Secrets and Lies

The Death of a Slayer


“Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die? Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later, it's gonna catch you. And part of you wants it... not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it. Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day.

“That final gasp. That look of peace. Part of you is desperate to know: What's it like? Where does it lead you? And now you see, that's the secret. Not the punch you didn't throw or the kicks you didn't land. Every slayer... has a death wish. Even you. The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world... your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies. They all tie you here, but you're just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you're gonna want it. And the second – the second – that happens... You know I'll be there. I'll slip in... have myself a real good day. Here endeth the lesson.”

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Spike’s words echoed hauntingly in the mind of the twenty-five year slayer as she circled her opponent, a vicious master vampire who had summoned an army of nearly one hundred others, masters in their own rights. Buffy, with the help of Willow, Kennedy and several other slayers, Xander, Dawn, and Giles, had dispatched many of them; they had believed that the battle was finished when the oldest master left in existence had shown himself, rising up from the manhole in the dust-lined street with a small army at his back.

He, Spike, had been right in his assumption, in that eerie way he had always been right about things – about her. From the moment the Master had pierced her flesh with his fangs that fateful night in her sixteenth year, she had longed for death, and the ties she had to the world had been the only things keeping her from actively seeking out her own demise.

Now, not even Dawn was enough to give her the desire she needed to continue surviving, and that was all life was for her: survival. She had stopped truly living the moment she had fled the Hellmouth four years prior. The part of her known and loved by her friends and family had dissolved into ash as surely as William the Bloody, the slayer of slayers, had perished, burned alive saving the world he so loved – a world with her in it.

“Buffy! Look out!” Giles cried as he caught a brief glimpse of the flash of steel reflecting in the dim glow of a single streetlamp – the rest of them had been destroyed during the battle.

The blonde slayer feebly raised her arm in a move that was purely instinctive to block her heart, for her body was not ready to die even if her mind was. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as she thought, she moved too late. The blade pierced her heart in the same moment as she drove Mr. Pointy through the vampire’s chest. She crumpled to the pavement before the dust of the newly dead master had a chance to settle at her feet.

Giles, being the only one not currently engaged in battle, the only one to notice the fall of his slayer, raced to her side and fell to his knees. Drawing her head onto his lap, he reached to remove the dagger from her chest, but the slayer’s tiny golden hand closed around his wrist.

“I’m so tired, Giles,” she said weakly, her once-vibrant green eyes flat with pain as her heart clenched around the metal in vain. “Can I rest now? Please? This is it, Giles, we both know it. I can’t… heal, not from this one.”

“Buffy!” this from Dawn, who finally noticed her sister lying prone on the ground; Giles and the slayer were saved an interruption when the woman heard a roar behind her and turned to face the next vampire.

“Please?” Buffy implored. “Take care of them.”

Resignation filled him, and the former watcher smoothed his free hand, the one his slayer wasn’t clutching fiercely, over her blonde hair. He knew that the wound, even with her advanced healing, would be fatal. “I… I want you to know how very proud of you I am, Buffy,” he said quietly, as though his lack of volume would somehow prevent his voice from breaking. “I love you… like a daughter.”

Buffy’s lips moved, but Giles only heard a whisper of breath. He leaned closer, his ear near her paling mouth, and her words became clear. “I love you, too. I forgive you.”

“Buffy!” Xander and Willow shouted simultaneously as the sun peeked over the horizon in time to witness the death of Buffy Anne Summers.

It was too late; her final breath had been exhaled with her parting words to her watcher, the only real father she had ever known.

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Buffy had been gone for almost a year when an epiphany came to Giles. It was the only choice he had, really, the only decision he could make and live with. He saw it now more clearly than he had ever seen anything in his fifty-odd years of life: losing Spike had been the real cause of Buffy’s death. She had lost her spark when the vampire met his fiery end in Sunnydale five years before.

She had suffered a brief period of catatonia after the collapse of the Hellmouth. It had taken her a full week to garner the courage to speak again after she had answered his question as to what had caused the Hellmouth to implode; she had said his name: Spike. After that, she had only smiled, a horrible, hollow smile meant to reassure her sister and friends. It had been terrible to witness, that feigned smile – done for the benefit of Spike’s memory as much as for the others, no doubt.

