The sweat was starting to form on the palms of her hands as they remained clasped together, laying lightly in her lap. She and the doctor sat in the dark, dank office. She close to the door and he was in a big, dark, leather chair which was located next to stacks and stacks of dusty old books. Her chair was located near the door, she liked that, it made her feel safe, as if she could leave if she needed to.

“Yeah… not intimidating.” Buffy managed to mumbled to herself despite her dry throat. Her head was dropped forward as she rubbed her hands together trying to make the sweat disperse.

Clearing his throat Dr. Giles looked up from his leather bound notebook , where he had been scribbling down a few notes. Looking towards the small blonde he nodded , “What was that Miss Summers?” The man asked trying to not frighten the young girl. She had came into his office on her own looking for guidance, he didn’t want to push her away before he was able to figure out what it was that the girl needed.

Buffy looked up at the man big eyed, startled. “Umm…” She swallowed a lump in her throat and started to wipe her hands off on her jeans. “I was told by a friend that I should see a therapist.” She had managed to say as she looked down at her now dampened jeans. Giles followed her gaze noticing she was nervous. Reaching over to a tissue box he plucked one out and handed it to the girl. Buffy smiled meekly and took the tissue before wiping her hands and throwing it away in the trash bin near her chair.

Taking a deep breath she finally looked the doctor in the eye. “Listen, I shouldn’t be acting like this,” She was referring to her weak actions. “I have been doing better, a lot better. I mean I shouldn’t be acting like I used to act.” She said with full confidence.

“The way you used to act?” Doctor Giles asked inquisitively. “Tell me what you mean by that if you don’t mind. “

Buffy nodded before responding. “I mean I was in a relationship at one point…” Rolling her eyes she nodded. “an abusive relationship as it is so nicely coined now-a-days. I used to act like this with him, and around his friends, but now I think about it I was only with him and his friends, so pretty much all the time… but I‘ve gotten better.”

“Better? You make it sound as if you were broken, is that how you feel, Buffy? That you were broken? Damaged?” Giles spoke in a soft voice knowing the girl would most likely open up.

Nodding she rested her elbows on the arm rests of the chair. “Yeah, I was pretty much that. I mean you watch these movies and the girls are always so… what’s the word…” She searched her brain trying to find the perfect adjective. “untouched. They are always so pure and untouched and in the movies they always wind up so happy and seemingly perfect.”

“Is that what you want Buffy?” The doctor said interrupting her. She didn’t even think twice, she looked into his eyes and nodded.

“I used to wish for it, I would lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I had one wish, it wasn’t for money, power, or even love. I wanted to be untouched.” She stopped and waited for his reaction fearing the worst. Thinking he would see her as a child, like most had before.

“You say you used to wish for it, is it not something you still yearn for?” He asked her curiously as his jotted a few notes down in his notebook.

A small smile started to tug at Buffy’s lips, soon turning into a full smile, and she shook her head mimicking a school girl.

“I don’t need to wish anymore, I’ve been reborn.” As Buffy said that she felt warm all over, a lot more comfortable that she had been before. Giles had taken this as a religious experience but it was not what Buffy had meant, yet it wasn’t questioned by either one of the two.

Doctor Giles soon noticed something else. Leaning over his desk a bit his saw her wrist and instructed her to raise it to the top of his desk. Nodding Buffy brought up her hand and laid it palm facing up on the surface of his desk. There on her wrist was a tattoo of a thumbprint.

“That’s a very unorthodox tattoo for a young girl. Tell me what it means?” He asked, satisfied with her showing, he sat back against his chair.

“It’s a… very long story. Long long story” She said with a nod before taking a quick glance out the window looking at the dark blue SUV that sat outside in the parking lot. After a moment she looked back at the doctor seeing he had a smile on his face.

“Miss Summers, I enjoy stories.” Giles knew that unless he could get her to fully open up about her past their visits would be pointless and they wouldn’t get anywhere in these sessions that Buffy had paid for. Instead of saying that, of course, he wanted their visits to not feel like a job for her. Giles wanted Buffy to feel like she could opn up when she wanted to, not that she had to force it. This was difficult, of course.

Buffy thought about this, taking in what he had said and trying to decide whether or not she needed to fill him in on everything and if so, how in depth. There were things that had happened that she was not proud of, did she want to divulge all of what had happened to a man she didn’t know or trust?

