Chapter 12: Debriefing
After her return from New York, Buffy decided to stay home an extra day. The events of the trip had been emotionally as well as physically exhausting, and she needed a chance to unwind. She made plans to meet Willow for lunch the next workday. Just seeing her friend and listening to her chatter about unimportant things would go a long way towards making her feel better. And if she had the chance, if it seemed like the right time, she might confide in her friend about recent events.
Buffy and Willow met for lunch at their favorite spot. They hadn’t had a chance to talk for days, and it felt like there was a lot to catch up on. As usual, Willow ordered the soup and Buffy ordered a salad. “So, how was the trip to New York?”
“Good. We had a good time. I bought some new clothes, we went to the museum, we saw, well, we saw part of a play…”
“So what went wrong?” Buffy had tried to put a cheerful face on it, but apparently Willow wasn’t buying it. “Come on, Buffy. You know I can always tell. You’re all ‘Oh, it was good.’ But you don’t really mean it. I could hear it in your voice.” Willow grabbed her hand and put on her resolve face. “Tell me, did he try to make a move on you, Buffy?” Buffy blushed and shook her head, pulling her hand away from her friend’s grasp. “Oh, oh, I know!” I Willow almost shouted. “He did something incriminating, and now you’re upset because you have to report it. Is that it?”
“No, Willow. Nothing like that. He was a perfect gentleman the whole time, and no, he didn’t do anything incriminating. You know I don’t believe that he’s guilty.”
On her official report Buffy had skimmed over the traumatic events of the weekend, focusing instead on their trip to the museum and the conversations they had had. It didn’t seem as if their encounter with Dru and Angelus or their scuffle with thieves had anything at all to do with why she was investigating Spike.
“You really do like him, don’t you Buffy?” Buffy hadn’t said so in so many words, but Willow knew Buffy better than she knew herself.
“Yeah, I really do. So it kinda sucks that I have to keep this whole investigation thing a secret from him. I mean, if it wasn’t for my stupid job, I think I might really be falling for him.”
“Stupid job! Sometimes I think I hate it!” Willow moaned. She tried to hide it, but Buffy had been Willow’s best friend for forever. Buffy wasn’t usually percepto girl, but even she could tell that whatever was making Willow teary-eyed over her soup probably had very little to do with Buffy’s inner conflict over someone she was assigned to investigate.
“What’s the matter Willow? Why are you crying?”
Although there was a lot that Buffy had hoped to add to the conversation, she knew when she had been trumped. Still, they had been talking about her problems before Willow burst into tears.
“Why are you upset about work, Willow? You’re not the one who has to hide things from her boyfriend. That’s why you and Oz are so perfect together. Even though he is all ‘action man’ and you’re all ‘computer girl.’” As soon as the words left her mouth, a horrible thought struck Buffy for the first time. Oz worked with them at the Agency, but as Buffy had implied, unlike the girls, Oz took a much more active roll in fighting crime. “Willow, nothing happened to Oz while I was gone, did it?”
“Not the way you mean, no.” Willow used the napkin in her lap to dab her eyes. “But something must have happened. He refuses to tell me about it. But he’s just been acting strange lately. The last few days, I don’t know …but he’s been talking about leaving the Bureau. Going back to civilian life.” Willow was so upset she could barely get out the words. “He wants to buy a house in Cleveland.”
“Cleveland?” Buffy was stunned. “Where does Cleveland come into this?”
“Oh, he has family there or something.” Willow tried to dismiss Cleveland as unimportant, but of course it wasn’t. “Buffy, I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I can just pick up my life and move to Cleveland and get a job in some car factory or something! And you know the worst part?”
“What Willow?” Buffy could barely imagine the consequences if Willow picked up and moved to Cleveland with Oz. She knew it was selfish of her, but she would miss her friend so much. They had been best friends since high school. Other than a few almost friends she knew from work, Willow was the only friend she could share her double life with. “What’s the worst part, Willow?”
“He hasn’t even asked me if I’d be willing to go!”
“Oh Willow,” Buffy commiserated. Now she was the one holding the redhead’s hand.
“It’s just, I’m sure he understands how hard it would be for you to make a decision like that, Willow,” Buffy rationalized. “I’m sure its not that he doesn’t want you to follow him to Cleveland. It’s just that he wants you to do what is best for you, not what is best for him. He’s trying not to make it worse for you, by taking the decision away from you. Making it seem like he doesn’t want you, even if we all know that’s just not true.” Buffy wasn’t sure that this was coming out right at all, so she decided to try to put it another way.
“He’s a man, Willow. He’s bound to think that he knows what is best for you. Regardless of what he does or doesn’t say, Willow, you need to make your own decision, and then let him know what it is. If you love each other, you should stay together.”
“Stupid men, think they know everything.”
“Yeah. Men can be pretty dense sometimes.” Buffy agreed. “The two of you need to talk about it some more. Find out what’s changed for him. It’ll be all right, Willow. I’m sure it will.”
The two friends ate in silence as they each tried to regain their composure.
“All I can say is that I hope that somebody somewhere had a good weekend, because it sure as heck wasn’t us.”
Willow had stopped sniveling, and smiled at her friend, as she thought of some good news that she could share. “Oh. Oh, Buffy. I know what I forgot to tell you. The good weekend? It was Xander and Anya. They got engaged.”
“Engaged? As in promised to marry?” Sometimes it was hard to imagine that Xander was old enough to date, let alone get married. He still acted like such a teenager sometimes.
“Yeah. Kinda weird, isn’t it?”
“Way weird if you ask me. But if Xander isn’t bothered by Anya’s past, who are we to protest?” Buffy tried to be all open-minded girl, but sometimes it was hard for her. And Anya’s constant candid talk about sex made her feel uncomfortable.
“Yeah, But you gotta remember, Buffy, it’s Xander we’re talking about. If it was longer ago than last week, then he’s already forgotten about it.”
“I suppose so. Still, I can see dating Anya. But marrying her? Something else entirely.”
“Buffy, you shouldn’t hold it against her.” Anya’s frank mannerisms had also taken Willow by surprise, but she’d gotten used to it by now. “And it’s not like Anya’s tried to hide her past from anyone. Xander knows what he’s getting into.”
“Kinda makes you wonder what she could possibly see in Xander.” Buffy often wondered what other women seemed to see in Xander that she didn’t.
“Does kind of make you wonder. But we all know that she’s not like that anymore. She owns a store now, she’s a perfectly normal girl who just used to work as a hooker, that’s all.”
“Of course.” Still unconvinced, Buffy knew it was time to let it go. After all, she wasn’t the one who was going to have to live with her.
“You should have seen her Buffy. She was so happy you would have thought someone told her she was the long lost Queen of England. So, that’s where our good weekend went. Xander and Anya used up our happiness quotient, and I guess we were both stuck with the really suckie weekends.”
“Well, I hope their new found happiness wears off pretty quickly, Willow, and they start sharing some with us.” Once again Buffy wasn’t sure that that came out quite the way that she meant it. “Well, you know what I mean. Because another weekend like this last one? I don’t think I could handle it.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks again for the reviews. With all the really great stuff that's being posted, I'm glad I'm being noticed. Will update again soon as this is kind of a talky chapter.