The characters from BtVS belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Productions. They aren't mine, nor am I claiming them.
Author's Note: This fic is PG-13.
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::Begin report::
I am writing this as a record for historical, as well as personal purposes. Giles asked me to keep a record of our experiences for the Watcher society, seeing as we have similar interests, and I have no objection to it. The writing helps me think more clearly, and allows me an outlet for the demons that plague me now. The memories of friends lost as well as the demon inside me are constant reminders that life never turns out how one plans it.
Who would have guessed me here writing a record of eternity? A book that could possibly never end. I once saw a movie as a child called 'The Never Ending Story'. My life feels like that now, never ending. The bloodlust, the hunger, always there, always something to battle. Angel has helped me immensely, and having him with me has made this existence bearable. It is not as bad as I make it sound, but the grief I feel at the loss of those I loved as a mortal is a weight that I carry every day. One that I fear will never go away, even if it does lessen over time.
I have decided that the best place to start is the beginning, at the single most painful and tragic day of my life. It was not the day that I became a demon, as you might expect. It would be far too selfish of me to consider that to be the worst. No, it was the day that Buffy, Xander, Oz and Cordelia all died.
* * *
The afternoon had been a rough one. I had been asked to teach the make-up summer course in computer science due to the lack of a suitable replacement for Miss Calendar. The unfortunate summer school students of Sunnydale High were anxious to be free like the rest of their fellow students. I had a rough time wrapping up my last computer class because of everyone's enthusiasm. The actual teaching was over, but the administrative work involved still had to get done. I loved teaching, and I look back on it as a fond memory. Something I would have liked to have done before the change. Now, of course, that isn't possible, unless I teach night school. ::enthusiastic grin::
::personal note::
I still have some of my former sense of humor left, it seems. That never fails to surprise me after everything that has happened. Angel wondered what I was laughing to myself about, so he peeked over my shoulder as I wrote. He at least thought it was funny too. I feel better now, but I digress.
::end personal note::
Anyway, we had all planned on going to the Bronze for the Willow-is-free-at-last kick-off bash. We, being Buffy, Xander, Cordy, and Oz.
::author's note::
As Giles has recorded the eventual return of Buffy to Sunnydale following the Snyder incident, I will not go into detail about that here. See Rupert Giles' Watcher Diary for that account.
Angel, whom Buffy had stabbed with the Knight's sword to close the vortex that Acathla had opened when she awakened, was ejected from the depths of hell shortly after Buffy left Sunnydale. The explanation being that a penitent soul cannot be kept in hell. He had shown up looking worse for the wear. Angel kept to himself and did not associate with the rest of the gang after his return, primarily because he felt guilty about the things that Angelus had done after the curse had been broken. The only person that Angel felt comfortable around was me. He could see Jenny Calendar in Giles' eyes whenever he saw him, and as always Xander was not on board the Angel bandwagon. We became friends during this time. I helped him get through the guilt of what Angelus had done, and we both helped each other with the fact that Buffy was gone. I kept this friendship from everyone, including Oz, my boyfriend at the time. In fact, Angel even helped me with that relationship, seeing as he was a male, and could look at things from a point of view that only a male can. Nothing changed after Buffy's return. Angel was afraid to chance losing his soul again, even though the restoration spell that I cast for him was not a curse, like the gypsies had performed. My spell was simply a restoration ritual that called the soul from the ether to be placed into the vessel of my choice. There were no conditions placed on it. This I learned through research in the magick, which I have become quite versed in since. I discovered how to make it so that nothing could ever take away his soul again. All of this is of note because it is this friendship and that knowledge of magick that saved me from a life as a heartless killer.
::end note::
Getting back to that night, I had to close up the computer lab, so I was staying late at school to do so. The plan was to meet the others at the Bronze, a local dance club. I ended up staying later than planned. It was dark by the time I was ready to leave, and as I walked out of the school, Angel came out of the bushes. He offered to walk me to the Bronze, and I took him up on it, considering the baddies that always threatened Sunnydale at night. It was on the way to the Bronze that we saw the accident. I screamed when I recognized Oz's van, or what was left of it, and ran as fast as I could to the scene. You see, I also knew that Cordy's car was in the shop, and that Oz was going to pick up she and Xander, along with Buffy, and get something to eat before Bronzing. Fear gripped my heart as I stared at the flattened van. We faced danger everyday in the hellmouth, too much danger for any of us to consider such normal deaths. I could the see the skid marks and the tracks of what appeared to be a semi that hadn't even stopped after the accident. Angel ripped into the side of the van to find survivors. I held back out of fear for the worst, and the sound that I heard come from Angel's soul confirmed my worst fears. I collapsed to the ground, my soul in as much torment as his was. Somehow, I heard sirens blaring in the distance.
