banner by kazzy_cee
Savannah, Part One, The Grass
"Give her what she deserves..." Spike mumbled as he moved another rock. A whip cracked against his back and he bit his lips, trying to go back to the smell of her. The feel of her hair under his hands. That little gasp and the way her eyes widened and didn't avoid his when he pressed up inside her.
When he fucked her, she didn't lie.
When he fucked her, he saw the truth of how she saw him in her eyes.
He didn't manage to avoid the kick this time from the demon slaver. "Listen up, disgusting soul-beast, do your work or--" He kicked Spike's sore ribs. "Maybe I'll ask for you again tonight, hmmmm, pretty?"
......
Buffy leaned against the stone wall of the cave, wiping her mouth.
Morning sickness. How come they called it that when she had it all the time?
"Buff?" Xan was there, as he always was. He pulled her into his arms, his front to her back and rubbed a cool hand over her forehead. "Come on back to the fire. I got crackers!"
She gave a soggy laugh, feeling fragile, no matter that she was The Slayer. She let her beloved friend lead her from the dark. "Also," he said, his one good eye fixed on her with Xander devotion. "I'm not cleaning that up tomorrow!"
She smiled. "I guess you've done your fair share of slayer puke lately." He handled her as gently as a blown glass ornament, sitting her down by the fire and cupping her face. She leaned her forehead against him and gave a ragged sigh.
"Hey, just what a guy does for his hero, right?"
Buffy looked at their pathetic little fire. Xander had had to go further afield into the grass to find enough wood to keep her warm through the night, but as usual, he hadn't complained. She held his hand as he rubbed her sore back. She swallowed, hoping she could keep from a bout of the dry heaves. "Being pregnant really sucks!" she told him.
"I know," he comforted, but said nothing else. He hadn't asked her about the father... with all the talk of what a slut she was, she was grateful. She hadn't had the courage to tell him the truth.
"I'm not much of a hero anymore. I can't even manage to patrol!" She moved restlessly because the truth was she was terrified for Xander. He went out onto the Grass now and took her patrol, looking out for poachers and protecting this last pocket of humanity. He'd already lost an eye for her cause, and she was terrified one of the roving gangs would find him and kill him, as much because of his secret then because he alone stood by her.
"I'm not doing so badly." He picked up the walkie-talkie radio he'd scavenged from the waste lands and carefully repaired. "Look at this! Working! Now you can talk to me when I'm out on the Grass."
Buffy shook her head and put a hand over his cheek. "You take so many risks!"
"Naw." His face was creased with shadow. Too little sleep. She looked at his hands and saw scabs and scratches. He couldn't heal like she could.
"Promise me you won't go too far tomorrow?"
He saw the tears she was suppressing. "I promise. So you going to go to the church social with Riley?"
Buffy bit her lip. "No, when the rumors started about... you know, he didn't want to be seen with the town slut."
"Don't! Don't call yourself that!" Xander looked furious and Buffy looked away.
"It's probably true, not that I can remember..."
"Things will be okay. You're a good person, and a hero, so things have got to be okay again." He pulled her close and she closed her eyes, so tired she even forgot to ask him for some crackers.
"I don't think things are ever okay for people like me," she whispered, then felt ashamed of herself for her self-pity. But the truth was, she had been a hero all her life and now when she was terrified and alone except for this boy who was as much an outcast as herself, she really needed a hero of her own.
........
I love you without knowing how, or when or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way--Sonnet XVII, Pablo Neruda
Xander closed his eye and walked through the grass, letting the feather tips brush against his fingers. The ground was silken mud beneath his hardened bare feet. He could feel cracks in it, sealed up tight since it had been a week or more since the last rain.
The air smelled like spices from far away. Places he'd never see. The ruins of fine cities. The types of entertainment a simple man couldn't even imagine.
He squatted down and found a piece of silvered wood for their fire. It looked as old as the bones of a dinosaur. Once, trees had grown here. There had been more water.
Xander couldn't imagine it. It seemed like this place had always been the Savannah. Home to weeds and grazing animals and the herds run by a handful of ranchers.
All of them, and the tiny town snug in the middle, protected from roaming gangs of humans and demons by the hands and will of one girl.
........
"You aren't welcome here, fag!" Forrest growled.
Buffy slapped his hand away from Xander, who had swallowed and backed off from Riley's gang. "How dare you!" Buffy spat. "He's not... not one of them," she finished, not looking back at her friend, who was holding his hat and staring at his bare feet.
"He keeps you busy, does he?" Forrest asked, cocking one brow.
Buffy flushed, looking around at the towns people shuffling past on their way to church. She felt like Hester Prynne. "Yes," she whispered, reaching back to give Xander's hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Whore!" Forrest spat and headed into the church.
Buffy's eyes filled, but she swallowed and took a deep breath. Don't give them the satisfaction.
