Authors Note: Thanks to emerald sorceress, elvira1, scruffybunny (love your screan name by the way LOL), dreamsof4ever for the reviews on the last chapter. They really mean alot. And all the other people who've reviewed before thanks to you guys too.

Chapter Thirteen

Losing What We Want

I've been living with Angel for a week now and we have yet to even mention the subject of my death. Neither of us want to bring it up. So we dance around it like it's not even a blip on our radar screen. Instead we stay to safe topics like books and why he doesn't have a TV.

When I found out that Leon outlawed the use of television for us "lower beings" I think I hated him even more. Angel just kind of starred at me puzzled like when I got all upset that I couldn't watch ER anymore, but then I shrugged it off when I remembered that the actors were all probably dead anyways. Still, it's the principal of the matter that counts.

As you might notice, I'm getting back to my old self again. This last week with Angel has been like heaven. Just lying around listening to the rain outside, talking about absolutely nothing... it was perfect. I wish this could all last. But I know sooner or later tragedy will strike us pulling us out of our happy little cocoon. It always did.

"Angel?" I asked as I was lying in his arms one Sunday morning. He had just gotten back from a long night of patrol and was exhausted. I had tried to get him to let me go with him but he just gave me that stern look that Giles' used to give. I decided that maybe I should wait to breach that subject in a couple weeks. "Are you awake?"

He moaned softly and wrapped his arms around me just a little bit tighter. "Angel." I laughed.

"I'm up." He groaned.

"Good." I flipped around so I was laying on him on my stomach. "What do you thinks going to happen?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, his eyes still closed.

"With us. What do you think is going to happen?"

"Buffy, I barley ever get what your saying when I'm awake. What makes you think that I'm going to understand you now in my half asleep state?"

I hit him on the arm. "Come on, humor me here."

"Can't we talk about this tomorrow?" He tried to bury himself deeper into the sofa we were laying on.

"Technically it is tomorrow." I starred at him. He still had deep circles under his eyes from the countless hours of fighting that he did every day. Sometime he would be gone for almost a full twenty four hours. It took all the strength I had in me not to pummel Connor, who was dubbed my babysitter, and rush out the door to find him. He'd always come home beaten and weary, but no matter what, he made sure to kiss me on the cheek the moment he got home, letting me know he was alright. "Do you think that us being happy is a bad sign?"

He scrunched his brow in confusion. Opening his eyes he starred at me skeptically. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, it's just that lately we've been happy and... well for some reason this world doesn't tend to like it when we're happy so they throw something at us to make us unhappy and then we end up yelling at each other and getting upset and saying things that we don't mean to say and...."

He put a finger to my lips to stop my rambling. "What's gotten you so upset all the sudden?"

I shrugged. "Just a feeling I guess."

Wiping a stray strand of hair out of my face he looked at me. It was as if he was trying to memorize every single feature about me, filing it away in his memory. "I know what you mean."

"You feel it to huh?"

He nodded. Sighing in disappointment I laid my head down on his shoulder, idly playing with the buttons on his shirt. "Do you think if we told it to go away it would?" I asked him hopefully.

"I wish."

We laid silent, breathing each other in. No matter how happy we were there was always some dark cloud looming in the background waiting to strike. Why couldn't they ever just let us be? After all these years of fighting and struggling to hold on we should just be able to go off in some little corner somewhere and live our lives the way we want. But that would never happen. Not as long as Leon ran this earth.

"Am I interrupting something?" Connor asked from the now open door.

Angel just looked at him sadly. "No. Come in." He sat up a little, but didn't relinquish his hold on me. "What's up?"

"Mark didn't check in last night." Connor sat down on the chair across from us.

"Damn it." I looked at Angel curiously. "Do you know if he was caught?"

"No. No ones heard anything on him."

"Who's Mark?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"He's one of our inside men. He works inside Leon's castle. Once a month he comes to one of the safe houses and tells us anything that he's overheard. He was due back last night."

"What happens to him if Leon did catch him?"

