Sunnydale, May 9th, 2001, very very late
Or possibly it's the 10th, and very very early. Xander's not awake, so he can't see the clock.
What he can see is a tower, except towers usually...tower, and this one towers like a tower made by crazy people, or maybe Xander if he hadn't stopped ditching Intro to Construction Materials last semester. So more of a teeter. Or a topple. Except not quite. It's still there. Still there, exactly like it was.
Everything's still there exactly like it was. The rickety sky-high pile of scrap, the milling escapees from the mental ward, Tara trying to shuffle over and join them. Giles with a sword, Xander with an axe, Willow with eyes harder than the bits of old steel that rear above them. All of them here, Amy, Larry, Joyce for God's sake because they couldn't keep her away, though Spike at least holds her back, keeps her safe, stops her from trying to tear Glory's hair out before Buffy can even throw that ball of shimmering white light into the goddess's hands. All the same -- except for the sound.
There is none. Dawn's up there on the tower, the wind catching at her dress, blowing her hair in her face. Buffy's lips move down here on the ground as she picks up the hammer, Xander sees the chain crank up as he raises the boom, but not a clank, not a word. It's like somebody put the remote on mute, and he wishes he had it in his hand instead of the lever on the crane controls, so he could press pause. Or stop. Or rewind, rewind would be good.
Not back past Willow's hand on Glory's head, light streaming through her and out into the shambling nutcases, pouring back into Tara's eyes so she's herself again. That can stay, but if they could stop it right after the wrecking ball hits, right there, and then just--
No remote, though, and Xander can't make it stop, can't make a sound as things just keep happening, keep moving. Spike hears something, maybe, when Willow stares across at them from where she's cradling Tara, but nobody else can when he runs, just like before. Not fast enough, and maybe if Xander'd bought him a cellphone too he'd have called before he got to the hospital and Xander could've met him at that little apartment and they'd have had a few more minutes, just a few, to kill the thing with the knife that's pushing the vampire off the top of the tower really really dead, and if Xander can just make Spike fall back up, then--
Or if he could wake up, even that would be good, because he knows at some level that this is over, it's done, it already happened so there's no need to go over it again. It won't do any good. It won't change.
She'll still hang there above them, white in the swirling darkness with lightning crackling around her and holes into a thousand worlds tearing and twisting themselves open in the sky, pause finally working for just long enough to make them think maybe, maybe.
Enough seconds for Willow to stand and reach out one hand towards the circle of light, eyes narrowing, dark as the sky above her for a moment when she stretches the other out towards Amy and... pulls, the other witch stumbling towards her like a marionette. Licks of raw power that even somebody as magic-blind as Xander can see streaming out of her, into Willow and out again, rushing upwards to meet that flaring circle of light.
Not long enough, though. It's like a skip in the DVD, the color that pours from Willow's outstretched fingers - the circle flashes blinding white, and then, just like before, just like always because even in the middle of this dream he knows he's dreamed it already tonight and it never changes, she falls. The holes close, the sky turns the color of sky again, Amy crumples to the ground like her strings have been cut, but someone else hits it faster.
No sound for that either, and for that at least, Xander's grateful. It's not like the real thing isn't still in his ears, sick and hard and wet.
And then, finally, it stops, for real. Frozen. Spike with his face hidden in his hands, Joyce crushed against Giles because he won't let her see, Glory's construction team just standing, empty hands at their sides now. And Dawn still there, up there, not even touched by the wind anymore.
Xander's the only thing moving as he starts to climb.
Metal shakes in his hands, shifts beneath his feet, but someone has to climb. The sun's flooding over the edge of the sky now; Spike couldn't move from the shadows even if he could move. Someone has to go up there and untie her, get her down, the safe way, so he climbs and climbs and climbs, and doesn't look down, and at the top, at the top, at the top--
She's standing there, and there's no rope. There's no renaissance princess gown. She's taller, and her hair is shorter, lighter. There might be a blonde streak, it's hard to tell, because the only thing Xander can really zoom in on is the cold wet blue of her eyes, and then finally, finally, finally, there's sound, and it's her voice, and now he wants the mute button back too because all he can hear as he reaches out and she flinches away is "WHAT DID YOU DO?"
And he tries to answer. It's not that he has no voice, he can hear the air in his throat, it's just that even as his eyes flutter open and start to focus on the darkness of the Summers living room and he knows he's really awake, he can't think of anything to say.
__
From: purplefrog@yahoo.com
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
__
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
Subject: [blank]
We fucked up. Somehow. I don't even know how, whether we didn't get someplace fast enough, or didn't hit somebody hard enough - there was this guy and Spike and I thought we'd killed him, and we didn't kill him dead enough. I think that might be it, but I don't even know that, not for sure.
All I know is we dug a hole out in the woods tonight, because we can't even let people know she's gone, not on the Hellmouth, it'd be like putting out a Free Beer sign at Caritas only this one says All You Can Eat, and we put her body-- Christ, BODY. Body, it doesn't even look like a word, not a real one. It's not something you *say* about people you love.
And I'm at their house because Dawn wouldn't even go to sleep until I promised not to leave. I keep expecting her to hate me, even keep dreaming she does, but it's not her. This Dawn doesn't get it. The one there with you, she's the one who'd know we screwed up something, somehow, so I guess it's a good thing I can't get through to you guys, and double-good-yay that I can't even get past Dear Dawn anyway without erasing the whole thing.
How do I tell her we saved her mom, we saved *her*, but we lost Buffy?
God, I wish you were here right now. Not as much as I wish she was, but pretty damn close.
love,
Xander
__
[ooc: Cut for canonical badness as well as length. And emo of the non-moo variety.]
