ItHurtsP3

It Hurts (So Bad) - 3

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It was a week or so before Christmas when she saw him the first time. He was like a vague misty shadow standing at the foot of her bed watching her. She blinked her eyes repeatedly and rubbed them to clear the sleep from them. By the time she finished he was gone. She picked up the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and took a long drink and went back to sleep. The dreams were stronger that night and she woke up screaming his name several times. Each time she woke she drank more of the whiskey to put her back to sleep and to blot out the dreams.

Two or three nights later she saw him again. This time he was a little clearer, a little less misty. She knew she was hallucinating but she didn’t care. She laid there in her bed watching him watching her as she continued to drink from a bottle of whiskey. Somewhere halfway through the bottle he faded away and she finished the bottle with tears running down her face.

Dawn came over on Christmas morning with several presents for her. Willow had come along also and had brought a small package. Buffy ignored her and her present until she left to wait outside in the car. Buffy hadn’t bought anything for Dawn, she never went anywhere to shop, except the liquor store. Dawn didn’t comment on the lack of presents from Buffy and tried to smile and be happy for both of them. When she left two hours after arriving she was stretched to her limit from the stress. When she got into the car with Willow she cried for over a half hour before she could get herself back under control.

Buffy had let the present from Willow sit on the coffee table all day without touching it. In the evening she had finally picked it up and opened it. Inside was a picture in a silver frame of Buffy sitting in a chair with Xander kneeling next to her on one side, Willow sitting in a chair next to her on the other side and Giles standing behind her. She remembered the picture and when it had been taken. It was in the library at Sunnydale High School during her first year in Sunnydale. She was smiling at the camera as she was surrounded by her two best friends and the man she was growing to think of as a substitute father. With tears running down her cheeks she wrapped the paper back around the picture and carried it over to the small dresser near her bed. She opened the bottom drawer and placed the picture inside and pulled a sweater over the package to hide it from view. Tears continued to run down her face as she opened a fresh bottle of whiskey and drank half of it without pausing.

A little after eleven she ran out of whiskey and knew she wouldn’t make it through the night without more to drink. The picture from Willow had struck deeply inside her and had brought feelings to the surface she had been trying for months to bury away. Feelings of friendship, love and trust. Feelings of loss, anger and betrayal. She checked her pocket to make sure she had some money and left the apartment. She weaved her way down the street toward the liquor store, using the walls of buildings to steady her as she headed toward the blinking neon lights.

Once in the store she went immediately to the counter and asked for two pint bottles of a fairly cheap whisky and for three packs of generic brand cigarettes. She had decided months ago that it didn’t make sense to buy expensive whiskey or cigarettes. She didn’t really like the taste of either one so what was the point of paying more for something else. The man behind the counter was use to seeing her come in at night and placed both bottles of whisky and the cigarettes in a paper bag and handed it to her along with her change. He didn’t try to talk to her, even though it was Christmas, he knew she wouldn’t respond, she never had before.

As she walked back toward her apartment a young man stepped out of an alley and started following her. He was a local neighborhood predator, a thug and thief who usually assaulted elderly women and snatched their purses or smashed out car windows to steal whatever was left inside by the foolish owners. He had been drinking himself that night and seeing her coming out of the liquor store had decided that she was the perfect victim. He came up behind her quietly and made a grab for the bag in her hand. Buffy was intoxicated and responded without even thinking. She intercepted the reaching hand and with a twist snapped his wrist. She didn’t even take a look at his face. She released his hand and continued on her way toward her apartment. The young man had dropped to his knees from the pain in his broken wrist and peed in his pants. When he was finally able to get back onto his feet he started walking toward the nearest hospital which was several miles away. Each step sent waves of pain through his wrist and arm and with each step he swore to himself that he would get even with the bitch for what she had done to him.

When she got back to her apartment it was almost midnight, ten more minutes more or less. She opened one of the packs of cigarettes and lit up one. With the cigarette hanging from her lips she opened one of the pints of whiskey. She took a drag off of the cigarette and removing it from her lips took a swallow of the whiskey. As the whiskey burned it’s way down her throat she let the smoke out of her lungs. The dual burning sensation made her eyes water and a sigh escaped her lips. She sat back on her bed, leaning against the headboard and took another drag off the cigarette and another drink of whiskey. A twisted smile was on her lips.