With a sigh Buffy gave in and took a look at the doctor behind the desk. Tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth she shrugged. “How much time do you have?”

Intrigued Giles leaned forward a bit crossing his arms against the desk. “For you Miss Summer, I have all the time in the world.”

Hearing that Buffy just smiled and sitting up a little straighter in her chair she began to tell her story, a story of heartache, love, tragedy, and loss.

Chapter 2 - Lay Me Down

As Buffy sat in across from the doctor she started to remember everything….

Buffy’s feet hit hard against the hard cement of the road. She had no shoes, at that moment it wasn’t a top priority, her life was. Blond hair disheveled, bare feet, bruised face, and in a pajama set she ran as fast and as hard as her small little body would allow her too. How she had out ran him this far she didn’t know. The only thing she could think about was her safety. She figured it would be worth it. Buffy thought she could fight back and manage to get away… that is if she could get downtown fast enough. That was the one good thing about living in the small town of North Carolina, everything was close. Her and Angel’s one bed and one bath house was sitting in a row with many others in the historic district of the town. All she had to do was get a few miles to downtown where all the shops were and she’d be safe. No man in his right mind would beat a women in front of the nightlife.

Buffy’s feet were starting to sting and ache, not only from running but from the small rocks of the street coming into hard contact with her soft skin. It was all worth it, at least that’s what she kept telling herself. Buffy was Angel’s little housewife, he had molded and shaped her into being his little suburban slave. At first Buffy hadn’t minded, she was 18 and thought it was sweet.

It had taken her three years, several beatings, and empty bank accounts to realize that he hadn’t turned her into his wife because he wanted to take care of her, he had down it because she would have to depends on him for everything.

This night was when Buffy finally fought back, she was down on the ground of the kitchen with the hard, cold, steel, blade of a kitchen knife pressed to her throat. Blood from her busted lip dripped on the white tiles of the floor, and why? It had all happened because Buffy hadn’t had dinner ready for Angel when he had come home. After insulting her several times Buffy threatened to leave… no one threatened Angel.

So now she running, for her life, from the man she had willingly married. Buffy felt it was her fault though, she had seen signs of his violence early on but passed it off as the way men were. He was supposed to be savior, her angel. He had became far from it.

Seeing the lights of the strips ahead Buffy felt a small rush of relief. She just had to get a little closer than she could ask someone for help and everything would be ok. That feeling of safety didn’t last long when Buffy felt herself being pulled back. Being grabbed by the back of her head Buffy was thrown hard to the ground, the side of her face hit the road first, and hard. Her hands and knees hit at the same time and she barely had time to register the pain of it all before she was thrown onto her back and Angel loomed over her. A small smile formed on his lips as he pushed himself on top of her, his hand over her mouth as his dark, hard eyes stared down at her. Moving his mouth close to her ear he snarled a bit.

“Where do you think you’re going, you worthless piece of nothing?” He said as the hand over her mouth was pushing her into the ground causing the little rock to start to dig into her scalp. Buffy tried to kick and push him off but tears started to fall down the side of her face.

Thankfully both of their attention was diverted when they heard a small yell from only yards away. “Honey!” Angel turned his head looking at the distraction, Buffy only managed to look over enough to see a small red head calling her husband out of the house. She was looking directly at them with fear in her eyes. Moments later a tall brunette walked out of the house with a bat. The man didn‘t need to ask his wife what was going on, he saw. Angel managed to jump up as the man started walking out onto the street.

“Get the fuck out of here, you asshole!” The man yelled as he started to pull the bat back preparing to swing at Angel. The redhead had ran over to Buffy and was trying her best to help the blond up. Once Buffy was standing the redhead looked over to her husband trying to swing at Angel.

When Buffy heard ’Dude, it’s ok, she’s my wife’ she knew she couldn’t stick around. Then man would just assume it was a lover’s quarrel and send her back to him. Though her knees were bleeding she took off again towards the strips of stores.

The man, after a few close swings and threatening words, had managed to scare Angel off. Walking over to his petite wife he dropped the bat to the ground.

“Willow, are you ok?” Willow simply nodded and turned around to see Buffy, she saw the girl was gone. Looking back at Xander she shook her head. “No.”

“Think we should try to find her?” Xander asked Willow as he looked at their car in the driveway.

