Because nobody likes a vague disclaimer: Characters belong to the fantastical Joss Whedon.

Buffy POV.

Chapter IV: Dying Is An Art, Like Everything Else, I Do It Exceptionally Well

from Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

†

My eyelids are heavy as I struggle to wake up. I can hear the heart rate monitor translating the voice of my heart.

Beep

Beep

Beep

Each sound, a proclamation:

Alive

Alive

Alive

I can feel its constant repetitive stream all the way down to my bones. Unable to focus, my lids droop down in defeat and gravity. With death permeating my dreams, I can't avoid the flicker of violence, blood, loss and tears that flashes behind my closed eyes.

Someone's holding my hand, and I know it's him. Not because I can sense him, because I can't, not at all in fact. And it's not the familiar pattern he traces on the back of my hand, the one he uses to calm his own anxiety. I know it because everyone else I love is dead.

He's the only one left, but that's not really saying much because our love is as dead as the rest of them. So I see no harm in letting him hold my hand.

Truth: I'm holding onto his.

Unable to avoid it any longer, I open them again. The starkness of the room is overwhelming at first, but like everything else in my life, it soon vanishes.

"Buffy."

My name is relief as it leaves his lips, and for a minute I pretend that he still loves me.

'Angel' I think, but don't dare say. The name game is too familiar, too intimate. I answer with silence instead, facing him so that I can look into his eyes. They're wiser and older than his beautiful face, and once upon a time I would have lost myself in this new open expression of his, but now, I feel nothing.

"How are you feeling?" He asks, his voice a caress, as if asking gently makes the truth of my life easier to bear.

I'm not sure how to answer his ridiculous question, so I don't. Then, either too much time has passed or he senses that I won't answer (I can't tell which), he continues.

"Say something please."

I think about saying things like: 'I never thought i'd want to die again'... or 'they're gone, and a part of me feels... free' (that's the worst of my unmerciful thoughts, and it fills me with shame every time I remember the un-lie of it). And then there's the most primal of truths, I'm tired. So tired of it all.

But instead "When can I get out of here?" comes out of my mouth.

Hospitals are death in concentration, and my life already has too large a dosage. Never mind that my body aches in pain, and the drugs addle my mind, I want out. His face goes sour at my words, and for a moment I think I see hurt in his eyes. It's gone quickly, and my notice of it does as well. After a moment of what I assume to be composure he speaks.

"Probably a little longer than you'd like. I know you want to get out of here, but let yourself heal first ok? I'll leave you alone if that's what you want."

He moves to stand, and I use whatever strength I have to tighten my grasp on our only connection left. He gets the unspoken message and sits back down.

"How bad am I?" I ask tentatively, and instantly hate myself for it.

They're all dead, what does it matter how I am?

"Selfish," I mumble.

I'm grateful he doesn't say anything even though I'm sure he heard me.

"You've been... asleep for some time..." He starts to say, but I don't want to hear about it after all.

"It doesn't matter." I interrupt. "Please, it just doesn't-"

Words disappear from my lips, and he's always understood me best without them, so he changes the subject. Well, sort of.

"This may not mean much to you, but I'm glad you're alive."

As it turns out, it doesn't.

†

He's sitting beside me, a book in his hands when I wake up. He doesn't notice, and I take advantage by soaking up the warmth of his nearness.

It's been a few days since I first woke here, and luckily so far Nina's visits to my room have been near nonexistent. She did however, come that first day i'd woken, to offer her support or stake her claim, i'm not sure which since we've never (obviously) been close. She'd implied that she wasn't far off when he came so every time Angel's visited since, it's like she's in the room with us, and I can't bring myself to say much to him.

As the minutes tick by, the tension in the air when we're together gradually fades away, but we remain quiet and I find myself enjoying the simplicity of his visits. Not so much so to admit it, though it is ironic how we always manage to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. Everything I've done has amounted to nothing, the weight of guilt and despair of my past suffocating the life out of me.

And Angel, well, he's human. He hasn't said as much, but I'm not a fool. Setting aside the fact that his skin is warm (which is only experienced that first day), I know of his chianti, shushi, shashu, whatever. Giles and Willow had found out shortly before... well before, and if I hadn't already been in the bowels of defeat, I might have been angry that he never told me. The last apocalypse that we, well him mostly, stopped is only more proof.

