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Part 2
Silence stretched taught over the small room. Buffy ate her energy bar quickly, the only food she’d have until night. As if night and day made any difference anymore. Jessica meditated on the boy’s location, and having failed to pinpoint it ate her own breakfast quietly.
"You should go," Buffy said finally, into the quiet air.
"Where?" Jessica asked, looking up from her dry cereal (milk was hard to get) and tattered old book. Their eyes met-green and brown, both tired and full of heartache.
"To the Compound. To celebrate," Buffy said shortly, standing up and turning away to pick up her black shoes, her gloves and mask.
"Why? I thought it was nonsense," Jessica reminded her, that forlorn quality creeping into her voice again. Buffy paused, unable to turn back and look at her.
"Xander never thought so," she said quietly, and bent to pull on her boots.
Silence crept over them again.
"Won’t you come?" Jessica whispered. Buffy straightened up and drew out a few pins, coiling her braid around her head and pinning it up before she put on her gloves.
"I have work to do," she said, something inside her crying at the thought, at the mention of those dark streets, the horror that haunted what had once been a bright city, an alive city. The City of Angels. It was the City of Demons now. She pulled on her mask, becoming a shadow again, a thing of darkness suited to the darkness, not a human at all. She paused at the door. "Merry Christmas," she whispered, and slipped out.
When the darkness came, Xander had been at home, playing cards with his little sister and Willow. In the basement, they had survived the worst of The Change. Willow..Willow hadn’t done as well, but Xander and Jessica had emerged relatively unscathed to a new world. Jessica, they found, had a talent-she could sense people in trouble. And there were a lot of people in trouble. Now, years later, there were less. Out of the millions of people who’d once lived in L.A. she only sensed a few every day. The others were in the Compound, or dead.
She couldn’t tell much about them. Their sex usually, maybe their general age. How frightened they were. She knew what area of the city, but never specific addresses. But Buffy searched anyway. That was all there was left to do. At first they all searched..Buffy, Xander and Angel. But Xander had died and Angel had gone away, and now the Slayer searched alone on those empty dark streets.
Days blurred into weeks, and months. Time was relative; there were no days, or nights, except what humans made them to be. She hunted as long as she could, and then she went back and ate, and slept, and woke to hunt again. She fought sometimes, but most of the demons have moved on, and the ones that were left were big enough to give pause to even the Slayer. Mostly she searched. On Christmas Day she searched for a little boy who had been crying in Jessica’s soul for days.
Memories gripped her as she walked. Snow in Sunnydale. Decorating the Christmas tree with Xander and Willow. Xander ate half the popcorn before they could string it, and then they had a fight, and threw it all over the living room.
She remembered Willow’s annoyed comments about Santa Claus and Xander’s Scooby Dance, Giles’ insistence on putting up Christmas lights and her mother’s willingness to satisfy Buffy’s need for gingerbread at two in the morning on Christmas Eve.
And then she remembered the last Christmas. Before it all ended.
She’d been depressed, thinking about Angel and the year before, when it snowed. She’d opened her stocking without enthusiasm and taken for granted Xander’s Snoopy Dance when they watched a Charlie Brown Christmas.
There weren’t words for how much she wished she could go back and relive that week. The last week of Buffy Summers’ life, as far as she was concered.
Now she was nothing more than a shadow, slipping through the darkness, calling silently to a little boy that cried for his mother.
She passed right by him at first. This little bundle of rags on the side of a street, curled up beneath the remains of a hot dog stand. Beneath the heavy silence she heard it, and paused, her Slayer senses jumping, taking her over as they never had back when the world was light and the sun shone. She was a much better Slayer now, stronger, more honed. She didn’t care if she died, and it showed.
But she was a much worse person.
It was less than a whimper, but that was enough. She slipped soundlessly back and paused again, listening to the sounds of breathing. She knelt and saw him, curled in on himself, trying not to cry out. She pulled off her mask and caught those big, dark eyes, so full of fear, then smiled sadly. "Hello," she whispered. "Merry Christmas."
His name was Eli and he was all of four. He looked two, maybe three, all huge eyes in a thin, sunken face. His mother had been hiding with him since The Change. She never knew that there were other people alive, only a few miles away. And a few days before she had been killed by something. A big birdy, Eli said, flapping his pitifully thin arms.
There was no choice. Only one place to take him.
He was sadly easy to hold. He clung to her for dear life, and when he asked her name she smiled at him, despite herself and told him. She hadn’t done that for a long time. Usually she just found them and brought them back to HQ, where Jessica took charge and took them to the Compound. But Jessica wouldn’t be there today, at least, Buffy hoped she wouldn’t. And this boy needed food and water soon. Not to mention warmth, and a kind face. Kinder than Buffy’s.
She held him in her arms and ran. One person could usually go undetected, but two gave off a fair amount of warmth, and that brought predators. The only reason the Compound still survived was the spells Willow and others had built around it, shields to keep it unnoticed. His arms wrapped around her neck, frail and strong, the grip of someone who wants to live, who has found his salvation. Or maybe just a scared little boy who lost his mother as so many had.
