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Kick. Punch. Block. Drop and leg sweep. Bounce back up and throw in an elbow strike. Make believe enemies fell before me while Ben waited patiently for me to talk to him. I felt bad about it, knowing I was wasting the guy’s time, but going through the moves did help me get into the right frame of mind. I wondered if it had anything to do with the active meditation Spike had been teaching me. It wasn’t actually all that important, really. It was just another distraction.
I sighed and turned to face Ben. Like usual, we were doing this in my training room in the Magic Box. Spike got my living room as his comfortable therapy place, and I got this. Kind of weird, considering he’s a vampire and I’m an ex-cheerleader college girl. And yeah, okay, Slayer, but still….
“I’m going to be a mom,” I finally said. “I’m not ready. I… I don’t even really know how to be a mom. My mom, she’s… well, she’s great, really. Now, anyway, but....” I trailed off uncomfortably.
I loved my mom, and she really was great, but things had been rocky at times back in L.A., when Mom and Dad had been more into society and parties than anything else. And then the fights and drinking had started. In the middle of all that had come the whole Slayer gig and being chucked into the loony bin when I tried to tell them about it.
It had started after that. The secrets and lies. Being afraid to really talk. Well, I talked, I hadn’t become, like, mute or all grunty Cave Buffy or anything, but the deep stuff? I started to shut down around then. I mean, my parents were constantly screaming at each other, and when I’d told them the truth, I’d been punished for it. How messed up was that?
How was I going to be as a mom? Obviously, I wasn’t going to doubt my daughter about the supernatural, but what if Spike left us like Dad did, and she ended up with weird vampire stuff going on? Well, okay, logically, I knew Spike wasn’t going to just up and leave – or least not without taking our kid with him, according to my Slayer dream – but what if he dusted? For as tough as they could be, vampires had a lot of weaknesses.
I shivered and hugged myself at that thought. My feelings about Spike were all tangly and weird, but the idea of him being gone? Not exactly a huge fan. I didn’t think it was love, but maybe I was at least in like, or something. Was I even capable of that kind of love? Riley hadn’t seemed to think so. I’d tried so hard to be what he wanted, but it hadn’t been enough. I hadn’t been enough. And then there was Angel…. My love had turned him into a monster.
“It’s okay, Buffy,” Ben said, interrupting my thoughts. “you can say whatever you want. Whatever you’re feeling.” His lips quirked up into a smile. “We’re both adults, and I’m acting as your therapist. I’m not exactly going to run and tattle.”
That got a little bit of a smile out of me. Ben was a really nice guy. I had no idea how he’d ended up knowing all he did about the weird world of demons and all that, but I was definitely glad of it.
“How do I know if I’m going to be any good at this motherhood stuff?” I asked, starting to pace. I felt kind of like I was a tape recorder or something. Movement was the play button that would let me actually talk about the important things. “I’ve… we’ve – me and Spike – we’ve been reading books, you know? And doing some practice stuff with this doll, but that’s not the same as a real live baby. Especially not a real live Slayer/vampire hybrid baby. I’m scared I’m going to mess everything up.”
“That’s a possibility.”
I stopped moving and blinked. Huh. Okay. Wasn’t expecting that answer, honestly, especially not delivered so calmly. It kind of pissed me off. “Gee, thanks for the support,” I said, letting sarcasm cover the hurt. “Good to know I can count on you for the pep talks.”
“Buffy, I’m your therapist, not your cheerleader,” he pointed out. “Everyone can fail. Everyone will fail at one time or another. It’s a fact of life, and sugarcoating it isn’t going to make anything better. Admitting it, though, can help. If you know it’s a possibility, you aren’t as likely to fall apart when it happens.”
The words should have been comforting. Everyone failed. It happened, and life went on. The only problem was, I wasn’t “everyone.” I was the Slayer. “If I fail, people tend to die,” I said quietly, pacing again. “Every time I take a night off, at least one person dies who wouldn’t have if I’d been out there doing my duty. Heck, even when I am out there, there’s only one of me. I can only stop one monster at a time.”
I could hear the bitterness in my own voice loud and clear. Even when I succeeded, I failed. What the hell was I doing, trying to have some kind of normal life? I was going to school and hanging out with my friends and having a major wiggins over the baby when I should have been focused on the Slaying.
“Exactly.” At first I thought Ben’s comment was in response to needing to focus on my calling, but then realized I hadn’t said any of that out loud. What exactly was he exactly-ing about? “You can only be in one place at a time. It’s something cops and doctors deal with all the time. For every life you save, there’s someone you didn’t save. But you did save someone, and if you don’t take time out for yourself, you’re going to burn out. And in the long run, that’s going to lead to more deaths, not fewer.”
I opened my mouth to say something in response to that, but couldn’t actually think of anything. I couldn’t exactly tell him he had no idea what he was talking about. Well, I mean, I could, but it’d be kind of a bitchy thing to say, especially since he’d brought up doctors.
“Think about it, Buffy,” he said insistently. “After you’ve had a break, don’t you feel more efficient when you slay?”
I had to stop and consider that for a minute. He was right. The times I’d just had enough and had declared a day off, I’d always felt bad because I hadn’t been doing my duty, but… well, when I got back to it, the burden of being the Slayer had always been a little lighter.
“Being the Slayer puts a lot of pressure on one single girl,” he continued. “That, even more than the things they face may be why most of you tend to die young. You hit burnout and just can’t do it anymore. That can happen to parents, too. In both cases, you have a job that has no real days off. But you can take short little breaks, and those breaks are going to help you do the best you can. Both as a Slayer and a mother. Does that make sense?”
I nodded slowly. There was still a voice inside of me shrieking that I was going to screw everything up and that I didn’t deserve to have any kind of life outside of slaying. Maybe it would always be there. Either way, what Ben was saying did make a lot of sense. When this session was over, I’d get in another dose of therapy. Retail therapy. There was a pair of shoes at the mall I’d been eyeing, and, well, I could use a break.