She again gave him a non. “I would want someone to find me.” Xander wrapped an arm around Willow’s shoulders and pulled her close giving her a small hug.

“Ok, go get your cell phone, I’ll get the car started.”

---

“Seriously? What kind of fucking tattooist are you? I come in here, I ask for a tattoo, I present my money and you tell me ‘no’?!” The girl said furiously. This girl was the perfect high school specimen. She had lengthily legs, long, beautiful, blond hair, and she was clad in only her cheer shirt and her varsity jacket.

Behind the counter Spike stood tall, his platinum blond hair shining in the light, he looked almost angelic. His tattooed arms took away from the holiness a bit.

“Listen, Susie Q…”

“Amber…” The girl interrupted angrily.

“Ok, Amber. You come in here asking for a large black skull on the side of you face and neck, the size of a my fist, and you can’t understand why I say no? I don’t understand who it is you’re trying to rebel against but you won’t use me to do it.” Spike said sternly at the girl. Though she was willing to pay top dollar Spike wasn’t going to scar someone’s face when they were barely of age and obviously making a mistake. “I would recommend going down the street and asking the artists in that shop. They’ll kill their own mothers for the right price, I feel they are your kind of people.”

With a huff the girl started to turn around when the door flew open and a blur ran past both of them and to the back of the store. Amber, obviously having enough of annoyances that night stomped out. Spike turned to look at the back of the store and started to walk to the back.

Looking at fellow tattooist Oz he looked at him confused. “What the hell was that?”

Oz stood and shook his head, “Some girl, ran through here pretty quick.” The two men walked through the door to the back room and seeing nothing but some machinery and stocked needles and inks Spike just nodded.

“Man, go handle the front, I’ll see what’s going on.” Oz didn’t object and went to the front of the shop as Spike walked towards the bathroom. He didn’t hesitate to open the door but what he saw came as a shock.

Buffy stood in front of the sink trying to somehow get the blood off of her, but started to find the entire thing too difficult. There was too much blood and the scraps on her knees wouldn’t stop bleeding. Tears were falling down her cheeks and her eyes were starting to sting from the tears. Hearing the door open she let a small gasp escape her lips and stepped back a bit. Looking down at the floor she saw it was smeared with blood and dirt.

“I…” She swallowed hard trying to hold back her tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up I promise.”

Spike couldn’t believe what he was seeing or hearing. This girl was bleeding and dirty and all she could think about was not making a mess?

“Listen, it’s fine.” He tried to take a few steps toward her but soon found she would only move a step back for every step he took. “The floors aren’t a big deal.” He said before taking a step back seeing if maybe she’d follow him out of the bathroom. She wasn’t moving. Spike was thankful that the shop was a sterile environment, especially with how many lacerations she had.

Buffy took a good look at the man in front of her. He had a bold choice of hairstyle, tattoos all up and down his arms, he was thin but muscular. This normally would strike fear into Buffy, well any man would do that to her, but especially one who came off as intimidating at this. Yet, she didn’t fear him, instead she felt safe. This was a new feeling, she had never felt safe with any man in her life. She didn’t know how to feel about this.

They both held their ground for a few moments before Spike finally said. “Let me take you to the hospital, they will help you.” Raising his hands to show her he meant no harm he walked to her again, this time she didn’t move back. He slowly tried to put his hands on her shoulder but she flinched away.

“Yeah I didn’t think that’d work.” Spike mumbled to himself before taking a step back and reaching into his pocket. Buffy followed his movements as if she were paranoid. Spike pulled out a black cell phone. Walking out of the bathroom he left her there so he could talk.

“Dru, it’s Spike… yeah I know… I know… Is someone there with you?… No I’m not accusing… yes I’m sure the show is just hilarious… Listen…. Dru fucking listen… yeah bad language… A girl ran in here tonight, she has blood all over here I think she was running from someone…. No I didn’t ask… well she won’t really let me near here… yeah real funny, you let me near you… I was thinking if there was another female she would go to the hospital can you come here?… It’s only 10 minutes from the apartments… fine I’ll give you twenty minutes just hurry.”

Closing the phone Spike put it back into his pocket before going to the front of the store to fill Oz in on the situation. Just as Oz was up to speed the door to the parlor flew open causing them both to look up.