Slayer Memories part 3
Against all reason, I continue this fic. More Dana POV. Disturbing craziness!
Part One Here
Buffy didn’t want to talk about The Vampire before, but now, Buffy wants to talk about him all the time.
Dana thinks Buffy is Not Well.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kiss him, then kill him, then resurrect him so I can kill him again,” she says, pacing. Dana isn’t crazy. She knows that none of that is possible and Buffy is making some kind of un-funny joke.
It’s nighttime. Lady Doctor has gone home at long last and Buffy has come outside Visiting Time to see her. The lights are off, though, so no one will know. The white moon makes stripes across the floor from the black bars in the window.
“Did he say why he didn’t want me to know? Was it Angel’s stupid macho bull about protecting me from the terrible future of an undead boyfriend? I’ll kill them both. Double-slay. Angel had to have known. Why didn’t HE call me? Did Angel talk to you?”
Dana no longer feels Very Good at answering Questions. All she knows of angels are pictures. Angels aren’t real. Angel is a girl’s name. She shakes her head, not knowing how else to answer.
Buffy crouches in front of Dana. She puts her Hands on Dana’s Hands. “You have to tell me something. Tell me what you saw of him. Anything he said, no matter how strange.”
Dana shakes her head again.
Buffy runs to the drawing-table. She throws Dana’s drawings around until she finds one she likes and picks it up. “This, what is this?” Buffy asks, and shows Dana the drawing.
The vampire is chained to the post. His Hands are gone. His eyes are extra big circles of French Blue. He’s just coming out from the Brown. (Brown makes you sleepy).
“I checked all the council records on William the Bloody. He never lost his hands. There’s no record of it. And I’m not even sure a vampire can lose a limb like that and grow it back.”
Dana feels guilty, though she never had before. Not for him. “I cut his hands off. So he couldn’t hurt me.”
“Oh god.” Buffy covers her mouth. “You did this. Not - not a slayer memory?”
“He killed me,” Dana says, and it sounds petulant, not like she really believes it, which she does. Sort of. “He killed me twice. And my watcher. And my family - except that wasn’t him. He was never here. I - I get confused.”
Dana doesn’t want to look at Buffy, now. Buffy’s eyes are hard like broken glass. “Is he still alive? When did you last see him? Did his - oh god - did his hands get re-attached?”
Dana points at the picture. “That’s how I last saw him. Before Andrew and the Slayers took me away. They kept me tied down. They said they wanted to help me but they still kept me tied down.”
Buffy waves the picture back and forth. She sets it down. She throws her hands up and paces. Her shirt is pink. She turns to Dana and looks a moment like she is going to hit Dana. Dana puts up her arms.
Buffy wraps her arms around Dana. “I’m sorry,” she says, with tears in her voice. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. God, you didn’t know what you were doing.”
Buffy’s eyes and cheeks are red. She steps back and rubs her face with one hand. “I need to go. I need to think about this.”
Buffy closes the big brown door behind her. She leaves Dana alone.
Dana looks at the picture. She’s getting better at drawing. He doesn’t look quite like he should, but you can see his horror.
She did know what she was doing. Why do they always say that? Hands have power. Hands can Do. She took his hands. Took away his power and made it Hers. Dana smiles. She doesn’t feel sorry for that.
***
Buffy doesn’t come back at her usual time the next day. Buffy doesn’t come back for three days.
Dana is getting better about Time. Teacher is Very Pleased with her. They have started working on Math and Science. The workbooks are fun, slippery paper on the outside and rough drawing paper on the inside. She can waggle them back and forth. They aren’t intimidating like the books Teacher keeps with him. The math workbook is red plaid on the cover and she gets to use Pen in it.
Still, she misses Buffy. She plays with the pompoms but she can’t remember the Routine without Buffy there. Or she can, but it doesn’t make sense to Do without Buffy there, raising her hand when Dana raises hers like they are Connected.
Four days later, Buffy comes after Visiting Hours. Dana knows this is Bad.
Buffy has a coat with a hood on. It is orange and drawn up around her face. She hands Dana a blue coat. “We’re leaving,” she says.
