The Road Home
Summary: AU; everyone's human. Buffy Summers dodges family and friends to escape her wedding and make it back home, single. But when she returns to L.A., she finds herself stuck with a grumpy, homeless roommate without who, she soon finds, home wouldn't be home at all.
Disclaimer: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and all associated with it belongs to Mutant Enemy, Fox, Joss Whedon etc. I own squat.

A/N: Tired. V. tired. Forgive any mistakes?

10. With a Little Help From My Friends

"You know, those glares of yours aren't very scary when you've got a thermometer in your mouth."

Buffy couldn't help it. She smiled.

"There. Knew I could get a grin." He glanced at his watch, and said, "Okay, pet, give it up." He took the thermometer from her mouth, and held it up to look at it.

A few moments passed, and when Will didn't say anything, Buffy said, "What is it?"

"Eh, hold up a minute. The lighting . . . the, um, light isn't quite—oh, crap," He reached into his pocket and pulled out something. When he held up the thermometer again, he grinned. "Oh, yes. It's 100.2 . . . oh, no. That's bad." When he turned his bespectacled gaze to Buffy, he found her shaking with laughter. "Pet, you've got high . . . hey, what's so funny?"

His defensiveness made her laugh even more. She managed to get out, in between giggles, "You . . . yo-you wear glas-glasses!"

He glowered at her. "Yes, it's hilarious to make fun of someone's physical drawbacks, innit?"

She was quiet after another short bout of chuckles. Looking at him with a smile, she said, "No, that's not why I was laughing. It's just that the glasses . . . they don't exactly go with your bad boy image, now do they?"

Will ducked his head bashfully. Rubbing the back of is neck, he said, "Yeah. No, they don't."

She smiled at his shyness. "Yes, but you look so cute in them and--" She broke off when a cough racked her, and suddenly, Will was all business again.

"Okay, now that's over," he said, "Here, swallow these." And he slapped some pills onto her bedside table next to the glass of water. As Buffy rolled her eyes and sat up, he got up from his stool beside her bed and looked around the room. Smiling at the wide array of perfumes she had on her dressing table, chuckling at the small pig on top of her dresser, out of Mr. Pointy's reach, Will stopped beside her full length mirror. It was framed in silver and all around the edges were photographs.

Bending, Will smiled as he skimmed over pictures of Buffy with her mom, her friends and a lithe-limbed, tall brunette who resembled Buffy in some ways. Pictures of the prom, where she outshone her date by far, college photos, and he saw Anya and Buffy at the beach, waving out from under a huge umbrella. His eyes traveled upwards, where the more recent snaps were, and he gently started peeling back a photo of the brunette he saw earlier, standing almost as tall as the boy she stood with, to unveil the entire snap below it. He was just about done uncovering the picture underneath, of which he could only see a black-clad Buffy holding onto a guy's arm, when Buffy cleared her throat.

He turned back, grinning, the picture entirely forgotten. At her side again, Will said, "Open wide," and she did. Giving her two spoonfuls of codeine, Will smiled. "Now, try and go to sleep, okay? I'll pick your friend up, if need be." He brushed back a lock of her blonde hair, and had turned to go when Buffy grabbed his arm.

When he looked at her questioningly, she said, with a soft smile, "Thanks, Will. Really. I'm sorry I bashed your head with a tennis racket yesterday."

He smirked. "All forgiven, luv. Now, try and sleep, okay? You need your strength." And he quietly left the room, switching the lights off.

Buffy lay still in her bed for a while. When she was sure that Will was downstairs, she threw back the covers and gently tiptoed across to the mirror. All along the floor of her room were boxes, waiting to be shipped off to D.C., and she was, amazingly, not feeling lazy about reopening all those boxes and putting everything where it had been picked up from. But first things first.

Standing on her tiptoes, Buffy quickly and carefully removed all the snaps of her with Angel, or Angel alone. When she was done, she flipped through the relatively small stack and stopped at one. A valentine portrait she'd done for him in high school which he'd forgotten in his locker when he graduated. She traced the outlines of his face with her fingers, then pulled her hand away with a sad smile. Putting the paper at the bottom of the pile, she quickly shoved it to underneath the shelf paper of one of her drawers.

When she returned to bed, it was as though a huge load had been taken off her shoulders. And, around fifteen minutes later, when Will peeked in, she was fast asleep.

At around eight that evening, the slam of the front door made Will look up from Passions. As he waited for the visitor to enter the living room where he sat in boxers and little else, he heard a muted 'oh my goddess' from the foyer. Putting down the TV Guide, he ambled over to the doorway, only to run headfirst into Willow, who was holding in her limited hands a boundless number of bags.

"Ouch," she said when they moved apart. "Ouch, and double ouch, and sadness for the now squashed pork you ordered." She set the bags down on the coffee table, and opened her mouth to yell, "Buffy! I have the mooshoo! Come on and get the DVDs with—"

Will broke her off with a firm hand. As his right hand covered Willow's mouth, he said evenly, "Well, hey Red. 'Lizabeth's a bit below par today. Do you think you can keep the loudness to a minimum?" Willow nodded, eyes wide. Grinning, Will let her go and tore into the boxes of takeout. "So, what have we here?"

Willow didn't answer, busy biting her nails as she glanced at the direction of the stairs. "What's wrong?"

