"No seriously. You gave me a bruise! I'm going to be black and blue in the morning, and then going to have to explain to my workmates how I got beat up by a girl," Xander continued to complain. "You still don't know your strength!"

"I'm the slayer," Buffy said, still on the watch for late shift vampires. Assuring herself that there were none dangerously close by, she turned to her friend. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? Here, let me have a look at that."

Xander jumped back quickly, holding his injured arm in his other hand.

"No way I'm letting you near that arm again!" he said, only half joking. Buffy looked at him with one eyebrow raised, before returning to her stake out.

"Angel..." she whispered suddenly under her breath. Xander was still muttering to himself when Buffy started walking away from him and towards her ex-lover.

"Angel," she said softly, touching his cheek tenderly. He flinched away in one jerky movement, starting the effort of getting himself to his feet. Buffy hastened to help, but he spun around and growled at her.

"Leave me alone!" he said testily. "I can do it on my own."

"But I don't mind...what's wrong?" she asked, backing away a step reflexively, her eyes deeply worried.

Angel noticed the movement with derision.

"What? You think that I've gone evil again?" he asked, before cutting off her insistence to the contrary with, "I guess it was always easier for you to face the fact that I was absolutely sick of the sight of you because I was evil."

Buffy stood in front of him, mouth gaping. From behind her, Xander was catching up with an inquisitive, "Buffy?"

Angel's eyes flashed in the other boy's direction briefly. Buffy's mind was spinning back rapidly to the day after their union, before she had known he was bad. She wasn't going to go through that again. Jutting her jaw mulishly, she spoke to him again.

"Why are you speaking like that to me if you're not evil?" she asked.

"Come on, Buffy! It's hardly like I have the element of surprise anymore. If I was evil, don't you think that the first thing I'd do was rush over there and kill that goof of a boy, Xander?" Angel asked. In the next instant, he was no longer standing in front of her.

Buffy spun around quickly towards Xander, thinking to save him, but there was no vampire hovering over her friend, only Xander's confused expression as she went into his arms.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked gently.

Buffy pushed back from him slightly. "Didn't you...didn't you see...?"

Distantly, Buffy thought that she heard tinkling laughter at her back. Drusilla watched on, eyes bright with the intoxication of the slayer's pain.

Buffy shook her head and then smiled, "nothing, nothing. Let's just get you and your bruised self back home."

And with that, Xander and his best friend walked through the night, leaving Drusilla with her laughter and clasped hands.

That tinkling laughter followed Buffy into her dreams that night. Many images, mostly distorted or disjointed or both, flooding into her mind. Fears, memories, recollections, people, sounds, music, colors, all melding together and making one, large, strange picture.

"Angel, why are you speaking to Dru? She's evil. Or don't you remember that?"

"Push off, little girl. I loved her long before I even knew you!"

"What do you know of love? Guy after guy, sex and then he leaves."

"What do you know about love, Spike? You're a soulless thing."

"Better a soulless thing than a soulful disappointment."

"That's just not true! I don't just leave all of my friends like that. It's just your imagination. I'm telling you."

"And I'm telling you, you don't listen. People say things to you, but you just don't listen."

"I'm sick of listening to this!"

"Listen to it, Buffy. You're the reason why Angel ever went evil again. Know it. Face it. It's all because of you. It's all your fault!"

Buffy sat up sharply in her bed, sweat like blood covering over her body. A strange song had been playing all throughout the dream. Voices, she had recognised all of them, every single one, things that had been said, hinted at, things she'd known but never wanted to admit to. No. It couldn't be. Not really.

She grasped her scalp through her hair. She didn't know what to do. What could she do? She wasn't even in control anymore. Everything that had been said had been true. All of it. Every last word.

A sob caught up in the back of her throat. Jumping up out of bed blindly, she grabbed the first jacket that touched her fingers and ran from her bedroom. She didn't know where she wanted to go, she just knew that she had to go. Get out. Now.

Now.

It had all been true. All of it.

Walking down the street, head down, she didn't know where she was heading, didn't know where she had gone. All of it was a blur. She could have walked past or even through Xander and wouldn't have known. Even Willow she wouldn't have recognised just then.

It was worse than the time that Angel had gone evil. Worse even than when he had left her. Because this, this wasn't about Angel. This wasn't about anyone outside of herself. This was about her, everything inside of her, everything she knew and felt to be true. The one thing she couldn't escape. Herself.

She kept walking.