What Might Have Held

[katleept]

The Slayer remains on his mind long after he's left California behind him. Part of him feels guilty for abandoning her, Spike, and the others. After all, they were the closest people he's ever known to friends, but had he stayed there, he would surely have died. She would not have chosen him over her friends if faced with such a decision, and such a one probably would have come along.

Clem looks at his reflection several times as he passes through the desert. There's nothing there to love, no reason why any one should ever choose him over a friend, a loved one, or even a human being they had henceforward not known. At one point, the Demon tries smiling to see if a grin might improve his image, but his mirror cracks.

He turns his radio up higher and keeps driving. Still, he thinks of Buffy, and of Spike. He thinks of Spike every time the sunlight hits his eyes and each time a motorcycle passes by him. He thinks of Buffy every time he sees humans, which is quite often on his trek across the nation. He remembers her little sister every time he sees a kid and reminisces over the deeper friendships he would have loved to have shared with any or all of them. He thinks of Buffy and Spike as the sun sets, and when the night sky begins to lighten, he knows a new day is dawning and wonders rather or not its light will find Sunnydale.

But he doesn't go back. He doesn't turn around. He can't, or so he tells himself. The sad fact is that he has nothing to offer. He's not a fighter. He couldn't have helped them in the battle against the great evil. He could have only hindered them, slowed them down, gotten some one killed trying to protect him, or been killed himself.

He has nothing to offer. That's why Buffy didn't try to stop him from leaving. She knew he wasn't an asset to her or to her cause. She knew staying would get him killed and slow them all down. Yet, she had looked so sad when he'd admitted he was leaving. The look she'd given him, although she'd spoken bravely, was enough to leave a Demon feeling guilty for the rest of his life.

Clem looks into his rearview mirror and wonders how long that life will be. If Buffy didn't stop the evil, it will spread from Sunnydale. It'll hit LA next and come from there. If Buffy didn't stop it, it can't be stopped. Clem has utter faith in the Slayer. If it can be stopped, she'll stop it, but what if she couldn't?

He cries as Wings of my Heart plays over his radio and keeps driving and wondering. What if the great evil is coming after him even now? What if there's really nowhere to where he can run? What if he left the only friends he ever knew to die without him and still has nowhere to go to escape the evil, to live? That thought has him picking up a stray dog on the side of the road and sharing his last bag of potato chips with the gangly hound.

He keeps driving. Day after day, night after night, with barely a stop, he keeps driving. Paying attention to the road helps to keep at least some of his thoughts at bay. Concentrating on staring at the highway that stretches before him burns away his tears, those that the hound doesn't lick off of his ugly face at least. He keeps driving until he can drive no more, until he runs out of land, until he sees the opposite ocean from that which runs alongside California's greatest beaches.

It's as he's coming to a stop that he hears a mention of Sunnydale, California, on the news and turns it up. Where the town had been now sits a great hole in the earth, but nothing's coming out of the hole. The newscaster speculates that a meteor hit the town, but Clem knows the truth. He is, perhaps, one of the few who does.

Buffy stopped the evil again. He wonders if she lives, fears he'll never know, turns off his car and radio, and gets out onto shaky legs. He ignores the blaring horns and screaming people. Even his canine companion's excited barks fall on deaf ears where the Demon's concerned as he ambles to the railing looking out over the ocean.

He doesn't know how long he stands there with his beefy arms looped around the railing, his face leaning into the breeze, and his ears turned to the sound of the surf lapping the rocks far below him. It doesn't matter how long he's there. He doesn't have a clock to punch or a friend to call. He has nowhere to be and no place where he belongs. It's just him.

A weight on his foot causes him to look down. Clem smiles through the tears he hasn't realized, until now, that he's shedding as the dog looks forlornly up at him. He whines. "Hungry, boy? Yeah. Me, too." The dog's ears flatten against his brown head and he shakes slightly as Clem's stomach whines.

"I've got some food, more than I need, that's for sure."

Clem looks up at the unexpected, female voice. His eyes peer at perhaps not the most beautiful face he's ever seen but nonetheless a fragile, female face that glows with kindness. There are tears in her eyes, too, and he wonders from what she's running. Surely she couldn't be another Hellmouth survivor like himself? He wonders how many of them there are, if any one who didn't run survived. Is Buffy dead? Dawn? Spike?

"Here you go, boy. I won't need this." The woman tosses the dog a sandwich, then stands and offers Clem another from her backpack.

He looks at her through eyes suddenly narrowed with suspicion. The way she talks makes him wonder where she's been and into what she's going. "Why won't you need it?" he asks quietly.

She shrugs. "You want the food or not?"

She's suddenly blunt, her polite manners gone, but his senses tell him there's more to her story than that which she's allowing to show. "Yes, of course. Thank you. Tell me. Is there a good, cheap place to stay around here?"

"Cheap. Ha! In New York! That's a good one!" Then she grows solemn again and, with a shrug, says, "I guess you could stay at my apartment."

"You wouldn't mind?"

"I won't be using it."

The dog whines, and suddenly, Clem understands. "You're not afraid of me." He cocks his head and surveys the woman closer. She's been crying for a long time. She's hurting, and he wants to end that pain. He wants to end it for her like he should have helped Buffy to do.

She shrugs again. "Why should I be? You're just fat and ugly like me."

He places a hand over the heart in his chest and makes a face. "Ouch." And then he reaches a hand out for her shoulder. She doesn't move. He clamps her shoulder in a gesture of friendship, determining, in that moment, not to let her go. He shakes his head; his ears wriggle. "The woman I see before me is not ugly." He smiles, but there's a tinge of sadness even then to his grin. "Maybe a little big," he admits, "but what's that saying? I like my women with some meat on their bones?"

She laughs. "This is crazy!" she exclaims but knows she's smiling for the first time in months. "It's Friday night. I don't think I have any plans now. You wanna do something?"

He positively beams down at her. "With you?" She nods, gulping. His ears wriggle again; despite the strangeness of the habit and their size, she finds the motion oddly, endearingly cute. "I'd love to! I've got loads of movies in my trunk."

"We'll start there." Her grin grows, making her look even more beautiful in the light of the rising sun. Clem's arm stretches around her large shoulders, supporting her, protecting her, letting her know he's there for her, and most importantly of all, leading her away from the surf whose hungry bubbling he can still hear and what it might have held for them both.

The End