***************************************

Anya stares in the bathroom mirror as if looking at a stranger. Her lips are swollen from kissing and her cheeks are flushed. She smoothes back her hair and attempts to wipe the idiotic grin off her face. She washes her hands and then runs out of the bathroom to go back outside, only to practically collide with Buffy, who is standing, or rather, swaying outside the bathroom door.

“Hi there. Excuse me!” Anya says with forced cheer. Buffy leans her head against Anya’s shoulder.

“Don’t feel good,” Buffy mumbles.

“There there,” Anya says awkwardly, patting Buffy rather roughly on the back.

“When am I ever going to learn?” Buffy groans, grasping Anya’s hand as she moves into the bathroom. With Anya’s help, Buffy sits down on the cool bathroom tile by the toilet. Exasperated, torn, Anya looks down at her pasty-looking friend, then at the door, picturing Giles waiting for her on the porch. I’ll be right back, she had whispered against his lips. Buffy looks up at Anya and smiles gratefully.

“Crap,” Anya sighs, then reaches for a washcloth and runs it under cold water.

“Here you go, Buffy,” Anya says, squatting down. She pushes Buffy’s hair out of her eyes and puts the folded, cool washcloth on her forehead. “How’s that?”

Buffy murmurs something and nods. “Feels good. Thank you, Anya.”

“Is she alright?”

Anya looks up to see Giles standing in the doorway. She stands up and heads toward him, but then stops when she notices he has his jacket on. Why does he have his jacket on? “What? Oh.” Anya looks over her shoulder at Buffy, who appears to be passed out again. “Yes. She’s fine. I was just coming back outside to…”

“I have to go,” Giles cuts her off.

“… see you,” Anya finishes, confused.

“There are things I have to take care of. I should not have put it off. Time for Willow is running out. I need to get to Xander’s and then get her out of here. I just called there and said I was on my way.” Giles is looking at Buffy, not at her. Anya frowns. He sounds so… distant.

“You’re just going to leave? Can’t you wait until morning, when they wake up? Or until you’re better?” Anya wonders if she sounds as disappointed as she feels.

“I’m alright. And I will come back. After I take care of Willow. Tell them that.” Finally he looks at her, and she sees something flicker in his eyes before it is gone. He looks at her patiently, as though she were a child, or a student of his.

Anya draws herself up, smiles coolly. She vowed never again to become an emotional wreck over any man, never again. Besides, it was only a kiss. Or, technically, several kisses, spanning well over an hour. And some touching too. Whatever, as Dawn would say. “Well, have a pleasant trip, then. Excuse me.” She steps past him and goes into the living room.

“Anya…” Giles says, following her.

“Yes?” Anya sits down on the sofa and picks up a month-old TV Guide and pretends to become absorbed by the cover.

“I would not hurt you for the world, I hope you know that.”

Anya laughs, not a pleasant sound. “Don’t worry, Giles. You won’t get the chance. I too know the shame of drunken behavior. We’ll just never speak of it. That’s what we all do, right? Pretend everything’s fine.”

Giles looks down at Dawn’s sleeping form on the floor. He looks at Anya, who is turning pages furiously. “I wasn’t drunk. And I am not ashamed,” he says quietly. When she does not look up, he simply leaves. It takes all of Anya’s willpower not to throw the TV Guide at him, or run after him, or ask him to take her with him, wherever they are going. She does none of these things. The house is silent and feels very empty, and Anya realizes she feels very empty too.

***************************************

She is careful, very careful not to touch him in places where he might still be in pain. He does not want to be careful. His hands are on either side of her face and he kisses her. Her back is pressed against the house and he leans into her, the length of his body covering hers.

“You’re lovely,” he whispers, pulling back to look down at her. Her eyes are so wide as they look up at him, filled with wonder.

“Kiss me again, please,” she breathes.

“If you insist.”

She begins to laugh and he smothers the sound with a kiss.

“Don’t stop. Ever,” Anya murmurs.

“Don’t stop what?”

What was Dawn’s voice doing here? Anya opens one eye. Dawn is standing over her, frowning. Anya turns over on the sofa and tries to fall back asleep, but it is too bright in the room. It is morning.

“Want some coffee? I made coffee. I love sleepovers. Where’s Giles?” Dawn is talking too fast, but Anya finds it oddly endearing.

“Yes to coffee, yay to you making coffee, I’m too old for sleepovers, and Giles is gone.” Anya sits up and stretches. Dawn hands her a mug.

