Disclaimer: Jeff and the kids are mine. The rest are not.
Author's Notes: I just loved this song so very much I had to fit a fic around it…it's called "Two Beds and a Coffee Machine" and it's by Savage Garden, from their CD Affirmation. Besides that…this fic contains sensitive material about domestic abuse be forewarned…and while the whole thing may just seem completely out there, I can actually see it happening. Buffy's been so unlike herself this season, all meek and trying to conform…so this is my idea of what could happen if she continues on the path. And I deliberately didn't use Riley cause much as I hate him, I don't think he's this bad…

Feedback PLEASE!!!!

/And she takes another step
Slowly she opens the door
Check that he is sleeping
Pick up all the broken glass and furniture on thefloor
Been up half the night screaming now it's time to get away
Pack up the kids in the car
Another bruise to try and hide
Another alibi to write/

The table was broken in half. He'd broken a vase—her mother's wedding present. It was all over the floor. She picked it up, all those little pieces, one by one, piling them in her hand and then spilling them silently into the garbage can, a stream of glass like the tears running down her face. It didn't matter really, why did she care if there was shards of broken pottery all over the floor? Why did any of it matter?

She stood in the door, watched them sleeping, and knew why.

He was still passed out on the bed, breathing in low, drunken gasps. She closed the door to the bedroom slowly, silently, holding her breath and turned, back to the childrens' room, back to her babies.

She woke up Ian first. He hardly opened his eyes, just wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist and let her carry him out to the car, buckle him in the backseat, biting her lips against crying out at the bruises beginning to spread on his thin little arm, five marks, prints of a cruel hand. His hand brushed the gash on her cheek and she bit them harder against her own pain.

"I'll be right back," she whispered, tucking his favorite blanket around him, his teddy bear in the crook of his arm. "Go back to sleep." He snuggled obediently against the car door and she turned back inside.

Cassidy was next, whimpering and clinging to her as she eased her into her booster seat. She calmed her quickly, with long practice at murmuring soothing lies, and went back for the baby.

And then, when they were all safely buckled into the back seat, she drove away. Away and away and away.

//Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Wonder how I ever made it through/

It hadn't been like this at first. He had been kind, and maybe a little controlling…but he had loved her. He told her she was beautiful, and she needed to hear that. And by the time he first hit her, she was too hurt and needy inside to hold up her hand and stop him, as she'd stopped demon after demon after demon over the years.

She could protect the entire world, but she couldn't protect herself. Or, it seemed, her children.

She didn't know how it had happened. How she had gone from a bright, energetic, strong teenager to a woman that cried and asked for forgiveness when her husband hit her. Like it was her fault. She knew when though. She could pinpoint the exact moment she had ceased to know that she was a person that was worth something, a person to be loved. It was the night of her high school graduation, watching the man she thought would always be with her walk away without a backward glance.

Things had just kind of gone downhill from there.

They stopped at the bank and she withdrew everything in her savings account—a couple hundred dollars. He kept his money in a separate account, where she couldn't get to it. Buffy had never dared to complain. What an odd thought…never dared as if he could actually do anything to her had she tried to stop him. She could break every bone in his body if she tried. She just never tried.

She took the money and left, praying it would be enough.

//And there are children to think of
Baby's asleep in the backseat
Wonder how they'll ever make it through this living nightmare
But the mind is an amazing thing
Full of candy dreams and new toys and another cheap hotel
Two beds and coffee machine
But there are groceries to buy
And she knows she'll have to go home/

She thought they'd be scared the next day when they woke up in a cheap motel they'd never seen before. Ian asked where they were and why, and she told him they were going on a trip, a fun vacation. He asked if they could play. Cassidy just wanted to explore, she didn't even bother with explanations. Grace tottled around the room hanging on to whatever piece of furniture was within reach. Buffy slept fitfully, waking every time any of them made a noise in case there was danger, which there never was. When she was slightly rested they left again, Grace screaming as she was put back in her carseat and then promptly going back to sleep, Ian demanding why they had to drive so much, and Cassidy wanting her favorite book, which Buffy in her hurry had left at home.

Home. Except it wasn't anymore.

She put her foot on the pedal and prayed he wasn't coming after them.

For someone who wasn't religious, she was doing an awful lot of praying lately. And because she was already sending the message up, she prayed that they would be all right, that they wouldn't be scared or hurt, that her babies would be all right. She knew she never would be.

Ian asked her finally. "Mommy, are we going on a trip because of Dad?" he asked as they walked through the supermarket looking for something cheap and nutritious that the kids would eat without too much complaining. "Because he yelled?"

Buffy stopped and became very still and then knelt down beside him, not caring if people gave them odd looks. It wasn't like they didn't already. The darkening bruise across her cheek took care of that. "Daddy hurt you, and he hurt me…so yes, that's why we're going away."

"Forever?" Ian asked, looking very serious.

"I don't know sweetie," she whispered, stroking his face softly. "I don't know. But I do know that I'm never going to let anyone else hurt you ever again, all right?" Ian nodded, then cocked his head.

"Can I have a cookie?" he asked. A smile crossed Buffy's face, the only true one for a long time. She stood up and took his hand. Cassidy was busily dissasembling a shelf. Grace was trying to chew on the bars of the shopping cart.

"I want a new doll," Cassidy announced.

"Ha!" Grace yelled. Buffy laughed and pushed the shopping cart forward.

