From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 53: Chapter 53

Bile. Bile crawling up her throat.
Her phone fell from her hand and landed upward, the flashlight face down and making the only light in the room a dim glow around the rectangle. Somewhere, in the darkness, his eyes were still beautiful and open and empty. Were his eyes open? She didn't actually catch it but she could imagine it - she could imagine how they'll eventually degrade with the rest of him. She couldn't imagine anything else.
How many dead bodies had she seen over the years?
Not as many as some of the other girls. Not nearly enough to be numb to it, if there was such a thing. Buffy always took care of the bodies before the younger girls saw them.
Rain pounded on the roof and on the ground, a deafening static. Smelling of garbage and mold.
Was he already decaying? No, it's too early. Signs of decomposition would come but not yet. She knew that; it was one of the more recent lessons. She could imagine the maggots that would eat through him.
She kept thinking - randomly and emphatically - it was too cold to be April. Too cold.
She talked to him earlier. He looked at her. He spoke. He was cruel and disgusting and alive. He moved and gestured; he talked like Jim Morrison. Bright eyes. A defined jaw and mussed hair. A curling smile. Lean muscled, not quite thin. A boy with the world at his feet and eating right out of his hands.
Death was a loss of meaning, though. An absence of any and all context beyond what is. He's just a body now. The earth won't care what he was.
He's dead.
It was never...
She collapsed, dry heaving until she felt the burn in her throat. When she fell and gripped the trash laden floor, a sharp, slicing pain shot through her hand and something moved - skittered - beneath the other. She didn't move; she kept heaving long past the mess she made on the cluttered tile. What was the last thing she'd eaten? Doritos? Popcorn?
The smell hit her nose and she tried clenching her stomach muscles to stop the vicious cycle.
"Maddie!" she heard Marie calling, shock cutting through her tone so hard that it jolted Maddie's head up and all she could see is a shadow rushing towards her. Marie's shadow. Still, Maddie could still see the vacant stare she had just moments ago. It was like possession; like something had taken Marie's body and wanted to hurt Maddie next.
Maddie jumped and stumbled back, shuffling frantically backwards through the trash. Marie was barely visible as she stood in front of the gaping hole in the ceiling, cast in shadow by the night sky. She stood over Maddie, a wild, towering creature cast in black. The rain and light behind made her outline glow like something ethereal. All contrasts.
"Oh god." It was half gasp, half prayer. Her voice was hoarse still from the stomach acid. It was easy not to believe in anything but she had to try. She had to hope against everything she saw and felt that this wasn't the truth. That Marie didn't...that she wouldn't...
Maddie spotted something from the floor in the distance, just at the edge of the circle of downpour. Something she couldn't see standing up. A flash of red hair she didn't associate with anyone but felt familiar. Maddie clumsily rolled back onto her knees and maneuvered past Marie as she tried to stand up.
She felt weak. Her hand was wet and sticky, her palm burning.
She walked into the rain in the center of the building, letting it wash off the trash and dirt on her hands and knees. Seeing red drip from her left hand. Red. The girl on the ground's hair was red too, but an auburn like leaves in the fall. Her shirt was red but only where the blood trickled from her neck. Maddie liked her shirt, gauzy and white but not nearly as much as she would've otherwise - not after Elliott's hand had been up it not so long ago.
"Oh god," she repeated and it came out a cry. A helpless plea. Sheets of rain washed off the last of the grime on her skin and clothes. She didn't realize she was shaking her head until her eyes were closed and she tried to will the images away. "Tell me you found them."
There was no reply, just the white noise of rain and the thunder clap that made her jump out of her skin.
"Marie, I swear to god-!" There was nothing behind the threat but she felt like screaming. Her voice was shrieky and wearing thin, stopping abruptly like she'd been cut off. She tried to calm her breathing but it was too much like suffocating. Her throat was closing and the pressure on her sinuses was as unbearable as the collapsing in her chest. "Tell me you found them like this. Please."
Marie was circling, no more than a deeper, darker pit in the shadows. She was quiet for a while but then came the sounds of shuffling trash and bottles, the crunch of empty bags below the noise of the storm. Was she examining them closer or was it something worse? Was she watching Maddie?
The shuffling faded until something metal scraped the floor and made Maddie flinch.
"I found this place on my own, you know," Marie said, her voice echoing as she spoke over the rain. "While you were busy. I found it after a rave. A girl I danced with wandered this way and I followed her. Maybe there was another party happenin'. Somethin' good. Instead I got twenty hopped up vamps feedin' on addicts. Did you know that was a thing? Demons supply the drugs so long as humans let 'em feed while their high. I wanted to clear out this place. It was disgusting and perverse and I knew I could do it."
Maddie didn't leave the center of the room. Even with the rain, it felt safer than the darkness as Marie continued to circle her.
"I did like they taught us. If you're outnumbered, regroup and strategize. I only took the ones too dumb to stay with the group." A long beat followed, filling the room with only the sounds of footsteps and the white noise pressing in on Maddie. Marie made a 'huh' noise. "Dwindled their numbers every time you ditched me for him."
Maddie could picture his face again and wondered if it would rot here or if it would be worse; if he would be a demon come nightfall.
"I didn't plan on taking them out tonight. I didn't think I'd be ready for three vamps much less half a dozen by myself. Then I followed you and found them."
It was admission and confession, though they felt wrong. They sounded like bragging. They felt guiltless.
Maddie swallowed and clenched her fists, biting her lip to keep the whimper of pain out of her voice when she squeezed the wound on her hand. "It was a trap."
"And it worked," Marie said, triumph in her voice as she stepped into the light as pale and gaunt as before. "While the vampires were distracted and high off their asses, I dusted every last one I could find."
Maddie stared at her, eyes so wide they felt cold around the edges. "You killed them."
"I slayed them."
"No!" Maddie shouted, her voice giving out for only a moment. "You brought them here to die! You knew they would die! You killed them!"
Marie looked stricken, almost baffled for a moment like Maddie had hit her before something in her eyes began to burn. "God! Really, Maddie? I was doing what I was called to do. What we were chosen for. I found a nest, I set a trap, I cleared this place out."
"They had souls, Marie! They were human!" Maddie was shouting and crying and she wasn't sure if either would stop. "That is not what we do! This is a plan! Premeditated! This is murder!"
Murder.
Dead bodies.
Missing person reports.
The cops.
"We..." Maddie sniffled, hands clenched and shaking. She met Marie's eyes, rings of icy blue keeping her frozen in place. "We have to tell Xander. We have to-"
"Xander?" Marie repeated, incredulous. "So he can what? Patronize us?"
"O-or Willow or Faith-"
"Or Buffy?" Marie took a step forward and Maddie did all she could not to flinch again. Her knuckles were bloodied. Her clothes, all flower print and pastels, were stained with brown and red. A cut ran diagonally across her cheek, already scabbing over. A ghost of something desperate and longing and violent, somewhere between the thick fog of the rolling moors and high contrast cityscapes. Pieced together with the worst parts of both. She shook her head before narrowing her eyes on Maddie again. "You never change, do you?"
Maddie shrank at the accusation, recognizing the way Marie was staring at her - somewhere between ownership and disgust. It was nearly eight years ago now but Maddie never forgot the face of the girl that struck her across the cheek. She never forgot the faces of any of her attackers. I didn't deserve it.
She took in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "We have to. They can help, I swear."
The expression on Marie's face soured further.
"People are dead. Maybe..." Maddie started as the words burned into her head. Dead. Her thoughts were stumbling and collapsing in on themselves. "I don't know. Maybe we can explain-"
"Dead. Exactly," Marie said over the thunder, eyes bright for just a second and burning like wildfire. "From vampires that I already dusted. I didn't...I didn't do anything but my job. Besides, they'll be compost by the time anyone finds them."
"Stop it! I can't do this!" Maddie began to move away.
Marie's hand clasped over her forearm like a vice, tight enough to bruise. "Don't be stupid, Mads! I know that's hard for you but bear with me and think for a sec. If you do whatever dumb impulse comes to you, we're going down for a crime we didn't even commit."
Maddie was trying to wrench her arm away when the words Marie was saying began to stick. Sickness was creeping back up on her as she looked at Marie. "We?"
"I dealt with someone who was willing to use you until he was bored and dumped you. God knows what else he would've done if you didn't leave," Marie said, so matter of fact like she knew exactly what would've happened. "I did this for you. Christ, you're not that dumb, are you?"
Maddie slowly began to turn her head in the direction of the shadows. She was sure he was right there, eyes wide and afraid just like when he took his last breath - and, for a second, she had the stupidest thought.
Where did he go?
She wanted to rewind the night. She wanted to go back to the rec room and fall asleep to a movie. She wanted to go back further and avoid him all together. She wanted to never talk to him. She wanted to do something that didn't end like this.
She looked over to the girl on the ground, red waves draped over trash and rubble. Around her wrists were neon rubber bracelets, a rainbow assortment of them like the pile on Maddie's nightstand.
Something horrible yawned open in her chest, a loss she couldn't explain properly. She didn't know the girl's name and Marie probably didn't either. She didn't even do anything other than whatever Maddie had been doing for months. She followed a boy and now she was nothing at all. Another girl punished for existing. Another girl who'd never go home.
It hit Maddie all at once and there was no time to brace for the impact.
She did this. More than Marie, Maddie condemned them. Maddie, who wasn't paying attention. Maddie, who just wanted a brief moment to be selfish.
She killed them.
Maddie ripped her arm from Marie's grasp and towards the doorway to grab her phone. She bent down and began to search for it manically, frantically.
"What are you doing?" Marie's voice was far off and confused. The second time, it was booming and hoarse. "Maddie, what are you doing?!"
Maddie felt a small, thin brick of plastic and picked it up, the flashlight streaking across Marie's face. When the screen lit up and she was met with her background - photo of a castle she hardly remembered - she unlocked the screen, turned off the flashlight, and immediately searched for Xander's number. "We're telling someone right now."
"Mads..." There it was again - that horrible tone. Pleading. Begging. Scratchy, like she was holding in a sob. Please understand.
Maddie felt the pull in her chest to stop. It was an ache like a vice around the softest parts of her, telling her to give in and let this pass or risk all of her insides crumbling at once. Something stronger than that ache towered over her casting a shadow over everything that would happen next if she didn't say a word. She thought of what it would take to hide the memory of this and how it made her sick. Everything inside her was tearing away from itself, different parts of her wanting to run in different directions.
She didn't stop, didn't answer. She wiped off the excess water from her screen and fumbled to get to the right name. She wondered absently what would happen to her. She thought about the look on Xander's face if he saw this. She thought of Buffy's expression turning cold and Maddie didn't think it was possible that Buffy could still cut her that deep.
She tapped on Xander's name and put the phone to her ear.
"NO!" It was a screeching, panicked word coming from Marie.
She grabbed Maddie's wrists, wrestling for the phone, but Maddie didn't let go. "We have to! Just-"
A sharp knee to the gut, hard enough to double over. Hard enough to feel like something far worse.
She didn't let go or fall to the ground - at least not until another knee met her jaw and she was flat on her back. Shattered. Her jaw had to be shattered. She could no longer hear the phone ringing. She felt nothing but a pulsing pressure for the first fraction of a second before exploding in sheer pain.
There was something heavy on her stomach, keeping her pinned down. Maddie tried to focus her vision as it wavered and doubled and flickered. She caught the image of blonde curls looming over her head and blue eyes flashing something unrecognizable. Maddie only caught sight of a fist hurtling toward her at the last second.
"I did everything for you! I trusted you!" It was like a rabid dog snapping at her, howling and barking and breaking itself in half to kill her. "You knew what was happening!"
The punch was like a sledgehammer swung down and hit her cheek.
"I trusted you with everything!"
The fist reared back again and it felt like slow motion as it got closer and closer. Lightning lit up Marie's face, eyes wide and feral and teeth bared.
Maddie caught the fist before it connected and grabbed Marie's forearm with her other hand. Maddie yanked Marie down into a headbutt that felt like a crack to the skull. The momentary pause from Marie gave Maddie the chance to shove the girl off of her and the adrenaline got Maddie back to her feet. The clarity was overwhelming, like the world was too in focus.
Marie was standing again but not stopping there. She was speeding to Maddie again, a tackle to that led them both back through the front threshold and onto the bare concrete as the heavy rain continued. Maddie's shoulders hit the ground first and the pain bloomed down her spine. She cried out and gritted her teeth as she kicked Marie off of her with all her strength.
It was all defense. Pushing Marie away and blocking as much as she could. She kept trying to get back to the building and grab her phone. Over and over again before being pulled to the ground. Still, she kept crawling, kept standing up. She need help and Marie did too. Life spiraled out so far and so fast that she found her thoughts tripping over themselves, trying understand.
She was almost in the pool house again when she heard something metallic behind her. An unsheathing that made her stop, like she was falling away from herself.
"You ruined all of it! Everything!" Marie screamed and a sob followed, an poisonous and pitiful sound.
Maddie was leaning against the threshold, unable to turn around. She didn't want to know this. She didn't want to turn around and remember that image for the rest of her life. She wanted the lie; that she meant more to her best friend than Marie's self preservation, than her pride.
"Her daggers are gone."
Maddie knew they were there. She knew without looking. They were extensions of Marie, a duality. A blade to catch your eye as it glittered in the light and a hidden one to cut your throat.
Turning around would make it all true. Marie's mask would fall and reveal the ten year old with a hard face and a hyena laugh, a vicious, cackling thing. Maddie wondered if Marie was ever anything else.
Maddie felt the sob in her throat and knew what walking forward meant. She knew it. She couldn't hear Marie moving, which meant she was waiting and that was so much worse. She thought of her ax at HQ, in the chest at the foot of her bed. She never would've thought to bring it.
She walked forward - one step, then another - listening so closely and waiting. She was shaking wildly, stuck in a moment she couldn't leave. The past dropped away and future was one she didn't want to meet. There was just this, a breath in between her regret and the end of everything.
