DISCLAIMER: They are not mine.
TIMELINE: Sometime mid Seasons 3 and 6. I haven't seen the past four or so eps of Angel or Buffy, so if it seems like I'm not clued into a lot… I'm not.
SPOILERS: Eh, lets say everything to be safe.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy finally understands herself (helpfully narrated by an annoyed yet pleasant, slightly crazy, nameless narrator).
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere you want, just talk to me first.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, this involves a whole lot of sarcasm, some rambling/ranting, and a tiny bit of angst. I think its funny. I might not be funny. Oh, and the lyrics at the end are "1000 Miles" by Vanessa Carlton.
FEEDBACK: Please do.
RATING: R, for language, etc.
Okay, it's been a while since I've done this… wish me luck.

Buffy had a problem. Not news? Yeah, I understand how you feel. Buffy has always had problems. This time, it was different. This problem didn't have anything to do with Spike. It didn't have anything to do with Dawn. It didn't have anything to do with her mother's death, or her death, or Willow, or Tara, or Magic, or Xander, or Anya….

It did, however, have a whole lot to do with Angel.

Not news either? Okay, yes, I do see where you're coming from. You know as well as I do that all of Buffy's problems stem from Angel. We all realize that her main issue is not getting that fact herself. Coincidentally, her then-current problem was *getting* that particular fact.

Buffy was starting to *get it.*

And oh, oh, oh the horror of it all. She lay awake nights and slept through the days. Every thought was of his dark eyes and dark hair and every single wonderful moment he had caused her. The slayer's whole, ordinary- or as ordinary as being a slayer allows- life had been made extraordinary by him. She was the slayer in love with a vampire.

He made her tragic and beautiful.

He made her feel things that she hadn't felt in ever, and now (then, really) she could only feel it in her memories. Thinking of it, thinking, thinking, all the time it was all she could do to keep going, thinking of Angel and Angel and nothing else but Angel! She was like a heroin addict, suddenly jonesing for a hit after years of being clean.

Being alive again had made things cloudy. Being thrown into college and a whole `normal' life (still with vamps and evil) of `normal boys' (who paid vampires to tap their veins or turned out to be human vessels for hell goddesses) and `normal family values' (dead mom, clepto-nonreal-sisters, roommate witches who *just won't leave* and have magic-habits) had been bad enough before the heaven deal-

Yes, I hear you. I'm tired of watching this `I-miss-heaven' soap opera. If only she would just pitch a fit and get it out of her system, maybe everyone would be better off. Well, that's what I'm working towards. Can I have a few minutes to finish setting the scene? Gee, thanks!

Buffy didn't know much about herself anymore. She knew she killed things. Bad things. She felt better when she was killing things. It made her happy to protect people.

She also knew she slept with Spike. A lot. In public. Why? She was pretty sure, at least before the- well, the thing that I'll explain in a minute, that it was because she liked having sex, and because she deserved feeling icky the second after they were finished. The mental torture she inflicted on herself was a fun way to keep from thinking about anything actually important.

She was absolutely sure it had nothing to do with… with… the other undead she'd really like to bed. Hah, I rhymed. Buffy *wasn't* trying to get closer to Angel by sleeping with his kin. She *wasn't* trying to recall the memory of that one time they had been together, of how much like heaven it had seemed, of how scarily moving his cool skin had been… She *was not* trying to get back at her exboyfriend for leaving her by screwing the equivalent of his best friend… or brother perhaps.

Yeah. I buy that.

Now, to THE THING.

Buffy's plan to slowly drive herself insane was truly working well. As she'd always known they would, her friends were leaving her, one sidling step to the door at a time. While she hadn't actually figured having a sixteen-year-old daughter to take care of into the equation (on a very small income- you'd think a resourceful slayer like the Buffster would find a nice, lucrative position in the underworld, wouldn't you?), the new development only made things better… or worse… it really depends your point of view.

Giles was gone. Her mother was gone. She was getting less sleep than in high school, and now she smelled like the vats of grease from work. And she was screwing Spike. A lot. In public (you'd think she'd have more respect for those around her, wouldn't you? Sure, sex in public places is, according to Cosmo, quite the kinky little pleasure… but still! In the Bronze? Ugh).

