Fic: 'abridgement' by Quinara [Dawn gen; PG-13]
I finished it! Mega thanks to eilowyn for her bannertastic banner, and to our lovely host.
banner by eilowyn.
Several years after dimensions tore, Dawn's figuring out her place in the world.
[about 4500 words; set around 2007-ish; AU after the Gift; 1st person POV but in an epistolary sense; warnings for discussions of death, possibly suicide, possibly eating disorders]
abridgement.
by Quinara
If I die, I wonder if they’ll publish this.
Actually, no, strike that; if I die, I’m sure they’ll publish this, if only on a blog somewhere - or whatever it is they do these days. It’s hard to keep up with the internet here in the lost states - LA’s phone exchange is always breaking down.
If I live, I wonder if they’ll publish this. I wonder if I’ll matter. All this time, after all, it’s been me. I’ve been the cause of all of this - California falling apart, Oregon, Washington, down south - everything with the Scoobies and Giles, may he so not rest in peace. Everything with Buffy finally getting the apocalyptic wasteland she fought really hard not to get. Spike putting his (obviously not over yet) crush on hold to protect me. It warps a teen’s head, you know?
But then I’m very nearly not a teen, am I? Big two-zero’s coming up. Not sure how much that matters. Can’t avoid it, and soon I might not even be a Dawn anyway.
I’ve never been alive when I haven’t been important. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
God, this sounds awful. But we’re travelling out of the city now, and I’ve gotta write something down. What else can I do?
When we came to the end of the tunnels, I asked Spike if he remembered working on them. Because he did, until last year. Buffy and I stuck with Angel but he left to join the digging squad in the suburbs. It wasn’t long after Connor was born. I think the government had a plan to get everywhere connected, feed in some supply channels or something, out of sight from the demons. But the sponsorship’s disappeared now, so they stopped. I think we’re meant to blame the economic downturn. (Spike says that he didn’t come back to us just because the work stopped. I don’t believe him.)
Anyway, we were walking up the Coast line. They hadn’t laid the last stretch of track before the funding went away, but all the other infrastructure was in place - like lights and signs to Oxnard NW. And Oxnard NW was going to exist when we got there. (And it actually did, in a covered-concrete-stairwell kinda way.) After three hours in that stupid trolley car they’d managed to get travelling down the tunnels, let’s just say I was bored.
“Course I do,” he said, in that annoying way he has, like I was an idiot for asking. “Was on this line and all. Seemed like the best way to hear any rumours coming out of Sunny D.”
“Were there any?” I asked. Buffy, obviously, didn’t have anything to say. She hasn’t really talked to me since Giles died. Not that she was a chatterbox before. Or ever. Maybe when I was eight years old.
Back to Spike. Even in the yucky fluorescent distance-measuring lights of the Metro tunnel, I saw his face and I remember it. He was lying when he said, “Not so as I heard.”
And so I pushed him on it. Not right then, because that wouldn’t have worked out - but I brought it up again when we could see the station up ahead. He’d already forgotten what he’d said; his mind was on something else. After a little pushing, though, he closed down. We were right by the last distance light and his face was all in relief. The tension in his jaw froze up and he looked at Buffy, quickly, before he looked back at me. “You don’t need to worry about that now, all right?” he said.
The weirdest thing was, I’m not actually sure he meant that there was badness. I mean, we’re used to badness, Buffy and me. We’re used to Dad leaving, to Mom dying. We’re used to Buffy’s boyfriend turning psycho and my blood breaking down the walls between dimensions. We’re used to Buffy’s friends trying to kill me and we’re used to never fitting in with Cordy and Angel’s gang. We’re used to our favourite vampire (don’t tell anyone) leaving to work on extra-dangerous city projects. We’re used to living in hand-to-mouth survival-type stasis as we bum around the Hyperion. Hey, I wrote a couple novels instead of graduating high school (please don’t read those).
So, yeah, with the rumours Spike had heard - it couldn’t be that Sunnydale’s this demon cesspit of doom, I don’t think. No. Going by the way he looked at Buffy, the way she’s been freaking out ever since that demon took down Giles… I wonder whether Spike’s worried about raising our hopes?
Shit.
cerulean black
sunflower brown
jade gray
flame blue
golden red
The world out here is strange. You don’t really notice when you’re travelling, especially when you’ve come out of the tunnels and have to be on your guard (we’re well beyond the Metro tunnels now), but when you’re camping at night with tents and fire and super-strong people ready for the daytime - how can I describe it?
We don’t fit with the highway now. LA’s a mess; everyone’s seen on the TV that it’s a mess - and Route 101 is kind of the same. Most of the signs have fallen down, like the one we’re using as a windbreak (Ojai / Lake Casitas / NEXT EXIT), but it’s still here. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Every time I thought about the world ending, I always imagined we’d get sucked into hell or something. Everything we knew would cease to be. But now, on foot, highways are our landscape. The bridge system here - three bridges over road, all of them intact, none of them with lairs - those are our natural defenses. The ceilings are too low for anything to come from above; the demons and the dragons will have to come from the sides, if they come, and they probably won’t bother. They won’t see us.
But the trees, the brush, they’re not even really that overgrown. They’re not ravaged or foreign-looking. They don’t care about the highway now, and roots have cracked up the asphalt in a whole ton of places, but they seem so unfazed. They’ve adapted to the demons - and the demons have adapted to them.
