The Mirror of Reflection

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Stop rubbing it in.

A/N: Well, I tried to write a chapter for a story, but this came instead. It blossomed off my confusion at never having read the comics and wondering how Buffy could've moved on so quickly. We all know how driven she is by her sense of duty and I imagined her dating the immortal more as a way to put the Scoobies at ease than out of actual affection.

So here's the drabble and read it while I run and hide from "Corruptible Innocence".

If her return from the dead had taught her anything, it was the necessity of putting up her "happy" face.
If she'd thought she'd needed it back then...well she needed it more now.
None of her friends wanted her to miss him.
Xander was crushed by Anya's demise in the hellmouth, he had no time for anyone's pain but his own.
Willow was running the high of being bad magic-free, and the new girlfriend complete with tongue ring, she refused to notice anything wrong.
Giles...God he'd tried to do Sp-him, in himself. Sure he'd acknowledged his sacrifice and all, but he would never understand how she felt.
Dawn, she'd mourned in her own way. There'd been no sister-to-sister grieving , but Buffy knew she missed him and regretted not making things right.
But it was Buffy's fault there had been a wedge between them in the first place.
So for them she had to do this.
Because they couldn't worry about her.
She was the Slayer.
So she smiled at Giles after the collapse of the hellmouth and asked for stationing somewhere where she kick back and enjoy the world she was constantly saving.
And she made herself go out every night and dance and party like she didn't have a care in the world.
Like a giant hole hadn't been carved into her chest when he'd been torn away.
Like another man's touch didn't make her want to cringe and scrub her skin until it bled.
And when the Immortal came and promised to show her the high points of the Italian nightlife, she'd nodded and turned a deaf ear to her friends' relieved sighs at her turnabout of behavior.
Even when the walks home became gazebo kisses and eventually overnight stays, she remained steadfast in her giggly and content attitude.
Never showing how each caress made her cringe inside and every kiss made what was left of her heart bleed.
Because it wasn't him.
She wouldn't allow herself the luxury of closing her eyes and pretending it was his hands and mouth that caressed.
She didn't deserve that.
She stared unseeing into the eyes that would never be his, and embraced the pain each dawn brought waking in the arms of the vampire she didn't want.
Punishing herself with the memory of the man she'd never have again.
And all appeared fine in the world of Buffy.
But maybe the endless pain had made her morbidly reflective
Because there was a mirror in her room that spanned the wall across from the bed, and the only time she allowed her eyes away from the figure above her, was to gaze at her reflection.
The lack of one for the Immortal.
Ironic, that she was the only one that appeared when nothing could be farther from the truth.
His skin may be cold, but it was her heart that was dead.
Without Spike, she was the animated corpse.