Disclaimer: They aren't mine. They belong to the all mighty Joss.
Spoilers: This story has potential spoilers for current episodes of Buffy S6 and Angel S3.
Timeline: Set five years into the future after Buffy's resurrection.
Summary: Angel runs into Buffy five years after she has been brought back to his absolute shock.
Author's Note: Song is Gone by N'Sync
Dedication: To Ashleigh, my co-author. Thank you for your ideas and reviews of chapters in whole or in pieces. Couldn't have done this story without ya. * big grin *
Rating: I'm pretty sure that if you can watch the show you can read this.
Feedback: Do I have to ask…leave it here or send it to kparker81@hotmail.com
G O N E
Chapter 1 – Lost and Found
I've been sittin here
Can't get you off mind
I try my best to be a man and be strong
I drive myself insane
Wishing I could touch your face
But the truth remains
You're gone (gone)
Gone (baby your)
Gone (your gone)
(Baby girl you're)
Gone
Gone
Gone
Gone
Gone…at least that's what I had thought. Willow's impromptu visit telling me of your demise had shattered the last vestiges of happiness I had been feeling since our victory in Pylea. It had been a good mission and for the first time in a long while I was feeling better about my little family and myself.
I had made some real strides in coming to terms with the demon that resides inside of me and for the first time since I became a vampire, more so since the return of my soul, I was able to distinguish between Angelus and myself. I am not the demon. I am not a monster. I am worthy of love and family and friends. I am someone to be counted.
I ran up the front walk of the Hyperion…
"Can I say it? I wanna say it…there's no place like…Willow?"
It's amazing how quickly life can turn on a dime. One minute I am happy to be back in my own dimension with friends old and new looking forward to what the future brings and in the blink of an eye my future was gone.
I saw Willow sitting there her eyes heavy and glistening with tears still left to be shed with the tell tale tracks of the tears that had already fallen and I knew. In a heartbeat I knew.
"It's Buffy."
Willow stood before me and it was all I could do not to scream.
NO, no, no, no, no, no not my Buffy.
I hadn't felt it before but now the weight of your loss was crushing me. For so long I had pushed aside that part of me that was you because it hurt too much to feel you so deeply inside of me knowing I wasn't a part of you anymore. But now, now I was frantically searching the deepest recesses of my soul for our link, our connection and all I found was nothingness. The spot inside of me where I should have been able to feel you was nothing but an inky blackness, a void filled with cold despair.
I want to feel something besides the cold.
I suddenly felt unsturdy and hollow as I stumbled forward barely making it to the couch in the lobby before my legs gave out beneath my weight.
Willow told me of your sacrifice. She told me how you laid your life down to spare your sister. I know she recanted details of the battle, of the hero that I knew you to be but all that registered in my mind was that you were gone.
Never again was I going to be able to call you just to hear the melodic sound of your voice, the sweet tinkle of you laughter.
Never again would I be able to feel the weight of your head against my chest or the curve of your body against mine.
Never again would I be able to loose myself in your hazel eyes or bury my nose in your fragrant hair.
Never again would I steal your warmth as I kissed your lips or be able to tell you I love you or hear you say you love me too.
There were so many things, simple little things that I would never again be able to share with you because you were really and truly gone.
I thought back to our day, our one perfect day, that I had given up because they said you would die and yet how ironic that you died anyway. I gave away the one thing I craved with equal fervor that I craved you, my humanity. I did this because they said you couldn't survive with me like that and you lasted what…not even two years.
It's not enough time.
It took Willow a long time before she was actually able to say the words 'Buffy's dead', a good couple hours at the very least not that time held meaning for me anymore…nothing did. I had a feeling it would be a long time before anything did again.
I waited for the tears to come but they wouldn't. They burned at the back of my eyes and made me weary with their strain.
I waited for the rage to consume me but it didn't. Somehow I felt oddly almost eerily calm.
I waited for the madness of grief to rush in and make me do something stupid like take up sunbathing or something else equally foolish that would find me nothing more but ashes but it didn't happen. I near drove Cordy and Wes insane waiting for the moment when the proverbial shoe would drop and I would snap. Instead I immersed myself into my work wanting more than ever to help those that needed me…like you did.
For months I walked around with guilt weighing heavily upon my heart and soul because I hadn't cried or really grieved. I had taken what James said in our battle quite literal. I believed he was right whether or not I would admit it outright.
"Now I can kill the woman you love."
"No you can't." "The woman I love is dead."
"You loved someone…with all your heart."
"Yeah."
"No you didn't because if you had you wouldn't be standing here playing games with me. You wouldn't be able to cause when she died, when some bastard killed her it would have killed everything in you."
"I wouldn't be able to go on living."
But I did go on living. I remember Cordelia talking to me later when I tried to explain how I felt.
"I'm okay."
"So what's the problem?"
"That I'm okay. That losing Buffy didn't kill me. That I could deal with it. In all those years no one ever mattered not like she did and now she's gone."
"And you're still here."
"Yeah it just feels like I'm betraying her some how."
And it did feel like a betrayal of the worst kind that I didn't break down, that I was still walking this earthly plain, that I wasn't there for you when you needed me most. It haunted me for weeks on end that I hadn't completely lost it and gone mad with grief or rage. I found it just as difficult to believe that I could get up every day and not take a walk into the morning sun, as it was to believe you were gone.
But each day I did get up and I fought the good fight and slowly I moved forward without you. I knew my redemption wouldn't mean as much to me without you. The sun would never shine so brightly for me again but it would shine.
So imagine my surprise when five years later I ran right smack into you Buffy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I had received my redemption not quite a year after you had died and I had begun taking vacations each year on the anniversary of your passing. I would travel to someplace I knew you would have loved to see and spent a week remembering you and celebrating your life not mourning your death.
I made a point of traveling someplace new each time. It was like I was in some way sharing this experience with you Buffy because I believed you could see me and hear me. So when I found myself in Paris that year I found it strange and yet comforting that I could feel our connection flare up again.
How fitting that I should feel you the strongest in this the city of love.
I found as I meandered through the streets of Paris that my pulse quickened and my nervous system began to tingle and my blood near hummed in my ears. I fought against the rush of feeling that welled up in me like the tide.
Then it happened. I collided with the long lost object of my desires literally. I had turned a corner and headed back towards my hotel when I bumped into someone coming the other way. I picked myself up off the ground and extended my hand out the golden haired girl who was sprawled at my feet.
"I'm sorry I uh…desole mademoiselle "
The girl looked up while I was making my apologies and I couldn't believe my eyes.
"…Buffy?"
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