This is a story that's been spinning in my head ever since I spoke to a
friend of mine, one of the strongest people I know. This is for her.
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, yak, yak. Of course they're not mine. Things would be SO different if they were!
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She stood, one hand clutched to her cheek where he had just hit her. Hit her Not a full on, close fisted punch, the type she had taken so many times over the last 10 years. No this had been an open handed slap, not likely to do any serious damage, but stingingly painful and vicious none the less. She stared at him, shocked. It wasn't the force of the blow. He didn't even have half the strength of a fledgling vamp. It was the source of it. Tom. Her nice, normal boyfriend had just hit her. She stared at him as he stepped back from her, part of her listening as he spoke, another part of her distant, disconnected, finally recognising that she of all people had been sucked into an abusive relationship. She played different incidents back in her mind. It had started off with little comments. At first they had been couched in sweet terms, he just wanted her to look her best, sometimes she wore just a little too much makeup... soon he was telling her she looked like a hooker, her skirts were too short, she flirted with every man she met. He started telling her what to wear, how to act, who to speak to... she hadn't spoken to the rest of the Scoobies in weeks. Not that she saw them too often now. Willow and Kennedy were in LA working with Angel, who had reopened Angel Investigations and now ran it separately from Wolfram and Hart. Dawn was up at Oxford, intent on following Giles's footsteps with the new council of Watchers. Xander was still on his road trip, the one he hadn't managed to take after graduation. Faith and Robin were in Cleveland, keeping the Hellmouth quiet. Scattered, all of them.
She was still an active Slayer. Still the most powerful of them all. But she had told them that she had done enough. She had died for the fight, now she was walking away from it. She'd made it clear that if there was a real big bad out there they could call her, she wasn't abandoning them, but she wasn't interested in fighting the everyday demons, monsters and things that go bump in the night anymore. She was going to have a normal life. She started to laugh softly at the irony of it all. She, Buffy Summers, who had been saving the world since she was 15, who had fought Hell goddesses and the original evil, had been sucked into an abusive relationship without even noticing. That's the thing about abusive relationships. That's what people don't realise. The smug, naive people who claim that they don't understand how a woman could let it happen! They would never stand for it! Of course you don't let it happen. It doesn't start with the hitting. If that was where it started you would just call the cops and be out of there! But it doesn't start like that. It starts with little niggley comments, sly put downs, insults, boundaries getting pushed back further and further until that first hit; the slap, the punch, the push, is only a tiny step, not the giant leap it appears to be from the outside. Your confidence is so low, you've been... conditioned, that's a good word for it. You've been conditioned to believe that you deserved it, it's your fault, you did something to make this happen. Of course, a lot of women walk earlier than that. A lot of them realise that they don't need some asshole putting them down all the time and get out of there, but this is make or break time. Stand or fall, because if he's done it once he'll do it again. Don't care what he says, how much he cries, whatever. If you slept with his best friend in his bed or murdered his dog then you both need therapy, but if he's just come through the door in time to hear you hang up on a telemarketer and accuses you of having an affair - that's his reason for raising his hand to you - then he's a psycho, a nutjob, as much of a monster as the ones with horns or claws or teeth, and you need to get away now! You can't slay him, he is a human after all, just, but you realise now that for all the dents and cracks he's put in your confidence, you're still you, you're still capable of all the things you could do before he came along. Not only can you choose your own wardrobe, you've actually saved the world more times than you can remember. She straightened, dropping her hand from her cheek. The part of her brain processing her immediate surroundings passing back his tearful apology, realising that he'd mistaken her own quiet laughter for tears. She heard his promises that it would never happen again - not that he would never do it again, but that it would never happen again, distancing himself from it. Then she listened as he started to justify it to them both, his explanation of how it was really her fault... She started to laugh louder, so he couldn't mistake it for anything else, louder still as she watched his expression change from remorse to confusion to anger. She was still laughing like a lunatic when he raised his hand to her again, this time in a closed fist, powering it from his shoulder straight at her face. She caught it. She caught his fist in her open hand, the way you see in films, but if you've ever tried it you know that actually it just means that your knuckles hit whatever they were aiming at instead of theirs. He stared at her, shocked, still trying to drive his punch forwards, unable to comprehend the strength in the small form in front of him. She started to squeeze his fist, eliciting a gasp of pain from him, forcing him to his knees. She smiled at him. The deaths head smile that had been many a monsters last site on earth. 