The house in Iowa is everything I expected it to be, right
down to the white picket fence surrounding the tidy front yard, and the wooden
clapperboards, painted a faded pale yellow. Not quite picture postcard pretty,
it needs some work doing on it – shutters mending and roof tiles replacing,
that sort of thing – but this only makes Riley even happier. He comes home from
working on his dad's farm every evening and gets his toolkit out. Then he
whiles away the hours painting and sawing and hammering, doing just what a good
husband should do.
Life isn't so bad at first, not like I thought it was going
to be. I'd imagined the sudden shock – a whole new way of a living, a new
identity for myself, new places, new people – would have been difficult to cope
with. But in a way it isn't at all. When I arrive there is so much stuff to do.
There is the unpacking and the settling in and meeting all the neighbours.
Instead of being strange and foreign, it is actually quite fun. No vampires, no
demons, just Buffy getting to play house.
But as the weeks pass the novelty begins to wear off. I
realise that it's not just playing I'm doing. I can't pack up my toys and go
home when I'm done. This is my home now, this is where I live – forever – and
these places and people are my world. Gradually, Iowa and its hometown,
backwater atmosphere starts to surround and choke me. It's insidious – it
creeps into your mind and your heart and tries to steal all the memories you
keep there. It tries to blanket you with its bland, humdrum ways, extinguishing
all the fire in your heart.
And the people upset me too. They are the worst kind – all
sugar and sweetness to your face then bad mouthing you behind your back. Gossip
runs rife through the town – you cannot even have a visitor around to the house
without the news being passed on to six different people before ten minutes
have even passed. Whenever I speak to any of them, I feel like I'm being judged
by their small-minded values, like there's some sort of test I have to pass
before I can be admitted to the fold. I try to be polite and nice and accepted,
but only for Riley's sake and for the baby's. Just because I don't fit into
this kind of life, doesn't mean they should be ostracised by this society. So,
whenever I meet a neighbour in the street or someone comes around to welcome
me, I always smile and offer them coffee, even though the Slayer in me just
want to tell them to get their heads out of their asses. Here they all are
worrying about what colour Mr Martins from number thirty painted his shutters
and whether Mrs Travis is having an affair with her gardener when there are
people out there dying.
I know what exists in the night. I know about vampires and
evil and death. These are the things I was born to fight. I should be out
there, living my destiny, saving people's lives, not here desperately trying to
learn how to make apple pie that doesn't end up in a mush at the bottom off the
dish.
Yesterday I cried. I threw the pie dish across the room,
smashing it against the wall, then collapsed in a heap, sobbing my eyes out. I
never would have done that before, that's not the kind of person I am, or was.
I wouldn't have let something as stupid as a visit from Riley's mother get to
me like that. The old Buffy probably would have slapped her, yelled at her or
something. Anything except just stand there and take her abuse.
She seems to think she can drop by any time she likes,
doesn't even bother knocking, just lets herself in through the back door. When
I tried to confront her about it, she just replied that it was her husband's
money that paid for the place, so didn't she have a right to come and go
whenever she wanted? There wasn't really anything I could say to that, because
she was right. This isn't even my house. There's nothing of mine in it – no
traces of Buffy whatsoever. Everything in it belongs to her. And I'm
just some intruder tolerated for the sake of her misguided son.
"You're a very lucky young lady," she said to me. "Not many
men would have been as easily tricked as Riley into marrying you."
I wanted to tell her that not many men would have got their
girlfriend pregnant as quickly as Riley, but instead I just kept quiet. I
vented my fury on the pastry in front of me; attacking it with the rolling pin and
wondering why it was crumbling into little pieces, rather than making a nice
flat circle like the picture in the recipe book.
"I told him not to," Mrs Finn continued on blithely. "I
told him it would be the worst mistake of his life, but he wouldn't listen. He
had to do the right thing. We raised that boy to be far too noble for his own
good," she preened.
"Good for you," I muttered under my breath.
"Excuse me?" She responded. "Did you say something? Because
you have no right to be answering back to me. You're nothing but a common
little hussy."
I spun around on her. "Don't ever call me that," I said in
a shaky voice.
"Why not?" She asked. "It's true. I did some checking into
your background. You were thrown out of your first high school for setting the
place on fire, no less. Then you were a suspect in a murder investigation,
following which you disappeared for three months running wild in LA. That's
hardly the type of woman who's good enough for my son. So, I'd go minding your
p's and q's around me, my girl, unless you want to be thrown out on your ear.