Maddie took another step and heard Marie walking, stomping, over like seconds counting down on a bomb. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Maddie whirled around and pushing Marie away, watching her stumble back. Maddie threw a punch, a sloppy one, and missed. She ducked as something silver sliced through the air. Maddie landed a kick and went for another when an elbow caught her chin, forcing her to look up at the thick ceiling of clouds.
It felt like nothing at first, then cold. So cold she shuddered violently and let out a loud gasp. Cold on the inside. In the next second, she was lowering her stare from the sky to Marie, who was directly in front of her. She kept going down though. Down, down, down.
Her legs gave out, like something in them had completely shut down and she hit the wall behind her, sliding down it.
It was freezing out here. Too cold.
Pain exploded in her stomach, more pain than she ever felt in her life. Pain eating her from the inside out. Something sharp like ice but also like an ache and a wet warmth. She touched her stomach and raised her hand up to see. Her breathing got quicker and quicker, shorter and shorter.
Her hand was a deep, dark red, wet and sticky before the rain washed the blood away.
More blood was coming, she could feel it. The world was doubling and blinking in and out.
She raised her head up to the girl still in front of her. Before she could see Marie's face, she could see a blade, covered in the same shade of red.
Lightning lit up Marie's face, and her eyes were still wild and wide open but it was different. Haunted. Stricken. There was horror there.
Maybe it was the rain or her imagination, but Maddie could swear Marie was crying. But that couldn't be right.
There was the sound of static from somewhere but Maddie felt numb to it, to everything. She was gripped by a fog she couldn't escape. The rain felt like ice. Her insides felt like ice.
When lightning struck again, Marie was gone and Maddie didn't catch where she went. Time must've passed. In a blink, she was alone.
Static again.
"Maddie!"
It was distant. Rough and tinny, somewhere behind her. She turned and looked back through the threshold and inside. Something on the ground was lit up. A tiny rectangle of light.
She felt like sleeping. She wanted to sleep.
"You there, kid? C'mon!"
"Xan..." she whimpered as the name only half formed in her throat and tears came as she kept her hand pressed to her cut. She breathed in and let the pain come. She breathed out and it came with a sharp, wailing sound. An animal cry turning to inaudible sobs.
☽ † ☾
"Question! Has a slayer ever died of a heart attack? Or high cholesterol?"
Maddie was in the middle of shoving another crinkle cut fry drowned in artificial cheese in her mouth, having just bit down the moment that she processed the question. She went rigid at that word - 'died' - and finished the fry, already reaching for the next. She glanced at Stiles, who had no room to talk as he was already halfway through a bacon double cheeseburger half the size of his head.
"Or, I dunno, some other life threatening disease?" Stiles continued. He dropped the sarcastic tone for a second like something dawned on him, early afternoon sunlight filling his eyes with color. "Hang on, has a slayer ever died from disease?"
Maddie was initially hoping they'd stop at the diner she frequented most mornings when she tried to avoid the Argents but instead they went to restaurant that, on the outside, could've easily been a knock off Cracker Barrel. On the inside, it was a lot of the same that she was used to with a menu that reminded her more of a chintzy Denny's.
"Not that I know of," she said, reaching for her glass of coke. In hindsight, she realized she managed to buy a meal as if she was a kid. The food was greasy and loaded with cheese - as initially requested - and her drink was overflowing with sugar and caffeine. She was even thinking of getting dessert afterwards. "It's mostly just the demons but who knows?"
"Demons like Sadie?"
Her whole body tensed.
Maddie shook her head with the tiniest jerk, wishing they were talking about something else. Anything else. "I don't know if a vengeance demon's ever killed a slayer but...it's mostly just vampires. That's usually how the story goes. How are their milkshakes?"
Stiles was in the middle of a massive bite of his burger when his eyebrows sank low on his forehead, possibly from the whiplash caused by Maddie's sudden change of subject. "The vampires' milkshakes?"
"The milkshakes here. How are they?" She half-heartedly swept her index finger in a quick circle. She barely paused before adding, "Vampire milkshakes? Seriously?"
"Oh! Uh, good, I guess? I think they just use vanilla frozen yogurt and syrup and there is no way in hell you're getting out of the topic that easy."
Maddie blinked with a practiced stare. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You know what? None of this avoidy-slayer-lone wolf crap. If anything, I get enough wolf crap ever other day of my life. We're talking about this," he said, despite the hesitation in his voice. "Why give Slayers all this power and basically no immunity?"
"We're still harder to kill than most." Maddie focused on her drink as a tiny bubble sped to the surface, her voice a flat line. "And we heal pretty quick.."
"Okay, but you also actively seek out dangerous and terrifying situations just on the off chance you might save a person. Or apparently the whole world." He still sounded shocked when he said it, like it was too large of an idea to simply accept. "Even right now."
She was taking a drink when he said it and she choked a little bit, coughing as soda went up her nose. "What?"
It was only a harsh whisper but people were still glancing over, including an old couple who seemed offended that they were even there. Whether that was for being teenagers loitering on a school day or they just didn't like the idea of girls like her fraternizing with a boys like him was up for debate, so once she gathered herself, she sent them an unflinching stare.
Stiles spotted them as well and gave a sheepish nod before lowering his voice. "I would bet anything that you have at least two weapons with you right now - maybe three. In the middle of the day. In public. Am I wrong?"
Maddie narrowed her eyes and tried not to glance down at her bag, failing for less than a second. When her eyes went back to Stiles, she didn't say yes or no. It felt like letting him win, however small the victory, and her pride wouldn't allow that. Not even today.
He was already half grinning. "You know what? I bet I can guess which ones."
She turned her attention back to her plate of half eaten cheese fries. Even with no answer, he was getting the better of her.
"Definitely a stake, which is probably for the best if that vampire's still out there. Better safe than a human capri-sun."
That one was easy; she was a Slayer, so of course she had a stake on her at all times. Besides, she wasn't able to part with the stake she found in Sunnydale. It was unique - jagged, like a bolt of lightning. More than that, it felt special.
"A crossbow."
She rolled her eyes. Lucky guess.
At least the other weapon wouldn't be so obvious.
He stole a cheese fry from her plate and popped it in his mouth. "Oh, and that ax with all the weird symbols on it."
Her face fell and she scrambled to regain her stoicism. There was a flare of annoyance in her stomach, both at the fact that she was so predictable and the side note of giddiness that he paid attention to all those stupid little details. She swatted his hand away when he tried to grab another fry. "So, I'm predictable."
"Okay, that's kind of an extreme interpretation." His eyebrows furrowed a bit. "Yesterday, you were on the freaking critical list and now you're asking about milkshakes like everything's normal. Even in monster party central, predictable is the last word I'd use."
She didn't know whether that was a compliment or a critique but, however it was meant, she felt a surge of embarrassment - like being put on display. "And yet, you're still predicting pretty accurately."
"The easy stuff, sure. The Slayer stuff. I can more or less guess at Madeline the Vampire Slayer pretty well," he corrected, like it was important to stress the title more than her name. "Maddie Hayes, not so much."
"Maddie Hayes is mystery." She shrugged one shoulder. "Even to me most days."
"Yeah, I might as well be putting together a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle without the photo on the front of the box - in a room that's on fire."
Maddie quirked an eyebrow and reigned in her thoughts. "So, I'm a puzzle?"
The last of his burger was a bulbous lump in cheek as he looked up, a deer caught in the headlights. He stayed quiet as he swallowed his food and took a long drink of his soda. When he finally spoke, it sounded as though he'd been choking. "Did you not hear the 'on fire' part?"
Maddie rolled her eyes and waited, staring wistfully at her empty plate.
Stiles finished his burger and slumped his shoulders. "I mean...you know, some of the puzzle pieces are starting to make sense cause you can start to see where the lines connect, but none of it actually looks like anything yet. I don't even know basic friend-level facts, like your birthday or your favorite color or-"
"December 30th," she said without looking up. "And green. And since when did that stuff mattered?"
There was a brief silence like he was caught off guard. "Noted."
There was something unnerving about the moment - a tension buried beneath small talk and meaningless jokes. Like he was asking something else entirely and this was code that she was meant to decipher. He seemed like he wanted to know more, so much more than anyone else cared to ask about, like she was more. Even if the questions were dumb and irrelevant, it almost made them part of something bigger. A bigger question made up of smaller questions.
Maddie felt like she had to give answers accordingly.
What's her favorite color? Green. Deep, dark green with a film of gray because sitting alone early in the morning in a field by a castle was the only time in her life she was ever allowed peace. By the way, she lived in a castle once. In Scotland. That was pretty cool.
When was her birthday? In the winter, still close enough to Christmas that her parents would lump the holidays together. Almost a New Year's baby but not quite. No matter what, her birthday was never her birthday; she always celebrated it early or late - even later, when it was her team celebrating it. Marie always bought her two presents anyway, because of course she did.
The longer she spent talking to him, the more she felt like she was failing at something. There was so much she couldn't say but even more that she was afraid to say, and all of it did nothing but fortify the wall between them.
"Do you ever think about..." She stopped and blew out a breath. This was stupid. "Never mind."
He didn't miss a beat. He never did. "What?"
"It's nothing."
"Fun fact: it's never nothing with you," he said and it was just as comforting as it was embarrassing. "C'mon. Do I ever think about what?"
His eyes were bright, the gold in them shining through as they locked with hers and, for a moment, the wall began to crumble. Just a little.
Maddie cleared her throat and averted her gaze to her plate, which was still regrettably empty and could no longer stand in as a distraction without her being obvious. Her eyes darted to the window and she watched a truck pass on the road, bright red and shining like the paint was still wet. She wondered where it was going. "Do you ever think about what you'd be doing if this wasn't the world you lived in?"
"Listening to Coach's incoherent rants in class?"
"You know what I mean."
"You mean if this wasn't a world full of monsters where I fear for my life daily?" He shrugged. "Wouldn't be much different than this one. I'd still be friends with Scott. Still watching lacrosse games from the bench. Still keeping my jeep together with duct tape. Honestly, not a whole lot's changed since Scott's monsterific lifestyle upgrade, aside from the looming spectre of death and mystical ultraviolence."
It was stupid to ask. Her life was so unlike his; it wasn't even a year yet for him. It was still too early to see the changes because most of them were directly to Scott. Scott, who got bit. Scott, who decided to date the daughter of a hunter. Scott, who will never be the same. Stiles would change by association - she only needed to consider Willow and Xander to know that - but it'd probably be slower, more subtle at first, but it was happen all the same.
"I mean," he continued and her stare flickered back over to him. He was slouching and tapping on the table, an indecipherable beat as he focused on the wooden surface. "I guess other things changed."
Maddie didn't say anything, the words churning away in her stomach as she searched her brain for context that he wasn't giving.
"What about you? Do you think about it?" he asked.
She swallowed, wishing the waitress would come over and refill her drink. All the time. She wouldn't say something so embarrassing though; she couldn't bring herself to. Not today.
"Like, do you ever wonder if you'd still be you, only in..." he trailed off, eyeing her like he was searching for something written on her face. She thought asking what he was looking at - or for - but he was already talking. "Massachusetts?"
Maddie's brows furrowed and she shook her head.
"Ohio?"
He was getting a little closer but she wasn't about to say that. She shook her head again, wondering if he was trying to make it into a game.
"One of the Dakotas?"
The conversation was turning light again and Maddie was beyond grateful for it. She folded her arms. "Nope."
"Can I get a hint?"
She slowly shook her head, eyes narrowed in challenge as she tried not to smile.
"If I guess the right state, you'd tell me."
"Probably."
"Okay, not liking the sound of that probably."
"I'm usually pretty honest."
"No, see, the word you're looking for is blunt." He pointed a playful but accusatory finger at her. "You have two modes: secretive and brutal."
"By me, do you mean Maddie Hayes or Madeline the Vampire Slayer?" She said it like it was the title of a comic book, with an air mocking humor.
"Fair point. I'll let you know when I find out." He grinned at her but it was different somehow. Or maybe she was different and the smaller, insignificant moments were the ones she wanted to keep for herself - so she was noticing them much closer. He looked like he was containing his smile, like he was getting away with something huge.
He went through another handful of states before saying it. Illinois. "Like, Chicago?"
"Close enough," she said as a refill was set next to her empty glass by a silent waitress.
"California must've been a culture shock," he said like there wasn't really a good response and this was the stock answer. "I'm guessing. I honestly have no idea what Illinois is like. I'm not even sure where it is."
She heard the 's' in Illinois and instead of correcting him like she did with so many, she let it slide.
"It's not so different. Buildings. The fancy places weirdly close to the bad parts of town. Lots of trees, depending on where you are." Her memory was straining to picture Wheaton. She didn't care to remember it most of the time. It wasn't a place really worth remembering. "I mean, it's sunnier here, I guess. Less wind. And most of the streets aren't named after lakes."
"What about the people?" he asked, like it was the whole point.
"I don't really remember the people." It wasn't a lie. She barely remembered their faces, which were little more than smudges on a painting she was desperately trying to restore. Even if she couldn't imagine them now, she consciously tried imitating their expressions and mannerisms until they embedded so deep, they were hers. It kept them alive in a way, whenever she caught herself with her dad's scowl or how much her tone mimicked her mother's when she argues. Even the snort she sometimes did when she laughed was her brother's. Things worth keeping more than the clothes and stuffed animals left behind in that room. Things worth remembering once the faces blurred and faded. "Any of them, actually."
"Oh." Stiles' voice was part awkward and part stricken. There was pity there on his face and she didn't want to see it. "What about, you know, the people you... I mean, you knew that girl, Terra. And you said your friend..."
Your friend. She didn't have any reason to go beyond that. "Yeah. I was on their team."
"For eight years?"
