SHE'S YOURS.

BY PHOENIX FURY

DISCLAIMER: I SAY THIS ONLY ONCE SO LISTEN UP! I do not own any of the characters, they belong TPTB. I'm merely borrowing them.
SUMMERY: Sequel to, "You've Lost Her."

X-Over - BtVS/HIGHLANDER

METHOS/BUFFY

Angel knew if Buffy found out he was doing this she would stake him, but he couldn't leave till he had spoken with her boyfriend, with Adam.

He waited till she'd left for patrol then he knocked on the door.

Adam opened the door.

He was tall and slender with short ruffled black hair. If he hadn't known Adam was Immortal all he had to do was look in his eyes. Old eyes. The eyes of someone seen and done too much, and lived things beyond your imagination. Buffy held that same look in her eyes at times.

"I'm -"

"Angel, come in." He said and opened the door. "Buffy's not here at the moment."

"I know." He mentally slapped himself he hadn't meant to admit he'd come when he knew she wasn't there. "How did you know who I was?" Angel asked as he stepped into the hallway.

"Follow me and I'll show you." Adam let the way to the back of the house. Through the lounge, into the kitchen and dinning room where there was double doors into a library/study and out into the conservatory that overlooked a large garden.

There was a large desk but on top of a paint splattered sheet in the middle of the room was an easel with a large painted canvas.

Angel looked at the painting. The face, the body it would have been like looking in the mirror if he had a reflection. But long white majestic wings came out from his back and curved up into the sky.

"Buffy painted this?" Angel asked in awe, the detail was ... stunning.

"Hmm." Adam grinned proudly. "It's one her art assignments, had to be based around a myth or legend or religion. She said 'I'm gonna paint an Angel' and well your name is Angel and she said when she first met you she thought of you as her guardian angel, always turning up with warning of trouble and helping her. So voila." He waved a hand at the canvas.

It wasn't painted like most pictures of angels he'd seen where they looked gentle and kind with halos of gold around their heads. A dark night background with a full moon at the top above him, highlighting his features, he looked more like an avenging angel, a warrior. All he wore was his leather pants that he remembered her once telling him made him look anything but angelic.

"She only finished it a few days ago. She said maybe it would help you see that you're more then the demon inside you as well as remind you how you looked. She's gonna send it to you at the end of the school year when all her work's been marked."

"I never knew she could paint," Angel said softly his eyes still on the painting.

"When she became the Slayer she left the girl of who she was behind. Skating, dancing, horse riding, art." Adam said and then pointed to all her art stuff. "The conservatory's got the best light so she does all her art stuff in here. Mostly she paints and sketches, watercolours is her favourite medium, pastels she's not a big fan of and she doesn't use charcoal at all."

Angel could guess why. Angelus had left her several charcoal drawings to taunt her.

Adam didn't seem jealous that his girlfriend had painted her ex-boyfriend.

"Let's go back into the kitchen so I can carry on making dinner. Would you like anything, coffee, tea, hot chocolate?"

"I'm fine."

Adam went to the kitchen Angel took one last look at the painting before following.

The kitchen was modern and painted in shades of creamy and bright yellow and terracotta, the dining room was connected to it and painted in cream and beige. The library/study had two large desks facing each other, a computer on each and was filled from floor to ceiling with books.

He'd noticed on his way through the house that the lounge was painted in rich red with cream, had two large leather sofas with large cushions and fleece throws a large rug on the floor in front of the fire with a state of the art entertainment system.

The house was a mix of modern and antiques yet held a warm comfortable feeling. There was nothing that was girly or too masculine. The colours were creams with lots of rich and warm colours.

One the walls were painting he thought might have been done by her and photographs of her new life. She looked happier and more relaxed then he had ever seen her.

"I'm just making a salad, I have the pizza already in the oven." Adam said as he got some lettuce, peppers and cucumber out the fridge as Angel stood on the other side of the counter.

"Ham and pineapple?" Angel said remembering that was her favourite.

Adam nodded. "Yeah. I'm hoping if I make a salad she won't eat all of the pizza."

"I doubt it. She was always starving after patrol."

"I can hope," He smiled seeming at ease with having his lovers ex in his home as he washed and cut up the lettuce.

Angel leaned forward starring down at the countertop. Now that he was here he had no idea what to say to the man who was with the woman he loved.