Dana puts on the blue coat. It smells like rain. Buffy sets a duffel bag on the bed and starts taking Dana’s clothes and putting them in it.
“Where are we going?”
“Sh. Talk soft. Like secrets, remember?”
Dana nods. She loves secrets.
“We’re going to LA,” Buffy says. “Me and you. But it’s a secret, understand?”
Dana nods vigorously. She is going out the Brown Door. Her heart thumps so hard in her chest she looks down to see if she can see it flexing the skin.
Buffy finishes filling the duffel. She takes Dana’s hand and leads her to the door. Buffy crouches low as she opens it, and peers left, then right, a long time before she runs forward.
She drags Dana after her faster than Dana was prepared to go. She stumbles a little, but then they are running, and Dana holds her hand tight over her mouth to keep from laughing. No one runs as fast as Buffy and Dana and they run together so fast! It’s fun.
There is a car, engine running. There is a man in the car. The man has an eye-patch. He looks evil. Dana stops. Buffy throws the duffel in the back seat and turns to her. “Come on,” she says.
Dana looks at the one-eyed man. He has both hands on the steering wheel. He raises one, fingers splayed. He shows his Hand to her. It’s a wave. She knows that; she’s not stupid. He can’t hit her from there.
“Come on,” Buffy says, again, “It’s just Xander. Do you want me to sit in the back with you?”
Dana takes Buffy’s hand and doesn’t let go. She wants her to sit in the back with her.
So they do.
Dana never stops watching Xander. He might do a Bad Thing. Men Do Bad Things. Except Teacher. And Doctor Giles. They’re too old to be Bad.
Xander peeks at her with his one eye in the rear-view mirror. “I still gotta say, Buff, I don’t support this plan. You should leave the cr… uh, our newest slayer here.”
Dana hates Xander. He calls her crazy in his head. Her hand tightens on Buffy’s.
“She’s seen him. She can take me to him. I just hope I’m not too late.”
Xander shakes his head. “I still say, Giles or Andrew know where he is.”
“They wouldn’t lie to me, Xander. Well, Andrew would, but not Giles. Not again.” Buffy twisted her hand out of Dana’s and patted her arm. She flexes her fingers. “Besides, if Andrew knew, he’d give. I intimidated the midichlorians out of him.”
“Woah! Buff! Geek points!”
“It’s not like I know what they are… that’s just what he said.” Buffy sounds like she is lying.
Dana doesn’t know what “midichlorians” are. She decides it must not be Important.
They are going to be on an airplane. Dana is handed her own ticket and passport. She gets to hold these things like a Normal Person and she sits in her own seat and isn’t tied to anything.
They ask her if she wants anything to drink, and Buffy tells them to bring Ginger Ale.
Dana decides she doesn’t like Ginger Ale. But she drinks it because Buffy does.
“It’s a very long way to LA,” Buffy says. “You might want to try to sleep.”
Dana can’t close her eyes, even though it’s night-time and she should be asleep already. She stares out the little oval window at the Black. She plays with the buttons and switches and knobs while Buffy explains what each one is for.
Buffy takes a magazine out of the seat-back pocket in front of them and opens it on Dana’s lap. “Look at the pretty pictures, Dana,” she says. “I’m going to take a nap.”
Dana is going to LA. She is returning to The Vampire. Will he be where she left him? Vampires don’t die, with their hands cut off. They don’t die unless you cut off the head or puncture the heart. You have to keep cutting until you see dust. She didn’t see dust. He is still there. Still hers.
She looks at Buffy, whose forehead is crinkled right between her brows, though her eyes are closed. Buffy wants The Vampire to be hers. Dana isn’t stupid. She knows who she is, in the Slayer Memories, when The Vampire doesn’t kill her for loving her but just loves her. She is Buffy, and The Vampire touches her all over. He bites his lower lip. His eyes squinch closed. He opens them again, he breathes loud, mouth and nose and eyes all open to her. He loves her. But he doesn't. Those touches aren’t Hers. They are a Slayer Memory.
