Reconciliation

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Supernatural or BtVS.
****


A week passed.
Buffy had moved her things out of the bedroom she shared with Dean, choosing to stay in a room by herself instead.
On the eighth morning of her self-imposed exile, she woke up and nearly screamed at the sight of a pair of eyes staring back at her. "Dean, what the hell are you doing in here?"
"I miss you." He mumbled, reaching out to run the backs of his fingers across her cheek.
"Get away from me." She blurted. "You made your decision, and I can't just pretend everything is okay when it isn't." She stopped for a moment and breathed in through her nose. "Are you drunk?"
"Maybe a little." He admitted. "Makes it easier for me to sleep."
"You can't just come in here when you're drunk and stare at me like some kind of stalker."
"I'm not a stalker." He frowned. "We're married."
"Please get out."
He shook his head, his eyes pleading. "How do I fix this? I need you. I wasn't just going to let them kill you. You came back for me." He blinked, struggling to keep his eyes open as exhaustion started to take over.
"What are you talking about? I told you, the poison wasn't as strong as they had meant for it to be."
"No. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the tapes. And you. I needed you, and you came back."
Buffy sat up and started to ask him again what he meant, but Dean had fallen asleep. She sighed and covered him with the blanket, then left the room and made her way down the stairs.
Tara and Dawn were in the kitchen, having breakfast before Dawn had to leave for school.
"Good morning." Tara smiled nervously. "Do you want some pancakes?"
"Sure." She sat down at the table. "Thanks."
"It's no problem."
"Tara, what do you have planned today?"
"I've got a class at eleven, but that's it. Why?"
"I was hoping we could talk."
Dawn finished eating her cereal. "Everything's okay, right?"
"Yeah." Buffy shrugged. "It's nothing major, Dawn. Nothing to worry about."
"I get it." Dawn replied. "You're going to probably talk about sex."
"No, we're not."
"If you say so." She carried her bowl and spoon to the sink, rinsing them off as Xander's car horn sounded outside. "I gotta go." She hugged Tara, then Buffy. "Don't buy a vibrator. Just make up with Dean."
"Dawn!"
The teenager giggled as she walked out of the room.
"I should make her wear a wire from now on. She's got to get that information from somewhere." Buffy mused as Tara set a plate of pancakes in front of her. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. What did you want to talk about?"
"Dean was in my room when I woke up a few minutes ago."
"Is everything really okay?" Tara looked worried.
"Yeah. I mean, I guess." Buffy cut her pancakes into pieces as she spoke. "He was drunk and saying stuff that he probably won't even remember when he wakes up, but it was kind of weird."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Something about how I came back for him, and that he needed me. I thought he was talking about the coma or whatever it was, but he said he meant Willow's spell."
"That is weird." Tara sipped her coffee. "We didn't even know him then."
"I didn't think so. It's just...I don't know. I don't really believe in coincidence. Maybe everything is the way it is for some other reason. I guess that sounds lame."
"It doesn't sound lame, Buffy. A lot of different cultures believe in that sort of thing."
"But why would I be brought back just for all of this stuff to happen? It just seems wrong."
"There's always a balance." Tara sat back in her seat and tried to think of how to explain things to the slayer. "A lot of principles of magic deal with that, too. There's got to be an exchange."
"Are you saying Willow's death was because I came back?"
"No." She shook her head. "I've been thinking about this for the last few days. Since the funeral. I hate saying it, but maybe it was the right thing for Dean to do, getting rid of those guys. For the balance."
"You're the last person I expected to hear that from."
"I'm not doing cartwheels over it, either."
"Is there a way to find out what my exchange was, then? Some kind of spell?"
"I don't know. I guess I could look, but I think maybe you're better off not knowing. Even if there is a way. I don't think we're meant to figure out that sort of thing. It would get too confusing after awhile. Nobody can really explain karma or the difference between positive and negative things. Like, if you won the lottery, that would be great for you, but bad for everyone that lost. It's not the kind of thing you should really question."
"I just feel like I need to know." Buffy insisted. "Please, Tara? It's important to me."
"I'll see what I can figure out." Tara sighed. "But I can't guarantee anything."


Buffy opened the brown paper bag in front of her and unwrapped her sandwich. After realizing that Dean wasn't going to wake up in time to open the store, she decided the best thing for her to do would be to take care of it for him.
The bell over the door rang, and she glanced up in time to see him walking toward her, running a hand through his hair. "You didn't have to do this." He muttered.
"I know, but you needed to sleep." She shrugged. "And I didn't have anything else to do." She reached behind her and picked up her jacket. "I guess I'll see you at home."
"Yeah." Dean frowned at her as she walked around the counter and out of the store. He sat down in the chair she had vacated, looking around at everything he had worked so hard for during the last few years. None of it seemed like it mattered anymore.


