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| Sooner or Later, Part 4 of a series, cont'd |
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| No kiddin'.... Phht, where were all these warnings before, he wondered. Sunnydale's safer now'n it's ever been.... A year. Even to one who'd seen as many as he had, this one had sped by, marked as it was with such loss, and, in small ways, in finding himself. Or, at least, beginning to. One year ago, today, this chasm has been forged, and lives ended, changed and begun. One of the longest and quickest years of his existence. He slowed the car as he covered the final few hundred yards to the edge of the Sunnydale pit. He stopped at the barricades that had been erected where the road ended, then backed the car up a bit and turned off the road to parallel the crater. For a distance to either side of the road, chain link fence had been installed, but it would have been nigh impossible to surround the entire hole. After a short while, the fencing ended, and the land sloped away into the dust and ashes of his old life. Slowly, he guided the car along the rim of the precipice. It was all he could do in the broad daylight -- skirt the edge of this immense grave. He'd known it would be nearly pointless to come in the daytime, but he'd felt compelled to be there for as much of the day as he could ~ to mark the hour of their victory, and also to see what it had looked like to the busload of his comrades as they contemplated what they'd achieved. When he had traveled far enough west that he could just appreciate the ocean in the distance, he turned around and went back the way he came, crossed the road, and began circling in the other direction. The hours and minutes ticked past as he eased the car slowly along the brink. The crunching of gravel under the tires was the soundtrack to this vigil. At long last, he pulled the car up under a tree that had improbably managed to survive on the south-east edge of the crater, large portions of its root system exposed in the cave-in and subsequent rock-slides. Here he shut off the engine and leaned his forearms on the dash, propping his chin on the steering wheel. Time to reconnoiter and get his bearings. Looking into the distance, he attempted to rebuild the significant landmarks of Sunnydale in the air over the void. Restfield Cemetery and the crypt he'd called "his" was well off to the west, in easy reach of Willy's bar. The Magic Box would have been close to the center. The Summers' house, the Bronze and the high school had been in the quadrant nearest where he was parked, so Spike presumed that this would also be the deepest part of the pit. He pondered briefly whether, under all the detritus of the conflagration, there was a hole that led straight to the bowels of hell... 'r all the way through, intersectin' th' bloody Deeper Well...damn Illyria! He closed his eyes and finally let the memories come... Of last night's battle, and how necessary to it had been Illyria's strength and grief and rage. But at the price of Fred's seemingly unquenchable spirit Of Fred's compassion and goodness of heart Of Wesley, and Gunn Of so many deaths that he couldn't prevent ~ Joyce and Tara and Buffy and however many of those young, newly-minted Slayers had fallen here with him that day Of Dawn, standing on that platform, bleeding, and every decision he'd made that had ended in his own useless plummet to the ground at Doc's hands. ...I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but...after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again...do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways...Every night I save you. What he'd never told her was that even after her return, he kept dreaming that he'd made it different. He'd begun to think he always would, though with decreasing frequency, much like soldiers who continue to have nightmares of battles long ago decided. Dawn had seemed so young still, that year, but never again thereafter. He smiled slightly to think of the crush that she'd had on him at the same time he had realized that he was woefully in love with her sister. Talk 'bout yer Bizarre Love Triangle....It had so deflated Xander that she wasn't puppy at his heels anymore. One more strike 'gainst the undead for ol' Xander, that.... He assumed that it was the influence of the soul that had turned his loathing of Xander into an alternating cycle of detached amusement, mild irritation and pity. Kid'd had a rough road--, 'e was bound to have a bit o'resentment. S'pose 'twas best to channel it to helpin' Buffy...it wasn't 'is fight, an' he had nothin' superhuman t'help 'im out, but 'e never backed down...just advanced wi'is knees knockin'.... Spike decided that, though he'd bury himself in quicklime before admitting it, he admired Xander's pigheaded determination. He was not insensible of his own possession of that trait, in abundance. |
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| DEAD END AHEAD |
| ROAD ENDS 1000 FEET |
| ROAD ENDS 500 FEET |
| DEAD END |
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