By Sauscony
E-mail: sauscony@forty-two.co.nz
Rating: G
Summary: The End of Days are done; what happens to Angel now?
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are copyrighted ©20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the WB, and are used without permission. No copyright infringment is intended.
Something is happening to me.
Something strange. Unpleasant. Something that hurts.
I feel heavy - a new weight, dead weight, starting at my toes and filling me up, overwhelming me, stopping me. And pain, everywhere, like white hot lightning that runs through my veins, reaching every part of me, tracing the shape of me in a pattern of agony, crippling me.
I rather think I'm dying.
Of course, noble self-sacrifice will do that to you.
Noble? Ha! Stupid more like.
I was never one for nobility, even though I was born to it. And I've spent a long time trying to make up for that, but dying needlessly, to save a girl who probably doesn't even love me any more and never needed my protection anyway? Somehow I don't think that's going to do it. It won't even save the world. She'll have to do that after I'm gone. Just like always.
It's not a stake that's lodged in my chest, sending the fire and the pain racing through my body. That's the only reason I'm not yet dust on the concrete. But a magical sword, wielded by a senior Demon Lord - that's going to have the same effect in the end. Just going to take a little longer, that's all, and I get to enjoy the fireworks searing my body in the meantime.
The weight has reached my chest now. If I could open my eyes, raise my hands, I'm sure I'd see them glowing from within, the lightning pain turning me into white fire too.
Somehow, I don't think I'm making much sense.
I guess dying does that to you.
And dear God, but it hurts.
"Angel? Angel can you hear me?" The voice is coming from far away, sounding angry and tearful, both at the same time. Her voice. The only voice that could have brought me back from the pain.
Slowly, disbelievingly, I realise that the pain is gone. But still I'm afraid. If I'm dead, and she's calling me, does that mean I got her killed too?
I whisper a prayer to a God I've ignored for years, begging it not to be true, and carefully open my eyes.
Buffy is leaning over me, her face streaked with blood and grime, her hair in a tangle, a strangely frightened look in her eyes. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I had so often thought she was beautiful before, but I now realise that was nothing but a pale imitation of this moment.
I want to lift my hand, brush the singed, clinging strands of hair away from her face, but I don't have the energy.
"Am I dead?" I ask instead, slowly realising that my head is resting on her knees. "Are we both dead?" My voice is barely more than a whisper, ragged and cracked, but she hears me anyway.
And she laughs. A clear, perfect sound in striking contrast to the death and destruction all around us.
"No," she answers and smiles. "Quite the opposite in fact."
There is the sound of a throat clearing somewhere above me and I manage to turn my head just enough to see Wesley and Giles watching me. They are as battle-scarred as Buffy; Giles has a cut on his head, dried blood caked down the side of his face, and Wesley has lost his glasses and is cradling one arm carefully with the other. But they are both looking at me, concern on their faces.
Two weary, worried Watchers. How's that for alliteration?
"We won," Wesley says tiredly, and it is only then that I remember the battle. The Last Battle. The one that, if we lost, really would have meant the end for humanity. The battle that made all the others we had fought pale in comparison.
"Your blood did something to the sword," Wesley continues. "It turned it against the demons and Buffy was able to use it to defeat the Demon Lord."
"That's me," Buffy says with a trace of the old cheerful sarcasm I remember in her voice. "Sword Girl."
"But hopefully no longer," Giles says firmly. "It's over. The lesser demons are retreating back into the nether realms. The portals are closing and shouldn't open again. The world will never be the same..." He looks away, closing his eyes for a moment and I know he is thinking of the death and the destruction and the chaos the wars have brought. "Never the same," he repeats softly. "But it will be safe."
He smiles at Buffy, that indefinable love they share, Slayer and Watcher as bound in their own way as ever Buffy and I were, clear in his eyes. "And hopefully the world will no longer need a Vampire Slayer."
Buffy gives him a smile and turns her face back to me. "So what are we all going to do with our retirement, huh, Angel?" There is something in her voice I don't understand and I can only stare at her blankly, my mind still several conversation points back.
"Why aren't I dead?" I ask in confusion. "I should be dead. Really, totally, forever dead."
She shakes her head, about to speak but Wesley beats her to it. "Don't you remember the prophecy, Angel?" he asks softly, coming to crouch beside us. "After the End Battles, if you've earned it, you get your redemption." He smiles at me, that cautious, nervous smile he's never lost, no matter how many skills and how much confidence he has gained over the years. "You earned it."
"You're human, Angel," Buffy says gently.
"To shanshu," Wesley adds quietly.
I stare at them, hearing the words, understanding them, but somehow they don't connect with any reality to which I belong.
Buffy sees that, sees inside me like she always could, and she takes one of my hands in her smaller one and rests it against my chest. "See?" she says, and now there are tears streaming down her face. "See, your heart is beating. You're human, Angel."
I feel the motion under my palm, unable to comprehend the reality of the steady thump thump thump of my heart - beating, pushing blood through my veins.
And I'm breathing, I realise. I have been ever since I woke, autonomic responses kicking in easily despite not having been needed for more than two hundred years.
I suck in a breath, feeling the cold air filling my lungs to bursting until I have to let the breath out again. My chest rises and falls in matching time and I feel the muscles pull and release again, sucking in oxygen and releasing it, keeping me alive.
Finally, the miracle of this moment begins to settle in.
Keeping me alive.
I'm alive.
Human. Breathing. Living. Equal.
Alive.
Forgiven. Redeemed.
I take another breath, letting it out in a long, slow sigh.
Blessed beyond measure.
I struggle to sit up and Buffy helps me, her strong arms raising me easily. When I am comfortable, she smiles at me.
"What now?" she asks so quietly only I can hear her.
I look past her, at the circle of people surrounding us, her warriors and mine, battered and battle-weary but all with the soft glow of victory about them. And all surprised that they survived long enough to achieve it.
I look back at Buffy, realising I can't answer her question.
"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know."
But there is a lightness in my heart as I realise that the future has been saved and it is spreading out in front of me, offering me - offering all of us - the time and opportunity to find out.
I think I might start by working on my suntan.