Aftermath by Jenny Scott
Distribution: anywhere
Spoilers: “The Gift”, if you don’t know how it ends, and also
season five in general
Rating: ummm… PG-13, I think. I don’t understand the strange ways of
American rating system
Pairing: W/T…obviously.
Disclaimer: All characters I’ve stolen, err, borrowed belong to Joss
Whedon, the Buffy God/Devil, and the “GRR ARG” Monster
Summary: My dig at the events following “The Gift”
Note: I’m Scottish, so if I say something Scottish/British that’s
said differently in America (e.g.: trousers instead of pants, chips instead of
fries) then I apologise profusely, pretend Giles is getting to them.
Note 2: I’ve taken a wee bit of dialogue from the eps, but nothing
huge. Just some key points from Buffy, and that last scene in Angel.
Note 3: This’ll take place when it aired in America (end of May) as I
see that as when the events actually happened. Yes, yes, so long ago, but for us
poor Brit’s who haven’t seen any season 6 yet (one week to go!!!) it’s
about as recent as we can manage.
Note 4: Feedback, lots of feedback, wanted (Vampirajen@yahoo.co.uk)
OH, AND ALSO: Tara is mega out of character in some parts because she is really pissed off. I hope I’ve portrayed her out of character pissed offness in an in character sort of way. Hang on, does that make any sense…?
“Because it’s always got to be blood.”
“It’s Summers blood. It’s just like mine.”
“She’s me. The monks made her out of me.”
“Death is your gift.”
“Death--?”
“…Is your gift.”
“Buffy ... no…”
“Dawnie, I have to.”
“No!”
“Listen to me. Please, there's not a lot of time, listen….
*
The “Dawnmeister Chronicles”
May 2001.
“The sun was struggling to rise over Sunny Dale when she looked back at me. She had been so full of…of what? Anger? Hate? There had been so many emotions flying about the last twenty-four hours. She had become so lost in the last few months. She was no longer sure who she was or what it meant to be the Slayer. But as she looked at me she seemed so…found, so at peace for someone who was about to kill her self. I remember reading a detective novel by a Scottish writer. It said that when a person accepts that they are going to die and that nothing can change it, they feel at peace. I guess that’s how she was feeling.
“I figured out pretty quickly what she was going to do. She was going to throw herself into Glory’s portal thing. The monks made me out of her. Our blood was the same. I could stop the portal at the cost of my own life. And so could she. I begged her not to. I had already lost Mom; I didn’t want to loose her too. But she wouldn’t listen. She just spoke to me for a moment, kissed me, and then jumped to her death.
Her final words to me were:
“I love you. I will always love you. But this is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles I figured it out. And I’m okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”
*
Sunny Dale General Hospital
07:24
“She told me to live, for her. Then she died for me.”
Dawn Summers fell into silence. She had gone from crying for hours, to going numb inside. As she lay on a hospital bed, with Giles standing by her side, the six month old fifteen year old told him of Buffy’s last few moments, explaining how her sister had ended up dead. Hardly an easy thing to do.
Giles gently laid a hand on the youngsters shoulder, trying to support her when he himself was breaking up inside.
“She said to tell you that she figured it out,” she told him, choking to get the words out. “I think she was talking about the whole ‘death is your gift’ thing. And she…she gives her love to every…” No more words would come. Only tears, which burned her eyes and face like acid. Giles held the young woman close as she cried.
*
07:26
“Follow the pen please,” he told his patient
“Doctor or optician?” the patient’s friend said quietly, sounding calmly bitter. He recognised the woman. She had been here with his patient when she had been brought in earlier in the week. A young red head who called his patient her “everything”.
Up, down, left, right, she followed his pen.
“Hmm,” he said as he jotted down a few notes.
“‘Hmm’?” the red head asked impatiently. “Just what do you mean by ‘Hmm’?”
“Willow, honey, calm down.”
“Calm down? How can I calm down? I’ve already lost one of my best friends tonight, I don’t want to loose you too.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll bet that’s what you said right before your run in with Glory,” the red head said softly
“True, but she isn’t here now, is she?”
