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Entry tags:
Red Becomes Whitey
Title: Red Becomes Whitey
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Willow/Tara, Spike/Buffy but mostly Willow and Spike
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bad_swa: New Life
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 1,475
Date Written: 2 April, 2016
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Whedon, not the author, and are used without permission.
She sits quietly with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She's not even sure where they are now, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they survived and saved the world again. They lost a lot, but in the end, they won -- just not without sacrifice.
She didn't expect the sacrifices that were made last night. She's not surprised by Anya, although she does hurt for Xander. He's still her best friend after all these years. How can she not feel his pain, especially when she herself lost the love of her life? He was the only one who could pull her back from that, and even when she finally gave up killing the world, she wasn't sure she had made the right choice. She wasn't even when she kissed Kennedy and tried to start anew. She wasn't until last night.
"And, I guess, maybe a part of me still isn't completely sure, you know," she babbles, keeping her voice low. The others have all fallen asleep, all but Giles, whose turn it is to drive again. She wonders where they're going, but she doesn't think any of them really have a destination in mind yet except to put as many miles between them and the smoking crater that was once their home as possible. Even Giles seems hurt by the demise of Sunnydale, and she knows Sunnydale is nothing compared to England, especially since she's been there.
Maybe they can go there next, she thinks, but her mind is drifting again. It can't settle. She can't settle. So many people sleeping around her, all exhausted from the biggest fight of their lives -- and it was the biggest, even for Buffy --, and she still can't sleep a wink. She doesn't want to sleep. Her heartbeat quickens, and he looks at her, cocking his head slightly to one side. Okay. So she's kinda scared to sleep, but that doesn't mean she has to say it aloud.
And she's excited, too, far too excited to sleep. She hasn't felt this strange mixture of scared and excited since she found out Vampires are real, and that seems a lifetime ago. "In a way, I guess it was. We were all different people back then, even you. We've all changed in ways I don't think any of us could have imagined back then." She shakes her head, and his grin tells her she's right. He certainly didn't see the changes that would come to him.
"And I guess maybe I feel a little guilty, too. She was right. After all this, . . . " She shakes her head again, having trouble voicing what she's feeling, even if it is just to a figment of her imagination. "She was right. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to listen. She was willing to sacrifice anything to show me, even us, and she was right. I was in the wrong magic. I was playing with things I shouldn't have, and all for the wrong reasons."
Yet, last night, she dealt with something that no other Witch has ever dared to touch, and she won. Buffy told her she won the battle for them, but she doesn't think she's right. Oh, yeah, she blew a lot of the enemy out of the proverbial water, but if it hadn't been for the sacrifices made, especially for one in particular, they would never have survived the fight. She would have only brought a great deal more girls to their deaths.
She can still feel the power tingling within her. She can still feel them, hundreds, possibly thousands of lives, stretched from here to England and further. They're all across the globe. She's heard so many languages in her head since she cast the spell that it's impossible to decipher them all. It's impossible, she thinks, to tell what's real any longer from what's not, thus why she's sitting in the very back seat of the bus, spilling her secrets to somebody who can't possibly be here.
He can't be here, because she knows he died last night. He gave his life, gave his soul, to save them, especially, she knows, to save the woman he loves and her kid sister. But then, in his own way, Spike cared about them all. She blinks, her eyes boring freshly into him. "Are you really here?" she whispers and shakes her head. "You can't be here."
"Does it matter, Red?" he asks in that gentle way of his that makes it impossible to tell how much is sarcasm and how much is just friendly teasing.
Her hand flies to her hair. "Is it . . . "
He shakes his blonde head. "Still there. Guess I oughta start calling you Whitey now."
She grins but still says, "Please don't."
"'Course I won't be calling you much of anything, will I? Surprised they gave me this one last night." He turns, his gaze spanning to several rows before them.
She knows he wishes Buffy and Dawn can see him now. Her heart aches for him. It aches for them all, even the new Slayers she hasn't actually met yet. She wants to reach out to him, to hug him, to pat his shoulder, something, anything to reassure him, but she knows she can't. She already tried, and her hand passed right through him. "Is there . . . Would you . . . " She tries again, "Is there something you'd like me to tell them for you?"
He shakes his head, his soulful gaze whipping back to her. "No," he says quickly, perhaps too quickly. He pauses, considering again before admitting softly, "Everything that needed saying was already said back there, pet."
She smiles. "I'm going to miss that."
