Title: Home For The Holidays
Author: Gileswench

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

Buffy rolled her eyes and gave a short, breathy laugh.

"You know what they say; timing is everything, and my timing sucks big time. Speaking of which, just when I'm feeling extra vulnerable, along comes stinky Parker Abrams into my life - and out of it again before you could say 'wham, bam, thank you, ma'am'. So that made two times I gave myself to a guy and woke up to find myself alone and unwanted. A joke. Little Miss Why Would Anyone Go There Twice. And you weren't taking me seriously, like you did back in High School. And Xand had a new job every week, and Will and Oz were totally joined at the hip - until he left. And she was so into the whole witch deal. And Anya came back for Xander. I was feeling pretty left out, myself. And before you can say it, I know I brought at least some of it on myself, but I wasn't the only one. It wasn't exactly like I wasn't getting the message that everybody had things going on that were more important than me. It took all of us to make things so bad that year. I think it's time the blame was spread a little more evenly. So, there I am. You're answering the call of the wild with a gorgeous supermodel type, Xander and Anya are thumping like bunnies, Will's in pit of despair mode forever after Oz, and then she won't tell any of us about Tara for months, and there's Buffy, the cheese that stands alone. None of my friends was really there for me anymore, my mom turned my bedroom into a warehouse for gallery leftovers, and of the two men I'm interested in, one is in LA and has this really inconvenient anti-sex curse, and the other is shacking up with Tyra Banks. I needed something that was mine. Someone for me."

"Riley."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Riley. I tried not to go there for a long time, even though a lot of me wanted to go there a whole lot. I was scared. And I think he was always a lot more into me than the other way around. The thing that really put it over the top and made me decide to try anyway was that he seemed to be a younger version of you."

"Of me?" Giles blurted out. "What on Earth do you mean?"

"Safe guy. Someone to look out for me and watch my back and slay the imaginary demons when I got through with the real ones. Someone who'd be there for me no matter what. Someone who could take charge when I wanted him to, but would want me to be my best, too. Plus, he was pretty cute and so tall he made me feel all girly. I like that. And I knew Mom would approve, and you guys all seemed to get along with him and he hunted demons, too. It was comfortable. Besides, I felt like I owed him."

"Buffy, you never owed Riley anything except honesty."

"Sure I did. I messed up his entire life. I destroyed his mission."

"You saved humanity from an abomination."

"I took away his Giles." She stood and began to pace the room. "Maggie Walsh was his mentor, his Yoda, his everything. Sort of like you are to me. I'm the one who told him she was nuts and had to be stopped."

"She's the one who tried to kill you," Giles pointed out. "You could hardly keep that from him. And as I recall, he was singularly unsympathetic with your situation."

"How would I have reacted if he'd told me you'd tried to kill him?" Buffy asked. "'Cause I'm not so sure I'd have been very supportive then, either. But that's sort of not the point. The point is, I made his world wrong and not safe and turned it upside down. He lost everything. All he had left was me."

"Did he really have you, Buffy?" Giles asked.

She looked at the floor.

"Not really, no. What's more, he knew that better than I did. You know how not self aware I can be when I put my mind to it. So, I took a perfectly nice guy and turned him into a psychobunny, all because I wanted the safe guy who wouldn't get in my way."

"I don't recall you telling him about how to find a suck house. And he's the one who left while your mother was in hospital."

"And it was all about getting through to me," she countered. "You know the whole time I was with him, I never once cried in front of him? I never let him in; never really committed to him. Not all the way. And I never once said I loved him - well, not to him, anyway. I said it to Angel, but I was really, really pissed off with him at the time. I just wanted to hurt him. I couldn't lie to Riley like that. And see what it did? That was really successful."

"So you think Riley has no responsibility in this? He chose to do those things. He chose to stay despite the fact he knew you weren't in love with him. He chose to pay vampires to suck his blood. He chose to leave you when you were vulnerable and blame it on you."

Buffy looked at him narrowly.

"And I know somebody else who did the same damn thing," she said quietly. "Not the suck house thing, but the other. Glass houses, Giles."

"No it's bloody well not the same," he returned vehemently. "Riley left because he didn't feel needed; because he wanted you to lean on him whether you needed to or not. I left because of the unhealthy way you were leaning on me. It was that or let your needs destroy us both. You were using me, Buffy. I don't blame you at all. After what you'd been through, what had been done to you, there was no way I could expect you to be yourself. It felt as though I was tearing my heart out, but I left anyway. I knew it would be difficult for you. I knew you would make some painful mistakes, but if I stayed and tried to help you, I would only have made matters worse. Riley left because you couldn't weaken yourself to meet his needs. I left because staying would have allowed you to be weaker than you are. I knew you would never become the strong, independent woman you are if I stayed and let you be a little girl." He stopped and ducked his head in embarrassment. "Sorry. I've had that on my chest for far too long. And, while we're being completely honest, I must admit I didn't want to feel like Humbert Humbert, and I was beginning to, a bit. I wanted to be with you. Lord help me, but I was actually jealous of Riley for a very long time."

"And Riley was so busy being jealous of Spike that he never noticed you were the one I was spending all my time with," she added with a lopsided smile.

"Which brings us to the question of why the hell you chose Spike as a substitute for me," Giles reminded her. "I must say, I'm not flattered by the comparison."

"You shouldn't be," Buffy admitted. "But somehow, after I got back and before you got back, he sort of became my safe person. I couldn't tell Will and the others what they'd done to me. I couldn't tell Dawn and make her think I didn't want to be with her - which I didn't and she knew it, but I didn't want to say it. I wanted to protect her. So I was busily trying to protect everybody and Spike wasn't part of the gang and he was always there. He was the only one who seemed to actually care about what I was feeling. Maybe he did care, I don't know. Then you got back and I thought I was safe again. But you were always pushing me to do stuff I couldn't handle - or at least, I thought I couldn't. And you looked so thrilled to see me - like someone gave you your heart back on a silver plate - I couldn't tell you I wanted to be gone. And I didn't think I deserved you. Not when I hated my friends for bringing me back. Not while I couldn't cope with Dawn. But Spike was always there, and I didn't care what he thought of me. And he still wanted me, even knowing what a complete mess I was. And I wanted to feel."

She went silent for a long moment.

"Feel what?" Giles prompted at last.

Buffy shrugged and toyed with an ornament on the mantelpiece.

"Anything," she said bluntly. "Anything at all. Love, hate, anger, disgust, pain, humiliation, it didn't really matter to me. And if it was Spike who made me feel it, I could pretend I didn't care. I could pretend it wasn't going to happen again; that I didn't need it. That I didn't want it. And I could pretend it didn't matter that I was using him as much as he was using me. I could have used you that way. I knew if I asked it of you, you'd be there for me. And you have no idea how much I wanted it to be you who made me feel something. If I'd put my mind to it, you would have crumbled. You would have slept with me. You would have let me use you and never said a word about it."

"Then why Spike?"