She opened her eyes. "Angel!"

He looked up and she backed away in terror. He had beaten so deeply into Traverse' neck he tore the vain in two. "Angel…"

He struggled his features to their human form, trying to wipe the blood on his sleeve. "What are you doing? Suicide?"

"He… said he'd leave them all alone… I…"

"Go home Buffy."

He looked down at Traverse, then stalked away.

Only Xander was awake when she returned. He was stumbling sleepily to the kitchen for a drink of water, and became instantly alert when he saw her. "Where were you?"

"Out. Looking."

"At what?"

She shrugged.

"There's blood on your shirt."

She looked down at her bright shirt, where some of Traverse' blood had dried in thin trickles.

"Is it yours?"

"Traverse."

"Oh?"

"He's dead." She looked up at him. "Angel killed him."

"What were you doing there?" She looked away again. "You don't have to answer that."

"You're upset."

He grabbed her arm, pulled her into the bathroom and locked the door behind them. "What, do you think I'm some kind of replacement? That just cause I take care of him he can live without you? You should have seen him when we saw you at the door to Boxtree's house… how could you even think of leaving him here?"

"I can't get him killed. All of you."

"He's better off dead then alone."

She slapped him, hard, not even sure why she did it. Only that she couldn't control her anger in the face of that statement, most likely because she knew that if it were true, then his anger was justified, and she was now too angry herself to deal with that.

She had no idea what she could say now, but she didn't have an opportunity to think about it too much. Xander opened the door, and half way through it he turned to her. "I don't care if you believe in it or not, it's true. I know he loves me, and Willow and even Cordy. But we're not enough, we're not what he's here for, we're not the name he cries for in his dreams. You can't leave him, for anything. You both go together. For better or for worse, you're attached. So I suggest your curve your self-sacrificing tendencies and find out what the watchers are up to, now that their leader is dead."

Giles didn't look at her at all as she told them what happened, told them the truth, not trying to hide the fact that she was out to commit suicide. Xander wasn't looking at her either. He was looking at Giles, and from time to time at the others. Never at her, never letting her believe he forgave her, or so much as suspect it. Soon she found she herself could look at no one, and her gaze was fixed on Giles' profile.

In the silence that followed her little speech she could almost sense them pooling away from her, leaving her, redrawing. Willow was the first to speak.

"Can we go home now?"

"Yes."

They turned to the speaker. Angel had come, moving in daylight as he always managed to, sneaking in. "They're leaving. Some already left."

"I guess that's it, then."

No one talked to her on the drive to her house, only her mother when at last they arrived. The rest of them said their good-byes, and one by one left. All except Xander and Giles, who went upstairs slowly, avoiding a seething Hank.

Buffy herself pushed past him and went, her eyes dark, up the stairs into her lonely room.

She turned and tossed, unable to sleep without Giles' comforting presence. Her mother had dragged her to her own room, giving Giles and Xander Buffy's bed, and Hank the guest room. But not even her mother's nearness was enough to ease the loneliness. It was Giles she wanted and she couldn't bear being apart from him for so long, knowing that he was so very angry.

She heard noises and slipped out of the room, following the sounds to the kitchen. Her father was pouring himself a drink. "It's two am."

"I know what time it is, thank you."

She looked away for a second, then turned to leave.

"Buffy…" She stopped but didn't turn. "I missed you."

"I missed you too daddy." And she wasn't lying. Even if she didn't think of him much when she was with Boxtree, she knew she did want him near her. Always did. "For three years."

Hank emptied the ember liquid to his mouth, and struggled not to gag.

Buffy did not sleep at all that night. Giles couldn't keep himself awake, but it was a restless sleep, and did little to improve his mood.

Breakfast was silent. Hank left shortly after it, a bit hung-over and too cowardly to face his daughter without a reinforcing stop at the office. Buffy didn't care. Of all the people not talking to her, he was the one she was least worried about. She had waited in the kitchen last night for him to say something, but he merely poured another drink. She had nothing more to say to him.

But as the door closed behind him, and as her mother soon followed in a reluctant consent to take care of her business, Buffy suddenly felt very much alone.

As she sat on her mother's bed, feeling very sorry for herself and starting to get angry with the rest of them, she could feel his eyes burning into her, his voice quiet and threatening. <What did you do this time?>

She felt an urge to move back. <Elizabeth?>

She jumped off the bed, ran out of the room. She leaned on the wall outside the room, calming herself. Slowly she became aware of tears, and of her trembling legs.

