Buffy paused at the front door, hearing the laughter and the chatter from the other side and feeling like a ghoul about to ruin a party.
At least I don't have to do this one at a time like a crappy trick-or-treat, she thought, by no means mollifying herself.
Man, I wish it was Halloween… I could do with a night off…
"Hey, Buffy!" Willow beamed as she stepped inside the living room. "We're organizing movie night, what do you say?"
Buffy blinked. No one seemed in the least confused that two minutes earlier they'd all been somewhere else doing something else and they were now crowded into her living room.
No Giles though, she noted bitterly. That would probably have been a tall order.
And no Spike.
Buffy swallowed. Good. That must mean that he… that he wasn't… that she didn't have to… well, just good.
"We've narrowed it down to two options; Halloween, the ultimate slasher horror flick that I'm totally gonna watch without hiding behind a cushion," Dawn bounced. "Or Who Framed Roger Rabbit-"
"Both horrifying prospects, but if we chose the rabbit one I call the hiding cushion," Anya said with a brave smile.
"Hey- are you ok, Buffster?" Xander asked, leaning forward around Anya to get a better look at Buffy in the doorway. "You look all… you-"
"Look like you've been crying," Anya inserted bluntly.
Buffy nodded. "Yeah," she sighed, internally squirming at how raw and vulnerable she felt in admitting that. "That's exactly what I've been doing."
"Buffy?" Willow turned to take her in properly. "What happened?"
What happened? Buffy didn't bother with trying to tamp down the words. There'd be no point.
"I got cursed," she started, and Anya's head whipped up.
"Cursed? You-you can't be cursed, the wedding is in days Buffy, you can't be-"
"Anya, sweety, priorities," Xander mumbled, squeezing her arm tenderly to quell the unstoppable wedding babble about to spew forth.
"Right," Anya nodded briskly. "Uh… oh no. That sounds awful," Anya said, without a shred of sincerity.
"And then I got fired," Buffy continued.
"Oh Buffy," Tara mumbled at the same time as Willow.
"B-because of the curse?" Dawn asked and Buffy nodded glumly, her shoulders folding in herself.
"Well, ok so we break the curse! No biggy. That's just another Saturday night," Xander said jovially. "What is this like a… research booky thing, or a find a special amulet thing, or a kill a demon thing, what are we going for here?"
Buffy took a breath. "I have to tell you all the truth."
There was a stretching silence filled with nothing but Xander's quiet "...oh."
She didn't have time to organize her thoughts before words started to spring forward. "You all thought I was in hell," she started, flinching at the road she was inevitably about to take, at the dead tone to her voice that belied the misery beneath. "But being back here… like this… this has been hell for me. You want me to be the way I was before but that person died. And none of you seem to understand that. I'm drowning, and I hate it, and I'd rather be dead but I'm doing it because you all need me to and somehow that makes it worse. It makes it worse that you need me so much. You've burdened me with debts. You pulled me out of the only peace I ever knew and then just abandoned me to all of this-"
"Buffy, that's not-" Willow tried but was shushed by Tara.
"I get that you were looking after Dawn. I get that the house hemorrhages money. I don't get how half of you stayed here for free and didn't think to pay a single mortgage repayment. You spent my mother's money as you schemed to bring me back and it sucks. My mom is dead. I'm completely broke. And none of you want to face that. You just dumped it all on me and dusted your hands like you're completely blameless. No one wants to help. Except-"
Oh please no, she thought trying to bite her tongue off before it could get there. Please no-
"Except Spike."
There was a beat as the words seemed to drift away from her, lighting on the faces of her friends with various levels of incomprehension. "Huh?" Willow said, her brow furrowing.
"He's… the only one I can really… bear to be around right now. He's the only one I don't have to wear this stupid Happy Buffy mask with," Buffy managed, holding some of the words back with bloody fingernails, biting down on the details with hard teeth.
"Oh, this is scarier than Michael Myers," Xander whispered.
Anya nodded. "Or the rabbit movie."
"Shut up," growled Dawn at them. "You… you and Spike?" she asked, softening her tone completely as she turned back to Buffy, sounding naively hopeful.
No, not me and Spike-
"Yes," she said, shutting her eyes. God…
Palpable silence stretched. Tara broke it. "Buffy… i-it's ok," she started. "It's not… I mean whatever it takes to not have to wear the mask, right?" she asked the room at large.
"R-right-" Willow said, her face pale and tears shining wetly in her eyes. "We're- I'm so sorry. I know I've… and with the whole bringing you back that was my fault-," she scrambled. "We can fix it, Buffy, it'll be ok. Money's a stupid thing to worry about and the Doublemeat was- we'll fix it all, but if something- or I guess a someone- makes it less hard… you should go with the less hard."
Tears spilled from Buffy's eyes, and she cautiously moved her glance to Xander. Pale too, but he offered her a smirk. "Don't worry about us Buff. You do what you gotta do," he squeezed Anya around the waist. "Besides, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I judged you at this point."
"Demon magnet," Willow smirked, wiping tears off her cheeks.
"Just one now. And on a very permanent basis next week," Anya said sternly. "So done? No more curse? This whole horror show over, before the horror show extravaganza? I for one am voting Halloween. We need the comedy-"
"Not quite," said Halfrek, appearing behind her with the phone in her hand.
