Previously in "Sum": A freak accident has split Buffy into two not-so-equal pieces. Buffy, Slayer and Spike have spent a long and lust-drenched night together, all in the name of the Slayer's continued health. But Willow has finally managed to put Buffy and Slayer back together again. Now it's time to pay the piper . . .
Chapter 18 Buffy
It was long past dark before she
finally found him, sitting in one of the deck chairs on the back porch.
She had changed clothes, back into
the Buffy thou-shalt-not armor. Hair clipped close to her head, neutral colored
turtleneck sweater (albeit short sleeved), dark slacks and black, square toed
boots with a couple of inches on the block heel, giving her the little lift she
needed to look more people in the eye. Or kick them squarely in the ass. She was
one hundred percent Buffy again.
Form and function in one convenient
package.
He watched her quietly from his
vantage in the shadows as she stood at the end of the porch, looking quietly out
into the night with her arms crossed over her chest, sometimes looking up at the
stars, sometimes just out into the dark of the yard. She closed her eyes and
lifted her chin to enjoy the soft breeze that drifted across her face, stirring
the few loose tendrils of hair around her temples.
Finally she turned, leaning back to
rest her hands on the porch rail. “Hey.”
He rose to his feet. “Hey yourself.”
When she didn’t say anything else, he
slowly crossed over to her. “How are . . .”
“Don’t.” She put up a hand to stop
his words. “If I never hear that question again, it will still be too soon.”
“Right.”
He watched the top of her head as she
stared down at the toes of his boots. He didn’t know what the silence meant. But
he knew what he had to do.
Silently he offered her the stake.
She took it, stared at it as it lay
across the palm of her hand. Finally she looked into his eyes. “What’s this
for?”
He shrugged. “Thought you might need
it. Figured I’d save you the trip.” He kept his face neutral, numb, as he
squared his shoulders and waited for the blow.
She looked at him, and at the stake,
and then back to his face. “You know, you keep offering to let me stake you and
I might start to think you don’t want to be around me anymore.” Never taking her
eyes off of his, she flung the stake out into the yard where it sunk six inches
deep into one of the oak trees with a resounding thunk. “There will be no
staking. If you need killing, it won’t be by me.” Her tone and expression were
deeply serious. “So stay out of trouble for a change.”
“Do my best, pet.” He was surprised
(and understandably relieved) at her response. “This is Sunnydale, after all.”
“Yeah.” She sighed, sitting down in
her usual spot at the top of the stairs. “We’re like the living embodiment of
Murphy’s Law.”
He joined her. “Hate this town.”
“So why didn’t you leave?”
“Tried. Couldn’t stay gone. Guess
when the Hellmouth gets its claws into you . . .”
“Yeah.” They stared silently out into
the darkness.
“It was easier when I was apart,” she
said finally.
He turned to look at her.
“They both knew who they were,” she
continued. “What they wanted, what was right and wrong for them. It all made
sense for a change. I can remember both of them now, and I can feel their
thoughts and feelings and memories tangling up together inside me so everything
that was so clear for them doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s like what one of
them thinks totally contradicts the other one, even if they both came to the
same conclusion. I can’t do that. I can’t get the same answers they did.”
“Maybe you just need to find your own
answers.”
“It was just so much easier to know
already.”
“You’re young, pet. Everyone forgets
that, but you still have a lot of growing to do, learning about yourself. It’ll
all make sense in time.”
“If I have time.”
He wanted to protest, but knew he
couldn’t.
“And in the meantime, I shut off and
shut down. I can’t connect. I can’t love . . .” She looked at him.
“I didn’t get the soul so we could
get back together.”
Buffy stopped.
“I got it because I never wanted to
hurt you again. And because I needed to make up for what I’d done. I swore I was
going to come back here and be whatever you needed me to be, for as long as you
needed me.”
“I doubt that included getting turned
back into a boy toy.”
“Is that what you think last night
was? A repeat of last year?”
She looked away, the flush of shame
staining her cheeks crimson.
“No.” He lifted her chin until she
was meeting his gaze. “Last night was nothing like last year. When we were
together before, no matter how much I was giving, there was always a part of me
that was thinking what I could get, what was in it for me. Last night I never
thought about that. It was a revelation to me, that I could give so much and not
expect anything back. And there was always a piece of yourself you kept separate
then, locked away and untouched. Last night you were more present, you let me
see more of your heart, than I could ever . . .” He stopped. Finally he said,
“I’m not worthy of the gift you gave me last night.”
Her eyes were bright with unshed
tears, the pain of guilt still clear on her face. “You aren’t the only one who
had things to make up for from last year. When I think that you almost destroyed
yourself for me, and I just . . . I never . . .”
“Shh, pet, you didn’t need to. I
understood.”
“But that’s just it!” She leapt to
her feet, pacing the yard in front of him. “I do need to! Do you think I can
move on, or back, or anywhere knowing what I’m capable of doing without remorse
to someone who loves me? Do you think we aren’t tied to each other as tightly by
guilt and shame as we are by love and passion?”
He didn’t know what to say.
“Dammit,” she threw up her hands, “I
can’t do this. There’s just too much. We need to talk and fight and scream and
cry this all out for weeks until we can make any sense of it at all. And I just
can’t do it right now. I have to be focused and detached or all these girls are
going to end up dead. I have to . . . I just . . .I can’t do this now.”
He stood up and put his hands
soothingly on her shoulders. “Buffy, you don’t have to.”
She met his eyes, calming. “But I
want to. For both of us. After.”
“After,” he agreed.
“Just . . . don’t go anywhere, okay?”
He stepped back, slipping his hands
into his pockets. “Since you aren’t gonna stake me, looks like I’m not going
anywhere.”
She nodded, crossing her arms in
front of her.
“So. . . “
“So . . .”
“Patrol?”
He smiled. Back to neutral territory.
“Sure. You want I should get the girls?”
She smiled back, acknowledging the
humor with a small shrug. “Nah. Let’s have a quiet grownup night of killing.
I’ve got some kinks I need to work out.”
He could have sworn he saw her eyes
twinkle.
Fin