Title: Revanche
Author: alliterator
Summary: "Vengeance was what I needed. Vengeance was all I needed." Post-"Selfless." Anya's POV.
My heart was cut in half.
I don't think I'd felt that much pain in ages. Standing there in my stupid dress with stupid sequins, waiting for Xander. Watching, there but not really there, as he left. I had held out my heart and he had crushed it. I had once told him that if he ever left me, to show warning, like a big bomb clock, like they have in the movies, which always rush down to zero, but the hero always stops it. There was one when he left. I just didn't see it. I never saw. It never stopped it. I didn't cut the green or red wire. It exploded in my face. It exploded in my heart.
D'Horryn told me how sorry he was. He told me that Xander was a worthless tick and didn't deserve an ex-demon like me. He told me that it was time I got back to the things that I was good at. Vengeance.
I was in mourning. Xander once told me that people in mourning wore black, but when I was mourning I wore white. I wore my wedding dress. I don't know why I didn't change out of it. It might be that I was in shock, feeling emotions that I never wanted to feel again. D'Hoffryn's deal sounded good to me. Vengeance was what I needed. Vengeance was all I needed. Vengeance on Xander, for taking away the one thing that I loved and for the horrendous deed he had done to my heart. My heart was cut in half.
And now, of course, that's literal. Ironic really, the woman who took everything as literal is now literally heart-broken. The sword had pierced my left ventricle. The demon healing process started seconds after it entered, but it still hurt. This time though, it wasn't Xander who had driven it in, it was Buffy. And I knew it was what I deserved. I knew it in my soul. And that was why I let her stab me. Why I tried to get her to kill me. Why I told D'Horryn to take it back. I wasn't just talking about the deaths, I was talking about me. I didn't want to be a demon anymore.
Seeing those bodies like that. Seeing the demon rip their hearts out. One of the many afflictions I imagined I would do to Xander, before I realized I could not curse him, was to have his heart removed. I thought it would be poetic vengeance, a heart for a heart. He broke my heart, so I'll break his. But seeing those people have their hearts ripped out was too much.
After I become a demon, the first "case" I took was a woman whose husband cheated on her with the maid. I coaxed her into wishing the he was a snail. She didn't realize that he had actually become one, and she thought I was joking when I said "done." So when she saw the snail, she took no thought of who is what, just stepped on it and killed it with the heel of her shoe. It made me feel queasy seeing him die like that, even though I told myself he deserved it. It made me want to vomit.
Seeing the fraternity boys die, didn't make me want to vomit. It made me want to die. Hearing their last screams and death cries made me want to rip off this accursed necklace and smash it. But I knew I couldn't do that. First, D'Hoffryn would be pissed. Second, I couldn't. Physically, I couldn't take the necklace off. No vengeance demon can. It is a big no-no and was prohibited by the Lower Beings. I know why now.
What I felt when I saw the fraternity boys die was enough to make me want to die. What I felt when I saw Halfreck die was enough to make me want to live. Because life means pain and pain is what I deserve. I should have known. I should have straight out told D'Hoffryn to kill me.
I don't have the need for revenge anymore. After the wedding disaster, I thought I did, but I was fooling myself. I didn't know what I needed, so I turned to the thing that had worked for me before. But I had changed. What worked before didn't work again. Vengeance was no longer what I needed. Despite what I said in the past, I was no longer vengeful. I couldn't admit it to myself though. I would say, "If I'm no longer Vengeance, than who am I?" I know who I am now.
I'm Anya.