Creed

Chapter 2

Buffy gazed at the face in front of her. It was thin, but not gaunt, and had defined cheekbones, a small, hooked nose, thin, pale lips and round, empty, green eyes. When had the reflection in the mirror become so…lacking?

She turned from the mirror abruptly, and away from her reflection. Hobbling to her closet, Buffy tugged it open and dropped to her knees. Searching through the shoes and junk that lined her closet floor, she found the small wooden box she had pushed to the back. It had been a tenth birthday present from Dawn, and it had come with a key that she had hung on a silver chain. She grabbed the chain from her desk and unlocked the box.

Lifting the lid, she bit her lip nervously before extracting the notebooks- her Slayer journals. Every unusual demon or vampire had been listed in these journals, including her adventures with her friends, her relationship with Angel, the bizarre incidents and her feelings after every averted apocalypse. Within these journals lay her life. She flicked through them, forcing back the waves of memories that threatened to rise. The Master, her death, Angelus, the Mayor's ascension, Adam, Riley and...Glory. She slammed the journal shut before she could read on. She did not want to read about Glory or her discovery of Dawn's origins. It wouldn't do anything except remind her of things she didn't want to remember.

Who did she think she was kidding? Reading her journals wouldn't fill the hole that had taken up home in her. Nothing would, and the reality finally came crashing down on her, crushing her beneath its unrelenting weight.

She was not the Slayer anymore. She had fought the swell of darkness for nearly six years without any relief from the pain and grief that came with it. She had finally been offered an escape, a way out, and she had accepted it. Only to have it ripped away from her when her gift had been refused. As though her death wasn't an adequate sacrifice. But now that the chance had been taken from her, the desire to lay down her weapons had been taken with it. The call to pick them up again was stronger, and there was nothing she could do.

But she had embraced the realization that she was alive in the hospital, and it was not the prospect of living that tormented her. It was the fact that she would live on, but she would live on as someone who was not the Slayer. She had always had doubts about who she was. Especially after graduation, when Angel had left and she had embarked on a new stage of her life. But she had still been somebody, because she had been the Slayer. But now...now, she was nobody.

Gathering the journals in her arms, Buffy hastened from her room in a numb trance. She descended the stairs and ignored her sister and Watcher's curious questions. Storming into the living room, Buffy dumped her load into the fireplace, struck a match and threw it on top of them.

She stood vigilantly as the journals caught fire, and watched as the flames devoured them. She was vaguely aware of her friends behind her but she did not heed them.

"Buffy," Giles said gently. "You didn't have to..."

"Yes, I did," Buffy returned coldly. "I don't need them anymore."

"But Buff," Xander exclaimed. "You've written everything from the last few years in those journals. They're like photos, once you burn them it's as though the past-"

"Didn't exist," she finished, and her friends finally realized why she had burnt them.

Giles removed his glasses and wiped them. "Well, I suppose this will give you what you have always wanted."

"Yeah," Willow added, "You can have a normal life with no more slay girl."

Buffy felt like a sharp knife had slid into her heart, but she kept a rigid stance.

"Now you can find a husband, make some money and have kids," Anya added eagerly.

Her mind was screaming for them to understand that she would never be normal. It occurred to her then, that she had been doing what she hated them for suggesting. God, what was she doing? She had destroyed the only records of her life and in the process, lost the only documents of what she had done for this ungrateful world. And yet here she was, completely contradicting herself by being angry at them for suggesting she have a normal life. Wasn't that why she had thrown her journals in the fire in the first place?

This wasn't what she wanted. How many times had she complained and moaned about wanting a normal life? She had always known it would never be possible, so moaning about it was just a tactic she used to annoy Giles.

Now that it had actually happened, now that she wasn't the Slayer, it felt like her life was on hiatus. Like there was a part of her missing. She knew exactly what was missing, and how it had been taken. Sometimes she had flashbacks to the scant moments spent in the portal. Buffy remembered the dream she had had before waking in the hospital. She remembered the sensation of her core being scraped bare; as though the Slayer had been the center of her person all along.

The first Slayer had said death was her gift and now she understood it. Death wasn't her gift; it was the Slayer's gift. The Slayer had sacrificed herself on the tower that night, not Buffy. And the Slayer's death had saved her sister, and also herself, from death.

The Slayer had been the essence of her for so long. How could she cope without it?

