disclaimer in part 1

Stages of Grief
By Ducks
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Stage IV: Depression

"The person feels numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath." - From the
"Arnot Ogden Medical Center's Guide to Dealing With Grief"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Has he eaten anything?" Cordy whispered, as though I didn't have preternatural
hearing, and every word she said wasn't as clear as if she were standing right next
to me, and not out in the hall.

"No. The mug's exactly where I left it this afternoon," Wesley whispered in response.

They were performing their daily ritual of "Check on the Broken Vampire". It was
always the same. One would come in just before sunset and make sure I hadn't walked
out to meet that morning's dawn, then gently call my name, and sigh when I didn't
bother to respond, before they finally gave up and left. They took turns bringing me
blood that I never drank, leaving me the paper that I never read, and then went out
to carry on a mission that I just didn't see any point to anymore.

What did any of it matter? My only reason for being was gone, and it was nothing more
than weakness that kept me from doing exactly what my friends feared. Eventually, I
imagined, I would reach starvation state and turn into a rabid animal, then they
would be forced to stake me, and I could finally go to my rest... finally be with
Buffy.

That was assuming that my soul went to Heaven...

"It's been over a week. He can't go on like this!" Cordy complained.

"I don't think he wants to go on at all," Wesley informed her adroitly.

"We can't just let him kill himself! We have to *do* something!"

"Like what, Cordelia?" Gunn piped in, "Tie him down and force him to eat? What
exactly do you think we can do that we haven't tried already?"

"I don't know. Maybe... Dawn can talk to him again..."

Dawn had come on the third day I spent in bed and sat beside me, spending a few hours
remembering aloud many good times that she, Buffy and I had spent together.

I only burrowed deeper into the pillows and tuned her out. Eventually, she too gave
up and left.

"I don't believe there's anything else we can do," Wesley went on, "He needs to
grieve in his own way... in his own time. Ten days seems a long while to us, but...
to an immortal, it's merely a moment. He'll come 'round."

"If he doesn't *starve* to death, first!" Cordy sniped.

I knew I was being selfish... childish... weak... immature, and I just didn't care.
The vision of Buffy's death... the final, awful reality of it, sat on my chest like a
ten-ton stone, crushing me under its unbearable weight. The feeling was so much
worse, even, than that night I spent with Darla. Even in that moment of what I
thought was utter hopelessness, when I plunged into the familiar cold of my Sire's
dead flesh, some minute part of me still hoped. Hoped, at least, for an end to the
pain.

Now there was no hope at all. The only thing that remained was agony. Anguish that,
once upon a time in a long ago dream, a beautiful girl with eyes of summer moss and
hair of spun gold had chased away with a single touch of her small, warm hand.

I had believed that there were no tears left inside of me. I thought, as I had
mourned over the phantom of her corpse, that I had gone dry, and all that remained of
my heart was dust. But as a week stretched into two, and I hid in the shadows of my
lonely room waiting to die, still I wept. I would look up and see a shadow, and think
it might be her. I would hear a ghostly whisper, and be certain for a moment that she
had returned. I kept waiting for her to appear in the doorway and say, "Oh, this is
really attractive, Angel. Come on, did you really think I would leave you? Don't be
such an ass." And then the world would be right again.

She never did. She never would. And so, still I lamented for the loss of her, like
some mourner in a tragic fairy tale, my endless life's only meaning.

***

Of all the people who tried to reach me during those weeks, it was the newest of my
friends who finally succeeded.

Fred came in early one evening, armed with a book, a cup of coffee, and a freshly
baked cake... that smelled distinctly like a bizarre mixture of chocolate and blood.

The odd combination caught my attention, even through the haze in which I had been
existing. I listened to her move about the room... set the cake down on the table
near the windows, and opened the French doors, flooding the stuffy space with fresh,
warm air. Then she plopped down on the couch, set her coffee on the end table, turned
on the light, curled her legs up beneath her, and began to read.

I laid there for a while, waiting for her to say something. To ask how I was, or
insist that I eat, as the others had done. But she didn't. This was a new approach,
and I found myself curious about what she was doing. That curiosity forced me out of
bed, into my long forgotten sweats, and dragged my sorry carcass toward the sitting
room, where I finally leaned heavily in the doorway.

