Once Upon A Time In November
Rating: T (very, very mild sexual references)
Genre: Angsty fluff
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Summary: Even a day that wasn't leaves an imprint. Love never forgets.
Spoilers: Post Chosen/NFA (relies heavily on I Will Remember You), disregards comic book continuations.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. I profit only from shits and giggles.
Once Upon A Time In November
Fifty feet below, slate waves crash up against a rocky shore. He stands at the edge of the precipice, toes of his boots peeking over the edge, and rubs his arms vigorously as he rocks on the balls of his feet. Wind cuts into his exposed flesh, whips his hands and face with salty spray.
It's a hard place, this edge of the world, but it's his. His birthplace, where he woke to the rising sun, shivering and nameless, his mind blank but for one memory. In this recollection, he lays on a plush bed, contented, love wrapped secure in his arms. She looks up at him, light catching her green eyes, golden hair framing her delicate face. She trails her fingers over his chest, above his heart.
That's a good sound. Thump thump. Thump thump.
Angel. This is what she calls him.Voiced in her shimmering timbre, the word sounds reverent, like a prayer. An endearment, perhaps, but he feels it's as good a name as any, and that, like this small piece of Irish coastline, it belongs to him.
He doesn't share his name. Not with the neighbors he meets in the hall outside of his small rooms in Greystones, not with the women who sometimes share his bed. He doesn't know why, but he's afraid if he does, that last little bit of himself, the memory of her, will dim and become meaningless. Instead, he uses a name he found among the shops he passed during his first walk through town. A butcher's called Doyle's. He might have been Paddy, or Vincent, or Brady, but this name caught his eye and resonated.
Since the day he woke a little more than six months before, he's made the five mile trek to this outcropping a ritual. He comes everyday just before dawn, stands at the edge of his precipice, and watches the sun rise. It's a place of recovery, he feels. One day soon, he's sure the sun will come up and reveal what's missing.
He comes every morning, searching not for himself, but for her.
Until he finds her, he's comfortable with Doyle's dark ambiguity. He knows he can't be Angel until he hears her voice call him home.
#
When she felt the stake pierce her heart, everything faded away and she saw the acceptance and peace in his brown eyes just before his rain-soaked face crumbled to ash.
She supposes this should give her some comfort, but deep inside she still feels hollow.
Afterwards, Rome and everything in it lost its luster. She cut loose her blond deity, discovering he was nothing more than a gorgeous distraction. Then she hugged her reluctant-to-leave sister goodbye and flew to England. Back to Giles, and out of retirement. She was a fool to think she wanted a normal life.
All she ever really wanted was him. Somehow she'd managed to forget that, and now he was gone. Story of her life.
Her room in Giles's flat is small. There's barely enough room for her twin bed and the dresser, but it's enough. She doesn't have much anymore, and even if she wanted to, she can't replace everything she's lost.
For the past six months, she's thrown herself into her work. She gets up at the crack of dawn and jogs five miles through Bath's thick morning fog. Afterwards, she eats a quick breakfast with Giles, and then they're off to a vigorous day of training slayers. She refuses to take time off, despite Giles's insistent urging. She doesn't want to travel. As much as she loves them, she doesn't want to see her friends. She doesn't want to do anything but work herself to a point where she's too exhausted to dream.
The dreams are beautiful. Vivid, and so tangible she tastes the ice cream melting on his chest, dribbled almost directly over his beating heart. It's Cookie Dough Fudge Mint Chip, and it's not nearly as delicious as the underlying scent of his warm skin.
Perhaps she might relish these dreams if they felt at all surreal, the way dreams do. But this feels more like a memory of some long ago impossible reality. Like something that was. When she wakes up, she's knocked breathless with the blow of loss.
It's easier not to dream. Exhaustion helps. Except, like the father he's become, Giles worries too much. So much that he insists on having Thanksgiving despite the fact that they're in England now, and he's very, very British. He's summoned the gang from the four winds. They'll be arriving tomorrow. He's even bought a ricer.