"Teams came later. I knew them for eight years, though." A flash of a moment. Shadows surrounding a frightened child. Then, sitting on a hillside eating candy with an enemy. It was all a wash these days; individual but indistinct drops of rain in a storm. "The teams are like...a rite of passage."
"Was- and stop me if I'm crossing a line or anything, but..." Stiles hesitated and Maddie's brows furrowed. He glanced down as if already guilty of something, then back up at her. "That person you brought up, was she your best friend that whole time?"
With perfect clarity, she saw it all, a movie reel in her head telling the whole story. It wasn't one she was willing to share. It wasn't something that needed to be explained. It was hers. "No. I don't really warm up to people right away if you haven't noticed."
"You mean that cold and distant act wasn't just for us? I'm actually offended."
"Really?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin like it was hard to contain it. There was that annoying, fluttery feeling in her stomach again, nagging at her.
"If it helps, not many people can make me as angry in record time as you," she said, trying reign in the biting tone from the annoyance towards herself. It was only after a moment that she realized what she said and quickly added, "All of you. Like, day one. A mountain lion? Seriously? That might be the lamest excuse."
"If you showed up literally a few days earlier, that would've made so much more sense." He was talking faster and gesturing more, constantly adjusting his volume the more they talked and the more people began to look over. It was all so very familiar now. "And you're not exactly exempt! Did you honestly think no one caught you going head to head with Peter? Come on!"
The memory came in on a tide quietly and her eyes grew wide. "You saw that?"
He sent her an incredulous, narrowed stare. "A girl like you shows up, immediately becomes best buds with the popular crowd, and happens to be at the school after hours because she's bored? I had to make sure you weren't another wolf or some crazy hunter, so yeah, I saw that. Kinda hard to miss."
"I'm guessing that didn't help my case at all."
"You're not wrong."
"Wait," she said at the same time she thought it. It took a moment to process their whole conversation but when she did, something curious popped into her head. "A girl like me? What's that supposed to mean?"
Stiles seemed to slow down as well, the sound drawing out longer than Maddie expected. "You know... the loner, punk kind. I thought you were gonna kick my teeth in for looking at you and a few hours later, you're making idle conversation with Lydia Martin. That's basically like throwing a wrench in the machine that is high school hierarchy."
This was even more familiar. The subtle barbs they would take at each other. How easily they came to her in comparison to actually telling anyone what she was actually feeling. "What did you expect? You looked at me like you thought I was an alien. The whole class did."
"I did not!"
"You did!"
"Number one, there's no way you could know what I was thinking." He held up one finger, then two. "And number two? I don't actually have a number two, but you're still wrong."
She gave him a mildly annoyed glare, half because it was one of the few ways she communicated and half because she knew she was right. Besides, Stiles was one of the few people who ever took it as a challenge.
When he replied, she wasn't surprised. He sighed loudly, tapping his fingers on the table like he was increasingly irritated and having trouble keeping his thoughts in. "Okay, you wanna know what I was thinking way back on day one?"
No, she thought instinctively. But also, yes.
"I was thinking..." He gestured with his hand and Maddie assumed he was trying to physically draw out the words. "'She's cute', followed immediately by 'she'd probably kick my ass if I said that out loud.'"
There was a ringing in her ears, a silence that had volume to it. A look she couldn't meet from across the table.
She was watching her plate again. Empty. "You're not wrong."
There was a beat where all the noise in the restaurant became a faint static. Her eyes flickered up to his and something she assumed was nerves or embarrassment bubbled to the surface. They both laughed.
It was an out of body experience and she swore she was watching this whole thing from somewhere else. It was so alarmingly normal. Skipping school. Loading up on carbs and joking around. For the longest time, she didn't get it, at least the appeal of it. The idea of normal. Normal wasn't something to strive for because it had no place in her world. If this was normal though, without including the context of their lives, she was starting to understand.
She went to grab her phone in her pocket and her fingers fumbled around something metal and cold. The cross. A shudder went through her as everything outside of this moment descended, thick and fog-like.
Her hand shot out of her pocket and knocked against the underside of the table and she drew a sharp breath in at the sudden jolt of pain. She shook out her hand as if the pain would fall away in the process.
Stiles gave her an odd but amused glance. "You okay there?"
"Shut up." The jab came out annoyed but almost affectionate. Falling back into familiar patterns had a way of doing that. There was a warmth in her chest that didn't remind her of anything at all. It was still new and terrifying but the only thing that made it terrifying was the idea that it could leave or it could rot. She was the thing that made it scary.
The thought made her stand up suddenly, needing air. Needing a moment of nothing. "I'll, um... be right back."
☽ † ☾
A girl like her.
God, he was an idiot.
He didn't know why he chose a place like this. A crappy diner with a weird smell he could only relate to the inside of a convenient store - which made sense, since a truck stop was attached. It made the whole wooden rustic look a little less real when there was a pane of glass and a door separating the diner from the area where they kept the peanuts and the beef jerky.
This was a bad idea.
Coach was gonna kill him.
Worse, Coach might not even realize he was gone which was more a blow to Stiles' pride than anything.
With Maddie gone and no idle conversation to distract him, he noticed just how empty the place was. There were massive sweaty guys each sitting alone in booths and one shoveling food in his mouths with his bare hands. There was another man in a business suit paying more attention to his laptop than his food and Stiles wondered if the guy knew just how out of place he looked - or if he cared.
Stiles groaned quietly to himself. He should've picked somewhere else.
He picked this place because he knew it. It was easy to find and he went here with his dad so many times when they got tired of drive-thrus. It was comforting. It was normal and not a place where he'd panic if he brought a girl.
Not that it was like that. Because it wasn't. It totally was not a date. It was just food.
It wasn't like he kept thinking about the night before. All of it, from beginning to end in a loop that went on and on. He remembered seeing her in the woods and feeling sick to his stomach. He saw plenty of people he knew badly beat up in the past several months but the last time there was that much blood was the night he and Scott found the other half of Laura Hale.
When he got to Maddie last night, he stopped. He was frozen. It was a weight crashing in on him, the first of a few that night. He didn't know what the hell he was thinking having her stay the night.
Holy god, she stayed the night in his room. In his clothes. In his bed.
Not that, you know, he was in his bed. He stayed on the floor like you're supposed to in these situations. Like, at least four feet away and getting much less sleep than he needed.
When she asked to use the shower, he tried his very best to remain as professional as possible. He tried to act like this was completely normal, even though he went from being amazed that she could still walk despite all that happened, to trying his best not to think of every scenario he ever made up in his head involving girls he liked and showers. He felt awful for even thinking about it a little.
He distracted himself from it for a while, actually. He continued to check in with Scott and wondered if Sadie was telling the truth. What if even one vampire got through? Did she kill it? Did she care enough to kill it? He also listened for his dad, because that would've just been the icing on the cake. How would he explain any of this to his dad?
Some time after that, he was rummaging around the whole house for a first aid kit and didn't bother turning off the lights after he found one. He was already back in his room, looking for something he could use that made sense to him. He hoped she didn't need stitches.
The door clicked and he was already talking, rambling really. He looked up and there she was again. Smaller than she looked before, her skin clean and her hair still wet and hanging. He always saw in movies, when a girl would wear a guy's clothes it was always sexy but he assumed it was because it was always an over-sized unbuttoned button down and generally a serious lack of pants. Usually lots of skin and still perfect hair and makeup.
Now, he was sure that wasn't it. Maybe it was a weird and not-altogether-okay possession type thing. Maybe it was the knowledge that sharing your clothes with a girl you had feelings for, and maybe - definitely - wanted, might be the closest you get to her. It didn't matter. It wasn't why she was there.
Then she exploded in the middle of their conversation, saying things that didn't make sense and didn't align with what he knew about her. And when she looked startled after he exploded right back, he thought for the briefest moment that he'd tell her right there. He'd let her know exactly how wrong she was. She couldn't be nothing. If she was right and every slayer is pretty much destined to die young, people would care. He would care even if he didn't want to.
Knowing all that had him wishing he didn't care. He couldn't imagine that day. Not for anyone he knew. Not after his mom-
He was grateful for the argument until he went back over his own words. He tried to correct himself. A slip of the tongue. Us, not me. "I meant..."
"No, you didn't."
So point blank. So easy to say. It was something he kept confusing in his head for confirmation, like she knew what he meant. Like she knew what he meant when he watched her the way he did now. Then again, he had no idea what that expression - an actual confirmation - would look like. It's not like he ever got one before.
"Nah, I didn't."
Maybe saying that was admitting everything to her. Absolutely everything.
He looked at her and wondered what she would do if he just said it. He wondered if he'd be able to get through the rest of the night if she shot him down. So he said nothing. He looked at her, though, and tried to find some sort of hope to cling onto. He wondered when it became painful to meet her eyes and stay still.
It got worse. He helped her clean out the wounds on her side and she was lifting up her shirt - his shirt - which was a train wreck at first. Blood and torn skin only just beginning to scab over. He looked up at her and she was so, so close. Inches. Close enough to see freckles on her nose, which were adorable and he decided to never bring that up if he liked living.
He snapped out of whatever trance he was in at the time and cleaned out the wound on her side, flinching at every pained whimper he heard from her. It felt like knowing too much, despite his constant badgering about needing to know more.
He finished up and put the bandage on and, as if just realizing her entire midsection was bare, he fought against the urge to touch her again. It would've been so easy to let his fingertips trace the outside edge of the bandage, down her waist, and to her hip - where he tried not to notice exactly how low the sweatpants rested. He tried not to notice the other scars either - raised, skinny lines crisscrossing her stomach, jolting him back to reality. His gaze trailed up to her face, his brain attempting not to linger too long on any part of her - although, he wondered if his stare stopped on her lips for a second too long.
God, this was difficult.
When he spoke, he hated how quiet his voice came out. He tried at a smile and failed spectacularly. The room was too dark to see any color in her eyes, but he searched for it. He looked for a sign.
She stared at him for an extra beat and he couldn't read the expression she was giving him at all. He didn't understand what was happening and decided to take the initiative to roll up the sleeve of the shirt she was wearing and where a thick red lip cut across her shoulder.
It was becoming a little too much, touching her but not really. There was literally nothing even kind of romantic about life threatening injuries and here he was reminiscing about cleaning up her cuts like it was the beginning of some royally messed up sex story. Dear Penthouse, I don't normally write letters like this, but-
Then, his dad came home and anything he might've addressed went unsaid. Except for the thing about the dirty nurse dream, which almost felt like flirting. Were they flirting? He didn't know. He wasn't the best at flirting, since he usually couldn't even say two coherent sentences to a girl he wanted to date.
Wait, did he want to date Maddie?
Maybe. Sort of. It was complicated.
"Excuse me," a woman's voice cut through and jolted him from his thoughts. Older, mature. The waitress, maybe? For a second, he didn't think he heard it at all; that he imagined it.
Without checking, he began to dig for his wallet, knowing already that this would be the only time Maddie would let him pay for her - because she wasn't present to pay for herself. He already had the wallet in hand when he realized there was no one in front of the booth. His head whirled around, searching, and caught sight of the woman looking at him in the next booth, just over his shoulder.
She wasn't dressed like a waitress, which made him falter. He was right; she was older. She had a kind, welcoming expression, faded blonde curls, and a warm smile. He closed his wallet and looked around, making sure she was talking to him despite how ridiculous that sounded. "Uh...hi?"
"Did I startle you? I'm not intruding, am I?" It was a motherly tone, like she'd come in unannounced to her child's room.
Stiles didn't say no and he knew it was rude but he couldn't force the word out. There was a terrible nagging at the back of his brain, like knocking coming from the inside of a wall.
"Can I help you with something?" He tried to sound nonchalant and cringed inwardly when it sounded annoyed. Something about her sudden appearance made him uncomfortable but that could just be his social anxiety rearing its ugly head. "I, uh... I didn't mean-"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask..." She smiled and it felt comforting for a moment if not for something gripping his insides. "That girl you're sitting with...Was that your girlfriend?"
"What?! No! She's-" He was sputtering and stumbling all over his answer, which honestly was none of her business. She asked it in a way that made him think of nostalgia, like she was reminiscing. "We're friends. Just...good friends. Hanging out. Together. Non-romantically."
The woman's smile became a knowing one and, for a moment, a memory scratched at the surface of Stiles' thoughts. Something cold he didn't want opened. "Are you sure?"
His shrug was infinitesimal. A slight jerk of a muscle. "Yeah, um...yeah. It's all platonic. Just a normal hangout with a friend."
"...but you want more," she said, in that annoyingly accurate knowing tone that reminded him of Scott's mom. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that. It's not my place."
"No, I..." He cleared his throat, stuck in a conversation he didn't want to have but not looking to insult a well meaning stranger. "No. It's not like that. I'm fine. This is just...it's fine. We're good."
The memory of his meeting with Miss Morrell floated to the surface and he couldn't help but feel all of it. The feeling of drowning. Too much was happening all at once and it needed to stop. Or at least slow down a little. "Do you ever think about what you'd be doing if this wasn't the world you lived in?"
Spacing out in class. Daydreaming about Lydia Martin. Knowing that when he's on the sidelines during the game tonight, his best friend would be right there with him. Spending the weekend eavesdropping using the police scanner until something interesting would happen.
He definitely wouldn't be terrified that Scott was going to die or that Jackson would go on another murder spree. He wouldn't wonder where Boyd and Erica went. He wouldn't be freaking terrified of Allison's grandfather - or Allison, for that matter. Lydia wouldn't be acting so un-Lydia-like. Scott's mom would be talking to Scott again. Stiles wouldn't have to hide life or death secrets from his dad.
And Maddie would be miles from here, maybe in Illinois with her family, living a safe and normal life.
Maybe things would be better. Maybe the fact that he didn't want that world more made him a masochist.
"Ah, I know that tone. My daughter uses it all the time," the woman said, her big eyes soft and a small chuckle following. "A mother can always tell, though."
