Disclaimer: No, I'm not this evil...evil, but not this evil. Joss owns 'em.
Author's Notes: Okay, this is therapy fic for IWRY, also involving prophecies, apocalypses and whatever odd things pop into my head...but mostly B/A-ness. The parts are all gonna be first person from different people's points of views. Bad things will happen. This is gonna be very angsty, but I promise, it will all work out in the end!
Teaser: The End of Days is coming to Sunnydale...
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Part Twelve
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Two shall survive the tempest. Two shall stand alone, together, and face the Darkness that shall kill all it touches. No physical force may defeat it, but only the purest of souls, joined forever. To this end, these Two, the Warriors, the Creators, must face the ultimate Darkness and walk into the Mouth of Hell.
—The Tomes of Light, 999
Angel
The world had turned to ash and smoke, to fire and darkness, death and pain.
The world had turned to Hell.
It took me longer than I’d thought to get through the streets, to find a car and get out of L.A. Everyone and their mother had the same idea. Except they were trying to get away. I was trying to get to her.
Too late. Oh God it’s too late.
Sunnydale was gone by the time I arrived. A few structures were partially standing, but most were demolished or burned to the ground. Many of the fires had burned out, with nothing left to feed them, though here and there they still smoldered, sending smoke into the already polluted air. Everywhere, the bodies. Most of them weren’t even whole.
The demons had abandoned the town, in search of more humans to kill, I’m sure, more buildings to destroy. The open wound of the Hellmouth was visible from the other side of town, a smoldering hole in the ground. Smoke poured up from it, filling the sky, the air. At least I didn’t have to breath.
My world ended when I heard that awful stillness. Nothing lived in Sunnydale. Nothing.
My legs gave out and I fell to my knees on the ash-covered ground. "I gave up humanity for this?" I screamed, the cry torn out of my soul.
And then, in the smog, something moved. Something.
I didn’t dare to hope, to think. My heart supplied a form and the smoke shaped itself to fit my dreams. And there she was, walking out of the darkness, her eyes holding all the darkness the world possessed in their light, tragic gaze.
She stared at me, as if unable to believe that this was real, unable to say what was reality, or if reality existed at all. Our gazes met and held, sanity in the midst of chaos, or perhaps the other way around.
Her lips moved, and I had to strain to hear her whisper. It carried across the distance, a plea and a cry. "Angel?"
And then somehow I was moving forward, and so was she, and she dropped to her knees beside me. Our bodies met and I enfolded her in my arms, holding her so tightly that I wasn’t sure she could breath.
She was alive. She was alive.
She began to shake, sobs ripping through her though I don’t know if there were any tears. Her entire thin frame shook, shuddered in my arms as the earth had shuddered what, and hour before? She shook with grief and pain and I held her as if I would never let go. I don’t think I ever would have, if I could help it. I tasted the salt of tears and realized they were mine.
The world around us was fire and ash and I knew, finally, what it was to be afraid.
Buffy
I calmed down eventually. Angel and I decided underground would be the best place to go, that way no flying demons would see us. We decided the less attention we brought to ourselves the better. For now, anyway. We retreated to the sewers.
It’s impossible to describe that first day. When I first saw him…I had lost everything, my entire world, and I found him. My ray of light. My one little bit of hope. And there he was.
Everything else was gone.
Angel told me what had happened in L.A. Meaning it wasn’t just in Sunnydale. Meaning my mother was probably dead too, and my father and all my relatives. Everyone. And if they weren’t already, they would be soon.
I didn’t even want to live. Except to kill them. Except to kill all the things that had done this. I didn’t really think that was possible.
"What are we supposed to do?" I asked, curled up in Angel’s coat in some vampire’s underground lair. "I mean, if we try and fight, we’ll die. If we don’t…what’s the point?"
"Shh," he said softly, stroking a piece of hair back from my face. "We don’t need to think of that now. We need to rest, and then we’ll find a way, we’ll find something—" I didn’t bother to laugh. A way? There was no way left. Nothing.
"Angel?" I asked softly, just to hear him answer.
"Yes?"
"What did you mean when you said you gave up humanity?" Of all the things that had happened, this was what came to mind. I guess it was more productive than talking about how they all died, how our world had ended. Kept our mind off things like that.
"I…Buffy, when you came for Thanksgiving…Never mind." I frowned, looking up at him sharply. He stood up and turned away, walking over to a nearby table.
"What?" I demanded. "Don’t tell me never mind. What happened?"
"It doesn’t matter. It would just make it harder Buffy. Let’s just…how did you escape?" he asked, changing the subject. I frowned, but let it drop for the moment.
"I hid," I said softly. He turned back, leaning on the table.
"Where?"
"In a collapsed building. After Faith—they were all dead," I said softly, my voice breaking. "I couldn’t do anything, so I hid."
"It was the only thing you could have done," he told me firmly, but that didn’t make it any better. Didn’t make me any less of a coward.
"Right. The only thing I could have done."
