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doyle(Supposed to post this to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
femslash04 first, but I don't seem to have access...)
Title: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Buffy
Pairing: Anya/Tara
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
netgirl_y2k. I’ve read about 100 pages of The Lovely Bones, so there may be some influence on the afterlife here.
Anya hadn’t been religious in her second (and third) human life. Her life as Aud was too far away to recall what she’d believed would happen after death – probably, she thought, as sarcastically as she could make her thoughts here, that Olaf would earn a place in the halls of Valhalla and she would be fortunate enough to stay at his side, his devoted wife slash serving wench.
After she became human she’d sometimes thought fearfully about dying, but had been lulled into a false sense of security. Curse those life expectancy statistics! Though, she admitted, people who lived to the ripe and average age of seventy-six almost certainly didn’t live over a Hellmouth, nor did they face down the forces of the ultimate evil with nothing but a pointy piece of metal and Andrew standing between them and oblivion.
Her death had still been a surprise. The sharp pain, the bright light, and only time to think “But that’s not enough!” And then she’d found herself here.
Heaven, she’d come to discover, was based for each person partially on what they’d expected. This was all right for a while, but her cloud was cold and damp, and the Birkenstocks were as unflattering on her feet as she’d once imagined them on Buffy’s. So she stood up, stripped off the white robe (and was pleased to find a rather nice blouse and skirt beneath) and said clearly to the air: “I’d like to go somewhere else now, please.”
**
Tara leaned as far back as she could while still gripping the swing’s chains. The tips of her hair just grazed the ground, and as she swung she looked up at the sky. It was the blue she remembered from home, the shade that had always looked bluer than the skies in California, and fat, fluffy white clouds inched across it.
She’d been here a while now (although time was strange and she’d also just arrived), long enough to know how other people’s afterlives differed from hers. Some had no form at all, just a feeling of perfect contentment and well-being, of knowing that everyone the person had left behind was fine, and that there was nothing to worry about any more. She’d visited some that had nothing but sunshine, a perfect seventy degrees for all eternity, and she always smiled nicely and said what a lovely Heaven they had, while privately thinking how boring that would be. She liked her breezes and snow and eighteen types of rain.
She was looking at the sky, so she didn’t see that she had a visitor until Anya was right in front of her, and then she pulled herself up, scuffing her feet along the ground to stop the swing.
“Anya,” she said, breaking into a wide smile. She’d missed Anya; in her early days (seconds, eternities) here she’d only thought of Willow, but later she’d remembered other people, and how lucky she’d been to know them.
She stood up and gave Anya a hug, and didn’t ask how she’d died, or if anybody else from Sunnydale was here too.
**
She wasn’t quite sure how she’d found Tara - she’d just thought about her and then felt the world shift sideways, and she’d been in a child’s playground.
At Tara’s suggestion, they sat down on the springy green grass behind the swings. Anya restlessly pulled some of the stalks from the ground and said, “Tara, I’m bored.”
“Bored?” Tara tilted her head and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Anya wondered why she didn’t just make herself sunglasses, or clouds.
“I was on a cloud,” she said. “And then I thought, well, I’ll make it the kind of afterlife I would like. So I was in Xander’s apartment and everything I liked was there, but Xander wasn’t, so I didn’t want to stay.”
“I was that way too,” Tara said. “This place is so beautiful, but all I could think about was Willow.”
Anya debated telling her about Willow’s extremely bossy new girlfriend, then realized she didn’t know if Kennedy had survived the fight or not. If anybody had. But wouldn’t she have gone to Xander when she thought about him, if he was here? “That means they lived,” she said. “Willow and Xander. Or else they’d be here.”
“They did.” Tara ran her hand over the ground, and where she’d touched turned gauzy and white. Anya leaned over, curious.
There was Willow, working on her laptop in a café, looking absorbed; the scene shifted, and they were looking at Xander, asleep on a narrow cot.
“It’s Xander!” Anya said. “Xander, hi! Hi, it’s me!”
The image disappeared. The ground went back to being just grass. “I can only see for a few seconds,” Tara apologized. “And they can’t hear us.”
That was probably just as well. She imagined it would be quite disturbing to Xander to hear her voice coming from nowhere. He might think he’d gone insane with grief, and she’d seen enough movies to know that straitjackets were never attractive.
