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| In Omne Tempus - The Rest Is Silence by Holly (7 Reviews) | | abc + + + |  | | | Chapter Thirty-Four
The Rest Is Silence
It was perhaps the last thing she wanted to do, but, as usual, Spike argued a good point, and she was left without option. While true, her friends had apologized for any previous untoward behavior when it came to her and her mate, Angelus and Darla’s escape had the power to change everything. The certainty of her existence seemed up for grabs. And yes, she knew that the Scoobies recognized that there something to be said for practicing what was preached. For living up to a cliche so thoroughly ingrained, yet more often, so completely ignored. She simply didn’t trust them to remember peace while a vampire was present.
Spike understood that. What’s more, he knew that adding further tension to an already tense situation would do little to ease her nerves, and thus had volunteered to stay away while tempers were hot. Not because he wanted to; she felt his staunch reluctance to leave her—it was simply the least he could offer. The least he could do now that the night was nearly over.
“I’ll be fine,” he told her, and logically, she knew he was right. “Jus’ come home when it’s all over, yeh?”
There was nothing in the world that Buffy wanted more than to follow him to the closest bed, curl in his arms, and forget every detail of this sordid affair. However, as always, logic intervened. If she didn’t see Giles now, her bravado would abandon her entirely. It was bad enough as it was—knowing that they would know. Knowing they would know how she had failed. They would know she had dishonored the memory of her best friend by failing to catch Willow’s murderer, and that wasn’t a conversation Buffy was particularly looking forward to.
She wasn’t infallible, and somewhere, she knew they understood that. There was simply so much to answer for—so much to set right again. So much that she had already lost in an unending campaign to win back what was taken. To seek retribution on those that had wronged her.
Moreover, she had wanted Angelus’s head for Willow. She owed Willow that much.
“We’ll get her that much,” Spike reminded her, squeezing her hand.
Buffy smiled a half-smile and shrugged. “I guess I’m really transparent tonight.”
“Well, that an’ you said as much out loud.”
He smiled as they drew to a halt outside Sunnydale High—this wretched prison of hers. It killed her to know that she would be graduating without Willow at her side. There were times when she was just a girl and times when she was a warrior, and losing Angelus and Darla tonight made her healing wounds burn. There still was that knowledge of the frailty between life and death, and her certainty that the part of death where Willow resided was a better place for having her—and while she shed human tears, she didn’t mourn in human fashion. She recognized any sorrow she felt was directed at herself—her selfish desire to keep her friend close while her friend was so much better off wherever she was.
There was silence where Willow had once been. No screaming of nightmares, no bliss of daydreams. Simple, elegant silence.
I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth.
Buffy tossed Spike a wry glance. “Okay. I know that was you.”
The smile gracing his features melted into an easy smirk. “You jus’ looked so serious, luv. I needed to do somethin’.”
“What is that?”
“From Hamlet.”
A sigh rattled her body and she squeezed his hand tighter. “I haven’t lost my mirth,” she argued reasonably. “It’s just...turned into something else entirely.”
“Another shade of no longer bein’ human, then.”
Buffy smiled, though her heart wasn’t in it, and kissed his cheek. “I better get this over with before I lose my nerve,” she said, nodding at the dark building. Dark, but she knew Giles and Jenny were still inside. They wouldn’t leave there without hearing from her.
“They won’ think any less of you, sweetheart. Bloody hell, you did the best you could. You’re worried over nothin’.”
“No,” she disagreed softly. “Not nothing.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. I know he’ll understand. I’m not worried about that. He’s Giles—he knows I did my best. He knows, despite everything...that my best just wasn’t good enough.” She paused. “I did fail, Spike.”
“Bugger that.”
“Willow is dead because I failed. Her killers got away, and we nearly got trashed by an ancient biblical demon who’s controlled by a ring that makes vampires impervious to sunlight.” Buffy released a deep sigh. “I really failed.”
“Willow is dead because she went out for a walk durin’ the Witching Hour. It has nothin’ to do with you.”
“I should have known something.”
“How?”
“I don’t know; I just should have.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeh. I hear telepathy’s the new in thing. You can’t go on blamin’ yourself for this, luv. It’ll drive you right barmy, an’ then I’ll have a barmy mate. An’ as one who’s had the severe displeasure of bein’ the fucktoy of a barmy chit before, I’d like to keep you only as dysfunctional as you are now.”
