-Angel-
I don't know why I'm here, or rather I do and that's the problem. I'm here because of her. I can't get her out of my head, or my heart, or my soul. I couldn't leave things alone, with all the hurt and the pain between us, after she came to LA. I had to come apologize. I had to make sure I hadn't caused her any more pain. I had to make sure she knew I still love her, no matter what.
So now I'm back in Sunnydale and I'm preparing to make more promises that I want to keep more then I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. The problem is I still don't know how to keep those promises. I shouldn't have made them. I should have left after she kissed me, but that kiss. That kiss sealed it. I couldn't leave after that. I couldn't leave knowing she's not happy with GI Joe. I couldn't leave knowing she can still kiss me like that. I couldn't leave knowing she can still make me feel this way, knowing she can still make me feel alive.
I know I'm 243 years old. I should have learned how to stay away from a girl. I did, or I thought I did. I got really good at staying away from people. I did it for decades. Then the powers showed me her and she wasn't just a girl, she was the girl, my girl. I couldn't stay away from day one, which is why we're in the situation we're in. I wonder if they knew then that I'd fall in love with her, even more that she'd fall in love with me. Maybe they thought her natural slayer instincts would take over and keep her from feeling the way she did about me. If that's the case they didn't see her heart. They didn't realize that her heart is her strength, so much more then any of her slayer powers.
Her heart, that emotional organ of hers I'm so good at breaking. I should leave. I should drive back to LA tonight. I could kick myself for telling her I'd be close by when she wanted to talk. What the hell was I thinking? I was thinking about the only thing I ever think about when Buffy is involved, Buffy.
I pull the dust cover off the bed in the mansion and lay down. I know I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to lie here with my hands under my head and brood. Maybe by the time she shows up I'll have some answers. Right, some answers I didn't think of in the 10 months since I left for LA. Answers I haven't thought of every day of those months. Yeah, I'm sure I'll come up with some of those answers in the next 12 hours.
*
She shows up before sunset. I can smell her; feel her before she gets here. It's uncanny. I can smell when Cordelia is coming to work. She wears jasmine and peaches perfume. I can smell Wesley before he enters a room, Old Spice and musty books. Buffy is the only one I can feel. It's a stirring in my ribcage, where my heart is, just a rustling at first. When she's near it's a full blown raging inferno. It feels like my heart is beating, it's the only way I know how to describe it. There has never been another person on this earth that makes me feel that. I'm fairly certain that if I walk until the end of time, there never will be again.
I'm tending the fire when she walks in. I look up at her and smile faintly. She doesn't say anything, just walks over to the couch and sits down. She folds her hands under chin. She's to thin. I start to chastise her for not eating and decide this isn't the time. Eventually I stand up and go sit down on the couch next to her.
"I told Riley I was going over to Giles." She finally says.
What the hell is she telling me this for? Why do I care if Soldier Boy thinks she's here or in Never never land? I nod.
"What are we doing here, Angel?" She drops her hands to her lap and looks at me. Her eyes are filled with hurt, pain, doubt and buried beneath it all, hope.
"I don't know. I've been thinking about that since I left you this morning in front of your dorm building." Oh, yeah I came up with some real nice answers in those 12 hours I tried to sleep. Most of them involved throwing her on the floor, or the bed, or even the table and showing her just how much I missed her, just how much I loved her and wanted her. Something I can't actually do, or I'll try and suck the world into hell. Good answers.
"I can't do all this again. I can't have the whole Buffy and Angel house of pain thing going on. It's not that my life is that great right now, most of the time it sucks beyond belief but I don't spend half my time deliriously happy and the other half in gut wrenching tears. It's stable and constant and it hurts all the damn time, but at least I know what every day is going to be like." Tears glisten in her eyes as she says this.
"Buffy, I'm sorry. I deal with the same thing in LA. I spend all my time trying to convince Cordelia and Wes that I'm not drowning. It hurts beyond bearing."
"But we have to bear." She says resigned.
I stand up. It's easier for me think when I'm not so close to her. "I have a life in LA, Buffy. I'm doing good things, I'm helping the powers. I can't leave that behind but I can't leave you behind either. I've tried that way and to quote you, that way lies badness."
She smiles a bit at me. Good God in the Heaven's above, has she always looked like that when she smiles?
