Fanfiction: Requiem
Everyone wanted to go. After being confined to the hotel for a few unendurable days, the outside world had started to sound like the Elysian Fields. Dawn went on a mission, visiting every room to gather as many of the group as possible. The other girls who had been staying with the Scoobies had all gone back to their respective homes, full of Slayer power and the knowledge of how to properly utilize it, so that limited her selection of shopping partners, but she was not to be denied.
Buffy and Willow had been easiest to convince, since they had jokingly discussed visiting a mall right before the battle with the First. Xander and Andrew were at a stalemate in their Star Wars game, and they figured they could at least check out the comic book store at the mall if nothing else. Robin Wood had been found in Faith’s room, and he reluctantly agreed after admitting that getting out would do his spirits some good. No one knew where Faith had gone, but as they were all preparing to leave, they found her sitting on a curb outside the hotel. She eyed the group while Buffy-Dawn’s peppy demeanor not being the ideal personality for dealing with Faith-tried to convince the brown-haired Slayer to visit the mall, at least for a few minutes. Faith’s dour mood was evident in the half-hearted shrug she gave, and Buffy grabbed her hand and led her to the van that Giles had rented.
Everyone struggled to squeeze in, Faith making it perfectly clear that she did not wish to be anywhere near Robin by deliberately sitting in the front seat with Giles.
Giles started up the van and pulled out of the parking lot into the fast-approaching dusk. As they passed the front of the hotel, Buffy caught the briefest glimpse of a tall, blonde-haired specter from the past staring at her from across the street, but when she looked again, the apparition had vanished.
REQUIEM: REACTION
Reaction is everything. Reactions will save you or damn you. They’re your best friend and your worst enemy. No matter how fast or far you run, you can never escape the reality of reaction. Even running is a reaction to something, right? Everyone would like to have control over their reactions, but the sad truth is that most of us are unable to alter impulses that come too quickly to analyze, and by the time we realize what we’ve done, the action is over and we’re either glad or sorry, happy that we made the right choice or disappointed that we made the wrong one. Think back to a time when you reacted unwisely; think back years, months, days, minutes. You’ve undoubtedly caused pain to yourself or others at some point. You’ve got skeletons in your closet, as do we all. But how would things be if you could’ve reacted differently? What if you could somehow know the outcome of a situation beforehand? Wouldn’t that be nice? To have the decision made in advance, all ready to go as soon as the world came crumbling down around your feet. A nice story, but unrealistic. Ultimately, we’re slaves to our subconscious reactions, unable to stop ourselves from acting out of fear or anger, lust or revenge. And no one can control their responses indefinitely; everyone has a breaking point, whether they’ll admit it or not. In the end, the real question is: when things are out of control…how will you react?
Buffy reacted so quickly that everyone was amazed.
“There it is! Turn here!” she practically yelled, reaching up from the back seat to yank on Giles’s shirt. “You’ll miss the mall, Giles! Turn!”
Giles maneuvered the van in a way that its engineers surely would never have considered in order to turn where Buffy had pointed. The wheels on the left side went over the curb, tossing everyone forward, as Giles uttered some English expletives that no one else understood. Finally, however, he slammed on the brakes, halting the van perfectly within a designated parking space. Turning his head over his shoulder, Giles was about to say something about his driving ability, but half the van had already emptied. He spied Buffy, Willow, and Dawn, already halfway across the parking lot, making fast for one of the many mall entrances. Andrew and Xander quickly followed, as did Robin, closing the sliding door behind him. Slightly put off that he had received no commendations, Giles looked to Faith, who gave him a small, unhappy shrug. Giles noticed that she hadn’t even been wearing her seat belt, surely not a wise decision considering the Evel Knievel-style antics he’d just performed.
“You know,” he began, trying to be helpful as he removed the keys from the ignition, “safety belts are installed for a reason.”
Faith halfheartedly checked her unused seat belt. She hadn’t even realized that it was there. She gave another little shrug and exited the van, followed closely by Giles, who intended to keep an eye on the brown-haired Slayer.
Buffy, at the head of the pack, was relieved to be taking this little trip to the mall. For the past few days, she’d moped about, feeling sorry for herself, and this was a good way to get her mind away from the Spike situation. Dawn, almost as eager, but for completely different reasons-she was just there to shop without any other agenda-was trailing only a foot or so behind her older sister. Willow, with an excited smile across her face, was next to Dawn. No words were necessary to describe shopping bliss, so none of the trio spoke, preferring to silently worship the temple to consumerism instead.
As they approached the high glass doors, Buffy saw the same blonde man from the hotel in the reflection that the glass showed her. She pondered it for a moment, confused. He was…blurry. She kept walking as she noted that the figure’s edges seemed to fade in and out of the night, making him appear fuzzy. His face was obscured in shadow. Her hand touched the door as the face came sharply into focus for one limitless moment, and she stopped. The door had gone ice cold beneath her fingertips.
