Title: My Only Hate, My Only Love
Author: Darcy Galvan
Rating: R--warning, very dark. Character death
Spoilers: The Gift...kind of?
Summary: What if The Gift had gone down another way. The way Buffy
feared.
Disclaimer: Unh uh. Nope. No way Jose. BTVS characters aren't mine.
They belong to Joss (though we sometimes doubt his guidance
skills*G*) whom we love.
Author's note: I have NO idea where this came from. I guess I just
didn't want to write one that followed the story line. Yeah! My muse
is back. I thought she was dead. Maybe she was just comatose. Hope
you enjoy (though it won't be in a happy way if you do happen to
enjoy it...eeesh.)
"I'm sorry, Dawn." I still wonder if she ever heard those words. Or
was her terror and disbelief so great that they didn't register?.
Did she hear and understand? How could she understand that? Someone
she knew, someone she'd grown to care about and who cared about her.
I couldn't believe it. I didn't understand.
How did he get the pistol sized tranquilizer gun. Had he known?
Been planning since he'd found out that Dawn was the Key and that the
only way to save the world was to stop her blood? I don't know and I
don't care. All I care is that he had the gun. That he had the dart
with just enough liquid to snuff out a life way too soon. And all I
care is that I ran up the stairs a second too late but just in time
to hear those words and to see his finger twitch. To hear the click
and watch my sister crumple, her face full of disbelief, fear, hate,
and even worse, regret and love.
Did she hear me scream? See me run past Giles without even seeing
him. No, she was already gone. Dead. Like my mother. Like I should
have been. Like he should have been. I don't think Giles said
anything. He just turned and walked down the stairs. He was almost
down when he heard my scream of rage and loss and I bolted down those
stairs. He'd had two flights to go, but hate propelled me so fast
he'd barely made it down and a few feet across the ground when he
felt me plow into him. When I hit him and kicked him and spit in his
face, pounded his body against the ground. I'd never heard words so
hateful come out of my mouth. I can't even remember, but I know that
I'd never even thought to say anything like that until that moment.
He was bleeding and silent. I didn't register the tears on his
cheeks until later or the terrible blankness of his face. All the
emotion was in his eyes. A horrid deep, dark mix of terror and pain
and sorrow, anguish and every other harsh and wrenching word that is
on some page of the dictionary. I didn't care. All I cared was that
she was dead. My sister, my only family that mattered, dead by the
hand of one of my dearest friends. He'd betrayed me once and this
was fate's punishment for not learning the lesson the first time. My
penance for giving my trust back to a murderer.
Tara just cried, limp on the ground. Anya unconscious. I heard
Willow screaming for me to stop, crying, begging, asking why.
"You tell them, Giles!" I screamed into his face, spittle
flying. "You tell them that you killed my sister. That you killed
my baby sister because you were too weak and selfish and cruel to
fight! TELL THEM!!" I heard Willow gasp Dawn's name. My senses
were strong, all on a rage filled high. I felt her fall, smelled her
tears and heard her heart pound. And I felt Xander pull at me, but
one well placed punch put him out of commission. I sat on Giles'
chest and growled into his battered face that I hated him and wished
him dead. He just looked back at me and mouthed the words "I'm
sorry." When I saw that I wanted to kill him. I held his chin with
my hand. It would have been so easy, so simple to snap that fragile
neck. You normally don't think bones are so fragile, you think of
them as strong, but that's their genius. They support so fully, so
strongly and you trust them, but they're so delicate that they
crumble so completely and easily. His chin always looked so strong;
it would have been like cracking eggs for a batter. His neck, his
spine; like snapping a pencil in irritation. But I didn't. I held
his face, so close to mine and breathed hard, my body shuddering,
still aching for the feeling of pounding fists and feet into his
flesh. I held his face for a moment, then got up and strode out of
the lot, out of the nightmare.
