Rating: PG
Couple: Buffy (kind of B/A)
Improv 28: half, conscience, bitter, optional
Disclaimer: None of this is mine.
Summary: Buffy finds her claddagh ring, in Becoming 1.
Author's Notes: I've been rewatching season two as it's been playing on FX, and getting back into the whole Angelus storyline. I saw "Becoming 1" again on Friday, and this one moment struck me, so this is just a Buffy POV of that moment…

"the glowing ember, burning hot, and burning slow/deeper than I'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you/I know I can't be with you/I do what I have to do"—Sarah McLachlan, "Do What You Have to Do"

The walls had crumbled; they were rubble now, huge piles of brick or shattered, crumpled steel. They'd seemed so sturdy a few days before, as if they would stand forever, keeping everyone out or maybe just keeping her in. But now they were gone, as if they'd never been. And maybe they hadn't really. No brick on top of brick. No unbending steel. Just paper, to crumple with a touch, or not even that, half shadow, half illusion.

She could kill him, she'd said. Believed. She was ready. Privately the walls had held back even more than that; it wasn't even him, she told herself, he was already gone, she wouldn't be killing the man she loved. She didn't love him anymore.

(She'd always known that last was a lie, no wall could hide that truth).

Nothing but illusion really, of safety, of determination, of ability. And now it was all gone, even that illusion, and she could see herself for the first time, truly. Not ready. Not sure. Not able.

It was a terrible thing to know you would sacrifice a life for someone you loved. It was even more terrible to know you would sacrifice that life to someone you loved. Had loved. Did love.

Willow was talking in her ear, but she didn't hear her, too wrapped up in the sight before her. It wasn't the ring really, by itself. It was the memory that went with it; standing there, in her brightly lit room, with the phone cradled against her ear, she could still feel the velvet of the night. His voice. The burning in her limbs. The knowledge, undeniable, that there was nothing she would not do for, with this man.

It was a bitter thought now, though the memory remained untainted by what followed it. Better even, more precious because she had lost that feeling. The only burning now was behind her eyes, and she had no more talent for certainty. What she thought she'd found was gone now, with the walls. All had crumbled, all was lost. All was found.

Hope, that's what it was. The great destroyer of walls. Possibility. And no clear answer. It was dangerous to try; it was dangerous not to try. He was a killer; he was her Angel. Her conscience said she had killed Ms. Calendar as much as he; her heart said that maybe now that sacrifice could be worth something.

She says something to Willow, a goodbye, a promise for a later she's never sure will come, and sets the phone down. Her fingers close around the silver the way his once did. Friendship. Loyalty. Love. And what is left to them now?

There is a part of her that would do anything to be back in that memory. To have him with her again. To feel his love like air, necessary for life, surrounding her always.

There is a part of her that wants to lie down and let it all go away, to let what will happen happen, to simply be absent from whatever was coming next.

But attendance is not optional, not for her. Neither is love. Neither is…anything, really. The world, life, is not optional. The illusion of strength is not optional, no more so than the real thing.

Buffy puts down the ring, puts down memory, puts down hope, lets go of all the walls to truth. She will do what she has to do.

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