Title: Full Of Love 4/10
Author: Gileswench
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.

Xander's fist connected with Spike's jaw, hard.

"Ow! Bloody hell!" the vampire yelped.

"Ow!" Xander yelled, cradling his hand. "What's your jaw made of, Rigor Mortis Boy? Concrete?"

"I don't know," Spike said, as his face morphed. "But I'd like to find out what you're made of. Snips and snails, is it? Or is it something a bit bloodier?"

Before he could move to find out, Spike found himself smashed into a wall, near the ceiling. He slid down and shook his head to clear it. Willow stood at the edge of the room, her eyes fading from black back to their usual green.

"Leave him alone!" she ordered.

"Yeah," Xander sneered. "You heard the lady: leave me alone."

The witch turned to her friend.

"That goes for both of you," she said.

"Huh? Will?"

"He started it," Spike muttered sullenly from the floor. "I was just having a conversation, when he decided to go all Great White Hope on me."

"We don't have time for this," Willow said, ignoring both of them. "If you two can't be in the same room together, then I guess I'll just have to separate you. And you shouldn't be getting in fights, Xand; you'll pull your stitches. Spike, go to your basement."

"Why doesn't Baby Xander get sent to his room without supper?" Spike whined.

"Because he doesn't have a room here. Now move. And no snacking on anyone in the house." As the vampire limped away, the girl turned to her friend. "I know you don't like him, Xand. I don't either. But Buffy wants him here for some reason, and we can't just get into fights with him, now the chip's gone. He could hurt you. He could even kill you."

"Yeah, I know," he said. "That was dumb, what I just did, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't very smart."

They sat on the sofa.

"I just...I got so mad."

"Spike sorta has that effect on people."

"No, Will. I mean, yeah, I hate Spike and he does know all the right buttons to push, but I wasn't as mad at him as I was at me. I just can't exactly punch myself in the jaw, and his was right there."

"Why are you mad at you?" she asked. "Is this about your latest crappy demongirl date? 'Cause if it is..."

"Nah, it's not that. That was just the Hellmouth having its annual belly laugh at my expense. Not fun, but not such a big surprise, either."

"Then what?"

He looked seriously at her.

"Have you ever told her you're sorry?" he asked.

She didn't need to ask who or what for. Her fingers found a piece of lint, and toyed with it while she evaded Xander's gaze.

"Not...in so many words. You?"

"Not in any words. I guess...I guess maybe I thought if I didn't say anything, it wouldn't be real, and I wouldn't have to say anything. Dumb, huh?"

"Yeah. Dumb. But it's not exactly like you were alone in the dumbness. And at least you can blame it on me. I can't blame it on someone else, 'cause it was all my idea, and I bullied you all into it."

"Maybe, but I think we all sorta wanted to be bullied. We missed her, Will. We missed the gang, and Giles kept saying he was going away, and nothing was the same anymore. But if we'd known..."

"If we'd checked..."

"And welcome to the wonderful world of 'what if'. We really blew it."

"We really did," she sniffed.

"If we'd said we were sorry, and maybe tried to help out more, we wouldn't be in this mess now. At least, Spike probably wouldn't be living here free range."

"Maybe even Tara would still be alive."

Xander watched helplessly as Willow dissolved into tears.

"Me and my big mouth," he muttered.

*****

Buffy opened the door to her room, walked in, and shut it behind herself.

Quiet.

It was so quiet.

Almost eerie.

She shook her shoulders to ease the tension building there.

Not wanting to dwell on the silence surrounding her, Buffy took a good look at the room. Sunnydale was not exactly on the tourist map, but it had more than one hotel since so many people ended up spending the night on their way to more popular destinations like Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. This hotel was a nice one that catered to travelers, as opposed to the cheap motel Faith had lived in so long ago. Everything about the room was blandly tasteful. Cream-colored walls, seafoam green carpet, pale wood furniture with fifty coats of high-gloss varnish to protect it, bedspread in various pastel shades, a painting of flowers on the wall in colors carefully coordinated with the bedspread and hung in a narrow goldtone frame. There was nothing to offend the eye or stir the soul.

Certainly nothing to drown out the din of silence.

She put her leather jacket over the back of the chair at the writing desk, and set down the small bag of necessities Giles had gotten for her on the way. He'd insited on buying her a pretty nightgown, even though he knew he wasn't going to see her wearing it, and a few basics he felt sure the hotel wouldn't have provided with the room.

"It's either that, or we go back to the house and pick some things up," he had said. "And I, for one, don't care to have to explain the situation to thirty teenage girls with irrepressibly smutty minds."

