William touched the soft, blue cotton of the shirt. 'Yeah, why not," he thought, pulling it on and buttoning it.
William had had a pretty good day. It was Thursday, almost the weekend. The study session with Buffy had gone well; she'd been delighted to see him in the shirt and she'd finished writing most of her paper. He was heading for his locker after his last class when he saw a small group standing around the hall, laughing loudly.
"Please, you so shop at Sears." Harmony sniffed. "I think I saw my maid's daughter wearing that sweater. C'mon, it looks like someone skinned Elmo from Sesame Street! Who would choose to wear Elmo fur?" She snickered loudly.
Willow cringed and said, "Excuse me," and tried to make her way past Harmony.
"Hey!" Harmony cried, "You little twit, you pushed me!" She grabbed Willow's arm, spilling her books to the floor.
"I did not!" Willow protested softly.
"I saw the whole thing," Angel said, leaning over her, "You should be more careful. You can't go around shoving people like that, can you now?" Harmony gazed adoringly at him.
"Leave her alone." William said, stepping in between Angel and Willow.
Angel shoved him hard against the locker. "You should have a little more respect, boy and not butt in where you don't belong." His fist tightened in William's shirt. "We own this school. People notice when we're not here. Who would notice if you went missing, huh? Your little red-headed friend, here? Even she's probably never looked at you before today, isn't that right." William looked away and said nothing. "You look at me when I'm talking to you!" He slammed him against the metal again.
Suddenly, small hands grasped Angel’s arm and pulled hard. He looked at the owner of those hands in disbelief. "Buffy, what the hell-"
Green eyes blazed at him. "What did he do, Angel? Not bow his head when you walked down the hall? What did he do to you?" Breathless in her anger, she said, "I'll tell you what he's doing FOR you. He's helping me pass English so I'm not grounded and can go out with you, though at the moment, I can't see why I'd want to." She stood, fierce in her fury, hanging on to his arm, oblivious to the shock of the growing crowd of people and the surprise in Willow's eyes.
William flushed bright red. "Buffy…I'm fine."
She didn't even have enough mass to pull Angel's arm away, but she yanked again, hard, and continued staring into her boyfriend's eyes. "I know you're fine, William. It's Angel who isn't." Her lips firmed into a hard line and she said, "Let him go, Angel. Let him go or I swear to God we're breaking up right now."
"Buffy," Angel said through clenched teeth, "You're making a scene over nothing. I'll talk to you later, when I'm done with Willie, here."
"You're done here now!" she spat. "Or we are. Let. Him. Go." She held his gaze.
Angel's face was a mask of fury. He released William's shirt and gave him one last shove. "Stay out of my way or this won't be over."
He grabbed Buffy tightly by the wrist and wrenched her to him roughly. She winced and thought she could feel the bones shifting. "We're talking. NOW." He dragged her away.
William slumped against the locker and in frustration let his head fall back and hit it once more. He let the fists his hands had been clenched into during the whole encounter relax. He was a mass of conflicted feelings, anger at Buffy for humiliating him by coming to his rescue, affection for her for the same action, more anger…he'd seen her wince when Angel's huge hand had clamped onto her wrist.
He closed his eyes briefly to regain control of himself. He wanted to punch Angel. He wanted to take him down right there in the hallway for everyone to see and introduce him to the bloody floor - or the soon to be bloody floor.
He really wanted to go after them. But he knew he'd only make it worse. Angel wouldn't back down if he went after them and William didn't trust himself. Buffy might be angry at Angel now, but William didn't think she would thank him for reducing her boyfriend to a bloody pulp. Angel wouldn't hurt Buffy. Besides, William had made a promise to his mother.
Even if he just kept putting Angel on the ground and tried not to hurt him, William knew it would start off a chain reaction that would eventually end in disaster. Angel had friends and William did not. He'd be looking at a string of fights that most likely wouldn't end until someone was seriously hurt, or possibly, they all came at him at once. It wasn't that William was afraid; he was perhaps foolishly unafraid, as much as the fact that he couldn't afford to start a mess like that.
'Angel won't hurt Buffy,' he repeated to himself. But if Angel did hurt Buffy, William knew he wouldn't keep his promise. Everything was such a mess. He banged his head again. Would Angel hurt Buffy? He looked in the direction they'd gone, but his internal argument had taken too much time and they'd disappeared.
"Are you ok?" Willow asked him hesitantly.
"No," he said. "No, I'm really not." He cast an unreadable look Willow's way, grabbed his backpack and walked off down the hall.
Angel dragged Buffy into a janitor's closet and slammed the door shut. "Want to tell me what the HELL you thought you were doing out there?" Frustrated, he hit the wall hard enough to send plaster particles floating through the air and create a fist-sized dent.
Buffy was undaunted as she rubbed her sore wrist angrily. "You were picking on him. He's helping me and you were torturing him and I couldn't watch you do it."
