I meant it, you know.

Or, you don't. Know. Because there you are, and here I am, and for once I'm not the one underground. Kind of a refreshing change of pace for me.

I know, I'm babbling. I just got here, and I'm already babbling. And it's not like I don't have people to babble at back home. There are still way too many people hanging around for me to babble at, and they'll all understand what I'm talking about. Probably. Maybe. I don't know.

I'm so not used to this. I always thought that if I weren't the Slayer, I wouldn't have trouble telling people how I felt, or what I was thinking. Now I'm not the Slayer, or not the Slayer, anyway, and it turns out that not connecting is part of the normal human experience.

Yeah. Feel free to let me know when I start making sense.

I didn't expect this. Missing you. I guess I should have known I would. You were always looking out for me…well, always in the sense of the last few years. Or most of the last two years. I took it for granted that you'd always be here. I took a lot of things for granted. Like having you around as my living, breathing…well, okay, neither of those things, in the strictest sense, but you get it…my sounding board. Like having you tell me off when I got out of line. I never told you how much I appreciated that. Then again, I never appreciated it until….

I know why they did it now. I mean, I hope you're happy. I know you must be…happy. But part of me doesn't care. Part of me wants you miserable, and conflicted, and tortured, and here. Don't worry; I'm not about to bring Willow into this. But it's Sunnydale. Charred, smoking crater of a Hellmouth that it is, weird stuff might still happen. So if you do show up again someday…stop by and say hi. I'd like to see you. Wow, I never thought I'd be saying that.

Of course, I never thought I'd be saying what I said to you…before. It was so comfortable to hate you. I wish I could still hate you. Why did you have to make me see it? You could've just kept saying it. Why did you have to show me instead?

Hm. "Self-centered much?" I could use one of your anti-pep talks about now. Guess I'll have to get used to giving them to myself.

I have to go. Duty calls. Tonight's duty is making the chip dip for what seems like the hundredth post-apocalyptic Slayer-power party we've thrown, but it's duty nonetheless.

Really, I wasn't going to stay for this long. I just came to tell you…. Maybe I only said it to make you feel better back there. I don't remember. But now I have to say it to make me feel better, because I can't stand the idea that you died thinking it was a lie. Because it isn't. Not now. Maybe not ever.

I love you.

I mean it this time.