Her set was over.

The floor was littered with napkins and straws.

Bar stools scattered around.

Tables pushed together.

Pool cues leaning against the wall.

The lights were low and the only sounds around her were from the waitstaff, her best friend included, tossing the empty beer bottles in the trash.

Clink. Clink.

She walked around in a daze. Her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, her hair in a knot on top of her head. She rolled her shoulders and breathed it all in.

This was her favorite part of the night. When everyone left and she was there mostly alone, watching the aftermath of a show. She could still feel the energy, her fingers were still numb from strumming, her voice a little roughened.

She walked around, breathing it all in, the smells of sweat and hot wings. Beer and leather upholstery. Her favorite scents in the whole world.

She would feel guilty for not helping with the clean up, if she thought the expected it of her. But they didn't. She had been at this routine for long enough now that they all knew she needed this to come down. She had just bared her soul to a crowd of (mostly) strangers. She needed to close herself off again until the next performance, and this is how she did it.

The air was cool now. Bordering on chilly and she felt the goosebumps crawl up her bare arms as she exited the club. She let the breeze coming from the docks roll over her and rubbed her arms as she adopted a slow stride. She had a two mile walk home and was in no hurry. She had never held any interest in driving, she had lived in Sunnydale for over a decade, and nothing was more than two or three miles in either direction from her house. Plus, she liked the calm of walking alone. It was when she did her best thinking.

She loved Sunnydale at this time of night. No one around to distract her, nothing but her and the sound of her boots on the pavement. She felt at peace, and that made her smile to herself.

Peace.

At one time in her life she'd thought that wasn't possible for her.

Her life hadn't been all bad, she had a relatively normal childhood. She came from a moderately well off family. Her father was a successful business man with his own consulting firm and her mother used her art history degree from Oxford to open an Art Gallery. She had one sister, who was seven years younger, just the right amount to be cute and not impugn on Buffy's life too much. Buffy would say she had been a downright perfect little princess for the majority of her childhood. That was until she was 16 and her parents decided to divorce. It wasn't a huge shock for Buffy, or her baby sister Dawn, not really. Their parents had never really been 'madly in love', they had mostly seemed to tolerate each other. Then when their father, Hank, had found someone he tolerated a little more than Joyce he had filed for divorce. At first, Buffy had imagined two summer vacations, two Christmases, two birthdays, two parents competing for her love. That's what happened with her friends anyway, when their parents split up.

What she wasn't expecting, however, was for Dawn to be the bargaining tool in the divorce. Child support for Dawn, custody and visitation for Dawn. Dawn, Dawn, Dawn and no Buffy. No meetings, no depositions, nothing. No one was very concerned about who Buffy would be spending Spring Break with. Finally after months of speculating, of wondering if it was simply due to her age, Buffy finally pulled up the courage to ask her mother. Joyce had taken the divorce pretty hard, despite her lack of affection for Hank and had become very fond of vodka. While she took to the post-divorce drunken stupor quite well, the liquor did not give Joyce courage, just dark circles. So it took Buffy confronting her for her to finally spill the beans.

That's when Buffy's world officially changed, right there at the dinning room table, in the house with the 'Under Contract' sign in the front yard, the house that Buffy had lived with her Mother, Father and baby sister for 16 years. She sat there, clutching her Prada backpack and watching her Diet Coke lose it's fizz as her mother spilled the whole sorted story.

Apparently, Hank Summers was not Buffy's father.

When Joyce was 22 and in her last year at Oxford she allowed her friends to drag her out to a concert to celebrate the end of midterms. She got drunk for the very first time in her sheltered life and when her and her friends were invited backstage to 'meet the band' she allowed her friends to drag her there as well. That was when she met Rupert 'Ripper' Giles, the bass player for the hottest punk band in Europe. He was too old for her, he was an addict and had a horrible temper. She was in love. They 'fooled around' for about 2 months when Joyce discovered that she was just one of the many girls that were attracted to the out of control rock star. She finally woke up when she walked in on him sharing a girl with the rest of the band and stopped answering his calls. She was determined to finish her semester and go back home, to forget all about Ripper.

