Back Before Dawn
by Annakovsky
Part 5/11
See part 1 for disclaimer, rating, etc.
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Buffy: 12:58 pm, Tuesday, February 18, 2003
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I hung up the phone after talking to Xander about patrolling with the Potentials. I don't really like bringing him along, 'cause I always feel like he's going to get himself hurt somehow, but he thought that as an average guy he could help the Potentials out on what they could do without super-strength, so I went along with it.
He also said something about Willow and a spell, but said I shouldn't worry about it, so I won't. I'm sure Willow will be just fine - I mean, *she* always ends up okay when she does the magic, it's the rest of us who get screwed over. Raised from the dead, thrown around the Magic Box, having their little sisters mad at them for getting the sister's arm broken even though they really had nothing to do with it.
Oh God. I am such a bitch. She said she was sorry and she IS sorry, and I just can't let go of it. I try to, I give myself little lectures on the value of forgiveness, but then I see her and I get pissed again. I don't want to be this way.
I don't know when I started hating my friends, exactly. After they pulled me out of heaven, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it was before that, even. It didn't use to be hard to like them, you know? Willow was the best friend a girl could ask for, and Xander was so funny and loyal, and Giles was, like, the perfect father figure. I trusted all of them and they trusted me. Sure, there were bad times, like when I hid Angel's being back from hell from all of them, but we always worked it out.
Not like now, where I don't feel like I can rely on them at all. They dragged me back to earth when I was finished, complete and happy, because they needed me so much. And then they kept needing me, all the time, like they were giant stones hanging around my neck - needing me to save them, let them live in my house, pay the mortgage. And Giles, the one I could rely on, the one who could maybe take care of me, help me be a grownup, left me, right when I needed him the most.
And then there was Spike. The one person who didn't need me, who I wasn't responsible for, who didn't leave me or bring me back. The one person I could talk to, who I could be alone with, who I could be myself with. Even if myself wasn't very happy or heroic or bright. I always felt like I was valuable and good enough when he'd look at me in that certain way. Sometimes it'd make me want to cry, how he'd look at me. Because no one ever thought I was good enough, just the way I was, just Buffy.
Actually, I guess in some ways Spike needed me too - sometimes the way he loved was like a bulldozer, knocking over everything in its path without thinking about consequences. But him needing me didn't feel like the dead weight the others did - maybe because I didn't feel like I had to do what he needed.
It was kind of good, me and Spike, back in the early days after I came back, when I'd use to just go hang out at his crypt and we'd talk. Or just watch TV or whatever. I shouldn't have starting sleeping with him, though. Not that the sex was bad - 'cause hoo boy, was it ever not bad - but I wasn't doing it because of him, I was doing it because it felt nice to be loved, loved in that crazy, stupid way Spike has where nothing else matters in the world except you. And because I could treat Spike like crap and still imagine that I was sort of a good person. All that anger and nowhere to go with it, nothing to do with it but beat it into Spike's face. Things were bad. I'm sorry I did that now - I don't know if I ever told him that, but I'm sorry.
It's funny – Spike I still care about, still want to make things right with, even though he tried to rape me. But the rest of them, who'd been my friends for so long and who didn't do anything quite that bad to me, I just don't know about. For some reason me and Spike feels more fixable than me and Willow or me and Giles. Maybe because I felt less betrayed with Spike. With him, things have always been a big sordid mess and I expected as much – I mean, we tried to kill each other for years before we got friendly, and even our sleeping together was almost as much violence as love. Not to excuse what he did – but it's not like it was a huge surprise, either. Whereas Willow trying to kill me, after we'd been friends so long – that was a surprise. And Giles leaving. The people I'd trusted hurting me, that's worse. I can't go back to loving them like I used to.
I know I'm getting to be a little unreasonable about Spike, but I'm so mad at the rest of them. And I feel like I have to protect him from them, since they all mostly hate him, won't give him a chance. It doesn't help things at all that they don't understand why I was with him. And I don't want to explain it to them, 'cause I don't want them to know that I'm not the great hero who's going to save the day. I don't want them to know that I'm just stupid and scared, and deep down not a nice person, not a good person even. That I could identify more with soulless Spike than the weird, quiet soulled version I got back this year. I almost wish he hadn't done it, hadn't gotten that soul for me - I knew the old Spike, understood him, sort of. And if Spike and I were alike last year, but now he got a soul, what does that mean about me? Is there someplace I could go to get mine back? Because most of the time I feel more like a big, embodied ball of hate than like a person, and I don't know what to do about it.