They took each others hand, looked into each others eyes--
“I hate to interrupt this tender moment, Miss McLay,” the Doctor said, interrupting the tender moment, “but if I hadn’t seen the state you were in when you came in here a mere two days ago I would have thought it was someone’s idea of a joke.”
“Oh, that.”
“Do you have an explanation?”
“A hell god sucked the sanity out of me,” Tara McLay explained, quietly, “but I got it back.”
The doctor regarded her, believing her sanity to be still out there, somewhere very far away.
“Do you have a phone here?” the redhead asked.
“In the hall.”
“Thanks,” she said, and then to Tara, “I’ll be back in a minute.” She left the room and searched for the phone, fishing a coin from her pocket. Lifting the receiver, she took a deep breath, only noticing how shaking it was. Her fingers trembled as she dialled the numbers. It rang for an eternity before the ringing stopped and a voice – which she recognised as Cordelia’s - spoke to her.
You can do this…
“Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless. We’re not in at the moment, probably chasing after evil since the dawn of time, so leave a message and we’ll get back to you.”
In an uncharacteristic fit of anger, she slammed the receiver down. It was official: Willow Rosenberg hated answer machines. May Cordelia never know how close she was at this moment to breaking into more of the black magicks. The memory of her last major experience with it involuntarily came back to her.
“I. Owe. You. PAIN!”
The words echoed through her mind as she went head to head the Hell God. And came pretty damn close to wining, too.
The hell with Glory, she’s gone, finished, stop thinking about her. She had given back what Glory had taken from Tara, and everything was okay now – or not. There was no hell on earth, but at a cost. Buffy Summers, best buddy and Vampire Slayer was gone.
Forever.
*
Streets of Sunny Dale
07:56
Five minutes. Not a lot of time. Not much can happen in it. But if they had gone in just five minutes earlier Buffy would still be alive. Maybe she’d have gotten to Dawn before the Doc decided to cut her open and use her blood to open the portal. Maybe Buffy wouldn’t have thrown herself into death to save the world.
He moved through the shadows, trying get back to his crypt without the light of day touching him. He was filled with rage, but had no one to blame. Hell god from Planet Bitch was gone, and Buffy was-- Even if she was here he doubted he could get angry with her.
Someone brushed passed him, knocking him into the sunlight. He cried out as his skin started to smoke.
“Err, sorry,” the person said as he ran back into the shade.
“Sorry? Ye bloody well will be!” he barked as he slapped the person, who was not much more than a boy across the head. Instinctively, he clutched his head, waiting for the searing pain that the bloody chip in his head brought when he attacked a human.
Nothing.
He remembered the fall that came after his futile attempt to save dawn. It must have damaged the chip. At that thought, he smiled. He turned slowly to the boy whose eyes went wide with terror as his demonic, vampire features took shape. He lurched forward, taking hold of the boy, about to plunge his fans into his victim’s neck when suddenly he stopped.
William the Bloody, Spike, whoever the hell he was these days couldn’t do it. His love had been dead for only a few hours and already he was tempted to feed of a human? He couldn’t do that to her memory.
He pushed the boy away, as his Vamp Face disappeared. Staying in the shadows, he walked away from his would be breakfast.
*
Sunny Dale General Hospital
08:03
“How you doing?”
What a stupid question, Willow though, and begun to wish she hadn’t asked it.
“’Kay,” came Dawn’s quiet response as Willow walked quietly into Dawns room, where Giles still kept watch by the youngsters bed.
“And yourself and the others, are they all right?” the Englishman asked.
“Tara’s still got a million and one broken bones in her hand, but she’s one hundred per cent sane again. Anya’s going to be fine, bit of backache for a while, but it’ll get better.”
“Good,” Giles said quietly.
“Don’t know what happed to Spike, but Vampire healing…he’ll be okay. I, uhh, tried to get in contact with Angel earlier,” Willow told them. Giles took of his glasses and buried his head in his hand. Yet another thing to do. “No answer,” she continued. “I think maybe someone should go up there and tell him face to face. I think it’s a little nasty to say it over the phone.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ve no idea how to contact Riley.”
