It's night. The stars burn hazily in the dark sky, and the moon is full and casts moonbeams playfully upon a lone cemetery. Shadows, dark and ominous, stretch out on the hard ground. They never come out though, the owners of the shadows, they like to stay hidden in the dark, especially when she comes to call. When she walks past the headstones she hears them hiss and snarl, but because they want to stay alive for a bit longer they don't come out to play. However, there are some who are stupid and take the chance to leap at her with knife like claws ready to tare her apart. She kills them instantly, of course. Demons such as these are too stupid and too easy to kill; its almost too boring. So she sits on a rather large tomb stone and waits for the big ones too arrive. They take the longest to show. They are good at their schemes, and don't wish to dissolve into nothing too soon. So she waits, humming a lullaby her mother used to sing to her.
She fiddles with her knife, flipping it in a circle absentmindedly. Then reaches for her pocket to retrieve a long pointed stake. Vampires don't usually come out, but one can never be too careful. With a sudden need for action she fixes a point on a distant tree then hurls her knife at the intended target. It lands squarely right where she intended, but a dark figure, next to the tree, lurches forward suddenly. She raises her stake ready to strike, but the figure comes to stand in the moonlight with a familiar smirk gracing his lips. She doesn't lower her weapon though.
"Plan to finally stake me, pet?" he asks, cocking his head slightly. He appeared more amused then afraid of the stake in her hand. She hesitates, then lowers her stake. "Not tonight," she flips the stake in her hand, "don't want to waist my energy." She turns back to sit on her stone, his low laugh following her.
"Why? 'Cause you know I will win?" he stands a few feet from where she sits with arms crossed, eyes amused if a little arrogant.
"I've beaten your ass more times than there are numbers to count. You would be too easy for me to kill and I want a challenge. I've killed too many stupid demons, and don't need to add another to the list."
"Harsh luv." He saunters over to her, "don't forget I've killed at least two of your kind, and hundreds of humans as well, don't think your not an easy target as well."
"Is that so?" her eyes narrow, "and why isn't your always on your back whenever you try to fight me? And what happened to all the guilt about killing all those innocent people? Thought you had your soul back."
He comes to stand behind her and rests his forearms on the high stone. "Perhaps I let you win, pet. Your pride was always too easily wounded. As for my soul it's still here," he taps his chest, "that's why I've decided to go on the vampire vegetarian diet and only suck the squirrels dry."
Her lips twitch as if trying to conceal a smile. "Well the Animal Rights Foundation is going to have a problem with that when the squirrels start to go missing."
He raises an eyebrow, lips curling suggestively. "There is no pleasing you humans is there? First you don't want me eating humans, now I can't eat squirrels, what am I supposed to do? Starve?"
She doesn't try to conceal the laugh that bubbles out from her lips. "Well that isn't really my problem, just as long as you don't feast on humans all is well with me."
He smiles suddenly, and it takes her off guard. It's a smile of contentment, of happiness, something she hasn't seen on his face in a long while. She almost reaches out to touch him. His smooth in the moonlight, angular and almost too perfect. He looks at her affectionately and the blue of his eyes hold her prisoner. His hair is such a white contrast to the dark night that it makes the white strands appear to glow in the moonlight. Her hand unconsciously reaches out to touch his cheek, the need to tough him suddenly growing stronger. And when her fingertips are centimeters away from him, he pulls back.
"Don't," he whispers. She freezes, her hand wavering in the air. She feels a vise grip on her heart and constricts until it burns to breathe. She understands now, she remembers so she settles her hand on the stone, knuckles white as she clenches her fist.
"This is a dream." She states to herself. He slowly nods. She pulls her gaze away from him and looks at the cemeteries brick walls. The only thing she can see above them is the expanse of a black sky, but she knows there is nothing beyond those gates, just an empty darkness.
"Why do I always have to dream this?" she utters exasperatedly.
"I wouldn't know. I'm part of your dream, only the victim here." He leans toward her, tempting her, "why do you dream of me?"
She tightens her lips then pushes off her perch and lands on the ground striding away across the grass. She lifts her eyes to dark sky then sights, "I've gone through this before. When I stabbed Angel and sent him to hell, I dreamed of him because the guilt consumed me. I...there was so much guilt, such anger...I dreamed of him every night... it was only way I could tell him how sorry I was." She stands in the middle of the cemetery, her shoulders hunched as if she still carried her burden. She turns to glance at him. He stares back at her, and she feels as if he is looking into her soul. He always was able to do that, see the things she tired to hid, unnerving her in the most annoyingly way.
He comes to stand in front of the head stone, leaning against it as if he didn't have a care in the world. "Why would you feel guilt? You had nothing to do with my death. It was my own choice."
She cringes at the mention of his death.
"I know. I just..." she feels the words lock in her throat. She remembers the outplay of this dream, knows the script, and knows it never comes to an end. She looks around the dark grounds trying to grasp a bit of stability with her raging heart. She closes her eyes, then looks up with raw emotion in her level gaze.
"It never ends. All this," she swept her gaze around the cemetery, "this dream never ends. I can't stop reliving it. I can't...but I have to. I need to forget, and leave it all behind so I can move on. I've done it so many times I should be more than an expert by now you'd think," she gruffly laughs, "But you always made it difficult. You never did leave when you should have. You always had to stay. I never needed you, never have, never did, but you stayed anyway," she runs her finger over the point of her stake, her thoughts rambling together in barbed knots, "more fool you," she whispers quietly.
