A Barely Breathing Story: Epilogue: Buffy

[jesterladyfic]

Epilogue: Buffy

Buffy’s making pancakes. They’re not the funny shaped ones like Tara makes, nor do they taste as good as the ones her mom used to make and it’s not a gourmet dinner, but she’s doing it with Dawn and that’s the whole point. She’s doing everything with Dawn that she can because she almost lost her and not really to the end of the world or the skeletons that Willow sent to the hospital to immediately ease the suffering of the people there, but to Buffy’s own apathy.

Not really her fault, she knows, but she’s going to make up for it if it’s the last thing she does. And she doesn’t want it to be the last thing. Not anymore.

It’s not perfect. Dawn’s gonna take more than some pancakes before she forgives her and feels safe again. But they spent the morning taking back stolen merchandise and signing Dawn up for community service and reassuring Social Services and it was almost like bonding time.

Buffy figures she won’t ground her because Dawn may have stolen some stuff but Buffy did try to kill her a few weeks ago.

“You’re almost bouncing,” Dawn tells her, sarcasm in her voice.

“I like pancakes,” Buffy defends.

“I'm gonna be okay with everything. Really. You don’t have to do the guilt thing.”

“This isn't guilt. I want us to spend time.”

“Okay. Good. I love spending time-"

“But I'm cramping your teenage style,” Buffy interrupts in horror.

“No-"

“Yes, I am. I'm the embarrassing mom who tries too hard. When did this happen?”

“No, you're not, it's not that, it's just...what if, instead of you hanging out with me? Maybe I could hang out with you.” Buffy just stares. “Why don't I come patrolling with you tonight?”

“Oh, and then? Maybe we can invite over some strangers and ask them to feed you candy?”

“Well, you guys went out patrolling every night when you were my age.”

“True...but technically, you're one-and-a-half.” Dawn gives her the teenage glare of death and Buffy sighs. “See, I thought a little levity might...but okay, also no.”

“I just...I just think I could help.”

“I'm sure you could. But it's a little more dangerous than what I had in mind. Dawn, I work very hard to keep you away from that stuff. Okay? I don't want you around dangerous things that can kill you.”

“Which would be a perfectly reasonable argument, if my sister was chosen to protect the world from tax audits. But, see, my sister is you, and...dangerous things that want to kill me seem to find me.”

And the girl has a point. Buffy hates it when that happens. She’s got enough to atone for without Dawn being right about something too.

And maybe that’s what it comes down to. Life, this thing everyone leads, whether they want to or not. The only thing they have is the people around them and the ability to fight what’s coming.

It’s hard. Life is so hard. No one knows it more than her. And she barely knows what she wants. She’s been wallowing in something dark and dreary for months and months now and she’s been climbing out of it as best she can. Each step and pull upward is a Herculean effort and she’s not out of the woods yet.

She’s going to be working hard for the rest of her life. And she can’t do it on her own anymore. Doing it on your own leads to pain and misery and trying to end the world on a bluff with a serpent woman statue.

Buffy’s stronger than that. Maybe not by herself, but she’s going to lead by example.

“I see. I see it.”

“See what?”

“You.” Dawn looks at her strangely and Buffy wonders how long she’s been lost in her own head, but she continues. “Things have really sucked lately, but it's all gonna change. And I wanna be there when it does.” The tears start to come then, but they’re good tears. “I want to see my friends happy again. And I want to see you grow up. The woman you're gonna become. Because she's gonna be beautiful.” Dawn starts to cry now. “And she's going to be powerful. I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you. There's so much that I want to show you.”

She goes to hug Dawn and she holds her there for awhile. Looking across the kitchen, through the film of her tears, she sees a picture of her mom and she blinks rapidly at the sudden flow of love she feels.

“Thank you,” Dawn says, muffled against her shoulder.

“We’re gonna do so much, Dawnie. You, and me, and…Spike.”

“Really?” Dawn asks, pulling back with a smile.

“Really. That doesn’t mean you need to go looking for the dangerous things. I’m not training you up to be the next Slayer.”

“You just can’t hold onto a moment, can you?” Dawn asks, but the tone is affectionate and Buffy holds onto her.

“Dinner’s burning, love,” Spike says, stepping into the room.

