Dust

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me but the idea.

Distribution: http://mysticmuse.net

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Pairing: Willow/Kennedy

You might as well just be dust. Sweep up dust and it might contain a fragment of Caesar or Cleopatra, anybody, one day it might be me, but that is not immortality, that’s just dust.

-Francis Bacon

Dust is everywhere, but what it is? Is it the dust of death, blowing across a desolate land? Is it the fine but offending particles on the wings of angels and archangels that merely watch from its heavenly perch? Or is it the ashes from the heroes of yore rising upon the aftermath?

We begin our story at end, just after the climax but before the denouement. You may ask why I choose to start at this point so far into the story, well I can give you a thousand answers but mainly this is a story of little action or intrigue and plot, it is merely a story of human reactions and reflections.

Columns of dust dance in the rays of a new dawn that have found its way through the rubble. Our heroes lie scattered amongst this rubble, slowly they come to. The blonde defender of the righteous and innocent is the first to get up and survey her surroundings. A small part of her conscious smirks at the fact another educating institution lies in ruins underneath her feet but her main concern is focused on the people around her. Her friends... no not just friends but people that have become her family after her real family has been swept away by the winds fate and time, they lie beaten and battered around her. Their destinies were their own but they repeatedly fought for hers’ and have paid its price tenfold.

In one corner, the children of tomorrow, infants that have been shoved into her destiny because of her return to this plane of existence once again. Looking over them is the eldest, the mentor and father figure to us all. In another, the mortal man and the once immortal ex-demon. Quite a volatile combination but their loyalty and reliability have been proven over and over again and all they simply ask for in return is a hand in friendship. Behind her lies her twin, a being of equal strength and skill but still a broken mirror reflection of herself. And lastly in the center of ground zero lies her best friend of the ages and yet a stranger of today for the being that is lying fetal, clutching at herself is almost unrecognizable from the happy innocence she once represented.

“Aah! B, a little help here?”

Buffy spins around and quickly starts to dig into the rubble from whence the voice came from.

“Oh god... Vi!” A cockney accent looks down in shock at one of her fallen comrade.

Buffy turns to look. She notices the right angle, at which the neck is bent, at least 20 degrees in the wrong direction. She whispers a soft prayer for the girl that once was and continues with her effort to free brunette Slayer.

At the same time another brunette, the oldest of the potentials, slowly crawls to the shaking wreck in the center.

“Willow? ... Willow, are you okay?” Kennedy cautiously inquires as she approaches her companion. The harsh contrast of the black hair on her lover’s pale complexion deeply unsettles her heart.

“Stop...must stop...can’t loose control...” Willow mumbles as shudders wrack her body.

Kennedy softly gathers the dark witch into her lap and begins gently rocking back and forth, trying with all her will to force out that which is holding her lover prisoner simply by her love alone. She brushes the dark damp locks away from Willow’s eyes, sweat covering the witches’ brow as she is obviously fighting against the power inside her.

Diving into those foreign ebony eyes. “Will, come back to me please.” Kennedy pleads.

At first the mumbling continues from the dark witch but then a spark of recognition appears followed by a torrent of thunderstorms in those black orbs. A wave of energy sends Kennedy out of Willow’s grasp and a couple of feet back, exasperating her previous injuries even more.

The wind snakes and twists around Willow as she crawls to her hands and knees. Electricity hums hymns in the air as she screams “GET OUT OF ME!” Dry heaves wrack her body now, everyone inches back in horror as black electricity induced ooze vomit from her mouth and leak from her eyes and burn into the ground beneath.

Kennedy quickly scrambles to catch Willow before she hits the ground after her bodily expulsion. “Will?” she sob as tears stream down her face.

“Kennedy...” the returned redhead breathes.

“Oh god Willow...” She kisses softly on her lover’s forehead. “You’re gonna be okay, you hear me or I’m so gonna kick your ass.” Kennedy demands as she hugs Willow clutching to her like a life raft.

“Did we save the world?” Willow questions, as she is too weak to look around.

“No, you saved the world.” The brunette proudly replies.

“Yay, me.” She whispers weakly.

Kennedy smirks before looking around nodding with approval at her new found friends and fellow soldiers of light. “With a little help of course.” She mumbles underneath her breath as she gently lays the redhead down to rest on her lap.

We return back to our blonde Slayer as she is about to lift a metal beam off of her brunette counterpart.

“Hurry up B, I ain’t got all day and I’m starting to not feel my legs here.” The dark Slayer comments as if this is merely a delay of keeping her from the Bronze.

“I’m almost there and I’m being careful to try to not hurt you even more.” Buffy obviously taking this more seriously then her trapped counterpart.

Buffy slowly lift what appears to be the final piece that which is pinning Faith but she is suddenly halted by the cry of agony from the brunette Slayer.

“Don’t stop...keep on going.” Faith pushes through gritted teeth.

Noticing a pond of blood spreading beneath, Buffy carefully leans in to take a closer examination of the point of contact. She slowly stumbles back in horror. “Oh no...no.”

“What is it?” Faith asks. Hearing no response. “What is it, B?”

This time she gets a glassy eyed stare as tears well up in the blonde’s eyes.

“Buffy, What. Is. It?” Her patience is running thin at the lack of a verbal response.

“T-The beam...we can’t move the beam. It’s cut into your body...all the way through.”

“What?” She shakes her head, not accepting the answer. “No.” She goes to try to lift the beam off herself. “Get this thing off of me!” She screams.

