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AN: Hello! This is just a small script. It sorta sets the stage for the next part, Family Found. Parts that are not canon are slightly explained below. Hope you enjoy!
Love and Loss,
Stand Alone
Buffy took a deep breath and tightened her grip on her duffle bag.
She could do this.
She just had to make her friends hate her; then they would be safe.
She could do this.
Just think about what Spike would say.
…..
Oh God, Spike.
Buffy felt how the carefully constructed walls around her emotions began to crumble. Her eyes burned. Her throat closed off. Her chest felt as if someone had put an anvil on it. Gasping for breath, she fought to rebuild what had cracked. Soon air started flowing into her lungs again.
She could do this.
She opened the door and walked out. One step down, only an eternity to go.
She could do this.
She made it to the top of the stairs. Looking down she saw the Scoobies sitting at the round couch. The original four; having come so far, adding so many, only to be the last four remaining of what started out seven years ago. Xander was pale, still healing from the infection that sat up where his eye used to be. He had his body taunt as if he was relaxing, he would shatter. The grief of losing Anya was eating him alive. Willow had an ethereal look to her, looking like the goddess that Kennedy proclaimed. Angel standing with them, but still always apart. The stress of Cordy's coma present on his face. And Giles, one could see the excitement of starting a new council from his every word, every gesture, every breath.
She could do this.
She had to do this, or else the last four of her friends would also be gone. Standing there she began recalling all those who were now gone because of her refusal to do this at the beginning. Using the grief would give her the strength she needed to leave behind her friends and family.
She could do this.
First there was Merrick, because she froze. She would never forget the look of regret on his face as the stake slid into his chest by his own hand.
Then there was Pike. He refused, like the others, to let her do this alone. The vampire had not even hit him that hard, but it was enough to make him loose balance. The hit he took to the head killed him instantly.
Jenny dying because of Buffy's involvement with Angel.
Faith's descent into darkness because there were two Slayers instead of just one.
Her Mother. She firmly believed that if she had left when Merrick tried to get her to leave, then she would have survived the cancer. That she would have went to see a doctor when the headaches first appeared instead of believe they were from stressing about Buffy living a normal life, about Buffy living period.
Dawn, her dear sister Dawnie; the one was suppose to live, grow, have a family in Buffy's stead. The one time she took a human's life, Ben's, it had cost her Dawn. She made up to the top just in time to see her jump, realizing to late that she could take her place, that she could have saved Dawn. She just had to have been up there instead of pausing to finish of Glory. Her vengeance's cost was Dawn.
Tara dying because of living in her house while an attack was aimed at the Slayer.
Anya's death in a war that should have never happened. If she had never involved her friends, then Xander would have not revived her and the balance would have never been disturbed.
And Spike, her rock, the tether that held her grounded after losing her mother and sister.
And so many others that she could not name but remembered every face. By what number would the faces decrease if she had never pursued a so called normal life?
She could do this.
She would leave and the ones remaining would be safe. They could still die, but it would not be because of her. No more!
She could do this.
She would stand alone.