A/N: This takes place right as Buffy walks down the stairs during the AtS episode "Sanctuary." It's always bothered me, her attitude, even though I know it's a product of teenage comprehension and deep hurt…
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the intellectual property of AtS or BtVS and am making no profit.
She feels righteous. She feels right.
She feels deprived of vindication and payback and tag-you're-it-this-time.
As she walks down the stairs, he turns away in her peripheral, slamming his hands to the wall and damning something she knows he should.
Yeah, he should.
He should feel guilty for choosing Faith over her. For putting the soul of her deformed, underweight twin first. For hugging the copy when he should have been…
No, she's above all that. It was a cheap shot- piercing, sure, but lacking real bite once she knew the truth. Yeah, a fake and jab that doesn't feel as good a full connecting hit.
But she likes it anyway. She likes the way his features crumbled to guilt as she turned from him, his eyes shutting fiercely to block out the good that he'd done in the wake of her accusations.
It's petty and small, but it warms her. Like the way Riley feels at night, his strong arms wrapping around her fully, without fear of souls being ripped away or bliss being shattered.
You can't get seven years bad luck without a mirror.
Throwing it in his face? The fact that she can be with someone now, can feel happiness without the world caving in?
She knows she should feel guilty. But the twist to his lips and the scrunching of his brow is her very own mulligan in this new round they've played ever since she last saw him in LA and walked away.
She'd love to think that the leaving was completely of her own choice.
Instead, she continues down the stairs, pushing her way through the straggling crowd of late night revelers and beat cops who got stuck with the graveyard shift. That very idiom makes her feel a camaraderie.
Wouldn't Giles be proud of her SAT verbal skills now?
She pushes past the nylon blend uniforms, reaches out to the five times latex coated doors, peeling in the harsh fluorescent lights.
And as she crosses the threshold of the precinct, nothing changes. She doesn't love Riley any more and she doesn't love Angel any less.
But maybe she hates him a little more tonight, and that's a start.
And when she looks in the mirror and cringes, she just says it's because he doesn't have a reflection.