disclaimer in part 1

Swan Song
By Diane
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THE BRIGHTENING

She stared blankly ahead, trying to summon the strength to
at least blink.

I killed him. I killed him.
IkilledhimIkilledhimIkilledhim... The thoughts were
streaming through her head, faster than her mind could even
keep track of. All of them. Blaming her. Her fault.

She had killed Angel.

Again.

"Buffy, please, say something. Anything..." Dawn was
sobbing. Sobbing. Why was she sobbing? What did she have
to be sad about? She hadn't killed anyone.

Buffy should have been crying, but she was out of tears.
She felt like Angel had looked, before he'd... Before
he'd... She couldn't even bring herself to finish the
thought. All she could remember, was his hopeless stare,
blank and cold and absent as she tried to assure him that
whatever gift she had been trying to give was coming soon,
and it would make it all better. Why had she thought that?
She should have known that all it was was a ruse. A trick
to make her give the gift. Bastards...

"I'm sure he's on his way here right now, Buffy," Xander
tried to assure her, but failed dismally. His brown eyes
were creased with worry, his hands folded against him like
tied wings. Afraid to fly.

Brown tufts of hair fell over his forehead, unruly, his face
unshaven. As soon as they had declared Anya fit to be
discharged, he had been staying with Buffy in her room.
Staying, with Dawn.

Giles had gone home briefly to shower. Something had been
off with him. Very off.

Xander's eyes pleaded with her to understand. To let a
little hope still shimmer...

"Then why haven't they called?" she asked blankly.

Xander opened his mouth to respond, but a feminine voice
ejected into the air instead of a masculine one. "We wanted
to come straight here," Willow's voice floated in from the
doorway. She was smiling. "Angel got stopped by a police
officer. He was in front us until we passed him at the last
stoplight..."

Xander's face broke into a wide, happy smile as he leapt up
and did a strange little dance. Kind of like the snoopy
dance, except... not. "See? See, Buffy? I TOLD you he was
fine. You gotta have faith, that's what I always say." He
paused, cocked his head to the side, and with lop-sided
grin, he asked, "Can I start insulting him again now?"

Buffy didn't have a chance to respond. She was there,
frozen, staring at Willow's smiling face with disbelief.
This was a dream. This had to be a dream. Any moment now
she would wake up and Angel would be dead again.

Dawn's head shot up and her thin lips turned upwards as
tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks. "He's here?
He's not dead? He's not dead?!" She bounced a little in
her chair. Her excitement and happiness at the news was
bubbling off her skin.

"Wait," Xander interrupted, as if he were just now catching
up with all that had been said. "Did you say he got pulled
over? Dead-boy got pulled over? Oh man, I would have paid
a billion dollars to have seen that." He started to
chortle, and laugh, and soon, he was in hysterics as he
pictured some little scenario in his head that just made him
chuckle harder.

"He broke pretty much every traffic law that's ever been
written trying to get here. The poor motorcycle could
barely keep up with his weaving lane changes..."

"DEADBOY ON A MOTORCYCLE? Man, this just keeps getting
better and--"

"Shut up, Xander," Buffy snapped. He immediately stilled as
she closed her eyes and raised her head towards the ceiling.
Searching...

There it was. That glowing, bright center in her being,
that every time she touched, it made her feel warm and whole
and happy. Soft tendrils of it reached outwards to her,
curling up around her like vines clinging to a trestle.
Angel. Angel was alive. "But I felt him die... He was
gone... He was _gone_," she whispered, almost unable to
believe what she herself could feel.

Willow just nodded. "Yeah, he was kinda in another
dimension for a while. That's why he wasn't picking up his
phone -- I don't think cell-phones have good wandering fees
for that... I wonder if they even have alternate dimension
satellites for relaying--"

"Willow," Buffy calmly brought her friend back out of her
babble mode.

Willow smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I'm just kind of
excited. I just love surprises. Angel was. Oops."

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "Angel was oops?"

Willow started to back away, a bright red blush spreading
across her features like a brushfire. But Buffy didn't have
a chance to drill her.

A pale hand gripped the door frame, and for a moment, that's
all there was. Then, a hulking figure dragged itself into
the doorway, framed in the fluorescent hospital light like a
true angel. He stood there, bent over, looking like he was
going to faint as he panted.

"Buffy..." Pant. "You're..." Pant. "Alive..." Pant.

And then he started to collapse on to his knees.

"This..." Pant. "Isn't..." Pant. "My best..." Pant.
"Entrance..." Pant. "Is it?" Pant. "Oooooh..."

Willow helped him up, but he still looked rather unsteady as
he half-walked, half-crawled over to the side of her bed.
Buffy, Xander, and Dawn, all just sat there, gaping, unable
to form a coherent response. Xander's mouth was opening,
and closing, like a fish out of water, and Dawn was just
staring, eyes wide.

Staring.

"Angel..." Buffy whispered.

Willow ushered the others out of the room with a knowing
grin.

As soon as the door shut and silence was upon him, he
practically fell on top of her. Her arms snaked around his
heaving torso, hugging him to her tightly, desperately, as
she stared over the length of his back. He was warm.
Radiating heat like he had a furnace hidden under his
battered, frayed, black shirt. She fingered the tears in
the fabric, traced the lines of his griffin tattoo over his
well muscled shoulder.

He was there.

In her arms.

And...

Her fingers ruffled through his brown hair, and he lifted
his head to peer at her. She touched his face, traced every
smooth plane. It was Angel. And yet, it was so new. So
warm... "You're human," she whispered, awed.

He nodded, and all at once she felt like a six year old
again. Waaaay back.

< How do planes work, daddy? >

< It's magic... >

< Cooool... >

"How?" the single word tumbled from her tongue as she tried
to reconcile that Angel was alive, and breathing, and
_there_ with the fact that not even twenty minutes ago, he
was dead, and she was alone. Alone, and cold, and wondering
if the pain would ever stop...

He cocked his head to the side, his eyes widening a bit as
if to say, 'What, you didn't _know_?' His chocolate eyes
pierced her. "Your gift, Buffy. _You_ did it." He sat
upright now, taking her hand in his and rubbing it absently
with his lithe fingers.

Her entire body shuddered. "I didn't give you this, Angel.
I'm the one that killed you... I--"

He captured her lips in a kiss, not letting her finish.
"No," he began, "You gave me death. You didn't kill me."

Her brow furrowed in confusion. In her books, those were
often considered the same exact thing, but... Well, Angel
_was_ always cryptic. "But... I don't understand." She
lifted her eyes and stared at him, not able to stop herself
from putting her hands on the smooth planes of his cheeks.
To assure herself that he really was there.

He was.

"My Shanshu Buffy. It's been prophesized that I would
Shanshu. Die to live. Live to die. Become human..."

"When did you--"

"I found out last year," he interrupted, blushing.
Blushing. It was so amazing to see. Angel with a pinkish
hue in his alabaster cheeks. And, he seemed so much paler
now, now that she knew that he could actually get a tan and
live to tell the tale.

She sighed as he continued. "I'm sorry... I... Well, it
never seemed like a conversation starter..."

Blinking, she looked at him. He actually thought that she
cared about that? How could she possibly care when he had
come back from the dead for the second time in a row. How
could she possibly care when he was sitting in front of her,
breathing, sighing, blinking, heart beating, just like she
had always dreamed about.

No curse...

NO CURSE.

The thought smacked into her like a bird flying right into a
window. Thunk. She blinked again, staring at him. He was
there, and he was there, and he was there... Her tiny
breaths started coming in little pants before she managed to
circumvent complete hyperventilation.

She looked down at the hand that he was still caressing with
his thumb. His touch. And he was there. There. Warm
touch. Blood flowing through veins. Warm.

She raised her hand to his jugular, laid it over his warm,
smooth skin, and just let it rest over the jumping artery.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. She closed her eyes. Dying with
that feeling at her fingertips would be a satisfying way to
go.

He made no attempt to move her hand -- he just smiled. "I
remember, Buffy. I remember everything..."

She felt the deeper meaning in his words. The sadness that
hung there, despite how very happy he appeared on the
surface. "That was all real? Really real?" she asked, her
voice flying upwards in pitch and disbelief.

If it was real, then Angel had really...

He nodded. "Really real. I was... Pretty bad off."

"Pretty bad off? _Pretty_ bad off? YOU KILLED YOURSELF,"
she exclaimed, suddenly distressed.

"Yes." He didn't deny her heated words, didn't try to
comfort her, just nodded and bowed his head before her with
a weary gaze, prepared for any blow she might deem necessary
to throw at him.

But she said nothing. For that moment, Angel was each and
every single one of his years. Old, and tired. Every
muscle, every bone, every cell was curled with weariness.
Her vision blurred as she took him in her arms and crushed
him to her. "Don't ever do that again..." she whispered,
pained, into his ear. "Even if it's a dream..."

He was trembling. "Buffy, it's not that simple," he
replied, but made no attempt to move from her comforting
embrace.

She felt a small pang of anger developing deep within her
chest, angry that he would ever want to give up life. And
then she remembered how it felt as she had taken a swan dive
into what she had thought would be her death.

Peaceful.

Relief.

Had it been like that for him? Or had it been worse?

"Why isn't it simple, Angel?" she challenged.

The trembling stopped, and with one blink, she was staring
back into those deep, endless pools of chocolate soul.
Angel... "Because I love you, Buffy. It's not something I
can just turn on and off at will..."

Silence.

She blinked at him, felt a weight lifting from her chest,
and leaned in to embrace him tighter. Tighter. Clinging to
a life raft. "God, Angel, don't ever go away again. Please
don't ever go away..." she murmurred into his heaving
shoulders. She realized that he was crying, too. Crying
into her hair, absorbing her scent...

There were so many words to say, so many things... And none
of them came.

Only a waterfall of tears, cascading from them both.

Silence.

"Buffy? Angel?" Willow's soft voice floated through the
door, and they reluctantly disentwined.

"Yeah?" Angel called, his voice strangled, but he looked...
Better. Better than in the dream. Better than she had ever
since him, even better than he had been with her before the
curse had been discovered.

Buffy sighed.

Willow's red head poked through the door, but her eyes were
squeezed shut. "Cordelia collapsed in the waiting room.
Something about red portals and demons..." Willow said, her
voice worried, but her eyes still held very tightly shut, so
much that her face was wrinkled and red.

Buffy froze.

"The Mohras..." Angel whispered, dread creeping into his
tone as he stood. "They're still coming..."

"Willow," Buffy commanded as she met Angel's scared, falling
into Slayer mode without a second thought, "You need to call
Giles. Now."

It seemed that their respite was over.

continue