra and you were all low key on the bitch meter. A-And all those time you and the demon-bleached cabana boy would pull those all-nighter patrols. And OH! . . . OHH, that time me and Anya founded a mysterious pair of girly, lacy panties in the bathroom of the Magic Box along with that lighter." His face went slack and contorted as he pictured this. "Good God of Gabby Hoffman, Buffy, that's disgusting!!! You and Spike in the . . . EWWWWWW!!!"
Buffy winced at Xander's disgust. "Please Xander, can we not talk about this right now?"
"Oh we'll be talking. No, I'll be talking, you'll be listening. Talking and listening, all in that intervention type way."
"Not this again . . ." Buffy sighed, as they entered the hospital and scanned down the halls for Willow's room.
"Oh yes, Missy, this again. This being a concerned, best friendly attempt to keep you from diving into the dank, bottomless pit of destruction. Spike, Buffy???? What is it with you and sociopathic vampires???"
Buffy narrowed her eyes into dangerous slits. "You'll just find any excuse to throw Angel back in my face, won't you?"
"Umm, Buffy, I don't think it's so much a throw as it is a sobering face kick to the consciousness. Angel tried to kill you and your friends and family. And from what I recollect, Spike attempted much of the same. All around, not a stunning display of good judgement on what's boyfriend material."
"Spike is not my boyfriend," Buffy confirmed, though she was nearly tempted to add "anymore." But then again, she was always unsure if that's what he ever was. She had always been afraid to voice that. "And besides Xander, I'm not sure you're the one who should be doling out the relationship advice," Buffy scoffed. "Cause from what I remember, your current fiancée tried her hand at the murderous-acts-of violence trip. And your only other previous relationship before that was with the campus princess who alternatively ruled as Bitch of the Earth." Buffy's voice spat with new venom.
For once Xander was speechless. "D-don't go around turning this on me Buffy," he struggled to reprimand. "I'm not the one who's regularly doing the nasty with a dead killer who prefers his lunches with the sharp tangy taste of O-neg."
"Just stop Xander, I don't want to talk about it."
Xander ignored her. Jumping in front of her, he waved a maniacally authoritative finger in her face. "Buffy, what is wrong with you? Before you were all 'Spike equals stakeworthy' and now you're all okay with makin' hay with him??" He shook his head. "Look, I know that coming back was really upsetting for you Buff, and that it made you turn to some . . . unsavory characters. And I know you're entitled to let you're aggressions out sometimes with meaningless flings, I mean, even I can boast of dabbling in that sort . . ." Xander's chest swelled with mannish pride when remembering his only one-night stand with Faith, but soon deflated when Xander glanced back at Buffy's stoic face. "But, Buffy . . . involving yourself in a fling with Spike? The guy already drools in your presence, it's not a good idea to lead him on, giving him the hope that you could even possibly care about him . . ." his voice drifted off in panicked silence as he saw Buffy's teary wide-eyes. Incredulously, he exclaimed, "BUFFFY?????"
"Xander---"
"Feelings! For Spike! Non-hatred, non-disgust, non-revulsion feelings!"
"F-feelings. Not of the big. I could have lukewarm hatred feelings! You don't know!"
"But you don't! You m-made with the face! I can tell! Y-you have romantic-y type feelings! Towards . . . SPIKE!!!!" Xander face blackened every time the he said the name.
Buffy frowned with defeat. "I-I don't," she whispered, trying to convince herself more than Xander.
"Umm, with a little, no make that ANY conviction please!" Xander continued to gape at her.
Buffy sighed. "It doesn't matter Xander. That thing we had----over." Xander still glared at her suspiciously.
"Don't think you're getting out of this so easy Missy. The fact is that you had a thing in the first place . . . with SPIKE!!! Young Harris apparently couldn't get enough of that name.
"But nothing is happening now!" she pointed out, wincing at Xander's words. "Me and Spike . . . we're over." Buffy fought to hide her sadness that lie beneath her countenance.
"Um, sorry Buff, I'm still stuck on the part where you were under Spike. Oh god, that just made it worse."
"Xander . . ." Buffy started to say, but abruptly stopped when they both caught sight of Willow in her hospital bed. Both her and Xander ducked and crouched behind the opposite wall. "There she is," she whispered. "I don't see any nurses do you?" Both she and Xander whirled around to see if they could catch sight of any other people in the hall.
"Nope, but I see big bad coppers at 2 o' clock," Xander declared, but sheepishly added as Buffy whirled around to see where he was indicating, "Okay, so, um, not quite sure what 2 o' clock really means."
"They must be guarding Will after what happened at the school," Buffy murmured when she detected them hovering a couple feet from Willow's room. "As soon as she regains consciousness, they'll arrest her. We've got to get her out of here now."
Moving swiftly, Buffy and Xander ducked into Willow's room. Willow, in a sweet tranquillity that many had not seen her don in a long while, lay attached to numerous IVs. "Do you think we'll hurt her?" Xander asked wistfully, sadly gazing down at his best friend. The only other time he saw her like this was all those 4 years ago after the whole Angelus nightmare. He still hadn't gotten over how small and fragile she looked in her hospital bed and how the sight tugged at his heartstrings painfully.
Buffy was reflecting on the same thing. She shook her head. "It'll hurt her later in the end if we don't get her out now." Gingerly tugging off the I.V. tubes, she gathered Willow's limp body in her arms. Just then two cops had caught sight of them and rushed to the door.
"What do you think you're doing Miss? You're not supposed to be in here! That's a suspected felon you've got in your arms!" The taller of two cops roared. He ran up to Buffy in confusion, but she halted him by kicking him powerfully in the chest. Crumpling to the floor, the cop's wide-eyed partner lunged at Buffy, trying to tug Willow's body away from her arms, but she was just as soon stopped by Buffy sharply administering a punch to her face. The cop staggered a bit, astounded by Buffy's strength and did her best to compose herself as Buffy almost made it through the door with Willow. "FREEZE!" she yelled, holding a gun in front of her with shaken hands. Panicked, Buffy slowly turned round, still holding Willow. There was no way to do this now, she thought agonizingly to herself. Just then she noticed Xander behind the cop, slowly fingering a taser that was hidden in his pocket.
"Xander . . ." Buffy whispered urgently. The cop whirled around in confusion to find who it was Buffy was referring to, but soon after collapsed as Xander struck her with the powerfully numbing force. Sidling up to Buffy, Xander pushed them out of the door.
"Let's go," he whispered, and they both broke into a run, with Willow raggedly flopping about in Buffy's arms. Not ceasing to heed the yells and protests of the doctors and nurses they met in the hall, as well as encountering a few stray guards that physically grappled to obstruct the three, Buffy, Willow and Xander finally burst out of the hospital, back into the cool night. In the corner of her eye, Buffy could detect over the horizon a ruby gem-like dot of color. Venus was beginning to rise.