Walking along the highway, you can still make out the sea. It looks the same, dark blue and crashing on the coast. I can hear it now, rushing in the distance. You couldn’t hear it much over the cars, before, even when you had your window down. But it never went away. Sometimes it feels like the Earth brought on this apocalypse, not to plague us with the demons, but just to make sure we knew who was boss. Who would always be boss of us.
If the moon and the stars weren’t so bright, I wonder if it would feel more like the apocalypse had really come. If this would feel more like an adventure, rather than just difficult. It’s always darkest before dawn, isn’t that what they say? Well, that’s bullshit. It’s way too bright. All I see is brightness.
Sometimes I remember that Buffy and I are technically meant to be sharing this tent. We don’t, obviously, even though it’s not all that safe. Buffy bunks with Spike. Or doesn’t bunk. Doesn’t sleep. Just talks into the silence until we’re set to move again, sometimes getting rest. I guess it’s not intentional; they always have more to talk about. I mostly write instead of talk these days. Not sure what I would have to say to Buffy anyway - not sure what she would have to say to me. I think I’m the one who decided it was time to die. If, you know, that’s necessary.
I guess they’ve got a lot to talk about? They were never this friendly before Spike went away.
B - …may be ready, but I’m not. I won’t let it end this way.
S - murmur murmur rumble murmur.
B - I don’t think I’m doing it for her, not anymore. This is all me, being selfish. mumble mumble people do. My last act of selfishness, keeping her with me.
S - snarky snark pretend-I’m-not-in-love-with-you-but-let-me-compliment-you-anyway, stunted soulless awkwardness.
B - murmurry murmur I-don’t-love-you-either sigh. But she’ll make me do it. She would.
We stopped by the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. Not the smaller one right on the county limits, the larger one. Didn’t camp there. It wasn’t safe. It’s funny, you know, I don’t remember ever learning how to tell if there’s a dragon nesting nearby, but I figure at some point in my life I didn’t know it. I don’t quite see how I picked it up in LA either. But in case you wanna know - if you can’t see any reason why the grass has thinned out and the ground looks scorched, say it’s facing south near a water source and you’re there in late September - if the birds are quiet (and gone) and you happen to have a vampire with you who can smell a little sulphur - that’s not the time to camp. So we didn’t, because that’s what we saw.
But, anyway, Spike seemed really annoyed that the sign was still standing. In a sort of distracted, nostalgic way, scowling in the moonlight. Buffy looked besotted. It really pissed me off that I didn’t understand. I think I’m bitter.
Obviously, that was when the dragon came out of hiding, making one of its cawing-roaring shrieks at the sky. And we hid. Like field mice, we darted across the park into the shadows of the building there that was all ivied up. You’ll realise since I’m writing this that the dragon didn’t even care - I think it was heading for the mountains. We weren’t important to it; we’re that low on the food chain. I guess humans aren’t really around enough anymore for your average dragon to register us as food - even the demonic ones. We’re pretty bony, I suppose, for our size. Well, Buffy is. And there are bears and things to eat in the mountains - some of those sasquatch demons.
We’re really very small, even if we do own most the globe. It’s so easy to see around here. Without our cars and trucks, we’re too small for the roads - and nature’s got our buildings beat, every time. We’ve only been gone six, seven years, but as far as Pacific North America is concerned, we’re irrelevant.
I know I’m not really human, but it seems so strange that I’m who they chose to house the Key. Maybe with an airplane I’m powerful, but sitting here in the sunshine, alone apart from two sleeping superheroes, with the blue sky above me and the palm trees arching high above the empty, reclaimed buildings… I can feel my breath join up with the breeze and become nothing, get swept up in weather patterns and flicker, filter away until the CO2 rebalances with how the air’s usually made up.
I don’t see how my blood can fix this. It’s all gone too huge. I think it’s gonna be a waste of time.
Emily Jacobson
Nita Cuevas
Octavia Mason
Tina Steiman
Ashley Accola
Courtney
Melissa
Katie
Orchid Styles
Grace
Venice
Melissa Brown
Charlie
We’ve just now realised where we are. The sign’s long fallen away, but there are lights on in the Magic Box. Buffy’s gone in case it’s Scoobies. Spike still has his chip, which is really kinda shit.
So, it’s both Scoobies and it’s not. It’s Tara. Who is both Tara and not Tara, at least not how I remember her. She’s camped out in the Magic Box (like I guess we will be now?) with some group who seem like the Wicca/mystical version of Greenpeace. Mega-strong smell of socks (or - is this stuff what patchouli is?). There’s a dark-haired woman called Vicky who keeps touching Tara’s arm; she was in grad school for seismology or something before, you know, Me happened. I’m not sure she knows I’m me; I’m not sure any of them do. I guess Tara will tell them now.
It’s weird, that Tara’s so different. There’s something about her. It’s like how Spike looks when he’s drunk, but the opposite. You can always tell when Spike’s had too much whiskey, or he’s feeling hungover; he goes kind of blurry around the edges, movements kind of uncanny and loose. I figure other people when they’re drunk look the same. I wouldn’t know, obviously, because it takes more than the world ending for Buffy to let me break federal laws (or state laws, are they state laws?) I’ve broken a couple, but only when they’re less easy for her to see. But, anyway, drunk people look strange and Tara looks strange too, only with her it’s like she’s a little too much in focus. She was always gentle before and now she’s all sharp and angular. Almost (almost) bitchy-looking?