“Gee, thanks.” The sarcasm she was shooting for fell flat. There was no use; he’d managed to coax a smile out of her, which she knew was his motive all along. “Would you still love me even if I went...barmy?”
“I’ll love you well beyond the planes of this or any other existence, sweetheart.”
She was slightly embarrassed that, even with everything they had shared, he could still make her blush with the tamest language, the softest confessions. “I live a life of comfortable dysfunction,” she said. “That doesn’t make me any less responsible for Willow’s death.”
“Yeh. If you were any less responsible, you’d be in negative numbers.” She scoffed and he rolled his eyes again. “Come on, luv. We’ve been through this. You know that what happened...there’s no bloody way you could’ve known. What’s brought this on?”
He was right, of course. Somewhere she knew he was right. It simply seemed, despite everything he’d said, and what they’d promised each other, that the immediacy of exacting vengeance on those that had taken so much from them brought everything back to square one. She knew that Angelus and Darla would not enjoy a lengthy absence from their company. She knew that Spike’s promise to her had not simply been for her own benefit. His need to see his family dead far outreached her own, and yet she couldn’t help but feel that in some form, she’d failed Willow for her inability to end it all tonight.
“I just...” Buffy released a deep breath and shook her head. “I suppose I just...can’t believe...well, like I told you earlier. This entire night has been hard for me to grasp. And I know I’ve already disappointed them.” She gestured to the school, her eyes focused on the illuminated library. That damnable place right over the Hellmouth. The only room in the entire school that never slept. “They haven’t been the best people to be around, either, but a lot of what happened...I can see why they’d blame me.”
Spike growled. “No bloody way.”
“No one understands us. Not even Giles, who’s known forever. I’m not saying they’re right. I mean, they can’t be more wrong, if you ask me. But I can see where they’re coming from.” Buffy sighed again and glanced down. “It’s time to get this over with.”
“Sweet, you don’—”
Buffy held up a hand, forcing a small smile. “I’ll be all right. And...like we said, I need to do this alone.”
The reluctance in his eyes bore heavily, but there was resignation there as well. The knowledge that he could do nothing to change her mind—say nothing to sway her decision. Instead, he nodded and smiled as best he could, pressing a kiss to her brow, then to her lips before stepping back. “I’ll be at the house,” he said. “You know what to do if you need me.”
She forced a small grin. “I’m going to be among friends,” she reminded him, doming a brow. “And the baddies are gone, right?”
The immediate reassurance she was looking for never came. Instead, Spike expelled a deep breath, his gaze growing distant and reflective. “You never know,” he said.
The seriousness in his countenance unnerved her. They were at the end of one path, and about to embark on another. Now was not the time for further revelations. Now was a time for rest. For silence. For peace that came with knowledge before the uprise of a new storm.
Their lives would never be simple. That much was more than certain.
And yet, as she walked up the sidewalk toward the school, she didn’t feel alone, even when Spike turned the other way. She felt him with her with every step. Every breath. Every lapsed moment in which time was supposed to remind her that constant companionship could never be guaranteed, and there would always be a part of her that was completely isolated. Completely kept from anyone else.
But then again, that was the human within her, rebelling at the notion that anything could ever remain simple. That she could relax and revel in any such security.
No. She wasn’t alone. And she never would be.
From so many years of facing the darkness with only hope at her side, the thought gave her peace. Peace and more than that.
It gave her everything.
*~*~*
Buffy suspected that she should have been surprised to see the worn library table crowded with familiar faces, but she wasn’t. The second she stepped through the swinging doors, she was accosted with pangs that were growing increasingly nervy with taking tours of her inner workings.
It felt like the final hurdle of her puerility—this thing she had to do.
“Buffy!” Giles gasped, leaping to his feet. “Thank God.”
“What happened?” Jenny demanded, right at his side. “Where’s Spike?”
“And please let the tale of Angelus and Darla have a dusty ending,” Xander concluded. He was seated at the table next to Cordelia, who, for the first time since they’d met, wore no make-up and looked as though she had been worried for the Slayer’s welfare.
And across from them was Oz. God, it was Oz. Oz, who looked at her as though her answer would directly decide whether or not he continued living. “They gave us the rundown on what happened,” the wolf said softly, nodding to her Watcher and the teacher. “Asmodeus was here?”
Buffy nodded with a half-shrug. “For half a second before Ms. Calendar banished him to some...really horrible dimension by means that are still a little unclear to me and Spike. Yeah...the apocalypse that everyone was so wigged over was kinda...anticlimactic.”
