Forever Finally Arrived
By Maddy
Summary: Post Chosen happiness.
Rating: PG13, implied stuff.
Spoilers: Safe bet up until "Chosen" and "Home."
Timeline: January 20th 2004.
Distribution: Take away, just ask.
Disclaimer: Own nothing.
Dedication: None
Feedback: Well duh!
Author's Notes: Thesong is "Always And Forever" by Heatwave. It belongs to them, not me.
I wrote this before season five even aired in any country, but I knew that Spike was coming back and as a ghost, so that's why it's very different to what actually happened. Just go with it.
Always and forever each moment with you
Is just like a dream to me that somehow came true
And I know tomorrow will still be the same
'Cause we've got a life of love that won't ever change and
Forever finally arrived. Always was finally true. Our dreams had been realised. Our wishes granted. Unbelievable but true. Nice guys don't always finish last, thank god. It was becoming almost unbearable. The distance didn't lessen our feelings or the desire. A lifetime of wanting it all, the normal life, a normal family and a love that was strong enough to last the horror of the dark world we live in. It did last. It prevailed.
And it changed my life forever.
It took time and patience. Only my strength and the knowledge that forever would eventually arrive kept me going, unknown at the time, we didn't have to wait that long. Four years apart, and the rest of our lives together. Four years I suppose is a long time, but it flew by, only screeching to a halt at the lowest times during the four years. My mother's death, my own, the crazy depression after my resurrection, but finally, I found myself again, I began to slowly come back to life, the first time since graduation I was alive.
And so is the guy sleeping next to me, but since way before Graduation. Say about 240 years earlier. My fave vamp with a soul is now...dum, dum, duuummm. Human. Shocker to everyone present when he delivered that bit of news. And of course it happened when I was visiting, good timing. And the best ever birthday present. And causing my long going birthday curse to end. God I love him.
Everyday, love me your own special way
Melt all my heart away with a smile
Take time to tell me you really care
And we'll share tomorrow together
I'll always love you
"Hey pet." Said the incorporeal ghost of Spike. Captain Peroxide, that's what Angel called him once. Come to think of it, it wasn't that long ago. 7 months.
"Hello Spike." I said grinning as he stared at the blood being emptied from the small fridge behind the counter. His blood lust hasn't weakened even is his ghost state, what a loony.
"Say 'Goodbye' to the pigs blood." Said Fred as she ceremonially dropped the bags and containers into the trash bag held open by Gunn.
"And I for one will not be sad to see it go." He said tying a knot in the handle.
"And neither will I." Said a voice beside me.
"Hello and good morning to still Mister Stealth Guy." I quipped as Angel smirked when he saw Spike eyeing the blood filled bag mournfully.
"God, I wish I could drink it," he mumbled watching Gunn walk out of the lobby and outside to dispose of the said it. "Well I now will leave and walk the not so quiet streets of Los Angeles, so as to not hear what goes on behind closed doors."
"No one said you had to listen."
"I still have vampire hearing and I wouldn't need that to hear the two of you going at it all night anyway-"
"And early in the morning." Said Gunn as he came back inside, leaning against the reception desk of the old hotel. "Don't forget that."
"I hope to." Said Spike walking through the wall out into the day outside.
"Where's Dawn?" I asked looking around the otherwise deserted office of Angel's. Save for Angel, Fred, Gunn and myself.
"In the training room." Answered the scientist, "she's training with Robin and Faith."
"Oh. And they let her?"
"'Let' is such a strong word." Said Gunn as he swung the battle-axe, facing off my lover.
"Gottcha." I watched Angel and Gunn spar on the cleared floor. Angel had 'retained his vampiric abilities' as Giles had put it, while out patrolling with us last night. He dusted two vamps and was healing by the time we got back to W&H. Angel's strength and all the rest will come in handy from time to time, patrolling and apocalypses. Not to mention his stamina. Parry, parry, parry, And LUNGE.
Forever, forever
"I did too!"
"Oh you so didn't." said the brunette slayer, looking at my sister as though she had gone crazy. "I doubt even-"
"What are you two yelling about?" asked a distressed Lorne, rubbing his temples with the tips of his pointer finger.
"We were playing Trivia and I won." Rushed in Dawn.
"Well she is smarter than you." Said Gunn putting in his two-cents.
"See." Dawn puffed up her chest, looking smug.
"Yeah...but you cheated." Accused Faith.
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not."
"Did too."
Angel leaned toward my ear. "Good to know who the mature people are." I smiled and snuggled my way further into his warm embrace. "You wanna go for a walk?"
"Love to." We silently slinked away.
There'll always be sunshine when I look at you
Something I can't explain just the things that you do
And if you get lonely phone me and take
A second to give to me that magic you make and...
Sunshine, ah...I enjoy it so much more now I can share it with him. We didn't spend much time outside yesterday. Angel awoke yesterday morning with a pulse, heartbeat...the whole shebang. Pretty much spent the whole daylight hours in bed or in the kitchen pigging out. As soon as the sun fell behind the horizon, we went off patrolling, bagged a couple of vamps then went back to the Hyperion. And then spent more time in bed. I'm in love with that bed I think.
"Buffy?"
"Yeah?"
"If I hadn't kept my strength and healing, do you think we still would have worked?"
"Angel, of course we would have. I'm not the only Slayer anymore, but hey, it would have worked anywhere and anytime. I love you, for you and not for your vampiric abilities." I took Angel's hands in my own. "I know you, and I know you'd freak and think that I'd watch out for you and get hurt because I was trying to protect you. But I get hurt, killed, trying to protect people I have never met, why wouldn't I try to protect the man I love. Even though you were a vampire, I still worried when we get into a fight during patrol or stopped an apocalypse. I will always worry about you, I don't want you to get hurt or die. It's not about fighting for you it's about fighting with you. You and me, side by side, that's what I love."
