A/N Hello lovely readers. I have just finished watching all of Buffy so this is my first fic in this fandom. Please review :)
Disclaimer: Buffy and everyone else in her world belong to Joss Whedon, unfortunately.
It was on that day that she knew with absolute perfect clarity what the future had in store for her, or rather what it didn't. It was as if her entire life had just been a road. When she turned around she could see the past that she had left behind: pain, heartache, love, heartbreak, friends, family, foes, enemies. The past was a place where nothing made sense yet perhaps the only place she had ever belonged.
She hadn't belonged with her first love: they were too different. Maybe he was exactly right for her but she had been firmly in denial that the recent changes to her life could ever work out. She cared for him but he knew they couldn't be together.
By the time she had her second love she was completely and wholeheartedly in love with her first. She belonged with him back in a time of innocence and substance. Yet that ship had sailed. Harsh words were spoken, both ways, blows were exchanged and nothing was ever taken back. There would be no going back, no walking the path to the past.
She never truly appreciated her second love, merely taking him for granted, and the story was similar with her mother. They went unacknowledged until all that was left of them was a big hole in her soul. The void that could never truly be fixed grew bigger with each person who abandoned her.
But it wasn't abandonment, not really. In fact, if anyone abandoned anyone she did. She was ignorant, living for the somedays and never the now. She was a whirlwind, storming through the lives of those around her, never bothering to survey the damage, never understanding exactly what she was doing.
She played with her third love, purely for amusement. Whilst his love for her may have been genuine, she merely needed a distraction from the inevitable: one day she would have to think about how to fix her problems, instead of just ignoring them and that scared her. So she had her fun and it came around to bite her. By the time she realised that she loved him he had stopped believing.
Friends came and went, she supposed, or maybe they had been there the whole time without her noticing. At any rate they weren't there now. They had all left somewhere along the line. Had she driven them away or had they run as far away as possible from all the pain?
The pain was all she could see when looking into the past. Her pain, her guilt. She'd been called out on that once, she remembered, how she only ever thought of herself. It was the only way she knew back then but in the end she paid the price. She stopped trusting and they stopped caring.
However, she still lived for her somedays. The day when she and her first love could be together or when her second returned to her or maybe even that day when her third believed in her again, they would all come.
Maybe her friends had tried to help, to point her in the right direction but she didn't really know. Hell, she wasn't entirely sure where they lived now or who they had with them. There had been a dark time at some point on that road to the past. If she looked back it was too clouded in fog to see. That was when she had actually lost them all.
It didn't deter her. Stood firmly in her present ground she continued to have fun. To try to forget. To hope. Nothing else was important, until she made the mistake.
She had looked to the future, really looked instead of contenting herself with mirages of someday. It was empty. No happily ever after, no crazed confession of love, no family. Her road led on alone, crossing no one else's paths. She'd been stupid.
It was seeing her first love again that did it. He was distorted in every way from the man inside her head. He was cold, unforgiving and upset but not about her. In fact she hadn't been an integral part of his life for many years. He had got cross with her and her double standards and for the first time ever had walked out of her life without so much as hesitating, let alone looking back.
For some reason reality hit her. Their future paths did not cross at all. His was a lot shorter than hers yet more fulfilling. She felt regret at her actions, guilt, even, and a little sorrow for her unobtainable potential.
Somedays didn't exist; she knew that now. All that existed was pain, regret and redemption. The fight was everything: it let you know you were still alive. Finally she could have sympathy for all the atoners who had ever cared for her. It was hard to regain trust and love; it was harder still to find someone to believe in you.
As she sat quietly on the alley floor contemplating lost possibilities, the skies opened up. Rain poured down, reminding her of her worst regret. She should have been in this exact spot another time when it had poured this way. Somehow she felt that the skies had been crying for her lost purpose then and were now sobbing, great ugly bawling cries, for those she had hurt with her ignorance.
The water washed away the last of her innocence but also her arrogance. Could she start afresh? She looked up as a drenched man entered the alley and came to sit silently in the filthy puddle with her. He had been close to her, once upon a time, their paths ran together. In absolute stillness their fingers intertwined, casting their gaze to the horizon. The future was there somewhere and, no matter what, they could both find a place there.