Her plans for her `future' were fuzzy, but that was the way she liked it. Buffy figured she'd be killed at some point, Dawn would go back to Dad, and everyone else could move on with their lives. And, perhaps if she had a DNR order put into her will (Do Not Resurrect), she'd stay dead and her loved ones would keep moving on with their lives.

A girl could dream, couldn't she?

Then, one dark and stormy night- all right, so it was neither dark nor stormy. Is it my fault that Buffy lives in Southern California? Lets try this again, shall we?

Then, one clear, starry night- who am I? Vincent Van Gogh? Take a close look, I have *both* my ears intact, thank you very much. Once more, with feeling!

(Oh for the love of Crispix.)

Then, one calm, cool night… Are we okay? Good. One calm, cool night Buffy was strolling the graveyard in her usual mindless manner. Her feet hit the earth, felt its minute (you know, I just had a tiny mental freak out over whether I had been spelling minute wrong for seventeen years. Don't worry everyone, turns out minute (sixty seconds) and minute (very small) are both spelled the same way. There's a word for that. NO, its *not* crazy. Very funny. Oh, be quiet.) Shifting, half graves caving just a bit under her weight. She had given up apologizing to the dead as she walked over them long ago… forgetting completely the saying about random chills… "Someone's walkin' over yo' grave," the voodoo priestess had said.

Buffy shivered and thought nothing, even as the shivers turned to warning bells, ringing loud and louder in her mind. Some vampire was coming and was coming closer and was right there on top of her and she just didn't care. If she won the fight, she won the fight. One less blood sucker, a little more dust. And if she lost… hey, they can't send you to hell for sleeping with an unholy demon, can they?

As it turned out, on this particular dark and stormy- uh, clear and starry- wait, I've got it… calm, cool night, Buffy's life was scheduled to take a serious detour—right into the grave. That vampire, of the anonymous, lanky variety, was all set to make a name for himself. He could see it in the watcher diaries as he gleefully wrestled her to the ground—"VAMPIRE X (anonymous *and* lanky, don't forget) KILLS THE MIGHTY… MIGHTY… (He was also stupid enough to forget Buffy's name. Idiot.) SLAYER!"

The `Mighty Slayer,' as our stupid, lanky friend- lets call him Anon- dubbed her, detached herself quietly from what was shortly to be her death and sat waiting in the very, very dark place that had become her mind. Her life had never once flashed before her eyes, not with her actual deaths (both of them) nor the many close calls, and she began to ponder this.

Was it because she always woke up in the end? Would her own personal, `Buffy-Summers-this-is-your-life' moment only come before final death? If so, did it mean, *yet again* that she wasn't going to die this night? And, if she wasn't going to die then, when the hell would she die?

At some point along her long road of slayerdom, the idea of being the oldest slayer ever had lost all of its appeal.

During all of this magical, happy, inner peacefulness… crap, I'm getting it wrong. During all of this tired, overdone-yet-honest, inner resignation-slash-okay-I-guess-I'm-dead-this-time-ness, our gleeful Anon. was getting himself good and ready to drink our heroine D-R-Y (which, had it happened, would have been quite a shame, considering he wasn't exactly the arch-nemesis type (not that the current quote-arch-nemeses-unquote are exactly up to par) and did not deserve to get his name mentioned in the WD's, even in passing. That's how lanky and stupid Anon was (no offense intended to any lanky, stupid vampires that deserve to be mentioned… there simply aren't any other characteristics by which to describe him. My apologies).

Buffy was on the ground, pinned beneath his slight weight, stake in reach- hell, still in the girl's hand, eyes vacant and staring past his unmemorable face at the calm, cool sky (hah! Got it right). Anon licked his chops and quite possibly drooled a little. His fangs were probably gleaming. His breath, I'm sure, was fetid, smelling of death, reminiscent of decay, possibly just very icky as he closed the gap between canines and throat.

He struck!

And got his eyetooth caught in Buffy's earring, as well as a mouth full of hair. Sputtering, he disentangled himself from the shiny hoop and raised a clammy hand to push her hair out of the way. As his slimy fingers fumbled at her neck, they felt the anomalous texture of an old, long healed wound.

Despite his stupidity and hunger, Anon took a moment to wrench Buffy upward. He shoved her head to one side and tried to catch the most light on the column of her neck. There, in the sufficient illumination of a far off street lamp, he could make out the faint scar and read the signature left in flesh.

