I've been right around the whole world. I've walked on every continent. From desert to ice to mountain to jungle to plain. After the fall of Sunnydale I needed to leave them all, get out on my own. Call it running away if you wish, though I prefer to think of it as an imperitive journey.
It was clear from fighting the First, that I haven't been living for a long time. I had forgotten why we had to fight - why I had to fight - why we were fighting to live.
I can't pinpoint the exact time when I stopped living and began existing, but I have and incling it was around the time of Acathla.
I left to find myself. I searched for near on a year, trying to discover something - I wasn't quite sure what. Not until now.
I still don't know why I'm walking up the three flights to the appartment Giles said I could find her at. He told me she had still wanted to work with them, just not live in the same house. I guess it's nice to see some people don't change.
Giles is the only one I've seen so far. I asked him not to tell anybody I was here just yet. I am ready to see them, as I assured him, but I really have to do this first. Only, this step requires knocking and I don't think I can do that.
Come on girl, you've been fighting demons since you were fifteen; stopped your first apocalypse a year later - I think you can knock on a door.
The two taps were so quiet, I barely heard them through the turmoil in my head. It seemed to have been loud enough though, if the bounding footsteps were any indication. I felt my body pulled forward slightly in the rush of air as the door was yanked open.
Once I was settled back on my feet, I looked up and into her beautiful brown eyes. There was so much in them, so many emotions. Most that I refused to aknowledge. But there was one, one emotion that was at the forefront - the one that I needed to see.
She took a step back and waited, letting me make any decision I wished. I couldn't move. After a few minutes of standing there, neither of us doing anything, I watched her face fall. Her whole body seemed to reflect the rejection she felt and to my surprise, or perhaps not, I felt my insides twist at her pain.
A second later I was in her arms, breathing her in, feeling her; my searching done.
And it was later, as I felt her tongue in my mouth and her fingers deep inside of me - I knew then, I knew - I was finally alive.
