Chapter Text
As desperation takes hold
-Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
****
This was it. Buffy pulled the cheap rental car over to the shoulder. The road dropped off into nothingness ahead. Leaving the headlights on, she put the keys on the dash, grabbed her stake and got out. The door closing made a loud thump that echoed down through the chasm of what had once been Sunnydale. A few plants grew stubbornly along the edge of the crater, a couple even had flowers. While walking away from the car, Buffy reached down to scoop up a fist sized rock, hefted it a few times, then threw it with all her might out into the darkness. She waited, listened, but never heard it hit. Just the wind making lazy, low whistling noises.
Perfect, she thought, time to finish this.
She walked right up to the edge and looked down. It wasn’t a sheer cliff face like she’d hoped. There were a successive series of ledges, and even with a running start she wouldn’t be able to clear them. It made her angry that the hellmouth was still conspiring against her. Maybe it wouldn’t matter much. She’d be just as dead on the roadside next to the damn car, but then why come all this way? She wanted to be down there, whatever was left of her mixing with whatever was left of him. It was supposed to be symbolic, that she had died here that day as well. It was so obvious to her week after week that she had. It wasn’t her fault that no one else seemed to know it. And, oh god, whose fault is that, Buffy? You let the one other person that did get you die here, alone. She was fixing things. She was going to make them right again. Nobody truly needed her anymore. It would be no biggie if she was gone, not with all those girls to carry on in her place. The pain could end. She needed it to end.
When Buffy had first been dragged out of heaven she’d felt cut off from everything, unable to feel. Now she felt too much, endless time dragging across her like shards of glass. Every morning she woke up and her heart was cut out. No end, never an end. Is this how you felt when I was gone? Unlike her, at least he’d been needed. He had promised her to take care of Dawn, and he’d stuck to it. In her world everyone had moved on, had new loves and exciting futures to look forward to, everyone except her. Buffy felt like an extra appendage, a sixth finger that everyone acted like they were still glad to have around but didn’t quite know what to do with. Dawn was at school and called her, well, never. She would answer if Buffy did, and talk for about five minutes before rushing off. Buffy knew she was an unwelcome reminder to her sister of bad times and feelings. It was difficult to blame Dawn for wanting some space.
Willow was off doing her own thing, the best friend badge having been discarded a long time ago if Buffy was being truthful. Xander had a new not-quite-yet girlfriend and was busy coordinating the Slayers both night and day. She didn’t even know where Giles was or what he was doing. Ditto for Angel. Not one of her friends had ever sat down with her in the aftermath, asked her how she felt. In the early days when she cried, they had said they missed their home too. No one had said his name. Except her, curled around a pillow at night, sobbing his name into it over and over. Spike, Spike, Spike, Spike.
Buffy wiped the tears from her cheeks. She’d been slowly walking along the crater rim, looking for the right place. `
Ah, there it was.
A twisted metal girder stuck out from the ledge below her. It appeared lodged into the crater wall, and hung out far enough into the blackness that she knew the darkness would be able to swallow her whole. She dropped the six feet down to the ledge. As she landed she heard the sound of car tires screeching to a halt. Buffy ran, then was forced to drop to her hand and knees in order to crawl out onto the narrow girder. Above her she heard boots crunching on gravel.
“Buffy?” A voice was calling. She tried to hurry, but the girder shifted under her weight and creaked loudly.
“Buffy!” She looked back, meeting Angel’s horror stricken eyes as he took in where she was and what she was doing. “What the hell is going on Buffy? Stop, please.” He leapt down to the lower ledge and grabbed the sides of the girder to steady it. She turned her back to him and continued crawling to the end. Then she firmly planted her feet and stood, looking down into the vastness before her. There was no fear. Angel was still blathering on behind her, something about love, and duty, and the rest of the bullshit she was tired of. Slowly she turned to face him.
“Go away, Angel,” she said flatly. “I don’t want or need you to be here.” He looked like he’d been slapped.
“Please Buffy, I love you, I can’t watch you do this. I didn’t believe Xander when he called, saying you might be here, be thinking about . . .. Please. I have something to tell you.” Still crouched over, holding onto the girder, he tentatively lifted one hand towards her.
“The last time I did this,” she continued in a monotone, “it was to save the world, and my sister. It was a sacrifice. Now it’s for me. This death- it's my gift. You can’t watch? Then you’d better close your eyes.” She held her arms out to the side, and Angel could see the stake clasped in her right hand.
“Buffy, No! Wait!”
She tilted her head back, I love you, she thought, and this time there was no one to tell her no. Her hand whipped up with the stake and plunged it into her chest, making the pain festering in her heart real. The darkness reached for her, and she tumbled down into its embrace.
****
Angel watched her fall, helpless to stop it. He heard a sickening thud below him. He jumped down to the next ledge, and then the next. The stump of a drainage pipe had cut her fall short. Reaching her body, he searched for any signs of life. At her neck he found a faint, thready pulse, and he could see her chest rise and fall in little hitching breaths.
“Buffy?” She didn’t stir. Carefully he gathered her into his arms. The scrape of broken bones against each other made him cringe. As grotesque as it appeared, he knew the stake had to remain in her chest until it could be removed in surgery. Blood dripped steadily from a cut on her back, oozed from a dozen other places, and ran in a stream from between her lips. Angel fought his demon for control, the remembered taste of her heavy on his tongue. He bit his own lip to try and drown out the scent.
It seemed to take years for him to climb back up to the cars. She stopped breathing once, and he’d shaken her in panic until she’d started up again. Now every labored breath she took was accompanied by a horrible rasping noise from inside her.
The sports car Angel had followed her in would be faster, but it was only a two seater. He left it parked haphazardly in the road and instead laid her across the backseat of the rental car she’d driven from LA. The keys were sitting on the dash, and he wondered who the hell she thought was going to return the rental. The pitiful engine protested as Angel slammed his foot on the gas and spun the wheel, heading away from the gaping maw that had been Sunnydale.