Disclaimer: Nope, they're not mine, as much as it pains me to admit it…

Rating: If you can watch the show, you can read it.

Warning: Angst, and character's death. (I was in the mood for a little depressing writing session)

Distribution: Really, you want it? Just tell me where it goes then.

Note: I'm sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes I certainly did. English is not my first language, so, I'm just doing my best! Tell me if it's really awful…

Feedback: Oh yes!

The noise is deafening. It's like a zillion little balls were hitting the roof all at once and it has been like that for hours now. It's raining… In Rome, can you believe it? I've been living here for almost a whole year, and I never saw a cloud. And now it's pouring, it's been pouring for three days. Ever since I came back from… wherever I was. I don't want to think about that too much. I keep telling myself it was just a dream… Or at least, that's what I've been doing the two first days. Because now, I'm not really thinking about anything. I'm just sitting on my bed, staring at the window, following the droplets that are hitting it with my finger. And counting my breaths.

I know Dawn is starting to get really worried. I can't blame her about that… I must look like hell. I don't care. The only thing I care about now is how many breaths I take. Because if I stop counting, I'm not sure I'll remember I actually have to breathe And I don't even know why.

Who am I kidding… of course I know why. It's just that I don't want to admit it.

She comes into the room every two hours, to check on me, and see if I don't need anything. She doesn't really know what to do… she doesn't even really know what happened. Sure, Willow probably told her, but she wasn't there. She didn't see it. Thank God for that. She's a young girl… a young woman now, but still… I want her to keep that last part of innocence that I had already lost when I was her age.

The last ten days have been… surreal. I've been a slayer for almost nine years now. And yet, some things are still hard to accept. Or to believe. When Will called me last week, panicked, to tell me what was happening in Los Angeles, I didn't waste any minute. I packed some stuff, called the few slayers I knew were in the area, and two hours later, we were in a plane. That's when I started to realise everything… I realised that it was my fault. I hadn't been talking to anybody in L.A for the last ten month, I hadn't been talking to Angel for even more than that; I was too proud. And too stupid. If I had been acting like a normal person, instead of like a selfish bitch, I would have known. And now that I was thinking about it, I realised that I had actually known, somehow. I had been having those horrible dreams for a month, about an apocalypse. But I hadn't wanted to pay attention to them.

When we approached Los Angeles, the pilot announced that we would have to land in San Diego, because of a "problem" around L.A. That's where I started to really panic. What the hell was happening exactly? We all jumped in a bus, we were already late. We met the others near the city, Faith, Xander, Willow, and around 30 slayers.

The situation in Los Angeles was worse than we thought. It was like a nightmare. The city's lights were off; people were running everywhere, screaming… It was chaos. Entropy. Or whatever other word that expresses so much horror. Vampires and demons were taking advantage of the mess, and there were corpses on every street. We didn't stop though, we kept walking towards what we thought was the epicentre of the battle. The charge of power that we could feel there was incredible.

When we arrived there, we took a minute to process what was happening just before our eyes. It was like in some of Giles's old books. Surreal. There was a Dragon. Yes, a dragon, like in Fairy Tales. And at least a hundred of demons, fighting against only three people. I felt my heart start beating again at that very moment. He was there, still alive and kicking! And, believe it or not, Spike was there too. I said something to the team, probably an order, and then I ran towards them.

It all happened in something like three seconds. Before I could make ten steps, Spike was turning into dust, staked in the back. First shock. I ran faster. But I was too late; I was just starting to call his name was I saw Angel turn around and fall on his knees. He was hurt, badly. I screamed, and when he lifted his eyes to look at me, he smiled a little. The demon finished what he had started, and a fraction of second later, Angel was just dust in the wind.

The following days are a bit blurred in my memory. I just know that we won. Or, I think we did. Because we don't exactly know how it stopped. One minute, we were surrounded by demons, and the next, we were standing in the middle of a hundred corpses, eyes opened wide in disbelief. We lost a lot in that battle. Seventeen slayers… no, seventeen young girls, who should never have had to live that, died that night. Faith, Kennedy, and a few others were unconscious. It took us a week to clean the mess. A few hours after the end of the battle, we found a very wounded, but yet miraculously very alive Gunn in a building next to the battlefield. A young man, who introduced himself as Connor, had joined us during the fight. He seemed to be stronger than the average Joe, but I didn't really wonder about it at the moment. Really, I didn't care. I was just trying to process what had happened, and to cope with the events. I acted like a robot, giving orders, organising the trips to the hospital, the burials, planning our return in England. I vaguely remember Gunn telling us he didn't want to have anything to do with us, after what we had done to Fred; I didn't even try to understand what he meant. I just remember Willow talking with him, and crying, then telling me something about Giles. Actually, it was a bit too much. I didn't want to know. I still don't want to know… maybe later. I was doing my best to stand still, and to be there for the team.

When I came back home, the pain, the rage, and the sorrow of the last days finally hit me. All at once. Dawn opened the door, I looked at her, and the next thing I know, I was sobbing in her arms. I broke down, literally. And I felt ridiculous for that. I didn't have the right to grieve, because it was my fault. But I kept crying, for hours, or for days maybe, I don't know. I didn't know I had enough tears left in me to cry about Angel that much. And I didn't understand why I was crying that much. Angel and I had barely talked for the last few years; we had both moved on, we were going on with our lives…

Then the truth finally came to me.

Who was I kidding?..

Myself, first of all, for sure.

I hadn't moved on. I never moved on, despite everything I did for that. There had always been that little part of me, of what I truly was, that kept hoping for a future with my Angel, and that loved him. It was just very well hidden. The only person who had actually knew that all along, ironically, was Spike. I never fooled him, soul or not.

I didn't cry for Spike this time. I already thought he was dead, and he had had his fair share of tears last year. I felt hurt, that he didn't tell me he was alive.

But at the moment, as cruel as it may sound, I didn't care about him. I couldn't mourn the both of them. I just wanted to wake up from that nightmare... I had lost my love again, and that simple thought was too much too bear. It had to be just another bad dream.

I knew that, sooner or later, I would have to go back to reality. I would have to take care of my sister, to patrol, to call the council… To put that horrible fake smile on my face, the one that I know so well… And to live. For my friends, for my family, and for the world. But not for me, not anymore.

I don't remember when I stopped crying. When I stopped thinking, and slowly drifted into that numbness. Maybe I'm just… dry. Maybe I don't have any tears left.

I just know that now, I'm sitting here, in my room, watching the rain. And counting my breaths, I'd better not forget that. One after the other.