Story Notes: Final chapter (I think) of Truth & Lies. Set post Chosen and NFA. Buffy POV.
A/N: This was an unexpected chapter. The idea just wouldn't leave me alone and I'm blaming it on listening to "San Paolo Rain" one too many times. Thanks to ShinodaBear and Ares for encouragement and a complete lack of sniggering and finger pointing. Apologies to all for any grammatical errors or just plain wrongness. Feedback is always appreciated.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never gonna be mine. Not making a profit here either.

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

Somewhere in the between time, in the grey world between light and dark and day and night, that was where she now lived. She had made her home in the thinning place where reality and fantasy were one and the same; where lies became truth and there was no such thing as never. Anything was possible in the fluid time between one state and another and any dreams she had might, just might, come true.

The day was too bright for her to live in. She was constantly blinded by plastic smiles that swallowed screams so loud her head hurt. The light was too sharp and cutting and too many eyes watched her without seeing. Too many hands touched her and the bruises they left were hidden in the light of the sun.

So many people she used to know had lived in the sunlight. It hurt to see them and know that she didn't know them anymore; that maybe she had never known them at all. The people whose faces they wore were long dead. The kind of dead you don't come back from. The kind of dead that decays slowly; that festers and rots and should just be buried so that everyone can finally see the elephant in the room and go home.

The night was too dark for her to live in. Silence echoed in all the chambers of a heart that was once filled with laughter between friends and secrets that could only be whispered between lovers. The night was cold and empty and she was only a ghost that walked in a world full of the dreams of the living.

Too many people she used to know had lived among the shadows. She could no longer do her duty because this one had brown eyes and this one had blue. This one and this one and that one had light brown hair or dark brown or maybe black, but she couldn't take the chance now could she? So many of them were white blonde and light blonde and dark blonde or maybe it was light brown. She didn't want to be wrong and it was too easy to see her lost loves hidden in the blurred shadows of faces never touched by the sun.

In the between time, in the thinning time, she could rest. The grey covered everything too bright and too dark and she could lose herself to dreams. She didn't have to act a part for which she no longer had a script. How could she remember her lines if she had no script?

Whether in the day or in the night, everyone acted as if things were just the same; as if nothing had changed. She hadn't changed, of course she hadn't. She never changed. She wasn't allowed. She was only supposed to be whatever she had once been long ago. But what if she didn't know how to get back to that girl she had once been? What if she couldn't remember the way?

You always take string into the labyrinth if you want to find your way back out. Everybody knows that. But she had lost her strings and the compass just spun madly. Every step had only carried her further in. She had thought that if she just persevered she would find that girl, the one she had been before, waiting at the heart of it to lead her out. Instead, all she had found was a great echoing emptiness. That girl must've gotten tired of waiting and left.

That girl had walked in sunlight. She had laughed and played and death had never touched her. Never even came close. That girl hadn't lost anything. Not yet. That girl had friends who would never lie to her. That girl's friends hadn't known how. But they would learn though, wouldn't they? And they had been very fast learners.

That girl had walked in moonlight. She had run and jumped and was never afraid of the dark. The things in the dark couldn't touch her. Never even came close. That girl hadn't lost anything. Not yet. That girl had loves that would never leave her and would never die. That girl's loves hadn't known how. But they would learn though, wouldn't they? And she had learned with them.

She had learned how to lose herself somewhere in the grey, the thinning place, the between. She had learned how to spin lies into truth and bought herself a tower built on dead dreams and ashes deep within the labyrinth. That girl had never learned how to wait, but she had. She had learned that her heart didn't have to stop beating for her to die. She had died and been resurrected twice before but they say the third time's the charm. She just wished it wouldn't take so long. She had places to go and people to see.

ooo