Title: Knights Consort (2/?)

Author: Cyclone

Feedback: Please be gentle.

Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.

Rating: Just a little bad language.

Spoilers: Anything and everything.

Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Summary: There's more to love than sexual attraction. In fact, sometimes, it just gets in the way.

Author's Note: Nothing much to say here.

I broke up with Willow.

I didn't want to, and God knows it's not because I don't love her.

It's because she doesn't love me.

No matter how much I love her, no matter how hard she tries, I am and will always be Rebound Girl.

And that's why me and her - us - just wasn't going to work. She was trying, so hard, but we were still drifting apart. I could feel her slipping through my fingers, and it was killing me.

She wouldn't end it. She couldn't end it. She was so desperate to make us work, and not just because of me either. Because of Xander too.

More specifically, his eye. For all her bookishness, Willow's a very emotional person, and there's an irrational part of her that feels guilty, that thinks him losing his eye was less because he was saving me and more because he was saving us, and she didn't want him to have made that sacrifice in vain.

So I had to do it, or we'd keep clinging to each other, trying to build a house on sand, until the whole thing collapsed. Until she resented it. Until she hated me.

Until she hated both of us.

I don't think I could live with that, and I know Xander couldn't.

He went to her, of course - which hurts, since it's my heart getting broken - but I think he understands.

Hmm. Someone's knocking on my door. Better go see who that is.

"Dawn?" Not who I was expecting. I wasn't sure who I was expecting, actually, but it wasn't her.

"Hey," she says. "Just checking to see how you're doing."

"I'm fine," I lie.

"Bullshit," she snorts.

I don't respond.

"I get why you did it," she says gently. "I understand a hell of a lot better than you think I do. We know you're hurting right now, and he - we - don't want you to be alone right now. Xander can't be here, so here I am."

Huh. Didn't think the happy couple would think of me. After all, I may be a Sunnydale Survivor, but I'm still not an Original Scoob.

Shows what I know.