"What?"
"You and your nicknames." She's going to miss a lot of things, she knows. She didn't think it was possible to miss a town where so many people either mistreated her or looked over her entirely, but she feels now like she's going to miss everything about it. She still kind of misses the original school that was burned down in their graduation ceremony and even the halls where she was tormented every day she walked through them.
"You've got a new life waiting for you," he says softly, his gaze again going back to the sleeping Slayer, whose arms are tucked securely around her sister, her head in her lap. "You all do. I won't be a part of it."
"I know. I don't like that," she admits after a pause. She looks up when he doesn't answer immediately and gasps aloud at the bright light she sees shining through him.
He smiles and turns his gaze toward the source of the light. "It's just the sun," he says and thinks again of walking with Buffy in the sunlight. It's another thing he'll never have. "We all have a new life, Red, or a new something any way. Tara would want you to enjoy it," he says, and then he's gone as quietly and quickly as he arrived.
Willow blinks back tears. She bites her lip to keep from sobbing aloud. She misses Spike perhaps most of all from the final fight for her hometown, but above all, she misses Tara. She was right, though, she thinks again. She didn't need to have those dealings with black magic, except that she needed to learn from them. She's on the right path now.
She turns her head to gaze out into the morning sun, and for just a moment, her breath catches. For just a moment, she thinks she sees a figure, tall, slender, and beautiful, shining in the golden sunlight. She thinks she sees a hand stretching out for hers, a gentle, sweet smile calling to her. The bus hits a pothole. Slayers groan, and the figure, if she was ever there, is gone.
Willow blinks back tears. The figure is gone. Tara and Spike are gone, but she is not. He's right. They have a new life, rather they want it or not, and she's right, too. She's finally on the path upon which she's intended. She's finally on the path upon which Tara wanted to see her. A single tear escapes her control and falls down her cheek, splashing on a hand that was once held by love.
She stares down at it for a moment, then brushes the moisture away. She's on the right path, and one day, she will see Tara and Spike again. One day, she believes because she has to, everything will be made worth this long, hard journey. She rises in her new life and goes to offer Giles a relief at the wheel. Wherever they're going, they're going together, and wherever they're going, love, friendship, and good magic will win.
The End
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Willow/Tara, Spike/Buffy but mostly Willow and Spike
Rating: PG/K+
Challenge/Prompt:
bad_swa: New LifeWarning(s): None
Word Count: 1,475
Date Written: 2 April, 2016
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Whedon, not the author, and are used without permission.
She sits quietly with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She's not even sure where they are now, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they survived and saved the world again. They lost a lot, but in the end, they won -- just not without sacrifice.
She didn't expect the sacrifices that were made last night. She's not surprised by Anya, although she does hurt for Xander. He's still her best friend after all these years. How can she not feel his pain, especially when she herself lost the love of her life? He was the only one who could pull her back from that, and even when she finally gave up killing the world, she wasn't sure she had made the right choice. She wasn't even when she kissed Kennedy and tried to start anew. She wasn't until last night.
"And, I guess, maybe a part of me still isn't completely sure, you know," she babbles, keeping her voice low. The others have all fallen asleep, all but Giles, whose turn it is to drive again. She wonders where they're going, but she doesn't think any of them really have a destination in mind yet except to put as many miles between them and the smoking crater that was once their home as possible. Even Giles seems hurt by the demise of Sunnydale, and she knows Sunnydale is nothing compared to England, especially since she's been there.
Maybe they can go there next, she thinks, but her mind is drifting again. It can't settle. She can't settle. So many people sleeping around her, all exhausted from the biggest fight of their lives -- and it was the biggest, even for Buffy --, and she still can't sleep a wink. She doesn't want to sleep. Her heartbeat quickens, and he looks at her, cocking his head slightly to one side. Okay. So she's kinda scared to sleep, but that doesn't mean she has to say it aloud.
And she's excited, too, far too excited to sleep. She hasn't felt this strange mixture of scared and excited since she found out Vampires are real, and that seems a lifetime ago. "In a way, I guess it was. We were all different people back then, even you. We've all changed in ways I don't think any of us could have imagined back then." She shakes her head, and his grin tells her she's right. He certainly didn't see the changes that would come to him.
"And I guess maybe I feel a little guilty, too. She was right. After all this, . . . " She shakes her head again, having trouble voicing what she's feeling, even if it is just to a figment of her imagination. "She was right. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to listen. She was willing to sacrifice anything to show me, even us, and she was right. I was in the wrong magic. I was playing with things I shouldn't have, and all for the wrong reasons."
