A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first ever Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction, so I decided to make it a one-shot. I'm sure there are thousands just like this, but it was an idea I had in my head that I felt would open the world of Buffy fanfiction for me. After The Bargaining: Part 2 in Season Six, Buffy is struggling with life back in the world after living in a heaven dimension, and she goes to meet Angel. In Season Three of Angel: The Series, Cordelia gets a phone call informing them that Buffy is alive, and Angel goes to meet her as well. This is my take of what happens when the dynamic couple meets.

Hollow Solace at the Halfway Point

She wasn't really paying much attention to the sound of the car door slamming or the woman who swore at her in a thick Irish accent as she walked straight into her. She didn't really notice the old man in front of the shabby building toss his cigarette on the ground while reaching for another in his pocket in one smooth, practiced flow. She barely even glanced at the row of construction workers digging into the concrete sidewalk with their pickaxes and jabbering to each other in a clipped, foreign language that if she had been listening to, she may have recognized. No, Buffy Summers was much more focused on the man waiting in the shadow the motel room provided him.

With a great, heaving force, she threw herself at him, but his rock-like exterior prevented them from toppling to the ground. Somehow, Buffy would have liked that, to simply sink into the ground as if nothing mattered, as if this weren't hell, as if she could just take a goddamned break for once, but she remained standing. As always.

"Hey," murmured Angel as she shook ever so slightly against him. "It's good to see you."

"Hey," she forced out with a strained smile. Stumbling into the room, Buffy threw her boots off, sank into the bed's itchy sheets, and shut her eyes.

Angel sighed and followed her, shutting the door behind him. He had no idea if the hell dimension Willow and the others had pulled her out of had been anything like Acathla's, or how long she had spent there. Thankfully, he did know that he could empathize, and that it would help, even in the tiniest amount. She was surprisingly less feral than he had been, he noticed as he sat next to her and pulled her gently to him.

"It's good to get away," she mumbled. "I couldn't face anyone for a minute longer."

"I understand," Angel whispered. "You want to just lash out at everyone, because every movement triggers that defense you learn to build inside of you. I'm just lucky that you stopped me from killing you right away when I first saw you."

With a light but pained groan, Buffy shook her head.

"Hey," Angel continued, "don't worry about it. I know exactly what it's like. I know how it feels. I don't know how long you were there, but it doesn't matter—years turn into minutes and seconds turn into eons. I completely—"

"You don't," she whispered hoarsely. "You have no idea what this is like."

Unsettled, he pulled away from her and held her at arm's length. "What do you mean?"

Avoiding his gaze, Buffy shook her head and tried to lean into him again, but Angel gripped her slightly harder and refused. "Buffy, what do you mean?" he repeated.

"I-I wasn't in hell," she croaked. "I wasn't in hell." With that, silent tears fell uncontrollably down Buffy's cheeks as she sobbed and hiccupped out her agonizing story. And after that, Angel allowed her to collapse into him, trembling only as much as her stubborn strength would allow her to, and cry. They slept for hours in each other's arms, and Buffy found solace, if only for a moment.

Tomorrow, she'd return to Sunnydale, where no one but Spike would know the true reason behind her struggle, where everyone would desperately try to make the world more comfortable for her, where she suffocated with every moment, where she felt like dying. But today, she could find a moment of hollow comfort in the arms of an old lover, she could feel for a fleeting second the cold harshness melt into warmth. Today, she could breathe.

A/N: I hope everyone likes it and has good things to say about it! Please leave reviews and let me know how you feel! Also, I'm considering writing a second chapter (also a one-shot) that continues the moment, but moreso from Angel's perspective. Should I do it?

Thanks for reading!

~Maya