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| Wake Me Up ~ continued |
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| She'd said that being with him was killing her. But that hadn't been it at all. Being with him had been the only thing keeping her going ~ her shame in that fact was what had been killing her. It was all just so confusing, really...her feelings then, her feelings now. So different, but still.... She hadn't really realized how much of the previous year she had buried under her newfound desire to get on with this life of hers. Until it all came flooding back, unlocked by the raw words of the song. She'd walked in the shadow of the valley of despair -- and because Spike was her only solace from that suffering, she'd given him reason to hope. Her denial of that hope had provoked Spike's own crisis, from which had stemmed... everything since. She'd had no idea how long she'd sat there, lost in her reverie, when at last she'd surfaced from it. An irritating commercial for a used car dealership had penetrated the tangle of memory and emotion, and returned her to her bathtub, where she sat with precious few bubbles left around her and her flesh gone goosebump-y. She'd climbed mechanically out of the tub, pulling the stopper lever, and tried to focus on the sound of the water draining, attempting to calm the riot in her breast that was now raging just below the surface. Her usual grooming rituals had followed then out of habit, the girlish enthusiasm that she'd summoned up an hour or so prior replaced by the sober recollection of how far from herself she'd been. |
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It turned out that Sunnydale and the Hellmouth and Anya and Amanda and Chao-Ahn and Spike had had just seven days left to live. So much had happened in that short span of time, but she'd somehow, improbably, managed to make the most of it, despite the new traumas that seemed to arise daily. She'd certainly gone into that time more aware than ever of how far she'd come in the two years since her death, though that knowledge didn't keep her from wanting to give up when she was rejected by the rest of the girls. But then... She and Spike hadn't spoken of their dark time. But in those final nights when they'd held and comforted one another, they had found and shared a profound peace, that served to point up how long ago and far away those bleakest of days had receded, for both of them. She was able to see the change for what it was, something akin to a miracle -- particularly in that they had both survived it all to find themselves wrapped chastely in one another's arms in her basement on the eve of yet another "final" battle. Later, when she'd begun to wrap her head around their victory and the fact that it was due entirely to Spike's sacrifice, she was supremely grateful to the words that had served as a catalyst for her to better understand that bleakest of times in her life. She was grateful...but she couldn't hear those words again. No one else seemed notice that when the song came over the airwaves, she would immediately stop whatever she was doing, and either change the radio station, or have business out of earshot. But she'd already learned its lesson. And she knew that despite the pain of all of it, she could finally embrace the life that she'd been brought back to, over and over again.... |
| ~ / ~ |
| ~ fin ~ |
| Acknowledgements ~ - Thanks to Xionin for your editorial input (aka "beta"). Thanks as well for your own great writing, which I take as both challenge and inspiration. - Quotations from episode transcripts found at www.Buffyworld.com. |
| This story nominated at: |
| New 8/23 ~ See the companion piece to this one, Immortal |
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