She slowed as they approached, ducking inside a fallen building and through one it’s vents which led down. The actual Compound wasn’t underground, but having only one entrance made it easier to guard. She emerged a few minutes later, Eli trembling with fear from the dark, but not having made a sound. He was afraid to, his mouth clamped shut, his teeth chattering. She stroked his face and turned to look at the men holding guns on her.
"The password is Sunnydale," she said. She hadn’t come in a year in a half, but Jessica kept her updated. The men lowered their weapons, still eyeing her suspiciously. "I’m Buffy." They blinked and their eyes widened, then they stepped back from the door. One of them punched in a code and the thing swung open. "Thanks," she said softly and walked inside, and up the passage, emerging into the main room.
It was decorated. Strings of Christmas lights with broken bulbs hung everywhere. Eli’s eyes widened in delight. He wouldn’t remember Christmas. Probably not the sun either. There was a Christmas tree in one corner..true, it was a little thin and scorched, but it was a Christmas tree. Little children were decorating it with their parents. Eli looked even more surprised to see other children his age. Buffy smiled. "You can go play," she said softly, setting him down. He shook his head and clung to her legs.
"Buffy!" a voice cried. Buffy looked up to see Jessica coming quickly across the room. "You came!"
"Well, I had to bring Eli," she said. Jessica smiled brilliantly at the little boy. "Eli, this is Jessica. Jessica, Eli," Buffy introduced.
"Thank you Buff," Jessica said softly, looking up, her eyes shining.
"It’s what I do," Buffy replied.
"You’ll stay, won’t you?" Jessica asked, looking anxious all of a sudden.
"I should say hello to Willow," Buffy said evenly, no trace of the pain she felt coming into her voice. Jessica nodded.
"She’s in the kitchen." Buffy nodded and knelt down beside the little boy.
"Will you stay with Jessica? She’ll take good care of you, I promise. I bet they even have some presents for you," she said softly. His eyes lit up and a smile tugged at his serious lips. Then he looked back at Buffy.
"I wanna stay with you," he said firmly. Buffy’s heart did that achy-thing again that she thought she’d forgotten.
"I’ll be back in a minute, I promise. I just have to go say hello to someone." He shook his head stubbornly. Buffy sighed, then picked him up again and set him on her hip.
"All right. Come on." She met Jessica’s eyes again and then walked past her, into the kitchen.
The place was busy. Men and women chattered happily as they prepared dinner. She smelled turkey, and mashed potatoes and-fruitcake? She almost laughed. Then her eyes lighted on a slender young woman at a table, cutting out cookies and setting them on a tray to be baked. Buffy walked over slowly and set Eli down on the bench.
"Can I have a cookie?" he asked. Buffy nodded, unable to speak for a moment as she watched the girl she’d once known better than anyone in the world cut bells out of cookie dough.
"I thought you didn’t like Christmas," she said softly. "Remember, ‘not everyone worships Santa.’ "
Willow’s hand paused and her face turned, unseeing eyes going straight to Buffy’s face.
"Buffy?" she whispered quietly. Buffy sat down on the bench beside Willow.
"Merry Christmas Will. Or Happy Hannukah or whatever," she said softly, taking one of Willow’s hands. Willow trembled, her other hand searching the air and finding Buffy’s face. She traced it softly, her fingers pausing for a moment over the scar on Buffy’s cheek.
"What happened?" she asked. Buffy searched her best friend’s face. It was the same, all of it, except older. Sadder. And those endlessly searching eyes, darkened forever just as the world was.
"Carri demon," Buffy replied shortly.
"Well you still look gorgeous," Willow said serenely, as if she could see the difference in her mind’s eye.
"Liar," Buffy accused fondly. There was a pause. "Christmas cookies Will? I never would have guessed."
"It’s not about a religion anymore," Willow replied, letting her hands fall. "It’s about hope, and being together. They don’t look too demented do they? I can use a cookie cutter, but I can’t tell how they turn out."
"They’re fine," Buffy replied.
"I didn’t think you would come," Willow said softly.
"I didn’t think I would either." Buffy looked away, traced flour on the table idly. "I dreamt about them last night."
"I do that a lot," Willow replied softly. "What did you dream?"
"That it was Christmas, and we were all together." She paused. "I’m sorry."
"For what?" Willow asked.
"For everything."
"Can I have another one?" Eli asked.
"Fine with me," Buffy said lightly.
"Who’s your friend?"
"This is Eli. Eli, this is my friend Willow." The boy paused to say hello before taking a bite of his cookie.
"Are you staying?" Willow asked after a moment.
"I don’t know. I’m not exactly feeling merry."
"All the more reason to stay here," another familiar
voice said, stepping out of the doorway and into the
light. Buffy looked up, already knowing who’s dark
eyes she would meet.