We walk single-file; like children heading in from recess, solemn and subdued.
Tara's in the lead, head bowed, watching her step on the uneven ground. She's chanting softly, her words bringing swirling fairy lights around us. It's a charming effect, really. Sparkly and just bright enough to illuminate the meagre path we're on.
Xander and Giles are behind her; I can hear them breathing in ragged gulps. The have to keep rebalancing the coffin on their shoulders. It must be so heavy and awkward to carry. Spike, just behind them, isn't breathing heavily - or at all, really - but I somehow think that the heavy bubble-wrapped stone in his arms isn't any less of burden.
I'm glad that Dawn is in front of me. I feel the need to keep on eye on her, she's so fragile now; she seems so small and weak, I'm surprised she can carry the shovel Xander gave her. She keeps bobbing and weaving, keeping her eye on the coffin even though it makes her footing uncertain. Every time she stumbles I start to reach out to her and bang my shoulder with the shovel that Xander gave me. I should switch hands, but I don't want to drop the rock I'm holding. I don't know if there will be another one handy.
And I like having it in my hand. I like feeling the rough edges cut into my fingers; it grounds me, it's part of the earth. Without that it would be easy to let Tara's voice and the harsh breathing and the cautious footfalls wind in and out and together into a complex song of grief. It would be easy to get caught up in the details - like the way Spike's hair and Buffy's coffin glow the same shade in the flickering light - and if I get too involved in the details I'll just get all detached and floaty again and I have to stay connected.
Tara has stopped chanting, the fairy lights are fading, but the moon is bright enough to light the clearing. Giles and Xander are setting the coffin down; it's rocking, but the lid stays on. Thank goodness. Giles is kneeling by the coffin - in exhaustion? In grief? I don't know; I don't think I can tell the difference anymore.
Xander walks past me and takes a shovel from Anya. He's looks around and picks a spot in the middle of the clearing, looking over at Giles.
"Here?"
At Giles' infinitesimal nod he pushes the shovel blade in the grass, cutting the earth. He works carefully, breaking up squares of sod and setting them aside. I surrender my shovel to Giles; Spike reaches for Dawn's, but she holds back.
"Can't I help dig?" I feel bad for Dawn. There's so little she can do. She's helpless, powerless.
"No can do, Dawn patrol. Buffy had very old-fashioned ideas about division of labour."
Spike looks at Xander, his head cocked in that questioning way that would be sexy if I was into that sort of thing. I hear a funny sputtering sound and look over at Giles. Everyone is looking at Giles, because he's got a hand over his mouth and his eyes are closed and - is he crying? Should I go to him?
No. He's laughing. Buffy's dead, and he's laughing. He's taking off his glasses and he's wiping away tears of laughter. And now he's slapping Xander on the shoulder and they're smiling at each other.
"Come on lads, this is work for us menfolk."
Spike looks confused, but he takes the shovel from an equally baffled Dawn and starts digging.
We stand around, we women, feeling useless and left out. At least that's how I feel. Anya's watching Xander dig and if the dreamy expression on her face is anything to go by her thoughts probably don't include getting left out of anything.
Dawn is sitting on the coffin. Oh! I don't think that she should be doing that. But she's leaning over and laying her head on it; near to where I imagine Buffy's shoulder might be and I don't have the heart to say anything to her. Tara kneels beside her and lays her hand on Dawn's cheek.
The only sound is the muffled scrape of shovels and the pattering fall of thrown dirt. I have to do something, or I'll go crazy.
Spike had set his bundle down against a tree. I push aside the bubble wrap and look at the craved and polished granite. I reach out and trace the letters cut into the shiny surface. I need to keep my fingers busy - it's all I can do to keep from popping the bubble wrap. It's like a compulsion. I don't know how Spike kept himself from popping them on the walk here. I wonder it it's something that the demon part of him disdains, because I think that popping bubble wrap is a universal human pleasure. I wonder if vampires retain enough of their humanity to want…
Wow, this is weird. Until forty minutes ago I had never imagined Spike and bubble wrap together in any capacity, and now it's all I can think about.
My fingers have been wandering as fast as my mind. They're tracing numbers now. And I can't help but do the math. Two thousand and one minus one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-one equals twenty; and that's such a small number it can't be right. But math doesn't lie. It can't lie. You give it the numbers and it gives you the answers - every time. It's solid and steady and reliable; it doesn't change or stop working or die. But I really want it to be wrong this time. Just this once I'd like the answer to come back as eighty or a hundred or a hundred and ten. The answer is always twenty, and I feel oddly betrayed.
A thumping, then a grunting, interrupts my thinking. I look over and Spike and Xander are helping Giles out of the grave. Out of Buffy's grave. And it's time. It's time to put Buffy in the ground.
Dawn stands up in the protection of Tara's arms and they move back, away from Buffy and the empty hole. But Giles and Xander are whispering and they aren't doing anything and Xander moves back, away from everyone, and he's facing away from us and his voice is getting louder and it's so anguished.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot rope. I'm sorry." His shoulders are bowed and he seems defeated and I don't understand why.
Giles is polishing his glasses again. "I suppose we shall have to go fetch some. There really is no other way to do it."
"I can't believe I forgot rope."
"Xander, there's nothing to be gained by blaming yourself. Do you have some in the truck?"
And I suddenly know why we need rope - we have to put Buffy in the ground, and we need to lower her in and we don't have any way to do it. But we do. I do.