Buffy and Spike are asking her and the other Greenpeace people what they’ve got on the portal, what we can do. It’s not that we didn’t have a plan - find/rebuild Glory’s tower and let me bleed, right? - but they seem to have all these charts about energy signatures and stuff. It kind of makes the world tear seem more real. It makes bleeding out seem more real. I - . I don’t know.
coffee w/cream IIII 5
black coffee II
peppermint tea III
water II
tea tea Spike
I know I should be writing more in here, but. It’s difficult. The weapon cabinets are still on the wall in here; some of the books are intact. This building makes me feel like a child - and back then I didn’t want to die.
canned food (+ six months or less pref.)
shampoo
conditioner
soap
toilet paper
more spoons
more mugs
live vegetable plants
fertilizer (Buffy or Spike)
God, I should have known it was Buffy that made him leave. All those years ago; all that time I spent without him. It’s her fault, apparently. I heard her talking to Tara (because obviously Tara wants to hear all her whining); I wish I knew what she meant.
“I was so ashamed … and Darla knew, kept making comments about it that were always one step shy of the truth. Angel knew too, but he never said anything. That was worse somehow - he’d just look at me so disappointed… Spike, I think I guess he needed that somehow, which I didn’t understand, thought it was about me. When Connor was born - when Darla killed herself… I guess, I don’t know, the proof that it was real died with her. And I was awful. So he left - but he stayed in touch and now… Now is now.”
Fucking cryptic much? I think I hate her sometimes. It might be because I know she wants to save me.
I had to get out of that place. And so here I am, in the broken frontage of Sunnydale Mall. The glass is everywhere, presumably because there was no glass where the demons came from so they never figured they shouldn’t fly into it. And dragon hide beats most things, if Harry Potter has taught us nothing else.
It’s probably not safe to sit here, with all the sharp edges. But then I guess I should get used to sharp edges. Besides, I’m the child of the apocalypse; we don’t follow safety restrictions.
I just miss the mall.
I miss everything about this town, every fake memory I had - before I was me. More recently, I miss the sunlight and it’s nice out here. There’s some kind of justice in seeing how far the creepers have made it into JC Penney. The sun glints off the glass.
I know I’m only biding time. Everyone knows how the portal works. Buffy looks sick the whole time, drawn and grey and thin and shaky. She won’t meet my eyes at all, won’t say a single word to me. It’s like I’m already gone and she’s already mourning. That’s probably easier for her.
I asked Spike why he left, when he left the Hyperion to go and work on the tunnels. He didn’t say much, just looked towards the door. He looks serious now. I think he heard rumours about the Greenpeace people, but had hoped they’d be able to give us more than they have. I’m not sure he’s sleeping either. Anyway, he didn’t say much. It’s all ancient history, apparently, not worth worrying about. He said, “In the end, I had to be somewhere else.”
I think I have to be somewhere else. Not here, not in this world I created. It was OK for a while, but it’s time to woman up, I guess. It’s gonna take them years to fix all this; I can’t fix it. That’s not what I’m doing. But they can’t fix it until I - give in to the needs of the many. Serve my purpose. Do my duty. I just -
I wonder if there are any cute shoes I can loot before I go. They can’t all be moulded up everywhere.
Even bitter like she is now - flinty - Tara still answers when you ask her questions. I guess I couldn’t leave it, the Scooby thing. The way she and the others tried to chase me down.
“You want me to die, don’t you?” I asked her this evening. We were clearing plates from dinner, cleaning them in the tiny Magic Box kitchen area. Somehow, there’s still running water. You can’t drink it without boiling it first - and/or adding some of this purifying stuff from the camping supply store, just in case - but apparently the Sunnydale the pipes are self-sufficient enough that something keeps on coming around. At least enough for one building anyway.
“No,” was what she said, clattering china and metal and glass in the sink. “I don’t.” She started running the hot water (because somehow they’ve got gas too), started washing. “I never did. As for the others… At the time, I didn’t think they did either.”
And then what was it she said? I think I meant to ask her what happened to everyone else. Xander and Anya; we’ve seen no trace of them for ages. Willow won’t let you see her coming - you just hold your silver locket-thing and pray. Giles…
Tara asked me about Giles. I was going to leave; I think I couldn’t think of how to phrase things. She said something like, “He’s dead, isn’t he? Giles?”
I asked her why she thought that.
“That’s the only reason you’d be here. That’s the only thing I can think of why Buffy would allow you anywhere near here.”
And I told her what I thought, I said, “She blames me for him dying. She never got her betrayal to translate out of, I guess, trust.” Or something like that.
But Tara - I remember her with her sudsy sponge. Her shoulders collapsed and some of her hair chose then to fall out of her nouveau-Tara pony tail. And she said, “She shouldn’t.” Meaning Buffy.
I said nothing, but I think my silence asked her why, because she started explaining. Everything in the earth’s connected, she says, like in science with conservation of energy and stuff. Macrostructures and microstructures. Earthquakes. I might have tuned it out. In the end it came down to Tara’s view that we need to close the tear so we can get the world balanced up again. I figured this was why everyone was doing everything, so it seemed a bit unnecessary to say it. I also didn’t think it was worth replying with the question of whether the world was functioning just fine, with the only flaws being for Team USA. (My bleeding killed people, you know. And humans are important.)
