Lar ||| Buffy & Angel

In the End (Through Eden Took Her Solitary Way Remix)
by Lar

EMAIL: HERE
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Three ways to die in L.A.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the Remix Redux ficathon 2006. Original fic -- "In the End" by Niuserre

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The building will stand forever, come what may. The Partners created it. The blood of a hundred men is in the mortar of each brick; the spells cast in the dirt of the foundation protect this place from fire, flood, earthquake. The entire city may fall to ruin - indeed it is foretold that it will - but the building will stand.

Eve knows this as well as she knows her own name, as well as she knows contract law and how to summon a Dryath and how to make a French Knot in needlepoint. Some things you learn and others you know.

Eve knows so many things.

She knows that the Partners will not let her go as easily as they want her to believe that they will. Hamilton and his thousand dollar suit and Mont Blanc pen might have calmly offered her the out and negated her contract on paper. But there are other contracts, the kind that were spoken, and they bind as tightly as a noose. She's lost her immortality clause but the others? Those will follow her to her death.

She closes her eyes in the darkness of the basement and listens to the creaking of the building above her. The building will not fall, it's impossible. And even as the ceiling above her head buckles, she recites the things she knows in her head to keep her strong.

Her name is Eve, her daddy was a school teacher, her brother Thomas died in his crib when he was two months old, her first lover was a girl named Sharon, and her last one was a man name Lindsey, and she loved them both. Sharon is gone, and Lindsey is gone, and the building is not going to fall. She is not going to die.

There's a sharp crack somewhere above her and a rumble like thunder shakes the walls. Eve puts her hand out to steady herself and slides down to her knees anyway, swaying and dizzy from the heat and the thickness of the air. It's as if she's trying to breath underwater, air no longer gas but something thick and solid, filling her lungs up and dragging her down. She coughs, reaches out with splayed fingers and touches something round and smooth. It moves under her hand and she looks up, eyes wide.

A boot, battered and blood stained, limed with concrete-dust like frost on grass blades. Jeans torn at the hem, streaked with something dark and sticky. A shirt that used to be white some other lifetime ago. The smile is the same though, smooth and easy. Blue eyes crinkled in the corners as he hunkers down in front of her and lets his hands hang between his knees.

"You came back," she tries to say but all that comes are gasps and the thick sound of a throat clogged with dirt.

"You knew I would," Lindsey tells her anyway and reaches out his hand. She looks at him, the only clear thing in the collapsing room that's filled with a haze of death. His shirt gapes, two holes in the front smeared with the black and sticky remains of the battle he fought and lost to the enemy he never suspected.

"Time to go, baby," he tells her. And she does.

=-=-=-=-=-

Or maybe this...

=-=-=-=-=-

Everyone else is running down the steps, screaming and shouting and panicked.

Eve is calm. She is serene. She is placid as a lamb as she walks the other way. Turns left when they turn right, walks up when they run down. She steps, one and two and three, up higher and higher. Carries herself above it all.

There is no reason to go down those steps. There is nothing waiting for her there, no fairytale ending, no reward for her sacrifice. No chance to make amends for any harm she has caused. She has no choice but to rise above it all.

She's done it before, climbed up from beneath the weight of mediocrity and invisibility. Clawed her way up from the faceless hordes of law school graduates, offered up something more than they could do, more than they would do. Sold her soul with a smile on her face and blood on her hands that she never much cared about washing away.

Up again now, because this is not the time to toss fate into the pit of the unknown. She looks so sweet and so vague and so out of touch but that bland expression hides a mind sharp enough to save herself time and time again. She smiles at that and glances at the numbers on the door as she makes another turn and climbs another flight of steps. One more to go. Just one more and she'll reach the top.

The roof of the office building affords her a beautiful view. The night is bright with arcing lights that seem to come from places ripped into the sky itself. Something heavy and dark swoops in low over the rooftops, the wind in its wake knocking her to her knees and tearing her stockings. Her knees bleed but it doesn't matter. She pulls herself up and breathes in the smell of copper, sulfur, smog -- Los Angeles meeting the closest Hell dimension.

The alley below the building is nothing more than a blur in the darkness between those streaks of white and orange, moving shadows filled with things that dodge and dart as they feed. There are screams and there are silences. Eve listens to it all as she climbs onto the ledge.

When she was a girl, they played games in the hayloft. When she was afraid to jump into the stacks below, someone always pushed her. She remembers that moment of breathless fear and wonder between the feel of the wood beneath her sandals and the bounce of her body meeting the hay when she landed, milliseconds of awe and the belief that she could fly. She never learned the trick of making the leap herself, always relied on someone giving her the shove she needed.

She looks down and takes a breath, murmurs a name that makes her smile. Eve steps off the ledge; she remembers fear and wonder.

=-=-=-=-=-

But most likely this...

=-=-=-=-=-

The office is thundering with the sound of silence as she waits for her answer. Angel just stands there, hands in his pockets, his face impassive. She remembers him over her, thrusting, grunting, sweating. She remembers his hands on her hips, big enough to crush bones. She remembers his mouth on her neck, blunt human teeth scraping her too-pale skin. She remembers him calling her another name when he came.

She remembers calling him something else, too.

"Where is he?" she repeats, her mouth dry and her heart racing.

"He's not coming for you," Angel says and turns away, walking towards the door, opening it.

"You-"

He interrupts her without even glancing back. "Time to go."

She stares after him, her throat working and her eyes dry. Stares and waits for Angel to come back and tell her where Lindsey is. The only thing she hears is the sound of his footsteps echoing down the hall away from her. Another empty place in her life where someone used to be.

"Go where?" she whispers and lets her knees give way, collapsing to the floor and waiting for the building to eat her up as it dies around her.

--end.



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