She feels the pressure of his gaze and looks up to meet it. His mouth set in a hard line, but his eyes retained a reflection of herself; unsure, vulnerable. They were able to do that to each other, break down the others walls.
"I used you," she contended suddenly, "countless times. You were the only one I couldn't hid from, and I hated that. I wanted to hurt you. You had no soul, you were supposed to be evil, so using you shouldn't have hurt, there should have been no guilt...I hated how you could see I was suffering when no one else could. You weren't supposed to be the one to know I was stuck in the dark. You weren't supposed to mean anything, so that is what made it all so easy in the beginning."
He smiles impishly. "Never did complain though pet."
She shakes her head, "you always did make things more difficult." He tilts his head, eyes glittering in the moonlight, and she can no longer read his expression. She used to be able to read him and understand what transpired through that thick head of his. But now, him standing there, looking real enough to touch, head cocked in that familiar way, and she can't read him at all. She's dreaming, of course she is, he's dead. The figure standing there wearing his face is the figment of her jumbled brain. She uses her memory of him to bring him back to life to consult what her guilt ridden heart wishes it could have expressed.
He seems to contemplate her, again peering into her soul to find the answers he sought, then after a moment uttered, "wouldn't be any fun if there weren't any bumps in the road eh? You liked having it rough, you liked the thrill of the chase. Don't deny it, I can testify to that."
"You were the biggest bump of all," she snaps, "I couldn't be rid of you so I used you, you were soulless, and evil, and I still craved you. You kept coming to my door and I kept letting you in. I let you...you let me...everything was wrong..."
"But you wanted it," his voice lowered, no longer teasing, "you never wanted me any other way. All you wanted was to prove to yourself you weren't on equal ground with a blood stained vampire."
Never equal...always beneath
"I did," she swallows trying to ease the tightness in her throat, "but it wasn't right. Then you had to get your stupid soul and you made it all the more difficult."
"Stupid? Difficult?" he hisses, "I got my soul for you, because of you. The only thing difficult about it all was the guilt and pain that came with it. Thousands of deaths in thousands of different ways, any guilt you've had, Buffy, I'll wager can never compare to that."
"Of course I know," she retorted back. "I saw what you were capable of with your soul, and that was when everything changed." She feels conviction rise in her chest, and she takes a step toward him.
"I told you again and again I could never love you, that I loathed the idea of loving you... I felt for you, very deeply, and that scared me. But you never gave up, you always persisted on staying, and it annoyed me to no end. It aggravated me that when I felt like I was drowning I could finally breathe when you were with me. I couldn't have that, I couldn't let the 'bad and evil' guy into my life. At first I was certain I could never love you, but then you kept coming back, saving me, helping me, and I wasn't so sure anymore and I was scared. You scared me because you were the only one who came close to breaking down my walls."
She doesn't know why she is telling him this, but she can't stop, her voice tight and rasps harshly in her throat.
"Then you had to go and kill yourself for the sake of this messed up, damned world. And then...then I new for certain. Oh God, why did it have to be then! At the thought of you gone from this world I knew then I loved you. It took your death to realize that. But when I told you, you didn't believe me. Not that I blamed you. I had said countless times how I could never love you and how much I loathed you. So when I finally said it, you were dying and must of thought I was pitying you. I didn't know how to convince you and didn't know what to say, so I said nothing! You should have believed me! Don't you know I would never say anything like that unless I meant it? I did love you, I do love you. And your dead. And I have to live with that, knowing I can never have a chance to rectify what I did."
He had stood all through out never moving from where he stood. "And you dream this up to have the chance to rectify yourself to a dream version of myself?"
Her throat constricts, and her heart is thundering in her chest, "best I can get." She mutters stiffly.
"This isn't the first time you've dreamed this up is it?" He asks. She hesitates before shaking her head, she doesn't like the idea of letting memories of the dead enter her dreams.
He inclines his head toward her, eyes soft. "Then you'll dream this all up again tomorrow night, and the next and the next." He shakes his head. "You can't continue like this you know. I'm only a dream, I'm not real."
"I know that!" she shouts. "Of course I know that. Your dead, and I can never truly tell you everything that I've been wanting to say, so dreams are the only thing I've got left of you." She passes a hand over her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted, even though her physical body is peacefully sleeping.
"Just let me have this please. For a moment, before I wake up, let this be real."
His gaze becomes questioning. "What do you want to be real?"
She opens her mouth to speak then stops, then takes a step forward, her hands clasped tight at her sides. "I want you to be real, I want you to know you didn't die unloved, I want the fact you didn't die at all to be real. I want to be your girl." The last of her words came out in a desperate whisper, and she stands close to him and searches his face for consistent. He looks down at her, eyes so familiar, face so close to hers she could lift her lips to his.
Finally he breathes, "I believe you."
Then as he smiles, and reaches to touch her face, the world around them begins to glow; the darkness becoming light, and the ground around them cracks and falls away.
She wakes in her bed to the sun rising and a gentle wind blowing from her cracked window. She remembers her dream rather vividly, and hates herself for even entertaining the essence of that dream. She would never be able to rectify anything, to him, or to even herself. It was only a messed up dream that haunted her for the things that could have been. It wasn't real, it never was, it was always a dream.