Twenty Bells: [Action/Voice]

[simplestgift]

[He'd won her a stuffed penguin. She'd been hanging on his arm and squeezing it with a giant grin on her face. Everything felt, finally, like it was going to be okay. Like this trouble between them since sleeping together was just a little thing.

He turns away to grab a strawberry daiquiri for her, still holding her hand. When he turns back, she's gone.

He wanders Lucetiland for a while, looking for her, shaking, still holding the drink, but he knows what's happened. When someone dematerializes while you are touching them...

She was just there, grinning, cheeks rosy. The warmth of her hand hasn't quite faded yet.

He sits on a bench in the middle of the park, staring into space, and nothing in the world draws his attention until, mechanically, he draws out his journal. He's shaking too badly to write, so he has to voice it, and he sounds weak.]

Dawn Summers was sent home.

Comments

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

[she's not in a rush to make him talk. Grief has an important role to play and she's got no need to hurry him through it. All she can do is be there for him. It's a role that requires her presence more than her voice...listening more than problem solving]

[simplestgift]

[Quietly.] I'd begun to think about what it might be like, having a family with her.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

You'd been together...a long time. [several months. Enough time to wonder what more could be there]

[simplestgift]

February. Saint Valentine's Day. William had me wondering if I shouldn't propose to her.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

Oh.

[it's a soft sound. Marriage. It was fast, in her mind...so very fast... but it said even more about what he'd lost.

That wasn't just dreaming about a future. That was starting to plan it.

Her arms tighten around him. A pause, and she exhales]

Some people come back with memories. Giles did.

[simplestgift]

So did Jack. [But there's no telling if Dawn will come back, or if Archie will be there when she does.] I think...it was exactly what it should have been, if I'm making any sense at all.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

It was-

[she cuts off, changing the tense] It is something special.

[simplestgift]

It is. [Back home, they would have been--

There's no point in thinking that way.]

This was her second time here, you know.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

I didn't.

She was lucky to have you here to make it easier, this time around.

[simplestgift]

I don't think I did.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

[glancing up at him] Why do you say that?

[simplestgift]

...Every time I was melancholy, she blamed it on herself.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

[she's quiet a moment as she finds his hand, squeezing lightly once her hand closes on his]

Hurting with you... that didn't mean you made it harder. She was probably happy when you were happy, too. More happy.

[simplestgift]

[He wanted to tell her before about the trouble they had after making love, but thinking about it now makes him feel sick. He swallows.]

I was always waiting for her to realize she doesn't want me.

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

I know.

[they hadn't talked about it before, but she knew that feeling. That fear]

But...there's always going to be things we wish were different.

...It doesn't make what you had any less special. To her, same as you.