New Beginnings

By PSUBrat

House & Home

It was a typical, gorgeous summer morning in Sunnydale as Buffy and Dawn moved the last of their things back to the house. Buffy was happy that the work on the house was finally finished. Xander and his crew had done a great job rebuilding the front of the house but now with that work done, her and Dawn had a great deal more to do - inside. Fresh coats of paint needed to be applied to the whole house and in some cases, especially at the front, it needed to be painted for the first time. Wallpaper, curtains, carpeting, you name it, they needed it. Not to mention the fact that they didn't have much in the way of furniture at the moment either. It had all pretty much been destroyed when Warren had attacked them. From the outside, the house looked inviting and beautiful. From the inside, well, that was a completely different story.

Buffy made her way back into the house with her last box. She hadn't been able to salvage a whole lot from her bedroom after the attack but she was able to save a few things. She had been devastated that her room had been destroyed. But she wasn't distressed about losing the material things, she could always buy another bed or another lamp and even more clothing, but she couldn't replace the memories that had been lost beneath the rubble. She had tried though. But most of the pictures of her and her friends had been destroyed beyond recognition. Most of her diaries were gone as well. And the picture of her mom, the one picture in the entire world that she loved the most, was gone. That hurt the most. Now as she walked up the stairs and down the hallway into her newly remodeled room, she couldn't help but think about her mom and how much she would have liked the new changes.

Buffy had asked Xander to try to keep the house repairs as close to the original house plans as possible. But there had been some problems so things had to be changed up a bit. Why did there always have to be difficulties? Couldn't things just be easy for once? Of course, that would mean life would be boring which didn't seem like such a bad thing to her. She sighed and dropped the box onto her bedroom floor. Her bedroom furniture was on back order but the store had promised it would be ready for delivery by the end of today. The living room furniture was due to arrive any minute as well as the dining room furniture. Her and Dawn had felt like two kids at Christmas when they had gone shopping for the new furnishings. It was nice being able to buy things without having to worry too much about money. The expense account that the Council had set up for her paid for everything that pertained to the house. She couldn't thank Giles enough for getting the Council to agree to all of that. Where would she be without him looking out for her?

She opened the box and started to unpack the contents. It was mostly clothing and a few personal items. She went over to her new walk-in closet to hang up the clothes. The closet was one of the new perks that came with the rebuild. It was huge. It had to be to be able to house all of her clothes and shoes. And now that she had some money coming in, she intended to fill every part of her dream closet. A knock at her room door brought her out of her thoughts. "Come in," she said as she walked back over to the box.

"Buffy," Dawn said kind of quietly, "you left this box downstairs. I thought maybe you might want to keep it up here."

Buffy looked over at her sister. She immediately recognized the box that Dawn had brought up to her. Her sister was right, she hadn't meant to leave it downstairs. She went over and took the box out of Dawn's hands. "Thanks," she said with a small smile.

"Well, I'm just gonna go make sure I've got everything out of Xander's car. And the furniture should be here soon. Do you need anything while I'm downstairs?"

Buffy stood staring at the box in her hands.

"Buffy?"

"Huh? Oh. No. I'm good, thanks." She tried to give Dawn a reassuring smile but she wasn't sure that it worked.

Dawn backed out of her sister's room trying to understand Buffy's reaction. She figured that Buffy would just throw the box down on the floor and continue with unpacking everything else. But now Buffy just stood in the middle of her room, box in hand, staring at it like it held some magical answer to questions she didn't even want to think about, let alone ask. Then it suddenly came to Dawn's mind why her sister was all wigged out. She smiled to herself. She knew what was happening, even if Buffy didn't.

***

Over on the other side of town, businesses were already bustling with customers. Anya had opened the store at the usual time and she and Halfrek began their morning routine. Anya watched as her friend silently opened the blinds on the front window. She could tell that the woman was extremely unhappy about being a human. The poor thing was having an even harder time of fitting in than she'd had the first time around. Anya had hoped that by giving Halfrek a job and a place to live, that it would make the ex-demon more comfortable with her situation. It hadn't.

