Summary: Buffy is trying to start over in LA - until someone shows up that she never expected to see again. Winner of multiple awards, which can be viewed here.
Rating: PG-13
Don’t look at me like that.
Don’t. There’s just some things you have to do, even if you don’t know why or what for. This was one of those things. I’m not goin’ soft.
But I’m still feelin’ the mellow acquiescence of last night’s détente, so I pop ’round to her diner. I’m wary as I seat myself, just in case she’s remembered what the pointy sticks are for, but she just gives me a meaningful look and disappears into the kitchen. I notice her movements are a little stiff, and her face is bruised from our fight, but I can’t quite bring myself to feel bad about it.
When she finally comes over to my table, she’s carrying a tray of food. She sets down a plate in front of me with the rarest steak I’ve ever seen, a baked potato, and – bless her heart – cole slaw instead of lima beans. She’s got a platter for herself too, a sandwich and chips – sorry, fries – and sits down to eat with me.
There’s an older bird at the counter, another waitress who has her watchful eye trained on me, an expression of disapproval on her face. Slayer sees my glance and leans across the table to whisper confidentially, “They think you’re my boyfriend.” She gives the distrustful waitress a wavering smile. “And that you beat me.”
I can't avoid the smirk. “Well, they’re half right.” She smiles at me in return.
“Thanks,” I say, gesturing to the food. “How’re you –”
She cuts me off. “I don't want to talk about it.”
I nod. “No questions, then?”
“No questions,” she agrees.
We eat in silence for a while, but I guess she changes her mind about not wantin’ to talk about it, because she says, “I still miss him.”
It’s so quiet I might not have heard it at all if I hadn’t been a vampire, an’ for a moment I wonder if maybe she didn’t mean to say it out loud. “What?”
“I still miss him,” she says again. “You probably think it’s crazy, after what he did, but I can’t help it.”
“It’s not crazy,” I tell her. “Listen…” She looks up from her plate. “You should go home.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“For God’s sake, Slayer, stop livin’ the bloody Lifetime movie already and go back to your mum.”
She flinches, as if I’ve hurt her. “It’s not like that. It’s not as simple as –”
“It is as simple as that!”
“You don’t understand,” she insists.
“No.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the ticket I bought before coming here. “You're gettin’ on that bus and goin’ back to Sunnydale where you belong.”
She looks almost touched by the gesture, but still she refuses. “Spike, no, I –”
“Listen to me!” I say. “You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Livin’ in a slum, takin’ orders from tossbags who treat you like a piece of meat, this cesspool of poverty and mediocrity? You’re a Slayer, a goddamned hero. You don’t belong here. This place’ll chew you up an’ spit you out. Is this really the life you want?”
“You’re just saying that to make me go,” she sniffs.
“I'm sayin’ it because it's true. If you don’t go back, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.”
*****
With his speechifying over, Spike reclines back in the booth and looks at me. I know he’s expecting me to say something, but I really don’t know what I’m supposed to say. He makes it sound easy, like all I have to do is hop on a bus and the Sunnydale welcoming committee will be waiting to say, “Hey, here’s your old life back.”
But my old life is gone forever. This thing has rocked me to the core, shaken the very foundations of everything I thought I knew about myself. Nothing will ever be the same again.
After a moment, I tell him, “I don’t know what I’d be going back to. I don’t even know if I can be the Slayer anymore.”
How can I be a Slayer who loves the enemy? How can I be a girl who would kill her boyfriend? How can I be a friend who puts the people she cares for in danger? How can I be a daughter whose mother can’t accept who she really is? How can I ever open up, ever let anyone in, when the past six months have been a constant reminder of how much there is to lose?
No, better to do this, to live so that there’s nothing to lose, no one to hurt.
“It's not really a choice,” he tells me. “You are the Slayer. And I'm not talkin’ about duty or destiny or any of that rot. I'm talkin’ about you. It's in you. It’s not something you can run away from.”
The thing is, I know he’s right. I knew he was right when I got on that bus. I knew he was right when I ran Angel through with a sword. That was what made it so hard. Even though I loved him, I couldn’t stop being the Slayer, and that just eats me up inside. Even though I know I did the right thing, saving the world, part of me can’t stand being the girl who makes that choice.
But he’s right, I am what I am. I couldn’t fight it then, and I can’t fight it now. Doesn’t stop me from trying, though.
“Who are you, really?” he asks. “And what were you before?”
*****
“We said no questions,” she pouts, but I can see she’s thinkin’ about it.
I don’t press the issue, and we stick to witty banter for the rest of the meal. Stay away from all the hard topics. Never thought I’d be havin’ heart-to-hearts with anyone, let alone a Slayer.
“Louis,” I say, doin’ my best Bogart impression – which, admittedly, isn’t very good – “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
She stares at me, and for a moment I wonder if she even has any idea what I’m talking about. Slayer doesn’t seem to be the type for black and white movies. Probably never even seen anything made before she was born. Then she laughs.
“You’re insane, you know that, right?”
When I chuckle at that, she adds, “I’m serious. You and Dru make a great pair with the his-and-hers psychological problems.”
My jaw drops. “His-and-hers… I don't have any psych– I'm a psychopath, but I don't have a problem with that.”
She’s speechless at first, then her face softens and she says, “You know the next time I see you, I’m gonna have to kill you, right?”
“Oh, yeah, pet. Definitely,” I reply. “Same here.”
*****
It’s been two days since I’ve seen her. I’ve been ’round to the diner, but she hasn’t shown up to work. I don’t go in, just hang about the outside, sneakin’ glances in the windows. I think I know what’s happened, and I think I’m happy, but just to be sure, I stop by her place.
Just as I suspected, the apartment's vacant. There's a note, folded in half and taped to the door. I read it and smile.
And just like that, it's over. No threats, no promises, no goodbyes. No seething hatred, but no love lost, either. I'm not sure what I'll do the next time I see her, if we'll fight, if I'll kill her. Maybe she'll kill me.
Maybe we'll never see each other again. I figure there's a new Slayer all chosen by now, since Dru killed that other one back in May. Maybe I'll go find her, see if she measures up to the other three I’ve fought. I’m pretty sure there’s one Slayer I’ll never see the equal of, but for now, I’m content to let her be.
I light up a cigarette and check out the bar next to her building, which looks like a real dive. Sit myself down next to a rough-lookin’ brunette. She’s pretty, after I suck down a bourbon or two, an’ she hardly screams when I sink my teeth into her throat out in the alley. She collapses against me, her arms still wrapped around my neck from that last deadly kiss. Her blood pulses through me, making me warm, making me hard, satiating the primal urges my body and my demon long for.
Just as her heart skips that first beat, I glance up at the apartment building and my eyes focus on the window that belonged to the Slayer.
The girl’s limp now, her heartbeat stilled. Her lips are parted slightly, in shock I suppose, and I close my mouth around them, slidin’ my tongue, slick with blood, over her unresponsive one. Breaking the kiss, I give the window a wry grin and say, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
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