Equinoxium: Chapter 19
by Lisette

Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings. In addition, nods must be given to Sarah McLachlan, Enya, LoTR, Linkin' Park, Evanescence, any many great BtVS episodes for inspiration and amazing quotes that will be seen in this chapter. They all gave me the nod in the right dark direction.

"nen i-Estel Edain; -chein estel anim: I gave Hope to the Dnedain; I have kept no hope for myself."
LoTR: Appendix A - Gilraen's linnod to Aragorn

The night was dark and heavy, the shadows thick and monstrous as they twisted away from the flicker of mounted torches, the light crawling over her pale skin and illuminating the golden mass of hair that shone dully beneath her listless head. She was alone again - alone with her demons and her madness - bound by chains and a weakness that was so prevalent that she could do no more than lie limply upon the soft mattress, her breaths soft and shallow as invisible breezes picked at the gauzy shift that had replaced her leathers long ago.

An age had passed. An age in which the madness kept her sanity buried beneath half-remembered dreams and blossoming nightmares, blind to the creatures that took her blood, bathed her body, and forced her to drink their poisons and eat their foods in a laughable effort to keep her failing body strong. Laughable in that no matter how much food they made her eat, it could never compensate for that which they coveted.

"The winter here is cold... and bitter... it's chilled us to the bone," Buffy whispered, the fragments of a song, half-remembered and half-forgotten, flitting through her thoughts. "We haven't seen the sun for weeks... too long, too far from home. I feel just like I'm sinking... and I claw for solid ground.... I'm pulled down by the undertow.... I never thought I could feel so low... oh Darkness, I feel like letting go."

"You're giving up?"

Sighing, Buffy slowly turned her head to find Andrew standing forlornly beside her bed, his large eyes filled with so much hurt and betrayal.

"You said we could all get through this."

"I made it up," Buffy admitted, knowing the role that she should play. It was a role that she had played many a time before, and one that she would play many a time after this as she relived the past and fought her future. It was the role that she had been handed, and one that she could no longer refuse. "I'm making it all up," she sighed, tears burning her eyes - surprising herself that there were still more tears to cry. "What kind of hero does that make me?" she asked, her eyes beseeching this phantom to somehow give her the guidance that she needed. But Andrew didn't hold the answers. He never did. None of her phantoms of madness ever knew anything that she didn't already know.

"This isn't some story where Good triumphs because Good triumphs," she stated, her head rolling listlessly to the side. "Good people are going to die... we're all going to die," she amended with a soft, sad sigh. "But you already knew that," Buffy whispered as she slowly turned back to Andrew's still form. "You all know this," she added as she took in the spattering of Potentials that lounged sullenly on the stone floor, their arms crossed over their chests as they pouted, glared, and ultimately blamed her for their possible fate. "You all know this because that's the reward for being human... big dessert at the end of the meal."

"But me and B - we're different."

Eyes falling shut, Buffy weakly agreed to this statement as she felt Faith's warmth as the dark-haired slayer settled on the mattress beside her. Or at least, she imagined that she could feel this phantom's warmth. To be honest, she didn't know what to trust anymore. Her body was failing her. Her senses were failing her. And her heart? Her heart had failed her long before this.

"This whole thing is about death," Faith continued, her voice casual. "Death is what a slayer breathes and what she dreams about when she sleeps. Death is what a slayer lives. My death could make you the next slayer."

"Look, I wish this could be a democracy. I really do," Buffy added as she turned stern eyes towards the Potentials that composed their army. "But democracies don't win battles. It's a hard truth, but there has to be a single voice," she continued, her voice growing firm, finding strength in this false fantasy. "You need someone to lead you."

"And it's automatically you."

Momentarily thrown off balance, Buffy paused mid-speech as she twisted her head on the soft mattress, her green eyes falling upon Anya's unmistakable form as the ex-demon lounged against the wall opposite the mammoth bed. "Yes, I-"

"You really do think you're better than we are," Anya broke in, her pretty features hard and unforgiving as the rest of the room faded away, leaving her with the bitter young woman. "But we don't know. We don't know if you're actually better," Anya continued as she pushed away from the wall and strode closer to the bed. "I mean, you came into the world with certain advantages, sure. That's the legacy. But you didn't earn it," she stated, her eyes flashing. "You didn't work for it. You've never had anybody come up to you and say you deserve these things more than anyone else. They were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us. It makes you luckier than us."

