The third draft of her letter wasn't going any better than the first two. Leaving goodbye notes was another thing she was seriously out of practice with, especially when she knew it would be read as a suicide note by the recipient. Impatiently, she blew a strand of hair out of her face and crumpled the paper into a ball.
There were a number of things she didn't want the note to do, including sending Wesley off on a wild goose chase, adding to whatever guilt he felt, and leaving any hint of where she was heading. The last one was the easiest; if she prepared the note a week or two in advance, before she had any idea which direction she was going to set out in, there was no way to hint at anything. Simple. The first two, on the other hand, were decidedly not simple.
An almost hysterical bubble of laughter escaped her as she stared at blank page number four. Immediately post-trauma, it had seemed like such a simple plan. Even when he'd taken matters into his own hands and moved her in with him, she hadn't foreseen any complications. This was Wesley, after all. Effete, irritating, pompous, life-ruining Wesley. Who was the only reason Giles hadn't killed her, who turned out to be nothing like she'd imagined he'd be, who liked plants, who was almost as likely to get absorbed in a video game as he was to get absorbed in arcane research, who thought she smelled like some exotically-named flower, and who was the first person she'd dared to connect with since leaving Sunnydale. Sometimes, Buffy marvelled at her own stupidity.
It wouldn't happen again. This time, she'd stick to her self-imposed rules--maybe in a decade or two, she wouldn't make such an appealling trophy and could ease up a little, but not until then. And this time, she'd be armed with Council phone numbers in case of emergency. Glancing at the clock told her she still had plenty of time before Wesley got home from work. With a small sigh, Buffy gathered the crumpled pages and shoved them into the back of a drawer.
Wesley's bedroom still smelled liked they'd spent the better part of the night and most of the morning in an effort to rid the world of sexual tension. Which, she figured, was mainly her fault. After all, she was the one who'd been trying to glut herself on sensation in preparation for a coming drought. Burying her head in his pillow, Buffy tried to steel herself for the coming separation while wondering how the hell things had wound up at this point. Nothing to lose wasn't supposed to be a temporary state.
Tired of feeling maudlin indoors, she collected the notebook and pen from her room, and wandered out to the patio. The blaze of color that had shocked her when she'd first seen it was now comfortingly familiar, the vined-in walls and wrought iron benches making it seem less a part of a recently-constructed townhouse and more like something out of a child's fairytale. That was, she figured, the point: for Wesley to have somewhere he could retreat to, somewhere where he wouldn't be reminded of glass buildings and responsibilities. She understood the sentiment well enough to feel almost uncomfortable about invading his sanctuary with her physical evidence of the latter.
Instead of writing her letter to Wesley, she drafted two long-overdue missives to old friends, reassuring them that she was fine, apologizing for leaving the way she did, and telling Xander and Willow in turn how much she loved them and missed them. She didn't bother to ask any of the things she'd wondered for years, if Xander had ever gotten back together with Anya, or if Willow was still with Kennedy, if Xander had ever forgiven her for the loss of his eye and the loss of his faith in her. Nor did she ask the new questions, like asking Willow if she'd known of Giles' plan. Even if she'd wanted to know the answers, she wasn't likely to ever learn them.
Buffy sealed the envelopes that marked the close of yet another part of her life and stared blankly at the various pots and planters. The light midday breeze ruffled the leaves and flowers. To her left, a bright yellow lemon bobbed on its slender branch, each movement threatening to send it toppling to the ground. Blinking away the fog that had overtaken her mind, she gathered her things and went back inside.
She'd leave both the letters in Wesley's care when she left, with instructions on when to send them. He could take care of the where. Opening the drawer, she took the balled-up drafts from the back and smoothed them out. She re-read each one carefully, looking for things she could reuse, and finally managed a short note of explanation cribbed together from the bits and pieces of what she'd been trying to say.