Disclaimer: Oh, it's all about Joss. And that can be a good or a bad thing;)
Rating: R
Summary: As Buffy dies, she remembers all the people who had an effect on her- in different ways.
Category: B/A, B/S, B/F, B/G, and Buffy/family centric


Ave Misere
By Trixie
-----
Footsteps that she walked. Rivers she never crossed. All the what ifs she cannot connect in her brain. It's all a puzzle. She's dying, and she thought she'd be ok with it, because it is her duty, and she knew that from the first. It was right next to fight- FightandDie. They go together- those two ideas, and she has been trained with the knowledge. Someday her family would bring flowers to a tomb, and glance at the remnants of her name, remembering.

She remembers now. A series of flashes behind her eyelids.

~~~

Dawn.

The tang of her cheek is still on her lips. The smell of her as a toddler. Like milky bubbles and orange juice, which she was always spilling down her front. The smell of rubber bike handles and soft cotton. She recalls the rope of hair she'd yank when they were children because she knew it stung her sister's scalp, and that gave her a perverse pleasure. There was never any complexity about her love for that being- it just was, and sometimes she hated Dawn for that. For being someone she didn't choose. Her mother's thighs opened, and there was a form of pink flesh and new lungs choked with mucus and the yolk of birth. Buffy watched that squalling mouth and peered over the side of her mother's bed, anxious to see her new sister. She remembers the swell of breast as the baby sucked and fed, slurping the milk with gusto, making tiny noises of satisfaction and contentment.

She tries to recall what it was like to hold Dawnie against her own breast, against her heart, but finds she cannot. It saddens her- that loss of memory, of the feel of her sister's coltish arms and beating pulse. The girl who brought McDonalds and soda pop and boy bands back into her consciousness- the girl who laughed harshly and cut her wrists and wrote a page for every moment of her life- the girl who was all crackling energy and soft spoken venom- she can't remember what it is like to hold her.

She is at the core of all of this. She is the reason Buffy is dying, and that is the way it should be. There are other reasons of course- other hitches in the swan dive she took from the pedestal above the heavens- but in the center, is Dawn- the person given to her to love and cherish and make a woman out of. Buffy never got the chance- but she knows- her sister never needed a teacher. She'll be fine, and that thought offers a moment of sadness as well. Will Dawn miss her- when she's up there?

She doesn't know. She just knows that she loved her. Loves her. Loves her with all the fierceness of a mother lion and her cub- and she's glad. Glad that she died saving her.

~~~

Joyce.

Her mother. The smell of Tide and sweet perfume. Soft curls and glassy eyes. Nights spent by the TV, trying to find romance in the late soaps and black and white movies. Her mother crying over "Casablanca"- as she watched, trying not to weep herself. There was anger, and there were giggles and Cajun pies and busy mornings with cereal and the swirl of a work uniform as her Mom tried to get ready and never could on time.

Windchimes scare her now, and she thinks she hears them as she falls through the endlessness. She never wears red shirts anymore and knows that there is nothing that will ever make up for the loss of her Mommy- the woman who birthed her with tears on her face and blood streaking her thighs. There is still the taste of vomit in her mouth and the crunch of ribs beneath her hands that she never knew could be capable of so much. She used to wake up shaking from dreams of ice cream and no tomorrows, of a cold wet grave and her mother walking into the room as if it had all been a nightmare.

Oh, to hear her Mother's voice. She longs for it. She remembers it- above all else- the sound of her voice, as she said it "Buffy"- and the particular glisten to her eyes when she glanced at her daughters. Buffy can remember it all, and she knows that will change. The recollections will blur and fade and melt, and all that will be left will be the knowledge that she had a mother, and she died.

And that will be it.

Now, she wishes for yesterday- wishes she could change things. Wishes for her childhood. She recalls a walk on the sand with her Mother, remembers the feel of the sun against her bare shoulders slick with sun cream. Can recall the grit of the sand between her toes and her Mommy's laughter. The smell of the salty air, fresh with seaweed and fish, the moisturised silkiness of her mother's fingers as they gripped her hand. She remembers the wind in her hair and the sound of her Mom's smile. It made a sound. It always did.

Buffy wishes she could hear that sound. But the images are melding once more, and she leaves her Mother behind in the fickleness of her memory, to be picked up again- some day- when she is ready and willing to go into that part of her brain.

