Incomparable
"I'll never drink a whole big gulp while driving again,"
Willow muttered to herself as she slammed the car door and sprinted for the
bathrooms.
Willow reappeared later and walked toward her car at a more
sedate pace. That pace slowed to a disbelieving
halt as she recognized the car parked beside hers. Xander had been absolutely merciless in ribbing Angel about his
yet-to-be-painted replacement vehicle.
Slowly she turned to peer into the shadows cast by the
of-historic-interest booth. A slightly
darker shadow shifted unhappily under her gaze.
With a relieved sigh Willow walked over and sat beside
Angel. "So, you've been here for the
last three days?" Willow asked casually.
"We tried calling you, Fred had a vision."
"I had the cell phone, I'm in range, I checked," Angel
protested, pulling it out of his pocket.
Willow took it, "Um-huh… just what I thought. How long has it been since you charged it?"
"Oh… sorry, I must have forgotten."
"Would I be too out of line if I asked why you've spent
three days at a rest stop halfway between Sunnydale and LA?" Willow asked.
"I can't go back to Fred just because Buffy doesn't want
me," Angel said. "It isn't fair to
Fred."
"Would it help if I said Buffy's ready to talk to you now?"
Willow asked.
"Not really, I've still got to decide between them. I've still got to hurt someone." Angel
said. "Maybe Buffy and Fred would both
be better off if I just disappeared.
All I ever do is hurt them."
"Angel, you know that isn't true!" Willow reprimanded him
sharply. Then her voice softened. "It's hard, I know. I've been there. You have to decide who you love.
It'll hurt, but they'll understand.
You didn't cause this situation."
"I'm sure that's great advice," Angel said. "But it doesn't help. I wasn't supposed to have to choose between
them. This was never supposed to
happen. Why didn't Buffy tell me? Sixteen months ago it wouldn't have been an
issue! Sixteen months ago what was
between Fred and I couldn't have resolved into friendship. Why did she wait so long?"
Willow waited patiently.
"I never quit loving Buffy," Angel said. "But I let her become a part of the past so
I could go on living. Once Buffy was my
life, everything I did or thought revolved around her. But it didn't work, it wasn't enough."
"I loved Buffy from the first moment I saw her. I fell in love for the first time in my life
that day. She was literally everything
to me: Sunlight, life, everything. That
she would love me back was a gift I never expected, certainly never anything I
could believe I deserved. I thought her
love redeemed me; instead it could have drug her down with me. Because she loved me Buffy got caught up in
my punishment. I never meant for that
to happen. After I came back I started
seeing things more clearly, I started seeing how my darkness infected her
light."
"After I realized what I was doing to Buffy I left. I was never going to get involved
again. I didn't want anyone else to get
hurt. Why would I even want to? They'd never be Buffy."
"I never planned to fall in love with Fred, it just
happened. After Buffy died Fred was the
only one I could connect with. The
others, they tried too hard to help.
They had a hundred different ideas as to what I should do to feel
better. Fred was the one who let me
hurt. The one who just spent time with
me, without trying to force me to get over what had happened… and she needed me
too. It was easier for me to cope with
things for her sake then for my own. I
could tell myself I was holding her to confront her dreams, and not because
having her near me kept my dreams away."
Angel laughed softly, "Cordy, Wes and Gunn did everything
short of physically dragging me out of my room after I decided to spend the
remainder of my life staring at the wall once I realized Buffy wasn't coming
back. Nothing worked then Fred asked me
to go on a walk with her, not because it would be good for me to get out, but
because she was scared to go out in LA on her own. I barely thought twice about going… And it was the best thing I
possibly could have done for my own sanity.
I think she knew that."
"I'm still not sure how she did it, but Fred taught me to
lean on her when I was hurt. She was
the first person I ever let help me like that," Angel smiled sadly. "Even counting Buffy, as much as we loved
each other, I couldn't stand the though that I could be adding to her
burdens. I was there to help her, not
the other way around. I didn't always
have to be strong with Fred, I didn't always have to be human, or anything but
Angel really. Fred and I were happy
together."
"Willow, my relationship with Fred isn't like the one I had
with Buffy, not better or worse, just different. It wasn't love at first sight or an attraction so strong that I
couldn't stay away even when I could see disaster looming on all sides. I thought it had to be like it was between
Buffy and I to be real. I guess that's
why I didn't see it coming in time to panic and push her away."
"You know, I've been thinking a lot about the curse and why
I didn't try to get it changed before Buffy died. And you know what I've realized?
Buffy and I bought into all that Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers
crap. I believed we were doomed,
especially after the curse was broken, so I never fought it. I saw cutting Buffy loose as the only thing
I could do for her. I didn't fight for
her, I didn't believe in myself enough to do that. All I could see was me dragging her down with me into the
darkness that had consumed my life."
"Fred and I didn't have that shadow hanging over us and she
didn't believe in doomed, she believed in me.
Fred believed I could control the demon, so she wasn't afraid of it and
she didn't hate it. I learned to
control it because I was afraid of hurting her. Buffy could protect herself from the demon, Fred couldn't. Once I had control in Pylea I knew I had to
get control of it here too. It took me
two hundred seventy odd years to take control of my life, but once I had it
there was no way I could give it up."
"Buffy, Fred, how can I say which one I love more? After I realized I was falling for Fred my
first rule was never let myself compare them, never even think it. I don't know which one I'm suppose to be
with. Whistler showed me Buffy,
protecting her was supposed to be my destiny.
Fred is my Seer, my connection to the Powers and that's destiny too, so
it can't be the deciding factor."
"You have to choose though," Willow said. "And you don't really know what things what
it would be like with Buffy now that the curse isn't an issue."
"I know," Angel sighed, "But I'm trying to chose between the
woman who could make me forget I'm a vampire and the one who made me remember
that I'm a person.