Buffy was having one of those mornings. Well, it was the afternoon actually but that wasn’t the point. She lay in bed, mostly awake, staring at the ceiling of her room and not wanting to drag herself out of bed. She knew she was wasting the day away and that lounging in bed was lazy and idle and all that but she didn’t much care. It was one of those mornings.

The bed felt cold on either side of her and so she stayed rooted in the spot she had warmed up for herself over the night. The covers were half on the floor, a pillow had spilled off the bed at some point in the night but she couldn’t motivate herself to retrieve it.

She yawned loudly, arching her back and causing the muscles in her entire body to ache wonderfully. Joyce was listening to the TV and the muffled sound of voices mingled surprisingly well with the birdsong coming from outside her window. Buffy turned and looked at that window. The curtains were shut and warm orange sunlight coated the room – not blinding, just illuminating.

It was nice.

It was odd but now that she was just being quiet and still and, hell she’d admit it, lazy as hell she could actually smell her room. Definitely odd. It was like entering a new house and being hit with the inherent smell of the place. The residents who lived there every day couldn’t pick up the scent but someone new, a stranger to the place, could. And now Buffy became aware that her room was a mixture of musk and dust and something else, something sweet – oranges, perhaps? – and that she had never noticed it before.

It was interesting, and also totally inconsequential, she was sure it had something to do with becoming deadened to the world around us. Of being so used to something that it didn’t even register with you anymore. In much the same way as you could guide yourself around your room in the dark knowing where and where not to step, or of walking to school and finding yourself at the building with very little recollection of the journey there.

Buffy yawned again. She was even starting to bore herself, now. It was probably maybe possibly time to get up. Maybe.

She closed her eyes and shut down again for a moment or less and then she was awake again. Early-afternoon-slept-for-thirteen-hours-tiredness was weird and also kind of magnificent. It really was time to get up.

With sizeable effort Buffy threw her legs out of bed and regretted it immediately as the warmth of her bed dissipated within a second. California was never really cold but Buffy would admit she was a big wimp when it came to anything non-warm. Is that even a word? She didn’t know.

Resolutely she sat up and then stood, grabbing a robe and wrapping it around herself. She padded heavily over to the mirror; her footsteps sounding loud enough that Joyce could probably hear them from downstairs. I’m such an elephant in the mornings…or afternoons, whatever. Who cares; was the Slayer’s first coherent thought of the day.

She looked rough. Always did as soon as she rolled out of bed. Her hair resembled a bird’s nest and the dark circles under her eyes were pretty depressing too. Almost unconsciously, such was it a part of her everyday routine, Buffy grabbed up her hairbrush and combed through the long dirty-golden tresses.

She needed a shower but she felt too lazy to even do that. It was just the thought of all that effort of getting undressed and then with the washing and the shampooing and the…it was too much effort. Today she was slob-girl.

Looking slightly more presentable – but not much – Buffy left her room and made her way downstairs. Joyce was sitting curled up on the couch watching TV, a cup of cocoa in her hands and a croissant stuffed in her mouth.

Buffy stood in the doorway for a while, as had become her custom, as Joyce tore her eyes away from the television to look at her daughter.

“What’re you watching?” Buffy asked.

It was a stupid question, as Buffy could see that her mother was watching the news, but it was conversation and that in itself was progress. She knew she still made her mother nervous, concerned she would explode into violence and verbal abuse at any moment, and that she herself was tentative about reconciling with Joyce and with her friends. It was hard to try and take herself back to a place of comfort among them that she hadn’t been in for a long while. And it was hard for them as well.

Joyce removed the croissant from her mouth. “News. Something about some bodies found…”

Buffy walked over to the couch and sat on the opposite end to her mother. The space between them still evident but lessened. She turned her eyes towards the television where a reporter filled the screen, microphone held close to mouth, tie slightly askew, and voice monotonous.

“…in the quarry, by a group of teenagers. So far there are no similarities to connect the victims. Unconfirmed reports of neck trauma to all five but –”

Buffy changed the channel.

Warnings from southern-accented vampires and her own nagging inner voice attempted to make themselves heard again but she brushed them aside and closed the door on them.

“Mom,” she said carefully, uneasy.

Joyce looked surprised for a moment. “Yes, Buffy?”

“I’ve been thinking about my hair.”

“Your hair.”

Buffy nodded, eyes still fixed on the TV screen. “About getting it cut. Or something. And maybe about getting some new clothes.”

Joyce shifted on the chair but said nothing.

She pulled in a silent breath and turned to look at her mother. “You want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

And that was that.

+ + +

Much later, Buffy was showering. She’d had her hair washed at the salon but still she felt the need to shower, making sure she got all the discarded hair off her. She didn’t want to risk having it all stuck down her shirt and making the scars on her back itch like crazy. It felt weird; her hair. Like it was different. It felt so short. Even though it still reached just below her shoulders. She missed the comforting weight of it, the way it used to reach her lower back. Used to cover it.