"Hali," Anya smiled, "why don't you dust the shelves while I look over the books again?"

"Are you serious?" Halfrek asked in disbelief, "That's Dawn's job!"

"I'm very serious. Dawn has the day off. She and Buffy are moving out of Xander's."

"Well you must be very happy about that," Halfrek said with a grin.

"Yes. It's a good thing. Now I can have Xander all to myself when I go to visit." In the month since she had become human again, her and Xander had started dating. She refused to just pick up where they had left off. She wasn't the same person he had left at the altar almost half a year ago. And she certainly wasn't the same person that had brought him home from the hospital. She was going to make him work for the relationship this time around. He had to prove to her that he was worthy of her love and of having sex with her. So far, things were going just to her liking.

Halfrek studied her friend closely. She had no idea why Anyanka was so fixated on this lowly human. After all, the man wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and he didn't even have a good job. He was in construction! That certainly wasn't going to make him rich. She walked over to the counter and picked up the feather duster that Dawn had left there the day before.

Anya smiled brightly at her friend, "That's the spirit!"

Halfrek rolled her eyes and walked to the front of the store to start with the shelves there. Being a human was horrible. Now she was forced to do manual labor. She even had to ride the bus! She could just hear the laughter coming from the other vengeance demons when D'Hoffryn told them she was dusting shelves in a shop. She'd do anything right now to change this situation. Maybe there was a spell?

"Anyanka?" Halfrek asked.

"Yes Hali?"

"I was wondering. When you were turned human the first time, did you try to find a spell to change back?"

Anya thought back to the time when she had tried to use Willow to get her necklace back and how angry she had been at the girl when it hadn't worked. "Yes Hali. I did try to do a spell. But it didn't work. It took me a long time to accept the fact that I was stuck here."

"How long?" The ex-demon inquired.

"Oh at least a few months. Then I finally asked Xander to go to the Prom with me. I think that's when I knew that I was going to be here for the duration."

Halfrek thought about what her friend had just said. So there was a spell, or something, that she could at least try. Maybe Anyanka hadn't done it right. She shook her head at that thought. Anyanka could perform spells with the best of them. She sighed. If Anyanka couldn't do it, there was no way she was going to be able to do it either. The thought depressed her. It had been over a hundred years since she had been human and even when she had been human, she had been unhappy.

She always figured that her unhappiness was due to the era that she had lived in, 19th Century Victorian England. Everything had been so stuffy and dull then. It had been such a different place than today's world. Women of her class weren't permitted to do anything except sit around and look beautiful for their men. The high society parties that her father had forced her to attend were boring, as were the men that he had tried to marry her off to. She hated her father for that. She had wanted to control her own life, marry a man that she loved and who respected her but she wasn't permitted. Her father had made every huge decision for her. Why? Because, that's how things were done in merry old England in the 19th Century.

There had been a man in her life once that she thought would respect her and love her until the end of time. But he had disappeared. Actually, she had pushed him away and then he had disappeared. She had told the young man that he was beneath her so that he would hate her. And from the look in his eyes after she had said it, she knew she had succeeded. She'd had to say those hurtful things. Her father had arranged her marriage to a son of one of his business partners. She had been devastated when her father told of her of the news because she had been falling in love with the young poet. He had been so handsome but very bookish. She laughed to herself when she thought of the poetry he had written for her. It had been god-awful poetry. Outwardly, she had ridiculed him with the others at the party that night but inwardly, she was touched that someone was moved to write poetry about her.

As she slowly continued to dust the shelves, she was struck by how much she still cared for the man. Even after all of this time. She looked at herself in the mirror she was currently dusting and saw that she had been crying. She hadn't realized it. Suddenly, she realized that she had been given a second chance to do things the way she had wanted to the first time. She was in control of her destiny now. Not her father. Turning to Anya she said, "Anyanka…I mean Anya, I've decided that I want to be called by my human name."

Anya was thrilled. This meant that Halfrek was starting to accept her situation. "That's great Hali," she said with a smile. Then she realized that she didn't know her friend's human name. "Hali? What was your human name?"

