Title: Definition of Insanity
Author: Karen
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, they belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy and Fox.
Rating: M for adult themes and drugs.
Genres: Angst and eventually romance
Summary: Buffy used to have a needle problem- she couldn't stand them. Now she has a different sort of needle problem, one that could kill her if she's not careful. But she has been careful, at least she was until someone from her past showed up and shook her hold on reality.
Author's Notes: This story came about after I went to the doctors and had to have blood drawn.
And sorry about the messed up swears. I first posted this at a message board, then copied it from there...I didn't realize they censored it! Thanks to Queen Boadicea, I'm on to their little game...
Warnings: Contains situations not suitable for children. Reader disgression is advised.
Feedback: A must.

I used to have a serious needle problem. More like a phobia. Unable to watch people on TV get a shot bad. But then Ethan took the liberty of giving me my first tattoo. Now, slayers have a high tolerance for pain, but even with that, when I went to get it removed, I knew I had two choices; grit it out and break the guy's nose, or anesthesia.

Then during our little affair, Spike turned me on to some of the less-bad drugs. Didn't truly help with the needle problem, but oh well. I quit when I ended it, but sometimes in the coming months, I missed that feeling.

Then a few things happened. The First; Willow's spell; the destruction of Sunnydale, and with it, my purpose for living; Dawn graduated, grew up. Maybe I have an addictive personality, or maybe I never got over being left. I turned back to drugs after we fled Southern California, and the world as I knew it. But I was more hardened this time around. It took more to give me that buzz. I tried going back to the drugs Spike had me try, cocaine, marijuana, even ecstasy once or twice, but it didn't work. It wasn't enough. It didn't make me forget.

I still have a needle problem, but it's totally different now. As soon as that needle pricks my skin, I anticipate what's coming next. The thought of something shoving something into my veins, meddling with my blood, no longer bothers me. And when I feel the burning, I crave the oblivion I know is coming. And then the world goes away. Those five seconds are the longest in my life.

On the outside, I'm still the Buffy Summers my friends think they know. The Council had to be rebuilt, and I helped. The new slayers needed training, and I helped. But the purpose for living that I had on the hellmouth, the one that kept me going after coming back from Heaven, that was gone, and I didn't know how to get it back. My other reason for living had left me on the day of my graduation, so I was living a half-life, shooting things into my vein just to get by.

Being a slayer has some advantages. Even though it's a hardcore drug that people die from every day, I still consider myself a recreational user. I can go all day without getting high or even going through withdrawal even after using for over a year, but when the sun sets, and the heat goes with it, I turn to needles to take the pain away. It's my choice to shoot up, I don't need it, my body doesn't crave it. My mind craves it to take the pain away, my heart needs it to live through the nights without him. And my slayer healing takes care of the track marks, though my skin's gotten harder, and it takes longer for them to heal now. But being a slayer has some disadvantages too; it takes a lot to get me to the point of forgetting. It takes a whole hell of a lot. And it doesn't last as long as it should. Sometimes, I have to do it twice just to get through the short night.

I'm careful. I went to DARE classes and all that. I sterilize the needles I use, and I never share. I never even shoot up when anyone's around. I also have a deal with my supplier. He's the big cheese in the city, and he doesn't deal directly with anyone but me; but that's because I killed the first three dealers I met-they were demons, so it's okay; killing demons is my job. He imports it, and gives me a cut off the top, makes sure it's not polluted or anything, and he gets to live. I also turn my back on some of his other dealings, and don't turn him in to the cops or the Council. And sometimes, if he's having demon-related problems, I lend a hand in my free time. He beat out all the other drug guys in town-I guess it helps having a slayer in your pocket.

I guess my day life is going pretty well- we haven't lost that many girls since we instituted a new training program. My friends are all still alive, and Dawn's going to be a watcher. Willow ran into Oz a few months ago while looking for a slayer, so they're back together. Xander's still moping after Anya, but he's living more than he used to. He invites me out to dinner a couple times a week, or to go to a club or something, but I always decline. Because when I'm with them, I have to pretend that I'm happy and having fun. I still suffer, but I have to hide it, and it festers. When I'm by myself, the pain comes in like the tide, and my heart drags me down like undertow, and I get swept out to sea if I can't get the needle ready fast enough. Generally I patrol for a few hours each night, just to take the edge off, and then I go home and lock my door.

