Therapy

Chapter 2/Therapy
Disclaimer in chapter 1


Two days later, Buffy arrived at Jule's office for her first session. After they had snuggled into their seats, Jule ask Buffy to just go over her life and the changes in it for the last 12 months.

"Well, I guess it would be easier to just tell you a Quick version up to new." Buffy blathered. "You already know I am the Slayer, and my first love was Angel, the vampire with a soul, but because of his curse we can never be together. He left town on my High School graduation, after we stopped the Mayor ascension. I started UC Sunnydale in fall of '99."

She sighed, "I dated one guy, and as soon as I slept with him he dumped me. So I was a little leery of Riley when we started to date, and then I found out that he was in this secret government group called the Initiative, it kind of went all meltdowny, just about the time the monks change The Key to a hell dimension into a younger sister for me, that's Dawn by the way."

"Did you want them to do that?" asked Jule.

"Oh, I didn't know it at the time, no one did, they planted all these fake memories in everyone. That was when I got hurt pretty bad on patrol one night. I went to Spike, you do know who Spike is?"

"I've heard of him but why don't you tell me who he is?"

Buffy sat up straight and plunged on, "He was one of Angelus' 'Family' . He's also known as 'William the Bloody' part of the Scourge of Europe."

She went on in a singsong recitation, "See Angelus was turned by Darla, She was turned by the Master aka Heinrich Nest, but I dusted him to stop his ascension. Then Angelus turned Drusilla, and boy is she loony tunes."

Buffy shook her head, "Then she turned Spike but Angelus had to 'train' him. So Spike, who was William before he was turned, stayed with Dru the nut case for over 100 yrs. She was hurt in Prague and he thought that is he brought her to the Hellmouth it would help heal her. He wanted to kill a slayer for her."

She drew a deep breath, "But I am not into being Prozac for the insane vamps of the world. And he became my mortal enemy after I dropped a church organ on him."

She drawled out the next sentence, "Well around the time I started to date Riley, they broke up for good, and he blamed me. He decided to come back and kill me for himself, only the Initiative that Riley was working with was catching Vamps, demons, and other ooglie booglies and putting hardware in their heads and other Dr. Frankenstein kinda stuff. They caught Spike and put a microchip in his brain."

She fairly chirped, "Now he's not dangerous to physically dangerous to humans in anyway, but he does have a way for almost drawing blood with his words. If he tries anything physical he gets instant migraines. Where was I headed?"

She seemed to stall, "Oh, oh yeah, when I was hurt, Spike was earning money by doing odd jobs for the scoobies..."

"Excuse me, the Scoobies?"

"Oh that's just what we call ourselves."

"Who calls themselves?"

" Xander and his fiancée Anya, she's a 1120 year old ex-vengeance demon, Willow and Tara, they're both Wiccans but Willow is in recovery, Giles, my ex-watcher, but he moved back to England, and I guess Dawn my sister."

"And why do you call yourselves Scoobies?"

" I think it was Xander who said we were solving mysteries like the Scooby-Do Gang, and I guess it just stuck... but I was in a funk over messing up and getting hurt, so I thought I'd pay Spike to tell me how he did it."

"Did what?"

"He's killed two slayers before."

"I see."

"But I wanted to know what I did wrong so I met him at the Bronze and he of course was doing his 'I'm the Big Bad ' act, and going on about the fighting really being dancing, that eventually all slayers developed a death wish, all it would take is for some demon or vamp to have just 'one good day' and that kind of thing."

She shuddered, " And then he tried to kiss me, and said something about I wanted him too. I slugged him and told him, he was beneath me."

"I guess it majorly pissed him off, 'cause that was the night I found out my Mom was sick, she was going into the hospital for a CAT scan, and I guess I just had the blues or PMS, but I was sitting on the back porch crying when Spike showed up with a huge shotgun, he was going to kill m. I don't know why, but he put it down and came over sat down next to me and let me cry on his shoulder I guess you could say."

" That's an extraordinary amount of emotional baggage for so short a time..."

Buffy was again babbling, " Oh, that's just the beginning. Glorificus shows up. She was some kind of skanky hell god in search of the Key. Dawn was the Key. Then Riley started feeling all left out and weak and doubting our relationship cause I had to be there for Mom and Dawn, and the Initiative had removed his chip and taken him off the steroid cocktail that made him super commando guy."

She searched for the words, " Emasculated, is the word I think. You know not sure of himself because I wam the slayer and all. And before we could take out Glory, he splits for some black ops army thing in South America."

