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[whattingawhat]

At least she's aware she's not making a lot of sense. The problem with telling Alcide (or anyone who doesn't know what a slayer is) is that there's so much to explain. She'd sort of dived into the middle of it because talking too much about her former life tends to break Buffy, and she's broken enough already today. She'd realized that he wouldn't recognize any name except Dawn's because she doesn't talk about those people anymore, the people who had been okay with letting Dawn die.

She isn't special, not in her mind. She's just someone's pawn. Her main concern in telling him what she used to be, what she used to do, is that he know she's not going to hurt him or anyone else. She'd never hunted the supernatural without any regard to how they lived, not since Angel showed her that not all vampires were monsters and Oz showed her that not all werewolves are animals. Sometimes she wonders about Angel and Oz. Would they have been okay with letting Dawn die?

Honestly, that's why she'd told him, because he lives with her loss every day and he does it so much more gracefully than she does. She'd wanted him to at least understand why she's as broken as she is.

She's as grateful for the lack of platitudes as she is for the strong touch. She really had very few expectations when it came to Alcide's reaction, but she did have hope for how it would go (hope that she wouldn't have without him; it was such a foreign word when she met him) and this is a better reaction then she could have even hoped for.

She smiles ever so slightly at him. "See, you're too good to me." Which is how this had all started in the first place.

[rouxgaroux]

An excess of history is something that Alcide can understand. Maybe he'd told Buffy what he is. Maybe he'd even told her about how Debbie had cheated on him and got hooked on drugs, how Rikki never trusted him because he was never fully a pack wolf, how Sookie had always loved someone else while he was with her. But he'd spared her the minute details of those relationships, how stupid he'd been through each of them, how easily duped, among other things.

If there is anything that those issues can be pointed to where Alcide is concerned, it's that he loves too much. He doesn't do anything halfway. It's the same with Buffy. He keeps waiting for her to tell him that he loves her too much, waiting for the bottom to fall out. But until that happens, if that happens, he's going to put all of himself into it if just because he doesn't know how to do it any other way.

He's glad she told him. He needs and wants to know these things. He wants her to trust him enough to tell him.

When it seems that his response is enough for her, that pleases him. Alcide isn't always good with words, but he tries and even though it doesn't always seem to count, it seems to count with Buffy so far. That means so much to him that his efforts seem to matter with her like they never have with anyone before.

"Besides, maybe you quit the Slayer gig, but you're still fightin' in your own way." Alcide says. "Think if your sister was anything like you, she'd be okay with that. Long as you keep bein' you in that way. Don't really matter if you're doin' it for someone else or for yourself, long as you're doin' it."

[whattingawhat]

They'd been dating for a while, but they'd hardly delved into all of their history. They've told each other bits and pieces. She's shared less about her life simply because she's cut herself off from it. She talks about her mom, talks about Dawn, about her life before she turned sixteen. She'd told him about the life she wanted to remember.

In Buffy's opinion, those aren't bad qualities to have. She understands, though, how those qualities could get him hurt. Until Dawn had died, at least the bit about not doing anything halfway had applied to Buffy. That had all changed when she'd lost her sister. Now, some days, it feels like she does everything halfway. She tries not to put her whole self into anything at all.

She's beginning to trust him. It takes a while for her nowadays.

When he takes the time to say something, it does count to Buffy. She's spend a good deal of her life around taciturn men, she knows when to listen.

Buffy presses her lips together. "I don't know. Sometimes I hope that she would be. Other times...I don't think it matters what she would be okay with or wouldn't because she's not here anymore."

[rouxgaroux]

Alcide continues to wash Buffy, running the sponge over her skin until he drops the sponge and one large hand massages at the back of her neck. She's tense, but he gets the feeling that whatever tension she has is slowly unraveling itself. He hopes he has something to do with that. He hopes to keep it unraveling.

"If you're still here, she's still here, Buffy. May not be the way you want her here. But she's here." There's some quote he heard about awhile back about death not being the final thing if you have loved ones or something like that. He doesn't remember the exact words but just lets his own version carry it to her.

He leans down to kiss the top of her head again. "You just shared her with me. That's somethin', Buffy. I can imagine she was a lot like you. Annoying in that way siblings can be, but loved." Alcide has a sister. He knows how that is.

[whattingawhat]

His feeling isn't wrong at all. Every bit of tension in her is unraveling as he runs the sponge over her skin. She relaxes even more at the feel of his hand on the back of her neck. Melting into this bathtub isn't an impossibility.

She nods a little at Alcide's words. "Part of me knows that. It's just--it should have been me? You know? I was supposed to close that portal. I was supposed to save the world and she was supposed to be home watching horror movies and eating pizza with anchovies on it."

She leans against the side of the tub, closer to Alcide. He actually gets her to laugh ever so slightly. "She could annoy me faster than anyone." She looks up at Alcide. "Sometimes I think she was all the best parts of me."

And now those parts are gone.