"Capere." Power rushes through me, lifting my hair from my shoulders, filling me, making me strong. I lift my hand, the coffin rises, hovering a foot off of the ground. Everyone is looking at me. I shift my hand to the right, the coffin moves over the grave. "Ponere." The coffin sets down on the ground. I dust off my knees as I stand. "All done. We didn't need the rope."
Giles looks a little started, but he puts his glasses back on and reaches for a shovel.
I watch as the pale wood is obscured with black earth. I watch as the dirt piles deeper and deeper. I watch as my best friend is buried beneath the ground. I watch as my other best friend replaces sod with the concentration of a child putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I watch as a vampire gently sets into place the headstone of a vampire slayer. When he steps back he clutches the bubble wrap tightly and there is a sharp series of pops.
"I knew it." Tara looks up at me questioningly, but I wave her on. She sits in a lotus at the end of the grave and holds her arms out, palms up in supplication.
"Gaia, please accept our humble thanks for your nurturing body and grant us our plea that you might be healed and prosper." The grass in front of her begins to knit closed the seams and furrows; small white flowers erupt over the grave, covering Buffy like a blanket. It's a pretty thing, and I smile my approval at Tara.
We stand in a semi-circle around Buffy's grave, looking at Giles expectantly, without knowing what to expect. He clears his throat - I guess we all expected that - and looks at each of us.
"Buffy was the Slayer; that is indisputable and essential. She saved the world many times over, and the world went on unknowing. But it would have ended without her. Every person who walks the earth today owes their life to her; and yet she had to struggle every day. She had to worry about school and bills and interference. It's not right that she struggled in obscurity when she should have been lauded from every mountaintop. It's not right that she was more likely to receive a slap in the face than a slap on the back. And I arranged for this - " I followed his gesture to the headstone. "So that she might finally be acknowledged." His eyes squinted in a wince. "I might quibble with the wording, but the sentiment is right.
"And even more so than her effect on the world has been her effect on us; her family and friends. There is not one of us that hasn't been changed by knowing her. There is not one of us that hasn't benefited from her strength and humour - her unwavering belief in doing the right thing."
I remember what I was like before Buffy. So shy and weak that I couldn't protect myself from words, let alone demons. So uncertain of my worth that I couldn't even tell Xander that I loved him and look at me now - holding my lover's hand after I saved her from a god.
"Buffy's determination has been a guiding force for us all. She never gave up, and we have to continue to fight her fight."
But she did. Give up, that is. I saw her give up. I was in her head - I saw everything. She stopped fighting. She stopped caring. She was relieved to stop. She gave in to despair.
"Nothing was more important to Buffy than Dawn. So we will care for Dawn as Buffy would have."
Despair is the unforgivable sin. Tara said so. She said that it dooms your soul to hell.
"We are not the Slayer; we are not a sister; but we can take up Buffy's unfinished roles and do our utmost…"
Buffy is in hell.
"…find the strength within…"
Buffy is in torment.
"Buffy would have wanted this of us, and we owe it to her to fulfil…"
She's suffering.
"… so she may rest in peace."
We all stay silent for a respectful moment, then the others start moving.
"I still don't get how we keep this place secret." Xander is looking up at Giles from where he has knelt to gather the shovels.
"It's a simple spell, really little more than a glamour to distract the eye."
"I still don't get how we keep this place secret."
"Ah, right. Sorry. Why don't you think of it as a mystical Somebody Else's Problem field?"
"Why didn't you just say so in the first place? I'm a hoopy frood."
I can't decide if the sound Spike is making is amusement or derisiveness; but I can easily see the confusion on the female faces. "I'll explain later. Luckily I can translate between magic and geek."
I hold out my right hand to Tara and she takes it. I can feel our power flow and mingle; it's different than doing a spell alone, less intense but somehow warmer. I close my eyes and concentrate on the sensation.
"It's done." I open my eyes and smile at Tara. It's not quite done. There's one more thing I need to do before I can rest.
I wait for the others to go back to the vehicles; I need to be alone with Buffy. The rock is solid and heavy in my hand; I squeeze it one last time as I reach out to touch the cold granite of her gravestone.
"Buffy, you can count on me."
I'm halfway to the car before I think to toss the rock into the woods. There is no time to stop for tradition; I have a fight to win.
That's extremely powerful stuff, Elena.
One small caveat - I think coffins are screwed down? Not nailed?
A sensational depiction of Anya. You totally nailed her voice.
Had a little trouble with telling who was speaking in the first section. Esp between the descrption of sitting with the body and Tara talking about despair.
Loved Willow in the Hyperion and the Princess Leia bit. And Xander making her coffin. And practical Anya--except the dress would have fallen off Buffy when she came out of the grave. Xander the closet druid! That was lovely. Not enough competent Xander is shown.
Craved instead of Carved re: the tombstone
Ah, ha! Why Willow believes Buffy's in hell, despair.
Elena, you could go with accuracy and still have it be really powerful - especially as Xander is fitting the hardware, refusing to have it anything less than the best and rightest he can do as a final farewell.
edit: GAH. Alas. I can't give you a comparison because the website at which the comparison story is located has now locked my browser three straight times....
Hmm... So, maybe have him dig for screws, they aren't long enough, someone can ask about coffin nails, Spike does the cigarette thing...
deb, the original story is at fanfiction.net, and really not, ah, well, don't worry about not reading it.
I second the "not really missing anything" by not reading the original. Elena's nailed the concept much, much better.
Elena writing somewhat sympathetic Willow. It is an amazement.