//Another ditch in the road
You keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so past
Wonder how I ever made it through/

They drove as much as humanly possible, with breaks to eat, to get some sleep and to let them run around, but the rest of the time they just kept going. She took to driving mostly at night because that way they all slept and she didn't have to constantly talk and sing to Ian and Cassidy, who were getting very bored with this whole vacation concept.

Buffy never knew there was this much empty road. This much time to think about how she had failed. This many miles stretching before her to—what? She couldn't go to her mother's. That was the first place he'd look. Or to Giles. No place to go, no home, no life, no friends that he didn't know of…except one.

They began to run out of money just over halfway across the country. It had always seemed so reasonable that he kept charge of all of it. She had credit cards and her own savings, but the cards had all been cancelled—once he was sober it was probably the first thing he did. He wasn't stupid, that was for sure. Just cruel.

She remembered the first time he'd ever hit her. It was a few months before the wedding. They'd been having some silly argument about who to invite or something, and his hand on her arm had tightened, and they'd been yelling and then his other hand came up and slapped her and…she told herself she hadn't really been hurt. It didn't leave a bruise and compared to many blows she'd had it was nothing. And he cried and he told her how sorry he was, that he'd just been so angry, that she had made him so angry, and she believed him and forgave him and kissed away his tears and told him how happy she was they were getting married.

How completely, perfectly happy.

She'd told herself at times that she should leave. Once she almost had. But then she'd had Ian and he'd been so proud, so happy, so sweet, and then Cassidy and Grace and how could she think of taking his children away when he loved them so? And it wasn't like he hit her very much, and she always gave him reason and so on and so on…she spent so much time making excuse for him she never made any for herself.

Besides, she didn't think it would ever get any better anywhere else that she went.

Didn't I just get the most normal life? she thought bitterly, driving, always driving. Three kids and an abusive husband, and even being the Slayer didn't help me.

//Another bruise to try and hide
Another alibi to write
Another lonely highway in the black of night
But there's hope in the darkness
You know you're going to make it/

She called her mother when they were about a day away from Sunnydale. "Buffy?" she demanded, her voice weak with relief.

"Hi Mom," she whispered, her own eyes filling with tears, wondering how she was going to say this, how she could say that to the woman that had raised her. She never even got the chance.

"We've been so worried!" Joyce exclaimed. "Jeff's here, he said you just dissapeared, are you all right? Do you have the kids?"

Buffy froze, her mind numbing over. He'd gotten to her mother, he was there.

"We're all fine," she said quickly. "Don't let Jeff in Mom. Just…keep him away. And don't tell him I called."

"But Buffy, why not?" Joyce demanded.

"Just don't, please Mom. I have to go."

"Buffy! Where are you? What happened?"

"Good bye Mom," Buffy said, hanging up the phone, unable to listen to her mother's voice another moment. No place to go, no one to go to…She curled up on the hard motel bed and cried until her children came over and curled up around her, absolving all the hurts.

She had them. And nothing, no one, was ever going to take them away from her.

He'd come home drunk that night. He was doing that more and more, and telling her when she asked that it was her fault. She was too preoccupied with the children, she didn't welcome him enough…God help her, she had believed him. She'd made this huge dinner for him, and gotten the kids all dressed up and he came home drunk anyway. He started yelling at her and he broke the vase, hurling a piece at her, cutting open her cheek and then knocked her across the room. Ian had tried to stop him, crying and Jeff had grabbed his thin little arm and threw him into Buffy and they'd lain there, sobbing together until Jeff stumbled into the bedroom and fell asleep and Buffy rocked them all to sleep, crying and singing.

No one touched her babies. No one.

She'd spent a lot of time fighting. She'd spent many long years fighting vampires, demons, her own fears…She'd died, once for real and in her heart…many, many times. Nothing had ever hurt as much as the sight of bruises on her little boy's arm. The one person she couldn't protect, the one she should have protected above all others.

Where had she been lost? Where could she possibly be found?

And in the darkness of that long road, that long, long night, Buffy knew.

//Another ditch in the road
Keep moving
Another stop sign
You keep moving on
And the years go by so fast
Silent fortress built to last
Wonder how I ever made it…/

She stood in front of his door with Ian barely awake at her side, Cassidy on one hip and Grace on the other. He opened the door and looked at her, his eyes dark and hurt like they had always been, except maybe they were sadder now…she couldn't tell. It had been too long.

"We have nowhere else to go," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, but I don't have any money left, not even for dinner, and I can't go home, he's there…just one night, please? Or two? I have nowhere else to go."

His hand reached out and traced the bruise on her cheekbone, the cut from a flying piece of the vase. She shuddered at the touch, disturbing Cassidy who cried out softly without waking. Their eyes met. His were full of tears…tears for her she thought suddenly. Someone was crying for her. He reached for Cassidy and Buffy let him take her. She snuggled against him happily, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking as if she belonged there.

"Why?" he asked softly. Buffy closed her eyes against the pain in his face.

"I just wanted to be loved," she said softly, and opened them again. "I don't know why. I don't know how. I just know that it's over."

"It's over," he agreed. "Come inside Buffy. Eat. Sleep. I'll keep you all safe."

It had been a very, very long time since she had believed someone when they said that. But she believed it this time. He reached out his hand and she put hers in it, and let him draw her inside to safety.

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