Anyway, more interesting than this was where Tara’s segues dragged her to. Because she came back around to Giles, saying, “For a life, there’s always gotta be a death. It’s always at least equal exchange, when you’re dealing with the world. A fawn’s never gonna cut it for a human life.”
She was pretty much in her own world now, though I guess she might have thought I was a sympathetic ear. It took a while for me to catch on to what she was saying.
“It makes sense that it was him.” That’s what I remember her saying, in that soft, brittle voice she’s gone and found, while the water rushed loudly into the glass she was cleaning. That deep, hollow glop, followed by the long sploosh. “He was the one closest to her, apart from me. He’s the one they would take.”
And it was that moment I worked things out. It seemed impossible, but at the same time it was the only thing that made sense. She was talking about Willow, who someway, somehow, must have brought Tara back to life. Tara must have died.
I freaked out a little, then. I said something or other nonsensical and left. I’m not sure Tara knew I was there.
Now, of course, alone in this darkness, I wish I’d asked her what it was like to die. She would have answered, I’m sure of it.
They say I might not have to die. It all seems so unlikely. Like Tara said, with all the lives I’ve taken, surely something’s owed? But still, it’s disingenuous of me to act too dramatic right now. The rituals (they found the box that describes the rituals), they say that all the weird spells and shit Glory did to me the first time was some sort of mystical anti-coagulant. If Buffy hadn’t taken me to the hospital, if they hadn’t washed me, I could have bled to death from a paper cut. You can’t make the walls between dimensions spontaneously collapse from one drop of blood, you need to keep supplying it. To close them shut the blood has to stop flowing from the stream it started at the ritual place.
Really, right now we’re in flux, basically, with the started ritual incomplete, holding open the little tear I made before Buffy grabbed me and started running. Exiting, huh?
Yeah, no.
Anyway, in whatever we’re going to do, there won’t be any ritual. No spells making my blood flow forever. In fact, none of the weird herbs are necessary because the hotspot’s already active. Or something. What it comes down to is that I should be able to just shed some blood and let it stop flowing out of me on its own.
I know. I’ve been thinking it too. Thankfully the time of the month when this is going to happen doesn’t coincide with the other one. I really need to make sure I don’t get a nosebleed either, because that would probably let in at least three more dragons.
This is actually ridiculous, isn’t it? This whole situation is ridiculous.
I had that recurring dream of mine again last night, where I’ve actually been growing up in that clinic Mom and Dad took Buffy to for a consultation. It’s fun being me.
school
head out of town, left until…? right on that road?
ice rink
head north, come off the highway?
airport
boring
Janice’s house
no Janice
I caught Buffy being sick behind the Magic Box; I didn’t say anything. I’m just glad we have shelter now, because there’s no way she could take on anything demonic.
I asked Spike if we could hotwire a car and ride it around Sunnydale. There’s a whole lot of them three blocks away; I figure they can’t all be rusted up. He said he didn’t think Buffy would approve, or that I should talk to her, or something. Like my final days are meant to be all about her.
I went on my own instead. Somehow I’d forgotten that a used car lot was likely to have all the keys in the office. And breaking into that was easy.
And so here I am, sitting in my Dodge pickup truck with almost a full tank of gas. I wasn’t sure where to go; the distances all suddenly seemed impossible. I could only really remember the way home, so I came to Revello Drive. It’s such a mess. I don’t want to go in. I can’t bear to see it.
Part of me thinks I should go and loot some more stuff, but there’s nothing I want. What use is any of it?
I’m here at the beach. There are demons sunning themselves in the late afternoon; great lizards stretched out like cats so their scales glint and gleam with health. They look peaceful, like they belong. Watching through my windscreen, I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the glass. I’m the creature in their zoo, delivering myself.
IT WAS ONLY AN INSTANT
some line from Shakespeare - THE REST IS SILENCE ?
some line from somewhere else?
IN THE END IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER - no, wait, that’s Linkin Park
.
Vicky is diabetic. She gives herself insulin every day. To work out how much she needs she has a gizmo that measures her blood sugar levels. There are these little sticks that receive a drop of blood and a sort of thermometer-looking thing that reads it. To get the blood, she has another device, like a pen. Or more like a really chunky mechanical pencil. You hold it on the pad of your finger, click the button, and it stabs you with a dart-thing. A drop of blood swells up, you scoop it off, and nothing more. It’s almost like an injection.
I tried it out. It doesn’t really hurt at all. It’s easy. That and gravity should be all I’ll need to bleed and walk away. That should be everything.
I wish Mom were here.
42 ft.
Right, so this is it. I guess I go.
In the end, I only have to do one thing: prick my finger and wait for it to clot. Why does it seem so hard? Why do I feel like I’ve gone back in time, like there are velvet robes catching around my legs, refusing to let me run? Why do I feel like I can’t trust anybody? Why can’t I see what’s going to happen after this? I haven’t eaten today, but I feel like I shouldn’t do this on a full stomach. But then I’m hungry.
Prick my finger and wait for it to clot. That’s all I have to do. That’s all it takes to change the world.
I guess it’s just - waiting is always the hard part.
Am I ready to go? There should be a thousand things I still want to do, shouldn’t there? But in the end there’s only this. Buffy doesn’t believe it’ll work; she thinks she’s gonna have to kill me. Spike can’t, after all. None of the others are allowed to.
