BtVS songfic: Pop! Goes the . . . What?
Title: Pop! Goes the . . . What?
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the songs.
Distribution: Anyone who wants it can take it.
Timeline: Right after the end of S6
Spoilers: None really.
Rating: PG-13 just in case.
Author's Notes: "Overprotected" and "I Was Born to Make You Happy" are Britney Spears, "Family Portrait" and "You Make Me Sick" are Pink's, "Backstreet's Back" and "Show Me the Meaning" are Backstreet Boys, "Objection (Tango)" is by Shakira, and "Cold Night" is by Avril Lavigne. This is a companion prequel to my story "Homecoming." Since the first one had Angel being (hem) inspired by pop music I chose a similar route to explain exactly why Buffy was on her way to LA at the beginning of "Homecoming." The other story from this group is "Award of Merit."
It had been a very long day and it wasn't even noon yet. Dawn had decided that it was time to stop being an affectionate sister and return to being a hindering brat just so that Buffy's readjustment to being alive could be complete. So far Buffy had fielded one call from an extremely irate teacher calling in his spare time to tell the Slayer that Dawn had titled a paper for Mr. Weinheimer's biology class, "The Analysis of Mr. Wienerheimer's Whiny Wiener," another from the same man five minutes later in which he apologised for confusing someone's practical joke for Dawn's real paper and then a third when he hit the speed dial while being attacked by the mischief demon which had written the paper in the first place.
Dawn was now up in her room listening to music which Buffy could hear quite clearly because of her enhanced Slayer senses. It was extremely annoying. The most annoying part wasn't even Dawn's sudden decision to act like a stereotypical teenybopper and listen to anything that was in. The most annoying part was that the music was making Buffy think very uncomfortable thoughts.
//Say hello to the girl that I am!
You're gonna have to see through my perspective//
Just that verse made Buffy's blood begin to boil as she recalled being told she should be grateful for her return to a world of torment and anguish because it made her friends happy. Not that they ever paid any attention to what she thought. It was infuriating on some levels that she, the Slayer, the Chosen One (one of two, whatever), the girl who is supposed to "be able to tell, without thinking, without looking," that there's a vampire around, she was ignored whenever she said something supernatural was wrong.
When Xander was possessed by the hyena spirit, when Sid the Dummy mistook her for a demon, when she told Giles that the earthquake was a portent, no one believed her until someone died. It was exasperating, and more, it indicated a profound lack of trust in her. It was as though her being the Slayer, the fundamental part of her that it was, meant nothing.
//I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am
And I don't wanna be so damn protected//
Of course, they rarely trusted her when it was a matter to do with herself either. For some reason, because she had made some bad dating choices, Willow felt that it was necessary to 'give' Buffy the perfect boyfriend. Nevermind that she wasn't looking, nevermind that she was trying to get over Angel, what mattered was Willow's need to make sure Buffy was happy. It never seemed to occur to people that she needed to be allowed to make her own decisions.
Especially certain people who said that they weren't people that had dark hair and really sexy tattoos on their shoulders. Certain people who decided that she was unable to make decisions about anything except which crossbow to take on patrol. Not that Giles let her near his precious crossbows for patrol.
//There must be another way
Cause I believe in taking chances
But who am I to say
What a girl is to do
God, I need some answers//
Who was she to say after all? It wasn't as though she'd made such great decisions with her life. There was Angel for one. That was a mistake. Well, sure she hadn't known about the loophole in the curse, and Angel had never done anything to warrant a lack of trust. Giles had said that Angel both loved her and that he wanted his redemption and he had saved everyone's lives time and again. . . Where was she going with this?
Right. Mistake.
He was a vampire. She should have known better, like she should have known better than to sleep with Spike. Although her one night with Angel and her multiple nights with Spike were very different things.
//What am I to do with my life
(You will find out don't worry)
How am I supposed to know what's right?
(You just got to do it your way)
I can't help the way I feel
But my life has been so overprotected//
Dawn had started to sing loudly and off-key from her room. It was aggravating and so Buffy gently requested that Dawn not sing anymore. "Dawn! If you don't stop singing this instant I'm going to come upstairs and beat you to death with the radio!"
"You know, I feel like this song was written just for me!" Dawn shouted back.
Buffy firmly resisted the urge to remind her sister that the last time she did something her way the teenager was nearly arrested for shoplifting and was still working off her guilt for her thefts from the Magic Box. Besides, the last time Buffy did her own thing she got kicked out of Hemery. Her mother was right. She was trouble. There were mitigating circumstances of course, Buffy was the queen of mitigating circumstances, but it was still jarring to remember her mother saying that to her when she went out for the cheerleading squad.
