Afternoon rain is one of the most depressing sights known to human kind, especially following a dry morning. It was even more so for Buffy Summers.
She sat there, chin in hand, watching with mild melancholy as the rain battered the window of her office. The television that mumbled in the corner was telling her that the rain was set to last the whole evening. So much for her perfect anniversary plans.
Smoothing her hands up over her face she took a deep breath and held it, trying to centre herself. Or at least, try and find some positive in all of this. Maybe then she would find some inner peace, or maybe just stop the mind-drilling feeling that pounded from her temples right into the dead middle of her brain, where it manifested and made her feel like the skull was cracking open with each thump of her heart beat in her ears. She eyed her handbag, premeditatedly fully stocked with aspirin. Sucking in her cheeks and glimpsing the clock, she decided she would leave it a while. She loathed taking any sort of medicine, even if it was a true relief.
The telephone rang, making her groan. She made herself concentrate for a moment, smiling happily before she answered the phone, hoping that would help make her sound more pleasant, even if it did nothing to help her mood. The caller wanted put through to Giles, not her. She calmly explained that Rupert Giles was not there. Instead, he was out all day on a field trip to the local museum with some of the pupils that were enrolled at the Academy, but she was perfectly fine to take a message. He grunted at her in disinterest, and hung up. Her chipper smile dropped into the scowl she found herself sporting more and more frequently.
Sighing and leaning back in her chair, she again found herself pressing her pulsating temples with her fingertips, listening to the rattle of the wind and rain. The howling had started last night, strong winds cutting out the electric all over the region. It was freezing cold in bed, but she barely noticed. It seemed that all of her days consisted of an icy chill that had an origin she couldn’t fathom. One day she was fine and then next…
“Stupid rain,” she mumbled, again eyeing the handbag. The pain medication called to her, assuring her of fast acting relief. She shuddered; she hated swallowing pills, no matter how tempting they were.
Buffy and Faith had been together for two years, come tonight. Dinner reservations were at seven-thirty at a dinner downtown which had all of the cosy, friendly atmosphere which made Faith relax, and all the character that made Buffy smile. They found out fairly early in their relationship that neither of them could stand fancy restaurants, the ambience driving them insane. Young woman of the modern world or not, Buffy couldn’t stand the lack of frivolity that high end establishments held; so tense and showy. Faith downright hated the fact that the smallest meal came for the biggest price.
However, their problem tonight Buffy knew wasn’t anything to do with restaurant choice, or even the rain falling outside. No, their problems were closer connected to the snapping arguments, the lack of communication, and most importantly the absence of time to spend together.
In the beginning, their love had had such a youthful vibrancy. Their days held the joyous energy of the crystal clear river flowing freely down the mountain valley; so crisp and alive. Passion flowed between them, luring them to each other in a way neither had experienced before. But things began to tumble and slow. Suddenly it was like someone easing their foot off of the accelerator and onto the brakes. Life caught up with them, overtaking them. Problems out of their control began to arise and engulf them; work, family, friends. Around the blissful oasis that she and Faith seemed to live in there was a terrible storm, one she had been determined that they would weather.
Now, however, they were strung out and weary, and most crucially, they stood an emotional ocean apart. So much time invested in other things meant they barely saw each other, except for breakfast, and they were not a fairground of domesticity eve then. Both of them were too busy desperately rushing out of the door in order to face the daily grind. It made Buffy almost physically ill to think about; motion sickness.
Ever since the turbulence began, Buffy had felt like something inside of her was dying, or that some chronic, paralyzing poison was gnawing at her insides, maybe it was her heart dying. She sure hoped that if it was, it wasn’t dead just yet. Increasingly, she found herself asking an essentially simple, and yet complicated question; had it always been this bad since she and Faith began to lose their grip on their relationship, or had it been growing steadily worse in an unstoppable free-fall?
Their relationship was crumbling before their very eyes and it was like neither of them could do anything to save it. Buffy grimaced and pressed the heel of her hand into her breast bone as the thoughts swirling into her mind caused the pain to move from her head and swell into her chest. It was that pain again, the emotional strain of the last few months bearing down on her in a single, crushing weight as she sat there. Clenching her teeth, she blinked at glared at the handbag beside her.
“Could definitely do with those pain killers now,” she muttered, reaching over for the bag.
