Title: Quiet
Author: wintercreek
Disclaimer: Spike and Buffy are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. So is everyone else mentioned. The field, stars, dew drops et cetera are not.
Spoilers: Alludes to events through S6 finale.
Dedication: For Taylor.
A/N: Italic text denotes thought.
**********
Spike shivered briefly. It was more of a sympathy shiver than anything else,
just another one of those oh-so-human traits he'd never gotten rid of. How
can she stand it? I'd be freezing, if I still had a temperature.
Buffy herself was oblivious to the chill wind that whipped over the field.
Stepping slowly across the short grass, she moved in a daze. Her long white
skirt belled out in the wind, catching the moonlight.
Spike was mesmerized. He found himself unable to move, wondering what she was
doing.
The Slayer let a small sigh escape her lips. The day had been a long one. More
than that, she was suddenly and for no apparent reason reminded of her mother.
Buffy was learning to be patient with the occasional waves of grief that still
washed over her, learning to wait until the overwhelming sadness passed. So many lost. Sometimes it was Joyce whose absence haunted
her; sometimes Tara; sometimes simply the specter of the
sheer number of lives she hadn't been able to save. No one ever told me that
having a Calling would be easy, she thought resignedly. They could have
at least lied to me. Tonight was different, though. Rather than stay inside
this time, Buffy had been moved by an unfamiliar urge to go out side. So she
did.
It occurred to Spike, only for one irrelevant moment, that
his peroxided hair must be catching the moonlight almost as gloriously as the
Slayer's own skirt. Effulgent. Hmm.
The grass beneath her bare feet was dew-covered and chilled, but Buffy knelt
anyway. The white skirt pooled around her. She lowered her head until it
touched the ripples of her skirt. Rolling back up with an uncurling that began
at the base of her spine and continued up through her neck, Buffy straightened
and looked upward.
Curious,
Spike turned his gaze skyward. Out here, away from the city lights, the sky was
spangled with stars; even the dimmest stars shone clearly. It's . . .
daunting. Makes a bloke feel so small.
It's
good to feel insignificant once in a while. My failings, my problems, even my
successes-they're nothing compared to this. So big. So dark. Great love and great hate make no difference in the
face of these stars, burning out there. Buffy exhaled slowly and bent once
more to the ground.
The
Vampire tilted his head. What is she thinking? He watched her gather her
skirt closer around her, reaching down so that her hands rested in the earth
and her nose touched the grass.
If I stay this way forever, I might one day be able to feel the pulse of the earth. A steady, reassuring beat, sustaining and powering the cycle of existence. So low, you'll never hear it. I wonder if the stars strain to hear it, if they envy its life, its power. Smiling softly at her own whimsy, the Slayer lifted her head again. Kneeling in the dew, gazing about her as the wind softly lifted her hair, Buffy felt something within her relax and grow still. Unbidden, an image came to her mind: a pool of water, deep within a forest somewhere, the water's surface untroubled by ripples. Quiet.
