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The knock at the door took Buffy by surprise.
It was late – patrolled-until-her-bones-ached late, the middle of the night, the kind of time when the only things awake were either evil or wishing they were in bed. The time of day when no-one knocks on a door unless they're planning something, or desperate.
Demons were normally more the blow-a-hole-in-the-wall type, and while vampires needed an invitation, if they were showing up at her house it was doing half her job for her. So, human, probably bringing bad news? But who? Willow and Dawn were asleep upstairs – Dawn had better be asleep, it was a school night – and Xander hadn't been seen since the wedding.
The not-wedding.
Buffy was just coming to the right conclusion when she opened the door, and Anya barrelled inside.
“Men are pigs!” Anya declared, pushing past Buffy. Her breath smelled like alcohol, and her eyes were red and puffy like she'd been crying.
Well, she had the right.
“Come in, Anya!” Buffy remarked sarcastically, then felt guilty. “Uh, do you want to sit down?”
“Thank you!” Anya yelled, collapsing onto the sofa. “Men are the worst, and I hate them all.”
“… Not arguing with you there,” Buffy said, Spike coming automatically to mind. She sat down beside Anya. “Are you okay?”
“No!”
Okay, too direct – or maybe not direct enough. Anya mode required.
“Have you been drinking?”
Anya nodded, sadly. “I couldn't stop crying. So I drank a bottle of whisky, because I thought that would help, but I just cried some more. And then I tore up Xander's favourite shirt, and then I cried some more, and drank some more, and then I came here.”
That raised more questions than it answered, but Buffy decided to ignore them.
“Have you eaten anything?”
Anya stared at Buffy for a few moments, and then started to sob.
“That's the kind of thing he used to say!” she said. “I – what am I going to do, Buffy?”
Tentatively, Buffy put an arm around Anya, who all but threw herself into Buffy's shoulder. Buffy didn't know what to say – she wasn't exactly good at this sort of thing – and so she stayed silent until Anya's sobs grew quieter, and she seemed like she could breathe again.
“He was my person,” Anya said, in a sad, small voice. “And now I can't sleep, because he isn't there. How are you meant to sleep when there's no-one to hold you? How are you meant to just – be alone?”
She sounded so scared that it was all Buffy could do to keep herself from shaking.
“You don't – there doesn't have to be a man,” she said, although she wasn't sure she was qualified to give this advice. “Your person doesn't have to be a boyfriend.”
Anya sighed. “Well I tried it the other way a couple of times but I could never get the hang of the breasts -”
Buffy snorted, barely holding back a laugh.
“No, uh, that wasn't what I meant,” she said. “There doesn't have to be sex involved. You can just have – friends, you know. They can be your people, keep you from feeling -”
“Well, where am I supposed to find some of those?” Anya interrupted, clearly frustrated. “And don't say you and Willow, because you're not my friends – you're his friends – and now we won't talk any more and it'll be awkward and -”
“No,” Buffy said firmly. “You're our friend as much as Xander is. We're not going to stop being friends with you over this – I'm not going to stop. If you need someone, then I'll be here for you, as much as I can.”
“You promise?” Anya asked.
Buffy had a sense, somewhere deep in her gut, that in spite of Anya's inebriation, whatever she said next would be remembered.
“Yes,” Buffy said. “I am your friend, and I will help you through this. You don't have to be alone.”
Anya sniffed, and snuggled closer into Buffy's shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said.
Buffy sighed.
“Okay, we both need to sleep,” she said.
“But -”
“Do you want to share my bed?” Buffy asked, forcing the words out before she had a chance to think things through.
“Oh.” Anya smiled. “Yes, that sounds nice.”
This was going to be fun to explain at the breakfast table tomorrow.
“Well, uh. Follow me then,” Buffy said, helping Anya to her feet. Anya wobbled for a couple of steps, grabbing hold of Buffy's hand, but with that support she was just about able to walk across the room.
“I'm glad I came here,” she said, apparently to herself, as they began to climb the stairs. “Being on my own didn't feel right. I almost didn't come but then I thought that this is always the place where we fix things, and I needed fixing, so...”
Buffy half-smiled to herself at Anya's mumbling. She wouldn't take anything Anya had said tonight too seriously until they were both wide awake and sober, but it was nice to feel like a force for good for a change, rather than a walking disaster.
Then she heard Anya sigh, and say:
“You always make me feel safe.”
Buffy stopped, and Anya stumbled into her. Buffy squeezed her hand tight.
“Thanks, An,” she said, sincerely.
Anya yawned. “Can we go to sleep now?”
“Yeah.” Buffy smiled. “Come on.”