Fic: The Soul Lies Down [13/?]
Title: The Soul Lies Down (13/?)
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~4,600 (~59,400 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to angearia's Fin Amour).
Notes: Many thanks to bewilde and rahirah for beta duty. Extra special thanks to Barb, since this chapter was heavily influenced by her philosophy of Spike, Buffy and culpability - it was a couple of years ago now that we talked about it, but it definitely stuck in the memory. This might just be my favourite chapter of the story so far. Enjoy :)
13
Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing
Walking away across the field, Buffy’s head felt like a tilt-a-whirl, everything blurring together in a sickening mess. She’d seen some weirdness in her time, but this strange girl, this woman her daughter would grow up to be, or might’ve once grown up to be - ugh, there went her spinning head - had to take the cake. She felt raw and exhausted. There was literally nothing about this situation that she understood, and the girl was supposed to be her daughter, her baby, her sweet-faced little bit…
The reminder of Spike sent an aftershock through her, the trembling echo of great upheaval, her foundations cracked all to hell, and who knew how everything would settle? Not her, that seemed obvious now. After Spike had died (or they’d thought he had) she’d been so open, so wide open, and so full of feeling, only to end up so very closed. How had that happened? Oh, right - demon, chaos, torture, bloodshed. He had been a lot easier to deal with as a dusty but noble memory. And yet, she hated being at odds with him, scraping against each other instead of moving in synch. And she hated him for being the cause of it.
She couldn’t figure out why the hell Dawn had brought her here, what it was she was trying to tell her. Every time she thought she’d got it, the perspective changed and it spun away from her again. God, her head was pounding and she just wanted to go home and… have another argument with Spike? Forgive him? Kick him out for good this time? She knew, somewhere inside she did know, that the cold front couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. At the very least it wasn’t in his nature to let anything lie, especially if the status quo wasn’t to his liking. But she felt… stuck. All jammed up inside, not able to move forward or sideways or even backward at this point. And the really stupid thing? The thought she couldn’t shake when everything else just went round and round in her head? They’d been about to start dating. Everything had been good and then he’d ruined it, and shouldn’t she have known, and why was she like this, and how could she even still care about that when a man was dead, and what the hell did it say about her?
You are not responsible, Dawn had said, over and over, but she was, she was. It was part and parcel of the whole Chosen One gig - she was fairly certain that was one thing she had always been sure about, that she was responsible for slaying the vampires and the demons, and when she failed, then she was also responsible for the repercussions.
Wasn’t she?
And if it wasn’t her, then who?
He isn’t another one of your children you have to teach right from wrong. So… Spike? Spike was responsible? He was the one who’d done it so… okay. But he was only alive because she hadn’t… because she couldn’t… so in the end it still came back to her.
Goddamnit, why was there nothing in this godforsaken field for her to beat up?
She sat down, ready to cry with frustration. The grass came almost to her shoulders, a sweet, fresh scent rising up from what she’d crushed beneath her, and on a whim she lay down on her back, staring up at the blue sky through a frame of wavering stalks.
Time passed, or… didn’t. Whatever. Her heart beat, her knuckles throbbed from her session with the punching bag, her jaw ached from where Spike had clocked her. That fight had been… she barely had words. Violent. Frightening. She didn’t like to think of herself as a dark person, but there it had been, a vicious need to dominate, to cause pain, to be wrathful and vindictive and take pleasure in doing it.
It had been something like that in the cave. More desperate, more fear-driven, but just as wild.
She had that in her, and even just glancing at it from the corner of her eye, she was terrified.
Otherwise, next time it might be you bathing in the blood of the innocent? God, was Dawn right? Did she really think that?
But I’m a slayer, not a demon. Shouldn’t that mean she had more self-control than a bloodthirsty, violence-prone vampire?
Wait.
Had that been Dawn’s point?
*
“Dawn?”
The girl didn’t seem to have moved since Buffy had left her, though she had acquired both a pair of sunglasses that were so big they almost covered half her face, and some kind of toxic-waste-colored drink with a little paper umbrella hanging over one side like a jaunty, off-color joke. Lounging back in her deckchair in front of the enormous white tent, she looked as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Yes?” she asked, smiling slightly as though she’d expected things to play out exactly this way. Buffy forced herself to relax the instinctive clenching of fists. She hated the feeling of being toyed with, even if that wasn’t really what this was. She hated feeling like the class dunce in the subject of Buffy’s Life.
“You said…” she shook her head, trying to order up her thoughts. “You said Spike was responsible for killing Warren…”
“Did I?”
“Fine, heavily implied. But you don’t get it.” Dawn raised her eyebrows in enquiry and took a sip of her drink, deftly holding the umbrella aside. “The fact that he was even alive to do that is because of me.”
“Credit yourself quite highly, don’t you?” Dawn said, smile broadening just a little.
“And now you sound like him.”
She shrugged, looking pleased. “He does occasionally have a point.”
“You’re not listening,” Buffy all but growled. “Me, vampire slayer. Him, vampire. Taking him out was my job, and I… it was only a matter of time, before…” She was breathing hard, too heavily, and this was all so difficult to say because it was Spike, and she really didn’t want him dead; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only with a great honking asterisk next to ‘vampire’ and the addendum only those I don’t care about. “Damnit, you don’t understand.”
