Swan Song

disclaimer in part 1

Swan Song
By Diane
-----
THE DARKENING

"There's no place like..."

Angel stopped short, the word home stuck on the tip of his
tongue but unable to slip out of his mouth. Frozen.
Willow. Willow was sitting on his couch, her head in her
hands.

And Willow meant Buffy.

"Willow?"

Something was wrong with Buffy.

How long had Willow been waiting there?

"Hi, what's..." Cordelia began, but stopped when she saw
Willow's slumped figure.

Willow looked up, her sad eyes drooped, shoulders brought
down under the weight of the world, and Angel felt something
clenching deep in his chest. Strange that such a dead heart
could feel so unsettled. So affected.

He stared at Willow.

She stared back.

No words. None at all, and yet, he knew.

His tongue caught in his mouth and froze there like a thick
dead thing. He swallowed. "It's Buffy," he said.

Buffy was hurt. He knew it. Buffy was hurt and he hadn't
been there. He hadn't been there. "What's wrong with
Buffy?" he asked as Willow walked up to him, her footsteps
slow, echoing through the harsh acoustics of the room like
breaking dishes.

Angel could hear Cordelia breathing behind him, her
heartbeat fluttering about in her chest, distressed. The
others hadn't quite caught on yet, though Wesley was getting
there fast.

Willow placed her hands on his shoulders and stared into his
eyes. Depthless pain. The look of sorrow that pervaded her
green eyes scared him. No. No. Buffy was just hurt.
Buffy was _hurt_. But then, why did Willow come to speak
with him personally? No one from Sunnydale ever came to see
him...

Her lower lip quivered, and then he felt her warm hands
sliding down from his shoulders. She wrapped her arms
around him. A staggering grip. "What's wrong with Buffy?"
he asked again, his voice small this time, tired, afraid.

She began to sob in his arms.

He swallowed. "What's wrong... with..."

His knees felt weak, shaky. The others were gathering
around him now. "Please, tell me..." There were tears
filling his eyes, but he didn't let them fall.

Willow, if it were possible, seemed to be gripping him even
tighter. "Oh, Angel. She saved the world. Again," Willow
said, turning her cheek to rest on his chest.

Angel stared off in front of him, and what once was well-
defined furniture became a blurry void. "She..." The word
fell from his lips, unbidden, a weak whine as though
someone had punched it from his gut. No. No. Buffy was
fine. She would come walking through that door any moment
now and cry 'April Fools!'

Except it wasn't April.

And Buffy wouldn't have even come through that door for
something serious, let alone a joke.

"It was quick, Angel. She did it for Dawn."

Angel felt his legs give out as locked joints cracked and
collapsed, and he was on the floor cradled in Willow's arms.
And then Cordelia was wrapped around him too -- saran wrap
over his back. She was whispering condolences in his ears,
and he could feel the warmth of her tears as they fell onto
the back of his neck, the warmth of her body as she pressed
up against his quivering back. They were all in a heap on
the stairs.

"I'm sorry, Angel. I'm _so_ sorry," Cordelia was repeating
over and over again, as if it were actually supposed to make
him feel better.

He couldn't see.

Blurry.

A giant hitching breath wrenched through his torso. "No,"
he grunted fiercely. "No. Buffy's fine. She's fine," he
said. The room was rocking. Back and forth. Back and
forth.

Rocking.

No, he was rocking. Not the room. "Fine. Buffy's fine."
Back and forth. Back and forth.



She wasn't dead. She wasn't. The Oracles had promised him
that Buffy would live. He had traded his life for hers, and
they'd told him... They had _TOLD_ him...



"Angel." Wesley now. His voice quiet. Gunn and Fred were
still hanging back. They didn't know. They didn't know
that they were alive because of Buffy. Many, many times
over. They didn't know. "Angel, I'm sorry," he said.
Soft. Definite. I'm sorry. For all the help it did him,
Wesley would have been better off just not saying it.

