Title: The Runaway
By: Winter
Rated: P.G.
Summary: Dawn died at the end of S5, and Buffy's been on the run since then. Her POV of things.
Spoilers: The Gift.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Joss and UPN own everything. Please don't sue me. I own nothing of value. Not even a good computer that I'm writing this on.
AN: This I my first POV fic I have ever written, so tell me what you think. Please.
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I can still hear her sometimes, late at night, when the only other things that are still up and about are the walking dead and the ghost that haunt the city. Usually its a stray scream caught in the wind that's blowing in from the Gulf. Other times it's my cat purring and I mistake it for her giggle. Sometimes, its her saying my name in that smug, teenage tone from behind me and I think, if I turn around fast enough, I'll catch her staring at me, her arms crossed and an annoyed look on her face from something I've said or done. But she's never there. I'm never fast enough.
In my dreams, I can see her. Not well, but I know its her. She chained up, waiting for me or one of the others to come and save her.
I'm busy at the moment, trying to keep this two bit Saturday morning cartoon villain reject from climbing the tower and hurting her. She's strong. I'm stronger thanks to the hammer. I just about have her in place when that faint scream catches me. Somehow, with everything that was going on, her fearful shriek cut through and hits me. I turned to see if it had started. That was all that she needed.
Things get a bit fuzzy after that, a swirl of nothing but fists, kicks, and curly blond hair coming after me. To this day I don't know how I survived, let alone won. All I knew was that I had to get up there to save my sister. Maybe that's all it took to defeat this god. Sure will.
As blurry as that battle was, the next moments were crystal clear and in super slow motion. I charge up the shaky tower towards her, determined that it wasn't too late. Even when I saw that white explosion in front of me and the fury and damage it caused, I didn't believe it was too late. I was the slayer. I'd survived worse. We would survive this.
Then I reached the top and heard it. That popping sound I myself had caused on numerous occasions to countless baddies, a neck broken, a life ending. I wasn't fast enough.
I was frozen in my tracks there, seeing the man with his back to me as he let the little body of the girl he had just been hugging, who he had just killed, fall away from him limply and into the angry ball of light below. She looked like a rag doll to me, one that a child had decided to through over the edge of a second story balcony just to watch it fall. Her arms flew up towards me, begging me to dive after her and save her from the light. If I could have moved, I would have.
He stood there watching, not even daring to breathe until the light died and she lay on the ground far below. Then he turned and saw me. He froze like one of those deer in a pair of headlights. Neither of us said anything. I couldn't have anyway because it would just come out as screams and sobs.
He had kept his word to me; he had saved this sorry world even at the cost of what was left of my family, of my heart, of my spirit. He had broken them just as surely as he had broken my baby sisters' neck. From that moment on, he was no longer my friend, my trainer, my mentor, my...father. He was just the Ripper; a nickname I think fits him all to well.
I couldn't believe it when the others took his side. He did what had to be done, each had told me in their own way. We might not like it, we might hate it, but protecting the world is a messy, dirty business. People get hurt. People die. Well, here's what I say to you and your world. SCREW YOU!!!!
They all agreed with him, but one. The one I thought I would never be able to stand, let alone become friends with, suddenly became the person I was closest to. I saw him after the battle. I saw the damage done to him in his effort to save the broken doll that was my sister. I saw him morn for her. I saw him.
It was raining the night after we buried her. I remember getting out of Xander's truck and he and Anya darting for my front door. Since it happened, they didn't trust me to be alone and, as a result, Willow and Tara had basically moved in. They would be waiting inside for us. Waiting to start their supportive friend night, but I didn't feel like playing. I didn't feel much of anything anymore except numbness or pain.
I was standing beside the truck, getting thoroughly soaked, when I heard my friend calling me in. I said something - "I'll be in, in a minute." I think. That satisfies him, and they disappear into the house. I had no intentions of going inside. I don't know what I intended, but going in was the last thing I wanted to do at the moment.
Then I felt it. That familiar little tug in the back of my mind I had felt since our first meeting. He was there, watching me, trying to see if my sorrow matched or surpassed his own.
I turned to see him standing there on the sidewalk in front of my neighbors' home. The rain had caused his usually slick back hair to fall freely in a tousled mess. I'm sure mine didn't look much better. He had both his hands dug deep into his pockets and he was just looking at me with sad, apologetic blue eyes. Dawn's death had crushed him just as much as it did me. That was oddly comforting. To know someone else out there can't move on so easily as my so-called friends had.
I know what it is. They've all convinced themselves that she wasn't real. That she really was only ball of energy in a young girl's body. Energy doesn't have feelings or a soul, so who cares. Right?
