Life was pretty ironic sometimes... Angel mused as he wandered through the emptied streets of Los Angeles.
There were some things that even the strongest couldn't fight...but you never realized it until you were faced with it.
Even he, of the centuries of walking on this earth had never expected it.
Buffy Summers.
She was The Slayer, even though there were hundreds of empowered girls now. She was the longest living one. The most powerful.
He could go further: say she was the most beautiful or the smartest. But he would be lying. Oh, she had been beautiful and wise, but in the many that had come after her, there had always been one who was prettier or more intelligent. More Cordelia or Willow than Buffy.
But that was just it. She was Buffy. And no one and nothing could have ever taken that away. She was beautiful and smart and powerful and loving...she was everything that made his nonexistent heart strain for shanshu, for redemption.
He loved her with ever fiber of his soul. She even haunted him when he was soulless, the demon within enraged at the fact that such a puny mortal could gain such a foothold over him, Angelus.
But not even love could withstand the frail strings of mortality and he knew that one day he would have to let her go.
He just didn't expect it to be the way in which it happened.
That morning was clear to him even now, in the few minutes before the sun rose when he spent his last moments with her.
'The sun rises soon,' she had whispered, looking at him through tearful hazel eyes.
He gave her a gentle smile and brushed his hand against her cheek. The coolness of his skin did not phase. Not much did anymore.
'I wish...I wish you could stay," she had murmured, looking down at her weak hands and hating herself for not being able to fight what was happening to her.
'I will always be with you, Buffy. I may not be here when the sun rises, but I will always be in your heart. You know I love you. I always have.'
The petite woman gave him a wobbly smile, reaching out with unsteady hands to brush her fingers against his lips.
'I know,' she had said, tears slipping from the beautiful eyes he loved so much.
'One day...one day Buffy, I will sit with you and watch the sun rise. I promise.'
'Okay,' she had laughed, the sound marred by wracking coughs.
'I'll hold you to that.'
Her hazel eyes drifted towards the window and she gave him a forlorn smile, 'Sunrise comes...You should go.'
He nodded then, rising from his seat to press a gentle kiss to her brow.
'I love you.'
'I know.'
And then he was gone.
The next time he saw her was at the wake, held at night for both his benefit and the benefit of the surprising number of demons that had showed up to pay their respects to such a lofty enemy.
None of them had killed her. None of them could. And they respected that.
It had taken something that not even the Vampire Slayer could fight to take her down. And it proved that her mother had died of natural causes.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer had finally become a victim. A victim of cancer. Like her mother had so many years before.
But even now, almost a century later, Angel still remembered the words spoken on that last morning together. And as he looked to the brightening on the horizon, he replayed the dialogue, her name laying sweetly on his tongue.
The tall vampire made his way through the streets, his feet finally leading him to the outskirts of what had once been a huge city and to a rise of land just on the cliffs.
He lay himself down and looked to the sky again, his mind flashing back to a moment just hours before.
'Angel...are you sure you want to do this?' a petite brunette had asked, looking up at him through wrinkle lined eyes.
'There's nothing left, Joy. Shanshu isn't going to happen. It took me nearly 100 years to figure it out, but I have.'
'But...all the good you've done. That you can do...'
'Has been done. You know as well as I do that there are plenty of people to take up the fight. But it's not mine anymore. I...' the vampire took a deep breath, though he did not need it, 'I can't do it without her. I've tried...but I can't...I'm sorry.'
The woman nodded slowly, knowing what he was talking about. She rose from her chair, her aging bones creaking as she kissed him on the cheek.
'Then thank you.'
That was all that had needed to be said. He nodded to her, kissing her brow and those of the grandchildren that lay in their beds. They would miss their Uncle Angel, but they would survive.
He blinked again and the memory drifted away, the slowly rising sun back in his line of sight. Angel closed his eyes, a tear drifting from the corners of the chocolate brown orbs that Buffy had loved so much.
So he waited and watched as the sun gently rose. His first sunrise in three hundred years that he didn't glimpse upon a hasty escape. He could feel the star's loving heat as it traveled up the landscape, shifting ever closer to his boot clad feet.
It was beautiful.
Angelus, the one with the angelic face, closed his eyes for the last time, spreading his arms and legs out to the coming sunlight.
"I LOVE YOU," he shouted, wincing as the first lances of pain invaded his mind.
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He opened his eyes again, turning to the side with a loving glance.
'I told you I would come,' he said, his lips curving into a gentle smile.
The petite blonde glanced up at him, as beautiful and alive as ever.
'I didn't doubt you for a second.'
She gave him that slow, gentle smile that he had always cherished, her hazel eyes full of the love they had never fully experienced. A petite hand found its way to his and held tight, its owner's gaze turning back to the rising sun.
They sat near the cliff's edge, behind them laying only a small rise in the ground and a stone that read:
Buffy Anne Summers
Invincible
Loved
Ours
Only the most discerning eye could catch the small pile of ash that drifted lazily in the ocean breeze.