A/n:  same disclaimer as before. 

This little piece is taking me in a direction I hadn't originally imagened it to.  I'm just letting Angel tell me where to go with it.  Please come along for the ride.

                They proceed to the couch.  Angel can hear Xander in the kitchen, cleaning up the remains of the food left over from the wake.   He tunes it out, focusing wholly on Dawn.  Her face that's so like her sisters'.

                Was like her sisters'.

                "Angel," she starts, and looks at her hands in her lap, twisting her wedding ring around on her finger.  "I know we haven't been the best of friends, or stayed in touch like we should have, but I just want you to know…about her.  What you didn't hear.  What she never would have told you," she finishes in a rush,  as he shakes his head, trying to shush her.

                "Dawn, it really doesn't matter now, does it?  She's gone.  We didn't stay in touch the way we could have over the years because both she and I knew what the consequences would have been had we actually been in touch.  I never changed the way I felt about her-"

                "That's just it!" she interrupts.  "She always loved you.  Til the last day.  Every day.  The times she spoke to you on the phone, her face was lit up for days afterward.  You don't know how much you still mean to her…meant to her.  It was like she was her old self again.  Especially these last few months.  She started to get real nolstalgic.  Rambling on about the old days, talking about Giles, and Willow, and school.  And everything always came back to you."  She chances a look at him.

                Tears streak down his reddening face, and he begins to sob silently, his whole body frozen with the overwhelming sense of loss that he can't begin to fathom.

                He hasn't cried this much in over ten years.  And it takes one sentence from her baby sister to reduce him to a quivering wreck.  He can't stop, even when Xander comes out of the kitchen to investigate the weird noises he's hearing from the living room.

                Dawn is rooted to the spot on the couch, unsure of what to do.  She places her hands awkwardly over his, and he grasps them so tightly she almost cries out.  Almost.

                "What have I done?" he whispers. 

                "What do you mean?" Xander replys gently, his dishtowel thrown over his shoulder like a miniature cape.

                As they descend upon him, intent now to comfort him in some way, he leaps up, unable to bear their proximity any more. 

                "I've gotta…I need…I'm sorry," he spits out, and heads up the stairs at a dead run, his path instinctively toward the one place he feels any kind of calm eminating from.

                Of course it's not really her room; only a replica.  They did save some of her things, a few pictures and some jewelry dot the walls and top of the dresser.  He sits slowly on the edge of her bed and glances around, heart trip hammering a mile a minute.

                A few deep breaths, and his overtaxed lungs begin to slow down.  He scrubs a hand over his face, fully embarrassed at the tear tracks he finds there. 

                Tears, always tears.  Heartbreak, longing, sadness, seperateness.  If any words could describe his and Buffy's relationship, these were them.

                There were moments of peace and utter joy as well. 

                "God!" he yells suddenly, and hopes that Dawn and Xander don't come running at his outburst.

                God.  What has God, or the Powers, or whomever, done for him lately?

                Betrayal.  Vague promises.  And him always working so hard for his atonement, his 'shanshu'. 

                Well, he got it.  But he doesn't want it.  Not when he's the only one.  And not when she's cold in the ground.

                He wanders to her dresser, randomly opening drawers.  He doesn't care who sees him. 

                A few drawers from the bottom he finds a stack of envelopes and folded pieces of paper.  Turning the one on top over, his heart leaps to his throat at the one word written on it.

                Angel

In her loopy, girlish script.  Still so young, he thinks.  Still that same girl. 

                So he opens it, and sits down unconsciously on the window seat,  his old entry way into her life.

                As he takes the single sheet of paper out of the envelope, something clinks to the ground in front of him.  Frowning, he bends over and picks it up.

                A chill creeps up his spine, and he feels his face heat up again.  His left hand holds the ring that had fallen to the floor, while his right one clutches at it's mate that he wears on the chain around his neck.

                Fighting back the rush of fresh wetness in his eyes, he opens the letter and begins to read.

                Angel,

Well, if you're getting this, I must be dead.  Ha!  You know that old joke in movies, where the hero gets the tape, and the message is invariably "darling, if you're hearing this I'm already dead."  Sorry.  I guess I'm just a little morbid right now.  And I'm really hoping that you won't ever have to read this.  I wanted to write it, though, just in case.

How did we get so lost? 

How did I never find my way back to you?

Why didn't you come and find me?

There are so many questions and non sensical words floating around in my head right now.  and the most important ones are just not ever gonna be answered, I think.  We know what happened. 

Real life took over us, took over our destiny.  Maybe we were meant to be together just that once, and maybe it was a lesson for me and fate for you to go to hell.  Maybe the Powers needed you in a place so they could bring you back, to prove how much the world needed you. 

But damnit, I needed you too.  I need you now.

I'm looking out my window as I write this, watching the sun set, and thinking about all the times I used to stare out that window, and wish you were there.  And suddenly, there you'd be, like an answered prayer.  Even if you didn't say anything, I felt like I could make one more day because I had you in my life.  I had your love to make me strong.  And it did, God did it ever.

You'll never know how grateful I am that I got to know you.  That you chose me.  That when I became normal girl Buffy you still loved me, still thought I was worth keeping in contact with.  And even though we fought separate battles; even though you and your team worked so hard ever single second to keep L. A. and the rest of the world safe, you still had time to call me, to check up on me. 

My whole life was worth it if it means that I brought you one minute of happiness.  And if you had any moment of time where you forgot, just for a minute, all the crappiness and pain that you carry around with you, then it was worth it. 

I hope you know that.  I want you to understand that.  We were fated to meet.  Fated to love, and maybe fated to be forever apart.  But Angel, you have to know that I never wanted it to end up that way.  Why do you think I ended up alone?  There's no one else for me, there never was.  I know, I  understand it had to be that way.  There was no other way for us to be.  I could never control myself around you, not ever.  You affect me in ways I can't describe.  Even hearing your voice rumble down the line made me high for days.  Ask Dawn.  I'm sure she'll be more than happy to embarrass me!

In the end, it's kind of ironic that a simple disease can take away my power.  I never felt as invincible than I did when you were around.  All of you held me up.  Always.

The first slayer was wrong, you know.  I am not alone.  I never will be.  You will always hold me up, even if I die tomorrow, or thirty years from now. 

So I want you to know finally that I understand, and I don't blame you at all for losing your way.  I only hope that you find it, wherever it is, and that you think of me from time to time with fond memories.

Sheesh, what a downer. 

Sorry.  So now I close, and again hope that you don't have to read this, hope that I can tell you in person, someday when we're really old and gray, and you have that beautiful crooked smile on your face, and we're together finally as we should have been all along.

I was always strong, always capable.  But you made my freaky existance bearable.  More than bearable. 

You made it a joy.

I love you.

B.

                Angel sits motionless on the window seat, clutching the letter and the ring she had left, his only movement a slight tremor in his hands, as he watches the sun set for the first time from her room.

TBC.