Disclaimer:
Joss created and owns these lovelies, damn his eyes, along with the other Buffy personalities, including Magic Jane Espenson; companies such as ME and Fox, et al. I just dirty his characters, disinfect them with a good spray of Lysol, and put 'em back in their boxes. This is partially therapy…the shock of Spike's immolation and various things SMG said about Buffy and Angel's probable reunition means I'll probably spend mucho time on my hopeful stories.
Also, I came up with parts of this story, mostly stuff in later chapters, with ninquan@aol.com (she has yet to get an account here).
Enjoy!
Chapter One: Recollection
10:34 P.M.
Cleveland, Ohio
"In other news, a teenage girl who was presumed missing has just been found dead. The apparent cause: neck rupture."
She clicks the television off with the remote. Two seconds of silence follow, and then the remote slams into the wall with preternaturally strong force.
"Must be Tuesday," Buffy mutters. It's late January in Cleveland. Giles told her that there was a Hellmouth here, but it had been dormant since the early 1800s, well before she, Faith, and Robin Wood arrived right before June.
"You breakin' the remote again? Cause you know I hate that," Faith shouts from the doorway of the bathroom. Steam drifts out and into the living room, making everything a degree warmer for a moment. Buffy's glad; she doesn't know how her new roomie can stand the cold weather, much less in her current clothing: a skimpy white cotton wifebeater and a pair of boxers with--are those rubber ducks?--some sort of print on them, presumably Robin's.
The California girl was frozen in these Midwest mid-winters, even when the heat was on and she was dressed in thick dark clothes, like the black chenille turtleneck and tight, almost-navy jeans she is in now.
"Shut the hell up." A tear falls, with a soundless splash, out of Buffy's eye and onto the knee of her jeans.
"What? I must be a bad influence on you." The other woman, who is really only a few years older than Buffy, bounds onto the beat-up, broken-down couch with her usual show of energy, scooping up the wrecked remote on the way. Some strands of wet hair, falling in forming curls to Faith's shoulders, drip onto Buffy's shoulder and the couch.
"Leave me alone, okay?" Angry dignity forces her to attempt to conceal her outburst, or at least cover it with a cloak of anger.
"Hey, B," the Slayer began, her voice softened as much as it could; no such luck in covering it up, apparently; "What's this abut?" The accent remains. You can take the girl out of Boston...
"Neck rupture."
Faith blinks, then examines Buffy's neck for a few seconds before stopping short, then toppling off of the couch with a thud.
"I'm floored too," Buffy replies with a bitter laugh, extending a hand to help the fallen woman up. The phone starts an annoying whine, and Buffy automatically picks it up.
"Yeah?" After a moment she hands it to Faith with a mock sigh. "It's Loverboy."
Faith sticks out her middle finger, accompanying it with a grin to show the joke. "Yo, Robin, hold up a sec?" Buffy is already almost in her room, but Faith takes the cordless phone with her and taps her on the shoulder.
"What?" Buffy shakes some blonde hair away from her face, with one hand on the doorknob to the room she occupied, which is next to Faith's. All she wants is to go inside, lie down, think...
"Should I tell him?"
"About neck rupture? Why not?" She shrugs. "Maybe his amateur-guy-Slayer-ness could help."
"Gotcha." Faith runs into her room and slams the door. The remaining girl follows suit. Through the thin walls--too thin, Buffy thinks, especially when Robin happens to sleep over--she can hear the faint mutter of conversation.
She really can't complain about their living arrangements. She is extremely lucky, and she knows it, that Giles and Xander had money saved, and that Robin really helped support them.
To be fair to herself, though, she does have a job, as a counselor at the school that Robin is the new vice-principal of--another stroke of luck--but it really only covers her expenses and half of the rent, which is pretty damn cheap for a two-bedroom. That is, a two-bedroom in a four-floor walkup and in a slummy part of the city, but still, very inhabitable. Faith has a job, a few actually, but all of them off-the-books. She's a jail renegade, for goodness' sake.
Buffy's bed--something Giles had put into storage, along with his books and a few other items, like their shabby couch--was her refuge for now. She left the lights out, but through the slits in the Venetian blinds the lights of cars lit the room every now and then.
Curling up with Mr. Gordo, the stuffed pig, she clears her mind and lets out a ragged breath, allowing all of the tears she had kept inside her for months to resurface.
About her home.
