They hadn’t seen a single vampire that night.
*Probably ‘cause they’re all in hiding*, Willow thought as she watched Buffy pacing the graveyard plot. *Which they are, if they’re smart. But then, how many vampires have we ever met that are smart? I mean, how many figure out that Buffy’s the Slayer and then run away? Ohhh no, they just keep coming.*
"I don’t *believe* this town," Buffy said for the third or fourth time, interrupting Willow’s reverie and giving the being-smarter-than-usual vampires yet more warning. "I mean, the ‘gangs on PCP crap’ is bad enough—how many gangs and how much PCP do they think there *is* floating around in this town?—but suicide? How many people commit suicide by stabbing themselves in the throat with a barbecue fork?"
"Probably not a whole lot," Willow allowed sadly. "But I think they were able to pull it off this time because, well…they had a better-than-average candidate for suicide." She glanced at the grave that Buffy was pacing in front of. The grave that they had come for. Sung’s grave.
Buffy ranted on as if she hadn’t heard. "And where did all that blood supposedly go?" She demanded.
"We don’t know, because there was no autopsy." Willow said bitterly. Again. It was both a reminder and an agreement.
"Which doesn’t look at *all* like a cover-up," Buffy growled. "Uh-uh, nothing like it."
"What *I* can’t believe is that the city went and buried her right away, before they even contacted the family." Willow declared heatedly. "Bureaucratic mix-up my hiney. I’m glad her family is suing. I hope they take Sunnydale for everything it’s got."
"But that won’t matter," Buffy countered. "Because they’ll just counter-sue and block and delay and keep the Olsens from digging Sung up until she’s either dust or decayed and either way their asses are covered!" With that, Buffy spun around and kicked the nearest thing at hand—a gravestone, which sailed off into the night in four big, broken chunks and an assortment of granite powder and splinters.
Buffy stood still for a moment, looking at her handiwork. Then she said "ow" in a tiny voice and limped over to sit beside Willow.
"You know you just lost the right to ever pick on any guy for punching a wall," Willow said.
"I know," Buffy said. "That’s okay. I think I understand why they do it now."
"Did it make you feel better?"
"A little. For a moment."
"Wow," Willow said wistfully. "Maybe I should try it."
Buffy shook her head. "I wouldn’t if I were you. I’m the Slayer. You’d probably break something."
Willow pouted.
"Maybe you could—I don’t know, blow something up," Buffy suggested.
Willow shook her head and sighed. "Too much work. Doesn’t have the same primal impulse factor."
"Oh. Sorry, then."
Ordinarily, Willow probably would have continued with something about it not being Buffy’s fault that she was all unbreakable. Instead, she just nodded and they fell silent for a moment, staring at Sung’s grave.
"I hate this part, Will," Buffy said softly. "When they first rise from their graves, they haven't done anything wrong. Did you ever think about that?"
Willow shook her head. "But they *will*," She pointed out.
Buffy nodded. "Yes. They will. Because they always wake up hungry and they’ll go out and kill and eat somebody if I don’t kill them. So I do. And it’s easy—hell, it’s exciting. It’s almost *fun*. If I don’t think about it."
"Think about what?" Willow prompted. She had a pretty good idea what Buffy was going to say.
"That they used to be somebody," Buffy answered. "That’s easy when it’s just some stranger who I never met before they were a vampire. But this is Sung Olsen. I’ve met her. I maybe even know her a little. I’ve tried to help her. But now—" She paused. "She was victimized once, when she was alive, by Date-rape Darren. Then she was victimized *again* by the vampire, and it killed her. Now, if she rises up out of that grave, I’m going to have to kill her again, even though she hasn’t done anything wrong. Yet. And that just sucks beyond all telling."
*
Sung Olsen didn’t rise up out of her grave that night. Buffy greeted the sunrise with a sigh of relief, shook Willow awake, and returned to the dorm.
That day, the case against Darren Edwards the Third was dropped for lack of a plaintiff. Buffy gritted her teeth and spent the next three hours destroying one of the punching bags in the Initiative—and that night slaughtering as much of the vampire population of Sunnydale as she could get her hands on—but resigned herself to the fact that he was going to get away with it. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She was the Slayer, he was human, he was out of her jurisdiction. Case closed, however disappointingly. Move on.
Wrong.
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