"G'night Buffy!" Dawn's voice calls from the other side of their Roman flat, the last thing she hears before she slips into slumber.
She's with Angel in her dreams tonight. In a graveyard – it always starts in a graveyard. //We're supposed to be hunting// her conscience prompts, but that one teeny tiny part of herself is given a great big 'Shhhhhh!' by every other part. Because instead of hunting, they're kissing.
That really good kind of kissing – the kind where his lips never stay pressed against hers for too long, but are always coming back for more. The kind where she cups his stubble-brushed cheeks and breathes him in like life itself. Swoons under his big strong hands constantly grasping at her shoulders until he decides she's not close enough and pulls her into a deeper embrace. The kind that goes on for hours.
This is why grown up Buffy has only had a single human relationship – because of this. Long hungry kisses from a dead man that taught her how lively kisses can be.
God she loves kissing Angel. There isn't anything else but his soft lips and his practiced hands.
"I really…" she tries to think about why they decided to come out here anyway.
"I know," he replies, as if he too is struggling to get back on track.
If either of them had willpower it would work. Instead – she finds herself staring at his lips – they're all juicy and wet with her kisses. A soft breath slips from her lips and that's all he needs to be enticed. They get right back to where they were – worshipping each other with their mouths.
"You know, this isn't hunting in the classical sense," she enlightens him.
From the depth of his arms, with his eyes focused more on her shiny lipgloss than the words she's saying.
"You're right," he agrees.
And takes up right where they left off.
"Ok."
It was him that pulled away this time. //Come back!// her body calls out mournfully, pretending it has no idea what duty is. The softness of his mouth still tingling at her lips.
"Ok," she agrees. Steals one more quick kiss. "Ok," she prompts herself.
For a handful of paces they walk side-by-side. The company in the night air was almost enough to satisfy her. Almost.
//Focus// she tells herself. //Gorches. Bad guys//. A quick scan with her eyes doesn't reveal anything out of place in the abandoned park.
"You see anything?"
"No," his reply is almost instantaneous.
It makes her laugh on the inside. //Mind elsewhere baby?// Well, his nightvision was so much better. She'd be best off taking his word for it.
"Ok. Enough hunting."
//Mmmm, Angel// her insides melt as their eyes slowly slide closed. Those gentle hands press into her back and draw her in closer to him. And they kiss. They kiss and make out in the middle of the park under the stars and he makes her feel she's the most important thing in the world – perfection.
In her Roman apartment a soft breeze stirs the curtains at the open window, disturbing the otherwise still night. Like a lover's caress it drifts over her neck and bare shoulders, stirring a few strands of hair.
A small moan escapes from her lips as the feeling of a phantom Angel's fingers drifting over her sensitive neck awakens true passion like she hasn't felt in a long time. With the intensity of the kisses in her dream.
And as the night wears on – so does her dream. A vivid recount of a love lost. No, wait a minute, not lost, put on hold. Well, whatever it is, it feels goooood. It feels hot, and real, and when she wakes in the morning there's a quiet, self-satisfied smile on her face.
---
The next night when she goes to bed, she spends a long time staring out her window over the ancient city. Today was possibly the best day in her life. Or maybe not – but memories get fuzzier over time and today's is still fresh. They didn't do anything special – just went out, studied some of the architecture, had lunch in a cute street café. But it was fulfilment, they were living as she had dreamed it for them, showing Dawn how many amazing things filled the world. And her heart had been left feeling so full of love after her odd little trip down memory lane last night that the day had been – perfect.
The golden tint of a metropolis that glowed in the night sky made her smile, made her feel happy. It wasn't being sixteen and mindless of the freezing temperatures as the arms of the boy you loved held you – but it did hold an older understanding that her life would be the envy of so many.
That quiet reflection accompanied her, and that smile touched her lips even before she found unconsciousness.
Tonight it was a little later – she'd just started college. She'd slept with someone else //Parker// her mind sneered, and been slapped with a harder case of longing than she'd just been trying to move past. Oh – and it was Thanksgiving. And just like all fantasies should be – the guy she loved, her forbidden heart's desire was suddenly breathing, and full of heartbeats that all wanted her. Best of all – he was totally, absolutely in desperate want, in need, in desire – of her.
