Ginger Snap

This is going well. Grin. P.S. I love you, reviewers!

Chapter Seven

*

Buffy thundered down the stairs, pulling her leather coat on and checking the number of stakes hidden in its pockets. She was about to burst out the front door and escape when Mom stepped out from the living room, arms crossed, and blocked her way. Buffy paused, her muscles knotting the way they did before a fight. She couldn't meet Mom's eyes, so instead she glared at the office set-up in the living room. Fax, phone, white board, memo pads...and about a hundred "Never Again!" signs, piled around like so many accusations. Buffy wanted to snap them into splinters. Fuck MOO with their locker break-ins and their book confiscations and their fucking stupid acronym, and while she was at it, fuck Mom too.

That thought brought her up short, and Buffy tried to reason with herself. Mom thought she was doing the right thing. Mom thought this was helping. Mom was in shock, she was traumatized, she was trying to deal with a hell of a lot all at once. Buffy knew that. She wanted to understand that.

But Mom had no fucking clue how much this all hurt.

"I'm going on patrol," Buffy said, tightly. sou sounded defensive and she knew it. Mom hadn't said a word, only stared at her, and she was cracking already. Fuck this. Faith was going to meet up with her, and Buffy wanted nothing more than to wrap herself in Faith's arms, to kill as many unlucky vamps as they could hunt down, and forget each and every idiotic thing MOO had done today. Except Mom had to know she was going to meet Faith, and she probably had a pretty good idea of what the two of them would get up to, and yesterday's freezing silence after the vigil didn't look like it was going to start thawing any time soon.

"I don't want you seeing that Faith anymore," Mom said.

Buffy gaped at her in disbelief. "That Faith? Mom!"

Mom's steady voice ran over Buffy's interruption. "She is a bad influence on you. She's wild, shameless, and the way she dresses..." Mom shook her head. "You don't know what kind of forays into the occult she's been a part of."

Buffy opened her mouth, but for a moment she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Mom had never, not once, acted so blind and bigoted and insufferable. Buffy stared at the MOO button pinned to her blouse, focusing on it, hating it, hating everything it represented. She shouldn't have to defend Faith, not to her mom. Mom was the one who'd welcomed Faith in the first place. Mom was the one who'd encouraged Buffy to invite Faith to Christmas dinner. It had been Mom and Faith together who'd planned the ski trip. It simply wasn't fair that Mom was changing, not now. She was freaking over two kids she didn't even know, letting it spill over to Buffy and Faith, and even to Willow, dragged away by Principal Snyder today for having spell ingredients in her locker.

"You're the one who ordered the raid on the school today," Busaidsaid, dully, saying the only thing she could that wouldn't make her burst into tears.

"Honey, they opened a few lockers," Mom said.

"Lockers, first syllable, lock," Buffy said. "They're private. You had no right--"

Mom held up a hand to stop her. "And that is beside the point. I am trying to have a discussion with you, as one adult to another--"

"And they took all of Giles' books away," Buffy said, pushing away her mom's so-called 'discussion' about Faith. It wasn't a discussion, it was an order. Buffy was not going to let Mom tear apart what she and Faith shared. She wanted to run away, find Faith, never come back...but she'd done that before, over Angel, and she knew it wouldn't work.

Mom sighed impatiently. "He'll get most of them back. MOO just wants to weed out the offensive material. Everything else will be returned to Mr. Giles soon."

"If we're gonna solve this, we need those books now," Buffy saiThe The books weren't the issue. Willow's aborted protection spell wasn't the issue. None of that mattered, because in the end she'd kill whatever monster was preying on Sunnydale's kids, books or no books, spells or no spells. Right now her mom was the monster, and Buffy didn't know how to fight her. She shouldn't have to fight her!

"Sweetie," Mom said, in a sickly-sweet 'I'm the parent and I know what's good for you' voice, "those books have no place in a public school library. Any student can waltz in there and get all sorts of ideas." She took a step towards Buffy, reaching out one hand to touch her arm. Buffy flinched back. "And not just students," Mom continued, pretending not to notice Buffy's reaction. "People like that Faith, who comes from who-knows-where, and has a life no one's aware of most of the time. I can't even imagine the sort of people she must associate with..." Mom studied Buffy with a worried frown. "Do you understand how that terrifies me?"

Buffeyeseyes were hot, her throat filled with a choking, burning weight. "That type of people Faith associates with? I guess I'm that type of person then. That's what you're saying, isn't it?" She cut off any answer Mom might have made with a curt gesture. "Mom, I am sorry that these people scared you so much. And I know you're just trying to help. But you are going too far. You have to let me handle this--me , who is my girlfriend, who I love. We, together, are going to solve this. That is what we do."

"But is it really?" Mom asked.

Buffy blinked, holding back tears, her voice so tight she could only whisper an incredulous "What?"

Mom gave a little, apologetic shrug, full of fake concern, so fucking calm it just wasn't fair. "I mean, you patrol, you slay...Evil pops up, you undo it. But is Sunnydale getting any better? Are they running outvampvampires?"

Buffy said nothing, only stared at her, like Mom was a stranger. This wasn't about vampires, or about evil. Why couldn't she see that?

"It's not your fault," Mom said, warming to her theme, smiling as she reasoned it out, eyes shining as she considered the middle distance thoughtfully. "You don't have a plan. You just react to things. It's bound to be kind of fruitless."

Anger stirred through Buffy, growing with each word out of Mom's mouth. What Mom knew about the Slaying she'd learned because Buffy loved her and wanted her not to worry. Now Mom was throwing it all back in her face, like a teacher grading her badly on a school report. Maybe Buffy wasn't prepared for everything, maybe she hadn't looked at every contingency. But this narrow-minded bullshit was the only thing Buffy hadn't seen coming. "Maybe I don't have a plan," she said bitterly. "Lord knows I don't have lapel buttons..."

"Buffy..."

Buffy shook her head, denying Mom's words. "And maybe next time that the world is getting sucked into Hell, I won't be able to stop it because you told me never to see the only person who can help me! Because you don't want your daughter to be gay!"

Mom sighed in exasperation. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding anything but. "I didn't mean to put down..."

"Yeah, well, you did." Buffy shook her head. "I have to go. I have to go on one of my pointless patrols and reac som some vampires, and maybe, just maybe, have all that disgusting wild monkey sex with my girlfriend." She shoved past Mom and opened the door, then looked back one last time. "If that's alright with MOO."

Mom watched her go, but said nothing, her lips pursed tight. Buffy slammed the door, only barely able to restrain herself from smashing it to pieces behind her.

*

To be continued. Man, that was a fun chapter to write.