Connor and Angel traded looks. "He'll be stoned to death at the next public execution." Connor fiddled with his hands. God he was so much like his father.

"Couldn't we rescue him?"

"Yeah, and maybe we could all go to McDonalds afterwards." Connor said sarcastically.

"I'm serious." I sat up and scooted off Angels lap. "Why couldn't we try and save him?"

"Because it would be suicide." Angel said from beside me.

"So you're just going to let him die?"

"Buffy we don't even know if he was caught."

"And if he was? He's been your inside man for how long now?"

"Five years." Connor said

"Five years of service and your just going to let him be murdered in town square. I thought we were the good guys."

"Buffy it's not that simple." Angel said gently.

"Angel we used to do this all the time. Remember? We saved Willow from the Mayor and Faith..."

"This is a little different then Sunnydale Buffy."

"No it's not!" I got up and glared at the two of them. "Someone's in trouble. We save them. It's really not that hard."

Connor looked up at me not looking the least bit threatened. "We've tried to do something like that before Buffy, it doesn't work. You've been there. Guards are everywhere. We make one wrong move and they won't even hesitate to kill us."

"I can't believe you two! There was a time that you would go out and do anything if it meant saving an innocent Angel." I looked at him. "What happened to the man I knew?" He fiddled with his hands tossing my words back and fourth in his head.

Looking up at me finally he spoke. "He died."

I laughed bitterly. "Obviously." Walking into the bathroom I slammed the door as hard as I could, trying to take out my rage in the piece of wood. I hated this, sitting here not being able to do a damn thing was torture. It was hard enough to sit around in this house while Angel was out doing my job, but now? Now I felt useless.

I'm a vampire slayer for crying out loud. I'm supposed to kill things and make rescue plans for a living. This was insane! People needed to stop treating me like some little girl and start treating me like the person I truly am. You would think that I was some kid the way they looked out for me.

Well not anymore. From now on, I don't care what they say. I'll go out and slay if I want to and I'll go rescue that damn kid. It's my job after all. Angel or Connor try to get in the way, I'll deal with them. But no way in hell am I going to sit here and let someone die when all he was trying to do is help this world.

Getting up I threw my hair into a sloppy bun and stormed out of the bathroom. Not even looking at Connor or Angel, I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Angel pulled me away from the exit with sharp force.

"Out."

"Buffy."

"No, don't you dare Buffy me. If you're not going to help this Mark guy then I will."

"No you won't."

"Somebody has too. And since it's not going to be you..."

"Buffy you can't go out there." He dragged me back to the couch by the arm. "It's not safe and you know that. You could screw up everything we've worked for in the past hundreds of years."

"Everything you've worked for?" I yelled incredulously. "What have you done Angel because as far as I'm concerned you and everybody else in the fucking town are just sitting on their asses!"

Pushing me to the couch he loomed over me. "How the hell can you say that? Every damn day I'm out there saving the idiots who are walking the streets. God Buffy! I've barley even slept in the past three hundred years because of all the damn work I'm doing to try and prevent more death!"

"Then why haven't you taken down Leon yet. With all this work that you claim you do, how come Leon isn't dead?" I pushed past him needing to get some air.

"I told you, he's more powerful..."

"Then anything that has ever graced this earth. Yeah, I know the drill Angel. But you and I have faced shit like that countless times and somehow we're still standing."

"I'm not going to risk everything just so I can save one guy. He knew the risks getting into this."

My mouth hung open at his heartlessness. "And if it was me? If I was the person who was going to die, would you save me or let me be stoned to death too?"

Running his hands through his hair he growled dangerously at me. "That's different and you know."

"No Angel! It's not different! I'm just another person like everyone else in this world. You just don't have a relationship with this guy. If he dies, it's of no personal loss to you!" I took a deep breath trying to calm the shakiness running through my voice. "You're right, let him die. But don't expect me to sit back and watch." I looked at him for a beat before walking back into the bathroom and slamming the door.