Soon I was inside my home. It used to be our home. Three bodies
sharing this space. Now it was me. It was too big, too hollow and
cold. I wasn't staying. I just knew it in that instant when I
picked up the vase in the hall and threw it against the wall. The
shattering sound released a burst of pain and it felt good in that
horrible way that can't be explained. It doesn't alleviate the ache,
the terror, the rage. It doesn't cure you, but for a moment, your
emotion has a direction, a purpose. You're there to destroy and when
you do, you have fulfilled your reason. The table was destroyed. I
punched a hole in the wall. Part of the banister disintegrated under
my hand. I spent that night, curled on the couch where my mother had
died and I wished that I could die there too. In death I could
connect with her through the last spot where she lived. And in death
I would connect with my family again. I could be whole. Though I
lay there the whole night, wishing that my lungs would halt, that my
heart wouldn't pump, that I wouldn't feel anymore, I never moved. So
close there was a kitchen housing sharp bladed, solid handled knives
with which I could reach my goal. A bathroom that still held all of
the pills from mom's last weeks here. Still some wine in the house.
Combine them and I could easily end the pain. But I didn't move. I
just cried. Slept. Survived.
With the dawn came calmness. Not a relief, but a dry period. I had
no more tears. I had no more energy. I rose and brushed my teeth,
took a shower and made myself breakfast. I took four aspirin because
my face hurt so badly from my clenched jaw. But I couldn't and
wouldn't release it. I knew they would come soon.
They came together. Anya was in the hospital, and Tara's hand was
recasted from their late night visit to the ER. But Willow, Tara and
Xander stood on my doorstep, silent and pale. Questions holding
their bodies rigid. I just turned and walked back into the kitchen.
They followed me, still silent. Then Willow spoke.
"Dawnie..." the word choked off in a sob and I felt something in me
stir. Xander reached out to me, touched me. I wanted to flinch away
from the too-heavy touch, but I couldn't. When his hand closed over
my shoulder, he cried. Then I knew what I felt again. My heart. I
grasped at Xander's arm as I fell to the floor, sobbing again, the
tears tearing at my already raw throat. I screamed for my sister,
for my mother, for myself and my loss. I choked and gagged, wailed
when my friends circled me with their bodies and with their love.
One strong presence was missing and I needed it even as I hated it
with everything that I was. He was my rock, my comfort. He'd held
me up and he should have been on that floor, completing the circle of
loss. But he had caused this, he was the reason, the killer, my one
and only hate and my one and only love. So I set fire to my heart,
built up my pain at the betrayal as kindling. Fed it with rage,
hatred, loss, confusion and loneliness. I tried to sear him out.
I cried out my hate for him and Xander held me tighter. Telling me
he knew, he knew. But he didn't. How could he. No one knew. Even
I didn't understand. I just felt. I was no longer a creature of
logic, of reason. I was a creature of emotion. Action and reaction
and instinct. Did they hate him too? Did they understand why it
happened? Why he did what he did? Why Giles killed Dawn?
I don't know when they left. I kept slipping in and out. I would
feel and see and hear, and then there was darkness and I would rise
from the numbness and unconsciousness and find that time had slipped
by so fast.
I didn't see Giles in the crowd at Dawn's funeral. I would have
noticed, it was a small crowd. Many students had wanted to come, but
I only let in relatives and her two closest friends. Much as at
Mom's funeral, I remained standing by the grave until it was dark, my
eyes running over and over those little black letters and that dirty
outline that were the sum of a human life. How could a little rock,
some letters and a pile of dirt be all that was left of a living
breathing person who laughed and cried? Had friends, enemies, loved
purple, romantic comedies and action movies. Hated curfew and had
gotten three B's on her last report card? I wondered if she had a
soul. She'd seemed to. Her body remained even in death. Was that
green energy that she was supposedly made up of out there somewhere?
Was it stuck in some cosmic keyhole? Bull shit. She wasn't a
fucking key. She wasn't somebody's means to an end. She was my
sister. I was there when Mom and Dad brought her home. I'd taken
care of her and hated her at times, yelled at her and even hit her
once before I knew I was the Slayer and could have killed her. I'd
loved her.
I sat down in the nighttime shadow of a tree. In my dark clothes,
the only thing to give me away was my pale skin and hair. I almost
disappeared from the visible world. Almost.