She thought at first that the constant sickness was the stress of losing Ripper and finals. Her second week home, her best friend forced her to get a pregnancy test. By that point it was too late to 'take care of it' and she couldn't bare the idea of giving her baby up. But telling her parents was also out of the question, as they would disown her, so when her father set her up with his business partners son she agreed. Together they made an arrangement, Hank needed a family to be taken seriously, Joyce needed a husband for her unborn bastard child. They got married three weeks before Buffy was born and no one asked any questions, because no one wanted any answers.

Buffy sat there, tears clinging to her lashes, her throat dry and she struggled to find words. Finally after what felt like hours she finally asked, "So, now that the 'arrangement' is done, he doesn't...want me anymore? Deal over?"

Joyce looked at her daughter and ached for her. But she also ached for herself and the life that she was losing, the life that she had thought she had wanted.

"Yes, Buffy. Deal over." And then she refilled her glass as Buffy slowly got up from the table and left the room.

Buffy shivered at the memory, she could no longer blame it on the breeze.

Her life had sucked beyond the telling of it for a while after that. They bounced around for a little while. Her mother couldn't keep the house, the divorce ordered for it to be sold and her allotment from the pre-nup hadn't given her enough to support a family and a house in L.A, so she had tried to make it work in an apartment. Mainly so the girls could stay with their friends and stay in school. And also so Hank could visit Dawn when he wanted. He never asked to see Buffy. Buffy did the normal 'child of divorce' thing and looked and begged for attention and affection wherever she could find it. And where she found it was in the arms of the boy she had been in love with for her entire post-puberty life, Liam 'Angel' O'Conner. He was a senior and the resident 'it boy'. Every girl wanted him, and had him, if the rumors where true. He was a major asshole, this was common knowledge. He used girls like girls used tampons, he got what he needed and once they were all used up he tossed them.

But Buffy was broken enough to think she would be the one he kept around, that she could make him love her and stay. So she made that her goal. Getting him interested wasn't a problem, he knew her, she was a cheerleader after all. And she was a virgin, and he loved those most of all. They dated and pawed at each other for a good month and a half before she let him take her to a hotel. One semi-decent roll in the sack and he vanished. Well, vanished as well as a high-school boy could when they walked the same halls everyday. Buffy played every trick she could think of to get him to give her a real chance to keep him happy. All that achieved was making him hate her. And nothing was worse than if Angel hated you. One month to the day of their little escapade, Buffy walked into school to everyone's eyes on her. Her friend Jenny came running up to her, a fake sympathetic look on her face as she held up her phone to show Buffy. At first Buffy was confused, the darkness of the video and the tiny phone screen not making any sense. Then finally it hit her, it was a porn video. A porn video of her, and Angel. Angel had recorded him taking her virginity and when she didn't back off like a good little girl he distributed to the entire school. Just as she started to have a meltdown in the hall, in front of everyone she noticed that the video also had sound. He had added her pleading voice mails to the soundtrack of their sex tape.

Her mother talked of pressing charges, Buffy was underage after all, and Angel was technically an adult at 18 years old. But before they could file the charges they realized that the one part of Buffy's body never seen was her face. And according to the school principle Angel had already brought his 'girlfriend' forward to admit that it was her on the tape. And she was 22, and looked remarkably like Buffy. The damage was already done, and while Buffy wanted to stay, if nothing other than to prove to him that he hadn't broken her, Joyce couldn't handle the scandal on top of the divorce.

So the month before Buffy turned 17 her mother moved her and Dawn to Sunnydale. They had building for lease that was perfect for a small art gallery that Joyce could afford to run on her new net worth and they were still close enough for Hank to send for Dawn.