Riley may not be able to see past your pretty blonde hair and your low cut
dresses, but I can. And young men always listen to their mothers, just you mark
my words."
I lifted the heavy rolling pin in the air, suddenly wanting
nothing more than to smash it into her skull and see her fall lifeless to the
ground. Then horrified by my own imagination, I dropped the makeshift weapon to
the ground where it landed with a clatter. "Get out," I ordered. "GET OUT!"
She smirked at me, before strolling slowly out of the door,
pausing as she did so to examine my cookery attempts. "You used too much flour
– that'll never stick together."
I hurled the pastry dish after her, gaining only a tiny bit
of satisfaction as it shattered into about a million pieces, sending globs of
pie filling flying about the kitchen. Then I collapsed to the floor, sobbing
out my broken heart, utterly convinced that this is all my life will ever be
again. Failed cookery attempts, interfering mother-in-laws and a sense of total
inadequacy.
There is this little voice always in my head, always
telling me how much I messed up. I threw away my whole life, my entire future,
just because I thought some boy would like me better if I slept with him. Well,
maybe that's a little unfair, because I wanted it too. I wasn't pressured or
tricked into sex with Riley. It was just something I thought I should be doing,
so I did it. I was a grown-up girl trying to have an adult relationship – only
maybe I wasn't ready for that considering the fact that it all went horribly
wrong.
I still don't know what happened. Maybe I was ill one day
and it stopped my birth control from working. Perhaps I forgot to take one of
the pills. I could even possibly be one of those mysterious 3% they talk about
on the packet, when they give you false reassurances that 'this product is 97%
effective'. But whatever happened, happened. As my grandmother was so fond of
saying: you made your own bed, Buffy, and now you have to lie in it.
~~~
Hospital walls fade in and out of my vision and the
shouting of the doctors and nurses seems very far away all of a sudden. Odd
phrases catch my attention.
"She's haemorrhaging…"
"Mr Finn, perhaps you should wait outside."
"Get that blood into her STAT!"
"But, but my wife… She's going to be okay, right? We just
got married last month."
"Where the Hell is that anaesthetist?
"Page the OR – get them to prep for an emergency
C-section."
"We just got married last month. The baby's not even due
for another two weeks. I don't understand what's happening…"
I am vaguely aware that I'm probably dying, but I don't
even care. As long as the pain has gone now, the pain that woke me up to blood
soaked sheets at three a.m. this morning. The pain that ripped through my belly
so fiercely, I felt like it were actually splitting open right there and then,
as if the baby were trying to crawl out of it's own accord.
Now, though, everything is fuzzy. My vision, my hearing, my
awareness. And I sort of like it like that. It reminds me of the time I
discovered beer and everything was hazy and nice. More than that it reminds me
of the time Angel bit me. It's probably the blood loss making me giddy as it
did then, but it makes me think that maybe that's what I was looking for in
alcohol – a way to become light-headed and euphoric, a means to blur the edges
between myself and my memories of him.
A cool, clammy hand grips mine tightly and a large face
looms in my vision.
"We're just going to put you to sleep now, Buffy. When
you wake up you'll have a beautiful baby. Don't worry, everything's going to be
okay."
Wake up… baby…
everything's going to be okay…
No. I want to shake my head. How can she possibly
even think that? Nothing's going to be okay ever again.
~~~
My eyes flutter open and the first thing I see is Angel
standing at the foot of the bed, his expression as inscrutable as always. My
heart floods with relief and I smile up at him.
"I knew you'd come."
"I never really left," he replies.
Lowering my hand beneath the sheets I feel my stomach. It
is as smooth and flat as always, the muscles taut as I remember them. But most
significant of all there is no pain. The vast open wound that I was expecting
isn't there either. "What happened to me?" I ask.
Angel's eyes narrow slightly. "You married Riley – that's
what happened."
I shake my head. "No, I mean, after that. What happened to
the baby? I was having a baby."
"No, you weren't." Angel walks around the side of the bed
as he answers.
"Yes, yes, I was." I insist. "I remember…"
He looks at me strangely. "But how can you be having a baby
that you never wanted? That you never loved?"
I think about this question for a while. He's right. I could
never have a baby if I wasn't prepared to love it. That's not who I am. And I
don't feel like a mother. I don't feel different at all really. But, but I was
absolutely sure I was pregnant. I remember the ambulance and the doctors and
the nurse with the clammy fingers.