"Nothing has changed. My soul is still an issue. I can't give you anymore then I could last year. You need to understand that." Here I go making promises again that I don't know how I'm going to keep.
"Angel, I thought a year apart, a year in LA would bring some things to light. Apparently it didn't. So I'll enlighten you. Do I want to go on picnics in the sun, yes. Do I want marriage and a white picket fence, yes. Do I want kids, yes. Do I want the dog and the mini van and the whole American dream goodness, hell yes, with you. You're the deal closer on all my dreams. If I can't have those things with you, I don't want them. I don't want to have anyone else's children, I don't want to walk down the aisle and see anyone else standing there waiting for me. I don't want to nag at anyone else to take out the trash or sit on blankets in the sunshine with anyone else. I want you, if that means moonlight walks and staying in the shadows, then those are the things I want. Those are all I need to make me happy. I remember one time you told me that you don't feel frustrated around me. It was nice just to feel. That's how I feel now. Its nice to just feel."
Part of me rages, knowing what's about to come out of my mouth, the other part knows I have to say it. I have to be sure. She has to be sure. "Riley seems to be crazy about you."
"He is. I'm not. Last night in the graveyard when I was doing my invitation only brooding, you want to know what I was thinking. I was thinking I hate seeing Riley's reflection in the mirror with mine. I hate that his skin is so damn hot. I hate that his breath is warm. I hate that he snores and breaths hot, wet air on me. I hate that when I lay my head on his chest the beating of his heart is so damn loud that I can't think. I hate that when we train I have to pull my punches. I hate that his feelings get hurt if I don't wait for him to gather his 'team' so we can go kill one demon that would take me 10 minutes to take out on my own. I hate that Riley isn't you."
I take a deep shuddery breath. "I don't know how we're going to do this."
"Do what?" There's that hope shining in her eyes. There's also fear. She's afraid to hope anymore. Did I do that to her? I must have, one more thing to make amends for on a very long list.
"Start trying to make a future together." I say, afraid to look at her, afraid to see her reaction. I can hunt demons and vampires without fear. I can spend a hundred years in hell being tortured. I can face Oracles and the Powers that be and not be scared. I'm afraid a 5'2 hundred pound blond will take my heart and shatter it into a thousand pieces.
I don't know why I'm here, or rather I do and that's the problem. I'm here because of her. I can't get her out of my head, or my heart, or my soul. I couldn't leave things alone, with all the hurt and the pain between us, after she came to LA. I had to come apologize. I had to make sure I hadn't caused her any more pain. I had to make sure she knew I still love her, no matter what.
So now I'm back in Sunnydale and I'm preparing to make more promises that I want to keep more then I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. The problem is I still don't know how to keep those promises. I shouldn't have made them. I should have left after she kissed me, but that kiss. That kiss sealed it. I couldn't leave after that. I couldn't leave knowing she's not happy with GI Joe. I couldn't leave knowing she can still kiss me like that. I couldn't leave knowing she can still make me feel this way, knowing she can still make me feel alive.
I know I'm 243 years old. I should have learned how to stay away from a girl. I did, or I thought I did. I got really good at staying away from people. I did it for decades. Then the powers showed me her and she wasn't just a girl, she was the girl, my girl. I couldn't stay away from day one, which is why we're in the situation we're in. I wonder if they knew then that I'd fall in love with her, even more that she'd fall in love with me. Maybe they thought her natural slayer instincts would take over and keep her from feeling the way she did about me. If that's the case they didn't see her heart. They didn't realize that her heart is her strength, so much more then any of her slayer powers.
Her heart, that emotional organ of hers I'm so good at breaking. I should leave. I should drive back to LA tonight. I could kick myself for telling her I'd be close by when she wanted to talk. What the hell was I thinking? I was thinking about the only thing I ever think about when Buffy is involved, Buffy.
I pull the dust cover off the bed in the mansion and lay down. I know I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to lie here with my hands under my head and brood. Maybe by the time she shows up I'll have some answers. Right, some answers I didn't think of in the 10 months since I left for LA. Answers I haven't thought of every day of those months. Yeah, I'm sure I'll come up with some of those answers in the next 12 hours.
