Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
by Kirayoshi
Thank You
[reviews]
Chapter Six;
Thank You
How 'bout no longer being masochistic?
How 'bout remembering your divinity?
How 'bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out?
How 'bout not equating death with stopping?
Thank you India,
Thank you providence,
Thank you disillusionment.
Thank you nothingness,
Thank you clarity,
Thank you thank you silence
--Alanis Morissette
"Thank U"
We've come a long long way together,
Through the hard times and the good.
I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should.
--Fatboy Slim
"Praise You"
"Excuse me," a doctor entered the waiting room where the Scooby Gang were waiting anxiously for news about Buffy. "Are you the family of Miss Summers?"
Giles stood up and greeted the doctor. "Yes, we are. Not officially, but still family, yes. My name is Rupert Giles. Is Buffy okay?"
The doctor nodded to Giles; "My name is Doctor Sam Greene, and Miss Summers is doing as well as can be expected. She seems to have suffered some mild injuries; a broken arm, bruised ribs. According to the medical report, her heart had stopped. Is that true, Mr. Giles?"
Giles nodded somberly. "It is true, Dr. Greene. Xander and Willow performed CPR on her, and managed to get her heart beating again."
"Well," breathed Dr. Greene, "it looks like her friends have saved her life. Her injuries, while pretty extensive, are not severe." Willow and the others let go a collective sigh of relief at these words. "In fact, she has already started to heal quite rapidly; all but the most severe cuts have faded without evident scarring. We'd like to keep her here for observation for the next two evenings, however."
"I understand," said Giles, greatly relieved that the doctor had not pressed the issue of how Buffy had healed so quickly. "Just make the arrangements with me for her billing. I have copies of her medical insurance at my place, her mother had left them with me before her death. I can bring them tomorrow."
"That would be appreciated, Mr. Giles. I'm afraid that she's asleep now, so we can't allow visitors at this time. She'll be fine for visitors tomorrow." The doctor and Giles parted, and Giles returned to the others.
After Giles had explained the situation to the others, a great wave of release washed over them all. Their worst fears regarding their friend after all she had been through these last few months seemed to be alleviated for now. "We'll be down first thing tomorrow," said Xander, and the others nodded in agreement. "We'll meet up here and see how she's doing then."
The others agreed, and soon dispersed, to rest from their ordeal. Willow offered to stay with Dawn at the old Summers' residence, and the younger girl was glad of the company.
Before heading out, however, Willow felt the need to speak to Tara, to resolve something, or at least air it out. She found Tara sitting down in the waiting room, her arms resting on her lap, her head held down. "Hey, Tara?" she asked hesitantly, "you all right at the dorm alone tonight?"
Tara looked up at Willow, slightly surprised to see her. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm good." She looked at her beloved once more, trying to gage the expression on her face. She didn't need to, not after seeing her in her desperate battle to save Buffy's life. "She's gonna be fine now. Just wait."
"I know," Willow smiled.
Tara looked away from Willow, not wanting to say what she knew she had to say. When she did speak the words were nearly a whisper. "It's over, isn't it?"
"Wha, this whole thing?" asked Willow, "yeah, I think it' over. I mean she's fine, Glory's gone, the good guys won, the bad guys lost, yeah, definitely falls within the parameters of being over."
Tara shook her head sadly. "No, Willow, I meant this," she illustrated by pointing to Willow, then to herself, "us, together. That's over now."
Willow was saddened by Tara's words, not just because she spoke them, but because Willow knew them to be true. She tried one last time to reassure the sad young woman sitting before her; "I do love you, Tara. That'll never change."
Tara lifted her head again to see Willow's eyes, and smiled at her once more. "I know. I know you love me. But you're in love with her."