Willow and Cordelia hugged him tighter, even as he felt his
insides shatter apart. All at once, he was cold, all over,
as if the reality of his two-hundred-forty-seven year
deadness had just now hit him. Between two warm, sobbing,
heaving bodies, he was terrified, and cold, and dead.

His muscles started to shiver about underneath his skin,
sending strange, tingling spasms all through his system.
But all it did was make him feel colder.

< You still my girl? >

Buffy was fine. Buffy was fine. Buffy was fine.

< Always... >

Fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine fine finefinefinefine.



"What happened?" Wesley was asking, somewhere above the
echoing roar. Silence. Roar of silence. Lips were moving,
voices carrying, and yet, it all seemed in slow motion. He
couldn't make out the words.

Tumbling off the cliff. Snap back.

Willow's hands loosened. He heard her sniffle and wipe her
eyes on her sleeve.

"Glory... vortex. portal. electricity. long fall. save
Dawn."

Buffy was fine.

Fine.

Something inside him clicked into place, momentarily.

Angel sucked in a breath. "Is Dawn okay?" he asked,
suddenly and strangely calm about the entire situation.
"Was anyone... hurt?"

He saw both Wesley and Willow double take. The red-head
took note of his expression, and sniffled again. "Dawn is
fine. Every one is fine. Anya got a concussion, but
nothing serious."

Nothing serious.

Angel nodded and stood. "Good. That's. Good."

"Angel?" Cordelia was asking. Her death grip on his neck
loosened, as he turned to face her, shaking off the last
vestiges of her embrace.

"I..." he replied, and everything that had briefly come
together fell right back apart again. Another deep breath.
"Excuse me."

He turned and fled up the stairs with all his preternatural
speed, away from the world, away from them, away from their
worried, pitying stares. As Gunn's strained, "What the
Hell?" fled up the stairs along with him, he couldn't help
but grimace. None of them cared about Buffy. Not a single
one. Not even Cordelia.

The door slammed shut behind him, and he fell back against
the cold wood, sliding down along with the white-painted
grain. For a long time, he just sat there, collapsed
awkwardly, his ankles turned outward, arms splayed out with
palms upwards like an offering. The blurry world before him
blurred more as his eyes lost all sense of focus.

His dark, cold apartment sprawled out before him, his bed
beckoning his tired body forward, and yet he couldn't move.
Frozen.

Cold.

< Don't you feel the cold? >

Perspective.

His refrigerator started humming off to his right. A low,
whining buzz, like a fly that wouldn't go away. The faucet
dripped. Small, hollow, tinny plinks as water droplets hit
the porcelain sink. Drip. Drip. Drip. Rodents and
whatnot scurried about behind the walls. Murmurs crept up
the stairs from where everyone was still talking. The small
battery clock beside his bed ticked with each movement of
the second hand.

< We're not friends. We never were... >

He didn't move.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

< What's happening, Buffy? >

Slowly, he reached down and pulled his legs up towards him
until his chin was resting on his shaking knees, his arms
gripped around his thighs and calves so tightly he was
probably leaving bruises.

< Shhh... It doesn't matter. >

Yes, it does. YES IT DOES!



He shook his head.



Shook his head again.

< Close your eyes. >

Like a geyser, everything just burbled up out of him.
Wrenching, desperate sobs. Silent, heaving, unnecessary
breaths as the world began to swim in front of him.

He clutched tighter. He felt as though his flesh was going
to fly apart at the seams. Gulping, choking sobs. He was
spasming so hard the door was rattling behind him, roughly,
with each jerk of his body.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He brought his head back against the door. Hard.

Stars sparkled about in front of him as he furiously blinked
them away, burning tears cascading down his cool cheeks.

Again, he brought his head back.

Again.

There was pain, but he didn't really notice it.

Again.

Manic, he wobbled drunkenly to his feet and stumbled over to
the wall -- threw his fist into it, over and over until he
felt the knuckles chip and heard unforgiving bones snap
apart under the skin. Blood. Cool, oozing blood flowed
between the creases in his knuckles and slathered his palms.

