An elderly Lady sat alone in a booth. Staring out the window. She was waiting. It felt like she'd been waiting for him to come back all of her life. He never had. But he promised he'd be here today. She didn't tell him why she had to see him but after all these years he probably could guess. It was a pretty night. Sometimes she missed the night. Being one of the few that weren't afraid of the dark. One of the few that had no reason to be. She saw him through the window he looked directly at her without a trace of recognition on his face. It hurt more than she would ever admit. He moved to the door faltering for a minute. She realized he was probably nervous. She wondered how he would react seeing her as she was now. Her youth far behind her and the end of her life days away. She had to see him just once more before she faded into nothing but a memory. The next person to approach her table was the waitress she placed the menu on the table. "Mrs. Summers, I over heard your grandson asking for you, would you like me to get him?"

"Yes please." She smiled her eyes misting over for some reason. "I haven't seen that boy in a lifetime."

The waitress smiled and disappeared back around the corner. She came back several minutes later. The brunette close behind her. She felt her heart race like it had done long ago. So many years she had almost forgotten what it felt like to look at him. Still the lights dimmed around her. She hadn't expected it. Her smile trembled a little and she realized painfully that he would never look at her the way he had when they had been in love. Time had robbed her of whatever spark had drawn him to her. He wouldn't say anything it wasn't his nature but she knew how he would feel.

"Angel" She said his name softly, reverently, realizing this would be the last time they spoke.

He slid into the booth across from her reaching for her hand across the table. The waitress left them to go help a couple that had just walked in. His thumb caressed the wrinkled skin on the back of her hand. "Hi" he said, then glanced around "You sure you want to talk here? It's a bit crowded."

"I don't want to talk." She said "I came to say goodbye."

"And you didn't think I might have something to say."

"We said everything we had to say a lifetime ago. I just wanted to see you one more time, before..." She trailed off not actually wanting to say the words. "I missed you." She said. "There were so many times when I thought about calling you just to see how you were doing, see if you still remembered me, but by then I wasn't the girl that I had been."

"You could have called me." He sounded hurt. "Rather than waiting for the end."

"Our time was at the beginning." She said softly. "The past is all we ever had."

"Buffy?" He was still petting her hand. Touching each dark sun spot as if he could burn them into his memory. "I loved you. I didn't care that you weren't a kid anymore. I cared that you didn't want me to be a part of your life."

"I did." She said looking at the table to hide the tears in her eyes "I wished so often that I could see you but I knew if I ever did I wouldn't be able to let you go." She took a deep rattling breath trying to calm herself down enough to say the words that she'd held back for so long. "There was a time when I was young when anytime I thought of the years ahead of me I though of you, how somehow we'd find a way to make it work." Her weathered hand lifted to the smoothness of his cheek. "I was too old to try long before I was brave enough to risk it." She watched the tear rolling down his cheek and tried to remember the last time she'd seen him cry.

"I wouldn't have cared. I don't care how old you are. I'm older. I've been around over 300 years. I would have stayed with you for as long as you wanted." He searched for the words to explain how he felt to her. "I don't care that you aged. I care that I wasn't there with you. That I didn't get to be there to spend your life with you."

"Look at me, and tell me that you could still want me, and still love me when I look like this." She gestured at her self. "Angel. You're mourning for the girl I was, not who I am." She smiled at him. "It's okay. I don't blame you." The waitress returned with her soup setting it on the table in front of her. She turned to Angel.

"Hello handsome, can I get you some coffee or something."

"Sure." He really didn't notice the wink she gave him. A few seconds later she returned practically skipping and sat the cup down at his elbow.

"I think it is so sweet that you flew all the way out here from California to visit your grandma.'

"Thanks." He didn't look at her his eyes glued on the light refraction in the coffee cup. She chattered at him for a few minutes clearly flirting with him. Angel tried to hide his discomfort at the situation. Buffy smiled at her "He's not family."

"Oh, this is...?" She pointed at him her eyes growing wide. "Oh, sorry, I'll be right back." She came back with another coffee cup this one full of something dark and red. She slid it in front of him then blushed and slipped away.

"She knows about vampires?"

"She's a slayer." Buffy shrugged.

He pushed it away from him and picked up the coffee cup. "How long have we got?"

"A few weeks at the most. Days most likely."

He nodded. "When you're done, we should go back to your house. I want to hear everything I missed. "I'll leave you my diaries. Everything is in there."

"I don't want the watcher's council telling me about your life. I want it from you."

"They're mine, personal ones. I've kept them since I was a kid."

He nodded. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to stay with me, so I don't have to be alone."

"Of course, as long as you want me to."