Dawn laughed at that, a twisted, almost choked sound. “Don’t I?” Slowly, she put her drink down and got to her feet, long, willowy body unfolding until she stood before Buffy, several inches taller and pale enough to really highlight the family resemblance to the undead. She raised her shades to the top of her head and looked hard at Buffy, familiar blue eyes surrounded by fine strain lines and shadowed with something deep and dark. “You’ve saved the world a lot, and, I mean, kudos to you. But know what you’ve never done? Seen it end. Never had to watch as your friends screamed on their way to oblivion. Never had to save your family with nothing but memories. Never had to hold together reality - what’s left of it - with nothing but your own mind.”
For a moment, staring into those haunted, hollow eyes, Buffy could’ve sworn the pupils flared, blackness seeping out like ink in water. Dawn blinked, and it was gone, but the effect was magnetizing, and it stuck her feet to the floor and her arms to her sides. She wanted to reach out and offer comfort; she wanted to run. All the hairs on her body were standing on end.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, voice quiet and cracking. “I don’t understand.”
Dawn sighed and slumped, rubbing her face tiredly. “To listen,” she said. “And not just to me.”
Buffy shook her head, wishing not for the first time that she was any good at this cryptic bullshit. Before she could say anything else, Dawn had taken her by the arm and they were howling through dimensions again.
*
When they stumbled to a halt, it was night and the tree in front of her was flashing blue and red. Buffy blinked at it stupidly for a moment before swinging around and coming face to face with herself again. That was never gonna get any less freaky. And what was she wearing?
Movement over her younger self’s shoulder drew her eye - a cop landing unconscious across the hood of his patrol car and Spike, looking smug and predatory and… a little unsure? She hadn’t noticed that the first time.
“I want to save the world,” he said, and for a moment she was stuck on everything that was different about him, everything that was the same. His face so familiar and yet strangely more youthful, less careworn, less real to her, somehow, like a fantasy of the person she had come to know. She felt the same looking at herself. We grew up, she thought distantly, before shaking the thought away and turning to Dawn.
Who was bent over with her hands on her knees as though she’d just run sprints to catch up.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly, hesitantly letting a hand come to rest on her back. “Are you sure you’re-”
Dawn waved her off tersely, straightening. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine, but she also didn’t look like the type of woman who wanted to be fussed over. For the first time, Buffy felt a certain kinship, like mother, like daughter.
“So I guess you brought me here for a reason,” Buffy said, turning back to the scene, just in time to see younger Buffy and Spike setting off down the sidewalk together, shooting each other suspicious side-glances.
“This is the first time you worked together,” Dawn observed, gesturing for Buffy to follow after the pair.
Her first thought, as she watched Spike’s back with its habitual saunter and the swish of his duster, was that it was supposed to be about some cosmic weighing scale. He’d helped her save the world, with its billions of people, so compared to that, one man tortured to death was nothing. Except it didn’t work like that, it just didn’t, and surely Dawn had to realize that as well. No amount of math could make up for the loss of one life, the way it felt to fail, to grieve, to hold a loved one through their grief. Anyway, if this magical mystery tour had taught her anything so far, it was that nothing was ever the straightforward option.
“What happened after this?” Dawn prompted, as though she could sense the gears starting to grind in Buffy’s head.
“We went back to the house,” she said, sounding out the words slowly as though that would help. “We got weapons, hashed out terms.”
“And then?”
“A bunch of stuff that didn’t involve Spike - I’m assuming we’re not interested in that here? Right. So then I went with Xander to the mansion. He got Giles out and I fought Angel while Spike dealt with Drusilla. I… won. Sent Angel to hell with a sword in his chest.” After all this time, it was still so hard to talk about it.
“What about Spike?”
Buffy stared at the back of his head and was struck with an almost physical longing for him, to go to him and be held and reassured and surrounded in his love. It was all so easy for him. She envied him that, even as she still wanted to throw him down and beat it out of him.
“He left with Dru,” she said quietly.
“And that was the plan all along? To just let him go?”
“Yeah, I…” She stopped abruptly and stared at Dawn. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
The corner of Dawn’s mouth quirked up. “Probably not, but don’t let that stop you.”
Buffy threw an arm out in the direction of Spike’s retreating form. “Four years ago, I let him leave. I made a truce and let him help me and at the end of it he was still alive and he left. He went off down to South America or wherever the hell, and probably ate more people that I ever want to imagine.”
“Exactly,” Dawn said. “Are those deaths your fault?”
“No, of course not!” Buffy said, anger rising. “It’s not like I had a choice! I couldn’t have defeated Angelus without his help, and there was no chance to stop him from going mid-fight. It was the lesser of two evils, simple as that. Sometimes there is no good decision.” Why did no one ever get that? That even when she did her best sometimes it just didn’t come out all rosy and perfect, but god, she tried, and she literally couldn’t… be held responsible… for every…
“Oh,” she said, a soft sound carried out by her breath that somehow swept away the exhausted indignation and left something much cleaner in its wake.
“Yeah,” Dawn said gently, touching her shoulder. Their eyes met, and this time Buffy saw not the bottomless dark of before, but such kindness it shook her. “You can’t have it both ways, Buffy. If you’re responsible now, you were responsible then, too, and that’s just-”
“Stupid,” she said, heart pounding. “Really, really stupid.”
“I was gonna say unrealistic, but we can go with that, too.”
Something in her quieted, and lay down in relief.
“So do I pass?” she asked, still shaky but trying for wry. “Can I go home, now?”
“No,” Dawn said. “There’s one more thing.”
But when they landed back in the field, Dawn fell in a heap at Buffy’s feet, and didn’t get up again.
