Disclaimer: Not mine. Someone else’s. No money for me. Sad.
Rating: PG
Length: 534 words
Summary: I twisted and bent the world for you, and gave you what I know you once wanted more than anything you’d ever dare ask for. And I did it in the name of love, not vengeance. (Anya POV, post-“Chosen”)
Author’s Note: This is from a prompt from xenaclone: Giles and Jenny get their happy ending. I probably went way off from what she was hoping for, but this is where my bizarre, shippy little mind went. 

You think I died. You thought I was human when the blade came down, thought I was mortal enough for anything to still be fatal.

You’re wrong.

I was born human, and I lived a human life, a long time ago. But once I gave that up, there never really was any turning back. I didn’t always understand that, and I spent years thinking I’d lost something, only to have it given back and taken away yet again.

I didn’t know the truth until I woke up in my own blood, until I watched everything crumble and knew I should’ve been buried beneath but wasn’t. Not until I stood at the edge and look down into what was meant to be my grave did I feel it again, pulsing and thrumming under my skin.

I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t human. But I wasn’t what I had been either.

That was when I found out the rules had changed.

I hadn’t lost my power, only its chains. I was no longer bound by the wish.

And it terrified me.

Once, it wouldn’t have. I would’ve reveled in this. But not now. I spent too long thinking I was human and learning what it is to live with limitations. Everything suddenly became finite, and knowing there was going to be an end led me to real passion. Being so certain I was going to die made me want to live – and it made me do the one thing I always swore to never do.

I fell in love.

I fell in love with someone who could only cause me pain in the end.

I fell in love with you.

I didn’t know it when it happened. I don’t think I really knew until I stood at the edge of what had once held my life and watched you ride away. They say when you die you see your life again, and I did. I did, and it was all tinted with you. You brought me into that life, after all…

But even as I realized the truth, I knew we could never have anything together. For you, there’s still an end. For me, there never will be again.

Passion can’t burn like it should in the face of endless time and you – you deserve more.

You deserve someone to cling to you against the coming darkness, someone who could find a reason to live in the fear of losing it all.

So I gave it to you. I twisted and bent the world for you, and gave you what I know you once wanted more than anything you’d ever dare ask for.

And I did it in the name of love, not vengeance.

Now as I stand in the shadows and watch what I’ve created, what’s still human in my heart breaks. I can see your eyes as you see her move to you, the swirl of her white gown reminding me of what I was denied, even when I thought I could have it.

To you, to her, I’m no more than a ghost, but I whisper softly anyway and hope somehow, you can both hear me.

Love him as I would have, Jenny Calendar…

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