What he can see is a tower, except towers usually...tower, and this one towers like a tower made by crazy people, or maybe Xander if he hadn't stopped ditching Intro to Construction Materials last semester. So more of a teeter. Or a topple. Except not quite. It's still there. Still there, exactly like it was.
Everything's still there exactly like it was. The rickety sky-high pile of scrap, the milling escapees from the mental ward, Tara trying to shuffle over and join them. Giles with a sword, Xander with an axe, Willow with eyes harder than the bits of old steel that rear above them. All of them here, Amy, Larry, Joyce for God's sake because they couldn't keep her away, though Spike at least holds her back, keeps her safe, stops her from trying to tear Glory's hair out before Buffy can even throw that ball of shimmering white light into the goddess's hands. All the same -- except for the sound.
There is none. Dawn's up there on the tower, the wind catching at her dress, blowing her hair in her face. Buffy's lips move down here on the ground as she picks up the hammer, Xander sees the chain crank up as he raises the boom, but not a clank, not a word. It's like somebody put the remote on mute, and he wishes he had it in his hand instead of the lever on the crane controls, so he could press pause. Or stop. Or rewind, rewind would be good.
Not back past Willow's hand on Glory's head, light streaming through her and out into the shambling nutcases, pouring back into Tara's eyes so she's herself again. That can stay, but if they could stop it right after the wrecking ball hits, right there, and then just--
No remote, though, and Xander can't make it stop, can't make a sound as things just keep happening, keep moving. Spike hears something, maybe, when Willow stares across at them from where she's cradling Tara, but nobody else can when he runs, just like before. Not fast enough, and maybe if Xander'd bought him a cellphone too he'd have called before he got to the hospital and Xander could've met him at that little apartment and they'd have had a few more minutes, just a few, to kill the thing with the knife that's pushing the vampire off the top of the tower really really dead, and if Xander can just make Spike fall back up, then--
Or if he could wake up, even that would be good, because he knows at some level that this is over, it's done, it already happened so there's no need to go over it again. It won't do any good. It won't change.
She'll still hang there above them, white in the swirling darkness with lightning crackling around her and holes into a thousand worlds tearing and twisting themselves open in the sky, pause finally working for just long enough to make them think maybe, maybe.
Enough seconds for Willow to stand and reach out one hand towards the circle of light, eyes narrowing, dark as the sky above her for a moment when she stretches the other out towards Amy and... pulls, the other witch stumbling towards her like a marionette. Licks of raw power that even somebody as magic-blind as Xander can see streaming out of her, into Willow and out again, rushing upwards to meet that flaring circle of light.
Not long enough, though. It's like a skip in the DVD, the color that pours from Willow's outstretched fingers - the circle flashes blinding white, and then, just like before, just like always because even in the middle of this dream he knows he's dreamed it already tonight and it never changes, she falls. The holes close, the sky turns the color of sky again, Amy crumples to the ground like her strings have been cut, but someone else hits it faster.
No sound for that either, and for that at least, Xander's grateful. It's not like the real thing isn't still in his ears, sick and hard and wet.
And then, finally, it stops, for real. Frozen. Spike with his face hidden in his hands, Joyce crushed against Giles because he won't let her see, Glory's construction team just standing, empty hands at their sides now. And Dawn still there, up there, not even touched by the wind anymore.
Xander's the only thing moving as he starts to climb.
Metal shakes in his hands, shifts beneath his feet, but someone has to climb. The sun's flooding over the edge of the sky now; Spike couldn't move from the shadows even if he could move. Someone has to go up there and untie her, get her down, the safe way, so he climbs and climbs and climbs, and doesn't look down, and at the top, at the top, at the top--
She's standing there, and there's no rope. There's no renaissance princess gown. She's taller, and her hair is shorter, lighter. There might be a blonde streak, it's hard to tell, because the only thing Xander can really zoom in on is the cold wet blue of her eyes, and then finally, finally, finally, there's sound, and it's her voice, and now he wants the mute button back too because all he can hear as he reaches out and she flinches away is "WHAT DID YOU DO?"
And he tries to answer. It's not that he has no voice, he can hear the air in his throat, it's just that even as his eyes flutter open and start to focus on the darkness of the Summers living room and he knows he's really awake, he can't think of anything to say.
__
From: purplefrog@yahoo.com
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
To: dawn.summers@fandomhigh.net
__
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
Subject: [blank]
We fucked up. Somehow. I don't even know how, whether we didn't get someplace fast enough, or didn't hit somebody hard enough - there was this guy and Spike and I thought we'd killed him, and we didn't kill him dead enough. I think that might be it, but I don't even know that, not for sure.
All I know is we dug a hole out in the woods tonight, because we can't even let people know she's gone, not on the Hellmouth, it'd be like putting out a Free Beer sign at Caritas only this one says All You Can Eat, and we put her body-- Christ, BODY. Body, it doesn't even look like a word, not a real one. It's not something you *say* about people you love.
And I'm at their house because Dawn wouldn't even go to sleep until I promised not to leave. I keep expecting her to hate me, even keep dreaming she does, but it's not her. This Dawn doesn't get it. The one there with you, she's the one who'd know we screwed up something, somehow, so I guess it's a good thing I can't get through to you guys, and double-good-yay that I can't even get past Dear Dawn anyway without erasing the whole thing.
How do I tell her we saved her mom, we saved *her*, but we lost Buffy?
God, I wish you were here right now. Not as much as I wish she was, but pretty damn close.
love,
Xander
__
[ooc: Cut for canonical badness as well as length. And emo of the non-moo variety.]