She remembers, of course. Remembers everything, thanks for asking, not just recent but long, long past; remembers her name and age and first car, a lovely red convertible with QUEEN C on the license plate. She remembers the name of every shoe store in LA and her first comment - twice - about Angel. Her teenage self had a distressing tendency, not entirely removed, to think of him as "salty goodness." It went hand-in-hand with the belief that she could, if she wanted to, make him do anything she wished. Unfortunately for her, she only really got to that stage after she'd suppressed the desire to do so. She hadn't lusted after Angel like that since sophomore year, before he was Buffy's and she was Xander's, and that was a match doomed from before it started and never to be mentioned again, if you don't mind. Of course, it'd been quite some time since she lusted after anyone at all; loved, yes, not so very long ago, and liked in a way that was somewhere between love and lust and the sheer unshakable appeal of being someone's idol. But not pure, unadulterated lust and teenage hormones, meaningless and worthless and, in retrospect, so much easier to understand.
Because she remembers more than just her past. She remembers other things: visions and people and not needing a reason to care. She remembers when the mission was important, remembers losing sight of it, remembers losing him - all of them - and working so very hard to regain what she didn't realize she missed until after it was gone. She remembers helping the hopeless, and then she remembers what she just learned: they are the hopeless. They have no hope; she's seen what will come, and they can't stop it. The visions are very much not fun, she's found, even when they're painless. This time she got to taste the blood of the fallen, and she hopes very much, in a fleeting moment of selfishness that she hopes to pass off later as a regression to adolescence, that it's not a literal tasting, because odds are that means she'd be a vampire, and thus be reflection-less.
That scares her, in thinking of it, less than she'd have imagined it would. Her reflection is something she's grown to appreciate, in part because everyone else did. It's a useful thing, her reflection; it shows her how to fix her appearance so that she looks impeccable, perfect, unconcerned. And what she's come to realize is that such things are hardly relevant. So she's not the same vain high school queen who spent hours in front of her mirror, pining over miniscule flaws in skin and boys. She sees life, these days, with open eyes; her understanding has grown. And that's why she knows, is certain, that being with Angel is beyond simple impossibility. If common sense won't force her to see, the visions can; she can't ignore what they're telling her. So she has to ignore her feelings, be the adult here. And she understands Buffy, now, more than ever, and is obscurely grateful that whatever is to come will do the killing for her; she, at least, won't take his life. And, if she's right, she might not even have to live to mourn him.
Because she remembers more than just her past. She remembers other things: visions and people and not needing a reason to care. She remembers when the mission was important, remembers losing sight of it, remembers losing him - all of them - and working so very hard to regain what she didn't realize she missed until after it was gone. She remembers helping the hopeless, and then she remembers what she just learned: they are the hopeless. They have no hope; she's seen what will come, and they can't stop it. The visions are very much not fun, she's found, even when they're painless. This time she got to taste the blood of the fallen, and she hopes very much, in a fleeting moment of selfishness that she hopes to pass off later as a regression to adolescence, that it's not a literal tasting, because odds are that means she'd be a vampire, and thus be reflection-less.
That scares her, in thinking of it, less than she'd have imagined it would. Her reflection is something she's grown to appreciate, in part because everyone else did. It's a useful thing, her reflection; it shows her how to fix her appearance so that she looks impeccable, perfect, unconcerned. And what she's come to realize is that such things are hardly relevant. So she's not the same vain high school queen who spent hours in front of her mirror, pining over miniscule flaws in skin and boys. She sees life, these days, with open eyes; her understanding has grown. And that's why she knows, is certain, that being with Angel is beyond simple impossibility. If common sense won't force her to see, the visions can; she can't ignore what they're telling her. So she has to ignore her feelings, be the adult here. And she understands Buffy, now, more than ever, and is obscurely grateful that whatever is to come will do the killing for her; she, at least, won't take his life. And, if she's right, she might not even have to live to mourn him.