Title: Solitude
Author: Rubber_Soul
Rating: PG
Pairing: B/F kinda
Spoilers: S4
Disclaimer: Not mine.  All belong to Joss.  I'm merely playing. 
Dedication: To caffeine!  Wouldn't have made it this far without it! 
Authors Note: Don't ask me.  I just got back from a lovely time at the library and sat to start typing part of my dissertation and this happened instead.  I totally blame the trauma of having to go to the library to do work.  If it doesn't make sense, it won't surprise me.  It's short too.
 
 
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Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap.
 
The sound echoing around the empty room.  It was always the same.  That time when everyone else has given up and left to go and do something fun.  To spend time with those they cared for.  So many nights in the same seat, staring though the same row of books on a shelf.  Sitting trying to complete that next assignment on time.  Sitting trying not to think.  Sitting trying not to feel so isolated, so alone. 
 
Buffy realised that she was tapping her pen and stopped.  More out of habit than anything else.  After all, she was in a library, not that there was anyone else there.  With a sigh she looked down at her watch. 
 
8.37pm.  It was dark by now.  She glanced over to the door considering just quitting for the night and going on patrol.  The Scoobies wouldn't have left yet.  Instead she looked back to her paper and realised that she was in for another of those all nighters.  In just over an hour she'd have to head home to finish it.  A place where she felt even more alone than when she was sitting in the deserted building with only the books for company. 
 
She'd noticed it more since Riley had left.  In truth she had started to get that feeling for a while before Riley went.  It had just been a bit easier to ignore then.  Now...Now she had no distractions and the more she tried to ignore it, the more she noticed it.  She knew why.  She'd spent long enough thinking about it.  All those nights out on patrol.  All the nights sitting in this very chair.  All the nights just lying in bed staring at the ceiling, knowing sleep wouldn't be coming that night. 
 
While there was no denying that she had a great group of friends who knew all about her life, they never would be able to understand.  Not totally.  That was what made her feel so alone even when the entire Scooby gang was around her.  None of them really knew.  They thought they knew.  Thought they could understand.  They couldn't.  Buffy couldn't tell them that.  They'd only ask her to explain to help them understand and there was no way to do that.  So she kept it secret from them.  She slayed; she went to college; she went to the Bronze.  She put on a mask every day. 
 
9.03pm.  They'd be out on patrol now.  It was in those times when they did the patrol without her, that they believed they knew what it was like to be her.  Not even close.  When it comes down to it, they can walk away.  Move to some little town with no demonic activity and live a happy life.  The demon world is not going to know their names, their faces.  They can afford to fall in love.  Not having to worry that the next big bad is going to go after that person just because you care for them.  Buffy could never have that.  Anyone that she was seen to care for became a target.  A point of weakness that could be exploited.  
 
Circumstances is what it all comes down to.  The age old question of what if.  That's what kept her awake at night.  The questions.  The fantasy of a life that could have been if only circumstances had been different.  The knowledge that no matter what, it would always be just that...a fantasy.  Never a reality.  
 
9.36pm.  Maybe if circumstances had been different then she would get that white picket fence existence.  It wasn't just the circumstances though.  It was also down to the choices she had made.  Some of those choices would haunt her for the rest of her life.  Until that day finally came when she just closed her eyes and the pain, the noise, the questions, would just stop.  
 
Replaying the scenarios over and over again.  Doing something slightly different.  Saying something different.  Each time wondering why she didn't do it at the time.  Maybe then she wouldn't be so alone.  Maybe then she would have had someone to understand.  To just know what was going on in her head without her having to say a word.  
 
9.55pm.  Packing up her books and heading back home.  Still lost in thoughts of the past; the present that could have been; and the future she could have had.  Mistakes.  So many mistakes.  No way to change them.  No going back.  Only forward.  Forward into that unknown future.  A future alone.
 
10.14pm.  Putting all thoughts out of her head, Buffy focused on the paper she had to write by the morning.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow she would start to replay it all over again and dream of what could have been.
 
She never knew that a short distance away, someone else was doing the same thing.  Staring out though the bars into the night sky.  Changing the past the only way she could...in her dreams.