Last Letter: Last Letter
by Allison
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue! =)

Hello everyone. This is something that I wrote a long time ago and never posted. It's very melancholy, or at least *I* thought so, and it's very heartfelt so I beg you to be gentle with feedback (which I also beg for! =). Please let me know what you think.

Rating: PG

Dedication: This one goes to Helen, whose support has been invaluable, Andrea, who I still believe could walk on water, and Brian, just because you're you. I love you all.

Summary: Buffy has left Sunnydale and gone away to fight a new master. She falls before she can accomplish this task, and this story is about Giles's thoughts when he learns that she's dead. Feedback: Again, please let me know what you think.



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It's been years. So many years since I've thought of her. Seven, to be exact. Seven years since she left to take on the Master's successor. Seven months since I got her last letter. And seven days since I learned of her death.

When she left I thought little of it, danger-wise. She had cheated death so many times, and she had slipped away from the grasp of the angels who wanted to snag her for their ranks. After escaping it so often, how could I have believed that this would be her final battle? After so many...this one was to be the last.

When the letters stopped coming I did begin to worry about her...those long, involved messages had become our lifeline to each other. I knew of her exploits in combat, friendship, and love. For lack of anyone else who had time to read through her life's story, I became the archive of her experiences. I stored each one away, ever so carefully, maybe somehow in the back of my mind knowing that they would be invaluable to the preservation of her memory, and that they would aid those who followed to finish what she could not.

I was disturbed when I received the last one. It rang out in my mind. I couldn't decide whether it had been an anguished cry or a whispered prayer, and to this day I still don't know what she meant by her words. Though she was never one to be enigmatic, maybe looking in on death made her aware of more than I could ever comprehend. Maybe she knew where she was going...she just couldn't express it to me and my simple mortal thoughts. But I speak in riddles my self now...I speak as though she knew what was to happen to her, when I know she couldn't possibly have. I act as if she reached out to me, when she really pulled away. But that letter disturbed me all the same.

The call came from a stranger, a law enforcement officer tired and world weary and with no idea what he was really looking at when he looked at that broken body on the cold hard steel. His words were as cold as that morgue table, but I think I would have resisted comfort then more than I resisted abruptness. Her death was abrupt, as was my coming into knowledge of it.

As soon as I heard that she was dead, her neck not drained but snapped in two, I was silent. Completely silent. I hung up the phone and did the only thing I knew to do...I reread the last communication that I had had with her. Even now, some nights when sleep just won't come, I read those words again and I wonder if she knew just what they meant.

Dear Giles:

I've come a long way. I know you've been reading these letters and probably keeping them somewhere, using your wonderful filing skills that have proved so sufficient in the past. I'm glad that all my work won't go to waste...someday, somewhere, something in them will help someone in this deadly game we play.

Many have fallen at my hands since I've last written to you, but there are so many more. "The evil is so great..." I know I've heard those words whispered to me before. Don't they sound familiar Giles? I've tried to use what you've taught me, but my skills alone are limited. I have no companionship here, and the evil *is* great. I can feel it all around me, as if it's closing in. The darkness seems to last longer each night, and my greatest fear is that one morning the sun will forget its duty and linger forever beneath the horizon. That is my nightmare.

Things are getting rough and there may not be another letter for a long time. You'll miss hearing from me, I'm sure, but things will be OK until I'm able to come home. Please don't worry if the next one of these is late...I may have business to take care of. So, until I can write again, thank you for listening to the tales of my many misadventures, and if you pray for one thing Giles, pray for my soul.

Yours in eternal light,
Buffy

Those were the last words she wrote to me.


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