Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, I wish I never came to L.A. Never say it out loud, because, well, I know all about wishes now. From Xander who got the inside line from Anya. His girlfriend. Or whatever they are, I don't think about it a lot. Think about Xander a lot. Think about Sunnydale and all that baggage a lot. Leave it alone, that's me.
Except I don't, can't. Whatever. Not tonight anyway. I mean, getting sucked into a portal, a PORTAL to another world, that's a biggie, isn't it? Important, and cool, and did I say important? I was a Princess in a different world, that should be the major thing this week. Should be. My time front and center. Spotlight, something.
Of course, what 'should be' the case never is for me. Pity party? Hell yes. It's better than dwelling on death, being dead, people I know being dead, because that's the other choice, and no thanks. Did she have to save the world * this week*? I guess there's some kind of schedule on that. Not something you can erase and pencil in a few weeks later, but maybe you can, because they always seem to just try again later, not a lot of quitters in the ending the world business.
No, all the quitters find other things to occupy them, like acting for example. Or being a Warrior for Good, all those easy jobs. Not that he has quit, but I know he's thinking about it. Just turned good again, and his carrot had to blip out of existence. Maybe I would quit then too…no, I wouldn't, not that I * can* even quit, but I sucked it up when my little baby carrot, the kind for dip, when it withered away. I miss him too. Miss him, doesn't really cover it. I mean, do I miss him really, or do I miss what I think we had, who I thought he was, a person I've made up since he died? This fictional character I can turn over in my head and so I can say 'He's not Doyle/Doyle wouldn't have done that/Doyle smelled better than that/Doyle's eyes were bluer/His hair was darker/He wouldn't have gone evil/He wouldn't snore'
If it weren't for Doyle and Angel, where would I be now? Would Gunn have saved me from a vamp one night while I was walking the street? Would I be in Anne's shelter? Back in Sunnydale? No, maybe the first two, not the last one. You can't go home again, darn tootin' there, buddy. Not me, not like that.
Wesley wants me to go with him to the funeral. I could see it when he dipped his head, the way his eyes watched my toes wiggle in the opening of my shoes. He didn't look at Angel's feet. Well, I wouldn't have either. But he can take Gunn, not that Gunn knew her, not that he knows any of them, but that's the better thing anyway. Not knowing. Not * returning*. Just being the guy Wes brought with him. Not being Cordelia, Cordy, the one who left, the one who used to live here. Used to. Not now, not ever again. And, no. I'm not going back. Not even for a funeral. Especially not for hers. Evil thoughts, not evil, spite, and I can't fucking care all the time! Some emotions are twisted and bitter, and she made all this happen to me! It's on her, about her, Buffy Buffy Buffy, and now I am mean and petty. Yeah, she saved the world by dying. Whoohoo. That was her job. Like the headaches are my job. I would die too if I had to.
They had to send Willow. Not that I hate her anymore, not really. Not hate. Just didn't want to see her here. Here in the Hyperion. My territory, my place, and there she was burning her imagine into my mind in the lobby. Not just standing there, but standing there talking about Buffy. And I should have a place of my own, right? A place where they aren't? Where I don't have to think about them?
I ran away, why do they have to keep popping in all the time? Sure, I called Willow about Harm. Sure, I have e-mailed Giles and even Willow, but that was work-related. All about work, not about *relationships *, about the past and all the reasons I left. Could I stand there at her graveside and see Xander with Anya? Talked to him a couple times on the phone, he's always afraid of dying tomorrow, needs to make calls, tell people things, and I sat through that, but I didn't have to *see * him. Look at him. Be in the same space with him. With him standing there with his arm around her. And that's the past, and now Buffy's way past. Gone. Dead, just like everyone will be. Even Angel when he Shanshus, decades from now when the rest of us are long gone. People die. Doesn't mean I have to go home for it.
It was bound to happen. Just like I was always gonna pack up and leave as soon as I could, from the day I was born that hand was probably clutched in my tiny, baby fist. Gonna pack it all up, everything I was left with: the clothes, the $312.67, the hair-care products, and my ragged pride. The shred of pride I had, less than a shred, the wisp. Run from Sunnydale and all the people in it, people, monsters, whatever. Came to L.A. to get away, get known, get something I never had. Me and my hovel. My time alone to think and not eat and hope just a little. Reinvent myself. Try to. Doing it all on my own. Just me, no one there to shove me down, step all over me, drag me kicking and screaming into one insane freaked-out ooze-filled situation after another. All those days don't really count for anything now. I know it was just the PTBs letting me starve and *think * I had escaped. Ha ha little girl, just you wait. Audition after audition, humiliation and ass-kissing, all of it was just leading me to Angel. Leading me to Doyle and Angel, Wesley and Gunn, visions and waiting to die horribly. Just like her.
And, we're nothing alike. Nothing alike except we both have/had this *thing * we never wanted. But I never drug anyone else into it. I don't force Wes or Gunn to stay with me at night when the nightmares cascade in. I don't purposely throw up on Angel when a vision hits. I still hate her. I still can't get away from her. It doesn't matter that she's dead.