Author: Leni
DISCLAIMER: Nope. Not that you'd believe me if I said otherwise...
AN: Yes, I know. Leni is alive after all. I'm writing this directly in LJ, in 45 min, so... typos. But, anyway, what better reason to come back into the fold than a friend's birthday? This was first supposed to be B/A, but duh! Hannah loves some B/Aus too. And it's a bit disjointed, I know, I'll go back to it later and fill the blanks. But, for now, it's not too bad. (yes, really humble, aint' I? LOL) There's no Word at hand so, please, forgive the typos and the 'rant' feeling. Beta me?. *HUGS*
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There are moments when she wishes her life were simpler. Moments like the middle of her Chem finals, when she wishes she didn't spend the night before on patrol. Or that time she was shopping for a evening gown with her mother, and she hoped she wouldn't have blood on the fabric by the end of the night. That was before that time she died, and even as she drew breath on her own again - courtesy of Xander and Angel, and that used to be a whole other set of 'wish it were simpler' - she was wishing her mother wouldn't have bought the dress, because muddying one she didn't like would be... yes, simpler.
It's not so simple to face a Watcher when she knows he'd rather not face anyone. It's the hardest of the impossibles to act normally when Giles flinches at the mention of love or roses, and when computers have become taboo in the library. It's not simple to go to class and pretend it's fine to have Willow teaching it, or face her ex boyfriend and order herself to attack him, when every muscle protests the very idea.
But those are the moments her daily life is composed of. And they are the reasons Buffy wishes her life were simpler every day.
Every night... Every night she prays life would be... not simpler anymore, that's something left for daylight and naîver hopes. No, Buffy sees the darkness fall upon Sunnydale and she's tempted to fall to her knees and beg everything were different. Just different. Not better, not worse, or maybe a little of both.
Because it would be better if she didn't have a secret to hide from those who already keep the strangest ones. And it would be worse if she were really as lonely as they think her to be, or as lost as she tried to act at school and everywhere her friends accompany her.
And she'd have to be a different Buffy to stop herself from what she's doing now. He may be evil, this might be inexcusable and she could be damning herself and the world by going to him everytime her friends' eyes are turned.
But this is the Buffy she is. The one who fights him because it's right; she may want him but she can't allow him to prey on her people. The one who kisses him because it's right, too. They should be enemies, but they were lovers first, and in the madness that is her life, how is this crazier than everything else?
If asked, she wouldn't say who came to whom first. It might have been him, in that mute way of his, sparing her life when he could have killed her a dozen times in those first battles. Her friends would say that he was just toying with her, and Giles would nod and point to an entry that agreed with them. But they don't know Angelus as she does, and no partial Watcher can tell her how this particular vampire reacts. If this were just a game, it would be over already. If this were something so simple, she would be a prisoner or dead: Angelus has no fun with defeated players. But he comes to her, and he welcomes and respects her. And as tight as he embraces her and as harsh as their fights are, he lets her go at dawn. Is there any Diary that can tell such a story?
But it could very well have been her who made the first step. By understanding Jenny's murder like no friend of the victim ever should. She wants to yell it when her friends berate her for not killing Angelus already. It was pure self-defense, and every instinct as a hunter accepts that it was his right. Jenny wanted to cast him back into nothingness, wouldn't she do the same to every threat? Hadn't she already done so many times? No, as much as she mourned Jenny and Angel's last chance, Buffy understands that the blame isn't Angelus' but for the act itself. But Jenny, brave Jenny... Foolish Jenny. How did she believe for a second that her actions wouldn't be answered? She should have made better wards, she should have defended herself harder, she should have told them, and that's what Buffy will never forgive, that Angel was forever gone for a gipsy's mistake. Again.
Buffy should have been unstoppable after that night, follow Giles' example and burn Sunnydale until the murderer himself was on fire. But, did she? No. Because between the grief hid understanding, and how could Angelus not read it as an invitation?
Maybe she shouldn't have. But she did. Because it felt right to accept his advances, and his hands, and his kisses. So familiar, yet not. So strange, yet not. He felt cold as Angel never had, and treated her as Angel never would have. But with him she could be the Buffy everybody else, including Angel, had been so afraid of. If there was a lesson she had learned, it was to trust her instincts, and they screamed at her to become his lover. And once she had, her skin felt right again, as if it hadn't settled during their separation.
As long as she could keep him in check, and as long as he could claim her as his own... Would it last? In a different world, maybe. Would it be enough? For a different them, maybe. Did she care? As long as she could rest her head against his shoulder and kiss him, no.
Was that so wrong? Sometimes he whispered that it was, wronger than anything he would be able to do on his own. This mockery, he said, a Slayer and I. What if your friends knew, Buffy? What then?
But he said it between kisses and his whispers fall upon her skin so lightly, so like before.... Was he really that blind to how right they feel against each other? And if he was, then she won't tell him. She'll just kiss him and wish everything were different against his lips.
A different lover, a different love in a different world. Where they didn't have to fight or be enemies to everybody else's eyes. A world where Angel had been allowed to stay, and she'd learned to love the whole of him and vice versa. Those are the things she wishes in the night, in his arms. Those are her prayers as they fight each other in their opposite bands. Anyome would say it's too complicated. It's not; it's right.
Because to wish for a simpler life is what every teenager does. But for a different world, a different choice, those are the things this Slayer knows she can't have. But Buffy prays all the same.
And sometimes, in the darkest time before she leaves him, Buffy doesn't want for anything. For a couple seconds in the haze of him and her, reality is welcome just as it is.