*
U.C. Sunny Dale,
11:26
“Tara McLay!”
Tara walked through the corridors of the dormitories of Sunny Dale University when she heard her whole name being called out angrily, sharply, accusingly. She turned to the source of the offensive voice to see a friend of willows holding a friend of Tara’s.
“Take this creature…now!”
The young lady thrust Miss Kitty Fantastico to Tara. The young cat whined at the rough treatment then purred in the arms of her owner.
“Oww…” Tara moaned as quietly as she could, as not to draw attention to her bandaged hand.
“That…thing…”
“She has a name…” Tara pointed out quietly.
“…Keeps pissing in my plants! One of them’s dying! When Willow asked me to look after this thing, I thought she just meant for an hour or so!” she shrieked, then added, “Oh, you find this funny?”
Tara only managed to wipe the grin of her face when she remembered – though it was hard to forget – that these were not smiling times. She turned and walked away, heading for her room, her sanctuary, the one place she could always be alone, except when Willow came around, but then things would just get better…
“Just a minute, I expect a new plant!” Willow’s…acquaintance?…called out.
Tara didn’t hear the whining woman; she only saw the horror that was but a few meters away. She gingerly approached the door of her dorm room, seeing it hanging of its hinges.
“What the…” she managed to get out.
“Ah, yes, they want a word with you about that,” the woman said. “They took all your stuff out and put them in boxes. Some of it got wrecked, but they put it all together anyway.” She left at that point. Tara tried to move the door with her elbow, as one hand was in agonising pain, the other held Miss Kitty, only to have it topple into the remains of her dorm room. She walked into the bombsite, her mouth hanging open. The whole of the left wall had been torn away, letting sunlight into the usually very dark room. She carefully walked over to the bed that had been stripped of all sheets and sat down, taking in all the destruction.
But being her usual self, she didn’t get angry, she just became sad.
*
Hyperian Hotel, Los Angeles
23:17
The journey from Sunny Dale to Los Angeles was something she’d sooner forget. Maybe if she had a good book with her it would have gone by quicker, but she didn’t. She had only herself and her miserable mood.
She had been sitting for hours, her legs were going numb. Her whole body was going numb, even her brain was heading that way. It must have been very late at night - or very early in the morning, she couldn’t focus on any of the clocks – when she finally heard voices.
Someone, whose voice she didn’t recognise, was saying something about theme parks. Two females, one of them Cordelia, were talking about tacos, of all things. Then she heard Angel’s deep voice.
“Can I say it? I'm going to say it.”
“Say what?” Weasly this time.
Then as the doors opened, she heard, “There's no place like...” His voice trailed off as he saw Willow sitting alone on one of the couches.
“Willow?” he asked softly, his voice showing a little concern. He knew she wouldn’t come out here if it weren’t important.
“Hey,” Cordelia said, a little to cheery for Willow’s liking. “What’s…” She stopped as Willow stood, seeing the sombre look on her face.
Angel understood what it meant.
“It's Buffy...”
“Yeah,” Willow said, finally breaking her silence. “It’s Buffy.”
“But she’s okay…” Angel started as he mover through the lobby of the huge building towards the red head. “I mean something’s wrong, but …”
“She’s dead.” Two simple words spoken with booming quietness that brought the souled Vampire’s world crashing down around him. Cordelia and Wesley froze like statues, not believing what they had just heard.
“Willow…” Angel whispered.
Behind the others, still standing at the door, Gunn and Fred stood. They watched the scene unfold from outside the emotional roller coaster.
“Who’s Buffy?” Fred asked quietly.
“A friend of theirs,” Gunn explained, just as quietly, to the young woman. “Angel kinda had a thing for her.”
“A ‘thing’?”
“He loved her.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” was all he said, but inwardly sensed break down time approaching for the vampire.
*
U.C Sunny Dale, Willow’s Dorm Room,
03:44
As soon as the door closed behind her, she fell back into it for support. The last few hours of her life had been even worse than the few hours before it. After leaving the man called Gunn to look after the woman called Fred, she, Angel, Cordelia and Wesley had made their way back to Sunny Dale in Angel’s car. Odd, she didn’t remember him ever mentioning he could drive.