The momentary sting of the comment hit him square in the chest and he nodded to end the conversation. Something about it stayed though but he couldn't place it; he was struggling to remember something that made this almost familiar but couldn't. There was a comfort to her words but something more about it remained out of his reach.
"Tell what?" he asked as soon as the thought sped to the forefront of his mind.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, waving a hand like she was gently swatting the answer away. "It's nothing. It's not my business, after all."
Stiles deflated a little and thought about turning back around.
"It's interesting though," the woman said and Stiles was no longer sure if she was talking to him or herself. "I couldn't help but hear a little of your conversation and maybe I'm looking a bit too far into it, but...did you happen to catch that look on her face just before she left?"
Of course he did, he was staring right at her. He didn't say that because he didn't have to; this woman was a stranger and he didn't have to give any information at all if he didn't want to.
"I remember that look well..." Her eyes glazed over for a moment, as if in a trance or a memory. "Even if my ex-husband can't seem to."
Stiles' interest increased even if what he thought she meant wasn't true. "Wait, what?"
"What I'm trying to say is..." She breathed out a sigh and the feeling in it was a tangible thing. All loss and pain and bittersweet nostalgia. The echo of children's laughter in a long empty room. "In my experience, friends don't look at each other like that. If that's not your intention, let her down easy, but if you feel anything for her beyond friendship, just know chances don't last forever and rarely happen twice."
"Okay, hold on, there's no way you can know that." Like it was so easy to just say things like that. Stiles could just imagine himself saying something stupid like that. He looked back at the empty side of his booth and tried to accurately recall the expression the woman might've seen.
"Hey, Mads! How goes the slaying? By the way, did you want to go out with me?"
"So, Maddie, I just wanted to let you know that I've really wanted to kiss you for the past several months. Oh, what's that? You need to go save the world? Right now? Fair enough."
"You won't believe what happened while you were gone! A creepy stranger watched us talking and said you like me. Is there anyway you can confirm or deny this so my brain can focus on the fact that we're all probably gonna die horribly?"
"Stiles? Hello?"
Fingers snapped in front of his face and he blinked out of his thoughts, redirecting his stare to the source of the noise. Maddie stood in front of him, eye curious and mouth frowning. He refocused his thoughts on what they'd been talking about before, whatever that was.
"What's going on?" she asked with genuine worry in her voice.
Stiles thoughts turned to alarm. "Nothing! Why? Did something happen?"
"No, um..." Maddie pointed behind her with a stuck out thumb. "Bathroom."
"Right." He nodded like he needed to emphasize the obviousness. There it was again, at the back of his brain. Knocking and scratching inside the walls. Words out of reach. A memory he couldn't hold onto. Something so familiar. Like a bolt of lightning striking him, the flash of the woman's face. "Oh!"
He turned around in an instant, if for nothing else to ensure the woman didn't embarrass the hell out of him and allude to their conversation. That's what he would've done. He would've introduced Maddie as his friend and proved his withering self esteem right if not for the empty booth he was staring at.
The booth, an ugly faded red, wasn't just vacant. There was no trace of a meal eaten. No plates or glassware. No crumbs. He leaned over the top of the booth, which was only the back of the restaurant. No doors. No other pathways out aside from past where he and Maddie sat. He whirled around again and scanned the room. He looked outside.
He didn't realize he was hold a breath until he felt it again. The knocking and scratching of something on the other side of a wall. Something he knew from another time. The feeling of a room falling away into nothing.
There was someone there. A woman. He talked to her. He knew he talked to her.
"Stiles? You okay?"
He jumped, gripping the edge of the table and the booth respectively. He release his breath and swallowed the lump in his throat.
"Me? Psht, yeah! Obviously," he said a bit quicker and louder than he should've. He cleared his throat. "We should leave. Now."
"Shouldn't we pay first?" A genuine expression of concern flitted across her face.
"Right. We should...probably do that." He took out his wallet and dug around for some cash, hoping that when he haphazardly set the money on the table without really looking, that he did so with the right bills. Still, he was already walking away, anxious to get away from this place and hardly able to hide the panic in his tone. "Any idea where you want to go next?"
Maddie had to jog to catch up and she seemed like she was going to say something but closed her mouth and shook away whatever it was. Once they were out of the restaurant, she finally said something. "Actually, yeah. I have an pretty good idea."
☽ † ☾
The sun shone through thin clouds, liquid light pouring through and warming Max's face. She'd never been overly fair (a trait she silently thanked her mother for) but she spotted a pleasant and unexpected glow to her skin while she blotted at the circles under her eyes with concealer this morning. She could get used to this weather if nothing else. If absolutely nothing else, she would like to have this much sunlight available to her her every day. Of course, she'd want it back home. She'd help her grandmother garden more often just to be outside and to have someone to enjoy it with. Gran was always complaining was about the weather, despite living her whole life within no more than two towns of where she came from and never wanting to move.
"It ruins my hair," she'd tell Grandfather while he read and nursed the last of his brandy. It'd been a common conversation whenever he came back from a trip to America. He never talked about what happened there and to fill the silence, there was his wife - as stubborn and intellectually combative as he was but far more prone to saying whatever came to mind. Especially when it had to do with silly things that didn't matter.
"I don't get it," Max said once, her tiny 9 year old voice flaring like it did whenever there was something she didn't understand - especially as an adult. "Gran's hair always looks like that, even when it's sunny."
Grandfather threw her a short, side glance and the smallest gleam of a smile. "Yes, well, bad hair days are not an exclusivity to rain."
"And yet my bad temper is an absolute exclusivity to my husband." Her Grandmother, Beatrice, a spirited and ferocious woman, always held a softness in her gaze for her Grandfather, Quentin. "How very strange."
"It's true!" Max took a deep breath, knowing she had so many words already linking into chains of full sentences that she'd need the extra air. "Remember that one time? Remember, Grandad, when she said the thing about your funny books and you told her to leave and called her woman with your mean voice and then Gran got all red and splotchy and said that word. That word, um...number five on the list of words I'm not allowed to say."
When they responded, it was in unison and had nothing to do with what Max said. "Have you done your homework?"
A common question only used when she nosed her way into a conversation. Almost always foolproof, as she would go right into a tangent about whatever she was working on. Maybe it was a bit predictable and more than a little narcissistic but she enjoyed when people cared enough to ask about things she was good at.
This was how her memories of her Grandfather always went; she'd think of something simple and everyday and be struck by a moment that would unravel into something else entirely. A full, bright, and brilliant memory would take her by surprise even years later.
She often wished tiny moments would remind her of her mother and father in the same way, but they never quite did. They were as much legends to her as Buffy. Unknowable. Names in a set of Watcher's Diaries burned up in the explosion that took her Grandfather and the rest of the former Watcher's Council days before Christmas.
Four year old Max didn't remember her parents and the idea of their deaths wasn't so much a loss as it was a void she carried. She didn't mourn them like other people mourned the deaths of loved ones. It was an empty spot in her head and in her chest that her grandparents attempted to fill but they already had their own space. No, the empty part of Max that was meant to mourn was filled with a hunger and only when she stopped looking for pieces of her father and mother - of George Travers and Chen Yuan - did it ache.
The death of her Grandfather was a loss. It was not knowing how she was still walking after the news broke. It was only crying around her Grandmother even when she felt the constricting sob constantly in her throat. It was an untouched newspaper at breakfast and eventually passing on breakfast every morning if only to not look at the place he sat every day. It was time moving forward as his study collected dust and it was Max, maniacally cleaning it two months later and realizing how much she hated it there. It wasn't until she began reading the books it held that she began to love it again.
She knew it was different with Allison and her mother, because it's always different. More than that, she knew because Allison lived her whole life with Victoria there. Her mother. Max would never quite know that grief and that fact in itself was its own sort of grieving.
Max went back everyday, to have the front door go unanswered. She went back and sat on the front porch until someone finally came out and threatened her. Mostly, it was Chris Argent. Yesterday, it was an older man.
Not with words, but with silence. They didn't come to the door. It's hard to respond to silence; it's difficult to know whether someone's listening and choosing to ignore the noise or if they're simply gone. Still, she tried relentlessly.
When she walked up to the Argents' home that afternoon, everything was nearly the same. Nearly.
There was a car in the front of the house she didn't recognize, at least not immediately. She walked by it first, almost not noticing it at all until the second after she passed it. It was so out of place, a blemish on a block that probably didn't see cars like this very often. The blue wasn't quite the color of the sky, too saturated and rust lined the hard edges. The hood didn't fit quite right, hardly lining up and laying flat with where she assumed it went. Banged out, maybe, from a more unnatural state. Old, too old to fit in with a place like this.
She studied it for so long that when she looked inside, she jumped back and clutched her chest. There was someone in the car. It took a brief moment to catch her breath and allow the pieces to click together but when they did, it was both an alarm and a relief.
She knew the boy in the car. Briefly. They'd only met once and she didn't actually remember his name. She remembered the car though and how it stopped in the middle of an empty highway as she watched from the backseat of a very expensive sports car she didn't know the name of.
He stood next to Madeline that day. He knows her.
Max strode over to the car and knocked three times on the window. It was a sharp noise that made the boy jump as well. He hadn't been paying attention to anything but his phone, which seemed to fly out of his hands and he fumbled to catch it, failing. His eyes darted over to her and she smiled an anxious, hopeful smile.
His eyebrows furrowed and he glanced around before his stare landed back on her. The window rolled down slowly in jagged bursts. "Okay. Hi. What?"
His tone only mildly startled her, considering it was the general reaction she seemed to receive. "You! You were with Madeline Hayes and the others!"
He blinked, his gaze shooting to the house and back to Max. "Yeah, again, hi. Who are you?"
She probably had no right to be offended but it was the only way she knew how to take the reply. "Max! Er, MacKenzie Travers. I'm Madeline's Watcher."
"I'm pretty sure her Watcher's name is Xander." The sharp tone he used was infuriating.
"W-well, yes, but-" She was stuttering again, like she'd done with every interaction since she arrived. She huffed a short, frustrated breath. "It's far more complicated than that and, as you are not a Watcher or a Slayer, I don't believe you have any say in the matter."
She wished she could muster the authoritative tone that came so naturally to the rest of her family. She briefly wondered if it was something inherited from her mother.
Even if her word vomit wasn't as eloquent or severe as she wanted it, it still managed to strike a visible nerve. He met her eyes and raised up his phone for her to see. "Yeah, well, I'm kinda busy here, so..."
"No!" She managed to not stomp her foot like a child, despite not knowing how to make him talk.
"What?"
"I-... No. You can't." She raised her chin a fraction, keeping eye contact. In her head was a tightly wound string being tugged again and again. "I forbid it."
"Is this a real conversation we're having right now?" he asked, his voice level and only slightly edged with something razor-like. His attention returned to his phone. "Like you said, I'm not a slayer or a watcher. There's legitimately nothing you can force me to do - except maybe float me for a few minutes."
Her jaw dropped and her irritation flared. "You do remember me!"
"Sorry, are we still talking?" He glanced up for only a moment and again brought attention to his phone, this time by pointed at it with his free hand. "I'm actually waiting for someone."
"Oh, are you?" came her reply with much more sarcasm than she meant. The string snapped. "I don't care. You were with her the other day. You therefore must know where my ward is and you're going to tell me right now, by order of the Watcher's Council."
"Lucky for me that doesn't mean anything here. And, as an expert in being non-threatening, can I give you some advice?" He turned back to the front of the house and started the car before throwing her a tired glare. "Try a new approach. You're not exactly endearing yourself to anyone here."
Max turned as well to see the door to the Argents' home wide open and two people standing there, one on the porch and one just inside the doorway. Madeline, so different now than the photo she was shown, was on the porch with a large bag and already meeting Max's eyes, as was Chris Argent from the threshold. The expression wasn't one Max expected from Madeline and it certainly wasn't the same one from the day they met. It was confusion, then recognition and finally revelation in the last fraction of the second.
Madeline turned around to the graying man, calling his attention. They spoke and Chris shook his head, his face stern and unyielding. His eyes narrowed on Max for a moment and there was in brief moment of something other than anger there. Something that she could identify as pity - or something to that effect. That was almost worse.
Something else was said; something brief and final from Chris, followed by a nod to Maddie. Max tried to read lips from here, which she was generally good at if not for a few misinterpretations. Combat...olive? She frowned and was taken aback when Madeline turned and bee-lined straight for her.
"Hey, um..." Maddie started, squinting at Max. "Miss...Travers? Do you have a phone I could borrow?"
Max already started digging through her pocket when the words were said but stopped, attempting not to seem overly anxious. "I do. Why?"
"I need to make a call." Maddie shrugged. "Mine's broken."
Max make a slight 'oh' noise and briefly pretended that she hadn't already found her phone, taking an extra second or two to shuffle around before handing it over. She snatched it back suddenly, unlocking the screen with a pin and, as nonchalant as possible handed it back. "Here you go."
Maddie nodded and pulled out another phone from her pocket, turning the screen on.
Max gawked at her and tried to grab her phone back, but was just a little too slow. She looked back at the boy in the jeep as if to see if this was a conspiracy. It had to be, because he was grinning at Maddie a little to wide as if struggling to keep from laughing.
"Hey!" When she whirled back around, she tried grabbing her phone back again. "You said your phone was broken!"
Maddie didn't look up from what she was typing back and forth between both cell phones. "Yeah, and I lied."
The "broken" phone rang with a generic tone and stopped almost immediately. Maddie pocketed it and tossed the other back to Max, who nearly didn't catch it. When it was firmly in her grasp, she glared over at Maddie who had stepped closer. It was then Max noticed something in the pocket of Maddie's sweat jacket, something large and protruding sticking out. A small wooden box, slightly larger than a fist and with symbols carved into it. Something about it felt familiar but her eyes were already back on Maddie's.