Buffy turned on to Revello Drive and slowed her pace even further. She loved this house. It was about half the size of the one they had lived in L.A and only slightly bigger than the apartment, but it was perfect. The three ladies had made it into the perfect little sanctuary over the last 10 years, she loved coming here every night. She knew that it was odd to still live at home at almost 28 years old, but she couldn't imagine leaving. She made more than enough money to live on her own, and she had lived in an apartment on her own in college, but this just felt right. She could see that no lights were on, and figured that Dawn was finally done with her all-nighters. She had been studying so hard lately that Buffy teased her that her head was going to explode.

She walked up the steps to the front porch and walked over to the porch swing and curled up with the ever present blanket. She laid her head back and turned her head out to face the street and closed her eyes.

Sunnydale had been a blessing for them at first. Dawn had really taken to her new school and Buffy faded into Sunnydale High just the way she wanted. She went from being in the social spotlight at Hemery to having only a handful of friends in Sunnydale and she loved it. She had meet Willow and Xander the first day and they had bonded instantly. Their best friend, Jessie had just moved to Texas and they were missing a third wheel, so they took her in with open arms. She occasionally missed her old social status, and flirted with the idea of putting forth the effort on occasion. She was still California beautiful, with blonde hair, and petite frame and green eyes, so offers where never too far off.

One such offer became too tempting one weekend the summer after they arrived in Sunnydale. Xander was grounded and Willow had a family thing so she was solo for the weekend. When Cordelia Chase, Sunnydale's Bee begged Buffy to be her plus one to a frat party Buffy caved. Cordy's usual plus one was in Cancun for the week and Cordy was ordered to bring a blonde. She figured Buffy would be small competition. They were there for only about 45 minutes when Buffy was ready to leave, that is until she meet Parker Abrams. Parker was nice and cute, and he seemed 'oh so over' the whole 'frat boy lifestyle'. He talked to her for hours about poetry and foreign films and things that made Buffy's head spin. She thought at first that she was just tired, from the excitement of her first real party in almost a year, and from the beer that she had been nursing for over an hour. By the time she realized that she wasn't tired, that she was fading and fast, it was too late. The last thing she remembered was Parker asking her where her friend was, if they had a plan for meeting up.

She woke up the next morning feeling like she had been run over by a truck. Her tongue was too big for her mouth and she was half dressed on some frat boys bed, Parker was no where to be found. When she found her phone, she saw that Cordy and her mom had tried texting her and calling her dozens of times. When she finally got home Cordy was sitting with her Mom at the same table that Buffy's life had fallen apart at the previous year. Cordy was crying and Joyce was trying to calm her with hot coco. They both rushed her, Cordy begging her to forgive her, they didn't need Buffy to tell them what happened. Her ripped dress and missing shoes was enough.

Once again, Joyce tried to file charges, but Parker Abrams didn't exist. He wasn't a frat brother, or a UCSunnydale student and there were no witnesses.

After that Buffy sank into a depression that no one could shake her of. Cordelia somehow joined their tight knit group, but the group wasn't the same. Buffy would go weeks without talking, she wouldn't go out, other than to school and to the record store. She would lock herself in her room for hours or days at a time and write. She used that as a release. But she had nothing to do with it, she had pages and pages, notebooks and journals. Words full of pains filled the pages and she had no idea what to do with them.

Finally, 3 months after the incident, Joyce sat Buffy down at that horrible table and asked her the one question Buffy never thought she'd hear.

"Buffy, baby, do you want me to call your father?" At first Buffy panicked, not wanting Hank to see her so weak and broken. Joyce stopped her and cupped her cheek with her palm and started again. "No, baby, do you want me to call your father, do you want me to call Rupert?"

3:19AM

Buffy looked down at the phone laying on top of her blanket covered lap and sighed. She should get inside and up to bed. She had work in the morning. She stood, the blanket falling back down onto the swing and she stretched, her phone in her hand. It buzzed and she looked down at it.

SLEEP

She smiled.

Night Dad, ily

She typed back as she unlocked the door with the key from under the mat. She made her way through the dark quietly, taking the stairs two at a time.

As she lay in bed an hour later, freshly showered and stared at the ceiling she made a mental note to run her new chorus by her Dad in the morning.