They listened as Willow told them everything that had happened to them in recent months, of the hell Gods plan to use the Key to open of all the dimensions in order to get home, that dawn was not buffy’s little sister, that she herself was in fact the key, and of how Buffy had sacrificed herself in order for dawn to continue living. Angel kept completely quiet, only Wesley or Cordelia would interrupt with a question.
When they finally arrived in Sunny Dale, they dropped her of at the university, but she only got out of the car after multiple reassurances that they would be okay. As she walked into the room, she remembered Giles telling her to call him as soon as her got back, regardless of the time. She sat down on the chair in the corner, the telephone in her lap. She dialled the number and waited for the phone at the other end of the line was picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Giles, it’s Willow,” she spoke quietly when she saw that Tara was in fact snuggled up in her bed, sound asleep. Miss Kitty was curled up beside her. Another reason to stay quiet. They young cat was adorable, but when woken up from her sleep, she could be a real cat-bitch.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Of course not,” came the sombre British voice. “Sleep is something that’s refusing to come to me tonight. Did you just get in?”
“Yeah. Angel, Wesley and Cordelia are staying at the mansion.”
“How did they take the news?”
“Not surprisingly bad. Angel’s barley said a word since we left L.A. What about Dawn?”
“She was released from hospital today. Her mental state however is not very good. I took her home with me. She’s upstairs sleeping. Or mimicking it. They’re keeping Anya in a little longer, but they say she’ll be fine.”
“Good,” she whispered. There was a moment of silence as Willow watched Tara sleep. Two days of craziness and now there was peace on her face. It was nice to know that something good had happened in the last day.
“Well, I, err, don’t want to keep you up, Willow, you should get some rest.”
“’Night, Giles.”
“Yes, goodnight Willow.”
She put down the receiver. The room fell into silence again and remained that way for a very long moment until Miss Kitty’s eyes fluttered open, she let out a yawn, and then promptly fell asleep again. Willow was sure that cats had some sort of sleep command that they could activate at will, like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation she had watched with Xander many a year ago. She crept over to the bed and slowly lay down on it, trying not to disturb Tara. She kept her eyes on the blonde witch for a long long time, before the darkness of sleep enveloped her.
*
Summer Household
Two days later.
10:27
Harry Potter.
Willow immediately recognised the book Dawn held in her hand. A few years ago, Dawn had read the book and suggested Willow read it. Willow, was a bit unsure, what with it being a children’s book and all, but just a few pages in, she was hooked.
Of course, that didn’t really happen. It was false memories created by a bunch of monks to keep the Key hidden from Glory.
“Dawnie…? It’s time.” Willow spoke softly, saying each word as gently as she could. The young lady dropped the Harry Potter book, which she had not really been reading in the first place, and got up from the couch and headed over to the door. She, and Willow headed out.
The funeral was even more brutal than her mothers. She didn’t hear a word the minister said as they stood in the cemetery, by the grave. She just kept her eyes fixed on the tombstone, reading the inscription over and over again. Buffy Anne Summers. 1981-2001. Beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world a lot. Buffy Anne Summers. 1981-2001. Beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world a lot. Beloved sister, devoted friend. Beloved sister. Beloved sister. The words went around and around in her head like that bad tune you can’t get rid of. 1981 – 2001. Twenty years. She was only twenty. She died to save the world…again. Her beloved sister had died, ages twenty saving the world.
She didn’t notice when the funeral came to an end. She stood by the grave for a long time, just as Buffy had when her mother had been laid to rest. She stood their so long that when she sensed the presence of someone else, she saw two vampires who were finally able to come and pay their respects.
BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2001
BELOVED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND
SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT
***
Summers Household
20:43
“I told Glory that dawn was the Key?”
The words were spoken quietly, but venomously. Every word was spat out with disgust and horror at the revelation.
“What was I thinking? Was I insane?”
Willow considered answering, but was soon stopped.
