Rating: PG-13
Summary: Xander remembers the white roses.
Warning(s): Character death.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of this except the plot and the poem.
Notes: Don’t know where the hell this came from, but I hope you like it. :)
Notes #2: This is completely unbeta’d, so it might suck, but I wanted it raw.
White Roses
by
Emella
The roses were stained with blood. That’s the first thing he remembered. Beautiful white long-stemmed roses, drenched and lying in a pool of blood. Her blood.
Before the pain there was confusion and then came the screaming. Screaming everywhere, ringing through his head, sending shockwaves through his ears.
When the screaming stopped, it was the images, the memories that came. Screams and innocent eyes, dying breaths and tortured voices. The first image to appear, though, was the roses. White and red drenched roses lying in a pool of blood.
Every minute of every day he spent thinking about the roses. Long after his memories returned and the screaming stopped, long after his sanity came back, he remembered the roses.
He remembered them. Dawn had been in the kitchen fixing herself a snack when Buffy brought them in. Long lush white roses that smelled like life. Everything beautiful and green and perfect was in those roses. The last time he saw her, on his way out the door, she was smiling and smelling the roses. Buffy had hurried off to work, and Dawn somewhere with a friend, but he remembered smiling at the sight; The sun shining in the window as she leant over the bouquet. Delicate. That was what he’d thought, beautiful and delicate.
That was the last time he really saw her.
That was the evening he’d died, the evening that he was murdered.
He remembered waking up with a crick in his neck. The foul smell of cigarettes and semen filling his nostrils; two days, a hotel room and one lost soul later. The first kill had been some waiter at a nearby bar, barely registering in his mind. The slaughter that night was the one he remembered. Spike met him halfway, he approved of his new childe’s idea and went along.
Dawn had opened the door, smiling and admiring his new jacket while Xander smiled and asked to come in.
Dawn had been alone, studying for her Spanish test. She offered them beverages and Xander ripped her throat out.
When Buffy came home it was pure luck that they caught her off guard and Spike added a third slayer to his resume`.
When she came home, she’d known something was wrong, things weren’t exactly as they’d been left and the vampire magic around the house felt thin. She always had been smart.
They’d gotten her together. She wasn’t as easy to take out, there had been a struggle, and the roses had fallen to the floor. Her magic couldn’t stop him from having his way. Her last spell couldn’t even save her.
The last thing he saw before leaving the only home he’d ever known was the roses, lying in her blood. Crimson stained life; something innocent fouled by something tragically monstrous.
When Giles and Anya had finally caught up with them, 12 years later, so much death had occurred. The soul burned and sliced it’s way into his life and made him understand what he’d done. After the screams and sobs had faded, after the pleading eyes and twisted bodies had left his sight, he still remembered the roses.
Twelve years he’d been a monster, twelve years he’d killed, but eternity was worthless without her. On her birthday, thirteen years after he’d killed her, he returned to her grave. The wind brushed his hair and the smell of jasmine was light on the breeze. He would never be able to apologize or explain why or what had happened, but he knew that when he laid the white roses on her grave that she understood, and she forgave.
He would never forgive himself, and he would never forget the roses, but in some small space in his mind, in his soul, he knew it didn’t matter, she forgave him, because she truly was his best friend.
1980 – 2002
Beloved friend and daughter.
A light in the dark.
Cheerful rays blinding bright
Rained away in dark of night
Silver linings tinged with black
White soul of beauty with
Naught to lack.
The End
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