Tara slipped her hand into Anya’s. “They’ll be here,” she said. “Someday.”
Tara had nice hands. They were small and smooth, not calloused like Xander’s, and Anya started to cry, thinking as she did so that that song Giles sometimes liked to sing when he thought he was alone in the shop, about there being no more tears in Heaven, had been very wrong.
**
Tara had a house on the hill. It looked down over her park and the lake; the house itself was a mix of the Summers house, and the dorm room she’d lived in by herself when she first met Willow, and her maternal grandmother’s house, and some places that were just from stories. Sometimes she caught the top floors growing into towers, and she told the house off for trying to be Gormenghast, or possibly Hogwarts.
She took Anya to the kitchen and made her the coffee she’d liked when they were alive, and pancakes with maple syrup. The batter, as soon as she poured it into the pan, arranged itself into the shapes of animals and famous buildings and celebrities. The pancake in the shape of Eleanor Roosevelt seemed to cheer Anya up, and she wiped her eyes and ate until she had to push the plate away.
“I tried to make pancakes,” she said. “But they were perfect, and I’ve never made perfect pancakes before, and Xander wasn’t even there to tell me how good they were.”
The sunlight, in defiance of all the laws of Physics, streamed brightly through all the house’s windows at once, wherever they were facing. Anya’s hair looked like gold.
Tara said, “You can stay here. If you want to. As long as you like.”
**
Anya liked Tara’s afterlife far better than she’d liked her own attempts. She’d missed talking to people. Talking to herself had been far less satisfying, because there were no disagreements, and while at first the harmony had been nice, she had missed debating and arguing and hearing a point of view that she hadn’t already heard in her own head. Tara was as patient and nice here as she had been when they were alive, and talking to her was good.
But Anya missed other things. Touching people, more than the occasional hug or squeeze of the hand. Waking up next to somebody, even if that wasn’t much of an issue here, because they didn’t need to sleep. They sometimes did, though, just like they ate when they wanted to, even though they never got hungry.
The sun set sporadically. It could set slowly, with a spectacular sunset that lasted for many weeks, and rise again without the sky ever getting dark, or could stay high in the sky without budging for months at a time, so far as they could measure time without clocks and days and nights. Tara must have felt like stargazing, because the sky was black.
Anya climbed to the very top floor of the house and out onto the balcony. The night sky was blazing with stars, far more than she’d ever seen on Earth, even in the centuries before light pollution obscured the view. Tara stood at the edge of the veranda, arms folded on the ledge, staring enraptured at a ballet of shooting stars.
Anya joined her, her hand going to the small of Tara’s back. “I miss touching people,” she said. “In the sexy way. And I think you’re very attractive, even though I still like men. I’d like to kiss you and do other things, because I’m pretty sure we’re still anatomically correct, or at least we are if we think we are. So. Do you want to kiss me?”
If she’d made advances back when they were alive, she thought, Tara would have blushed and pulled away, and said no in some way that didn’t hurt her feelings. She’d actually considered it, once, when she was a demon again and didn’t want any man to get close to her, ever. Tara had been sympathetic and sweet and not involved with Willow, but, still. There had been Willow, involved or not. And there had been Xander.
Now there was just the two of them, and a house that was smart enough to turn part of the balcony’s deck into a wide, inviting bed.
Tara smiled, her eyes reflecting stars, and kissed her.
**
Above them, the sun was rising. This could go on for minutes, or months. It was much the same thing.
Tara stretched out on the bed, feeling herself uncoil from her hair to her toes, and she felt happy. She was always happy here, but this was an extra happiness, one that seemed to enfold her and Anya and their little world.
She was on her side, Anya spooned against her back, close enough to feel the heartbeats that were only there because they wanted them to be. She thought about Willow and Xander, and hoped that they were happy, that they knew they were loved.
Anya stirred, and there was a light touch on her back, as if Anya was tracing something there.
Anya said, “There’s writing. On your skin. Like a tattoo. I think it’s Greek.”
“It’s a poem,” Tara said, and turned to kiss her. Anya’s mouth was soft, and warm, and Tara had never felt so alive.