He heard it in my voice. Of course he did. Angel can hear everything in my voice. He walked over and knelt beside my chair, taking my hands in his large, calloused ones and holding my eyes. "Buffy, if you hadn’t walked out of the smoke, if you had died, I—I wouldn’t even have the strength to kill myself. I would have been dead, already. You’re the only thing that is keeping me alive right now. Don’t ever doubt that you did the right thing."
He sounded almost fierce. Dear God, he looked so desperate, so hurt, so needy. Just like I felt.
"And if you hadn’t been there? What do you think would have happened to me?" I asked softly, my eyes tracing every line of his beautiful face, capturing the darkness in his eyes. My hands slid out of his and up to his face, tracing over the curve of his cheek, his lips.
"We don’t have to think about that," Angel said, and I wished to whatever powers there were—though at the moment, I didn’t really believe in any—that he was right.
"Just hold me Angel," I begged, and slid off the chair into his arms. And he held me through that long, long night.
* * *
Days passed, hours sliding by, or lingering sometimes, holding me captive in memories. I didn’t keep track. I didn’t really care. At some point we realized we needed food and water, and went scouting.
The outside world hadn’t changed much. Only a few, tiny fires burned anymore. The ashes had mostly settled to the ground. Everything smelled of the decay of corpses.
We went to the collapsed hospital and found a few whole blood packets for Angel. In one of buildings that was half-standing we found a pantry, a couple boxes of cereal that hadn’t burned and some cans of soup.ter was a problem. It had all turned dark. We ended up boiling it, figuring that would get out any bad stuff, and I drank as little as I could.
Sometimes, I wondered what the point was. Why were were even trying. And then I looked at Angel and knew he was my point, and I was his.
At some point we went to Giles’ house. What was left of it. Most of the library was burnt, but we found a few big old books and lugged them back to our hideout. We spent all day—or all night, I don’t know—poring over them, looking for something, anything. Half the time I didn’t even see what I was reading. I just zoned and looked, and looked and looked. All those words. And nothing to save any of them.
How could they all be gone? How could that happen so fast? One minute they were there and the next…
I didn’t think about that. I just read. And slept. And ate when Angel reminded me. Once he had to hand feed me, I was too tired and numb.
I never, ever, want to think of how those days felt. I never want to remember.
Angel found it. Of course. I think I could have looked right at it and not noticed a thing.
"The Mouth of Hell," he repeated slowly, when he’d finished reading it to me.
"Oh, what could that possibly be?" I asked.
"We have to try," he said softly. I smiled softly at the hesitation in his voice. Did he think I’d object?
"I know. Any chance at defeating what did this is better than…than this," I said, suddenly clear for the first time in…days? Had it been days? Or weeks? I hadn’t been paying attention.
What if we succeeded? What if we changed the world back? Would we be the only two people left on it, and one of us not even alive?
I didn’t let myself think of that. Surely there were still people alive…somewhere.
"Let’s do it tomorrow. I’ll read more and see if there’s anything else we should know," Angel said. "And you should get some sleep."
I shook my head and reached one hand out to touch his face. "You think I could really sleep? Especially without you?"
"All right," he said, catching my hand. "We’ll both sleep." He caught me and picked me up gently and walked over to the bed (yes, there was a bed. What is it with vampires and satin sheets?) We lay down and he curled around me, his hand twisting into my hair. I closed my eyes and felt the oddest kind of peace. We had a purpose now, a way. And even if we lost, if we failed, we still tried.
I didn’t know if I wanted to win, if it meant life without all of them. Years and years without them.
I closed my eyes and let the nothingness begin to drift over me, safe for the moment in Angel’s arms, though I knew I could never be safe again, really.
Just as I drifted off to sleep, or the unconsciousness that meant sleep to me then, I heard him whisper, "Midnight. Merry Christmas Buffy."
* * *
We stood there, hand in hand, before the smoking, gaping maw.
What the Hell is a maw? Where do these words come from?
"Guess this is it," I said softly. I’d armed myself to the teeth, but somehow I didn’t think that would help.
"Yeah. Buffy…this is going to sound really stupid and cliched, but…whatever happens, I love you." I turned to him with a smile below eyes that I knew held no laughter at all.
"Can’t you just see this scene in some kind of romance novel? The hero and heroine go off to face the Big Bad, stopping to confess their undying love," I quipped, not finding it at all funny. But it was better than being serious. Easier.
"Undying?" he asked.
"Of course," I whispered. There was a moment of silence, that complete, terrible silence that had descended on the town I’d once known so well. "This is the part where you’re supposed to kiss me one last time before we go."
"But in the romances, it’s never really the last time," Angel said softly.
"Yeah, well they can’t be right all the time."
"Shh," he whispered, placing a finger over my lips. He bent and kissed me, and even the aching sweetness couldn’t make any of it better. Couldn’t make life worth living.
I hoped we defeated whatever did this. And I hoped I never lived to see another sunny day without them.
"I guess that’s it then," I said softly when he pulled away. I could feel tears on my cheek. Tears. I didn’t think I knew how to cry anymore.
"That’s it," he agreed. We turned, as soon, to the pit in the ground. If the Lords of Hell didn’t kill us, the fall certainly would. You couldn’t even see the bottom. If was just this endless darkness.
"Here goes," I said, and we stepped into the Mouth of Hell.
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