Popping two onto the desk, she fumbled putting the rattling packet away and set the handbag back into its original resting place. A bottle of water was perched on the edge of the desk. It was out of place amongst the paper work, the chewed ballpoints and doodles which told the story of just how Buffy felt about slayers having office jobs. Especially when she has one thousand other things to do. This was a favour. One she decided fairly quickly that she will not be repeating.
Picking up the two small pills she cradled them in her hand and headed for the small utility room off of her office. The layout of the building that Giles chose for the academy is as spacious as it is peculiar. But they were lucky to get a spot so close to the Cleveland Hellmouth, and she thought that perhaps she had more to be grateful for than to complain about.
She gingerly laid the two tablets on the side of the small basin, before running the tap. The cool water made the back of her neck prickle in delight, and it was refreshing as she impulsively leaned in to splash some on her face. Straightening up, she caught the sight of herself, and gasped in skittish horror. Touching her pale face with trembling fingertips, she gawped at her reflection. Her face had become drawn, pinched and verging on thanatoid. It stuck her that she had only seen a face as pained and ashen as this once before; her mother’s face in the months following the announcement of her parent’s divorce, when she found out about Hank’s affair and Buffy’ s slayer activities forced her to start the arrangements for the move to Sunnydale, essentially splitting the family.
Putting the first pill into her mouth, Buffy cupped her hands under the water and scooped it up to take a drink. It was drinkable water, she’d had the hindsight to ask one hot day in the previous summer, when she had once again been covering the job for Giles, and had once again sworn she would never do this for him. She sighed; and yet here she was again.
She popped the second tablet into her mouth, but she didn’t swallow it, choosing instead to chew the acrid, sour tasting aspirin as she padded back behind the office desk. The TV was showing her the stock markets, something she had held neither understanding nor interest for. The vile aspirin made her wince in chagrin, but not more so that when she subconsciously slipped her hand into the pocket of her coat.
She closed her eyes upon feeling the hardened paper edge; the plane ticket.
Discreetly before he left on the field trip this morning, Giles had taken her aside and given her a proposal which her brain wouldn’t for a second allow her to refuse. Buffy was offered a three month mission to Western Africa to held aid relief for slayers under a critical demon threat in Sierra Leone, Senegal and up towards Mauritania. Eight hours in a flying tin can wasn’t ideal but Buffy knew that it was her duty. It was a huge stretch of coast, as well as warm, dry country, and with so much ground to cover, as well as such a crippling situation, Giles needed a leader with experience. Where else would he need to go but to his own charge?
She pulled the ticket out, smoothing it down onto the top of the desk. The coloured stripes on the top of the ticket as well as the sparkling silver writing of the ticket mocked and jeered at her in the otherwise dull, grey of the room. She thought this was the best idea, to spend some time apart. Doesn’t distance make the heart grow fonder? The sour feeling inside told her that she was so in love with Faith, and she wanted things to be right between them again, but living in such a busy world was killing them both. Arguments were being conjured nowhere, paranoid choking them both. Their heads made up stories and lies and they became suspicions at the drop of a hat. Just last week, Buffy had accused Faith of cheating on her, and both of them had ended up spewing some extremely hurtful, spiteful things.
Buffy swallowed the bitter tasting pill, biting her lower lip. Breaking up with Faith would tear her apart, she knew that. But she also knew that the stalemate of the status quo had to be broken through. This ticket provided the most obvious way. She would go out for dinner with Faith tonight, they’d come home, got to bed, and in the morning, the first quiet morning for a few weeks either way, Buffy would calmly explain about the mission. She left next Saturday.
Honestly, she had no idea how Faith would take it. She could be caring and understanding, which was a side to her girlfriend that apparently Buffy only saw. Her temper could flare and there would be a devastating argument. Worst case scenario was that by this time tomorrow she was single. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. That thought hurt. It was searing, and she forced herself to think about their anniversary, the gift that she’d bought Faith; a set of ancient daggers, a collectable set that Faith had had her eye on for quite some time. That successfully decreased the pain to a mild throbbing.
Inhaling deeply, she let the breath out in a slow whoosh, her mind taken back to what Willow once told her; release it really, really slowly and you can get all the negative air out! It didn’t work, but Buffy wasn’t rude enough to tell the perky witch that to her face. Buffy grimaced and rubbed her forehead. Either way, this was going to be a long night.
And still the rain hounded the window.