Title:
Scent
Rating: PG
Character(s): Buffy Summers
Prompt:
53. Scent
Author's Note: Set post-"The Body"
How long had it been and why couldn't she remember? Had it been a week? A month? She couldn't seem to focus enough to remember trivial things like how long it had been since her mother died. She had other things to worry about; things like staking vampires, paying bills and making sure her little sister went to school everyday. Not to mention protecting that same sister from a psychotic hellgodess whose shoe obsession almost rivaled her own.
The days had started to blend together and coalesce in her mind and she couldn't even remember the date of her mother's death. She should be able to remember things like that shouldn't she? If she were a normal person maybe she could count down to the minute how long it had been since she found her mother looking so pale on the couch.
It bothered her that she couldn't remember, that was obvious enough, life was too complicated and everything moved too fast and she could barely catch her breath. Ever since Riley left the world didn't seem to want to stop spinning so she could take the time to adjust.
She swore the couch downstairs smelled like death and she did everything she could to avoid it. Every time she took a lungful of air in the living room she swore she smelled it. It wasn't like she wasn't familiar with that particular scent anyway, she was, she got a breath full of death at least once a night on patrol, she hated that it permeated her home; her sanctuary against the evils of the world.
Honestly Buffy preferred to go to her mom's room, which was exactly how she had left it, lay on the bed curled around a pillow and let her mothers sweet perfume be the comfort she sought. Sometimes when she did that she could swear that she felt her mother's comforting hand rubbing her back. She tried to remember the good days, the times when they'd all been a happy family, back before vampires and slayers and boys. Only it was hard, because everyday she was faced with vampires and slayers and well not so much boys anymore but that really wasn't the point.
When she was curled up on her mom's bed or when she slept in that big taupe sweater that her mom used to love she felt so close to her mom and it really didn't matter that she couldn't remember how long it had been and she'd close her eyes and dream and it never mattered because there her mother wasn't gone. She was sitting at her vanity spraying on some of that sweet mango perfume.