“Gone? You mean gone for good gone? Again?”

“No, no. Just gone as in, having to do something with Willow and he’ll be back soon gone.”

Dawn sits down next to Anya. “Do you think he will? Be back soon, I mean?”

Anya touches her lips gently. Still swollen. She sighs. “I don’t know.”

Anya and Dawn sip their coffee together in companionable silence. When Buffy finally comes downstairs, she looks tired but not too hung over. Dawn hands over her own cup of coffee and Buffy takes a grateful swing. Anya tells them what Giles said before leaving. Buffy nods, her face calm. She seems to understand better than Anya ever could. But then again, Buffy is used to them leaving. All of them, one after another. Anya doesn’t like the feeling at all. First Xander, now this. No, not “now this.” This is nothing like, that. It isn’t. She doesn’t know how she feels about Xander, but she knows she simply CANNOT have feelings for Giles. It is crazy. It is beyond silly. It feels so good. Anya stops her chain of thoughts by standing up quickly and stretching her back. “Well, thanks for letting me sleep here. Now that the Magic Box is demolished I won’t be sleeping in the back room anymore.”

“Is that where you’ve been staying?” Buffy asks.

Anya shrugs. “Why waste good, hard-earned American dollars on a motel room when there’s a perfectly good sofa back there?”

“You must have been so lonely,” Dawn says.

“Hey. Could be worse. I could be lonely and dead.” Her attempt at humor fails to get a laugh, like always. She really has to work on her delivery.

“Well, I’m going to check on the store, see how bad the structural damage is, and all that fun stuff.” Anya needs to get out of this house because since she’s here all she thinks about is Giles and kissing, and then Giles leaving, and she needs to be at her store where she can focus, or at the very least count money.

“Want help?” Xander says from the doorway.

Dawn gives out a yelp of joy and launches at Xander. Buffy follows, joining them in a big group hug. Anya hangs back, her hands clasped in front of her. Over the heads of the Summers girls Xander’s eyes meet Anya’s. She is frozen.

“Hello, ladies. Miss me?” Xander pulls himself away, still looking at Anya. Anya clears her throat, and then it hits her that she gets to see Xander again. He is alive and well. He saved them all. Despite the unfamiliar and unpleasant feelings of guilt and confusion battling away in her stomach, Anya is so relieved to know he is okay. She smiles then, smiles to find herself still a part of this odd group of people, smiles because she is alive and she no longer feels so empty.

***************************************

“Did you see Giles?” Buffy asks as they all file into the kitchen. Anya watches Xander root through the cupboards. He stops and looks at Buffy. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear about… about Willow, but Giles took her away. She isn’t doing well at all. Whatever she went through almost destroyed her. After she stopped crying she just sat in a strange trance, just sweating and feverish and it scared the hell out of me. Giles is taking her back to England, to a coven or something.”

“He said something yesterday about Willow maybe not surviving this.” Buffy looks at Xander. Something passes between them, a look among old friends, mourning the near-loss of one of their best friends. They were the core, the three original Scoobies. Anya never was a part of it, not really, and to tell the truth she doesn’t really mind that anymore. She feels so much older than them, always has.

“Is he gonna, you know, just teleport there with her? Is that possible?”

Xander shrugged. “Giles hardly said anything at all. Except that he’d try to be back for… for Tara’s funeral.”

The funeral. Who is going to plan the funeral? Why does there even have to be a funeral? Why did Tara have to die? Anya feels that same horrible resentment at these human emotions. She thought becoming a vengeance demon again would rid her of all this pain, but it is all there, and it hurts.

“We’ll have to do that today,” Buffy said, her voice sad. “I’ll take care of it. She deserves that.”

Xander looks at Anya and tries to break the tension. “Hey, uh, speaking of teleporting, what’s up with that new skill?”

Anya shrugs. “It’s rather simple, really. If done right. I’ll miss it.”

“Huh?”

Anya takes out the amulet from underneath her shirt and unlatches it. She holds it up, watching the light catch the stone.

Giles said she had a choice. That what she did with her powers was up to her. He believed in her. She looks at Xander and smiles sadly. The pain is gone, she realizes. The pain over him, the reason she became a vengeance demon again. The reasons simply were not there anymore.

“Hand me that frying pan, Buffy,” Anya says, placing the amulet down on the counter. Buffy raises her eyebrows, but does as asked. Anya looks across the counter at them. She smiles.

“Vengeance shmengeance,” she says cheerfully, then smashes the frying pan down on the amulet.

Part 4

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