Gifts and Tears

Chapter Title: Gifts and Tears

Disclaimer: I just like writing these SO much. (note the sarcasm, I'm a junky on the stuff in real life) Hmm, if I owned them, the first day after the whole Buffy moves to UPN (I almost typed PMS, don't ask why) I would had been talking of ensuring everyone that the crossovers would still exist several times this season; not just leave the idea alone for at least a year. But since that is the deal going around and Joss even admitted to not even bring up the idea of cross-network cross-overs for S6/S3, it's obvious that I don't own any of the characters. Joss and Fox are the bosses.

Author: The marvelous Ellie Lildat that gets her ego inflated with so many wonderful reviews after just having the story posted to two days. A big THANK YOU! to all you magnificent peeps, but don't be afraid to be cruel. And I still haven't come up with a better name for the story, I'm sorry.

Summery: Buffy hesitates before actually talking to Angel. I don't know where this is going. Bare with me. Its angsty and I preferred the first chapter to this since my own personality snuck into Buffy, I'm sorry.

Author's Note: AHH! In the middle of getting ready to send this out, fanfiction.net quits on me; what's that about? Sorry for the wait. So you liked the first chapter, eh? I'm new to the whole writing in the first person when it's not myself thing, but I'll continue with it for now. Just so you know, this is all being off the top of my head. The other stories I've written have always had some sort of to start off with, this was just because I felt like writing and was being depressed and motivated by my renewed love of Third Eye Blind and remembered how in Buffy & Angel danced to The Background so I've been playing the song over and over again to get in the romantic depressed mode. Also, I'm taking liberty with Dawn having a summer birthday because she was fourteen all season long, I know I'll be proved wrong sometime soon, but bare with me. Have Fun!

Chapter 2: Gifts and Tears


That is a really big hotel. But it seems lonely how, even though the business is based out of the hotel, Angel lives there all alone. But Angel was always a lonely person, plus I guess that it's nice to have so much room when you can't leave home until sunset; but still... it's got a lonely vibe.

But at this moment, who's more lonely: the vampire with a soul that's sitting amongst his friends in the lobby of his hotel or the recently resurrected slayer that sitting in her mother's old car staring longingly at the hotel across the street while a shoe box is buckled in the passenger seat. The Visual answer and the True answer are very different, and I'm sure that only I know that.

Sure, I'm about as hollow as someone can get without disappearing completely, but there is one thing that still exists in me... the connection to him. Just by watching him from a distance that makes the ant on my dashboard seem like a giant, I can almost feel his own pain and emptiness.

But he's smiling, a smile that seems all too familiar from a lot of pictures I've taken in the past few years, I'm amazed that no one notices the invisible tears he's crying. And yeah, Angel = brooding and sadness; but this is just wrong. What happened to him?Did...did I do this? Or was it something even before my death, something that's been festering over a clean looking bandage.

All of a sudden, I realize that this wasn't just a trip for my sake. Angel needs me, he has needed me for a while and I just ignored the feeling inside. Another regret to my list and a new focus for my trip to L.A. Why didn't I talk to him more when I returned at first?

It was hard, getting back to... well, life. I haven't been back long, but I've been majorly adjusting ever since, but when I fist came back I was kinda suicidal... actually completely suicidal. Let's just say that I really liked my gift, it was a reward that I felt I truly deserved. If it hadn't had been for Dawn, I wouldn't had stayed alive a day.

But as soon as I saw my little sister, the person that I still remember as the pinkish blob I held in my arms for the first time when I was six, I saw the maturity in her whole... the tenderness that had been too fragile to begin with. As soon as I saw Dawnie, I remembered that I needed her more than I needed death. When I was gone, I didn't see my mother like I wished I would. I remembered that it had been a year since I was given an even better gift than death could ever be, my baby sister.

Death is nothingness... or at least what I remember of it. Dawnie...she was her namesake, the Dawn that freed me from the darkness and made me want to live. And at that moment, it was enough.

But as the days progressed, as I began to notice things like: how Xander and Anya were planning a wedding, Spike and my sister being closer than ever, the fact that I didn't see Giles until two days after I came back and that he now lived in England, and how not only had my sister become a fifteen year old in my time gone but her soul seemed so old.