*
She shows up before sunset. I can smell her; feel her before she gets here. It's uncanny. I can smell when Cordelia is coming to work. She wears jasmine and peaches perfume. I can smell Wesley before he enters a room, Old Spice and musty books. Buffy is the only one I can feel. It's a stirring in my ribcage, where my heart is, just a rustling at first. When she's near it's a full blown raging inferno. It feels like my heart is beating, it's the only way I know how to describe it. There has never been another person on this earth that makes me feel that. I'm fairly certain that if I walk until the end of time, there never will be again.
I'm tending the fire when she walks in. I look up at her and smile faintly. She doesn't say anything, just walks over to the couch and sits down. She folds her hands under chin. She's to thin. I start to chastise her for not eating and decide this isn't the time. Eventually I stand up and go sit down on the couch next to her.
"I told Riley I was going over to Giles." She finally says.
What the hell is she telling me this for? Why do I care if Soldier Boy thinks she's here or in Never never land? I nod.
"What are we doing here, Angel?" She drops her hands to her lap and looks at me. Her eyes are filled with hurt, pain, doubt and buried beneath it all, hope.
"I don't know. I've been thinking about that since I left you this morning in front of your dorm building." Oh, yeah I came up with some real nice answers in those 12 hours I tried to sleep. Most of them involved throwing her on the floor, or the bed, or even the table and showing her just how much I missed her, just how much I loved her and wanted her. Something I can't actually do, or I'll try and suck the world into hell. Good answers.
"I can't do all this again. I can't have the whole Buffy and Angel house of pain thing going on. It's not that my life is that great right now, most of the time it sucks beyond belief but I don't spend half my time deliriously happy and the other half in gut wrenching tears. It's stable and constant and it hurts all the damn time, but at least I know what every day is going to be like." Tears glisten in her eyes as she says this.
"Buffy, I'm sorry. I deal with the same thing in LA. I spend all my time trying to convince Cordelia and Wes that I'm not drowning. It hurts beyond bearing."
"But we have to bear." She says resigned.
I stand up. It's easier for me think when I'm not so close to her. "I have a life in LA, Buffy. I'm doing good things, I'm helping the powers. I can't leave that behind but I can't leave you behind either. I've tried that way and to quote you, that way lies badness."
She smiles a bit at me. Good God in the Heaven's above, has she always looked like that when she smiles?
"Nothing has changed. My soul is still an issue. I can't give you anymore then I could last year. You need to understand that." Here I go making promises again that I don't know how I'm going to keep.
"Angel, I thought a year apart, a year in LA would bring some things to light. Apparently it didn't. So I'll enlighten you. Do I want to go on picnics in the sun, yes. Do I want marriage and a white picket fence, yes. Do I want kids, yes. Do I want the dog and the mini van and the whole American dream goodness, hell yes, with you. You're the deal closer on all my dreams. If I can't have those things with you, I don't want them. I don't want to have anyone else's children, I don't want to walk down the aisle and see anyone else standing there waiting for me. I don't want to nag at anyone else to take out the trash or sit on blankets in the sunshine with anyone else. I want you, if that means moonlight walks and staying in the shadows, then those are the things I want. Those are all I need to make me happy. I remember one time you told me that you don't feel frustrated around me. It was nice just to feel. That's how I feel now. Its nice to just feel."
Part of me rages, knowing what's about to come out of my mouth, the other part knows I have to say it. I have to be sure. She has to be sure. "Riley seems to be crazy about you."
"He is. I'm not. Last night in the graveyard when I was doing my invitation only brooding, you want to know what I was thinking. I was thinking I hate seeing Riley's reflection in the mirror with mine. I hate that his skin is so damn hot. I hate that his breath is warm. I hate that he snores and breaths hot, wet air on me. I hate that when I lay my head on his chest the beating of his heart is so damn loud that I can't think. I hate that when we train I have to pull my punches. I hate that his feelings get hurt if I don't wait for him to gather his 'team' so we can go kill one demon that would take me 10 minutes to take out on my own. I hate that Riley isn't you."
I take a deep shuddery breath. "I don't know how we're going to do this."
"Do what?" There's that hope shining in her eyes. There's also fear. She's afraid to hope anymore. Did I do that to her? I must have, one more thing to make amends for on a very long list.
"Start trying to make a future together." I say, afraid to look at her, afraid to see her reaction. I can hunt demons and vampires without fear. I can spend a hundred years in hell being tortured. I can face Oracles and the Powers that be and not be scared. I'm afraid a 5'2 hundred pound blond will take my heart and shatter it into a thousand pieces.