Title: Lone Wolf

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The fic is mine though.

Cannon: BtVS

Character: Buffy angst, scooby-bashing

Pairings: Buffy/Angel (mentions)

Genre: Angst/Dark

Timeline: Right after Empty Places

Summary: She never claimed to be perfect, but she knew when she wasn't wanted. Right and wrong didn't really matter to her in the end of things.

---

It was a full moon tonight, she realised in the back of her mind. The town was empty and there were no howls of werewolves intent on finding a mate. She had receieved a letter from Oz about a month ago, usually getting one every few months just to tell them he was alive and where he could be found for the moment. A wondering wolf was he, but she didn't think of him as Packless. A part of her that was Slayer thought Pack as her family, Dawn her cub adopted and her breatheren as her scoobies. Tara had been the seer, Xander the joker, Giles the wise, WIllow the gentle and smart, Spike and Faith the curved edges. There were a few like Anya who were still trying to make thier way into the pack, and Buffy had no doubt she would be a genuine scooby in her own mind one day.

And though Oz wandered, he was not a lone wolf really.

A long time ago, she thought, Buffy had fallen in love with a knight she claimed was her dark winged angel come from heaven into hell to save her. And then he had abandoned her and she had no one to catch her. She was the leader, the alpha. She was the weapon. THey looked at her and expected of her.

She could never voice to them that she was really weak and under thier strain her thoughts were bedning and she wanted to rest, to sleep. Her gentle and smart friend and the rest of the Pack had taken her from the rest that she wished, and since then the Pack had been at its weakest, unknown the the lower of the scoobies.

She had never claimed any type of perfection. In reality she had never really wanted a Pack to call her own. She wanted a niche for herself and a free field and no one would leave her be. The gentle rhythm of an ocean current striked her like lightning from the air. She flinched at the flickerings of power that were burning within her. The town was empty of most and she didn't care anymore.

"I need you to leave."

She knew when she wasn't wanted. It was all her fault. Xander;s eye, the dead Potentials, the First coming to life, Jenny, Joyce, Tara, Willow, Giles, Heaven, Hell, Angel, Angelus, Dawn, Glory, Adam, The Judge, Faith, Kendra, Jessie, The Master, Kreichlich, Darla, Druscilla, Spike. It was all her fault and she couldn't voice differently any longer.

Only the moon didn't blame her, and on a Tuesday in early May she left into the shadow never to return to the place atop the hellmouth. Everyone had left her once and as soon as they had given her the chance she had left them before they left her.

Never again would she be a scape goat.

She had never claimed to be perfect.

She knew when she wasn't wanted.

Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer, needed to find the carressing waves she had only felt once before nad in heaven. Empty and jaded she was drawn to her knight in dark wings who had too left her. Maybe now she could convince the world she was something unseen.

And into the dark of night a Slayer joined the silent sounds and howled for her mate. For now she would be a lone wold but not forever.

---

End. A little bit of angst for you.