*
She’s asleep, Buffy told herself as she ran her hands over the girl’s limp body, checked her vitals. Just sleeping. She was pale, but then she’d been pale earlier, too. Maybe a little thin - did she even get hungry in this timeless place? More importantly, she was breathing, pulse steady, and Buffy pushed everything else aside, scooped her up, and carried her into the tent.
It was weird, like everything here was weird - bigger on the inside than the out, with an unearthly sort of glow coming through the cloth that kept everything light. It contrasted sharply with the sweet, damp smell of trampled grass, a powerful nostalgia kick to Fourth of July carnivals of years gone by.
By the entrance, everything was set up like some 1950s hospital ward, retro-looking gurneys and trays of equipment all lined up neat and ready for use. She thought about laying Dawn out on one of those, but really? Everything she knew about medicine - besides the obvious ‘get it to stop bleeding’ - came from ER, and mostly her attention to scientific detail was kinda side-tracked by Dr. Kovac. She went past that instead to the rear of the tent, which had been turned into some kind of living area, a big saggy couch and armchair with an old travel chest positioned perfectly for foot restage, a free-standing bookshelf covered in clocks, none of them working, a couple of empty tumblers and a fruit bowl. Frowning at the continued weirdness, Buffy set Dawn carefully on the couch before taking one of the glasses down and filling it from a nearby sink. The pipes behind the plinth didn’t connect to anything, but hey, water was coming out and it tasted just fine to her, so whatever.
When she came back, Dawn was still out. Now what? Shouldn’t she have some kind of maternal instinct here? Whenever Dawn - her Dawn - got sick, she always felt absolutely wretched, like it was some kind of personal failing that she couldn’t protect her kid from bugs and germs, and had to be atoned for. Now she just… was mostly in denial that the woman in front of her was really even the same person as the one who had come out of her body on top of a sand dune and a leather coat.
Sinking down on her knees by Dawn’s head, she stared into her face for long moments, before reaching out to gently stroke her hair - something she’d always found comforting when her own mother did it. It fanned out beneath her shoulders, chestnut brown, like Spike’s natural color, long and mostly straight but curling into darling little corkscrews right at the very ends. Spike hadn’t said anything about that, even though it was a level of observation she might have expected from him, but then, maybe time-travelers on urgent missions of world save-age didn’t get the chance to use a flat iron. Long, dark lashes that could be from either of them cast shadows on high cheekbones that were definitely Spike’s, though softened by the feminine lines of her face. Delicate brows that were most definitely Buffy’s, and her chin; the sweet little sticky-out ear tips she’d got from her daddy. The two of them were marked in every angle.
Yeah, this was definitely their daughter. And Spike was family. It was never more clear than when she was looking at their child. You didn’t give up on your family, that was the whole point, and sure, sometimes you had to choose your family rather than settling for what you were given, but then sometimes your family chose you, too.
She’d killed people, more than just Ben. Never with intent, but reflecting on it now, that probably meant nothing to their own families. And Willow had killed, too, in another world that Dawn had made sound not so dissimilar to her own - worse, because she really had meant it. Just like Spike had meant it. And Giles, god… she hadn’t ever asked what his youthful carelessness had cost other people, but it wasn’t a stretch to say it hadn’t been good. She knew people had died from that Eyghon thing, but whether or not that was completely his fault... honestly, she didn’t want to know.
Because knowing meant having to deal, which was exactly where she was at with Spike. Still. It was one thing to accept it wasn’t her fault, but she’d been there, she’d seen the raw pleasure he’d taken in ripping that boy apart, and yeah, she got it now, kinda, but it still… it repulsed her, viscerally.
Dawn stirred, then, a soft, whimpery sound as she started to come to.
“Mom?” she murmured, and all at once, Buffy’s heart melted.
“I’m here, Dawnie.”
“Mommy, I’m so tired.”
Buffy stroked her forehead, smoothing away the worry lines, and took her hand and kissed her palm, just as she did with her baby.
“I know, sweetheart. I know. Just rest.”
“In my pocket,” Dawn sighed. Eyes still closed, she rolled over to face the back of the couch. “Back pocket. Read it, okay?”
Sticking out of the rhinestone-decorated pocket on her tush was what looked like a letter. Buffy pulled it out, and stared a moment at the envelope.
“Okay,” she said eventually. Dawn didn’t respond, asleep again. The envelope was crinkled and soft with age, ink faded but still clearly addressed to Dawn. The handwriting, though - that was recognizably Buffy’s.
*
Dear Dawnie,
That sounds so lame and formal, I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this stuff. But I wanted to leave you something - something about me - just in case. If you’re reading this, it’s because I couldn’t be there to see you grow up, and I am so, so sorry for that. But I know that the people I left you with will love you, and tell you about me, when the time is right. See, I’m the Slayer. I was “chosen,” given special powers, so that I could fight the vampires and demons of the world. Sometimes, I have to save the world, too, and it’s hard, baby, and at some point I’m not going to come back. Maybe it’ll be this time, this amulet gives me the wiggins. So if it is? There’s some things I wanted you to know first.
I love you so, so much. I know that it probably hasn’t always felt that way, that you probably don’t feel that I put you first a lot of the time, but I hope that you know it anyway. Felt it. It’s true I never asked for you to come along, and at first I didn’t know what to think, but please don’t doubt that you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I hope for your sake that you never become a slayer, but it’s probably too much to ask that you stay out of my world completely, given who I’m entrusting you to. So there are some things you need to know. Vampires, grr, argh, bad. You stake them when at all possible. Under no circumstances do you date them, I don’t care what you’ve heard about me! Train with someone who knows what they’re doing, but don’t get cocky. In fact, take a Taser everywhere with you (but especially on dates). Remember that magic always has consequences, and if school seems like it’s evil, there’s a really good chance it might actually be.
