Buffy’s whole body melted onto the floor of the bandstand as the snow started falling again all around her, dusting the ground, trees, and benches with a white veil that made it seem like she was the only person in the world. Buffy curled into a ball on the cold stone floor below her and wept … she wept for herself, she wept for William and Spike, their children, and their friends – she wept five years worth of tears. The wall around her heart was nothing but rubble and, as hard as she tried to rebuild it, she couldn’t stop the hurt any longer … she couldn’t pretend that nothing mattered but revenge, because all that really mattered was love, and William’s love belonged to another, just as her children did.
Buffy wept for so many reasons … reasons that kept clattering and smashing around in her brain, bumping into each other and merging then separating again.
She wept because she wasn’t able to do what she’d come here to do – she wasn’t strong enough, not emotionally and not even physically – she had failed. She couldn’t kill Cecily … She could still feel William’s soul expand with joyous pride when he finally believed her…when he realized that his next child would be a son. Buffy knew that William loved his girls with all his heart, but there’s always something special when that first son is born – someone to carry on the family name – a legacy.
She wept for William … for the loss of his love. He had given his heart to Cecily, just as Spike had given his heart to Buffy – wholly and truly and right from first sight; that was so very William. Buffy wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say when she asked him if he was happy. A big part of her, maybe all of her, wanted him to say ‘No’ … to scream ‘No!’ to shout it from the rooftops … ‘NO!’ She wanted him to hate Cecily … to despise and loathe her and regret the moment he met her and that part of her, that green monster inside her, sobbed now … because he didn’t do any of that. He loved Cecily … still. It hadn’t been a passing fancy, an ill-advised infatuation, or a case of puppy-love … it had been his destiny.
Buffy chastised herself for even going into William’s room … if only she had done what she had planned and gone into Cecily’s room … even with only part of her Slayer strength, she should’ve been able to overpower a pregnant, Victorian housewife. But as she stood there between the rooms she suddenly felt her heart … she felt it pull her towards William. Her heart had finally told her what to do and she had finally listened … and it had been wrong. So very, very wrong.
“Stupid … so, so stupid,” Buffy muttered to herself though her tears. What did you think, that he would walk away from his wife and run into your arms? That he’d feel your soul and somehow know that you were his destiny, not her? “Such a stupid fool …” Buffy moaned as she covered her face with her hands and continued to sob.
“Seems a quite queer place for a Guardian Angel to sleep,” William observed, walking into the bandstand behind Buffy.
Buffy jumped up quickly and wiped at her eyes and nose with both hands before turning to face him.
“Angels can sleep anywhere…” Buffy informed him, smoothing her skirt and trying to look nonchalant.
“Indeed … and are all angels ‘stupid fools’?” William asked, walking slowly towards her.
“Only me …” Buffy admitted, taking a step back as he stepped forward.
“Who are you … really?” William asked as she studied her face in the dim lamplight. “You appear to be flying much too close to the ground for an angel of any standing – fallen or otherwise.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed as she folded her arms across her chest. “Someone who cares about you … who cares about what happens to you and your children. A fallen angel trying to get her wings back.”
“You said you loved me … that wasn’t … the way you said it …” William stammered before stopping and starting over. “I haven’t been loved by many women … well, really only one, but I could feel … something. When you said that, it felt … oddly genuine. What was that?”
“We … it …” Buffy started and stopped, rubbing tiredly at her eyes. What was she supposed to tell him? That his wife, the woman he thought was his destiny, was a rat-skank-husband-stealing-whore that made a wish and ruined their lives and condemned his soul to hell? That would probably go over like a lead balloon – she would no doubt end up in Bedlam … again, with that story. Plus it would just be hurtful … it would cut his heart, bleed his soul, to know what his Juliet really was, and above all else, Buffy didn’t want to hurt him like that.
“We were together in another time … another life … hell, maybe it was another universe, hell, I don’t know, anymore. We were each other’s destiny … I … I lost you and I’m trying to find a way back there – back to you, but … I just, I haven’t been able to …” Buffy dropped her head into her hands as tears overtook her.