//I tell 'em what I like
What I won't
What I don't
But every time I do I stand corrected//
It was as though every time she had said that she loved Angel everyone told her she just didn't. They all had reasons too. She was too young to know her own mind, she was being tricked by his handsome face and evil trickery, sometimes they just said that she was being a foolish child believing in fairy tales and a happy ending for Romeo and Juliet.
Sure she could save the world and had to always be the sympathetic friend and shoulder to cry on for Willow, always had to walk that fine line between friendship and love interest for Xander, a dance of words that became more complicated when he started to date other girls but still acted as though he had exclusive rights to Buffy. She always had to be a perfectly dedicated Slayer for Giles, but at the same time appear well-adjusted and happy and as though she had the normal life she used to want.
She was all these things to her friends, and yet they never thought for an instant that she was capable of making mature decisions. They still thought she was the same person she was when she first came to Sunnydale. Willow, Xander, Giles and her sister. There seemed to be a silent expectation that she still wanted the same things as when she was sixteen. Buffy no longer wanted a normal life. She hadn't wanted one ever since she found out that loving Angel meant the trade-off of normal for Angel.
//I don't need nobody
Tellin' me just what I wanna
What I what what I'm gonna
Do about my destiny
I Say No, No
Nobody tell me just what what what I wanna do, do
I'm so fed up with people telling me to be
Someone else but me//
The song so clearly said her feelings that Buffy was tempted to steal Dawn's CD and use it to tell her friends the truth. It was a very bizarre notion given that she hated Britney's music with a passion. There was some fumbling upstairs and a new song came on.
//In our family portrait we look pretty happy
We look pretty normal, let's go back to that//
The volume crept up gradually as Dawn edged the dial higher and higher. The song was about a divorcing couple and Buffy could only wander why Dawn wanted to listen to something like that. Then the chorus came on and Buffy could feel her ire at her friends rising again.
//In our family portrait we look pretty happy
Let's play pretend, act like it comes naturally//
She glanced at the picture of the three of them dogpiled on the front lawn and wondered when it was that the closeness of that picture had become the constant affirmations of love and friendship and deliberately arranged 'Scooby nights'. It was strange that they seemed to have nasty blowups more now that they were all so determined to 'be close'. The last picture of the three of them that had been taken was a very careful imitation of the first one. The dogpile was choreographed and Willow had shouted "Now!" to Giles when they were in what the redhead deemed perfect positions.
The song was now impossible to ignore and the repeating chorus was pounding into Buffy's brain. "Dawn! If you don't turn that music down I'm coming up there and smashing your radio!"
"Bite me!" replied the younger Summers. But she did as asked. For another several minutes the house was quiet. Then the volume rose just enough for Buffy to hear the words of the song.
//I don't know how to live without your love//
Buffy froze as the line reminded her of a conversation in a graveyard. "When I look into the future, all I see is you. All I want . . . is you."
"I know the feeling."
//I was born to make you happy//
"If he were ever to experience one moment of true happiness . . . he would lose his soul."
"Can you think of anything that might have triggered this?"
//'Cuz your the only one within my heart
I was born to make you happy//
"I love you. I try not to but I can't stop."
"Me too. I can't either."
//Always and forever you and me//
"You still my girl?"
//That's the way our life should be//
"Always."
//I don't know how to live without your love
I was born to make you happy//
"Dawn! Turn that down! I can't think down here with your crap blasting!" Buffy furiously stormed up the stairs to Dawn's room. She yanked the door open and glared at her brat of a sister. "Dawn, I'm not telling you to never listen to this crap again because I know it'll do no good, but can you at least not inflict your sucky taste on the rest of us?"
Dawn simply stuck out her tongue in response but turned the player back down. Buffy sighed and tramped back down the stairs hearing the music following her and dragging to the fore more memories.
//You make me sick
I want you and I'm hatin' it//
Christmas and the First Evil. God! When was it that pop song writers had tuned into her life and decided to use it for writing material?
//Got me lit like a candlestick
Get too hot when you touch the tip, I'm feelin' it, I gotta getta grip//
There was the dream they had shared. One of several, but in this one they had fallen to the bed and Buffy had felt his hands touching her, moving across bare skin, the cool sensuality of Angel's tongue touching her in places that made her blush and scream.
