The day I find out about Darla and Angel, I don't get mad. I don't throw things or yell. No shouting. Nothing, nada… silence.

Xander tells me. He and Will went to LA to tell Angel about my Mom. They saw everyone and everyone saw them. Cordy told them Angel fucked Darla. That he slept with her and had some epiphany. He decided the dark side wasn't for him and got all nice. Cordy made it seem fine. Is it fine? Maybe it's just me. Me that's weird. That's not getting with our new reality.

They come back and break the news. They stare at me as if they expect I will break down and weep. They stare at me as if they think I should be crying.

I just stand there and accept it with dead eyes. Accept. It. Angel and you aren't meant to be. Accept that, Buffy.

“Oh really? That's fine. Don't care.”

They smile. They're glad I don't care because that means they don't have to care.

I sit down, and my mind is whirling. My flesh lies against my bones, icy and numb. Did he kiss her? Make her wet? Of course he did… what am I thinking, it's Angel. He who walks the night. He with the eyes and the half smile and the body that makes you hungry. Makes me hungry.

I remember the nights I would lie in bed beside Riley and wish to be in a cemetery, kissing, breathless. Wish for anything… anything but the deadness my life had become.

I go home because my stomach starts to hurt. I sit in my room and sort of stare out the window. Kids are playing outside and I watch them for a while. My eyes are dry and burning, empty in my throbbing skull. Darla and Angel. Angel and Darla. Good for them. He should be happy. He should have someone. Yeah, right. No, he shouldn't. Isn't that what I always thought though? I secretly believed he would mourn me and our stupid doomed love forever. I sometimes imagined him drawing my picture over and over. Sitting in his room wherever he was and thinking of me, thinking of me. Me, Buffy Summers.

Who are you?

Let's just say…I'm a friend.

Yeah, well maybe I don't want a friend. (Maybe I want you to be here for me, and hold me and love me forever. Is that too much to ask? To be here? And not leave… )

I didn't say, I was yours

Darla has blonde hair like me. I think about that for a while. Was it blurry while he had sex with her? Was it just enough that he could pretend…? For a second I stare at the cracked paint on the windowsill and think that I should get someone to slap a fresh coat over it. All of the things I worry about now. All the extra little details which consume my life since Mom died and left me with adulthood.

~~~

The street is dark and my footfalls light as I stalk down into the cemetery. Grass crunches beneath my boots. I look up and see a stone angel gazing down at me with blind eyes (If I was blind I would see you…). I give her the finger and continue on.

I open the door and let it fall with a heavy crash. “Spike.”

He sits up then and his face is not surprised. He leans back indolently in bed and stares at me with crazy eyes. Those eyes that drive me crazy. “What can I do for you, Summers?”

There is nothing to say. Nothing that would make sense. Besides, I'm scared that if I start talking the tears will mess it all up. So I walk over and kiss him as hard as I can, my lips gasping over his. He is startled and almost pulls away. But there my hands are, grasping and hard. My fingers are made to kill people like him. I can hold him in place.

He opens my coat and makes a strange sound when he sees that I'm naked underneath. I feel his thumb on my nipple and bite back a whimper.

Wrenching back the covers, I fall on top of him, our naked bodies meshing in a way that feels so good I almost scream. In control, have to be in control of this. He is cool and I am hot and everything gets messy and confused. It hurts when he slams into me but I like it and my insides beg for more. His fingers bite into my hips and he keeps kissing my neck and breasts. I think he is trying to devour me and throwing my head back, I let him. Eat me up and spit me out, baby, cause there's nothing left. Nothing left but me in the end. Just me.

As I move on him, his cock throbs inside me and I start to cry. Tears fall down my cheeks and drip like blood onto his lips. Our eyes lock and his suddenly go bright with realization. He holds me then, turning me over and moving slowly, opening my legs wide.

“Slayer…” he moans and it makes me laugh even as sob and whimper with lust and desire and the need to forget. Slayer… that's what I am to him. Another conquest, another kill. Sweat pours from my skin as we writhe the bed, each trying to find some victory, some sense of purpose.

But in the end, all there is, is a girl and a guy… fucking wildly on clean sheets. In the dark, furtive and feverish. His bleached hair glinting, my eyes hungry. Spike and Buffy. It's really a joke, it has to be. This isn't me, cause I would never do something like this.

My insides squeeze him and he comes inside me in a rush that heats me up like fire. My breasts pillow his face for a moment and then he rolls away.

He lights a cigarette and blows smoke out casually. His arms aren't around me and I just lie there, replete, skinny, my belly rising and falling with each breath. I feel sore, used, dirty… and I feel good. So good.

“Why'd you do it, blondie?” he asks me then, and his voice isn't really curious, cause he probably already knows. Good news sure travels fast.

“Cause I wanted to dance…” I whisper and touch his flat stomach, right where the soft hair arrows down to his thighs. He slants me a Spike devil grin and grabs my fingers, bringing them to his mouth.

As he leans down to kiss me again, his lips blow smoke into my mouth.

I lick my lips, but I don't taste like ashes. I taste sweet, salty, slightly bitter. Like revenge. End.