“That was an extraordinary display of power,” Giles agreed somberly, trading a meaningful glance with the woman in question. “But that’s a discussion for another time. Where is Spike?”
“He went home,” she replied softly. “He didn’t want...he knows how you guys feel about vampires, and he didn’t want to make anything...he didn’t wanna weird you out because of what’s happened.” She held up a hand. “It’s...it’s for the best that he’s not here...for what I have to tell you.”
Xander opened his mouth to object, then withdrew quietly and nodded. “Good idea,” he said. “I don’t wanna say something and, you know, have that thing happen where my entire foot somehow ends up in my mouth.”
Buffy grinned in spite of herself. “Yeah, neither did we.”
“What’s happened?” Oz asked, jarring her back to herself.
It was then that she realized that her heart was pounding hard enough to break her chest. It had been one thing to stand outside and say that she had betrayed their hopes with her failure; staring down the face of actualization, of proof of her shortcomings, was thoroughly devastating. And yet, there was nowhere to turn. Nowhere to hide, and certainly nowhere to run.
She drew in a deep breath.
This, too, shall pass.
God, she hoped so.
“Angelus and Darla are gone,” she said, licking her lips. And the truth shall set you free. “They used whatever they’ve been using since they came to town to mask their presence...but not their scent. Spike and I followed them to the end of town, but by the time we got there, they were long gone.” Buffy kept her eyes trained on the ground, afraid to move lest she shatter. “So they’re gone. They’re gone, and it’s my fault.”
“No,” Xander and Giles objected simultaneously.
She glanced up slowly, her gaze finding Oz. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I...we weren’t fast enough. Angelus wounded Spike, and it hurt me, and I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t move like I normally can. But God, I’m not trying to make excuses. If I...I just failed.”
“No, you didn’t, Buffy,” Giles said softly. “You did everything you could.”
No, I really didn’t.
The look on Oz’s face was unreadable, but she had the feeling that he shared her sentiment. Torn somewhere between hurt and determination, neither of which were aimed at her. He was quiet for a long minute—then nodded solemnly—whether to himself or her, she didn’t know.
“Okay, then,” he said softly, rising to his feet. “I’m going to go somewhere now.”
“Huh?” Cordelia demanded, arching a brow. “Oz, look, it’s—”
“I just got to do something that’s not here.”
Buffy drew in a deep breath and turned as he stalked passed her. “Oz!”
Her eyes, however, met Giles’s and her conviction wavered. The Watcher was shaking his head, his hand raised to stop her movement. “No,” he said. “Let him go. It’s going to take time.”
She knew that. She knew that well. “I just feel like I should—”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t,” Cordelia chimed in. “Really. He’ll be okay. After a while, he’ll be okay.” At the foray of surprised looks she received, her hands flew up and she blinked defensively. “What? I was just trying to be supportive.”
Xander caressed his girlfriend’s hand reassuringly. “You’re doing fine, Cordy.”
“Damn straight, I’m doing fine.”
Buffy nodded her thanks before turning her attention back to Giles. “So there it is,” she said. “Angelus and Darla are gone, I’ve upset Oz because I can’t be Wonder Woman and move faster than a speeding bullet—”
“That’s Superman,” Xander corrected with a wry grin.
“Oz isn’t upset with you,” Ms. Calendar said, stepping forward. “He’s just...it’s going to take him some time.”
“You know, that’s the third time someone has said that and I still can’t stop thinking that somehow, everything is my fault.” Buffy glanced to the floor. “But anyway, Spike and I have decided that instead of waiting for them to decide when it’s time to act out the sequel to this sordid affair, that we’re gonna give them just enough of a head start so that they feel like all is good when in fact, all is very much not good.”
Giles nodded slowly. “You and Spike are going after Darla and Angelus?”
“Yes.” She licked her lips. “See, Angelus and Darla...they’re not so much with the thinking that we can hold our own. They still see Spike as this weak little fledgling when he’s really, really not. And they think that he’ll just take everything that happened with a smile and a nod. They haven’t changed; he has.” She paused. “So have I. And we’re not going to wait for them to get bored enough to come back and mess with our lives. We’re also not going to forget that, hey, they terrorized my home and murdered my best friend in the process. Oh, and, they attempted to raise an ancient biblical demon and blackmail me into getting this Gem of Whatever thing so that Asmodeus didn’t—”
The Watcher held up a hand. “Wait. Stop. They attempted to blackmail you?”
Buffy blinked. “Did I not tell you that part?”
