"Hello? Anyone here?"

I hear her sweet voice calling from the grand entrance, and I'm suddenly caught in a moment of indecision. Should I continue upon my path to seek out my newest acquaintances, and her in turn; or, should I return to my rooms and avoid what is certain to be an unpleasant confrontation?

"William, you put a knife to your chest and threatened to stake Drusilla."

"Yes, well…"

"You put yourself between Connor and me… while he was swinging a sword at my head."

"I guess when you put it that way…"

"I'm pretty sure you can face Buffy."

"That would make one of us who is certain."

No. He is correct. I'm a gentleman of some years. I will not be cowed by my own fear. I will face Buffy and… and what?

Perhaps I'll retreat to the training room and regroup my thoughts. They seemed to come rather easily as Angel was assisting me with learning to utilize the various weapons ensconced within. I made a rather poor showing with the axes but did remarkably well with the crossbow.

"She's in love with you, you know?"

Angel's assertion had caught him off guard, and he'd sent an errant crossbow bolt to embed in the wall several feet from its target.

"Do you really think it's wise to discuss Miss Buffy while instructing me on this particular weapon?"

"Probably not."

And yet he persisted in doing so.

"Yes, well, be that as it may… it is quite apparent that given the choice she'd choose the demon."

"You still don't get it, do you?"

"And what is that?"

"That you are what she loved about him."

"One doesn't just love a piece of someone. You love everything about them, everything they are."

"Which is why she's in love with you."

"I'm not him!"

I had turned the crossbow on him at that point. Yet he'd not wavered in the slightest.

"Aren't you? Didn't you just tell me a few days ago that you and he were one and the same? From where I'm standing, all that's missing is about a hundred years of murder and mayhem. That and a demon. Pretty sure you can improve on that."

"He spent decades traveling this world; learning and experiencing everything it has to offer; loving this vampiress Drusilla; I can't…"

I had felt all my anger and strength abandon me then.

"So do it all again… with Buffy. Or don't. Hell, do it all without her. Go. Forge yourself a new future. Do something no one would expect. But whatever you do? Figure it out soon. For both your sakes."

And therein lies the crux of my dilemma. Can I allow myself this future I so desire, or will I always wonder if it is truly me that she loves? Can I live my life without her, having known the exquisite bliss of having even a fraction of her love?

What else would I do? I could become a tutor. Instructing young minds in their studies. I'd be a far sight better than many of my own tutors. Would it be sufficient? Or would it be a pale imitation of life, knowing all that I do now?

"William?"

I'm suddenly drawn from my thoughts to find her standing only a short distance from me, and yet it feels as if it might as well be a chasm of unscalable proportion.

"Miss Buffy," I nod in polite greeting.

"Oh." It seems a rather short and startled response. "I guess I should have… You probably don't want to…." She sighs deeply as her entire form seems to contract upon itself as she turns to walk away. "I'll just go."

"Buffy…" I call after her instinctively, and she halts her steps.

"It's ok, William." She answers over her shoulder. "You don't have to say anything. For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

This is the moment I was to choose, the moment I decided the direction I should take with this beautiful, and occasionally maddening, goddess of a woman. And yet I'm once again not even being given a choice. Once again, my fate is being taken from my hands. And I rather feel like I am not going to accept it this time.

"No," I tell her firmly.

She stops as she reaches the top of the stairs leading to the grand entrance.

"No?" She turns and asks in evident confusion.

"You heard me," I defiantly reply. "You don't get to decide."

"Decide?" She parrots.

"Buffy," I take a few paces towards her. "From the moment I arrived here, you've done nothing but control every choice I've made, and every direction I've chosen. I don't think I'm going to allow it this time."

"What?" She asks as I sense the beginnings of her anger. "I've been controlling you?"

"Yes!" My assertion is clear. "Everything these last few months has been nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion of your design for the purpose of assuaging the guilt of your conscience regarding the demise of my other self."

"I've been trying to protect you! To keep you safe!"

"Do you call these keeping me safe?" I pull open the top of my shirt, revealing the scars of that night when I so very nearly died yet again.

"You ran off!" She paces a few steps towards me as her own anger rises.

"Because you held me captive!" I retort.

