Spoilers: All of Season 5
Timeline: Some point in the not-too-distant future
Feedback: Of course. ;)
Summary: You'll understand very early on. It's pretty much self-explanatory.
Rating: Nothing worse than the show.
Author's Note: Please excuse any grammatical errors or sloppy stylings. This was a very quick fic, and a little depressing. All mistakes are my own. Plus, I was trying to write Been Here Before, and I'm at a block. So, I needed a break. At any rate, enjoy.

~~How can it get better than this? I didn't stop crying until Dawn. I didn't know how. I still don't think I do. I want you here, but I know it's better this way.

I feel like screaming at the gods, or the Powers that Be, or someone who can take the blame. Someone has to be to blame. It just doesn't make sense if things happen for no reason. Everything that I do, everything that I fight for. It's all for nothing if there's no-one there to blame. Tell me how to make it better. Tell me why I should keep fighting to protect everyone else, when I can't even be allowed to have a family. What next? Dawn, Willow, Xander, you? It's not fair.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking that I'm being childish. Or maybe you're sitting there, and wondering where the strong Buffy that you knew disappeared to? She was never here. She doesn't exist. I don't even know if I exist. Or if I do, I don't know if I want to. Tell me why I should keep going.

Am I a toy? Am I a plaything, used for the amusement of some person? Are they claiming victory over me, now that I've finally broke? Who's toying with me, my mind. my emotions. Tell me who. So I can kick their ass. So I can beat them up. So I can control my life. You and I would have forever. My mom would have forever. Willow, and Xander, and Anya, and Tara and Giles would have forever. Dawn would have forever, and she'd be real. She'd be born into a life of safety, and never have to worry. I would never be the slayer. There wouldn't be things that go bump in the night. I wouldn't need to exist. But I would want to in that world. I would want to exist in a world where my mommy didn't die, and where Dawn wasn't the Key and where you wouldn't be cursed, and where I wouldn't be denied love and safety. Why am I life's bitch? Angel, I need you. I need answers. I need that world, and I need you to give it to me. ~~

I don't know what I said to make it feel better. I don't know if I did. I wish I knew, but she wouldn't tell me. She kept it to herself, and kept being the strong Buffy that she looked up to. I never thought it possible for a person to look up to a version of themselves, or to want to maintain it so badly that they felt incomplete when they weren't that version. Maybe I know it's possible, but just don't realize it. Maybe I do it myself.

That letter showed such desperation, and confusion. I find it difficult to read, and yet I'm drawn to her words. To the neediness in her thoughts, and the pull of her love. I don't know how I avoided it for so long.

~~I know you're right. Life begins and life ends, and it's all one, big cycle. But your life doesn't end. It may never end. But mine will. And my mom's did. Shouldn't our lives a least get to last a little longer? Shouldn't hers have lasted longer? Death has a habit of creeping up on people, and coming when they least expect it. Or maybe they half-expect it, but it's still a shock. I thought I had come to terms with the fact that I am going to die early. I haven't. I have too much to leave behind. Dawn wouldn't be able to survive, and I know that Xander and Willow would try to keep up with the good fight and wind up getting themselves killed. And Giles won't be young forever, and I don't know if he could handle it. And the thought of losing your love would be too scary. I don't want that. I don't want death.

I want life and light and happiness. But my life is shrouded in darkness, and nothing seems real anymore. The shadows appear in the light, and remind me of the realities of my world. The shadows are my world, and yet I can't see anything clearly in those shadows that come out in the light. They are the shell of a person. There's nothing inside of them. Then again, maybe the shadow is what makes the person. And maybe the shadows are what makes me. I'm whole with the shadows around me, engulfing me. Maybe I don't have a shadow, because I am one.~~

I could tell. Part of me knew that I couldn't help her this time, and another part of me wanted to think otherwise. I wanted so badly to think that I could make a difference. That she needed me, and would listen to me no matter how she felt. That my opinion would be that decision between life and death. But it wasn't.

~~Angel. They told me I don't have long. I can still write to you, and I want you to know that I love you. I love you so much. I'm sorry. Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. We didn't have forever. But, maybe some day we will. Maybe some day I'll see you again, and we won't be doomed to be apart from one another. We'll be so in love that it will hurt to be apart. Not that it doesn't now. but you know what I mean. Please, Angel, don't be sad. Please protect everyone I love. If not for them, for me. They need you.

And Angel, don't blame yourself. There is nothing that you could have done. Nothing. Please, forgive me. I love you so much. Yours forever, in your heart always. Buffy.~~

I knew. It didn't take much. I didn't even need the letter. Something inside of me died that night. Not the night she died. that was a different pain. Before I opened that letter, though, I knew. It was a searing pain inside of me that knew she had given up. It didn't compare to the night she died. I couldn't get there in time. By the time I read the letter, it was almost morning. I left as soon as the sun set, and Sunnydale had never seemed so far away. The roads seemed to spiral, further and further with no end in sight. I could feel her screaming, and I could feel the agony, and all the while I was dying. Because she was dying. Sunnydale became the light at the end of the tunnel, and when I was so close to reaching it, I saw the light flicker and disappear. And I knew. I knew then that I was too late. That I wouldn't be there in time, and all I would see is a shell. A shadow. I turned my car around, because I didn't want to see that shadow. I didn't want the shadows. I wanted the light. I wanted Buffy. And the light flickered, and disappeared. And I read these letters over almost every day. The caring creases have slowly become soft, and the edges almost too delicate to handle.

When those edges become too delicate, and the lines too fragile, and I can't read the letters anymore, I'll know. I'll know that it's time for me to move on, to go to a different place. Never a better one. And the softness of her words, and her loving tones will only be able to exist in memory, and I won't be able to see her words. And I'll know. I'm nothing but a shadow.

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