Buffy let a long slow breath leave her nostrils as she brought her natural fight instincts back under control by inches.

"Uh- Hallie said she wanted to make amends for the other day." Dawn winced in a way that begged her not to make a scene as Buffy dropped the completely smushed Doublemeat paper bag onto the kitchen island.

"Did she?" Buffy said coolly, keeping her eyes firmly on the Halfrek's. The demon took a long slow sip of her hot cocoa without blinking, and Buffy's temper strained at the leash. "Dawn, don't you have homework to do?"

"Uh… yeah." Dawn slid off her stool, taking the flat burger bag with her, and departed hurriedly without a glance back.

Several beats ticked past as Halfrek and Buffy surveyed each other quietly, before Halfrek cleared her throat, deciding the awkward silence had lingered long enough.

"I really do feel dreadful about spoiling your birthday party," she said with a blasé roll of her wrist, as if she'd made a simple faux pas, easily forgiven, instead of subjecting them all to an unbreakable curse that had ended up with one of them hospitalized and the rest of them traumatized.

Buffy's teeth grit harder. The last she'd heard Richard had 15 stitches across his stomach and had quit his job at the construction site.

Sophie still hadn't said a word to her since, and her work shifts were now lonelier than ever.

"I'm sure," she said.

"Please believe I only had Dawn's best interests at heart," Halfrek continued, clearly putting an enormous amount of effort into ignoring Buffy's frosty glower.

"We all do," Buffy huffed out, harsher than she intended.

Halfrek cocked her head, a little condescendingly.

"No, I don't think that's quite true." She took a sip of her cocoa, crossing her legs elegantly. She paused to flick a speck of dust off the hem before she continued. "You're all in too much pain. All of you." Her vein-rimmed eyes met Buffy's then, pinning her in place. "But especially you."

Buffy swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "I'm fine," she lied.

"You're doing an excellent job of pretending to be, sweetie," Halfrek said, taking another sip from her mug. "You have leaves in your hair, by the way."

Buffy flushed, reaching up to the side of her ponytail and extracting two leaves and a twig that had knotted into a tangle. "Crap," she muttered under her breath. "It's nothing, I just ran into a vampire on the way home. Had to… you know," she ended lamely with a half-shrug, unsure why she was offering up an excuse to Halfrek of all people. Hurried denials just seemed to come so naturally these days.

"I bet," Halfrek said with a knowing smile. "And I think I know just the vampire in question."

Buffy pursed her lips, unable to find anywhere to look as Halfrek's steady observation continued to roll over her.

"Why are you really here?" she asked, sick of feeling like a little kid caught doing something she wasn't supposed to.

"I thought we'd have a bit of a chat, that's all," Halfrek said, pleasantly. "See if there was anything I could do to ease your burden."

"I don't have any burdens."

Hafrek raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Except for the friends who rather than lift you up are clearly weighing you down?" she prodded. "Or the job you hate? Or the affair you're obviously hiding?"

"I told you I'm fine," Buffy said, crossing her arms defensively. The demonic features were starting to make her skin crawl but she'd be damned if she broke eye contact first. "And none of that is true."

"All of it is true, Buffy." Her voice had a strangely stern-yet-maternal quality, and Buffy gulped at the sound of it. Her mom used to sound like that, all I-know-what's-best-for-you-young-lady and unwavering confidence, and for the first time that evening Buffy felt entirely out of her depth.

Halfrek interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on them as if settling in for a lengthy discussion. "I know all about it. Things won't get any better if you keep burying your head in the sand."

Buffy adjusted her stance into less of a cower. "Yeah, well, times are tough all over," she said sourly. The way Halfrek was staring at her was making her more than edgy now.

"But they needn't be so tough for you," Halfrek trilled sympathetically. "You need a bit more support. You're in pain, people need to know that or they won't be able to help you."

"I don't need support," Buffy growled, unable to stop her hands curling into fists.

Halfrek either didn't notice or simply didn't care. Infuriatingly she seemed to be utterly unfazed by Buffy's warning tone. "Lying will get you nowhere, honey. You really should be more honest with the people in your life."

Buffy snorted, her incredibly thin patience finally snapping in half. "And what, tell them how much it sucks being here? How awful everything is all the time, or how I'm falling to pieces every single second? You know what, I wish I could. But no one wants to hear that from me."

A soft, satisfied smile crept across Halfrek's face. Slow as molasses and twice as dark.

"Wish granted."

And with that she vanished, leaving Buffy blinking in the suddenly empty kitchen.

"Oh," she whispered as ice-cold shock slipped down her spine. "Bugger."

A/N: not Buffy's normal vernacular I know, this chapter is curteousy of a prompt sentence "Oh Bugger," Buffy said.

Beta'ing by RavenLove12