Chapter 13: To Forget
The first thing Buffy saw was herself. She was wearing a white sweater and standing somewhere sunny on a beautiful day. It had to be — yes, it was Santa Monica, near the pier. The look on her face was confused and disbelieving and almost...awestruck.
Next, she was in a kitchen she didn't quite recognize, sitting in front of a steaming green mug. She watched herself stand up from the table and she heard her voice say, "...a good thing I didn't fantasize about you turning human only about 10 zillion times..."
And then, she was sprawled out on top of that table, her hair fanned around her and she was...well, that was embarrassing...but she was absolutely sure she had never been that happy in her entire life. And finally she saw them, her hands. Well, they were his hands, Angel's hands, as if he was looking down at them, and they were touching her in ways she had only dared to dream about for years. Her eyes, when they opened, were like fire. She'd never seen herself like that before. Well, of course she'd never seen herself like that before. But it was more. She knew there was no way she had actually ever looked like that before, glowing like a thousand candles.
The intensity of the visions, of the love and bliss interlaced in them, was too much. She fell to her knees on the grass.
But they didn't stop. Next, she was in a bed. It had to be Angel's bed. She was wearing one of his shirts and laughing. She could taste ice cream. And then she was talking about his heartbeat and falling asleep on his chest.
She didn't understand. How could the box be full of fake memories? Angel human? Was this some kind of vision of the future? But it couldn't be, because she looked younger. She recognized the sweater as one she'd worn in college. And the trials weren't going to make Angel human, just save his soul.
But then sadness hit her with almost physical force and she wished she could turn the visions off, to close the box. She was watching herself yell and cry in a red dress and enough of what they were both saying was coming through that she understood.
There had been a day — one 24-hour-period — in which Angel had been human. And he'd...given it back. He'd given it back.
She heard her voice, desperate now. "I'll never forget," she chanted. And then everything was gone but the anguish.
Buffy fell forward into the grass as the world went dark.
†††
"Buffy."
Angel's voice was insistent. She wanted to ignore him, but he kept saying her name. Finally, she cracked her eyes open. He was kneeling next to her in the last light of dusk. Groggily, she pushed herself up on her hands and knees as he supported her, helping her up to her feet.
"Are you OK?"
She looked into his face and had to restrain the urge to punch him. "I'm not ready to see you right now."
"I know that what you saw was upsetting, Buffy, but—"
"Upsetting?" she practically shrieked. She was so angry she couldn't go on.
"Before we say anything else, you need to know that you did it. My soul is mine. No more curse, no more clause. You saved me."
"Goody," she said flatly. She couldn't believe that she had just heard words she had longed to hear for years and her reaction was cold fury. "How soon before you find a way to give it up?"
"Buffy..."
"Well? What am I supposed to think? I go through all of this to help you and I find out that we could have avoided it entirely if you hadn't been so pig-headed."
"You know why I did it, though? You heard that part? About how you were going to die?"
"I died anyway." Her eyes were filling with tears. "You still couldn't save me."
"But who knows when you would have died in that world. It could have been the next day, the next hour. We couldn't have lived like that, with it always hanging over our heads. I couldn't have lived with knowing it would be my fault."
She blinked to clear her eyes. The tears rolled down her cheeks, two hot drops. When he moved to brush one of them away, she didn't stop him.
"What good would any of it have been without you, Buffy?"
She swallowed hard, pulled away. "Through all these trials, I've been second-guessing myself. Or ghost-you has been second-guessing me. Trying to talk me out of it."
"I'm sorry I wasn't more help," he said. "I was trying as hard as I could, but I could only get glimpses."
"For better or worse, some part of you was always with me," she said, and a piece of her wanted to fold herself into his arms and let the whole story come pouring out. But she couldn't. Not until he understood. "But no matter what happened, no matter what anyone said, none of it convinced me to give up. But this...But now..."
"You're afraid."
"Yes," she said emphatically. "We've sacrificed so much for each other. You gave up your humanity for me. And before that, you gave up me for me. For my own good. You have to stop. We have to stop or we'll never actually be together."
"Can we promise that?" he asked quietly. "Could we promise that we won't make sacrifices and still be who we want to be?"
She felt a fresh sob welling up. "So what do I have to hold onto? What's changed?"
He ran his hand through his hair and then looked right into her eyes. "I put those memories in the box."
"What?"
"That was my part of the trials. The price I had to pay. To show you something I'd done."
So her guess had been basically right. But it was so far from what she'd expected.
"Those memories are magical," Angel continued. "Mirela couldn't even see them. Not until I told her what to look for."
"But why?"
"You've seen Drusilla. You know the kinds of things I've done without a soul. And anything else, I can tell you about. But this...I thought you would only really believe it if you could see it. And I needed you to know everything."
"So what does this prove? You knew what would hurt me the most?"
"No. You were right. I've always wanted to shield you. I've made decisions that I thought I had to. I'm not even saying that they were wrong. But now it's your turn to make the choice. And I wanted you to know the whole truth before you make it." He reached out and touched her arm. "You get to decide, Buffy."
"No. That's the whole point!" she spluttered. "We should decide together."
She wiped at her cheeks and stepped closer to him. "I still want you, Angel. I'm always going to want you. But we need to build something new. Together."
He nodded. "I know," he said. "I mean, I understand."
All the fight went out of her. She finally let herself lean into him, pressing her cheek and her hands against his chest. "Do you think we can start from the beginning?" she murmured.
"We can try," he said into her hair. "I want to try, if you do."
They held each other for a long time as darkness fell around them. And she thought that maybe, finally, this could work. That she had learned enough about herself, and about him, to know how to begin.
"If we're starting over, I guess our first order of business is finding an alley where you can knock me on my ass," he said. She looked up and at the sight of her face, he added, "Possibly multiple times."
And she couldn't help it. She laughed, and she cried a few more tears, and then she kissed him.