And, well, there’s a name you’ll hear. Spike. William the Bloody. Maybe you’ve already heard it, or read it, I don’t know, getting the truth about him is probably gonna be hard, but here’s the thing - yes, he was a vampire, no, he didn’t have a soul, and I honestly don’t know if he could ever be called good, but when it counted, he saved your life. He’s dead now - dust - but he taught me something really important about knowing where to place your trust, and knowing when to express your love.
I hope I told you enough that I love you - I hope I told you too much, until you were embarrassed right down to your wriggly little butt and curly pinky toes! I hope that I hugged you enough and read you enough bed time stories. I hope that you’re happy in life, and not too sad that I’m gone. I hope that you get to grow up, and be the amazing woman I know you will be. I hope that you understand why I had to leave you, that this is the work I had to do.
I have to go now - Anya’s getting anxious to set off and I don’t want to miss out on holding you tight before you go with. But please, just remember, if it could’ve been any other way, it would’ve been.
All my love, little pumpkin belly,
Mommy
*
Buffy was still staring at the letter when Dawn finally came around. She’d read and re-read and wept big, helpless, heaving sobs for all the love she felt for her precious girl, and all the fear. This letter - she could’ve written it herself, she’d thought such things so many times. Hell, she had written it, or would, or might’ve once. It was a glimpse into a possible future more solid even than Dawn, because here was her own handwriting on stationery she thought she might even recognize, and she realized, this was what they’d given her, Spike and this parallel Dawn - the chance to avoid this, to avoid ever having to put those thoughts to paper and leave her child an orphan.
By the time Dawn started to stir she had managed to get herself back under control, but it was all surface stuff. Underneath, she felt wobbly as a newborn and aching for home. The desire was an almost physical thing, a primitive need to do better than the option glimpsed through door number one.
Dawn woke suddenly, then, as though the action were connected to the thought, a deep gasp as she sat straight up with a wild, disoriented look.
“Hey,” Buffy soothed, forcing her shaking body to rise and sit beside her daughter on the coach. “Easy, sweetheart. You’re okay.”
“Did you read it?” Dawn asked, almost frantic, the most animated Buffy had seen her since arriving here.
She was probably all puffy and smudged, big fat tells for anyone looking, but she said anyway, “I did.”
Dawn closed her eyes for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath and holding it, before letting out a slow exhale. When she opened her eyes again they were clearer, brighter, less troubled, and color was slowly returning to her face.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You did.”
Buffy hugged her, then. She couldn’t resist and didn’t want to. She stroked Dawn’s hair and made her drink some water, and Dawn allowed her to fuss a little, though it was a watchful, anticipatory sort of acceptance.
“Tell me about the letter, then,” Buffy said eventually, when there seemed to be nothing else to do.
“You wrote it for me on the eve of your death,” Dawn told her.
“Uh huh, smarty-pants, I got that much.”
Dawn flashed a smirk. “What else did you get?”
“Love, sadness, fear,” Buffy said impatiently, not eager to dwell any longer.
“Right,” Dawn said. “Fear. Your greatest fear is in that letter.”
Buffy looked away and shifted uncomfortably. Figuring it out was one thing, but she never did well with the words and the talking.
“What… what is it?” she asked quietly, hoping Dawn would say it for her.
“That I might not know how much you loved me,” Dawn said, equally soft.
“Did you?” Buffy whispered, looking up, voice breaking on the rocks of those choked back emotions. “Know?”
“Oh, yes,” Dawn said. “Always. Don’t you remember? You’re full of love.”
“Brighter than the fire…” she murmured, blinked, stared at Dawn. “How did you…?”
The only answer was a knowing look. Of course, she’d probably gone back to watch.
“The First Slayer told you: love is your gift. You only lose it if you turn away from it. Do you see?”
And she did, she really did; she had since she’d first read the letter, her other self still hung up on a dead guy six years in the wind. Seen it when she understood exactly what it was he’d given her. She’d congratulated herself, after the cave, for not having fallen for him before he went evil, but she saw it now, and it was far too late. And yeah, some of her was still scared stiff of the part where he was a monster, but she had a monster in her, too, at times, and besides it wasn’t all he was, not even most of what he was, and truthfully she was more scared of the very thing Dawn had seemed to know all along. That he didn’t know; that she wouldn’t ever tell him.
Dawn’s soft fingers curled around hers, and she continued, “It doesn’t somehow make you a bad person, because he’s done bad.”
She stared at Dawn, speechless, teetering, wanting to believe.
“It just is,” Dawn said, and she knew it was true, because she realized then that she’d already forgiven him. Just as she’d forgiven Giles. Just as she was sure she must’ve forgiven alternate-Willow.
Just as she’d forgiven Angel.
“How’d you get so smart with parents like us?” Buffy asked, reaching out to cup Dawn’s pale cheek.
She smiled, more than a little sadly. “Everyone always underestimated Anya, you know, but she was pretty awesome.”
“I’ll remember to say thank you,” Buffy said, and the last word travelled with her, still on her lips as she steadied herself and looked around, and found herself in Spike’s basement.