I guess we only get so many choices in the end. I’ll walk, I’ll wait, I’ll bleed. And then I’ll see what happens. I guess?
.
banner by eilowyn.
Several years after dimensions tore, Dawn's figuring out her place in the world.
[about 4500 words; set around 2007-ish; AU after the Gift; 1st person POV but in an epistolary sense; warnings for discussions of death, possibly suicide, possibly eating disorders]
abridgement.
by Quinara
If I die, I wonder if they’ll publish this.
Actually, no, strike that; if I die, I’m sure they’ll publish this, if only on a blog somewhere - or whatever it is they do these days. It’s hard to keep up with the internet here in the lost states - LA’s phone exchange is always breaking down.
If I live, I wonder if they’ll publish this. I wonder if I’ll matter. All this time, after all, it’s been me. I’ve been the cause of all of this - California falling apart, Oregon, Washington, down south - everything with the Scoobies and Giles, may he so not rest in peace. Everything with Buffy finally getting the apocalyptic wasteland she fought really hard not to get. Spike putting his (obviously not over yet) crush on hold to protect me. It warps a teen’s head, you know?
But then I’m very nearly not a teen, am I? Big two-zero’s coming up. Not sure how much that matters. Can’t avoid it, and soon I might not even be a Dawn anyway.
I’ve never been alive when I haven’t been important. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
God, this sounds awful. But we’re travelling out of the city now, and I’ve gotta write something down. What else can I do?
When we came to the end of the tunnels, I asked Spike if he remembered working on them. Because he did, until last year. Buffy and I stuck with Angel but he left to join the digging squad in the suburbs. It wasn’t long after Connor was born. I think the government had a plan to get everywhere connected, feed in some supply channels or something, out of sight from the demons. But the sponsorship’s disappeared now, so they stopped. I think we’re meant to blame the economic downturn. (Spike says that he didn’t come back to us just because the work stopped. I don’t believe him.)
Anyway, we were walking up the Coast line. They hadn’t laid the last stretch of track before the funding went away, but all the other infrastructure was in place - like lights and signs to Oxnard NW. And Oxnard NW was going to exist when we got there. (And it actually did, in a covered-concrete-stairwell kinda way.) After three hours in that stupid trolley car they’d managed to get travelling down the tunnels, let’s just say I was bored.
“Course I do,” he said, in that annoying way he has, like I was an idiot for asking. “Was on this line and all. Seemed like the best way to hear any rumours coming out of Sunny D.”
“Were there any?” I asked. Buffy, obviously, didn’t have anything to say. She hasn’t really talked to me since Giles died. Not that she was a chatterbox before. Or ever. Maybe when I was eight years old.
Back to Spike. Even in the yucky fluorescent distance-measuring lights of the Metro tunnel, I saw his face and I remember it. He was lying when he said, “Not so as I heard.”
And so I pushed him on it. Not right then, because that wouldn’t have worked out - but I brought it up again when we could see the station up ahead. He’d already forgotten what he’d said; his mind was on something else. After a little pushing, though, he closed down. We were right by the last distance light and his face was all in relief. The tension in his jaw froze up and he looked at Buffy, quickly, before he looked back at me. “You don’t need to worry about that now, all right?” he said.
The weirdest thing was, I’m not actually sure he meant that there was badness. I mean, we’re used to badness, Buffy and me. We’re used to Dad leaving, to Mom dying. We’re used to Buffy’s boyfriend turning psycho and my blood breaking down the walls between dimensions. We’re used to Buffy’s friends trying to kill me and we’re used to never fitting in with Cordy and Angel’s gang. We’re used to our favourite vampire (don’t tell anyone) leaving to work on extra-dangerous city projects. We’re used to living in hand-to-mouth survival-type stasis as we bum around the Hyperion. Hey, I wrote a couple novels instead of graduating high school (please don’t read those).
So, yeah, with the rumours Spike had heard - it couldn’t be that Sunnydale’s this demon cesspit of doom, I don’t think. No. Going by the way he looked at Buffy, the way she’s been freaking out ever since that demon took down Giles… I wonder whether Spike’s worried about raising our hopes?
Shit.
cerulean black
sunflower brown
jade gray
flame blue
golden red
The world out here is strange. You don’t really notice when you’re travelling, especially when you’ve come out of the tunnels and have to be on your guard (we’re well beyond the Metro tunnels now), but when you’re camping at night with tents and fire and super-strong people ready for the daytime - how can I describe it?
We don’t fit with the highway now. LA’s a mess; everyone’s seen on the TV that it’s a mess - and Route 101 is kind of the same. Most of the signs have fallen down, like the one we’re using as a windbreak (Ojai / Lake Casitas / NEXT EXIT), but it’s still here. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Every time I thought about the world ending, I always imagined we’d get sucked into hell or something. Everything we knew would cease to be. But now, on foot, highways are our landscape. The bridge system here - three bridges over road, all of them intact, none of them with lairs - those are our natural defenses. The ceilings are too low for anything to come from above; the demons and the dragons will have to come from the sides, if they come, and they probably won’t bother. They won’t see us.
But the trees, the brush, they’re not even really that overgrown. They’re not ravaged or foreign-looking. They don’t care about the highway now, and roots have cracked up the asphalt in a whole ton of places, but they seem so unfazed. They’ve adapted to the demons - and the demons have adapted to them.