"Luckier?" Buffy broke in incredulously as she weakly lifted her head from the mattress, her wide eyes locked on the ex-demon. "You call this luckier?" she demanded as she pointedly struggled against the heavy chains that bound her. "Anya, we don't know how to fight it. We don't even know when it'll come!" she struck back, wanting to make the slender brunette hurt as badly as she was hurting - striking her in the only way that she knew how. "We can't run, can't hide, can't pretend it's not the end, 'cause it is. Something's always been there to try and destroy the world and we've beaten them back. But we're not dealing with them anymore. We're dealing with the reason they exist. Evil. The strongest. The First-" she broke off, her features creasing in confusion. "No... that's not right. Not the First. We're... we're dealing with something worse. We're dealing with... we're dealing with me," Buffy admitted, faltering as the confusion filled her until she thought she would burst.

"Where once was life, now darkness falls," a haunting voice sang, echoing off the cold stone.

"No!" Buffy broke in, her loud cry vibrating off of the walls as she tried to turn from this latest phantom - this one that she hated most of all.

"Where once was love, love is no more."

"Not you. Not you!" she hissed as she glared at the small, twisted being that her imagination had created. Legolas had told her of the creature known as Gollum; the creature whose life had become so bent by a passion that he couldn't control. She had never met this creature as it had died in the fires of Mount Doom nine years before her arrival in Middle-earth, and yet her madness had taken this tale and had breathed life into his body once more.

"These tears we cry are falling rain. And we will weep to be so alone."

"I don't know you. I don't know you!" Buffy cried, refusing to acknowledge the bent creature that scuttled around her bed.

"We are lost. We can never go home."

Yet no matter how much she refused to heed this creature's words, each one fell as though another knife that was bent on piercing her flesh... on drawing her blood.

"And you will weep when you face the end alone."

"Too late. The end has already come and gone... I've no more tears to cry," Buffy whispered as she finally opened her eyes to find the small creature perched on the bed beside her, its large eyes locked upon her own.

"You are lost," it hissed, its wide mouth opened in a hideous smile. "You can never go home."

"Leave me alone!" Buffy screamed, hating this vile creation with everything in her weakened body.

"Buffy?"

Stifling a sob, the petite slayer turned her head to find Dawn standing uncertainly by the door to the chamber, her hands fluttering at her side, her long face pale with tears pooling in her large brown eyes. "Not you," Buffy whispered, feeling the tears break and blaze down her cheeks. "Please not you too," she begged as she turned her head away.

"Buffy! Oh God, Buffy, what's happened to you?" the phantom demanded as the bed seemed to shift beneath her weight, her warm hands turning Buffy's face towards her.

"Dawnie, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this!" Buffy sobbed, finally taking solace in whatever this phantom could offer as her sister seemed torn between tears and panic, her hands brushing the tears from Buffy's cheeks. "I can't be this person anymore! Dawn... Dawnie I don't know what's worth fighting for anymore," she admitted, her sister finally throwing off her hesitation as the younger girl gathered Buffy in her imagined embrace, her phantom arms wrapping around her and somehow seeming more real than anything else in this horrid nightmare.

"Buffy, what's going on? Who's done this to you? What's happened to you?" the phantom repeated, her voice sounding strained and worried with tears and fear.

"I don't know how I got this way," Buffy whispered in between choked sobs as she clung to the girl that held her, finding that she was wrong for there were many more tears yet to cry. "They want my blood to make them strong, and I can't stop them anymore. I try to catch my breath but I hurt so much. Dawnie... I can't breathe," Buffy gasped as her strained lungs tried to find the oxygen that her traumatized body desperately needed. "I can't breathe."

"Yes, yes you can!" Dawn stated as her phantom hands released her to begin pulling ineffectively at the heavy chains. "I just... I just need to get you free!" she grunted as she strained against the unyielding metal, her movements becoming frantic. "I just need to get you free and then you can fight again," she whimpered as Buffy gently lifted a hand to touch this phantom's beautiful, tear-stained cheek.

"I'll never fight again," the slayer whispered, hating to see her sister cry - even if it was all in her head. "This is how it ends," she whispered as she slowly turned her head away, willing her madness to take another form. Whatever comfort the image of her sister had given her was actually a double-edged blade for the comfort was merely a tease of what she could never again have - a tease of something better that was mired in so much sickness.

"No, Buffy, listen to me! I don't have much time. I just... I just wanted to... Listen to me!" the phantom ordered as she forced Buffy's chin towards her. "Just hang on and.. and we'll think of something. Giles.. Giles can-"

"But didn't you know?" Buffy asked, the tears burning her as she looked into her sister's beautiful eyes - etching them into her memory. "Giles is dead," she whispered, watching as those very words deflated whatever strength had been in this phantom as it disappeared with a flash before her eyes.

