Title: Five Things That Never Happened During Dead Man's Party
Author: Gileswench
Contact: gileswench@yahoo.com
Date: 7/15/05
Spoilers: Mega-spoilers for Dead Man's Party
Summary: Things that would have made Dead Man's Party make more sense.
Rating: FRC
Pairing: Genfic featuring early S3 Scoobygang
Category: Genfic, Episode re-write
Distribution: If you've had my permission in the past, you have it now. All others, ask and ye shall receive.
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. Praise abjectly sought.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc., etc., etc. I just let them have all the fun Joss won't. I own nothing except my twisted mind which you really don't want. Please don't sue.
Notes: This one comes to you courtesy of Gail's What's Wrong With That Ep? challenge on Watcher Girls to explain what doesn't work about Dead Man's Party. Since DMP is one of my all-time least favorite eps, and a fic format was deemed acceptable, I just had to play. Also, I'd never written a 'Five Things That Never Happened' fic, and it seemed time.
Dedication: To Gail. What more is there to say, mate?

Buffy sat in the Espresso Pump, toying with her large mocha rather than drinking it. Willow had sounded somewhat...distant when they made plans to meet and drink coffee together. Almost furtive.

Then again, Buffy thought, everyone seems to be mad at me. Everyone except Giles.

She squashed that thought as quickly as it was born. Why shouldn't her friends be mad at her? She'd left. Walked away to let them clean up the mess. Deserted them all when they were hurt.

Resentment bubbled up in her breast. It wasn't as if leaving was just a fun whim, after all. Months of psychological torture had culminated in all her friends getting hurt, Kendra dying, her mother throwing her out of the house and worst of all...

Buffy blinked back the threatening tears and took a determined sip of her drink. It tasted of ashes and burned on the way down her throat.

Don't think, Buffy. Don't let the pain show on your face. A happy Buffy can be a loved Buffy again. None of it happened. It was a nightmare. Willow will show up any minute now, out of breath and talking a mile a minute about some silly thing that held her up. Maybe something dumb Xander did that needed to be fixed. That's it.

She'll be here.

Any minute now.

It'll be like it was before.

It will.

A glance at the clock told Buffy that Willow was half an hour late. Willow, who was never late. Willow who could be relied on to be there, ready and eager to help had blown Buffy off completely. If you couldn't count on Willow, who could you count on?

Buffy sighed and grimaced at her now cold mocha. No point in trying to drink lukewarm sludge. Two-fifty down the drain on top of everything else. Trying to live on a minimum wage job for the last two months had taught Buffy to count pennies carefully and resent wasting money.

She was just about to get up, throw out her undrinkable coffee and leave, when a shadow appeared over the table.

"Is this seat taken?"

"Giles? What are you doing here?"

He took that as the closest thing he was likely to get to an invitation. He sat, sliding a fresh mocha Buffy's way.

"Willow isn't coming," he said casually.

"Yeah. I got that." Buffy blinked hard and frowned at her coffee. "I really blew it, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"Great. You hate me, too."

Giles reached out and took her hand.

"No, we don't. I don't. I - well, all in all, I'm...rather fond of you."

"Really?"

"Really."

Buffy took a sip of her mocha. This one tasted much better.

"The others will come round in time," Giles said. "You frightened them badly. They're still reacting out of their fear, but one day this will all be, if not forgotten, certainly forgiven."

"I guess this is the voice of experience talking, huh?"

"Yes, it is." He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. "Good lord! You actually like these mocha things?"

"What's the matter with it?"

"Too bloody sweet. I can feel my teeth decaying as we speak."

"Hey, I like 'em sweet," Buffy protested with a grin. "It's the perfect post-slayage pick-me-up to get me through school in one piece." Her smile faded. "School. Mom's talking about private school so I don't have to go to the one for all the juvenile delinquents and teen moms. I wish I could just go back to good old Sunnydale High, Snyder and all. Never thought I'd say that."

"I know," Giles said. He smiled wryly. "I never thought I'd be so happy to get back to the grind of Watcher training on top of getting a degree at Oxford."

"You've never talked about that before. What it was like when you went back."

"It's not a particularly enjoyable subject. I did, however, survive the period."

They sat in silence for a while, sipping their mochas. At last, Giles stood.

"You're going?" Buffy asked.

"I've finished my coffee."

"Oh."

"Buffy, it's going to take some time for things to fall back into place," he said. "In the meantime, if you need to talk, you know where to find me. Or if you need to be quiet with someone who understands, well, I'll be in the same spot."