"Stay by your phone," Maddie said, her voice just barely above a whisper. "Keep the ringer up. Argent will explain the rest."
She maneuvered around Max, slipping the box into her bag, and climbed into the jeep. She tossing the back into the back and a few words were exchanged while they backed out of the driveway and sped down the block.
"MacKenzie," she heard from behind her with an authoritative tone she only associated with a handful of people in her whole life. She turned and Chris gave a nod. "I assume you're here to talk."
Max's eyebrows knit together on her forehead but she walked up the driveway all the same.
☽ † ☾
This was not how Buffy typically approached serious conversations. She was beginning to think she was losing her natural ability to converse. Maybe all the speeches she made over the years finally wore on her.
Her face twisted up into a sour, judgmental purse. "Okay, not to suck the fun out of this, but..."
"You? A fun sucker? Perish the thought," Xander said.
"That's me, alright. Wet Blanket Buffy, complete with scathing critiques and kung fu grip." She wanted it to sound jokey, but it came out in a self-loathing mumble. "I just-"
"This is about the fight, isn't it?"
"...No," Buffy said, even if her tone sounded a lot like 'yes' and she couldn't help but keep going. "Maybe. But look!"
Xander's brows furrowed and he squinted his eye. "What am I looking at?"
She gestured like an increasingly annoyed Vanna White. "The ax! It's entirely unwieldy. Maybe if they shorten the handle or choked up a little. Ooh! Or replace the head with one that distributes the weight more evenly..."
She missed knowing absolutely nothing about weapons, when their only requirements were pointy, wooden, and not too expensive because she'd probably leave it somewhere. Now, she fought with her Slayer Scythe which handled like it was an extension of her arm. She judged other weapons harshly by comparison.
The bag of Doritos crackled like snow on an old tube television at the slight motion of Xander pulling out a handful of chips. "It's a TV ax, Buff. As in an ax on a TV show, in which we have no say in weapon design choices."
Buffy turned back to the tv, to the duel happening in full plated armor and the labored swing of the larger opponent with their ax. "Well, obviously, but would it hurt them to make their action scenes a smidge less clunky?"
The rec room was quiet aside from them and the sounds of weapons clanging together over the boisterous medieval onlookers. The room was cleaner than usual, which generally meant Dawn was on a passive aggressive cleaning kick. Buffy was at one end of the couch, curled up with a patchy throw over her legs, while Xander was elbow deep in a bag of artificial nacho cheese dust. His posture wasn't so much relaxed as tense, like he was a prototypical alpha male watching football - but he was always like this when this show was on.
"I think you may be the only person on earth to call the Game of Thrones action sequences clunky. And I think they're going for historical accuracy with the weaponry."
"But isn't this a fantasy show?" Buffy asked.
Xander pointed a slightly orange finger at her. "Exactly, so put on your 'suspension of disbelief' cap or skidaddle, missy."
This wasn't going the way Buffy expected it to. She rarely sat down with her friends in a non-supernatural or non-emergency situation anymore. She was always moving. She was always needed. There was no reprieve long enough to watch whole seasons of shows or whole ninety minute movies for that matter.
"Sorry," she mumbled as the smaller knight conceded on the screen. "I just...I don't know."
"Bad day?"
"Try bad year." She paused, thinking it over. "Or bad decade. One would not argue the notion of multiple decades of badness."
The armored victor took off their helmet and it was a woman. A pale blonde woman with her hair cropped above her ears and watery blue eyes. Everyone in the scene seemed to gawk at her, maybe for being a woman fighting or, even more likely, for being a woman who won.
Xander paused the show. "And this wouldn't happen to be relevant to one certain missing slayer in training, would it?"
"One slayer. Or ten. Or thousands." Buffy shrugged and her shoulders sagged. "Xander, what did I do? How did we end up here?"
"I cannot stress how much time we don't have for the answer to that question, even if you asked me last month. This is beginning to sound like guilt overload, Buffy." As he said it, she felt it. A string of guilt tugged at her from the inside and across years. "You feel responsible for every chosen one from now to judgement day, I get that."
"But I can't even say more than two words to most of them. The rest of them I don't even know the names of."
"Should we go back to the drawing board on the name tag idea?"
"Is that bad?" she asked with a groan and it was a bit too honest. "I feel like I have no right to talk to them. Any of them. I mean, who am I to care about only a handful of girls when there are thousands putting their lives on the line daily? How fair is that?"
"Since you're literally only one human person, I'd say pretty fair," Xander said, his voice a solid, unwavering statement. She only now realized how much she missed him. "But I know you. You care about every single girl out there fighting because it's been your fight for forever. Names or not, you care about how you affected their lives."
Buffy turned back to the tv, watching a king and queen applaud, hands frozen just before they meet. "But how do I say that without sounding like a complete jerk? Gee, sorry I have crippling emotional issues and went all Full Metal Jacket on you!"
"And again I ask, is this about Maddie?"
Buffy winced at the name and still tried to avoid a direct answer to the question. She was afraid of what answering would do. "Yesterday, Faith told me about a slayer she picked up in Georgia way back when and I knew who she was talking about pretty much immediately. I was supposed to be there for that one but I totally pulled rank and stayed in Scotland with the Sunnydale group. I was just so...tired. I think I still am."
"And you're allowed to be, sometimes," Xander said and Buffy wished she could believe it. "They have a name for those now. I think they're called Mental Health Days."
"And where are Anne Marie's Mental Health Days?" Buffy bit back but not quite to Xander. "Oh wait, she doesn't have any because I couldn't deal. And - surprise! - now, she's dead."
"There was no way you could know that. You knew as much as the rest of us."
"I should've known more for her, and for Nora, and Dana, and Amanda, and the girls sent as decoys because they look just enough like me. I should've done more." It didn't give her peace to say it out loud. It just made it real. It made it a tangible thing that she couldn't look away from. "Maddie knew that better than I did. I don't feel like I'm here sometimes."
Xander didn't answer and Buffy knew what that meant. Because you're not. He'd never say it but it was true. She wasn't there and she had an excuse for every time she left, only at the time - in the right light and on the right day - they looked like reasons.
Her stomach churned and she was hoping it was from the junk food. "I feel like there's no possible good outcome for any of us. I damned them. What kind of leader does that make me?"
"And what was the alternative?" Xander asked, saying it like he got a good grip on the conversation again. "I was there that day. I know how things went down. The only other way out was the end of the world. That means they wouldn't have the chance to live at all."
Buffy met his gaze, recognizing the determination. The stones in her gut continued to make her sink. "Was this better? Suffering alone until they're gruesomely murdered just in time for me to swoop in and collect the bodies?"
"Buffy, I may have some serious depth perception issues, but I can see with my one Xander eye everything you've been doing." His smile was soft and, most of all, forgiving. "Yes, every trip to bury another girl but also every training session you teach halfway around the world and further. Every visit to touch base with a slayer that went back to their family. Our worst situations were diverted by you, personally. You wear yourself thin trying to be everywhere at once."
Buffy tried to smile but it felt teary and tired, like she couldn't quite find the energy. "Some people might see that as very strategic running away."
"I've seen a lot of running away in my time, at least half of it by me, and I've never once seen you run away." He paused and his eye darted to the ceiling as he squinted. He looked back at her. "That one time you killed the love of your life to save the world and ran away withstanding."
Her mind reeled at the reference, tumbling down a rabbit hole that felt like a lifetime. A brief glimpse of Angel popped into her head and a memory of her whole world falling away. Losing Angel used to be unbearable but now she couldn't remember the last time she was in LA and it baffled her how much it failed to faze her.
"You came back," Xander added quietly like it was an apology for an argument neither of them could remember. "You know, there's this saying from some old, smart chicken guy."
She was definitely teary now; she could feel her eyes stinging. "Xander-"
"This life isn't easy. A lot of the time, there are battles you just can't win. So, we regroup and there's nothing wrong with that, but we don't run. We don't give up." He stopped, his gaze full of something bright and endearing when he raised it back to hers. "Do you know why it's good that Maddie's angry with you?"
She felt like a child for a moment asking a question to understand how her world worked. "Why?"
"Because she didn't stop caring - and neither did you. Out of a thousand faces you've seen and taught, you only let one be a kid a little bit longer." He held up a single index finger.
Maddie was the first girl they found that young. She was certainly the first they took that young, given her incident to another girl at her school. She could still picture the face of Maddie's mother even if the name escaped her. She still could remember lunches with this eight year old little girl who still had baby teeth and talked about math and her brother. It was another three years before they got someone younger than Maddie, but Nora was at least just turning eleven.
For two years, she was just a kid and too young to be anything else. Under any other circumstances she could've stayed for those two years in Illinois before it came time for her to train. If not for the girl she attacked, her life might've been much easier. If not for her ex, Riley, and his commandos, there would've been a trial and juvenile hall and, one day, prison.
That might still be the case, a long time from now. There was no jail for the supernatural. Prison was basically rehab according to Faith - she had to decide to be there and stay there. An eight year old couldn't do that.
Buffy did what anyone with a conscience would've done: she looked after a child with nowhere to go.
Xander kept his stare on his hands for a long moment. "The day she left, she still asked about you, why you weren't there and all. She always asked. She talked about you like-"
"Don't. I can't..." Buffy cut him off but had nothing more to say. She only needed him to stop before he said something worse. She refused to hear the word. "I can't be that. Dawn's my family. You and Willow and Giles are my family. That's it."
"But what I don't get is you're still here. You've carried more on your shoulders in fifteen years than most do in ten lifetimes and you're still worried enough to ask me about this one girl." Xander's voice was soft and pleading. Even if Buffy couldn't be a parent, she was beginning to think Xander already saw himself as one. "It's okay to care, Buff. We all have so little to actually be happy about, so if you already care about a kid you helped raise, why not add a few extra happy memories before the bell tolls and there's just another body?"
His stare drifted away from her and back to the tv, hitting the play button on the remote. Buffy wondered briefly if it was too hard for him to talk about, that he was dealing in a Xander type way. Her heart hurt for him they same way it did in the hospital after what Caleb did to him and on the bus as they drove away from Sunnydale-shaped hole in the world and they commiserated over the losses they both felt from that fight.
It's okay to care, is a lesson Buffy's had to learn and relearn so many times; she felt every heartbreak but there was never a time she completely allowed herself to give into every last shred of that pain. That's what it felt like - giving in. Xander, on the other hand, always seemed to welcome it. He felt all of it even when he had no right. Even when it made Buffy so incredibly pissed off at him. His heart was big and open and, despite how it sometimes made his razor sharp wit something venomous, it made him as much a hero as anyone there.
She threw the blanket off her legs and stood, stretching her limbs. She thought to make a comment on how good the show was but it wasn't really her thing and he'd see right through anything she'd say. Instead and patted her pockets down for her phone, which wasn't in any of them. She'd try in the morning, maybe. She'd leave a message like it was natural. Maybe she'd even try apologizing again.
Buffy gave Xander a curious stare and went to leave, to think about what she could possibly do and sleep on it.
"She's a good kid. Not the easiest to talk to, but..." Xander said and Buffy turned back to him. "Look, I'm not asking you to be her parent, just...don't be nothing."
Her eyes shot to the floor and back up to him, a sheepish but grateful smile pulling at her lips. "Thank you."
"It's what I'm here for." He shot her one last grin before going back to his show.
Buffy headed to the top floor, to her room where she'd get some rest and try again tomorrow. First, though, she'd say a quick 'hey' to the girls training and do her best to remember every single name.
☽ † ☾
Cruciamentum.
An ugly word by all counts. A disgusting purpose. Something she didn't want to know and, by all counts, should be lost to time. Of course, there was no way the new Watcher's Council would know if a former student took anything - considering all of the previous files no longer existed. No way to know that Buffy Summers wasn't the last one that poison reached. She knew this about them, the original Council, but she couldn't bring herself to her Granddad. She didn't have it in her; all she could be was disappointed and disgusted.
Max watched her hands for a long while, her uncle's words circling her brain like an angry swarm of wasps. She stood up here and there to pace and chance a peek at the her phone, but not her actual phone. Her work phone, with a California area code. It was probably a good idea Madeline didn't just ask for her number. Her method, though? Still uncalled for.
She waited in Allison's room and knew already that this would be a mistake. Allison would see her there and follow through were her alarming threats and that would be it. Max didn't let herself actually believe that. She wanted to believe the girl in the photo in the HQ database was the real Allison and the one she met was the result of grief. It had a way of doing that.
It was about ten minutes of nonstop panic until the door swung open, when it became something tangible. When Allison noticed the movement and her eyes blazed. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"
"I-"
Allison closed the distance, met her at eye level, and hissed, "Get. Out."
Max took a breath, her nerves shot. "I can't do that. I came here for a reason."
"Really? What's that?" Allison circled Max, smooth and cat-like. "You never called or wrote, so I guess it's not about our family. If it's the Watcher thing again, you seemed smart enough to get the hint."
Allison had placed herself on the other side of Max, who was now closest to the door. Max didn't leave, but instead gave her cousin a sympathetic expression. The same one her Grandmother gave the empty study whenever she stopped long enough in the hall to consider it. "I'm sorry about you're mother. I'm sorry you're grieving."
"Shut up," Allison bit back immediately.
"I was brought here for a reason," Max went on, trying to imitate her grandfather's calm and cool demeanor as she extended a hand toward Allison. She'd practiced this one first, chanting it over and over until she got it right. No chance of a mistake in such a tense situation. "Caerimonia, Minerva."
"What?" Allison asked.
"Saepio, Saepire, Saepsi. Saepio Impedimentum."
A wall began to spread between Max and Allison, see through aside from when it wavered and the violet hues formed like waves. Allison's eyes were horror-stricken and she tried to move through the barrier, which only formed more waved but didn't budge for her. "What the hell?!"
"I'm sorry," Max offered, chin up. "But you've got to listen to what I have to say."
