Disclaimer- Joss Whedon owns everything Buffy and Angel.
Summary- When Buffy comes back from the dead, and nobody can see that she came back wrong.
Rating- NC-17
Timeline- Season six of Buffy. I don't know anything about Angel, so I'm just gonna wing it with him.
Day Three.
I can barely see straight. They're all crowding me with questions, their rough hands touching me, their harsh voices deafening me. All I feel like doing is curling up and screaming at the top of my lungs, but all I do is smile, pretending to be as happy as they are that I'm back. I'm not happy. I wish I was dead. They thought I was in hell, I hear them whispering, and they wonder if I am mentally and physically okay. If they only knew. If only they knew the kind of pain I'm in. This is hell. Where I was, it was literally rainbows and peach fuzz, and now? This is a nightmare I can't wake up from. I can't wake up, and I can't escape.
My nights are filled with nightmares. I can't breathe. I can't breathe! Help, help, help me. I punch at the air and thrash in my sleep, screaming at the night to help me. The night doesn't help me anymore then the day does. I throw my fists into the air and feel my knuckles connect with something soft. It's not my coffin. My eyes snap open, the harsh reality smacking me with such a force I want to cry, and there I see Willow and Dawn. They're staring at me, and Willow is holding her face. Was that what I hit? I sit up slowly, the blanket sliding down my sweat covered body. I wish I went to sleep naked, then I wouldn't have to worry about peeling what feels like my skin off in the morning when I have to shower. I wish I could rip my skin from my bones; maybe the real me is underneath. The Buffy that never died. The Buffy that didn't have a ball of energy for a sister. The Buffy that still had her mommy.
"I want my mommy," I hear myself whisper, my voice broken and soft. Too soft for them to hear.
I'm broken. I know it, but they don't. Maybe it's a piece of my soul that's gone. Or maybe it's my mind. Whatever it is, it's gone. I don't know if I can get it back; I don't know how to get it back.
I don't want the pain, and I don't want them. They're getting closer to me, and I curl up into myself, rocking back and forth on the bed. I don't want to be touched; their fingers are hot and it burns. I don't want to be spoken to; they don't know that they're voices are too loud, like static or a high pitched whine that hurts when you hear it. I don't want to see them; every time I do, it reminds me of what they've done to me. They took away my heaven, and they didn't even stop to think. Willow always looks so caring, so happy when she looks at me, and I just want to throw up. I hate the sugary look in her eyes, as if she had done something I should be thankful for. I wish I could just kill myself and get it over with, but I'm afraid it's one ticket per person for the train to heaven. If I die again, by my own hands, there's no telling where I'd go, but anywhere is better then here.
Dawn is the one who is by my side, her arms around me, her head on my shoulder. I want to shake her off me. Her hair is irritating my skin, and she feels like she weighs more then two tons. I feel my back creak under the pressure, but I don't say a word. Maybe if my body collapses under the weight I'll die. I hold my breath, waiting for my back to give way when she gets up, sitting in front of me instead now. I hear her calling my name, but I ignore her. She's not real anyway. Little ball of energy. She raises her voice as if I'm deaf or something. I hear her just fine, I just don't want to be bothered. Leave me alone, leave me alone, please, please.
There are two people who could possibly understand how I feel right now; Spike and Angelus. Not Angel because Angel doesn't know what it feels like to be without a soul, Angelus does. Angel doesn't know how it feels to have people crowding, asking, touching when all you want to do is kill them or yourself, while you sit there, not knowing whether you've lost your soul or your mind. Angelus and Spike. Angel may have the memory, but Angelus was the one who lived it. They know how it feels to crawl out of their own grave, clawing and scratching at something that is almost impossible to break. There is no air inside a tiny box. I should have just laid there and died again. Then they'd never know I was ever alive again, and they wouldn't ever try to raise me.
Dawn raises my head to look at her, and if she only knew that her large hands were burning the skin off of my cheeks. Her eyes are dark, her skin is dark, the world is dark. I still can't see right, and yet, she's talking a mile a minute to me like I've never been gone. Your voice hurts my ears. Please. Stop. Talking.
"It hurts," I whisper, and this time she hears what I have to say.
"Oh, I know, Buffy. It'll be alright soon."
