She looked so young and deceptively frail. He knew from personal experience that she was most definitely not frail, and she was not very young either. Of course she’d had to grow up fast. She was the Slayer, destined to die at a ripe old age of early twenties. But seeing her like this....She’d died twice already, died at the hands of powerful beings. The Master, a vampire so old that his demonic face had overcome any lingering vestiges of humanity, and Glorificus, a goddess who had ruled a dimension of unspeakable horror and torment, were worthy opponents of the Slayer. A misogynistic geek was so incredibly...lame.
Angel sighed and squeezed her hand. He listened to the soft whispers of her gentle breathing as he concentrated on the slow but steady pulse beneath his fingers. His thumb rubbed slow circles on her palm. His eyes traveled up to her pale, expressionless face.
“I tried,” he said hoarsely. “I tried so hard to give you what I thought you deserved. A normal life. I guess it was a hopeless cause. You would never have a normal life and we both knew it. But at least you could’ve had someone who could watch the sunset with you. We had that once, although you’ll never know. But I just want you to know that I really tried to move on, I–”
Angel instantly went on the alert as the door opened behind him. The gang were outside, watching for any sign of demonic activity. Angel relaxed when he realized who the intruder was.
“Oh, I’m sorry Angel, I didn’t mean to interrupt....” Willow trailed off, unsure what to say.
“It’s okay,” he said softly.
She nodded and twisted her hands anxiously. “I just thought you should know that we’re changing shifts. Dawn, Xander, and Giles are going to take over for me, Tara, and Anya for awhile. If you want to rest....” Angel shook his head and the redhead looked as if she understood. “Well, when you’re, well, done in here...let them know.” He nodded, and she turned to go.
“Willow, wait,” he found himself saying. He felt like he had something to say to her, but he didn’t know what.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“It’s just...um...you don’t...you don’t have to go. If you want to stay here, with her, that’s okay. You loved her too.”
Willow looked down at the ground. She sniffed, as if she were trying not to cry. She moved to stand behind him, and they both looked down at the figure on the bed.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” she began. “One tiny piece of metal....”
“Destroys everything,” he finished.
Damn it, Buffy thought as she practically bent over backwards to avoid having her throat ripped out, where are they all coming from? Well she knew that. The Earth. Or at least her subconscious’s wacked-out version of the Earth.
She placed her hands against the earth and used her momentum to flip over so that she was standing upright once more. In one fluid motion, she retrieved her sword from the ground and sliced through two of the demons. She sensed more than saw something in her peripheral vision, and spun out of the way as yet another demon emerged from the earth and swung its claw-like limbs at the space she had so recently occupied.
Buffy hacked apart the demon in front of her, but another popped up behind it and knocked her sword out of her hand. Crap, she thought as it flew through the air to stick, quivering, in the earthen walls of her trap. Buffy threw punches and kicks at the demons surrounding her, but she was so tired. She wasn’t physically tired, but she was mentally exhausted. She had been fighting what seemed to be an endlessly reproducing army of mud demons for a good ten minutes. She didn’t know how to beat them, and she didn’t know how to get out of here. Light was coming from a hole far above her. She could see trees and clouds, but she couldn’t see a way to get there. She wanted more than anything to be up there, but she was trapped down here. It’s my mind, she said to herself. Shouldn’t I have some sort of control?
She gasped in shock as claws pierced her side, and weight on her back sent her crashing to the ground. All she could see was blackness as the demons piled on top of her. Well, she thought, I guess I’m stuck down here, in my hellish subconscious. I guess I’ve lost.
TBC
A/N: Okay, so I'm not very good at fight scenes...anyway, I'm going away for two weeks, but I'm gonna update as soon as I get back. I know what's gonna happen in the next chapter, although that's as far as I know, unfortunately. I have this great idea for a joke ending, so I think I'm going to write two endings when I get back. Sadly, I haven't decided what the actual ending is going to be....
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