Title: Free
Author: AstrablueFreedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. — Janis Joplin
It's amazing… when the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright. — Aerosmith
It was calm in the cemetery that night, calm and peaceful as it had been for the last few weeks. Buffy strolled between the rows of gravestones, running her hand absentmindedly over the smooth, curved tops of the granite markers.
Peaceful, she thought. That's a word I never thought I'd use to describe patrolling.
The cool breeze swept through her blonde hair, a perfect end to a gorgeous summer day in Sunnydale, California. She sighed and looked up at the stars. They were glistening clearly, striking in their beauty and utter mystery.
A crypt was coming up on Buffy's left side. She stopped, turned, and looked at it, letting out a forced, heavy breath. Turning her head back forward, she thought: Thirty-four steps and began walking purposefully again, counting under her breath.
Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three. Thirty-four. She stopped. Without turning, she touched the gravestone at her left side. Kneeling down, still facing forward, she ran her hand over the engraved letters. The edges of the letters were still sharp, scratching Buffy's fingers as they felt the cold stone. She winced in pain. Sharp. It hasn't been long enough to dull them.
Reciting the words silently, seeing them as clearly etched in her brain as they were on the stone to her side, Buffy mouthed: Alexander Harris. Friend. Lover. White Knight.
Blinking back tears, she moved to the headstone next to Xander's, running her hand over the letters as she had for so many nights. Willow Rosenberg. Friend. Lover. Magical.
A sob caught in her throat and Buffy's hand dropped to her lap. She remembered those final days leading up to the battle with the First: the hordes of vampires that had smothered Sunnydale, forcing its residents to become prisoners in their own homes, choking what little life they still had within them. She could still see their faces, looking out their windows, pale and ghostlike.
The streets had been quiet, eerily deathlike, even in the daytime. The only sound arising from the town came from Buffy's house. The shouting had angered and scared her at the same time, bringing back memories and making what lay ahead that much more difficult.
They had insisted on going with her. You're going to die! they had said, with the anger born of love reverberating in their voices. So will you, she had fiercely replied. That hadn't stopped them — not like it ever had in the past, anyway. The idea of facing a hundred vampires had not fazed her best friends like she thought it might. No, they would go to the brink with her. There was nothing else for them. Giles had just looked at her, and Buffy remembered longing for him to take his glasses off and clean them like he used to; the custom would have been a small measure of comfort. He had said nothing, except a Let's go, then once Buffy had relented to Xander and Willow.
On their way out, they all silently saluted two urns standing on her mantel.
Anya had been the first to go — battling four vampires on her own, she had succumbed and suffered a mortal wound to her neck. The others had not seen the damage while it was being done, and the blood on her lips could have been her own from the fight or from a more sinister source. To be safe, they had burned her body.
Xander had been a wreck; he was the one who had discovered her lying there in the street. Kissing her cold lips gently and reverently, he had closed her open, glazed eyes and folded her hands properly over her stomach.
The next week, Spike went. While Buffy had been fighting a group of vampires, one had snuck up behind her, ready to pounce like an undead cat. Upon dusting her attackers, Buffy had turned, but she would have been too late. Spike leaped from behind the vampire, but as he was airborne, their foe — in less than the blink of an eye — grabbed Buffy's stake from her stunned hand and thrust it backward and up. She looked up and saw the shock and pain run across his face and then his face became dust, falling into the rest of him onto the ground.
Grabbing another stake from her belt, Buffy maneuvered the vampire a few feet away and staked him. I hadn't wanted him to contaminate Spike.
She had swept him up carefully, Xander, Willow and Giles looking on.
Heroes slain in the midst of battle; the original Scooby Gang felt their deaths keenly.
Showdown in Sunnydale. She remembered how she gasped at the sight of all the vampires gathered there with one purpose: kill. Kill her. Kill her friends. Grasping their weapons, the four standing defenders of the small town, and ostensibly, the world, met their foes head-on. Buffy had kept checking around her, making sure her friends were okay and holding their own, which they did until the last few minutes.
