Getting Off The Griefmobile
By Annakovsky
See part 1 for all relevant info and disclaimer.
***********
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
***********
Buffy had been happy, sort of, the last few months. Cheery, even, sometimes. Leaving Sunnydale had felt like a weight off, not to mention not being the only Chosen One anymore. Even this stuff with the First again - for some reason she felt like the group was handling it, it wasn't all on her shoulders. Maybe it was just being in another place, things feeling different in Kentucky. Maybe her savior complex was buried somewhere in the Sunnydale crater along with everything else she used to own. However it happened, she felt unburdened, unlonelified - like part of a community again, not isolated anymore.
Until she waved at Willow and Xander as they drove off in evening-wear, and then Dawn and Andrew, holding hands, said something about a local band playing and being back late. Until she was alone in the suddenly huge house, everyone in love but her.
The day had been pretty great up 'til then. She and Willow had talked and giggled and shopped and she was seriously having flashbacks to high school. And it was so unexpected – it had been so long since she and Willow had acted like real friends that every time Willow grinned at her or told her something about Xander or acted extra-Willow-y, Buffy felt a shocked kind of joy and delight. It was like Christmas morning when you were five, only better – it was like, if you were five and had woken up on a day you thought you were going to go to the doctor and get shots, and instead you had found out it was Christmas morning and you had gotten a pony. It was like finding your childhood blankie after you thought it was lost forever, or like your parents suddenly telling you out of nowhere that they were getting back together again. Everything you never expected coming true, and being better than you had imagined.
Willow had Buffy come into the dressing room with her, help her with the zippers and girly dress things. When Willow began to change clothes, Buffy was taken aback by the intimacy of it, the sisterly-ness of it. Willow looked fragile in her white cotton underwear, pale skin stretched too thin and marked by freckles like tiny bullet holes. The bones of her shoulder-blades jutted out sharply, thin and breakable.
It was hard to imagine that this vulnerable girl was the one monster that had scared Buffy the most. Hard to imagine how close Willow had come to killing everyone, with her skin so pale and her eyes so big.
Buffy wondered what it would be like to love someone and not have pain mixed in with the love, mixed so thoroughly the two were impossible to separate.
But she had focused on the love today, of having a best friend, of being a best friend. They had gone out for smoothies and gossiped and Buffy had tried to make Willow feel better about liking Xander. She found herself saying the right words, like a long-forgotten song you find that you still know. They were remembering, both of them, falling back into the rhythm of everyday friendship, of just talking about Julia Roberts' hair instead of having business-like conversations about how to defeat the evil of the week.
They had found a dress, one in deep blue that Willow looked right in. Back at home, Buffy had sat on the closed toilet seat and talked to Willow as she did her make-up, helped her do her hair. Rituals of getting ready, of girl friendship in America.
Later Buffy stood at the foot of the stairs with Xander, the fake wedding rings in her hand as Willow came down, looking nervous and beautiful. Xander stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at Willow and not saying anything. Buffy filled the silence with nervous chatter, handing them the rings and feeling ridiculously like the best man.
Xander looked at the ring on his left hand for a moment, a strange lost look on his face. But then he looked up at Willow and grinned, a reassuring flash of lightning. She tentatively smiled back and he offered her his arm.
"Good luck talking to our demon contact," Buffy said. "Be careful."
"Don't worry, Buff, we're all over it," said Xander. "This demon party won't know what hit them."
"Well, I'd be happier if there were no hitting involved, but metaphorically, sure," Buffy said.
The three friends smiled at each other.
But now Buffy sat on the front stairs in the empty house as it got dark outside, arms wrapped around her knees.
She wished Giles and Faith were home. She wished she knew anybody in Louisville. She wished they had gotten a dog back in Arizona when they'd passed that Humane Society shelter and Dawn had wanted one.
She ended up getting into the only car left at home and driving, not having any idea where she was going, just needing to be out of the house.
Somehow she ended up on the Indiana side of the river, sitting at a random picnic table near the shore and watching the water move, looking at the stars. Loneliness had always been an outdoor activity for her – back in Sunnydale she had usually ended up on the porch of their house, like she needed to give her self-pity enough room to really stretch out and relax.
Why was it that when you had a calling to save the world from evil, you could still have the aimless feeling that you had no idea what you were going to do with your life?
She suddenly wanted to be Huck Finn, make a raft and drift down the river in the dark, the soft lapping of the waves lulling you to sleep and during the day the hot sun on your face, your bare feet in the water. The quiet of it, floating away to who knows where. Alone and still and not concerned with where you would end up.
She eventually pulled herself away from the hypnotic movement of the water and decided to patrol before heading back home. She knew the loneliness would pass, that soon she'd be sitting at the kitchen counter drinking hot chocolate with Dawn or Willow and gossiping about their date/non-date. But for now she wanted the empty graveyard and the simple, solitary movement of slaying.
She rested her head on the steering wheel before turning the key in the ignition, wondering when life would get easy.