//And it's drivin' me crazy baby don't you quit
Can't get enough of it
You got me goin' again
Baby, you got me goin' again//
She hadn't been able to get enough, neither had he. When she and Angel were together it was as though a fire was lit and it was only a matter of time before it burned out of control. So he left.
//You make me sick//
"Dawn!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know! Turn it down!"
"If you didn't keep turning it up I wouldn't have to ask you to turn it down!"
//Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why I can't be there where you are
There's something missing in my heart//
Her friends all told her she was better off without Angel. They were her friends, they would never do anything to hurt her. Buffy frowned as she recalled the way that Willow had thrown her a Riley, at Parker, at Scott, at anyone who might take her away from Angel. Xander had told her that Riley was one-in-a-million. Oh yeah. He was. It was a one-in-a-million guy who decided to cheat on his girlfriend with vampire whores.
He not only cheated on her. He cheated on her with girls who might very well kill him. To and insult to . . . well . . . insult (what? She wasn't enough for him?) he slept with the species that Buffy was put on this earth to try to obliterate. Her enemies. It hurt and it hurt more that Xander thought that Buffy deserved him. Oh, intellectually she knew that he didn't know about the vampire whores, but the notion that she deserved someone who cheated on her with psychopathic killers stuck with her for a long time.
If Riley was so much better than Angel, what did that say about her?
//Oh why is everything so confusing?
Maybe I'm just out of my mind//
Buffy opened her mouth to yell at Dawn again but decided that it wasn't worth it. She just sat there and let the music wash over her and bring all the pain and anger to the surface. Why was it that her friends got to screw up their own relationships, while Buffy's just never had a chance to begin with? Why was it that she didn't deserve what made her happy?
She deserved normal instead. It wasn't s though she didn't know when normal had ceased to mean happy. That had changed when she found that she was in love with Angel. When she discovered that to be with the man she loved she had to be with a vampire.
//It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life//
It was funny how everything seemed so cold after Angel left. The man she loved was pretty much room temperature but somehow he made her feel warm. Riley never did that. He made her feel not cold. He made certain she wasn't alone.
//Won't you, take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are//
Buffy frowned at the memories. Riley had taken her driving. He had taken her on sunlit picnics in the park and he'd shown her sex didn't have to be an event of joy followed by spectacular emotional agony. It could be simply a nice fun bit of physical activity. A series of one-night-stands with the same man. Willow called it a relationship.
//But I,
I'm with you//
She was with him because everyone said what a nice boy he was. Mainly though, she was with him because it dulled the pain of being without Angel.
Dawn was thumping around in her room and Buffy rapidly figured out it was because her younger sister was dancing. She crept upstairs to get the blackmail material that catching the spastic movement of her sister would provide.
//Got dizzy dancing tango
I'm falling apart in your hands again//
She was briefly reminded of her 'dance' with Spike, but that was soon replaced with the memories of Angel's hands, mouth, his . . .
//No way, no no no no.//
She wasn't going there.
//I wish there was a chance for you and me
I wish you couldn't find a place to be
Away from here. . .//
Buffy sighed again as she made her way downstairs. Why was it that so many pop songs better explained her feelings for Angel than all the Browning, Yeats and Shakespeare in the world? Angel was in LA, Buffy was in Sunnydale, and she wished they were together.
//This is pathetic and sardonic
It's sadistic and psychotic//
Shakira's spoken bridge touched something in Buffy's head. Why exactly weren't they together? They were together because Angel risked perfect happiness by being with her. Only, why didn't they find a spell to keep that from being a problem? That was pathetic. It was sadistic of her friends to keep them apart just because they thought Buffy deserved someone normal rather than her soulmate. It was psychotic of Buffy to listen to them given her friends' track records with dating.
//Am I original?
Yeah
Am I the only one?
Yeah//
The new song and its chorus made something click into place in Buffy's head. Angel was the only one for her. Period. There was absolutely no reason they shouldn't see each other and work something out. The only thing keeping them apart was sheer bullheadedness. They needed to talk.
//Am I sexual?
Yeah//
Buffy snorted at the door as she remembered why she thought so much pop music was junk. Still, if this worked she owed thanks to the goofs who wrote the stuff. "Dawn! I'm going to LA to see Angel!"
//Am I everything you need?
You better rock your body now//
She hopped into the car and took off for LA. She was already around the corner when Dawn poked her head out of her room. "What did you say?" she asked. "Buffy?"
