In all her years, four to be exact, of having this huge weight on her shoulders, of protecting the world, of killing the things that went bump in the night...
All this time and the prospect had never crossed her mind that something like this could happen. It just didn’t fit the logic of her town. Therefore, there was no other emotion for her to feel but shock and numbness when the person only a few feet away shot his first bullet into the air.
Time, as cliché as it sounds, seemed to slow down, as if she was watching the special effects of some movie. The individual holding the gun, the out-of-control look on his face, and the first student that was shot.
It was all like a time bomb.
She could only gape as victim number one began to drop; everyone’s screams were muted as her eyes focused on the victim’s face. But the instant his body hit the floor, everything rushed into place.
Buffy Summers was suddenly very aware of the panicked body of students rushing around her, and of the fact that the shooter was about to fire again. It was her instincts that finally made her run forward. Those few seconds she’d wasted were precious, and she didn’t want to have to think what could happen because of how she had let the astonishment take over.
“Get down!” She ordered loudly at the others before he could fire again. Most of them did, and the bullet was a stray.
That’s when Buffy saw her. She knew now what those few seconds had cost her.
Faith stood there, not in distress, but with a look of annoyance and rage on her face. Buffy’s eyes widened a little. Faith thought she could take this guy out on her own.
Faith and Buffy had never been close. If she had any enemy at the school, it would have to be Faith. Well, her and Cordelia Chase. But not even her human enemies deserved to die.
Faith heatedly started walking toward the shooter, her intent to stop him.
Don’t try to play the hero in this, Buffy’s mind begged the brunette.
“Faith, no!” She yelled, and the slow motion set in again, as Buffy found she couldn’t move fast enough. Two bullets were fired, one right after the other. The shooter’s empty smile began to fade into a look of shock.
She watched as Faith fell, a look of pain and regret on the brunette’s face as her eyes locked with the Slayer’s. The noise seemed to die down to Buffy, though it really only got louder. But she didn’t have time to take the death in, not completely.
The next thing she knew the shooter raised the gun to his own head, probably troubled by what he’d done. With her full momentum, Buffy ran forward and tackled him to the ground. The gun slid across the floor and everyone backed up from it as if being near it alone would get them killed.
The boy, because no real man could do this, the boy she now had pinned beneath her began to cry and yell things she couldn’t understand.
She had no pity for him, not in that moment, and she almost questioned why she had even stopped him from ending his life. He’d ended another, after all.
Everything went more quickly after that, making up for the moments where everything had slowed down. Before she knew it, the police had come, and the boy was gone.
Her stomach twisted in impossible knots as she let her eyes travel to the two victims. The first she recognized as Xander Harris, a pleasant guy who always had a few jokes ready, but someone she had never really gotten to know. He was alive, though, and getting help for the bullet wound.
She let her eyes finally move to the inevitable scene.
Faith wasn’t moving. Her glassy eyes were widened slightly, unblinking. Blood had pooled inside her moth, and a few drops were now dried at the corner of her pale lips. The blood had stopped spreading around the floor now, which meant she was no longer bleeding. No longer alive.
A few of Faith’s friends stared helplessly, and others screamed in anguish and fear. And Faith’s boyfriend William “Spike” Emerson was now at her side, her head cradled in his lap as he tried to soothe life back into her. Life that wasn’t there.
Buffy could only stare weakly, her eyes wide as she let the situation sink into her mind. She gripped for the wall behind her, and held forcefully as she watched the pain in the eyes surrounding her.
She should have been able to stop this. It had only been a teenage boy.
It was only a school shooting.
She’d saved the world, took down the Master, fought every type of creature imagined.
And yet she hadn’t been able to save a life from a simple school shooting.
The monster this time was nothing but a man. Nothing but an insecure, scared little boy. And she had let him get away with injuring one and killing another.
She noticed Giles in the hallway now, staring at her with concern in his eyes, and her own began to fill with tears. Without warning, she took off down the hallway, not looking back.
---
His eyes were empty.
She had noticed that. She hadn’t paid attention to the preacher, or Faith’s parents who said a few kind words about their daughter and then returned to their grief. She didn’t know why, but she found herself watching Spike.
He hadn’t cried at all the day of the funeral. He hadn’t risen his gaze from the coffin either. And not once did his expression change, not even when they lowered Faith into the ground.
Giles was at her side, and he had already done plenty of reassuring to let her know it wasn’t her fault.
But it was her fault. She could have stopped this.
Buffy looked confused for a moment when people began to walk away, and then realized that it was over. Most were leaving, and even Giles said his goodbye to her, but Spike stayed.
The sky was darkening now, and there wasn’t much daylight left to go on. She needed to try and hurry him out before anything got to him.
She went over and stood by his side, and he took in a shaky breath.
“Listen, Sp-”
“You say you’re sorry and I’ll kill you,” he said quietly, but with all the venom he could muster. She had expected some type of hostility. There had never been anything but an extreme dislike between them, after all. But his words made her hesitate for a moment.
There was a long silence, before she finally replied.
“Well, I am,” she said calmly, and he gave her a dangerous look.
