They hadn't had any words …at first.

They had stepped out of their vehicles and onto the scarred blacktop of the diner's parking lot, chosen for its location between Sunnydale and Los Angeles.

And suddenly they were in each other's arms.

They stood like that for a long time. Longer than what most people thought of as normal, judging by the sideways glances he'd seen.

But then again, the two of them weren't exactly normal.

He'd rehearsed what he'd say to her the whole way over.

You were dead and I wanted to be too. Couldn't understand why I wasn't.

And now…

Now.

Now, they were sitting in a booth in the back of the diner. His carefully thought out words never surfaced and he couldn't think of anything to say.

Your hair looks nice… how was death? Didn't seem appropriate. Or overly appropriate. Everything was too confusing and way too clear at the same time.

"You never told me what it was like."

He looked up but she refused to meet his eyes. Her gaze was fixed on the untouched coffee cup in front of her.

"What, what was like?" he asked her softly, though he suspected he knew what she was talking about.

She took a breath and turned toward the window staring through her reflection to the people in the parking lot outside.

He followed her gaze, though he had no reflection to look through.

"They're lucky." She said. "Look at them. They think they know what happens… after. But they don't. Not really. But I… I know…. I know…."

Her voice trailed off and she continued to watch the people coming and going in the diner's parking lot. Her eyes were a bit unfocused, had been since she arrived.

He'd never seen her like that before.

Before...

"You never told me what it was like." She said again. .

"I was never where you were." He paused, thought for a moment. "Or… maybe my soul was but I… I don't really know. I don't know…"
"No." she shook her head as if she had confused herself. "No, not there. I meant… I meant … after. The ground."

He flinched at the rawness he heard in her voice and reached across the table to take her hand. He was relived at how warm it felt and realized that even after holding her in the parking lot, he had half expected her to be cold.

Like me.

He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Like me. In the ground. Cold...

"I never thought…." He began but stopped.

She shook her head. "It was…. cold. So cold. And the darkness… and the sounds. I never really thought about it…. What you must have gone through. I've… I've seen vamps come up, you know? Waited for them…. I never thought what that must be like…. I never thought about it but if I had I wouldn't have thought there would be sounds… so many sounds."

He swallowed and rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand. There were still scratches there. Not deep, barely there really, but there all the same. He glanced at her fingernails. Clean, of course, but cut abnormally short.

They were broken when she...

He blinked as if that could clear the thought from his mind.

"It's not something I ever wanted to talk about." He said finally. "I never thought it mattered."

"The sounds." She whispered.

He swallowed. "Yeh. There are sounds."

Deafening. The sounds outside, only muffled and yet somehow louder. He had lain there, listening to the voices above talking about him. Then the scratching, scrabbling of insects and other earth dwellers. And over that the roar of the earth…

He shook his head slightly at the thought.

No one can understand that. The roar of the earth. The sound of pressure, the overwhelming noise of weight like a heartbeat all the louder with the absence of your own.

"It never came up." He said

Never should have come up. Never, ever should have come up. She shouldn't know, shouldn't have to know what it sounds like to be buried.

There were tears in her eyes. "You know what I went through but you don't. That doesn't make sense. I… I don't know how to make sense."

"Then don't." he told her. "Don't think about it. Don't tell me. I don't know what it was like where you were. But I know where you were. That doesn't make sense but it's ok."

He smiled. "You're here now."

She flinched and looked at him like he'd cursed her. It was a frightened, haunted look and for a second he thought she might run from him.

"I'm sorry…" he said hastily, though he had no idea what he was sorry for.

"What did you feel?" she demanded. "When you came out of the ground. When you broke the surface, what did you feel?"

He looked away and cleared his throat. "I'm not sure what I…. felt… I don't think it's what you…"

"I want to know." She said simply. "Please… tell me."

He cleared his throat again. "Ok. I felt… confused. It hurt. Coming up through all the dirt and, uh, the coffin…" his voice faltered and he swallowed, afraid to look at her because he knew that she knew all about that. "It hurt. I was breathing hard, panting really, even though I didn't need to breathe, I was anyway…"

"What else?"

He bit his bottom lip and locked his eyes on the stained picture of a smiling pancake on the menu in front of him.

"I… felt… free. Not just from the ground but from my life. I was powerful and I was…"

"Evil?"

"Yeh. Evil."

"You knew?" she asked.

"I killed someone about 5 seconds later so…"

"But… did you know you were evil right away?"

Her voice sounded so strange and her face was very tense and pale.

He shook his head. "I don't know. Why…?"

She sat up, pulling her hand from his. "Doesn't matter." She said quietly. "I just thought…. It doesn't matter."

He recaptured her hand. "I'm getting the feeling that it does matter. What happened to you is a miracle. If you need to ask questions…"

"No, I'm just trying to sort things out. But you can't tell me what I need to know. It's not your fault. I guess no one can."

He felt a pain in his chest. It wasn't something that should be there but seemed to occur quite often where she was concerned.

"I'm sorry."

She gave him a sad smile. "Don't be. You called and you came and I needed that."

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They continued to sit and sometimes talk.

She held his hand. Listened to the sound of his soft voice.

She remembered a time when being with him was the pinnacle of happiness.

That nothing could ever eclipse that feeling.

Now she knew better.

The warmth and light. The peace and the feeling that everything was going to be ok.

She knew where he was and what he was doing. How much he'd hurt when he heard she was gone.

But she knew he'd be ok.

They would be together again.

Her friends were sad and confused.

They would be ok too.

Things had a way of working out.

She couldn't really worry about them though. She didn't have to worry about them.

Her duty was done.

It was over.

No more pain and heartache.

No more loss.

There was so much beauty…

The darkness. The cold. The sounds. Opening her eyes to…

Nothing.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing. I should go."

He walked her to the car.

"I'm so glad you're here." He said again as he held her against him.

"I know." She whispered.

She watched him pull out of the lot and the tears that she'd held in check broke free.

He didn't know what she was feeling. She'd come here desperate to see him but also desperate to know if he could help her.

But he couldn't.

Even among those few who had been through death, she was apparently unique.

He had known the horror of the grave but had not experienced the joy of heaven.

She had, and been torn away from it.

That was the cause of her suffering.

He would never understand that pain.

Or how the loving words 'I'm glad you are here.' could be so cruel.