The words were not a question, nor an accusation. They were simply a statement of fact. A fact that Willow could no longer ignore, nor would she if it were possible. "I am, Tara," she whispered, as the first sign of a tear sparkled in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
"No," insisted Tara. "The only way you should be sorry is if you clung to me when your heart belongs to another. You have nothing to be sorry about. You loved me for over a year. Most people in this world don't even get that much. I consider myself blest." She stood up from her chair, and while her face was still sad, her posture was more confident, more sure of herself. She knew that she had no reason to despair. Even if she lost her love, it was better for everyone, herself included, that it be this way. "I'm still your friend, right?" she asked, a slight smile emerging on her lips.
Willow saw that the smile on Tara's face was not solely for her benefit, and it gladdened her heart to know that Tara would live on without her. "On one condition, Tara. You let me be your friend back." Tara offered Willow a handshake, but Willow instead collected Tara in a generous embrace. Tara and Willow cried briefly, but as they mourned what had died between them, they also celebrated what still remained.
"First thing you do when you see her," insisted Tara, "you tell her. If she doesn't feel the same way about you, send me in and I'll straighten her out. Or turn her into a frog."
"Don't you dare," warned Willow playfully. The two wiccans left the hospital with Dawn, preparing to see Buffy in the morning.
========
Buffy was released from the hospital two days later, and Giles was waiting to drive her home. As she clambered into the passenger's side, Giles noted the thoughtful expression on her face. He was aware that she and Willow spent a great deal of time alone in her hospital room, and Tara seemed to know what was going on, but no one was talking.
"I wanted to stop by the Magic Box," explained Giles, "just to make sure Anya hasn't burnt the place to the ground yet." Buffy chuckled slightly, a single bark under her breath. "I asked the others to wait for us there."
"That works for me," Buffy answered. "Didn't want them making too much of a fuss over me in the hospital waiting room. Geez, why did they make me use the wheelchair when checking me out? I can walk by myself, thank you very much."
"Hospital policy, I'm afraid," said Giles as his eyes sparkled with recognition; Buffy was never one to have things done for her, and she never met an authority figure she didn't want to defy. On occasion that included himself, but the paternal bond that grew between them over the last five years helped ease that tendency a little.
Paternal. He smiled sadly at the word. He was, for all intents and purposes, the only true parent she had left. Her mother was in her grave, her father had pretty much abdicated his responsibility. He silently swore that he would never desert her like Hank Summers did. All of them really, Willow, Xander, Tara, Anya, they were the family he once thought he would never know. And after the announcement he had to make once they were at the Magic Box, he knew that things would be different for his foster family.
A tiny part of Buffy dreaded what she knew she was going to see, but she was determined to be brave about it. Sure enough, as Giles parked his car in front of the Magic Box, Buffy saw the white paper banner, declaring in bold colorful letters; "WELCOME BACK, BUFFY!!!!!!" Evidently, Willow pulled out her stationary CD and printed out the banner over night.
She smiled. Willow. The first thing she said when she walked hesitantly through the door when she visited her at the hospital yesterday was, "I love you, Buffy." She remembered the look of panic on the poor girl's face, the fear that Buffy would not accept the heart that Willow was freely giving her. Like Willow ever had to fear that, having won Buffy's heart so long ago, just by being Willow. Buffy lifted herself up, sitting up as steadily as she could in her bed, held out her arms, and beckoned Willow to accept the gift of her love in her embrace. They just held each other for a good half-hour before they could speak clearly, without the emotion of the moment reducing them to a pool of tears. Words were not necessary, and indeed would have destroyed this first truly perfect moment Buffy knew in so long.
Giles escorted Buffy through the door, where the Slayer was promptly mobbed by her friends. Willow was the first to assault her, and Buffy was happily lost in the sensation of her love's arms around her. Xander, Dawn and Tara also embraced her fiercely, and even Giles and Anya joined the impromptu group hug, although in Anya's case it was a matter of looking like she understood this strange human ritual.
Inevitably, oxygen issues forced them to part their embrace, but Willow still kept her arms around Buffy's waist. Buffy regarded Willow's face, which bore a sly grin. "You know, we're being watched."