"If I'm not having a baby, then what am I doing in the
hospital?" I ask, glancing around at my surroundings. I am in a small, grey
room, with no windows and not even a door that I can see. The walls and the
ceiling and the floor are all totally blank. I shudder at the sight – this
seems more like a prison cell than a hospital room.
"You're not in the hospital," Angel informs me. "You're at
home."
"No," I shake my head desperately. "I don't live here. I
don't!"
Angel starts to walk away and I frantically call after him.
"Don't go, Angel. Please, don't leave me here alone."
He turns back around and comes to sit by the side of the
bed. Gently he strokes my forehead, pressing a soft kiss to my damp brow. "I
wasn't going anywhere," he reassures me. "You know I'd never leave you, right?"
I nod, calming down somewhat. "Of course not. I love you."
He smiles softly. "I love you too." He lowers his lips to
mine, leaning in for a long kiss. Closing my eyes, I kiss him back, savouring
the feeling of his fingers first threading through my hair, then wandering
lower. Over my shoulders, across my breasts, swirling patterns on my belly…
Suddenly, my whole body is consumed with pain emanating
from my abdomen. I scream into Angel's mouth, my body tensing rigidly. Angel
pulls away from me as I arch backwards on the bed, my every nerve ending
seeming to throb in agony. I force my eyes open, looking up into his face,
imploring him to help me somehow.
He just smirks. "Serves you right," he says cruelly. "You
were never good enough."
His words cut deeper than even the searing pain in my
stomach and this time my screams aren't muffled by a lover's kiss but tear
loudly through the still air of the room. A nurse and a doctor appear by my
side, materialising out of nowhere.
"It looks serious, Doctor." The nurse says, reaching over
to check my pulse.
"She's going to need emergency surgery," he replies,
shrugging his shoulders into a blood stained lab coat. "Scalpel please."
The nurse hands him a giant silver blade, which he lowers
down towards my body, hovering it just above my chest.
"What are you doing?" I gasp out. "It's my stomach that's
hurting!"
The doctor shakes his head. "No, I think you'll find it's your
heart that's the problem." He slashes the knife downwards, opening a gaping
wound along my sternum. With a sickening crack, he pulls my ribs apart and
reaches inside and pulls out my heart.
The doctor turns around to Angel and carefully passes him the
still beating heart. "I think this belongs to you, sir." My eyes widen as Angel
cradles it close to him. Then he clenches his fist, blood dripping out from
between the fingers.
I pass out.
~~~
When I wake up
it is to a dull ache suffusing my whole being and a head that feels like it's
been stuffed with cotton wool. An IV steadily drips blood into my left arm, the
deep crimson running down thin tubes like somebody has ripped the very veins
out of my limbs and hung them up in the air for everybody to see. My eyes
wonder across the room, squinting in the bright light, until they rest upon
Riley's face. He is smiling broadly and suddenly a wave of nausea hits me. This
isn't right, is it? This isn't where I'm supposed to be.
Riley squeezes my hand tightly, his large fingers curled
around mine, and calls the nurse over. "She's waking up!"
Immediately, I close my eyes again, wishing I had stayed
asleep. Anything to not be here.
"Mrs Finn," the nurse calls cheerfully. "How are you
feeling?"
For a minute I am confused, then I realise she's talking to
me. I'm Mrs Finn, wife of Riley Finn, mother of…oh my God, the baby! What
happened to the baby?
"What happened?" I ask, having to make incredible effort to
form the words. "Baby…"
"It's all right," the nurse replies. "The caesarean went
fine. You're now the mother of a perfectly healthy baby son. He was nine pounds
six ounces too – a big boy, like his daddy."
The idea makes me feel even sicker. Exactly like his daddy,
Riley's sandy hair, his small town mentality, his dopey grin. I see it all
transposed on to the creature that came out of my womb and it just feels
totally wrong somehow, like my own child is a stranger to me. But then I
guess he is because I've never even met him yet. For some reason I find this
thought hysterically funny and start to laugh, only it comes out more of a
choking sound and the nurse's eyes widen in concern.
"Mrs Finn? Are you okay?"
I breathe deeply, quieting myself, blinking back the tears forming
in my eyes. "I'm fine. I just need a little more rest that's all."
The nurse takes the hint and gently shepherds Riley out of
the room, suggesting that he visit the neonatal unit now. He deposits one last
wet kiss on my forehead, before leaving me alone. I don't sleep, however, I
just turn my face to the wall and close my eyes, wishing for my life to have
turned out differently.
