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This is their final fuck you. As if it didn’t already hurt enough.
The table in his kitchen is still broken. The bed is still unmade. And the entire apartment still smells like her.
He stands paralysed for a while. But he finds himself forcing breaths. As if doing so would make it all go away.
Maybe, maybe this is a nightmare. Maybe he’s still in bed with her. Maybe he just needs to wake up and he’ll be back. Back in her arms. Feeling his heartbeat in his chest and hers against his skin. Maybe.
But nothing. He doesn’t wake up, she’s not here and he’s still cold.
He makes his way through the apartment, slowly and carefully to not ruin its state. He wants it all to stay the same. He needs it to stay the same so he knows it was real. That he didn’t just dream it. That it happened and she was there and he was alive. He sits against the brick wall, staring at the bed. Trying to relive it all. Every feeling, every emotion, every sensation, every single moment.
He can’t forget. He won’t. He has to remember, for both of them.
From her soft giggles in his ear to the taste of chocolate and ice cream. He closes his eyes and tries to not let it fall away.
But when he does, all he can see is her tears.
I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget.
He opens his eyes instantly and finds his sight blurry from his own unshed tears. He wants to leave, but he can’t. He stays, staring at the unmade bed. Desperate to not forget. He can’t forget. Because if he does, then it never happened. And it did happen. It did.
He stays on the floor. He doesn’t want to touch any of it. It’s the only physical thing he has, the practically ruined state of his apartment. And he doesn’t care. If that’s the only thing he has then he’ll keep it that way forever.
Forever.
Forever is so long. And not long enough.
She made him promise. They were curled up together and she made him promise. Promise that this was forever. That they would make it work. That nothing would get in their way. That they could finally have forever.
And now he’s alone. Forever.
Cursed to be here. Forever.
He tries not to cry. He tries to be strong. He’s not sure why he wants to be strong. Maybe it’s for her. To honour her in some sort of way. She’s always been so strong compared to him. She’s always taken everything in her stride, held her shoulders high despite carrying the weight of the whole world since she was 14. He’s always wanted nothing more than to take that weight from her, than to help her carry it. It’s why he made that decision, the decision he never wanted to make, because he couldn’t carry nearly as much for her if he wasn’t like this.
But now he’s starting to wonder if he’s any good to her either way. Human or not. It’s not like he’s really any help to anyone, especially her. The one person he wants to help, and the only person that has ever loved him and believed in him and he can’t even offer it back to her. He has no purpose, no purpose but causing others pain. The tears in her eyes, the breaking of her voice as she begged for more time, that was him. He did that to her.
He looks down at his hands, seeing the black sleeves of his shirt and he feels himself shiver.
“You know that’s mine right?”
“Yeah,” she says, smiling, whilst still buttoning his shirt, “and my shirt is on the floor so what do you want me to wear? And you don’t need a shirt.” She gives him a smirk and crawls back onto the bed, “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” she nods, “you have food here?”
He shakes his head. Watching her closely.
“Okay,” she says, fiddling with his hands, “wanna go for a walk? We can get something to eat and the suns still out.”
He can’t help but smile. He can leave and go outside in the middle of the day. He can see her in the sun again. This isn’t just a dream.
No. This is a nightmare. A horrific nightmare. He feels like he’s being stabbed over and over again, but he would prefer being stabbed.
He tries to breathe. He tries to make this all go away. But it can’t and it won’t. This is a pain he’s brought onto himself. This is a pain he deserves. All the hurt he’s caused her, he deserves worse than this.
He feels as though he’s bleeding out. All of the emotions and tears he always tries so hard to keep inside him pouring out through wounds. The sharp edges of memories pierce his skin. So he lets himself bleed out.
That night, he dreams of blonde golden hair, of whispers of sweet nothings, of ‘I love you’s and happy endings. He dreams of sugar and ice-cream and chocolate and peanut butter. He dreams of a lost future. Days spent in the sun, fighting battles by her side at nightfall. A future of laughter and peace and unwavering love and affection. A family. A baby with her bright eyes and her smile and her beautiful heart. But none of it is real. It never will be. Not for them.
