OCEANS OF LOVE

Author: donnatellaMarks

Summary: B/A AU. Buffy is barmaid in love with Irish sailor Liam "Angel", but all is not right in the world of our favorite couple.

Feedback: Hell yes!

Distribution: Please, take it away. You can have it; you don't even have to ask. Just tell me where it is so I can brag about it to my friends.

Disclaimer: Yeah. I own them. ::snorts::

So it begins…

***

The Port of Sunnydale is a bustling town, a hurried nature in everything its inhabitants do. The port serves a hundred ships a day, and sailors are often seen wandering the town. They rush to bars and women with as much speed as they can muster; only hours until their ships depart for places unknown to even them. It's a nomadic life, the one of a sailor- no attachments.

There is a bar in this western town, owned by a one Mr. Giles. Giles spent his life mapping the farest reaches of the world, traveling to the most exotic places and meeting the most exotic people. Rupert Giles could tell many stories, but he rarely shares. In his increasing age, he left the sea, and opened up the tavern he wished was around when he was a sailor.

His tavern is the most famous in Sunnydale, but most of the time it is surprisingly uncrowded. People would stare at its exterior from outside on the street, staring, but never entering the bar. It would infuriate Giles, until he gave them incentive to enter.

Buffy Summers grew up in this town, her mother working as a prostitute to support her and her sister Dawn. Her father was unknown to her. Well not unknown; she knew who he was. She just had never met him. Like many of the other children in town, her father was a sailor, there one minute and gone the next. Not many of the other children knew their fathers either.

As Joyce grew older, and no one asked for her services anymore, the family grew poorer and poorer. Buffy was sent to work as a bar wench, employed by the stern Mr. Giles.

Buffy was beautiful young woman, a fact Giles played upon. He depended upon her beauty to keep his bar open, sailors coming back to see the beautiful barmaid with golden blonde hair and piercing green eyes. It was said that you could see her soul in her eyes, a tale told by many a sailor in whispers in the night.

Many knew of Buffy's beauty, she had been courted by many of the men in town, and countless sailors. But she never indulged their interests, staying pure in her refusal. It only served to make her more the desirable; the forbidden fruit. Buffy severely distrusted men, especially sailors. Her father was a sailor, and she looked at what all he did for her. She didn't want to waste her life waiting for someone who would never come again.

Lonely sailors pass the time away in Giles' bar, talking about their homes or conquests. At least life in the bar was interesting, was Buffy's view. You never got bored.

They call for Buffy, "Fetch another round!" a sailor cries and she obeys. She serves them whiskey and wine and other drinks, listens to their stories of faraway places.

And wishes she could go with them.

She wants to leave this godforsaken town, but she can't. She is tied here by her sister, still young at 13. She is young too, but has the look and maturity of someone who had to grow up too fast.

She will be nineteen in a few days, an old age for a woman not to be married. But Buffy refuses all their proposals, a wistful look in her eyes. She wants to leave this place so badly; wants to start over in a town far away from the Port of Sunnydale.

She is cynical and jaded, even at her age. Love is for fools; promises made in the dark aren't always promises in the light. She has no illusions; she sees the world for how it is.

The other barmaid Willow looks on her with pity. Willow loves a sailor named Daniel; she hopes and prays everyday that his path should carry him to Sunnydale. Buffy thinks her best friend is a fool for believing Daniel's declaration of love, but Willow ignores her and keeps on hoping.

"Nothing good ever came out of love," she would say, "only pain."

That doesn't mean she isn't interested in love. She'd never admit it, but she probably wants love more than other women. She watches young lovers with an expression of deepest longing, oh how she wanted to be that girl, safe and protected in the arms of the man she loved. She would be warm and unworried, her work or sister not weighing on her mind.

Instead she was just cold.

She bore her pain well, though, a false smile always plastered on her face. To the world, she was the picture of happiness. Only Willow and Mr. Giles knew different.

Giles and Willow are worried about Buffy, every day she loses more hope. Pretty soon she will be a hollow shell, shuttered and dank, no reason for living. Willow is scared for her best friend. The bright enthusiasm Buffy had as a child has waned, and the Buffy she remembers is all but gone. She fades more and more, like a bright color dulled and bleached by washing.

Daniel is coming back to port next month, and Willow hopes he can help her think of something. Until then, she sits powerless, watching Buffy scrub the bar with false cheerfulness.

A customer walks in and Buffy smiles to greet him, but her eyes are dark ad hollow. Willow chuckles ruefully as she thinks about what they say about Buffy's eyes. Maybe it's true, maybe you can see her soul in her eyes. If it is, Willow is puzzled as to why no one mentions the pain.

**

Just A start… Next chapter the arrival of Daniel and his crew…

Please, please, please tell me what you guys think of this so far…

Sundevil009@yahoo.com