It had been a couple of days since The Incident with Angel and Buffy had been avoiding him at all costs. It's what she did best, run away from her problems. And when all else failed, physically ran away from her problems, the castle had a lot of interconnected hallways. It was on a particular moment like that that Angel finally felt it had to stop.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah." Buffy spun on her heel.

"I have to ask you something."

"Shoot." Buffy gestured for him to continue, faking an air of bubbliness.

"Let's just go into my room for a sec."

They walked in silence for a few minutes until his room, when he let them in and Buffy heaved a sigh.

"What's up?"

"Is this ever gonna happen for us?" Angel blurted out bluntly.

"Us? Is there even an us anymore, Angel?" Buffy admitted, if he was being blunt, so was she. Maybe sometimes they should do a little more of that.

"I'm human, Buffy. It's all you've ever wanted, a normal life." Angel said persuasively.

He was right. That is all she'd ever wanted. A nice, normal human boyfriend who she loved and who loved her. Someone she could grow old with and have kids with. A person who was happy with the slayer and the girl. And here he was, giving her all of that. And yet...

"It's not enough." Buffy whispered.

"But we can be normal, Buffy." Angel said, almost pleadingly.

"We'll never be normal, Angel. I'll never be normal. And you know what I've realised in this time when I'm a little more normal, in the sense that I'm one of hundreds of slayers?" Buffy channeled her thoughts into pacing across the room. "I realised that normal...kinda sucks. I don't wanna be normal. Maybe I never have. But it doesn't matter 'cause I never will be. So, no Angel. It's not enough, you being human. I'm sorry."

"What?" Angel breathed.

"I know it's confusing, I'm kinda confused too." Buffy laughed emotionlessly. "I mean...it's all I've ever wanted. You Angel, and human." Tears rolled down her cheeks as she choked out the words. "And yet, it's not enough. I don't want this."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying. I don't think there's an us anymore, Angel."

"What does this mean?" Angel rubbed the back of his neck worriedly.

"I don't know."

"Well when did it happen?"

"I don't know." Buffy said frustratedly. "I loved you for so long. And over that time, so much has changed, I've changed. I guess so did my feelings. I'd built you up in my head to be this hero, my knight but I convinced myself it could never work while you were a vampire. That the solution to all my problems would be you human."

Buffy stopped pacing and collected her thoughts while Angel looked on in silence. "I mean for God's sake, I met you when I was fifteen, Angel! The Buffy you want and the Angel I thought I needed...They're not us anymore. There is no us anymore." Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, gushing like an open faucet.

"But I'm human." Angel echoed helplessly. "What am I supposed to do now?"

Buffy rushed to his side and pulled him into her body. His hulking form awkwardly rested on her small shoulders, as she attempted to force her tears away.

"You'll work it out." Buffy pulled away from him. "You always do."

"But I'm human and the only two people I've ever loved in the world, I can't even have." Angel thought about Cordelia and her visit to him after she died, yes it was the closest they'd ever been in a while, the last few months of her life weren't even her; but he'd loved her. Just like he'd loved Buffy.

"Loved, Angel."

"What?"

"You just said loved."

"Cordelia is dead." Angel harshly said.

"I know. But I'm not. You don't love me anymore either, Angel."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Well, your subconscious knows what you don't. I think you've convinced yourself of me as much as I have of you. Real life Buffy and Angel just aren't as spectacular as our minds make them out to be, huh?"

Angel sighed in resignation. "I guess you're right."

"You're welcome to stay here, you know. Fight the good fight. We have plenty of humans on board." Buffy got practical now, wiping away the last of her tears and crossing her arms.

"I don't know. It's all a little...fresh."

"You can finally have a normal life, Angel!" Buffy crossed towards him and placed her hands firmly around his shoulders. "Live it."

0000000000000000000000000000000

"Cordy? I don't know if you can hear me. Or if you can even see me and I haven't gone completely crazy..." Angel trailed off, no longer sure he wanted to continue. Then the lamp on his bedside table flicked on. "Cordelia?" The lamp flicked off and on again.

Angel laughed heartily at seeing this. "Oh Cordy!"

The headboard rattled loudly against the wall.

"Is that your way of telling me to just get on with what I wanted to say?"

The lamp flicked off and on again.

"Okay, I get the message." Angel chuckled. "We finally did it. Me and Buffy. We ended us. And it was...painful. But I'm glad it finally happened. Closure."

Angel's eyes travelled to his hands, where he was wringing them in his lap. "I just wish I coulda done it while you were still alive, you know? Wish we'd seen what we have sooner, and I coulda proved to you that me and Buffy, we're not each other's 'the one' anymore. And I'm actually okay with that."

Angel sighed in despair, the guilt of late promises and undecided futures clouded his mind. Gently, he felt a hand stroke up and down his back. Angel jumped at the contact, desperately looking around for Cordelia. But nothing was there. "Thanks."

Angel said lamely. "You're really not coming back are you?"

Lamp on.

"But you're happy there, right? You don't wanna come back..."

Lamp off, lamp on, lamp off.

"So you like it there, but you're not sure if you wanna be back here or not?"

Lamp on.

"Right. Well I'm human now. So whenever I die, we can be together. I think. No hell dimensions for me, no sir."

The lamp flicked on and off over and over excitedly, Angel chortled.

"I love you, Cordy."

No reaction. Then slowly the pen on his desk hovered in the air, and clearly with all the strength she could muster (a higher power channeling energy to move objects on the human plane was extremely difficult) it began to write. Slowly, it scrawled across the page and then fell heavily back to the desk in exhaustion. Angel dashed over to the desk, snatching the paper up in his hand. Then a tear slipped from his eye, smacking the paper. He folded it up, lovingly and placed a kiss on it, sliding it into his pocket.

The note read. 'The feeling's mutual...duh.'