It was late. Really late. Sometimes it felt like he could almost see time slipping out of his grasp. So many people he had known and loved over the years had died. Now it was her turn. Not from a demon, or a monster, just from time, her humanity would be what killed her in the end. He watched the uneven rise and fall of her chest. Heard the long pauses between each breath and knew that the time was coming soon. He remembered how calm she had been sitting at that table in the diner. She wouldn't tell him but he could tell she hadn't really been up to the excursion.

The door opened behind him. "Hi Will" He whispered without taking his eyes from her.

"Did you tell her?"

"Didn't see any reason to. She'll be gone by the time the sun comes up.

"'s your choice."

"Not much of a choice." He shrugged. "We'll only be here a few days. You don't have to stay."

"'m not going anywhere." He picked up a book and settled onto a chair as if proving his point.

"Are you going to tell her you're here?" Angel asked.

"She didn't ask for me mate. You're the one she wanted to see."

"Should have redyed your hair for this visit, might have made her nostalgic."

"'s not me anymore." He shrugged. "'sides, I moved on."

"Can you hear it?" He looked at his companion for the first time. William nodded. "Tell me when it stops."

"Okay." He whispered, "You don't have to do this to yourself."

"She asked me to." He said and to sit down by her on the bed. Holding her in his and feeling the paper thin skin against his own. It was so soft and cold. He got up and rummaged through the closet until he found an extra blanket to lay over her. Then he started rubbing her hands to warm them. He was so afraid of hurting her he felt his chest constricting painfully. Tears dripped down his cheek and onto her. He wiped it away. He'd have given up everything to have her wake up one more time. To have her smile at him again even just one more time.

They sat in comfortable silence both lost in memories of the girl they had known barely more than a kid at the time. Struggling just to get by with the unfair burden placed on her. Now almost a century later she was dying, safely in her own bed and there was nothing either of them could do to help her.

Angel was alone. Placing flowers on a recently filled grave. His fingers trailed over the engraving in the stone. Feeling the smooth carving beneath his fingertips. He had so much he wished he'd had the time to tell her. He'd run out of time. She'd grown up, then grown old while waiting for some miracle that had come after it was way too late. He watched the stars fade from the sky. The brilliant oranges, pinks, and bright blues chasing the darkness across the sky. He watched the first sunrise in three centuries standing on the grave of the first and only woman he'd ever loved. He made his way back to the house slowly. Listening to the birds screaming.

"Enjoy your walk mate?"

"Not really. It was pretty though."

"You'll have to draw it for me."

"I can do that." He said still sounding a little numb.

"Do you want to do it today, or wait a little longer?"

"If we wait, I probably won't go through with it."

"I'd rather you didn't. You're the only one I have left."

"Please, just once do what I ask you to."

"This 's not what she'd a wanted, this isn't what you wanted 'til you found out the bird was dying. Please Liam. Just wait, give it a week if you still want to then I won't stop you but don't make me do this. Not now, when we just lost her."

"You don't need me. You never did. All I ever did was make your life harder. I'm asking you as my friend, as family, as my lover, let me go."

"You can't even be sure it will work."

"It has to." He practically crumbled. "I waited so long for this prophecy, for the chance to be with her and the day it happens she calls to tell me she's dying. How is that right."

"You're suppose to live your life not give it up." He growled at him his eyes flashed slightly yellow in his rage then he got his temper back under control. "You know what you're asking me to do. You know how hard that's going to be for me. Please, just give me a few days to adjust to one loss before I have to suffer another." Williams eyes were sparkling with tears his lashes were still wet from the ones he'd shed while alone. He took the mans hand and looked into his eyes pleading with him to try to understand.

William stood between the two graves. Both still soft and mounded with flowers. On matching headstones was the image of a Claddaugh ring. They had reordered the headstones so they matched. Anyone glancing at the graves would think they were married. That was the way it should have been. He leaned against a tree and waited. It wouldn't be long now. He could hear the movement. Part of him wanted to help. Most of him wanted to see what would happen.

They stared at each other across the graves for an endless moment. Then the Angelus broke the silence, "You betrayed him."

There was a nod of acknowledgment. "I had to."

"Why?"

"Because I loved them both." He pulled something out of his pocket and walked forward. Angelus didn't move waiting to see what he would do. William flipped it around so the point was toward himself and handed it over. He closed his eyes waiting for the sting before the dust. He remembered what it was like to burn. This wouldn't be anything like that. This would be much quicker if he'd just do it already.

"You think you'll get to be with them?" He asked laughing. "That now you're good enough."

"We're too old for this Angelus. Jus' do it already." He waited wondering if he'd have to attack him to get the job done.

"What's the matter lover aren't you happy to see me?" He wrapped his hand around William's arm pulling him close. The tip of the stake pressed lightly against his chest not yet breaking the skin. "I thought we could have some fun first. For old times sake."

William shook his head not having words to explain what he wanted he could take the step and take care of it himself but then wouldn't that defeat the purpose.

Angelus spun the stake in his hand and slid it into his pocket. "Tell me why you killed me."

