TITLE: Once Upon A Time
AUTHOR: Ragna (writinggoddess@aol.com)
RATING: FRT
CLASSIFICATION: Buffy POV
SUMMARY: It's time to reminisce about what happened in Sunnydale...
SPOILERS: Set after Chosen (BtVS) and Spike's arrival at Wolfram & Hart.
DISTRIBUTION: Any sites with my fic up; you all have unspoken permission. I write it, you can post it. Everyone else just keep my name on it and let me know. Lyrics are property of The Smashing Pumpkins and belongs to "Blank Page" from the album Adore.
DISCLAIMER: If you don't recognize it, chances are it's my own creation. If you do, I don't own it. Joss Whedon, Kazui Sandollar, The WB, UPN, et. al. most likely do.
FEEDBACK: Please send it offlist and let me know it's feedback; I do rapid delete on my account due to a lot of spam.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to everyone who's sent me well wishes this last week. They really, really made me feel better! This is an answer to crazy_girl_mary's CD challenge. It's an eight piece series using songs from a Smashing Pumpkins CD called "Adore;" some are used as titles and some are used as lyrics at the bottom of the fic to show the music the character is listening to when they're writing these thoughts down (each piece is a journal entry of sorts).

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November 5th, 2003

The last day in Sunnydale... It's a hard day to remember, a day when you basically saved the world but lost so much in doing so. We lost Anya, some of the Potentials, Robin...we lost a lot that day.

I...I lost Spike. I think that hurts more than the rest. For me, at least. To have to leave him there...I think some days I would rather have stayed with him and burned than be alive without him.

Those last few months...it wasn't about sex, or lust. It wasn't about wanting something you couldn't have or using someone for your own needs. It was a companionship, a friendship, I suppose...whatever it was, it was special.

I've spent a lot of time since we got here in Rome just staring out the window, listening to sad songs and thinking. I think Dawn thinks I may jump off the roof or something, but I'm not suicidal. Sad, yes, but not to the point where I'll kill myself.

Not yet, anyway.

Maybe I never will kill myself. Maybe I'll survive, just like I always have. Maybe I can move on. Maybe I'll finish baking and be ready...maybe.

My head's hurting again, like it always does when I think about this too much. So that's why I'm writing it down, hoping that maybe by getting it all on paper I'll just forget, one day. I don't want to remember it anymore.

I just want to move on. I'm sorry, but I want to forget. I want to start over. I don't want to hurt anymore.

I just...I'm still going to miss him, I know it. I wonder where he is now... Good-bye, Spike.

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