"Let 'em look," replied the redheaded witch. "They're gonna have to get used to us like this anyway, ain't they?"
"Darn tootin'!" Buffy scanned the room around her, her eyes resting on Tara. She winced slightly at the faint level of melancholy emanating from Willow's once lover, but Tara's words and gentle smile assured her; "Make her happy, Buffy. That's all I ask." Buffy nodded, silently assuring Tara that making Willow happy would be a lifelong vocation for her.
Buffy could have stood there all day, with Willow's arms around her, her lips so close to her own, but the elaborate and overacted gagging noises coming from the general direction of Dawn signaled that she should let go. Xander, Giles and Anya had ducked into the back room while Buffy and Willow were taking their chairs around the table. Xander emerged quickly, his entire upper body obscured by a pile of pizza boxes. Anya and Giles followed with a cooler chest in tow. Anya opened the cooler with a flourish, revealing a dozen or so bottles of a gourmet microbrewed root beer that Xander had discovered recently. Xander and Anya distributed boxes of pizza around the table, allowing everyone to grab their favorite varieties, and Anya announced, "Let the ritual celebration of victory commence."
"In other words," translated Xander, "everybody have fun tonight, everybody Wang Chung tonight!"
As the circle of friends proceeded to demolish the pizzas, Xander spoke excitedly to Buffy about what had happened during the last forty-eight hours or so. "You should have seen her," he rambled through a mouthful of Canadian bacon and pineapple ("There's one in every crowd," complained Willow). "Tara and Giles tried to back her off, they thought that you were gone, but she just shouted back, man, it wasn't just her run-of-the-mill Resolve face. It was Double-Super-Resolve Face. Resolve face Pentium III!"
"Hey, I was just freaked about what had happened there!" Willow defended herself, winning a squeeze on her shoulder from Buffy.
"All due respect, Giles," said Buffy, "I love you and all, but I'm glad that you were wrong and Wills was right."
Giles just nodded happily. "Believe me, Buffy, I was never happier to be proven wrong." He passed a small package across the table to Buffy. "A gift to celebrate your recovery."
Buffy happily unwrapped the brightly colored paper while Willow looked on excitedly. She withdrew from the paper an attractively framed document, evidently one that Willow had printed out on her computer. An attractive calligraphic script font carried the words of wisdom. "Just something I feel you needed to hear, Buffy," explained Willow. Buffy smiled warmly at Willow, then read the document;
To every thing there is a season,
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Buffy stifled a tear as she read the words aloud. "Thank you, Willow." Willow dimpled attractively at the praise. "Thank you, all of you."
Giles then tapped lightly at his root beer bottle, to get the others attention. "Before we continue the celebration, I have a few announcements to make. First, I took the liberty of mailing the sword Ragnarok back to the Watchers Council, with our thanks for the use of it." He regarded Buffy with a look of mock gravity, "I also changed the combination of my vault." Buffy squirmed slightly at Giles' gaze. "Plus, I spoke with the attending physician at the psychiatric ward. It seems that those unfortunates who had been sucked dry by Glory and driven insane as a result are coming out of it. Most of the victims that were in the hospital have regained their sanity. Apparently this occurred just after the time Buffy destroyed Glory." Sighs of relief for her victims could be heard across the table.
"I also have some news to report," Giles added, "some serious news, I fear. I recently got word from Wesley Wyndham-Price. Faith is evidently dead." The other faces turned blank at the news; there was no love lost between the Scooby gang and Faith, but there was still a sadness that she hadn't been able to achieve any sort of atonement for her past misdeeds.
"Prison riot, huh," Buffy said absently. "Shiv to the gut."
Giles turned a startled eye toward Buffy. "How do you know that?"
