Title: Where They Went from There
Author: framefolly
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, but I do claim fair use of them under current copyright laws.
Summary: Set immediately after One More with Feeling. If the Scoobies had seen The Kiss – and reacted a little differently to Buffy’s revelation of what she did during her summer break – where might they have gone from there?
Dust motes danced in The Bronze’s uneven spotlight beams as the ringing echoes of the B-major chord faded. Rupert Giles gazed at the empty stage directly in front of him, dazed. Next to him, behind him, the children (no, no longer quite children) stood in a circle, back to back, each facing a different direction: where do we go from here, indeed?
“Let’s go home,” Giles heard Tara say, and the group began to move toward the exit. Heaven – to have been torn from heaven, when they had all been so sure that they had rescued her… And now who is the rank, arrogant amateur? To doubly insure that he would not meet anyone’s eyes, Giles polished his glasses while he took up the rear, and thus awkwardly bumped into Anya at the door – why on earth did they stop?
Glasses repositioned, Giles gaped as he focused on Buffy and Spike wrestling – no, snogging – desperately? Certainly with, uh, searing passion… Good Lord, their hands… those sounds…
As Spike’s lips suckled the hollow of Buffy’s throat, her face lifted and a smear of tears caught the light. Sorrow immediately subsumed Giles’s embarrassment: he had only witnessed her pain so exposed a handful of times, on this miraculously indomitable girl-woman who has suffered so much (the Pergamum prophesy, the Cruciamentum, her mother’s death…)
“Buffy? Spike?” Dawn stepped forward nervously as the pair froze at her voice. “We’re going home. Are you coming?”
Ignoring Xander’s babble and squeak (“Coming? No coming! No comings here!”) and his own considerable misgivings, Giles found himself venturing, “I-if you need more time, Buffy…to c-compose yourself, we can take Dawn home first.” He tried to make his voice warmer and gentler (what could be more warm and gentle than heaven?) “…and whenever you feel ready to, to further share your, uh, experiences…” Resistance was futile: Giles whipped off his glasses as he felt Buffy’s eyes bore into his, “well, we, that is, I, I shall promise to listen.”
Spike made a rude noise. That was to be expected. Despite being generally thoughtless, offensive, and smug, Spike had a remarkable way of slipping his way into one’s confidence. Given tonight’s duet, Buffy had clearly told him what she did not tell the others, her friends, her “mentor,” her “backup.” Little wonder, given the assumptions they had…so very little reason to make, the lack of adequate redress for the wrong done to her, and the demands of life itself that must inevitably follow…
“The post-battle debrief. Which is usually so not with the brief.” Buffy’s bright and brittle tone made Giles wince. “But there’s no point in partying after that party, so yeah, let’s shall.” And with a back as straight as a wall, Buffy strode into the shadows.
Giles began to walk. He felt dazed no longer. He had not been standing in her way, but instead failing to follow her lead. For love and honor he would not leave his proper place again.
***
I didn’t know… I should have known… why didn’t I know? I should have checked. How? Locator spells don’t generally work across dimensions because of the third corollary to the Law of Continuous – Focus, Willow! Not a spell. This is not going to be fixed with a spell.
Tara told me. Tara tried to tell me. Why didn’t I get it? Will she hate me now? She told me so – not the hating but the fixing, with the spells, and the too-much-magic, and all the unnecessary – why couldn’t I see? I should have seen. Oh god. How long has this been going on?
Was that why they were making out again like that? Some leftover evil from the My Will Be Done spell, hehe, Willow will… To will. A will. Buffy never made a will. Joyce had, but she hadn’t updated it since her surgery and then there were the funeral bills… and the secret funeral’s secret bills, and how much did I spend on the urn of Osiris, and how could I have thought that I can fix anything? I know better. I should have known better.
“Willow?”
I can’t know everything. I know that. But why didn’t I know Buffy was in heaven? I should have known. But I didn’t. So maybe I should have known that I couldn’t have known, and left well enough alone, except how could a world without Buffy be… I was being selfish, I’m always so selfish. I could only think about how much I missed Buffy, how she was the first person, not even Xander, not even Jesse, the very first person to think I was special, best-friend-forever material, good enough….
“Willow. Stop.”
I turn to my love, my Tara, except maybe she’s not mine anymore, not a screw-up like me, a know-it-all dabbler, a best friend who drags her best friend out of heaven and leaves her kicking and screaming in her coffin…how could I…
“I’m not leaving. I know you’re sorry, and you have to listen. Listen, baby.”
And suddenly my mind isn’t drowning anymore, even though I’m gasping for air. And there is sweet hair in my mouth and soft tummy against my breasts and strong arms all around me and wet grass beneath my knees and the steady thud of a heart beating against my ear, and I am sobbing so hard it feels like the earth is quaking.