Chapter Index | Next
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike, (Anya/Xander, Willow/Tara)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~4,600 (~59,400 total)
Timeline: AU S5, S6, S7 and post-series
Warnings: character death, violence and gore
Summary: As a child, I used to dream of a man in black and white, spinning in the desert like a dervish, sword flashing in the moonlight as he danced with death. (A sequel/companion to angearia's Fin Amour).
Notes: Many thanks to bewilde and rahirah for beta duty. Extra special thanks to Barb, since this chapter was heavily influenced by her philosophy of Spike, Buffy and culpability - it was a couple of years ago now that we talked about it, but it definitely stuck in the memory. This might just be my favourite chapter of the story so far. Enjoy :)
13
Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing
Walking away across the field, Buffy’s head felt like a tilt-a-whirl, everything blurring together in a sickening mess. She’d seen some weirdness in her time, but this strange girl, this woman her daughter would grow up to be, or might’ve once grown up to be - ugh, there went her spinning head - had to take the cake. She felt raw and exhausted. There was literally nothing about this situation that she understood, and the girl was supposed to be her daughter, her baby, her sweet-faced little bit…
The reminder of Spike sent an aftershock through her, the trembling echo of great upheaval, her foundations cracked all to hell, and who knew how everything would settle? Not her, that seemed obvious now. After Spike had died (or they’d thought he had) she’d been so open, so wide open, and so full of feeling, only to end up so very closed. How had that happened? Oh, right - demon, chaos, torture, bloodshed. He had been a lot easier to deal with as a dusty but noble memory. And yet, she hated being at odds with him, scraping against each other instead of moving in synch. And she hated him for being the cause of it.
She couldn’t figure out why the hell Dawn had brought her here, what it was she was trying to tell her. Every time she thought she’d got it, the perspective changed and it spun away from her again. God, her head was pounding and she just wanted to go home and… have another argument with Spike? Forgive him? Kick him out for good this time? She knew, somewhere inside she did know, that the cold front couldn’t be maintained indefinitely. At the very least it wasn’t in his nature to let anything lie, especially if the status quo wasn’t to his liking. But she felt… stuck. All jammed up inside, not able to move forward or sideways or even backward at this point. And the really stupid thing? The thought she couldn’t shake when everything else just went round and round in her head? They’d been about to start dating. Everything had been good and then he’d ruined it, and shouldn’t she have known, and why was she like this, and how could she even still care about that when a man was dead, and what the hell did it say about her?
You are not responsible, Dawn had said, over and over, but she was, she was. It was part and parcel of the whole Chosen One gig - she was fairly certain that was one thing she had always been sure about, that she was responsible for slaying the vampires and the demons, and when she failed, then she was also responsible for the repercussions.
Wasn’t she?
And if it wasn’t her, then who?
He isn’t another one of your children you have to teach right from wrong. So… Spike? Spike was responsible? He was the one who’d done it so… okay. But he was only alive because she hadn’t… because she couldn’t… so in the end it still came back to her.
Goddamnit, why was there nothing in this godforsaken field for her to beat up?
She sat down, ready to cry with frustration. The grass came almost to her shoulders, a sweet, fresh scent rising up from what she’d crushed beneath her, and on a whim she lay down on her back, staring up at the blue sky through a frame of wavering stalks.
Time passed, or… didn’t. Whatever. Her heart beat, her knuckles throbbed from her session with the punching bag, her jaw ached from where Spike had clocked her. That fight had been… she barely had words. Violent. Frightening. She didn’t like to think of herself as a dark person, but there it had been, a vicious need to dominate, to cause pain, to be wrathful and vindictive and take pleasure in doing it.
It had been something like that in the cave. More desperate, more fear-driven, but just as wild.
She had that in her, and even just glancing at it from the corner of her eye, she was terrified.
Otherwise, next time it might be you bathing in the blood of the innocent? God, was Dawn right? Did she really think that?
But I’m a slayer, not a demon. Shouldn’t that mean she had more self-control than a bloodthirsty, violence-prone vampire?
Wait.
Had that been Dawn’s point?
*
“Dawn?”
The girl didn’t seem to have moved since Buffy had left her, though she had acquired both a pair of sunglasses that were so big they almost covered half her face, and some kind of toxic-waste-colored drink with a little paper umbrella hanging over one side like a jaunty, off-color joke. Lounging back in her deckchair in front of the enormous white tent, she looked as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
“Yes?” she asked, smiling slightly as though she’d expected things to play out exactly this way. Buffy forced herself to relax the instinctive clenching of fists. She hated the feeling of being toyed with, even if that wasn’t really what this was. She hated feeling like the class dunce in the subject of Buffy’s Life.
“You said…” she shook her head, trying to order up her thoughts. “You said Spike was responsible for killing Warren…”
“Did I?”
“Fine, heavily implied. But you don’t get it.” Dawn raised her eyebrows in enquiry and took a sip of her drink, deftly holding the umbrella aside. “The fact that he was even alive to do that is because of me.”
“Credit yourself quite highly, don’t you?” Dawn said, smile broadening just a little.
“And now you sound like him.”
She shrugged, looking pleased. “He does occasionally have a point.”
“You’re not listening,” Buffy all but growled. “Me, vampire slayer. Him, vampire. Taking him out was my job, and I… it was only a matter of time, before…” She was breathing hard, too heavily, and this was all so difficult to say because it was Spike, and she really didn’t want him dead; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only with a great honking asterisk next to ‘vampire’ and the addendum only those I don’t care about. “Damnit, you don’t understand.”