William closed the short distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug and Buffy melted against him as the sobs came even harder than before. She could feel his heart beating in his chest, feel his chest heaving with labored breath from running after her all this way, feel his warm arms encircling her. William was alive – truly alive, and he was happy. He had a family, he had a wife that he loved who, if she didn’t love him, at least made him think that she did, he had a job that he loved, he was affluent and even respected … why was she trying to take all that away from him?
“‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,’” he recited Hamlet to her, his voice soft. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry that I’m not the man you were seeking.”
Buffy nodded and reluctantly backed up away from him and out of his arms, wiping at her eyes and trying to stop the tears. “It’s not your fault … I’m just … I’m afraid I’m being trampled by the battalions. This was my last chance,” Buffy told William before giving him a small smile. “You should … you should go home – go home to your family.”
William tilted his head and looked at her with a certain amount of awe, along with a little bewilderment. “Is what you said true … about a son and a war?”
Buffy pursed her lips together and nodded as she raised her eyes up to his and held his gaze. “Don’t let him go … he’ll want to be a hero, he’ll want to be like … like you. Don’t let him be that hero, William, it’s not worth the price.”
“I’m no hero … that was my father,” William pointed out.
Buffy forced a sad smile to her lips. “No … you’re a hero, too. To me you’re a hero … to your students and your children you are. Don’t sell yourself short, William – you have the soul of a warrior, the heart of a lion,” Buffy assured him. Buffy reached behind her neck and unfastened the chain that held the cross that Angel had given her at their first meeting. She took the pendant and fastened it around William’s neck, sliding the cross down in place over his heart.
“To remember me by … to remember that you’re a hero,” Buffy murmured, sliding her hand down from his neck and touching the cross as it rested against his chest. Buffy could feel his skin warm under her fingers, feel his heart beating below her palm, feel his chest fall and rise with breath … she thought she could even feel his soul as it reached out for hers. It felt so right to have her hand on his chest … she longed to be back in his arms, longed to have his love, longed to be with him…
Buffy suddenly pulled her hand away, and wrapped her arms around her torso to keep from reaching out and touching him again. Averting her eyes from his, she told him, “Go now … someone will miss you. You shouldn’t be here, it’s not proper; I might lure you into debauchery.”
William cocked a brow at her, but she just tilted her head in the direction they’d come from, back towards his house where his family and his wife waited for him, afraid to say another word lest she beg him to stay, to hold her … to love her. When he didn’t move, Buffy turned her back on him and walked to the other side of the pavilion, hugging her arms even tighter around her body and closing her eyes against the pain – she felt like she was losing him all over again even though this man … this William, had never been hers to begin with.
“Thank you for coming … for my son’s life. I won’t forget … I won’t forget you, Avengelyne,” William told her softly before he turned and headed down the steps of the pavilion and began walking through the falling snow back towards Macaulay Road.
“I won’t forget you, either …” Buffy whispered as she turned and watched him walk away into the cold, dark night.
**~**
{{Click here to hear “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” by Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods on YouTube }}
The marchin' band came down along main street
The soldier blues fell in behind
I looked across and there I saw Billy
Waiting to go and join the line
And with her head upon his shoulder
His young and lovely fiancée
From where i stood i saw she was cryin'
And through her tears I heard her say
Billy, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life
Billy, don't be a hero, come back and make me your wife
And as Billy started to go,
She said keep your pretty head low
Billy, don't be hero, come back to me.
The soldier blues were trapped on a hillside
The battle raging all around
The sergeant cried, We've got to hang on boys!"
We've got to hold this piece of ground
I need a volunteer to ride up,
And bring us back some extra men,
And Billy's hand was up in a moment
Forgettin' all the words she said
She said,
Billy, don't be a hero, don't be a fool with your life
Billy, don't be a hero, come back and make me your wife
And as Billy started to go,
She said keep your pretty head low
Billy, don't be a hero, come back to me.
I heard his fiancée got a letter
That told how Billy died that day
The letter said that he was a hero
She should be proud he died that way
I heard she threw that letter away......