Seeing that it’s only making things worst as the pool of blood continues to spread, Buffy quickly grabs Faith’s hands and pin them to the side. “Stop it Faith! Stop it...please.” Buffy cries.

“Get it off me, get it off me...get if off...” She breaks down into sobs. Buffy crawls up the pile of rubble and takes a hold of the younger Slayer as she cries into her lap. The chasm of dread ever spreading inside of her, knowing the fate of this...girl in her arms, for at this moment that is what she is, not a Slayer, not a murderer, but a mere human girl. A dying human girl.

On the opposite end of this battleground, old lovers, rivals, bitter enemies, emerge from behind their metal shelter.

Ignoring the throbbing pain on the side of his head and the ridiculous amount of blood on his shirt this mere mortal man goes to aid his ex-demon-friend-fiancé. Slowly helping Anya up on shaky legs of his own, he ask, “Are you okay?”

She gingerly probes the area around her ribs with her fingers before replying. “Yeah, I think they’re just bruised.”

“That’s good, I mean it’s better then broken, right? Here do you want to sit down?” He goes to fetch the tattered shreds of his jacket to use as a cushion before guiding Anya to sit on a flat piece of rubble. She stares at him as he busies himself with making her comfortable.

After several minutes she finally comments. “You’re bleeding.”

He continues to fuss about her without replying.

“That blow would’ve taken off my head if you hadn’t pushed me out of the way.” Anya softly comments as she tenderly checks his wound.

“I owed you.” He finally speaks but without looking at her.

“You did, for the walking away from the altar and all the misery that came after.” She replies with a little bitterness.

“I was actually thinking about the tower with Glory two years ago but are you saying that the slate is clean between us?”

She lifts his chin until he’s finally facing her. “I’m saying that I don’t think you owe me anymore.”

“Then can we...” he starts, hopeful.

“If the next line has the word ‘married’ in it, I will bludgeon you to death myself.” She interrupts.

He smiles and continues. “...start over. I’m thinking along the lines of coffee maybe?”

“Coffee’s a start.” They both smile.

“Hey B, who’s the one that’s cut in half here?” Faith softly jokes as she regards Buffy’s sullen expression. Having gone through the several stages of grief but still never the one to follow the rules, Faith jumps ahead to acceptance, possibly anticipating the length of her future.

“Don’t joke about this Faith!” Buffy angrily replies as she tightens her grip on Faith’s paling hands which at some point found its way into the blondes’.

“Look we both know that the brochure always said that this would be a short trip. I’m just glad it’s me that’s going. I deserve this.”

“Listen to me, NO ONE deserves this. Not you, not me, and not any of them.” Looking over at the potentials.

“I did a lot of shitty stuff.” Beginning to exhibit shorter and shallower breaths.

“In the past. What counts is now and now you just have to hold on. Some one had to have seen this and the ambulance is on its way. Just save your strength and hold on.” Buffy pleads.

“I have to get this out before...before...I’m sorry about before. You just had everything that I never had and I thought that you took it for granted. I thought that I could do a better job then you but like everything in my life I screwed it up because that’s what I do, screw up.” The pool of blood continually expanding beneath them.

“No, you made mistakes, that doesn’t make you a screw up, that makes you human and that’s why you can be forgiven.”

“I have one last thing to tell you.” Buffy leans in to the ghostly white face as the brunette can only whisper now. “I’m scared, I’ve never been more scared in my life. I don’t want to...die.” She finishes with her final breath. Buffy witnesses the once volatile spark slowly fading away from those deep dark orbs, a part of her leaving with it. Looking up and around at the wreckage the blonde Slayer asks herself why, why is it always everyone else but herself. Buffy slowly lies down next to the still Slayer as tears streak her face. She sobs openly as she gathers Faith into a final embrace.

“Is she really...?” Rona asks.

Giles looks up from checking on the former potential, Vi’s pulse and replies. “I’m afraid so.” He gets up as the girls turn to each other for comfort. “She fought valiantly as did all of you.” He comments before going to clean his glasses on instinct but realizes he’s lost them during the final battle, probably lying broken and shattered underneath a rock. Sighing, he looks at children in front of him, children that have been thrust into defending this planet in a blink of an eye. Good has triumphed time and time again and often by half of the group standing here today but evil still remains. It cannot be won against but only beaten down. He looks at the fallen pupil and then to the dark Slayer, it is in these moments that he questions the validity of it all. Good versus evil, there can be no winners but only corpses in its wake. Then he looks at those that are still here, that are getting up and brushing themselves off and the answer lies in their eyes. The spark, the fight, the destiny. If these children are willing to fight for another day, then how can he, a man of culture and education, not do everything in his power to help guide them to survive and to strive for a tomorrow.

Sirens finally begin to blare in the distance. The cavalry has arrived, for some it's two moments too late, for others it provides a small relief from the oppressing atmosphere of death. Damaged beyond the bruises and broken bones on there bodies, as those can heal but it is the cuts deep into the soul is what they must recover from.

The dust eventually settles and life continues on, many unbeknownst to the fact that they owed it to this rag tagged bunch of heroes...soldiers...children. Cuts have healed, bones mended but many still scarred. Some decided to stay, other’s to return home with tales of adventure, loss, and the lesson of growing up but knowing that there will always be a home in Sunnydale where their destiny lies.

And so ends our tale but it is not truly an ending for their lives will go on, for days, months, or even years. Happily ever after's will happen as will tragedy. Cities and civilizations will rise and fall after them and when the end of ends finally approaches all that will be left of their tales is but dust.

***

La FIN

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