Creative Works   

Vacuum
By Cryptic

Summary: An explanation for what Buffy said in "Sanctuary."
Spoilers: Sanctuary..
Disclaimer: They're not mine, especially pod-Buffy. She deserves a slow, painful stake through the heart for what she said in Sanctuary, or at least a decent explanation ... SO there it goes.
Distribution: ask first, I'd say yes.
Feedback: PLEASE, with a dead Riley on top . . . Plus I'm thinking of a sequence..if you like it enough ...SO your move guys. Oh.. the address vicious_blue(at)slayme.com

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She left in a hurry, not bothering to look back behind her because she knew what she would find . . . his wistful eyes that would haunt her dreams until the end of days – dark pools of sorrow and pain, guilt and hopelessness, and she was part of it..Hell she was the cause of it all, and she knew it. Why did she have to do it? To willfully break his heart, to crush it ruthlessly just so that she could feel better, that she could once again be the winner. There used to be a time when it wasn't all about winning with him, when it was about giving and taking, loving and being loved in return. But that was let's say it – past, the glorious gut-wrenching past, the Angel - saga that was never to return just like him. And she was the reason for it, because now, after all she'd done there was no way on earth that he could still have whatever infinitesimal feelings for her, not after what she had just done.

She lashed out on him, like a wounded animal, knowing that he was not to blame, that she was the intruder, the on-looker, the one that was not supposed to be there, the one that ruined all he had achieved. But it hurt so much, not seeing him all this time and then seeing him again but in Faith's arms – the woman who had stolen her body and had sex with HER boyfriend. It just hurt, and all these emotions she was trying so hard to suppress, to hide, to overcome..And just by looking at him they were there once again, and all that hard work was history and she had tried so damn hard. She built that little white house with picket fences around her, found herself a nice (sort of) boyfriend, whom even her mother liked – she lived the normal he wanted her to have, and just one look was enough to make her realize how false and wrong it all was. And she took it out on him, it was his idea in the first place – to leave.. And she hit him, like the monsters she fought every night when she knew he was much more than that, much much more.

And then there was that insane jealousy part that suddenly had its talons all over her heart. She was surprised that it could hurt that much, she briefly wondered why it hadn't felt so bad when she found out Faith had slept with Riley. She didn't feel anything then, just a dull ache and anger . . . at herself . . . at him. But when she saw her in HIS arm – that was a totally different story. It was like dying all over again, just seeing his arms around her, him comforting her . . . when it should have been her in his arms, SHE belonged there, not Faith. And the thought that they could have been together in his bed. She flipped out. And she hit him, him not her, and he hit back and as always he was the one to apologize, as if she didn't hit him first..It was all so damn noble of him – he always played the noble guy . . .

And then at the police station, when he had proven her wrong once again, she had to hurt him all over, not willing to admit even to herself that he was right, had been right all along. She was just so confused and angry that he was prepared to give his life for Faith, not for her, not anymore . . . He had grown, changed, had family, friends, a purpose for living..if you might say so..And it wasn't her anymore, she wasn't the "only thing in his universe", like Willow used to say . . . not anymore. He was happy there, in his own way, but he was happier than he'd ever been in Sunnydale, happier than with her . . . .a scary thought, terrifying. He wasn't all hers anymore, and she couldn't take that, couldn't cope and move on as he had apparently done. Couldn't be the past..HIS past. Never, never, she could never be the ex, that he left behind to find a real life, a life without her. And she wanted him to hurt, to be miserable, to be hers. She just wanted to see if he still cared..

Or better, to make him care, to provoke some emotion in him, even if it was hate, just to prove to herself that she was still living. And she rubbed her "picture-perfect" boyfriend in his nose, the one she TRUSTED.. Hell, he had slept with Faith, and he hadn't known it wasn't her..Yeah, she trusted him alright..and she was going to take him back – what else could she do. It was all the same, she was dead anyway, on the inside..She died when she saw the agony in Angel's eyes, the betrayal and hurt when she called him her biggest mistake, knowing she stabbed her treacherous words right in his heart, and delighting in the way his beautiful, fragile soul screamed at her for mercy. But his lips never formed the words, they gave away his anger, his pain. Eventually, she heard what she wanted – that he couldn't move on, that he loved her still, although she was breaking his heart. He told her the truth as always, but she knew it was the final truth – the truth with which he banished her from his heart and his town. There was no turning back, she had wanted to see that he still cared – she did. Now she lost his love, but she still had his hate, there were no doubts about it – he surely hated her now, abhorred her for trivializing and degrading what they had, what he believed they had.

Well, hate was better than nothing at all. Or was it something that she read in one of his books, one he had forgotten when he so hurriedly left her:

". . . . Without something to hate we should lose the very spring of though and action.. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, were it not ruffled by the jarring interests, the unruly passions of people.

It is not the quality so much as the quantity of excitement that we are so anxious about – we cannot bare a state of indifference and ennui; the mind seems to abhor a vacuum. We are so much fuller with hate."

Yes, her life was so much fuller now . . .

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To be continued...?

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