"Ooh. Sounds like a plan."

Everything is now a full 15% less terrible. 

"So. You hear about what happened last week?"

"You mean the thing where some guy came into town, totally cleaned up at kitten poker, turned like thirty people, got demolished trying to attack Sunnydale High, and disappeared? Yeah, I caught that."

"Yeah, that thing. - Did you hear about it before he attacked the school, because if so I'm gonna feel really stupid." Also negligent and responsible for like thirty deaths and for whatever is happening to the surviving vampires now and ugh.

"Nah, I didn't catch wind of anything major until he was already gone. If I heard somebody was raising an army I'd, like, come looking for you, that seems like the kinda thing you should know about."

"Thanks. He was trying to kill me, I guess."

"Well, I'm glad he didn't manage it!"

"Yeah, me too. We're looking for his girlfriend right now, she's around and killing people and has visions of the future and may or may not also be trying to kill me specifically. So, like, if you hear anything."

"I will tell you if I hear anything about this guy's girlfriend," he assures her. "I like barely knew he had a girlfriend before now, but you never know."

"Thanks. Best vampire friend ever."

"I try! So besides the vampire army, how've you been?"

"Pretty OK!

- I mean actually one of my classmates was killed by a mummy today and my principal is sooort of forcing me to host a random guy from Peru in my house and I'm feeling sort of generally bummed about, like, letting thirty people die and making Alex worry and stuff, but, uh, I'm coping I guess."

She's not coping exceptionally well, maybe, but still.

"...Do you want a hug?"

"Lil bit."

Hug.

Hug.

"I wanna like say something comforting but the best I can come up with is 'yeah, thirty people dying does sound like a bummer', so maybe I should just shut up and play arcade games."

She laughs. It's only a little bitter.

" - it's like, it's less even that they died and more that - it's my job to stop stuff like that from happening, you know? So when it happens it's like - maybe it wouldn't've happened if spent more time hanging out with demons or something, but I dunno if trying to would get more or less people killed in the end - "

He hugs her again.

Hugs.

"...Alex was really upset about it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She stops hugging him and keeps walking towards the arcade, hands stuffed glumly into her hoodie pockets. "Not with me. He's never very upset with me, I don't think."

He isn't sure where she's going with this but can't figure out how to ask. How does he find out what the helpful thing is and how to do it? Friendship is hard.

"That... sounds like a good thing to have in a friend, the not being upset with you," he tries, tentatively.

"Yeah! Yeah, it's really good." She looks at the ground. "I don't want to be upset with him either, you know? And - I don't think I am. Not really."

"...but...?"

"I think he probably tortured the guy who tried to kill me. Or hurt him really badly, anyway, if there's a difference. And I dunno how to feel about that. Shouldn't feel anything about it, really, other than - maybe it doesn't even matter, maybe it'd be fine to just feel grateful that he cares, or to just feel glad that Spike got what was coming to him, or to object to torturing people on principle and tell him not to? And I do feel all of that, I just - I mostly feel really sad about it. And I don't know what I'm even supposed to do with sad, sad doesn't get you anywhere. And - now we're trying to track down Drusilla, and I know we have to find her and stop her, and I want to, I do, but - I feel really bad for her, too, after reading about who she was when she was alive, and how even after she died she had to travel around with this guy who tortured her into insanity, and I just - she could try to kill me, and if she comes close then maybe Alex'll hurt her, too, and I don't want her to be hurt, I want her to be - safe, and OK, and not being tortured again, but she's also like a murderous monster who's out there killing people, and I don't wanna be distracted by - worrying about her, but I am, and -

" - I just keep thinking that if I'd been better at my job in the first place then it wouldn't've happened. And that's - I don't know if it's bad or not, because I should want to be better at my job? But wanting to for that reason feels like - it's not like Alex is a force of nature, you know, it feels wrong to treat him like he isn't making choices, but like on the other hand he's going to make whatever choices he makes, and I can't make them for him? So I can only control the choices I make, so maybe I should be focusing on that? But I don't even know what the right choices are. And I don't feel capable or powerful anymore, really, since it happened, because I didn't beat Spike, if I'd been alone I'd be dead now, so I can't get by without Alex and the government people, which means I don't really get to take issue with how they do things, I don't think, and they're still the best option? It's - I think it's still better to try taking people in alive instead of executing people on the spot, even if some of the people get really badly hurt on the way, but they're not trying as hard as they could try to help them, if they're -

" - but I don't even really know that he did anything, I just - very strongly suspect that he did something that I would disapprove of, and he didn't tell me what, which kind of makes me feel like he thinks it's something that'd make me feel worse to know, which makes me feel really terrible because I don't know how bad it'd have to be to be worse than what I'm already worried about, but then it's not like he's intentionally hiding it or anything, because I didn't ask, and Alex doesn't tell people things if they don't ask, and so maybe it was really nothing at all and I'm doing this to myself for absolutely no reason, but I still don't want to ask because then we might have to talk about it and if we talk about it then all of this stuff will spill out and - I don't think he'll be disappointed in me for it, but I don't want him to take me less seriously, either, and then it might make him sad, and maybe make him worse at his job, and maybe not even make me any better at my job, and I don't want to deal with that, especially now, because I need to be ready and he needs to be ready, and I'm not ready, really, which means he needs to be ready even more, because if we're both off our game while a precog super vampire is running around then that's a really bad situation, you know?

"So I'm trying to figure out how to just - ignore it, and go back to being the person I was, and be cool and confident and responsible and stuff, and I don't know how, because it's not just the torture thing, it's also, like - I almost feel like this isn't my city anymore, between the government people and the super-strong vampire serial killers and my watcher being dead and the not being able to do anything for the mummy girl, and the - being useless - and it's dumb and I feel dumb and it doesn't help anything to throw a tantrum about it, it just makes everything worse.

"And I know I'm not any worse at anything than I was last year, I just feel worse because I had one bad night, which is dumb because there are always going to be bad nights sometimes, and I guess because I have more options, and that means I have to spend more time thinking about which one is the right one, and - I know I have to keep taking vampires alive, because it's still better than killing them, but I'm scared for them now, and it sucks, and it's a totally useless emotion to have because I can't let them go or a bunch more people will die.

"And sometimes I feel like maybe given all this I should at least be frustrated with Alex, or something, but I'm not, 'cause every time I think about him I just think about him trying really hard and really really wanting me to live and being scared that maybe he can't get me all the way to thirty, and I feel a little sick every time I think about being really happy whenever he threatened to hurt people if they ever hurt me, because - it's really nice having someone care, but the thing about hurting people is that then the people end up hurt, and I don't want anyone to be hurt, and I know I'm not gonna get an epitaph that says I never brought sorrow to anyone, it's too late for that, but I still don't want my epitaph to be 'here lies Karen; she was nice I guess, but she couldn't be OK with people being hurt, and she only ever got anything done because Alex was always half a step behind her with a spear, ready to break off a spear-point in her enemy's body' - and I don't even know whether I want to be more OK with hurting people or less OK with hurting people, I don't know which one's better, because being here is no good, but none of the places I can land look very good either, and - maybe if I were a much much much better slayer I could just save everyone all the time and never have to make decisions about it or have to figure out how to feel about sucking at stuff, but I don't know how to get there, and -

" - and every time I try to figure it out it gets more tangled and I don't know what to do about it and Alex knows I'm sad and I don't know what to tell him because it's not like I can just tell him - whatever all of that was."

"Wow," says Zeke, blinking. "Um. I want to hug you again, can I hug you again."