Dawn laughed at that, a twisted, almost choked sound. “Don’t I?” Slowly, she put her drink down and got to her feet, long, willowy body unfolding until she stood before Buffy, several inches taller and pale enough to really highlight the family resemblance to the undead. She raised her shades to the top of her head and looked hard at Buffy, familiar blue eyes surrounded by fine strain lines and shadowed with something deep and dark. “You’ve saved the world a lot, and, I mean, kudos to you. But know what you’ve never done? Seen it end. Never had to watch as your friends screamed on their way to oblivion. Never had to save your family with nothing but memories. Never had to hold together reality - what’s left of it - with nothing but your own mind.”
For a moment, staring into those haunted, hollow eyes, Buffy could’ve sworn the pupils flared, blackness seeping out like ink in water. Dawn blinked, and it was gone, but the effect was magnetizing, and it stuck her feet to the floor and her arms to her sides. She wanted to reach out and offer comfort; she wanted to run. All the hairs on her body were standing on end.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, voice quiet and cracking. “I don’t understand.”
Dawn sighed and slumped, rubbing her face tiredly. “To listen,” she said. “And not just to me.”
Buffy shook her head, wishing not for the first time that she was any good at this cryptic bullshit. Before she could say anything else, Dawn had taken her by the arm and they were howling through dimensions again.
*
When they stumbled to a halt, it was night and the tree in front of her was flashing blue and red. Buffy blinked at it stupidly for a moment before swinging around and coming face to face with herself again. That was never gonna get any less freaky. And what was she wearing?
Movement over her younger self’s shoulder drew her eye - a cop landing unconscious across the hood of his patrol car and Spike, looking smug and predatory and… a little unsure? She hadn’t noticed that the first time.
“I want to save the world,” he said, and for a moment she was stuck on everything that was different about him, everything that was the same. His face so familiar and yet strangely more youthful, less careworn, less real to her, somehow, like a fantasy of the person she had come to know. She felt the same looking at herself. We grew up, she thought distantly, before shaking the thought away and turning to Dawn.
Who was bent over with her hands on her knees as though she’d just run sprints to catch up.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly, hesitantly letting a hand come to rest on her back. “Are you sure you’re-”
Dawn waved her off tersely, straightening. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine, but she also didn’t look like the type of woman who wanted to be fussed over. For the first time, Buffy felt a certain kinship, like mother, like daughter.
“So I guess you brought me here for a reason,” Buffy said, turning back to the scene, just in time to see younger Buffy and Spike setting off down the sidewalk together, shooting each other suspicious side-glances.
“This is the first time you worked together,” Dawn observed, gesturing for Buffy to follow after the pair.
Her first thought, as she watched Spike’s back with its habitual saunter and the swish of his duster, was that it was supposed to be about some cosmic weighing scale. He’d helped her save the world, with its billions of people, so compared to that, one man tortured to death was nothing. Except it didn’t work like that, it just didn’t, and surely Dawn had to realize that as well. No amount of math could make up for the loss of one life, the way it felt to fail, to grieve, to hold a loved one through their grief. Anyway, if this magical mystery tour had taught her anything so far, it was that nothing was ever the straightforward option.
“What happened after this?” Dawn prompted, as though she could sense the gears starting to grind in Buffy’s head.
“We went back to the house,” she said, sounding out the words slowly as though that would help. “We got weapons, hashed out terms.”
“And then?”
“A bunch of stuff that didn’t involve Spike - I’m assuming we’re not interested in that here? Right. So then I went with Xander to the mansion. He got Giles out and I fought Angel while Spike dealt with Drusilla. I… won. Sent Angel to hell with a sword in his chest.” After all this time, it was still so hard to talk about it.
“What about Spike?”
Buffy stared at the back of his head and was struck with an almost physical longing for him, to go to him and be held and reassured and surrounded in his love. It was all so easy for him. She envied him that, even as she still wanted to throw him down and beat it out of him.
“He left with Dru,” she said quietly.
“And that was the plan all along? To just let him go?”
“Yeah, I…” She stopped abruptly and stared at Dawn. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
The corner of Dawn’s mouth quirked up. “Probably not, but don’t let that stop you.”
Buffy threw an arm out in the direction of Spike’s retreating form. “Four years ago, I let him leave. I made a truce and let him help me and at the end of it he was still alive and he left. He went off down to South America or wherever the hell, and probably ate more people that I ever want to imagine.”
“Exactly,” Dawn said. “Are those deaths your fault?”
“No, of course not!” Buffy said, anger rising. “It’s not like I had a choice! I couldn’t have defeated Angelus without his help, and there was no chance to stop him from going mid-fight. It was the lesser of two evils, simple as that. Sometimes there is no good decision.” Why did no one ever get that? That even when she did her best sometimes it just didn’t come out all rosy and perfect, but god, she tried, and she literally couldn’t… be held responsible… for every…
“Oh,” she said, a soft sound carried out by her breath that somehow swept away the exhausted indignation and left something much cleaner in its wake.
“Yeah,” Dawn said gently, touching her shoulder. Their eyes met, and this time Buffy saw not the bottomless dark of before, but such kindness it shook her. “You can’t have it both ways, Buffy. If you’re responsible now, you were responsible then, too, and that’s just-”
“Stupid,” she said, heart pounding. “Really, really stupid.”
“I was gonna say unrealistic, but we can go with that, too.”
Something in her quieted, and lay down in relief.
“So do I pass?” she asked, still shaky but trying for wry. “Can I go home, now?”
“No,” Dawn said. “There’s one more thing.”