Later, Buffy had confided in him that, as she ran from the Hellmouth, she had dimly heard the sound of Spike’s laughter echoing through the cavernous pit of fire. He had laughed, she explained, because the night before, she had confessed to him that he had the most wonderful laugh she had ever heard. He had died laughing for her, on the off chance that she would be able to hear him, or perhaps simply because he was insane.

Giles believed, as Buffy had, that he had laughed for her; he had done everything else for her.

And so, it was really the only option he had left. Somehow, he had to find a way to go back in time, to prevent Spike from dying that day on the Hellmouth and, in doing so, prevent his slayer from dying for the third and final time. Finally gathering his courage, the Englishman made his suggestion to the Wicca when she stopped in his bedroom to say good-night.

“You want me to do what?” Willow asked, her gray-green eyes trained on the haunted blue of Rupert Giles’.

“I want you to send me back into the past,” the former watcher repeated his earlier request, “back to the night of the… ah, the musical incident, after Sweet left. Yes, that seems like an appropriate time.” They had all been there, gathered together, even Spike. He needed to reason with Buffy, to get her to realize that Spike truly did love her, and that night, he had proven it. He had saved Buffy from dancing herself into an urn.

“B-but Giles, you were already there. How can I send you back in time then? There would be two of you,” the witch reasoned. She knew how it could be done, but she had reservations. What if something went amiss?

“Willow, it must be that moment, I know it. Something… transpired that night, between Spike and Buffy, something that must be changed. You’ll find a way. I have complete faith in you.”

“Is this even the right thing to do?” Willow asked tiredly. “I miss Buffy as much as you do, but maybe she’s happy where she is.”

In that moment, Giles was more Ripper than he had been in over twenty years. Rage twisted his gentle features, and he snapped, “How dare you say that?! You, of all people! After you brought her back the last time, you have no right! I am not asking you to bring her back from the dead, I am asking you to prevent her from dying… again!”

“I-if this works, then we won’t exist here, will we? You’ll change all of this… Giles, you could… you could save Tara, too,” the redhead whispered, almost a plea as realization dawned on her.

The former watcher nodded. Willow cared for Kennedy, but he knew that she would never love her as she had loved Tara. “Think on it, Willow. More than one life could be spared.”

Her resolve-face firmly affixed, the witch mentally communicated with Xander and Dawn to gain their permission. Finding that task remarkably easy, for it meant that Xander might also get Anya back, she spent the next hour explaining exactly what had happened to Tara so that he would be able to warn her past self to keep Tara away from the window that horrible morning; she filled the ex-watcher in on the few details Buffy had provided in explanation of what had happened between her and Spike the night of the musical, and finally, she lit five of the many candles Giles kept in his room, one for each year that had passed.

“Lie down,” the witch instructed.

“W-what?”

“Lie down. I’m going to swap your memories, not send you personally in time. When the past you comes to in that body, he… you’ll be confused. I’m going to tell h—you that you’ve been in a coma since that night.”

“Clever girl,” Giles praised. He removed his suit coat, trousers, dress shirt, and tie before stepping out of his shoes and socks and slipping beneath the blankets dressed in an undershirt and boxers. As an afterthought, he removed his glasses and set them on the bedside table. He closed his eyes. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Willow, who had improved her understanding of the language, began a fierce chant in Latin, and her fiery locks paled to the ethereal white of a goddess. Her gray-green eyes darkened to ebony, and an instant later, they blazed a gentle golden color as energy merged and parted, the rift between time periods was opened, and finally closed again. With a weary gasp, her shoulders slumped, and from the startled cry on the bed, she knew that the spell had worked.

“W-willow? Where I am?” the past-Giles in his modern body asked shakily.

Finally hauling herself to her feet, the redhead smiled weakly and took one of his hands. She felt horrible for lying to him, but it was the only choice she had. “What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked gently.

“Buffy, um, just told us, or rather sang that, ah, she had been in Heaven. Oh, Willow, what have you done?”

Cringing inwardly, she pressed on bravely. “You’ve been in a coma since then, Giles. When Sweet left, he must have… done something, c-caused a mini-earthquake, I guess. A beam collapsed and hit you on the head; I’ve been trying to wake you since then.”

“H-how long?”

“Five years.”

“Oh, dear Lord…”