A Barely Breathing Story: Chapter Eleven

[jesterladyfic]

Chapter Eleven: Buffy and the David Lynch Demons

Buffy has some sort of sickness, she thinks. Some sort of avoidance and self-sabotage sickness.

It’s like she’s on a great big see saw and she never knows whether she’s going up or hurtling back down. One day she can snuggle on the couch with Spike and watch movies with her sister and the next week she can barely bring herself to speak to her best friend and spends all her time obsessing about why her boyfriend’s chip doesn’t register her as human.

There’s only one continually good thing and that’s the money that Logan’s given her. It does mean she’s spending way more time these days with lawyers and bankers. It’s so very grown-up and she doesn’t think she’s really ready for that. She’s only twenty-one, just now able to drink and everything, but she’s saved the world countless times and died twice. Probably matures a person.

So here she is, Mature-Twenty-One-Year-Old Buffy with a trust fund and a mortgage, newly resurrected, and hunting for vampires.

And she’s still struggling with so many things that the money can’t fix.

About the only thing she can handle right now is being with Spike. And by being she means being. She doesn’t really talk to him if she can help it. It’s more like a bad habit she’s fallen into that she consciously doesn’t think about. She just knows that it’s better when he’s making her every nerve ending feel like it’s on fire and not when he’s trying to get her to relate to her little sister.

She just doesn’t want to look Dawnie in the face until she knows more about how she came back. She doesn’t want to be Willow’s moral compass when she doesn’t know if she has one herself. She doesn’t want to be happy for Xander and Anya when she’s sure she’ll never have a normal relationship. She’s just lost and the only thing that feels real is when Spike’s body is melded to hers.

When she steps through the door back into her house she knows she has to change things. She’s going to try. She’s the Slayer, she can-can-can.

How-how-how?

“Aw, rough day?” Willow asks, who’s been a lot better since the events of The Day Buffy Went Invisible And Actually Felt Free For Awhile.

“Kinda.”

“You've been going at it too hard, Buffy,” Xander says. “We hardly ever see you, what with the sudden riches and pounding the big evil.”

“You are looking a little pounded,” Anya says with her usual tact. “Just around the eyes.”

Buffy can’t respond to this, but she’s All New and Improved Buffy Who Interacts and Everything so she sits down.

“Hey, we're thinking of heading to the Bronze later. Wanna come, get all unwind-y?” Willow asks her hopefully.

“No, thanks. I think I'll stay here with Dawn. Curl up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and-“ Dawn moves toward the door, picking up her jacket. “...listen to the cars honk? Where are you going?”

“I'm...going over at Janice's.”

“And I'm falling for that again because of the surprise lobotomy?”

“It's okay, I checked it out. Janice's mom is picking her up,” Willow says proudly, probably just happy Dawn hasn’t slapped her in awhile and deigns to be in the same room as her.

Nobody holds a grudge like Buffy’s made-up sister. She knows from personal experience.

“I didn't think you'd care. You're never home, so...”

“I know. I'm sorry. You know, but I-I'm here now. All visible and everything. Couldn't you just go to Janice's another night?”

“Her mom's cooking Mexican. She's gonna teach me how to make real tortillas. Not like I knew you'd be around.”

Dawn walks out the door leaving her feeling like even less of a good person than when she walked in.

So she goes to the Bronze with her friends, at least half of them, and they dance and drink and she still ends up on the balcony, simply watching. She’s on the outside, has been for months, and each step forged back into the heart of her life is like trying to resurrect someone from the dead which is supposed to be really hard. Unless she’s the one getting resurrected, of course.

Still, she’s content to just stay up there, frozen, until she feels him enter the Bronze. She’s sure he can feel her too. These days it’s almost like there’s an invisible rope connecting the two of them and the closer they get, the sharper it tugs around her gut. She’s not surprised to feel herself almost aching for him. If he can just get to her within the next five seconds, she can rip all his clothes off, public place or not, and feel-feel-feel her way to existence.

The thought scares her a little. And she’s already feeling guilty enough about the way she’s using him, no matter how much he says he doesn’t mind it. She’s promised it would be different. But until she knows anything, until she knows what she is, she needs to be careful.