Maybe, though, they can share.
Continued -->
Part One Here
Buffy didn’t want to talk about The Vampire before, but now, Buffy wants to talk about him all the time.
Dana thinks Buffy is Not Well.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kiss him, then kill him, then resurrect him so I can kill him again,” she says, pacing. Dana isn’t crazy. She knows that none of that is possible and Buffy is making some kind of un-funny joke.
It’s nighttime. Lady Doctor has gone home at long last and Buffy has come outside Visiting Time to see her. The lights are off, though, so no one will know. The white moon makes stripes across the floor from the black bars in the window.
“Did he say why he didn’t want me to know? Was it Angel’s stupid macho bull about protecting me from the terrible future of an undead boyfriend? I’ll kill them both. Double-slay. Angel had to have known. Why didn’t HE call me? Did Angel talk to you?”
Dana no longer feels Very Good at answering Questions. All she knows of angels are pictures. Angels aren’t real. Angel is a girl’s name. She shakes her head, not knowing how else to answer.
Buffy crouches in front of Dana. She puts her Hands on Dana’s Hands. “You have to tell me something. Tell me what you saw of him. Anything he said, no matter how strange.”
Dana shakes her head again.
Buffy runs to the drawing-table. She throws Dana’s drawings around until she finds one she likes and picks it up. “This, what is this?” Buffy asks, and shows Dana the drawing.
The vampire is chained to the post. His Hands are gone. His eyes are extra big circles of French Blue. He’s just coming out from the Brown. (Brown makes you sleepy).
“I checked all the council records on William the Bloody. He never lost his hands. There’s no record of it. And I’m not even sure a vampire can lose a limb like that and grow it back.”
Dana feels guilty, though she never had before. Not for him. “I cut his hands off. So he couldn’t hurt me.”
“Oh god.” Buffy covers her mouth. “You did this. Not - not a slayer memory?”
“He killed me,” Dana says, and it sounds petulant, not like she really believes it, which she does. Sort of. “He killed me twice. And my watcher. And my family - except that wasn’t him. He was never here. I - I get confused.”
Dana doesn’t want to look at Buffy, now. Buffy’s eyes are hard like broken glass. “Is he still alive? When did you last see him? Did his - oh god - did his hands get re-attached?”
Dana points at the picture. “That’s how I last saw him. Before Andrew and the Slayers took me away. They kept me tied down. They said they wanted to help me but they still kept me tied down.”
Buffy waves the picture back and forth. She sets it down. She throws her hands up and paces. Her shirt is pink. She turns to Dana and looks a moment like she is going to hit Dana. Dana puts up her arms.
Buffy wraps her arms around Dana. “I’m sorry,” she says, with tears in her voice. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. God, you didn’t know what you were doing.”
Buffy’s eyes and cheeks are red. She steps back and rubs her face with one hand. “I need to go. I need to think about this.”
Buffy closes the big brown door behind her. She leaves Dana alone.
Dana looks at the picture. She’s getting better at drawing. He doesn’t look quite like he should, but you can see his horror.
She did know what she was doing. Why do they always say that? Hands have power. Hands can Do. She took his hands. Took away his power and made it Hers. Dana smiles. She doesn’t feel sorry for that.
***
Buffy doesn’t come back at her usual time the next day. Buffy doesn’t come back for three days.
Dana is getting better about Time. Teacher is Very Pleased with her. They have started working on Math and Science. The workbooks are fun, slippery paper on the outside and rough drawing paper on the inside. She can waggle them back and forth. They aren’t intimidating like the books Teacher keeps with him. The math workbook is red plaid on the cover and she gets to use Pen in it.
Still, she misses Buffy. She plays with the pompoms but she can’t remember the Routine without Buffy there. Or she can, but it doesn’t make sense to Do without Buffy there, raising her hand when Dana raises hers like they are Connected.
Four days later, Buffy comes after Visiting Hours. Dana knows this is Bad.
Buffy has a coat with a hood on. It is orange and drawn up around her face. She hands Dana a blue coat. “We’re leaving,” she says.
