Like a caged beast Buffy paced the length of the Magick Box, over and over again, never remaining still for a second. It had been awhile since she’d been on the hellmouth and all the evil vibes had her Slayerness on high, high and overdrive. They had been waiting for the others to arrive and while it had only been ten minutes or so, if she didn’t do something soon she was going to explode.
Unfortunately for her, everyone including Spike, was knee deep in battle plans and failed to notice her predicament. With nothing left to do, she continued to pace, dreaming up brutal fight after brutal fight in an effort to take the edge off.
He had picked up every word in the conversations going on around him and even added him own input from time to time but all of his senses were trained on Buffy. The power pouring off of her was like a seductive pheromone to his demon and he’d had to resort to pulling his leather jacket around his body in an effort to conceal the very visible effect she was having on him.
Everything about her fascinated him, the way her eyes flashed with a maelstrom of unspoken words and the play of her muscles beneath her red leather slacks as her muscular body made its way across the room. It was taking all of his concentration to appear focused on the others, but when a low rumble danced across his spine, he couldn’t hold back any longer. “Did you just growl?” Angel asked her, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.
“Yep…deal with it.” She muttered, letting out another deep growl just to be difficult.
Laughing at her, Spike shook his head. “Kitten wants to play does she?”
Finally she thought whirling around with a delighted smile lighting up her entire face. “I’m crawling out of my skin here, can we please go kill something; pretty, pretty please, I promise to be really quick?” She asked, letting her eyes go impossibly wide and letting her bottom lip tremble slightly.
“What’s gotten into you pet? I thought you were just nervous but this is well…neat.” He admitted liking this side of her immensely. She didn’t usually let this side of her being out but when she did, it was a sight to behold. Yet he’d never seen her so in touch with her nature before. No-one looking at her now could deny the fact that she was a predator; a air of danger seemed to shimmer around her like a warning cloud.
“Questions later…lets go fight.” Buffy said walking over and grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket. Giles had given them the ten cent tour after they arrived but she had thought it would be rude to just disappear into the training room. Now she really didn’t care. She could barely think with her blood pounding inside her veins and like a junkie looking for a fix, she needed relief now.
Spike let her drag him along and the second her skin touched his, it finally dawned on him what was going on. “Side-effect of the claim; the girl’s tapped into the hellmouth like a demon and since she’s also a Slayer it’s no wonder she’s climbing the bloody walls.” He called back over his shoulder as an explanation for the others.
Deciding she had been patient long enough, she flung open the training room door and more or less tossed Spike into the room. Kicking the door shut behind them, she locked it, not wanting to be interrupted for any reason.
Left with no choice, Giles continued as though they hadn’t been interrupted until a loud roar followed by the sound of someone being flung into the wall with great force, filled the room.
“Should we go check on them?” Riley asked as the sounds of the fight escalated until it was easy to believe a full out war was going on in the next room.
“Best to leave them be mate.” Doyle decided after a few seconds.
“Aren’t you worried he might hurt her?” Faith asked not really sure how much she trusted an un-souled vamp facing off against a Slayer. Sometimes in the heat of the moment nature and instinct takes over and since Giles had insisted she familiarize herself with Spike’s MO incase he came back around, all she knew was that Buffy was in a room with a vamp that had taken out two Slayers.
“Oh I’ve no doubt they’ll both be bloody by the time they’re through lass.” Doyle said making himself as comfortable as possible in the hard wooden chair. “But my money’s on Buffy and since she’s right fond of Spike, they’ll both live to see another day.”
“I smell blood, a lot of it.” Angel said walking towards the door. “Both his and hers.”
“Surely they wouldn’t injure themselves greatly with Glory out there?” Giles said wondering if they should interrupt after all. He had assumed they were just going to spar but with the noises coming from the room, there was little doubt that they were fighting full out.
“Buffy heals much quicker than normal because of her Immortality. She can heal all but mortal wounds within a hour.” Wesley said, flipping through a volume he didn’t have, completely unconcerned by the situation. “As for Spike, because of their connection drinking from her causes him to heal just as quickly. So I say let them have at it, because I for one have no desire to be faced with an edgy Slayer high off of the energy of this place.”
“He drinks from her?” Giles asked, never even considering that would be a part of their relationship.
“Umm, he’s a vampire…that’s what they do.” Fred said blushing furiously as she recalled the look of absolute pleasure on Buffy’s face the one time she had walked in on Spike drinking from her. It was clear that both of them considered the act highly erotic and since they were in love, she couldn’t see it as offensive. He wasn’t using her like a common animal, they were sharing an experience that meant a great deal to both and that made it okay in her book.