Her thighs shifted in her sleep – the warmth between them increasing. Her mind mightn't remember the truth of Angel's massive cock sliding into her that second, third and fourth time, but oh boy! Her body sure did. The feeling of his refrigerator at her back – classically moulded in typical Angel style and yet nothing more than a convenient surface for him to push her up against. It was solid and strong – held her while she jumped and wrapped her thighs around his hot, deliciously strong body. Took the weight of Angel grinding against her as their mouths madly met with a desperation drawn out from months of knowing longing.
When it's not his mouth, it's his ear she's tracing with her hot wet tongue. Or his neck, his sensitive neck. Or his jaw, his collarbone – his chest when she finally gets his sweater off. Whatever is close at hand and she can reach as she's laid out on the table like a feast for him. Of course, he's on top of her like a hungry animal and it really doesn't take long before they're bumping and grinding like they've been doing it all their lives.
"Angel," escapes her soft lips in a breathy moan.
Beneath her loose pyjama pants her lips are gently flowering for him, anticipating the push of that deliciously unfamiliar length between them. It never comes of course, but she unknowingly slicks in readiness.
He takes her on that table and it's everything sex should be – that is to say nothing she's ever had. Hot, hungry, and totally unrestrained yet filled with so much mutual passion that it feels like the whole building will collapse with the force of it. Then they break the table as they try to start round two and find their way to the bed. That's even better. It's the sound of both their names in desperate gasps for air, a constantly rolling, sometimes giggling mound of bedclothes that eventually ends up in a crumpled heap on the floor. Its hands that are always sliding but never lose contact, teeth that nip but never mark – it's fun and love, two things she's never had in bed.
It's everything making love to Angel would be – or so she's dreamed for almost a decade.
Eventually the dream pitters out, they kind of drift off in one another's arms, flushed and comfy, promising that they'll have a tomorrow just like it to do it all again.
Buffy's eyes fly open, greeting the Roman sunrise with a gasp for breath. Her body is hot, so hot, though she's already kicked the sheet off.
"Angel," she gasps.
Without any shame she slides a hand straight down her naked belly, underneath the elastic of her waistband. She has a boyfriend – she doesn't need to do this. And yet the ecstasy of that beautiful dream lingered. So too did the ache.
Her hips arch into the air, eyes squeezing tightly shut as her fingers brush the shaved lips of her sex.
"Yesss."
The soft hiss passed her lips with no restraint as she dipped a finger inside herself. She was wet, so wet, and hurriedly reached into her bedside drawer as she rasped her fingers along the open slit. Slayer speed came in handy and she hurried to slip out of her pyjamas and yank off her underwear while blindly feeling for the cool length of her private guilt.
"Yess, baby," she encouraged her fantasy, feeling the creamy liquid her body exuded, all ready for him to come inside.
Sleepy eyes rolled back in her head with anticipation as she wrapped her hand around the flesh-coloured dildo and drew it out into the light. A quick flick of her wrist and she'd brought the thing to her mouth. If she were fully awake she'd hate herself – but still partially in a dream world she had no qualms about her wet pink tongue escaping her lips to longingly trace the entire length of the thing. After a brief dip into her mouth, a simple movement of her arm had the poor substitute for the husband she'd taken at seventeen poised at the entrance he had only taken once.
She teased it up and down, the shaded V between her thighs a playground, before she finally pressed it into herself. Pumped was more like it – the tool of an adult woman's lonely pleasure slipping into her and splitting her open like he had in her erotic dream. Quiet tears slipped unchecked down her cheeks as she worked herself up into a frenzy, panted harshly like he was really with her, until finally she fell over the edge and didn't have his arms there to catch her.
Yet still, the smile that followed her around today would turn out to be even bigger than yesterday's.
---
"Buffy. Buffy? Buffy!" Dawn tried to grab her attention.
It was obvious her big sister's mind was somewhere else entirely. They were sitting out on their cute little balcony, with it's half-columns balustrade and it's flowering geraniums eating very sweet lemon gelato. The sun had long ago sunk under the horizon but the sky was still flushed with pretty colours and they were out to enjoy the lingering heat.
Well, Dawn was.
She suspected Buffy was on another planet entirely.
"Hmmm?" the blonde sister asked.
It wasn't entirely convincing, she looked like she was only barely paying attention as it was.
"I asked if we could go shopping on Saturday. Geez Buffy, where have you been all day?" Dawn asked, truly curious.
It was nice, to see that soft sparkle in Buffy's eye. That had been missing for a very long time after Mom died. She didn't like the Immortal at all but if he could cheer Buffy up like this, then maybe he wasn't all bad. Still, she'd been zoning in and out all day. A little attention for her only sister would be nice.
