[Reviews - 34]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 1693 times

- Text Size +




Chapter 22: Preparations

Five days later.

Buffy sits at the dining room table, papers laid out before her and a cup of hot coco at her side. Tiny marshmallows melt on its surface. Nothing’s changed; at least nothing that matters as far as the Slayer is concerned. Spike still lies lifeless and unconscious in her room. Angel and Cordelia are still hanging around even though they have no real reason to stay. Buffy knows though that Angel won’t leave until this is over, and she knows it won’t be over until the baby arrives, until she dies. One thing that has changed is the sever drop in temperature that’s uncommon for this time of year. It feels like winter outside and it’s a colder winter than should ever visit southern California.

“Hey Buff,” Xander says as he enters the dining room.

She looks up at him and he’s taken back for a moment. There are circles setting in beneath the Slayer’s eyes, she looks worn and weary. It seems as the days have grown colder she’s grown weaker. The blood doesn’t help anymore, nor sleep, nor anything else; every day despite anything she does she grows more tired, more frail. Upon seeing Xander though she smiles and it softens her.

“Hey Xander.”

“Watcha up to?” He asks taking a seat across from her at the table.

“Just filling out some paperwork from the hospital… actually I need you to go over a few things with me.”

“Sure thing Buffster, whatever you need,” Xander says eager to help in any way he can.

“Okay, um well… if you could read these over and sign them that would be a big help.”

“No problem.” Xander takes the papers that Buffy hands him.

She goes back to sorting through the other papers before her as he reads. She tries not to look at him as his face contorts trying to understand the words on the page.

“Buffy…” he turns to her and looks at her with fear in his eyes. “this is a custody form.”

“It’s just in case something happens, you and Anya are the most settled, I think you’d be the best to take the baby and look after Dawn.”

“Buffy, nothing’s gonna happen to you. You’re not gonna die, we won’t let that happen.” There’s true fear in his voice.

“Xander, it’s just a technicality,” she lies, “the hospital requires all this stuff.”

He looks at her disbelievingly for a moment then continues on reading. He flips past the custody agreement and looks on at another sheet which has been entitled Wishes, it doesn’t take Xander long however to realize that it’s her Last Wishes, it’s a will. There are detailed notes about Dawn, the house, what to do with her things including more specific instructions for her weapons which she cleverly refers to as work tools; Instructions on what to write her father, on what to bury her in. Then Spike…

“What’s this about Spike.”

Buffy sighs, that would be the one part Xander gets hung up on. He glossed right over her asking to be buried in anything other than a black frock and went straight to Spike. Not that what Buffy gets buried in means all that much to her, she knows she won’t be there to see it.

“It’s his daughter too Xander, I want him to be a part of her life, and if I’m not around I want it to be known that he deserves to get to know her.”

Xander leans back in his chair and he looks away from her, his eyes are cloudy with thought and his brow wrinkled. His shoulders are hunched as if he were carrying a heavy weight and he sighs. Xander sets the paper down on the table and looks up at Buffy. She can see the storm brewing in his eyes growing more turbulent with every second. It mirrors the fierce winter storm that she can feel coming on outside.

“Buffy, I don’t know what to think about any of this,” he says honestly.

For a moment Buffy can feel her eyes start to water. She holds back the tears though, and forces herself not to think about leaving them all behind.

“You don’t have to think about it, just a technicality remember. I just need a signature.”

Xander nods, but there is something there, something behind his cloudy eyes and stormy stare that lets Buffy know he’s not convinced that this is just a technicality. Something in his demeanor tells her that he knows. He sees what’s going on, but he doesn’t say anything.

--

The world is miles away from Willow’s mind. Sitting on the floor of her bedroom Indian style with her hands resting on her knees, eyes softly shut, and Tara sitting before her she’s tuned in to the even beating of her heart. She listens closely to the soft hum of her breath; she can feel the heat of her blood flowing through her veins. Willow meditates and finds herself truly at peace for the first time in a long time. There’s a strange euphoric high that comes with meditation. As she finds herself connected to everything and everyone through the buzzing energy and magic in the air all thoughts are pushed from her mind, all the business of life forgotten. All that remains is peace and tranquility.

Tara has been showing her how to be connected to the world in ways that she never knew before. She’s learning how everything is effected by everything she does and it’s helping her to understand how to prevent the dark magic from ever gaining control of her again. The strength, the power to keep it from taking over is all around her. She’s learning for the first time how to control the magic and not let it control her.

