Part Five
Unilateral separation is an actual concept. I've read some articles about it, but if I got any of the details wrong, please feel free to let me know.
"Hey, skank!" Buffy called as she walked in the front door of her house. "You up for some Peanut action?"
When no one responded, she walked up to the second floor of the house. She'd done a quick patrol after disposing of the Pineseehc demon, but found no other threats. Still, she'd been gone for at least two hours, and lately Dawn's teenage mood swings oscillated back and forth swiftly. She couldn't *still* be pouting.
"Come on," she said, approaching Dawn's bedroom door. "I've been practicing, and I think I can score like a thousand points tonight and kinda begin to catch up." She opened the door, and was faced with an empty room and an open window.
"Some things never change," she muttered to herself. When she had been 16, the bedroom window was used as an exit more often than the front door, and now Dawn was proudly continuing the Summers tradition, even though she could've easily left after Buffy had and spared herself the climb down the trellis.
"Guess it's just me and the TV tonight," she said as she walked back downstairs. A year ago, she would've grabbed every weapon she could carry and scoured the town looking for her sister. But now, Dawn knew not only how to fight, but which areas to avoid, and when to run.
Besides, she knew where Dawn was headed, and that she'd be safe there.
She grabbed a pint of frozen yogurt and a spoon, and settled down into the couch. For some unfathomable reason, the TV was set to CNN when she turned it on. She laughed quietly. No one who lived here ever watched CNN. She figured that when Anya had met them for their recent night out, she must've checked the stock report while Buffy was in turmoil over deciding whether to wear a halter-top or a tank top.
The news channel's logo swirled around in the corner of the screen, beside a picture of tanks surrounded by men in uniforms. "A new solution to an old conflict," the voiceover explained. "When CNN returns, the recent Israeli movement towards unilateral separation."
"Unilateral separation," Buffy repeated to herself. She had no idea what it meant, but it sounded nice. Lateral…that was a straight line, right? Like a very still body of water. She imagined that the phrase could describe the line in the horizon that divided a large lake from an equally blue sky. Separate, yet without conflict. Calm, tidy even. Like she'd felt when she stood across the room from Spike earlier that evening. Apart, but without anger.
She shrugged and dug her spoon into the fat-free goodness. If it could work for her and Spike, it could easily work for the Middle East.
The show came back on, and shots of the plastic anchorman at a desk were interspersed with dusty scenes of cities so full of war that they seemed permanently uneasy. Having lived in Sunnydale for over six years, she wondered if she could relate. If the people there were like the people here, who cooked dinner and went to school and walked the streets, feigning cheerfulness, or just simply oblivious, as the fight raged on slightly out of their view. It was a wonder to her that the entire town, the entire world even, wasn't suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, having panic attacks at the sight of a shadow, shooting a gun into the darkness as their bodies stiffened with fear. But then, maybe the entire world was that way, and they were all just too used to it to notice.
"In a county where tanks invade settlements and suicide bombers are a weekly occurrence, peace seems but a dream. In recent weeks, U.S. envoys to Israel have reported that there is little hope for talks to begin again. But many Israeli citizens are beginning to talk among themselves, about a concept called unilateral separation."
A man appeared on the screen, speaking in an unrecognizable language, and a translator's voice promptly drowned him out. "The problem is that there is no organization. There are Israeli towns and Palestinian settlements right next to each other. There are checkpoints everywhere, but it is chaotic. In my town, Palestinians simply walk across a field and can come into our markets. People worry they are suicide bombers. If we can impose this unilateral separation, Israel will no longer be occupying Palestinian land, there will be no more attacks, and we will not have to force the peace talks."
"Sounds good to me," Buffy said through a mouthful of frozen yogurt.
The anchorman reappeared. "Few political figures approve of this idea, but among the people, the demand for unilateral separation is becoming increasingly more urgent. Opponents argue that it would take years and cost millions, but supporters think this cost is worth the peace that could be gained. In the most recent discussions on unilateral separation, a dividing line along 1967 borders has been suggested. An impenetrable structure would be erected, with Israelis on one side, Palestinians on the other, and a policy of zero mobility between the two."
Buffy placed her carton of yogurt on the coffee table and frowned. "You're gonna build a big fence?" she said to the television. "That's the great solution? Build a big fence?" She scoffed and began a sarcastic tirade to an invisible audience. "Well, why didn't I think of that? We'll just build a big fence down the middle of Sunnydale. Demons on that side, humans on this side. Lock the gates and keep us all nice and imprisoned. Remember, that's the evil side. Hey, you! No shoplifting over here on the good side! You want to be like that, you can just go to the other side of the big fence." She shook her head and leaned backwards into the cushions. "How incredibly lame. Like anything's that simple."
Then she thought about the room she'd been in earlier. Demon on that side, human on this side, a carcass between them. No anger, no fighting, no tinglies, no touching. Imagining that they could exist this way easily, and forever. Unilateral separation.
"Crap."
*
Spike sat back in his worn armchair and turned on the TV. It was relatively early in the evening, but hopefully he'd still be able to find a bad 80s movie somewhere on basic cable. He'd declined an invitation to poker night, despite Clem's insistence that kittens were a surefire cure for post-soul acid-reflux.
He flipped through the channels quickly, barely noticing what was on the screen. He was bored, and if the biggest threat to the Hellmouth was a Pineseehc demon, he knew he'd be bored often. He figured, if worse came to worse, he could spend his new free time writing a book titled, "How To Piss Off Women". With his century of experience, he thought he must be an expert.