My memories after that are fuzzy and tainted with the grief I felt. Despite the hole ripped in the van by Angel, it took two hours to get their bodies out of the van reasonably intact. The police had me identify the bodies, a task I did numbly. It is a sight that will never leave me as long as I live. They were barely recognizable as themselves, but I knew them so well that I didn't hesitate. I bent down to Buffy's body, removing the silver cross from her neck, and the claddaugh ring from her finger when the officer wasn't looking. I thought Angel might like them. He had disappeared when the authorities descended, I imagined in blind grief from the death of his love. Of all the evil and horrid things that we faced living on the Hellmouth, it was ironic that the thing that finally killed Buffy, the vampire slayer, was a drunk driver who fled the scene of the accident. He was found dead shortly after, drained of all blood while parked at a truck stop just outside of town.
I had no doubts in my mind as to who had done it, even though Angel and I have never spoken of it. He knows I know, and nothing else need be said.
The horror of losing your four closest friends is something I would not wish on my most mortal enemy. I was too calm in my grief. I locked myself in my room, and my parents were at a loss as to how to help me. Giles, battling his own grief, tried to help them, coming over and talking to me through my closed door. I am still amazed at my parents' inability to question why my high school librarian would be camped outside my bedroom door. Perhaps they were so desperate that they were willing to do anything to get through to me. The thing that almost destroyed me was the guilt I felt for surviving. Had I not needed to stay late at school, I would have been in the van as well. Why had I survived while they all died? Buffy was the chosen one, the one with the strength to slay vampires, not I. Xander was the one who had a joke for every moment, who made everyone laugh. Oz was the talented guitar player, and a werewolf, even. Cordy was the most beautiful girl I knew. It didn't seem fair that plain old Willow would be the one who was spared by some cosmic fate.
I was, at one point, contemplating ending it all, when I heard a knock on my window late one night. I had not seen Angel since that night, and from the look of him, he had not borne his grief well. I invited him in without a moment's hesitation. I closed the double door behind him and turned around to face him. I knew the picture I must have presented, and he must have known what he looked like as well. Through out all of it, I had not shed one tear. I was an automaton, walking through life without experiencing it. I had kept my grief locked inside of myself, wallowing in it night and day. While standing there looking at the mirror of my own despair, I snapped. The breakdown was complete, with Angel taking me in his arms and rocking me, crying with me, for hours. I later discovered that Giles, desperately afraid of what I might do to myself, had found him. He stayed with me for days, while I cried myself dry. We were both spent by the time it was over.
We talked a lot about Buffy, and Angel told me that his greatest source of pain was that he hadn't said goodbye. He had been too afraid to see her or talk to her, so he had just stayed away. I told him how much Buffy loved him, even after Angelus returned, and that the pain of sending him to hell was almost too much for her to bear. He seemed guilty over the fact that he hadn't trusted himself to see her again, and I explained that Buffy had understood, and felt the same way. She had beaten herself up over that night they had shared since it happened, and I told him that she had never forgiven herself for pushing him into a physical relationship. He found it darkly humorous when I told him that. In his mind, *he* had been the one who gave into his desires and seduced her. Isn't it strange how two people see the same event so differently? Talking about it with me, her best friend, helped him begin to let go. That looks so callous when I type the words, but for someone who could easily live forever, I really felt that the best thing for him to do was to make peace with her memory and continue on. It was this realization that helped me as well. We also talked about my feelings for Oz, and Xander. While my relationship with Oz had not yet become what I would term as serious, I still felt like I had lost a part of myself. And with Xander's death came the death of my youth. Every memory I have of my childhood involved Alexander Harris. He was literally a part of me at a fundamental level. It was hard letting go of him, especially.
Angel was the only one I could talk to about everything. My parents didn't understand the bond that had formed between all of us as a result of the danger we constantly faced. It amazed me how quickly Angel and I began to open up to each other after our cry-fest. I was always a little nervous around Angel when he and Buffy were an item. Angel is a very intense person, and when he talks to you, you become his focus. His eyes are penetrating, digging down to the depths of a person's soul. This is what made me squirm around him. I had too many embarrassing thoughts and secrets that were best left to myself, and I always felt that I was laid out like a book when he focused on me. The attention was unnerving. I find it humorous that what once made me so uncomfortable around him is what I found most comforting during that hard time, and even now.
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