Destinies Broken Heart 13/13

Info: Previous Parts
Note: Wow look how long it's been since I've updated! Almost 3 years! Anyway I've graduated college so it's 'finish all the fics' time. Hahaha. So stay tuned all my other fics will be wrapping up soon as well.
Note 2: This is the last and final part of this fic. After rereading it I have determined it's time to wrap this three year cliff hanger up. Thanks to all of you who have held on for as long as you have for its conclusion. It really means a lot.


I'm running away to you
I cannot escape you
To feel your touch
To make you prove
I'm running away to you
--Running Away – Fuel

Waking up from his nap and hour ago, Angel really didn't believe that he would be heading over to Buffy's. Especially since she had already made her choice, all he was doing now was torturing himself for a absolution that would never come. Still he went. Still Angel found himself in his car drying toward Willows.

Lorne insisted he be kissing Buffy by midnight. Well he had four hours. Maybe something magical could happen. After all, how often did great things happen between them?

But why was the PTB so determined to get him with Buffy? After all the Slayer had fulfilled her duty. Something had to be brewing. In the end would he really want to subject Buffy to more? Why now was Angel's conscience suddenly playing an active role?

Angel sat parked outside Willow's house thinking. Why was he doing this? Because he loved her, that's why? Slowly Angel got out of his car and looked at the sidewalk as he progressed toward the house. Before he could even knock Mia had opened the door for him.

"Took ya long enuff!" Mia looked up at him with her toothy grin.

"Sorry, hun, I was busy thinking, and wasn't paying to much attention." Angel patted Mia on the head and he entered the house. "Where's your Mom?"

"Outside." Mia turned and pointed to the back door. "Reading the paper."

"Show me the way?" With a smile Angel held his hand out to Mia, who gladly took it and led him out back of the house.

"Mom, Angel is here!" Mia smiled and let go of Angel's hand racing for the sand box next to her mother.

"Hey Buffy." Angel made no move to go near her, just sat down in the chair opposite her on the table.

"Angel, we need to talk." Buffy put down the paper and looked across the table at him. "We have obviously been through a lot. Here and … there." Buffy's face was wrapped in confusion as she looked for the words to express. "I need to know if what I saw in one of my dreams was real. I saw us fighting, with swords."

"Yes, that was real." Angel looked down at the table.

"I want you to tell me the details of that."

"Um…okay." Angel continued to looked down at the table as he told her the story of Akathla and their battle. The hardest part for him was to tell her how he was evil at that time.

"So you were my enemy?" Buffy ran her fingers through her hair. "But I thought we were in love."

"We were…we had…" Angel jerked his head up. "We made…" Never before had he been nervous about talking of making love, but now he wasn't sure. Was this Buffy comfortable with that type of talk?

Buffy realized exactly what he was implying and blushed. "Okay, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"My curse…"

"You're cursed?!" Buffy looked at him in shock as he continued the story. Her eyes never left Angel. Their life in the other world was practically a fairy tale. He was a Vampire, only good because he had a soul. They fell in love, the next best star-crossed relationship since Romeo and Juliet, for she as it turned out was a Slayer, the slayer of Vampires, and other demons of hell. This wasn't a fairy tale, this was unbelievable.

"So I was then sent to Hell."

"So that is why I dreamed I shoved sword into your stomach." Buffy looked around in disbelief. "And I'm guessing you came back?"

"I did. But I didn't stay, I left Sunnydale, for you?"

"For me? If were so in love, why did you think it would be best if you were no longer there?"

"There were certain stipulations that stood in our way Buffy."

"The curse you mean?"

"It was more then the curse, I wanted you to have more of a normal life, but you couldn't have that with me. It was bad enough you had to fight the darkness, why should you be in love with it as well?"

"Shouldn't that have been up to me to decide."

"I thought love would have blinded you in the decision. And besides you did move on." Buffy sat back and listened once again as Angel related more of their tale. It just seemed to get better and better with every new sentence.

"So you moved here to LA, and started your own business of helping the helpless. That's pretty catchy." Buffy chuckled.

"So tell me, why are we here in this different world? Sure we are separated, but why now are we here?"

Angel shook his head. Looking at the sky he knew he was lucky if he had an hour or two left. Now it came to tell her the truth. "You are no longer in the other world."

"Well that's obvious, or I wouldn't been having dreams of you and others telling me to return 'home'."

"That's now what I mean Buffy, I am still from that world, I was sent here on my own personally mission to bring you back with me."

"I don't understand." Buffy looked at him in confusion.

"I lost you Buffy. I was away, in another dimension and I couldn't protect you. I returned home to have Willow tell me you were killed."

"I…died? Willow…?"