Buffy looked at the others, seeing looks of surprise on their faces. "I--I saw her," she said, her voice hushed and filled with something like awe, like someone describing an incredible sunset. "I was dead for a little while, or near dead, after my little throwdown with Glory. I was trapped in Hell, Spike was there, torturing me a little, then Faith shows up, doing the whole avenging angel thing, then she took me up to Heaven." She stammered, and spoke haltingly, trying to recall snatches of her vision. "I saw Mom there. And Jesse, and Kendra, and Jenny--"
"Which one of us was the Scarecrow, Dorothy?" Xander's quip bought him a poke in the rib from the girl next to him. "Ahn!" he complained, rubbing his sore spot.
"It seems you had quite an experience," Giles said nonchalantly. "Did, uh, Jenny say anything?"
Buffy smiled at Giles. "She said she's waiting for you, Giles, but you still have a life of your own to live."
Giles sat back down, somewhat awed by Buffy's words, and greatly relieved. "Thank you, Jenny," breathed Giles. "But there is still the matter of your having been clinically dead for well over a minute, Buffy." He leaned forward and enunciated his words for maximum clarity. "Two things happened when you killed Glory, Buffy. First, her energies. From all that I had read about Ragnarok, I was led to understand that the user of the sword absorbed all of the god's energies. I even read accounts of people who used the sword. Their bodies were incinerated from the inside out. Had Buffy's final battle with Glory followed the same pattern, there wouldn't have been much of a body left."
"Eww!" groaned Dawn. "Just the thing I want to hear while scarfing a pepperoni and sausage with extra cheese."
"My apologies to your digestive system, Dawn," Giles ribbed Buffy's sister. "Anyway, in this isolated case, Buffy's body was relatively undamaged, at least by using the sword. Her body only absorbed a fraction of Glory's energy."
"Whoa, G-Man," Xander interrupted. "Then what happened to the rest of that energy? I mean, energy can't simply cease to exist, it can't be created or destroyed, right? Either that or Bill Nye the Science Guy's a big fat liar."
Giles chuckled at Xander's observation. "True, Xander. The energy was absorbed, not by Buffy, but by the Hellmouth. I investigated that area yesterday after visiting you in the hospital, Buffy. The energy had somehow bonded with the Hellmouth portal. Sealed it."
A strange silence descended over the room, as Giles' words sunk in. It was Willow who spoke first. "Are you saying that the Hellmouth is closed?"
"Closed, Willow," Giles answered plainly. "If I am correct, it will not be a threat for at least the next five millennia."
Buffy barked a single laugh. "I'll mark my calendar."
"Okay, what's the 'but'?" Xander suddenly blurted out. Giles glanced at Xander as he spoke. "I mean, there's always a 'but' with you. Like 'the Hellmouth's closed for business, BUT there's a new Hellmouth opening in Twiddle-your-thumbs, Arkansas, and we're all on the next flight out'."
Giles chuckled at Xander's observations. "Do not worry, Xander," he said happily. "There is no 'but' in that statement. The Hellmouth is closed. What vampires remain in Sunnydale will be weakened by the Hellmouth's loss. And there are few if any demons or other entities that pose a real threat."
Willow glanced at Xander and announced, "I think you can have that Hallelujah now." Xander displayed a face-splitting grin, and happily shouted, "Hallelujah!"
"Buffy," Giles turned toward his charge, his Slayer, and spoke in his gentlest voice. "What I said earlier this week, before your final clash with Glory, still holds. You were dead for over a minute. Faith has died in prison. The Council had called me to confirm it; two new slayers have been called. They will be assigned to sites plagued by Hellmouths. Buffy Summers," he announced, standing again, "I believe I may be the first Watcher in history to say these words, but it is time to relinquish the mantle of the Slayer, and return to the life from which you had been so rudely yanked five years ago. Buffy, you are hereby relieved of the duties which I, and Merrick before me, have forced upon you."
He lifted his bottle in the form of an impromptu toast, and declared, "The Slayer is dead. Long live Buffy Anne Summers!"
"Hear, hear!" the others chorused, as they clinked their root beer bottles together. "Speech, speech!" Xander shouted, to be joined by the others. "Speech, speech!"