“What Fred is trying to say is that both of them consider it as a sort of foreplay, so if I was you Rupert I would keep my opinion on the matter to yourself. They both are adults after all, so what happens in their relationship is really their business.” Wes said, not rudely just as a friendly warning.
“You drank from her right?” Anya asked, not about to let a topic from one of her favorite subjects drop. “Can a vampire make it more sexual than painful?”
Angel closed his eyes briefly as the memories of the night he marked Buffy flooded his mind, stiffening his already painfully aroused cock. More than anything he just wished he could pretend he hadn’t heard her question but since he knew Anya wasn’t one to just drop it, he simply nodded.
She opened her mouth to ask again but Xander quickly shook his head.
“But a nod doesn’t really tell me anything?” Anya said crossing her arms over her chest.
Since Xander was betting Angel was in the same kind of hell he’d once lived in watching those two together back in high school, he felt inclined to give the guy a break. “Ahn, do you think Buffy’s the kind of woman who would let him bite her if she didn’t enjoy it?” He asked quietly.
“No, she’s very independent and strong.” Anya decided after a few seconds. “I like her much more this way than I did before.”
“What’s that suppose to mean?” Willow asked quietly, instantly rising to her friends defense. All of last night and this morning she was thinking over what she’d done and what Buffy had said and it was clear she owed her several apologies. If anyone would understand what she was going thought it would be Buffy; she had sent Angel to hell after all.
“She used to completely lack self-confidence, which I never understood because she was very intimidating as the Slayer.” Anya explained wondering how they all could have missed the changes in someone they considered to be their good friend. “Even before Angel dumped her it was obvious she was bending over back-wards to ensure you all liked her. It’s very clear she has abandonment issues and I wasn’t surprised when she left; if the man she loved could leave her why not the rest of you? I’ve seen it happen before you know, a woman using her significant other as her foundation and when it turns out he doesn’t think she’s very significant everything she’s built up comes crashing down. That’s the greatest time to work vengeance; given a chance to rant and rebel against the person who hurt them, they suggest things they’d never consider before. In Buffy‘s case, I doubt she ever considered having a life away from here but when she no longer had a reason to stay, it makes since that she would get as far away as possible.”
“Hey, I resent that.” Xander said grouchily. “Even if Angel had left, we would have still been here for her.”
“Yes but as an Immortal she couldn‘t count on you all always being there. Atleast with him around she knew she‘d never be alone and since he was leaving her, it makes sense that she left to learn how to exist wholly independent of the people she had come to depend on.” Anya counted calmly, thinking of her own experience with Olaf. While it was true that behind every great man is a great woman, the male of the species also had a way of keeping a woman from reaching her full potential. All women, even confident ones like herself and Buffy subjugate themselves in an effort to keep their chosen partner happy. Men do the same thing in their own way but because women are part of a penis driven society they are raised to believe that the male of the species is superior. All little girls want to make daddy happy and when they grow up that need to please is transferred to their husband and since Buffy’s dad abandoned her, Anya could clearly see how much Angel’s actions would have pushed Buffy into taking a stand.
“Dear lord, how could we have missed seeing that?” Giles asked sinking down into a chair, finding he suddenly lacked the strength to stand. Listening to Anya’s reasoning he finally understood why Buffy had left the way she had and why she had chosen to remain gone.
“But we didn’t know she was immortal.” Willow protested.
“No, but if she hadn’t been it was very unlikely that her life would still mesh with yours.” Giles said pulling off his glasses and flinging them down onto the table. “If you recall her attitude about the Prom; her overwhelming desire that you all experience the night without the fear of it being interrupted by a demon attack. She told me that she was over the fact that she’d never have the perfect high school moment and if you take Anya‘s words into account, it was clear she was living through you all vicariously to some degree. No matter where she goes in her life she will always be a Slayer and that has to take precedence, so while she may have attended classes with you at the university, it was a future she knew she‘d never have because her destiny had already been decided.”
He glanced at Angel and while he’d never been able to forgive him completely for his actions as Angelus, he’d once again come to respect the man beneath the vampire. “I doubt she left simply because of the ending of her relationship with Angel, more likely it was the catalyst that caused her to want a life that was of her own choice and making. She’d never had much of a choice before, not really and since she’d been released of her fealty and Faith was here to guard the Hellmouth, she finally had other options. Options the rest of us would simply take for granted.”