"What did you find out?"
Tara shook her head. "Nothing. I'm sorry. I tried everything I could think of. I think the only way you're going to figure out what he meant is if you talk to him about it yourself."
Buffy sighed and set the last plate down on the table. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"He misses you, you know?"
"We're in the same house. How much can he miss me?"
"Enough that he's been looking at you for the last week with this expression on his face like he's lost."
"He has?"
Tara smiled sadly. "If you had been paying attention, you would have seen it."
"I just don't know how I can talk to anybody that would do that sort of thing."
"Is it like what happened with Faith?"
Buffy frowned. "No. What Faith did was an accident. She's in prison right now, trying to make up for it. Dean knew what he was walking into, and he did it anyway. He wanted to kill those guys. I'm not going to turn him in or anything, but that doesn't mean I have to just accept what he did."
"Giles killed Ben."
Buffy looked up at Tara, startled. "What?"
"When you were trying to get Dawn off of the tower, Giles killed Ben so that Glory couldn't come back. He had been planning it all along, but he didn't want to tell you."
"And you knew about this?"
"Not until after. But yes, I knew." Tara admitted. "I just think you should give Dean a little more credit and maybe ask him what really happened. I think you're missing something."
"Is dinner ready yet?" Dawn asked, walking into the dining room with Dean behind her. "I'm starving. The shooting range was really great."
"Great." Buffy muttered. "Dean, could I talk to you in the other room for a minute?"
"Wait." Dawn interrupted. "Buffy, you're not mad at him for giving me another lesson after what happened, are you? I wanted to do it. Don't blame him."
"It's not about that, Dawn." She walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.
Dean perched on the arm of the chair and looked down at her.
"Okay." She sighed. "I've been thinking all day about what you did to Riley and that other guy, and I still don't agree with how you handled it, but I'm willing to listen if you want to talk to me about it."
"Yeah." He frowned and put his hands on his knees, staring off into space as he spoke. "Well, I was sick of that asshole always doing something to hurt you. I figured if I didn't stop him, he'd just keep on. So I went looking for him. I wanted to kill him. I didn't count on Gordon being there. I'd never even seen the guy before. I've made a few calls and asked around, and he's got some kind of problem with all demons. He doesn't see a difference between them and people who spend time with 'em, either." He looked over at her. "He's the one that got Riley out and gave him the bullets that he used on you and Willow. And he told me he was going after you and Sam." One of Dean's hands curled into a fist as he scowled. "I had both of them holding guns on me and telling me that if I walked out of there, I was going to have to choose which one of you to protect, because they would go after the other one. From what I hear, Gordon isn't the type of guy to give up after the first try, either." He grimaced. "So I've got Riley behind me with a gun to my head and Gordon sitting across from me with a gun aimed at my chest. I did what I had to do, or I wouldn't have made it out of there."
"What did you do?"
"Got the gun away from Riley, since he was closer." Dean rubbed his leg self-consciously. "I took a bullet in the thigh for it from Gordon, but I shot him, too. I buried both of them in somebody else's grave." He looked Buffy in the eye again. "I'm not proud of it, but I had to do it, or Willow's funeral would've been a double. Maybe a triple, if they'd gotten to you. And then Sam would have been next."
Buffy frowned and stood up, walking around to the side of the couch so she could hug him. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you about this sooner."
"I figured you couldn't resist me forever." He smiled, putting an arm around her waist.
"Okay, that clears up one thing. But what did you mean this morning?"
"When?"
"You said I came back for you, and that you weren't talking about me being shot. So what did you mean, exactly?"
Dean looked embarrassed and licked his lips nervously. "I didn't always buy into that soulmate crap, but I dunno. The night your friends brought you back was the same night I found those tapes of you. I had them in my jacket, thinking I was good at not getting caught swiping them from the Initiative, and Riley walked over to tell me he had to go because there was an emergency. I figured out later that Willow had called him to tell him about you. He must have seen me take the tapes, which was why he lied to us both, so we didn't meet."
"And you think those things are connected?" Buffy smiled.
"Hell, maybe." He shrugged. "I'd known about you for awhile before that, and I remember reading about your funeral in the newspaper. I thought about going, but Sam's graduation was that day."
"How long have you lived in Sunnydale?"
"Since 1999. I had a smaller shop back then, but somebody broke into it, and I figured I might want a change of location."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Um, where was your old store?"