"You didn't have to watch, did you?" Angel snarled back. "Could've gone somewhere else, but nooo, little nosy Buffy couldn't let things alone. No, you had to HUMILIATE me in front of most of the school."
"Oh please, Angel," she said in disgust. "There weren't that many people in the hall. Hardly the whole school, so you can cut the drama act."
He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into the wall. "Don't ever do that again."
"Or you'll what?" Buffy snapped at him.
His mouth came down on hers with bruising fury and he forced his tongue between her lips.
She tried to break away, but his grip was too strong and she had to endure the kiss until he broke it.
He finally pulled away.
"You'll kiss me?" Buffy said shakily, "That's the punishment?" But she looked at him warily, because her wrist really did hurt, she thought something might be sprained or broken or something and he'd scared her with his lack of control. Both she and the wall bore his marks. What else could his fury drive him to?
She ducked under his arm and dashed out of the closet. He let her go.
Buffy sighed into the mirror the next morning. The long sleeved green shirt she was wearing was lightweight, but still looked a little odd since it was still pretty warm out outside of the school air conditioning. Her wrist was a mass of black and blue that she didn't want to have to explain to anyone. It still hurt too.
She sighed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where her mother was just packing up for work.
Her mother handed her a box of frames to carry outside and Buffy automatically grabbed and then dropped it, exclaiming in pain. "Buffy, what-" Joyce looked at her eldest in concern. Buffy's sleeve rode up and Joyce saw the bruises. "Buffy, what happened?" Joyce cradled her daughter's wrist gently.
Buffy took a deep breath…and lied. "It was at cheerleading yesterday. I was balancing and lost my footing and Brian grabbed me to keep me from falling."
"Honey, this looks bad. It could be broken." Joyce looked at her watch and got her purse. "Come on, we're going to the emergency room." She placed a hand on Buffy's shoulder and guided her out to the car.
It was broken. Now she had a cast on her wrist and no hope for cheerleading in the near future.
"Mom, I can still cheer," Buffy protested. "I can do some things. I just can't do the flips or the pyramids or the…" her voice trailed off as the list of things she couldn't do grew in her mind. "Ok, maybe I can't."
Glancing over and seeing the tears in Buffy's eyes, Joyce said, "It's just until your wrist heals, dear. It's not a bad break, the doctor said it may only take a few weeks to a month to heal." She looked sympathetically at Buffy, "But you know you can't rush it or it'll just make it worse and take longer."
"I know," Buffy sighed and slumped down into the seat miserably.
"At least it's not your writing hand," Joyce said comfortingly, "You can still do your schoolwork."
"Joy," Buffy said grimly.
Buffy was late. Also, he hadn't seen her all day. William looked up at the sound of the doors and she entered the room, devoid of any trademark Buffy bounce. It was a subdued and colorless version of Buffy who mumbled a quiet "Hi," and sat beside him.
He saw her wrist and froze. His jaw tightened. 'I'm going to kill that bloody bastard,' he thought and before he knew what he was doing, he'd leapt from his seat, knocking the chair backwards and taken several steps towards the door.
Buffy jumped after him and grabbed his arm with her good hand, "No," she said quietly but firmly. She raised her eyes to his. "I just saw him. He didn't mean to hurt me, he just doesn't know his own strength and he was angry. He's already apologized a billion times." She smiled humorlessly, "According to the doctor, I have delicate bones. That's what he told my Mom anyway when she asked how this could happen. It was an accident."
"You tell your Mum what happened, then?" William asked.
"No," she admitted. "Mom would freak out."
"Yeah and rightly so." He reached to pluck her hand off his sleeve.
"No!" Buffy repeated, holding on tightly. "That's how all of this started, isn't it?" she said, her voice rising. Fortunately, the library was empty.
"I didn't ask you to-" William said hotly.
"What, you think it would be so much better if I'd let him break you into tiny pieces for the janitor to clean up?" Buffy shouted at him.
He gritted his teeth, "You automatically assume-" He tried again to free himself.
"Look, it won't happen again," Buffy said more calmly.
"Yeah, I'm sure it won't," he said bitterly. "Don't you know-"
She didn't let him finish. "It won't happen again because I said I wanted us to take a break." She sighed wearily, green eyes unusually clouded and dim. "He scared me," she said softly. "He was so angry. I accepted his apology, but I told him we're taking a break," she repeated. "He was mad, but-" Buffy bit her lip. "Please, the last thing I want is more of this. Please, William."
He relented, seeing the exhaustion on her face.
"Anyway, not like you could storm into his math class, which is where he is right now," Buffy said. "C'mon." She tugged him back in the direction of the table.
He followed her, but inside he promised himself that he'd settle it with Angel at a later time. This thought soothed him somewhat. Neither of them was able to concentrate well, each lost in their own thoughts.