"The world needs someone strong enough to protect it."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because it's your world. All you have to do is keep it from ending."

He turned to walk away. William watched him go and sank down onto his knees between the headstones tears falling from his timeless eyes. A soft touch on his shoulder drew his attention. "Angel?"

"No." He pulled him to his feet. "Are you really willing burn for them?"

"Yes."

He thought about it for a minute thought about what all he'd done, what all he wanted to do. He knew how much he could benefit from continuing the mission regardless of what had happened, but he'd need someone to keep him on the right path. "William, come with me."

"Where are you going?" For the briefest moment he thought there was something he was missing.

"Back to work." Angelus shrugged

Time slipped past first slowly. A painful trickle of hours and days. Eventually a month passed. Each minute the hurt seemed to solidify until it felt like a steel blade through his heart. The first twenty years he came back once a year to place fresh flowers on the hard Earth. Then it was more random as the years lost their meaning. Time slipped by again and a century passed. When the headstones became unreadable they were re-carved and replaced. One hundred years became two, then three. The fight went on. Long after he thought it should have ended. In that time the world changed in ways no one could have ever imagined.

It was the 1400th anniversary of her death. William again found himself standing in front of the ancient stones again. Feeling the weight of time and too many lost warriors. Humanity had long since reached the point of immortality and given it back up for the greater good, large factions had moved on to explore the vastness of the black. The majority of the demon populations had either died out or been eradicated at their hands. A few species remained but they were small in number and rapidly disappearing. The very planet was dying around him. He could feel it in the staleness of the air. The wind smelled like death. He was grateful they never had to see the world like this. He felt the presence behind him but didn't turn.

"You sure you want to do this?" Angelus asked quietly. Time having mellowed him out almost to the point of being reasonable.

"This world doesn't need us anymore." He said softly. "There's no happy ending for us. We're the monsters that are left behind in the dark when their civilized country moves on to the light."

"So poetic."

"I was a poet once." He said. Trailing a finger over their names. Again he pulled out a stake. That put everything they had ever used to hunt to shame. The dangerous part was Oak carved to a perfect point. Above that was a sculpture of people wrapped in each others arms naked bodies intertwined in a way that suggested fighting or fucking which really depended on the angle you saw it from. There was a handle attacked gilded and bejeweled. Two names carved into it in scrawling script. They had become a legend in the years since their deaths. Right with Merlin and Arthur and Roland of Gilead. Most didn't believe in them thought they were a myth. A remnant from the time when religion still said there were demons hiding in every shadow. The world knew better.

Of course there was a lot in their legend that was wrong but the story stayed. The vampire cursed to fight for redemption and the slayer who joined in his fight. Love at first sight. Fighting for the world and against it. It told about their children born out of impossible circumstance, sometimes it was a girl born a teenager from the slayer, sometimes it was a boy seeking his father from the very depths of hell, sometimes both. In the end though, the legends always ended the same, the way that legends always do. "And they lived happily ever after."

Legends lie.

Only the two of them standing on this forgotten stretch of ground knew how the story really ended.

"Here." He handed it over. "Use it this time."

"The sun will be up soon."

"So do it quickly." He said softly blue eyes meeting brown. In an unguarded moment of completely trust. "Thank you."

"I'll stay with you." He whispered. Setting it onto the ground in front of his second grave. Technically third if you counted the ocean. He sat down on the ground leaning back against the head stone like he was a king and it was his court.

"You're staying?"

"Dust to dust." He smiled. "You go, I'm going."

"Angel."

"Spike." It was a challenge. "You don't really have any say in this. You go I'm going."

"We've still got a few hours."

"Talk to me then. I'm sure you can think of something to say"

"Two hours to live and you want me to think of something to tell you I haven't said in sixteen hundred years."

"Not up to the challenge?"

"'m always up to a challenge."

The talked truly talked for the first time in centuries. About anything and everything that came to mind. When the first rays of sunlight were breaking over the tops of the trees they stopped talking watching it racing toward them tensing for the burn. William leaned over and kissed him softly "I knew Angel. I've known from the minute it happened. You didn't have to pretend for me." Then the light swallowed them and they flared. A burst of flame lasted fractions of a second. The dust settled on the ground around them.

By afternoon the entire town was buzzing with talk to two skeletons found in the grave yard in a tight embrace. The most common theory was that it was a murder. There was some mention of the occult when they found out about the decorative stake with the slayer legend carving on it. There were several who screamed hoax, others political statement, and still others claimed that it was the couple themselves come back to clarify their story. The last one gained some popularity when they found matching silver rings and the news broke that the skeletons were both male. The legend changed to include countless rumors of them haunting the graveyard where they had been buried together. Though no one could ever count on seeing them. And the legend passed down. The ending still stayed the same. "And they lived happily ever after."

~The End~