The fact that heroin is a depressant is kind of ironic if you really think about it, I have no problem with being depressed. It's kind of my natural state nowadays.

My night life, however- the life I live when there's no one around- is the pits. Hence the drugs. When the sun goes down, that's when I allow myself to remember. Remember the normal life I'm supposed to be living. I wonder if this is what he meant. It's certainly not the picket fence and 2.5 kids and the chocolate lab. But that's all I'll let myself think about that too much, because if I start thinking about what he would do if he knew…there's no guarantee that he would take me back. My heart still thinks that he loves me, and that he'd take me back no matter what. But my brain's more cynical. My brain thinks that if he saw what I've become in his absence, he'd be ashamed for me, he'd be disgusted, and he'd turn on me.

My brain and my heart don't talk to each other anymore. They haven't since he left. It makes things easier, like my affair with Spike. That was easy because my heart just locked itself in its room and refused to come out. My brain and my body were what opened up to Spike, but never my heart, not the way he wanted it to.

Like I said, I have a needle problem, but not a drug problem. At least I didn't have a problem until two nights ago.

It all started with the monthly meeting. No big deal, I sit through one every month, and just because it happens to coincide with that time of the month doesn't mean it was anything to get stressed about. I'm a bit more irritated, and though we're not supposed to have food, I keep a stash of Hershey Dark Chocolate kisses in my purse and sneak them when I think no ones looking.

But something was definitely wrong.

I was more irritated than usual, think I already mentioned that. Okay, we had just lost a girl. And I wasn't exactly getting as much sleep as I usually did; insomnia's a bitch. And my supplier had been strangely absent after I killed this big nasty for him. Not happy about that. I had enough to keep me going for awhile, as long as the dreams didn't get really ugly. But it was something different, something more. I wasn't even sure it was a bad wrong thing. It could have been a good wrong thing. I couldn't shake whatever it was.

Guess who showed up in my office the next day, earlier today. Him. That's right, you know who I'm talking about. There's only ever been one Him in my entire life, and I'm not talking about God. I would have been less freaked out by God showing up in the middle of a bright, sunny day than I was when he showed up. It wasn't so much that he showed up, because he tends to make random appearances every few years, and I guess it was time for him to make another one. No, it was the time he showed up. Generally he shows up at night, and generally in a cemetery. This was in the middle of the day- I had just finished reaching for the salad I had brought from my mini-fridge, more than ready to enjoy it at my desk- when he walked in. And the curtains were wide open, the window was wide open! And he just walks in.

And okay, yeah, it took me a couple seconds to notice he wasn't exactly bursting into flame. And that's when I realized what was wrong. I guess the medical term would be like a ghost heartbeat or something. All I know, here in my breast, just to the side of my own heart, I feel this pattering, this beating. I didn't notice it until he walked in, even though it was beating rather erratically, but then my heart accelerated to match it, and that's when I noticed it. When it wasn't there anymore.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, a forkful of lettuce and spinach and a sliver of carrot halfway to my mouth, when he walks in. And it was just like I shot up, because the world disappeared, and he was the only thing I saw. It felt the same too, the sudden euphoria (another irony, considering it's a depressant), and my arms felt heavy, and yet I felt light. I dropped my fork, but I don't think either of us noticed, because I was staring at him, standing in the SUN! and he was standing there staring at me in the sunlight, with the window blowing the wisps of hair that had escaped my tight bun. I wish I had known he was showing up, because I wouldn't have gone for the unisex schoolteacher look, I would have at least done something different with my hair…

And I know that sounds all superficial and all that, and even I was a bit surprised by the thought, but the man of your life walks back into it, and you don't wish you looked less like uberbitch nazi teacher and a little more sexy?