"She told me you two talked yesterday."

Angel looked up surprised that he wanted to talk about it. There didn't seem to be any jealousy or resentment at his presence. He knew he wouldn't feel like that if it had been the other way round. "Yeah."

"She said it helped her, did it help you?"

Angel shrugged. "Not really."

"You still love her."

Though he stated rather then asked Angel answered anyway. "Yeah. I don't think I'll ever stop." He said since it was the truth.

"I'm an Immortal I've had 68 wives, I don't think you ever stop loving someone it just gets replaced by love for someone else or faded by time."

Angel gaped at him. "68!"

He shrugged. "I've lived a very long time."

"How long?"

"Much much longer then you."

"But 68."

"You forget in old times you get wiped out very quickly by war and famine. I watched each wife die either by being killed, sickness or age."

"Did you love every one of them?"

"I loved them all to varying degrees but I wasn't in love with them. I never really understood the difference and back then it hardly mattered. And you know as well as I do back then people married for a whole range of reasons; money, social standing yada yada. Anyway when you're an Immortal commitment to a mortal isn't exactly long, maybe 50 years at the most. To mortals time passes so quickly one moment they're there and the next they're not." He said his expression telling him that he had lived for a very, very, very long time.

Angel wondered and worried if that was how he saw Buffy. "Do you love her?" Angel asked.

Adam stopped making the salad and looked at him seriously.

They both knew who her was.

Adam looked him square in the eye. "Yes I do. I loved her the moment I looked into her eyes. I felt like I'd been struck by lightening. I saw her heart in her eyes; all the pain, betrayal, the struggle to be strong, her strength, the achingly tired soul, the warrior and the girl in her. I saw her."

Angel looked at him and saw the truth. This was her other soulmate. He wondered if either realized that. He though it was funny that the two men she fell in love with, her two soulmates, fell in love with her at first sight and knew it.

"For an Immortal the years are long and mortals fade so quickly. You have to watch as the world, as people you care about age and die and it hurts every time. Eventually you avoid getting close to anyone, you keep yourself at a distance. Being an Immortal you have to keep moving regularly to protect yourself so you try not to get attached to places or people. I've lived like that for centuries being alone hurts a lot less then watching people die but you don't live you simply exist." Adam said though his voice and face was expressionless Angel swore he could see the many years that Adam had lived in his eyes.

"A few years ago I loved a woman called Alexis. I met her after she had been given a few months to live. In her last months I took her around the world I saw the world anew through her eyes and then I watched her die. I loved her very much." He smiled sadly as he remembered his past love.

"Alexis made me stop simply existing and actually live again; she opened up my heart so that I would see Buffy, so that I wouldn't let her slip through my fingers. Buffy brightens up my dark world. She makes me laugh when she rambles. She scares me every night she walks out that door to patrol and I become a housewife so I don't go racing after her to try and protect her. I do that occasionally about once a month when I get the bright idea of 'I'll watch from a distance she'll never know' and those are the nights I sleep on the couch usually after she's given me a black eye or broken my nose." He chuckled.

"She does have a mean right hook." Angel agreed having been on the end of it a few times.

"Yeah luckily it goes away quickly, though if it didn't I properly wouldn't get the bright idea as often. My head knows she's Immortal and harder to kill but my heart just says harder yeah, but not impossible. I know she's been doing this for years, that she's the longest living Slayer, but I also now how many close calls she's had weather she's told me them or not. I can see it, feel it. And it doesn't get any easier."

Angel well remembered that part of being the Slayer's boyfriend. "No, it doesn't. But you just have to remember how stubborn she is, she always gets back up and she has a killer right hook if you forget."

Adam nodded. "Immortal's drift through life trying to keep their heads. Some are headhunters out for as many heads as they can because of the Game. Others only face those who come after them. Others want nothing to do with the Game. We're a selfish lot, we think about only number one, you don't get involved, usually." He finished at a mutter. "It makes things easier, less complicated."

And hurt less, Angel though silently. "Unless you have a Slayer in your life?"

Adam nodded, "And a boy scout."

Angel blinked at him not understanding who he was talking about.

"Another Immortal, only 400 years, still a baby, very innocent and naive. Everything's black and white to him, he never sees the shades of grey. It gets him into trouble." He said making a face but there was an undertone of friendship there.