She paused for breath, "That was when Dawn started to hang around Spike trying to find out why she was different. Damn him, he helped her to find out about the Key stuff. Of course he said he only did it to protect her."

She hissed the next sentence, " Dru showed back up. Christ, then Spike kidnapped me an offered to kill Dru to prove that he loved me. I mean really vampires can't love."

"Are you sure?"

"Well he claimed to be in 'Love' with me, but vampires don't have souls, they're demons. How can they love?"

"Is love an emotion?"

"Of course!"

"Do you believe that a soul is required to have emotions?"

"Yes"

"What do you call 'Blood Lust' if it isn't an emotion?"

"Vamps only feel rage and hate!"

"Lust, Rage, and Hate are EMOTIONS! Just like love."

Buffy caught her breath, "Ooooh"

"I believe that blood lust is an addiction, and an addict will do whatever it take to supply that addiction."

She sat in contemplation for a few minutes, then like a switch was thrown, she plunged on, " Then my Mom died, not from the brain tumor. I came home and found her on the couch, she was lying there like she was asleep but her eyes were open. They said it was an aneurysm, and I couldn't have done anything even if I had been there."

Drawing a sobbing breath she continued, "My Dad who was somewhere in Europe, couldn't come and couldn't be reached. I had to handle everything and take care of Dawn. The scoobies try to help but they don't get it. I'm the one that is responsible. This isn't like babysitting."

Shaking off her petulance, " Glory found out that the Key was a someone not a thing and she came after my friends and what was left of my family. For some reason she thought Spike was the Key. I guess it was because of the 'Buffybot'. So she kidnapped him, than when she found out he wasn't the key, she tortured him."

Deep in remembrance she continued, "She figured he would tell who the Key was. s sos so afraid he would, he had sold me out before when somebody made him a better offer. But she beat the hell out of him for almost 24 hours."

Her face reflected awe as she said, "I don't know how he survived, but he did and he didn't tell her ANYTHING. That was when she brain sucked Tara and found out the Key was Dawn. I knew I couldn't stop her so we ran."

"Who ran?"

Dawn, Giles, Willow, Tara, Anya, Xander, Spike, and I, but I failed. She caught up to us and took Dawn. She was going to bleed her to open the portal. We fought her, Willow got Tara's mind back, and they used witchcraft. Anya and Xander used heavy construction equipment. Giles Spike and I just fought."

" Spike got up the tower to Dawn, but this demon guy named 'Doc' stabbed him and threw him off the tower, and started cutting Dawn. I used a troll hammer to beat Glory to a pulp, and then I went after him."

But it was too late, the portal was opening, and since the monks used my blood to make Dawn, I jumped off the tower, the portal closed, and I died."

"One of those into the light but I came back to life experiences?"

Oh no, Dead and buried. I was dead for 147 days. Spike counted every one. But Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya, I think it was mostly Wil, cast a resurrection spell to bring me back, they got interrupted the night those biker demons trashed town, and thought it didn't work."

Buffy shuddered, "But it did and they left me in my coffin, I had to claw my way out."

She seemed to drift off, "I was in heaven, I was loved, and it was soft, warm, safe and peaceful. I was done. It was completed. Then bam I'm in a coffin, digging out to fight demons, everything was hard, harsh, and bright. They were all over me with 'Buffy we're happy, you're back, we saved you, you're not in hell anymore'. Now I'm the one in charge. And Dawn is screwed up, Social Services are on my case, and everyone expects me to handle everything. But I can't. I'm messing up."

"The most stressful things that can occur in a lifetime are:
1 The death of a parent, spouse, or child.

2 The loss of a spouse, i.e. relationship collapse.

3 Responsibility changes such as birth or adoption, and Marriage.

You poor girl have suffered through all three of the biggest stressors in life in less then 12 months. I am quite surprised you are able to function at all."

" So I'm not crazy?"

"Good heavens, no. You do need to work on several issues, and find ways to rid yourself of some of these burdens, but we will work on that in your private sessions. I will see you in three days for a join session with Dawn, until then think about explaining what is causing you stress to her. Please relax some, take a bubble bath. Let go of some of the tension, the world will not spin off its axis if you aren't perfect."

" Thanks Jule, I'm just so tired."

" I can see that, I'll see you on Friday, our time for today is up I'm afraid."

"Just one question?"

"OK"

" What does the J.M. stand for?"

" Julianna Moira"

" God I thought 'Elizabeth Buffy Anne' was bad." She giggled.

Buffy left the Dr's office and headed home to Revello Dr, to wait for Dawn.