CONTENT WARNING: THIS IS A VERY HEAVY FAITH FIC (don't ask my why---she just started rattling around in my head and it was either me or her... I chose to keep myself and give her to all of you... ), IF YOU HATE FAITH THEN DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER! I apologize for inflicting this on all of you, but I have no one else who will read it without signing papers to have me locked up for my own good... so be prepared.
I knew it was a suicide mission from the start. I'd wanted to do something mind-blowingly daring---totally Mission Impossible---something that *she* would never be able to do. I wanted to show him that I was as good of a Slayer as she was, if not better. I wanted him to see what kind of a girl he could have gotten instead of her... Instead of Buffy. I'd intended to become the Mayor's right hand girl---to make him totally dependant on me and then bring his empire crashing down around him from the inside out. That was my intention... but you know how I can get caught up in the moment.
Whoever it was that first said "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." must have been from Sunnydale. I guess it's a good thing that I travel light, 'cause I'm on my way to Hell in a hand basket for sure.
You ever had one of those moments where time just seems to grind to a halt? Things get so slow you don't even notice they've moved till you look away for a bit, and when you look back your whole perspective has changed. Things get real clear and you feel... well, you feel... I don't know how to explain it without involving sex or killing. It's all I know in life. Okay, this thing in my own terms? I'd say it feels like the explosion of orgasm---only it ain't your body that's getting off, it's your mind... or it's like that instant right after you pull the stake out, but before the deadie gets dusted. It's that one perfect moment when everything clicks and you *know*. I guess you could say I'm having one of those moments right now 'cause how else could I be thinking all of this shit through at a time like this?
I'd laugh, but it hurts too much.
It all started rolling when that mess with Willow and the Mayor's little Snack Pack of Uglies happened... Maybe even earlier, but this is when I noticed it. I guess I was expecting tears or panic or the normal Willow-babble. I was expecting the old "tough love" speech and all that huggy-fuzzy-feeling crap. I wasn't expecting her to be so calm. I wasn't expecting her to be so tough. I pulled my knife on her---she didn't bat an eye. When she told me it was over---they've given up on me---I punched her a good one, but she got up without so much as a sniffle. I found myself wondering what had gone wrong. I was wishing that things had turned out differently.
That pissed me off.
To put the icing on the cake, I lost my favorite knife when I used it to pin one of those spider things to the wall by Wesley's head. My Wesley. He was supposed to be mine the way Buffy had Giles---with or without the Council's permission. I really wanted that. I really wanted to be a team again (being partners with someone who is even more psycho than yourself doesn't count), even if it was with the second runner up and not The G-Man Himself. I just hated to admit it.
So, things continued on as normal as they get in my reality, and pretty soon I found myself facing a really pissed Miss B. in my apartment. See---I poisoned her main squeeze and she didn't take too kindly to it. She said she needed *my* blood to save him. I'd never seen her so cold. She should'a been a total basket case, but there she was... waiting to slit my throat for her little vamp lover. It was pitiful---but touching.
I don't think anyone has ever loved me that much.
"Give us a kiss." I said to her, and it began. It was amazing. We were like two elemental forces coming together. I know we had fought great as a team---we'd kicked some major ass in the past---but this blew me away. Just getting into contact like that with her made me high. Even now, with all the time I've had to think about what happened , I still can't sort it out. I can't see her, but I know where she is and what she's gonna do, and I know she feels it too. It's just bodies whirling and striking out and snapping back in for more. It's like the training sessions we used to have with Giles, back when they both believed in me. The same old dance, but now the stakes were higher... life and death.
I remember falling through the air with glittery shards of glass raining around us. I remember getting up to fight again on the rooftop outside. I remember the way the sound of that cuff snapping closed sent a shock of pure panic jolting through my body. I know we must have fought some more, and I must have broken free at some point 'cause the next thing I know, I'm standing by the edge of the roof with her arms around me.
That was when it kicked in... that was when everything clicked. I could feel the tip of the knife---MY knife---as it touched my stomach. It slid in so slow and easy, and I'm standing there with her arm around me and she's so close that I can feel her heart beating to match mine. I'm just standing there thinking, "This is as close as I'll ever get to having her inside me... " and I want to laugh.
I want to cry.
She was everything I'd ever wanted, and she was killing me to save the animated corpse of a lover she could never be with. Love's a funny thing ain't it?
It didn't hurt... not while the blade was still in so deep that her wrist was pressed against my belly. The pain came when she pulled out the knife and backed away from me with that horrified look on her face, leaving me to stand there alone. I was hurting and I felt so cold---so cold, and I realized that maybe by killing me, she's saved me.
It was a no-win sitch from the start, and I should'a seen it then. If I won and she died, then the Ascension would have gone on as planned, and without Buffy I think I'd want to be dead anyway. With me dead and her alive, at least she would have a chance to stop the Mayor, but I might have broken a piece of her by forcing her to kill me. I wish there was someplace in the middle. If there was someplace in the middle I might have found salvation and a place to heal both in body and soul.
Well, I've always been an all or nothing kind of girl.
I think I said something like "You've killed me..." and something about a wild ride, but the words sounded so slow to my ears that I can't be sure what I said. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but that would have hurt both of us even more than we already were.
I do remember one thing quite clearly though. I didn't fall over the edge by accident, and I didn't jump to end my pain in a quick death. I did it to keep her from saving *him*. I hate him for humiliating me. I hate him for making her hurt Giles. I hate him for having a piece of her heart and soul that I could never have, and I hate him for breaking it.
The air is brushing past me like her breath against my neck in that last moment, and I'm drifting so slowly it feels like days have passed. They say your life passes before your eyes when you are dying, but they're mistaken. I'm not seeing my life as it was... I'm seeing it as it should have been.
I see myself wearing a dress like one of Buffy's---real girly, you know?---and we're all sitting outside on the grass. It's the whole gang out there, even Cordelia. We're all laughing and talking, and Giles is smiling at us with that confused but happy look he gets sometimes. The sun is shining... the grass is acid-trip green... the breeze is playing with Buffy's hair... I'm holding her hand, and I can't believe how beautiful she looks and how content I feel just being here with her. I feel whole. Then, there's a loud crunching sound and everything flashes white-hot for an instant before the world goes black, and I can't feel my body anymore, except for my hand.
I can still feel her holding my hand.