Buffy looked around at the friends that surrounded her--no, so much more than friends, she amended as she found herself looking into Willow's loving eyes, so much more. All of them, her family gathered before her. Somehow, her being the Slayer had brought her into the most wonderful family she could imagine. "Wow," she whispered just loud enough to be heard. "No more patrols, no more staking out graveyards. I won't know what to do with my nights."
"Don't worry," grinned Tara knowingly. "Willow will think of something." Willow blushed to match her hair, but when Buffy shot her a questioning stare, Willow whispered, "Just wait 'til tonight."
"You'll still need to do some patrols," corrected Giles. "But not too many. A mopping-up operation, nothing else."
"That's doable," Buffy demurred. She looked around the table again, a thoughtful look on her face as she took in the faces of her family. "I guess that Sunnydale doesn't really need a Slayer now."
Willow took Buffy's hand in hers, and spoke from her heart to her love; "We may not need a Slayer, but the way I figure it, the world needs all the Buffies it can get."
Buffy smiled at Willow, "Thanks. Thanks to all of you guys. I guess I haven't been easy to live with these last few months."
"Understandable under the circumstances," Xander said quietly, as Anya nodded in agreement with her boyfriend.
"Indeed," added Giles, "we all mourn with you."
"Not quite, Giles," Buffy said sadly. "You guys were the ones doing all the mourning. I've been avoiding, living on Planet Denial. Hiding everything under the Slayer mask until it became the real me, and Buffy was buried under the Slayer. You think that's how Bruce Wayne got started?" Her observation was greeted by mild laughter.
Buffy swallowed another swig of root beer for courage, and continued. "I guess it's time for Buffy to come back. And I hope I can rely on you guys to help me through everything."
"You don't have to ask," Willow assured Buffy. "You need us, we're there."
"Hey, Buffy," Dawn offered, "I can give you the name of the grief councilor that my teacher set me up with."
"And if you wish to go back to school," Giles added, "I can obtain information on grants and scholarships for you."
Buffy fought the tears as she bathed in the support of her friends. "Thanks again, guys. I just want you guys to know that I love you all, and I probably would be either long dead or shut up in a rubber room a long time ago without you."
Willow sensed her beloved's ill at ease. She took her hand at hers again and asked, "Hey, Buff, you okay?"
Buffy turned her head to Willow, and for the first time since her mother died, she allowed her to feel the pain she had kept bottled up inside her. "Am I okay now?" She lowered her head, as though she were confessing a terrible secret. "No, I'm not." She gulped back a sob as she remembered all that she had gone through these last few months. "I really haven't been okay for a while now. But I'm closer to okay than I've been in a long time. I can see okay from here, and I know that I'll make it there, very soon. Thanks to you guys."
She was unable to say any more, as her tears overtook her. Willow instinctively took Buffy into her arms, and allowed her to cry, to finally grieve for her mother. She cried for a few more minutes, her soul being cleansed at long last of all the frief she had suffered.
As she broke off the hug, able to compose herself, Willow reached with a napkin to dab at her lover's eyes. Xander, witnessing all this, suddenly cracked into a broad grin. "Oh, I love this," he declared, his voice taking on a fake-Jewish accent. "This is so beautiful, it's like butta. Oh, I'm getting emotional here, I'm verklempt! Talk freely amongst yourselves, I'll give you a topic; a Vampire Slayer is neither a vampire nor a slayer. Discuss!"
Buffy was always amazed at Xander's easy humor in the face of virtually anything. Once again, his ability to make her laugh was welcome. She and the others laughed anew, and the pizza party continued.
Buffy had a new life to begin, with new priorities. Dawn, of course, she was a top priority now, as was her newfound love for Willow. There would still be the odd vampire or demon, but these would grow fewer each day.
And she could finally learn to accept her loss, to live with her mother's death. Because she knew that as long as she lived, a part of her mother would live within her.
For Buffy Summers, it was now a time to mourn. And soon, she reflected as she looked at her Willow, there would be a time to dance.