Willow had begun a spell, one they'd finally discovered that would bind the First permanently to the object of their choice. They had chosen an onyx crystal, long and slim, with both smooth and rough sides to it.
She was chanting away when a vampire overcame her and snapped her neck. Buffy watched in agony as her best friend slipped to the ground, the life gone from her bright body. She felt rather than heard the scream of pain that ripped from her throat.
To his credit, Giles quickly took over chanting the spell, his voice catching just once, at the beginning. Buffy turned and unleashed her wrath upon the undead still standing. She saw Xander out of the corner of her eye, whipping his sword through walking corpses like they were human-shaped pieces of butter. My Xander-shaped friend, she remembered with a bittersweet smile.
And then they were gone. The silence was near deafening. She felt a cold rush overwhelm her as Giles finished the spell. The First, with a scream so sharp it pierced her soul, disappeared and the onyx had glowed briefly before once again becoming to all appearances an everyday crystal.
Buffy looked around and saw Xander, huddled against a wall. Seeing the blood pooling beneath him, the tears had finally come and she sat next to him, holding his hand with one of hers and the other wrapped around him. Knowing he could feel the strength of her feelings for him, she said nothing and waited. Giles came and waited with them, his arm encircling both of his children. They waited for hours, until the dawn had streaked the sky and Buffy had looked to her other best friend, noticing the expression of happy satisfaction written permanently on his face.
She felt the tears caressing her cheeks as that night returned so vividly to her mind. I'll never forget.
*
Over afternoon tea, she brought up her idea. Giles was naturally aghast, but the look in his eyes told Buffy that in his heart, he knew she was doing the right thing.
'I just think that at this point, I'm not needed anymore here. I'm feeling the need to get away and explore the world. I should never have survived this long, Giles. You know the statistics. I want to make the most of my time.'
She stared into her cup. 'Plus, there'll always be Faith.'
The brunette Slayer was being freed the next day, on good behavior. Giles had visited her in prison and had noted the change in Faith. She had matured, no longer driven to violence and accepting the dark parts of her past. The passion that Buffy and her friends had come to know as part of Faith was still there, though; now, she just transmuted toward preserving life, not destroying it.
She was coming back to Sunnydale to resume her Slayer duties. Buffy felt apprehension at the thought of meeting her former enemy again, but knowing what Giles had told her, she felt the need to move on and forgive Faith. After all, Buffy had her own sins to atone for and she could not, in all conscience, pretend that she was still angry at her sister Slayer.
'Yes, there is still Faith. Do you think she'll be able to shoulder the responsibility on her own, Buffy?'
She nodded. 'She's strong and she's changed, you said. Now that the First's gone, it's looking to be just your run-of-the-mill demons and vampires to fight, at least for now. We haven't even had that much since… that night. She'll be fine.'
They discussed their plans into the evening.
'Will you be needing me tomorrow, when you pick her up at the bus station, Buffy?'
'No, I think it needs to be just me. We need to talk alone for awhile.'
'Very well, then. Stop on over when you can.'
'Thanks, Giles. For everything.'
*
As much as Buffy had anticipated awkwardness at their first meeting in years, when Faith stepped off the bus that afternoon, the first impulse Buffy had was to hug her, which she did, shocking Faith.
They went to Buffy's apartment — she had sold the house since it had only been her living there — and talked for hours. There had been tears and laughter and giggling and a few bittersweet 'what if' moments.
Buffy felt a twinge of guilt at what was going to happen now that she had reunited with the one person who could ever understand being a Slayer, but she knew it was for the best. They went patrolling that night, staking no one but still feeling like they'd accomplished something.
A week later, the two Slayers were on their way home from another uneventful night of patrolling when something stepped out of the shadows. By the looks of it, it was a demon, with two sharp horns, a ring extending from his chin and covered in all black armor. He looked intimidating, especially with his towering height, but Buffy and Faith had fought worse before. The demon pulled an ax from behind his back and growled threateningly. It was clear that the ax was meant for the two Slayers.
