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Author's Chapter Notes:
Once again, thank you for the reviews. I know some of you don't agree with how I'm doing this--here's hoping this chapter clears it up a bit.
~*~

“I just—I don’t understand how this could’ve happened,” Buffy said miserably, staring at her hands.

Willow scrunched up her face awkwardly. “Um, well, didn’t it happen because Angel kissed you?”

“But I trusted him!” she yelled. “We trusted each other, through the fliers and—and the teasing, and my parents, and—“

“Maybe it wasn’t enough,” Willow interrupted quietly.

She could kill Willow. Yep. Pencil straight through the head. “Of course it was. I love—loved him.” Yeah, Buffy, just keep correcting yourself. Maybe someday it’ll be true.

“I think what Willow’s trying to say is that he was too old, and it came back to bite you in the ass,” Faith offered from where she was standing by the cafeteria table, stirring the paint.

Too bad she was pretty sure Faith could kick her ass. “No,” Buffy said stubbornly, shaking her head in denial. “It was just—a thing. Stress making us stupid. He’ll call and it’ll be fine.”

This whole self-delusion thing got a lot easier with practice. She almost didn’t see the oh-so-significant look that passed between Willow and Faith.

“I’m not crazy,” she insisted, slapping the top on the can of bright red paint. “I’m not!”

“Of course not. You’re just…hurt.”

Willow’s tone, soothing but uncertain, just made it worse. Buffy finally gave into temptation and covered her eyes with her hands, slumping down onto the cool, flat surface of the table.

“I’m screwed, aren’t I?” she asked, voice muffled.

Faith nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

So the question now was, what do you do when your whole world is pretty much stolen from you?

Buffy watched gloomily as Willow dumped the lumpy, smelly brown mix of paint, dirt, and cafeteria food into Harmony’s locker. Normally she’d be clapping her hands, jumping up and down, or maybe just laughing at Willow for doing something clearly evil, but right then she couldn’t even muster up a smile.

The worst part was that she couldn’t talk to Willow and Faith about it, not really. They knew about Spike, of course, and they had some idea about how she felt about him, but her dating—boinking—whatever-ing him had never really been ok with them.

It kind of sucked to prove your friends right after weeks of insisting they were wrong.

“Buffy?”

Buffy whirled around, half expecting to see some random person who’d be sure to turn them in to Snyder. She was almost disappointed to see Oz staring at the paint, his non-expression somewhere in between surprise and amusement.

“Is that Harmony’s locker?”

“Sure is.” Faith grinned at him. “What, did you leave your thong in there?”

Oz just blinked at her.

Awkwardness filled the room and wow, if this was what it was going to be like when she was in a bad mood then she’d better make sure to never date again. “I have to go do—stuff,” she said hastily, backing out of the room. “Bye!”

Faith shook her head as she slammed the now extremely messy locker shut. “Damn, that’s pathetic.”

Oz and Willow nodded wordlessly.

~*~

“Come on, man, you can’t keep this up forever.”

“Yeah I can.”

“Spike. You’re lying facedown on your bed. Sooner or later you’re going to have to eat and pee.”

“Not if I starve.”

Xander glared at the prone figure. “You’re not going to starve yourself over some girl! Please get up?”

Spike figured he should probably be gleeful or at least satisfied that he’d reduced his friend to begging, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore, because Buffy was gone and—

“Oh my God, you’re pathetic!”

—and his covers had suddenly been yanked off, exposing his naked ass to the air.

“’ey, gimme!” He made a grab for the covers, but his assailant had already pulled them off the bed.

“What, are you thirteen now?” Anya demanded. “Buffy went to school today, but you get to lie in bed all day? You’re wasting valuable money-making time!”

Normally it would be enough to make him laugh and throw a pillow at her head, but then normally he doesn’t stay in bed all day. He’s being a berk and he knows it, but Jesus—every time he fucking breathes he feels her there, and the love mixes in with the fury till he can hardly tell one from the other. “Anya, I don’t—“

“You broke up with her,” Anya said firmly. “You two are over. Done. Kaput! Goodbye and thanks for playing!”

Xander, that rotten jackass, was just standing next to his girlfriend and nodding like he had every single fucking answer in the universe. It pissed Spike off enough for him to hop out of bed and barrel past them, knocking Xander into the wall.

“Well, it worked,” Anya said, for once exercising tact and keeping quiet.

“For now, anyway.” Xander hugged his girlfriend as they followed Spike out to the kitchen.

~*~

She was dealing with it.

After running out of the locker room the other day, she was totally fine. Dad had let her have a few days off work, and the break combined with Harmony’s screeching after finding her locker had been enough to keep her from going crazy. She’d even managed to talk on the phone with Fred last night.

Now she was back at work at the diner and everyone there was very carefully not mentioning Spike Kingston to her. And okay, she dropped a glass when a blonde guy walked in—and yeah, she was kind of avoiding looking out the window, or even looking up, more than was necessary. But on the whole she thought she was doing alright.

So when Spike walked into the diner, she just barely managed to not lose it.

“What,” she hissed, slamming the glass lid back on the cake tin, “are you doing here?!”

“I—I need to buy lunch.”

The stammer was encouraging. The stammer meant that he was just as messed up as she was.

Good.

“Go elsewhere,” she said shortly.

“Buffy. I’ve been buyin’ lunch here for four years. You can’t expect me to change that just because—“

“William, I believe my daughter just told you to take your business elsewhere.”

Buffy blinked. She hadn’t known her Dad had superpowers but there he was, menacing Spike like he’d been born to do it. And the sad part was, Spike was letting him.

“Hank—“

“Leave before I have Gunn toss you out.”

There was quiet menace there, and for the first time Buffy thought about her dad throwing a punch. It was kind of weird to think that he might win.

“Hank, please.” Quiet now, eyes watching the man that might have been his father-in-law. Once upon a time, Buffy thought bitterly, in a world where things actually ended link they were supposed to.

“This is your last warning.”

Spike left without a backwards glance.

~*~





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