Title:
My Fault
Rating: PG
Subject: Buffy
Summers
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Angel overtones
Prompt:
#74 Anniversary
Author's Note: Because I always try to make
some kind of nuiance to early early joss-ness.
She vowed to stay away, more than anything Buffy wanted to put the past behind her, to stop blaming herself for the things she couldn't change. Only something's were impossible to ignore, like ghosts living inside her head that wouldn't go away. If she thought an exorcism would help she'd consider it.
She sat down across from the headstone and traced the name etched so perfectly in the stone. She'd had plenty of time to analyze your average headstone and this one was well kept. She was glad, she didn't know how she would have felt if it had been weed infested or broken.
"I miss you," she said in a voice so low she could barely hear it herself.
"I have good people you know? Giles is a great watcher even if I don't need him to watch me anymore. He still tries though and he gives me those looks, they remind me of you. Willow, Xander and Dawn are around all the time helping me do the things I have to do. That whole duty thing is a drag; but it's not duty to them."
She felt the tear fall slowly down her face.
"It all said 'she alone' but I've never really been alone, not when it counts the most."
The tears were salty and bitter on her tongue and she thought she should stop before she ended up a mess in the middle of the cemetery. She heard the light footsteps approach her and she closed her eyes.
"How did you know I was here?" She asked without turning around, she didn't have to; she knew it was him before she heard him.
He walked closer and crouched down beside her while placing a bundle of orchids on the ground where stone met earth.
"I didn't, you told me about him. I come here every year."
She didn't have to ask why, she knew he probably didn't know or couldn't explain exactly why he did this; beyond the fact that it was important to her that someone remember this man.
She looked up at him.
"He died because of me Angel, Merrick died because of me." She felt the quake in her frame before she let out the first sob, she hated feeling this weak but she couldn't stop it. Today was the day he died and it was the first time she'd ever come here.
Angel sat down and pulled her into his lap stroking her back carefully as she cried into his shoulder. He didn't have any comforting words, he couldn't tell her it wasn't her fault; not because he believed it was, but because she did. All he could do was hold her and pray to a god that didn't listen that one day she could forgive herself.
"It was my fault …"