Anyway, I guess he was just as shocked by the changes in me as I was by the changes in him. Not that the changes in me are nearly as huge- so I'm thinner…a lot thinner. If you wanted to be mean about it, you'd maybe even say gaunt. There was a lot more muscle on my frame. There's no softness anymore. What little breasts I had are long gone; all the fat's gone, all of the things that made me soft and feminine are gone, except for this damned period that for the life of me, I can't get to go away. Not like I want to reproduce with anyone but him, and until this very moment, that was impossible. Hell, it might still be. The hollows of my eyes were more pronounced- hell, all the hollows in me were more pronounced- and there were dark purple smudges under my eyes from a combination of insomnia, my once-weekly patrol-till-dawn fests, and the nights when even the drugs didn't stop the dreams and I force myself to stay awake until the sun rises again.

But hello, he's human! The one thing I've wished for for like a decade finally happens. And we just stand there, staring at each other. But it was worse when he opened his mouth to speak.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked. No welcome, no sorry for barging in on me, what if I had a slayer in here with me, and we were conferencing? Not even my fucking name that he says like it's chocolate, pure pleasure to have in his mouth. No.

"Do you want the short list or the long one?" I asked, my voice dripping sarcasm. "It's gonna have to be the short one, because I don't have that much time."

He just looked at me, a bit lost. I almost laughed if his expression didn't cut me to the bone. He just keeps staring, and I can't take it anymore.

"I've got a conference in ten, so could we just get on with whatever the hell this is?" I asked, twirling in my chair, as if his presence didn't affect me as it did.

"Buffy…" he trailed off, maybe not being able to see my expression bothered him, but it didn't bother me, I was glad he couldn't see the look of pure joy at the way he said my name. He still said it like a prayer, with the tiniest bit of a question at the end, as if he was questioning himself if I were real. I was glad the large chair back hid me from view, because I shivered in the suddenly overheated room. "I'm human," he continued, as if he had practiced what he was going to say to me and then the words had left him, and he didn't know quite how to say what he wanted to say.

"I noticed," I snapped, turning back to him, "The whole not bursting into flames was a dead give away, Angel." I forced myself to not return any emotion when I said his name. I made sure my voice was flat, cold, maybe even frigid.

"Buffy…" he started, but I didn't give him a chance. Suddenly, all the anger I had ever had for the thing standing before me burst forth, burning me. I couldn't keep it in check.

"Don't. Just don't. Don't think you can come in here after all these years and be hurt that I don't welcome you with open arms. You left me, Angel. Not just once, but so many times I can't even being to count. And not just in real life, but in my dreams, Angel," I was pissed that I let that tidbit slip. I didn't want him knowing that on the nights the drugs didn't blow the world out from under me, I dreamed of him. I dreamed of him coming to me, like this, human, only I'm more like I used to be, not such a bitch, and we're still in love and we get back together. And that's where the dreams branch off. Sometimes we have kids, sometimes we get married, and sometimes we just fuck ourselves silly. But if I don't wake myself up in time, they always end the same.

"That's right. Your leaving me scarred me more than on the surface. And every time I take you back, expecting this time to be different. But it's not, it never is. You always leave me, no matter how many times I take you back, and how much I plead and cry and beg!" I was standing now, my anger fueling me on; I knew that if I didn't hold on to my anger, I would break, and I would cry. I had promised myself long ago that I would never cry in front of someone ever again.

"Do you know what the definition of insanity is, Angel? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Benjamin Franklin said that. I'm sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results, because it's always going to be the same damn thing. I'm tired of it!" Through my little speech, my anger drained from me, leaving me physically tired. Looking into his unfathomable eyes made me emotionally and mentally tired. I was just plain tired, and I wanted it all to end.

"Fine," he said, his voice quiet, all emotion gone. I forgot that he had long ago learned control over his emotions. While he stood there, calm, cool, strong, I felt like my knees were jelly. While no emotion showed on his countenance, I knew if he didn't leave, I was going to start crying, no matter how I vehemently I swore I wouldn't. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the smarting in my eyes. "If that's what you want…"

"It is," I told him, my voice surprisingly calm, strong. No quiver I was so afraid of.

He nodded once, before he turned without a word and left. I watched his back grow smaller as he walked down the hall. I bit my lip so I wouldn't cry out to him to stop, to come back. No. I had moved on. I didn't need him.

I needed to forget.