TITLE: Drift Away
AUTHOR: Ragna (writinggoddess@aol.com)
RATING: FRT
CLASSIFICATION: Wow...actual Willow/Graham, mentions of Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Riley, Willow/Oz, Devon/Oz friendship, and breakup of Xander/Anya
SPOILERS: Set I suppose five or six months after the episode prior to Superstar.
DISTRIBUTION: Any sites with my fic up; you all have unspoken permission. I write it, you can post it. Everyone else just keep my name on it and let me know.
DISCLAIMER: If you don't recognize it, chances are it's my own creation. If you do, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kazui Sandollar, FOX and the WB own it or them. Various friends of mine are holding characters hostage. You may see them by appointment only. The song is "Drift Away" by Naked. It was on the episode "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered."
FEEDBACK: Sorry I'm not home right now I'm walking in the spiderwebs so leave a message and I'll call you back...in other words, I want it. Don't care if it's onlist or not.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I got really bored. I've written all dialogue fic before; this is, I think, one of my few non dialogue fics that isn't first person. So...I hope you like it.

***

It was a normal night at the Bronze. Packed to the rafters, band in the corner, people laughing and talking and flirting.

Normalcy was shattered for Buffy, however. It had been a long time since she was at the Bronze. Dingoes Ate My Baby wasn't playing that evening, but the band was still around, Devon casting dirty glares at Willow and Graham. There was an air of tension in the room, some of it revolving around Xander and Anya, and of course Buffy and the man sitting across from her.

Her dark knight, her Angel.

Buffy just stared at the man she knew had her heart. And maybe that's why her heart ached so much, because he had it. She knew, in the back of her mind, Riley was walking around there. He knew nothing about Angel, not what he looked like or acted like or where he lived or anything like that.

She preferred to keep her secrets to herself, and Angel was her secret. Or maybe the fact she still loved him was her secret.

The band slipped into the song and Angel sighed, looking at the beautiful Slayer. He didn't know why he had come, he didn't know why there was a waning attraction between them, when before there had been passion, a spark that made it impossible to keep lips off lips, flesh away from flesh...

Whatever there had been, it was gone, or very close to it.

Riley sat at the table two over, watching Buffy. He couldn't talk to her, take back what had happened between him and Faith even if Faith had been in her body...he couldn't make her pain go away.

And that man across from her was making all her pain come to the surface, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, or was it a trick of the light?

He turned his gaze away, looking at Graham and Willow. How had he managed to be happy? What was his secret?

Graham held Willow lightly as they swayed on the dance floor. He knew all about her pain, the way Oz had messed up things for her, and how her life had come crashing down on her. And he knew all this and accepted it, and she liked him for that.

And she did like him...she'd just told him. It may not be love, it may never get to love, but it was what they had, and he needed it. He didn't want her to leave...she was the only one who understood him, really, more than anyone else in the world.

Willow shouldn't have let her mind wander but she did. This song was slightly depressing, and it lead to depressing thoughts. Of course she was happy, but she could feel Devon's eyes on her, his glare boring down on her. And why should she care, really?

Because she felt she might deserve it, in some small way. Karma for cheating on Oz with Xander.

But hadn't Oz left her? Didn't he get in his van and drive away? At least she knew Graham wouldn't do that to her...that much she could count on.

Devon continued to scowl at Willow. But now, it wasn't because he felt anger or resentment towards her. He knew she'd eventually move on, that his best friend would eventually come back and realize she had, and then he'd move on.

No, Devon scowled at her because he wished he had a life like hers. Someone...no, in her case two smart young men, who adored her. Chances that most people would kill for. Friends that really did care.

And at that last thought, he looked to Xander. Maybe if things had been different, maybe they could have been friends. Devon gave up the scowling and stared at his beer. All those maybes made his head hurt.

Xander looked at Anya's now vacant seat. He couldn't take it anymore, the way they were together. He just couldn't. So they'd broken up. He told her he cared about her, that if it had been another place, another time, then things might have worked.

And they had drifted apart, drifted away from each other. That was the hardest thing to tell her. He genuinely did care about her, he really did. But he couldn't be with her anymore.

He couldn't be with anyone anymore. Not after the mess with Cordelia.

Anya sat in the bathroom stall, away from everyone. The cool metal of the stall against her forehead soothed her, kept her from bursting into a sob. Her heart ached so bad.

She'd never had her heart broken before. She'd seen other women, with their eyes always ready to let tears spill over and their head hung low, and she'd vowed never to let that happen to her, never to let herself loose that much of herself.

But she had, and she'd done it to Xander, and she tried to choke back the impending sob. To no avail, she realized as she felt the tears slip, silently and quickly, down her cheeks and onto the floor.

The song ended, the band thanked everyone for coming to see them that night, and the club's crowd slowly dispersed. Soon, there was only the eight of them, the eight with so much on their minds, so much pain in their hearts.

And then they started to drift away from the club, away from each other.