*************
TBC...
By Annakovsky
See part 1 for all relevant info and disclaimer.
***********
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
***********
Buffy had been happy, sort of, the last few months. Cheery, even, sometimes. Leaving Sunnydale had felt like a weight off, not to mention not being the only Chosen One anymore. Even this stuff with the First again - for some reason she felt like the group was handling it, it wasn't all on her shoulders. Maybe it was just being in another place, things feeling different in Kentucky. Maybe her savior complex was buried somewhere in the Sunnydale crater along with everything else she used to own. However it happened, she felt unburdened, unlonelified - like part of a community again, not isolated anymore.
Until she waved at Willow and Xander as they drove off in evening-wear, and then Dawn and Andrew, holding hands, said something about a local band playing and being back late. Until she was alone in the suddenly huge house, everyone in love but her.
The day had been pretty great up 'til then. She and Willow had talked and giggled and shopped and she was seriously having flashbacks to high school. And it was so unexpected – it had been so long since she and Willow had acted like real friends that every time Willow grinned at her or told her something about Xander or acted extra-Willow-y, Buffy felt a shocked kind of joy and delight. It was like Christmas morning when you were five, only better – it was like, if you were five and had woken up on a day you thought you were going to go to the doctor and get shots, and instead you had found out it was Christmas morning and you had gotten a pony. It was like finding your childhood blankie after you thought it was lost forever, or like your parents suddenly telling you out of nowhere that they were getting back together again. Everything you never expected coming true, and being better than you had imagined.
Willow had Buffy come into the dressing room with her, help her with the zippers and girly dress things. When Willow began to change clothes, Buffy was taken aback by the intimacy of it, the sisterly-ness of it. Willow looked fragile in her white cotton underwear, pale skin stretched too thin and marked by freckles like tiny bullet holes. The bones of her shoulder-blades jutted out sharply, thin and breakable.
It was hard to imagine that this vulnerable girl was the one monster that had scared Buffy the most. Hard to imagine how close Willow had come to killing everyone, with her skin so pale and her eyes so big.
Buffy wondered what it would be like to love someone and not have pain mixed in with the love, mixed so thoroughly the two were impossible to separate.
But she had focused on the love today, of having a best friend, of being a best friend. They had gone out for smoothies and gossiped and Buffy had tried to make Willow feel better about liking Xander. She found herself saying the right words, like a long-forgotten song you find that you still know. They were remembering, both of them, falling back into the rhythm of everyday friendship, of just talking about Julia Roberts' hair instead of having business-like conversations about how to defeat the evil of the week.
They had found a dress, one in deep blue that Willow looked right in. Back at home, Buffy had sat on the closed toilet seat and talked to Willow as she did her make-up, helped her do her hair. Rituals of getting ready, of girl friendship in America.
Later Buffy stood at the foot of the stairs with Xander, the fake wedding rings in her hand as Willow came down, looking nervous and beautiful. Xander stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at Willow and not saying anything. Buffy filled the silence with nervous chatter, handing them the rings and feeling ridiculously like the best man.
Xander looked at the ring on his left hand for a moment, a strange lost look on his face. But then he looked up at Willow and grinned, a reassuring flash of lightning. She tentatively smiled back and he offered her his arm.
"Good luck talking to our demon contact," Buffy said. "Be careful."
"Don't worry, Buff, we're all over it," said Xander. "This demon party won't know what hit them."
"Well, I'd be happier if there were no hitting involved, but metaphorically, sure," Buffy said.
The three friends smiled at each other.
But now Buffy sat on the front stairs in the empty house as it got dark outside, arms wrapped around her knees.
She wished Giles and Faith were home. She wished she knew anybody in Louisville. She wished they had gotten a dog back in Arizona when they'd passed that Humane Society shelter and Dawn had wanted one.
She ended up getting into the only car left at home and driving, not having any idea where she was going, just needing to be out of the house.
Somehow she ended up on the Indiana side of the river, sitting at a random picnic table near the shore and watching the water move, looking at the stars. Loneliness had always been an outdoor activity for her – back in Sunnydale she had usually ended up on the porch of their house, like she needed to give her self-pity enough room to really stretch out and relax.
Why was it that when you had a calling to save the world from evil, you could still have the aimless feeling that you had no idea what you were going to do with your life?
She suddenly wanted to be Huck Finn, make a raft and drift down the river in the dark, the soft lapping of the waves lulling you to sleep and during the day the hot sun on your face, your bare feet in the water. The quiet of it, floating away to who knows where. Alone and still and not concerned with where you would end up.
She eventually pulled herself away from the hypnotic movement of the water and decided to patrol before heading back home. She knew the loneliness would pass, that soon she'd be sitting at the kitchen counter drinking hot chocolate with Dawn or Willow and gossiping about their date/non-date. But for now she wanted the empty graveyard and the simple, solitary movement of slaying.
She rested her head on the steering wheel before turning the key in the ignition, wondering when life would get easy.
*************
TBC...