"I did not!" She insists. At my look of incredulity, she amends her statement. "Ok, maybe I did! But in my defense, what was I supposed to do? Show you the door and tell you to have a nice life? We pulled you over a hundred years into the future! At the peak of apocalypse season!"

"You could have told me everything then, instead of waiting until I'd nearly died."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I was a little busy saving everyone's lives and trying to catch the guy who was about to shoot me!" She is now shouting as she paces even closer to me.

I can't help my response to the memory of her form as she lay there bleeding, and my vain attempts to stifle the flow of her life's blood as she lay dying. But it only distracts me a moment.

"And yet, even my own near death didn't prompt you to be honest with me, did it?" I step forward a pace myself.

She'd lied. Committed lies of omission. Had she thought my intellect to fragile to even hear the truth of my crimes against her? Or had she done it to manipulate me into complying with plans to assuage her own guilt?

"What do you mean? I never lied to you!" She looks confused, but not enough to overshadow her ire.

"A lie of omission is still a lie!" My voice is becoming lower, more edged. I almost don't even recognize it. "You used me! Both then and now! Seduced me! Let me believe it was I that you loved!"

Her reaction is one of startle, as if caught unawares in something she's done.

"Tell me, Buffy," My voice takes on a dangerous tone, and much as I wish, I can't seem to stop them or the way in which they spill forth. "Was it the man or the demon that you saw as you fucked me?

The sharp slap across my cheek brings me back to my senses only slightly, as an unbidden and bitter laugh bubbles from my throat.

"Did I strike too close to the heart of the matter?" My laughter chokes in my throat. "Is what you did the other evening not what you said you'd done to the demon? Pushed him? Ripped his clothes off and took what you wanted, knowing that because of the love he felt for you he would never deign to stop you?"

She is shaking her head no, backing away from me. I reach for her arms, halting her retreat.

"Is that not what you did to me?"

"What we shared the other night was nothing like what I did to Spike." Her own anger seems to be rising again. "You want to know how many times I let him make love to me?" She asks, defiance radiating from her eyes. "Once. The same night I broke up with him."

Her words strike me hard.

"So this is a pattern, then, is it? Making love to someone before you crush their very soul?"

"WILLIAM!" Angel's voice roars to life from the stairway leading to the grand entrance. "That's enough." The dangerous edge to his voice snaps me from the depth of my anger, as I note Miss Buffy's countenance becomes one of guilt, confirming my statement as her tears begin to pour forth.

This wounds me more than the sting of her strike, or even the fact that she still loves and desires the demon I once became. And I very nearly hate myself for the tears I have caused her.

"For what it's worth…" Her watery and halting voice cuts into me. "It was you, William. And I did it because I do lo…"

"Don't!" I interrupt her. I don't think I could bear to hear her say those words knowing it is truly another that she loves. "Please, don't lie to me."

"I'm not…"

"You said it yourself, Buffy," I smile, as I draw near enough to her that I can fairly smell the scent of her tears. I can both sense and see her confusion, as she is likely trying to retrace her words in her mind, searching for those of which I speak. Her look is as endearing as her words are wounding. "That part of you is broken."

She shakes her head violently, compelling me to take her visage between my own palms to still her movements.

"It is probably the most honest things you've said, my love," I can't help the small and sad smile of acknowledgment I make. "I don't know how such a thing can be broken, but I hope that one day it will not be so. But, I can not love only that which you are willing to give me. I must have all of you, Buffy. It is the only way that I know how to love."

With this, I gently close the distance between us and place a kiss upon her sweet lips conducting all the love I hold for her into this one act.

"Goodbye, Buffy."

Thus with a kiss I die.

How true the verse speaks. Never more so than at this moment. For both of us, it would seem, as she turns and hastily retreats down the stairs and through the doors to the garden, passing Angel and her young sister without so much as an acknowledgment in her flight.

"Um, what'd I miss?" Miss Dawn asks, looking towards myself and Angel.

"We need to talk," Angel's anger is palpable despite his closed expression, as he stands on the upper stairs his feet wide and his arms crossed. The very picture of an angry father, if ever there was one.

"I suppose we do," I reply.

He turns and walks with a casual stride to what I've come to understand is his office in this establishment, and I follow. Watching him withdraw, I am uncertain if he is indeed angry with me. He should be, as I am certainly angry with myself for my callous words, but his stride certainly gives nothing away if he is.