The End
Read what happened to Angel
Skip straight to the happy ending
Back to archive page
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the songs.
Distribution: Anyone who wants it can take it.
Timeline: Right after the end of S6
Spoilers: None really.
Rating: PG-13 just in case.
Author's Notes: "Overprotected" and "I Was Born to Make You Happy" are Britney Spears, "Family Portrait" and "You Make Me Sick" are Pink's, "Backstreet's Back" and "Show Me the Meaning" are Backstreet Boys, "Objection (Tango)" is by Shakira, and "Cold Night" is by Avril Lavigne. This is a companion prequel to my story "Homecoming." Since the first one had Angel being (hem) inspired by pop music I chose a similar route to explain exactly why Buffy was on her way to LA at the beginning of "Homecoming." The other story from this group is "Award of Merit."
It had been a very long day and it wasn't even noon yet. Dawn had decided that it was time to stop being an affectionate sister and return to being a hindering brat just so that Buffy's readjustment to being alive could be complete. So far Buffy had fielded one call from an extremely irate teacher calling in his spare time to tell the Slayer that Dawn had titled a paper for Mr. Weinheimer's biology class, "The Analysis of Mr. Wienerheimer's Whiny Wiener," another from the same man five minutes later in which he apologised for confusing someone's practical joke for Dawn's real paper and then a third when he hit the speed dial while being attacked by the mischief demon which had written the paper in the first place.
Dawn was now up in her room listening to music which Buffy could hear quite clearly because of her enhanced Slayer senses. It was extremely annoying. The most annoying part wasn't even Dawn's sudden decision to act like a stereotypical teenybopper and listen to anything that was in. The most annoying part was that the music was making Buffy think very uncomfortable thoughts.
//Say hello to the girl that I am!
You're gonna have to see through my perspective//
Just that verse made Buffy's blood begin to boil as she recalled being told she should be grateful for her return to a world of torment and anguish because it made her friends happy. Not that they ever paid any attention to what she thought. It was infuriating on some levels that she, the Slayer, the Chosen One (one of two, whatever), the girl who is supposed to "be able to tell, without thinking, without looking," that there's a vampire around, she was ignored whenever she said something supernatural was wrong.
When Xander was possessed by the hyena spirit, when Sid the Dummy mistook her for a demon, when she told Giles that the earthquake was a portent, no one believed her until someone died. It was exasperating, and more, it indicated a profound lack of trust in her. It was as though her being the Slayer, the fundamental part of her that it was, meant nothing.
//I need to make mistakes just to learn who I am
And I don't wanna be so damn protected//
Of course, they rarely trusted her when it was a matter to do with herself either. For some reason, because she had made some bad dating choices, Willow felt that it was necessary to 'give' Buffy the perfect boyfriend. Nevermind that she wasn't looking, nevermind that she was trying to get over Angel, what mattered was Willow's need to make sure Buffy was happy. It never seemed to occur to people that she needed to be allowed to make her own decisions.
Especially certain people who said that they weren't people that had dark hair and really sexy tattoos on their shoulders. Certain people who decided that she was unable to make decisions about anything except which crossbow to take on patrol. Not that Giles let her near his precious crossbows for patrol.
//There must be another way
Cause I believe in taking chances
But who am I to say
What a girl is to do
God, I need some answers//
Who was she to say after all? It wasn't as though she'd made such great decisions with her life. There was Angel for one. That was a mistake. Well, sure she hadn't known about the loophole in the curse, and Angel had never done anything to warrant a lack of trust. Giles had said that Angel both loved her and that he wanted his redemption and he had saved everyone's lives time and again. . . Where was she going with this?
Right. Mistake.
He was a vampire. She should have known better, like she should have known better than to sleep with Spike. Although her one night with Angel and her multiple nights with Spike were very different things.
//What am I to do with my life
(You will find out don't worry)
How am I supposed to know what's right?
(You just got to do it your way)
I can't help the way I feel
But my life has been so overprotected//
Dawn had started to sing loudly and off-key from her room. It was aggravating and so Buffy gently requested that Dawn not sing anymore. "Dawn! If you don't stop singing this instant I'm going to come upstairs and beat you to death with the radio!"
"You know, I feel like this song was written just for me!" Dawn shouted back.
Buffy firmly resisted the urge to remind her sister that the last time she did something her way the teenager was nearly arrested for shoplifting and was still working off her guilt for her thefts from the Magic Box. Besides, the last time Buffy did her own thing she got kicked out of Hemery. Her mother was right. She was trouble. There were mitigating circumstances of course, Buffy was the queen of mitigating circumstances, but it was still jarring to remember her mother saying that to her when she went out for the cheerleading squad.
