"You don't have traumatic amnesia." Joyce said flatly, staring at her daughter. "You lied to me. You've been lying to me for a long time."
"What did you think was going on, Mom? The weird occurrences, how many times have you washed blood out of my clothes and you didn't figure out something was going on?"
"Oh, I was well aware that something was going on, Buffy. You have no idea how many nights I laid awake worrying about you. About why you shut me out, kept me in the dark. Why your clothes had blood on them. First you get into fights at school, then you burn down a gym, more fights. At first I thought that dropout Pike had something to do with it, since you ran away with him. I thought he convinced you to sneak out, to break the law. Then you came back with stories about vampires and I thought my little girl was mixed up in drugs or worse, not well mentally. We came here and things just kept getting worse. But all that was just a piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle. Two grown men convinced you to lie to me. For two years. For two years I've watched you slip farther and farther away and felt so incredibly helpless. So, yes, I noticed something was wrong and I tried to talk to you, I tried to get you help based on what I thought was wrong. I'm still trying, Buffy, I haven't given up on you."
"Before it all started it felt like you didn't care, you left me alone as much as Willow's parents left her alone. It took all that for you to notice me."
"How many times do I have to apologize? I was a bad mother, I admit it. More caught up in parties and my social life than my daughter and I'm sorry it took so much for me to really see you, to understand how far apart we were. And I also understand why you're so afraid to try telling me what was really going on. The supernatural is not going to be the first thought any one has, but you had opportunities to tell me. When I was attacked, when that crazy boyfriend showed up, when you came back from where ever you where for a week, you had opportunities to tell me, why didn't you?"
"It was a lot of reasons." Buffy admitted. "Giles was adamant about not telling you and I still remember being locked up in that hospital and drugged to the gills and labeled crazy, I didn't want to go back."
"Mr. Zabuto said you had no way to prove it to me without risking me being hurt, he doesn't blame you, he blames Mr. Giles and so do I, mostly. He obviously had a great deal of influence over you and you trusted him. What I don't understand is why you trusted him, why you listened to him at all, to either of them. The whole spiel they gave sounds insane and unlike Mr. Zabuto they don't seem to have given you a lot of proof."
"Well, Merrick threw a knife at me and I caught it and he took me to a cemetery and I fought a vampire and it turned to dust, that was pretty convincing. And well, with Giles, things just kept happening and he had answers and I just gradually started to trust him."
"And now, thanks to Mr. Zabuto, you're trusting me with the truth."
"Now you know I'm not doing drugs or crazy."
"So what did happen while you were gone for a week, Buffy?"
"The crazy boyfriend, his name was Angel. And his name was Angelus. A soul and a demon in the same body. The soul was there because of a curse and the curse broke and the soul was gone. He killed Willow's fish, left them on her bed. He drew pictures of you and me while we were sleeping. He killed Ms. Calendar and left her in Giles' bed. He killed Xander's parents after Xander protected me from him, then he...hurt Willow. Xander attacked him, he was so angry. His parents weren't good people, Mom, but they were still his parents and Willow, he loves her like a sister."
"I can understand Xander doing all that, but it doesn't explain where you were for a week."
"I stopped Xander from finishing it, from finishing Angelus, just like I stopped Giles last week. I told myself I was afraid Angelus would kill them, but the truth is, they both had a good shot at destroying him for good. If Angelus was destroyed there was no chance I could get Angel back and I wanted Angel back. Xander was so angry when I stopped him, he said 'I wish you could see the truth about him'. Turns out there are demons that actually grant wishes and being demons they don't do it for a nice reason. There was only one place I could actually see the truth, to see what Angelus really was and to understand, even if Angel was there, Angelus would always be there too. Sharing the body, because without Angelus the body would turn to dust."
"Where were you, Buffy? Where did this demon who granted this wish send you and this Angelus?" Joyce dreaded the answer. Demons were synonymous with -.
"Hell, the demon sent me to Hell or more accurately, a Hell dimension ruled by demons that enslave humans. A place called Pylea. They made me their Sovereign and I helped start a war."
"Xander sent you to Hell?"
"Not him, a demon, but Xander was angry enough that he probably thought I deserved to be there."
"That's really angry, Buffy." Joyce knew she sounded strange, it was a lot to process.
"Angry as he was, he still came after me and got me out. So maybe he'll eventually forgive me."