“I don’t think there was time for you to warn us,” Ms. Calendar replied. “You’ll remember, certainly, that you burst in here like hell was following. It all happened too fast to go into detail.”
“Angelus blackmailed you?” Giles demanded. “How?”
“With Spike’s life. He didn’t really...get a chance to get to the blackmail part. He just said that he was going to hold a stake to Spike’s chest as motivation for me to both find the gem and hand it over.”
“He wanted you to find the Gem of Amara for him,” the Watcher repeated in astonishment. “I can’t believe it. It’s not supposed to exist. Well, it wasn’t, anyway. I suppose Asmodeus’s existence is proof enough of the gem.”
Xander raised his hand. “Did we ever decide if Asmodeus was actually Asmodeus, or if that Raphael thing was just a bunch of, ummm, crap?”
“Fortunately, the matter never became important.” Giles kept his gaze trained on the Slayer, his expression solemn but laced with hope and a hint of that familiar fatherly pride. “Buffy...you know you didn’t fail. I truly hope you know you didn’t fail.”
“And yet, all the things I’m feeling are symptomatic of failure.”
“With absolutely no grounds behind them.”
“It’s funny—you say that, and yet the feelings don’t go away.”
“I can see where that’d be funny.” The Watcher smiled gently. “You didn’t fail, Buffy. You did not fail. Things have happened this year...things that no one could have predicted. But we’ve been doing things for years...things that we’ve either lucked out of or simply had the resources to stop. You’re incredibly good at what you do, and you know it. You know you’re good, just as well as you know the dangers that await anyone who decides to play a game of chance with the Powers. Furthermore, so did Willow. She knew it two years ago, and she knew it the night that she went out for a walk. The fact that she decided to...the fact that she did what she did, knowing what she knew, and knowing that she was going to likely die either way, she went ahead and left that misleading message on your machine instead of screaming at the top of her lungs for your help. Willow was a smart girl. I’m willing to bet that she thought, on some level, that she could take care of herself. Or perhaps she thought that you would be there irregardless. The fact that you didn’t is absolutely no fault of your own. Last I checked, your superpowers didn’t extend to telepathy. You can’t blame yourself for what happened to her. You are not a failure.”
Buffy smiled halfheartedly. “You know, you’re the second person to tell me tonight that being telepathic wasn’t a part of the package.”
“Well, great minds do tend to think alike.”
“You know I’m talking about Spike, right?”
“I’m not talking it back just because we share an opinion. The fact is, Spike is right. You are not telepathic. And you are not a failure.”
“And Angelus and Darla getting away?” Xander shrugged. “Sounds like they cut and ran. Pretty fast. Also sounds like they have what’s coming to them...whenever you catch up.”
There were times, Buffy knew, when people had the amazing capacity to astound. To be the sort of people that truly didn’t exist in the real world. The place that hid the other place—the Hellmouth that she guarded to make sure no one ever discovered that the X-Files presented a closer representation of reality than anything anyone could catch on Lifetime. She found herself nearly moved to tears, and doing her best to hide it by burying herself in Giles’s comforting, paternal arms.
“Thank you.”
He rumbled a small chuckle against her. “Evidently, I’ve said nothing that Spike hasn’t told you.”
“He has to say it. He loves me.”
“You know I love you, too.”
“Yeah, but you’re my father figure. He’s my cuddly vampire-mate guy. You get to scold me when I’m wrong. He...well, he does, but he gets in trouble.” She hugged Giles tighter, then pulled away, wiping her eyes. “Thank you.”
Xander came up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You know what you should do?”
“Go home to my boyfriend?”
“That would be what I would do...were I you or, you know, gay.”
She giggled in spite of herself and turned, hugging him tightly. “Thank you.”
Cordelia was on her feet the next second, her eyes kind as she approached. “Hey,” she said, extending her arms in a fashion that certainly violated half a dozen rules of social status at Sunnydale High. “You’re getting handsy with my boyfriend, you know.”
She smirked and, figuring it for a once in a lifetime thing, embraced the other girl tightly. “I know,” she said. “Thanks, Cordy.”
“Hey,” Xander said, smiling his encouragement as Buffy glanced down again after the girls pulled apart. “Tell Spike he shouldn’t have stayed away. We totally handled this without losing it.”
“That was very mature of you,” the Slayer agreed, nodding.
“Well, I’ve realized that with as much as I don’t like vampires, your special situation could have always been worse.”