'I am more than you will ever understand. I've faced things, survived things that you would crumble at the thought of.' She squeezed his hand again when he tried to speak. 'I'd forgotten, what I am, where I come from, but I remember now.' She smiled again, more gently this time as she thought of the people who really loved her, would always love her. 'I'm leaving now, but I will be keeping an eye on you. If I ever, EVER even suspect that you've abused another woman, I will make you wish for death.' Staring into the face of the woman he thought he could mould into his image of perfection, he didn't recognise her from the woman she had been just 5 minutes ago. Where had this strength come from? In his arrogance, he could not see how she could survive without him. He was already planning on how to turn her power to his advantage. As he had always done before, he struck out with his most damaging weapon, words. Not harsh, crass insults, but the smooth, insidious ones that wormed into your confidence and destroyed it, making it impossible for you to even plan a grocery list without seeking his approval. 'Baby, what will you do without me? You know you're not smart enough to survive out there without me! you need me to help you, just imagine what could happen to you if I wasn't there to make sure you don't screw things up like you usually do.' He kept his tone soft, reasonable, sure this would be the way to win her back. She gave him that awful grin again. Had she really become so weak that he thought such an obvious ploy would persuade her to stay? She squeezed his hand again, this time feeling the satisfying crunch of bone below the skin. 'Without you baby, I'll do just fine.' Her smile grew distant again. 'Without you, I'll be cookies.' With a flick of her wrist she threw him across the room, watched him crash into the wall and cradle his broken hand against his chest. She left him there as she went into the bedroom, throwing her few objects of value into a bag; pictures mostly, her passport and banking stuff. Any clothes he had bought for her she didn't want, and he had thrown out most of the stuff she had bought. Even her slaying gear was kept elsewhere, he had never been allowed the smallest glimpse of that, admittedly small part of her life. Coming out of the bedroom, she found him blocking the front door, enraged. Before he could speak, she stepped in front of him. She spoke in a cold, deadly voice. 'If you get in my way, if you try and stop me, come after me or contact me in any way, I will break you. This,' she gestured at his hand, 'is nothing.' If my friends find out that you tired to hurt me they will take you to the deepest hell they can find and leave you there, and I do mean that literally.' She stared at him again until he stepped aside, having the first inkling of just how dangerous the woman in front of him could be. She walked past him slowly, keeping eye contact. When she opened the door she said 'I'll be watching.' Then she was gone, running full speed, heading for the airport and the first flight to the City of Angels, of her Angel, she could find.
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, yak, yak. Of course they're not mine. Things would be SO different if they were!
~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~# ~#~#~#~#
She stood, one hand clutched to her cheek where he had just hit her. Hit her Not a full on, close fisted punch, the type she had taken so many times over the last 10 years. No this had been an open handed slap, not likely to do any serious damage, but stingingly painful and vicious none the less. She stared at him, shocked. It wasn't the force of the blow. He didn't even have half the strength of a fledgling vamp. It was the source of it. Tom. Her nice, normal boyfriend had just hit her. She stared at him as he stepped back from her, part of her listening as he spoke, another part of her distant, disconnected, finally recognising that she of all people had been sucked into an abusive relationship. She played different incidents back in her mind. It had started off with little comments. At first they had been couched in sweet terms, he just wanted her to look her best, sometimes she wore just a little too much makeup... soon he was telling her she looked like a hooker, her skirts were too short, she flirted with every man she met. He started telling her what to wear, how to act, who to speak to... she hadn't spoken to the rest of the Scoobies in weeks. Not that she saw them too often now. Willow and Kennedy were in LA working with Angel, who had reopened Angel Investigations and now ran it separately from Wolfram and Hart. Dawn was up at Oxford, intent on following Giles's footsteps with the new council of Watchers. Xander was still on his road trip, the one he hadn't managed to take after graduation. Faith and Robin were in Cleveland, keeping the Hellmouth quiet. Scattered, all of them.
