Buffy covered her candle with her hand to protect it with the wind. Take Back The Night had returned to UC Sunnydale, and Willow had dragged her to it (with some help from Tara in the form of gentle nudging). Riley had been unable to come—papers to grade—and Xander had pointed out that if he went, then Anya would come, and bringing Anya risked a berserk rage. She’d been chosen as a demonic avenger of women for a reason.
Buffy marched willingly enough, but she wasn’t singing. She’d never been much for singing. Besides, she was mostly here to protect the marchers from oogety-boogeties. For her, Take Back the Night presented a painful irony. In Sunnydale, the night had never belonged to anything human.
It was just as she was pondering this mournful fact that she bumped into someone. "Oh, I’m s—" She began automatically. Then she looked up and saw a familiar, but unexpected face. "Parker? What are you doing here?"
"Graduate work," he answered, falling into step beside her. "Sunnydale has a great language program. Call me unrealistic, but I dare to dream that I might have a future as a diplomat."
Buffy managed to crush the urge to smile. Even knowing what he was, it was hard not to be taken in by his charm. "No, I mean what are you doing at this rally? It doesn’t seem like your scene."
He chuckled. "It *is* a dangerous place for me to be. A lot of my old, uh, opponents went kind of militant after meeting me, and a lot them are here. But…" He paused, and the grin faded from his face. "After what happened to Sung, I kind of felt the need to."
Buffy nodded. She hadn’t thought about Sung in a while. She’d had yet another apocalypse to stop—Adam’s, this time—and it had just pushed all non-world-wrecking evil from her mind.
"That changed me a little bit, you know?" Parker said as they kept walking.
"How?" Buffy asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. No need to treat him with suspicion yet.
"I always thought that the girls who were mad at me—like you—were just sore losers. I didn’t see any reason for them to be mad if everybody had a good time. But that’s because I wasn’t there the next morning. That time, with Sung, I was there to see her cry."
"What you did to me and what Darren did to Sung are in different time zones from each other," Buffy pointed out.
"True," Parker agreed. "But I don’t want to make anyone feel even a little like Sung did. So now I make it clear that I’m looking for good time, not long term." He paused. "I don’t get laid as much anymore."
Buffy grinned back. No big surprise. "You know, you *could* get a girlfriend. You’d probably get sex more regularly, and you wouldn’t have to start the hunt all over each time."
"Get domesticated? Me?" Parker asked, a look of half-serious horror on his face. "I haven’t changed *that* much." With that, he wandered away, chuckling.
Buffy watched him go with an amused smile. It seemed that he was growing something that vaguely resembled maturity and respect for women. Good for him. She’d heard the old saying about leopards and spots, but then, Parker was human.
Human.
She pondered that as she hurried to catch up to Willow and Tara.
Darren Edwards had hurt a lot of women in his time. The injury he had inflicted on her had been more subtle than most, but it had still been terrible. She lived in a world of gods and monsters. She fought them every night, and she’d even died once. What was it all for if the humans she protected were just as bad?
Parker had reminded her that there were more shades of humanity than monsters and victims. People could surprise you—and people could change. Parker had.
Was that enough to fight for?
Maybe not, but as she tried to work her way through the surprisingly dense crowd, she realized something: only a Mayor-esque demon would attack a crowd of humans this large. And even then, Graduation Day had proven that a crowd of humans this large could fight back. Humanity had carved a place for itself in the Sunnydale night with their little candles. Courage and defiance.
Courage, defiance, and, thanks to Parker, a little bit of Hope.
Humanity.
Was that enough to fight for?
It would have to do.
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