At midnight, or a few minutes after, she saw him again. He seemed to be at a distance walking toward her. She knew even in her intoxicated state that what she was seeing wasn’t real. The distance was much to far away for him to be real and inside her apartment. She took another drink and watched her hallucination draw nearer. She watched the roll of his walk and a tightness built up in her chest.

His black leather duster moved with him as he walked, seeming to have a life of it’s own. His bleached blonde hair was combed back and smooth, undisturbed. A cigarette seemed to be hanging from his lips. As he drew nearer she watched him draw on the cigarette and the tip glowed. His hands were down inside his coat pockets. The tightness in her chest increased.

She had seen him just like this a hundred and more times. Walking down a street or through a cemetery, heading toward her to join her on a patrol. As he drew ever nearer she could see him looking in her direction with that smirky smile of his on his lips. He stopped at the foot of the bed and took another drag off his cigarette, the tip glowed. He tilted his head a little to one side and she could see his lips move as he spoke. There wasn’t any sound, hallucination couldn’t really talk or make sounds unless you were crazy, but she could read his lips she was so familiar with the words. “I’ve been looking for you, Luv.” Buffy turned the bottle in her hand up and chugged until it was empty. She flipped it over against the wall where it broke and fell to the floor. With tears running from her eyes she whispered back “I’ve been looking for you too”. She closed her eyes and let the whiskey take her into a dreamless sleep.

She started seeing him every night after that. Sometimes at a distance, sometimes up close. Sometimes he seemed to be doing things or talking to other people she couldn’t see. Other times he seemed to be focused on her and speaking to her. She couldn’t hear what he was saying of course, but sometimes she could read the words on his lips. Twice as she read his lips she remembered the conversation that they’d had and mouthed her side of the conversation back to him. The pain in her chest took her breath away as she spoke the words from a conversation years gone past. She also realized that the slower she drank the longer the hallucinations seemed to last.

When Dawn came over two days before the New Year she noticed the broken bottles on the floor and that Buffy was already drunk in the middle of the afternoon. Buffy had a glazed and unfocused look in her eyes as if she was looking off to a distant place. Dawn tried to take away the bottle of whiskey she was holding but she refused to give it up. Dawn tried to talk to her but couldn’t get through her drunken haze. When Dawn finally left Buffy didn’t even notice. Her mind was focused on Spike as he moved around before her.

On the day after New Years Day, Dawn came over to see Buffy again, this time earlier than usual. Buffy was already drinking but hadn’t reached a state of complete drunkenness yet. As Dawn talked to her and she sometimes responded, Dawn became aware that Buffy was staring off into a distance at times and at other times she acted as if she were watching someone or something across the room. As she sat there quietly watching Buffy she saw that her lips were moving as if she were talking to someone. Leaning closer she heard Buffy whisper “Spike” and a few moments later whisper something else she couldn’t make out. But she could see a soft sad smile spread across her lips. Dawn hadn’t seen Buffy smile for any reason for such a long time that the smile came as more of a shock than the fact she was apparently talking to Spike in her drunken state of mind.

Dawn knew that Buffy’s heart had been broken when Spike had died at the Hellmouth. She had also come to realize that when Buffy had learned that Spike had come back to life and had not contacted her before he died again her heart had been shattered. Dawn sat there watching Buffy whisper words to Spike as she smiled off into the distance, tears were running from her eyes. When Dawn couldn’t take it anymore she stood up from where she was sitting and started to leave. Buffy became aware of her movement and focused in on her. Before she could get to the door Buffy reached out toward her and asked for some money. Dawn opened her purse reluctantly and pulled ten twenty dollar bills out and set them on the nightstand by the bed. Buffy looked at her with a vacant gaze and nodded her head as if in gratitude and then stared off into the distance again and started whispering to herself. Dawn hurried from the apartment and out to her car before she broke down and started crying.

**** (12/04)