Disclaimed: Not Mine.
Warnings: Character Death. A lot of it. Angst. Femslash.
When your only friends are hotel rooms
Hands are distant lullabies
If I could turn around I would tonight
These roads never seemed so long
Since your paper heart stopped beating Leaving me suddenly alone
Will daybreak ever come?
It's not fair! She screamed into the black night.
Why do I have to be the one left behind!
We didn't know you cared.
We didn't know where you were.
The down side of losing yourself. When she'd finally reemerged, most of them were dead.
Giles, two years after the Hellmouth closed. Heart attack.
Xander, seven years post Sunnydale. Work place accident.
Buffy, killed taking out D'Hoffryn when he resurfaced in central New York. She was 28.
Dawn, who died at the exact moment that Buffy did. Simply dropped dead. Willow didn't have the energy to wonder why Dawn hadn't died the last time Buffy died. Maybe because Buffy saved her. Maybe because this was how it was always meant to be. She was 22.
So now, at night, Faith let tears drop into Willow's hair because they were the last ones left. Because all their strength and super powers weren't enough. Because Willow blamed herself, and Faith blamed herself, and they could console each other even if they couldn't get rid of their own feelings of guilt.
But mostly because they were tired too. Tired of fighting, fighting of winning and losing and people dying and people living. Because neither one really wanted to keep fighting, but both felt they had to.
August evenings
Bring solemn warnings
To remember to kiss the ones you love goodnight
You never know what temporal days may bring
Laugh, love, live free and sing
When life is in discord
Praise ye the lord
Of all the ways she'd imagined her life going, this had never been one of them. She and Faith, getting married. She and Faith, living together, lying in each others arms, fighting the darkness together. No-one being around to see it. At first, it was just that they were both sad, and alone, and both needed something to keep them from simply following their friends into death.
"I love you."
The words dropped into the space between them, the space that was always there now, the one where Buffy, Xander, Giles and Dawn used to be.
Faith found herself shaking.
Willow looked at her.
"Me too." she said simply.
Who's gonna call on Sunday morning?
Who's gonna drive you home?
I just want one more chance
To put my arms in fragile hands
They did love each other, and so sometimes, they could smile. But they never really lost the shadows of their dearly departeds.
And on the day Willow turned 33 Faith entered their bedroom, smiling, and with a gift in her hands.
No! No please don't...no...
The coroner ruled death by natural causes. Faith knew it was just tiredness. It was this feeling that love wasn't enough. She stood at her last funeral. Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne stood at her side. They barely knew each other but they nodded politely to each other and didn't say anything much. Oz, because he never said anything much, and Faith? Because there was no more to be said.
She'd screamed it all to the angry sky.
It's not fair!
Why do I have to be the one left behind!
Haven't I paid for what I did?
Hadn't Willow paid?
I thought you said forever
Over and over
The sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she saw sunshine. And Buffy, and Xander, and Giles. And Willow. And as she kissed her, as The Scoobies smiled, a male voice interrupted.
"Hello firecracker."