A/n: Took a while to get this chapter up, sorry. Reviews inspire me, fyi. Please let me know what you think of it, your favorite part, if there should be more, etc.
She keeps careful track of her emotions, afraid to lose herself in the strange cycles of grief and relief that keep wreaking havoc on her thought process. She sees him in her dreams, and there she can be free to laugh and smile and enjoy their limited time together. But it is tainted by her constant awareness of reality; that they are only dreams. Just her mind trying to deal with the sudden lack of him in her life. Often these days, she feels sorry for Angel, who fights by her side and cooks her meals, loving her and watching her grieve for another man. Sometimes she laughs with him, but it takes too much energy to silence that part of her screaming that he isn't the right one. So instead she cries with him, when the others are out and there's no one around to ask what's wrong. He never asks, and she returns the favor when his own tears are shed, over someone she never knew and has only the sketchiest information about. She thinks its funny that it is in these moments, when she feels like she's dying inside and the tears will never stop, that she feels such an overwhelming, unquestioning love for him. It's not the same as it once was, but she doesn't care. It's there, and real, and though his heart doesn't beat, he moves and speaks and exists. The lively un-living.
She lives her life, and finds herself nearing a point of, if not happiness, general satisfaction. She has Angel, and her friends, and her beloved little sister. And she has her dreams, where she can be with him, laughing and talking and just being. She doesn't know how to describe her new existence, still too unsure, but she thinks it's almost peaceful. Until the nightmares. For about a week, her pleasant dreams are chased away by decidedly unpleasant images of the last battle. Everything is blurred and skewed and she has trouble focusing on any particular image. She wakes up each time with a slight headache and the disappointment of not seeing him, but she is otherwise unbothered. Until the day Dawn goes to visit their father, and comes back with a photo album. In it, there are pictures of both the girls as children, including one of her with her new born sister held carefully in her arms, a toothy grin on her young face. She runs her fingers lightly over the many pictures featuring her mother, smiling a wistful smile that could have well been a grimace.
That night is the worst, and the first image to flash before her sleeping eyes, more clear than ever before, is of him dying. His face contorted in pain, the light consuming him. Then the dead potentials, the graves in her backyard- covering girls the same age as her little sister. Fighting her best friend, consumed by grief and black magick. Being ripped from the only true peace she's ever known. Dying, surrounded by mystical lightning. Finding her mother on the couch, watching Angel walk away from her, seeing Faith slip into the darkness. Her sudden loss of slayer strength, and the sting of betrayal from the one man she trusted with everything she was. Killing Angel, facing her mother's blatant refusal to accept her. Drowning. Loosing her normal life to one filled with monsters and death, and that terrifying stay in the mental institution. The past seven years of her life, every moment of fear and pain and uncertainty, flash through her mind's eye. She relives every moment of heartache and excruciating agony and wakes up screaming like a crazed banshee and thrashing wildly against the sheets.
All at once strong arms are around her, giving her a brisk shake to knock her from her hysteria. She is trembling dreadfully and sobbing, taking in deep gasping breaths. He holds her gently but firmly against his chest, promising that it was just a dream and that's she'll be okay now. But she knows from his voice that he doesn't believe it. She cries until her body can no longer physically support her, then she slumps against him waiting for her heart to slow. There had been tears shed for him, and for her friends. For her sister, and poor hapless mother, who wanted so desperately to protect her daughter. Every tear she'd ever held back to be strong or brave, every one of them came pouring out with a vengeance onto his black silk shirt. They sit together for a long time, neither of them speaking, too afraid to break the silence. Finally, one hand stroking her back gently, he breaches the forbidden subject, tentatively, but still.
"He saved the world, Buffy. Saved us all." She hears the struggle in his voice, though he speaks steadily. She realizes idly that she really has no idea the depth of emotion between these two men she loves, no clue what went on in the centuries before.
"He did." She says softly, her voice a little hoarse from the immense amount of screaming and crying she's done. "I think…" she pauses a moment, not knowing exactly how to express what she's told no one else. "I think he was really proud. And happy." She nods a little, and continues, "It didn't matter that he wasn't going to have the chance to do… whatever. He got to do the really right thing."
"He really had changed, hadn't he?" there is a note of wonder in his voice, and she nods again.
"Whatever his past, whatever he's done or said or been… he was a good man." There is a slight pause, then he leans back against the pillows with her still in his arms.
"I hope he knew that." He says softly. They lie there together, eventually falling asleep, thinking of the world and the man who saved it but could never be rewarded.