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

"Is it bad?"

"It's completely smashed."

"Damn, Anya, you really meant business."

They gather round, looking down at the damage done.

"I'm sorry about that, Buffy. I'll pay for restitution."

Buffy sighs and studies the big crack in the counter that Anya left when she tried (and failed) to smash her amulet.

"I'm just saying, you could have taken it outside and tried smashing it on the driveway, is all."

Anya frowns, staring at her intact amulet. "Do you think I should try it again with something... sharper, perhaps? Or heavier? Do you have an iron skillet?"

"I don't think you should destroy it. That whole teleporting thing is way cool," Dawn interjects, munching on an open box of cereal. Buffy raises her eyebrows at her younger sister.

"What? I just mean, she helped out a lot as a vengeance demon yesterday. Could come in handy down the road."

Buffy looks at Anya, a question in her eyes. "She does have a point. A twisted point, but a point nonetheless. Maybe you could wait a bit? Think it over?"

"I don't want to hurt people anymore," Anya says. She wants to talk to Giles about this, she realizes. He'd know what to say. She puts the amulet around her neck, then hides it under her shirt. She could do that. She could think it over.

"I'm going to the store now, " she says, needing to be away suddenly. It is too strange, too hard, being this close to Xander after everything has happened. He seems to sense this, and his eyes are sad as he looks at her.

"Do you need help?" he offers.

"No," Anya says quickly. Too quickly. She smiles a little. "No, but thanks. You stay with Buffy and Dawn."

Xander almost looks relieved. Anya feels like she is looking at someone she knew a long time ago, when she was a very different person. She leaves quickly, confused by her feelings. It is odd, she thinks as she walks down the sidewalk in the warm morning sun, how a near-death experience and a few incredible kisses can change a girl's perspective on things.

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

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

Anya watches Buffy read the poem as she stands by Tara's grave. It is a lovely day, and Anya feels the sting of tears in the back of her eyes as she looks at the coffin. Tara's family refused to come, but there are many friends from the university there, and teachers, and of course, Buffy, Dawn, and Xander. Xander stands with his arm around Dawn, who is crying. Giles could not make it back for the funeral. He had called Buffy this morning and said the flight was delayed, and teleporting was out of the question. For him. A one-time-only deal apparently. She wishes she could lend him the power, because she knows he wanted to be here.

Overhead, birds sing, too happy a sound for this occasion, but suddenly Anya has a flashback of she and Tara sitting at the table in the Magic Box thumb wrestling. Such a stupid memory to have right now, but it makes her smile anyway. Tara had looking at her quietly but with that devilish spark in her eye as she won yet another round. Tara's hand in hers as they thumb wrestled. She'd never held a friend's hand before as a human. Not for a thousand years, at least. And it felt really nice.

Afterwards there is a small gathering at Buffy's house. Anya is glad they weren't all forced to wear black. Buffy said, rightly so, that Tara wouldn't have liked that. It looks more like a regular party than a funeral. Students and faculty tell stories of Tara in class, of how she slowly came out of her shell and spoke up as the semesters went on, of how intelligent she was, how kind. Anya suddenly remembers making fun of Tara's stutter when she first met her, and she feels a terrible shame.

"What is that poem you read?" Dawn asks Buffy as they clean up after the last guest has gone. Anya finds herself staying and helping without being asked. Lately Anya doesn't know what to make of herself and her strange behavior. Utterly confusing, but she realizes she likes it.

"It's an Emily Dickinson poem. I remember Willow saying how much Tara liked Emily Dickinson. I found the book upstairs, and that poem was highlighted. It seemed... like the right one." Buffy's eyes are sad but her voice is calm.

"I'm nobody, who are you?" Anya murmurs. Xander, who is helping with the clean-up, raises his eyebrows quizzically. Anya smiles sadly at the memory. "Something Tara and I used to joke about together," she explains. "She told me it was something Emily Dickinson wrote. Sometimes, we sort of felt.... like outsiders here. We were the nobodys, so we'd ask each other that every once in a while."

Xander frowns. "You weren't... aren't... an outsider, An. You aren't a nobody."

"I know that now. I didn't feel that way then. Neither did she at first. That's all." Her throat is becoming tight. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want to remember these things right now." Anya turns and walks out of the living room, her head starting to pound.

Later she sits in the darkness of the Magic Box, behind the counter, weeping. She weeps for Tara, for herself, for all the people she hurt and destroyed over the centuries, even for Willow, who may never recover. She is unacquainted with guilt and unaccustomed to so much sorrow. First Joyce, now Tara, and God knows who is next. She doesn't know anything anymore, but she knows it feels good to cry for some stupid human reason, so she lets herself cry where no one can see her.

"Anya, darling, don't cry."

That voice. That voice that has haunted her for the past few days. She looks up. Giles is leaning over the counter, looking down at her. Upside-down Giles, here, offering her a handkerchief. Did he call me darling?

"Thank you," she says, taking the handkerchief and blowing her nose loudly. She remembers Xander correcting her for doing that once. Giles doesn't correct her, only smiles.

"What on earth are you doing here all alone tonight?" Giles asks, coming around to join her behind the counter, putting down a bag. He reaches a hand out to help her up, and she lets him.

"I'm always alone. It's all right. This is where I've been staying," she says. "We buried Tara today."

"I know. The plane just got in. I'm so sorry I missed it."

"They... they had an open casket. I never saw one of those before. She looked peaceful. She looked so pretty, Giles." She is crying again, huge sobs that make her shake. Her face is buried in the handkerchief because she is embarrassed to be crying like this, but Giles doesn't seem to mind. "I thought it was a disgusting thing to do, have an open casket. But Dawn... when Tara died... Buffy said she sat with the body and saw it turn cold. She saw Tara with all the blood on her. We didn't want that to be the last image she had of her. And I'm glad I got to see her one more time, Giles. I'm glad."

The last part of her sentence is muffled because Giles has pulled her to him and holds her while she cries.

"I'm getting your shirt all wet," she mumbles, breathing in his wonderful scent that somehow calms her. She closes her eyes and lets herself feel, for a moment, safe.

"Don't worry. I'll take the dry cleaning bill out of the Magic Box account."

"Well, I really don't think that's necess..." Anya looks up. "Wait, that was sarcasm, wasn't it?"

He nods. He is still holding her.

"I'm terrible with the sarcasm thing," she sighs. "I don't really understand it. I always find it saves time and energy to get straight to the point and why did you come here first?"

"What?"

Anya pulls back slightly. She looks at Giles' suitcase on the floor. "You came here straight from the airport. You didn't go to Buffy's first?"

"No, I... I... this is on the way from the airport and... and Buffy had mentioned that you had been staying here so I wanted to make sure..."

He is so, so adorable when he is at a loss for words, she thinks.

"You came to see me first. I'm never first," she says with wonder and true confusion.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," he says quietly. He meets her eyes then and she forgets how to breathe.

"Really? Me too," she says, the truth just blurting out. Then the truth continues.

"I would worry about Willow and mourn for Tara and then I'd be ashamed because I would remember kissing you," he says. They are still holding each other, and she can feel his heart pounding.

"Like you said, Anya, it saves time and energy to get straight to the point," Giles says, his hands now in her hair, his eyes so intense as they stare into hers.

"Then let's get to the point," she says quickly, and she kisses him.

"I'm sorry I left so abruptly," he says, kissing her back. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you."

She shakes her head, smiling. Her hands are unbuttoning his shirt with a will of their own. "It doesn't matter now. You're back."

And then there isn't much talking after that.

Part 5

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