I cared. He cared.
She wasn't just energy to us. She had just been Dawn. The girl I had fought with for as long as I can remember. The girl who he use to tell those awful stories to. The girl we both fought, and failed, to protect. To us, she was Dawn, my sister, his friend.
I went up to him, both of remained quiet. There have been maybe a handful of times when that has happened. We've always liked to egg each other on, give the perception that we still hated each other even though we don't. Amazingly enough, I don't hate him anymore. We were too tired to even try to pretend that night.
Then I said it, those two words that changed both ours lives. I wasn't planning on saying them, they had never even crossed my mind, but I opened my mouth and out they came.
"Let's go."
I had expected something from him, a surprised look, him telling me I had to stay, anything. Instead, he had simply said, "Where to?"
I shrugged.
"Anywhere."
He nodded and we walked away, away from my friends, away from my life. Giles had kept his promise, now so have I. I haven't seen them since, and that suits me just fine.
We got into his car, taking nothing more then the clothes on our back and the few bucks we had between us, and drove away. Vegas was our first stop, but we didn't stay there long. Spike had taken a little of money and doubled it in an hour. By the end of the night, they gave him a high rollers room and we stayed there until the sun set the next day. He would have liked to stay there, I know it, but it was to close. Like I told him, they could find me too easily, and he understood. So we took off again.
Next stop was Dallas, up to Memphis, over to Atlanta, then down to Orlando, before we ended up here, New Orleans. Our own little tour of the Deep South, I guess.
We came here for Marti Gras. It happened to be close to my birthday and we figured a big city celebration would be a lot safer then a regular Buffy birthday party. We just kind of stayed after that.
I guess because here, people don't look at us as if we are out of place. They did in the other places. It felt like they were watching us that we stood out to much. Even after I had convinced Spike to finally give the bleach a rest and go back to natural color, they still looked at us. I even let my hair keep growing until now where it's practically at my butt, and died it a chestnut brown. I thought we looked as normal as we could, but they still looked. I hate it when they look.
They don't here. Of course, when you have people who make a living as street performers, passer bys tend to go un-noticed.
We've been here for about four months now. I even got a job at The HardRock Cafe, if you can believe it. I'm a waitress, again. What is it about me and serving food? I can't cook it, but I sure as hell can serve it.
Spike works at a demon bar down on Bourbon Street, which isn't to far away. I'm glad for that. Usually, he'll get off a little early and comes and wait to walk me home, or I'll head over to the bar and wait for his shift to be up. We don't get home before two in the morning, ever, which means we are bound to run into trouble somewhere.
We don't slay anymore, neither one of us. But we do help if it's needed. Hey, there are still times when we just have to beat something up, and it's not much fun when your partner can't fight back. We're not trying to save the world anymore; we're just keeping the peace. Our peace.
We sleep together for the first time after one such a peace keeping event outside of hotel in Memphis. It had been some demon, whose name I can't even pronounce correctly, that had been a little to friendly to a girl who wasn't returning the advances. We make quick work of him. As much as I hate to admit it, Faith had been right about how you feel after a good slay. There are two ways you feel, and I wasn't hungry that night. We haven't been apart at night since then.
He's holding me now, pulling me close to him in a protective way. I don't mind. I kind of like it. Our apartment is silent, as if we were asleep, but neither one of us are. We don't sleep much. Not when her screams still haunt us. I know they haunt him as much as they do me. I've heard him in his sleep when the nightmares come and he's doing his best to try and save her. Like me, he never does. So this is what we usually do, just lie here and wait for either the horrible sleep to take us, or for the alarm to go off and tell us it's time to start another day.
I'm waiting for the day when more happens. I'm waiting for the day when I open my door or go to a table in the back and there are my friends waiting for me. How do I know their looking for me? I've heard things from the shadier people at the bar. Spikes heard them too.
They talk about how the slayer is AWOL and they're on their way to Sunnyd to try and open the Hellmouth or something like that. We usually take care of them before they leave town. I have even heard one story about how I was supposedly kidnapped by a vampire. I can guess who they mean. Knowing my friends, that's probably what they believe.
The latest one I heard is that Angel and his crew are in on the act and have their demon connections out searching for me.
I know I look a little different, and so does Spike, but it's only a matter of time. We both now it. I can't be a runaway forever, and he can't keep helping me do it until the end of time.
I think when we decided to stay here we made the decision to be found. Every demon comes through New Orleans at least once, if nothing else to say that they have been there. One day, we'll be recognized and the Scoobies or Angel will be called. It'll be over then, our simple life. And you know why? Because I'm just not fast enough.
The End