After a few moments, Fred finally noticed my presence, and looked up to give me a
sweet smile.

"Oh, hi! You're up! I didn't mean to wake you. I just really didn't feel like being
alone, and I thought you were asleep, so you wouldn't mind if I came in here to read.
You don't, do you? Mind, I mean? 'Cause... if you do, I can go back to my room. I
don't want to put you out, you know... in your condition. Cordy says I should
probably be careful, because you're not eating, and any minute you're bound to eat
me, but..." She shrugged. "I'm not really afraid of you. But I thought you might be
hungry, so I made you something. I don't know if it'll be any good, but... it can't
be worse than tree bark enchiladas, right? Ha ha."

I blinked at her, stunned by her babbling. Fred was so new to my reality that I had
pretty much forgotten her, and it seemed strange to see her sitting on my couch.
There was something enthralling about her chirpy ramblings, though, that drew my
murky consciousness slowly upward.

"What's that?" I asked, nodding toward the cake.

Her smile widened as she set her book down and stood next to the table, gesturing
over it like a proud saleswoman at a bake sale.

"It's cake!" she declared. "As it turns out, blood works almost as good as pudding in
the mix. Of course, it took a while to get it right. I had to experiment a little.
Like, sheep's blood is better than pig, because it's thicker, and I had to double the
egg whites, because the first two didn't rise. And I haven't actually tasted it, so
it might be really gross, but Cordy said you liked chocolate, so I thought what the
heck? The least I could do was give it a try, right? You don't feel like eating, so
it's like that spoonful of sugar thing, you know? And I used to really love to
cook -- cookies, pies, cakes -- and I want to relearn all that stuff I used to do,
so... two birds with one stone and all that!"

I continued to stare at her as she chattered, then finally glanced down at her
offering once more. "You baked... a chocolate blood cake," I recapped incredulously.

Fred nodded. She looked so earnest and pleased with herself, I felt bad that I
couldn't be more enthusiastic.

"Okay," I shrugged, "I'll try it."

"Yay!" She chirped, and with an excited little hop, disappeared into the kitchen,
returning with a plate, fork, and knife.

We sat down at the table, and she cut me a slice of the unusual cake. I ate it more
out of curiosity and respect for her gesture than any genuine desire to assuage my
hunger...

But much to my surprise, it was actually good.

"I put in extra cocoa, too. Wesley says vampire taste buds can't really pick up
non-blood stuff very well, and... well, what's the point of eating chocolate cake if
you can't taste the chocolate?"

I *could* taste the chocolate. And the extra cocoa overwhelmed the blood, so at the
same time some of my energy returned from the badly needed nourishment, my spirits
were lifted, however infinitesimally, by the simple sensation of eating chocolate
cake.

I ate that piece and devoured three more as we sat there in companionable silence.
When I finished, I felt more wide-awake and aware than I had in weeks.

"Thank you," I told her. And I meant it to cover far more than just the cake.

"You're welcome. I'm glad you liked it," she replied with another one of her charming
smiles. "So, are you... feeling better? Everybody's been really worried about you. Do
you feel like talking? Or... maybe we can play chess. Or watch TV or something."

I looked down at the sticky crumbs on my plate as her words reminded me of why I was
in this emotional state to begin with. My mind was immediately flooded with thoughts
of Buffy... how we'd eaten chocolate and peanut butter in bed That Day, laughing and
reveling in one another's presence. She had listed a hundred chocolate things she
planned to feed me -- including cake. I laughed and told her if she wasn't careful,
I'd weigh 600 pounds in no time. I remembered her leaning toward me with a soft,
adoring smile as she said, "You could be as big as Balthazar, and I would still love
you."

I closed my eyes as the pain hit. Buffy would never again eat chocolate cake. She
would never again smile and look into my eyes. And any tiny remnant that might have
remained of the dream of a future together was now as dead and buried as she.

"I'm sorry," I muttered, getting up and stumbling into the bedroom. As I slid back
under the covers, I felt the tears rushing in once more. The agonizing, gaping maw of
loss again closed around my heart.