Buffy and Faith looked at each other and then simultaneously attacked the demon. Faith was armed with a sword while Buffy only had her stakes on hand, but her feet and fists definitely made up for the lack of a sharper weapon.
He swung his ax at the women, who ducked as the blade passed over their heads. Buffy darted in to get a kick at his face, but he caught her leg and pulled her up off the ground.
'Buffy!' Faith cried and lunged at the demon with her sword, getting a few jabs at him but barely able to puncture his thick armor.
Still holding Buffy by her leg, despite her efforts to disengage herself from his iron grip, the demon grabbed the stake she was holding in her hand and drove it through her heart, dropping her to the ground afterward.
The pain was unimaginable. Buffy's eyes widened as her body recoiled in the shock. Looking down, she saw her fingers — which had grasped the stake in reflex — covered in her own blood.
Faith screamed and turned to give the nameless demon payback, but he was gone. Crying aloud with frustration and grief, she then turned back toward her fallen friend, a friend who she'd only just gotten closer to so recently.
Kneeling beside Buffy, she held the blonde Slayer's hand.
'Faith,' Buffy whispered. 'It'll be ok.'
'Shh,' Faith replied through her tears. 'I know. We'll get you to a hospital and you'll be fine. Just fine.'
Buffy shook her head. 'No, I won't, Faith. But don't worry about me. You have so much ahead of you now. You've come so far.'
'No, Buffy!' cried Faith, not wanting to hear her friend's words, but knowing the truth of them deep inside herself. 'I don't know what to do. I can't be by myself. I… I… might still be evil,' she said hurriedly in a last-ditch attempt to inspire Buffy to conquer her mortal wound.
Buffy chuckled, the effort costing her. 'You're not, Faith. You'll be fine. Giles will help you.'
Looking down at the stake in her chest, Buffy smiled. 'Ironic, huh?' And then she shuddered and relaxed on the ground, dead.
Faith brought her body back to Giles' house, her grief seeming too much to bear.
Her living friends — two — counted too small a number for a memorial service and so all Faith and Giles could do was watch as the coffin holding Buffy Anne Summers, Vampire Slayer was lowered into the ground, next to Willow Rosenberg. There was a priest saying prayers for her, and though his words were hardly heard by the grieving pair, his presence held some comforting semblance of normality for a girl whose life had been anything but ordinary.
*
She stood in the dappled shade, watching Faith and Giles toss flowers into the grave. Blinking back a tear, Buffy suddenly longed to break her plan and to run to her friend, comforting her. Giles knew the truth, of course, as well as Skip, the horned demon who had done the favor for her and Giles, but she also knew that there was sincerity to the former Watcher's grief, for it was the end of an era. Though it had been only a fraction of time, just seven years, it had been countless lifetimes for Buffy and the gang. Now that her closest friends were gone, the city held too many memories for Buffy and she needed to leave. Sunnydale was no longer in her hands for protection, but it had come to this moment precisely because she had delivered it time after time, with help from her friends, from almost certain doom.
Maybe there were more apocalypses in the offing, but Buffy knew that Faith and Giles could handle them. Maybe Faith would even find her own circle of friends to help her through. Buffy smiled as she pictured Faith laughing and goofing off with friends like every girl was supposed to do and that Faith had never had the chance to experience. Until now.
Buffy knew that with her death, Faith was free. No longer in her shadow, the former rogue Slayer would find her own niche in Sunnydale. She might even find happiness.
It had crossed her mind that the elaborate death plan was perhaps unnecessary, that she could just walk away without inflicting such pain on Faith, but she knew that the finality of death was what was needed to truly liberate Faith and for Buffy herself to know complete reinvention.
Buffy turned and walked away from the cemetery. She approached the small car that she and Giles had bought together a few days ago as part of the plan. She would drive away from her old life and go places she had only dreamed about visiting. She would remember Xander and Willow as she visited exotic lands that they had all fantasized about going to together.
A smile widened her lips and a bounce came into her step.
She was free.