~~~
Later on that day, they bring the baby to see me. I hold it
in my arms like I would a doll – except I never played with dolls much when I
was younger, I was more interested in toy soldiers or cars that lit up and made
noises. I remember that when all the other girls played house, I used to put a
sheet over my shoulders and pretend to be a superhero. I would always zoom in,
Buffy to the rescue, stomping over make believe tea parties and demolishing
Barbie and Ken's Malibu beach retreat. Those things didn't interest me, I lived
in a world of action and high excitement.
My
teachers used to call me disruptive, they recommended I see a child
psychiatrist, take drugs to combat my hyperactivity, but Mom dismissed all
this. She insisted I was just different, a special child. You know sort of
preparation for the 'one girl in all the world' gig. Now I wish that I had been
more like the others, then maybe I would be able to fit into this new life a
little better, rather than constantly craving my old one.
I'm
a mother. This little creature in my arms belongs to me. I say the words to
myself, but I don't believe them. I'm somebody's mother. No, it isn't
true, it can't be. They made a mistake at the crèche – this isn't my son. He
doesn't look like me, or feel a part of me. He may as well be just a doll of
rubber and fabric, because that's what he is in my eyes. He's not a little person
to love, but a thing sent to make my life Hell.
It
shouldn't be like this, should it? Aren't I supposed to feel that overwhelming
rush of mother love? Where's that bond with the baby I've read about in all the
maternity books? What happened to the protective instinct I'm supposed to feel,
or the gooey softness that should come inside when he gazes up at me with wide,
unfocused eyes?
"Have
you decided on a name yet?" The midwife asks cheerfully.
I
just look up at her blankly – it wasn't something I'd ever considered. Choosing
a name makes it real, I guess. It means I can no longer deny the fact that this
baby exists and is half my responsibility. I turn to Riley. "You choose – I'm
all out of ideas at the moment."
Riley
leans over the baby, tickling its tummy and causing it to kick its legs and
gurgle. "How about Caleb?" He suggests. "Caleb Johnston Finn – after my
mother's maiden name. Do you like that, Caleb?" He speaks in a singsong voice
to his son. "Do you like it?"
"That's
sounds fine," I say distractedly. "We'll use that."
"Would
you like to try and breastfeed him now, Mrs Finn?" The midwife enquires now
that the naming issue has been sorted out. "We usually find the earlier you
start, the easier it is to get into a routine."
My
eyes widen in horrified shock. Breastfeed? Nobody told me I was going to
have to do that. The idea repulses me. To have that thing clamped on
to my nipple, sucking at me with red, hungry jaws. I can't face it, I just
can't.
"I-I
don't think I want to do that," I stutter, starting to feel sick.
"Of
course you do, Buffy," Riley interrupts smoothly. "A mother's milk is the best
thing a baby could possibly have. You want to give our little boy a head start
in life, don't you?"
"We
fully recommend breast feeding here at the hospital," the midwife backs up
Riley's insistence. "A mother's milk contains all the vitamins and minerals the
little guy here could ever need and you can pass on your immunity to certain
diseases on to him as well."
I
stare at them both, suddenly trapped in a nightmare situation. I don't want to
do this. I really don't and yet neither of them seem to understand. It feels
like the walls are closing in on me. They can't make me do this, can they? I'm
still my own person. I'm still Buffy – they can't make me to anything!
"Come
on," Riley reaches a hand out to me. "Just give it a try – for me."
I
slap his arm away, twisting to virtually scream at him. "No! Leave me alone. I
can't do it. I can't do it!"
At
my outburst the baby in my arms begins to cry. Long, thin wails echo through my
mind, bouncing off the walls of my skull, only increasing my feelings of panic.
My heart is racing and I feel my muscles tense in readiness for a fight. "Stop
him crying," I demand crazily, the frightened look in my eyes reminiscent of a
wounded animal. "Make it shut up!"
The
midwife hurriedly takes the baby out of my arms, rocking him soothingly until
his cries cease. Riley glances over at me worriedly. "Buffy?"
"It's
okay, Mr Finn," the midwife tries to reassure him. "She's just a bit tired –
still not recovered fully from the surgery. Your wife just needs a little more
rest that's all."
He
looks unconvinced, but gets up to leave, anyway. He leans over to give me a
kiss on the cheek, but I shrink away, forcing him to remove his lips. Pulling
away, with a slightly hurt expression on his face he exits the room. The
midwife hesitates a little, a suspicious look in her eye. She knows, I realise.
She knows that something's not right inside me.
And
yet I don't seem to even care.