So she runs, literally flees from him, out of the Bronze and across town, into a cemetery.

It doesn’t get better, that feeling in her insides, the squirming yearning for him. Instead, she just feels confused.

Then it all goes to hell.

There’s whirling and growling and she can see demons. Natural fighting stance set and then they’re suddenly gone, a girl standing in their place, looking terrified.

She pulls back and then there’s a shift and Spike’s there wiping blood off his upper lip.

“Ow! What the bloody hell did you do that for?”

Crack and he’s gone, the girl’s screaming again and she whirls around, trying to find her.

Crack and Spike’s back, sidling up to her.

“You thought you could just slip off? Vampire, remember?”

Crack and the demons are jumping at her. She kicks wildly, connecting solidly with someone and then gets knocked backward.

Crack and she’s on the ground, demon looming over her.

Crack and she’s standing, the girl’s face next to hers, asking her for help.

Crack and she’s on the ground, Spike offering her a hand up.

Crack and she’s somewhere else, fighting for her life.

It’s all mist and weird shapes and she’s so so confused, more reminiscent of the time she could hear everyone’s thoughts than anything else, and she clasps her hands to her ears.

“I’m okay, I’m not crazy.”

Crack and the demons jump at her, she swings.

Crack and it’s the girl she backhands and sends flying, tumbling down the hill.

Crack and Spike’s standing there, looking satisfied with himself and the demon at his feet.

Buffy runs for the hill, scrambles down it, and falls to her knees at the bottom. This is it, it’s over, she’s Faith, she’s evil, she’s wrong, she won’t ever get back to that haven of perfection.

Spike comes to a halt beside her and swears.

“We have to go,” he says immediately.

“What happened?” Buffy mumbles to herself.

“There's nothing you can do now. We have to go before someone sees you.”

“What did I do?” is all she can say.

“We have to go now!” he says and she can feel him grabbing her and dragging her away.

She’s in shock, she’s numb, she’s not this person, no, please, no.

“All right. Listen to me, Buffy.” He shakes her. “Buffy!”

“She's dead.”

“It was an accident.”

“I killed her.”

“I'm gonna get you home.”

“No!” she cries out.

No, she can’t go home to safety and warmth and innocence because she came back wrong and that girl’s lying there, cold and dead and forgotten.

“I'm gonna get you home, and you're gonna crawl in your warm, comfy bed and stay there.” His voice gets soft and he folds her into his arms. “We're gonna sort this out. Trust me.”

She does except she shouldn’t or can’t and she just wants to…

But she goes home with him, in a numb haze, and she thinks she hears him on the phone, but she’s not sure exactly. The words trickle into her brain without her comprehension.

“Private Eye,” he says, “got a situation.” And he says words, details the situation, spells out her crimes, and how can he expect Veronica to help when Buffy’s just committed an unforgiveable act? “Need you to ID her,” he says and she hears him through a long tunnel. “This smacks of something weird. Just figure out why that girl would be there, yeah? I gotta take care of Buffy.”

He puts her to bed and stays until she falls asleep. At least he’s there again when she wakes up.

She wakes up because she’s dreaming. Dreaming of him and the girl and stakes and handcuffs and the woods and crypts and oriental rugs. And every bit of it features her as the villain. She kills the girl and stakes Spike and she’s a gaping maw of need, sucking in everything, returning nothing, destroying everything in her wake.

“Sh,” he tells her, sliding into her bed. “It’s okay, love. It’s over now.”

She doesn’t say anything, just kisses him in a desperate bid to forget, to push the images out of her mind.

Later on, he’s the one who sleeps and she slips out of the bed. She’s done running, done hiding, done pushing away consequences and life. She’s had her respite in the circle of his arms and the burn of his touch and now she can’t ignore what’s happened. What she’s done.

So she knows what she has to do and it’s hard, but, in a way, it’s so easy, so much easier than her life.

“Hey,” she says, sitting on Dawn’s bed.

“What time is it?”