She turns around and turns off the stove, moving the pan before it can catch fire.

“Um..” she says sheepishly, “anyone for pizza?”

It’s a good dinner. It’s a dinner for family and maybe not the most conventional, but it’s enough.

Dawn chatters through her anchovy pizza and Buffy shudders at the thought of it anywhere near her mouth.

“…And Anya said that I could work it off and maybe work my way up to be her assistant, but I’m gonna do a lot more than work at the Magic Box…”

Dawn’s words are happy filler in the back of Buffy’s mind as she sits across from her and hears all about Xander and Anya’s honeymoon and Willow’s first transatlantic phone call and she feels more content. Her friends will be okay. Tara will be there in a few days and Buffy will look after her for a change. Logan’s going home to Veronica tomorrow and they’ll be together.

Now if she can only get this vampire next to her to stop looking at her like she’s going to slug him.

They sit on the back porch after Dawn goes up to study for her exams.

It’s not quite like the comfortable silence they used to have before she died, but it’s something like. The tense subject does hang in the air between them, but she’s not afraid of it anymore.

“You going to get the chip out?” she asks him softly.

He shoots her a startled look.

“That something you might…allow?” he asks hesitantly.

“Let’s get something straight,” she says. “You’re your own man whether you love me or not whether you have a chip in your head or not. You can be a better man than your past and I believe in you. In your ability to choose what’s right. You won’t be perfect and I’ll help you all I can, but I can’t be your only conscience. I’ve got enough to deal with being my own. I appreciate you wanting my input and my opinion, but not my permission, got it?”

He just looks at her and then laughs.

“You’re something else, Slayer,” he says, still laughing.

“I know,” she says. “Now have we got a deal?”

“You have my word I won’t hurt anyone,” he says. “And yeah.”

“Good,” she says, standing up and holding out her hand. “Now…we gonna slay some vampires or what?”

He grins and vamps out, running beside her and it feels like seconds and they’re in the cemetery and there’s a fledgling struggling out of the grave and he’s dust before he’s out.

He’s her perfect match in every way, light where she’s dark and dark where she’s light. He’s strong when she’s fleet and fleet when she’s strong and he knows every move before she makes it.

He irritates the hell out of her and he tastes too much like ashes on occasion and he makes really stupid decisions and he’s annoyingly better than her at handling Dawn, but he’s hers. So much hers, and she wants to be his.

So they do what they do best and rid the world of evil and then she takes him back to her house and she doesn’t intend on letting him go back to the crypt ever again if she can help it.

It finally makes sense to her and maybe she needed months of feeling lost and alone and worthless and dark and wrong before she could realize what she knows now. She doesn’t think the pre-death Buffy could accept such a fate, such a gift, such a road, but she certainly can now, and does.

She arches up underneath him and places her hands on his chest, gripping one shoulder as he moves above her, unmaking her and marking her and letting her be all at the same time. His lips are on her neck and there’s no fear even when his teeth scrape across her skin. She simply grips harder, moans louder, feels brighter.

He explodes in front of her while the lights dance behind her eyes and she feels all of her muscles pulled taught for one glorious moment and then she’s watching him fall down and slump towards her and maybe he doesn’t hear her except he always hears her when she speaks.

“I love you, Spike.” He doesn’t move so she tries again. “Spike, I love you. I mean it. I really-"

He looks up at her and his eyes are golden but his forehead is smooth and she’s confused but she doesn’t care and she simply reaches up to kiss him.

“Say it again?” he murmurs against her lips.

“I’ll be saying it forever,” she promises him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her hands in his hair and gasps while his fingers trace circles across her stomach. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Buffy,” he huffs out, groaning when she blows in his ear and retaliates by tracing his tongue down her neck to that one spot under her ear. “Love you so bloody much.”

And she doesn’t really know the difference anymore between what she thought was love before and what she knows to be love. It doesn’t matter because she knows now, she’s so sure. It’s in her gut, her soul, her mind, her words, her actions, her life. She loves and she lives. She’s Buffy, she’s the Slayer, she’s got a destiny and she’s got a normal life. It’s all one and the same.

She’s the lucky one. She’s got it all. She breathes fully for the first time. She breathes in the scent of him. She simply breathes.