I saw him come. Heard his familiar footsteps before I saw him. That
shape I knew so well stopped a few feet away. A breeze kicked up
momentarily and I caught his scent. I'd known that scent. It pulled
at me and repelled me. The comfort it had always and somehow still
offered; and the pain it now signified. I felt the emotions
building, tightening my chest, but I held it for a few moments. I
watched him and in the moonlight, I almost let myself forgive that
gentle face again. I remembered training with him, laughing with
him, sometimes at him and even the few, quiet, personal and
truthfully emotional moments we'd shared. I waited with tight lips
holding in my breath, not moving, for once I disturbed this dream, I
knew that no matter what love my damn heart refused to give up would
be blinded by the rage that I felt building. A tear rolled down my
cheek.
He moved forward again and stretched out a hand toward the carved
letters of her name and the moment was gone.
"Don't you touch her," I growled low in my throat. "Don't get near
her!" I sped forward and slapped his hand away, putting my body
between hers and his. She had already been at his mercy once and I
wasn't going to allow it again.
"Buffy," Giles breathed. My name on his lips burned me and I
cringed.
"You have no right to be here. Get out. Get the hell out of our
lives!"
"Buffy, I know you hate me."
"You know I hate you?" I asked in breathless disbelief. "You killed
my sister Giles. Hate can't even touch what I'm feeling."
"Buffy, I had to. You know this. But I know that you won't--"
"Won't what? Forgive you? You're damn right. Or maybe you were
going to say I won't understand. Also true. What were you going to
say, Giles? Huh? You've usually got the words," I sneered. "So
many books, so much knowledge. It's gotta have been something good.
Was it going to make me feel better? Was it going to make me see
your point of view? Or was it just going to make *you* feel better?
Relieve your guilt because you know you were wrong."
"Buffy, it was the only wa--"
"Killing her was the only way? Sacrificing an innocent life? I told
you that you weren't to touch her!" I screamed, pointing my shaking
finger in his face.
"And I told you that I was going to do whatever I had to!" he shouted
back.
"We're supposed to protect the innocent!" I sobbed, still half
screaming. The tears ripped at my words, shredding them and leaving
them wet and gravelly. "*She* was an innocent. She was *the*
innocent. She was barely a year old. Dawnie hadn't even begun to
live. There was so much more she had to *really* experience, not
just what some fucking monk put into her head. Our heads. They
messed with us." I was shaking so badly that I couldn't stand. My
legs gave way and I was on the ground, crying so hard I couldn't
see. I could only hear him breathing hard and hear my heart pounding
out pain and revenge. "Why couldn't they just leave her alone? They
created her and didn't care that she could feel but that she could
die. Why would they do that? Make something to experience pain. If
they wanted their fucking key they should have protected it
themselves!!"
"I loved her too, Buffy," Giles said, his words raw and tight.
I felt the rage, but it wouldn't come through the tears. "If you
loved her, you wouldn't have killed her."
"I did love her. But I loved all of you too. I loved Xander and
Willow and Anya and Tara. The world. It was my duty to protect the
world, yours too. I loved you. I loved Dawn," he said through
clenched teeth, emphasizing each of his words with a hard punch of
his finger in the air, "but *I* *had* *to*. I had to sacrifice her
to save the others. You hate me, but I hate myself too. Every night
I've felt it. Felt the guilt and loathing, but I did what I had to
do. I know you're not going to forgive me. You loved her too deeply
to forgive me. I betrayed you and I know that. You gave me your
trust and I betrayed you and killed the thing you held above all
else. I understand that. I just hope that you can understand *me*.
I don't expect forgiveness. I don't even expect understanding. I
just hope for it. Pray for it."
"Understanding?" I queried thickly. "Understanding for a murderer."
He closed his eyes at the words and I knew he'd felt them throughout
his being. I'd felt them too. I felt dirty saying the words, felt
pain, and I wanted to smile.
"And I came to say good bye." I looked up sharply at those words.
"Good bye?"
"I'm leaving for England in two hours. I can't stay here and I don't
think you want me too either. The others said they didn't want me to
go, but I know they were just saying that. Maybe they don't hate me
quite the same as you, but I know they couldn't see me and not see
what I did. So I'll be going back. The Watchers are accepting my
return, but I know I'll never get another Slayer. Doesn't matter."