I should start by fixing things with Giles and Xander and Willow. They were always what held me back from being just a killer, kept me human. But I can't stand being around any of them any more, much less trust them. I just can't. And I don't think I can forgive them either. I've tried! Over and over again I've tried.
And even if I could forgive them, I don't think they could forgive me. Not if they really knew all the stuff I thought, what was really inside me.
I think I'm broken.
I finished out the school day, doing my counseling thing, talking to one kid about drug issues and another about her parent's divorce, before I had to head back to the Summers Home for Lost Girls. God, I hate that place. One good thing about my counseling job is that it keeps me out of there for a good chunk of the day – I think I'd go crazy if I had to referee one more argument over who used up all the hot water this time. And it's funny how, even though there are girls crammed into every spare inch of that house, it can still feel empty without Mom.
The second I walked through the door, Willow ran up and accosted me.
"Hey Buffy, have you seen Anya? I really need to talk to her."
"Anya? Nope, haven't seen her – she's not here?" I responded, hanging up my coat.
"No, and no one seems to know where she is. Do you have any idea where she goes when she's not here?"
"You know, I've never asked," I said. Huh. That's funny, it's never occurred to me to ask Anya what she does all the time. "Anyway, you'd know as well as I would. Maybe she's off with some of her demon friends or something." Willow looked exasperated.
"It's like no one in this house even talks to each other," she said.
"We talk sometimes," I said, defensively. "Anyway, have you seen Giles? I need to ask him about the latest Potential."
"I think he's in the kitchen," she said. Then she looked at me closely. "Buffy, can I ask you something?"
"Sure," I said.
"Are you happy?" she asked, looking like she really wanted to know. I kind of shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. I mean, of course I'm not – we usually just don't talk about it.
"I dunno, Will, are you?" She shrugged.
"I don't know. It just seems like… well, like if things were different, maybe we would be happy. Like we used to be?"
"Maybe," I said. "But things aren't different. They're like this." She shrugged, looking pained. "I'm going to go find Giles," I said, and walked into the kitchen.
by Annakovsky
Part 5/11
See part 1 for disclaimer, rating, etc.
*
*
********************************************
Buffy: 12:58 pm, Tuesday, February 18, 2003
********************************************
*
*
I hung up the phone after talking to Xander about patrolling with the Potentials. I don't really like bringing him along, 'cause I always feel like he's going to get himself hurt somehow, but he thought that as an average guy he could help the Potentials out on what they could do without super-strength, so I went along with it.
He also said something about Willow and a spell, but said I shouldn't worry about it, so I won't. I'm sure Willow will be just fine - I mean, *she* always ends up okay when she does the magic, it's the rest of us who get screwed over. Raised from the dead, thrown around the Magic Box, having their little sisters mad at them for getting the sister's arm broken even though they really had nothing to do with it.
Oh God. I am such a bitch. She said she was sorry and she IS sorry, and I just can't let go of it. I try to, I give myself little lectures on the value of forgiveness, but then I see her and I get pissed again. I don't want to be this way.
I don't know when I started hating my friends, exactly. After they pulled me out of heaven, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it was before that, even. It didn't use to be hard to like them, you know? Willow was the best friend a girl could ask for, and Xander was so funny and loyal, and Giles was, like, the perfect father figure. I trusted all of them and they trusted me. Sure, there were bad times, like when I hid Angel's being back from hell from all of them, but we always worked it out.
Not like now, where I don't feel like I can rely on them at all. They dragged me back to earth when I was finished, complete and happy, because they needed me so much. And then they kept needing me, all the time, like they were giant stones hanging around my neck - needing me to save them, let them live in my house, pay the mortgage. And Giles, the one I could rely on, the one who could maybe take care of me, help me be a grownup, left me, right when I needed him the most.
And then there was Spike. The one person who didn't need me, who I wasn't responsible for, who didn't leave me or bring me back. The one person I could talk to, who I could be alone with, who I could be myself with. Even if myself wasn't very happy or heroic or bright. I always felt like I was valuable and good enough when he'd look at me in that certain way. Sometimes it'd make me want to cry, how he'd look at me. Because no one ever thought I was good enough, just the way I was, just Buffy.