He hadn't been prepared for Buffy's weird little confession. If she'd punched him in the face and called him an evil, filthy demon, he would've known how to react. But this new coldness that had developed between them, this nauseating politeness, was just too foreign.
There was a soft click and a long, low squeak as the door to his crypt opened.
He knew it wasn't Buffy. Polite or not, she still would've just kicked it halfway off the hinges. And Clem's cheerful voice would have permeated the room before the door was even completely open. Still, when he looked up, he hadn't expected to see her.
Dawn stood almost exactly as she had earlier that night: still and firm, ready to fight, her shoulders back, as if trying to look intimidating. He hadn't seen her like that often. When she'd first seen the repaired Buffybot, she stood that way, and he'd almost smiled at how strong she'd become in the few weeks since she'd walked down from a tower, her body bent and wounded, her face slack with shock and grief. But now he found himself more sad than proud. For a while there, the previous summer, he'd been Dawn's strength, and it was comforting to have a purpose. His existence had been much too full of women who didn't really need him.
But now, as he watched her push the door shut, her tiny bicep flexing more for show than in effort, he knew he'd lost her.
Dawn took in Spike's blank stare and tried to make her face look angrier. She set her mouth in hard line, lifted her chin, and drew her eyebrows together. But somewhere in her mind, she was aware that this had happened before.
*She put her hand around her waist, wincing at the pain she felt with each breath, using her other hand to steady herself against the doorframe as she felt the blood seep through the bandages that covered her midsection.*
She put her hand on her hip, confident in her newfound fighting skills, knowing that she was capable of giving him a beating worthy of a slayer. Especially if he didn't hit back, which she knew he wouldn't, which only made her angrier. Now was the time to start shouting at him, but though there were a million things she could think of to say, somehow they all couldn't get past
*the lump in her throat.*
You left. You knew everyone before you left too. You knew when my mom left, when Riley left. You were sitting right there on the counter when Giles left, and on the ground when Buffy left. You saw me fall to pieces over and over again, kneeling by a fresh grave with shaky hands holding a magic book, standing right here with bloody bandages and sobs gathering in my throat. But you still left.
*I don't know where to go. I feel like I should go home, but no one lives in my house anymore. I feel like I should be in a sleeping bag, hiding out at Xander's or Willow's , but it doesn't make sense anymore; no one's after me anymore. I want to crawl into the ground and die, but I wouldn't even know how to do that. I'm so scared…*
I trusted you. I slept countless nights with you sitting downstairs, making sure I was safe, and I always felt safe. Am I supposed to be afraid of you now? Am I supposed to be afraid you'd do that to me? You loved her, and you tried to hurt her. So what's there to stop you from hurting me?
*I'm afraid I'm going to disappear. What if that's what happens now? They made me to hide the key. What if, when the threat's gone, I turn back into what I was? And then it's like I'm dead. Worse than dead, because all the fake memories would be gone too. Everyone would just forget about me. And she died for nothing. *
I suppose now you're gonna say you left for my own good. Because you thought I'd be better off without you. My father already tried that line of crap on me, and I didn't buy it then. And my father was never like you. He never knew I was upset, couldn't see the pain on my face even when I tried to hide it from the others. He never walked into my room late at night just to make sure I was still asleep and still okay. When I was afraid, nearly panicking, hearing a noise outside and wanting to hide, he never took me by the shoulders and promised to take care of me. And I loved you more than I ever loved him. So now I hate you more.
*Even if I don't disappear, I still feel like she died for nothing. Because I'm nothing. I'm sure they're all looking at me and thinking of her. That I'm just bits and pieces she left behind. That she was a hero, and I'm an elaborate hallucination. *
I hate this feeling, like I want to hit you. I want to hurt you like you hurt me. But I think that if I smashed you twenty times with a baseball bat, it wouldn't hurt as much. And it wouldn't make me feel any better.
*Do you think that, maybe, because you're a vampire, the spell wouldn't work on you? If I disappear, if everyone forgets, would you remember that I was here? Can you see me now when you look at me?*
I was too young to know you when you were evil, but now I see what you really are. You really are evil. I hate you, and I want you to know it. I want beat in your skull until you understand exactly how much I hate you.
*I need you to see me. When you look at me, can you see through the spells? Through the magical creation of me and the memories of her? Everyone who loves me is gone, and I don't know how to live anymore. I need you to love me.*
But when she finally managed to work past the lump in her throat, all of the words that had run through her mind immediately vanished. There was only a small, struggling breath, and a choked sentence that broke the lump and ended with tears.
*"I'm so scared."*
"I missed you so much."
Her body shook with sobs and her eyes squeezed shut. She thought she
*would fall down; she was suddenly so weak. She couldn't form any more*
words, only cry and feel the tears pouring through her closed eyes. When she
*opened them, she was sitting in the chair with Spike kneeling in front of her, *
pressing his forehead to hers. He wasn't crying, wasn't even breathing, and she
*wondered if, after a hundred and twenty years, you could run out of tears, so that*
you have to put your face underneath others, and catch the tears as they fall, until
* both faces are equally wet. And it poured out of her, onto him, *
all her anger,
*all her grief,*
like when it rains so hard and for so long, that when she wakes up,
*sitting on his lap,*
her legs lengthwise across him,
*his arm around her, holding her steady,*
her neck stiff from sleeping with her head against his shoulder,
*when she wakes up,*
everything is clean.
(tbc)