Willow lets out a deep breath and in her mind’s eye she can see her breath, the white puff of a vaporous cloud. Suddenly in her meditative state Willow finds herself connecting to something yet to come. A chill runs through her, freezing and hard. For a moment the cold hurts, like sharp needle picks of pain covering every surface of her skin, and then she feels as if she can’t breathe; she tries to take in air and it feels as if there’s no air left, as if what would fill her lungs would be some thicker substance. Her eyes snap open and Willow finds herself looking straight into Tara’s eyes. She gasps for breath. A look of fear and confusion reads on her girlfriend’s features as well. Now snapped out of her tranquility Willow lets out a deep breath expecting to see it before her, but she doesn’t.

The chill of the air is gone, the connection lost; but both Willow and Tara know they felt it. The foreboding sense of impending doom; a storm is coming.

--

“Yeah… no, thanks again for holding the fort down,” Angel says into the receiver of his phone. Wes is on the other line and after a week of Angel and Cordy being in Sunnydale he has a lot of questions.

“We’ve got things under control here Angel, but we are all wondering when you’re going to be back.”

“Yeah I know, with Holtz dead we could come home but…” Angel sighs he’s pacing the living room.

“But Buffy. You don’t want to leave her yet,” Wes says.

“Yeah, Buffy.” Angel spies her then. She comes around the corner of the dining room wrapped in a white afghan. She makes her way up the stairs moving slowly as if her legs were made of concrete and it takes all her weight just to bend her knees. She grips the railing so tightly that Angel fears she may splinter the wood. Her skin looks pale and translucent, her hair thing and spindly. There are blueish circles beneath her eyes and in those normally vibrant green orbs Angel knows he’ll find pain and worry.

“How is she?”

“She’s dying Wes.” Angel’s voice seems more ominous and deep then he thinks it ever has in his entire existence. There’s something truly tragic about seeing her in this state and a part of Angel wishes that he didn’t have to watch her wither like she is, but he can’t bear to be anywhere else.

“I’m sorry Angel, this all seems incredibly unfair.”

“I know… we should be home in about a week. I think by then this should all be over.”

Angel hangs up the phone without another word.

--

The room is dark. Willow, Tara, Anya and Xander sit around the glass table in Xander’s apartment. Only the light above their heads is lit, the rest of the room is shadowed in a heavy darkness. The pieces have all been coming together and the picture the puzzle makes is finally clear, they can tell once they put the last pieces in place that the image they create will be one of death.

“There has to be something we can do,” Willow says. “When I was meditating I had this feeling of being cold, but colder, frozen, so cold it hurt, and I couldn’t breathe. It had to be a sign, a warning for how to stop what’s coming.”

“You didn’t see her Will,” Xander responds. “She was so calm, so resolved, it was like she knows this is going to kill her and she’s just… accepted it. She’s getting everything in order to help us take care of Dawn and the baby once she’s… gone… again.”

“W-what’d the papers all say?” Tara asks.

“That if she were to… pass, that she wanted for Anya and I to take custody of the baby and Dawn.”

“We’ll that’s not that bad, I mean maybe she’s just being prepared, like any mother to be,” Willow suggests still trying to hold on to the idea that she was given a sign, a clue of how to stop this.

Xander shakes his head. “No, it was more detailed than that. She wants to sell the house and put it in a fund for Dawn and the baby, she has a life insurance policy set up, a very adamant note about Spike being involved, and… and just before I left she… she said to me she wasn’t going to sign a DNR, but that her wishes were that she had a DNMR… Do not magically resuscitate… she laughed about it but…”

“She was serious.”

“Yeah,” Xander rubs his face and sighs in frustration. “I just don’t get it. Why does she have to die? Forget the prophecy and all of it. Women have babies all the time and they don’t die. This isn’t like Darla. She’s not a vampire.” Xander sulks. He knows Buffy was trying to keep them all from knowing what happened to Connor’s mother, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

“No, but the baby is, at least half,” Anya says.

“The baby is human,” Willow says.

“Half human,” Anya clarifies. “Humans have human babies, humans are born through life. Vampires are born through death. To make a vampire someone has to die.”

“It’s all about balance,” Tara adds, her voice solemn. “Vampires can’t create without taking something else away. Darla sacrificed herself so her baby could live.”

“Then we have to find something else to take away, they can’t take Buffy, it’s just not fair,” Xander pleads. “They already took her once.”

“Twice,” Willow adds.

“Maybe we’re not supposed to do anything,” Anya says and all eyes turn to her, “What? I’m sorry, but we obviously were never supposed to bring her back in the first place.”

“Ayn,” Xander scolds.

“What? I don’t know why you always get upset when I say the truth; I know you’ve all thought it.”

No one says a word, and it’s obvious that the thought had crossed their minds as well.

“I t-think some things are just meant to happen,” Tara says. “Maybe we can’t stop it.”

Inside Xander is screaming in his mind that no, there must be a way. There’s always a way, but even he keeps quiet as he wonders if this really is just it.





You must login (register) to review.