A Giles-mandated holiday started this morning. She sits on her bed, ignoring his invitation to join him for breakfast, and pouting like a little girl. He's forbid even her morning run. You don't look well, Buffy. The circles beneath your eyes are worrisome, and you're entirely too thin. Bodies require periods of rest and recuperation. Even yours.
Her eyes trail to her dresser, a beautiful piece of polished mahogany. On its gleaming top sits a small but ornate pewter vase. The kind with a lid.
The urn is a gift from Spike. He stopped, Buffy. I saw him throw down his sword, and just stand there. Before I could move, one of the horned beasties staked him good and proper. And then, poof! Vanished in a crack of thunder. The whole bloody lot of them. I think he knew somehow that if he . . .
She gets up and moves to the dresser. The vase feels fragile in her hands. Too impossibly weightless, considering its contents. I held on to them for awhile. The ashes, I thought . . . there was this prophecy, see, and I half expected . . .well, nevermind that bullock. Bleeding prophecies. Anyway, I thought. . .I thought it was time to bring him home.
She sits on the edge of her bed, holds the whisper of what remains, and remembers the name of a small town in Ireland.
I thought it was time to bring him home.
She understands what Spike meant, and she loves him for the sentiment, but she wonders if maybe it isn't time in the literal sense.
Time to take him home, and let him go.
#
He sits up in bed hours before dawn on the morning after Thanksgiving. Wide awake, his heart beats too fast, and his pulse bounds as he looks from shadow to blurry shadow. When he rubs his eyes to clear them, his hands come away wet.
He whispers her name and tries to shake loose from the dream, but he still feels her tremble against him, feels the warmth of her breath against his neck.
I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never . . .
On top of the small television that sits on the bureau, a digital clock stares down another minute with a red glare. Adrenaline fires through his blood, tingles every inch of skin.
Time is not his friend. He feels the urgent need to hurry.
There's only one place to go. He lunges out of bed and shucks on the jeans he left laying on the floor. The scratch of the denim against his skin calms him, somewhat. His mind clears enough to keep him from racing out the door and into the cold November shirtless and barefoot.
Bitter cold, the air stings his lungs as he runs. The dim lights of Greystones fade into the shadows of countryside, and wind burns raw against his face. His heart gallops, pounds so hard against his ribcage he thinks it might explode. Instead of slowing, he runs faster.
She's there. She's waiting.
Except, she isn't. He bursts around a copse of trees onto the slate top of his bluff, and finds himself alone. The shock of her absence staggers him. Sends him gasping to his knees.
Everything seems to fall away. The frantic beat of his heart, the cold and the wind, the roar of the crashing surf below . . . all gone. Numb, he sits and waits for the sunrise.
He dozes.
Pale, pink-tinged light seeps beneath his eyelids and cracks them open. The sun hasn't yet peeked over the watery horizon, but it's a near thing. A few moments more, and he might have missed the break. He stands, joints creaking, limbs aching from the cold, and steps toward his spot at the edge of the precipice.
Then he feels her. A hum in his blood. Warmth spreading through his chest.
Turning to his right, he sees her walking to the edge of the bluff, a short distance down the coast. Her blond hair whips behind her, and she shivers, but she doesn't flinch against the cold. There's a pewter urn in her bare hands.
Frozen in place, afraid he's caught in the grip of another dream, he watches her stop at the very edge of the drop and raise the urn to her lips. Then she turns toward him, away from the wind, and lifts the lid.
As the first of the ashes catch flight, his legs break from their lock and he moves toward her. She startles at the sudden motion, and her eyes dart from the swirling grey to his face.
The urn tumbles from her hands and hits the rock at her feet with a sharp clang. He almost feels the breath catch in her throat as her green eyes widen. He knows he should pause here, give her a chance to respond, but he's drawn. He has to go to her, touch her, make sure she's real.
Five feet away, her voice is barely above a whisper, but it rips though the months of darkness and brings him home. "Angel?"
His fingers brush the warm curve of her cheek, and she doesn't crumble. She doesn't dissipate into the wind. Then he pulls her into his arms, and he feels the reality of her heartbeat against his own.
"Buffy."