Title: Marry You
Summary: Angel and Buffy throughout the decades. Mostly fits in with canon. Missing moments and a different ending. Pretty sad and sweet. Bangel.
A/N: Please read and review. In case you're wondering, yes, I was listening to Marry You when i wrote it...so if you wanna listen to it as you read it, it really fits in!
He had a certain look in his eyes, a stare directed at her that just seemed to scream adoration. She couldn't pick the millions of emotions apart, but she could see the plain and simple love. Love, a compilation of so many feelings, the good, the bad and the ugly. Jealousy, anger, lust, dedication, pride, to name a few. That was the mistake many people made, and that was what made her and Angel so perfect; they knew that love wasn't plain and simple, and were willing to accept that part of being in love was suffering and sadness. And looking at him now, she could see the rest of her life being at his side, together. And that's when she knew she wanted to marry him. Just not now. For one, she was sixteen, so it was hardly legal. And it wasn't the right time now. What they had was so new, to get married to him at this moment, she just couldn't feel. Relationships change, and to perfectly complete each other and everything in a relationship would just be death for each of them, because what more is there after that? No, they'd get married alright, but not now. Maybe not even in twenty years, but it would happen.
"When I'm eighty, I still want us to be like this. Free. Happy."
"We will be."
"I'll be all wrinkly, people will stare"
"I'd still want you even if you were purple with green spots."
Pause. Eyes meet. Smile.
They'd met up, exactly as they'd planned. Before he'd left Sunnydale he'd whispered in her ear, "This is for you. Me, leaving. I know it doesn't seem like it now. At the risk of sounding cliched, I'll say this. In ten years, if you still want me, meet me. I'm not leaving to spite you, I'm leaving to let you see if this is really going to work out. So ten years, we'll see what happens then. If you still want me."
"Where?"
"I'll find you, wherever you may be."
"How?"
"Trust me, I love you. Trust that."
"Angel."
"Buffy."
Even after all the years, all the time they had spent apart, there was still the comfortable silence where there was so much potential for there to be an awkward one. Ten years. To the hour. Had to give him credit for being so exact. There was noise around them, people milling, but all that just wasn't registering. To them, this moment was just the energy between them, and them alone.
"I have to tell you something..." she trailed off, unsure of how to say it, unsure of what she was even saying.
"You have someone in your life right now. I know."
"I see your stalking skills are still up to par."
"I do try."
Pause.
"It doesn't mean I love you any less than I used to. I might even love you more. You told me to test it I really wanted you and I did. I tried the whole 'normal' boyfriend thing, and I have to tell you – it's completely overrated."
"I think I want to marry you," he said.
"I think I want to marry you too. Be back in a week he'll be gone."
And he left for the second time. But this time, only for a week.
She'd been sitting in her room for days. She shouldn't have said a week, it was too long. Her boyfriend was gone only hours after Angel had left, and now she was left waiting. Worry pulling her deeper and deeper into a hole of self wallowing panic. What if he didn't come? What if something happened to him? What if she was going to be alone forever?
And then the door opened. And he was there, a single flower in his hand.
"For you."
She ran to him, and gripped him hard.
"Love you," she whispered, muffled slightly by his chest, as her face was pushed so close to it from the sheer force of her hug.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"We do."
"Angel." Raspy. Such a raspy voice. When had this happened? Had it been so gradual that neither one of them noticed?
"Buffy, believe me, you're going to get through this."
"No..."
"NO. You will. I'll make it happen...a spell! Or a demon...or something, Jesus! I don't know." He looked down, defeated and broken.
"Angel, this may be a bit selfish of me. I love you, and I want to stay here with you. To make me happy, which would make you happy, which would make me happy, and the circle continues. But one of us has to die first, and we always knew it was most likely going to be me. That's going to break that circle. But for me, if I were to die, I would die happy, having you beside me. But that's going to hurt you, and I don't want that. I don't want to hurt you by dyeing, and if I could I would happily outlive you – so that you could die happy. But when I die, you're still going to life for hundreds of years. You can go on. There will be initial pain, but you've got all the time in the world for that fade. You can move on, and I'm okay with that, and I know that although you're not now, I am dying and when I'm gone I don't want you being alone."
"When did you become so philosophical," he said with a slight smile in his voice, bittersweet.
"I guess it comes with age," she said, almost distantly while gazing at her wrinkled and vein covered hands.
"I love you." He had to say it as if he meant it, he had to make it perfectly clear how much he loved her, desperate to just convey what he was feeling before she died. He needed her to know.
"I know, and I love you too, so much."
"Goodbye, Buffy." So final, so definite.
"I'll see you there..." she whispered, her voice starting to fade in her weariness.
"Where?" he said, confused.
"Heaven. When you die, hopefully many years from now, I'll meet you. And we'll start again. I'll be sixteen again, and you'll be the same age you always were, maybe you'll be human, and we'll live this all over again. We will, and we'll do everything right that time. I'll meet you, and you can just forget everything that happened after I die, and we'll just remember this moment now, because right now...I just want to kiss you, and I just want to hug you, and I just want to marry you."
He smiled, unsure of what to say, and turned around. He had all these pessimistic thoughts he wanted to share, but these were her last moments and he wanted her to be happy.
"I can tell you want to say something. Don't worry about upsetting me. I'd rather know now then die not knowing what you wanted to say."
"I don't think I'll go to heaven. I'm a vampire, I've done terrible things, and I'm a bad man. You'll go there, that I'm sure of, but me?"
"You'll be there. If I'm in heaven, you'll be there, because YOU are my heaven. If you weren't there, it wouldn't be heaven." He almost smiled at the rather overused way of connecting loved ones with heaven, but he had to agree with the sentiment."
"Bye. For real this time," she said.
"I love you. Love you so much." The words were now so overused, but he had to say it, had to say it so badly.
He started to walk out to hospital door.
"Angel."
Her voice stopped him.
"It's been a pleasure growing old with you."
He grinned and turned around to say something, but then her once steadily beating heart monitor turned to a single piercing beep as she finally gave up. She'd said what she had wanted to say, but had he?
No.
But he would, he'd meet her there. He would.
The wedding was far from conventional. They got married shot gun style, though they had been planning it for months. They didn't have family and friends there; they could celebrate with them after their honeymoon. The marriage was about them and them alone. Their devotions of love where not something to be heard by others, because when observed by outsiders their words would become cheap, just rewordings of other people's sentiments. It was a beautiful day, a reasonably nice place. Nothing special, but so perfect. The venue didn't matter anyway, they were perfectly happy to simply be. Be themselves, and be together, and be in each other's presence.
"I love you." The sky was pink, which made the atmosphere mellow and made both the groom and bride smile a bit, for just a little while. "Me too. Oh, god, me too."
"I think I want to die with you."
They were completed, they had completed each other. Now just dust in the wind and rotting in the soil. And they were happy. Married, together, completed and happy.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Suggestions are great, and please review!