But somehow I know it can be okay. It’s possible. Not for a long time, and not without a lot of pain, and things can never be like they used to be. But it’s like when I hurt Oz. I have to keep trying to make things better, but maybe that means trying very hard not to try so hard for a while. Because I know now, I remember again. What I should have known. Why do I keep forgetting? There are things I can’t fix. This time, I WILL learn it better. I promise. I have to.
And I’m so, so, so sorry, Buffy…
***
“I should have known,” Anya declared.
“Me, too,” Xander agreed glumly.
“But you are not an experienced inter-dimensional traveler—Wait—You mean you should have known about Spike and Buffy!” Anya smacked Xander’s arm. “I knew it! I knew you still have a crush on her!”
“What? No!” Never mind that he had been brooding about the major marathon living-dead face-suckage. “Anya! Stop!” Xander yelped and ducked a flying purse. She’s really mad if she’s hurling money, he realized—belatedly, as usual. “Anya, I DO NOT STILL HAVE A CRUSH ON BUFFY!”
Silence. Except for Willow’s sobbing somewhere back there. The kind of silence that stares. He, Xander Lavelle Harris, Bellower Extraordinaire, terminal patient of foot-in-mouth disease, is accustomed to the Staring of the Silence…
“Prove it.” Anya, arms crossed, needed further mollifying. He is accustomed to that as well. First step in Anya-Pacification, Combustion Hazard Seven, was to find a setting where loud sounds would not attract…unwelcome attention. Ah – Perfect – St. Augustine’s – one of the many holy water purveyors that Xander had come to know all too well during the past – Galloping Gizzards! – was it six years already?
Unceremoniously ushered under the church’s eaves, Anya seemed to be rapidly approaching Hazard Eight, which usually led to activities that were…preferably not conducted in church. In front of church. Whatever. Anyway, returning to the ever-urgent matter at hand:
“Anya. If I still had a crush on Buffy, would I have asked you to marry me, to love me, and to let me love you for the rest of our mortal lives?”
“But you sang – your song, our song — ” Anya’s hands fluttered as her voice uncertainly trailed. Xander didn’t really remember what their duet was about, either. Was there a line about…cheese? More importantly, is disarmament on the horizon? “Anyway, I know you’re not looking forward to the wedding!” Apparently not.
“You’re right.” The magic words – Xander’s learned at least one thing about Angry-Chick-Speak, having had two girl best friends for six years. “This wedding, our wedding, it’s scaring me so much.” Trick Two: say you’re scared. Girls dig vulnerable guys – except, Xander had to shudder to remember his source for this one – hint: starts with “Sp” and rhymes with “Ike.” “Really. My balls shrink every time I think about it.” And Trick Three – although this may only apply to his special girl – use sexually explicit analogies whenever possible for clarity and impact. “But I am looking forward to being married. To you. Because I love you more than I ever imagined I could love anybody.” And the Trick that Tops Them All: Work in the schmoop whenever possible – which wasn’t so hard when they weren’t in public, ‘cause it was – almost all the time – true.
Captain! We sight lower lip nibblage, hair-tuggage, and side-to-side twistage – Making-Up, Ho! But Xander knew the final leg was crucial. “Anya Jenkins. I love you. I wish I could show you how much. Sometimes I feel like my chest hurts I love you so much.” Taking a deep breath, Xander plunged into hitherto unplumbed depths of Trick Two, except it didn’t seem like such a neat trick anymore, not when it made you feel like you were about to keel over from a heart attack. “I love you so much I keep thinking I’m going to end up hurting you.” He couldn’t tell what expression his face was wearing, but it wasn’t one of his usual ones, because her eyes… looked… Deep breath. Keep going. “Yeah. That’s how my dad loved my mom, and me, and… I don’t know. Every time we talk about the location and the guests and the colors and the budget I, I, I just…”
And then, because she was his special girl, his Anya, the light of his eyes and love of his life, she kissed him like a succubus. And Xander’s heart attack passed unnoticed, because what was a little heart-stoppage when a kiss could never be just a kiss, not with this girl who always wore her beautiful heart on her beautiful sleeve?
And so, forevers later, when Anya gazed at him from beneath heavy lids and long eyelashes and stated, “So you love me more than you love Buffy,” Xander couldn’t help but ruin the photo finish by blurting out, “Why can’t we elope?”
Foot-in-mouth disease guy, remember?
***
“…I DO NOT STILL HAVE A CRUSH ON BUFFY!”
Buffy paused, and then continued her rapid stride, trying to outpace Willow’s sobs of apology, Xander’s apologetic rambles, Giles’…well, anyway, she just wanted — away. It felt great, in a dangerous way, to have finally told. But after the telling – Slayer go Boom? Not pretty. Well, possibly pretty, but definitely not safe.
