I watched as Buffy looked soullessly at the girl who lay dead in the alley. She touched her curly brown locks and let her hand wander across the girls stiffening cheeks.
"So dumb" she said. "I do all I can to save these people. I do all I can to keep them from the dark. I have given my life for these people and the lives of all the people I have ever loved. And then they will go and kill each other for a couple of dollars in a wallet. It's just so stupid."
I could not speak; a lump in my throat inhibited me. I tried to tell her that I understood, that I knew what she is going through. Our jobs, though different, are the same, and they do make a difference, I want to tell her. They do.
She stood up from where she had been kneeling over the body and walked purposefully to me. Mud stained her knees. She was shorter than me by a few inches, but the power of her gaze was so much more than mine. She stood in front of me, looking me directly in the eyes as if challenging me. I knew that behind those eyes was some great terrible emotion, but instead of revealing all her eyes masked it totally. They were the eyes of a woman who had seen hell over and over and over again and not lost her sanity. Instead she has lost something far more fundamental. Was it hope or her soul, or are the two the same, I wondered.
"You look so much like her" her voice was full of wonder; her eyes were still dead. Her hand reached up to trace my face, the way she had traced the dead woman's face. I wondered if the phantom I reminded her of was dead as well. "You could be her."
I breathed heavily, almost hyperventilating. Something horrible was about to happen. Something horrible that had happened before.
Buffy's hand slid down my jaw, curled around my neck. Her thumb rested on my pulse point, pressing lightly, considering and suddenly reckless. She seemed to be reflecting on the fact that she could easily kill me. It was a moment I would not soon forget. The demigod held my mortality in her hand but chose to let it free.
"Been there, done that." Buffy said roughly. Her hands went behind my neck and pressed my head down to her level. Her lips reached up and aggressively kissed me. I knew at that moment that something had gone wrong. I was not going to save her this time. I let her continue kissing me, knowing that the gesture was futile. When she had finished, the mask of her eyes had cracked. Emotion, blazing, brilliant and mad spilled from under her lids.
"I never did that to her. I tried to kill her, but it did nothing. I should have done that instead." Energy seemed to consume her body. She walked restlessly away from me, every movement a judgment. He foot touched the leg of the dead girl and something in her cracked. Tears began streaming down her face, dripping from her chin, splashing on the front of her windbreaker. Her mouth hung open, quivering. Her eyes sought mine and asked for absolution.
"I can't do it any more. They all die. They all die. No matter what I do, they all die." I stepped toward her.
"No Buffy. It's not your fault. You save them" I pleaded with her. Even dead eyes were better than this, better than the self-hate.
"I don't! I don't save enough of them. And they are killing me! Every time: every time another woman dies, ever time a young boy is turned into a monster it kills me. Every time I stake a freshly risen Vampire, I know that it only arose because I failed to protect it. I. Can't. Do. It. Any more."
Even as her hand went into her pocket, I lunged at her. I tried to grab her arm but she swung me easily as if I weighed nothing and I went flying into the wall, knocking my head. I got up woozily, seeing double, but it was too late. A switchblade glinted in the light of the street lamp before she plunged it into her stomach.
"I'm sorry." She said and died.
I sat shivering in the dirt, in a New York alley beside the two dead women for an hour, until finally Buffy's head reanimated, turned to me and spoke.
"Try again."
