Chapter
2.01
Thursday, May 16th, 2002
Xander hovered anxiously outside the bathroom
door for several seconds before he turned on his heel, picked
up his apartment keys and headed out. He got as far as turning
the handle of the front door before he broke and turned back.
"Ahn, honey, don't cry. Please don't cry."
"Why?" Anya's wail couldn't quite be muffled
by the door. "Isn't that allowed when a woman's husband leaves
her?"
"Ahn! I'm not leaving you." Xander gave an exasperated
sigh. "Why would you think I'm leaving you?"
"Oh, that's right. I suppose you'll be kicking
me out instead."
"Anya, what are you talking about?" By now Xander
stood with his ear to the door trying to catch what his wife was
saying between sniffs.
"She's not gay, you know. She says she is, but
you don't just grow up being all attracted to men and then suddenly,
whoosh attracted to women instead. She might prefer sex with women,
and be more inclined towards finding a female partner but if she
were totally gay instead of bisexual, she would never have been
attracted to you and Oz in the first place. I hope you'll both
be very happy."
"Alright, Anya, this is getting surreal. Would
you please come out of the bathroom so we can talk about this."
"No."
Xander looked heavenward and muttered a plea
for patience. "Why not? We obviously need to talk and I'd much
rather be able to see your face while I do it."
"No, you wouldn't."
"Yes, I would. I love your face."
"Not when it's all red and puffy."
"Even when it's all red and puffy. Please, hon,
come out. Come talk to me."
"So that you can tell me how much you like Willow
again?"
"No, so you can tell me why you think I would
ever leave you."
"You hate me." Anya gulped through what were
obviously more tears.
"Ahn, I don't hate you. Why would you think I
hate you?"
"You hate demons. You said you would be nice
to my friends, so I brought Evie home, but you were just like
normal. You can't help it. You just hate us all, and now that
Tara won't be staying with Willow, I guess you two will be free
to do all the footsie stuff you haven't done yet."
"Anya, Willow might be free. She might or might
not be gay. I'm kind of inclined to think she might actually know
her own mind on that one. I'm not and I don't want to be."
"Well, if you were gay you wouldn't be leaving
me for Willow, you'd be leaving me for one of the guys on your
construction crew or Spike. You were attracted to Spike."
"I was never attracted to Spike. I meant
I'm not free. I'm not free. I'm married to you, and if I'm very
lucky I will be until I die."
Another loud gulp came from beyond the door.
"Then why did you lie about being nice to my friends?"
"I didn't lie. I—"
"You said you would be nice to my friends."
"Yes, but—"
"And you weren't. So you lied. I think you were
worried about being left all alone, but now you don't need me
because you'll have Willow, till she ages herself to death, at
least."
"Now, see, that's why I wasn't nice to Evie.
I don't generally sit and have a beer with people who want to
kill my friends."
"Pfft! If Evie had wanted to kill Willow you'd
be ordering flowers for the funeral already. She's never been
one for the kill. More the embarrassing situations and stuff.
That's why she was so tee-ed off at Willow and her more powerful
than thou attitude."
"Look, Ahn. Why don't you unlock the door, come
on out and explain exactly what happened from the beginning? Please...
Maybe once I know what's going on I'll be giving you a nice big
apology."
"And maybe, we'll just argue about it all over
again."
Xander played his trump card. "Or maybe I'll
admit I was totally wrong and we'll have make up sex. The kind
where I prove again and again exactly how sorry I am."
"And you'll write a full letter of apology to
Evie and invite her over for dinner or something?"
"If I'm convinced that I made a mistake."
"Really?"
"Really."
"And you're not just saying that?"
"I'm not just saying that."
"And next time you have to choose between Willow
and me or Buffy and me, you'll choose me as if you were really
my husband?"
"Ahn. That's not—" The stony silence from the
other side of the door made him shut him up before he could protest
about the unfairness of having to give such a guarantee. "I am really your husband." Xander changed tack, sounding puzzled as
the second half of what Anya had said sunk in.
"Then, you'll back me up like a husband should?
Like I deserve? Instead of treating me like my opinion's worthless.
We get to have a proper marriage? Because right now you act like
you're the chief executive and Willow and Buffy are the junior
partners and I'm just the stock boy. You never listen to me."
"I want to listen to you now."
"And what happens if when I tell you what happened,
you understand my viewpoint, but you don't actually agree with
it?"
"Then I apologise for being a total boor instead
of being an idiot. You still get the make up sex and your friend
gets a slightly less grovelly letter of apology for me being rude,
even if I wasn't wrong."
There was a click as Anya unbolted the door.