Will shrugged, not pausing in his tasting of the spicy, sesame seed noodles. "'m guessing the excitement and travel caught up with her. She's got a bit of a cold, but will be right as rain by tomorrow."

Willow nodded again, sitting down on the couch beside Will. Eying the food, she asked, "So, are you and me going to eat food for four alone?"

Will blinked. "Four?"

Willow shrugged easily. "Yeah, well. I figured you ate like a pig." Glancing at his sesame smeared hands, she smiled. "I figured right."

Will rolled his eyes and got up, swaggering into the kitchen. Willow automatically followed him. As e washed his hands in the sink, he said, "Actually, there'll still be three of us."

"How?"

Will quickly wiped his hands and grabbed a Post-It by the counter and gave it to Willow. "That," He said, pointing, "is our third person."

Minutes later, Will was chuckling through his smoke as Willow sped away in her car. When he heard the soft padding of bare feet behind him, and perfume he was now familiar with tickled his nose, he said, "Come on out, luv. She's gone."

Buffy stepped out, glancing at him with curiosity. "How'd you know it was me?"

A wry smile tugged at his lips. Stubbing out his cigarette with his boot, he asked, "When do I not?"

She rolled her eyes and hugged herself against the wind. The sounds of the daily routine of her neighbors ignored, she said softly, "Do you think they'll get along?" When he shrugged, she continued, always glancing cautiously at his face, "I mean, they should, right? Both of them are—"

"It's for them like it is for us." Even though he couldn't look at her, he could tell she had blinked her bewilderment. "Relationships don't just workout if two people are straight, right? Same way, gay people need more than the same sexuality. So, they might hit it off because, like you said, both are incredibly smart, are just what the other needs, and both are great-looking. It isn't just dependent on the fact that they're gay, luv." Finished, he turned to her with a smile.

Buffy, on the other hand, frowned. Will couldn't see her nose in the dark, or he'd have called her 'Rudolf', as in the reindeer, like her mum did whenever Buffy was ill to cheer her up. The same red nose wrinkled as she said, "Us?"

It was his turn to signal his confusion over what she was saying with a blink.

"You . . . you said they're just like us."

"Yeah . . . your point?"

She looked him through dark lashes, and apart from her slightly wary, wrinkled brow, he couldn't tell what she was thinking. It became clear, though, when she decided to take the risk and said, "You aren't gay?"

Will could've fainted. He reached and grabbed the post to steady himself as she winced. Silence, then he asked her, shocked, "You thought I was bloody gay!"

Buffy winced, and he could see her recoil. "Well, see—"

"Why!" He was on the porch with her, now, practically in her face.

Buffy, in a rush to answer him and get him to back off, said hurriedly, "oh, it's just that you cook so, so well and the house is so, so, SO clean, Will! You've got such an amazing body, and you wear black all, ALL, the time, like in New York. And perhaps your girlfriend drove you to it, I've no idea, and you and Willow were so busy doing your own Will & Grace thing. I mean, I thought you were the gay guy and she was the Jewish redhead, except, of course, that you both were gay. It isn't wrong," she hastened to assure him, "I've nothing against them, but I guess you . . ." she peeked up at his face, ". . . aren't gay?"

He was in her face now, so close she could smell the tobacco on his breath, the leather he seemed to be made of all around. She'd been backing up as she spoke and now, she was pressed against the open front door, his hands pinning her to the spot. Buffy swallowed, thinking of all the movies she'd seen where guys trapped women that way, and she was trying to remember how the girls got them to back off (Not very helpful, as they either ended up kissing, or the girls weren't so entranced by the shadowy blue pools of the guy's eyes that they couldn't look away) when he dropped his hands.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing, as his other hand searched for a cigarette. As he lit up, he glanced at her tiredly and said, "Best go in, luv. Smoke and the wind aren't good for you."

But Buffy wouldn't back off. She approached him slowly, but surely, and laid a light hand on his shoulder. "Will?" She used the softest voice he'd ever heard, and he looked up from where she'd touched his arm to her face. "Are . . . are you . . . no, are we, whatever we are, okay?"

He looked at her, trying to ignore the feeling of how his skin burnt when she touched him. Swallowing hard, he looked at her face, made pale by the moonlight, and smiled. "We're okay, pet."

She broke into a smile and his words fired her into a spontaneous hug. As she pulled away, she whispered against his cheek, "I'm sorry, Will. Really. I believe you aren't gay, okay?"

He laughed, amazed at this girl and her mercury moods. "Yeah, yeah, now go in and finish that soup." As she walked inside with a grin, he took a deep drag of his smoke and yelled into the house, "But I'll kill you with my bare hands if you walk out barefoot again!"

What a job, thought Willow, fighting her yawns. She lost the battle and her face stretched into an expression of laziness, her eyes watering. Silly Buffy for getting ill. Silly Will for saying I can't take care of her properly. Silly weather for being foggy, for god's sake, in June. And, most of all, silly Tara MaClay for not seeing this huge sign I've been holding over my head for so, so long. Silly me for accepting Will—

"Um, excuse me?"

Willow's train of thought collapsed as a blonde tapped her shoulder. She turned and said, through a smile, "Yeah?"

As Willow admired the woman's face and eyes, those same eye flickered to the sign Willow held and she said, smiling with ease, "Hey. I'm Tara MaClay."

Or, maybe it was right of me to accept. After all, I've always been the smart one . . .

A/N: Is MaClay right?