He was right. Of course he was right. As usual.

'So why haven't you asked his advice about a single thing since he got back?' the little voice in her head asked. 'Or taken a single piece of advice he's offered?'

"Because I'm a big poopbrain," she told the empty room.

That had to explain some of the choices she'd made in the past year or so.

'Like Spike', her brain insisted. 'And like having the chip removed when you could have had it repaired. You put the whole house in danger to prove you trust a vampire who tried to rape you? Girl, what were you smoking?'

Suddenly, aloneness didn't seem nearly so enticing as it had mere moments before. She decided to take a shower, and then watch TV for a while.

Then at least there would be other voices to drown out the ones that told her she'd handled everything wrong since her spectacular return from death.

*****

Giles got out of the shower and began to towel himself off, still humming a mournful old song. He hoped whoever had the next room didn't mind his shower serenade. Music had always been an outlet for him; a way to put emotions in perspective. Most of the songs lately had been either very sad or very angry, and some were both. Tonight, there was no room for anger in his heart, so they were merely sad.

In some ways, going on a date with Buffy had only made things worse for him. If she retreated into her hard shell, he would only suffer more for having seen that the real person - the woman he'd known and loved for so long - was still in there. It was easier when he could pretend she wasn't; that Willow's spell had brought her back without a soul, or had brought back something that looked and sounded like Buffy but wasn't actually her. He knew the real Buffy would never have surrendered herself so completely to Spike's thrall. The real Buffy would never be capable of so completely ignoring the safety of everyone around her for the sake of someone so dangerous.

Except for that little voice in his head that reminded him she'd done it before.

'But sadly, I must remind you that Angel tortured me...for hours...for pleasure. You should have told me he was alive and you didn't. You have no respect for me, or the job I perform.'

"At least then she didn't bring him to my door and tell me to look after him," he muttered as he pulled on his boxers. "And in her way...she was right in everything but not telling us. Angel...did turn out to be useful. He did help us. Had already helped us when I said that to her." He looked in the mirror. "How often have her instincts saved us all when logic argued a completely different course of action?"

He resolutely turned off his brain and reached for his toothbrush. Perhaps before he turned in for the night, he'd see what mindless film was on the prominantly advertised premium cable channel the hotel offered for free.

*****

"What do you think they're doing now?" Amanda asked the circle.

"Doing? Probably each other," Rona said.

"No way," Dawn said. "He's way too old. She wouldn't. Not with him."

"She's already done a vampire. I don't care what she says, she and Spike have something going. They're too...vibey."

"But that's totally of the past, guys," Dawn protested. "And what about Principal Wood?"

"What about him?" Molly asked. "I don't think she's going to see him again soon - that way. But Giles...well...I think she really likes him. Not that I blame her. He is rather handsome."

"But he's her Watcher," another girl objected. "Would any of you have done it with yours? I know I wouldn't."

"Mine wasn't my type," Kennedy said. "A little too male."

"Mine was a little too female for me," said another girl.

"I never had one," Amanda added. "I didn't even know what a Slayer was until the night I found out I could be one."

"I did," Rona said. The rest of the room fell silent. "What? Like you're all virgins, saving it for the wedding night. Right. It's no big."

"No big?" Dawn squeaked. "How can you say that? What happened?"

"Look, it was him and me against the world as long as I could remember. Then, a few months ago...we got closer. He said it happened all the time between Slayers and their Watchers. And before you can ask, it was my idea. Then a Bringer came. Brian told me to run here. So I ran. That's the last I ever saw of him. Brave, huh? I didn't even stay long enough to see if I could save him."

"You got out," Kennedy said. "That was what he wanted."

"And Buffy always says, the most important thing in Slaying is don't die," Dawn added comfortingly. "You didn't."

"What does it matter?" she shot back. "We're all just sitting here like trapped rats, while Buffy goes out and has dinner and a movie, like some ordinary person. What if something comes for us while she's out on the town?"

"Then we kick its ass," Kennedy shrugged. "What do you think all the training's been for? We haven't spent all this time living, training, and working together to just curl up and die without a fight."

"You know," Amanda said slowly, "I don't think we've all really talked much. I don't even know everybody's name yet. Does that seem wrong to anyone else? We train, and we listen to lectures, and we all hide here, but I don't know what anyone else misses about before. Shouldn't we know something about each other?"

"I think we all know a bit more about Rona," Molly said. "Maybe we should all take turns telling something about ourselves. Make up for lost time."

"Okay," Dawn said, "I'll start."

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