Disclaimer : Nothing is mine.

Spoilers: Btvs’ ‘Chosen’ and Ats ‘Home’.

Summary : Willow’s POV. Three days after the events, realization hit Buffy hard.

It happened stupidly, really.

We had decided to go to LA and ask Angel for some help, especially the financial kind, since we had nothing left.

So we were all gathered in the lobby of the Hyperion hotel, three days after the final battle. The hotel looked a little bit out of condition since the last time I was there. But it seemed they had all survived their own apocalypse as well. Fred and Gunn and Wesley and Lorne. Cordelia was still in a coma, unfortunately. And I didn’t know why I had this nagging feeling that someone was missing.

Whatever.

Giles and Wesley were talking about that hellmouth in Cleveland. Gee, did he really think we just had close one only to run to another? Anyway, at some point he made a false move with his glasses and it fell into his cup of coffee.

“Bloody Hell,” he muttered.

I wanted to laugh – God knows we needed reasons to, even silly ones- but then I saw Buffy’s face.

She had blanched. Her face was chalk white.

And I understood.

Since our arrival here, she had looked fine. She wasn’t talking much, but neither did we, we were all exhausted. She was even laughing sometimes. When I think about it, she was in fact acting way to normally for it to be…well, normal. For three days, she had been living in denial. Then again, she had always been very good at that.

And that was the exact moment realization hit her. The hard way. Like a giant slap in the face.

He was gone.

She got up suddenly. “No.”

Everyone looked at her, surprised.

She looked at me. “No…no,no,no…”

I got up as well and took her by the shoulders. “I’ll take care of her,” I mouthed to the others.

I led her upstairs. She was still shaking her head. She turned to me and gripped my arm in a strong clutch.

“He’s not dead. He’s just sleeping. Yeah, he’s sleeping because it’s daylight. He can’t come right now.”

I sighed. Looked like Denial!Buffy hadn’t left the building yet.

“Buffy…”

What could I possibly say to make it better? There was nothing to be said. I knew that too well.

“He will come by later,” she was continuing her rambling, “Be his usual pain in the ass and make a snarky comment, and he will make that look, you know, the one where he raises his eyebrow…”

She stopped then, putting her hand on her mouth, looking at me with huge eyes full of pain and tears that started to roll down her cheeks. And I couldn’t stop mine.

“I can’t do this, Will,” she whispered “I just can’t. I won’t be able to handle this. What am I gonna do now that he…”

I took her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly.

“You have to, Buffy. Spike wanted you to. He wanted you to have a normal life.”

“And I wanted to stay with him,” she said.

I looked at her her, shocked.

“You wanted to die?”

“Die? No. I didn’t think about that. I just wanted to stay with him.”

“And he told you to leave. See? You have to go on. For you, but also for him. We all have to, to pay tribute to the sacrifice he made. Do you think Tara would have liked to see me crying everyday? If she knew about the whole ‘try to destroy the world’ thingy she would probably be mightily pissed off.”

Buffy smiled at that. A genuine smile that reached her eyes.

“She probably saw the whole thing from up there,” she told me.

“Yeah, and I’ll be in big trouble when we meet again,” I said, “And I can’t wait for that day to come. But before, I want to live a nice and happy life. I deserve it. You deserve it. That’s what Spike and Tara wanted for us.”

She nodded, acceptance slowly making its way.

“Because they loved us.” She said.

“And they still do. And we love them. They are not gone, Buffy.” I put my hand on my heart, then on hers. “They are in here. Where they belong. Forever.”

END