"I don't have to do anything! You can't trap me here!" she was shouting and banging against the wall and grating the last of Max's nerves. "Let me out!"
Max took a braver step forward, knowing she had some time before the barrier would give out on its own. She kept eye contact as she would with anyone, with a look on her face she might've gotten from one of the stricter nuns in school. The look Mister Giles gave Faith Lehane when she strode into his classroom. Kinder than expected but harder than Max knew she could muster.
"I am a Watcher of the New Council, the guide, teacher, and mentor of The Slayer. As of this moment, the power of The Slayer runs through your blood, so you will listen." Max's words were quick, precise, and cutting - a tone she only used when she knew she was right and the other person was wrong. Allison's hands were on the wall like she thought of pushing but didn't want to look stupid. Max could work with that. "I don't know why this happened to you, but it did. So, as long as you are a Slayer, I will be your Watcher and I personally believe we should start exactly where you're lacking - with History."
Max walked closer, right up to Allison, terrified behind a steeled gaze she spent half of the past decade practicing. Allison stared down at her, jaw set as she stayed stock still behind the translucent wall. She must've already known her father was behind this and that her other grandfather wasn't home, which explained why she stopped shouting. No one would come to help her.
"Have you heard the story of the first slayer?" Max smiled slightly, smug in a way - if, for nothing else, to feel some semblance of control. "By our curriculum, you would've learned this when you were thirteen. So we have a lot of ground to cover."
Allison's eyes narrowed but she didn't speak.
"In the beginning, there was darkness..." Max recited it from memory, the first story she learned on her own. "From the earth came a creature with decaying flesh and sharpened teeth. It fed on a human, who fed on another human and so on. They were a blood borne virus, multiplying by the thousands and killing in droves. Men saw the demons of old as vengeful gods but these things were more than that - they were monsters with the faces of lost loved ones."
"So they made their own superhero." Allison shrugged, looking bored.
Max's brow furrowed. "No."
"No?" Allison sounded incredulous.
"They found a girl in their village, no older than you." Max felt the lump form in her throat, remembering Chris' words earlier and then her Grandfather. She grimaced. "They were Shamans, wise men, who chained her to the earth and forced the essence of a demon inside of her."
Allison became rigid and Max kept her level stare on her.
"They told her it was a sacred duty. They ordered her to fight for them and called it a gift," Max said, guilt beginning to uncoil in her stomach and rise up in her chest. "And she fought for them. She fought everyday of her life, alone. No friends. No family. No one. Not one person in her village even saw her as human enough to learn her name. And she died alone. So did the girl after her and the one after that and hundreds more."
Allison's hands were in fists, knuckles white.
"Being the Slayer was a curse men forced on her. To bear the burden of power and destiny alone can be nothing but a curse," Max was pleading now, through her story. She swallowed and wanted to reach for the cross, both a comfort and a common precaution, around her neck but kept her hands at her sides. "When Buffy Summers was called, it was a curse. It took her life in so many ways, in ways I can't imagine, but she was also the last slayer to carry the weight of the world by herself."
"And I'm not her. I'm not any of them! I'm not a vampire slayer at all. This isn't even what I-" Allison cut herself off, her voice on the brink of something but Max couldn't tell what yet. Rage, maybe - or terror. Her next sentence came out a growl. "This isn't me. I don't want it."
Max shook her head just barely, but a wave of relief washed over her. An answer was something. It was better than silence.
"You don't understand. Destiny is something that a Slayer will never be able to outrun, but it's more than a destiny or fate or prophecy," Max was forcing herself to go on and she could feel her head throbbing behind her eyes. She thought of Maddie and this fool's errand she was on. Max considered her own inclusion into it an olive branch. It was all very brave and very foolish, which were traits she expected from a Slayer in spades.
"You were given a shared experience and a shared history. You were given the same power that runs through the blood of thousands. You have the chance to know girls that understand how terrifying this life can be," Max kept going, hoping she as reaching something in Allison. Hoping for something positive. "The gift you were given has nothing to do with strength or skill. Those are the hard parts - learning what they mean and how to control them. The gift you were given is that you will never once have to bear that power alone."
Allison's jaw was set and Max saw the muscle working in her cheek.
"I... I will never know what it feels like to lose a mother like you lost yours." Max shook her head and slumped her shoulders, running low on words and time. "But that doesn't mean I've never lost family - family I wish we both had the chance to get to know."
She was shocked when she thought of her parents first. She thought of their faces frozen forever in old photos. She thought about how her father might've said something similar to his mother. She thought about the promise she made to her mother every night that she would protect her future ward no matter what and how she'd might not be able to fulfill it as of tonight.
The next face she remembered wasn't as much of a surprise. The memory of her Grandfather was the ghost that followed her everywhere. She saw so much of that stubbornness in Allison that it frightened her.
"You're right. You will never know. You could never know!" Allison shouted, arm trembling again. Max saw this as a good sign, a sign she was getting through to her no matter how much it hurt.
"My mother was a Slayer and my father was a Watcher. I was doomed to live most my life without them. It was practically destiny I'd grow up without a mother. I'll never know her voice or her smile. I'll never know," Max found herself saying out loud. "All I will ever know is she was good and she was strong and she died one year older than I am now."
Something caught in her throat and she didn't know she was crying until she felt the first tear streak down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.
"It isn't justice. It's not fair. And there are some days I would love to set this whole bloody world on fire for taking them from me, so much that I think I'm afraid of how ugly that could make the power I worked so hard for. Is that how you want this to end?"
Allison's head had turned away and her gaze was on her feet.
Max's teeth were gritted now and she fought for a moment to command the authority she grew up watching in others. "You're not answering me. How do you want this to end?"
Allison stayed quiet but turned back to Max with a look of near-recognition, like finding something she might've thought she lost.
"I see. I suppose I understand." Max took a step back, clenching and unclenching her hands rapidly. She finally wiped her cheek, a rough, childish motion she couldn't help. Her momentum had gone, her energy lost. "Gerard is wrong, Allison. There are demons in Slayers, but it is not an exclusivity. There are demons in every person. They come out when we choose to abuse our power. Men like Quentin Travers and Gerard Argent spend their lives sick with it, consumed by their own demons. I imagine ours may one day look like theirs. Solvite."
The wall between them dissolved into the floor and Allison glanced up at Max, shocked.
Max met her eyes, warmth edging back into her voice. She hoped Allison had the potential to become something great. She'd like to know the girl smiling in the picture she was shown. "Luckily for us, we still have time to choose."
"Choose what?" asked Allison, her voice on wavering.
"To give in to it and let it be your master, fight against it and risk absolute destruction, or learn to understand the demon inside and how it can work with you." Max dug through her bag and grabbed the stake at the very bottom, tossing it Allison. She caught it with little effort and examined piece of wood like it might show her something she was looking for. "I already have my answer. What do you choose?"
Allison's head shot up, her hand holding the stake like it felt natural.
☽ † ☾
They drove. They talked.
How did it start again?
"Alright! Where do you wanna go?"
"Nowhere."
"Um. You want to keep circling the block?" He kept his eyes on the road and gestured with one hand. "Or is this more of an existential kinda nowhere?"
She turned to him, her tone sheepish. "Can we just drive for a while? I don't want to go anywhere specific right now."
And he said yeah, because of course he said yeah. He liked the lull to her voice, a content kind of fatigue like a cat sleeping the afternoon away. Like she was curling up in the center of a big patch of sun. When he caught a glimpse of her in the passenger seat some time later, he noticed the slump of her shoulders and her head tilted away like she could fall asleep. It was so different from the girl in the leather jacket he picked up in the cemetery months ago. The sharp edges softened along with the glares.
She was quiet and kept her attention on the window which gave him the chance to look at her a little more openly without having to explain himself. Her skin kept its sallow tint from the night before, but he would take this over her half dead again. He preferred talking to her and, more than that, what he wanted to do was make her laugh.
It was about twenty minutes of complete silence and Stiles looping around the mall parking lot five times before he said anything.
"So, what's your Watcher like?" He turned a corner and listened to make sure the buzzing hiccuping sound coming from the engine wouldn't result in it falling out of the jeep mid-drive. "Your actual Watcher."
"Xander?" she asked, caught off her guard, and something about saying that name made her stop and turn back to the window. "He's...weird. A nerd. Tells a lot of jokes I don't get. Doesn't know when to stop talking."
Stiles couldn't tell if she was just making fun of him - not that likely in her state but possible - or if that's really what her Watcher was like. What if that was the reason she started opening up to him? Would that be a bad thing or would it just be weird?
"Did you want to add anything?" Stiles asked, trying to make it into a joke at his own expense - something he was great at. "Paranoia? Emphatic gesturing? A tragic and all consuming Fantasy MMO addiction?"
Maddie turned to him, eyeing him curiously but something in her gaze suggested she was beginning to understand. He wasn't sure if the expression she was making was horror or embarrassment. Possibly both.
"Yes. Sometimes. And no. He's more of a D&D guy." Maddie gave a slight smile and shook her head. "But no, I'm serious. That's what he's like."
Maybe that was it; maybe she just liked being around him because he was familiar. It was a little depressing, actually, but he tried not to show it and tried focusing on the road.
She cleared her throat. "Kind, too. Like, this one time...I was nine and the older girls made fun of the way I did a back flip. I got so mad that-"
Her voice stopped and he heard her release a harsh breath, followed by a long silence.
"What?" he finally asked. "You got so mad that... C'mon, tell me."
"It's stupid." It was just above a whisper, a defeated noise.
"Yeah, because there's nothing duller than stories about training to become a mythic warrior." He grinned and hoped she was, too. "Please? I'll share a stupid story from when I was a kid next, I promise."
There was another long beat and he thought she'd completely shut down until her low, begrudging response came. "...I got so mad, I practiced back flips outside in the castle courtyard for hours everyday for the whole month of October. Even in the rain."
"Castle?" he said, hitting the brake a little harder than he meant to when they got to a red light. "Wait, you lived in a castle?"
"In Scotland. Yeah."
"Did you get a Hogwarts letter too?"
"Shut up." She knocked her shoulder into his, which he knew would take some extra effort in the car. "It was still really muddy outside that day and my foot slipped mid-landing. I fell back on a rock that fractured and sliced open my arm."
Stiles grimaced as the light turned green and he ease onto the gas pedal, remembering the mess that her ribs were the night before. "Why am I not surprised that a story you're telling involves blood?"
"I started screaming and there was Xander, running out into the rain and picking me up. While the wound was being dressed, he didn't even ask why I was out there. I think he knew for a while." He could hear the both the smile and the regret in her voice, which only made him want to do something. Take her hand. Say something comforting. Anything. "He told me I didn't need a perfect back flip to be a good slayer. I didn't need to be the strongest or the fastest or the most coordinated to save the world. All I needed was to ask myself was if the thought of helping at least one person was worth getting back up and trying again, even if I fail."
Stiles glanced at her for the briefest moment. "Is it?"
"Every time."
There was a sadness there, he noticed. A hurt he didn't think he was supposed to see. His eyes went back to the road. "Sounds like a good guy."
"The best."
It was another long while before either of them acknowledged the quiet. Stiles liked it and hated it in equal measure. It was comfortable. Easy. Still, he wished there was something more he could add, some consoling words or a joke to lighten the mood. He was at a loss, which was a rarity, but something about Maddie's mood made the words evaporate before he could hold onto them.
He noticed that the trees on either side of the road had increased and realized he actually was heading somewhere specific, even if it wasn't a conscious decision.
"So..." Maddie began.
Stiles blinked and his eyes darted between her and the road. "What?"
"You owe me a story."
"I have no clue what you're talking about. None."
"Stiles," she said with an almost endearing annoyance. "We made a deal."
"Did we?"
She was glaring at him and he didn't have to look to know it. She didn't say another word and at least a whole minute passed.
"Fine!" He rolled his eyes and turned down the path to the preserve. "Ugh...lemme think..."
"I'm sure you have some embarrassing kid story considering how-"
"-considering how embarrassing of a person I am. Haha. You're funny. And yes, I have plenty." The skyline was a rich orange and pink through the trees. Sunset would be soon, which meant the day was ending and he had a game to get to in a little while. "Not the point."
"And most feature Scott."
"Are we predicting things again?"
"Predicting means I don't know but I can sense it. These aren't predictions; they're facts." He turned to her for a split second and her stare was narrowed on his for a moment like she was analyzing something there, but she huffed and rolled her eyes a moment later. "I'd also bet there's one or two just about you trying to impress Lydia."
"Also, not the point," he replied, his stare back on the darkening road. It was only another second before he reanalyzed the expression she gave him just a moment ago. Something familiar about it. "Wait."
"What now?" she asked.
Maybe he was making things up in his head. Maybe he was reaching for something that didn't exist, but the day was waning and Stiles was not known for keeping his feelings to himself. If there was any chance he was right and what he was hoping for was actually there, he'd take it in a heartbeat. "Are you jealous?"
"Am I what?" Her voice was slightly louder and incredulous.
"Jealous!" he repeated, also louder. "You've heard of the emotion?"
"Jealous of who? You?" she sputtered, her whole body nearly turned in his direction. "I don't actually have a crush on Lydia. And I'm not jealous of anyone."
It wasn't a complete omission. It was a caged animal response. The more she spoke, the more he wanted to push. He'd finally made it to the end of the path and stopped where he typically did. He threw the transmission into park, took off his seat belt, and turned to her the same way she was turned to him. "Which leads me to something else."
Her eyes grew wide, horror struck. "Stiles, whatever you're about to say-"
"Is absolutely important. Thanks for saying that, Mads. I completely agree." He folded his arms and his eyes zeroed in on her, analyzing her reactions the same way he used to - with a massive amount of suspicion. "It's just that...you never brought up this stuff. Never. And as the closest thing you have to a best friend - no, I did not forget that - you'd think I merit some quality girl talk."