“I understand that Giles I really do, but she still could have talked with us.” Willow said bitterly, refusing to be comforted by Tara’s soothing strokes against her back. “We were her friends and we’ve always stood by her but once again she just took off without…”
“Asking for your permission?” Buffy asked from the doorway, her face hard and drawn beneath the dark bruises that were already beginning to fade. Her battle with Spike had calmed her somewhat but Willow’s words had angered the leviathan that had been created from the powers inside her. “I’m sure that’s not what you were going to say but it’s what you really mean right?”
“It’s not like that Buffy, you were our friend and you just left without a word!” Willow asked, her own anger rising to the surface as her earlier intentions of apologizing were forgotten. She could feel her magicks inside her, struggling to break free of their mystical bonds but even though they were contained, they were still a living breathing part of her being. The fact that Buffy had so easily separated her from that part of herself without caring about how it would make her feel, just like she’d left them without caring about what they’d think, only further fueled her anger. “We thought you were killed or hurt in the battle and when we went to your house we found out you were just gone again. You bitched about Angel just telling you how things were going to be without talking to you first but then you did the exact same thing to us…only you didn’t even have the nerve to tell us to our faces!”
“Gee Willow, you were my friends not my lover or mother so why in the hell should I have to ask your opinion about how I live MY life?” Buffy said with a chilling smile, twisting her lips. “To be honest I didn’t expect to ever come back here and I knew that if I did, I had no right to expect what we once had to be waiting for me. I talked to my mom and I know she told you that but you all refused to just let me go. I felt like I had no where to turn and nothing to live for and since you all had made it clear you believed Angel’s leaving was for the best, I couldn’t exactly come talk to you now could I?”
“You know what I see, I see a selfish girl who talks about friendship but puts her undead boyfriend above everyone else in her life.” Willow shot back with a cold smile of her own. “Every time you’ve run away it was because of him and you never stopped to think what losing you would mean to us.”
“See Will, that where your wrong.” Buffy said stalking over to where she was sitting and bent down to met her eyes unflinchingly. “I thought about you all but even with me gone you still had each other. You and Xander were friends long before I showed up and since you had Oz and Anya in your lives, I knew you’d have someone to talk to, someone to turn to help you through my leaving. I also knew Faith and Giles would keep you safe but also that he’d have someone to share his knowledge with and she’d have someone in her life to believe in her. As for Angel, I didn’t know if he’d stay or go but since he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be a part of my life anymore, I at least wanted to give us a clean break.”
Willow looked away as Buffy’s words made it clear that while they all still had each other she’d been alone and could no longer meet her eyes as the guilt filled her heart. Buffy was right, she’d never considered what Buffy must have been feeling all this time.
Slamming her hand down on the table, Buffy waited until Willow’s eyes met her own once more. Willow wanted to talk, then by the Powers she hear her side of things. “Yes Angel was a big part of my leaving but he also has a right to live his life and he didn’t want to do it with me. That’s the sad truth about relationships, sometimes they just don’t work out but life has to go on. I could have stuck around here, pretended I was happy or I could go out and figure out who in the hell I was without all of you. I didn’t face the Master to prove something to myself or even to try to defy fate, I went because I didn’t want you to live in a world where you were afraid. I didn’t go down there because I couldn’t look at my own face in the mirror Willow, I went because I couldn’t get your tear streaked face out of my mind. Sadly, you and the others won’t always be there for me to fight for so I needed to learn how to be strong for myself to fight for myself for my own reasons.”
Buffy stepped back and wrapped her arm around Spike’s waist. “I have and before you start saying I just got a new vampire and new friends to fight for, it’s more than that. By the time I ran across Spike I was an entirely different person than the one that left here and I was happy with who I’d become. I had learned so many things about this world but also about myself. I didn’t see Spike and go for the tried and true but clichéd fight to the death, I invited him to sit down and talk. I treated him like a person because he wasn’t treating me like a Slayer.” Smiling at the memory of that day, she turned to look up at Spike, threading her fingers through his. “We were just William and Elizabeth, no destiny, no responsibility or animalistic instinct to fight; we were just two people sitting on a bench in Paris. When was the last time you all every saw me…not Buffy the Vampire Slayer just Elizabeth Anne Summers? When was the last time we all just sat down and talked about non-demony stuff or had fun only because we wanted to and not just because we’d saved the world again.”
“I don’t know.” Willow said softly.
“Yes you do.” Wesley told her kindly, a soft unreadable smile playing at the corner of his lips. “It was at breakfast, we all put about the pressing threat aside and just enjoyed good food and good company.”
“Like I said, I like this Buffy much better.” Anya told them brightly. “This one cooks and it‘s just about lunch time don‘t you think?”