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Disclaimer: I don’t own anyone in this story. If I did, they’d all be happy. They belong to Joss, Mutant Enemy (and the Master dude), and the WB Network. I’m just playing, I’ll put them back when I’m done. Don’t sue. I have absolutely no money to call my own. The lyrics to “Home” belong to Sarah McLachlan from her album “Solace.”
Author’s Notes: This takes place in the summer between Season 2 and 3. It’s from Whistler’s POV, he’s watching over Buffy while she’s being stupid and thinks she’s Anne. It’s a little late, yeah, I know. I just got this CD, though, and this one song is perfect for this story. So I just had to write it. Feedback is greatly appreciated, it gives me the strength to write more depressing stories!!!! Please send me some!!!!!!!!!
I watched closely, following her every move. It wasn’t too difficult, she barely did anything. Went to work every day, went to that box she called a home. Watched her waste slowly away, watched as she kill herself with guilt and sadness. The pain she felt was understandable, you’d feel that way if you were in her shoes. She hadn’t believed me when I told her there was one more thing to lose.
And she had lost it, paid such a terrible price for it. She hadn’t even known it was going to happen, it had just hit. No warning. Like a tornado, it hit and swept everything away from her.
She had lost herself. The overbearing weight of the world on the shoulders of such a small child is painful to see. Even for a demon. No one should have to suffer that much.
Child walks to the river
And looks as far as she can see
And draws each breath as if it were the last
And wipes away the tears across her sleeve
But she had. It came with the territory of being the one to stop hell from overtaking Earth. The one that allowed the world to continue rotating, allowed its inhabitants to continue breathing. It was her duty. And she had performed it. Points for effort, at least. My metaphorical heart twisted in agony as I watched her move down the street, sullen. Grief-stricken after all this time. It had only been months, really, but she looked as if it had happened yesterday.
She wasn’t helping herself, either. This denial thing was getting way out of hand. Who was she kidding? Certainly not herself, that much was evident in her eyes. A person’s eyes are said to be the window to the soul, and in this case it was definitely true. I could tell everything she was thinking just by glimpsing at her eyes.
She can see where the river crawls to the sea
Like a baby into mother's care
Somehow the longing is so far away
The innocence so wasted and aware
She was thinking of him. How unusual. He seemed to plague her thoughts day and night, every second of every minute. And I should know, I watched her all the time. It was so incredibly ironic it makes me sick. She should have just staked him and been done with it. Then there would be none of this. No mortal anguish. No running, no hiding. There would be peace.
There would probably also be a dead Slayer, because without her guardian she would have been dead long ago. Several times over, in fact. I had always wondered why they had allowed the romance to blossom, come to a head, and disintegrate. They, of course, being my bosses. The Fates.
They had tried to explain it to me, tried to make me see their motives. I just thought it was downright cruelty. But those Fates were tricky things. They would make things all right in the end.
If the Slayer didn’t end it first. She was close, I could see it. Suicide was something not even the Maker could save a person from. Suicide would damn the Slayer to hell. Forever. At least she’d get to be with her boyfriend.
Stupid vampire. He should’ve stayed away from her. If he knew what he was doing to her, he’d brood so much his lips would be permanently turned into a frown. Or he’d just go on and on about how much he loved her and I’d feel like killing myself. It would be just like the good old days.
A fight broke out in a darkened alley up ahead. A scream pierced the silence of the night. The Slayer halted, eyes darting to the side, body tense. The scream was choked off and a horrible laughter replaced it. As if remembering her charade, she slumped forward and continued to trudge on, leaving the poor victim to her horrible fate.
I had seen it, though, for a moment those eyes had sparkled at the prospect of an upcoming battle. A chance to pour all her anger and anguish out, and kick some undead ass.
Look at the child with the dream in her eyes
Holding it deep inside her
Home... Home...
But it was gone as quickly as it had come, being forced back down as ‘Anne’ retook the body. It was so pathetic to watch. There was no Anne. She should deal with that at the moment. But we all know how well she was dealing with sending Angel to hell, so the chance of her coming to her senses and loosing the fake identity anytime soon was very slim. It would take a lot more than one vampire to speed up the process.
It would take a certain vampire to do that, the only one to ever have a soul returned to him. A certain vampire who was at this very moment being put through the tortures of hell. Of a personal hell, I had heard that the pain they physically inflicted on him had done nothing. So they had attacked his mind, playing horrible games with it. Tricking it into thinking that the one thing it wanted more than anything else, the one thing it needed, was with it. They teased him, taunted him, allowing him to make love to what he thought was her and then revealing the truth. They were cutting away at his humanity, driving him mad with the suffering they were causing his heart.
A heart that belonged to the small blond girl who walked not thirty feet in front of me. Just as her heart belonged to him. They had an influence on her as well, invading her dreams and allowing her to make love to him all night long. In the morning, she awoke in a cold bed with no one there to hold her.
So much anger, so deeply ingrained
Seemed a burden that was hers alone
She didn't think that there was anything wrong
With wanting a life that she could call her own
She had wanted a normal life. A life that didn’t consist of vampires, stakes, crosses, holy water. She hated religion, yet she probably owned more crosses than the Vatican. A life where the only cares she had were those of normal teens--which tiny skirt she should wear to school the next day and which boy she should to go out with on Saturday night. A life that she didn’t have to fight for every night. A life where she didn’t have to lie to her own mother about why she was always getting into trouble.
A life that was not controlled by destiny.
How could I explain?
You would not want to hear
You wouldn't listen if I talked anyway
For you were too weighed down by your own fears
But that wasn’t in the hand of cards she had been dealt. It was beyond her control. She should be making the best of it, not running from it. She should be back with her mother and friends and Watcher, figuring out how to get her boyfriend out of hell. She should be fighting, not giving up.
Too bad she didn’t see it that way.
It was so unbelievably simple, all she had to do was return to Sunnydale. Everything would be righted if she did. But she couldn’t bare it, couldn’t bare all the memories the stupid town brought forth. She was frightened, she was sad, and she was completely alone.
There was nothing she had ever faced that was as scary as that.
I stopped following her a block away from her tiny apartment. I just watched her go, shaking my head. As if that would do any good. As if that would bring her lover back, make her go back to Sunnydale, and make this whole mess be over with. Wishful thinking.
And yet, that spark was still there. She had to have a reason to fight again, she had to have something to fight for. As if humanity wasn’t enough. It was still in her, that fire that had kept her alive through it all. It just had to be reignited, maybe a few logs needed to be added. She’d come around, sooner or later.
For the sake of the world, it had better be sooner.
Look at the child with the dream in her eyes
Holding it deep inside
Home... home... home... home...