Once More (Part 11)

ONCE MORE/ PART 11

Willow sighed. She wanted to go find Buffy, to pull her out of slumber and tell her things could be the way they were but something kept her from it. The same something that had kept her from telling Cordelia the truth when they were on the roof of the Bronze together. So, instead of Buffy, she thought of Angel.

Willow had thought when she hugged him that the poor man's body would snap. The years had not been kind to him. It was the weight of guilt, she told herself. A million years of random murder could not compare, to Angel, to what he did to Buffy.

She wanted to help, she wished she could help, she knew she would help if she tried. Aside from each other, Willow had been the best friend Buffy and Angel had ever had. But the returned Slayer had forsaken her opinion, so it seemed, and Willow did not want to tread where she was unwelcome. In fact, it distressed her greatly. She had made Angel a promise, one she did not intend to break.

Yet it continued to tear her up inside. It was nearly dawn when Willow fell fitfully to sleep, and even then she was thinking constantly of the person in the other room, trying desperately to reach out and read her thoughts at that moment. It didn't work.

To Oz, or so she was thinking lately. No one else in her life; no one was needed. He fulfilled her absolutely. It had always been a given to Willow that she would have kids one day. Less than a privilege, it was more of a right. She had assumed that most, if not all women thought of it that way. Willow shuddered at the thought of Buffy in bed alone.

**************

Assuming Willow was asleep, Buffy decided to make her move. It was impossible to get sleep, not after the night she'd had. And when she plaintively cast an eye out the window and saw the rain falling, slivers of diamonds shooting through the cloudless night to the pavement, she longed to get out and be a part of it. Sunrise had always had a special meaning to Buffy, but this dawn was different. It reminded her of him.

From the beginning, there had never been anyone else for her. Now that she looked back on those times, from the very first time she saw Angel she had felt that exciting, unfamiliar love that she never wanted to lose. And oh, she had lusted for him, too. As much as her inexperienced sixteen-year-old body could.

She wanted to be with him forever, to feel his body next to hers until the end of time. But feeling inside her loins, Buffy still found emptiness. Her heart was full, but she didn't feel that body anymore. She had tried to see other men since leaving Sunnydale, but their touch only left a taste in her that was too reminiscent of him. They had encountered almost every obstacle to love; there was the inevitable talk of initiating Buffy as well as the almost-realized vision of making Angel mortal. And the one thing she held dearest about him was that he would never change.

But she could, and did. She changed the night of her best friend's wedding. Buffy had always needed to be his world, his star, and ever since they left Sunnydale High she had become less of that person to Xander. He had his share of women, all of them beautiful and capable and sincere and loving. None of them, not even the one who was supposed to be Buffy's replacement, could change what they had. Buffy had never loked Cordelia, and her closeness with Xander cinched their mutual dispassion.

Buffy stepped gingerly out of the descreened window, feeling the icy cold of the lawn under her feet. She needed Angel right now, so badly she could sense him through the nothingness of the rain. Silently, beautifully, she lifted her hands and kissed the rain. Buffy felt the water soak into her body, absorbing her grief. The Slayer remembered his tender touch and tried to sob. But she could not.

The terror shot back to her, convulsing Buffy's wet body with the first of the new sobs. How distant her torture was now, now that she could place her wounds and her shock to a face again. Her death was a nothing, a cosmic event, a cycle of the universe in terms of everything her calling stood for. So it was only fitting that he took away her capacity to give life.

Buffy imagined the drops as tiny knives, slicing through her skin, digging to the bone. She sought catharsis that night. But he was gone, just as he had been then.

Send feedback to: Saraswati

Next Part
Previous Part

Main Page