Now she could feel the warm water sluicing over her scars, rivulets following the indentations of them like long spanning roads. But it was important to have done this, she knew. It was symbolic and all that other stuff therapists liked to spout at her.

She’d had a therapist for a while. A nice woman, really. Young, eager to help, attentive and intelligent. Buffy had spoken barely two words to her in all of the nine sessions they had had. The Slayer still remembered the way the woman, Lucy her name had been, had smiled at her sadly at their last session as Buffy was leaving. Then it had been Lucy’s turn to say only two words to Buffy.

“Find someone.”

Buffy hadn’t entirely understood what she meant at that point. She still wasn’t exactly sure. She probably meant for Buffy to find someone to lean on, to talk to, and to just be comfortable around. Maybe she had even meant for her to find someone else like her. Someone with scars. Buffy hadn’t found either of those.

She’d found something a whole lot more complicated and difficult and dangerous and implausible.

She’d found Spike.

She couldn’t lean on Spike, he wasn’t a talking buddy and she would never be entirely comfortable around him. He still had his fangs, after all. He wasn’t like her. He didn’t have scars. Not that he’d shown, anyway.

What he did have, though, was the ability to push her buttons. To say just the right thing to make her want to prove him wrong.

He was sneaky like that. Pushing her into making decisions and choices she had been too afraid to make in the past year.

She’d cut her hair and she’d updated her wardrobe and in a way it was because of him but it wasn’tfor him. Just like all the other things he’d led her into. Talking to her friends. To Giles. To her mother. Spike wasn’t even aware that he was the reason she was trying to make amends with them. He didn’t realise he’d pushed her into taking responsibility for herself and for getting her life back together.

Just the idea that an evil vampire had helped her would have seemed ludicrous not so long ago but things had changed and Buffy’s outlook on life had changed a lot too. Sometimes help came from strange places.

Buffy continued to contemplate all this while she stepped out of the shower and towelled herself off. She walked up to the mirror, condensation having fogged it up, and wrote on it with the tip of her finger. It was a juvenile thing to do but Buffy needed to be juvenile once in a while and, really, who could resist writing on a cloudy mirror? It was like the law or something. You had to.

Then she left the bathroom. And even as she did the word she had so artistically scrawled on the glass began to run.

'Ready'

Her room felt cold in comparison to the bathroom after a long hot shower and she shivered slightly as she walked to her dresser to pull out some pyjamas. It was only then that she realised the window was open, the light curtains blowing in the chill breeze. Buffy spun around as the door to her room slammed shut. Her Slayer stance loosened only slightly when she saw Spike. He had been standing behind the door. Who does that??? She wondered to herself, still slightly shaken.

“You know, there’s this custom where people announce themselves when they break into other people’s houses,” she told him, folding her arms over her chest.

He shrugged with one shoulder. “That was my announcement. Nice ensemble.”

Buffy managed not to blush. She really should learn not to walk around in just a towel. It never ended well. She shrugged in reply and went back to the dresser to find clothes. Clothes seemed very important all of a sudden.

Spike sauntered over to her bed and sat down, kicking off his boots, frowning in concentration whilst looking her over. “You’ve done something. To your hair.”

“Yeah, it’s called a haircut. Maybe you should consider one,” Buffy riposted.

Spike pulled a ‘you’re so funny’ face and lay down on her bed as though it was his own. Buffy ignored him as she left the room to get dressed. So, he had seen her naked – didn’t mean she was going to put her jammies on in front of him. That was just too ‘old married couple’. When she returned he had his eyes closed as if he was asleep, but he wasn’t and she knew that. So, she did what anyone would do. She took a running jump and leapt on him. Spike grunted loudly as she landed on him, kneeing him in the gut.

“Bloody hell! You crazy mare! What’d you think you’re doin’?” Spike protested raucously.

Buffy just laughed, only really serving to incense him more. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over. Sadly, he miscalculated and they toppled off the bed onto the floor. Spike landed on top of her cursing and bemoaning his poor knees or some such, while Buffy just continued to laugh. She’d been laughing a lot lately. As if now that she had uncorked it, she would never stop laughing. Like she was closing down and every single laugh must go!

Spike rolled his eyes, not amused. “You’re insane.”

Insane or not, he kissed her, and she laughed into his mouth, hands automatically sliding around his neck. Then somehow he got naked, which wasn’t bad, but it was such a blur that she barely remembered it happening and then he was pulling up her shirt and then there was her mother coming through the door.

Wait. What?!

“Buffy are you alright? I heard –” Joyce burst in, worried. “GAH!”

Spike looked up, surprised. “Oh…shit. Hi Joyce!”