~~~
A few days later they discharge me from hospital. Riley
stays at home with me at first, patiently showing me how to hold and change and
bottle-feed the baby. I go through the motions, blankly, automatically doing as
he says, my mind always elsewhere – anywhere but here. My life is like a dream,
or perhaps a nightmare – it all passes in an unrealistic haze I can't wait to
wake up from. Then Riley goes back to work and I do wake up. But not to
anything better.
It's all horribly real, me here alone with only the baby
for company. It demands my attention almost 24 hours a day. Feed me. Change me.
Bathe me. It cries and it screams almost constantly, so much that I took it to
see the town doctor. I thought that there must be something wrong, the baby was
so fractious all the time. But during our trip out he was fine. He lay calmly
and patiently while the doctor and nurses examined him, all the while giving me
strange glances as if they were wondering why I brought him in at all. Finally
the doctor asked me if I were feeling okay and I just stormed out.
Nobody gets it. Nobody understands how difficult this is.
The baby cried all the way home. It bawled until its eyes were
red and throat sore and wouldn't be comforted by anything I did. The only thing
that finally quieted him was Riley's return. Whereupon I just ran upstairs and
collapsed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling until the tears blurring my
vision faded away.
Today is another day like all the rest. The baby cries and
wails and screams, its protests getting louder and louder whenever I go near
it. I try making a bottle, changing its diaper, rocking it in my arms, but
nothing seems to make any difference. It gets more upset and I get more
desperate. I wish he were never born. I wish I'd listened to Willow and had
that abortion. I wish I'd never married Riley and moved to the middle of
fucking nowhere in the first place.
"Shut up!" I yell at the baby. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
The howling gets louder and I pace despairingly back and
forth. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to cope? This child is
making my existence Hell. It would be so much easier if he weren't here, if he
were dead and gone and the house was peaceful again.
The
thoughts shock me, but I can't stop them coming. It would be so easy, so very
easy just to make things better right now. I could take a cushion off the sofa
and hold it over his mouth and nose. Two minutes later and it would all be
over, I could have my life back again.
But
they check for that, don't they? People would know if I suffocated him and I'd
just go from one prison to another. Something else. I need something else.
My eyes scan the room, settling on the sideboard where our household's sole
bottle of liquor is kept. Neither of us being heavy drinkers, the vodka is
purely for medicinal reasons – used for cuts, scrapes and days when I need a
little extra just to get me through – and there is almost two thirds of it
left.
Enough
of that in his milk and he'll just go to sleep, right? He'll just fade away and
it won't be cruel at all. With shaking hands, I make up some baby formula then
reach into the cupboard for the vodka. Just half the bottle – that's all I'll need.
Just half of it and all my problems will go away forever. I unscrew the top and
the heady scent of alcohol wafts into my nostrils. The baby is still crying. I
can do this – everything's going to be fine from now on.
"Don't
worry, Caleb," I whisper. "Everything's going to be okay. Mommy's going to make
it better."
Mommy. My mommy with the soft skin and the arms that
held me when I was upset. The one who used to be the centre of my universe, who
made all my problems go away, who kissed my cuts and bruises healed. I'm
supposed to be that person for this little boy. I'm supposed to love him and
cherish him and protect him. God, what kind of mother am I?
I
crush the glass bottle between my hands with Slayer strength, the broken shards
cutting deep into my palms and drawing red rivers of blood. The alcohol found
its way into the gashes making them sting sharply, but I like the pain. I deserve
the pain. Falling to my knees I begin to weep, staring fixedly to the red
streams running unchecked down my arms and dripping off my elbows, my cries
blending in with those of my child.
~~~
Riley found me when he came home from work. He kept asking
over and over what had happened but all I could answer was that I was sorry. I
only wanted to make him stop crying. I'm sorry…
The doctors stitched up my hands and made me stay overnight
in hospital. I heard them whispering amongst themselves. Have you seen the
crazy lady who tried to kill her baby? $2.50 entrance fee to see the freak.
A social worker came to see me. "Are you okay, Buffy?" She
asked.
"I didn't hurt him," I replied. "I never touched him. I never
touched him."
She spoke nonsense in a voice that was meant to be soothing
then she talked to Riley and the doctors straight over my head. I'm not
stupid, I wanted to say. I can still understand what you're saying. I
know what post-natal depression means.