"Ya've gotta be kiddin'!" he groaned. With a very sudden change in demeanor, Anon smoothed his clammy hands over Buffy's hair and made a desperate attempt to see if she was all right. "Sorry, sorry, didn't know that you were, well, well… sorry," he muttered, brushing the cemetery dirt off her clothes.

By this point, Buffy was more than bored waiting for the big white light, or the tunnel, or whatever happened to be waiting on the other side. She stepped back into the `now' and grasped her stake more firmly as she took the measure of her situation.

"Didn't know you were already bitten, didn't know… By Angelus, no less… damn it, damn it, damn it, almost had it, almost… Really sorry. Master? Dead. Dracula? Bark, no bite… a little misty, still no bite… Angelus? He'd be pissed. Pissed. Very, very pissed. He's got these- these territory issues, y'know? Course you know." The rambling continued, as did the brushing. Buffy, annoyed and not happy with the hand action, gave Anon a little shove and he actually fell over.

For a moment, Buffy thought about letting him go. Two things stopped her. A. Vampires deserved to die. B. Very few people ever mentioned Angel in her presence. *No one* mentioned Angelus. And no one *ever* even *hinted* that she was Angelus' ~territory.~

It just wasn't done.

So, POOF went Anon, along with his name, his stupidity, his lankiness, and any chance of ever `making it' with a slayer. As Buffy had thought, there was a little more dust, and one less bloodsucker… Except, and this is a whiny, pouting except, Anon left one lasting impression on our favorite slayer. He left the idea.

Well, maybe he didn't leave it. He uncovered it. He unmasked it. He brought it into the light, exposed it, blew it up, photocopied and faxed it!

I'll stop.

Anon brought to her attention that forever-buried-in-her-heart memory of how right every little thing had been when she was still Angel's girl. Growing up had nearly killed her in the first place, but she was growing again in that cemetery, accepting things she'd purposefully ignored and destroyed inside her.

She missed every little bit of her life with Angel. She missed all the kissing and holding and tenderness, the roughness, the struggle of holding back, the ache that came from kissing him. She missed his kind of pain. She missed their interwoven torment. She missed missing him daily and she missed hating the dawn for driving them apart.

She longed for his brand of depression because, she could swear to this, it was heaven to her. And, surprise-surprise, it had been heaven even before she had such an issue-full life to compare it too. Having that hell back would be a warm bath with one of those fizzy spheres that sent the tub boiling with sweet smelling goodness.

He was her whole… she was losing phrases to describe him… don't worry, I'll make some up… he- Angel was winning every game of chess you ever try to play, even against genius chess players like, well, like Angel, or Bobby Fisher. You know you shouldn't be able to do it, but you can, and every move you make, even if it's wrong, turns out right. You start feeling so good about yourself, so smart, so important, that you almost feel bad about it, but then the queen falls under your pawn (which probably can't actually happen) and all your opponent's pieces are down… and you realize that you've won every game of Stratego and risk on top of it, even though you don't think you could correctly define the word `strategy' if you tried.

He was a slurpee in those clear plastic cups that let you see the layers when you mingle all the frosty, wacky flavors together. And you swirl them all together and they are all one flavor and its better than all of them separate and once you've had it, you mix `em all the same way each time you go to the 711.

He was delicious and frosty and could make your brain seize up because you wanted so much of him at once that you took him in too fast, and, well, brain freeze because he was so good and so intense that the amazingness overwhelmed and stunned and, well, brain freeze.

I'd say those were apt, no?

Buffy struggled to contain her newfound feelings of sadness and loss as she stumbled home and into bed. As I said earlier, she didn't sleep but lay awake remembering all the good things and bad things and cursing herself for absently thinking that she'd never sleep again unless it was wrapped up in Angel's arms—thinking stuff like that makes you believe it.

Days passed and she trudged through them, growing to hate everyone around her simply for not being Angel. It was tough, considering a large portion of the people were her friends and sister. Spike got his hand broken when he'd snuck up behind her and attempted some of their usual `coitus-publicus.'

Needless to say, he was a little surprised. He even tried to black mail her into more sex. Buffy broke his other hand, and then both his legs, vaguely wondering if he'd make it back to his whole in the ground.