Xander noticed as she drew the door open just a crack that she
was right. Her face was all red and puffy. He didn't care a bit.
"Come here," he asked her softly, holding his
arms wide. "You are my number one girl. You are the one I come
home to. You are the one I hold in my arms before I go to sleep.
You're the one I dream about. It's your face that I see when I
wake up in the morning. It's your voice that makes me smile when
you call me at work.
Willow and Buffy are important to me. I guess
I'm kind of hoping, recent mistakes not withstanding, that we'll
always be friends, but you are my wife. Maybe I got cold
feet first time around, but that was because of how seriously
I take those vows that we made. If I was the kind of guy who could
go into marriage thinking that if it didn't work out we could
get a divorce somewhere down the line, then there would have been
no reason for me to back out. I'm not. I made those vows for life,
and I will do whatever it takes to make this marriage work.
I love you. I may not show it very well, but if you can be patient
with me when I do something stupid, I'll never stop trying to
make things right."
He kissed her on the forehead; a chaste and reassuring
caress. Anya tilted her head back and returned the kiss with an
equally tender one on his lips before she led him through to the
bedroom where they curled together fully clothed as she began
her tale.
"I guess it kind of goes back to the meeting
after the engagement party. You know, if you'd gone..."
Xander kissed the back of her neck. "I'll go
to the next one, wherever it is, okay?"
"Well, we all discussed what to do about Riley
and the Initiative listening in. It turns out that after we all
talked it over and decided to wait, Willow decided she knew best,
and that's sort of your fault because you always let her tell
you what you should do, so she sent an email to Sam, instead."
"So, is it your turn to tell me what a bad witch
I am?" Willow glared at her friend, who surprisingly found a wet,
trembling nose pressing into her hand. It seemed that the dog
might be scared witless by Willow, but she still wasn't prepared
to leave any of her new 'family' alone with the witch.
"No. That's not why I'm here." Buffy leant against
the doorframe at one side while her other hand scratched the puppy
behind the ears, trying to reassure the beast, who stood with
her tail tucked right down between her legs.
"Then, why are you here? To tell me I lost out
on a personality contest between me and a dog?"
"Will, you know that's not what happened."
"Isn't it? You're moving me out so that you can
move the dog in."
"We couldn't just leave it to get picked up and
taken back to the pound."
Willow affected a nonchalant shrug. "It's where
it came from."
"I'd never have guessed," Buffy replied, Willow's
hostility pushing her into sarcastic mode. "Look, I have to think
about Dawn's welfare first and foremost. You have a tremendous
gift, but right now you don't seem to be using it responsibly.
I know, whether you live here or not, it doesn't actually make
a difference. If you wanted to, you could wipe us all out with
hardly any effort at all, but appearances are everything as far
as Dawn feeling secure is concerned. She was only just starting
to come 'round after the whole crash thing. This, on top of what
happened, is just too much to expect her to put up with. She needs
to feel this is a place where she can heal, where she isn't threatened
in any way."
"And you're saying I'm threatening?"
"Not directly. I don't think you would deliberately
set out to harm any of us, but people around you get hurt when
these things go wrong. I can't tell Dawn that she has to share
a house with you under the circumstances, or I should say that
I won't."
"So, it's all for Dawnie's sake, is it?"
Buffy looked at her shoes. "No- No, it isn't.
There are times I don't recognise you. Times, like when I saw
this dog, that I don't think I know what you're capable of.
Spike said you would have had to kill a deer
to get me back. I'm not sure the Willow I remember could have
done that."
"Probably not. I guess we had to make some hard
choices while you were dead."
"No harder than I had to make when I came back,
or is it just coincidence that you got me back on the scene just
as the money ran out?"
"Is that what you think? That I got you back
to make life easier for me?"
"Well, you were certainly too busy wallowing
in your own problems to even notice mine. You could at least have
got me out the damn coffin. Do you have any idea what that is
like? Forget it. There's no way to know unless you have to do
it."
"I'm sorry. We didn't think..."
"Yes, and all your magic is like that lately,
but it's not just the magic that's the problem. We discussed what
we should do about the Initiative. We came to a decision as
a group, to wait things out a bit. You don't have the right
to decide you know better than everyone else. You seem to think
you're equipped to run everyone's life for them, but I'm responsible
for Dawn and her safety. If you wanted the job, you should have
left me in the ground, but then you might have ended up having
to work in a burger bar and quit college."
"It wasn't like that," Willow protested. "We
just didn't realise."
Buffy gave a sigh. "This isn't what I wanted
to say."
"No, but it explains why you haven't been talking
to me all this year. Maybe you should have said it all sooner.
