A/N: New ficlet up, will have the next one late tonight or early tomorrow. At the end of this one there's an idea that I've been toying with for a while and decided to put it in. Enjoy, and if you want, review!
"Angel?" Buffy tried to ask, but her voice wasn't there. Strange, she thought, and tried again. No sound came out and her lips wouldn't even move. "You can only talk to Spike," Angel said smoothly, "but don't worry. I'll stake him and you can talk to everyone again." Buffy felt uneasy when he said this, but then thought, Angel can't stake Spike because Angel's asleep and Spike is awake, and they are far apart in the awake-world. She shrugged it off and wondered what Angel meant about her only being able to talk to Spike. You can only speak knowledge or truth in this place. Spike's words came back to her. It must be true, but why? Buffy mused.
Angel drew in an unneeded breath and began to talk, drawing Buffy from her musings. "I think I've fallen in love with Cordelia. But I've begun to miss you since she slept with my son Connor," he stated. You have a son? Buffy thought incredulously. And he's old enough to sleep with Cordelia? She listened as Angel rambled on. "Look, it's like this, Buffy. Everyone is in love with someone but you. Anya is in love with Xander, but is beginning to notice Giles. Xander is still in love with Anya, but is getting a crush on you again. Giles is thinking of Anya, and even Dawn has a crush on a boy at school. Spike, as always, is in love with you." Angel was finished for the time being, and Buffy thought about it for a minute. How does he even know who all these people are? she wondered. I didn't tell him that much during our little meeting last year, did I? "What about you, Buffy?" Angel asked her, rhetorically, of course, since she couldn't talk to him. "Who do you love? Who do you think about when a huge, life-threatening demon is hanging over you? Who would you risk everything to save? Who do you lie awake at night thinking about?"
Spike, Buffy thought, in answer to Angel's questions. I don't love him, though. Do I? She bent down and picked up a leaf and a stick, which conviently turned into a piece of paper and a pencil. On this she wrote out for Angel what she had been thinking. Spike, she wrote, but I don't think I like him that way. I've tried it that way, and it just ended in heartache for both of us. I'm trying to save him beacuse whatever the First is doing to him isn't right.
Angel looked at her slyly. "Then why did you tell him you fight for him?" Why do you care? Buffy wrote, I thought you hated him, anyway. "I'm not Angel," he said, looking her in the eye. Dumbfounded, Buffy scrawled, Who are you, then? "Who do you want me to be?" he asked her. Angel, Buffy wrote plaintively. "Sorry," the thing with Angel's body said. "I'm not. Mostly." What does that mean? she thought irritably. If she'd had a voice, she would have shrieked as whatever had been pretending to be Angel shattered into glass. The pieces rose into the air before they hit the ground and reassembled themselves into a large white bird. The magnificent animal flew gracefully away, leaving Buffy alone.
Just as Buffy was recovering her wits from seeing someone shatter into glass, the large puddle beside her rippled and trembled. Oh no, Buffy thought, What now? It burst up like a morning glory into a humanoid shape. The living water fell back into the little pool from which it came, revealing a man clothed in a glowing white robe. Though his image was blurry around the edges, his curly dark hair and blue eyes told Buffy he was Spike, or at least Spike from a long ago time. "William?" Buffy said, in awe like a small child. "Hello, Buffy," he said warmly, his upper class English accent ringing out like a bell in the deserted graveyard.
William seemed to radiate from an inner light, and combined with his happy smile, he was surely one of the most beautiful creatures Buffy had ever seen. "Are you an angel?" she asked stupidly. "Yes," he said solumnly, "You were too." He laughed, and the sound made Buffy want to laugh along. His eyes were lit with a happy sparkle, and the color in his cheeks seemed so foreign to her, but it was obviously William. "I don't know if you remember, but I met you, while you were in Heaven. I always wanted to see you again after you left," he said. "No wonder I enjoyed it," Buffy said, a tad breathless. "I know why Spike's in love with you," William said, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. She smiled and flushed, delighted by how warm, full of life, and beautiful he was. Everything about him made her want to smile. Buffy had never met a real angel before, but it made her head spin to think she had been with him in Heaven.
After a few minutes of idle talk, (Buffy wasn't quite sure what she said, and then decided it was best she didn't know) she managed to ask a sensible question. "Why aren't you in Heaven now?" she asked. "I am bound to Spike now," William explained. "We are one, soul and body, like it always should have been." Something about that statement put a damper on Buffy's happiness and made her feel as though she were onto a train of thought. "You're Spike's soul," she said, trying to sort it out. "Yes," he said, subdued. "You could say that." "You were in Heaven, and Spike went to get the soul for me......if it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have gotten the soul......." Buffy said slowly, a horrible realization dawning. "I pulled you out of Heaven!"
~TBC~