“It's late. I just wanted...I love you. You know that, right?”

“What's wrong?” Dawn asks in alarm.

“I know I haven't been everything I should be - everything Mom was - but I love you. I always will.”

“Why are you talking like this? Buffy?”

“There was an accident. In the woods. A girl...she was hurt. I hurt someone.” Dawn hugs her but it isn’t enough. “There's something I have to do. I have to tell what I did. I have to go to the police.”

Dawn stiffens and pulls away.

“The police?”

“Dawnie, I have to.”

“But...what's going to happen?”

“I don't know.”

“They'll take you away. Won't they?”

“I'm sorry.”

Buffy looks down because she can’t bear to see the look of betrayal she’s receiving. She deserves it-deserves it-deserves it.

“No, you're not. You're never here. You can't even stand to be around me.”

“That is not true.”

It is, but she can’t say that. It’s not why Dawn thinks it is anyway.

“You don't want to be here with me. You didn't want to come back. I know that. You were happier where you were. You want to go away again.”

“Dawn...” she says helplessly.

What can she say? It’s all true, but she is trying. She was trying.

“Then go! You're not really here anyway.”

Dawn pushes past her and runs downstairs and all Buffy can hope is that she doesn’t wake Spike.

It’s not quite the goodbye she was looking for, but it’s all she’ll get so she goes.

Every step to the station is like lead in her heart, but it’s the easiest thing she’s ever done.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Spike. How typical.

“The right thing,” she says, pushing on.

The punch catches her by surprise and she falls down.

“Sorry, love, can't let you do that.”

“I have to tell them what happened,” she says firmly, getting up.

“We don’t know what happened,” he snaps. “It’s an accident if anything.”

“I killed that girl,” she says like a mantra.

“Demons in the woods? Time going wonky? They won't believe you.”

“I’ll show them.”

“I’m taking care of it, Slayer,” Spike growls at her. “Just let it go. There isn't anything to connect this to you.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It wasn't your fault!”

“I killed her!”

“It was an accident. It just happened.”

“Nothing just happens,” she says because that’s how she’s lived her life and she can’t let herself off the hook she’s strung others up on.

She starts to walk away but he grabs her arm.

“You're not going in there.”

“I have to do this. Just let me go.”

“I can't. I love you. You are not throwing your life away over this.”

His desperate voice gives her a moment of pause, but only a moment.

“It's not your choice.”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“A girl is dead because of me.”

It’s a simple concept, why is he so unable to grasp it?

“And how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn't tip the scale.”

She can’t believe him. Sometimes he’s so different, but she can’t forget, can’t let herself forget, he’s a demon in a stolen body and he doesn’t know.

“That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body!”

“Buffy-“

No, he can’t say her name like that. He can’t argue with her, placate her, treat her like a child, like she’s the one in the wrong. She knows she’s wrong-wrong-wrong. He’s a soulless vampire and she won’t let him.

So she attacks him. Her words are never good enough. All she’s ever had are her fists. Her fists and actions and fighting-fighting-fighting.

He blocks mostly, but he lets her beat him, and why won’t he just fight back!

“You can't understand why this is killing me, can you?”

“Why don't you explain it?”

“You can’t understand,” she says roughly, knocking him to the ground and punching his face. “You don’t have a soul. You don’t know what it means. You’ll never be able to-“

“Forget about me then,” he says raggedly, covering his face, but not making any attempt to throw her off. “What about Dawn, eh? What about your little sis and all she needs? How’s she gonna fair while you’re rotting in the big house? What’s gonna happen to her?”
He can’t keep saying things like that. She doesn’t deserve Dawn.

“It’s not about her,” she says, pulling her arm back, but knowing she can’t make the blow.

She sags down and lets her tears fall on his face. He puts his arm around her.

“That’s it, let it all out. Put it all on me.”

“Buffy!” comes a voice from behind her.

She turns and spies Veronica standing there with Logan, both looking rather horrified.

“What-what are you doing here?” she asks

“Spike asked me to figure out who that girl was. Her name is Katrina Silber,” Veronica says. “Apparently her last boyfriend was-“

“Warren,” Buffy says, pieces clicking in her head, tearing away the fog.

