A/N Must give much love to Tam and Megan as always for the great beta job they do.
Excerpts from the journal of Buffy Summers
10/18/02
Hindsight is twenty/twenty. As I go back through my earlier entries, I’ve discovered some disturbing things about my friends. Some I blocked out, but most I completely ignored.
Willow is my best friend and always will be, but I won’t allow her to keep dictating my life like she is perfect and knows what is best anymore.
I should’ve seen the signs. The addiction to magic started long before any of us caught on. She was the brainiac who studied hard and knew all the answers, always so trustworthy and in control of herself, or so I thought. At first it was a new adventure. She was so shy and it helped to pull her outta her shell. She was so happy to be able to do something that would help me with fighting the baddies, but it quickly changed into something a lot more selfish.
When it began it was just little things. But then came the time when she decided she needed a de-lusting spell for her and Xander. They were the ones cheating! But oh no, instead of just saying ‘this is bad and we can’t do it anymore’, she decided that manipulating their feelings with magic was better. She didn’t even tell Xander the truth about what she wanted to do. Nope. Chemistry experiment, my butt! It doesn’t matter that they never got to finish it because Spike kidnapped them (which is a completely different story!) What mattered was that she wanted it fixed right then and took the easy way, and wasn’t the least bit rattled with having to lie to Xand in the process.
I’m sure none of us will ever forget her ‘thy will be done’ spell. The name says it all. She couldn’t deal with going through the pain of Oz leaving her like every other female on the planet does. No, she had to get all with the witchiness. Being engaged to Spike wasn’t that bad. For a few hours I was happier than any other time in my life. The look in his eyes said I was the only one for him and who could ever forget the, oh so yummy smoochies? Really mine was more of a vacation from the normal ‘stake up my ass self’ as Spike would say. Yeah, when it was over I acted more disgusted by it than I was, but what was a Slayer to do? The others, well, not so much with the fun having, especially Giles’s bumping into everything blindness and Xander’s demon magnetism. Anyway, after everything was sorted out, she baked us cookies. Yup. Like that would make everything allll better again. But I really can’t blame her for thinking it did. We’re the idiots who let her believe that big honkin’ lie.
How about the one that did the most damage to me? Ripped me right out of the only peace I’ve ever known and plopped me back down into this hell of a life. Just so they could all be happy again. I still don’t understand why she thought I’d go to hell. I’m the Chosen One, or did she just forget that fact? Maybe she didn’t care. At the least she could’ve researched or done some spell to find out for sure before making me claw my way out of my own grave. She could have at least spared me that.
The list of spells to make Willow’s life easy and happy could go on for days and most of the magic she used never had anything to do with helping to slay demons or stop an apocalypse. Willow didn’t get anyone hurt too badly in the beginning, so we looked the other way and pretended it was all of the good.
Then the lies started. Tara saw what was happening, but the rest of us stuck our heads in the sand like always, even when she tried to do a forgetting spell on the love of her life that once again backfired and left us all memoryless. It was a downward spiral from there.
Next, there was Rack and the sickening things she did for the high his spells gave her. She was so strung out on the power coursing through her she almost got Dawn killed. My sister, who I gave my life for, and Willow almost killed her with her addiction. After me with the big death and resurrection and not being able to feel at all for the sake of my sister, and she almost put her in the ground!
Still I tried to get past it and worked to get her off the magic, even though I was still drowning in my own misery. I think I let too much slip by me in my apathy.
Tara’s death and the dark magics that took her over was the third scariest time of my life. I really thought I was going to have to slay my best friend, but through it all there was still sweet, innocent Willow underneath who wanted to do what was right. The girl who was saved by her childhood friend and a yellow crayon.
There’s something really big and bad coming. I can feel it deep inside and the dreams – well - they scare the hell out of me. I know I’m going to need Willow in the fight that’s to come because of the nightmares I’ve been having, but how am I supposed to trust her? How am I going to get past my fear that she’ll do something worse and destroy me? The thought of her using her power twists my insides into knots.
Xander. Always wanting to be my protector, even though he didn’t have the strength in his whole body that I do in my pinky? I used to believe that I could take any and everything he said on faith, but not any longer.
I think having to stake Jesse that first year caused a lot of anger in Xander that has continued to grow and fester without me realizing it. But what does that say about me? That’s for later so let’s get on with the examination of this friendship.
He has always been against Spike being part of the group. Xander never missed a chance to say and do things to let Spike know he wasn’t welcome. Heck, we all did, but in Xand’s case, it was so much more hateful. He was constantly talking about how evil Spike was and how if the chip ever came out he’d rip all our throats out while we slept. The only problem with this is that Xander did a lot of things that we never once said ‘that’s wrong’ or called him evil for. Never did we punish him for the bad he did because he was human, had a soul and was our friend. Double standard much?
The first year I knew Xander was possessed by the spirit of a hyena. He was plain mean to everyone, especially Willow, and he would have eaten people if I hadn’t stopped him. The thing that I totally ignored and later blocked from my mind was his attempted rape. Remembering this brings back all the shuddery repulsive feelings I had at the time. He was my friend, but in his mind he actually had these kinds of fantasies about me. He was stronger than normal and if I hadn’t of knocked him on his ass he would’ve fulfilled his sick desires. Even now my stomach rolls at the thought. When it was happening I couldn’t believe the nasty things coming out of his mouth and though I never told him this, I know that after we stopped the possession, he still remembered everything. Of course he lied about that. He really didn’t want us to know that he remembered every cruel word or action.