Her horror split into laughter as she covered her mouth. "...Girl talk?"
"C'mon, this is what best friends do! Did Johnny not ask you to the Sock Hop?" he asked with feigned sympathy. She laughed harder and it was the cutest thing he ever saw. "I am an expert at this! Stop laughing!"
"This is so dumb!" she said, catching her breath.
"Well, you know all about me liking Lydia," he said and felt weird saying it to her, despite having told anyone who would listen for years. He tried his best to keep it casual, friendly. He wanted answers but he also wanted her to keep smiling at him more. "So, say something. Any former boyfriends? Crushes? Current crushes?"
"Gods, I hate that word!" Maddie cringed and shook her head. "It's such a bad word. I mean, yes, I have. Two or three, ever."
"Boyfriend or crush?" he asked a little too quick.
"One boyfriend. Sort of." She shrugged and something about it was...off. Strange, even. "And a few crushes over the years."
"You've had a boyfriend before? But not, like, now, right?" God, he was obvious.
"Previous boyfriend. Dating in the past tense." Her voice got quiet again and she released a loud exhale like it was the only way to cut the tension from her reaction. "Are we done yet?"
"Not whatsoever. No crushes, then? Like, there's no one here that's even moderately attractive?" he asked, wincing inwardly at the use of the word 'here'.
Maddie raised a single eyebrow at him, her stare shifting ever so slightly. "It's California. There are a lot of people here that are at least moderately attractive. That's not what I gauge it on."
"Then what?" he shot back, receiving another curious look. "Hey, this is purely scientific and for your benefit. You tell me what you look for and maybe I can help you with dating in the future tense."
"I'm not here to date, remember?"
After her blunt response and a roll of her eyes, she left the car like that was the only way to stop the direction the conversation took. He got out as well, kicking the door closed and walking around the front of the jeep - his poor jeep he'd been driving for an obscene amount of time lately - to stand beside her. It was a problem though; he didn't know exactly how close he could stand next to her without making things even more awkward. At least being in the car made it easy.
"I know you're not here to date," he said, defeated and hoping a foot was a good distance. "It's just something fun. You can ask me the same question."
"Stiles, I already know what you look for." Maddie shot him a look and went back to staring straight ahead. "Five foot three, green eyes, fair-skinned, strawberry blonde."
"And you think that's it? That if I was attracted to someone else, I'd legitimately stop myself from asking them out because of Lydia?" he asked, watching her and maybe purposefully being obvious at this point. Maybe.
Maddie didn't look over. "Fine, whatever. What other questions do you have?"
Did you want to go out with me? "The guy you dated. Why did you like him?"
"I don't know if I did, actually," she said, that strangeness seeping back into her tone. She turned back to Stiles, who was busy trying to figure out what that expression on her face could possibly mean. She must've taken it as something disbelieving, and gave a soft, embarrassed laugh. "Seriously, I don't know. I mean he was really... He was ridiculously gorgeous."
That one stung, probably more than it should've considering they just got done talking about Lydia. He stuck to one part of what she said, though. "But you didn't like him?"
"I have no idea. He wasn't exactly the easiest person to talk to or anything. He mostly just complimented whatever I was wearing and made fun of everyone else." Her eyebrows furrowed like something in what she was saying confused her. "And I guess we made out a lot."
"...Okay." This is fine. I'm totally fine. "But you didn't like him?"
"I don't think he liked me either. It, um..." There was that expression again, a grimace. A wound that didn't heal quite right. "It ended bad."
He decided to veer the conversation back to something he could handle. "So, would you say you're looking for someone you can talk to?"
"Sure, I guess. But obviously I'm not looking," she added quickly. "Your turn. What do you look for?"
"Um." The breakneck change in subject to him gave him whiplash and he shook his head in an attempt to reorganize his thoughts, which never actually worked. "The, ah, talking thing, for sure. Attraction has to be there. And I'd have to be able to talk to them about all the supernatural stuff."
"That's gonna limit your options," she replied, maybe an attempt at joking. He could never tell.
"Yes, thank you. I'm aware," he shot back, hoping it sounded more playful than annoyed. "And I guess I'm okay with that. I think the key thing I would look for in this made up scenario is they'd have to take up more space up here than Lydia."
He tapped the side his temple and she snorted a laugh, short and blunt sound that made him consider what that sort of reaction meant.
"Is that humanly possible?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I wouldn't say it's entirely unlikely. It might even be more than likely."
When neither of them said anything, he didn't bother to fill the silence. He wondered what she could be thinking or if she gave his answer any thought at all.
"I wish you luck on your search," she said finally, her voice soft and hesitant as she met his gaze and gave a small, sad smile. She shouldered herself off the car and walked toward the edge of the cliff that looked over Beacon Hills. "Honestly, it's too bad I can't help you find that person."
Whatever subtext he couldn't identify disappeared in that second with her words. Alarm shot through him as he stood up straighter but didn't approach her. "What? Why?"
She turned around, arms folded as it took her longer than usual to answer. "...I can't stay. You know that, right?"
"I mean yeah, but..." he grumbled and blew out a breath. "Mission's not over. And there's always danger here."
"But the mission's going to end soon-" she said and her eyes widened for a second as his expression became a mask of confusion. "I-I think. It feels that way."
"Sure, this one might be ending soon, but..." He waved a hand to gesture to the entire town below. "Then something else will pop up that's more evil than kanimas or vampires and what if we need The Slayer?"
"You have Scott. And Derek, honestly." There was a bite to this reply, something bitter or angry. He knew she was right but there had to be something more to stop this conversation from taking this terrible turn. "You won't need me."
She said it so plainly, so matter of fact and it made his heart ache on her behalf that she could actually think something so terrible. It hurt more for being directed at him specifically, like it wasn't her place in the pack that was being questioned but the place she made in his life. He couldn't keep the hurt out of his voice when he asked, "Do you really think that? Seriously?"
Her eyes shifted to the ground, a look of shame passing over her features.
"This is what a slayer does, though. They go to a town and stay to protect it." He didn't really know that, to be fair. There was no way to know that. All he had was the information he gathered from their hellride to Sunnydale and a cracked picture frame holding a photo of three teenagers. It wasn't the best example, considering the state of the town, or lack thereof, but he had nothing else to reach for. "That's what Buffy did, right?"
"That was different," Maddie shot back like she could read his thoughts. "You know that was different."
"Well, maybe that's the thing," he said with a shrug as he tried to form words in a way that wouldn't make her close off again. He wasn't sure if he could handle that right now. "Beacon Hills isn't exactly a Hellmouth. I mean, we don't really have new monsters popping up, you know, every week. We don't even have vampires, on a freaking technicality."
Maddie was looking at him again, the space between her eyebrows creasing but not in the hard, distant way he was used to. Maybe it was a trick of the light - he was almost sure that was it - as the sun sank into the tall trees and their shadows stretched in uneven patterns over both of them. Half of her face was shadowed because of this but a long sliver of orange and pink light shone on the other side. He was so used to the almost-black pit of her irises, dark holes that were both horribly empty and full of something he didn't completely understand. This was different; there was color there, reflecting light. It wasn't a bright color by any means and it was still brown, albeit darker than his. A richer, deeper color, he decided.
This was Maddie, at her core; both her shadows and her light going on forever, never mixing or fading softly in the middle, but instead cut into hard lines and constantly waging war on each other. Maybe some days, like today - like right now, the fighting stopped and she wore them equally because she wasn't quite whole otherwise. Something about that made her more to him. It was dumb and poetic and he would never be able to explain it to her the way he thought it. Maybe that's fine, he thought. Maybe there's time to figure it out.
His mouth was dry and he cleared his throat when he realized he hadn't completed his explanation. "What I'm trying to say is, uh... There's still a lot here. Hunters. Kanimas. Whatever else might show up tomorrow or months from now. It doesn't feel like it's ending anytime soon, I guess. Like, something bigger and badder is already on its way. Maybe Beacon Hills needs a Slayer."
The crease in her forehead relaxed and her stare widened only slightly, so subtly that he might not have noticed if he hadn't been watching her so carefully. Her lips parted just a fraction and he was so sure that she was about to say something but her mouth closed and she turned away, looking ahead again. Not at the changing sky but below to the town as streetlights began to flicker awake. He wasn't saying it right and that just made him getting flustered. There were thousands of Slayers; any one of them could protect the town. That wasn't the point.
He huffed, chest rising and falling in one quick and annoyed motion. "And maybe Lydia needs someone who'll be honest with her and, I don't know, maybe Allison needs someone who gets what's happening to her. Maybe Scott needs someone as strong as him that he can actually rely on in a fight. Maybe I need-"
Her head whipped back around, eyes still wide and freezing him mid-sentence.
The first answer he came up with was both the easiest to think of and the hardest to verbalize. I need you to stay. I like you so much - but I haven't worked out how much and I need you here when I do. There was no way he would say it because he'd worry that she'd ask too many questions or reject such a flimsy, half-baked reason and he wasn't sure if he could tell her in a coherent way, anyway. I need you here. "I need...someone who's willing to listen to my nerd rants. Possibly someone who's actually seen Star Wars."
She smiled wide and looked back down at Beacon Hills. It was almost enough kill him right there. He grinned, not sure what else he could do. This could be enough. That smile was more than enough. There was one more thing that had lodged in his throat, though. Something that he needed to say before the moment passed and whatever was going to happen after this would creep up to meet them. "That's the thing though - you're already part of the pack. You were right there for almost everything, shoulder to shoulder with us. Maybe you belong here."
There was a long silence, a drawn out beat. He wondered if he said the wrong thing.
Then, he was sure he did because her shoulders began to shake and her chest rose and fell quicker and quicker like she was running out of air.
She placed a hand over her mouth and a soft but choking sob cut through the air.
☽ † ☾
Maddie couldn't stop it.
Something had cracked inside her chest and it was too late.
"You belong here."
Lydia, Allison, Scott, and Stiles. Her friends. A pack.
Stiles. That idiot.
Why did he have to do this? Why now? Why did he give her this?
Why was this the thing that broke her?
A dam had split right down the middle in her mind, a wall that she had spent so much time building and tending to. A wall that started with Buffy and was fortified with Marie. A wall between the whatever would eventually kill her and everything that could ever make her afraid of dying. Now, she wasn't sure if she was so horribly afraid to die or if she was already in mourning for what she was leaving.
She couldn't see the town anymore; it was all deformed blobs of darkness and orange light on the other side of cloudy glass. Her town, when she stopped thought about it. Not Wheaton or Aberdeen or San Francisco. Beacon Hills, for all its flaws, had become hers. Maybe it was even hers in the same way that Sunnydale was Buffy's. She met her friends here, just like Buffy met Willow and Xander. Not friends like Marie, because no one would ever replace Marie. Instead, something new. Not a team or a squad - a pack.
This was hers. This was where she would die.
The universe looked over her and she could almost hear it mocking her. She would die for them. She was going to die for them.
There was no way she could do this. There had to be something else. A way out. A back road to get her to the end without facing the middle.
How hard had she worked for her very first mission on her own? When did she decide that the one thing she would be good at in this life was fighting? When did she start reaching for her ax more than a hand to help her up, to steady her? She couldn't remember. What she remembered was being angry at a second grade bully. She remembered being hurt and humiliated for being good at something. She remembered asking her brother what she did wrong and cried harder when he said, "Nothing."
She never asked that again after she left her family. She didn't ask it when a ten year old Marie coerced a group of girls to attack her that first night. She hadn't done anything but cry, but that was enough. Even when Maddie was strong, she was the weak one.
She thought about how Jack would've hated Marie. She couldn't remember his face quite right. It was a memory that felt too out of reach, replaced with shadows. She wondered if he had a good day today.
After all this time, she was still asking what she did wrong to deserve this but she couldn't stand to hear a response like Jack's.
There was more to do. More to see. There was another day coming. The sun had set on this day and she realized she missed it so desperately, wishing for a few more minutes. Dry sobs racked her chest and she closed her eyes, feeling the tears stream down her cheeks.
Did Marie think about this? Did she think about how the world would keep turning without her?
I don't want this. I don't want this life. This shouldn't be me!
"I quit. I resign. I- I'm fired. You can find someone else..." It was an echo on the wind. A horrible mirror. There were no loopholes, though. There was no way to come back. The hard truth was she wasn't Buffy. Girls like her were victims of circumstance, not heroes. A poor kid from the bad part of town, tortured to the point of breaking and picked up in someone else's hurricane. A life like that faded quietly and no one noticed when it was gone. Girls like her didn't change the world.
Her whole body shook as she gasped for air and her knees gave out from under her. She would fall to the ground in a sobbing heap and beg the universe for something different. If begging would spare her, she was convinced that she would do it. She wanted to beg for her life and her sobs turned into something angry.
She didn't fall.
She was against something solid and warm and arms were already wrapping around her shoulders. It wasn't a blip or nothing. It wasn't a mistake. Stiles was holding her up and she only cried harder, the air leaving her lungs in one fell swoop. They both lowered slowly to the ground and sat there in the grass as Maddie pressed closer to him, curling against his chest and taking big, noisy gasps of air between sobs. There in the quiet, she tried to stop crying but felt something in her break apart every time she allowed herself to listen to the steady thumping on the other side of his chest.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not like this. Not now.
There would always be something. An evil to stop, a vampire to dust, a monster threatening the apocalypse. When one was defeated, another would always be there. No matter how many slayers there were, the outcome never changed.
She stupidly tried to imagine another universe where she'd already been here, where this was already home. She tried to imagine growing up with Scott and Stiles and finding a body in the woods just like they described. She tried to imagine being a McCall or a Hale or an Argent or a Martin. She wanted to picture a million or more different scenarios that began any other way but they all led her back here, where she was now, being held by the boy she wasn't ready to leave behind. In every one of them, they added up the same. They ended with her dead or something worse. In those worlds, she wasn't a slayer but evil still found its way to her. It never mattered. The end would've come somehow and it would've gotten her here in this exact moment, no matter what.
