A/N: takes place in the first few weeks of Angel TS season one. Lines from "Lonely Hearts" are property of their writer.
Joss Whedon and ME own Angel and Buffy. Not me. Sob!
Feedback is welcome, and even begged for.
Enjoy.
Entering the closest Starbucks, Angel sighs at the line and joins it. If Cordelia could just make her own coffee, he thinks, and resolutely gives the orders to the pimply child behind the counter. Pausing a moment, he adds a latte for himself, and after picking up Cordy and Doyle's drinks, decides to sit for a few minutes with his own coffee.
That's what the microwave is for, right? What they don't know won't hurt them.
Two weeks in the city of angels, and nothing has gone right. Not the way he had wanted it to. First Doyle, then Cordy dropping in as out of the blue. Not that he didn't appreciate the help. But here he was, desperately trying to start a life of solitude and atonement, and here comes the first thing he didn't want. A walking conscience and a reminder of his past in Sunnydale.
The Powers that Be sure have a funny way of trying to show him his destiny.
Sipping on his cooling beverage, Angel watches as kids start to spill into the coffee house, the only one open this late on Melrose, which he finds rather strange. For such a party city, you'd think there'd be more stuff to do around this area. Whatever. He closes his eyes, inhaling the aroma, and is reminded just a little of Italy, and cafes by the canals. Drinking with Darla, killing with Darla…his eyes snap open and he shakes his head, not wanting that memory to be dredged up. He stands, throwing the last of his coffee into the closest trash in a perfect rimshot, and picks up Cordelia and Doyle's orders as he heads toward the door.
As he opens it by pushing it with his backside, a clutch of young women giggling to themselves brush past him, ignoring him completely. The last one catches the door for him, and he nods in thanks as she holds it open.
And almost drops the coffee in shock as he realizes who it is.
"Oh my God. Angel? What the…what are you doing here?" the blond asks incredulously as he gapes at her in equally unfounded fright.
"Uh…Buffy. How are…what are you…um. Hi," he finishes lamely, and lets the door swing shut behind them. They stand on the street, alone, she nervously swinging her purse in her hands and he holding his coffee tray so tightly his knuckles are turning white.
"I, well, I'm here visiting my dad. And some old friends. From high school. I mean, Hemery," she tells him, and the look on her face makes him want to burst into tears. Or run away, whichever.
"I didn't know you were living here. Are you living here now?" she asks hesitantly, trying to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He reaches out without realizing it and tucks it back for her when it won't stay.
She jerks away from him as if burned.
"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…" he starts, then just gives up. "I'm sorry," he begins again, this time more softly. "I didn't intend to see you…for a while. I've been staying here a few weeks. It's okay for now. Kind of a moving around guy, usually."
She nods, like she's trying to have a normal conversation. Almost manages it. A blush creeps up her neck, landing on her cheeks in a crimson wave. He follows it with his eyes, lingering on the scar at the base of her throat. His mark on her. On her. His. His Buffy.
He passes his hands in front of his eyes, trying to escape the overwhelming feeling of despair and betrayal flooding through him.
She gives him the concerned look, asking, "Angel? You all right?"
How could she possibly still care how I feel?
"Yeah. Fine," he clears his throat, finally setting down the coffee tray before he drops it. "So, shouldn't you tell your friends where you are…" he nods in the direction of the gaggle of girls that had proceded her into the shop.
"Who, them? I just happened to be walking in at the same time. Don't know them. Actually my dad is waiting for me over there," she nods toward a blond man in a generic SUV; he waves back at her with a quizzical expression. "I just wanted a nightcap. You know, the kind that keeps you up through the wee hours, then lets you drop off just in time to not have any dreams," she says, her hazel eyes reflecting the pain that Angel himself feels.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you," he tells her, and she holds up a hand, interrupting him. "It's okay. I have a few minutes. Besides, it's you. How could I not talk to you?" her voice drops in volume with this last statement so much, if Angel hadn't been a vampire he wouldn't have been able to hear her.
They stare at each other, not able to speak. Even if they could, the pounding of Buffy's heart and the roaring in Angel's head might possibly drown out any words that would be said.
He finally shrugs wordlessly, and reaches out a hand, slowly. As he gently runs one finger down the edge of her jaw, tracing the line of her bone, a single tear slips quietly from her lashes and splashes to stain the front of her shirt.
She opens her mouth, but no sound will come out. He steps toward her, bridging the distance with a simple large stride.
His body quivering with the effort not to crush her to him, he simply looks into her tear filled eyes, and begs silently for her to forgive me, God, please forgive me.
Her own hand reaches up in turn, and she lays it on his broad chest, covering the spot where his undead heart lay. A shudder he can't suppress moves through him, and his own eyes begin to fill.
Their gazes lock, and the world around them begins to fade, and where traffic sounded minutes before, the sound of rain now falls on their ears.
In each other they can see one night, one moment of love so pure it might burn the stars from their orbit, and so destructive it might suck everyone in the world into hell. The smoggy L.A. night disappears, and instead becomes a small room, sparsly furnished, the only part of any importance the person across from each of them.
