You're Already Gone
Disclaimer: I own nothing; Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon. Snoopy, Woodstock and the gang belong to Charles Schulz or his estate. Please don't sue me, I'm a college student, it won't do you any good
A.N. Totally AU for Buffy, before Season 1 Supernatural. This story started in my head as something completely different then what came out on paper. It's now the prequel to another fic of mine which I will be posting here, "Don't Let Me Die Still Wandering". I wrote this a while ago, so it might not be my best work, but it's short so give it a shot.
I cry tears of woe
And as they turn into a song,
I beg you not to go
But you're already gone.
Dean tried to hold in the anguish he'd been feeling ever since she told him she was going back "home", ever since she said she was leaving him. Just a few more moments and he could unleash the despair that had been building since he walked into their apartment and saw her suitcases by the front door. As soon as he saw them he began to desperately call her name, Dean had heard a muffled response from the back of the apartment and hurried down the short hall to their bedroom.
His mind distantly ticked off the items that were missing from the once familiar surroundings; a picture from the mantel of her two best friends and father figure back in Sunnydale, another which hung on the wall of the living room that she had insisted they have professionally done during the holidays so she could send copies to Xander, Buffy and Giles. Little things, mementos, memories of the life they'd built together, gone. Even the short, faded Snoopy and Woodstock rug that had lain in the hallway since Willow had seen it at a flee market a month after they had moved in together. Willow had passed over it thinking it was a frivolous expense, and one she would only be buying to remind herself of simpler times when the sight of her best friend doing the Snoopy Dance was enough to defeat the sadness that was sometimes too much a part of her life. However she had been unable to sleep that night thinking that someone else might buy it, she forced Dean to drive her back the very next day in the hope of obtaining it. He could still remember the looked that day as she skipped back to the car beaming, with the rug clasped in an iron grip and her copper hair shining in the sunlight.
He reached the bedroom, their bedroom, to find her zipping shut her overnight bag.
"Willow?"
His voice broke when she looked up and his heart began to crack, fine lines tracing weak spots all over, as he saw the resolved set of her mouth, and the look in her eyes that said as clearly as if she had shouted it, "I'm leaving."
"Willow?" He tried again.
"I'm sorry Dean," she began looking hesitantly into his eyes, "I had hoped I'd be gone by the time you got home…. I thought it might be easier that way, for both of us."
"Will-" he began for a third time to say the name of the woman he loved, hoping for some kind of mistake, for an explanation, something that would make sense to his brain, that could break past the steadily growing buzz in his ears that had begun at the sight of those cold going away eyes.
"Dean" she cut him off, "I have to go home, to Cleveland. There's something, an evil presence, and my friends could be in danger."
He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her that he would follow her through the gates of hell if she asked, to pledge himself to her for the rest of his life.
"No," the word rang out like a shot, "You can't come with me Dean, I'm going alone, and I probably won't be coming back."
Dean felt the pain of her refusal as if she really had fired. Not a handgun he thought vaguely, a shotgun, with pellets that tear through your flesh to rip at your soul. The next hour and a half was a hazy nightmare of excuses and justifications which boiled down to one thing; she was leaving him, just like everybody else.
She gave him a last kiss goodbye, and a promise to call. He just stood there, nodding mutely at appropriate intervals, wishing she would leave him alone with his grief, praying she'd never walk out that door. At last it happened, all her belongings were packed into the waiting U-Haul truck parked outside, she gave one sad smile and a lingering glance over her shoulder, and she was gone.
Dean watched her drive away, blinded by the tears which were begging to fall, until at last she was gone. He walked through the barren apartment, feeling its emptiness consume him. He made it to their, his, bed before he collapsed, the deep well of despair he'd been holding at bay flooded through him. Grief, rage, betrayal, and love came rushing from him in a torrent of tears. Exhausted, sleep took him to a land of black, mercifully free from dreams, and memories.