Buffy stared out at the gravestones, hidden in shadows, lopsided or broken, covered in moss. The dead lay just a few feet beneath her, just a few feet above the mouth of Hell. A shiver twisted down her spine, leaving her limbs shaking. Frowning, she nestled her wavy blond mane into Angel's shoulder. A sigh slid from her lips. Her brow creased with the beginnings of a thought. Above their heads, the clouds dispersed, leaving a beam of moonlight on the ground in front of them.

"What if it ended tomorrow?"

"Are you expecting an apocalypse I don't know about?" Angel chuckled lightly, resting his hand on her shoulder, tucking her against his ribs. The scent of lavender soap residue filled his empty lungs.

"No. I mean…well, what if, say, the Hell Mouth just…closed. What if the fighting just stopped?"

"I've lived for two hundred fifty years, Buffy. It never stops. We do what we can to fight it, to keep it at bay, but Evil never stops."

"But say it did stop," Buffy frowned, adjusting her position to look up into his face. His dark eyes had a dreamy quality, as if lost in thought. "Say it just stopped. Evil stopped coming. No more demons. No more Hell dimensions."

"Could you stop fighting?" Angel asked, though he didn't look at her. His gaze stretched out over her shoulder, drifting into the evening.

"Could we live in a world where they don't need us?"

"Buffy," Angel frowned, coming back down to earth, smoothing his hand across her cheek. "I'll always need you."

"I've been the Slayer for so long. I don't know what I would do if I had to be a regular girl."

"In a perfect world, Buffy, neither of us would fit. The perfect world is the thing our dreams are made of, but if it existed, we wouldn't be there to enjoy it. We're trying to create a world that we can't be a part of."

"The things we want most, we can never have…"

"If we were different people we might stop trying."

"If we were different people, we'd fit in that world…"

The mattress shook violently as Buffy jolted upright, her eyes shooting open. Slivers of moonlight rippled over her quilt, crisscrossing the bumps that were her legs beneath the cover. A terrible shiver streaked over her skin, raising the small blond hairs on her arms and legs, the back of her neck. Her cheeks were stiff with drying tears. Her lower lip trembled, frenzied.

"Buffy?" Angel murmured, rubbing sleep from his eyes, sliding his hand over her bunched fist.

"Nightmare," Buffy replied succinctly, lifting a glass of water from her nightstand.

"Prophetic?" The tone in his voice revealed concern, worry for her safety.

"Probably," she frowned as she lay back down, curling close to his side, rustling the collar of his shirt as she nestled against his shoulder. "Major wig."

I don't usually place additional commentary at the end of my fic, but I felt it might be necessary here. The above story is not meant to be particularly romantic or a shipper, though there are certainly elements. Instead, it is meant to be a commentary on the roles Buffy and Angel play in their universe. I hope that you enjoyed it, but I also hope it inspires thought...

Thanks for reading!

Ataventure