Walking along the highway, you can still make out the sea. It looks the same, dark blue and crashing on the coast. I can hear it now, rushing in the distance. You couldn’t hear it much over the cars, before, even when you had your window down. But it never went away. Sometimes it feels like the Earth brought on this apocalypse, not to plague us with the demons, but just to make sure we knew who was boss. Who would always be boss of us.
If the moon and the stars weren’t so bright, I wonder if it would feel more like the apocalypse had really come. If this would feel more like an adventure, rather than just difficult. It’s always darkest before dawn, isn’t that what they say? Well, that’s bullshit. It’s way too bright. All I see is brightness.
Sometimes I remember that Buffy and I are technically meant to be sharing this tent. We don’t, obviously, even though it’s not all that safe. Buffy bunks with Spike. Or doesn’t bunk. Doesn’t sleep. Just talks into the silence until we’re set to move again, sometimes getting rest. I guess it’s not intentional; they always have more to talk about. I mostly write instead of talk these days. Not sure what I would have to say to Buffy anyway - not sure what she would have to say to me. I think I’m the one who decided it was time to die. If, you know, that’s necessary.
I guess they’ve got a lot to talk about? They were never this friendly before Spike went away.
B - …may be ready, but I’m not. I won’t let it end this way.
S - murmur murmur rumble murmur.
B - I don’t think I’m doing it for her, not anymore. This is all me, being selfish. mumble mumble people do. My last act of selfishness, keeping her with me.
S - snarky snark pretend-I’m-not-in-love-with-you-but-let-me-compliment-you-anyway, stunted soulless awkwardness.
B - murmurry murmur I-don’t-love-you-either sigh. But she’ll make me do it. She would.
We stopped by the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. Not the smaller one right on the county limits, the larger one. Didn’t camp there. It wasn’t safe. It’s funny, you know, I don’t remember ever learning how to tell if there’s a dragon nesting nearby, but I figure at some point in my life I didn’t know it. I don’t quite see how I picked it up in LA either. But in case you wanna know - if you can’t see any reason why the grass has thinned out and the ground looks scorched, say it’s facing south near a water source and you’re there in late September - if the birds are quiet (and gone) and you happen to have a vampire with you who can smell a little sulphur - that’s not the time to camp. So we didn’t, because that’s what we saw.
But, anyway, Spike seemed really annoyed that the sign was still standing. In a sort of distracted, nostalgic way, scowling in the moonlight. Buffy looked besotted. It really pissed me off that I didn’t understand. I think I’m bitter.
Obviously, that was when the dragon came out of hiding, making one of its cawing-roaring shrieks at the sky. And we hid. Like field mice, we darted across the park into the shadows of the building there that was all ivied up. You’ll realise since I’m writing this that the dragon didn’t even care - I think it was heading for the mountains. We weren’t important to it; we’re that low on the food chain. I guess humans aren’t really around enough anymore for your average dragon to register us as food - even the demonic ones. We’re pretty bony, I suppose, for our size. Well, Buffy is. And there are bears and things to eat in the mountains - some of those sasquatch demons.
We’re really very small, even if we do own most the globe. It’s so easy to see around here. Without our cars and trucks, we’re too small for the roads - and nature’s got our buildings beat, every time. We’ve only been gone six, seven years, but as far as Pacific North America is concerned, we’re irrelevant.
I know I’m not really human, but it seems so strange that I’m who they chose to house the Key. Maybe with an airplane I’m powerful, but sitting here in the sunshine, alone apart from two sleeping superheroes, with the blue sky above me and the palm trees arching high above the empty, reclaimed buildings… I can feel my breath join up with the breeze and become nothing, get swept up in weather patterns and flicker, filter away until the CO2 rebalances with how the air’s usually made up.
I don’t see how my blood can fix this. It’s all gone too huge. I think it’s gonna be a waste of time.
Emily Jacobson
Nita Cuevas
Octavia Mason
Tina Steiman
Ashley Accola
Courtney
Melissa
Katie
Orchid Styles
Grace
Venice
Melissa Brown
Charlie
We’ve just now realised where we are. The sign’s long fallen away, but there are lights on in the Magic Box. Buffy’s gone in case it’s Scoobies. Spike still has his chip, which is really kinda shit.
So, it’s both Scoobies and it’s not. It’s Tara. Who is both Tara and not Tara, at least not how I remember her. She’s camped out in the Magic Box (like I guess we will be now?) with some group who seem like the Wicca/mystical version of Greenpeace. Mega-strong smell of socks (or - is this stuff what patchouli is?). There’s a dark-haired woman called Vicky who keeps touching Tara’s arm; she was in grad school for seismology or something before, you know, Me happened. I’m not sure she knows I’m me; I’m not sure any of them do. I guess Tara will tell them now.
It’s weird, that Tara’s so different. There’s something about her. It’s like how Spike looks when he’s drunk, but the opposite. You can always tell when Spike’s had too much whiskey, or he’s feeling hungover; he goes kind of blurry around the edges, movements kind of uncanny and loose. I figure other people when they’re drunk look the same. I wouldn’t know, obviously, because it takes more than the world ending for Buffy to let me break federal laws (or state laws, are they state laws?) I’ve broken a couple, but only when they’re less easy for her to see. But, anyway, drunk people look strange and Tara looks strange too, only with her it’s like she’s a little too much in focus. She was always gentle before and now she’s all sharp and angular. Almost (almost) bitchy-looking?
