"So how did this happen?" Gunn's question snapped Buffy
back to
the present, the Hyperion hotel/L.A. present. He
scratched his ear. "I mean,
I get the whole resurrection
spell thing..." He paused. "Actually, I
don't get the
wwhole resurrection spell thing. Care to
explain?"
Buffy wished she could. "It's complicated. Will did
it."
Angel's brows drew down over his eyes in a
concentrated
frown. "Willow brought you back?"
Buffy nodded as
Gunn pressed, "If the redhead can do
that...Look, death doesn't come with a
rewind button.
It can't be that easy. If it was, no one would
die."
"It wasn't that easy." Buffy sighed and looked away.
"I don't have answers. I don't understand it. I wish I
did, but I
don't."
"So you're saying we should ask the witch."
"I don't think
even Willow understands what happened.
She said it was like the time
she re-souled Angel. Something
else took over. Something that wasn't her."
Buffy shrugged.
"Willow tried to explain but she once tried to explain Chem
II,
and I didn't understand that either. What I did understand was
the
only reason the spell worked was because I didn't die in
a mortal
way."
Angel interrupted. "I thought you fell from a tower."
"I
did, but it wasn't the fall that killed me."
Angel's face was unreadable,
still and fixed. "Then
how did you die?"
Buffy's brows rose. "Don't
you know?"
Angel didn't answer so Gunn answered instead. "Your
friend,
Willow, she just said it was a fight. An apocalypse."
"That's all she
said?"
"She was pretty upset. And after that so was--" Gunn
glanced
at Angel. "It didn't seem like the time for long
winded explanations.
Usually dead means dead.
Doesn't matter how."
"How?" Angel
asked, and still his face was like
carved stone.
Buffy searched for a
way to explain. "It was an apocalypse.
A hellgod named Glory wanted to
open the gates of
hell. . ."
Because, you know, that's what hellgods
did with gates
to hell. Familiar story, actually. We did this a few
years ago. You remember don't you, Angel?
Shut up, evil voice,
Buffy commanded. Just shut up.
It wasn't the same thing.
No, Glory
just wanted to go home. Angelus specifically
wanted to take the whole world
with him.
I *said* shut up! I could live without turning
into
schizophrenic Buffy, you know.
"How?" Angel asked
again.
What did she look like? Exposition woman? Speech
making
was *so* not her job. Buffy left speeches to Giles
or Spike or even Anya who
could pop out with some really
strange ones because she had a vast and
varied knowledge
of all things demony. But Buffy? Explaining things was
not listed under the Slayer job description. Beating
things up? That she
could do.
Besides explaining the Glory mess meant explaining
things
like The Key and Dawn and memories that weren't
real. No wonder Willow
had avoided going into specifics.
No wonder that even before she had died,
Buffy hadn't
explained things to Angel. . .even on the night when he
had
sat with her beside her mother's grave.
Dawn and Angel were two things
that didn't go together,
mainly because Angelus had terrorized Dawn during
his
not quite sane and very evil phase. Oh, Buffy knew none
of the
"Angelus kidnapped Dawn" thing actually happened.
Angelus hadn't *really*
slipped into her home and
dragged her little sister to the mansion on the
edge of
town. Angel hadn't really left Dawn 'playing dolls'
with
Drusilla, which anyone who knew Drusilla knew
must have been a horrifying
experience. Those memories
were Monk manufactured just like the one saying
Spike
had produced an unharmed but mightily pissed off Dawn
as evidence
of his desire for a truce with the Slayer.
"See, Slayer, lil' Sis all in
one neat non-bloody
package. Now, no staking, right?"
Sometimes Buffy
wondered about the way events had
actually unfolded--you know, without the
whole 'Dawn
being inserted' part, but somehow Buffy thought the
Monks
had kept fairly close to actual events.
Giles had once offered the
theory that the Monks hadn't
made any memories at all, that they--meaning
herself,
the Scoobs, and even Dawn--had made their own memories.
The
monks had simply cast a spell around Dawn so that
anyone presented with her
had to reconcile Dawn's
existence. Real memories shifted to
accommodate Dawn
...or something like that. Buffy was often a bit vague
when it came to magic, but Giles had made his point.
Whatever the
differences between truth and fiction, the
thoughts, feelings, and
motivations had remained roughly
the same.
In any event, Dawn was not
Angel's biggest fan. She
probably placed fourth in the 'who
cannot tolerate Angel'
contest, somewhere behind Spike, Xander, and Giles
(though
not necessarily in that order). Maybe fifth if Riley
counted.
