Characters: Willow, Angel
Genres: Angst, Drama, Alternate Universe
Rating: R
Warnings: Character Death
A/N: The song used in this part is by Jeff Buckley and is called "Last Goodbye".
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This is our last goodbye
I hate to feel the love between us die
But it's over
Just hear this and then I'll go :
you gave me more to live for,
more than you'll ever know.
She sat huddled in the corner of the couch, her long legs tucked up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them as she tried to make herself as small as possible. Her body shut down, barely noticing the background noises of the stereo or the never-ending sounds of the city outside her window, 24 stories down. In this moment, all that was left was the pain of her memories. To her surprise, bloody tears fell down her cheeks in rivulets, staining the white silk of her camisole. It had been years since she had shed a tear. Not since the night of their last goodbye. She hadn't even cried when he'd found her in Milan. Only now, clutching his ring to her chest, alone in her apartment with nobody to witness this breakdown, did she indulge in tears.
This is our last embrace,
must I dream and always see your face
Why can't we overcome this wall
Baby, maybe it is just because I didn't know you at all.
Despite everything she had told him, all the harsh words she had said, she missed him. Needed him like she had never needed another. He had been her rock through so many things. The one person she had been able to turn to no matter what happened. But, then, that was the problem. She'd counted on him too much. So much so that when he hadn't been there for her, she'd lashed out and blamed him. It was unfair of her, but she'd been so torn between the next emotions inside of her. Even as he had held her, kissing her and murmuring countless apologies, and she had leaned into him, yearning to draw upon his strength, she had felt it. The inner battle between her soul and the demon. In some ways it was worse than when she had first been turned. At least in those first few days there'd been no inner torment. Every fiber of her body had been in direct accord: rape, murder, pillage. Every base instinct she had ever felt had been indulged without a second thought. But now, as her soul instinctively reached for the one it knew could help ease her suffering, her demon screamed for her to sink her fangs into the delicate skin covering his throat and gorge on the sweet blood that flowed within.
Kiss me, please,
Kiss me
But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation
You know,
it makes me so angry 'cause I know that in time
I'll only make you cry, this is our last goodbye.
It had been too much for her to bare, and in angry frustration and self recrimination she had shoved him away, snarling for him to leave her alone. She'd pushed him away and closed herself off to him because she couldn't deal with what she had become. Her emotions had been such a swirling mass of confusion, she hadn't known what to think or feel. Every second of her existence was filled with her conflicting emotions and desires. There was a dual nature inside of her, and no matter how hard she tried, she found she wasn't able to fully dominate either. In that moment, she had let her anger get the better of her. She'd used him and their love as a scapegoat, blaming him for everything she was going through. She'd walked out on him and now she was alone- the way she had told him she wanted to be. The way she had thought would be best.
Did you say "no, this can't happen to me,"
and did you rush to the phone to call?
Was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind saying,
"maybe... you didn't know him at all."
Giving in to the painful memories she'd closed out for so long, Willow stood and began to take out her frustrations of her possessions. With a primal scream torn from her soul, she tore the leather upholstery of the couch with her nails and cleared her bookshelves with one sweep of her arm. Without knowing her own strength, Willow tore the hinges off her bedroom closet door and began to shred her clothing with her razor sharp nails. At the bottom of her closet was a plane brown carton which she yanked out, pulling apart the seems and collapsing the contents onto the carpet. Momentos from her youth littered the floor; her high school and college yearbooks, framed photographs of her, Buffy and Xander, her and Oz, her and Angel. All the items that had been so precious to her that she had kept them all these years, now feel victim to her rage. She smashed the glass frames with the heel of her boot, enjoying the sound of the crunching glass.
Well, the bells out in the church tower chime
Burning clues into this heart of mine
Thinking so hard on her soft eyes and the memory
Of her sighs that, "it's over... it's over...
She lifted her leg, about to bring the heel down onto a large frame containing a photograph of her and Angel at the restaurant they'd celebrated her college graduation at. As she stared at the two naïve, smiling faces staring back at her from the depths of time, some of the animalistic instinct to strike out against the rage and pain she felt subsided. Crumbling to the floor, some of the glass poking her through the leather of her pants, Willow began to cry again. She lifted the frame from the debris surrounding it and clutched the photograph to her chest. She cried for the girl she had been and the love that her and Angel had shared. These things may have been lost to her now but that didn't mean she cherished them any less. Her memories were all she had left, and as she sat rocking back and forth on the floor, she clutched them to her like a lifeline.