Author: Laurette

Rated: PG

Spoiler: Everything to the end of Season 3 I guess.

Summary: Buffy's speaking (thinking, writing...) some time after Angel has left town.

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Joss Whedon does, lucky man... The song "Ashes" is property of Ben Harper and Virgin records.

Thanks to Rae for reading this and telling me it wasn't crap :)

"Meeting is such sweet sorrow
cause someday we may have to part
hush don't you make a sound
you're gonna let me down

All that I am
is all I can give
but with or without you
my life I must live."
                      Ben Harper , Ashes.

      I don't cry. I don't cry anymore. Since that evening I haven't' shed a tear. Since that day he turned away and left, I've been strangling any emotion before it could reach my heart, because I know that if I let them reach it, I would die. Oh, I've survived a broken heart before, but I'm afraid this time I would let myself get killed. And I can't allow myself to think about him when I'm fighting some demon whose dearest whish is to send me directly to heaven (or hell?).

     So I chose to be strong. As I've always been, or I think so… I mean, since the day I was called. That's what I've always heard: you have to stay strong, don't let your feelings interact, don't let the enemy see your pain when you get hurt. Don't break down.

      Everything is cold inside me. I don't feel anymore. I still talk and laugh with the gang, and I still fight, but I do it from very far away. I feel as if my soul had shrunk. It had to, because it was too hard. When he told me that he was leaving, I still could feel, the pain was not so terrible : he was still here. But then, after the Ascension, when I saw him turn away from me, it was as if my whole body was ripped apart, and my skin started screaming for him. It was so unbearable that I used all the strengths I had left to shut the pain down. And since then, my whole energy is aiming one goal: never feel that pain again.

      Willow tried to talk about it, but I changed the subject because this is the kind of pain, of love, on which you cannot put words. For, as frozen as I am, I still love him. My love for him is asleep somewhere in me, and I'm so afraid to awake it that I barely dare to evoke his name.

      They all say time heals, I think you only get used to not being with the other, and that makes the pain less vivid. And they all say I'll love again, but I can't believe that right now. Some people never ever find love, not once. I had it, I found it once, and thinking that I may find another would be to presume the kindness of the Gods.
And the worst part is that I can't even hate him. God knows I tried, it would have been so much easier. But I can't. Even when he was Angelus, I couldn't, so how could I now? I know he's right, he's made the right choice, and I know he did it out of love. So how could I hate him? My Angel.

       I'm crying now, and I feel as if all that pain was coming through me like a wave. I guess I don't have a choice, but to accept and build my life without him. I've done it once before, I must have enough strengths to do it again. And I must start to feel again, because if I carry on this path of bitterness, I may become like Faith. And even if I die from hurting, at least I'll die alive, and he'll have one reason to be proud of me. Strong is fighting, but stronger is living.

End

"Living ain't easy
since you've been gone
no one else can please me
or make me feel home

Fordetting ain't easy
you stay on my mind
thoughts of us haunt me
can't leave them behind."
                              Ben Harper, Ashes

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