END
femslash04 first, but I don't seem to have access...)Title: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Buffy
Pairing: Anya/Tara
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For
netgirl_y2k. I’ve read about 100 pages of The Lovely Bones, so there may be some influence on the afterlife here.Anya hadn’t been religious in her second (and third) human life. Her life as Aud was too far away to recall what she’d believed would happen after death – probably, she thought, as sarcastically as she could make her thoughts here, that Olaf would earn a place in the halls of Valhalla and she would be fortunate enough to stay at his side, his devoted wife slash serving wench.
After she became human she’d sometimes thought fearfully about dying, but had been lulled into a false sense of security. Curse those life expectancy statistics! Though, she admitted, people who lived to the ripe and average age of seventy-six almost certainly didn’t live over a Hellmouth, nor did they face down the forces of the ultimate evil with nothing but a pointy piece of metal and Andrew standing between them and oblivion.
Her death had still been a surprise. The sharp pain, the bright light, and only time to think “But that’s not enough!” And then she’d found herself here.
Heaven, she’d come to discover, was based for each person partially on what they’d expected. This was all right for a while, but her cloud was cold and damp, and the Birkenstocks were as unflattering on her feet as she’d once imagined them on Buffy’s. So she stood up, stripped off the white robe (and was pleased to find a rather nice blouse and skirt beneath) and said clearly to the air: “I’d like to go somewhere else now, please.”
**
Tara leaned as far back as she could while still gripping the swing’s chains. The tips of her hair just grazed the ground, and as she swung she looked up at the sky. It was the blue she remembered from home, the shade that had always looked bluer than the skies in California, and fat, fluffy white clouds inched across it.
She’d been here a while now (although time was strange and she’d also just arrived), long enough to know how other people’s afterlives differed from hers. Some had no form at all, just a feeling of perfect contentment and well-being, of knowing that everyone the person had left behind was fine, and that there was nothing to worry about any more. She’d visited some that had nothing but sunshine, a perfect seventy degrees for all eternity, and she always smiled nicely and said what a lovely Heaven they had, while privately thinking how boring that would be. She liked her breezes and snow and eighteen types of rain.
She was looking at the sky, so she didn’t see that she had a visitor until Anya was right in front of her, and then she pulled herself up, scuffing her feet along the ground to stop the swing.
“Anya,” she said, breaking into a wide smile. She’d missed Anya; in her early days (seconds, eternities) here she’d only thought of Willow, but later she’d remembered other people, and how lucky she’d been to know them.
She stood up and gave Anya a hug, and didn’t ask how she’d died, or if anybody else from Sunnydale was here too.
**
She wasn’t quite sure how she’d found Tara - she’d just thought about her and then felt the world shift sideways, and she’d been in a child’s playground.
At Tara’s suggestion, they sat down on the springy green grass behind the swings. Anya restlessly pulled some of the stalks from the ground and said, “Tara, I’m bored.”
“Bored?” Tara tilted her head and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Anya wondered why she didn’t just make herself sunglasses, or clouds.
“I was on a cloud,” she said. “And then I thought, well, I’ll make it the kind of afterlife I would like. So I was in Xander’s apartment and everything I liked was there, but Xander wasn’t, so I didn’t want to stay.”
“I was that way too,” Tara said. “This place is so beautiful, but all I could think about was Willow.”
Anya debated telling her about Willow’s extremely bossy new girlfriend, then realized she didn’t know if Kennedy had survived the fight or not. If anybody had. But wouldn’t she have gone to Xander when she thought about him, if he was here? “That means they lived,” she said. “Willow and Xander. Or else they’d be here.”
“They did.” Tara ran her hand over the ground, and where she’d touched turned gauzy and white. Anya leaned over, curious.
There was Willow, working on her laptop in a café, looking absorbed; the scene shifted, and they were looking at Xander, asleep on a narrow cot.
“It’s Xander!” Anya said. “Xander, hi! Hi, it’s me!”
The image disappeared. The ground went back to being just grass. “I can only see for a few seconds,” Tara apologized. “And they can’t hear us.”
That was probably just as well. She imagined it would be quite disturbing to Xander to hear her voice coming from nowhere. He might think he’d gone insane with grief, and she’d seen enough movies to know that straitjackets were never attractive.