Anyway, explaining Glory, the Key, the monumentally
unsuccessful big 'fraidy runaway, her brain freeze, and
the last
terrible night was just too much. Buffy couldn't
do it so she talked about
her swan dive into the portal
and a life force drain.
Stripping the Glory saga of its detail (and any mentions
of Spike
because Buffy was *so* not up to explaining that)
made it a very short
action feature. Big fight. Big loss.
Dead. Crying and self
recriminations to follow. Only now
the crying was over and here she stood
all not dead.
Angel still didn't look happy.
No, that
wasn't quite fair. He had looked glad that
she was there, it was just
there was something else
shadowed his face. It was dark and sad and kind of
broody.
Angel swallowed and said in a choked, raspy voice,
"I'm
sorry."
Huh? Then Buffy said it out loud. "Huh?" She
felt fuzzy
headed and confused. "What do you have to be sorry
about? I'm here."
Angel shook his head. "But I wasn't there. I
wasn't there
and you needed me."
"What? No. I mean--" What did
she mean? Suddenly
Buffy thought she had to find the words, the
*right*
words. "There's nothing you could have done. No
way you could have
changed things."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. It ended the
way it had to. I was the only
one who could have closed the
portal. It had to be me."
Or Dawn, but that would require the
whole 'Key' explanation
again, and Buffy had deliberately skipped it the
first time.
At Angel's questioning glance Buffy added lamely, "There
was
a prophecy. . .sort of."
Angel still looked pained even as he turned
away. Why did
he turn away?
"Maybe I could have changed things." His
voice was low and
deep. "Maybe I was supposed to be there." Angel
glanced at
Buffy over his shoulder. "I could have done things the others
couldn't. Xander, Willow, Giles--they aren't fighters."
"You
couldn't have changed things." And you couldn't
have done anything
Spike didn't do, Buffy thought but
didn't say it--not because it wasn't true
but because she
couldn't say it out loud...not to Angel. Buffy stood at a
loss for words wanting to help Angel, to stop Angel from
brooding and
feeling guilty but not having a clue how to do
so.
Gunn stood and
crossed the room. "You can't keep
doing this to yourself," he told
Angel sternly. "She just
told you that you couldn't have changed
things."
Angel opened his mouth to speak but Gunn stopped
him.
"No. I've tried saying this before but you weren't
listening.
Now you're gonna listen. You couldn't be two places at once
any more than I could. Remember just before our trip to
demonland
one of my old crew died."
Angel looked stricken. "Gunn, I'm
sorry."
"No, don't be sorry. That's not the point. For a
long
time I thought I should have been with the guys when
it all
down. They asked me to go with them but I chose to
go out kicking demon
butt with you and English. Now, I don't
know how much of a difference
I might have made with my old
crew, but I'd like to think I made a
difference for us."
Gunn faced Buffy. "Now correct me if I'm wrong,
but
you didn't ask for Brood Boy's help, now didjya?"
Buffy hated to
meet Angel's eyes. She hated that he
felt guilty, and she hated saying,
"No. I didn't ask."
"And you don't really think he could have made
much
difference in the whole hellbitch battle."
All Buffy could do
was shake her head. No. Angel
couldn't have changed what had
happened. *Nothing*
could have changed what happened. Death had
been
her gift.
That seemed to be enough for Angel's friend.
"Now see,
we can sit here all night wondering what you might have
done
with blondie," Gunn told Angel. "We'll never know.
But obviously
she really didn't need you to save the
world because this world is still
here. And now she's
here. If you ask me things turned out okay
in the end."
Angel looked frustrated and angry. "That's not
the
point."
"Isn't it? No offense." Gunn tilted his head toward
Buffy.
"I'm sure blondie here is a great girl, but I happen to think
that Cordy and Fred rate pretty high on the great people
scale. Buffy is
standing here without any help from you,
but Cordy and Fred wouldn't
be. Besides--"
When Gunn stood face to face with Buffy he
towered over
her. He was one big guy. He asked, "You
didn't fight
alone, did you? You had backup,
right?"
Buffy felt Angel's gaze on her. "No, I wasn't alone,"
she
admitted, then with more conviction because she
felt Angel needed to hear it
to assuage some of his
unnecessary guilt. "I wasn't alone, Angel.