"Good answer."
I smirk and pull his lips down onto my own and give him a sweet kiss. "I love you, did you know that?"
"I had an inkling."
"Just an inkling?"
"Maybe more."
"How much more?"
"A lot more."
"Good answer."
We stayed outdoors for another two hours, then went back to the Hotel. All his friends were there, my own were off having lives and having fun. Me: I was doing the exact same thing. Living my life with the love of my life and being finally happy for a really long time.
He makes me feel that way, complete, happy, peaceful, content, loved, bliss and all the other wonderful feelings that I've always felt around him. Knowing that this time it is for forever is a strange feeling, I never felt so completely secure in our relationship, in my head I knew it was doomed from the beginning, but my heart overruled and then rest is history.
But enough of those thoughts, no more feelings of doubt or worry. Me and Angel are for always and forever and finally there is nothing in our way except those normal everyday human things. Ah, the normal life. I wonder if that will work.
Everyday love me your own special way
Melt all my heart away with a smile
Take time to tell me you really care
And we'll share tomorrow together
I'll always love you
Nine Years Later...
"Liam, where's your father?"
The seven-year-old shrugged and continued to watch the T.V. I rolled my eyes and left my son to watch whatever he was watching, I knew it was cartoons, but I haven't had much time for television lately and had no idea what program was on.
"Fine, then." I mumbled to myself, "I'll just have to find him then." I wondered out of the lounge room and headed to the kitchen in search of my husband. Of course my husband is Angel, we got married in May, it was only a small ceremony on the edge of a cliff an hour south of L.A. It was a perfect day with no clouds in the sky, a slight breeze that made my white summer dress float in the wind. Angel has never looked so handsome in a white shirt and black pants. I blush at the feeling of our first kiss as man and wife. And then our life together finally started.
He wasn't in the kitchen, but Aisling was, I flinched when she opened the cupboard door. I ran to my little daughter and scooped her up before she could pull anything out and onto the floor. I shut the cupboard door, an put Aisling on my hip. She had only figured out that she was able to open cupboards and pull all the contents out. Seeing as how she was only a year old, there was a lot more years of her messing up the house. "Liam, did you leave the lock off?"
"No. Kat did."
Sighing, I re-enabled the child lock on the cupboard door. "They want you to hurt yourself, don't they Aisly?"
She just pulled at my hair and said: "Daddy."
"You know where he is?"
"Daddy."
"Okay, that's all I'm gonna get out of you, isn't it?"
She giggled and nodded.
"Okay, let's put you back in the play-pen." I walked out of the kitchen and back into the lounge room, where her play-pen was always put. I placed my little baby in the middle and immediately she picked up one of those cardboard book and flipped it open and began to 'read.' I grinned in sheer happiness and then continued to find their father.
This time I went to walk up the staircase, I was about to ran up the stairs when Katherine came bounding down. "Did you unlock the cupboard and the didn't lock it back up?" I asked.
She stopped and got a 'deer-in-the-head-lights' look, she's perfected it from watching Willow when she was younger. "Umm..."
"Katherine Joyce Summers." I placed my hand on my hips.
"Yes," she looked down, "but I didn't mean to, I just-"
"Forgot?"
"Yeah."
"Don't forget, Kat. You know what can happen, Aisling opened the door."
"I'm sorry, Mom."
"Mmm...just go."
"Love you."
"Love you, too."
The five-year-old quickly ran around me and disappeared. I scrunched up my face, damn, I should have asked her if Angel was upstairs. Ah, well, it looks as if I have to keep on looking. It's a shame that I work later then Angel, he gets the best hours working as a teacher at the local high school as a history teacher. Some nights he has to work back, but me, I don't finish work until six, seven o'clock. I work at the Council with Willow, Xander, Dawn and Giles. We're all at the London branch, after Angel and I got married, we moved to England to get away from America, and since Giles had offered me a place high up in the ranks within the Council, Angel insisted I take the job, and that it was a wonderful idea for us to make a new start.
And the rest is history, we now live in a huge manor on the outskirts of London, Kat and Liam attend the local infant school, while Aisling goes down the road to be sat by Dawn during the day. Since we have been living here for over 8 years, we've all got a bit of a English accent, I didn't noticed it until we went back to the States when I was only 4 months pregnant with Aisling. The L.A. gang told us that we spoke with an English accent almost straight away, that was the last time we visited them. I do miss them all sometimes, but I have Angel and our three kids and that's all I need.
At the top of the stairs I went right and down the hall to our bedroom, and sure enough, Angel was sitting in the armchair reading a book. "Hi, honey."
"Buffy." He looked up and gave me a huge smile. I grinned and walked over. "How was your day?"
"Fine, we recruited five new Slayer today, but we also got news from China that one died today. Her name was Hope, she was born in Canada, but we sent her there because we needed someone to train one of the new ones, and she was one of the best we had."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay, or it will be. I'm going to her funeral, it's in two days, but I have to leave tomorrow, that's why I needed to talk to you."
"Okay, but, Buffy, you know you don't have to go to every funeral."
"I know I don't, but I did this to them, so I want to be there when they-" I found that I couldn't speak anymore, Angel's lips were on mine. He was on his feet and has his arms around me, I in turn, wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer to me. "I love you." I whispered when we broke apart.
"I love you more."
"Forever."
"Forever..."
Forever, Forever
Loving you is the thing that I plan
For a very long time
Me and you, you and me, we as one
The End.