According to her friends, feeling like a volcano about to erupt is better than not feeling anything, but Buffy had her doubts. She couldn’t afford to lose control. Well, she couldn’t afford a lot of things. The hurried thuds of Spike’s boots next to hers reminded her that there was more than one kind of eruption – one more thing she couldn’t afford.
“Wait up – Buffy wait up!” Dawn’s panting call slowed her momentarily, and then the slide of a warm, wet, shaking hand into hers stopped her completely. Dawn. Don’t erupt on Dawn.
“Nibblet, why don’t we walk together, let Sis blow off some steam?” Spike’s voice, so warm before, so scratchy now, like woolen underthings… Buffy Summers! Get going before you fall deeper into that gutter!
“NO!” The wet warm fingers wriggled and dragged before she could take more than a dozen steps. Buffy wanted to shake them off, but let them hold her. Then, quieter, “Buffy. Was…was Mom there?”
And before Buffy knew it, she ran. She was running so fast that she knew they wouldn’t shouldn’t couldn’t follow – not even the vampire, or how could she catch them, night after night, death after death? And when she reached the cold stone slab she knew where she had been headed all this time, and felt relief that it wasn’t her own, never really was, but that of another Summers dead before her time –
And then Buffy ran again. She wouldn’t shouldn’t couldn’t blow up at her mother’s grave. Trees and then houses and then dark storefronts and then darker warehouses whistled by her ears. She had never felt so alive, and so angry, and so unstoppable. Buffy felt like she could swim to China, where another sister had fallen so long ago (his killer hands still burned her face, her shoulders her back)…
The Pacific Ocean is no match for Volcano Buffy, she mused nonsensically as she barreled into the icy black shallows — I’ll burn it dry before I get across. When the first wave crested over her head she welcomed the bitterness in her nose, the back of her throat. This is hell, she laughed, this is hell after all…
And then there were sinewy white arms behind her, grappling with her, in the lightless airless fathomless place, and Buffy fought like she ran, mindlessly and yet single-mindedly, and she knew she would win. She had beaten a God, and ever since then she knew there was no limit to her power, only a limit to her sanity, her love, her ability to forgive. Death was her gift, and she gave it night after night, death after death…
They bruised ribs, twisted joints, drew blood. They fought like a dance– who said that? Once he started something he didn’t stop until everything in his path was dead — who said that? Buffy tried to remember, and tried to breathe. That’s right – stupid vampires didn’t need air. Giles had always told her to know her surroundings, and usually she was good at improvising, but all that surrounded her was brine. She was going to lose after all. Drowning 2, Jumping 1. Drowning wins.
Her limbs floated loosely. His bony hands clasped her head and chin, and she knew the snap that was to come. But even as she looked at the death mask above her, haloed in the setting moon, Buffy’s bottom brushed sand – and that startling rub – her body always moved faster than her mind. In an instant they had flipped, and she was straddling him, holding him, alive, living, wanting to live, willing to live –
And they were kissing again.
***
Dawn watched the bedraggled pair approach Revello 1630 in the pale blue light before day’s break from her perch on the swing. She didn’t want to admit her relief, but the sight of them coming together – yes, haha Xander, I got it, very funny – made her tremble just a little. Buffy and Spike weren’t holding hands, but their near-synchronous limp seemed sorta… sweet. And… and they came back.
As they mounted the steps, Spike tipped his bloody eyebrow at her, and Buffy sighed. But somehow, it didn’t sound like the hollow kind she had been making so often. “Are they here?” Buffy asked. Her voice sounded like she’d been screaming for days. Just as Dawn was about to answer, Buffy interrupted — she always did that! – and even that was endearing, this day, this dawn. “Can you ask them to wait until… later for the debrief? I’m beat.”
Spike smiled crookedly as he passed, and on an impulse, Dawn lurched and grabbed them both. All three winced – two from having moved too much, and one from not having moved enough.
“We can start over, right? We don’t have to keep going like this?”
Buffy smiled her own crooked, but very real smile, as she tucked Dawn’s hair behind her ear. “Yeah, Dawnie. I think we deserve a new beginning.”
The End
The Fine Print: I’m terribly sorry for being 35 minutes late for my posting deadline. As this is my only date, you will not have to tolerate my tardiness again.
This is also my first fan fiction, ever, and has not had the benefit of another editor, so I apologize in advance for all errors. I am grateful for any feedback, especially suggestions for improvement.
Many thanks for letting me play. It’s been wonderful to learn what a terrifically talented group this is, and I can’t wait for the rest of the season!
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/180138.html
