Title: Jagged
Author: Me_Lizzie
Email: vamp_lizzie@hotmail.com
Summary: Spike pays Buffy a visit after doing some thinking. (Set after the events of "After Life". Spoilers for said episode.)
*****
"Spike… I… Hi." Buffy opened the door awkwardly,
greeting the vampire with an unsure glance. She tried to remain calm and breath
normally as he moved toward the door, making her flinch inwardly from the sudden
movement of the air around her.
"I need to tell you something." He muttered quietly.
His eyes were everywhere, all over. Looking towards the sky, and towards the
ground, and at her… everywhere.
Buffy waited patiently, almost longingly. She'd barely
said anything that day, save for wishing Dawn goodbye, and talking to Willow at
lunch time. And the last time she'd spoken with Spike had been the day
before… in the morning. Behind the magic shop. The words she'd uttered of
her experiences still hung in her memory, almost haunting her. She prayed to
some unknown force that Spike wasn't here to offer pity, or help… or make
her feel worse then she already did. She'd only told him her secrets, her
feelings out of the assumption that… well… that he wouldn't spiral into
guilty depression, or take pity her more then the others already did… she
figured he would just take it at it's face value. Though… Part of hoped
he'd understand, and perhaps even empathize.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to the
side.
"Yesterday… what you told me… I've been thinking.
God help me… I've been… I don't know what you'd call it… but I've
been thinking about things that haven't bothered me since…. A long time ago.
The point is… I remember. I remember what it's like. What's it like to be
there."
He stopped, and looked her in the eye for the first time.
For a brief second he was worried she would begin crying.
And she worried the exact same thing about him.
"I… I don't know exactly what happened. But I
remember being there. Being some place… oh god, it was… it was beautiful.
I'd never really thought about it before, but you… I suppose you jogged my
memory, didn't you, luv?"
He laughed. It was short, and high. Hysterical, almost.
She'd never heard him laugh like that before. He was ranting now, anyways, and
he no longer was talking to her… but more in general to the space around them
both.
"And…I remember being Happy. And I remember being…
not being. I can't even explain it in a real way, actually… I suppose I
sound kind of like a nutter right now, going on about what it was like being
dead. Don't I?"
He laughed again, that odd laugh. Buffy would have called
him crazy if she hadn't felt the same sort of way only a short while before.
"I was there. I remember. I was somewhere, off everywhere else… It was… it was just… better. But then… you don't even… I came back and just Bam! I was so alive… and…"
He looked her right in the eye, and it was visible that he was in total awe of his own revelation.
"The way you explained it… harsh… and bright…. It
was. I was. I was so… jagged. And I hadn't found my right puzzle piece,
cause I was the jagged one… I didn't fit. And no matter how long I waited,
or how hard I tried I couldn't fit… I can't fit. But I'm trying… and I
won't. I mean, yeah, over a hundred years you… you learn how to cover… an
be cold, be too cold… hard even… but I never fit… and maybe I'm just
crazy…"
He stopped and starred at the wall, silently in meditation.
"I wanted to tell you." He started again, seemingly
oblivious to her tears. She would have been a bit more hurt about this if she
hadn't seen his tears that were quickly forming.
"That… that if you feel wrong… Jagged… don't.
Don't feel that way… and never let it make you cold, Buffy… cause, it
will… I… I suppose I can't really explain all too well what I mean… but,
don't think that you can… you can ever be the same. You know… my whole
being here to say this to you might be void due to my being a vampire and all…
but… but don't let the brightness hurt your eyes, luv… I did… I let it
get to me… and…"
He let the sentence hang, knowing that if he uttered another syllable, his entire world would crash. He'd crash into nothing, and he'd never pick up the pieces again. He couldn't bring his eyes to look into hers, well aware that he was near tears, and that if he saw the tears he knew were falling, he'd lose himself in her eyes. Not wanting to move, he laughed his laugh again. The one he'd developed in hysteria, every time something was going wrong.
It was an unnatural laugh.
Neither of them spoke, afraid to degrade the dutiful
silence that surrounded them. Buffy wanted to sob, to scream… to tell him that
she was… that she understood, and that she would, and that she really
appreciated his doing this… but no matter how she thought of of saying it….
it still sounded false. Fake almost. She knew the only way she could ever
possibly acknowledge his… could she even call it a sacrifice? Well, she
couldn't really acknowledge him with words… or with actions… without
totally degrading what he was doing.
So she was silent.
"Just thought you'd like to know."
He turned and walked out of the open door, his duster
making that odd "Swish" noise behind him. It didn't matter anymore, to
her… he was right… she felt like a wrong puzzle piece. She was jagged.
But so was he.
And, for the first time in that life, she almost smiled.