Buffy whirled around, searching the night-bathed parking lot for the man, but he was nowhere to be found. Dawn and Willow looked over their shoulders, expecting to see something, too, but when nothing presented itself except Xander’s goofy wave, they turned back to Buffy, waiting for an explanation. When none immediately came, Dawn pressed the issue.
“What’re you gawking at, Buffy?” she asked, the initial confusion quickly turning into impatience. The mall would be closing in about two hours, barely enough time for shopping.
“I thought-I mean-you didn’t see?” Buffy’s eyes kept darting back and forth. “You didn’t see…him?”
“See who?” Willow returned, thinking that perhaps Buffy had seen someone dangerous. “A demon?”
Buffy silently surveyed the parking lot from left to right one last time, her eyes tracking every miniscule movement. But the man had vanished completely, leaving no trace. “It was nothing,” she said, lowering her head and turning again for the door. “My mistake.” She walked through the entrance without looking back. Willow and Dawn, suspecting nothing more than usual Slayer paranoia, were right behind her.
“I didn’t know such places existed.”
“For once, Andrew, I agree with you.”
The un-dynamic duo of Xander and Andrew were standing in front of the comic book store, gazing in awe at its sheer grandeur. Their heads turned up to read the glowing neon sign which proclaimed this testament to the undying fortitude of the comic book industry to be “Comics or Death”.
“Doesn’t leave much room for negotiation,” Xander commented.
“Who cares?” Andrew said, digging into his pockets and bringing up a collection of bills that had to add up to at least twenty dollars. “It’s comics for us!”
Laughing like small school children, the pair ran full-tilt into Comics or Death, prepared to gorge themselves on comic goodness.
Faith and Giles walked side by side through the mall, which was one of the most lavish that Giles had seen in America. Considering that he’d seen only one other mall, the now below-sea-level Sunnydale complex, that wasn’t saying much. But it looked expensive. He even saw a number of things that interested him, a highly unusual occurrence, and he was about to check out a store specializing in the restoration of ancient texts when he realized that that would leave Faith by herself. Again. She hadn’t been enthralled with the mall in even the slightest way; she steadfastly refused to even consider the stores, preferring to examine the floor pattern instead. The ex-Watcher knew that something was troubling her, and he wanted to help. Whether Faith would accept said help was a different matter. Giles decided to go ahead and offer it anyhow.
“Is something the matter, Faith?”
They continued their slow walk through the lower floor. The mall was only sparsely populated, but that was to be expected considering the late hour. Softly glowing lights gave the place an unusually cozy atmosphere, even with the deep shadows that such lights tend to cast. Low murmurs of conversations drifted in and out, an endless procession of communication. A security guard stood at a railing on the upper floor, scrutinizing the proceedings on the lower level.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she said, not even turning to regard Giles, intent as she was upon the floor. When Giles had to grab her shoulder to steer her around a small palm tree in a rather ornate concrete pot, she didn’t even seem to notice, offering no thanks and not bothering to shrug off the physical contact. He directed her to a bench beside the pot, sitting her down. She clasped her hands together as her hair fell about her face due to the low angle of her head.
“Obviously something is bothering you,” he persisted, taking a seat next to her so he could at least have a better view of her facial expressions. “I was a Watcher; we’re trained to recognize such things, although in this case I think that my close observational skills weren’t necessary. Both Buffy and Principal Wood expressed concern for you in the aftermath of the battle.”
The small, white lights intertwined within the palm tree, which was a good seven feet tall, gently cascaded ambience over Faith as Giles waited for an answer. “Sorry to be such a drag, Giles, but I’m fine, really. Just thinking about stuff.”
“Is this ‘stuff’ bothering you?”
There was a slight pause before Faith responded by nodding her head, looking very much like a little girl in a young woman’s body.
“And you’d prefer not to share, I take it?”
Faith shook her head no.
Giles sighed. He couldn’t help if he didn’t know what the problem was, and Faith had always preferred to keep her turmoil to herself in the past. She seemed to be contemplating something, but Giles couldn’t put his finger on what that might be. So he decided to cheer her up with bribery.
“How about this?” he said, his English accent becoming livelier. He put on his best smile, trying to play the generous father figure that Faith had never known, even though Faith didn’t notice. “I’ll buy you a present. Surely there must be something in this place that would make you at least a tad happier?”
Faith slowly turned her head to study Giles’s upbeat face. She was about to politely tell him that the offer was nice, but that she couldn’t accept, when she spied Robin striding towards her from over Giles’s shoulder. He was still far enough away for her to pretend that she hadn’t seen him.
“Giles, that is so nice of you,” she said, her tone completely reversed, as she stood up and grabbed his hand, hauling him to his feet. “Let’s go into this big store here, uh, ‘Antiques.’ Lots of fun in there.” Lots of places to hide, she thought. They ducked into the store and out of Robin’s sight.