"Sorry."
Buffy shot her a smile that didn't have Dawn fooled for a second.
"Shopping, Saturday. Right. Yes, I'd love to," Buffy confirmed. "I'm going to bed," she announced before Dawn could get another word in.
"At nine o'clock? Don't you have to patrol?" came the disbelieving reply.
A kiss on her head and a cheery but distant "G'night," were her only answer. Then Buffy disappeared.
"Freak," Dawn muttered under her breath.
Although, Buffy in bed so early meant no one to complain about what they were going to watch on television tonight. Ooooh, maybe she could watch a movie. A good movie – without all Buffy's interference!
---
Tonight, he spoke.
"I love you," he whispered into her hair.
She nuzzled into that perfect place under his chin where she fit just right and grinned. He wriggled a bit to get a hand between them, and nothing seemed particularly odd to her when he put one of those big gorgeous hands she admired so much on her abdomen. Which, by the way, was a little distended.
"And I love our unborn baby," he quietly told her, just as he placed a tender kiss on the crown of her head.
"Angel?" she questioned him softly. "Do you ever worry something might happen to take this all away?"
"No," he immediately answered back, so confidant.
"How can you be sure?"
He sat in a chair and tugged her down into his lap. Warm fingers cupped her cheeks until their gazes finally met and his dark eyes showed just how lucky he thought he was.
"Because this is my reward."
She didn't believe him, after everything that had happened to them, she couldn't. The Powers were never that kind. Besides, life was his reward. Being able to breathe, and see the sunshine was his reward. Not this. This was just a bi-product.
"Having to put up with me fat and hormonal is a reward?" she challenged, wishing she could just be swallowed up by the earth as those words came out.
Why couldn't she stop herself saying things that would only hurt him? Hadn't he suffered enough? She sadly looked away until gentle digits on her chin forced her to meet his unrelenting gaze.
"Yes."
Big Angely fingers caressed her middle until tears of happiness slipped down her cheeks. Until she couldn't help but believe that one simple word.
"Yes. You are my reward. You fat with my children is my reward… Just like getting you this way was."
He leered at her with raised eyebrows with that last part, and she couldn't help laughing at his poor joke. He laughed too and the sound was magical – soothing right down to her very soul. When they finally calmed his face was pressed into her neck and soft, open-mouthed kisses were slowly finding their way down away from her ear and into her open neckline.
"You're such a beautiful woman, Buffy…"
Serenity engulfed the slayer as her fingers slid through his dark hair, eyes tipping to the ceiling and surrendering to hot wet lips dipping into her cleavage. Here was the man who would fulfil her. Who did fulfil her.
"Until the end of days, my love," he promised her silent thoughts.
Her weightier body was hoisted into his arms as he stood, no mean feat for the now human man who owned her heart and marked her body. She was carried to their marital bed and laid down with reverence. A hint of silver flashed in her peripheral vision when he brought her palm to his lips, kissed it naughtily with an explicit preview of what was to come. It only took a look to beg him to come to her and their mouths were locked in a heated dance of excited love, lowering their fertile bodies back onto the rough sheets.
After that dream Buffy woke with an odd feeling of optimism. She lay in bed for over an hour contemplating just how possible it might be to bring that about as their future – if she used all the magic in the world and had just enough good luck.
---
It was the fourth day that was the kicker. She'd been built up with memories and visions of the lover she'd never really had – Angel. Everything always came down to Angel. And this dream didn't promise the happy future with Angel. This one predicted his demise.
She saw him willing give up his son to a better future. She saw him losing his Los Angeles friends, quietly picked off one by one. She tossed uncomfortably in her bed as she watched a dock, watched Andrew strip all Angel's faith in their love, then Giles rip away any trust he had left in her. Then she saw him standing in a hidden dark alley, except for Spike he was with people she didn't know – nothing but a handful of emotionally exhausted remnants from his gang. They were staring down not only a dragon but the very armies of hell so large she never could have conceived.
And a heartbroken, terrified "NO!" brought her screaming awake as she watched the love of her life disappear into dust that was swept away in the wind, dying an anonymous, forgotten death. Without her.
She dragged in deep breaths, turning over and burying her head in her pillow as the sobbing began. Soon she felt Dawn come pounding into her room, the dip in the mattress beside her and the soothing rubbing of a hand against her back.
"Buffy what is it?" the muffled inquiry barely reached her ears over the pounding of her own heart.