My blood boiled at the thought of what was going to happen to that poor kid. It wouldn't just be a stoning. Oh no, knowing Leon, he'd have to make a prime example of a double agent. A stoning would be getting off too easy.

Muffled voices sounded from the other room for the next hour. I heard Connor shout things like "Are you insane!" and "She'll be fine". I didn't care though.

At one point in time Angel would have done absolutely anything to save this kid. He would have gone to hell and back if it meant that he would get to live for just a few more minutes. But now he didn't care. He was so detached from this world; the passion that once filled his eyes seemed to have burned out long ago. Now he just fought because he had to. Not because he wanted to, or because it was the right thing to do, he had to do it to survive in this hell. If it were up to him, he would probably hole himself up in this apartment waiting for someone to come and kill him.

When did he get this way. Was it before I died or after? The last two years of my life I didn't see him much. It was only the occasional hello. Even then it wasn't really even a hello. Our meetings always consisted of yelling and arguing, trying to control the urge to just rush into the others arms and ask for forever. Things had never been the same since my seventeenth birthday. All the simplicity of life went out the window that one fateful night.

It changed our lives forever. After that one peaceful moment our lives became hell and it never turned back. Angelus stalked the town for months, tormenting everything I ever loved, taunting me with his words. But I still loved him. Somewhere inside of that monster my Angel still existed and I knew if I could only get to him, then it would be okay.

Boy was I wrong. When I finally did get to him, hell, and death, and pain came right along with him. And no matter how hard I tried, it just wouldn't go away. Him leaving was probably the best and worst thing for us. It was right to separate, we were only a danger to ourselves and others. But we needed the time apart. He needed time to find his purpose in life, and I needed time just to sort through my teenage years.

But still, I can't help but think what if we never broke up? Would the world be a better place? Would I have died that night? Maybe if by some miraculous chance I had stayed alive and Angel was with me, maybe, just maybe we could have stopped this whole thing with Leon before it started. Maybe instead of me waking up three hundred years in the future I would instead be looking down on my great great great grandchildren, with Angel by my side. But maybes were invented for a reason. They were invented so people like me could torture themselves about their past even though they know deep down in their heart there is nothing they could ever do to change it.

Curling myself up in a ball I laid in the porcelain white tub trying to calm the rage that had taken over my system. I knew I shouldn't have said some of those things to Angel. He was fighting, but he wasn't fighting with the same force as he used to.

"Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together."

Those words spoken so long ago seemed false. I had once told him that, once promised him to help him through everything. To never leave him. Not even three months later did that dream shatter into pieces and blow off into the wind as he left for LA. I was so innocent then, to think that those words would make a difference. He would have still stayed up on the hill top after my little speech, despite my tears and please, he would have died that night without the snow. From that moment on he started to change. To not care. He knew then that sooner of later he would have to leave me. It was only a matter of time before our worlds shattered.

"I'm sorry." I looked up to see him standing in the doorway. "Looks like they pulled it away from us sooner then we thought."

"What are you talking about?" I sighed wearily. I was in no mood for cryptic riddles.

"Our happiness. It's amazing how it just flees out the window at the first sign of trouble."

"You don't have any windows in your apartment." I stated.

"Okay then, it's floating about in the room out there waiting for us to stop fighting and come and find it."

I looked up at him. "I don't think we can."

"Couldn't we at least try?" He asked desperately.

"Do we even deserve happiness?"

Angel looked across the room trying to think of the right answer to say. But nothing came to him. "I don't know." He whispered dejectedly. "We're going to try and rescue Mark."

My head snapped up and looked at him in total disbelief. Doubt was written all over his face. "You're serious."

"You're right. He gave us five years of his life, risking everything, his family, his friends. The least we can do is to try and give a little bit back to him."

I couldn't believe it. Connor and him were actually sitting out there fighting on this whole subject and Angel had sided with me. Maybe I was brought back for a reason. To help Angel find himself again.'

Sitting up I flung my arms around his neck. "Thank you." I whispered in his ear.