"Yes but those are usually the ones who help us cynical and pessimistic remember what it is to be alive."

Adam chuckled. "To be young and stupid again."

Angel looked at the man he saw before him. He had admitted he was cynical and pessimistic. A lone wolf, holding himself at a distance from the world. But he could also see someone he could respect though he had no idea how he had lived his life. He could not judge another for their past considering his own. He was slowly learning it was what you chose to do now that mattered.

Adam looked at him. "Why are you here Angel?"

"I needed to see she was ok."

"You saw that yesterday, you already knew that when you found her."

"I let her slip through my fingers. I hurt her more then once. I lost her… to you."

"And yet if I messed up you could sweep in and make her yours again." Adam said.

Angel shook his head. "No, I don't think I could. I had three chances and each time I walked away from her. She would never trust me with her heart again. I don't want her to be alone. I want her to be happy, loved."

"She is something to be treasured. Don't make my mistake Adam. Don't break her heart. Don't walk away from her like everyone else in her life has. I know loving the Slayer is scary but I left to protect her and she died anyway. And believe me the moment you realize you will never see her face again, hear her laughter, even simply feel her presence in the world even if it's far away beyond your sight, you will wish you were dead. You will wish your soul was in hell because that will seem like heaven compared to a world without her." Angel said unlocking the grief he had felt when he had gone through that moment. He wanted to warn Adam not away but of making his mistakes. Despite the fact it tore him apart but if his warning made Adam realize how lucky he was it was worth it to keep Buffy happy.

"Yet you survived." Adam said softly seeming to understand he was speaking from experience. He'd said he had watched his wives died, maybe he had more experience then Angel. But no he hadn't been in love with them, he'd admitted that. And they weren't his soulmate.

"I existed. I carried on fighting. But no, I didn't survive and I didn't learn from it. She came back and despite her pain, I was glad. So grateful she was alive. I felt her love was still there, that she needed me, I knew where she'd been and I still let her go. I still walked away from her. I lost her."

"If you knew that why did you walk away?" Adam asked.

Angel sighed. Walking away from her had been the biggest mistakes of his life and always would be. And it had nearly killed him to do it.

"It would have been so easy to take her to LA, to keep her. But I love her too much to be with her and not have her. I'm strong but I'm not that strong. She deserves to be held in the night, to have someone make love to her over and over again without fear of a demon. No holding back. She deserves the best and I can't give that to her. I love her too much to deny her what she deserves just because I want her by my side. I love her enough to let her be with someone who can give her that."

Then Angel looked at him and asked. "Can you give her that? Can you give her what she deserves? To love her the way she deserves. Love her with every breath you take in every second."

Angel saw the truth in his eyes even before he answered.

"Yes."

Angel clenched his hands together.

Adam was the one to give her what she deserved. To love her the way she deserved. She would never be alone again, he would walk by her side. He would hold her, make love to her.

He had lost her to a man who could make her happy. It didn't lessen the pain but it made it a little easier to bare to know she would be loved.

There was one last thing to say.

"Take care of her." Angel said softly before he walked out of their home.

He suddenly felt her presence as the door shut behind him. She was coming closer. He could feel it.

He quickly went across the street and hid in the shadows. He timed that just right because he knew if she had found them talking about her she would have blown a fuse.

Adam opened the door as she came up the street. Buffy's smile on her face grew into a full fledge happy grin. Her pace quickened as she made her way to the front door.

Adam picked her up off her feet and kissed her. She wound her arms around his neck kissing him back. Adam then buried his face in her hair, simply holding her close.

Angel knew that feeling. He used to hug her like that after she had a close call. When he had to say goodnight but didn't want to let her go. When he just wanted to hold her to reassure himself she was real, that she was his.

Angel stood in the shadows and watched them as they entered their home. He watched through the still open door as Adam helped her off with her coat. She trotted up the stairs to change into her Pjs or sweats Angel suspected.

Adam watched her go before he stood on the doorstep and looked down both sides of the street. He turned his head back to look up the stairs, Angel could hear Buffy's voice asking about food, before Adam went back inside and shut the door.

Tears of blood slipped down Angel's cheeks just like he let her slip through his fingers.

Love her Adam.

She's yours now, take care of her.

THE END.

I think I'm gonna do another part from Methos/Adam side of things.

Cause he's just yum.

PHOENIX FURY