The day after Giles arrived, Angel came to visit. And as I'm sitting here and watching him like a psycho, I can still feel how soothing his hug was. Only Angel can be so cold temperature wise and have such a warming touch, only my Angel. We didn't even say anything to each other when I opened the door that night; I had only enough time to register that it was him on the other side of the door before we both had melted into a firm embrace. He cried, my Angel, he cried and smiled his REAL smile, not the smile that he's flashed three times tonight. Everything got better once he was there, and I don't even know how he knew that I was back, he just showed up- like always.

My left shoulder still remembers the way he kissed it while we hugged, not caring that anyone saw him do so or that we were getting too intimate for our own good. Thinking back on it, I'm surprised that nobody question him getting to happy at my return... I wonder how happy he was that night. But, then again, I don't think that it was a moment of perfect happiness kind of happiness. Everyone, mostly Angel, Dawn, and I was a little melancholy about the whole deal. Death is supposed to be final... but we broke that rule.

Since practically the enter Scooby-Gang was over that night that Angel visited, we didn't get much private talking time. Everyone seemed to be busy or making somebody else busy around the house for hours at a time, making sure that I was okay, that Dawn was okay, and then checking once more if I was okay. It was about two o'clock in the morning when everyone left or went to sleep, letting Angel get some time to be the person that knew me too well to believe the assuredness I had been feigning all night.

We laid on my bed, just like in the old days, while he wrapped his arms around me and I rested my head on his still chest. I swear we were made to fit together. Both of us talked of idle details in sotto voices for a while, just being assured by each other's voices and closeness for the time being. When I looked up at Angel and noticed the tears streaming down his face, I can't even express how much my heart broke at the sight. It was only seconds before I soothingly wrapped my arms around his neck and let him cry into my shoulder, both of us realizing how much the roles has changed in our relationship. Hmm, it's strange that I feel so comfortable saying that we still have a .

It's okay, Angel. I whispered into his ear, even though I wasn't quiet sure what exactly was . Everything will be okay, from now on. Just as I spoke the words, my own tears began to coarse down my cheeks. But the tears didn't surprise me, nothing much was surprising me anymore.

But when my soul-mate murmurs,I just love you too much to see you hurt like this.

I realize that I forgot just how well he truly knows me. In all honesty, Angel and I aren't ever of different worlds.

Once he told me that, we had one of our moments. I loosened my embrace around his neck and unconsciously looked directly into his chocolate pools of eyes.

I know, I love you too.

It just takes one look into those eyes to be lost forever in them, to forget the invisible barriers that are supposed to exist and just take a few minutes to experience a kiss that would make ambrosia taste like dirt. A kiss that makes the worse of students into a poet. A kiss that never gets finished, always interrupted by the return to reality. And reality that dark morning was that Angel had an hour before he had to be back in L.A. and that I was laying on top of him. It's not hard to figure out I'm not the only one effected by our kisses.

What exactly am I going to accomplish by being here? I know that I'm terrified to hurt him, to disrupt his self-claimed family and his focus on his work. If I go in, he'll say that it's okay for me to be here, and knowing Angel- it'll be true for his part. But his family, his co-workers, his friends, they'll mind that I'm getting in the way for a few hours. And then there will be tension in their little group, which I know won't necessarily be new but it won't help. Then Angel will be distanced from everyone he's closed to... and, boy, am I jumping ahead of myself. I guess I just don't want things to get awkward once I'm in there, even though things always get awkward when I'm near Angel.

After another stolen kiss, I silently walked Angel down to our front door, once again hoping that he would choose to stay even though we both knew he couldn't. For a moment, we just stood in front of the door, neither one of us wanted to be the one to use a synonym for the word and initiate the parting until the next disaster struck. But once that moment was over, Angel spoke in that voice that can make the lamest of words seem loving (that is if Angel ever had spoke anything lame to me), he told me my excuse for coming here.

We're never over, Buffy. I've realized that now. So please, remember I'm only a short ride away. I know that he was hinting at the fact that the next time I'm in major trouble, I should ask him for help or come to him; and he knew that if it had been just a few months earlier when he told me something similar to this, that I would had just told him that I'd keep it in mind but could do it myself. But that was a few months ago, and I'm not that way anymore. What way am I? I haven't figured that out yet.

But as I steal one more glance through the glass doors of the Hyperion Hotel, I once again notice that I'm not just here for myself. He needs me and I need him. Now if we could only help each other without doing something stupid, there's the challenge.

TBC...