She couldn't stop crying. She ran to her room, where Giles was asleep. She stopped short of the bed, afraid to wake him and be rejected. Before she could decide what to do Xander came up behind her, touched her shoulder. She sobbed, ran away from the anger she thought he felt. She heard him calling for her and ran faster. Out the door, down the street, as far as she could mannage.

Further, lungs burning and throat dry. Muscles aching, her side screaming. Further until she fell on the soft ground of the park. She lacked the breath to cry and the sobs were painfuly wrenched from her throat. She leaned against a tree, mindless of the rough bark, and tried to be somewhere else. Somewhere it didn't hurt, somewhere he still loved her.

They walked from the park to the cemetry, laughing. Giles had spent the entire day trying to teach her to play guiter, and he was now paying her back for three years of uninterrupted teasing. She should have been offended, but she knew he would never offend her.

"I must say, that G cord..."

"Sounded like you after I kick you into submission?"

They laughed again, giddy. It wasn't really funny, the jokes were hardly the best they could make, but after a whole day together they were both starting to lose their minds a little. As they neared the cemetry her hand slipped into his. He pretended not to notice, kept on talking, making fun of the movie they had watched the night before. But his hand tightened around hers.

She laughed at a joke, rubbed her finger across his palm, then saw movment behind him. She stopped, stoping him and looking around.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...

She stood back to back with Giles, trying to count the men. From the corner of her eye she thought she could see two more coming. Eleven then? Or did they move about, confusing her?

Three lunged at her, Giles slammed at her from behind, presumbly under the weight of his own attackers. She stumbled forward, rolled under their arms, got to her feet and spoon arund to face them. She saw one fly as Giles kicked him. That should teach them to mass with a watcher. Someone jumped her from behind, she slammed him to the ground and broke his arm in two places, had time to straighten and drive a stake through a second man.

Humans.

She stared at the blood on her hand for a second. No time to wonder, to feel regret. They were attacking her, four of them were on Giles.

She kicked one, sent him sprawling. He hit his head on a headstone. That's three she's taken down, Giles had taken out two. She kicked another one, someone jumped on her back, sending her face first to the ground. Her arm was pulled behind her, he sat on her thighs. She kicked him with her flaling legs, tried to push up with one arm. Someone kicked her, maybe cracking a rib.

She tried to turn, saw Giles going down under three men. Kicked again, and then she saw him.

Travers.

She wondered the town for a couple of hours, reached the hospital and visited Wesley and Cordy, guarding Edmund. She learned that Xander had searched for her there, and that Giles had twice called to see if they knew anything.

"They're worried about you. Why don't you call them?"

"They don't care. They're mad, they don't want to see me."

"Nonsense. You know better than that."

Cordy came with coffee and sat next to Wesley. "Even if you were stupid enough to believe what you're saying..."

"Cordy, perhaps there are more subtle ways..."

"Even if you WERE stupid enough, you'd still only have to look at Giles once and know it's not true. You should also give some serious thought to droping your running habbit."

"What running habbit?" Buffy was indignet.

Cordy shook her head. "Go home Buffy, talk to him for once in your life. You might find out some very nice things you'd have known if you weren't so thick."

She didn't say where she was going when she left the hospitle, but in the end there was no place to go but home, to Giles. Still it took her a couple of hours, wondering idly around the city, knowing that Giles would be less worried now that Wesley undoubtbly called him.

The sun was begining to set as she approched the house. There was light in the living room, the blue flicker of the television.

She hesitated , opened and entered quietly. Xander was sitting in the living room, watching TV. He didn't hear her come in, but felt her eyes on him. They looked at each other for a minute, not sure what to say, until finally Xander stopped biting his lip and quietly said "He's upstairs."

He wasn't in her room. The bed was made, but a bit sloppily. Probably Giles told Xander to do it, unable to do it himself. Fidgeting, too nervous to go to him in the guest room, she straightend the blanket and fluffed the pillows.

She fluffed for a full five minutes, until a shuffle beind her made her freeze in place. She didn't have to turn to know it was him. "I was just ... it was ..."

"Stalling?"

She sat, a pillow in her hand, not turning to him. She should go help him, move him to the chair near her bed or to the bed itself, but she couldn't face him, couldn't touch the frail body. How could she let them do this?

She felt the bed sink behind her as he sat. His weak arm turned her a little, guiding her to his side, to his soft embrace. He leaned on her, unable to support his weight much longer; a heavy, pleasent hug that made her cry.

 

The End