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TITLE: All Things Must Pass
AUTHOR: Nico
E-MAIL: stoprobbers@hotmail.comDISCLAIMER: Joss owns the abomination the show has become.
TIMELINE: Between Season 3 and Season 4. The summer between.
SPOILERS: Technically, up throuh the end of S3, but no major spoilage.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy in the summer after Angel left her.
DISTRIBUTION: Land of Denial, obviously, and if you want it, just email me
the URL where it's goin'.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The song is by George Harrison, and I highly recommend
listening to it while you read, if you can. Kind of an angsty fic. My take
on how Buffy dealt with Angel's departure in the summer between S3 and S4.
FEEDBACK: Send! Send send send send send!!!
RATING: PG
All Things Must Pass
It had been easier when he first left. When he first left, it was numb and
cold and just the absence of everything he was. There was no pain, there was
no distress, there was simply nothing. And she could do nothing; she was
quite good at nothing.
Nothing had been all she had after her junior year. When she had sat on that
greyhound bus, traveling at a steady sixty miles an hour away from
Sunnydale, she had had nothing and that was all she had. Her heart was too
torn, to broken, to empty to be able to feel anything, and her mind could
barely wrap around the fact that it hadn't been a dream. She hadn't felt the
pain until he came back and wrapped his arms around her thighs, sobbing his
relief into her stomach. Then had come the pain and the fear and the guilt.
Oh the guilt. The guilt had eaten away at her for the entire year, and she
blamed herself now, because she knew that the guilt had driven him away. His
guilt, yes, but hers as well. Because her guilt had made her hold her
tongue, had kept her arms at her sides instead of around his waist, and her
thoughts in her head instead of in the silence that was always between them.
So many things she could have told him were left unsaid, and she blamed
herself for his absence. Because, maybe if she'd said them, he would still
be there.
When he first left was months ago now, however, a mere memory of steamy May
with thick air made even thicker by the smoke of the smoldering school. He
had slipped away quietly, in the last moments before the eclipse ended and
sunlight poured through the smoke and onto her front lawn. She knew he was
at his apartment, packing and hididng until sundown, and she had fought the
gut-deep urge to find him and tie him to the bed until he promised to stay.
She had fought that urge, sitting at home and staring at her year book and
diploma, slow tears seeping down her cheeks. Her mother had called from her
Aunt's house to ask how graduation went, and all she could muster was a
simple "Okay" because anything else would have been a lie. She was okay. She
was always okay.
Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloudburst doesn't last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It's not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
The nothing started to go away in early July, when she picked up the cross
he'd given her on her rush out of her house to patrol. She had frozen,
hanging halfway off the roof, staring at the cross like it was alive and
trying to gnaw off her finger. She had stayed there for what seemed like
forever, memories assaulting her numbed-out senses, and when she fell she
didn't scream from physical pain. His absence had ripped through her like a
physical being, like Angelus' sword on the night she fought him to the
death, and made her lungs turn to steel. Her mind had screamed, for air or
for him she couldn't tell- maybe both, and she had clawed at her throat
until she was about to bleed. Only then was she able to drag air into her
frantic lungs, only to have it explode out in a wail that woke up the
neighbor's dog. She had thrown the cross to the ground like it had burned
her, and that was the first night she patrolled without a cross of any kind.
She didn't cry until almost August, when the sobs came out of her on their
own accord, angry and annoyed that they had been held in for so long. She'd
cried for hours the next night, and hours the night after, as if her body
was trying to purge itself of his presence by washing it away. She cried so
hard she threw up, but it didn't help. That was the first time she became
aware that the nothing that she'd reveled in since his departure had gone
completely, and was now replaced with a definite something. She forced her
mind away from what that something was, away from what it could be, as if by
not acknowledging it, she could bring the nothing back. The something
laughed in her face and made a point to grow stronger every day. She ignored
it with everything she had.
Sunset doesn't last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this my love is up and must be leaving
It's not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
She plowed through her days with angry determination to make the best of the
shell he had left behind. She stopped wearing the cross, locked it in a box
and hid it at the top of her closet. She wore turtleneck tanktops so she
wouldn't have to look at the scar in the mirror. She did everything she
could to get rid of him, to wash him from her body, to purge him from her
mind. The something that had been growing deep inside laughed even harder,
which pushed her further. Willow started asking if she had done something to
piss her off. Xander stopped writing her letters after she stopped replying.
Even Oz started to avoid her. The something in her pointed a finger and
mumbled "I told you so", and she just pushed it down and trudged on.
All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day
Then the letter had came. A letter in a pretty yellowed envelope with loopy,
archaic script that she would recognize when she was senile and insane. It
was a simple letter with no name, no signature, no greeting, no return
address, and no message save for 10 digits in groups of threes and four,
hyphened together. She had stared at that letter for hours after she
recieved it, weighing its meaning as the something she'd been ignorning
swelled inside of her. Then she'd thrown the letter into a drawer, and cried
for hours.
It took her weeks to gain the courage to call the number. By that time it
was almost the end of August, almost time for school to start once again,
almost time to restart her life. She had called in the middle of the day, a
time she knew he would be home. He'd answered, his voice groggy and sleep
and confused, and she'd burst into tears. When he'd heard her sobs, he'd
grown alarmed and fully awake, beggining for her to say who she was. She had
managed to choke out his name, nothing more. She had been met by silence.
They had often talked in silence over the phone, the simple knowledge that
there was some sort of connection enough for them at the time. Now she
gripped the phone like it was a lifesaver thrown to a drowning man. Her
tears had dripped down her face and onto the cold plastic as the something
in her heart reared its ugly head and identified itself as Grief, Longing,
and Soul-Shaking Love.
He had been quiet for a long time, before finally choking her name out in
return, and she had heard the tears in his voice as well. They cried
together for a long time, Pain and Hope and Faith and Love mixing
electronically in the tiny wires that were their only connection.
Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Day light is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this grey
She had begged him; begged him to come home, to come back to her. She told
him that she needed him, that she was a shell without him, and that she
couldn't do this anymore. He told her that he loved her and he would always
be with her, even if he wasn't really there. He told her he could never stop
loving her. She begged again. He refused.
He told her that it was his time, his time for his own path and for his own
mission. Said that someone had contacted him, a Seer to guide him on his
quest. He asked her to understand, to believe in him, to support him. He
reminded her that she had told him once that he had a chance to do some real
good, to make amends. He begged her not to take him away from his chance now
that he had finally found it. Found the road to redemption. She asked about
herself. He said that he would always find her. If I was blind, I would see
you, he reminded her. She swore her eternal love. He swore his in return.
They hung up, sobbing and sad and fully loved. And for the first time, she
found Peace.
All things must pass
All things must pass away
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