CONCRETE ANGEL

 

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The song is by Martina McBride and is called Concrete Angel – should check it out.

 

Summary: Just a short fic about Angel’s thoughts about Buffy over the years.

 

 

She walks to school with the lunch she packed

Nobody knows what she’s holdin’ back

Wearin’ the same dress she wore yesterday

She hides the bruises with linen and lace

 

The teacher wonders but she doesn’t ask

It’s hard to see the pain behind the mask

Bearing the burden of a secret storm

Sometimes she wishes she was never born

 

He watched her as she climbed the steps to enter Sunnydale High. Another day at high school being the everyday student. The bruises from the previous night saving the world hidden beneath her clothing. To the everyday observer nothing had changed, she was the same as when she climbed those steps yesterday. The only thing that showed she was any different was the faint line above her left eyebrow where a cut had been the night before. The two holes in her neck carefully hidden by the flow of her hair. But he saw her, he knew the turmoil in her heart and in her head. She had technically been dead. He had lost her and that had grieved him more than he liked to admit. He had held her lifeless body. But there she was, smiling at her friends. Trying desperately to let herself be swept away by everyone else’s joy, the joy of the last day of school before summer vacation. A vacation that he knew was to take her away from him. He wasn’t yet decided on whether he should follow, but knew in his heart as much as he may want to, it wasn’t a good idea. For them, him or Sunnydale. He knew that her death at the hands of The Master was causing her hidden inner turmoil. She had never accepted her destiny, from the very second he had first seen her being told who she was to now. She had never asked to be the slayer and he would give all he could to take the burden from her. To let her have the life she longed, as the happy carefree teenager. Not the only girl in the world to save the world from vampires and demons every day. Her whole life, he knew, at some point would dissolve until that was all there was left for her. Because that was what happened to the slayer. She became her destiny. He had never before known of a slayer like her though, one who had experienced such life before being called. One who fought her destiny. But he sadly acknowledged that fighting it would do no good for her in the end. The life she would lead was inevitable. She would lose everything she held dear, and she would stand above the others as the defender of good, of mankind. And he prayed for something to change it, prayed with all his heart because he knew it would tear her apart.

 

Through the wind and the rain

She stands hard as a stone

In a world that she can’t rise above

But her dreams give her wings

And she flies to a place where she’s loved

Concrete angel

 

No matter what had been thrown her way she had stayed strong. But he cursed that she was strong in the way she was. Wished she had found another way to be strong. He watched her, he had left her but in his heart she would always remain and as yet he wasn’t strong enough to leave her behind completely so he came back every now and again and he watched her. He had watched her fight so much, so many hardships. He had watched her hold back the tears he had left in her heart, hated himself for his part in turning her to stone. He saw her with her new boyfriend, and he ached. Not because she had moved on but because when she was with him she was stiff, wooden. She acted out and played the part but she wasn’t there. She couldn’t break free of her life and he had watched as what he had known would always happen, happened. He watched as the life of the slayer ground her down, pinning her to this place. But he watched her sleep too. He had heard her mumble his name more than once. He had seen her smile, she was locked away in a secret world where the slayer could no longer touch her. And he was happy. He wished there was some way she could keep that smile.

 

Somebody cries in the middle of the night

The neighbours hear, but they turn out the light

A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate

When morning comes it’ll be too late

 

He had known it would happen, but never had he imagined it would be like that. She was a hero, she should have had a hero’s death, like the first two times she died. But her final death had not been a hero’s death, she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And even her slayer abilities couldn’t save her from the evil that killed her. And yet though she hadn’t died saving the world, she had died saving someone. Dawn had told him what happened, the guy with the gun. In the convenience store where they were getting juice. A robbery had taken his Buffy. Not even a slayer could stop a bullet. A pull of the trigger and Dawn almost died, if Buffy hadn’t pushed her away, the bullet had pierced her. She had died on the way to the hospital. They arrived there and Dawn stepped out, the first rays of the sunlight greeting her, the first day without Buffy. There were no loopholes this time, no way to bring her back. Her death had not been mystical, it had been real.

 

Through the wind and the rain

She stands hard as a stone

In a world that she can’t rise above

But her dreams give her wings

And she flies to a place where she’s loved

Concrete angel

 

A statue stands in a shaded place

An angel girl with an upturned face

A name is written on a polished rock

A broken heart that the world forgot

 

“Angel.” He turned and saw Spike, as he knew he would. As he always did. Every single year on this day he had seen Spike, for well over 200 years. “I just came to tell you…move on. You’re human now mate. And you’re still living in the shadows, she dreamt this for you, don’t waste her wishes. He turned away and looked back at her grave. He traced her name that had been craved into the marble 234 years ago today his Buffy had died for the third and final time. He had paid for the statue to be made of her, done using pictures he himself had drawn, of a time when she was almost happy. When she was almost carefree even. Long before Spike had entered her life, long before the curse had broken them apart. When they had both still held the hope that their love was enough to bring them together. “Look Angel, you broke her heart, we both know that but doing this, breaking your own isn’t going to bring her back. It won’t give her the life you wanted for her. It just diminishes the life she wanted she for you.” When he’d arrived he had pushed away the weeds and cleared the moss from the headstone, same as he did every year. Everyone in the world had long since forgotten her, there was no one alive that knew what she had sacrificed for the world. No one except two once evil vampire humans who had loved her. No one remembered Buffy Summers. The girl who gave her life for the world.

 

Through the wind and the rain

She stands hard as stone

In a world that she can’t rise above

But her dreams give her wings

And she flies to a place where she’s loved

Concrete angel