The Good Fight
Rating: PG
Spoilers: You’re Welcome
Word Count: 475
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer’s Choice “Neither here nor there” challenge. Another one of those “It’s in there, I swear!” responses.
Of all the missions she’d ever completed, first as a reluctant Scooby, then as a fully-fledged member of the Fang Gang, this was the hardest.
The hardest because she knew what was at stake; not the world, not the fate of humanity, not even her own life.
Angel was at stake.
It was the most important mission she’d ever had; there was no way she was going to screw it up.
It was also the hardest because she knew why she was there, why she’d come back, what would happen once her mission was completed.
She knew what would happen, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how it would be, how it would feel. She just knew that it scared her to death.
Just like she knew that she had no choice.
So she took her little walk through Bizzaro World, clued in her guy on what he had to do, got him back on the right path. She’s proud of that, because it means that in her entire stupid, silly little life, she did one thing right.
She used her last breath to make sure that Angel would keep fighting.
She made a difference.
She made a difference, and that was enough to keep her going during that too-short time that she was back where she once belonged, even if she didn’t belong to that world any more. Being back with her family made her forget that she didn’t belonged neither here, in this world, nor there in the next, not yet. Not until she completed her mission.
Which she did, thank you very much, saved the big guy in distress, even got to kiss him, though that hadn’t been in the deal that she’d struck with the Powers That Be.
Then the phone rang, and she knew that her time was up.
“You’re welcome,” she told him, and she’s not sure if he heard her, will never be sure, because that’s when the world turned white all around her, and she felt herself being pulled up, up, up. A little like what happened to her when she was on her way to Point Dume, but a lot different somehow.
A lot brighter, a lot more powerful.
And a hell of a lot scarier.
Suddenly, everything stops, and it’s just her and the white and she’s even more scared, something she wouldn’t have thought was possible. Because she doesn’t know what happens next, where she goes, what she does.
Then there’s a voice behind her.
“Hello Princess.”
It’s a long time since she’s heard that brogue, and she turns in disbelief, but not surprise, because, really, who else would meet her here?
“Come on,” he says, slipping his hand into hers. “Let’s take you home.”
She goes with him, and she smiles, because she knows now that everything is going to be all right.