Wanting Just One Answer by Debris4spike

Chapter #1 - Wanting Just One Answer

Wanting Just One Answer “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” Over the last few days, the numbness had begun to fade and a combination of emptiness, sorrow and anger had taken its place. Buffy began to realise how much she had lost, both in friends as well as her actual home. She was still at the stage where noticing missing faces was coming as a shock. Even though she hadn’t known some of the girls very long, they had been part of her life for that brief intense time. She hadn’t realised how much she would miss Anya. Her remarks were often brutal, but she was honest. She had been there for a few years and knew the small facts that friends take for granted. Buffy couldn’t understand why Xander was out each night, but maybe it was his way of dealing both with her loss, and the last few months. When things got serious, he became a clown. The other Scoobies were slowly coming to terms with the changes that had occurred. Their homes had gone; the Bronze had gone and sadly so had family memorial markers. They were all now part of a deep pit that had once been the town of Sunnydale. Buffy missed her mum’s grave. When things were hectic she had taken to walking home from patrol that way, so she could sit and talk out her worries. Although she never received a direct reply, Buffy knew that she felt a lot easier for saying the words out loud. So now, a couple of weeks later, the group were trying to relax, heal and recover before deciding where to go from here. Some of them had already decided to go with Giles to Cleveland, but the rest were trying to work out their futures. Dawn had applied to various colleges to study languages, before the final battle, so had spent some time updating her contact details, and now wanted her sister to spend a day with her while she waited for replies. For the first time in many years Buffy had time to relax, and didn’t really know what to do. Fortunately the numbness that had invaded her on the day of the battle, allowed her sister to suggest the location she wanted, and Buffy just went along with her choice. Buffy now found herself stretched out, under a parasol, at Venice Beach, and realising that with her dark glasses on, Dawn would not be able to see whether she was thinking, or merely asleep. As she lay and rested, she let the noise drift away, leaving just a background soundtrack that gave her thoughts free rein. “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” As had happened over the days since she had heard those words, they came clearly into her mind. She wanted to turn over and know his arms were there to hold her like that had for those last couple of nights. However, the gap in her heart was matched by the space next to her whenever she lay down. She missed him. Why hadn’t he made it out of there? He always came back to her. “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” Why didn’t he believe her? He had told her that she had feelings, but the time she dared to say those words to him, he rejected them. She tried to be positive that he was doing it to make her leave the collapsing building, but that doesn’t help her sorrow. She told him she loved him and surely he should realise that she didn’t say those words lightly. He had known her for years, and had seen that even to her sister it was hard to speak of her personal feelings. Why didn’t he believe her? “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” As her mind kept going round on this sad track, the warmth of the sun and the sounds of a happy beach did the job that Dawn had hoped they would. Buffy slept properly for the first time in twenty days. She had spent her nights waking too often to search for her missing companion. Dawn sat and listened to music, read, drank cola and watched over her sister. She didn’t know what was causing the block in Buffy’s emotions that she had yet to react to anything, but she knew enough to see her sister closing down. Although she had been kidnapped by Glory the last time Buffy shut down, she had heard what had happened, and wanted to try to prevent the same happening. Whatever the future held, Dawn knew that they really only had each other now. The hours drifted over the Summers girls and slowly the afternoon was beginning to fade, when Dawn’s cell phone rang. She leapt for it, but it still disturbed the sleeping girl. “Yes?” She answered in a rush. “OK, Angel. Yes, Buffy is with me. Can I give her a message?” She said when the person identified himself. Obviously Angel wasn’t happy with that as Dawn passed the phone to Buffy, only for her to drop it again at whatever he had said. Dawn looked at the shaking girl and demanded, “What’s wrong, Buffy?” Her sister just stared blankly towards the horizon, so Dawn grabbed the phone and decided it was easier to get her answer from source. “What did you tell her, Angel?” “Just told her that the amulet got returned to me, complete with a ghost Spike. I thought she should know before you head back here for the evening,” he calmly replied. “Thanks.” Dawn hung up and looked at her sister, to see a girl on a mission to pack things back in a bag the fastest way possible. “Come on, Dawn, we’re going back to the Hyperion. I have a question I want answered.” With that statement, Buffy headed up the beach at a pace that had her long-legged sister jogging to keep up. “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.”