Always
Author: Angelsgirl
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters.
Spoilers: Season six. When Buffy goes to see Angel after she is brought back to life.Dawn and Tara don't exist Buffy never told Spike where she was. (Heaven)

It was dark, but she could feel him. She could always feel him. The abandoned warehouse was cold, but she didn't feel it. Finally, he stepped out from the shadows.He looked the same. Same dark hair, same piercing black eyes, dark, he was always dark.
"Hello,: she whispered. He said nothing. He couldn't say anything. For months he had grieved, thinking her dead. Now here she was in the flesh. Her pale hair gleamed in the moonlight, that spilled in through the cracks in the ceiling. Finally he spoke.
"Buffy," his voice was rasped as if he couldn't breathe, but then, he didn't breathe. He stepped towards her. She didn't breathe. This was the closest they'd been for three years.
"So, how've you been?" She asked.
"I've been good, you?"
"Dead."
"Buffy that's nothing to joke about...."
"Well, what am I supposed to do?, sit here and cry because I was pulled out of Heaven?, joking's the only way I can get through it." He had turned away from her.
"Buffy, I didn't know, Willow didn't tell me..."
"She doesn't know," He turned and looked at her with his haunted eyes. "None of them know....they think I was in some untold hell dimension," She paused "It, It was safe and warm. There was no pain, or fear, or doubt, and I was content. I knew everyone I cared about was safe. And I was ripped out of there, by my friends. And now it's really hard, just trying to get through a day. This is hell." She started sobbing. He came to her and wrapped his arms around her huddled form.
"Did it hurt...when you died?"
She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears.
"Not as much as this," he let her go.
"Buffy I need to tell you something," he stepped away from her. " When I found out you were gone, it was as if a part of my soul died with you. It as if part of my soul died with you. It hurt me like nothing else, not even dying... I felt lost. I cried for you, for the words not said, the things not done. But, Buffy I have to say them now. I'm sorry for everything."
"Angel.."
"No, you're not going to stop me, for when I bit you, for when I hurt you, for when I beat up.. Riley, but most importantly for the pain in your eyes when I left.. I would have done anything to remove it."
"But you still left......" she looked away from the piercing gaze.
"It..It was hard to be around you, to look at you and not take you in my arms and make love to you......"
"Angel that's weak, you could have fought it, we could have fought it. But you took the cowards way out."
"That's easy for you to say Buffy, you're the dearest thing in the world to me. You gave me meaning. I- I didn't know what else to do, It was just too hard."
"So you left," she looked at him with accusation in her eyes.
"YES!" he yelled, "yes I left, I left because it was hard to be around you, not because I stopped loving you!"
"You still love me?" She looked at him and for the first time in a long time she actually saw him. He looked sad, like he had lost apart of himself. He tried to cover it up, 'For so long' she realized. But his eyes betrayed him. Then she realized that she loved him too. She always had and a part of her always would. This man, with his fangs, his tortured soul, and his eyes of tenderness and pain had shown her herself. And she owed him everything.
"Angel," she looked at the ground, "I- I love you too, I guess in some ways I always will ," she heard him approach. He put his hand on her cheek.
" You are real, you're.. alive," he brought her to him in a tender yet passionate embrace, "I missed you," he whispered into her hair.
" Me too," and then their lips met, and she remembered everything that had been. That simple act had opened the doors of her memory that she had kept closed for what seemed like forever. She didn't want the kiss to end, but it did.
"I- I ,"
"Shh," he whispered, "Surely you and I are beyond speaking when words are clearly not enough." So she didn't speak. He savored the fact that she was in his arms and he could hear her heartbeat, he could feel her blood flow. He finally knew she was truly alive. It was she who broke the silence.
"I- I know we can't be together." Her voice was taught, it was as if she was breathing her last. He drew her an arms length away and slipped something in her hand. She pulled away and looked in her hand. It was the cross. The cross, she had lost, left it on that forgotten day. He was handing her a piece of his soul. He would never forget her, the promise was in this cross. As he slipped into the shadows she heard those fateful word.
"You still my girl?"
"Always."
She turned and left with still so many words unsaid and things undone. She had wanted to be free of him, to never see him, to cleanse her soul from the pain he brought. As she stepped into her car she held the cross in her hand. She thought it would have been easier, but it would never be easier. She knew that now, she would never be free of him. He was in her soul, her mind and her heart, as she was in his. As she sailed along highway 108 she licked her lips and tasted his kiss. The last one she would ever feel, but she would never forget. The tears coursed steadily down her cheeks. And she wept....she wept for things that had been, and things that never could be, NO, she couldn't forget. He was burned into her soul, for all eternity. And she was in his. She would forget him when she forgot how to breathe. He was her regret, her pain, her happiness, he was......her Angel.