I'm reminded of the dream that plays in my sleep sometimes, the one that's always the same. Other complexities of the mind never bleed into it, it's distinctly poignant and almost tangible.

He's an angel standing in the sun (pun-intended), and he kisses me with turbulent desire, and when he's inside me, I'm the embodiment of happiness. My intuition tells me it's more than fancy, more than a fairytale, more than wishful thinking. It happened but somehow it never did.

I've never pretended to understand all the intricacies of this world (I'm the enforcer type), but I do know that it doesn't change much anyways. It'd just be one more time he's left me.

I try to go back to the moment I was sure my time was up. I remember the rubble digging into my back and the silver blade overhead in the raised arms of my attacker bringing me death and peace.

I'm not proud of the fact that I pretty much gave up before the battle was won, but Angel was there, and well, ok, the truth: I didn't really care. In my mind, I'd already failed. It's funny how your whole family dying does that. Not funny, 'haha'. I mean the other kind, the one that's not 'haha' at all.

Putting the truth aside, I focus on the last moment. Demon arms up high, but then there's nothing. All that I remember next is waking here. I've lost time, and no matter how hard I try to focus on it, there's nothing. It's unclear how my heart is still pumping, and the monitor is still narrating, especially since I feel like nothing more than a corpse.

He fidgets all of a sudden, and before his eyes land on me, I look away.

"You're awake," he says as he puts his book down and stretches in his seat.

"Did you rest well?"

"I did, thanks." I answer simply, any details I add would only imply it's because he's here.

"You been here long?"

He smiles slightly, "About an hour. You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to wake you."

I'm not sure why, but something gnaws at me in the back of my mind at his reply.

"Doctor says you can check out tomorrow," He continues, like he's trying to change my train of thought, but his subject change doesn't help much.

I'm terrified of tomorrow now, and what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go.

"If you need a place to stay..." He trails off, his voice that of a polite stranger, not like the ex-vampire love of my life that he is.

The silence stretches like taffy, because I'm relieved and scared shitless at the same time, but I decide hesitantly, to accept his offer. I live in a world of slayers, and yet, I'm alone. There's an, albeit only metaphorically, broken home somewhere in Cleveland, but I can never go back there.

Truth: Where else can I go?

"It wouldn't be for long. Just till I get back on my feet." I reply, deciding there's no need to refuse, or play the part of embarrassment. We're both adults, and I'm mature enough to play this out.

"However long you need. Nina set you up a room already, and she got some things for you too."

†

I'm not sure when it happened, when I fooled myself into finding subtext in the barely there text but I did, and now I'm paying dearly for that fact. It's time to check out, and the thought of living under the same roof as them, makes my skin crawl.

Nina comes to the hospital, tall and proud. From the moment he mentioned that they lived together, I've been raking my mind trying to find a way out.

I leave the hospital with them, a shell around my heart as I play the part of the grateful guest and that first night in THEIR home, I sneak out and leave without so much as a look back. Apparently, maturity was an overstatement.

I can't go far though, I'm still in tender shape, and so I check into a cheap motel with the money that I stole from Nina's wallet. I'm not proud of the fact, but I figure once I'm settled somewhere very far away from here, I'll pay it back.

I take my shoes off and carefully curl into bed, my mind churning thoughts and memories of the past month even as I sleep.

It's well into the afternoon when I wake up, my limbs aching from the stiffness of my slumber, and my mostly healed wounds pulsing like static.

I briefly wonder what Angel and (scoff) Nina think about my disappearance. A part of me is disillusioned that he didn't look for me, but I probably did him a favour anyways.

By dinnertime, I'm already out of Los Angeles, the clothes on my back the only luggage I carry.

"Goodbye Angel." I mumble softly when I reach the city's limits.

Forever has never been the point with us.

A/N: As you can tell, this fic is angst heavy, so much so I feel it necessary to warn you all various times. Haha, thanks for sticking with me, and though its drama heavy right now, at some point there will be a 'happy ending', so to speak.

Angel POV next!

Thanks for reading.