Title: Insight

Author: CGB

Rating: PG

Category: X/B, B/A angsty stuff.

Archive: Yup

Disclaimer: Grr Arrgh

Summary: "She's giving him monosyllabic answers and he doesn't think to be surprised because she's like this now."

Acknowledgements: Written in response to the "Good things come in 3s" challenge issued by the legendary Liz "M-for-Miss-Edith" Barr - three stories, three fandoms, one lyric.

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"You make me hard, you make me cold" - The Whitlams

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The gift of prophesy, the visions, were something of a strange blessing for a slayer. Too sporadic to be really helpful and too obscure to be read without the expertise of a watcher, and they never told her anything really useful like whether her tartan mini-skirt was going to come back into fashion or how many jelly beans were in the jar in the basketball team's fund raising competition.

They didn't tell her where Angel was either and whilst not intending to downplay the importance of insight into the coming season's fashion, that was information she could really use.

Angelus. Giles encouraged her to refer to the demon that was once Angel as "Angelus" as if the distinction could lift some of the guilt she felt when she thought of the consequences of her last act of self-indulgence.

Giles was coming over all Sigmund Freud lately. He said Angel/ Angelus was the divided super ego and Id made manifest. She didn't know what to make of that. All she knew was that it looked like Angel, sounded like Angel and knew how to hurt her in ways only Angel could.

Xander seemed to have a more consistent angle on the situation. He'd always suspected Angel of some deeply embedded treachery. He doesn't say so often but he's said it enough for her to know where he stands.

Xander is walking her to the library. He makes small talk, asking if she's slept well, if the patrol went OK last night. She's giving him monosyllabic answers and he doesn't think to be surprised because she's like this now. She does a lot of thinking.

Her visions never told her about that either. As far as supernatural powers went, her foresight scored about a two on the really useful scale.

But she's had this dream. She figured it was something to do with the way Xander had spoken about Angel in the past. Something to do with the way he still thought he should rescue her when it was so obvious that in their relationship she would always be the one doing the rescuing.

He is waiting just inside the school gate. They walk together. The day is clear, warm sun making them feel safe.

"You're late" he says.

"Late?"

"Your hours late. Days, weeks."

"I don't understand."

And then the sun is gone and it's a cool night. She sees him. Angelus. He looks darker than usual. A subtle change in his demeanor perhaps, cruelty finally etching it's way across the finely sculpted features of a vampire with a face like an angel.

He's laughing at her. Laughing at them both.

"Wait," Xander says and he stops her.

Xander faces Angel. Angel scowls and she readies herself, letting her knees bend into a fighting stance.

Angel flies at them. He is a least four feet in the air, his long coat flapping behind him She goes to leap forward and finds her feet remain planted on the ground.

"Xander!" she screams and she tries to move. Throwing herself into the air without leaving the ground.

Xander has a stake raised and pointed at the flying Angel. Angel stretches his arms out wing like and laughs.

"Xander, no!"

And just like that, Xander stakes him. A direct hit, straight through the heart. Angel's eyes go wide in surprise and his mouth hangs open, forever frozen in the midst of his laughter.

And then she can move again. She runs to the staked Angel who falls to the ground. He is lifeless but the body remains intact. She watches, waiting for the inevitable rendering of his body to dust but the anticipated metamorphosis never occurs.

"Strange," she says. Xander places a hand on her shoulder. The body of her one time love lies at her feet and yet it's this hand on her shoulder that draws her attention.

Xander pulls her into an embrace and they kiss.

The Sun streams through the night lighting up the school yard and illuminating people, students, milling around, talking, shouting, laughing. They walk hand in hand to the steps of the main entrance.

Then they see themselves. A blonde girl with a lollypop seated next to a bookish red head. There's Xander and there's Jesse and it's not far the past but it feels like another generation. They're sitting on the edge of the steps and Xander is making them laugh. She listens but she can't here what they're saying.

"You're late," Xander at her side says again.

"Yes," she says.

It's just after midnight when she bolts awake. If that's a vision she wonders how she'll explain it to Giles.

She wonders whether Xander is the issue or whether it's just his dependability that she's dreaming about. His normalcy. The way he talks to her when he knows she isn't listening. The way he is talking to her now.

In the library Willow is already on the Internet and debating the relative merits of information technology in relation to the mystical with Giles.

"Of course they're not all bona fide gypsy-type people," Willow ventures thoughtfully. "But who knows? Some of them might be real. You never know what you'll find on the World Wide Web".

"I don't imagine access to a computer is a priority of their lifestyle," Giles says dismissively. "And I suspect they don't 'surf' the 'world wide web' very often. Perhaps they have an understandable disdain for mixed metaphors"

"It doesn't hurt to try," Willow shrugs.

"What are we doing?" Xander says.

"I'm looking for a spell that will give Angel back his soul," Willow says.

Xander's eyebrows lift.

"You can do that?"

"What makes you think we can't?" Buffy snaps.

Her tone could cut glass. They're all looking at her now.

She is thinking about her dream. Xander killed Angel but he didn't turn to dust. And she hates him because she's always going to need someone like him who can't kill vampires but makes her feel like being in love with her is a privilege and not a curse. She needs it because she's sixteen and she's selfish at times and she's thinking it's her right to break hearts and spurn the advances of impressionable teenagers.

"I'm not saying we can't Buffy, I just didn't know it was an option."

"If it can be done it can be done again," Willow says.

"Well how many people do we let him kill while we figure that out?"

The dreams are always telling her something. And maybe Freud would have told her differently, but sometimes a stake is just something you kill vampires with and sometimes a kiss is a betrayal, a poisoned gift for someone who has the misfortune to be needed.

"We do what we have to," she says distantly and she slumps into a seat to wait for the day to start again.

End.