Title: Miles to Go
Author: talldarkandsexy
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters I use in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, WB etc. (Believe me, if I owned these characters, it would be unlikely that I was posting them on )
Spoilers: End of Season 5, beginning of Season 6. And a little of the end of Season 2.
Pairings: Buffy/Angel
Rating: PG
Set: After the end of Season 6 episode "Flooded". Buffy receives a phone call from Angel at the end of that episode, and rushes off immediately.
Summary: After receiving a short phone call from Angel, Buffy gets on a bus to a small 24-hour café somewhere in between Sunnydale and L.A. She meets Angel to talk, but can she tell him about where she was? Or does everything that has happened between them make it too hard?
Authors Note: Although Buffy and Angel said they had to see each other in both the shows (BtVS & AtS), they never actually showed what happened, so I decided to write my version of it.
Chapter 1
Miles to go.
Buffy thought about the conversation she had with Faith just over two years ago. It made more sense now than it did then. Well, as much sense as anything in her life.
After her rather abrupt departure from Sunnydale, leaving her sister, her watcher and her friends, Buffy had got on a public bus which went to Los Angeles. But that was not where she was going.
A short and intense phone call from Angel, a man from her past, had shaken her up, but left her with the feeling that, for some reason, she had to see him again. They were to meet in one of those dinky little cafés by the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere.
This bus journey had been long and uneventful, but Buffy had welcomed it gladly, as it gave her time to dwell on her thoughts. Something that she had not been able to do recently, because she had spent all of her time trying to be cheerful and happy so her friends and Dawn didn't worry. She couldn't do that to her friends because she loved them so much and wanted them to be happy.
Peace. It had been the first time she had ever truly felt at peace with herself. When she was in heaven. She remembered everything so clearly. She remembered standing at the top of the tower, watching the sun rise in the sky, leading the way up to heaven; how clear everything was and how simple. She knew what she had to do, so she said her final words and sacrificed herself for her sister, her friends and for the world.
Heaven was the happiest she had ever felt. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt, no suffering. She had felt wanted and loved, and appreciated for the first time ever, for all the things she had done for humanity and for the world.
But it had all changed so quickly. After a moment of perfect happiness, she was suddenly ripped back into darkness, unable to breathe or think. Trapped, and alone, Buffy had realised her worst fear, and was trapped inside her own coffin. Ripping through the silk lining of the coffin that she was in, she punched her way through the lid and dug her way out of the ground. Breathing heavily and covered in earth, she remembered looking around the dark forest, not knowing where she was.
Then she saw her own gravestone. Her name and the little message carved out in the steel grey, cold, stone shot out at her and the realisation that she had been expelled from heaven hit her like sharp knives. She could never go back there, back to paradise.
Walking down the streets of Sunnydale, trying to figure out why she was had suddenly been ripped out heaven, was difficult. It was different than how she remembered, for blazing fire was filling the roads and the shops and cars were trashed and in disarray. She couldn't see properly, and to hear any kind of sound was unbearable. And the thought had crossed her mind. Was this Hell? Had she been expelled from Heaven and delivered to Hell?
As the day was turning into night, and Buffy was still staring out of the bus window. Maybe the time alone was a little too much. Ever since she had got back, she had felt lonely and just wanted someone to talk to. She had told Spike more than she had told her friends, but that wasn't enough. She needed someone who she trusted and who really understand what she had gone through.
But who possibly could understand?