Buffy waited until the fire diminished, then turned on her heel and strode past her dispirited friends. She left the house in an utter daze. A thick cloud seemed to cloak her mind and she walked without direction. There was nothing to think of; a nobody thinking of nothing. It made sense...didn't it? But nothing made sense to Buffy anymore. The world didn't make sense; was it even still spinning?

Who was she if not the Slayer? Sure, she was Buffy, but who was Buffy if not the Slayer? She wasn't intellectually smart, but her street smarts had kept her alive on more than one occasion. She wasn't a quick learner, mainly because slaying came naturally. She wasn't talented, but she was skilled in fighting. She wasn't good at anything- except slaying.

Despite years of wishing for a normal life, Buffy had never been normal. She had complained, moaned and whined about it and now that it had happened, she was lost. It was only now, walking alone down a remote street, unprotected against the evil that lurked in the dark, that Buffy understood that the Slayer had always been a part of her. No matter how much she had tried to deny it, it had always been inside her. And now that it wasn't...

Buffy raised her head and noticed that she had unconsciously walked into a cemetery. This had to stop, she realized. She was in danger and had nothing to protect herself with. And no sixth sense to warm her of impending danger. All she had was herself, her human senses, and knowledge of how the lurking evil ticks. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, and got the shock of her life when she took a step forward and bumped into a smirking vampire. Gasping, she tried to pull away, only to find herself helpless in his grip. She closed her eyes as he lowered his gleaming fangs to her neck and she waited for the inevitable pain to shoot through her neck...

But it didn't come. When she opened her eyes again she saw the scattering dust and found herself looking into two deep, brown pools.

"Angel," she breathed.

"Buffy," he replied, and she remembered how she loved to hear him say her name. It made her feel safe and untroubled and made the rest of the world melt away. But it didn't melt away, because she had been thrust from the darkness and into the real world.

She allowed him to wrap his arms around her slim body and indulged in the brief comfort it offered. "What are you doing here?" she asked once he released her.

"I heard," he replied, "about Glory and Dawn. Willow called and told me...told me about what happened."

She avoided his intense stare and began walking away towards the entrance of the cemetery. "Did she? Then you'd know about me not being a Slayer anymore."

"She told me," he responded. "What I'd like to know is why you're in a cemetery when you're still weak from the fall."

"Habit," she answered. She felt his eyes on her but didn't stop.

"Buffy," he said. "Stop. Talk to me."

She sighed and turned to face him. "About what? There's nothing to tell. Killed a god, jumped off a construction site, saved the world, not a Slayer anymore. End of story."

Angel's face remained impassive, but he rested on top of a head stone. "I don't think it is. What are you feeling, Buffy? I couldn't stand it when Willow told me, and it didn't even happen to me. What are you thinking?"

Buffy gave a bitter laugh and sat opposite him. "Feeling? Thinking? You want an answer? The answer is nothing. Nothing, Angel."

Angel remained silent and Buffy continued. "I was going to die, Angel. I accepted it; hell, I wanted it. But then I woke up...and I got over it. I still had Dawn and my friends, so basically things were the same as before." She wrapped her arms around herself and went on, "But then I found out that I wasn't the Slayer anymore. The portal...it was meant to kill me. It was meant to take my blood and soul, but the Slayer fought back, and it took that instead. It scraped the Slayer out of me, Angel, out of my core."

Angel's mind was spinning at what she was telling him. She had wanted to die? That wasn't the Buffy he had loved, did love; she would never have given up willingly. And now she wasn't the Slayer anymore...

"Buffy, you can have the life you've always wanted. You can be normal..."

"I'll never be normal, Angel," she interrupted. "I will always have the memories, the feelings, the thoughts. I found out that despite hating it, it was part of who I was. I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and now... who am I?"

"Buffy," he answered without a moment's hesitation. She shook her head in frustration.

"You don't get it, do you?" she muttered. "Buffy IS the Slayer. The Slayer is Buffy. With one gone, I'm half a person. A nobody. And no one will ever understand that, because no one knows what it's like to have the strength and clarity of the Slayer and be stripped of the power. No one knows what it's like..." she trailed off as the frustration and grief became too much. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and it was only her will power that caught the sobs in her throat.

Angel knelt in front of her and picked up her hand in his own, "Yes, they do."

Buffy gazed into his eyes, "Who Angel, who could possible know..."

He interrupted her by placing his fingers over her lips. "There is someone, Buffy, who knows. Someone who knows what it's like to be the Slayer..."

Buffy's eyes widened as realization dawned on her features, and she whispered:

"Faith."

To Be Continued...