My love, Buffy

God I miss you. I know how stupid this is, writing a letter to a dead person but... I need to say these things. And if you can't hear, well that doesn't exactly matter.

When you fell from that tower, you saved us. And yet, in a way, you killed us too. Or, you killed me at least. You used to kill me a lot you know. You never knew it but it killed me. All those times you said you could never love me. But you trusted me, didn't you, because you said to take care of Dawn. To protect her. You wouldn't have said that if you didn't think I would. And I do. My reply to that was 'Till the end of the world, even if that happens to be tonight.' Well it wasn't. The end, of the world, I mean. Not that night. You stopped that. But to me, to me, in a way it was the end. Because you died. You made me feel like a man sometimes, made me feel alive. And when you died, I died aswell. I'm the undead vampire I was before I loved you again now. Except I don't kill people. I don't hurt them. And I'm looking after Dawn. And she's looking after me. I made a promise, Buffy, and I'm going to keep it. I'll protect her until she's old and wrinkly, and she'll probably hate me for it, but I will.

I can't begin to put into words how much I miss you. You put the world in colour, and now it's all black and white. There's this huge hole in me that will never be filled. I won't ever be able to look at your beautiful face again, or fight alongside you, or even feel those powerful fists hammering on me once again. Decades, centuries will go past and I'll never forget you. Not one little bit. I wonder if you know. I'd like to think you don't. I like to think you are somewhere where you can be happy and not worry about anything, about any of our problems. Which you would, if you were here. You're like all other good people Buffy, you feel others' pain. I hope you don't know what it's like here.

Angel came down a while ago. He stayed with me for a bit. We didn't even fight. He went off to Asia a while ago. I don't know why, and I didn't ask.

If it wasn't for Dawn, I'd be suicidal by now. I suppose I have you to thank for that. If you hadn't made me promise, I wouldn't have anything to live for.

And there's guilt too. Unbearable guilt, you don't know how much. I relive that night every day. Just thinking if I'd done something differently, If I'd stopped Doc, If I'd just moved my arm that little bit to the right to knock him off balance, If I'd just turned slightly so I could grab the tower and not fall. I keep seeing Dawn's face as I fell. And then afterwards, when she saw your body. Lying there. I see that in my dreams too. I felt so lost then. We all did. You were just there. Still, cold, dead. I failed you, and I failed Dawn. If I'd stopped Doc... You wouldn't have had to jump. I should have let him beat me to a bloody pulp rather than cut Dawn.

Dawn says it wasn't my fault. She says that I was so brave, that none of the others reached the top of the tower to try and save her. But if they'd reached it, I bet they wouldn't have failed. They would have been able to stop it. It shouldn't have been me up there. Or maybe that's just the cowards way out. The fact is, I was the one up there and I was the one who failed. I'm so sorry Buffy.

There's also guilt that sometimes... I wish you hadn't ended it. I wish we'd all just got sent to hell. That way... I wouldn't have to be here, dealing with this pain, and neither would Dawn. We would be together. But then the more rational part of my brain says that we would be suffering unbearable torment. You would be suffering unbearable torment. My Buffy, my love, hurting. Are you hurting where you are now? I don't know. But I doubt it.

Sometimes, I get angry at you. Often when Dawn's depressed and the vampire population has killed that night, and we just need you here. Something inside me snaps and I'm screaming inside. Why did you have to leave us? How could you possibly expect us to be able to cope without you? How could you? It hurts, sometimes, when I'm feeling like this. It hurts all the time. Normally I break things, but I have to do it when Dawn's not around.

Some days I just don't think I can cope at all. I just don't think I can go on. But I will. I will go on. I will struggle through the days and maybe, in a few hundred years, the dark patch will be over.

Help me.

Yours forever,

Spike.