Is Life Meant To Be Like This?
by Acepilot
Chapter IV
[reviews]
Is Life Meant To Be Like This? (4/4)
Acepilot
Disclaimer - See chapter 1
Rating - R
Pairings - Buffy/Willow, Dawn/Amanda
Dedication - To Juan, for all the inspiration that kept me writing over the last six months.
---
London July 21st 2006
The slayer moved with the barest whisper, blending in to her surroundings, leaving no sound and only the barest blurs of an afterimage to any who happened to be glancing her way. She crept between the pillars, spying her target only a few hundred metres away, so deep in concentration that she would never know what hit her...
"Yah!"
The exclamation of surprise echoed across the library, drawing quite a bit of unwanted attention. Dawn smiled sheepishly at her fellow co-eds, before glaring at Amanda.
"Very good. You done now?"
Amanda smiled brightly and dropped into a seat next to her beloved. "For the moment. Watchya doing?"
"Reading War and Peace for my Literature course. Hardest thing to read that was ever written."
Amanda nodded. "Gloomy Russian fourteen-hundred-plus page novel...you were expecting it to be easy?"
Dawn sighed. "No. So, what has caused you to stalk me so agressively this afternoon?"
"Nothing much. Just wondering if you'd like to come have some dinner with me?"
Dawn smiled. "I'm all yours."
As the pair weaved through the virtual labyrinth of books and students, Amanda whispered, "So, did you speak to Willow again yet?"
"No, but I did get on to Wesley. He says that she's...well, he says that she'd hurting and thinking about Buffy." Dawn shrugged. "This has got to be the first time I've ever been happy to hear that Willow's upset."
Amanda smiled at that.
The Friday afternoon sun beamed down upon them as they left the library and worked their way up one of the many paths through the complex, heading for The Castle Shops. Amanda wrapped an arm around her lover as they walked on.
"Anything interesting happen to you today?" Dawn asked.
"Nah, just the usual. Managed to get some really great photos of the Union..."
"Yeah? You'll have to show me later..."
---
Sunnydale, October 24th 2006
"Hey, Dawn."
Dawn looked up and smiled as Amanda slid into the seat opposite her in the cafeteria. "Hey. How's it going?"
"Ugh...David is being a jerk again..."
Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Tell me you didn't give him another ambulance ride?"
Amanda smiled. "No, the nurse could deal with it."
Dawn chuckled quietly. "You're going to be the death of him, you know."
"Yeah. My mum thinks we like each other."
Dawn dropped her fork in the substance that may have once been spaghetti that was on the plate before her. 'What? What do you mean, like each other. You can't like him...Dawn, she can't hear what you're thinking, say something, you've been sitting still for a very long time...' "What? You...do you?"
Amanda shrugged and dipped a piece of three-day old bread in her watered-down pumpkin soup. "I dunno. He's...well, he's a jerk, but he's kinda cute."
Dawn leapt into emergency tactics. "Yeah, but there's only so much cuteness can do for you. I mean, once you wear that out, what are you left with, huh? Just a big jerk who is mean to you and...could probably sue you for assault, and..."
"Dawn, your eyes have gone all wide."
Dawn forced herself to calm down. "I just think he'd be really bad for you, that's all."
Amanda looked at her for a second before grinning wickedly. "Uh-huh. I'm sure." The taller girl reached across slyly with her fork and speared some of Dawn's spaghetti.
"Hey!" Dawn exclaimed.
"Better than soup," Amanda told her and took another forkful.
Dawn shook her head in exasperation. "Hey, if you can eat the stuff, go ahead."
Amanda smiled at her, causing Dawn's skin to inexplicably break out into goosebumps. It was just a smile...but it was somehow...'deeper,' Dawn wisely didn't vocalise. 'Much, much deeper.'
"You want to go see a movie on Saturday?" 'Christ, did I just say that?'
Amanda looked a touch taken aback. "You want to...go see a movie? With me?"
Dawn recovered neatly. "Yeah. Because, you know, friends do that kind of thing." 'Lie, big, big lie...'
She wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that disappointment flashed through Amanda's eyes for the barest of seconds. If it had, then she recovered quickly as well. "Sure. That'd be great. What time?"
"Oh...say 11? We can grab lunch afterwards?"
Amanda smiled. "Sounds good. I'll see you there."
---
LA July 21st 2006
Willow lay under the blissful blast of her air-conditioning, trying to gain some kind of upper-hand on the blistering Californian-summer heat. She wiped sweat from her brow as she attempted to read, finding the Wolfram and Hart source books to be a veritable wealth of information and well and truly worth their weight in gold.
"And as the black canyons opened beneath her, she screamed in agony and pain, as she knew that it would never be able to return to it's rightful place...right cheerful stuff, luv."
Willow didn't even bother to look up. "Go away, Spike."
Spike grinned and pulled up a seat from under her desk. "Just thought I'd drop by and see how things were going."
"They've been better."
"As good as they were, oh, say...four years ago?"
Willow did look up, but only to glare. "What do you know about it?"
Spike settled back into his seat. "Let me tell you a story, Red. I think you'll find it insightful."
Willow's glare did not abate, but she did offer a somewhat sarcastic, "I'm all ears."
"So, there was this vampire. Fairly young for a vamp. Brutal, purely evil, very attractive. A few years back, however, he went and got himself stuck with this chip thingy in his head and he couldn't kill any more. So, he started working alongside the Slayer. And he fell in love with her."
