"Buffy, are you okay?" Dawn asks.
"Peachy," Buffy says, staring at her tea. She used to make fun of Giles for drinking this stuff. Somewhere along he'd started handing her a cup. A few months after that she actually started to drink the horrid stuff.
She was pretty sure she didn't like it before the "dream". She wonders if there is anything else left over from the dream.
"Are you going to patrol?" Dawn asks.
Buffy shakes her head.
"Do you want to go the Bronze?"
"No, go ahead," Buffy responds.
Dawn shoots her a look of despair, which she misses, as she misses everything.
-0-
Willow's magic is completely drained. She really didn't think that she used that much. She sort of lost all perspective when she was in the dream world. Magic was eternal and effortless there, and she's not doing well back in this world where the magic can run out.
Everything is slow, and painful.
She has to decide what is the most important use of magic for the day.
It wouldn't be so bad if Tara was staying, but magic could help her deal with this new excruciating pain.
-0-
Tara can see how hard this is for Willow. She wishes she could stay. She has to leave though. Willow is going to destroy herself with magic, and the only hope Tara has of saving her is to leave. Maybe Willow will love her enough to give up magic.
Of course experiencing pain isn't going to make thing easier for an addict.
Tara is pretty sure that she can't do anything to save Willow. So she's not going to sit around and watch the women she loves fall apart.
-0-
"Buffy, did you pay the bills?" Giles asks, looking at the alarming stack of them on the desk.
"I don't know. I'll ask Anya to come over and do it. She loves money," Buffy says dismissively.
Dawn comes down the stairs with her backpack.
"Aren't you already at school?" Giles asks in surprise.
"I got a bit of a late start," she says.
"Do you need a ride?" he asks.
"Xander is going to pick me up," she says.
"Why don't you go get some breakfast?" Giles suggests.
"I'm good," Dawn says, zipping out the door.
Buffy has said nothing at all, and Giles stares at her. He finds himself longing for some version of her that was never real, the one in the pants suit going off to a real job.
It's his fault, he knows. If he was going to play the role of her father all of these years he should have done it right. He should have prepared her for the world.
But every time she asks for help he comes running. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way that it will always be.
Until of course he leaves. That's why he has to go. He loves her too much to do right by her, to let her struggle, and fall, and fail.
She has to, but he doesn't have to watch. He's been her Watcher long enough.
-0-
The house is empty when Dawn comes home. She tells herself to do her homework, because no one else is going to tell her. Then she makes her own dinner, and eats it in front of the television. This is the way it is now. This is the way it has been since her mother died.
Maybe at some point the loneliness will stop hurting, and she'll be able to accept this new normal as her truth.
-0-
It was easier in the dream. Xander just had to think it and it was. There was no guessing, no wondering, no worrying. There was no chance that when they had babies they would turn out to be demons. No chance that Anya would start to hate him if he came every time that Buffy called. No chance that Anya would ever hurt him.
No chance that he would ever hurt her.
It was a safe thing, that dream, and very different from the way that things worked in the real world.
-0-
Anya missed the money.
And the kids.
But mostly the money.
-0-
Spike was avoiding Buffy. She should have been grateful. She knew that he was doing it because he loved her so much. He was being sensitive to her feelings. That was the whole problem, wasn't it? He felt so much for her, and she felt so little for him. It sucked just as much to be on this side of the unrequited love as it did to be on the other side of it.
She sits on the porch stairs hoping he'll show up. He always does when she's in pain.
It probably wouldn't be a good idea to be together. After all there was that kiss that they'd shared, and she really doesn't want a repeat of that.
It's Giles who sits down next to her with all of his compassionate British silence. Three minutes in, he cleans his glasses.
"It's a little cruel that I get pulled out of heaven twice in one year," she whispers toward the yard.
"You marrying Spike is heaven?" Giles asks.
"Not having to fight was heaven," she says.
He chose this. It was the family business, sure. He'd rebelled for a while thinking that he was going to chose another path. But when he'd decided to be a watcher it had been his decision. Buffy never really had a choice, or she had one but both of them were crappy decisions. You can either be the Slayer so much that you lose any hint of yourself, or you can be yourself and let the world burn.
"The Spike thing…It was nice not to have to hurt him. It's hard for someone to love you, and not be able to love him back. Especially if he is a good person."
"Spike?" Giles asks.
Buffy nods, and can't help but wish that Spike was the one offering her comfort. When had he become the keeper of her secrets, and the stabilizer of her emotional states?
"It was a cheap trick to keep us out of the fight. They probably thought that the spell was going to last forever. They probably wanted to kill us," Giles says.
"Would that have been so bad?"
"Well, considering the fact that we would have died," Giles says with a bit of false mirth in his voice.
Buffy still isn't sure that that would have been a bad thing. She used to be like them, right? Enjoying life, longing for it.
Now, going out like that, in a dream where she was happy, sounded pretty good. Especially if it lead back to that place that she was before. It might have been her ticket back to heaven. It wouldn't have been her fault. No one could blame her. Others would take up the fight, and it wouldn't be her job anymore, without all of the guilt.
Giles looks at her, concerned. He knows she's in a bad place, and she has every right to be. She kills things by the thousands. Even though they are soulless, they are intelligent and they speak before they die. That's a weight. Then the ones she can't save, the dead innocents. It was an even bigger weight.
Then there were the occasional deaths.
It was a miracle the girl could function. How could he leave her like this? Couldn't he just stay, for a while?
No, because the disasters were never far apart in Buffy's life. She barely had enough time to escape one disaster before the next one arrived. If he waited until she was emotionally stable he would be waiting forever. He has to let her fly.
Giles puts an arm around her and holds her for a while before she gets up and heads into the house.
There is a shuffle in the trees. Spike was there the whole time. He has on that abused puppy face that made her wish she loved him in the dream. She wishes that she loved him right now, but she is now in a world where wishes are not enough to make truth happen.
Still she is walking toward him though, compelled by some strange mixture of compassion and self hatred.
"I'm sorry," he says. He doesn't have to list all of the things that he is sorry for. She can guess them. He is sorry that he loves her, and that in the dream that was enough to make her feel like she loved him. He is sorry that he didn't realize what was happening and stop it before the dream was able to hurt her again.
He's even sorry that he pulled that leaf from her mouth instead of leaving her alone to die like she wanted. Only, not really. Letting her die is the only thing that he will not do for her.
He'd never leave her. When her back is to the wall she knows that he will always be fighting by her side. That's comfortable, especially now when the other man she's always relied on is leaving her to go half way across the world.
To live in a town called Bath none the less.
"It's okay," she tells him.
"It's not though," he says, lighting a cigarette.
"No, but it's also not your fault," she says. She is careful not to make eye contact with him right now, because she is pretty sure that his compassion will crush her.
He smokes his cigarette slowly, and then smashes it into the ground, "Do you want to go kill some little nasty things by the cemetery?"
It worries her that killing is a coping mechanism. She is just beginning to learn that she is a monster.
She looks at Spike. Not all monsters are bad.