Buffy and Spike are asking her and the other Greenpeace people what they’ve got on the portal, what we can do. It’s not that we didn’t have a plan - find/rebuild Glory’s tower and let me bleed, right? - but they seem to have all these charts about energy signatures and stuff. It kind of makes the world tear seem more real. It makes bleeding out seem more real. I - . I don’t know.
coffee w/cream IIII 5
black coffee II
peppermint tea III
water II
tea tea Spike
I know I should be writing more in here, but. It’s difficult. The weapon cabinets are still on the wall in here; some of the books are intact. This building makes me feel like a child - and back then I didn’t want to die.
canned food (+ six months or less pref.)
shampoo
conditioner
soap
toilet paper
more spoons
more mugs
live vegetable plants
fertilizer (Buffy or Spike)
God, I should have known it was Buffy that made him leave. All those years ago; all that time I spent without him. It’s her fault, apparently. I heard her talking to Tara (because obviously Tara wants to hear all her whining); I wish I knew what she meant.
“I was so ashamed … and Darla knew, kept making comments about it that were always one step shy of the truth. Angel knew too, but he never said anything. That was worse somehow - he’d just look at me so disappointed… Spike, I think I guess he needed that somehow, which I didn’t understand, thought it was about me. When Connor was born - when Darla killed herself… I guess, I don’t know, the proof that it was real died with her. And I was awful. So he left - but he stayed in touch and now… Now is now.”
Fucking cryptic much? I think I hate her sometimes. It might be because I know she wants to save me.
I had to get out of that place. And so here I am, in the broken frontage of Sunnydale Mall. The glass is everywhere, presumably because there was no glass where the demons came from so they never figured they shouldn’t fly into it. And dragon hide beats most things, if Harry Potter has taught us nothing else.
It’s probably not safe to sit here, with all the sharp edges. But then I guess I should get used to sharp edges. Besides, I’m the child of the apocalypse; we don’t follow safety restrictions.
I just miss the mall.
I miss everything about this town, every fake memory I had - before I was me. More recently, I miss the sunlight and it’s nice out here. There’s some kind of justice in seeing how far the creepers have made it into JC Penney. The sun glints off the glass.
I know I’m only biding time. Everyone knows how the portal works. Buffy looks sick the whole time, drawn and grey and thin and shaky. She won’t meet my eyes at all, won’t say a single word to me. It’s like I’m already gone and she’s already mourning. That’s probably easier for her.
I asked Spike why he left, when he left the Hyperion to go and work on the tunnels. He didn’t say much, just looked towards the door. He looks serious now. I think he heard rumours about the Greenpeace people, but had hoped they’d be able to give us more than they have. I’m not sure he’s sleeping either. Anyway, he didn’t say much. It’s all ancient history, apparently, not worth worrying about. He said, “In the end, I had to be somewhere else.”
I think I have to be somewhere else. Not here, not in this world I created. It was OK for a while, but it’s time to woman up, I guess. It’s gonna take them years to fix all this; I can’t fix it. That’s not what I’m doing. But they can’t fix it until I - give in to the needs of the many. Serve my purpose. Do my duty. I just -
I wonder if there are any cute shoes I can loot before I go. They can’t all be moulded up everywhere.
Even bitter like she is now - flinty - Tara still answers when you ask her questions. I guess I couldn’t leave it, the Scooby thing. The way she and the others tried to chase me down.
“You want me to die, don’t you?” I asked her this evening. We were clearing plates from dinner, cleaning them in the tiny Magic Box kitchen area. Somehow, there’s still running water. You can’t drink it without boiling it first - and/or adding some of this purifying stuff from the camping supply store, just in case - but apparently the Sunnydale the pipes are self-sufficient enough that something keeps on coming around. At least enough for one building anyway.
“No,” was what she said, clattering china and metal and glass in the sink. “I don’t.” She started running the hot water (because somehow they’ve got gas too), started washing. “I never did. As for the others… At the time, I didn’t think they did either.”
And then what was it she said? I think I meant to ask her what happened to everyone else. Xander and Anya; we’ve seen no trace of them for ages. Willow won’t let you see her coming - you just hold your silver locket-thing and pray. Giles…
Tara asked me about Giles. I was going to leave; I think I couldn’t think of how to phrase things. She said something like, “He’s dead, isn’t he? Giles?”
I asked her why she thought that.
“That’s the only reason you’d be here. That’s the only thing I can think of why Buffy would allow you anywhere near here.”
And I told her what I thought, I said, “She blames me for him dying. She never got her betrayal to translate out of, I guess, trust.” Or something like that.
But Tara - I remember her with her sudsy sponge. Her shoulders collapsed and some of her hair chose then to fall out of her nouveau-Tara pony tail. And she said, “She shouldn’t.” Meaning Buffy.
I said nothing, but I think my silence asked her why, because she started explaining. Everything in the earth’s connected, she says, like in science with conservation of energy and stuff. Macrostructures and microstructures. Earthquakes. I might have tuned it out. In the end it came down to Tara’s view that we need to close the tear so we can get the world balanced up again. I figured this was why everyone was doing everything, so it seemed a bit unnecessary to say it. I also didn’t think it was worth replying with the question of whether the world was functioning just fine, with the only flaws being for Team USA. (My bleeding killed people, you know. And humans are important.)