She made new discoveries everyday. It was like therapy, only less safe and more about cutting yourself with little bits of glass from the inside out. It was emotional suicide, realizing that she used Spike as a surrogate Angel, because of his too-cold skin, and because, deep down, he was a diluted bit of Angel… a stronger strain of Dru, yes, but Angel just the same. She felt like one of those bitchy, stupid girls who screws things up when they try and screw over their exes by screwing people close to them. It was terrible, realizing how low she had stooped to hurt her Angel. Worse, she hadn't known she was even doing it. Maybe if she had been allowed to savor that vengeance… Nah. Sucked either way.

Which, as I promised, brings us to the problem… problems…

She never planned to be so f-ed in the head. Which is actually kind of stupid, because who would plan to have Buffy's life? No one I can think of… oh wait, that's not true. I'm nearly positive that any one of us would. Why? WHY? Have you been listening?

A. N. G. E. L.

Ring any bells?

It rang a few for Buffy.

Remember that little fit I mentioned Buffy should have before? Well, She did. Have it. The fit, I mean. And it was beautiful. And it did a lot of good.

The gang was assembled in the living room of the Summers' home. Everyone was there, except Giles in England, and Joyce in Heaven, and Spike, who perhaps had actually been ashed by the sun like some giant, peroxide-blond cigarette. Anya and Xander were snoodling (my own word for simultaneous bickering and making out) on the couch, Willow and Tara were loving each other from afar (because Tara still practiced and Willow was on the broomstick… perhaps off it? witches the correct analogy? heheh, pun intended!), and Dawn was sulking in the corner (having forgotten how lucky she was to be alive and no longer a key and to have her sister back and not be hungry or cold and there are still people starving all over the world!), while Buffy did her best to hold their fragile bonds together.

"Buffy?" Willow had asked quietly as the slayer finally decided to just sit on the floor instead of getting caught in the cross hairs of a witchy-love-stare… it made her uncomfortable. "Is everything okay?"

Buffy almost laughed. She said yes, everything was fine, keeping a strait face. Again, the redhead asked her if things were okay.

"Swell!" she'd grinned, knowing the crazy light was in her eyes but keeping them closed to stop it from getting too bright or too crazy. If Willow asked her again, Buffy didn't know if she would have the strength to keep her eyes shut.

"Buffy, you can tell us if you need help." Everyone was looking at her by that point, Xander lipstick smeared but cognizant, Dawn pigeon- esque and grumpy. This was… going to be bad.

"You don't want to know if things are wrong!" she accused, accurately I must add. "What you really want to know is how its long gonna take for me to act like the old Buffy! Well, you know what? There is no old Buffy. No pre-slayer Buffy, no pre-death Buffy, no post death Buffy either, and believe me I looked for all three of them. I'm sorry to disappoint, but this is who I am now and if it makes you nervous to be near someone so obviously Fucked Up, then perhaps you should all just get the hell out of my house..."

"Buffy!" said someone, maybe Tara, or Dawn, shocked.

"Oh, you asked! You had to keep asking. All I wanted to do was sit here on my floor and brood, but no. No, you needed to see if you could fix me. You needed to bring all this bad blood, pardon the expression, right to the surface. I have news for you, kids, leeches never worked in the first place. Bad blood might as well stay where it is!"

You know it's serious when a person uses leech analogies.

"I…" No one really had much to say.

"I do understand where you're coming from, really I do," Buffy assured them. "I mean, I'd be pissed too if one of you suddenly changed personalities completely and was no longer much fun to be around. Oh, wait… I think between us Scoobies there have been, I don't know, maybe six years worth of just that. WE ALL do about faces, sweethearts. I'm sorry mine is just taking a little longer."

By then, all hell was breaking loose. Dawn stopped sulking, hearing Buffy's shouting echoing off each selfish, teenage brain cell. For once, the message got through. The truth of all the good things she had, life for instance, or the Scooby love (which is quite a wonderful love, as you might guess), was registering and breaking down everything unwell inside her.

Anya, surprised through and through that Buffy had finally done some mental spring-cleaning, halted all snoodling with Xander. He, too, was shocked at the development. True, he hadn't seen it coming (one too many blows to the head), but he could appreciate its meaning. And, while snoodling between them would always exist, from that point on they decided that snoodling was best done in private.

