Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of bed in hopes that once she started moving she'd become a little more alert. When it didn't seem to be working, she put on a pot of coffee.
She was about to go pour her first cup when there was a knock at the door, and Dawn grumbled under her breath as she went to answer it. She wasn't in the mood for visitors, but with everything that tended to go on around there, she knew she couldn't just ignore it. It could be something important.
She hadn't expected it to be Andrew. She almost slammed the door in his face, said to hell with the coffee, and buried herself back under her covers. Almost. Instead, she pushed her surprise back before he could see it and stood tall, taking advantage of the inch she had on him. "What?" she asked with cultivated annoyance.
Dawn knew she had every right to pretend she didn't care.
Andrew cleared his throat. "I wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?"
"I suppose," Dawn replied, shrugging. She stepped back and let him in, but didn't lead him any further into the apartment. He seemed uncomfortable, standing there at the door with her, and that's what she wanted. She was too angry, too hurt, to want him at ease.
There were long beats of awkward silence before he spoke. "So, um, was any of that stuff helpful?"
"Somewhat," Dawn answered. She knew she was probably being overly mean there. He'd most likely risked his life to get that information for her, and she was treating it like it was less than what it was. It wasn't "somewhat" helpful. It was everything she'd ever wanted to know handed to her on a platter. She should be thanking him. But the angry hurt was coming into play again, and she didn't want him to know what it had meant to her.
He'd left her, broken her heart, and she wanted him to hurt like she had. No, she wanted him to hurt more.
She knew it was petty. She knew it was wrong. But at the moment, she didn't care.
His head went down a little, a flicker of something in his eyes, and Dawn could see for a moment the man he used to be. She hated that. She wanted to look at him for the way he appeared now, with his firm muscles and stony expression. She didn't want to remember the vulnerable young man she'd once held in her arms. It made it so much harder to be angry that way.
"Is that all you wanted?" she asked with a toss of her hair. Quickly, keeping up the wall between them was becoming even more important. If she let it fall now, then she might crumble, and she wasn't going to break down in front of him. The fit she'd thrown in his flat the day before had been more than enough.
"Yeah." Andrew turned to walk out again, his shoulders low before they suddenly squared and he turned back around. "No, actually that wasn't it."
"Then what else is there?" Dawn asked, her eyebrow arched and her arms crossed tightly in front of her.
He met her eyes and winced at what he saw there. But still, his own eyes softened, pleading with her. "I didn't mean to hurt you. That was the exact opposite of what I wanted. And I didn't leave you because I didn't love you, I…"
"If you finish that with 'I left because I did love you,' I swear I will hurt you," Dawn snapped, her tone bordering on a growl.
Andrew swallowed. "Okay, I'll just leave that then. But really, Dawn, I only wanted what was best for you. I'm so beneath the sort of guy you could easily get. It may not have happened immediately, but eventually, you would've grown to resent me. I would've disappointed you."
Dawn gave a short bark of joyless laughter. "Well, you certainly disappointed me." Pain went across his features at that. It didn't make Dawn feel guilty to see it.
"Dawn, I really am sorry for that. I wish more than anything that I could've avoided hurting you like that."
"You could have!" Dawn replied, her voice raising along with her temper. "It all could've been avoided if you hadn't left me!"
"It was for the best!" Andrew said, almost yelling now, too. "You have to see that by now!"
The accepted standard for the proper response to an ex-boyfriend in a situation like this was to tell them that yes, he was right, and she had of course moved on, didn't care a bit about him, and that she had found someone much, much better than he had ever even dreamed of being. It could be a bold-faced lie, that much didn't matter. The point was to drive home that she was not so pathetic as to continue to pine for him. So much of a break-up was about saving face. Someone rips your heart out, and you pretend it doesn't hurt just to ensure that the heart-ripper hurts. Because hey, what's worse for the human ego than being informed that you've got absolutely nothing to offer another person?
But Dawn didn't think that was the right response here. She did want him to hurt, and she knew that that pain would flash in his eyes again if she told him that yes, her life was better without him. Only it wouldn't be the right kind of hurt. Lying to him now would only go so far. Dawn had a feeling that the truth would cut much deeper.
He wanted her to be doing better without him. That would justify it all. Sure, there would be that ego-blow, but he could push it away by reminding himself that Dawn was happier now. It would give him permission to play the martyr. She wasn't going to give him that. She didn't care that it meant she also wouldn't get to save face, wouldn't get to hold on to her pride.
Making sure he knew exactly what he'd done was worth more to her than her pride.
"No, it isn't better. You didn't just break my heart, Andrew. You shattered it. I loved you—I trusted you. I gave you everything—my heart, my soul, and my body—and you abandoned me. And you know what? I haven't gotten over it. I haven't moved on. I haven't been able to love another man since you. I knew who you were. I knew all of you, the good and the bad, and I loved you for it all. Even looking back now, I can still say that, and I know that had you stayed, I would've kept loving you. So don't tell yourself that this was better. You hurt me, and it was for nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Andrew reeled back. "Dawn, I…"
"Get out."
Her command was steady, even, giving no room for argument. He didn't try. Head down again, Andrew turned and left.
Dawn leaned against the wall, the pained sob she'd been holding in since she'd opened the door to him finally breaking free. She knew without a doubt that she'd hurt him, that every word she'd thrown had hit its mark, but she didn't feel any better. She felt worse.