"Will you talk to the others? Maybe help them get what I did?"

Giles smiled.

"Why do you think I came instead of Willow? It's a lot to take in. They're good people, Buffy, but it's going to take time. You'll all need to be patient with one another."

"Yeah. I get that. Guess it's too much to ask that everything go right back the way it was."

"You'll have a very long wait if that's your goal. Still, things will get better. Trust that, and it will be easier to cope with the hard times."

He smiled again, a brief flicker across his face. Suddenly Buffy found it difficult to swallow again. This time, though, it wasn't resentment or fear but gratitude and fondness that caused the lump in her throat. She knew what it cost Giles to say anything about that part of his past. Somehow she had the feeling there would be a few silent evenings spent in his company, regretting their less than stellar actions, being grateful that there was someone, at long last, who understood.

Oz leaned back in his chair.

"We should figure out what kinda deal this is," He said. "I mean, is it a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?"

"What's the difference?" Cordelia asked.

"Well, a gathering is brie, mellow song stylings; shindig, dip, less mellow song stylings, perhaps a large amount of malt beverage; and hootenanny, well, it's chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny."

"Well, I hate brie," Xander said. "And what'll we talk about at a gathering anyway? 'So, Buffy, did you meet any nice pimps on your travels? And oh, by the by, thanks for ruining our lives for the past three months.'"

"Xander..." Willow began.

"You know what I mean. She doesn't want to talk about it, we don't want to talk about it, so why don't we just shut up and dance?"

"Well, Buffy said she did want to loosen up, you know, have some kid time." Willow turned to Oz. "Aren't you guys rehearsing tonight? Why don't you play at the party?"

"Yeah," Oz said, "I think I could supply some dingo action."

Giles stood over them.

"Joyce invited you all to dinner," he said. "Not a - a shindig."

"Hootenanny," Oz corrected.

"I don't give a damn what you call it," Giles said angrily. "You don't get to decide what sort of party is held in someone else's home. Or did your parents never bother to teach you that much?"

"But we're doing this for Buffy," Willow protested.

"You're doing it for you," Giles said. "You're angry that she left, you don't know how to deal with the fact she's back, and you want to give yourselves some way to avoid the subject. You're not thinking of your friend at all. I'm sorry you all feel the need to take Buffy's absence so entirely personally. She didn't do it to ruin your lives, you know. If you can't accept even that elementary a fact, then don't bother coming to her house tonight. Go wallow in resentment elsewhere." He looked down and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Now, if you can come to the party you were invited to and honestly welcome Buffy back, I'm certain she'd be both relieved and pleased. And if you take a moment to imagine what the last few months have been like for her, the pain, the guilt, the responsibility, I'm sure you'll be able to find some sympathy for her situation. Just as she'll find sympathy for yours once she knows she's wanted back."

He swept into his office and shut the door, leaning against it. He hadn't meant to respond so vehemently when the Slayerettes started talking about adding to the party. He'd meant to simply remind them that it wasn't their home and leave it at that.

The personal detachment preached by the Council had been deeply reinforced by both his own solitary nature and the way his old friends had only half welcomed him back after he ran away. He vividly remembered the party his friends had thrown on his return. The music was far to loud to allow for conversation, the alcohol had flowed plentifully, everyone around him danced just a little too emphatically, and he'd never felt so alone in his life.

Not even in the moments after Randall died in his arms.

A timid knock on the door roused him from his thoughts. he turned and looked to see who it was.

"Willow? Yes?"

Her green eyes brimmed with tears.

"Is that what we're doing?" she asked. "Are we really hurting Buffy more?"

"More than you know."

"Giles, I don't want to be a bad person, I don't. I just...I get so mad at her. But I love her, too."

"Then you have a decision to make. You have to choose between your love and your anger. You all need to choose."

Willow wrinkled her brow in thought.

"I think...I think maybe a shindiggy gathering might be the way to go, after all," she said at last. "We can save the hootenanny for later."

Devon sighed as he was shoved into the police van. He sat next to Oz.

"Dude, who woulda thought Buffy's mom'd call the cops?"

"Never occurred to me," Oz replied.

"And right in the middle of my best song."

They watched in silence as several more partygoers filed into the van. Devon turned to Oz and grinned.

"This was the best party ever, dude!"

Buffy sat in the Espresso Pump, toying with her large mocha rather than drinking it. Willow sat across the table from her similarly engaged.

"This is so dumb," Buffy said at last. "All summer long, the one thing I've wanted is to talk to my best friend, and now I can't think of anything to say."