She was still an active Slayer. Still the most powerful of them all. But she had told them that she had done enough. She had died for the fight, now she was walking away from it. She'd made it clear that if there was a real big bad out there they could call her, she wasn't abandoning them, but she wasn't interested in fighting the everyday demons, monsters and things that go bump in the night anymore. She was going to have a normal life. She started to laugh softly at the irony of it all. She, Buffy Summers, who had been saving the world since she was 15, who had fought Hell goddesses and the original evil, had been sucked into an abusive relationship without even noticing. That's the thing about abusive relationships. That's what people don't realise. The smug, naive people who claim that they don't understand how a woman could let it happen! They would never stand for it! Of course you don't let it happen. It doesn't start with the hitting. If that was where it started you would just call the cops and be out of there! But it doesn't start like that. It starts with little niggley comments, sly put downs, insults, boundaries getting pushed back further and further until that first hit; the slap, the punch, the push, is only a tiny step, not the giant leap it appears to be from the outside. Your confidence is so low, you've been... conditioned, that's a good word for it. You've been conditioned to believe that you deserved it, it's your fault, you did something to make this happen. Of course, a lot of women walk earlier than that. A lot of them realise that they don't need some asshole putting them down all the time and get out of there, but this is make or break time. Stand or fall, because if he's done it once he'll do it again. Don't care what he says, how much he cries, whatever. If you slept with his best friend in his bed or murdered his dog then you both need therapy, but if he's just come through the door in time to hear you hang up on a telemarketer and accuses you of having an affair - that's his reason for raising his hand to you - then he's a psycho, a nutjob, as much of a monster as the ones with horns or claws or teeth, and you need to get away now! You can't slay him, he is a human after all, just, but you realise now that for all the dents and cracks he's put in your confidence, you're still you, you're still capable of all the things you could do before he came along. Not only can you choose your own wardrobe, you've actually saved the world more times than you can remember. She straightened, dropping her hand from her cheek. The part of her brain processing her immediate surroundings passing back his tearful apology, realising that he'd mistaken her own quiet laughter for tears. She heard his promises that it would never happen again - not that he would never do it again, but that it would never happen again, distancing himself from it. Then she listened as he started to justify it to them both, his explanation of how it was really her fault... She started to laugh louder, so he couldn't mistake it for anything else, louder still as she watched his expression change from remorse to confusion to anger. She was still laughing like a lunatic when he raised his hand to her again, this time in a closed fist, powering it from his shoulder straight at her face. She caught it. She caught his fist in her open hand, the way you see in films, but if you've ever tried it you know that actually it just means that your knuckles hit whatever they were aiming at instead of theirs. He stared at her, shocked, still trying to drive his punch forwards, unable to comprehend the strength in the small form in front of him. She started to squeeze his fist, eliciting a gasp of pain from him, forcing him to his knees. She smiled at him. The deaths head smile that had been many a monsters last site on earth. 'I am more than you will ever understand. I've faced things, survived things that you would crumble at the thought of.' She squeezed his hand again when he tried to speak. 'I'd forgotten, what I am, where I come from, but I remember now.' She smiled again, more gently this time as she thought of the people who really loved her, would always love her. 'I'm leaving now, but I will be keeping an eye on you. If I ever, EVER even suspect that you've abused another woman, I will make you wish for death.' Staring into the face of the woman he thought he could mould into his image of perfection, he didn't recognise her from the woman she had been just 5 minutes ago. Where had this strength come from? In his arrogance, he could not see how she could survive without him. He was already planning on how to turn her power to his advantage. As he had always done before, he struck out with his most damaging weapon, words. Not harsh, crass insults, but the smooth, insidious ones that wormed into your confidence and destroyed it, making it impossible for you to even plan a grocery list without seeking his approval. 'Baby, what will you do without me? You know you're not smart enough to survive out there without me! you need me to help you, just imagine what could happen to you if I wasn't there to make sure you don't screw things up like you usually do.' He kept his tone soft, reasonable, sure this would be the way to win her back. She gave him that awful grin again. Had she really become so weak that he thought such an obvious ploy would persuade her to stay? She squeezed his hand again, this time feeling the satisfying crunch of bone below the skin. 'Without you baby, I'll do just fine.' Her smile grew distant again. 'Without you, I'll be cookies.' With a flick of her wrist she threw him across the room, watched him crash into the wall and cradle his broken hand against his chest. She left him there as she went into the bedroom, throwing her few objects of value into a bag; pictures mostly, her passport and banking stuff. Any clothes he had bought for her she didn't want, and he had thrown out most of the stuff she had bought. Even her slaying gear was kept elsewhere, he had never been allowed the smallest glimpse of that, admittedly small part of her life. Coming out of the bedroom, she found him blocking the front door, enraged. Before he could speak, she stepped in front of him. She spoke in a cold, deadly voice. 'If you get in my way, if you try and stop me, come after me or contact me in any way, I will break you. This,' she gestured at his hand, 'is nothing.' If my friends find out that you tired to hurt me they will take you to the deepest hell they can find and leave you there, and I do mean that literally.' She stared at him again until he stepped aside, having the first inkling of just how dangerous the woman in front of him could be. She walked past him slowly, keeping eye contact. When she opened the door she said 'I'll be watching.' Then she was gone, running full speed, heading for the airport and the first flight to the City of Angels, of her Angel, she could find.