She is already on the beach when he arrives, her slim shoulders making an even line with the horizon, the nearly full moon turning her whipping hair to silver.
He scents the air as he takes in the tiny tower of her, her arms hugged around herself as she looks out over the waves.
She's alive. She's alive. His brain is buzzing and he feels woozy.
He surges over to her and pulls her into his arms without so much as a greeting. She seems startled at first but quickly melts into his body, raising her face to receive his kiss and skimming her hands over him.
He can't resist doing the same, smoothing his fingertips over her neck and shoulders and arms and back as he tastes her mouth. She's real. She's real and she's here and she's kissing him. He has almost forgotten what it feels like to hold light in his arms like a living thing.
Her heartbeat echoes in his ears, a siren's song. He is delirious, dizzy with love and relief, and she is pulling at his fly with her hot little searching hands before he realizes what is happening.
"Buffy." He actually laughs a little as he stills her hands and eases away from her. She's alive, she's alive, and he never thought he would touch her again and it's already almost too much happiness to be safe. "We can't."
Then he meets the grim desperation in her eyes and, for the first time since his arrival, he feels the strength of the wind coming off the roiling blackness beyond them.
"Please, Angel, please..." she says, tugging on the belt loops at his sides. "I need you to send me back."
He reels, confused.
"You want me to..."
"Love me. Please." And he had wanted to, just a minute ago, he had been fighting it but he had wanted to touch every inch of her, to lose himself in the pulsing proof of her revival. But she is scaring him now and his head is still spinning.
"And then… drink me."
His head snaps back in surprise, the words making his mouth water and his stomach turn all at once. "Buffy, I can't-"
"He could."
How can he be hearing this? She wants him to lose his soul in her, and then, and then...
"You… want me to..."
"It'll be easy, Angel."
She glides her hands up to rest on his chest and his arms automatically circle her again. Her body no longer seems to hold any heat for his to absorb.
"Remember how it felt?" Her hand reaches up to touch his jaw. He shivers. "Don't you still dream about it? About us? And then..."
"And then what? You can't trust…" He closes his eyes against the gruesome parade of torture and death that her words have sent flashing before him. A sickening thrill rides down his spine. "I wouldn't stop at you," he says finally, the only thing he can think of that might get through to her.
"Spike. Spike would… take care of that. Don't ask me why, but he would."
"What? Spike couldn't— Buffy, you're not making any sense."
"Angel, your soul would be free. And mine. We'd... be together. There."
"In hell?"
Her eyes have been boring into his, her voice pleading in a way he hasn't heard since he told her the best day of their lives was about to be swallowed whole. But at this, she looks away, and he knows.
Willow was wrong. She was never in hell. Until now.
The realization written on his face sends a flash of pain — of betrayal? — over her own features. Then she hardens.
"I'm sorry," she says in defeat, her arms dropping away.
But he won't — he can't — let her go, crushing her against him as a soft sob creaks out of him. In an instant, all the confusion and anger at her that had been rising in him dies and there is only despair.
She doesn't return his embrace, but eventually he pulls her down to sit in the sand and she sinks back against his chest. He rests his chin against her hair as they watch the inky waves roll in. He waits. He aches.
When he knows sunrise will soon chase him away, he finally speaks, whispering into her ear, "Let me come back with you. I can help."
"No," she says immediately.
"Are you— you're not mad that I didn't–"
"No. No, that... that's what happens when you add a little 'in' to your sanity," she says weakly, attempting a wavery smile. "But it was just the temporary kind."
He knows, somewhere inside, that she's lying to protect him, rebuilding a wall that had crumbled at his touch. But he can't believe his Buffy, a girl once so full of life that it sometimes hurt to look at her, could ever have even thought about what she had asked him to do.
So he chooses to believe her. He has to.
"You can't come back with me," she says finally, parroting a script they both know by broken heart. "It would only make it that much harder when you have to leave again."
"Maybe— maybe I wouldn't have to leave."
He knows it's impossible before he even gets the words out, but he sees her try for another sad smile to reward the gesture. "I should go."
She makes no move to pull away but she's gone just the same. He's holding a shell of her now, and he worries that when the sun rises, she will be the one to turn to dust.
"I'll be OK," she murmurs into the wind. He believes her. He has to.