Buffy’s brows perked and she nodded again. “Oh really?”
“Sure.” A beat. “You could’ve been mated to Angelus.”
The thought made her flesh crawl. She made a face and rubbed her arms. “Ewww, Xan! There are certain things you just don’t joke about!”
He grinned unrepentantly. “See, this is the perk of being the brains behind that bit of a mind puke. It doesn’t bother me as much.”
“Yeah, well, my boyfriend’s got a lithe, well-muscled body, and I gotta tell you, he’s not above kicking your ass.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
Buffy turned back to Giles and sighed. “I’m going to leave now. I’ll be back with Spike at some point, I hope...we need to talk about where we go from here, among other things. I just...I needed to get this part of it out of the way. Angelus and Darla are gone—”
“Buffy,” her Watcher said softly.
“Yes?”
“I think you should go home.”
“I see. Point taken.” She nodded shortly to herself. “Okay. I’m going home to my very lithe and well-muscled boyfriend.”
“Who’s not above kicking my ass,” Xander volunteered.
“That’s right.”
“You know, I think everyone should take a minute to appreciate how much I’ve grown over the past couple days,” her friend said. “That’s quite a lot of growing in quite a little bit of time.”
“Yes, and you will be rewarded.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“No, but it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”
The feeling when she left the library was a complete one-eighty from what she expected. An utter reversal of everything she’d felt upon entering the building. The fears that had racked her body were gone. The sense of failure that had captured her as an afterthought to the knowledge of her enemies’ escape—everything was gone. Everything.
She remembered feeling this peace after waking up in Spike’s arms the morning after Willow’s death. She remembered feeling a betrayal of her humanity with the lack of tears she could conjure for the passing of one realm of suffering to one of peace. Logically, she knew everything that she’d felt from the distension of a sense of failure was related to Angelus and his magical disappearing act.
She remembered the feeling of peace. She remembered it so well. Remembered feeling guilty for her lack of guilt. Remembered feeling remorseful for her lack of remorse. And while all the feelings were still there, they were being smothered with a need for humanity. Humanity that brought with it feelings of guilt, remorse, and betrayal.
There was nothing wrong with being inhumane, in that sense. Inhumane was a word that had certain connotations, but in the end, humanity itself was more an abstract notion that even its creators could not define. Perhaps, then, humanity was left best settled by those who weren’t at all human. Those who knew true values and could see the world from that higher realm that Spike had helped her reach.
Peace had returned. The fight was far from over, but she felt at peace.
*~*~*
The epitaph on Willow’s headstone read: For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It made her smile. She remembered well during her junior year how her friend would recite the words to her whenever she reached a period of hardship. A test. A particularly difficult patrol. A fight with Xander over something stupid and incidental. A disagreement with her mother. None of it was good, and none of it was bad; only thinking made it so. And as small as it had been, that small bit of encouragement, it had always worked. Always.
“You know what’s weird about this,” Buffy whispered, staring at the engraving. “This is the second time tonight I’ve been subjected to Hamlet. You think someone’s trying to tell me something?” She drew in a deep breath and wedged her hands into her pockets, shivering as a gust of wind crashed into her back. “See, I’ve never done this. Never. I’ve seen people do it in movies and on TV, but I’ve never done it. Not even when my grandma died. I just...talking to the dead has never appealed to me. I mean, vampires and dead who can talk back...those I can handle. But this...I don’t know if you can hear me or not. My jury’s still searching for a verdict on that one..”
She glanced down and inhaled deeply. “I just...I don’t even know why I’m here, really. I guess I just need to say this thing and...well, just say it. If there’s anything I could have done to make this not be like this. To make it so that this grave wasn’t here, and you were...I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what else, but I need to...I just have to get this behind me, see. I don’t feel guilty but I...tonight I did. If I could’ve saved you, Will, you know I would have. And then I wouldn’t be here, talking to you with six feet of soil between us. But I won’t feel bad, and I don’t think you want me to. I think you want me to get back to doing what I do. I’ve been kinda conflicted about that, but I really don’t.” Buffy licked her lips. “I love you, Will. And I’m sorry. If there was anything that I didn’t do that I could have, I’m sorry.”
Her voice died and silence fell around her.
For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
There was so much truth in that. So much.
It was over. This was the last stop. It was over, and now it was time. It was time to go home.
It was time to curl in love’s arms, and wish for a brighter tomorrow.
To be concluded in Chapter Thirty-Five: In What Ethereal Dances... | | | | | | | |
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