A/n: I don't own Angel. I wish I did...but I don't. All credit for characters go to the brilliant Joss Whedon. LOVE YOU JOSS.
Part 1:
The Reason
I'm not a perfect person
There's many things I wish I didn't do
It's strange how mistakes help you learn more than perfection does. With perfection, you stay on the same road you were traveling at 60 MPH. With mistakes, there is a break in that road, or your tires go flat. Something goes wrong and your speed decreases. But somehow you get back on the road--fixing your tires or turning the right way--and you know which way to go the next time your tires turn flat or there is another break in the road.
Life is exactly like that metaphor. If it wasn't, you'd be living a life that is worth living. If you were living in a perfect world free of negative emotions or actions, than you'd be a walking, talking, breathing robot with blood and stretchy skin. Whoever created this world did a good job with keeping you from being that sort of robot. Life may not be perfect, but it makes sense.
I'm not perfect, just like the next. Although I'm not a living being--more or less a creature than a being--but I was once. I once breathed, and ate, and drank like a human. I had a pulse once. Even if I don't now, it doesn't mean I'm not faulty. I'm still traveling that broken road as anyone else walking along this Earth. There are things I wished I had not done in the past. I wish I was free of the guilt that threatens to strangle me everyday. I have committed murder, I have felt the rush it has given me, but without that conscience, I was more like an empty shell that could talk. Now that I have my soul, I wonder every day if I should have let Darla bite me and I drink from her. If I wasn't a vampire, would there be more people living on this Earth? Would there be more vampires? How would the world have changed without my changing? With me living a normal human life that should've ended over 200 years ago?
All of these things one should not dwell on. I suppose I'm being a bit pessimistic, but it's not like I have the stamina to keep my thoughts from drifting back to those times when I just didn't care what I did.
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
When I first saw her, my heart seemed to start beating again. The cobwebs that had been gathering inside me seemed to fall out as my whole being began to work again. This of course never actually happened, but for the first time in centuries I felt like a human again. She was so beautiful, with golden hair and a rather petite physique. Yet she seemed strong and she seemed like she was the one who could carry out a job such as slaying vampires. It was strange, but I could honestly feel her power seething out of her. So much so that I wanted to shrivel up into a dark corner and sit in a fetal position. She didn't look harmful, but I sensed it. I knew they had picked the perfect person. The fates had done it again: they had picked the perfect slayer.
She was practically glowing in the bright sunlight as she chatted with her friends and sucked on that lolly pop she twirled in her fingers. When she smiled, she looked genuinely happy. Her face lit up, somehow making the day just a bit brighter. It was strange but lovely. I had never seen something so lovely.
When she had heard her fate, and her face dropped, it felt like my heart and dislodged itself from my chest cavity. I somehow had to help her then, but I couldn't. I couldn't walk outside in the sunlight unless I was suicidal. I didn't want to die yet. I had fallen in love at first sight which seemed so disgustingly cliche, but I could honestly not help it and found myself acting like a teenager in love. When I had found somewhere safe to stay, I dreamed about her constantly.
When I heard she had moved to Sunnydale, I went with her without her knowing it. She had cut her hair and had perfected her fighting abilities. She met her watcher, Rupert Giles, and then she was off to save the day like any other super hero would do. The first time I talked to her I felt that my heart would've gone off the charts fast, but since I had no heart beat, I was silent inside. Yet my head remembered those times when I was actually a human teenager with budding hormones, falling head-over-heels with the first pretty girl I saw. She had seemed skeptical with me for the longest time until I had helped her fight and gotten close to her. The first time we kissed was the first time I felt that feral attraction to her taste. I loved her smell so much, but I knew it wasn't something that would kill me. I would have to be careful, but since she was the slayer, she could stake me through the heart if she so needed to. I had found the perfect girl in a matter of years.
Then came the time where things had gotten complicated. I was back to being Angelus, and had terrorized Buffy and her friends. I killed Judy Calendar, broken her neck with a sound that sickens me to this very day. When she sent me to hell, and I had been returned, everything changed then. Nothing was the same. I was soon seeking normality but could never actually reach it. I had to move away. It was something that had to be done. Not something I wanted to do, but it was something I had to do. I never meant to leave her when I first fell in love, but leaving was immanent.
I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you
Buffy Summers was the girl of my dreams. She was the girl I had found 'true happiness' with and possibly the only girl that I could ever find 'true happiness' with. I was molded from the shell of a man I once was to a new, stronger man I am now. She taught me to not feel sorry for yourself so much that you are paralyzed with guilt. Self-pity is not an alibi in fighting.
She was my reason, she was my back-bone. I love her and I will always love her until I die.