So oblivious. She hurts me. Willow hurts me. Xander hurts me. Anya and Tara hurt me. The world hasn't even touched me yet. The world doesn't hurt me, it just doesn't help. It's like walking barefoot on a long line of spikes trying to get to the end; the world could give me shoes, but they'd rather see me scream and hop from one foot to the other in pain. None of them know what kind of pain I'm in. And they probably never will.
"Tired," I cry, the hot tears burning my eyelids as I hold them back. If I cry in front of them they'll ask questions, and I don't want to answer them.
I feel Dawn nod and let me go, retreating from my bed. I hear them both mumbling goodnights to me as they leave my room.
I'm on fire. It hurts. Her touches ignited a flame and now it's spreading throughout my body. Help, it hurts! Help! I start clawing at my clothes, my jagged nails occasionally catching some skin and ripping it open. I cry out, and even to my own ears I can't tell if it was from pleasure or pain. Finally, I'm sitting in my bed, my clothes in shreds on the bed around me, my stomach and chest are lightly coated with thin lines of my own blood, and I am sitting there naked, only free of half of the fire. If I breathe too deep the flames will enter my lungs, and if they do, I don't know how to put them out from out here. I don't know how to get inside to put out the fire.
I take small breaths as I crawl out of bed, uncaring of my nakedness. What do I care anymore? Quietly, I tiptoe out of my room and head into the bathroom. Fires need water to be put out, or at least something equivalent to water. I close the door behind me and head to the shower. I'll douse the fire with cold water. Ice cold. I pull back the shower curtain and put the cold water on full blast. Fire can't withstand ice water. I step in and I scream when the water touches my body. The flames are fighting. I stand underneath the pounding torrent of water and silently tell the flames they will not win. I am not made to be warm anymore. I am cold. I reach down and tell the tub to fill with the ice water; it obeys me, and the cold water is surrounding me hurriedly. I sit in it, and the cold shoots up inside my body, freezing my insides.
That's how I get to my lungs. The water rises rapidly around me, going over the edge of the tub and beyond. I don't care. The shower head is shooting me with cold and I'm surrounded by it-no more fire. I close the shower curtain, not allowing anyone else to have my ice, not allowing anyone else to give back the fire.
I hear banging on the door and I figure someone saw the big puddle of water that was probably forming in front of the door. I can't tell who it is, because frankly, I don't care. I'm where the fire can't catch me, and this is the closest I'll ever get to home.
Their voices are muffled sounds in my ears. I don't want to hear them. I'm assuming Willow had Xander stay over being someone has just broken in the door. Willow wouldn't do that. And neither would Dawn. I hear my name, and I find that I'm wrong; it's Spike. What is he doing here? I don't ask questions, I just continue to sit in the ice water, ignoring him completely. I don't even react when he throws open the curtain and sees me sitting there, naked, legs up to my chest. I don't care.
"Buffy, Jesus Christ," I hear him speak as he shuts the water, and reached in and scooped my out of my icy escape.
"No," I whimper, but then I feel his hands against my skin and he's not hot. He's not burning me.
I'm naked in his arms and I watch as Willow rushes to get a towel. She puts the towel over me, but I burrow into his arms, trying to get inside his shirt to feel the coolness. He doesn't burn. He brushes past Willow and brings me to my room, and she follows him without question. I can hear them talking to each other, but my body is numb with the cold, so I don't even attempt to take my mind off of the exquisite feel of it. He places me down on the bed and I whimper again, shivering now. I can't control my body, it shivers by itself. The me that is inside doesn't shiver, she is not cold. She is comfortably numb. He covers me with the towel and tells Willow to dress me. I don't want to get dressed. I want to stay naked and have him hold me; his coolness soaking my skin.
Why can't I still be dead, where I am happy and there is no such thing as hot or cold? A place where Angel and I make love without repercussions and we're not afraid of demons at night. A place where my mommy and I sit and talk about my plans to stay with Angel for all eternity and she doesn't mind because she's already accepted him for a man; there is no such thing as demons in heaven.
Willow gets close to me and I scream. No more heat! No more!
"Buffy, please," I hear her helpless plea, but I continue to thrash and not allow her to touch me.
I clutch the towel to my wet body, hoping against hope that the equally soaked piece of fabric will keep her heat off of me and contain the frigid feel within me. I can't bare her touching me anymore.