“Forget I asked.”
“Tara…honey calm down.”
“I’m perfectly calm.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” Tara said, angrily, but without raising her voice. “Picture me, sitting on a park bench, all alone, when a Hell God turns up and says, ‘Hey, have you seen my Key?’ then promptly sucks the sanity out me. And what do I do less than a day later? I tell her the Key is Dawn.”
“It wasn’t your fault, you were—“
“Whacko Girl?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to put it quite like that…”
Silence fell upon them. Each stood at opposite ends of the room, looking downwards at their feet. A though passes through Willow’s mind, though she hesitated in bring it up.
“Was it…” she began, “was it my fault?”
“What?” Tara all but shouted, the venom back in her voice. Nothing Willow said was going down right tonight.
“Well, you emphasised that you were alone. Is it my fault for starting that fight? If I had been with you—”
“You couldn’t have stopped Glory.”
“Well – ” Willow began, but stopped. ‘Don’t go there, don’t go there,’ a voice told her.
To late.
“Well what?” Tara asked.
“Err…”
“Oh…you’ve been into more of the black magicks again, haven’t you?”
“Only to put up this barrier to stop those Knights from getting to Dawn,” Willow said, as innocently as she could manage.
“What else?”
“Well…”
“What else?” Tara repeated, her voice quavering with anger. It was the closest she had come to shouting during the whole conversation. The lack of shouting reminded Willow of an old teacher who had no need to shout when a pupil started an argument – she could do it all with the eyes. Those freaky eyes. A part of her wished that that teacher would be uncovered as evil since the dawn of time. No such luck.
“And don’t lie to me,” Tara added, though this time she sounded as though she was begging and not demanding.
Willow sighed. She ain’t gonna like this… “I went all pay backy on Glory after she brain sucked you,” she said, very quickly. Tara spent a long moment processing all the words, and for every second that passed the fear in the pit of Willow’s stomach grew.
“Oh…my…god…what were you thinking?!” Now she was shouting.
“Tara-”
“You could have gotten yourself killed! Why did you do that?”
“Because she attacked the person I love!” Willow shouted back, not caring if this ended up spilling over into a full-blown argument. “Damnit, Tara, if she had done that to me, would you just sit back and do nothing.” Tears were welling up in her eyes. Tears of sadness, of anger.
Tara stood frozen. Her eyes were locked on Willow. “Y-you could have g-gotten yourself killed…” she whispered, her voice shaking, her stutter back in full force. That was never a good sign.
“Tara…?”
When she got no answer, Willow dared to move closer. That was when she noticed Tara was shaking. She rushed over to her and placed her hands on her shoulders so quickly that she made her jump with surprise and fear. She tried to pull away, but Willow kept a firm grip on her. She watched Tara watch her feet.
“Tara,” Willow said, gently but firmly, “look at me.”
She did so, slowly.
“Do you remember what happened after Glory…um…attacked you?” Willow asked slowly and carefully. The last thing she wanted to do was to continue to drag Tara through one of the most traumatic events of her life, but she needed to make a point.
“I don’t...” Tara began quietly. She broke her gaze with Willow and looked down. To Willow’s shoes, she continued. “I remember Glory sitting next to me, she said something like, ‘let’s get crazy’… And you were running towards me…you looked scared. Then you were looking down at me…scared, but not like before, hopeful scared… I don’t remember anything about you, or Dawnie, or Buffy, or anything I did, I just remember feeling lost, and terrified and desperate to find a way out, but I couldn’t. And I can still feel it, and it makes my skin crawl…”
As Tara spoke those last few words, Willow could hear her becoming angrier, and desperately frightened. All she could do was pull Tara gently into her embrace. The frightened woman held on as if she would die if she let go.
“You – I mean *you* you – were lost in your mind,” she whispered into Tara’s ear. “The you on the outside wasn’t really you and so *you* you can be held responsible for anything you did while you were brain sucked.” She pulled away from the embrace just enough to see Tara again. “Understand my impeccable logic?” she asked. Despite everything, Tara could not help but laugh.
Just a little.