Fragments
Author: Jenni
Ship: B/S
Summary: "She carries a roll of film in her purse. Twenty-four exposures, taken over the course of two years."
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy. Duh.
A/N: Just a little something I thought of while dropping off some film for my photography class.
A/N2: Oh, and I have no idea why sometimes the italics show up and other times they don't. Parentheses indicate what is supposed to be italicized.
Soundtrack: "The Scientist" by Coldplay, "Maps" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Wild Horses" by The Sundays and "Overfire" by THC.
+++
Although nearly a year has passed since that day, she still troubles herself with questions that will never be answered. In the dead of night, with a gentle Italian breeze blowing the promise of spring across her bed sheets, she thinks of what they meant to each other. She knows that she was his world, his light, his hope—but what was he to her? She thinks he was slowly becoming her everything. This was evident early on, but her feelings only started to become apparent to her after that night when her friends abandoned her. When he sought her out and made her believe again.
(A hundred- plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of: you. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the One, Buffy.)
She's the One and after that, oh, how she wanted him to be hers. She was foolish, thinking they had all the time in the world.
She went to him, let him hold her twice more and then it was over. He was gone, really gone, after all these years. And he was never coming back.
(And he didn't believe you when you said you loved him.)
Every time she remembers this she can't stop the tears from coming. Big, ugly drops sliding down her cheeks, soaking her pillow.
+++
He thinks of her too, ponders these unanswered questions. Sits propped against the wall in that miserable apartment. Another basement. He takes long drags from his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his dead lungs, and exhaling on each different memory of her. Her hair, her lips, the sound of her laugh. The way she felt when he held her to him.
If only he could muster up the courage to get on a plane and fly to Rome. Just so he can see her and have all those burning questions answered. But what is she's forgotten about him? Moved on past their…whatever it was.
(She doesn't even know you're back.)
A pause, then:
(What if she doesn't care?)
+++
She carries a roll of film in her purse. Twenty-four exposures, taken over the course of two years. Taken in those months between that abandoned house they brought to ruin and the day they battled the First. She'd almost forgotten about it. But while searching her purse for a few liras to tip the waiter, she rediscovers it.
Now she twirls it between her fingers, starting at it while she sips her coffee. She has it developed that day.
+++
Angel sits in his office, slouched back in that chair that practically screams, "I'm the Boss", and clicks through his email. Fifteen await him, but one catches his eye.
Date: Sat, 20 March 2004 2:14:56 -0800
To: Angel@wolfram.hart.com
From: buffysummers@watcherscouncil.org
Subject: Spike
I know you don't want to hear this but I don't know who else to tell, who else would even listen.
I wish I could bring him back but I don't think he'd want that.
There are so many things we didn't say to each other that I wish we had. Why do things seem only make sense when it's too late?
I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts to breathe.
I'm sorry,
Buffy
P.S. You will always be my first love, please don't ever forget that. But we've both grown, and we've both changed so much. It would be silly to go back to the way it was because it would never be enough. It would never be right.
+++
She kisses Dawn on the forehead, letting her drift into sleep. She shuts the door gently behind her before venturing into her own room. Rummaging through her purse she produces the still-sealed package of photos she picked up that afternoon. She perches on the foot of her bed, using the moonlight streaming through the window as her light source. Carefully, she tears the envelope open. All the pictures were taken when he was asleep, exhausted from whatever they had just done to each other. Trusting her not to stake him. He looks amazing in the black and white prints. But then again, she knew he would.
The first one was taken in the crypt, the fifth night she snuck away to be with him. He is on his side, wrapping her in a tight embrace. She is holding the camera above them at arms length, and her eyes are turned to him—a hint of kindness in them, the tangled sheet around their bodies making her seem softer than she was.
In the next they are on their backs, and he has one arm draped across his stomach and the other snakes around the curve of her hip. She rests her head on his chest, searching for a heartbeat she will never hear.
In the next she has tucked her head underneath his chin and breathes gently on his Adams apple.
The next one is close up, just her lips resting on the curve of his cheekbone. An experiment in being gentle.
She doesn't like those pictures, though. They remind her of how awful she was to him. How awful she was to herself. She was merely discovering him in those early images, trying to figure out what it was they both needed. They don't do her love justice.
The final few were taken in those last days, when things seemed like they were becoming clearer.
They lie facing each other. She leans her forehead against his, closes her eyes, traces patterns up and down his arm.
He lies behind her, one arm circling around to rest on her stomach. Her hair is pulled away from her neck, exposing what had driven his existence for so long but would never be tempted by again. A sign of their trust.
Just him, naked underneath the sheets that last night, bare chest exposed to the moonlight. He looks peaceful, as though he understood what was to come.
The final one was taken the next morning, a difficult shot to manage. It is fuzzy around the edges—she had to take it through the crack between where the hinges attach to the wall and the door. He is smiling brilliantly, caught mid-laugh. Indirect sunlight filtered in through the curtains bathes him with a glow, and he looks like a champion. This is the moment where she realized she loves him.
This last shot is her favorite and she holds it in her palm, tracing the curve of his smile with her finger. She is so consumed with memorizing that smile that she barely hears the knock on her door. This is how she missed the knock on the front door, as well. Startled, she drops the photos and they fan out haphazardly on the floor.
"Buffy?" Dawn's voice filters through the door.
"Come in, Dawn."
Buffy, kneeling on the ground, searching for a picture that slid underneath her bed, feels the beam of light from the hallway hit her face but does not look up.
"There's someone here for you." Dawn says, moving aside to let the guest enter before shutting the door and returning to her room.
Two boot-clad feet come into view as Spike crouches down before her.
"Let me help you with those." He says, voice barely above a whisper.
Her heart leaps into her throat and her hands stop collecting the pictures. She looks up at him, overjoyed, confused, eyes welling up with tears.
"Spike?" She whispers, eyes searching his face to make sure it's really him.
He nods, gulping down the lump in his throat.
Her hands leave the floor and find his face, tracing the planes of it with her fingers. They stand together, a prolonged motion as she stares into his eyes, tears drifting silently down her face.
"How?" She manages to ask.
"Well, that's a long story, really," he says in the gentle tone she remembers him using years ago when he told her how many days he had to live in a world without her. "I came back—God knows how, but I did—and I was too much of a coward to come see you. But then…I don't know what it was that made him do it but Angel came to me, said I needed to see you. Needed—"
She silences him with a finger to his lips, her eyes searching his. Slowly, carefully, she leans into him and presses her lips to his.
+++
Hours later, as they lay in a peaceful tangle of limbs, she tells him that she loves him. He smiles into her hair, an indescribable feeling consuming him.
"I was falling apart without you," she shifts to face him. "I think about you all the time. About all the things we never said and all the things we shouldn't have said."
"Shh," he sighs, comforting her. "We're here now. We've made it."
"And you knew I would make it. Even when I was…you knew I'd be here with you, eventually, in some future. You never gave up on this."
"I couldn't. It was the only thing keeping me alive."
She kisses him then, softly. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For believing in this, in us. For being so patient with me as I tried to figure all this out."
He's whispering now, serious. Affectionate. "I always knew you would."
He kisses her forehead and she wonders if life will always be this perfect.
She thinks it could, with him.
the end.