"Only because you let me go."

Breath catching in her hurting chest, Buffy felt the tears flood her eyes with renewed vigor as she turned to acknowledge the new phantom that had joined her bedside. Yet this was one phantom that her hurting heart truly couldn't handle. "Noooo," she moaned, closing her eyes tightly as though that small act could somehow will the phantom away. "Please not you," she begged as she felt his warm, familiar hand fall upon her face.

"Buffy, you can't ignore me forever."

"Go away, go away, go away!" Buffy returned as she tried to block out her mentor's soft voice. "Please go away," she whispered as she felt the world begin to spin dizzyingly around her.

"You led me down into the darkness. You betrayed me."

"No, it wasn't me. It was a trick," Buffy whimpered, her voice a fervent plea for him to believe her as she finally opened her eyes, desperately taking in the apparition that sat beside her. If only it really was his lined green eyes that were looking down upon her. If only it was his warm hand that was twined in her own. If only it was his soft smile that looked sadly down upon her.

But it wasn't - and that was the cruelest trick of all. She could be deceived by the demons within her that took on the faces of those that she loved and left behind, but she couldn't be tricked by the face that had stayed with her throughout this hellish nightmare. She couldn't be tricked by someone that would never walk the halls of any world ever again.

"You're not real and you're not here! You're not anything but a ghost!.... You're dead," Buffy whispered, hating the finality that could be heard in those two simple words. "You're dead."

"And are you truly so quick to join me?" Giles asked, his voice soft and compassionate.

Breath catching in her throat, Buffy looked towards her mentor and saw not the man that had died by the First Evil's hand, but the man who had stood beside her for seven long years. He may not always have been beside her in body, but he was surely there in spirit. "Giles?"

"Is this the Slayer that I trained? One who thinks that this is the answer?" he asked as he waved towards her heavy frame.

"I... I tried to be strong," Buffy whimpered as she leaned into this invisible touch.

"Strong is fighting!" Giles returned, his voice becoming firm. "It is hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It is what we have to do."

"But Giles, I-" Buffy began, her words faltering as the door swung open behind him, her eyes turning from her mentor to find Vashnak standing in the open doorway, his dark eyes sweeping the room before falling upon her. Frowning, Buffy turned away from her captor, dismissing him without thought as she searched vaguely for her mentor... only to find that he had gone, leaving her alone with the one EBID who had begun it all.

"Who were you talking to?"

Sighing listlessly, Buffy ignored Vashnak's question as she felt the alluring pull of her dreams and madness call to her once more. As each day passed, it was becoming harder and harder for her to differentiate what was real and what was merely a part of the dream world that she now almost entirely inhabited.

No. That wasn't true.

Discerning one world from the other wasn't so difficult. It was finding the desire to inhabit the one that was filled only with misery that her hurting body and soul shied away from - the one that she had drifted from so long ago, when this very EBID had prevented her from taking her life and sparing herself from this unending misery. The misery that some part of her would have her face once more, as illustrated by Giles' final message. But how could she go back to living in that world? Sure, the phantoms that haunted her dreams could be vicious and cruel, but as evidenced by Dawn and Giles, they could also be gentle and loving as well. What love could be found in a reality that was populated solely by Vashnak and his fellow EBIDs?

"I see you slip further away into your madness, day by day, and... I think it pains me."

Distantly aware of the lithe body that settled lightly on the bed beside her, Buffy felt warm hands encase her cheeks as her head was turned until her half-lidded eyes were locked with those that were black and narrow.

"I watch you and there grows something tight and heavy in my chest," he murmured as his hand gently caressed her pale cheek, causing the cold, numbed flesh to tingle slightly at his careful, almost gentle ministrations. "There is much to be done, much to be prepared, and yet I find you ever on the edges of my thoughts. I can think of nothing else," he admitted as he finally released her from his heavy gaze, his eyes dropping lower as she felt his hands slide down her cheek, trail past her neck, and skim over the bare skin of her chest until one hand rested lightly over her heart, the heat of his touch seeping through the thin gauzy material of the shift and warming the skin beneath.

As though from a world away, Buffy felt that touch tremble ever so slightly as it slid to the side until it half-cupped one breast - the heat of his touch warming skin long cold as her glassy eyes slid down, searching out his gaze. She felt so detached from the world around her, and yet the intensity that smoldered in his black eyes was enough to cause her alarm to begin to waken. There was something not right here. Something not right in any of this - and yet before she could break from her stasis, it was too late as her eyes caught movement in her peripheral as Vashnak's hand moved to his side and withdrew his blade from his sheath, drawing the knife in a thin line along the bared skin above her breasts.