Yet, last night, she dealt with something that no other Witch has ever dared to touch, and she won. Buffy told her she won the battle for them, but she doesn't think she's right. Oh, yeah, she blew a lot of the enemy out of the proverbial water, but if it hadn't been for the sacrifices made, especially for one in particular, they would never have survived the fight. She would have only brought a great deal more girls to their deaths.
She can still feel the power tingling within her. She can still feel them, hundreds, possibly thousands of lives, stretched from here to England and further. They're all across the globe. She's heard so many languages in her head since she cast the spell that it's impossible to decipher them all. It's impossible, she thinks, to tell what's real any longer from what's not, thus why she's sitting in the very back seat of the bus, spilling her secrets to somebody who can't possibly be here.
He can't be here, because she knows he died last night. He gave his life, gave his soul, to save them, especially, she knows, to save the woman he loves and her kid sister. But then, in his own way, Spike cared about them all. She blinks, her eyes boring freshly into him. "Are you really here?" she whispers and shakes her head. "You can't be here."
"Does it matter, Red?" he asks in that gentle way of his that makes it impossible to tell how much is sarcasm and how much is just friendly teasing.
Her hand flies to her hair. "Is it . . . "
He shakes his blonde head. "Still there. Guess I oughta start calling you Whitey now."
She grins but still says, "Please don't."
"'Course I won't be calling you much of anything, will I? Surprised they gave me this one last night." He turns, his gaze spanning to several rows before them.
She knows he wishes Buffy and Dawn can see him now. Her heart aches for him. It aches for them all, even the new Slayers she hasn't actually met yet. She wants to reach out to him, to hug him, to pat his shoulder, something, anything to reassure him, but she knows she can't. She already tried, and her hand passed right through him. "Is there . . . Would you . . . " She tries again, "Is there something you'd like me to tell them for you?"
He shakes his head, his soulful gaze whipping back to her. "No," he says quickly, perhaps too quickly. He pauses, considering again before admitting softly, "Everything that needed saying was already said back there, pet."
She smiles. "I'm going to miss that."
"What?"
"You and your nicknames." She's going to miss a lot of things, she knows. She didn't think it was possible to miss a town where so many people either mistreated her or looked over her entirely, but she feels now like she's going to miss everything about it. She still kind of misses the original school that was burned down in their graduation ceremony and even the halls where she was tormented every day she walked through them.
"You've got a new life waiting for you," he says softly, his gaze again going back to the sleeping Slayer, whose arms are tucked securely around her sister, her head in her lap. "You all do. I won't be a part of it."
"I know. I don't like that," she admits after a pause. She looks up when he doesn't answer immediately and gasps aloud at the bright light she sees shining through him.
He smiles and turns his gaze toward the source of the light. "It's just the sun," he says and thinks again of walking with Buffy in the sunlight. It's another thing he'll never have. "We all have a new life, Red, or a new something any way. Tara would want you to enjoy it," he says, and then he's gone as quietly and quickly as he arrived.
Willow blinks back tears. She bites her lip to keep from sobbing aloud. She misses Spike perhaps most of all from the final fight for her hometown, but above all, she misses Tara. She was right, though, she thinks again. She didn't need to have those dealings with black magic, except that she needed to learn from them. She's on the right path now.
She turns her head to gaze out into the morning sun, and for just a moment, her breath catches. For just a moment, she thinks she sees a figure, tall, slender, and beautiful, shining in the golden sunlight. She thinks she sees a hand stretching out for hers, a gentle, sweet smile calling to her. The bus hits a pothole. Slayers groan, and the figure, if she was ever there, is gone.
Willow blinks back tears. The figure is gone. Tara and Spike are gone, but she is not. He's right. They have a new life, rather they want it or not, and she's right, too. She's finally on the path upon which she's intended. She's finally on the path upon which Tara wanted to see her. A single tear escapes her control and falls down her cheek, splashing on a hand that was once held by love.
She stares down at it for a moment, then brushes the moisture away. She's on the right path, and one day, she will see Tara and Spike again. One day, she believes because she has to, everything will be made worth this long, hard journey. She rises in her new life and goes to offer Giles a relief at the wheel. Wherever they're going, they're going together, and wherever they're going, love, friendship, and good magic will win.
The End