Everything that she could remember of importance that happened in Sunnydale happened in her home--well, aside from battles and the like. She had left it to go to LA after killing her demon lover--well, the first one, anyway. She found out Dawn's true origins there. Joyce died on the couch. Now it was gone.
About Dawn, who was now living with their dad.
God, how she misses Dawn. The truth is, Dawn was the one who urged Buffy to go to Cleveland without her. At first Buffy was hurt, but one night Dawn told her that she knew Buffy needed to be alone, without the responsibility of her anymore. It didn't do much for Buffy's conviction, but she wasn't about to let Dawn know that. Buffy reasoned that she--Dawn--is a young woman with a mind and power of her own, and Buffy knows that her dad can give her the life she wouldn't have had with Buffy--one with college and boys that aren't vampires. Or hopefully not.
About Willow.
The all-powerful Wicca, her best friend for seven years, her almost-sister. Well, A.S. (After Sunnydale), Willow and her tongue-barbell honey moved to Manhattan, Willow enrolling in a community college right along with Kennedy, at least until she could get tenterhooks into a better school. Buffy still blames Kennedy for the fight that Willow started--that's how she always thinks of it--about Buffy centering everything on herself. Buffy couldn't do her "I'm so special" bit, not after Slayerness was no longer such an exclusive club. What was Willow's role anymore, anyway? What about Kennedy? Buffy shot back with how Kennedy never had a huge role in her life, and Willow went on the defensive and said something about how Buffy never did seem to be very comfy with her lovers--at least not the ones after Oz, anyway. So she and Kennedy left. Another burned bridge, Buffy thought.
About her friends who died.
Anya. Xander misses her too; he mourns her visibly. Black clothes, a sad smile. A small bunny that he keeps on his keys. The few SITs who died--the many who died--who knows? And others. Sophie from Doublemeat. High school friends, the few that she had.
About Spike.
What if she hadn't given him the amulet? Well, she knew that she wouldn't be thinking this now--she'd be dead.
But: what if she hadn't listened to him? What if she stayed with him? She didn't know.
What happened to him? Where was he? What was he doing now? Was he smoking, being sarcastic...was he thinking of her?
She still had something of his, something Giles had saved for her: his duster. The leather jacket he'd taken from Nikki, Robin's mother, after he snapped her neck. But that was before the soul. That was before he fell in love with her. That was before she loved him.
These thoughts accompany her into sleep.
Sometime in the midnight hours
Sunnydale, California
"Will you hold me?" Spike looked at her adoringly, and she wanted more than she wanted to save the world to just kiss him. But she didn't, and he held her. For hours, she was held by strong arms that were warm from borrowed blood, and she was safe. She was loved. He whispered to her throughout the night, things that she barely heard, but she didn't care what he was saying.
They both fell asleep soon enough.
In her dreams she was dead. A crumpled pile on the ground in front of Glory's tower, among debris and blood. She saw the others around her, though. Dawn with a ripped shirt for bandages, one hand on her wounds and becoming blood-streaked, the other on her mouth and becoming tear-streaked. Giles, kneeling down next to her on a few bricks, glasses broken, eyes watering. Xander carrying Anya in his arms, and they both looked at Buffy as Xander started to weep silently. Spike kneeling prostrate in front of her and sobbing like a man whose hope just evaporated before his eyes.
Then she woke up, pushed the real Spike--asleep, peaceful, and clean--away from her gently, and faced what she knew might very well be her last day on Earth.
Again.
3:23 A.M.
Cleveland, Ohio
Slayer.
The word means nothing to her now. Not after the battle, her last as the one and only--or, rather, as the one of the only two. As the Slayer. Because every girl that would be a Slayer, is a Slayer.
Slayer.
When uttered by a dead man, a dead man with peroxide hair, high cheekbones, cold hands and a British lilt, the word takes on meaning and weight.
Covered in a cold sweat, Buffy nearly falls out of her bed and onto the freezing floor. Her boots are still on, though she took off the sweater sometime that she remembers only in a shadowy way, so she's left in a sports bra and her jeans.
"Damn you," she whispers through her hands, where she's buried her face. She glances at the cheap digital clock with its red letters and curses at the time it reads. Maybe Faith was right earlier; maybe she IS a bad influence.
In the twilight, since the sky is already taking on a blue cast, she makes a decision that she doesn't know she makes: she goes to her chest, the one Xander made for her weapons--most of them are gone, lost in the fray--and opens it, taking out the one thing she has stored in it: her piece of Spike. His duster.