"Me neither."

The silence stretched out again, filling the entire room until there was no air left to breathe.

"Look, Will, I'm sorry," Buffy said. "I'm sorry I ran away, and I'm sorry I didn't call, and I'm sorry I slept with Angel. I'm sorry about every damn thing that happened. I just couldn't handle it. I had to get out."

"And what about the rest of us?" Willow demanded. "What about me? I needed you. I'm dating - having serious dating with a werewolf. And, and I'm learning about the dark arts. That's scary. I need someone to talk to about this stuff."

"Will, I was here when you started dating Oz. If it wasn't too scary when you found out ten months ago that he's a werewolf, then I don't see what the big deal is now. And you can walk away from the witch thing anytime you want. You had Xander and Oz and Giles and, God!, even Cordelia to talk to all summer. Sorry to be a bitch, but it's true." Buffy shoved her coffee away. "Want to know why I ran away and left you all alone with your friends and your family and your nice bedroom and your school and your computer? Do you really want to know why I left?"

Willow was sure she didn't want to hear, didn't want to know Buffy's real reason for disappearing. All the same, she nodded. Nobody was going to call her a coward.

"Tell me."

"Everything was gone. Everything had been taken away from me," Buffy said, her eyes cold as steel. "Pretty much everyone I cared about was either dead or hurt, the cops thought I killed Kendra, so there was the little matter of a murder charge hanging over my head, thank you very much. Miss Calendar was dead. Giles was tortured. You were in a wheelchair, it was all my fault, and on top of it all, my mom told me that if I went out to save the world from being sucked into Hell that night, I didn't have a home to go back to."

"Oh, God, Buffy...I...I never thought...I didn't know. Your mom threw you out? Why didn't you come to me? I could have helped."

"No you couldn't."

"Why not? Buffy, I would've done anything..."

"You'd already done enough." Buffy stood to go. Back to Willow, she spoke quietly again. "You did it. The spell worked. But you were too late. Because of you, I had to kill Angel - really Angel - just when he was himself again. All the rest...I might have been able to deal, but that...I know it's not how you planned it, but I don't know if I can ever forgive you for that. So tell someone else how scary it is to have a boyfriend who isn't quite human. Tell someone else how scary it is to have superpowers. I really don't need to hear how awful your life is."

She left without another glance.

Buffy's chin wobbled slightly as she looked around the dinner table. There had been a few mildly uncomfortable moments when her friends first arrived, but even Xander had stopped making slightly barbed comments long before they sat down to eat.

She accepted the mashed potatoes from Giles who smiled at her in that special way he reserved for her. Watcher's Pet. Across the table, Willow grinned widely and told how she had staked two vampires by herself one night recently. Joyce refilled her soda glass, laughing while Xander and Oz argued the relative merits of Batman and Superman. Even Cordelia seemed in a good mood, since her onion dip had been widely admired.

Things weren't quite back to normal - not yet. Perhaps they wouldn't ever truly be the same. Buffy wasn't entirely certain she'd ever be who she had been before she went through the crucible.

Still, her friends and family were honestly happy to have her back. They'd listened as she told them her reasons for running, and for coming home again. They'd expressed their fears and relief about her return.

Things might never be the same, but at least they weren't bad.

"Buffy?"

She smiled at Giles. He didn't have to say anything. She knew what he meant.

"Yeah," she said. "We do need to talk. I've been dreaming. About him. But we can talk about that tomorrow, can't we? Tonight, I just want to concentrate on the good stuff. Bask in the Buffylove."

"Actually, I was going to say I'm glad you're home," he grinned. "And yes, your dreams can wait until tomorrow if you like."

"Hey, Buffy," Xander called from across the table, "you tell me. Who would win in a fair fight? Batman or Superman?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Xander," Giles said. "Buffy would win against both of them."

"And without all the Batgadgets," Willow agreed.

"I stand utterly corrected," Xander said cheerily. "Buffy's the best...but we kicked some serious undead booty while you were away, Missy, and don't you forget it."

"You did," Buffy said. "And I can't thank you enough for what you all did." She raised her glass. "You're the best bunch of friends a Slayer ever had."

"Um...don't you mean the only friends a Slayer ever had?" Oz asked.

"Maybe. But if other Slayers had friends, they still wouldn't be as great as you guys."

As one, they moved to clink glasses and drink a toast nobody had actually bothered to express aloud.

It didn't matter. They all knew it was to friendship, forgiveness, and kicking undead booty.

THE END