How could I ever go on, now? How could the world not wither and die without her
strength, her love, her light? How could even the simplest action, like bothering to
rise from my own empty bed each day, ever be worth the effort?

I felt a small, warm hand gently rubbing circles on my back, offering me comfort, but
the gesture only served to break me further. It was the wrong small hand, the wrong
touch, the wrong sweet, feminine scent. There had been a time, not so long ago--and
yet, another lifetime--when Buffy's tender caress had healed me... brought me back
from of a century of living death... mended wounds inflicted in Hell... cared for me
when I was dying, and now...

I would never feel her again. She would never ease the pain of my soul, never give me
just that tiny ray of sunlight to warm the cold inside of me. I would bleed and bleed
forever, and there would be no one who could stop the pain.

Buffy was dead. Nothing and no one could ever bring her back to me.

"Oh god!" I wailed, "Oh god, Buffy!"

Fred didn't hesitate. She gathered me up in her lap as I broke down and sobbed,
rocking me the way I had Dawn a few weeks before. I wept forever it seemed, until
once again, I couldn't even draw enough breath to cry anymore. But Fred continued to
hold me quietly until I spoke again.

"I loved her... with everything I am," I heard myself murmur. "I can't believe she's
really gone. I don't know how to go on without her."

"I know," she whispered, then said, tears clear in her voice, "My sister died when I
was nine. I cried like... forever, I think. All the time. I felt like somebody
vacuumed out my insides. They wouldn't let me go to her funeral, so... I kept waiting
for her to come back. I wouldn't listen to anybody who said she couldn't. My dad kept
saying they should take me to the doctor, you know, because it wasn't natural for me
to keep thinking she was just gone away for a little while. But my mom said no, I had
to deal with it in my own way. I used to sit on the front porch swing all day and all
night, and just wait and wait for her to come home until they had to carry me inside
for bed. Then one day, my mom finally brought me to her grave. I screamed. But after
that, it got better. Even though it was still really hard."

I nodded slowly. "It is hard. None of it seems real. We didn't... see each other much
anyway, so... I keep thinking if I pick up the phone and call her, she'll answer."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

I finally pulled away from her and braced my back against the headboard, taking long,
soothing breaths to pull myself together. Fred scooted up next to me and we sat
quietly for a while, each lost in remembrances of the loved ones who'd gone.

Or at least, I know I was. I was awash in little details of Buffy... the way she
smelled... the soft warmth of her skin... her smile... even the way she fought. So
many tiny things about this one amazing woman, who had so completely and fiercely
captured my heart, I just couldn't comprehend the possibility that she simply...
wasn't anymore.

"What was Buffy like?" Fred finally asked, "Everybody talks about her like she was
the best thing ever."

I felt a sad smile sneak across my lips. "She was. Buffy was incredible... smart and
funny... warm and giving. And she had this... spirit." I shook my head. "It's hard to
put into words, but she was the most remarkable person I've ever met."

"How did you? Meet her, I mean?"

I closed my eyes and remembered... a cool Sunnydale night, when a tiny slip of a girl
knocked me flat on my back in the alley behind The Bronze. How the pure shock of it
had made me laugh for the first time in a hundred years, and something inside me had
just known -- if I wasn't dust at the end of her stake in the next five seconds, my
life would never be the same.

"It's kind of a long story," I chuckled sadly.

Fred gave me another one of her bright smiles. "I'm not exactly going anywhere."

So, I told her. I opened that vault of memory that I had been fighting to keep closed
for so long. And once I began telling the tale, I couldn't seem to stop. Buffy filled
me as I spoke... I could feel her flowing like blood in my veins. I shared all those
tiny bits of life that she and I shared... both the beautiful and the heartbreaking,
and as I did, I realized that the old cliche was true:

Buffy might no longer walk with me on this plane, but she would always go on in my
heart. Still quipping mightily, laughing heartily, larger than life. I was still the
recipient of all the beautiful gifts she gave me, and as long as I, and all the other
people who loved her went on, she would never truly die.

continue