I also did a little of my own research that night. Yeah, I know; me and research? Not so mix-y. But when one of your best friends tries to violate you, you kinda want to know if it was his own thoughts behind it or if it was all the entity inside him. He wasn’t in control of everything that happened, but it was driven by his own thoughts without the restraints he’d normally put on himself.
He had Amy do a spell for him to make Cordelia love him the next year. It blew up in his face of course, making the entire female population of Sunnydale except Cordy obsessed with him. That was just another type of violation. Rape of one’s control over self. Why did we keep letting this behavior go on? I don’t know the answer to that and I don’t think I ever will understand what went on in our minds back then.
He betrayed me later that year by withholding information that might have helped when I went in to fight Angelus and try to keep Acathla from sucking the world into Hell. Willow was trying the soul restoration from her hospital bed, and instead of telling me what Wills said, he told me she said to ‘kick his ass’. Why didn’t I think that was strange? She would never talk like that. It might not have changed the outcome. I may still have had to send Angel to some Hell dimension, but on the other hand, I might not have and I might not have been so damaged by the whole event.
He treats Anya— the woman he supposedly loved— badly as well. He has always been so condescending to her. Yes, she’s blunt and always speaks her mind, but she tries to be a good person after having spent eleven hundred years as a vengeance demon. She fights against evil and researches just like everyone else. Her stories can get really graphic and totally gross but that’s what she knew for over a thousand years. What else is she going to talk about? Belittling her and trying to make her feel like she’s less than the rest of us for her past is wrong and I should have stood up for her when they were still together.
And what were we all doing when Xand summoned the next twenty car pile up in our lives, Sweet? What, he couldn’t deal with his doubts about his upcoming marriage in some normal way? Really, how dumb do you have to be to call a singing and dancing demon? The worst part was he knew the whole time that people were dancing themselves to a flaming death and we were researching like crazy what was going on and he. Never. Said. A. Word. At least not until Spike stopped me from dancing to my third death and Sweet was ready to take my sister as his child bride. We don’t even know exactly how many people died that day and he never said ‘Oh my God! I killed someone with my selfishness!’ None of us did either. We swept it under the rug like we always had before. I’m supposed to protect the people and I turned my back on them because my friend was the cause of what happened.
I realize now that Xander has always thought that if he waited long enough, I would finally look at him and say ‘that’s the man for me’. No matter who I was with or what I was doing, he tried to tell me how wrong they were for me. Well, until he figured out I wasn’t really in love with Riley. I guess in his mind if I didn’t love Riley then that meant there was still a chance for him.
Xander holds so much hate inside him, more than I wanted to admit. It was wrong of me to let him take it out on Spike, and it was wrong of me to ignore the way he treated Anya. I can’t ignore it any more. To him, it didn’t matter that Spike saved his ass more times than we can count and it didn’t matter that Anya loved him with everything she was. All he saw was demon or ex-demon which made him feel superior. He loves to hold his imagined superiority over others heads, including my own.
Xander and Willow both judge every decision I make and have for so long that I honestly can’t remember when it started. They treat me like a child most of the time, but then look to me for guidance when it comes to slaying and world endage. Really, if I’m strong enough and good enough to fight the darkness of this world, why can’t I decide who’s right or wrong for me? Why do I let them tell me who is and who isn’t? They think they know what kind of job I should do, how I should run the house and who I should be friends with.
Spike always said I had a dangerous blind spot when it came to my friends, he was right. I never noticed the good he himself tried to do, but I saw all of his faults like they were plastered on a billboard.
We have all done bad or selfish things. Not one of us is perfect and although I have finally opened my eyes to these flaws and the pain that comes with them, I’m not ready to give up on our friendships just yet.
I love them both and always will, but I have to take control over my own life and actions.
@~@~@~
There was one repeating thought in Angel’s mind. What had gone on in Sunnydale since he’d left? Maybe he didn’t know at all these people whom he’d once thought he knew quite well.
How could the people who were supposed to be her closest friends and love her treat her this way? He was enraged that they would try to dictate the Chosen One’s life to her. A phone call to tell her she needed to drop her friends and get new ones was definitely in order as soon as he finished her journal.
What if she’d been making really bad decisions though? They had lived separate lives for such a long time. If she was, then as her friends they should tell her what she was doing wrong and try to stop her from possibly hurting herself or others in the process. There was the part about Willow’s spell and the engagement to Spike being the happiest time of her life. Hell, later on she’d slept with Spike, of all people, and that screamed of horrible decision making right there! Though he supposed that could be chalked up to being taken out of heaven and being confused.
No, rather than calling her, he’d call her Watcher and find out just how much of this journal was an exaggeration. He would know if she understood what was right or wrong at this point in her life before jumping the gun and telling her to get rid of her friends.
After pacing his office for a moment and pouring another scotch, he delved back into her words. Maybe the answers to his questions were in later entries, he thought hopefully.
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