Fic: Endings

[drizzlydaze.livejournal.com]

Title: Endings
Creator: drizzlydaze
Rating: PG
Setting: Post-series, mostly
Word count: 406
Prompt: Til Death Do Us Part

Her body was on the ground. It was broken. There was no heartbeat. There was no life. It was a body, and it was still.

He fell to the ground and sobbed.

~~~~~

She stood at the edge of the crater—the mass grave. The fallen Sunnydale sign lay almost directly beneath her. The sun shone high overhead.

There was no body, no ashes, no dust, but his lighter was tucked in her back pocket.

~~~~~

A strange picture they made, a bedridden old woman with a bleached punk by her side. One might think he were the prodigal grandchild come to visit.

They’d never given it much thought. It seemed like the sort of subject you’d think on the most when it came to a relationship like this, but they’d never really. Even when she was with the Angel, the complications had arisen from the curse and not this fundamental problem of, well, vampire-Slayer.

Lifespans. Age differences.

It was an entirely different story from regular ol’ vampire-human. Their strengths were much closer, for one thing. And their lifespans were much further apart. Should’ve made it harder, thought it would, but it… it made sense. She wouldn’t live long enough to grow old and grey, so the age difference would never be any kind of issue. Silver lining, clouds.

And Christ, he had been lucky.

Because there were more slayers, see, all around the world. No more Slayer, capitalisation and all, The One and Only; now there were slayers aplenty. No more much abbreviated lifespan—well, it wasn’t a certainty, in any case.

He didn’t want to cry, to have his last looks at her blurred with tears. But he’d never been good at holding his tears at bay. His face was soaked.

Time to say his goodbyes, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t force any words from his choked throat, and he hated himself for wasting this—these last moments, and then she would be gone, there would be no more Buffy in this world she would be deadwasdyingwasaboutodiewillbedead…

She was too weak to speak, but her wrinkled hand closed more tightly over his as he vainly willed himself to control. He needed more time, and the seers had robbed him of that tomorrow. Telling him this was her last day, and wasn’t that nice? Knowing she would die today? Natural causes; all very lucky, wasn’t it? He wanted to rip their throats out, but—

They should’ve known. He should’ve been prepared.

After all, death had always been the only ending for them.