Tara and Willow snapped out of their `not-exactly-forbidden-more-like- temporarily-out-of-service-please-call-your-satelite-provider-love' gazing and watched Buffy warily. The truth can set you free, and they were seeing Buffy's wings growing right out of her shoulder blades… so to speak. It was then that Willow realized how little control magic had over her, and how a whole lot of the `addiction' had come from her own fear of being normal… and there was some acceptance of herself in that moment. Tara, too, finally got the picture; she belonged in the Scoobies and didn't have to fear being shut out… and that willow was afraid of being normal… she gets two for being a witch… she's got to have some intuition, right?

Buffy, finished with her rant, sank to the floor to collect her thoughts. Strange, strange, strange… all of the things she had said, she realized that second, were exactly what was hurting her. She had wanted to go back to being herself so much that she pretended she was that old self. She'd been doing a crappy job of it so far, but who am I to judge?

Buffy had wanted to make everyone happy, make it all okay again… she was trying so hard that she missed the whole damn point. None of them could be okay, not really. Not after everything… not after deaths and rebirths and magical keys and epidemics of silence and second slayers and all the mucky, muddy, ugly monsters the world had to offer. It was like in the movies. The heroine, her friends all murdered by a deranged killer, who finds her dog decapitated in her shower, tortured, nearly killed, eventually forced to take a life herself… Sure, she wins. She survives. She stars in the sequel about the making of the original, and then the… the threequil, or whatever its called, about making the sequel… all very confusing.

That point I was getting at before is this-

The heroine is never okay again. She's healed, but she's got scars. Her dog is dead. She needs to find new friends (because they're dead), a new house (because she can't walk up the front stairs without seeing all the blood), and a new town (to escape the staring), not to mention finding a licensed therapist and the money to pay for her mood altering drugs, which, by then, she really, really, really needs.

They would never be okay again. It was impossible for Buffy, for any of them to try and make it so. It only disappointed and confused and made things worse. They would never be okay…

But who said they couldn't be happy?

I mean, if Buffy is going to be the oldest slayer in history (regardless of her feelings on the subject) shouldn't she and her closest friends and sister (all of whom she's loved always, even when they were pissing her off) be happy? Forget deserving to be happy (which they did), and fuck the circumstances (which, honestly, have never been very good).

Why couldn't they just BE HAPPY for once?

It didn't always have to be a dark and maudlin world for them, even when people they loved died and things were crazy and they spent most nights stalking dead things in cemeteries! Looking around, Buffy saw the new strangeness of knowledge slipping over her family. Dawn was smiling. The witches seemed to be clued in. Anya and Xander were not snoodling.

The weight was not lifted from Buffy's shoulders because it never would be, not until she really died, not until her whole life flashed before her as she lounged in the 3D IMAX of her mind (she would want me to thank the soundtrack of Rent for allowing itself to be played, over and over, in her Discman) as she enjoyed popcorn and soda and candy- laughing at the funny parts, crying during the goodbyes, and feeling strangely warm at the love scenes. Instead, it was shifted comfortably on her strong shoulders, tension eased, pain lessened.

Oh, she thought. That *is* better.

But Buffy still had a problem. She had that problem through her quick goodbyes to the Scoobies, and through her long drive to LA, and up until she finally got to see Angel.

She tried to only worry about one step at a time, getting from the car to the door, getting through the door, getting past awkward hellos to Wes and those other two… getting past the baby she instinctually knew was Angel's and… getting passed the sinking feeling that Cordelia was a lot closer to Angel than she felt comfortable with.

Seeing him… he stepped out of some chamber across the lobby… he was still tall, and dark, god he was handsome… and he was so far away. Her whole skin felt revived, quenched, just seeing him there. New wings spread and willing to just fly, Buffy met him halfway in the center of the lobby. She put one hand against his chest and nearly fainted at the jolt of energy that course up her arm. If Angel felt it, he didn't show it.

Strong once again, Buffy pushed him back toward the room he had just left. He looked as though he were trying to make up his mind (you'd think it would be easy), but let himself be moved by her (cause he really had a choice). It was dark inside, an office of some sort. She shut the door behind them and let Angel find his own space in the room.

