Seeking Vengeance

 Chapter 13 - Fighting Back

It's not a word I've ever been comfortable with hearing used in connection with me. Even in relation to the chip, I couldn't stand to be called impotent. But seeing my girls, and the mess they were in, that's how I felt. I don't know what I could've done if I'd been around, but I just felt sure there would've been something, and I would've done anything I could do to make things better for them.

The Bit was terrified. Her shoplifting had seemed like a bit of harmless fun, just a way to seem cool, something other than the boring kind of girl whose father left and whose sister didn't seem to care. The truth of her situation had now been made clear to her. In the car, on the way back home, Keller had been trying to get Dawn to admit that she was miserable at home and wanted to go somewhere better, somewhere she'd be looked after 'properly'.

Of course, she'd argued, told Keller that she wanted to stay with Buffy, but Keller wasn't convinced. What neither of the sisters knew was that she'd re-started efforts to find Hank Summers.

Buffy just felt guilty. When she was feeling down, she felt guilty about not being glad to be back, and that just made her more depressed. It seemed she couldn't do anything to make things better, and the financial situation was just getting worse. There was no money coming in, and the money Giles had given her was almost gone.

She'd looked in the newspaper a couple of times, checking out the job ads, but that had only depressed her further. The only jobs available to someone without qualifications paid so little, that she couldn't see how she could keep things afloat even while working. She had Dawn and herself to feed and clothe, utility bills to pay, the house to maintain, and one disadvantage of being the Slayer was that house maintenance was a major expense. Even I struggled to count the number of doors that had needed to be replaced, windows that'd been broken, furniture shattered .. it was what you might call an occupational hazard.

Despite all that, she made up her mind to try. If there's one thing my girl is, she's a fighter. When Keller left, Xander took her up to see Dawn, and then using tact that I didn't know he possessed, he left them together. After the tears, she explained to Dawn that they couldn't afford to do anything else wrong. She would have to go to school without fail, and make sure to hand homework in on time. She wouldn't be going to the mall alone again for a while. They still didn't know what the final outcome of Dawn's arrest would be, but the least they could expect would be having to pay for what had been stolen.

Willow came in while the girls were talking. Xander had filled her in on what had happened, but if the seriousness of everything sank in, it didn't look like it. She'd eventually managed to work out how to return Amy to human form, and the two had gone out to get something to eat and to chat about magic. It was obvious that Amy was excited about the things Willow had done, and that excitement had infected Willow. Now that she had someone who supported her, she felt vindicated as far as her use of magic was concerned. To Willow, it just proved that Giles and Tara were wrong.

Her mood was dangerously upbeat when she came in. She didn't make any attempt to talk to Buffy, but instead headed for her room so that she and Amy could talk some more.

When the news arrived a few days later that the stores involved in Dawn's shoplifting had agreed to take the advice of Social Services and would not be pressing charges, both my girls and the Whelp were relieved. I'm not sure about Anya. I suspect she just thought in terms of someone stealing from her, and she felt that paying retrospectively for the things she'd stolen was getting off very lightly. Of course, it was a big deal to Buffy. Paying the bill meant using most of the money they had.

Buffy decided to talk to Anya about money. She was oblivious to the tension she had inadvertently caused between her and Xander. Still, to give Anya credit, she did as she was asked. Of course, the fact that Buffy went to the shop while Xander was at work was probably the deciding factor.

Anya's first bit of advice didn't go down too well. She suggested Buffy charge people for saving them. When they got down to detail, and Anya realised that Willow and Tara hadn't been paying any rent, she immediately suggested they do something about that. Other than that, Anya didn't have a lot to suggest.

It took a while before Buffy was able to speak to Willow. That conversation didn't go very well. Buffy's confidence had taken so many knocks since she came back, not least the whole business of being, from her point of view, pulled out of heaven because she didn't deserve it. She waited until Willow was alone - something that was becoming harder and harder to find. When she wasn't at school, the witch was spending all her time with Amy.

Willow's reaction was one of shock. She couldn't believe that Buffy would ask such a thing. She sputtered a bit, then pointed out that she and Tara had only moved into the house to look after Dawn. The implication was that it was a favour to Buffy, conveniently ignoring the fact that Buffy had been dead at the time. And anyway, if it'd been such an imposition, they could've asked me. I mean, I spent half my life there looking after the Bit anyway.

The next thing she said just made it worse.

"And," she added, "I'm still paying for my room at college. I can't get out of that until next semester. I just don't have money to pay for both with books and everything else I need. If you feel I've got to pay, then maybe I'll just have to move back there."

I've been angry with Willow before. After that spell - the one which caused Buffy and me to be engaged, and even more so after she brought Buffy back, but this was worse than before. It seemed to me that she was kicking Buffy in the teeth. Willow'd never been known to be short of cash. I mean, yeah, she was living on an allowance from her parents, but it didn't stop her from having a pretty good social life, and she spent a lot of money at the Magic Box when she couldn't help herself to ingredients from under Anya's nose.

She was banking on Buffy not wanting her to go and she was right. Willow had been of approximately no use to Buffy up till then, but Buffy was so used to relying on Willow for things, most of all for friendship, that she couldn't bear to lose her.

About that time, Buffy managed to find a job. It wasn't much, just doling out burgers for a local chain, and Anya shook her head when she heard about it. She knew that the expenses of keeping Dawn and the house going were going to spend money faster than she could earn it there.

Of course, the Whelp was nowhere to be seen during that time. He'd managed to keep his promise, and had stayed away.

Now, there were a couple of interesting things happening with the others just then. First, there was Anya. She'd been having visits from D'Hoffryn, but, because it didn't immediately concern either Buffy or Dawn, I didn't know what was behind them. That turned out to be very important later.

The other thing was Willow. Amy was the opposite kind of influence that Tara had been. Where Tara encouraged moderation and responsibility, Amy encouraged excess fostered Willow's own belief that what she was doing was harmless.

Certainly, Willow had felt she was running the Scoobies while Buffy was gone. She did take responsibility for whatever planning needed to be done, even taking on part of the role that Giles would normally have had. She'd always been someone others could ask for advice, and I think she'd come to believe she couldn't be wrong. The whole resurrection spell had certainly given her a massive boost in self-confidence, something that was hardly needed at that point.

So, from her point of view, Buffy needed to be brought back from heaven. The fact that the circumstances were different to what Willow believed at the time only caused a passing regret. She still believed that Buffy needed to be back, and she couldn't, and didn't try to understand how Buffy felt about that.

She probably didn't really understand Buffy's financial situation either. She knew that the money had been running out when they brought Buffy back, but she'd ignored the problem after that.

As far as Tara was concerned, what Willow had done was aimed at making Tara happy, so it couldn't be wrong. Amy was encouraging Willow to believe that Tara was simply being ungrateful in the same way Buffy was ungrateful for being brought back. Giles was dismissed as jealous of Willow's power for his reservations about the resurrection. The end result was that Willow believed that she knew best, and that those who criticised her had no right to do so.

What Willow couldn't see was that Amy wasn't happy either. She really didn't believe the story that Willow had suddenly known how to bring her back, and thought it more likely that she'd just left her conveniently ratty until she was needed. Now that she was back, Amy was doing her best to help Willow to along a road that wasn't going to benefit any of them in the end.