He wondered if any of it was still Buffy's blood.

A light tap at his door.

He brought his fist into the wall again, dust and plaster
sprinkling about in a shower of dry tears. "Angel?" Her
voice was muffled through the door, but he could hear it all
the same, even through his muddled perceptions.

"Go away," he choked, both his trembly, broken hands cradled
at his mid-section, his bloody, matted hair resting on the
jagged, cracked plaster.

The door opened anyway.

A lock of brown hair snuck into the room before a cautious
eye peered in.

"Oh, my God, Angel!" Cordelia cried as she flew at him
faster than he had thought humanly possible. "What did you
do!?" Tears were streaming down her face as Angel collapsed
into her and they both slid to the floor underneath his dead
weight.

He cried out in agony. Not physical. His teeth bit into
his lip, drew blood, clenched. He shook.

She didn't listen to him. Her hand was on his face,
stroking him. Stroking his hair. Caressing his cheek.
"Shhh," she soothed.

He clutched his hands around his stomach. Nausea. But
there was nothing to throw up. He hadn't eaten in days.
Not that he cared.

He sobbed, his grief coming forward in full force, each and
every cell bursting forth with it. An eruption of tears.
He didn't feel the pain in his hands or the back of his head
at all -- he didn't feel anything remotely related to him.

Her arms were tight around him. She didn't tell him not
to worry about it. That it wasn't his fault. In her
presence, there was only a soothing, rushing, "Shhh..."
Rushing air across his skin. Breath. Rushing. Rushing.
Cool.

Rocking. Like a baby being put to sleep. "Shhh...."

He curled into a fetal position. Exhausted. He was
exhausted. The crushing weight of his tired bones almost
made him crumble in upon himself. Into dust.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Buffy, Buffy, Buffy,
BuffyBuffyBuffy -- Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

"Buffy..."

Dust to dust.



Drip. Drip. Drip.

"Shhh...."

If he squinted hard enough, he saw her standing there with a
smile, her blond hair framing her in a beautiful halo of
gold.

"Shhh..." He could almost pretend it was Buffy, her warm
hands fleeting across his back in place of Cordelia's soft
and subtle platonic massage.

Buffy.

And gradually, gradually, he fell asleep with her name on
his lips.

*****

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He lay there with his eyes closed for a moment, curled away
from the world with only the sounds of the leaky faucet and
Cordelia's even breathing to connect him to what he was
trying to shut out. That, and the perpetual ache.

He would have thought it a nightmare, but he could feel the
bones in his hands furiously mending, and he could smell
the dried, caking blood on the back of his head and crusting
his palms. And, his nightmares had never been so real.
Terrifying in that distant, detached way, as dreams always
were, but never so close to him. He could smell the grief,
feel his own unyielding pain. Real pain. Not imagined.
Not the stuff of dreams.

The carpet was rough and cold, grating his skin, but he
didn't move. Perhaps if he stayed where he was long enough,
he would shrivel away. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
Perhaps the Powers would be kind enough to grant him that
little comfort.

He heaved a sigh, sucking it into his dead lungs as though
it would make him more alive. Give him that one brief hold
to gain his footing and claw his way back into contentment.

But it didn't.

The air felt like wind rushing through an old, dirty vent.
All it did was spread dust around and choke him.



Strong was crap. It didn't get you anywhere but dead.
Buffy had been strong. She had be so strong... His Buffy.
Not his Buffy. Because he had left.

< You still my girl? >

Riley's Buffy. Dawn's Buffy. Willow's Buffy. Giles's
Buffy.

Sunnydale's Buffy.

Not his anymore. Not his for a long, _long_ time.

< Always... >

But she still felt like his.

Cordelia groaned behind him and his back muscles stiffened.
He had forgotten he wasn't alone. And, despite the
friendship and family that Cordelia represented to him, and
the love he felt for her, he felt wrong. Wrong for sharing
his grief with her. To her, he was just brooding about
Buffy. His Buffy face, as she called it.