Time passes. Time.
He takes the clock down. Throws it against the wall and revels in the noise it makes as it crashes against the brick and falls into pieces. Its hands are sharp. They cut deep and harsh, just like the words that keep running in his head.
“It’s not enough time.”
He’s out one night, killing things, when he comes home to Cordelia in his apartment, cleaning the untouched mess.
When he sees the bed made, and the broken kitchenware on the floor, he breaks. Sobbing and falling on the floor. The mask he’s put on in front of her for the past couple of days instantly crumbling. He didn’t want her to know what happened, he didn’t want her to see he was broken over this. He didn’t want to admit what happened, because a part of him was still hoping to wake up.
But he was so tired.
He couldn’t sleep at night. And when he did he would sleep on the floor, by the bed, scared to touch the only thing he had left of that day.
The day that never was. The only proof of it he had, now gone.
He feels Cordelia's arms wrap around him, saying something softly but he doesn’t hear. He can’t hear over the horrific noise in his head.
He can’t feel anything but emptiness and the freezing numbing cold.
One part of him just wants her. It’s so selfish. It’s so wrong. He’s wrong. He knows that. He’s a vampire and the only thing he wants in the entire world is the person built to kill him. He wants her to hold him, to tell him it’s okay. To forgive him for what he gave up. Because there is nothing, nothing he regrets more than letting her go. Then letting their future go.
But the other, more sensible, part of him knows. Knows why he did it. To save her. To protect her. And her life is more important than anything to him. He would go through this pain a million times over if it meant her getting to live a longer life.
Because he would do anything for her. He would always do anything for her. He would follow her anywhere if she asked, help her with anything, do whatever she asked him to do. He would give up everything, because nothing else matters in comparison to her. His saviour, his sun.
He won’t forget. He’ll spend the rest of his life remembering. Holding the memories close, no matter how badly they hurt. He’ll keep dreaming of her. He’ll never stop dreaming of golden hair, soft shining eyes and the brightest most beautiful smile in the entire world. And he’ll never stop wondering about what could have been. Yearning for the future they could have had. And he’ll never stop thinking about what might have happened if the day never was reversed. If he was still warm, what would their life be?
But there is no point, no point dreaming about a world that can’t exist and won’t ever exist.
Time goes on. But he keeps every part of that day etched in his mind. Every touch, every word spoken, every second of every moment with her.
He fills a whole sketchbook with her and that day. Her in the sun. Her in his bed. Her sitting at the kitchen table before it was broken on the floor. Her smiling at him wearing his shirt. Her down the street, holding his hand tightly.
And as time passes, he knows he will become more distant in her memories. That’s just humans. But he’s not human. And his memories of her stay as vivid as if it happened mere moments ago.
Everytime he sees her, he realises how much time has passed. One minute she’s 18, the next she’s 22 and closing the Hellmouth. And he watches from the sidelines, longing to be a part of her world, to hug her and tell her that he’s so proud of her and what she’s done. Over time, her hair gets longer and then shorter and then it’s longer again. Her face changes. She loses that bright sparkle in her eyes and he hopes that he had nothing to do with that.
And he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how she got so far away. So out of his reach. One minute she knew him better than anyone, now she looks at him like he’s a distant memory. A part of her older self that she’s had to let go.
All he can think about is how he should have been there. He should have held her hand through it all. He hates that it’s taken four years for him to realise that maybe he made a mistake. And now it’s far too late to apologise. And it’s far too late to make it better and undo what he should have never done.
But every night, when he closes his eyes, he thinks of her and what could have been. What should have been.
And on the other side of the world, she too dreams of him. She too wonders what would happen if she finally gave into the temptation to run to him.
Because, even though she doesn’t remember, she never forgot. Not really. She could never forget him, not even if she tried.