Running
Author: Pharo
Disclaimer: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' belongs to Joss Whedon. The lyrics are from "How's It Going To Be" by Third Eye Blind. No infringement intended.
Summary: She doesn't know who she is anymore.
Spoilers: Season 6 up to "Smashed".
Feedback: pharo@onebox.com
//I'm only pretty sure that I can't take anymore
Before you take a swing, I wonder
What are we fighting for
When I say out loud, I want to get out of this, I wonder
Is there anything I'm going to miss…//
She runs faster than she's ever run before—faster than she ever dreamed she could. She sees nothing but blurs all around her. She doesn't respond to her friends calling out for her to stop. Maybe she doesn't hear them, maybe she doesn't want to hear them—either way, it only makes her move faster, if that's even possible. Streams of tears run from her eyes, but she never once attempts to wipe them away—the wind does that for her. It leaves black trails of mascara on her face, like dark scars from long ago. She looks like someone ran a claw over her face, but still she doesn't attempt to do anything but run. Run as far away from the life she's been pulled back into.
She wants to be happy that her friends have brought her back—she really does. She wants to feel something besides sadness in her soul. She wants to fall asleep just one night without tears in her eyes. She wants to smile for her friends and be the person they want her to be. She wants to do it all, but she can't do any of it.
She's not afraid to die. She's afraid to live. She wishes that they'd just let her stay dead. No one pushed her into the swirl of white light, but herself. She wanted to save the world. It was her job. It was her life. In the grand scope of things, that was her gift to the universe—allowing it to go on for just a little longer. In that split second between life and death, she'd made a choice. She didn't look back, she didn't plead, she didn't cry. She just did what she had to do.
She doesn't want to be here. It hurts too much to be here. Her life—is it even her life anymore—is wrong. Everyone seems to be leaving when she needs them the most—everyone that she needs to be there. Her watcher no longer watches over her, her best friend can't even get out of bed in the morning without summoning the supernatural forces, and her mortal enemy claims to have fallen in love with her—whatever that means.
//I wonder
How's it going to be when you don't know me
How's it going to be when you're sure I'm not there
How's it going to be when there is no one there to talk to
Between you and me…//
She hops on a bus with nothing more than thirty bucks and the clothes she has on. She takes a seat in the middle somewhere—she never sits in the front and can't stand the bumps in the back—and knows she won't be bothered until she gets there. No one looking for company travels this late at night. She sits in the seat and looks out the window. All she has to bother her are her thoughts.
The rock that she'd learned to depend on, left when she needed him the most. He chose that moment of all moments to up and leave for the mother ship or motherland or whatever the hell he called it. He decided that was the time when he needed to test out her independence, to make her become an adult. He took it upon himself to realize that she needed to become "her own person". He made her rely on him only to move away when she needed something to lean on.
Her best friend wondered why she wasn't happy. If she'd opened her eyes, she'd know why. If she weren't so engrossed in her spells and magic, she'd understand. If she'd stop trying to be a witch and started being normal, she would have seen the truth. If she'd just…
It doesn't matter now anyway. They asked for it and now they know. They know why sad expressions have found home on her face. Or why her soul lets out a howl of anguished pain when she wakes up in the morning and finds that it all wasn't some horrible nightmare.
The Spike-situation is the worst of them all. Yeah, she wanted to feel. Part of her mind told her to hell with it: if she gave in, maybe she'd feel. Maybe something inside her soul would ignite and she'd feel a little warmth. The sensible part of her mind knew that she wouldn't. She knew she would end up hurting him and hurting herself. That didn't stop her. She thought she was better than that. She thought she was stronger.
She knows that she'll never feel anything from him that will last. Not while she keeps seeing the face of someone else when she kisses him. Not while she's still berating herself for what she's become.
She feels like she's drowning and she can't pull herself up. With all her strength and all the people she's saved, in the end, she can't even save herself. She doesn't know how. She doesn't know who she is anymore.
She touches the cool glass of the window and remembers him. She shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't know her when she gets there. How does she expect him to find some shadow of the person that he loved in her? She doesn't know the answer. All she knows is that she needs him to find her so she can find herself.
//I wonder
How's it going to be when it goes down
How's it going to be when you're not around…//
She slowly peeks in through the open door. She thought that they would have closed their doors and bolted—for safety precautions—but then she realized that whatever actually uses a door to come in can't be that harmful. Most evil things just crash in.
Her hair is dripping wet. Little drops of water fall onto the hand that grips the doorknob so tightly and fall to the floor. It seems strange to her that during all the important moments in her life, it rains. Almost every painful, life-altering memory that she remembers involved rain. All the important things in her life involve pain and rain.
She knows she should probably get it over with instead of making his floor all wet and slushy, but she can't help it. She can't bring herself to destroy the calm atmosphere he's in as he puts away the last of the books they used. If she hadn't known better, she might have even assumed that he was humming, but she dismisses the thought. It is too painful to think that he can be happy—and humming at that—without her. She lets out one last sigh before opening the door and stepping in.
"Angel."
She tries to keep her voice from cracking and the pain from showing. She feels like she doesn't deserve to ever speak his name again. It's as if she's breaking the rules by just being here, but then again, in a way she is.
She didn't want to know if he didn't sense her—that he had moved on and forgotten what it felt like to be near her. She had been afraid and decided not to risk it, showing herself before he had a chance to even recognize the sound of the door opening.