Maybe that was it. Maybe she couldn't have one without the other. Maybe finding this life and losing it so soon was exactly how it was meant to go.
Maybe this was all she got.
Maybe it was the closest she'd ever get to a happy ending.
She was so grateful for Stiles; he didn't ask any more questions or push. He sat with her as she continued to cry, letting every piece of the past year out in one go. Letting her whole body rest while the weight of the world crashed down on her in one helpless moment.
All she could do was hope that the next day would be a kind one to everyone who would make it through the night.
☽ † ☾
Maddie didn't say anything on the way to Lydia's block. Time was short and she didn't have any more of it to explain; she knew Stiles wanted to ask what happened back at the preserve and wished there was a way to thank him for not asking. They let the silence envelope them and Maddie let her tears dry as she took her last trip in Stiles' jeep. It was stupid to get emotional over but she was suddenly emotional about everything, which was a feeling she didn't miss. She caught Stiles' reflection in the window and quietly watched him for an extended moment, a few minutes at least. She wanted to laugh at how childish she was to fight against things like this before, but she wasn't sure she could do something like laugh right now.
They parked at the end of the street, the same way they did the night they found out about the barrier at the edge of town. From here, all the lights on the top floor seemed to be off, which would make it easy to sneak in and change, considering there wasn't anywhere else she could go with how little time she had.
There was hardly a chill in the air when she opened the door and hopped out with her messenger bag and the duffel she picked up from the Argents'. The street was silent after she closed the door but she was jolted out of her skin when she heard the driver's side door close as well. She knew she wouldn't get away without saying anything but she was hoping for it.
In a blink, he was in front of her, hands shoved in his pockets and a pensive stare directed at Maddie.
"Sorry I won't be able to make it to the game," was the first thing she could think to say and a terrible icebreaker. Her voice was raspy, nasally, and a little quieter than she expected. More things she didn't miss about her emotional outbursts. She had a hard time meeting his stare and wished she didn't have to keep any of this from him. "Slayer stuff."
"I get that. Besides, it's probably good you won't be there considering Gerard and Jackson aren't you're biggest fans and I'm pretty sure they'll be front and center." He looked as defeated as his voice led her to believe. She knew if she didn't say anything, he would ask and she wasn't sure she could say if no in that situation. Her head kept telling her she didn't have time to juggle social engagements with the town's impending doom. He nodded his head to nothing in particular - maybe in the general direction of the school. "I should get going. Coach needs to do his Independence Day speech and wants the whole team there for it. It's a thing."
"Independence Day? Like, the movie?" she asked, eyebrows raised high, then low in confusion. "What does that have to do with Lacrosse?"
"Absolutely nothing." He laughed but it quickly died and he shrugged. "Not that it matters. I don't actually play."
There it was again, that ache - that need to say something comforting when she was never good with those types of things. He was right; her only modes were secretive and brutal.
"Well, if you do, I..." She paused, searching for something better than she could muster. Something kind and sincere but there were things she couldn't be, even for him. "I'm sure you'll be great."
Stiles' eyes searched hers and there was that strange, exposed feeling again. He must've known she was trying and maybe that was enough to see through her. He wet his lower lip and she made a point to act like she didn't notice. "Hey, Mads? I was wondering... If you have time after the game, did you want to meet up?"
"Why?" was the only word she could think of and, therefore, the only word to leave her throat.
"To, you know...hang out. Maybe talk about stuff. Like the stuff from earlier or..." he started and stopped, glancing from her to the ground and back to her. "You and me stuff."
An alarm was going off in her head. A siren. Something high-pitched and wailing that wiped out any other noise and made it hard to remember normal functions. Like talking. Or blinking. Or not gaping at someone. She was frozen for a long moment and fought against the tide that came with the sound. He waited there, open and curious and pleading with her. She thought of the phantom woman in the fog at dawn just outside the castle, waiting for someone that was never going to find her. She should've been happy he said it. She would've been, any other day. Instead, his patience made her wonder how long he would wait for a ghost.
She lowered her gaze to her shoes.
"I mean, we don't have to," he said, his words quick and upbeat. "Totally up to you."
"I..." she started and the rest of it got jammed in her throat. She scanned the block, wishing for something to focus her thoughts. "I got a lot going on tonight."
"Oh. Okay." There is was - the drop in his tone. The disappointment. He cleared his throat and she could just barely see the subtle shaking of his head out of the corner of her eye, like he was trying to shake something out. "Yeah, that's uh...that's fine."
Her eyes darted back to him and she could see the rejection, the spiral that forever went inward. The furrow of his eyebrows and the slow, defeated rise and fall of his chest, and the free fall from jumping into the unknown with no one there to catch you. No, don't do that! Don't think that! That's not it! I promise that's not it!
"No," she said and cringed at her own voice. He gave a slow blink as his eyes focused back on hers. "I mean, I do think we should talk about...some stuff. I gotta handle some mission things tonight. But after, maybe?"
I'm going to hell.
"Some stuff?" That tension in his brow was still there. "Like...good stuff or bad stuff?"
"Personal stuff, I guess." She swallowed and struggled with her nerve to keep her eyes locked with his. She wished the sun wasn't down yet for a lot of reasons, but, for right now, because she missed the gold and amber she could see there in his irises when the sun was still out. She wanted what she was saying to be true. She wanted it more than she wanted anything in a long time. "Depends on how you feel."
"About what?"
"Me," she had no trouble forcing out. She wasn't great with tiptoeing around what she meant and chastised herself for even saying it, even if that goofy grin that was beginning to take over his face made it worth it. She wanted to remember this, something good to take with her just as much as the cross in her pocket. "You should go. Don't want to miss that speech."
"I mean, I don't have to go." He shrugged with a little more confidence than she was used to him having.
Maddie smiled but only slightly. "Will your dad be there?"
"Yeah."
"Scott? Jackson? A couple dozen innocents?"
"Okay, alright! I'm going," he laughed, holding his hands up in defeat. "Guess we all got our battles to face."
She nodded and the sinking feeling returned. "Guess we do."
"Yeah. Text me later and I'll pick you up, okay?" He moved forward awkwardly but stopped, arms slightly out. He dropped them, put his hands back in his pockets. She wasn't sure what he was doing but she could tell how light his mood was from how sporadic his movements became.
"Right." She watched him, a toothy smile opening up her face for a moment as if it was all she could possibly give him, as she stayed in place for her own good. "Good luck."
He shuffled backwards, maybe not ready to turn away. "You too, Diana."
She rolled her eyes as he got in the jeep and the engine revved. He waved through the window, which she returned before he turned around and drove off. It was both a relief and the worst thing she felt in a long time; the kind of wound you don't recover from. All the good feelings seemed to go with him.
Maddie didn't take long in the house once she sneaked in through Lydia's window. Lydia was already long gone but her window was open, like she expected Maddie to use it.
In fact, she knew the window was open specifically for her because there was something laid out on the bed, pristine and soft and black as the darkest parts of her. There was still a tag on it, but written over it in sharpie was her name.
After dropping her things, she changed her clothes and put on her makeup at Lydia's vanity.
She tore off the tag and slipped on the brand new leather jacket, feeling some semblance of herself before she took the cross necklace out of her other jacket and hooking the newly fixed clasp. She appreciated the help from Argent with the new clasp; that and the other thing she left his home with.
After she packed her smaller messenger bag with weapons, she took out a small wooden box with the key already stuck in it. She opened the top and gently took out the full and capped syringe. Something alarmingly calm washed over her in that moment.
With the needle still in hand, she turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, an image of the girl from last winter in a dress she didn't want to be in superimposed over her like a ghost in her head. Here she was in jeans and the top she traveled to Beacon Hills in under her new jacket with Buffy's cross glinting in the light. Pieces of who she is and who she used to be coming together in a puzzle she was beginning to understand. The Slayer. Maddie Hayes. Maybe they weren't different people.
If I'm going to die, let me go out as the best version of me.
She found the right contact on her phone and hit call. Someone answered, a frantic British woman's voice that she didn't hear the words to. "Northwest edge of Beacon Hills Preserve. There'll be a clearing with a discarded bag. Find it. You'll know what to do."
She hung up immediately without a confirmation.
"Time for some fireworks," she mumbled under her breath and, somehow, it gave her a little peace.
She gathered only what she needed and she was gone.
☽ † ☾
Maddie was running.
She thought of the power that once coursed through her veins and how often it scared her over the past nine years of her life. She thought of the girls just like her, with the same fears and, ultimately, the same destination. Broken bodies and bloodied fists. Each of them battleborn, and each preparing for an early grave.
Into each generation, a slayer is born. The countdown in her head wound down like twine unspooling. A rapid tumble until there was nothing left.
There was no telling how far she was from the school or how close she was to the edge of Beacon Hills Preserve. Nothing to tell her how long she was running but she kept going, every step an ellipsis on a sentence she didn't get to finish. "You're freaking Wonder Woman."
A stake, a crossbow, and an ax all jostled around her messenger bag, tugging at her shoulder and neck. Her side ached and felt as though it was about to tear open again. Her other shoulder felt like it was on fire every time she moved her arm too much. The phantom itch of the scar on her stomach nagged at her, now more than ever before - the wounds of a soldier ravaged by an endless war, but that wasn't quite right. Maybe the markings of a girl who died a little everyday, each a story of how the rest of her survived.
The trees cast blurred shadows on her skin and her legs begged her to stop, the muscles burning and aching. Twigs and leaves crunched under her boots, a speeding percussion in her ears. A broken clock ticking too quickly. She was rasping, her breathing becoming more and more ragged. If she ran, she'd have time to spare. Time.
"If I were you, I would be using my power to help the people I care about, not use it as an excuse to push them away."
She tripped, stumbling and only barely catching herself on a thick tree trunk. There were only a few more feet before she reached the clearing and she wondered if she'd be able to see the monsters through the thick brush if she squinted. She sucked in a breath and coughed, her throat unbearably dry as she clutched one hand to her chest.
The stillness brought everything back. The breeze hit her sweat coated skin and she wrapped her jacket tighter around her. Would Lydia wait for her tomorrow or would she know? The chill reminded her of everything that she was leaving, the shadows of a life she never wanted and the stars that she couldn't reach.
"That's the life of a Slayer. That's what happens. A lot of the time all you have is you and I can't spare you from that."
This was not how she wanted to talk to Buffy. This wasn't how she was going to gain any semblance of solace. If anything, it was a way to blame herself for another mistake. To justify in some way that she deserved what was coming.
The cross weighed heavy on her chest, silver and gleaming in the moonlight. It was anchor, in a way, to something she needed so desperately right now: a connection. She wasn't the first to do this and she wouldn't be the last. Both a comfort and a horrible reminder. She dug her phone out from a pocket on her bag as the light temporarily blinded her. She dialed a number she never called and shouldn't know by heart, raising the brick to her ear.
One ring.
Maddie was still gasping for air, pain shooting through her lungs and her healing wounds.
Two rings.
The silence and the static felt like a door closing. This was better. This way, she didn't need to explain more than she wanted.
Three rings and nothing.
Her stomach coiled and she could feel herself gripping the phone so tightly that it was moments from being smashed to pieces in her hand, despite being the only thing stopping her from shattering into weak, defenseless shards, ready to be ground into the dirt - right where she always knew she'd end up. The effort it took to get her there was so little that it made her sick. "Considering the time you have left, no use hiding it. You're already dying."
The fourth ring sounded and she held her breath, the sounds of leaves rustling blending seamlessly with the white noise.
"Hey! I'm not here right now! Leave a message and I'll get back to you ASAP!"
The words were lead as her heart dropped like a stone into her gut when she heard the voice. Despite it being prerecorded, the warm familiarity stung. The levity in it felt like a better time that was so far from her. It reminded her of a kind woman comforting a weeping child, her voice soft and careful but heavy with guilt as she apologized over and over again. A lullaby for a damned child.
It reminded her just as much of her cheek stinging in a moment of horror but she tried to focus on something else, something better than anger.
The cross hanging from the thin chain around her neck felt weightier against her chest than before. When the long beep rang in her ear, she swallowed.
"Buffy." The name felt foreign on her tongue after all this time and fizzled out on her lips, taking her courage with it. Part of her felt like a child, lost in the dark with no way home. Worse, the other part of her felt like a shadow; like she was already a memory. Dark strands of hair spilled into her face and she didn't bother tucking them back as they hid her glossy eyes. Eyes that held so many horrors and suffered so many losses, that caged her fear and rage and stayed wide open on sleepless nights. She felt a sob threatening to choke her breath and held it down.
"Something's happened..." she forced out. "Something's wrong."
Moonlight spread across the few feet of field through the trees and the shadows of them reached across the grass like skeletal hands crawling out of the dark.
"I didn't call for backup. I, um- I think it's too late for that. I just wanted-" Her stomach knotted. Just wanted what? Forgiveness? To apologize? To tell you how much I screwed up? No, not quite any of that. She needed the truth from the only person who could possibly make it matter. The only person who knew what she was facing. "I know what's coming and I can't stop it. I just wanted some advice."
She gripped the bark of the tree with her free hand, trying to settle her nerves. Trying to think of anything but what she was leaving behind.
"I mean, um, I guess you'd know what..." She pushed the choking sob in her chest down again. She felt the syringe flush against her leg, the tape keeping it there like a vice. Her voice escaped, this time much quieter. "...what it feels like. Maybe then I won't be so afraid when it happens."
There it was again, always in her darkest moments. A hand reaching for hers somewhere in the dark. A voice on the wind, light and feathery, beckoning her. "Come on, Mads!"
Her throat was still dry but her skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat and her eyes were still brimmed with tears. She clenched her teeth and her fists as tightly as she could without breaking anything, to stop the scream that was threatening to tear through her.
"...I think I'm about to die."