She knows it will not be for a long time.

~~~

Giles.

The edge of his glasses cuts into her eyes as she remembers him- and the smell of the musty tomes, the books he held as he lectured her, and tried to keep the fear from his eyes. And those eyes. She always would have known them, the love that shone, the humour, the bristling wit she never wanted to understand, but did. She can recall the sting of the antiseptic against her bloody forehead, the cloth scraping her eyebrows as he mopped up the night and tried to make her feel better. He never really did- for she was a killer, and he… he just watched- but she was always grateful for his attempts.

He would have killed Dawn. She would have killed him. She knows he would forgive her for that. He was a fighter before she was- and she knows she never knew his past, the mystery of his origins, where he came from and where he was going. She never wanted to know. He was her Giles- never anyone else's.

She remembers standing at Jenny's grave. The pale surprise of his skin. The words emblazoned in her brain- Jenny Calendar. Here Lies Jenny Calendar. She recalls how she told him she was ready to kill her murderer- and how they both knew she was lying, but it was a blessed lie. It gave him something to hold onto, and her something to do. He knew she was a doer, not a thinker, and he tried to respect it. He tried a great deal of things with her, and she knew she resisted. She remembers him, and his saddened eyes, and his voice- and she wishes she could have been everything he wanted in a Slayer, and in a person.

That first day. The first time he trained her. The first time he scolded her. She loved him for scolding her- for trying to control her when he knew he couldn't. She loved him for never showing her the Slayer Handbook, and for letting her have friends and a life and a laugh that wasn't all demons and nights and wickedness.

She knows he will take her death the hardest. He will think of it as a failure. He will drink himself into oblivion and perhaps write maudlin poetry and listen to music that she would never listen to, and weep. Buffy knows all this and she loves him for trying to be the father she never had.

He just never knew… he was so much more.

~~~

Spike.

Platinum blond and white noise. Rose petal lips and a straight, fleshy tongue thick with too many words. Spike was the shock. The surprise of his mouth, the inherent brutalness to his truths. She remembers him with hatred, and with desire and with something close to love- but never truly love. His lean cigarettes and the slow sinuous movements of muscle and milky skin.

She doesn't want to have Spike in her cerebrum, caught there for eternity. She doesn't want him to share space with all the others that passed through her with their softness and their kindness. But here he is, and she cannot get rid of him. She remembers his cold kiss, and the lightening of his terror eyes. He knew how to scare her, and she would have never admitted it- but at night she had dreams of him ripping her apart with the expanse of his love- aided by a long sword. Sometimes in those dreams he pressed her to the sheets and made her bloody and wet- she could never tell if the slickness between her legs was blood or come, and never dared find out.

She feared the truths he knew- that he delighted in slicing into her with- the razors of his nails as he scraped her mind and made her want to whirl on him like a spitting tiger- tear him to shreds and stomp him into the ground. She can pinpoint behind her eyes, the tightness of his smile, of his killer edged grin- the times when she knew he enjoyed hurting her. The times when he loved her so much she could almost see it dripping from every pore of his body.

Spike. His scowl. His accent. She remembers him and wishes she hadn't known him- wishes he could have been another vampire that she staked. But he never was. She knew it and he knew it. Everyone did, she supposes.

The curl of his lip and the menace in his glare.

She feared him and she feared her body. She feared that one day she would go to him for more than kisses and let him make her forget. It can never happen now, and she is relieved.

For he was at his most terrifying when he was tender. When he was honest. She will be honest with herself now, as she recalls the moonlight glinting behind his head- she would have had to kill him some day. But now she doesn't have to.

She will be honest with herself again.