Actually, I guess in some ways Spike needed me too - sometimes the way he loved was like a bulldozer, knocking over everything in its path without thinking about consequences. But him needing me didn't feel like the dead weight the others did - maybe because I didn't feel like I had to do what he needed.
It was kind of good, me and Spike, back in the early days after I came back, when I'd use to just go hang out at his crypt and we'd talk. Or just watch TV or whatever. I shouldn't have starting sleeping with him, though. Not that the sex was bad - 'cause hoo boy, was it ever not bad - but I wasn't doing it because of him, I was doing it because it felt nice to be loved, loved in that crazy, stupid way Spike has where nothing else matters in the world except you. And because I could treat Spike like crap and still imagine that I was sort of a good person. All that anger and nowhere to go with it, nothing to do with it but beat it into Spike's face. Things were bad. I'm sorry I did that now - I don't know if I ever told him that, but I'm sorry.
It's funny – Spike I still care about, still want to make things right with, even though he tried to rape me. But the rest of them, who'd been my friends for so long and who didn't do anything quite that bad to me, I just don't know about. For some reason me and Spike feels more fixable than me and Willow or me and Giles. Maybe because I felt less betrayed with Spike. With him, things have always been a big sordid mess and I expected as much – I mean, we tried to kill each other for years before we got friendly, and even our sleeping together was almost as much violence as love. Not to excuse what he did – but it's not like it was a huge surprise, either. Whereas Willow trying to kill me, after we'd been friends so long – that was a surprise. And Giles leaving. The people I'd trusted hurting me, that's worse. I can't go back to loving them like I used to.
I know I'm getting to be a little unreasonable about Spike, but I'm so mad at the rest of them. And I feel like I have to protect him from them, since they all mostly hate him, won't give him a chance. It doesn't help things at all that they don't understand why I was with him. And I don't want to explain it to them, 'cause I don't want them to know that I'm not the great hero who's going to save the day. I don't want them to know that I'm just stupid and scared, and deep down not a nice person, not a good person even. That I could identify more with soulless Spike than the weird, quiet soulled version I got back this year. I almost wish he hadn't done it, hadn't gotten that soul for me - I knew the old Spike, understood him, sort of. And if Spike and I were alike last year, but now he got a soul, what does that mean about me? Is there someplace I could go to get mine back? Because most of the time I feel more like a big, embodied ball of hate than like a person, and I don't know what to do about it.
I should start by fixing things with Giles and Xander and Willow. They were always what held me back from being just a killer, kept me human. But I can't stand being around any of them any more, much less trust them. I just can't. And I don't think I can forgive them either. I've tried! Over and over again I've tried.
And even if I could forgive them, I don't think they could forgive me. Not if they really knew all the stuff I thought, what was really inside me.
I think I'm broken.
I finished out the school day, doing my counseling thing, talking to one kid about drug issues and another about her parent's divorce, before I had to head back to the Summers Home for Lost Girls. God, I hate that place. One good thing about my counseling job is that it keeps me out of there for a good chunk of the day – I think I'd go crazy if I had to referee one more argument over who used up all the hot water this time. And it's funny how, even though there are girls crammed into every spare inch of that house, it can still feel empty without Mom.
The second I walked through the door, Willow ran up and accosted me.
"Hey Buffy, have you seen Anya? I really need to talk to her."
"Anya? Nope, haven't seen her – she's not here?" I responded, hanging up my coat.
"No, and no one seems to know where she is. Do you have any idea where she goes when she's not here?"
"You know, I've never asked," I said. Huh. That's funny, it's never occurred to me to ask Anya what she does all the time. "Anyway, you'd know as well as I would. Maybe she's off with some of her demon friends or something." Willow looked exasperated.
"It's like no one in this house even talks to each other," she said.
"We talk sometimes," I said, defensively. "Anyway, have you seen Giles? I need to ask him about the latest Potential."
"I think he's in the kitchen," she said. Then she looked at me closely. "Buffy, can I ask you something?"
"Sure," I said.
"Are you happy?" she asked, looking like she really wanted to know. I kind of shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. I mean, of course I'm not – we usually just don't talk about it.
"I dunno, Will, are you?" She shrugged.
"I don't know. It just seems like… well, like if things were different, maybe we would be happy. Like we used to be?"
"Maybe," I said. "But things aren't different. They're like this." She shrugged, looking pained. "I'm going to go find Giles," I said, and walked into the kitchen.