It wasn't
by myself. I had help. I had. . ." Buffy took a
deep
breath. "Everyone fought with me. It was a team
effort."
Gunn nodded. "See. She had help. But if Cordy hadn't
had us, who would she have had? That Groosalug guy?"
Angel
glowered and scoffed. "That Groosalug guy? Please.
Cordy could do so much
better than that. Besides, he wasn't
all *that* tough. I beat him
didn't I?" Angel glanced at
Buffy and cleared his throat. "Uh. . .we
don't need to go
into any of that right now."
Gunn
shrugged. "Fine with me as long as it's through
your thick vampire
skull that Cordy would have been lost
in that place if we hadn't gone after
her, and Fred, here,
would have been stuck in slavery or dead. Buffy
may or
may not have needed you. Cordy and Fred definitely
*did.*"
There. It was a simple, straight forward and oh so
believable
argument. Buffy believed it. It sounded and felt. ..
right.
Things had happened the way they were supposed to have
happened. "Your friend is right," Buffy concurred softly.
"Damn
straight, I'm right. I know I'm right and if you
have any doubt, think about
this. Those freaky Powers That
Be that send Cordy her visions sent you
looking for Fred
not to go have some big fight with your ex-girlfriend." Gunn
paused. "That didn't come out right."
"I think it came out
pretty good," Buffy told him.
Angel's head was bent and he seemed to be
thinking.
Buffy approached him. She touched his arm. "It's
okay,
Angel. I'm okay. The world's okay. And because of you,
Cordy
and Fred are okay too."
Fred nodded. "I'm definitely okay.
I'm home and they still
have tacos, and I don't have that thing around my
neck that
could make my head explode. That's all good."
Buffy
smiled. "See. Good stuff."
Angel shook his head. "You're letting me
off easy, Buffy.
Again."
"No, I'm not. I'm just being
realistic and pragmatic
and a few other icky things. You did what you
had
to do. We all do. There's no blame here. There's no
reason for you to feel guilty. It's a guilt free zone."
And I don't need another guilt ridden vampire running
around, Buffy
thought. She had enough problems with Spike
feeling guilty about what had
happened. On the other
hand, Buffy was kind of used to Angel feeling
guilty
about stuff. Spike feeling guilty was just way weird.
Focus,
Buffy. Deal with Angel in the here and now. She
looked at him
hopefully. "Are we okay yet? Please, say
we're okay. I
want that."
Angel gave a small smile. "If it's what you
want."
"Absolutely."
His smile grew and -- wow, it reached all the
way to
his eyes. "I'm glad you're back, Buffy."
Buffy released the
breath she hadn't even known she
was holding. "Yeah, me too."
"I'm
sure everyone is glad you're back."
Oh, they were. It wasn't
exactly an emotion they hid.
Big smiles. Big tears. Group
hugs. Hey, even Angel
had produced a smile. A small one, but it
was a smile
that for once reached his eyes which was very out of
the
ordinary. Usually when Buffy looked into Angel's
eyes she came away
wondering, "What is he thinking?"
Angel had never been Mr. Availability
where his private
thoughts were concerned. He was the original mystery
man, which was wonderfully intriguing except for the
fact Buffy wasn't
Nancy Drew. Buffy fought evil head
on, leaving very little time for
mysteries. Plus, she
wasn't exactly emotional insight woman. Look at the
whole "clueless about Riley" catastrophe.
No, the Buffster was not
good at reading people, that
was why it was easier when people reacted
by...you
know, *reacting.* Take her confrontation with Spike
a few hours
ago. There Spike had stood covered in
stinky blue goo as she pronounced him
winner of the
demon beheading contest.
Spike had blinked and light
had filled his eyes. No,
seriously, it was like someone had turned on
a floodlight
inside him. Don't ask her how it was possible.
First,
Buffy was well aware it wasn't physically possible; and,
second,
it wasn't some supernatural light so don't go down
that path. No, it was
more like the energy and emotion
that always bubbled inside Spike had
exploded into life
and radiated from his eyes--but not in a Xander X-Men
Cyclops way.
"You're here." Spike's voice had been soft and
incredulous.
"You're really here. And it's the real you." How Spike
had
known, Buffy wasn't sure. But he *had* known, and he had
laughed, a
mad, delighted, full throated laugh as he jumped on
top of a headstone and
howled to the night, "Look out kiddies,
the Slayer is back where she
belongs." Gazing at her with
dancing blue eyes he had murmured,
"Fanfuckingtastic."