simplestgift | Twenty Bells: [Action/Voice]

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Twenty Bells: [Action/Voice]

[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.

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[Right. It wasn't his business anyway. Buffy's life was so full of tragedy he never quite felt like he had the right to be melancholy around her. He doesn't think to ask if this is one of the real memories or one of the fake ones. He knows they feel the same to both the girls.]

I'll stay within the barrier, then. [Ha ha.]

Good man. 'Cause I don't think you want me elbowing you instead of her. She may be a terror 'cause she's vicious but I just can't help it.

[ buffy takes the liberty of taking a seat. ] It gets better, you know. It's cruel to say but it's true. The last Captain I...well, Bones' Captain? It took me a while to get over his leaving.

[ and then in a kind of confession that she'd never really managed to string together before now: ] Jack helped. He's good at that kind of thing -- he makes fun and distraction his mission in life. I'd bet my last dollar that he'll come looking to distract you as soon as he...as soon as I tell him.

[He remains standing for a moment, then starts doing what he knows he should do--making tea. There's this amazing device that heats water at the press of a button. It's his new best friend.] Everyone wants to give me help. I don't know what I'll do with all of it.

[It's a pitiful attempt at a joke. But he is grateful.]

You let them help you. [ another lesson she's learned the hard way; shutting the help out and standing too tall only worries them more. ] For a while. And then you remember how to breath. And then you remember how to stand. And then you remember how to walk. And what things you like pepper on. And how to button a shirt.

And then you remember how to run.

[Softly:] I know. [He really did have to re-learn how to walk, once. But most support he received from anyone other than Horatio had been somewhat disguised. It wasn't this intense.]

Do the next thing. [He opens the cupboard and takes out a teacup. His own is sitting on the coffee table, and while the water heats, he comes out of the kitchen and picks it up.]

And then the next. And then the next. But remember her. Always.

[ and then as buffy senses that all this help has become rather...pushy -- she asks for his help: ] Can you do that for me, Archie? As long as you can?

[Dammit, Buffy, you're gonna make him cry again, and he already had a hard cry once tonight. He pauses, his teacup halfway off the coffee table. The electric kettle starts rumbling in the kitchen. Then, he gently sets both cups down on the coffee table and sits by her, going carefully neutral.

Dawn is unforgettable. But somehow, to say it out loud would be shallow.]

You think...

[Remember her. It's just memories now. No bright, smiling face or nut-brown hair or long, pale legs or bubbly giggle.]

[ the slayer holds her hands loosely in her lap. one palm she presses lightly with two fingers. the palm she had once pressed into dawnie's. summers' blood. ]

I don't think. I know. [ it doesn't matter what archie was about to say. she interjects so smoothly. so assuredly.

the monks had made dawn out of her. her thoughts, her memories, her drive to keep something so precious so safe. but even where the two sisters were so similar they were also so, so different. perfectly so. ]

[He can hear that the water is ready. He lets it go.]

I couldn't forget her.

...And remembering's not the same as -- oh, I don't know. Fixating. Eventually, you're gonna remember that you've got your own life to live. Here. Even if she's not here. And that's okay, too.

[He lets out a breath. He can't think about moving on, but hearing about it serves to remind him that this isn't for ever. After a moment, he stands up and picks up the teacups, heading to the kitchen to make tea.]

Lots of milk and sugar in mine. [ she calls after him -- working admirably to keep her voice as level as possible. she's had lots of practice. ]

Edited 2011-08-23 15:25 (UTC)

[When he comes back, there's lots of milk and sugar in hers. His is kept black. It's a taste he acquired after the abolition movement really started getting heat. Here, of course, it doesn't matter.]

[ she takes the cup in two palms. ]

...Thanks.

You're welcome. [He sits by her again, setting his own cup on the table.]

...Is there anything you want to know?

[ her voice cracks on this next line: ] When Jack left, Norrington told me -- he had stories and things to say. They helped.

[Do not make him cry again, Buffy. Just don't. But for more memories of Dawn, even if they're someone else's, he'll risk it. He nods.]

...Do you know what a taser is, Archie?

[He shakes his head.]

Well? She's a terror with one of those, too.

The final battle was coming, Archie. The one that left the town we're from -- Sunnydale -- nothing but a big old hole in the ground. And I wasn't going to let her fight in it. Not her. I was at the point where I could lose anything. But not her. So I had Xander...she's mentioned Xander, right?

I had Xander trick her into going away with him. She was supposed to go so very far away and be safe.

I should've known better.

[He'd spoken with Xander once. He nods for her to continue.]

...The electricity running through all these buildings? It can hurt a man. It can hurt an anyone. And it can be programmed into a little weapon called a taser. And she tasered him, Archie. He was driving and he only had one eye and she tasered him. And then she drove the whole way back and kicked me in the shin and called me a dumbass.

[It is totally not funny and cool to hurt a man and kick your sister. But Archie gives a sharp exhalation like a laugh anyway, and suddenly finds himself blinking away tears. He turns his face away.]

What else?

...I warned her that if she got killed then I was telling on her. [ a stellar feat to do for two sisters with a dead mother and shiftless, absentee father. ] But she went into the fight and she's not a Slayer, Archie. But she -- again, I stuck her with Xander. [ her knight; her best friend; her right-hand man. steadfast beyond the telling of it. ]

And I think her ubervamp kill-count rivaled mine. She's -- amazing.

[ such a flood of love and pride and desperation. buffy's eyes are also wet. ]

[He remembers fighting with her in his first draft. She really is amazing.

An arm curls around Buffy to pull her close. A tear quietly hits his cheek.]

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