Chapter 8: August 24, 2013 – Her Rebound Guy

Chapter Summary: **The 'Love Interest' Part of the 2013 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts FaD** series. Buffy was in Hell a little longer than was shown…and she met somebody else down there.

Timeline: Starting the summer between seasons 2 & 3 for BtVS; post-season 3 for GG. Events of season 3 are compacted to fit my storyline.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2013 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.

Warning: AU and possibly a little OOC. Not anti-Scooby, but not pro, either.

A/N: Let me know if you have any ideas for fandoms that you'd like Buffy paired with (male or female).

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. Gilmore Girls characters belong to WB and Amy Sherman Palladino. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

Sunnydale

A week after she returned…

Buffy was relieved that she didn't come back to the Hellmouth until she had fully healed from her injuries when she rescued the slaves in Ken's Hell. Since she'd been back, life seemed to be going non-stop on her.

Thankfully her mother welcomed her back with open arms, and accepted the changes in their relationship as well as could be expected. Buffy wasn't so sure she could say the same thing for her friends…and they didn't know everything her mom knew. She was going to tell them, but there never seemed to be a good time to share her news.

If their 'welcome home' dinner had been what her mom envisioned – assuming it hadn't been moved to the Bronze when Giles found some questionable masks at the house when he came over to pick up the undead cat – she might have opened up and told them then. But they decided to throw a party with a bunch of people that she didn't know, then proceeded to ignore her for most of the night until they caught her leaving to go home.

Apparently leaving a party she didn't want to be at was rude, and they vented all their anger for everything in the past nine months or so at her until she saw something on the dance floor and cut them off. "Sorry to interrupt your little tirade, guys, but a girl's about to become vamp chow. If you don't mind, I think I'll save her instead of listening to how I ruined all your lives," she snarked, shocking them that she would be so curt with them.

Turned out that the girl didn't need saving, seeing as how she was the new Slayer, Faith. Having her there did have one bright point, though. The gang went back to ignoring her so they could fawn over Faith – except for Cordy, who didn't care for any other female who stole attention from her.

Turned out Faith was in Sunnydale because some big bad of a vamp killed her Watcher and was coming after her. A little dual-slaying therapy and a giant beam later, he was a pile of dust and Faith was breathing easier.

Of course that's when Angel had to come back and cause stress for Buffy. She spent months saying goodbye to him after sending him to hell, only to have him reappear the night before while she was on patrol. Knowing that he was in Acathla's hell for months of Earth-time, she could only guess how long it was for him there – assuming the time moved differently between the dimensions. Even if he was Angel when he got there, who was in his body now that he was back?

Knowing that the only place that had the equipment and privacy needed to keep him captive was the mansion, she dragged him there and shackled him before looking for some clothes for him to wear.

Now she had to go to Giles' apartment – since she was still banned from school grounds by Snyder – for a Scooby meeting. Hopefully, the others would leave before too long so she could talk to Giles about how Angel might have escaped.

Giles' apartment

Unfortunately, her plan fell apart once she arrived. Turned out that Xander happened to see Buffy at the mansion – although she had no clue what he was doing there in the first place – and witnessed her manhandling a naked Angel. But he left before seeing the rest of the scene and just assumed that she was hiding him and getting groiny with him again.

They decided she needed an intervention to save her from her 'Angel fixation'. She stood there listening to them while fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

Giles just finished telling her that she must have known that hiding Angel's return from them proved that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

Thanks to the changes she went through during the summer, her first reaction was to stand up for herself instead of feeling bad for something that was outside her control. She returned Giles' glare and snapped, "He only showed up last night while I was on patrol! When exactly was I supposed to tell you? Wake you all up at 3 in the morning for a Scooby meeting? I chained him up and snuck into the library to research how he could have come back. Then I came here at your command."

Xander snorted in disbelief. "Oh, and it was just a coincidence that he was naked and pawing at you?" he asked.

This time Buffy couldn't stop from rolling her eyes. "That's the way he was when I found him," she retorted.

"Well, even if you didn't do anything last night, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you have sex with him and turn him into a monster again, putting us all in danger," Cordy complained.

Buffy started laughing at that. They were so completely off base now, but she supposed she couldn't blame them…entirely, since they didn't know the whole story. They probably would in a few hours, though, if her guess was accurate.

Willow pulled the classic intervention line to bring things back to a more neutral place, "Buffy, I feel that when it comes to Angel, you can't see straight. And that's why we're, we're all gonna help you face this."

Then there was a knock at the door, and Buffy wondered if it was her surprise or Faith coming to join the intervention. She went over and opened it up to find the person she was hoping to see – nothing against Faith. "Hey there, you," she murmured with a smile.

