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Life sucked. Her entire childhood, all those years of school, her years fighting evil, and all she had learned was that life sucked.
Three years on the Hellmouth had taught her a lot more than that, of course. She learned that you couldn't trust the principals and the mayor, the police were idiots, and that the citizens, including her mother, ignored everything that wasn't all bright and sunny. She'd learned that she was unlike any Slayer in that she had friends who helped her fight evil and a Watcher who actually cared about her.
She learned that you lost people you loved.
She'd actually lost too many people she loved, more than anyone else in town had lost, and it was usually her fault when she lost them. It was because she was stupid, and thoughtless, and too passionate for her own good.
She was a good Slayer, the best there had ever been, and she knew it because few lived as long as she did, few saved as many lives. But she couldn't help feeling guilty for when she did lose people.
Occasionally it wasn't her fault. People left her, and she couldn't prevent it. They thought they knew what was best for her, and took something precious away from her in the name of what was right.
The first time had been when she lost her Watcher. The Watcher's Council, selfish bastards that they were, had tried to kill her, had tried to sacrifice her mother for a stupid test. Then, when she had passed the damned test, had known about it and been informed of her betrayal by Giles, they had taken him away from her; in theory anyway. They might have fired him, but they couldn't make him leave.
The worst part of it was, they actually thought it was for her own good. They thought that taking away the man who'd taken care of her, the man who'd kept her alive for three years, the man who had become a friend and almost a father to her, would be best for her. Of course, what they really meant was 'best for the Council,' since they didn't care about her at all. She died, the next was called, and she never existed, never counted in the battle against evil.
The second time something she loved was taken from her, it had hurt worse. It had hurt the way she'd thought only dying could hurt; the way only having your flesh ripped from your bones could make you scream. But it had been worse than that.
Excerpt from the diary of Buffy Summers
When Angel left me, I wanted to die. Really, honestly die, and forever this time. But then I realized, dying wouldn't accomplish anything. I had to save the world, and get on with my life, and live despite all the tragedy I've been through.
Angel thought he was leaving me for my own good. The bastard. He left because he was scared, scared that he would lose control and have Angelus come back to haunt us all. Scared that he couldn't control his own ego and his own lust for a few years.
He loved me, yeah, but he didn't care about my happiness. He proved that when he left. He proved that he wanted what was best for him, not what was best for me. But thinking this, I can't tell who the selfish one is: him, or me?
He said he would leave her, and her heart broke. She could literally feel the shards pierce her lungs, and for days after she could barely breathe, or talk, or move. She didn't want to.
She had tried forever to get him out of her head, out of her heart, out of her veins. She had killed him, and he came back from Hell to find her and love her again. She had left him, just for a while, had tried to clear her head and found it crowded with thoughts of him. She had tried so hard to rid herself of her love for him, but nothing worked.
When the arrow pierced his chest, she had felt both exultion and mind-numbing fear. "He's dead," she thought, "and it's not my fault. I'm free."
Of course, it was never that easy. She knew, even at the moment she thought of him dying in golden tones, that she could never live unless she knew that he was alive, if not with her than at least in the world.
And she saved him, giving her own blood and, she had thought, her own life to save his non-breath and lack of heartbeat. And even after that, he left her.
He left after Graduation, minutes after. He'd probably had the car packed and ready for weeks, just waiting for the day when the battle would begin and his debt to her and her friends was repaid. God knows where he went, all the guys said--but Buffy knew.
Los Angeles, the City Of Angels. He had a demon in him, after all; loved irony and had the blackest humor she knew of. It was Los Angeles where he went, to the place where he had first seen her. To the place where she had started this life and to where she hoped to end it.
She was a Slayer, and like all Slayers, she accepted death as just another part of life. She didn't welcome it, didn't want it, but she had died once and been revived, and she knew she wouldn't always be so lucky. And when she went, she wanted it to be in LA.
Dying in LA. How de reguier.
So now she lay on her bed, listening to Willow's cd and pondering. It was something she did a lot now, although it sounded so Pinky-and-the-Brain to say it, and she wrote most of what she pondered in her journal, her oldest friend.
Excerpt from the diary of Buffy Summers
What is true happiness? That's something I've thought a lot about. Did Angel lose his soul only because we had sex? Was it because it was the first time he felt human since he got his soul? Would it have happened if we slept together again? Can it only happen with me? Can Angel sleep with other people? Or would he lose his soul then?
I have all these questions circling around in my head all day, and I just don't have any answers. I'd go to Giles and ask him all the same questions I als myself, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know. I know Willow doesn't know. Or at least, I don't think she does.
The truth? I'm not sure I want to know.
That killed her, that thought. She hadn't been to be with anyone besides him, ever. Through all her lonliness, and the mounting frustration she had encountered when he came back, she had never laid hands on anyone besides him, hadn't had anyone's hands on her. Well, if Scott didn't count, and they had barely dated long enough to really kiss.
She sighed to herself, doodled a little in her diary. A little stick figure Buffy, with a stake in her hand. A little witch Willow in a pointy hat. A Xander with big ears and a smart-ass grin, a Giles with a book in his hand, Cordy with shopping bags...Faith with a knife. She scribbled that one out with a little whimper, then drew next to it Angel wth his long duster. She smiled at that one, then threw her little notebook down and got up off the bed, groaning with frustration.
"I have to get out of this house...I'm losing whatever counts as my marbles." She grinned a little. Her mom had been so overprotective since the Ascension that she was rarely allowed out of the house. It'd taken a three hour long talk to convince her mother again to let her move into a dorm. And even then she'd had to agree to visits home every weekend.
The Ascension had come and gone with so many changes in her life. Exiting high school, Faith nearly dying, at her hand...near death herself, they'd had one last talk. She still visited the hospital when she could, but it was useless...Faith was gone. She'd know that since her dream that took place in Faith's apartment.
She wasn't even the only one going through a change. Xander and Cordy actually seemd to be on speaking terms again, Wesley Wydham-Idiot was leaving for England as soon as he could (and good riddance), and even Willow and Oz seemd to have gone through some great metamorphisis in the past few days.
And the biggest change of all, for her...Angel leaving her. Leaving Sunnydale. Three years of the purest, truest love just thrown away. For her own good.
She wanted to throw up.
She hit the cd player, and flipped to a song, a fast one with a rhythm she liked. She listened to the words and drank them in like water, smiling somewhat angrily.
They so fit her.
She knew that she shouldn't be bitter about this, shouldn't feel so hearbroken and betrayed over something everyone, including she, knew would happen eventually.
Grabbing her diary, she lay down on the bed on her stomach and flipped to a clean page.
With a flash, she realized that she did. She could forgive him because he loved her, and wanted her to live. Even if it didn't make him happy.
She smiled, a real, happy smile, for what felt like the first time in months.
Getting up, she grabbed the cd player and turned it off. Too much music and no life could drive a person crazy. She had to get out. She opened the window, breathing in the cool air like it was the one thing she needed in the world. Strange, but since Angel had left, even the air in Sunnydale seemed different, smelled different. Like he had taken a bunch of darkness with him. Or maybe it was just the passing of the Ascension. Either way, she didn't know if it was a change for the better or the worse. But she did know one thing.
She could breathe again.
THE END
