Okay, this time, the delay was because I was very distracted by Pride and Prejudice fanfiction. I seem to have run out of it now, though, and even gotten a little sick of it, so here I am again. Enjoy!

"I'm sorry, Buffy; this conversation is reserved for people who actually have a future."

Cordelia's words—a low blow even by her standards—reverberated around Buffy's mind despite all her attempts to forget them. The acceptance letter her mother had been boasting far and wide to every obscure relative she never new existed (and which had only that morning seemed like an easily dismissed impossibility) suddenly acquired all of the appeal of a glorious escape. Instead of feeling duty-bound to remain in Sunnydale (something to which she had been resigned without much bitterness before), she now felt frankly duty-strangled by the prospect, and thought that Northwestern University might just be her way to freedom.

Trying to ignore the indignation she felt that such a change of mind was brought on by Cordelia's insults, Buffy made her way quickly to the library. She found Giles there alone, and told him her news with a tentative smile. The pride he showed in her bolstered her resolve, and she couldn't restrain herself from giving him a grateful hug.

"Do you know where Wesley is?" she asked while Giles was busy attempting to prevent the moisture in his eyes from overflowing.

He seemed grateful for the topic change. "He's at, erm, another training session with Angel, I believe," he said rather gruffly.

"Thanks," said Buffy, and she turned to go.

[o]

Sure enough, when she entered the mansion fifteen minutes later, the sounds of sparring reached her ears. She followed them to the great room, where a shirtless Angel and a Wesley whose white undershirt was drenched with sweat were trading blows. Predictably, Angel had Wesley on the defensive, but the young Watcher was holding his own much better than Buffy had seen him do before. Not wanting to interrupt, she walked over and sat down on the stone hearth to watch. She noticed immediately that Angel was deliberately pulling his punches and kicks just enough to make sure they wouldn't do any real damage if Wesley failed to block or dodge them. Such restraint was unnecessary when he sparred with her, but she had the strength and reflexes of a Slayer and had long since been in perfect synchronicity with Angel when they fought, whether it was side-by-side on patrol like last night or against each other.

When they paused briefly so that Wesley could catch his breath, Angel looked over at her and grinned. She smiled and rolled her eyes. He'd known she was there the moment she entered. Wesley, still panting hard, noticed where Angel was looking and turned to see what was there, then gave a small start of surprise to see Buffy sitting in front of the fireplace.

"Oh! Hello, Buffy," he said. "What…brings you here?"

Angel signaled him to start again, and the match continued.

"Giles said I could find you here," said Buffy. "I've been thinking about what'll happen after graduation." She allowed herself to forget, for the time being, that there was a very great chance that there wouldn't be any after graduation for her. "I want to leave."

"What?" asked Angel, completely distracted by this unexpected announcement. This lapse of attention came at precisely the worst moment, for Wesley, who was too focused on the match for the meaning of her words to penetrate his mind with the same rapidity as they had his opponent's, let fly his final punch. With the improved force and aim of all of the training sessions of the past few months behind it, his fist struck Angel squarely on the jaw, sending him crashing ungracefully to the floor. Wesley's triumphant delight turned to panic and horror almost instantly. Angel was already getting back to his feet, but his face had transformed. Wesley recoiled, sure he had gone too far and was about to pay for it, but Buffy dashed past him and, completely disregarding the demonic features before her, began to fuss over Angel. He was soon able to reassure her that he was fine, and as his appearance became human again, she rounded on Wesley with a glare that was just as frightening as Angel's vamp face.

"I'm sorry!" he said, then winced at how shrilly the words had come out.

"It's okay," said Angel, rubbing his jaw ruefully. "Just make sure you can land punches like that when your opponent is actually paying attention."

Wesley's face, already somewhat red from the exertion of sparring, went redder, but then his mind finally caught up with his ears, and he looked at Buffy, frowning. "Leave? What do you mean?"

"I want to leave," she repeated, still glaring at him. "You know, college?"

Angel's tense posture loosened with relief at this explanation. For ten nightmarish seconds, he'd wondered if her new ambition was inspired by a desire to get away from him. He mentally chided himself for his ridiculous insecurity, and felt glad he hadn't expressed it aloud.

"But I thought you were going to the local university," said Wesley, confused.

Buffy shook her head. "I got into Northwestern," she said. She looked over her shoulder at Angel. His face was glowing with the same pride that Giles's had shown on hearing this news, and she couldn't hold back a grin as she turned back to Wesley. He, however, was still frowning, though he looked conflicted.

"That is wonderful news, of course," he said, "but…what about the Hellmouth?"

Buffy refused to feel guilty. "I won't have to be gone all the time. I'll be here every school break and maybe even a couple of extra weekends. It's just—I don't want my whole life to revolve around being the Slayer."