He said these words and another piece of me ripped away. I knew why
it didn't matter though he hadn't spoken it out loud. He'd been
fired because they said he cared too much and he stayed because he
really did. He'd never have the emotional ability to be Watcher to
another Slayer. To some men, being a Watcher entailed no emotion,
but to him, it was always connected, though he adamantly denied that
in the beginning. The title was now too intertwined with me, I'd
seen that much in his eyes. It wasn't only his desire not to lose a
Slayer that kept him so rabid in his work, it was his desire not to
lose me. I'd seen that the night we first spoke of my death, of how
he'd feel when I was gone. I saw it in his eyes, his deep fear of
losing me.
I didn't reply to his statement and I saw him standing strong against
my rejection. I wanted to hurt him, hurt him as much as he'd hurt
me. But I was scared. He was going. I hadn't wanted to see his
face I'd thought. But with him really going...I'd somehow assumed
that even in my hatred, he'd be there to focus my pain on. Another
tear rolled town my cheek. I suddenly knew that I'd never wanted him
to go. I'd always wanted a piece of him there, for even though I'd
hate him, never forgive him, wish terrible unspeakable things on him,
the fact that he was there would sustain me, soothe the final
rational part of me. His presence, no matter how hated, would keep
me alive because of the deep love it had once been.
He knelt in front of me, looking over my shoulder at the first three
letters of his victim's name. I knew that he loved her, I knew that
he hated himself. It would never change things.
"I'm so sorry, Buffy, know that. And know that I love you too. I
betrayed you both in the most terrible way, but I loved you." He
reached out his hand to touch my face and I slapped it away. Tears
formed in his eyes. he reached out again and I slapped his cheek.
Again he tried. I punched him. Screamed at him. A trickle of red
snaked down his chin and he reached out again, never giving up on me,
needing to show me. His face was wet and twisted in terrible pain.
This time, his hand made contact with my skin and I could no longer
dredge up the strength. I couldn't fight the need no matter how I
tried. My heart cried out for him, and in our last moments together,
I couldn't deny the need. I fell against his chest, sobbing, my
fingers digging into his sides. He didn't even flinch, though I knew
my strength caused him great pain. He wrapped his arms around me in
a grip nearly as strong as mine. I felt his tears on my head and his
love in my heart. His warmth and strength surrounded me and I let
myself love him one more time. His body shook with sobs and unspoken
things as we held each other. Don't go! I wanted to cry. My flesh
called out for him and my blood sang his name, but the dark part of
me pulled more strongly. The cold stone behind me and unfeeling dirt
beneath me spoke of the girl he'd murdered, the trust that he had
killed and I knew that I would let those win.
"I have to go," he said softly, knowing that I wouldn't stop him. He
stroked my cheek with his rough hand, the hand that had ended our
lives, and I kissed him with everything that I used to feel, letting
it all rest, letting him go. He closed his eyes and responded.
Almost as soon as it had begun, his lips left mine and he rose. I
didn't cling, I merely pulled my hands back into my lap, my body
still warm from his touch. "Good bye." And he was gone. A small
part of me, the child, cried for him somewhere deep inside, but soon
the child faded away and all that was left was cold. I didn't call
him back, we both knew I wouldn't and so separated without
expectation, without false hope, but without angry words. I could
never forgive him, never let him hold a place in my life again, but
our past together had been too important.
I never spoke with him again, never saw him again. Though I remained
a Slayer, he died before me, which I found odd. It wasn't anything
supernatural, wasn't an illness. It was just a freak accident. I
guess he was on museum business in India when an earthquake struck.
His car was crushed under a falling building. He was killed
instantly, I'm told. I didn't cry, but I found the child again, and
that little voice inside me wailed, high and piteous, wrenching. He
left me one thing, the onyx pinkie ring he always wore. I opened the
letter from his sister--I hadn't known he'd had any living relatives--
telling me the details of his death. He'd kept the address of my
apartment in his desk and she'd found it among his journals. She
told me that she knew of his Slayer, of me. And that I was very
important to him, though he'd never said much. When I opened the
little brown box she'd sent it in, I put it on. It fit only my index
finger.
I still wear it. Sometimes I want to take it off, but I always look
at that scratched surface with a hairline crack running through it--
from the accident, I imagine, because it used to be so meticulously
smooth--and I leave it on. I'm not exactly sure why, but I still
need to remember my only hate and my only love.
THE END