This story takes place in mid Season 4, during the episode "Soulless". Be warned: it's disturbing.

Also, it might not please the Continuity Police. First, it assumes that the Svea Priestesses' descendants were, in fact, able to vanquish the Beast. Second, it does not take into account Cordelia's posession by the Jasmine entity, but merely passes off her dark, erratic behavior as a depressive funk.

But that's why it's called Fan Fiction, my friends; I'm a fan, so I'm makin' stuff up! Enjoy.

ONE

"Hello, salty goodness," were my first words upon seeing him.

He was tall, dark and cold. He was aloof, broad-shouldered and a man of few words. He had a penetrating gaze that could pierce your heart, and he was interested in someone else; I always did love a challenge. He was perfect. Well, almost.

I mean, I knew when I saw him that there was an age gap, but I was thinking maybe six or seven years, ten at the most. Little did I know that there was more like 225 years between us. Plus, a blonde Slayer, a gypsy curse, a shockingly violent alter ego, and a whole mess of other things that eventually caused me to turn my energy away from the broody vampire called Angel, and toward boys my own age.

But the twinge never went away. Lusty thoughts of Angel continued to plague me all through my puppy-love with Xander Harris, my teenage infatuation with Wesley in his Watcher days, even through watching Angel get stripped away and locking horns with Angelus. In fact, disturbingly, I was even a little enamored of Angelus! Don't get me wrong; I knew he was the most sadistic bastard ever to walk the earth and I was happy to let Buffy deal with him, but some part of me dug the crazy fiend. How irksome is that?

When Angel left Sunnydale, and so did I, the naughty dreams stopped. I actually picked up a much healthier obsession with Matthew McConaughey, and my nocturnal fantasies involved being his leading lady. But after seeing Angel again at that party three months later, my juices started to flow. Literally. I went home, ate my stolen star-shaped sandwiches and, well... alleviated a different kind of hunger. So, it probably wasn't the greatest idea in the world to work for him in his demon-fighting capacity, because once I did, I knew it would be all over. I would be lost again to lust. I tried to tell myself that constant and intense contact with the man himself would deaden (pardon the pun) his effect on me, and eventually the desire would wear off. But I was lying to myself, I knew in my heart of hearts.

And sure enough, the aching got worse, the more I learned about his champion's heart and fragile soul. Eventually, I fell in love, not just lust. And if you don't think that was messy... Sometimes I loved being by his side, fighting the good fight, getting visions and then getting all hot and bothered watching him do the follow-up. Other times it was torture, and I was tempted to flee. I wanted to climb him and couldn't. So I settled for thinking about climbing him. For several years. Agony. Yes, agony! I always hid it well, never let my feelings show. For all my tortured panting from afar, I never stopped being myself around him.

But after he and Buffy parted ways in the police station, and after Darla staked herself in that alley... I don't know, I guess I began to think there was hope. I know that he's shackled by a curse that prevents him from having true happiness, but I began to rationalize that maybe now that he knows what could happen, he'll be so worried about losing his soul, he won't be able to have true happiness, even while he's having the sort of mind-blowing orgasm that I could give him. Guilt. That would do it. No one loves guilt like Angel loves guilt, and it could be the thing that would keep him grounded, and not evil. Don't you think that could have worked?

Of course then, things happened as they always do. I became part demon, Angel and I got posessed by the spirits of Russian ballet dancers, Holtz raised an army of misfits to take Angel out, Groo showed up, Wesley kidnapped Angel's baby, the baby came back three weeks later as a teenager and I ascended to a higher plane. There just wasn't time to broach the subject of a relationship, or even of shacking up together.

And then I lost my mind, in more ways than one.