"Hey back, beautiful," he replied before pulling her in for a breathtaking kiss.

All of Buffy's attention focused on him until she was physically separated from him by Giles.

"Who is this young man?" Giles inquired, feeling extremely confused at his Slayer's behavior. Wasn't she in love with Angel?

The young man in question held out his hand in an attempt to be polite to somebody who was important to Buffy and introduced himself, "Jess Mariano," he paused for a second, wrapped his arm around Buffy and added with more than a hint of angry glee at the bombshell he was about to drop, "…Buffy's husband."

Buffy ignored the gasps of the others to ask him, "How did your meeting with your dad go?"

Having overheard most of the conversation through the open window by the front door, Jess replied, "Better than you and these guys, but not real good."

"So we're down to plan C now?" Buffy asked, still focused on her husband.

Jess looked confused for a moment, then checked, "Plan C? Was that the Cancun plan or the 'go back to Stars Hollow and beg my uncle for another chance' plan?"

"You're married?!" Willow's scream interrupted their conversation.

"Isn't that a bit rash?" Giles added before a horrible thought came to him. "You aren't pregnant, are you?"

"A world of no!" Buffy assured him. She shrugged and said, "We literally went to hell and back together. It tends to bond people a little faster than normal. When we got out of hell, I was hurt and he was the one to help patch me up and keep me company until I was 100% again. He even studied with me so we could take our GED together. To celebrate, he proposed, I said yes and we found a chapel to marry us. We decided that life was too short to wait any longer."

"What do you mean, 'got out of hell'?" Giles asked over the other questions the Scoobies were asking about her GED or her wedding.

"Just what it sounds like," Jess snarked. "We were in a hell dimension for a month or so before I could get close enough to pick the locks on Buffy's chains. Once she was free, she rescued us from the demons holding everyone captive."

Buffy took over at that point, "Being held in Ken's hell helped me get over sending Angel to Acathla's hell better than a couple years of therapy. And yes, it was Angel who I had to stab with the sword, not Angelus. His soul came back just before Acathla did that whole 'sucking the world in' gig. The only way to stop it was to kill Angel."

Willow gasped in despair that her spell ended up hurting Buffy more.

Torn between concern and relief, Giles commented carefully, "You seem to be dealing with that rather well."

"A month of hell therapy," Buffy reminded him. "Didn't give me a lot of time to brood about it. And afterwards, Lily and Jess helped me heal emotionally as well as physically."

"Oh geez," Jess complained, "Don't go getting all Dr. Phil on me!"

"Isn't he just so sweet?" Buffy teased, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Is it any wonder that I fell for him?"

Everyone else in the room was gobsmacked at the carefree way she was acting, given that her first love was back from hell.

She grew serious and turned to speak to Jess, "I think we'll have to stick around Sunnydale at least long enough to figure out what's the sitch with Angel's return."

"Kinda figured that when you called me last night about him being back," Jess said. "It's not as if we have anywhere to be," he assured her.

"You're leaving again?" Xander demanded to know.

Buffy lifted an eyebrow at the tone he was using. "We came back here to make sure the Hellmouth was under control. Well, that and making sure I wasn't still under suspicion for Kendra's murder. I mean, I didn't really think I was 'cause I was able to take my GED and I didn't think they'd allow a murder suspect to test," she semi-babbled.

"At first I was planning to stick around, but since you have Faith here, I don't need to stay in Sunnydale anymore," she explained reasonably. "Jess and I are going to do some cross-country slaying on the way to his uncle's town on the East Coast. I'd guess there are demons and vamps to slay on that side of the country, too."

Giles interjected, not wanting to lose his Slayer – or Buffy, the young woman he cared about – so soon, "Surely there's enough slaying for both of you here."

She shook her head, "I don't think I can fight alongside Faith for long. Sooner or later, we'd end up fighting each other. I noticed it with Kendra as well; I get…itchy around another Slayer…like I have to defend my territory or something."

"I suppose that could have something to do with you both being apex predators," Giles remarked, slipping into research-mode.

"It's not as if I wouldn't come back for an apocalypse or even just a visit," Buffy added. Her look turned teasing and she repeated a phrase that she used a couple years earlier, "If the apocalypse comes, beep me. Well, technically, it would be calling since I have a cell phone now, but you get the point. Is the intervention over now, 'cause I have to introduce my husband to my mom so she can threaten him properly."

A/N: Originally I had planned to make Joyce more of a bitch, but decided that I didn't need to for this story. Doesn't mean that I won't do it in the future, though.