"Angel," she managed to whisper forlornly.
She doubted Dawn heard her, and truthfully she was too traumatised to say anything else, to think of anything but him.
A moment later the touch on her shoulder left briefly, before Dawn was tugging her from her pillow.
In one hand was the cordless phone, in the other her little address book with all its sacred telephone numbers, opened to the first page of 'A's where a never-tried number for the CEO of the world's top evil law firm was written encased in a flowery dark heart.
"Call him," her baby sister logically prompted. "If it's that bad, talk to him."
Buffy nodded, yes, call him. Make sure it was just a nightmare, not a premonition. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons so many times that eventually Dawn took it from her hands and dialled for her. Then she held it out and Buffy took it to her ear, willing her heart to stop pounding just for a moment so she could hear the sound of it ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Until eventually it gave up. But she didn't. She redialled. Nothing. And again. And again.
"It's night. They're probably closed up until tomorrow. He's fine, don't worry. Come on, we'll call Giles just to be sure."
Dawn pries the phone from Buffy's unmoving fingers and quickly dials England, wandering out of the room and anxiously talking under her breath while her older sister stares lifelessly at the bed spread.
"He's looking into it, Giles will find out what's going on. Why don't we go out shopping like we planned, and take your mind off it for a little while," the young voice beside her coaxed.
Buffy let herself be dressed and led out into the bright clear morning. Everything out in the world seems so normal, so perfect. Like she didn't just dream of her beloved's horrid death. Dawn manages to get a few words of conversation out of her. They go shopping like she promised. They're on their way to lunch, standing on a bridge and looking down into the river when it happens.
Dawn glances at her sister, then down into the water. A small puff of air lifts the hairs from her shoulder, and when she looks back up again – Buffy is gone. Vanished. Her head whips around, trying to see if Buffy is chasing after a monster or something but her sister is nowhere. All the bags of clothes and shoes are clattering to her feet, as if Buffy's body has suddenly been eradicated from time itself.
---
Angel could feel the intensity of the heat on his back just as he thrust up with everything he had. He felt it – the sword breaching up through the dragon's neck and with the last bit of control he could scrounge, he pulled to the side, partially severing its head from its body.
For him it was too late – he knew that. There was clarity though, beautiful and crystal clear, and he knew in that brief moment that he was happy, he'd left no loose ends. He'd sent Connor away to be safe, and he'd lived long enough to know that it was through your children that true immortality was achieved. Two days ago he'd somehow found time to make sure that the letter he'd written for Buffy was sent express. It was far from LA now, long gone in case the city should happen to be obliterated. Everything he'd wished he'd said to her a year ago, five years ago, was on paper. Their magical lost day that he still thought of every morning he woke without a heartbeat, and his drive to achieve shanshu so that in the future she would be a normal girl with her normal boyfriend (well, not for long, more like husband if he had any say in it) for all days. And that even though they'd barely seen each other in a long time, his heart still felt her. He would love her – his only – for always. He wanted her to be happy, was only sorry he'd never get to see the cookies – he would have been happy tasting the cookie dough.
It had gotten a little incoherent at the end. Ultimately, she would know. That their love had existed to bring a few bright years of sparkling hope into his long existence was all that was important.
That was all – Connor and Buffy. And the heat of the dragon's last breath curling out, warning of the fire that was about to cascade down his back. He closed his eyes and pictured the woman he loved and his grown up son, ready for the end.
Had he kept his eyes open he would have seen something highly unusual. Though had he been Fred it would have been a little too familiar. A portal. Not big, as far as they go. Just about perfectly Angel-sized, Buffy would have said. The fire was just beginning to steam the tips of his dripping hair when he was sucked forward.
A startled yelp of "What?!" slipped from his lips as he was saved from the burning end that would have removed him from existence. Dark eyes flew open, confusion rife as the sensation of being ripped apart rattled through him, unfortunately a sensation he'd experienced a handful of times in the last few years. A finger of lightening licked out of the singularity's lining, striking his body with a powerful electrical surge.
When reality began to slowly focus again, he was disoriented, letting someone else guide him. He tried to get a bearing on things. Knees on //Owww!// something hard, familiar. Cobbles? Soft but not necessarily fine cloth against his skin. The touch of hair against his back – how long has it been since his hair fell below his shoulders? And that ecstatic feeling of fangs sinking into the flesh at his neck.
From nearby a voice interrupted with an indignant "Hey!"