Got it out in the open? So that you didn't have to pretend to
be my friend any more."
"That's not it. I wanted to tell you that I agree
that we had no option but to ask you to move out, but I do still
want to be your friend. I don't know how exactly we can make that
work yet, but when you cool down and you have time to think, I
want you to call me."
Willow continued to glare back at Buffy, but the slayer couldn't tell whether her hostility was genuine or just a surface patina that she kept up as a form of defence.
"Yes, I guess I have issues about last summer
and it probably would have been better to have a rant and clear
the air, but I knew you'd take it personally and I figure a lot
of it is post-grave paranoia... But we've been friends for six years
now. I don't plan on giving up on you if you'll stick with me."
This time Buffy didn't wait for a reply, she
simply backed out of the door, her canine "protector" coming with
her all too gladly.
Xander froze in position when the phone rang.
Anya moaned in protest. "Don't stop. God! Don't stop."
The carpenter threw back the sheet, which had
been covering him, and crawled up his wife's body, stopping to
plant kisses on his wife's abdomen and chest then finally neck
and face as he explained. "It's late, hon. No one would be ringing
after eleven if it wasn't something important. I've got to answer."
He picked up the receiver by the bed just after
the answering machine message had kicked in, cutting it off in
mid-sentence.
"Hi. We're here." He paused to pull a stray hair
from his mouth as he listened to the person on the other end of
the line.
"No... I'm really sorry, but I can't. We're kind
of busy... Well, yes. We were, if you must know... No, it is
not. There is far more to Anya and me than our hormones, and that's
exactly why I can't come and you can't stay here... No, Willow...
It just happens that the one thing that is more important to me
than our friendship is my marriage and since me and Anya have
already had one major row about this whole thing tonight, there
is no way I'm doing anything that's going to lead to another...
Yes, well, we were until you rang. Why don't you go to your parents?...
They did, huh?... What about your bed and all the other stuff from
your room?... The basement?" Despite himself Xander couldn't prevent
a small smile as he remembered Willow's comment, at around the
time she'd split up with Oz. 'You live in a basement? That's
dire.' It sounded like that particular chicken was coming
home to roost.
"Look, Will. I get that you don't want to turn
up on their doorstep at this time of night. Why don't you go to
a motel? The one I went to after the BLF, as you called it, is
kind of a dive, but it's cheap, and if you don't have the cash
I could call and book you a room using my credit card... Well,
I guess I could probably run to wherever Giles is staying, for
one night, if you let me know which one it is, but how come if
Spike already offered you a ride, you were wanting me to come
out?... You think this whole thing is because Spike's turning Dawn
and Buffy against you?" Xander gave Anya an enquiring look, to
which his wife emphatically shook her head.
"Look, I admit I don't know the full story. What
say I come over between when I finish work and when Anya shuts
The Magic Box tomorrow? Then, we can talk... Yes, Willow that is
when I can fit you into my busy schedule, but if you would prefer
me not to come, at all, then just say so... Fine, if that's how
you want it, but don't forget I offered." Xander returned the
phone to its cradle.
"Where were we?" he asked his wife, kissing her
first on the lips and then down the side of her neck.
"You were just about to give me an orgasm, but
I think saying no to Willow was even better. You really chose
me."
"I really did, and unless you're way in the wrong
I'm going to try to make a habit of it. Okay?"
"Well, obviously, I wouldn't expect you to compromise
your integrity."
"I have integrity?" Xander asked in a teasingly
incredulous voice. "Then, I guess I better live up to that promise
I made earlier.
"Which promise was that?" Anya asked.
"The one about making you scream so loud we'll
get complaints from everyone else in the building."
-
Willow packed an overnight bag, throwing in her
laptop, the phone that Buffy had given her, an oversized T-shirt
that she used as a nightshirt and some clothes for the next morning.
She couldn't believe that they had all betrayed
her... Even Xander. Goddess, were they fickle? And both of them
with their crumbs as if she should be glad to take the scraps
of friendship that they offered. Well, maybe she was better off.
Amy would understand. She'd been so holier than thou, sending
Amy away, but of all of them Amy was the one she could trust to
know how she felt.
Well, for now, it would have to be a motel, She
really should have let Xander cough up for Giles' hotel before
she told him he was offering too little too late. She couldn't
change that now, though.
She picked up her bag and made her way downstairs,
before dropping it on the floor and waiting in the hall. The dog's
growl informed everyone that she was there and the chatter that
had been coming from the room fell silent. Spike came through
and picked up the bag, carrying it for her as they made their
way silently to the car. Giles followed him out, taking the front
passenger seat. No one else in the room spoke to her at all. |
