Site Navigation

Traditional Ending

Buffy opened the door and Giles, Wesley and Jenny came inside. They all waited with bated breath when Angel hesitantly began to tell them about the last few days.

He told them that Darla taught him to hunt, to kill. He was ashamed when he admitted to killing a vagrant near the docks, then later a man outside a liquor store. He didn't quite have Darla's thirst for blood, so a kill every few days was enough to satisfy him. Finally he admitted to killing Parker Abrams, Buffy's neighbor, in a jealous rage. He'd seen the guy outside her window the night he had been there.

Giles hesitantly asked about Cordelia and Faith, to which Angel only curiously replied "What about them?"

Although even as he said the words, he could recall the pain and suffering that he had inflicted on them as Darla watched. Each real and imagined slight they had caused him, he had made them pay for. In the ultimate rejection, he refused to feed off them - preferring that they die slowly of their injuries instead.

As Angel looked at Buffy he realized that he could never let her know the kind of monster that he had been. It was only his love for Buffy that made him bury those memories deep into his conscience. He knew that it would tear them apart if she knew really what he had done, and he knew that he couldn't live without her.

As he struggled with the horrifying idea, Wesley talked Angel out of turning himself in, suggesting that they all wait a few hours until their heads were clear and they could come up with a plan.

Buffy stayed with Angel that night, her presence a comfort to him as he struggled to figure out his life now. They talked for long hours that night. Angel told Buffy about the few years he spent in Sunnydale as a child, about the painful memories and insecurities he had carried with him for years. Buffy felt sincere remorse that she never realized that such childish cruelty had caused him so much pain. She convinced him that he was not responsible for the horrible crimes that the demon inside him had committed and that he could make amends. By morning, Angel determined that Buffy not waste her life on him but Buffy was equally determined to stay. When he realized that she wasn't going to compromise, he capitulated and smiled a small smile for the first time.

Giles arrived later in the afternoon along with the news that Parker Abrams had been the murderer of Cordelia and Faith, along with several other young women. Spike had made the announcement at a press conference just minutes earlier. Apparently Parker didn't take rejection well, and felt the need to retaliate. When the police had searched his apartment, they had found things that apparently belonged to the women implicating him in their deaths. The police now theorized that a boyfriend or husband had exacted vigilante justice. Angel had very likely saved Buffy's life the night he had killed Parker, as it seemed she was his next planned victim.

Angel suppressed a sigh of relief that he had managed to save Buffy as well as at the sheer coincidence of such a cover story. While Buffy may or may not have been Parkers first intended victim, well, it was a moot point now. Besides, only person that could implicate Angel in anyway was now dust, so all he needed to do was to find a way to live with his conscience.

Wesley showed up shortly after Giles, already prepared to leave Sunnydale. He admitted that he had lived there for a while as a young man and that his own cowardice had nearly cost Giles his life. He had hid during a particularly brutal battle with the Master and several of his minions, leaving Giles and another white hat, Charles Gunn, to fight their way out against nearly impossible odds. Wesley could have gone for help, but he had been paralyzed with fear. When Giles and Gunn pulled him to safety, Wes had fled Sunnydale vowing never to return.

Epilogue

Angel moved to Sunnydale and published several more books, his vampire novels receiving critical success as 'horrifyingly real' and 'so authentic you could believe it could happen.' Undoubtedly his own exploits in helping to rid Sunnydale of their otherworldly scourge contributed to the graphic descriptions depicted in several of his novels. Wesley continued as his friend and editor, albeit remotely from Los Angeles.

Willow and Oz moved to Maryland where Willow was going to attend Johns Hopkins University. Willow couldn't stay in Sunnydale now that she knew about the existence of vampires, and she never really felt safe there again knowing that her neighbor had murdered her friends.

Giles and Jenny continued to lead the efforts of the white hats to keep the vampire population in control and to keep the hellmouth closed. With a man on the 'inside' so to speak, now that they had Angel helping their cause, their job had become easier than ever.

Buffy moved in with Angel shortly after Willow and Oz left, having no roommate to share the rent. They married in a small private ceremony just after Buffy completed her degree in child psychology.

In a strange and miraculous twist of fate, Angel had banked sperm some years earlier when he had brief but unwarranted cancer scare. They were hoping for a child in the spring…

Return to: Chapter 1 or read the other possible endings:
My Ending | Surprise Ending | Cliché Ending

^ TOP