But when they landed back in the field, Dawn fell in a heap at Buffy’s feet, and didn’t get up again.
*
She’s asleep, Buffy told herself as she ran her hands over the girl’s limp body, checked her vitals. Just sleeping. She was pale, but then she’d been pale earlier, too. Maybe a little thin - did she even get hungry in this timeless place? More importantly, she was breathing, pulse steady, and Buffy pushed everything else aside, scooped her up, and carried her into the tent.
It was weird, like everything here was weird - bigger on the inside than the out, with an unearthly sort of glow coming through the cloth that kept everything light. It contrasted sharply with the sweet, damp smell of trampled grass, a powerful nostalgia kick to Fourth of July carnivals of years gone by.
By the entrance, everything was set up like some 1950s hospital ward, retro-looking gurneys and trays of equipment all lined up neat and ready for use. She thought about laying Dawn out on one of those, but really? Everything she knew about medicine - besides the obvious ‘get it to stop bleeding’ - came from ER, and mostly her attention to scientific detail was kinda side-tracked by Dr. Kovac. She went past that instead to the rear of the tent, which had been turned into some kind of living area, a big saggy couch and armchair with an old travel chest positioned perfectly for foot restage, a free-standing bookshelf covered in clocks, none of them working, a couple of empty tumblers and a fruit bowl. Frowning at the continued weirdness, Buffy set Dawn carefully on the couch before taking one of the glasses down and filling it from a nearby sink. The pipes behind the plinth didn’t connect to anything, but hey, water was coming out and it tasted just fine to her, so whatever.
When she came back, Dawn was still out. Now what? Shouldn’t she have some kind of maternal instinct here? Whenever Dawn - her Dawn - got sick, she always felt absolutely wretched, like it was some kind of personal failing that she couldn’t protect her kid from bugs and germs, and had to be atoned for. Now she just… was mostly in denial that the woman in front of her was really even the same person as the one who had come out of her body on top of a sand dune and a leather coat.
Sinking down on her knees by Dawn’s head, she stared into her face for long moments, before reaching out to gently stroke her hair - something she’d always found comforting when her own mother did it. It fanned out beneath her shoulders, chestnut brown, like Spike’s natural color, long and mostly straight but curling into darling little corkscrews right at the very ends. Spike hadn’t said anything about that, even though it was a level of observation she might have expected from him, but then, maybe time-travelers on urgent missions of world save-age didn’t get the chance to use a flat iron. Long, dark lashes that could be from either of them cast shadows on high cheekbones that were definitely Spike’s, though softened by the feminine lines of her face. Delicate brows that were most definitely Buffy’s, and her chin; the sweet little sticky-out ear tips she’d got from her daddy. The two of them were marked in every angle.
Yeah, this was definitely their daughter. And Spike was family. It was never more clear than when she was looking at their child. You didn’t give up on your family, that was the whole point, and sure, sometimes you had to choose your family rather than settling for what you were given, but then sometimes your family chose you, too.
She’d killed people, more than just Ben. Never with intent, but reflecting on it now, that probably meant nothing to their own families. And Willow had killed, too, in another world that Dawn had made sound not so dissimilar to her own - worse, because she really had meant it. Just like Spike had meant it. And Giles, god… she hadn’t ever asked what his youthful carelessness had cost other people, but it wasn’t a stretch to say it hadn’t been good. She knew people had died from that Eyghon thing, but whether or not that was completely his fault... honestly, she didn’t want to know.
Because knowing meant having to deal, which was exactly where she was at with Spike. Still. It was one thing to accept it wasn’t her fault, but she’d been there, she’d seen the raw pleasure he’d taken in ripping that boy apart, and yeah, she got it now, kinda, but it still… it repulsed her, viscerally.
Dawn stirred, then, a soft, whimpery sound as she started to come to.
“Mom?” she murmured, and all at once, Buffy’s heart melted.
“I’m here, Dawnie.”
“Mommy, I’m so tired.”
Buffy stroked her forehead, smoothing away the worry lines, and took her hand and kissed her palm, just as she did with her baby.
“I know, sweetheart. I know. Just rest.”
“In my pocket,” Dawn sighed. Eyes still closed, she rolled over to face the back of the couch. “Back pocket. Read it, okay?”
Sticking out of the rhinestone-decorated pocket on her tush was what looked like a letter. Buffy pulled it out, and stared a moment at the envelope.
“Okay,” she said eventually. Dawn didn’t respond, asleep again. The envelope was crinkled and soft with age, ink faded but still clearly addressed to Dawn. The handwriting, though - that was recognizably Buffy’s.
*
Dear Dawnie,
That sounds so lame and formal, I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this stuff. But I wanted to leave you something - something about me - just in case. If you’re reading this, it’s because I couldn’t be there to see you grow up, and I am so, so sorry for that. But I know that the people I left you with will love you, and tell you about me, when the time is right. See, I’m the Slayer. I was “chosen,” given special powers, so that I could fight the vampires and demons of the world. Sometimes, I have to save the world, too, and it’s hard, baby, and at some point I’m not going to come back. Maybe it’ll be this time, this amulet gives me the wiggins. So if it is? There’s some things I wanted you to know first.