Tara slipped her hand into Anya’s. “They’ll be here,” she said. “Someday.”
Tara had nice hands. They were small and smooth, not calloused like Xander’s, and Anya started to cry, thinking as she did so that that song Giles sometimes liked to sing when he thought he was alone in the shop, about there being no more tears in Heaven, had been very wrong.
**
Tara had a house on the hill. It looked down over her park and the lake; the house itself was a mix of the Summers house, and the dorm room she’d lived in by herself when she first met Willow, and her maternal grandmother’s house, and some places that were just from stories. Sometimes she caught the top floors growing into towers, and she told the house off for trying to be Gormenghast, or possibly Hogwarts.
She took Anya to the kitchen and made her the coffee she’d liked when they were alive, and pancakes with maple syrup. The batter, as soon as she poured it into the pan, arranged itself into the shapes of animals and famous buildings and celebrities. The pancake in the shape of Eleanor Roosevelt seemed to cheer Anya up, and she wiped her eyes and ate until she had to push the plate away.
“I tried to make pancakes,” she said. “But they were perfect, and I’ve never made perfect pancakes before, and Xander wasn’t even there to tell me how good they were.”
The sunlight, in defiance of all the laws of Physics, streamed brightly through all the house’s windows at once, wherever they were facing. Anya’s hair looked like gold.
Tara said, “You can stay here. If you want to. As long as you like.”
**
Anya liked Tara’s afterlife far better than she’d liked her own attempts. She’d missed talking to people. Talking to herself had been far less satisfying, because there were no disagreements, and while at first the harmony had been nice, she had missed debating and arguing and hearing a point of view that she hadn’t already heard in her own head. Tara was as patient and nice here as she had been when they were alive, and talking to her was good.
But Anya missed other things. Touching people, more than the occasional hug or squeeze of the hand. Waking up next to somebody, even if that wasn’t much of an issue here, because they didn’t need to sleep. They sometimes did, though, just like they ate when they wanted to, even though they never got hungry.
The sun set sporadically. It could set slowly, with a spectacular sunset that lasted for many weeks, and rise again without the sky ever getting dark, or could stay high in the sky without budging for months at a time, so far as they could measure time without clocks and days and nights. Tara must have felt like stargazing, because the sky was black.
Anya climbed to the very top floor of the house and out onto the balcony. The night sky was blazing with stars, far more than she’d ever seen on Earth, even in the centuries before light pollution obscured the view. Tara stood at the edge of the veranda, arms folded on the ledge, staring enraptured at a ballet of shooting stars.
Anya joined her, her hand going to the small of Tara’s back. “I miss touching people,” she said. “In the sexy way. And I think you’re very attractive, even though I still like men. I’d like to kiss you and do other things, because I’m pretty sure we’re still anatomically correct, or at least we are if we think we are. So. Do you want to kiss me?”
If she’d made advances back when they were alive, she thought, Tara would have blushed and pulled away, and said no in some way that didn’t hurt her feelings. She’d actually considered it, once, when she was a demon again and didn’t want any man to get close to her, ever. Tara had been sympathetic and sweet and not involved with Willow, but, still. There had been Willow, involved or not. And there had been Xander.
Now there was just the two of them, and a house that was smart enough to turn part of the balcony’s deck into a wide, inviting bed.
Tara smiled, her eyes reflecting stars, and kissed her.
**
Above them, the sun was rising. This could go on for minutes, or months. It was much the same thing.
Tara stretched out on the bed, feeling herself uncoil from her hair to her toes, and she felt happy. She was always happy here, but this was an extra happiness, one that seemed to enfold her and Anya and their little world.
She was on her side, Anya spooned against her back, close enough to feel the heartbeats that were only there because they wanted them to be. She thought about Willow and Xander, and hoped that they were happy, that they knew they were loved.
Anya stirred, and there was a light touch on her back, as if Anya was tracing something there.
Anya said, “There’s writing. On your skin. Like a tattoo. I think it’s Greek.”
“It’s a poem,” Tara said, and turned to kiss her. Anya’s mouth was soft, and warm, and Tara had never felt so alive.
END
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on 2004-03-04 08:57 am (UTC)