Disclaimer: Owner of B/A, thy name is Joss
Rating: PG. 13
Spoilers: "Surprise", "Innocence", "Becoming Part Two", "Anne", "Into the Woods"
Distribution: send me the URL for your site and it's all yours
Summary: Buffy takes a look inside herself…
Timeline: Somewhere between "Into the Woods" and the new ep, "Triangle"
Cate: POV and B/A

I looked in the mirror today and didn't like what I saw.

Reaching up, I touched my face and ran my fingers over the purple smudges underneath my eyes. My cheeks had hollows in them. Large indentations that I figured I might be able to put my keys in. This joke didn't make me laugh. It could be because it wasn't really funny. Or maybe because I haven't laughed in a while.

My hair is lank. Not greasy, just…lifeless.

I'm wondering, as I touch my reflection, what made me this way.

A few years ago I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw. I was a young girl, and my eyes were shiny. With love, with hope, with innocence. Yeah, sure, I was a vampire Slayer, but that didn't stop me from being happy. I was a girl in love. In love with a dark, handsome man who acted as if I was his saviour.

Maybe I was.

What did he do for me?

He gave me a pretty reflection, I know that.

I had lost myself in all that whirlwind of young desire. In that breathless first kiss. That first moment when I realized that there was no going back. I was head over heels. Maybe I should have held on tighter to reality.

The morning after we made love, I came home to my little room and looked in my little mirror and saw a little girl who had just done a very big thing. I was bright, I was flushed and my hair was still damp.

He tasted like the rain that night.

He tasted like the future.

When I stared at my reflection, I saw a girl who was in love. Who feared nothing. Because, hey, I was in my youth and I thought nothing went wrong. It didn't matter that demons existed. I was in love with one, after all.

That night when I came home, I looked bruised. I remember that clearly. My mouth still stung from his kiss and my skin hurt. I hadn't relaxed my face all day. I crumpled before the mirror and thought how ugly I was. How damn ugly. A broken heart will do that. Make a person pale and wispy. Make them look like they've seen too much.

When I first arrived in LA I got a little apartment. It had no mirrors, but I had brought a pocket one. Every morning before waitressing I did my make-up before the tiny piece of glass. Obsessively, with great concentration I would paint on eye shadow and blush. Stroke mascara over my lashes and apply deep, red lipstick. It was a great mask. No one even noticed the blackness under my tired eyes, or the way my cheeks were cracked with the effort of smiling.

I wonder what has made me the way I am now. The mirror doesn't lie. But I wish it would. Curving my hands over my cheeks, I press my fingers against the bones and watch my reflection with empty green orbs.

I cried last night. For Riley. I can see the evidence of that in the salty tracks down the sides of my face. My tears really did nothing to help. All they did was create more of a mess for me to clean up. He's gone, and there's nothing I can do. Maybe there's nothing that I want to do.

I can expect little sympathy from my friends. I know Willow will suggest dating again.

What a joke that would be.

A year and a half ago I went against my better judgment and tried to heal by sleeping with the first person who crossed my path. That didn't work. Then I got entangled with a golden boy…a steady, dependable man who loved me. I don't doubt that he loved me. I doubt what I felt for him.

I touch the glass and watch it move as the mirror shakes slightly. My reflection shimmers and blurs.

Riley didn't work. He didn't mend me. He never would have, and I was fooling myself.

No one can fix me now. But I hope someday I will see him again. The man who can. The man who can see inside me.

The man who has no reflection.

I wonder if he watches the mirror like I do. Hoping, waiting, that someday he will see something real.

Hoping that he will see a reflection…and recognize himself.

I turn away.

That can't be me I'm seeing.

It can't.

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