"Close the door," His words are flat as I enter.

I obey, and remain standing as is custom, watching as he pours himself a drink from a decanter on the far shelf, and then a second glass. He hands the second glass to me and then proceeds to seat himself behind the desk, studying the libation rather than drinking it. I remain patiently observant, waiting for him to speak.

"This is really my fault," His candor finally breaks the silence.

"Oh?" That really wasn't quite what I was expecting.

"Should have staked your sorry ass back in that mine shaft," He answers, still studying his drink.

"M-mine shaft?"

"Or let Darla take my head off back in China." He seems to be reminiscing, though of what I honestly can't discern.

"China?"

"Mmmhmm… you killed your first slayer there."

Ah, yes. I recall reading of this that second evening after I first arrived in this time. What any of this has to do with my earlier actions, however, I'm completely uncertain.

"I'm afraid I don't follow?"

"No. You don't." He answers. "Never have, actually."

"I haven't?"

"Used to make me so angry, too," He continues. "Never would do as you're told."

"Really?" I didn't intend to sound so incredulous.

"But you weren't wrong, either." His answer is even more confusing, and I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I should allow him time alone to compose his thoughts.

"Perhaps I should return to my…"

"What do you know about my soul?" He suddenly asks.

"Oh." I try to shift my thoughts and recall what I have learned these past two months about Angel and his soul. "Not… not much, I'm afraid. I believe Miss Buffy said that it was a curse of some sort?"

"A gypsy curse," He confirms. "For killing their favored daughter. Darla brought her to me one night as a birthday present. In return for doing so, they restored my soul so that I might suffer the rest of my immortal life."

He glances at me briefly before he takes a sip of his drink finally. I follow suit, thinking perhaps it might be a good idea.

"Little did I know, they put a caveat in the curse," He continues. "If I experience perfect happiness, apparently the curse is worthless, and I lose my soul."

"But, you did lose your soul, did you not? Xander told me you'd lost it, and then had it restored?"

"Of course Xander told you," He gives a brief but amused smile. "Did he also tell you how I lost it?"

He seems to be carefully studying his drink once again as I try to recall.

"Actually, he seemed to abruptly avoid the…" The implication finally makes itself known in my disjointed thoughts. "Oh."

"One moment of perfect happiness," He reiterates. "My soul was gone and I went on a killing spree. Killed her friends, killed her friends pets, killed her teacher. I nearly killed her watcher. Almost killed her. And then she sent me to hell. But not before Willow had restored my soul.

"Restored…"

"I'd already opened a portal that would suck the whole world into hell, so Buffy had to put a sword through my heart and send me to hell and close the portal, knowing I had my soul back. It killed her on a whole other level. All because one moment of perfect happiness cost me my soul."

I am rendered mute as I sink into the nearby chair, recalling my earlier words. "So this is a pattern, then, is it? Making love to someone before you crush their very soul?" I make short work of the drink in my hand, finally understanding why he offered it.

"I didn't know," I feebly offer, my face coloring with shame. What else could I say?

"Now you do." He pauses and then relaxes back into his chair as if preparing for a lengthy reminiscence. "So if your intention was to hurt her as much as you think she hurt you? Then congratulations, you succeeded."

I can't sit here any longer, though I am uncertain about my next course of action. I will not apologize for my words, as they spoke the truth. I can only apologize for my manner. Yet, I fear even doing that would be insufficient now.

"I was right about one thing, though," Angel calls to me as I wrench open the door.

"And what, pray tell, might that be?" I ask without looking back.

"You're still him." He replies.

My confusion must have been apparent as I turned to question his assertion.

"That feeling, while you were confronting her? That primal anger? That passion? That wound you were defending? That hole you can't fill without her? That's where Spike came from. He's you, William. He's all you. Buffy didn't just love part of you. She loved the real you."

"No…" I reply sadly. "She loved the real him. And in 120 years from now, I may be him; but, I am not him now. Possibly, probably, I may not ever become him. The question is, can she love what I am now?"

"No," He counters. "The question is whether you're going to give her a chance to find out."

I contemplate that for several moments.

"You are correct," I finally answer as I step from the room. "That is the question, isn't it?"

The bother of it all is, I don't know the answer.