Nightmares

By enigmaticblue

 

Most days she didn’t hate her friends for what they had done to her. Most days she was lucky just to have the energy to drag herself out of bed in the morning. There wasn’t a lot left over for strong emotions like anger, hate, even love. She often thought that it was a good thing breathing was automatic, because she really wouldn’t have had the energy for that either.

           

The times that she actually had enough energy to think about what her friends had done, she usually had the energy to make excuses for them as well. Of course, they hadn’t known where she was. Of course, they had worried about her, had wanted her back. Of course, they had all done this out of love.

           

But always there was a little voice in the back of her brain that asked if they hadn’t just been selfish. A little voice that asked how they could have thought she would be in hell if she’d just died to save the world, selflessly sacrificing herself for them all. And when the nightmares came, she hated them for entirely different reasons: because they didn’t remember.

           

She knew it was foolish to hate them for something like that. After all, when Billy unleashed the nightmare world onto Sunnydale, they had all been caught up in their own horrors. The only one of hers they had witnessed was getting turned. Perhaps they didn’t remember that she’d been buried alive first.

           

It was the buried alive part that had been the most frightening. The idea of being trapped under that much earth had been a fear of hers since she was a little girl. Long before she had become the Slayer, long before she had known of the existence of vampires, she had feared digging herself out of her own grave. For weeks after Billy’s awakening, she’d had the same nightmare of being buried alive again.

           

But none of her friends seemed to realize the enormity of it all. Of waking up in a coffin, six feet below the surface, gasping for breath. Believing you’re going to die—again—when you couldn’t even process being back in the first place. The mornings after the sleepless nights that she had that nightmare again, waking up and clawing her way out, those were the mornings that she hated all of them the most. Those were the mornings that she went to see him as soon as she could get away.

           

When she had come back, it had been too hot, too noisy, too bright. Going into his crypt was like going on vacation. He was cool to the touch, and he knew to be quiet, and his darkness seemed to absorb all the light that threatened to overwhelm her.

           

So she would go to his crypt and walk in without knocking, and he would just look at her with an understanding that went beyond words. An understanding that didn’t need words. Sometimes they would stay on the first level, and he would just talk, telling her stories of his days and nights. Sometimes they would sit quietly, saying nothing, not touching. And the silence between them felt so comfortable they might have owned the same skin.

           

There was one morning, however, that she would always remember, after nearly a week of sleepless nights. She came to him, exhausted and yet unable to sleep. Her body aching from battling a demon that had nearly been too much for her. Her soul burning with despair and fury and a disappointment so deep there were no words.

           

He must have seen it all in her eyes, because he said nothing, instead leading her down to the lower level, to his bed. Cool fingers brushed over her face, landing on her shoulders and firmly sitting her on the bed. Gentle hands pulled off her boots, drew back the covers, and tucked her in.

           

His silent, dark form next to her, the chill of the crypt cooling her overheated body, she slept. And no nightmares found her.

           

Later, months later, when the hurt had been done and the distance separating them was more than miles, she would dream of that evening. She would dream of a sleep so deep and beautiful it was like rebirth. Of waking in his arms, his blue eyes fastened on her face, knowing he had not moved all the hours she had slept. She would dream of the waking that was not less beautiful than the sleeping.

           

And when she dreamt of that moment in time, where they were in harmony, maybe when she had loved him first, it was the waking that was the nightmare.