Anyway, more interesting than this was where Tara’s segues dragged her to. Because she came back around to Giles, saying, “For a life, there’s always gotta be a death. It’s always at least equal exchange, when you’re dealing with the world. A fawn’s never gonna cut it for a human life.”
She was pretty much in her own world now, though I guess she might have thought I was a sympathetic ear. It took a while for me to catch on to what she was saying.
“It makes sense that it was him.” That’s what I remember her saying, in that soft, brittle voice she’s gone and found, while the water rushed loudly into the glass she was cleaning. That deep, hollow glop, followed by the long sploosh. “He was the one closest to her, apart from me. He’s the one they would take.”
And it was that moment I worked things out. It seemed impossible, but at the same time it was the only thing that made sense. She was talking about Willow, who someway, somehow, must have brought Tara back to life. Tara must have died.
I freaked out a little, then. I said something or other nonsensical and left. I’m not sure Tara knew I was there.
Now, of course, alone in this darkness, I wish I’d asked her what it was like to die. She would have answered, I’m sure of it.
They say I might not have to die. It all seems so unlikely. Like Tara said, with all the lives I’ve taken, surely something’s owed? But still, it’s disingenuous of me to act too dramatic right now. The rituals (they found the box that describes the rituals), they say that all the weird spells and shit Glory did to me the first time was some sort of mystical anti-coagulant. If Buffy hadn’t taken me to the hospital, if they hadn’t washed me, I could have bled to death from a paper cut. You can’t make the walls between dimensions spontaneously collapse from one drop of blood, you need to keep supplying it. To close them shut the blood has to stop flowing from the stream it started at the ritual place.
Really, right now we’re in flux, basically, with the started ritual incomplete, holding open the little tear I made before Buffy grabbed me and started running. Exiting, huh?
Yeah, no.
Anyway, in whatever we’re going to do, there won’t be any ritual. No spells making my blood flow forever. In fact, none of the weird herbs are necessary because the hotspot’s already active. Or something. What it comes down to is that I should be able to just shed some blood and let it stop flowing out of me on its own.
I know. I’ve been thinking it too. Thankfully the time of the month when this is going to happen doesn’t coincide with the other one. I really need to make sure I don’t get a nosebleed either, because that would probably let in at least three more dragons.
This is actually ridiculous, isn’t it? This whole situation is ridiculous.
I had that recurring dream of mine again last night, where I’ve actually been growing up in that clinic Mom and Dad took Buffy to for a consultation. It’s fun being me.
school
head out of town, left until…? right on that road?
ice rink
head north, come off the highway?
airport
boring
Janice’s house
no Janice
I caught Buffy being sick behind the Magic Box; I didn’t say anything. I’m just glad we have shelter now, because there’s no way she could take on anything demonic.
I asked Spike if we could hotwire a car and ride it around Sunnydale. There’s a whole lot of them three blocks away; I figure they can’t all be rusted up. He said he didn’t think Buffy would approve, or that I should talk to her, or something. Like my final days are meant to be all about her.
I went on my own instead. Somehow I’d forgotten that a used car lot was likely to have all the keys in the office. And breaking into that was easy.
And so here I am, sitting in my Dodge pickup truck with almost a full tank of gas. I wasn’t sure where to go; the distances all suddenly seemed impossible. I could only really remember the way home, so I came to Revello Drive. It’s such a mess. I don’t want to go in. I can’t bear to see it.
Part of me thinks I should go and loot some more stuff, but there’s nothing I want. What use is any of it?
I’m here at the beach. There are demons sunning themselves in the late afternoon; great lizards stretched out like cats so their scales glint and gleam with health. They look peaceful, like they belong. Watching through my windscreen, I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the glass. I’m the creature in their zoo, delivering myself.
IT WAS ONLY AN INSTANT
some line from Shakespeare - THE REST IS SILENCE ?
some line from somewhere else?
IN THE END IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER - no, wait, that’s Linkin Park
.
Vicky is diabetic. She gives herself insulin every day. To work out how much she needs she has a gizmo that measures her blood sugar levels. There are these little sticks that receive a drop of blood and a sort of thermometer-looking thing that reads it. To get the blood, she has another device, like a pen. Or more like a really chunky mechanical pencil. You hold it on the pad of your finger, click the button, and it stabs you with a dart-thing. A drop of blood swells up, you scoop it off, and nothing more. It’s almost like an injection.
I tried it out. It doesn’t really hurt at all. It’s easy. That and gravity should be all I’ll need to bleed and walk away. That should be everything.
I wish Mom were here.
42 ft.
Right, so this is it. I guess I go.
In the end, I only have to do one thing: prick my finger and wait for it to clot. Why does it seem so hard? Why do I feel like I’ve gone back in time, like there are velvet robes catching around my legs, refusing to let me run? Why do I feel like I can’t trust anybody? Why can’t I see what’s going to happen after this? I haven’t eaten today, but I feel like I shouldn’t do this on a full stomach. But then I’m hungry.
Prick my finger and wait for it to clot. That’s all I have to do. That’s all it takes to change the world.
I guess it’s just - waiting is always the hard part.
Am I ready to go? There should be a thousand things I still want to do, shouldn’t there? But in the end there’s only this. Buffy doesn’t believe it’ll work; she thinks she’s gonna have to kill me. Spike can’t, after all. None of the others are allowed to.
I guess we only get so many choices in the end. I’ll walk, I’ll wait, I’ll bleed. And then I’ll see what happens. I guess?
.