She thought she felt pain and warmth from this heated line of flesh as something savage flashed in Vashnak's eyes, but then that, too, was lost to her as she felt strong arms wrap around her frame, lifting her to him, her head lolling back as she felt hot breath rake over her skin before soft lips were pressed urgently against that heated line.

"You like men who hurt you."

Sighing softly, Buffy felt deceptively warm and secure in Vashnak's arms - her body impossibly heavy as it was cradled against his chest. Yet whatever peace that could have been found in such a comforting embrace was soiled by the feeling of those lips pressed against a wound that had begun to burn and ache, even as it wakened her heavy limbs and pulled her from her madness. Giles' words of encouragement rang back to her even as this new phantom's silky voice awoke a fire in her that she had thought long extinguished. "No," she whimpered as she slowly lifted her heavy, lolling head.

"You need the pain we cause you."

Wanting nothing more than to shake her head in denial, Buffy's eyes instinctively sought out Spike's saddened blue gaze from where he stood behind Vashnak, an audience to this final degrading act. But then her view of Spike was blocked as Vashnak finally lifted his head from her wound, her eyes tracing his reddened lips and the blood that stained his pale skin as he turned and spit the tainted blood upon the tousled sheets, knowing better than to drink something so powerful when there was nothing left to heal.

Fixated, Buffy thought that she could watch those glittering crimson drops as they seeped into the coarse sheets - watch them forever and longer. Yet once more that choice was taken from her as Vashnak pulled her even tighter against him, his lips greedily claiming her own in a bruising crush that locked her breath within her. Frozen, she lay heavy in his arms as these foreign lips smeared blood upon her skin, a thick tongue parting swollen flesh and thrusting into her mouth as though everything that was hers now belonged to him.

"You need the hate," Spike murmured, her eyes once more seeking him out beyond Vashnak's shoulder as the dark-haired creature rubbed his hands down along her awakening body and as she tasted her own blood on his lips - on the tongue that tried to claim her as his own. Yet this was wrong. Spike was wrong, and she had told him so over a year ago when he tried to convince her of these same things.

"You need it to do your job - to be the slayer," Spike whispered as Buffy angrily turned a head that was hers once more, breaking the kiss as she glared at the EBID that dared touch her.

"I... I don't need you," Buffy gasped, forcing the words past weak, trembling lips that were coated with blood as the tears streaked down her pale face. Her body was weak - so very weak - and even though she was unable to do more, she knew that her eyes carried all of the fire that she had thought gone forever. She understood now what Dawn and Giles... no, what she had known all along: she may have been lost for a long time now, but she had never been broken. She was stronger than that.

"I don't need you," she repeated, her words falling quicker from a voice that regained the strength that had once seemed weak and unassuming, her eyes shining with the light of a soul that couldn't be touched by the darkness that surrounded her. "I may be forced to live in the dark, but it can't touch me. You can't touch me," she whispered, her eyes narrowed disdainfully upon this creature. "No one can take that from me. No one," she whispered as she turned her head to the side, finding that her familiar phantoms had gone - and quietly accepting this fact. They had served their purpose and she would take solace in them no longer.

For a moment, Vashnak was silent as he stared down at Buffy's turned head, her once-soft and pliant body now cold and unyielding in his arms. They both knew that despite her words, he could take what he wanted by force - and would probably find more enjoyment in such amusements - but for some reason... for a reason that was altogether alien and foreign to him, he didn't want that. He didn't understand it and he wasn't sure that he even wanted to, but with a fierce snarl, Vashnak knew that whatever it was that had brought him to this room was gone, and without another word he released his prisoner from his hold and stormed from the room.

Alone once more, Buffy weakly lifted one hand to brush the wet blood from her lips, wishing there was a way to get the nauseating copper taste from her mouth. Then again, she knew better than to dwell on idle wishes. Though this was a small victory of sorts, she had not found renewed hope in escaping this hell. A slayer could never afford to be anything but realistic, and unfortunately, that meant that her sole prize in this fight was to regain herself for no other reason that in her final moments, she wouldn't disgrace everything that so many people had given so much to create in herself. She would die in this hell, of that there was no doubt. But at least she would die in a way to make Giles, her friends and family, and all of the Slayers that had passed before her proud.

She wouldn't fail them again.

"I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it's gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we'll give 'em one. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until The First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself."