RATING: G
CONTENT: large quantities of angst :)
SPOILER WARNINGS: Buffy, season 5, 'The Gift', Angel season 2, 'There's No Place Like Plrtz Grb.'
DISCLAIMER: Joss didn't give us much Angel-grief post Gift, so, naturally, I borrowed his characters from his stories to make my own. I make my own fun *g* The opening quote is from a poem by Robert Browning, called 'Two In A Champagna.' and I think it speaks of so many things in life, including B/A.
SUMMARY: Nightmares of Buffy's death haunt Angel.

Infinite
By Ezra
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"Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn."

I caught her as she went over the edge - the best timing ever. I reached for her at the last possible moment, fingers straining, muscles hurting, voice screaming her name.

"Buffy!"

A sound of such desperation; every feeling I'd ever had for this girl, every moment between us had surged into that final plea. A recognition of her and everything she meant. A naming of love.

I've never felt such sweet relief when my aching fingertips whispered across Buffy's ankle and found solid purchase, a hold. I knew my strength was enough to pull her back to me, to save her, as she'd always saved me in the past - one way or another.

But she screamed as I gathered her up, sitting on the edge of that hideous platform. She screamed and struggled and fought me, and it was only then that I realised that she had wanted to go. She had wanted to dive headlong into oblivion, to death.

"The blood!" she had sobbed, looking at me with wild eyes. "It needs my blood, let me go!"

I stared at her in horror for what seemed like too long an eternity.

"I can't" I finally managed to whisper through numb lips - lips that had once been softened by hers. "I can't let you go."

She seemed so sad, knowing the words that slipped from my cold mouth.

"You must. I have to." she was almost pleading with me, and I blinked, taking in my hands that were holding onto her shoulders as though they were life itself. They suddenly seemed apart from me, somehow.

In the back of my whirling mind I heard Dawn crying. I'm still not sure whether it was with relief that I had caught Buffy, or sorrow from knowing how this would end... that I had only delayed loss.

Buffy rarely changed her mind once it was decided, after all.

"I love you" I said, my eyes locking desperately onto hers as though the words weren't enough - they never were, it seems. It wasn't a goodbye, but an appeal, a prayer, a last ditch attempt to keep my loved one with me.

She reached out a small, shaking hand to touch my face - the movement so tender it sent chills through my body.

"I love you too" she responded, telling me with her eyes, her voice that it was okay. She leaned forward suddenly, and pressed her lips to mine one last time, and I was -for a moment -lost in the magic that had always been between us. The world that she could no longer bear fell away in those few seconds, and it was just us, just love and trust and togetherness.

And then she dove, almost before I had time to react, but I reached for her anyway. I nearly caught her as she went over the edge.

She died just as the warmth from her lips faded from my face, forever.



Epilogue

I torture myself with images of lost love. Sometimes it's up on that tower, sometimes its nowhere - just a void of death. I see her die, though I'm never sure if that's what really happened. I wish I knew - I've seen the tower, went to it, and felt the stench of sorrow and power that lingers there. But I don't feel her.

Was she scared? Did she think of me before she dove into that portal? Did she forgive me for not being there, to tell her I love her... to save her? I'll never know, and it's killing me. Instead, my mind conjurs up a world that never existed - a goodbye that never happened, a final pledge of love for always.

In some of the nightmares I stand with her on the tower, and cast myself after her into the shining abyss. In many I've pushed Dawn over, in others I simply scream as my Mate leaves me forever. The ones where she speaks to me are the worst - from those I wake in more agony than I had thought possible. And despite what my imagined love sometimes tells me, it's not okay.

It will never be okay.

end

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