She is relieved.

~~~

Faith.

Shock of wild hair and eyes like a frightened animal's. There are no words for Faith. Memories, little glimmers of her- in every part of Buffy's life. She always catches her in gestures- Faith haunts her in the smallest of ways. And she never lets herself remember her. Not truly. Until now. Until she is dying, and it is all too late. The sting of sweat when they fought, as Faith's body arced across the air- hid the moon, and the stars- and it didn't matter, for her beauty was enough.

Buffy remembers Faith. Her dark sister in the art of death. She dreams of red lips and a tongue like a snake's, hissing poison, biting her mouth and her arms and her heart. She knows tongues cannot bite, but the other Slayer's always seemed to. The betrayal. Oh so sharp and so unforgiving. The slow burn of agony. It shoots against her with pinpricks of memory- Faith and her bravado- her careless laugh and her choking sobs, Faith with her teeming fury and dirty sheets and dirty hands. The smell of blood that never would wash off- Finch's mouth bubbling as he tried to breathe but couldn't with the wall of wood in his chest.

There was the knife to the belly- the final act between them. It sealed everything, and Buffy knows it. But she would never take it back and Faith knows that too. The sharp point that slid into soft tissue and made a sick squashing sound. That sound echoes in her ears, screaming for some kind of justice. But she can't apologise for it- she was doing what she had to do. But she regrets- she regrets Faith and the chasm between them, between their souls and their bodies that were always so much alike. But too different in too many ways to ever survive together for long.

Buffy recollects long patrols and aching muscles. The ruffle of Faith's hand in her hair, the kiss on her brow after training. The spray of blood across her cheek when one demon split her lip and made it spurt. A craving- Buffy's craving- for someone who understood her. Faith fulfilling everything she ever needed- a twin, a fighter, a warrior and a friend. A sister underneath the skin. She wishes the Council had never sent Faith. As much as she loved her- still *loves* her, she wishes and regrets. She fears she was no good for the girl- her with her personality and sunshine hair- her with her family (all gone now…), her with her lover and friends. And Faith… with nothing- but an attitude and a brittle laugh and a lot of stories to tell.

And a murderess screaming inside her.

She sees Faith, in the mess that is her dying brain, and wants a happier ending. But she knows- it is impossible. Their sisterly love- their innate desire for one another- was too bright to ever last.

~~~

Angel.

She would have walked through fire for one kiss. Scorched herself black for the heaven of his palm against her cheek. Millions of images. Millions of moments. Diamond eyes and panther fangs. That half smile and the beautiful hands. He existed on the outskirts of her life, but was always at the center.

She cannot remember Angelus and his sneering smirk. That time is not clear. She suspects that is a good thing, but really, now… it is past. It is Angel who burns sharp in her memory. The velvet of his shirt against her face. The sick feeling she got in her belly when he left. The feel of his lips caressing her face, drinking in her essence as if he could not get enough.

It was never simple. Too wracked with blurry burning love and too filled with all that is lost- and all that could have- *should* have been. The taste of him still rests somewhere underneath her tongue, and every so often she will get the rush of it against her throat. Dust and rain and the grit of so many years in the night- the sugar and salt of his sweat, and the coppery cast to his saliva. Her cries, his hot kisses and the drench of seed between her legs. The feel of his back beneath her tiny hands that night- how tight she held him- how tight she should have held him afterward.

She remembers reaping what she had sown. The slap - so sure- so deft and slow, across the bone of her cheek- which he'd once kissed like a man worshipping at the feet of a deity. It was then she truly realized all she had lost. She remembers the shrill sound of her own voice, the biting words, the iciness he'd dismissed her with. Nothing hurt more than the slap though- for he'd never hit her before, and she supposes now, it was more the shock of it than anything else- the idea that he could do that – she couldn't fathom it, and she remembers hating him in that brief simmering moment.

All his contradictions and his truths and his Angel eyes. His rage, his ever surging sorrow and guilt and yes, his humour. The scent of his skin and his sweat and his come- which she'd never wanted to wash from the insides of her thighs. The copper smell of her taken virginity on his sheets the morning after- she wonders now- does he still have those sheets with their beads of red- does he even recall who left them there on that rainy night so long ago…?

There was a time when he was everything, and that time has passed. She knows this, and she has no regrets. It was always too much to regret him, so she has never allowed herself the pain of it. Never let herself really cry, or rage, or yell at the sky for taking him away. She used to look in the general direction of LA when she was sure no one was watching, and try and imagine what he was doing, what he was feeling. She tries to do this now and cannot. He is not hers anymore- and that starts a fire in her stomach that will not go out. It hurts and she wants to shout, but her lungs don't work. She knows- that someday he would have belonged to her again- that time- perhaps, forever.

~~~

She wonders if they'll remember her too. Remember the smell of her powder, the colour of the lipstick she wore- the sound of her laughter, the hardness of her sharp left hook, her smile- and she knows, that yes, they'll remember.

She'll recall them too, from time to time- from wherever she will be.

Angel said once he could never take her into the light. But now, he does. She dreams of him, him, as she closes her eyes for the last time, and slips into the dawning of her new world.

End.

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