//I tell 'em what I like
What I won't
What I don't
But every time I do I stand corrected//
It was as though every time she had said that she loved Angel everyone told her she just didn't. They all had reasons too. She was too young to know her own mind, she was being tricked by his handsome face and evil trickery, sometimes they just said that she was being a foolish child believing in fairy tales and a happy ending for Romeo and Juliet.
Sure she could save the world and had to always be the sympathetic friend and shoulder to cry on for Willow, always had to walk that fine line between friendship and love interest for Xander, a dance of words that became more complicated when he started to date other girls but still acted as though he had exclusive rights to Buffy. She always had to be a perfectly dedicated Slayer for Giles, but at the same time appear well-adjusted and happy and as though she had the normal life she used to want.
She was all these things to her friends, and yet they never thought for an instant that she was capable of making mature decisions. They still thought she was the same person she was when she first came to Sunnydale. Willow, Xander, Giles and her sister. There seemed to be a silent expectation that she still wanted the same things as when she was sixteen. Buffy no longer wanted a normal life. She hadn't wanted one ever since she found out that loving Angel meant the trade-off of normal for Angel.
//I don't need nobody
Tellin' me just what I wanna
What I what what I'm gonna
Do about my destiny
I Say No, No
Nobody tell me just what what what I wanna do, do
I'm so fed up with people telling me to be
Someone else but me//
The song so clearly said her feelings that Buffy was tempted to steal Dawn's CD and use it to tell her friends the truth. It was a very bizarre notion given that she hated Britney's music with a passion. There was some fumbling upstairs and a new song came on.
//In our family portrait we look pretty happy
We look pretty normal, let's go back to that//
The volume crept up gradually as Dawn edged the dial higher and higher. The song was about a divorcing couple and Buffy could only wander why Dawn wanted to listen to something like that. Then the chorus came on and Buffy could feel her ire at her friends rising again.
//In our family portrait we look pretty happy
Let's play pretend, act like it comes naturally//
She glanced at the picture of the three of them dogpiled on the front lawn and wondered when it was that the closeness of that picture had become the constant affirmations of love and friendship and deliberately arranged 'Scooby nights'. It was strange that they seemed to have nasty blowups more now that they were all so determined to 'be close'. The last picture of the three of them that had been taken was a very careful imitation of the first one. The dogpile was choreographed and Willow had shouted "Now!" to Giles when they were in what the redhead deemed perfect positions.
The song was now impossible to ignore and the repeating chorus was pounding into Buffy's brain. "Dawn! If you don't turn that music down I'm coming up there and smashing your radio!"
"Bite me!" replied the younger Summers. But she did as asked. For another several minutes the house was quiet. Then the volume rose just enough for Buffy to hear the words of the song.
//I don't know how to live without your love//
Buffy froze as the line reminded her of a conversation in a graveyard. "When I look into the future, all I see is you. All I want . . . is you."
"I know the feeling."
//I was born to make you happy//
"If he were ever to experience one moment of true happiness . . . he would lose his soul."
"Can you think of anything that might have triggered this?"
//'Cuz your the only one within my heart
I was born to make you happy//
"I love you. I try not to but I can't stop."
"Me too. I can't either."
//Always and forever you and me//
"You still my girl?"
//That's the way our life should be//
"Always."
//I don't know how to live without your love
I was born to make you happy//
"Dawn! Turn that down! I can't think down here with your crap blasting!" Buffy furiously stormed up the stairs to Dawn's room. She yanked the door open and glared at her brat of a sister. "Dawn, I'm not telling you to never listen to this crap again because I know it'll do no good, but can you at least not inflict your sucky taste on the rest of us?"
Dawn simply stuck out her tongue in response but turned the player back down. Buffy sighed and tramped back down the stairs hearing the music following her and dragging to the fore more memories.
//You make me sick
I want you and I'm hatin' it//
Christmas and the First Evil. God! When was it that pop song writers had tuned into her life and decided to use it for writing material?
//Got me lit like a candlestick
Get too hot when you touch the tip, I'm feelin' it, I gotta getta grip//
There was the dream they had shared. One of several, but in this one they had fallen to the bed and Buffy had felt his hands touching her, moving across bare skin, the cool sensuality of Angel's tongue touching her in places that made her blush and scream.