"Buffy." She's relieved that he still recognizes the sound of her voice.
He turns around to face her. She winces at the thought of what she must look like—a wet, shivering pile getting his floor wet. Another chore to do once she's gone.
"Hey." It's as if that's the only word on her vocabulary lists—didn't they have those when she was in second grade—that she remembers.
"Buffy, you're soaked. Let me get you a towel."
"No, hey, you really don't need to."
But he's already gone. He comes back a second later with a nice, dry white towel—freshly cleaned and smelling of flowers.
"Sit down," he says. She complies, choosing a big, comfortable armchair to hide in. "Do you want something to drink? I can make some hot tea or something, if you want."
She shakes her head.
"How about I get you some dry clothes to wear?"
"No, that's ok. Really, I'm fine." she says, barely able to hide a sob. It doesn't matter if her clothes are wet or not. She's frozen anyway. It wouldn't make much of a difference.
"Buffy, what are you doing here in LA?" His face is filled with concern. "Is everything ok?"
If he only knew how not ok everything was…
"I, uh—some things are—I came…"
She can't even finish the sentence without the tears breaking free. His immediate impulse is to go her, but she stops him midway.
"No. Just…just stay there. I won't be able to tell you if you're—"
"What's wrong?" he asks, slowly sitting down again.
"Everything."
She knows that she's scaring him. In a way, she's scaring herself. She knows she should just tell him and stop delaying the inevitable. She knows, but she doesn't want to.
"What happened?"
She knows that he means in Sunnydale, but a part of her mind can't help but wonder if he knows. Maybe Spike sent him a postcard just to twist a knife straight into his heart. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. It would've been so much easier if he had, though. It would be less painful than her plunging a knife through his heart.
"Are you there—" She hadn't even realized that he'd come to her. Although, she might have been staring at him for at least a couple of minutes. He had probably been worried about her.
"I slept with Spike."
His hand immediately drops from her face. He stumbles backward and that look on his face—it's worse than when she sent him to hell. He steps backward until he hits the couch and then he just slumps down, all the while looking at the floor past her, his eyes nowhere near hers. He stares down at the floor and swallows quietly, as if afraid to make a single sound. Part of her wishes that he would just scream at her and say that he wants her to get out instead of this awful silence.
"I—I needed—I was in a bad place," she says as if that explains it all, as if it makes everything fine. She knows she's just making excuses that even she knows can't make it all right. At that moment, all she wants is for his eyes to meet with hers again. "Angel, can you just look at me? Please?"
He doesn't even shake his head. He just leans back against the couch, looking defeated. It sends nails through her heart to think she did that to him.
"I understand what you were feeling and I understand why," he says softly after a long pause. She can tell he's trying to stop his voice from quivering.
She knew he would.
"Darla," she says, uttering the one name that associates her actions with his.
Willow had told her about the thing with Darla, but somehow, it still feels different. It had been different in some way—what she did and what he did. They weren't on even ground.
"But, I can't accept what happened because it happened with Spike. Anyone else—anyone—and I could have accepted it. But Spike. I can't."
"Things were—he was the only one who knew. He was the only one who understood. He was—"
He runs a hand through his hair. He looks everywhere else but at her.
"I left because I wanted you to have a normal life. I left because I can't give you what you deserve to have. You deserve a nice, normal guy. And if it had been a normal guy, I'd accept it, but it wasn't, Buffy. It was Spike. Spike—a vampire. An evil vampire at that—after all he's done…"
"Well actually, now he's got a chip that keeps him from—"
She stops talking when she realizes that it makes no difference whether he's evil or not.
"It hurts because he is the same as me. I wanted something better for you then people like him. I didn't leave so you could hook up with him. Thinking that he can be with you and I can't—I just can't accept it."
He rubs his face with his hands as if it'll lessen the pain some way.
"I didn't do this on purpose. I didn't want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. I just had to tell you," she says.
He turns his back to her.
"You shouldn't have."
She thinks that maybe he is right. What had been the point of telling him—of hurting him, like this? She knows exactly why she ran to tell him. She thought that if he knew, she'd feel a little less guilty. She thought—it doesn't matter now.
//How's it going to be when you found out there was nothing
Between you and me…//
"I'm sorry," she says, barely whispering. She realizes that it's the first time she has told him that. She should have told him long ago, but instead, she's telling him now. "Don't hate me, Angel. Please, I don't think I'd be able to take it if you hated me."
She needs him to tell her that he doesn't. That he can never hate her, no matter how bad he feels.
"Angel, please?"
And still he doesn't say anything. She's not sure if he doesn't because it would be a lie or because he just can't.
"I don't."
She's not sure if he means it. She can't tell anymore. He refuses to look into her eyes. In a way, she's thankful for that. His eyes deceive him—they give away his true feelings. If he doesn't mean it, she doesn't want to know.
He starts to face her and she's afraid. Things have changed between them—due to her actions. She doesn't know if they'll ever be the same again. And so, she's afraid of being so messed up—of messing things up so badly—that she will no longer be able to read his eyes. She's afraid of him looking at her and not seeing her—of not knowing the person he sees anymore. The thing she's the most scared of is that he won't be able to love her anymore.
"You can't look at me."
She runs out through the open door, into the night, away from him. She runs away from the prospect of losing him. She runs away with the memory of what they used to be—what they might never be again.
She runs away because she wants to remember him while he still loved her—while he still knew her.
//How's it going to be when you don't know me anymore
How's it going to be…//