It was Graduation Day for the Sunnydale Class of '99, and smoke from the school's destruction still rippled on the air, enough to cast the little light from the nearby windows into a perpetual gloom. It was a good thing he didn't need to breathe, then.
Tonight was the night. Everything had played out perfectly, Buffy's plan unfolding with masterful precision; Angel was proud of her. She was eighteen, and already she was turning into the most powerful Slayer in all mankind's history. Which was one of the many reasons tonight was the night he was leaving. Leaving her. For good. Seeing her just now...it had killed some part of him, just walking away like that. But what could he have possibly said to comfort her, to make it better, especially since he was the source of her pain. 'I love you'? She already knew that. 'I'm sorry'? She knew that, too. 'This is for the best'? She didn't think that now, but she would, in time. Buffy would move on.
But he wouldn't. Not tomorrow or the day after or a hundred years from now...certainly not tonight. Which was why he'd found his feet carrying himself of their own volition, his subconscious mind obviously deciding the pain he was in right now was not adequate enough. For Angel now found himself right back to the start, the beginning of him and her.
The alley.
It was exactly the same, as if the place had been preserved in amber while time moved on around it, suspended in that one extraordinary moment. He could picture her there, so clearly, annoyed as hell and having none of his 'cryptic wise-man act' as she'd later put it. Back then, things had been so much simpler. Back then, his love had had no foundation, no evidence, no direction. Angel had loved her, but he hadn't known her. Yet now he did, and it made it all that much worse.
Because now, now he loved how she never ate the green M&Ms, separating them out of the packet with surgical precision, saying they reminded her too much of 'yicky demon slime.' And what teenager it's something that's green anyway?' Now, he loved her tendency to sing songs under her breath while she studied, desperate to keep herself from falling asleep with boredom. Now, he loved the sound of her laughter, beautiful and precious, even more so when it was him coaxing it out of her, desperate to keep her from falling into the darkness that surrounded her and her calling.
The list went on, a thousand different reasons not to do this, a thousand different ways he could stay, try and go back to how things had been before.
But Angel knew they could never really go back, had lived long enough to understand that if you try to hold onto something too tight, you only hurt it and kill what was so dear in the first place, and he loved Buffy too much to let that happen to her, to accept that if he stayed, he would not be doing her any favors in the long run, none at all. He was a vampire, she was the Slayer; there was no way he'd ever get a happy ending with her and, quite frankly, he didn't think he deserved one, with Buffy or anyone else.
Not that there'd ever be a 'anyone else.'
Memorizing every detail, every brick and strewn sheet of newspaper, every candy wrapper and discarded bottle and every shadow, Angel turned on his heel and began his trek back to the mansion on Crawford Street and his awaiting car, bags already packed, key dangling in the ignition, waiting, waiting.
All he had to do now was go.
Then he heard it. Footsteps, careful breathing, the smell of smoke hanging around them and...strawberry shampoo and cherry lipgloss and sunshine. He stopped, entirely frozen.
"I wasn't sure you'd be here. I half expected to find you gone, you and that shiny car of yours. Did it really have to be black, though? Just cause your wardrobe's lacking in the colour department doesn't mean your car should suffer the same monotonous fate," Buffy remarked from behind him.
Angel turned around to face her, overtaken by a sense of deja Vu, despite the fact she was dressed in her red Graduation gown, despite the fact their roles had reversed, and she was the one sneaking up on him this time around.
"It's an antique. It has character. At least this way, if it gets scratched it'll be less noticeable on the paint job."
"That's if anyone would want to get within ten feet of the Batmobile's lesser cousin, the Batconvertible," Buffy teased with a smile.
"Don't," he said abruptly. "Don't do that. You're only making it harder."
Buffy frowned, all innocence. "I'm just talking."
"No, you're not, and you know it," he chided her. She never could let anything go, could she? She always had to have the last word.
Planting her hands on her hips, her gaze was unflinching as she questioned, "Okay then, what am I doing?" The words were taken from their first conversation, he knew it and she mostly certainly did. But that was just why she'd said them, hoping from some sort of reaction from him. She wouldn't get one.
"You're trying to stall, you're trying to give me time to change my mind," Angel answered, wishing that he hadn't come back here, wishing that he hadn't needed to say goodbye to this place, goodbye to the memories, the memories of her.