His face descends toward hers, and he stops, lips hovering aching centimeters from her own, which tremble with his closeness. What could it hurt? Just one kiss?
Lips touching ever so softly, whisper gentle at first. He doesn't want to hurt her. Not again. Not ever again.
She doesn't want to be hurt. She's strong now. Doesn't need him. Doesn't want him. Doesn't need to be touching him, or be held by him, or kissed by him…
Bruising force now. It's like he's trying to devour her whole. And she can't help but respond. Wraps her arms around his waist, and pulls him to her finally.
God help him, a low growl of pleasure? pain? rips through him, and abruptly she jerks away, breath ragged.
His hand covers his mouth to hide the budding fangs that have appeared.
"Buffy, I…"
She smacks him. Hard.
His head whipping to the right, he takes it. No more than he deserves. That'll leave a mark, he thinks crazily, and places his hand over his throbbing cheek, painfully aware of throbbing in other places that have no business doing so.
"Don't. Touch. Me." She whispers, and won't meet his gaze.
He notices the whole crowd of people in Starbucks have taken this moment to see them, and cringes in embarrassement at the look on the faces pressed against the glass, their mouths open in "O" 's of shock. "Buffy, maybe we should…"
She grabs her purse off the ground, and stalks toward the coffee house door. "I'm getting my drink. You can go or not go. I don't care anymore. I can't care. Do you understand me, Angel? I can't. I can't even control myself for a minute around you, and it kills me. We can't do this," she turns to him as she says this, hand on the door handle, hair in wild disarray, cheeks red with desire and anger. His never ending supply of shame fills him, and he casts his eyes to the ground, fists balled tightly by his sides. "Just go, Angel, just go," she tells him, and his heart is ground to dust at her tone.
She waits for an answer, and when none is forthcoming, wrenches open the door. She enters the shop without so much as a backward glance, and Angel is left standing out on the street, remorse and lust battling each other in his mind and body.
He shakily bends over to retrieve the forgotten coffee order, and begins to slowly walk away, toward Fairfax and his GTX. He passes the SUV with Hank Summers inside, who is be-bopping to the radio and who must have completely missed his daughter making out with a complete stranger on the street right in front of him.
He reaches his car, and slides slowly into the driver's seat, setting the drink tray down, and starts the ignition.
Just sits there. Not moving. Not thinking.
Not the reunion he had imagined.
A few minutes later she emerges from the shop, carrying a very large frothy frozen drink of some sort, and the image makes Angel smile a little, the memory of a younger and less scarred Buffy trying to explain her love of the sugary concoctions to a worldy yet confused vampire teasing his brain.
She stops at the corner, evidently looking for him. She spins a full circle, slowly scanning the street, and not seeing him, trudges toward her father's car.
The big SUV lumbers up the street, and makes an illegal u-turn at the next intersection.
Angel can do nothing but watch as they drive by him, Buffy's father talking animatedly about something, and Buffy herself staring at her lap, her drink forgotten in her hands.
The car heads down Melrose at a good clip, and Angel follows it with his eyes as his love is swept away from him once again by the surge of traffic and the cruel humor of fate.
A few days later, and Cordelia, Doyle, and himself are sitting in his office, exhausted after a search for a body jumping demon who was killing singles in the area while looking for the perfect host.
"…so I was thinking…we should go out. For fun," he tells them, waiting for their reactions.
Cordelia stands, and says, "Or we could go home." And Doyle finishes, "and you could sit here in the dark, alone."
Angel smiles briefly at him. "God, yes, please." His friends leave the office, and Doyle switches off the lights, leaving Angel alone is his blessed darkness.
He temples his fingers under his chin, resting his head on their tips.
Memories of the "Buffy encounter" run through his mind, and although he has told no one, Cordy had noticed his changed demeanor. He had shrugged it off, saying he was just tired.
She had given him the arched eyebrow, but left it at that.
God bless his friends, for caring. Even if he couldn't tell them how he really felt.
How he was aching, and empty inside. How everytime someone mentioned coffee or anything to do with Melrose, a bigger hole opened in his chest, widening with each word that person spoke. How every blond woman he saw on the street made him do a double take, even though he knew, he could feel, that she was gone. He had driven by her father's house a few days earlier, and could tell from the lack of sounds that she was definitely gone.
He had believed that the pain caused by the gypsy curse was the worst thing he would ever experience in this world. How the memories of every bad thing he had ever done as Angelus would be with him forever, and how he would be guilty and fearful for the rest of his long life. Not so.
This was much worse.
The look on her face, in her eyes, when she had hit him. He won't ever forget that look.
He forces it into his memory, pummeling his consciousness with it, to be sure of one thing.
If she can't forgive me, how can I forgive myself?
So he sits in the dark of his office, and listens to the tick tocking of his antique clock, surrounded by weapons and reminders of the human world he so desperately wants to be a part of. He thinks of her, and of the life he left behind, and how the pain of remorse and atonement have nothing on heartache and loneliness.
As the moon crosses the sky, he sits even still, and thinks on his new life, and his new connections to humanity.
Is this worth it? Can I be around them without hurting them, too?
Angel hasn't prayed in over 200 years. He starts to now.
Fin.