He was fidgety. That was the only clue she had to go on. If he was fidgety, he was fighting something inside him. Buffy hoped that was a good thing. Eventually he settled himself against a bookcase, crossed his arms, and waited.

"Angel," she said, and he started at the sound of his name coming from her mouth. Buffy took a step forward, and again he appeared to panic. "I know we don't talk all that much- calm down," she insisted as his eyes flittered around the walls. If she hadn't known him so well, she might not have caught his mood… but she knew him, she knew him well.

"Angel, I don't know what your life has been like. But mine… my life has sucked, a lot." She took a deep breath. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and, well, I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to be miserable, I might as well be miserable because of us, y'know?"

"Buffy-" Angel spoke, unable to say another word as she continued.

"I was happier with you, being unhappy, than I have ever been before or after I met you," she said plainly, closing the gap between them

"Buffy." Hearing Angel say her name gave her great courage. She found that, all of a sudden, she had him backed into the corner his bookshelf made with the wall. He looked scared. Her hands were hesitant at first, but the panic in his dark eyes helped them settle on his shoulders. The right slipped up his neck to brush his ear and run through his dark hair.

"Angel, I'm about to kiss you," she warned, her left hand cradling his cheek. She was on tiptoe, her chin tilted to meet his mouth when he gasped. She paused, a hairsbreadth from the kiss.

"Buffy, don't do this," he pleaded. She smiled close to his petrified expression.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What was that?" she whispered and started to kiss him. He responded instantly (like he could resist), pulling her tightly against him. It went on and on, both reveling in each other. Even when it had ended, Angel lingered at her lips, eyes closed, breathing her in.

"Angel, I don't know the particulars of your life… but I'm so tired of waiting to feel better. I don't think I'm going to," she confessed, her voice sounding quietly sad in her ears. Angel's hands rested on either side of her face, stroking her hair away from her eyes.

"Things haven't exactly been wonderful for me, either."

"Please, Angel… tell me we can be miserable together? I could be happy being miserable with you," she promised, her eyes begging, begging, begging him.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Unable to bear the uncertainty (which was not necessarily the uncertainty she thought it was) playing across his face, she ducked her head into the crook of his neck and waited, willing him to say something encouraging.

"I think…" he began haltingly. "I know," Angel corrected. "I'd love to be miserable with you." Buffy leaned back to look at him.

"So, basically, this is you and me getting back together?" Angel nodded, and she sighed, deeply relieved. "Oh good."

"Yeah," he smiled a little, "it is."

Buffy still had problems. Like I said, she always would have problems. It's the nature of the beast. And, yes, there were plenty of times when she was miserable.

But she was rarely unhappy.

~~Cause I need you…
And I miss you…~~~

Vanessa Carlton

Author's Note- Hey everyone, can I ask a favor? Do you remember that wacky Angel metaphor about the Slurpee? Well, it was actually a lot longer and more in depth. Unfortunately, it really disrupted the flow (what flow? lol) of the fic, so I cut it down. Below is the extended version, which I'd like you to read… if you don't mind. You don't have to; I just think its… kind of apt. Lol.
Luv ya, Michele

He was a slurpee in those clear plastic cups that let you see the layers when you mingle all the frosty, wacky flavors together. And you swirl them all together and they are all one flavor and its better than all of them separate and once you've had it, you mix `em all the same way each time you go to the 711.

Angel had so many layers. The physical beauty of his body and face was classic frozen Coca Cola. The part he gave her unconditionally, all his love, delicious and strange and amazing was the snowy white Pina Colada. His pain, his suffering, his guilt, it was red and sharp and rare, the deep blush of icy Cherry. The magic in him, the demon, overpowering in large doses, was Blue Raspberry, right at the bottom of the cup. All the layers of slush, bright, fantastic…

He was delicious and frosty and could make your brain seize up because you wanted so much of him at once that you took him in too fast, and, well, brain freeze because he was so good and so intense that the amazingness overwhelmed and stunned and, well, brain freeze.

Thanks for reading. I realize that middle paragraph was left out of the story for good reason, but I still appreciate it for what it is… a bit of late night craziness that just had to be shouted from the rooftops.

Send feedback to CrazyCleverish

Back to the Fanfiction Archive