And his heart shattered entirely as Buffy asked him in a small, broken voice, "Is it working?"
"What do you think, Buffy?" he demanded, ragged and raw and aching. "What do you think?"
"I think you're still here, so I'd call that a win in my book," she replied, some of her anger seeping into her tone, becoming defensive after letting him see just how much this was hurting her. Well, it was hurting him, too, and he knew if he didn't leave now then he never would.
Angel let our a sigh. "I don't know why I came here, but it was obviously a mistake." He made to move past her but she blocked him easily, her hand on his arm halting him instantly. He stared into her green eyes and found his own pain reflected back at him tenfold.
"No, Angel, it wasn't a mistake," she insisted with all her passion, all her belief. "You're here for he same reason I am."
"And what's that?" he asked her, although he already knew her answer.
"Because we don't want to say goodbye," Buffy said simply, easily, as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world. "Because we love each other. Because a part of us wants to go back to that night, maybe to warn them, those two people who had no idea what they were getting into, or maybe just to see that moment where our lives changed, forever and irrevocably, the spark that caught and burned down any notion that we could ever be anything other than the most important person in each other's lives. Well, in my case anyway," she added, ducking her chin slightly.
Angel wasn't having any of that, though. He tilted her face towards his, her hand now in his, gaze unflinching as he said, "You are the most important person in my life. You were then, you are now, and you always will be. Which is why this is so hard."
Buffy pulled away, wrapping her arms around herself, as if trying to protect her from some horrible truth. "Which is why you're doing it in the first place, right?" she yelled, the moment between them now broken, laying dead in the space between them. "You decided you wanted out, you'd paid for your ticket but the movie wasn't to your liking so you decided to just bail. Well, good for you, I'm finally glad you're being honest with yourself..."
He cut her off suddenly. After all, it's kinda hard to yell when someone's kissing you passionately, tangling their fingers in your hair, arm slipping around your waist, desperate to convey how you feel. Angel knew from personal experience.
"I don't want it to end like this," Angel murmured, planting a delicate, tender kiss on her cheek. "Not with anger or bitterness, not with words you don't really mean."
"Who says I don't mean them?" she asked breathlessly. "Besides, it's not like we started off much better."
"I don't know," Angel mused, "I think your boot made quite a strong impression...on my head. I liked it right from the start." Angel wasn't talking about her shoes, he knew it and so did she.
"You've got a thick skull, mister. A strong impression is the only way to go...and to get through all that hair," she replied teasingly, a warm smile starting to build in the corners of her mouth.
"I thought you liked my hair," Angel huffed petulantly, the over-dramatics for her sake.
"I love your hair. And I love you."
Angel held her closer, resting his chin on the crown of her head. 'I love you, too. But we both know we can't make this last forever, we can't hide here. That isn't me, and it certainly isn't you. One of us has to walk away, and it's got to be me," he insisted.
He felt her tense in his arms. "Why, because I'm not strong enough to walk away from you?" she asked heatedly.
The vampire shook his head. "No, cause I'm not strong enough to see you walk away from me: all I ever want to do is call you back."
Buffy cradled his face in her hands, thumbs smoothing over the planes of his cheeks. "But this doesn't have to be it, this doesn't have to be the end. You can call, or I can come visit or-"
Angel cut her off with, "How long could we keep that up though, realistically? How long would it take before hearing the other's voice on the phone, miles away, wasn't enough, when we wanted more? Let's face it, Buffy, we'll always want more."
"So we're just gonna go cold turkey, is that it? You might pop round if there's a major apocalypse or if I die...God, would you even show up then?"
"No," he replied tonelessly. Tears slid down her face. "If you died, I'd die."
"I don't think that's healthy," Buffy mumbled, the words ending on a sob.
"I don't think I care." He wiped her tears away, suspecting this was the last time they'd ever be this close, that this was goodbye.
"Close your eyes," he told her.
"No, no I won't," Buffy objected, tightening her hold on him.
"Come on, sweetheart, just close your eyes."
Her eyes closed.
"Looks like your problem's solved now, ma'am," he whispered to her, words harking back to their first ever conversation.
When Buffy opened her eyes, Angel had taken her back to the start after all: her, all alone.
Author's Note: Welcome to another Bangel oneshot. Hope you enjoyed reading this, please leave a review if you did.
All my love, Temperance Cain