"I'll wait for you here, Buff," Xander said, his brown eye on his bare feet. He'd dressed up specially to escort her into town, as he did every Sunday, but his pants were patched and the brown color worn to a thin grey in places. His messy brown hair looked like it had been chopped in ragged tufts, which is what he did for himself when he thought of it. He wasn't welcome in the town barbers.
"No! You can't just let them..."
"Not worth fighting about. I don't care about what they think of me."
She bent her head, not wanting to see that deadness in his one eye. Jesse. She hadn't been able to save Jesse.
"Maybe... stay out of sight until I get back?" She hated to ask him to do that. Hated to trample the shreds of his pride, but she didn't want to find him with his pants around his ankles and tar all over his bare ass, like she had a month ago.
"I'll be here." He smiled because he could see how upset she was. "Don't let them see you're hurting."
She shook her head, taking the old-fashioned handkerchief he carried and wiping her eyes. "I hate that I do that now," she said.
"It's natural, so don't you fret." One gentle hand cupped her cheek and combed her hair, then it was gone and her bashful friend disappeared around the corner of a white shingled house. She knew when church was done he'd be there to walk her back to their rustic home.
When Buffy went to the church door, people pulled away from her, glaring and whispering. She kept her eyes forward and her chin up. Don't let them see you hurt.
Preacher Wilkins smiled at her. "I'm glad you're here, young lady. I wrote about fallen women today in hopes it might be helpful to you."
Buffy made it to her pew at the back. No one else sat with her. She closed her eyes and put a hand on her lower tummy, hoping she wouldn't be sick.
"You okay?" a gentle voice asked.
She looked up, knowing that voice from her dreams. "Angel..." she couldn't help but smile at him shyly.
"You look... tired," he said, his dark eyes full of worry as he studied her. "Buffy, is it true what I heard about you? That you're--"
"I'm fine." She wanted to say more, desperately, but his wife, Willow, her former friend, came over to collect him.
Preacher Wilkins addressed the congregation then, and Buffy reached for her bible, hoping she could find some comfort there.
.......
"You were a good fighter once, soul-beast," the demon, Slonge, told Spike.
Spike had his face pressed against the smooth rock of the cave where he was a slave. The stone was damp from the earth and felt good against the burning bruise on his cheek. When he ran his hands over it, sometimes he thought it was her dress, and he was on his knees, begging her to forgive him... and sometimes he knew it was only stone and it felt good because he hurt.
"I might have fought once," he whispered. "Fought for her once. Tried to be her hero."
"Crazy! Can you fight with a sword?"
Spike nodded, knowing better than to offer any defiance.
A claw moved over him, where his shirt stuck to the bright stripes of red on his back before trailing down and cupping his ass. He closed his eyes. Nono. "Don't speak and he won't see you. Won't find you," he whispered comfort to himself, then giggled, only to break into a ragged sob. He buried his face against the wall, wishing he could disappear into it.
"See what gettin' a soul did for you?" He was shoved into position, and he heard a sound of despair. Did he make that sound? Or was it her? He kept his face turned away. If he didn't look, it wasn't happening.
........
Buffy woke up half way through the night, sweating. She felt what little dinner she'd managed moving up against the back of her throat. She covered her mouth, tossed away her blanket and ran for the cave entrance. This time she made it outside onto the Grass before she vomited.
After, like many nights, she leaned against the rock wall and held herself. Her thin white nightie wasn't much protection against the cool night and the restless wind that moved endlessly across the Savannah, but the cool air helped her with the sickness and the sweat of her illness dried on her forehead.
This time Xander didn't wake, so she was alone under the great moon, which looked a bit like a giant alien star ship, it loomed so close. She smiled, remembering Xander's comic books which she read sometimes when she had to camp out on the grass.
She frowned when she saw what looked like a plume of smoke off on the horizon. Campfire. Xander would have to go investigate in the morning since Buffy wasn't sure whether she would be up to it. The pregnancy and her weakness had zapped all her energy and put it into her child.
She rubbed her forehead, remembering her dream. That night. Invited to the fancy party. Thinking she was welcome, at last.
She didn't know she was crying until a tear spilled over the hand cupped over her jaw.
........
Spike sat with his katana, wiping the blade clean from the blood that had flowed over it during tonight's duel. Fighting wasn't as bad as the mines, but it made his soul scream every time his katana flashed a feint and then his wakizashi waited in his hand, taking the upper slice through flesh as if it isn’t a part of him.
He got up, and made his way to the familiar cave wall that calmed him.
He'd discovered her image on it a long time ago. He knew the others thought he was mad the way he talked to her. He traced it now, knowing anyone else just saw bumps and rises in the rock, but Spike saw more. He saw Buffy's face. His sad and serene Madonna.
Tonight with fresh blood on his sword, he didn't look up to meet her stone gaze, but instead, leaned against her, asking silently for comfort. He traced fingers over the familiar damp rock of her shrine.
He was almost asleep when he felt a faint, fluttering heart beat of feeling from Buffy's rock. His eyes snapped open and he tasted a despair that did not belong to him.
TBC