"Yes Buffy, almost everyone here has a segment from the other world, my friend Spike at college, your friend Willow, the doctor at the hospital. Even your husband, he was my friend Doyle."

"Doyle? My husband?"

"He was sent here by the PTB to create a problem for you here, to give you a reason to meet me. For some reason the PTB are on my side on retrieving you, and bringing you back. But unfortunately I only have until midnight tonight."

"Who are the PTB?"

"The Powers that Be, they are basically the formulators and controllers of our worlds and others."

"Midnight, you only have until midnight tonight to turn this around?"

"Yes, I had two weeks from the moment I got to this world. I came here not knowing who I was, or why I was here. Then the minute I bumped into you at the movie theater I started having dreams of people telling me about you, I would here you talking in jagged sentences. It didn't make any sense until I completely learned who you and I were."

"They are the same dreams that I had."

"Yes, I appeared to you in many dreams. In hopes, that you would learn more about me. This is how you knew I was a Vampire, before I told you. Its purpose was to make it easier for you to choose to leave this world. Although I knew Mia would be and issue. I could honestly never take you away from your daughter, so I had to tell you the stipulations last night. I had no intention of seeing you today, knowing it was my last day. I had to allow you to have that choice."

"What happens to you if I don't go with you?"

"I return to my world, with no memory of you what so ever."

"What?!" Buffy sat up in her chair. "How could you possibly allow yourself to forget love like that?"

"I had to risk it to get you back. I was so distraught after you died that I dug you out of your fresh grave and carried you to the PTB to beg for your life back, that was it's stipulations. You made your choice on which world you wanted to live with."

"But Angel, why couldn't you just live here in my world?"

"Because, I am needed in mine. Without the Slayer, someone needs to be around to protect humanity. And unfortunately your replacement is currently self-atoning in prison in LA."

"It's not fair Angel. I want to go with you, but I don't want to leave my daughter. If I left would another portion of me remain here with Mia?"

"I don't know. I would think so, it's pretty obvious that everyone seems to have a form that lives here. And the PTB said that your soul just moved on other another form. So there is no telling. I don't want to say Yes just to get you to come, and then not have it be real. It's not right."

"Well I know one thing for sure Angel, I do love you. I don't want to take a step into a world I'm unsure of, without knowing all the stipulations. If I could run on the sense that all I needed was your love, I would by sure go in a heartbeat. But you are asking me to believe this fairy tale about Vampires and Demons. When I live in a world that has none. Or at least appears to the untrained eye. I just wish I had more time."

"Unfortunately that is something I can not give you. And because so, I have to be going. I don't want to sit here and disappear before your eyes; I would rather just let you remember me as someone solid. Given you do remember after midnight."

Angel stood and moved toward Buffy. "I love you, and I only hope you'll be able to remember that. So please, do not regret the decision you made here tonight. It was a decision I had to prepare to except." Angel bowed his head to her and turned into the shadows. "Good-bye"

Buffy watched him as he trailed beside the house. How could she just let him walk off like that? Sure the choice was hers, but it was a hard choice to make. Buffy got up and ran toward the front of the house and caught him on the sidewalk. "Angel!" Grabbing his wrist she swung him around and kissed him fiercely on the lips. "I love you too!"

Angel wrapped his arms around her as the chimes of midnight sprang to life behind them from a near by church. Angel held her as tightly as he could his eyes clenched not wanting to see where he would end up.

"Warriors" The voice boomed around Angel as he held Buffy in his arms. Opening one eye he found himself standing before the collective. Buffy looked at him then over to the collective. "Vampire, you have completed your task. You has successfully brought the Slayer back into this world."

"This is not what she chose!"

"Silence! We did not ask for your words. This is what she chose. She chose to return with you. Though her words did not pass to your consciousness they did pass through ours."

Angel looked down at Buffy who just glanced up at him with a smile. "I couldn't let Giles and the others down Angel. They need me to help with the fight. But what about Mia?"

"Quiet Warriors! We have not asked for you to speak. The Slayer chose t return to her life, knowing full well what she would be leaving behind. Do not worry about the Slayers daughter; you will see her again in time. Vampire, you have once again been granted your selfish wish. You have regained your vampirism and your love."

Buffy looked up at him with a mark of confusion on her face. Angel never told her about his humanity.

"And Vampire, you will be standing before us again in the future to reclaim your humanity when your penance has been paid. You are the only lower being we have catered to the whim of, and it's starting to put a blemish on our record. So until you reclaim your humanity, do not approach us again."

Without warning Buffy and Angel found themselves thrown out into the sewers below the post office.

"What was he saying Angel, about reclaiming your vampirism? When did you do that?"

"It's a long story…"

"One I'm anxious to hear, so start talking."

Buffy and Angel walked out of sewers hand in hand as Angel told his tale, once again.