“Really?” He asked, his tone cold. “Don’t give me that shit, Summers,” he said with all the hate he could find within himself. “You never cared about me. You certainly never cared about her. You let this happen.”
Buffy had blamed herself, sure. But when other people implied that she was the cause of a death, she tended to get defensive.
“How the hell is this my fault?”
“I’m not stupid. And I’m not blind. This town isn’t like others, and you’re not like other...well, you’re not like anyone. Things happen and you have a way of being there. Things go wrong and you save people. Yet, for some reason, there have been two times where you’ve allowed someone who was close to me to die.”
Buffy stared at him, her eyes narrowing and her anger becoming more apparent. “You know that wasn’t-”
“Whatever,” he mumbled. “You let Dru die, then Faith. Then you go and save the bastard that killed Faith.”
“That’s because he was going to kill himself.”
“Does it matter? He murdered someone, and then wanted to end his own miserable existence. Would’ve been a bloody gift to the world..”
“No,” she said simply, but firmly, and he just turned his head away, taking a deep breath. With another of his comments still tugging the back of her mind, she added, “And I didn’t let Dru die.”
He wasted no time in trying to prove her wrong.
“That mugger did something to her, and instead of helping me get her to a hospital, you went after him. That’s what the police are here for, Summers.”
Buffy let herself return to the memory. It had been a little over a year ago, during their junior year. Drusilla and Spike had gotten caught in the alley with a vampire. Spike had been beaten pretty bad, and Dru had been bitten and thrown to the side before Buffy had even found them. And when the vampire took off, she’d gone after it, telling a passerby to call the police, which he did.
“I did what I had to do,” Buffy said through clenched teeth.
“Whatever,” he said again, shrugging to dismiss her. But he didn’t seem to mind much, or he was just ignoring her, as she continued to stand there, staring at the freshly covered grave.
As long as the silence lingered between them, Buffy let her mind travel to the years before. She and Spike hadn’t met until middle school, and he’d teased and picked on her up until the ninth grade. That was when she’d gotten tired of it and punched him in the nose.
She hadn’t known at the time that she was a newly-called Slayer, so when she had sent Spike soaring back a few feet, that had surprised her quite a bit. Soon, Rupert Giles, her Watcher, had brought the news. One girl in all the world...
The Chosen One.
Since then, both teenagers had avoided each other whenever possible, and brought each other down whenever they were around each other. After Dru’s death, his dislike for Buffy had fully turned into hate. Of that she was sure.
Buffy had no doubt that the “relationship” between Faith and Spike had been based on nothing but what happened behind the bedroom doors. It was easy to see that he had cared for Faith and that her death was cutting through him. But she had always wondered whether the feelings went any further than that.
“Did you love her?” Buffy asked quietly, breaking the silence.
He didn’t look up. “Faith?” He asked and she nodded. “I could have,” he said finally, quietly as if he was ashamed for not caring about her more. “She was more like a best friend than anything, I guess. And Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t leave now, you’re going to become the first girl I’ve ever hit.”
She clenched her jaw a little, but didn’t move. “Can’t do that,” she told him, seeing that the sun was now completely set.
“Why’s that, now?”
She studied him for a moment, lips tight. “Because,” she began quietly. “This isn’t like other towns,” she told him, repeating his earlier words.
He raised an eyebrow and let out a cold laugh. “What, are you my protector now?”
Her expression didn’t change at all as she continued to look at him. “You need to go home, Spike,” she said softly. Without thinking, she attempted to gently pull him away from the grave. He roughly shoved her away. And boy, if looks could kill…
“You need to stay the bleeding hell away from me,” he said dangerously. She bowed her head when he turned away from her, and by the time she looked back in his direction, he had disappeared from the cemetery.
She expelled a shaky breath, not wanting to let time catch up to her yet.
Finally, Buffy looked down at the grave with a long sigh. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Her words, along with the emotions of the day, began to drift through the night, leaving her drained and once again feeling nothing but guilt.
And after a long pause, she walked through the cemetery, making sure to let no vampire walk that night.
She didn’t need any more deaths on her hands.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Characters don't belong to me. :)
Rating just in case.
Does not follow canon at all, so don't expect it to.
This is very much a Spuffy story, and will end so. But this is placed in the "angst" category for a reason. There will be chapters with fluff, but don't get upset because it's not cuddly enough. This isn't going to be a happy story all of the time, but as I said before, there will be kind chapters with no harsh words. ;) Just hang with me, and I promise it’ll be okay. But I should probably tell you now, this story sets up for a sequel. And the sequel will start being posted the day (maybe two days) after this story is completed.
That said, on with the story.
Rating just in case.
Does not follow canon at all, so don't expect it to.
This is very much a Spuffy story, and will end so. But this is placed in the "angst" category for a reason. There will be chapters with fluff, but don't get upset because it's not cuddly enough. This isn't going to be a happy story all of the time, but as I said before, there will be kind chapters with no harsh words. ;) Just hang with me, and I promise it’ll be okay. But I should probably tell you now, this story sets up for a sequel. And the sequel will start being posted the day (maybe two days) after this story is completed.
That said, on with the story.