//And it's drivin' me crazy baby don't you quit
Can't get enough of it
You got me goin' again
Baby, you got me goin' again//
She hadn't been able to get enough, neither had he. When she and Angel were together it was as though a fire was lit and it was only a matter of time before it burned out of control. So he left.
//You make me sick//
"Dawn!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know! Turn it down!"
"If you didn't keep turning it up I wouldn't have to ask you to turn it down!"
//Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why I can't be there where you are
There's something missing in my heart//
Her friends all told her she was better off without Angel. They were her friends, they would never do anything to hurt her. Buffy frowned as she recalled the way that Willow had thrown her a Riley, at Parker, at Scott, at anyone who might take her away from Angel. Xander had told her that Riley was one-in-a-million. Oh yeah. He was. It was a one-in-a-million guy who decided to cheat on his girlfriend with vampire whores.
He not only cheated on her. He cheated on her with girls who might very well kill him. To and insult to . . . well . . . insult (what? She wasn't enough for him?) he slept with the species that Buffy was put on this earth to try to obliterate. Her enemies. It hurt and it hurt more that Xander thought that Buffy deserved him. Oh, intellectually she knew that he didn't know about the vampire whores, but the notion that she deserved someone who cheated on her with psychopathic killers stuck with her for a long time.
If Riley was so much better than Angel, what did that say about her?
//Oh why is everything so confusing?
Maybe I'm just out of my mind//
Buffy opened her mouth to yell at Dawn again but decided that it wasn't worth it. She just sat there and let the music wash over her and bring all the pain and anger to the surface. Why was it that her friends got to screw up their own relationships, while Buffy's just never had a chance to begin with? Why was it that she didn't deserve what made her happy?
She deserved normal instead. It wasn't s though she didn't know when normal had ceased to mean happy. That had changed when she found that she was in love with Angel. When she discovered that to be with the man she loved she had to be with a vampire.
//It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life//
It was funny how everything seemed so cold after Angel left. The man she loved was pretty much room temperature but somehow he made her feel warm. Riley never did that. He made her feel not cold. He made certain she wasn't alone.
//Won't you, take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are//
Buffy frowned at the memories. Riley had taken her driving. He had taken her on sunlit picnics in the park and he'd shown her sex didn't have to be an event of joy followed by spectacular emotional agony. It could be simply a nice fun bit of physical activity. A series of one-night-stands with the same man. Willow called it a relationship.
//But I,
I'm with you//
She was with him because everyone said what a nice boy he was. Mainly though, she was with him because it dulled the pain of being without Angel.
Dawn was thumping around in her room and Buffy rapidly figured out it was because her younger sister was dancing. She crept upstairs to get the blackmail material that catching the spastic movement of her sister would provide.
//Got dizzy dancing tango
I'm falling apart in your hands again//
She was briefly reminded of her 'dance' with Spike, but that was soon replaced with the memories of Angel's hands, mouth, his . . .
//No way, no no no no.//
She wasn't going there.
//I wish there was a chance for you and me
I wish you couldn't find a place to be
Away from here. . .//
Buffy sighed again as she made her way downstairs. Why was it that so many pop songs better explained her feelings for Angel than all the Browning, Yeats and Shakespeare in the world? Angel was in LA, Buffy was in Sunnydale, and she wished they were together.
//This is pathetic and sardonic
It's sadistic and psychotic//
Shakira's spoken bridge touched something in Buffy's head. Why exactly weren't they together? They were together because Angel risked perfect happiness by being with her. Only, why didn't they find a spell to keep that from being a problem? That was pathetic. It was sadistic of her friends to keep them apart just because they thought Buffy deserved someone normal rather than her soulmate. It was psychotic of Buffy to listen to them given her friends' track records with dating.
//Am I original?
Yeah
Am I the only one?
Yeah//
The new song and its chorus made something click into place in Buffy's head. Angel was the only one for her. Period. There was absolutely no reason they shouldn't see each other and work something out. The only thing keeping them apart was sheer bullheadedness. They needed to talk.
//Am I sexual?
Yeah//
Buffy snorted at the door as she remembered why she thought so much pop music was junk. Still, if this worked she owed thanks to the goofs who wrote the stuff. "Dawn! I'm going to LA to see Angel!"
//Am I everything you need?
You better rock your body now//
She hopped into the car and took off for LA. She was already around the corner when Dawn poked her head out of her room. "What did you say?" she asked. "Buffy?"
The End
Read what happened to Angel
Skip straight to the happy ending
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