The black leather is supple and strong, and still kinda smelly. She holds it for a second and finally brings it to her bed. On the way, a silver flask falls out of the pocket. While she has little interest in whatever is inside it, she picks it up and stuffs it into the pocket again. Slipping her fingers around the collar, she finds something wet there. Another teardrop. She doesn't want to cry about him, she doesn't want to talk about him. She doesn't know what she wants.
Throwing the jacket into the chest again, she draws in a breath and goes out to the kitchen quietly, trying not to wake Faith up.
On the fridge, though, there is a note:
B-
I'm out. Seeya in the morning. Or not.
-Faith
"Loverboy," Buffy murmurs to herself. It's got to be Robin--if it wasn't, Faith would have woken her up. Probably. Hopefully...
Of course, per usual, there's little in the fridge. Some bread that's already a penicillin candidate, a mostly-empty can of whipped cream, an orange. She seizes the orange and peels it in one long strip, then proceeds to eat it in, oh, about thirty seconds.
The phone jolts her again, and she grabs it deftly.
"When are you telemarketers gonna learn! It's four in the fu--"
"Buffy?" The refined man on the other end is no telemarketer. Buffy wasn't sure if he was even altogether happy about the newfangled invention of this telephone thing. Embarrassment and annoyance creep in, but relief at hearing him is there too. He's in England, trying to round up the few Watcher friends he had left, after the eradication of the Council, or at least that's the last she heard of him in November.
"Giles! Um, it sorta IS four in the morning here. PLEASE don't tell me that you're in desperate need of a heart to heart right now."
"No, no, far from it actually." She could tell that Giles knew something of the majorly bad variety.
"Well...what is it? And don't mince words."
"Something else happened in Sunnydale, Buffy. Besides its demise, besides the spell. I found it in my research, and it's really quite urgent--"
"Yeah, well, it's really quite LATE for me. The Hellmouth here is starting to act up--I heard something about 'neck rupture' on the news--" At this Giles chuckled, but tried to cover it with a cough "--and you were all 'pooh pooh, dormant for centuries, pooh pooh!' "
"I'm terribly sorry, but--"
"No buts. I'm not your only girl anymore, remember? There has to be thousands of Slayers." Her voice was growing edgier by the second. She's tired, hungry, upset...thank God tomorrow's Saturday, she thinks
'I need to talk to you about this. You're the only one who knows what I need to know--"
"Then tomorrow. Or just in a few hours, okay? You have no clue about my life. As usual."
There was silence on the other end.
"Look, I'm just really beat. This has nothing to do with you." She pauses, not knowing what to say, as is too often the case. "I'll be bright eyed, bushy tailed, all that in a few hours and some sleep, I promise."
"Well...I guess it can wait a few hours. But you must
promise me then--"
"Yes, I promise, goodBYE." She barely gives him a moment longer before stuffing
the phone back into its cradle.
Ah, sleep, bed sweet bed--but now there's a problem: she's buzzed. Slayer-buzzed. For the first time in months--she can't even remember the last real hunt she had, not before the be-all end-all finale--she feels what it is to be Slayer. Not a Slayer, not even the Slayer, just Slayer.
In two minutes flat she has her sweater and her long baby-blue coat--the one she'd worn in the snow so many years ago (let's forget the fact that they were, oh, just about four...)--on and she's slamming the door behind her and walking onto slush-covered ground.
Turning the corner of the slums.
The cramps are starting, the vampire-variety. There's one near.
Grabbing the stake she still has in the pocket, half for comfort, a quarter out of habit, and a quarter in preparation.
And...now!
Suddenly, at the sight of the contorted face, the yellow eyes, the hideous fangs, Buffy does something she hasn't done in what seems like years: she screams.
Long and loud and wailing.
The vampire laughs, and they both lunge forward.
To an invisible outsider, this seems choreographed and beautiful.
To the vampire, this seems like another pretty girl with a graceful neck, but mostly, this seems like dinner.
To Buffy, this seems like life. Hard and bright. Soft and dark...and suddenly she sees stars. She hears the stake clatter to the pavement. She smells decay from the dead thing on her. She feels it clamped onto her neck. She tastes blood in her mouth, on her own lips.
The monster got the blonde girl in the alley.
Oh, no.
The monster now IS the blonde girl in the alley.
And she feels pretty.
...to be continued...