They gave me some pills, said they would make me feel
better. The counsellor told me I shouldn't worry. Thoughts of harming myself or
my child are perfectly normal in the case of depressed mothers. But I'm not to
be left alone with Caleb. I can't look after my own child unsupervised. They
gave me some pills, told me they'd make me feel better. I said, what if I don't
want to feel better? What can you give me for that?
Riley's mom volunteered to look after Caleb while I'm
feeling 'unwell', but the idea only horrified me even more. I don't want her
near me. I don't want her anywhere near my child!
People were beginning to talk she told me in a visit to the
hospital. Town gossip was all about my apparent insanity. "It's just laziness,
if you ask me," Mrs Finn complained. "Whoever heard of a woman not being able
to look after her own baby? Young folks today can't cope with anything. They
have a weak mind and an idle temperament and doctors call it an illness. Would
you even believe it."
I said absolutely nothing in reply, just turned my face
away and studied the peeling paint on the walls of the local hospital. When
Riley came into the room, his face drawn and worried, I looked up at him with
desperate, pleading eyes.
"I want to go home."
"That's fine, Buffy," he replied. "I spoke to the doctors
and they said you can leave. I've arranged for Mom to stay at the house with
you during the day."
"No," I shook my head. "I want to go home – back to
Sunnydale."
So, we went.
~~~
Mom looks surprised to see us, but not too shocked, like
perhaps she always knew this turn of events was inevitable. We give her some
flimsy excuse about wanting Caleb to meet his grandmother, which she sees
straight through, but plays along with for everybody's sake. I don't know how
long exactly we're going to be here, but if it were up to me I'd never go back.
On our first night Mom is busy cooing over the baby with
Riley standing by – the proud, overprotective father – so I slip upstairs to my
old room, feeling surplus to requirements. I gaze around my old room and all
its reminders of another life, another person. Dust has gathered over all my
old things already and I think it terribly sad how the girl who owned this room
died.
Suddenly restless, I decide to climb out through the
window, sliding over the roof tiles like it was only yesterday I did this, not
over 12 months ago. Silently, I drop to the ground, my heart pumping and
adrenaline flowing through my veins. For the first time in a long time, I feel
the black cloud that hangs over my head shift a little. I escaped! I'm free!
Snapping off a tree branch in order to fashion a makeshift stake,
I head towards the cemetery. Out on the hunt where I was born to be. The night
air is sweet and fresh and I realise with a pang how much I have missed it and
how much I will miss it again when I must go back to Iowa.
A vampire attacks from behind and I lash out at him with
flying fists and feet. My actions are uncoordinated and stiff from lack of
practice, and the fight lasts longer than usual because of it. Eventually, I
tackle the creature to the ground. Straddling him and plunging down with my stake,
watching fascinated, as he explodes into dust.
That's what I do. I kill things. That's what I've always
done. I killed my first lover, didn't I? I plunged a sword through his belly
without even thinking twice, so was it that inconceivable I'd think about
murdering my own son. It wasn't the illness, the depression, it was me. I met
the first Slayer – she was a killer without conscience. Is that what I am, what
I've become?
The exhilaration of the fight suddenly gone, my heart seems
to sink right down to my feet and I begin to feel sick. Aimlessly now, I wonder
through the tombstones, mentally cataloguing the locations of my former
battles. Over there I sliced the head off a scaly green demon, then I went
dancing at the Bronze and never thought of the creature again. Maybe it wasn't
pregnancy or marriage that sealed my fate. Maybe it was becoming the Slayer in
the first place. It gradually drained me of who I was and left only a shell of
Buffy, a shell that can't even remember how to love somebody.
A noise from behind me alerts me to the presence of another
vampire. This time I don't fight back. I just want everything to be over – I
can't cope with the ruins of what used to be my life anymore. So, I let him
grab roughly hold of my shoulders and push me up against the wall of a nearby
crypt. His fangs hover over my neck then sink in deeply, the pain nothing at
all really. Only a pinprick. Not a bad way to go. It reminds me of Angel and
when he bit me, his large body covering mine, his arms holding me tightly as he
took my essence into himself. I wish I'd died then in his embrace, saving the
life of the person I loved.
I close my eyes and lean back against the cold stone
surface, beginning to feel more and more light-headed as the blood gushes out
of my system into the mouth of this vampire. Not long now. Only a couple more
minutes and I'll be gone. I'll have peace finally.
The pressure on my neck is suddenly gone, the vampire's
fangs removed. My eyes shoot open, just in time to see my attacker turn to
dust. As his remains clear from the air I catch a glimpse of the person who
rescued me, who saved my life when I hadn't wanted them to.
"Angel."