Flooded

Giles comes downstairs in the middle of the night (without his glasses, note, and wearing a black tee-shirt. Presumably, there were pants, too, but the shots were all from the waist up. <G>), and finds Willow alone in the kitchen. He seems a bit put off, but she doesn't notice, and greets him cheerfully. Giles wants to know about the spell she used to bring Buffy back, and Willow tells him what happened. Sort of bragging...

"You're a very stupid girl," Giles says bitterly, not looking at her.

"What?" she says, stunned and hurt. "Giles..."

Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed?" He's furious, but holding it in.

"I...I thought you'd be impressed or...something," Willow says. Giles' harsh words hurt.

"Oh, Don't worry," he says, his voice low and cutting, bitterer than before, "you've made a very deep impression." He leans back against the sink. "Out of everyone here," he says, "you were the one I trusted most to respect the forces of nature."

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Willow's eyes get big. (Which with Willow, is saying something.) "You mean...you don't trust me?" she says.

He doesn't answer that. "Think what you've done to Buffy," he says.

She answers something along the lines that she brought Buffy back.

"At =incredible= risk!" Giles snaps.

Willow is starting to get a little peeved. "Risk?" she says. "Of what? Making her deader?"

Giles manages to do an eyeroll without moving his eyes. "Killing us all," he says dryly, "or unleashing hell on earth. Shall I go on?"

"No," Willow says, upset now, trying to make him understand. "Giles, I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do."

"Oh," he says, amazed at her hubris, and the words are cold and menacing, "there are people in this world who can do what you did. You just don't want to meet them."

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"No, probably not," she says, trying to appease a little. "But, well, they're the bad guys. I'm not a bad guy." She goes on, more forcefully; his refusal to be impressed with her stings. "I brougng Buffy back. Maybe the word you should be looking for is 'congratulations.'"

"Having Buffy back in this world," Giles says, his voice thin with feeling, "makes me indescribably wonderful. But," and his voice is like a whipcrack now, "I wouldn't congratulate you if you'd jumpped off a cliff and happened to survive."

"That's not what I did, Giles."

"You were =lucky,=" he spits at her.

"I wasn't lucky," she says, drawing herself up. "I was =amazing.=" She gives him a hard look. "And how would you know? You weren't there!"

"If I had been," Giles replies, furious, "I would have bloody well stopped you. The magics you channelled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!" He turns away from her; leaving.

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But she stops him. "You're right," she says imperiously, "the magics I used were very powerful. =I'm= very powerful." She draws herself up as tall as she can. "And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to =piss me off=."

Giles raises an eyebrow at that. You don't frighten me girl, but think what you just said...

Willow seems to realize how that sounded. "Come on, Giles," she says in a conciliatory tone, "I don't want to fight, I... Let's not, okay? I'll thinnk about what you said and you...try to be happy Buffy's back."

Giles looks at her. He still hasn't gotten through... "We don't know where she was," he says, emphasizing each word.

Cut to Buffy, out on the back porch, as Giles continues, "Or what happened to her. And I'm still far from convinced that she's come out of all this undamaged.

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Buffy is staring out into the night. A half-smoked cigarette lands at her feet, and she crushes it underfoot. "Hello, Spike," she says, perhaps a little amused, but not willing to show it.

"You hear all that noise?" Spike asks, referring to Giles and Willow's conversation.

"Just enough to make me feel crappy," Buffy says tiredly.

"You know Watcher-Boy doesn't mean anything by it," he says.

"I guess," Buffy replies, but she doesn't really believe it. "Everyone...," she goes on, "they all care. They all care so much it...makes it all harder." She sounds almost defeated.

"I'm not sure I followed you round that bend, Love," he says, smiling a little.

"I just...," Buffy begins; clearly, it's still hard for her to talk about all this. "I feel like I'm spending all my time trying to be Okay, so they don't worry. It's exhausting. And then I..." She breaks off, but Spike knows what she means.

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"And that makes them worry even more," he says. He steps up onto the porch, stands beside her, shoulder to shoulder. "You want me to take 'em out?" he offers. "It'd give me a hell of a heaache, but I could probably thin the herd a little." He looks at her, waiting. She gives a weak laugh. He nods. "Knew I could get a grin," he says, smugly. (And Numfar does the WE WERE RIGHT! dance)

Buffy's smile fades away, and she sits on the step. Spike sits next to her. Still shoulder to shoulder.

"Why are you always around when I'm miserable?" she asks. It's not an accusation.

"Cause that's when you're alone, I reckon," Spike replies. "I'm not one for crowds, myself, these days." He stares out into the night.

"Me either," Buffy says.

"That works out nicely, then," Spike says. There is a moment of companionable silence. Then...

"So," Buffy says, cheering up, "What do you know about finances?"

Then there's the tiny bit in the fight with the demon. Spike has obviously heard the fight and come back to help, and when he leaps on the demon, Buffy tells him, "No, Spike! I want him in the kitchen." Spike backs off, Buffy herds the demon in the kitchen, then tells Spike to open the basement door.

And so much for Spikey scenes. <sigh>

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Dori

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