This was all too much for her. It was emotionally and physically draining, and she was regretting getting out of bed at all. Maybe she should just go back…
Dawn sniffed, catching an odor coming from the kitchen, and sighed. She'd forgotten all about her coffee, and from the smell of it, it wasn't going to be drinkable now anyway. She thought about a coffee maker she'd seen that automatically shut itself off and wondered if maybe it was time for her to enter the twenty-first century and buy one of those.
She trudged into the kitchen, turned off the coffee maker, dumped the ruined coffee into the sink, and then went back to bed.
*** *** ***
Mentally, Andrew was exhausted. After leaving Dawn's, he'd gone to his office, trying to get used to doing the sort of work that had been his job before he left. It was all been deskwork, and now he was just sitting there staring at the papers piled on his desk, wondering what he was really supposed to do with them all.
His leg was still healing from a fight he'd gotten in a week before. He hadn't know what sort of demon it was, only that it was very, very large, and when its claws sliced through your skin, it felt like fire.
He'd thought when he'd left three years before that that would be the hard transition. He was leaving the only sort of life he'd ever known to spend years in hell dimensions. That had to be a shock to the system. But oddly enough, it hadn't been. Not really anyway. A little at first, but so much of his days had been tinged with adrenaline that he didn't have the chance to think about much else but survival. Never before had he been much of a fighter, but there, he'd had to be. It was fight or die every day. It hadn't been a difficult transition because he hadn't been able to let it be. He either fell into step or he fell.
Andrew didn't think he'd ever forget what had happened to them the first week. The first dimension they'd entered had been exactly how he'd always pictured Hell to be. Dark and hot, sounds piercing the blackness around him coming from things no one would ever really want to meet. They spent their nights in caves, trying to hide from the monsters that prowled then. Third night in and one of the other Watchers, Rogers, had had a breakdown. He'd been on the verge of panic since the beginning, but he'd finally lost it then, the fear of the monsters around them becoming too much.
He run from the cave and right into the waiting jowls of something large, ugly, and hungry. Andrew had gone after him, tried to stop him, but he'd been too late. He'd gotten there only in time to see Rogers ripped to bits.
Six months later, it had been Harrison. Andrew still wasn't sure how that had happened, only that one second he'd been alive, sword raised, and the next he'd been sliced in two. It was amazing how quickly death could come sometimes. You spent your whole life waiting for it, and then it was there before you could blink.
Seven of them had gone in. Three of them had come out. Andrew had survived by making himself part of the darkness. He'd put the survival of himself and the rest of his team above all else. There had been close calls, but he'd made it, and in one piece no less.
Now he was back in the relative safety of Slayer Central. No more looking over his shoulder all the time. No more needing to be at the ready even in sleep. He could relax.
Only he couldn't. He didn't remember how. There was nothing to force him into relearning office work. And every sound he couldn't immediately identify made him want to fall back into defensive mode.
With every breath he had to remind himself that life was no longer something he had to continuously fight for.
He'd been angry at the world when he'd left. In his opinion, it had done him wrong one too many times, and he hadn't cared one way or another anymore. When he'd first agreed to leave, death hadn't even been an issue in his mind. If anything, it could've brought an end to the pain. And hey, if he died in some sort of heroic way, maybe he wouldn't be so meaningless anymore.
It had been the version of joining the army because your girlfriend dumped you for someone who grew up on the Hellmouth.
Everything was different now. Three years in hell will change a man. Five minutes in hell would change a man…
And now here he was, trying to pretend that everything about him hadn't changed. Here, he was still the same Andrew Wells he'd been before. For the Watchers' Council, he'd been on a business trip. People didn't come back from business trips with scars like his, emotional or physical.
Only one thing hadn't changed at all, and that was what was affecting him the most now that he was back. Dawn… Not the woman herself, she'd changed, at least some. Andrew could see that with his own eyes. She'd gotten older, left the last bit of childhood behind her. But what she did to him… When he'd seen her again, there had been a moment when he'd remembered what it was like to be himself again.
He'd abandoned fear when he'd seen Rogers die. In the worlds he'd been in, fear did one thing—it got you killed. Then he'd looked into Dawn's eyes, and he'd felt fear again, only not the sort that jolted through you when you knew your next moment could be your last. It was the type of fear he'd always felt with Dawn, the kind that makes your insides flip and your palms sweat. The sort of fear you feel when you're in love. Like hesitant touches and first kisses.
He hadn't expected to feel that way about her anymore. It had been so long since they'd been together, and he'd worked hard to push her out of his mind. Not that it had worked exactly, but he'd done what he could. He'd been certain that she was moving on without him, and he'd tried his best not to long for her. He'd tried not to dream of big blue eyes and full lips.
Still, he'd thought about her when he'd been on his way back to London, and in his mind, he'd seen how it would be when he saw her again. She would be with someone else, someone charming and handsome who could give her what she deserved. He'd be a distant memory, bittersweet at best. They'd exchange pleasantries, and she'd go back to her life without another thought towards him. He'd know then that he'd done the right thing, and that would be that.
Only it hadn't gone that way at all. Dawn hadn't moved on. She was hurt and angry, more brokenhearted than he thought she could possibly be over someone like him. The extent of her anger had shocked him, especially as he'd come to the conclusion that it was not merely because he'd left her but because he'd really, truly hurt her. The way you can only hurt when you lose someone you love completely.
Being around Dawn still shook him, and she'd never gotten over him.
Crap.
Andrew pushed the paperwork on his desk back from him. He couldn't do this now. It was too soon for him to try to remember how to live here anymore. Maybe later, when he didn't still see Hell every time he closed his eyes. Whenever that would be…
He left his office.
*** *** ***