Some of Angel's misgivings returned, but he remained silent.

Wesley looked at her doubtfully for a few seconds. "The Council won't like it," he said finally. He disliked having to speak for them, but he was not entirely comfortable with Buffy's plans himself, even if he could not reproach her for a desire to have a better education. "With circumstances as they are—"

"Then I'll change them," she said firmly.

"What?" he asked, taken aback.

"I'm sick of waiting for Mayor McSleaze to make his move while we sit on our hands counting down to Ascension Day. For once, let's take the fight to him."

"In what way?" he asked. "With Faith on the Mayor's side, he knows a great deal more about us than we do about him. I'm afraid he has the advantage."

"And that would be a problem if I wanted to launch a frontal assault," said Buffy impatiently. "To start off, it'll just be recon."

"Oh," said Wesley. He still felt reluctant, but could not deny that her idea was a good one. He glanced at Angel, who obviously agreed with her. "Well, as long as you're careful, I suppose."

[o]

Unfortunately, as careful as they were, the plan did not go entirely smoothly. Buffy discovered through some well-timed sneaking, followed by some henchman-interrogating, that the Mayor had acquired a mystical object called the Box of Gavrok, which would be an essential ingredient for the Ascension. Armed with this information, the logical next step was to take the box and destroy it, but that was where things went wrong.

Though Buffy and Angel succeeded in getting the box and Xander and Oz succeeded in setting up the spell that would destroy it, Willow was captured before she could get away. There followed one very unpleasant argument in which Wesley stood up to Buffy and her insistence that they trade the box to get Willow back. Xander loudly backed Buffy up, but Angel and Giles refused to take sides, both torn between the logic of Wesley's plan and their desire to have Willow safely out of the Mayor's clutches. Things very nearly became violent between Slayer and Watcher when he pointed out that destroying the box would allow her to leave Sunnydale like she wanted to, something she found utterly repugnant if it would cost her one of her best friends to accomplish, but the discussion was brought to an abrupt end when Oz calmly—and violently—hurled the pedestal containing the materials to destroy the box across the library, shattering it.

They made the trade, and had it not been for Willow's presence of mind while captured, they would have been right back where they started. She had managed to tear several key pages from the Books of Ascension, which she smugly gave to an ecstatic Giles. Buffy came out of the exchange with a souvenir as well: a lethal but beautiful dagger Faith had left behind, pinning the body of one of the Box of Gavrok's spidery occupants to the cafeteria wall.

But she wasn't interested in the dagger. She wasn't even interested in leaving Sunnydale anymore. The events of the past couple of days had forced her to see how impractical that would be, and now that Willow had decided to stay too, her disappointment was negligible. No, what she was really worried about was Angel. The Mayor's words about him and his relationship with her had obviously affected him deeply, and she wasn't about to let him stew in his own thoughts on the subject without any input from her.

She found Angel at his apartment that night and suggested that they go for a walk. He agreed, but as she had anticipated, he was also much quieter than usual. She squeezed his hand, trying not to feel awkward. Before she could broach the subject, however, he did.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"Happy?" she repeated blankly.

"With me," he elaborated, not looking at her.

Buffy stopped walking. Reluctantly, he did the same and eventually raised his eyes to her face, expecting to find sadness there, but that could not have been farther from reality. The tenderness and love in her expression was so powerful that he was sure it would have been enough to stop his heart if it had been beating.

She didn't answer him for a while, but continued to look at him like that, her smile growing more pronounced. "I've never been happier," she said. She raised a hand to the side of his face—the side that didn't sport a large, rapidly fading bruise—and smoothed out the creases of worry on his forehead and around his mouth with her thumb. "I love you, Angel, and I don't regret it. I don't want Sunday picnics if I can't share them with you. There's nothing I'd rather have than be with you. You're not holding me prisoner or keeping me against my will. This is my choice."

Angel couldn't think of anything to say, so he kissed her.

"By the way," she said rather breathlessly when they broke apart several minutes later and started walking again, "I definitely don't plan on complaining about you staying young and gorgeous forever, and if I make it long enough to get old and wrinkly, that'll just be something else to be thankful for. We can laugh about the weird looks we get."

He smirked and draped his arm around her shoulders, and together they walked on.

Hehe, shirtless Angel. And I couldn't resist letting Wesley land that punch. While that was mostly just simple comic relief, it was also what I kind of want to do to Angel myself after learning certain spoilerific information about him regarding the season eight comics. Which is probably why the punch was hard enough to knock him down. Anyway! Again, I wrote detailed dialogue scenes for the parts that were different from canon, and summarized what wasn't. And again, Buffy and Angel are much closer in this than in canon, so they aren't going to ignore the subjects that could drive wedges between them and hope that they go away. Oh, and Dollhouse is on tonight! Cheers!