Halfrek smiled brightly, "It was Cecily. Please call me Cecily."

***

"Buff," Xander said exasperated, "maybe you should have wallpapered before you had the furniture delivered." He was fighting with the latest gooey sheet while Buffy and Dawn were trying to set up the room.

Buffy looked at her friend apologetically. "Yeah. Guess you're right. Okay Dawn. Change in plans. Let's help Xander with the wallpaper and then we'll make the living room livable."

Dawn's eyes widened. Had her sister forgotten? "Buffy," she started, "I can't get all yucky and sticky! I have a date with Steven tonight!"

"Oh. Yeah. But that's not for another three hours missy. You can help with the wallpaper and then shower."

"But Buffy! What if I can't get the stuff out of my hair?"

"Don't but Buffy me. This is your house too. A little stickiness never hurt anybody." Suddenly she realized how that had sounded. "But not that kind of stickiness. Cause that's bad. And, just wrong."

"Whatever. Fine. I'll go put a scarf on my hair and then I'll come back down to help. Okay?"

Buffy looked over at Xander who was still losing his battle with the wallpaper. He gave her a half smile and shrugged. "Okay. But don't take too long. The faster we get this done, the more time you'll have to get ready for your date."

After her sister bounded up the steps to her room, Buffy turned to help Xander with the wallpaper. "Tell me again why I chose to go with full sheets of wallpaper instead of just painting and doing a border?"

"Uhm. Because," he said in a mocking voice, "I want it to look the same way as when mom was here."

"Yeah, yeah. I should have my head examined. Next time, I'm going to do it the Buffy Summers' way."

"Buffy, nothing against you, but, I hope there is never a next time."

She laughed when he said that. That was the first real laugh she'd had since, well, since before Giles had told her she was getting a new watcher.

"Okay. I'm back. Let's whip this living room into shape," Dawn said giving her sister a double thumbs up.

Buffy and Xander both rolled their eyes at the younger Summers as she grinned at them.

"I'm serious. I bet we can get this done in no time!"

"Keep dreaming little sister," Buffy said as she handed Dawn a paste brush and pointed her towards the wallpaper, "Now goo."

***

Buffy stepped into the middle of the room and admired their work. Dawn had been right, once the three of them had started working together; they had finished the wallpapering in no time. She went over to Xander who was also admiring their handy-work and put her arm around him. "Thanks Xan," she said giving him a squeeze, "We couldn't have done any of this without you. The place looks great."

"Anytime Buff. We can do the dining room tomorrow and then your bedroom the next day. Now that we sorta know what we're doing, it should take even less time."

Buffy nodded. "Hey. How 'bout we order us up some pizza? That way you can be here when Steven arrives. You can be the menacing man of the house tonight."

"Sounds good. I'll just give Anya a call and let her know that I'm still over here. Just in case she's wondering." He felt so whipped. He could see by the look on Buffy's face that she thought so too. "I know. I know. I'm love's bitch. What can I say?"

"Just say that you're going to work it out with her and that everything's going to be okay."

"I'm gonna try. I've been such a jerk."

"Yeah, you have," Buffy nodded in agreement.

"Hey. You're supposed to stick up for me," he said feigning being hurt.

"I only stick up for you when you're not being an idiot," she said with a smile.

"Have you heard from Willow or Tara lately?" Xander asked trying to change the subject.

Buffy shook her head. "I haven't heard from either one of them in almost two weeks. I think we got a postcard today but Dawn grabbed the mail before I could see it. Willow sounded kinda strange the last time I talked to her. I hope everything's okay."

"I'm sure everything is fine, Buff. They're probably just getting used to their new surroundings. Probably a bit overwhelmed."

"Yeah. I'm sure you're right."

Just then the doorbell rang. They heard a screech from upstairs. "Tell him I'll be down in a few minutes. I'm not ready yet!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Mind doing the honors, Xander?"

"Not at all." He put on his best menacing face and opened the door.

 

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