Dana puts on the blue coat. It smells like rain. Buffy sets a duffel bag on the bed and starts taking Dana’s clothes and putting them in it.
“Where are we going?”
“Sh. Talk soft. Like secrets, remember?”
Dana nods. She loves secrets.
“We’re going to LA,” Buffy says. “Me and you. But it’s a secret, understand?”
Dana nods vigorously. She is going out the Brown Door. Her heart thumps so hard in her chest she looks down to see if she can see it flexing the skin.
Buffy finishes filling the duffel. She takes Dana’s hand and leads her to the door. Buffy crouches low as she opens it, and peers left, then right, a long time before she runs forward.
She drags Dana after her faster than Dana was prepared to go. She stumbles a little, but then they are running, and Dana holds her hand tight over her mouth to keep from laughing. No one runs as fast as Buffy and Dana and they run together so fast! It’s fun.
There is a car, engine running. There is a man in the car. The man has an eye-patch. He looks evil. Dana stops. Buffy throws the duffel in the back seat and turns to her. “Come on,” she says.
Dana looks at the one-eyed man. He has both hands on the steering wheel. He raises one, fingers splayed. He shows his Hand to her. It’s a wave. She knows that; she’s not stupid. He can’t hit her from there.
“Come on,” Buffy says, again, “It’s just Xander. Do you want me to sit in the back with you?”
Dana takes Buffy’s hand and doesn’t let go. She wants her to sit in the back with her.
So they do.
Dana never stops watching Xander. He might do a Bad Thing. Men Do Bad Things. Except Teacher. And Doctor Giles. They’re too old to be Bad.
Xander peeks at her with his one eye in the rear-view mirror. “I still gotta say, Buff, I don’t support this plan. You should leave the cr… uh, our newest slayer here.”
Dana hates Xander. He calls her crazy in his head. Her hand tightens on Buffy’s.
“She’s seen him. She can take me to him. I just hope I’m not too late.”
Xander shakes his head. “I still say, Giles or Andrew know where he is.”
“They wouldn’t lie to me, Xander. Well, Andrew would, but not Giles. Not again.” Buffy twisted her hand out of Dana’s and patted her arm. She flexes her fingers. “Besides, if Andrew knew, he’d give. I intimidated the midichlorians out of him.”
“Woah! Buff! Geek points!”
“It’s not like I know what they are… that’s just what he said.” Buffy sounds like she is lying.
Dana doesn’t know what “midichlorians” are. She decides it must not be Important.
They are going to be on an airplane. Dana is handed her own ticket and passport. She gets to hold these things like a Normal Person and she sits in her own seat and isn’t tied to anything.
They ask her if she wants anything to drink, and Buffy tells them to bring Ginger Ale.
Dana decides she doesn’t like Ginger Ale. But she drinks it because Buffy does.
“It’s a very long way to LA,” Buffy says. “You might want to try to sleep.”
Dana can’t close her eyes, even though it’s night-time and she should be asleep already. She stares out the little oval window at the Black. She plays with the buttons and switches and knobs while Buffy explains what each one is for.
Buffy takes a magazine out of the seat-back pocket in front of them and opens it on Dana’s lap. “Look at the pretty pictures, Dana,” she says. “I’m going to take a nap.”
Dana is going to LA. She is returning to The Vampire. Will he be where she left him? Vampires don’t die, with their hands cut off. They don’t die unless you cut off the head or puncture the heart. You have to keep cutting until you see dust. She didn’t see dust. He is still there. Still hers.
She looks at Buffy, whose forehead is crinkled right between her brows, though her eyes are closed. Buffy wants The Vampire to be hers. Dana isn’t stupid. She knows who she is, in the Slayer Memories, when The Vampire doesn’t kill her for loving her but just loves her. She is Buffy, and The Vampire touches her all over. He bites his lower lip. His eyes squinch closed. He opens them again, he breathes loud, mouth and nose and eyes all open to her. He loves her. But he doesn't. Those touches aren’t Hers. They are a Slayer Memory.
Maybe, though, they can share.
Continued -->