Title: The Hanged Man's Bride
Author: TrinityLast
Email: trinitylast@wambtac.com
Rating: PG
Pairing: Buffy POV, Buffy/Ethan. *guilty look* What?
Improv: #61, The Charles Dickens Title Challenge
Disclaimer: I swear, I'm working on buying it...but the guy is asking this RIDICULOUS price...
Author’s Notes: Uhm...don't kill me?

************

They hung him.

Literally.

I always knew his spell casting would get him in trouble...well, more than it had. But...not for something like this. For something he did that was wrong. I always thought, if it was going to get him hurt...

...we were the only ones left. I couldn't take it away from him. Especially after the Final Battle. It's all we had to link us to who we were. It's all he had.

I thought it was hard to become a Slayer at fifteen. It's harder to become a normal person again at twenty-seven. I'd had super powers most of my life...and now they were gone. I felt useless. No longer special.

He helped me.

We were the only two left standing that day. Among the bodies of our friends, lovers, sisters...we were it. He held me as I cried. I never thought that I'd look at him the way I have for the last seven years. But I did. I fell in love.

But this is what happens when you play with magicks.

He helped me that day...got me inside, tended to my wounds. I lost my powers the moment the Hellmouth disappeared. I guess they really were linked to the demons. The evil was gone...and so was the power to fight it the wizards had stolen.

I fell...I couldn't hold myself up. The Slayer strength was the only thing keeping me in one piece. When I lost it, I almost blacked out.

He took me to his hotel room. Cleaned me up. Let me sleep. Fed me the next morning. I think he used some magic to heal me...but he never said, and I never asked. When he started healing other people later...

It's a little late to ask now.

There he is. I feel like I'm falling. I do. I can't feel the ground. They just...why would they do this? He was healing people. Trying to make amends for what he'd done before...well, before it all. And he was doing so well. Helping people.

But I suppose there are always leftover stigmas. They'd seen magicks here before. We should have checked for that before we came. But that was never even an issue for him...we heard people were dying, we came to help. It was something we could do. A way to still stand out. Be different. A way for us to still keep something from who we were before.

I've got some magicks. Not a lot...but I have his books. I can keep working on it. It won't be the same...learning without his soft accent in my ear, his hands guiding mine. But I will. I'll carry on his work. He would have wanted me to.

I'll leave. They don't know I have magick here, and I'm not going to let them find out. There's a train out tomorrow...not enough money for a plane. Money isn't a goal. Helping is. Keeping that part of me that was the Slayer is. I can do this. I can. I can live without him. I made it without everyone else...

But he kept me together. What if I can't?

I can. He'll always be with me. My Ethan.

I can do this.

END

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