"Spike, I could kill you with a single word, you know?"
"But vampires, you see, aren't as blind as people. They don't just use their eyes. And it was clear to this vampire that another one of the Slayer's groupies - the Scooby Gang, they called themselves - had already fallen pretty hard for the pretty little blonde hunter. And when, a few years on, after any real hope of intimacy had passed between them and the little "lack of soul" thing had been cleared up, this vampire realised that the Slayer...well, she wasn't completely impartial to her little Wicca friend as originally thought."
"Spike, I know this story. I lived it. And I don't want to hear about it."
"So imagine his complete lack of surprise when suddenly they seem to spend a lot of time covered in each other's scent, but act so cold and heartless to each other around everyone else. It was then that the vampire caught on - the Wicca had realised the same thing about the Slayer that he had a year before."
"And what's that?" Willow all but spat.
"That she'll never admit to love. Not after she was burned so many times. Not that it's not there, mind you. But you have to dig a bit deeper. You have to *push*. Then, you'll find it. Of course, it's possible you've left this, oh, let's say three years too late? But hey, never say never."
Willow rolled over and looked Spike straight in the eye. "What are you doing here? Really?"
Spike stood and sighed dejectedly. "You know, she doesn't love me. Not any more, if she ever did. It's my fault, partially, because I didn't try hard enough. But you...you're different. You she'll love through good times and bad. You were the shoulder she went to cry on when Angel went bad. You were the ear she sobbingly confessed into when she and Faith got into that nasty mess with the Deputy Mayor. You're the one she fought hard to rehabilitate after...well, you know." Spike gained an almost wistful look to his eyes. "If I was in your shoes, there's no way I'd be moping around here. I'd be in London, begging her to let me in. Begging her to let me take her in my arms and never let go. Begging her to be mine for eternity."
Spike let out a low chuckle. "Of course, you on the other hand are sitting around Los Angeles trying to justify a mistake you made three years ago."
Willow stared at him for a second.
She sat up.
"You're right." She surprised herself with a startled laugh. "God, I can't believe it. You're right."
She surprised herself even further - and him, for that matter - by giving him a slight peck on the cheek.
"What was that about?" He asked, incredulous.
"For showing me something I've refused to see." Willow rose. "I've got to go see Angel about getting me on a flight to London."
Spike nodded. "You really do."
"Thanks." And with a whisper of movement and flash of red hair, she was gone.
"Go and love her for both of us, Red," he whispered to the empty room.
---
Willow tried in vain to calm herself as she waited for her flight to be announced. 'Take it easy, Will, you're going to hyperventilate.'
"They didn't cancel it, did they?"
Willow spun in surprise at the voice. "Angel! What are you doing here?"
Angel smiled sheepishly. "Just thought I'd come and see you off...and apologise, while I'm at it."
Willow grinned wryly. "Did Nina make you do this?"
Angel did a good job of attempting to look offended. "Of course not. I'm here on my own, Will, and...well, I wanted to say sorry for how I treated you when you got here."
"That's okay." Willow tossed up over continuing, but her curious side won out. "Are you okay...with what I'm going to do?"
Angel leant against a nearby pillar. "Willow, I'm not going to lie to you. I love Buffy. I always will. But...well, part of that love is acknowledging the fact that I'm not the right person for her. Not at all. And I'd want to be able to know that she was in the hands of someone who truly cared for her, and who could be there for her, like I never could." He looked her straight in the eyes. "You were always there, I think. There in her heart. And hey, I don't know a lot of what happened a few years ago - and it should probably stay that way - but...well, I know that whatever it was, it effected you both deeply. And I think that if you have any chance whatsoever of working this out, then you deserve to take it...without some bozo vampire standing in your way."
Willow smiled appreciatively at him. "You're the best, you know?"
Angel took a semi-formal bow. "So I hear."
""
"I want a wedding invitation!" Willow ordered. "If you don't invite me, I'll make Spike tell me when it is and crash it anyway."
Angel smiled one of his rare, not sarcastic, not exasperated, but truly happy smiles (well, not quite that happy), before responding, "Same to you."
Willow couldn't wipe the grin from her face. "We'll see. I'll keep in touch."
"You better."
And as the plane soared through the air, a redhead witch on her way to a blonde slayer, Willow knew that, one way or another, her life was going to change - she was going to reclaim a part of her past that never should have been lost.
It seemed like so long ago...
----
IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE
Hey all. Well, basically, this is my predicament. I've discovered that, though the way I was writing this story seemed like a good idea at the time, it's proved to be more of a pain to write (and, as several people have noted, read) than originally thought or intended.
So, what I've decided to do is to end "Is Life Meant To Be Like This" here and split it into three "books" which will each tell their own story.
- "Save Me" will be the Buffy/Willow season 7 re-write which may or may not contain elements of the 2006 storyline.
- "On My Mind" will be the Dawn/Amanda season 7 re-write
- "It's Late" will be the 2006 storyline.
All three are being written now, but what I want to know is - would anyone mind if I posted "On My Mind" on the list alongside "Save Me" (and if I did, would people read it)? Both stories will feature elements from each other, so it wouldn't be totally without Wiffyness, but the main focus would be Dawn/Amanda. If too many people have overwhelming objections, then I won't, but I just thought I'd check first.
Whatever happens, I hope you've enjoyed "Is Life", and thanks for all the feedback and support.
Acepilot