I am the Slayer.
But I am also Buffy.
No, that’s not true. I am the Slayer. I was Buffy. I was first born Buffy, and I was born a second time when the last Slayer died. Odd, isn’t it - to know that someone had to die for you to be born?
The Slayer wasn’t the only person who died that day. Buffy died that day too. I can call myself Buffy, I can wear her face, her body, answer to her name, and act like her, but Buffy ceased to exist the moment the previous Slayer breathed her last.
I remember the first time I used my Slayer-strength. I snapped my knife in two at the dinner table. I was thirteen, and I hid the pieces from my mom. She never knew why we had only eleven forks from then on. I think Dawn got blamed for it. It took the Watcher’s Council over a year to find me. By then I had gotten very good at pretending to be Buffy.
None of my friends can understand this. They see me as Buffy, the vampire slayer. To them, I’m their friend Buffy, who happens to kill vampires in her spare time. They don’t see that Buffy hangs around so I can blend in. The Slayer is a lot like a vampire; it killed Buffy to get a form. I have Buffy’s memories, her personality, but I am not Buffy anymore. I have seen things, done things that Buffy never could have. Buffy wouldn’t, couldn’t fight or kill with her bare hands the way I have to every day to survive. She could have disappeared into oblivion, and no one really would have noticed. Now if the Slayer dies, oblivion is at hand. (And Buffy would have been so outraged that I hung around Xander enough to know that from one of his video games.)
I look at Spike, standing here before me, and all I see is a reflection of me. He is the only one who could ever understand this. He knows I am the Slayer. He knows the primal force that is contained in me because he has been there too, dying once and being reborn again. Better, faster, stronger as part of the dark. When I watch Spike, I see the killer in him that still manages to hold onto those pieces of his old life. He was William. I was Buffy. Now we are Spike and The Slayer. Neither of us try to fight it. We simply accept it. He accepts that I will never be Buffy and will always be the Slayer. Angel loved Buffy, Riley couldn’t love the Slayer, but Spike, he loves me, the real me. He loves me, the Slayer, born from the ashes of a Buffy long since dead.
Death, we share the same gift. It is ours to give. Our darknesses are on opposite sides, but they meet in the middle. Spike is my mirror, and he loves me for it. He is the one person that will ever come close to comprehending me. We are so close, he and I. He knows it, and much as I hate to admit it, I know it too. I am everything he says and more.
I guess that is why I am going to let him kiss me.
He reaches for me. I don’t move, neither surrendering or resisting. The Slayer is rejoicing in the heady rush from the danger of this game we are playing so deep.
I am the Slayer.
I am not in love with him.
But . . .
I am close.
I am a monster.
It’s the truth.
I am not worthy of this life, such as it is. The Powers That Be believe I can be redeemed, that I will eventually be absolved of my sins. Somehow I don’t share their view. There is nothing on earth that can possibly cleanse me of the blood I have shed, the remains of the lives I have destroyed. There are so many; I can never count them all, let alone say half their names.
Hers is just another life I have ruined. She was Buffy, sweet, trusting, and perfect, but I took her innocence. I stalked her, I terrorized her, I haunted her every waking moment when I was Angelus. The lives I took to taunt her scarred her. Even after that, when I wasn’t him, I pulled her apart by loving her without being able to have her. She would have sacrificed all that she was for me, unworthy as I am. I loved my small, beautiful Buffy; I love her still. I cannot afford the price she would pay by having me in her life. It would tear her to pieces. I can’t do that.
He has found her; I shouldn’t be surprised. Dru might have given him her blood, but I am his father. I trained him, molded him, taught him the ways of the Dark, to hunt and kill. Like God Himself, I formed him in my own image, William the Bloody. Spike. He was supposed to emulate me, his paragon of darkness. Yet somehow I failed. He stands out against the dark, pale as a white flame, a physical manifestation of my inability to corrupt him completely. He should have been like Angelus, who didn’t care, couldn’t feel, hated love. Instead of an emotionless, sadistic murderer, I made him into a killer who loves. He might be ruthless, cruel, predatory, but he can love. I should be proud that I managed to destroy everything except his heart, but I can’t be because I can see what is happening below me.
My two greatest creations are meeting on this black night. They are unaware of my presence, nor should I interrupt this moment. Two lives that I have subverted have found each other. I have seen it before, the look they are sharing, the tension in their bodies. I already know what he is going to do. I know how she will respond. I have taught them well. They don’t really have a choice; this is inevitable.
This is my nightmare.
He kisses her, she welcomes it, I cringe. I made them who they are today. I put them together. It is my own fault that the love of my life is going to be with my best grandchilde. I am responsible. I am the cause of them doing the one thing I cannot allow myself to do.
Love.
And I am unloved.
I am evil.
I am.
There is no room for weakness. I take what I want, when I want it. Nothing stands in my way. No one can make me go against my will.
Don’t anyone dare laugh. I am really evil. I have been evil for over a century. I have been killed, and I kill. I have no regrets for who or what I am. There is a demon in me, and I like it. It makes me more than human, stronger than life. I can go out and knock off heads, cutting a bloody swath through this damn town, and still have time to take a swim in the blood of the innocent.
Who am I fooling? I’m not going to do any of that, and it’s not because of this sodding chip in my head.
It’s because of her. She is what is controlling me.
She is my granite angel, the most breathtaking thing I have ever seen, and also the hardest. To be folded in her embrace is to be broken happily upon her unforgiving body. The sculpture is flawless and to die for, which I will do willingly.
I may be old; she is older. She doesn’t realize it yet, though someday she will. Buffy is temporary, but the Slayer is eternal. The Slayer is outside of time. She lived in so many forms, I know I have only glimpsed a fraction of the magnitude. The war between us will last forever, my kind versus hers. She has wisdom beyond her comprehension, and the death-dealing hands to use it. Part of me fears her, and another part of me is in awe that she will let me get this close.
She was my father’s girl, but now she’s not. She is no one’s. She will never be mine; I’m not a fool. She can’t ever belong to anyone. You try to possess her, and you collapse around her. That is the way it has been, that is the way it will always be. To try to have her is to forge the shackles of your own torment. Only I can’t help but touch her. She will obliterate me in the end, though I can’t stop it. I won’t stop itI wish I could.
I am evil. I am not, by nature, kind or gentle. Nothing I do is for free.
Except that’s not true. Not anymore. I am Good for her. Only for her.
I kiss those lips, soft and stone. She is going to destroy me. I welcome her to do it. I truly am broken.
But I don’t care.
I am in love.