“That’s right. I don’t think it can be a coincidence that you were both there right then,” Veronica says gently.

“No, no,” Buffy says and sinks into herself. She’s wrong again. She’s not a murderer, but she’s still not good. “Spike, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s all right, love, I’m right as rain,” he tells her soothingly, running his hands up and down her arms.

He’s not, his face is purple and swollen and oozing blood and that’s all on her.

“I need to go home,” she gasps out. “Dawn.”

They exchange glances and take her home. Rather, Spike takes her home while Veronica and Logan go into the police station and file a report saying they found a girl dead in the woods.

Buffy isn’t quite sure how she gets to bed or what’s happened because all she knows is that it’s the next morning and Dawn still isn’t speaking to her after some initial tears and Spike’s face looks like he went ten rounds with Adam and lost badly. He tells her not to worry about it.

“You always hurt the one you love, pet.”

She doesn’t want to hear that, doesn’t want to admit it. Doesn’t want it to be true for his sake.

In the end she has to face everyone at the Magic Box and it’s Anya who finds the answer to some of the mysteries.

“The Rwasundi. Very rare. Um, its presence in our dimension causes a sort of...localized temporal disturbance.”

“So that's why time went all David Lynch?” she asks slowly.

“Right. Uh, human perception is based on a linear chronology. Being exposed to the Rwasundi for more than a few seconds can cause, uh, vivid hallucinations. And a slight tingly scalp.”

“So that's it. These things just made you think you killed her,” Willow says and smiles like it’s all better now.

“She was probably dead long before you stumbled across her,” Xander tries too.

“It wasn't the demons. It was Warren. He knew Katrina. He had something to do with it, I know it,” Buffy says, grasping hold of something tangible.

“Why are you so sure?” Tara asks quietly.

“You always hurt the one you love,” she says slowly, not daring to look at Spike.

Her head’s still a blur and she wants it to stop. Somehow, she figures, if she can bring Warren to justice, well, it might make her own guilt a little bit less.

The meeting breaks up but Tara lingers and asks to talk to Buffy alone.

“What’s up?” Buffy asks, trying to put on a brave face again.

“I wanted to tell you what I found out about the resurrection spell.”

“What?” Buffy asks, not wanting to know, but needing, needing to know.

“I-I've double checked everything. There's nothing wrong with you.”

Tara smiles like everything’s okay, but Buffy can’t believe it’s that simple.

“Then why can Spike hurt me?”

“Well, I said that there was nothing wrong with you, but...you are different. Shifting you out of...f-f-from where you were…funneling your essence back into your body- i-it-it altered you on a basic molecular level. Probably just enough to confuse the sensors or whatever in Spike's chip. But it's all just surface-y physical stuff. It wouldn't have any more effect than...a bad sunburn.”

“I didn't come back wrong?” she asks, and she can’t believe it.

“No, you're the same Buffy. With a deep, tropical, cellular tan.”

“You must have missed something. Will you check again?”

Tara leans forward.

“Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you.”

“There has to be! This just can't be me, it isn't me. Why do I feel like this?”

She starts to cry and she can’t stop. She doesn’t cry often anymore, because tears don’t solve anything. They just sap your strength, but she can’t stop now because she was wrong even if she isn’t wrong and that means that there’s no solution, no easy answer.

Tara puts her arms around her and holds her and Buffy lets go for awhile.

In the end she’s quiet and Tara’s murmuring soothing sounds into her ears and she falls asleep.

When she wakes up she’s in her own bed and Logan’s sitting beside her bed.

“Time demons still here?” she asks in confusion.

“Buffy-watch,” he says cheerfully, putting down what’s presumably some homework.

“If you’re doing homework than something’s definitely off,” she says, attempting to joke.

“She slays the room with her humor,” he remarks, giving her a glass of water.

“Puns are my gig,” she grumbles, sitting up. “So what happened?”

“Spike brought you home, asked one of us to stay with you until you woke up. I volunteered.”

“Brave soul,” she says. “Is it Buffy suicide watch or what?”