I love you so, so much. I know that it probably hasn’t always felt that way, that you probably don’t feel that I put you first a lot of the time, but I hope that you know it anyway. Felt it. It’s true I never asked for you to come along, and at first I didn’t know what to think, but please don’t doubt that you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I hope for your sake that you never become a slayer, but it’s probably too much to ask that you stay out of my world completely, given who I’m entrusting you to. So there are some things you need to know. Vampires, grr, argh, bad. You stake them when at all possible. Under no circumstances do you date them, I don’t care what you’ve heard about me! Train with someone who knows what they’re doing, but don’t get cocky. In fact, take a Taser everywhere with you (but especially on dates). Remember that magic always has consequences, and if school seems like it’s evil, there’s a really good chance it might actually be.
And, well, there’s a name you’ll hear. Spike. William the Bloody. Maybe you’ve already heard it, or read it, I don’t know, getting the truth about him is probably gonna be hard, but here’s the thing - yes, he was a vampire, no, he didn’t have a soul, and I honestly don’t know if he could ever be called good, but when it counted, he saved your life. He’s dead now - dust - but he taught me something really important about knowing where to place your trust, and knowing when to express your love.
I hope I told you enough that I love you - I hope I told you too much, until you were embarrassed right down to your wriggly little butt and curly pinky toes! I hope that I hugged you enough and read you enough bed time stories. I hope that you’re happy in life, and not too sad that I’m gone. I hope that you get to grow up, and be the amazing woman I know you will be. I hope that you understand why I had to leave you, that this is the work I had to do.
I have to go now - Anya’s getting anxious to set off and I don’t want to miss out on holding you tight before you go with. But please, just remember, if it could’ve been any other way, it would’ve been.
All my love, little pumpkin belly,
Mommy
*
Buffy was still staring at the letter when Dawn finally came around. She’d read and re-read and wept big, helpless, heaving sobs for all the love she felt for her precious girl, and all the fear. This letter - she could’ve written it herself, she’d thought such things so many times. Hell, she had written it, or would, or might’ve once. It was a glimpse into a possible future more solid even than Dawn, because here was her own handwriting on stationery she thought she might even recognize, and she realized, this was what they’d given her, Spike and this parallel Dawn - the chance to avoid this, to avoid ever having to put those thoughts to paper and leave her child an orphan.
By the time Dawn started to stir she had managed to get herself back under control, but it was all surface stuff. Underneath, she felt wobbly as a newborn and aching for home. The desire was an almost physical thing, a primitive need to do better than the option glimpsed through door number one.
Dawn woke suddenly, then, as though the action were connected to the thought, a deep gasp as she sat straight up with a wild, disoriented look.
“Hey,” Buffy soothed, forcing her shaking body to rise and sit beside her daughter on the coach. “Easy, sweetheart. You’re okay.”
“Did you read it?” Dawn asked, almost frantic, the most animated Buffy had seen her since arriving here.
She was probably all puffy and smudged, big fat tells for anyone looking, but she said anyway, “I did.”
Dawn closed her eyes for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath and holding it, before letting out a slow exhale. When she opened her eyes again they were clearer, brighter, less troubled, and color was slowly returning to her face.
“Yes,” she said softly. “You did.”
Buffy hugged her, then. She couldn’t resist and didn’t want to. She stroked Dawn’s hair and made her drink some water, and Dawn allowed her to fuss a little, though it was a watchful, anticipatory sort of acceptance.
“Tell me about the letter, then,” Buffy said eventually, when there seemed to be nothing else to do.
“You wrote it for me on the eve of your death,” Dawn told her.
“Uh huh, smarty-pants, I got that much.”
Dawn flashed a smirk. “What else did you get?”
“Love, sadness, fear,” Buffy said impatiently, not eager to dwell any longer.
“Right,” Dawn said. “Fear. Your greatest fear is in that letter.”
Buffy looked away and shifted uncomfortably. Figuring it out was one thing, but she never did well with the words and the talking.
“What… what is it?” she asked quietly, hoping Dawn would say it for her.
“That I might not know how much you loved me,” Dawn said, equally soft.
“Did you?” Buffy whispered, looking up, voice breaking on the rocks of those choked back emotions. “Know?”
“Oh, yes,” Dawn said. “Always. Don’t you remember? You’re full of love.”
“Brighter than the fire…” she murmured, blinked, stared at Dawn. “How did you…?”
The only answer was a knowing look. Of course, she’d probably gone back to watch.
“The First Slayer told you: love is your gift. You only lose it if you turn away from it. Do you see?”
And she did, she really did; she had since she’d first read the letter, her other self still hung up on a dead guy six years in the wind. Seen it when she understood exactly what it was he’d given her. She’d congratulated herself, after the cave, for not having fallen for him before he went evil, but she saw it now, and it was far too late. And yeah, some of her was still scared stiff of the part where he was a monster, but she had a monster in her, too, at times, and besides it wasn’t all he was, not even most of what he was, and truthfully she was more scared of the very thing Dawn had seemed to know all along. That he didn’t know; that she wouldn’t ever tell him.
Dawn’s soft fingers curled around hers, and she continued, “It doesn’t somehow make you a bad person, because he’s done bad.”
She stared at Dawn, speechless, teetering, wanting to believe.
“It just is,” Dawn said, and she knew it was true, because she realized then that she’d already forgiven him. Just as she’d forgiven Giles. Just as she was sure she must’ve forgiven alternate-Willow.
Just as she’d forgiven Angel.
“How’d you get so smart with parents like us?” Buffy asked, reaching out to cup Dawn’s pale cheek.
She smiled, more than a little sadly. “Everyone always underestimated Anya, you know, but she was pretty awesome.”
“I’ll remember to say thank you,” Buffy said, and the last word travelled with her, still on her lips as she steadied herself and looked around, and found herself in Spike’s basement.
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