“Do you think that’s necessary?” he asks her seriously, studying her face.

“Dying would be nice, but I’m not going to make it easy,” she says.

“Why would you do that?” he asks her quietly.

“Turn myself in?”

“That for starters. Then beat Spike up and abandon Dawn and throw your life away.”

“Because I don’t think I deserve it,” she says, not looking at him. “I’ve-I’ve been stripped of everything I love, everything I had. I wasn’t good enough to stay in…that place. I can’t seem to cope being back here and I think life would be a lot easier for everyone if they-“

“Had to come visit you in prison?” he asks, blunt and light.

She stops short and then puts her head in her hands.

“I thought I killed someone. I was already freaking out over Spike being able to hit me. I’m not thinking very rationally.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ve gone on spirals. Once tried to take on an entire motorcycle gang, remember? I thought I might have killed someone myself for awhile there. But I had someone to talk to about it. To help me figure out what really happened.”

“It’s not quite the same thing,” she says.

“Not a perfect match, I’ll grant you,” he says, “but near enough that I can see the wheels in your head spinning like it’s playing Wheel of Fortune.”

“If it is, I’ve probably gone bankrupt.”

“Not you,” he says.

“Thanks to you,” she says.

He smiles.

“Buffy, you’re not alone. It might feel like that way, but you’re not.”

“When did you get all wise?” she asks, stretching, feeling new life come into her tired limbs.

“Oh, please let me tell Veronica you said that,” he says.

“Tell away,” she says, flinging her hand out recklessly.

“I think you and I have opposite problems anyway,” he says, leaning forward. “I’ve been alone for most of my life and when someone came along that loved me, I clung so tight and I keep on suffocating her, or so she tells me. But you, you’ve got people clamoring to love you, yet you hold everyone at arm’s length.”

“I could hurt them. I do hurt them.”

“Loving someone is giving them permission to hurt you. It’s gonna happen whether you’re a completely normal college freshman or a vampire Slayer who’s a very pretty zombie.”

“You think I’m pretty?” she asks, going for valley girl.

“Like a picture,” he says. “Not the point.”

“I don’t know how not to do what I’m doing,” she says, leaning back against her headboard. “I’m stuck, just stuck. I’m just going to keep on withdrawing and using and hurting them.”

“Have you heard of a little thing called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” he asks.

“I guess you could say I’ve been in a war,” she says slowly.

“Uh, yeah,” Logan says. “You’re experiencing one of the most extreme cases I’ve ever seen in my one month of Intro to Psychology.” She laughs at that. “It can take years to get over it, and that’s with counseling and support from your friends. That’s partly why I gave you the money. I want to take away some of the stress. But I can’t do anything about the inner struggle to adjust to a new reality. It’s just gonna take time. Your destiny certainly doesn’t help, but the people who love you can.”

“Giles is gone,” she says despairingly. “Dawn’s too young to bear any burdens for me, Willow’s on a magical AA program, Xander and Anya are wrapped up in each other, Tara’s in post-breakup land, you and Veronica have your own lives and…and…”

“And Spike would lay down his life for you,” he says.

“But he’s never going to understand the importance of some really essential things,” she argues, “and I don’t want to hurt him because I can’t give him what he wants. Not right now.”

“Take what he’s offering and just watch it be given right back,” Logan urges. “And Veronica and I are here for you. Just spending time with Dawn will help her and you. Let us worry about Willow and Tara for awhile. Forget about Giles.”

Buffy laughs.

“Why are you so anxious for me and Spike to be together?”

“Because your love is epic,” he seems simple. “You might even have me and Veronica beat. And, someday, I wanna hear the songs that they’ll write about you two.”

She doesn’t know why, but that comforts her.

She closes her eyes and tries to process and he doesn’t say anymore, perhaps sensing her need to think.

She’s not a murderer, she’s not wrong, she’s not a loveless monster, she’s a soldier in trauma. She likes that term. Soldiers can get help. Soldiers can reacclimatize to their lives. She can do this. She’s the Slayer, she’s Buffy, and she can…she will do this.