As if Buffy was just some old ex to be tossed out and
forgotten. Just deal, she would say. And she would think
she knew.

She just didn't understand.

< How's forever? Is forever good for you? >

"Angel?" The hand draped over his side started rubbing his
back again. "Are you feeling any better?" she whispered,
her voice barely penetrating the grieving silence, as though
she thought him a breakable china doll. An antique dish
that would shatter into pieces under the slightest stress.

Dust to dust.

No. No, I'm not feeling any better. Not at all.

"Go away, Cordelia," he groaned and curled himself up
tighter, not caring that he was still on the floor in a heap
beneath the bloody, cracked wall, bloody hands sprinkled
with plaster. Bloody. Bloody. Bloody.

"I care about her, too," Cordelia tried to protest.

Hardly the magnitude that Angel regarded Buffy.

In this, he was alone.

He bit back bitter tears. He was through crying. "Leave me
alone," he replied coldly.

Cordelia heaved a mighty sigh, and after a few moments of
contemplation, she was standing up over him. "I may not
have loved her like you do, which... would have been very
gross, but I did care about her. And I'll miss her. Not
like you, but I will." She took a few steps towards the
door and then turned her back. "When you're ready, I'm
here."

And then she was gone.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He stayed there for an eternity of drips.

Opening his eyes, he stared at the carpet creeping up
towards him like sponge moss, traced the grain of the floor
boards and the white trim. Smudged paint on the walls -- he
would have to get that fixed. That, and the leaky faucet.

There was murmuring downstairs again, but he did not expend
the effort to count heartbeats, not caring how many of them
were down there. He wondered if any of them would ever
leave him be in peace. Just leave him alone.

That blessing was too much to ask. They would stay because
they thought he needed comfort, but nothing they could offer
would help.

A terrible pang in his stomach forced him to remember that
he was hungry. He raised himself up on all fours, a
lumbering beast, and dragged himself over to the
refrigerator. Collapsed against the cool metal of the door,
he drank the blood straight from the bag, cold and
unsatisfying though it was. Substanceless.

As the empty packet slipped from his lifeless hands to the
floor, he still couldn't bring himself to move.

And so he stayed.

Another eternity of drips.

Someone knocked on the door.

Angel let his eyes roll towards it, a victim in shock, but
he said nothing. Perhaps they would go away and leave him
to meld with the shadows.

Meld with the shadows and melt away.

Dust to dust.

But, just as with Cordelia, his lack of response didn't stop
anyone. Wesley slipped into the room quietly, and Angel
could see his eyes tracing through the tenebrous grief,
trying to find him. His searching eyes slipped over him
once, but then they came back, squinted, and Wesley took a
step forward. The sound of Wesley's foot hitting the tiled
floor echoed interspersed with the hollow drips of the
faucet. "Angel?"

Angel said nothing.

Wesley, although not appearing any more confident then he
had been when he'd stepped through the door, approached and
sat down stiffly, right in front of him. Unblinking eyes.
Staring. His face was warm. Empathetic.

Another sigh -- Angel still said nothing.

"Her funeral is tomorrow night. Cordelia and I are driving
up in the morning with Willow. What shall I pack for you?"
he asked quietly, and although his crystal blue eyes were
dripping with ache, he said nothing else.

Angel squeezed his eyes shut. Took a deep breath. Another.
But nothing would center him. Nothing. All of his muscles
gave out until all that was holding him up was the
refrigerator. "I don't want to go."

Wesley sighed and nodded. "I lost a very dear friend to a
vampire once."

Angel stared at him. Not the response he had expected...

Wesley continued, "I didn't want to admit that he was gone."

Another heaving breath. A shake of his head, as though
Wesley were having an argument himself, which, from the look
on his face, he probably was. "I thought, that maybe if I
didn't think it, it wouldn't be real."

Angel felt his chest clench up. He sucked in his breath.

< No tears. >

"Maybe it would all be a dream."

Not a dream. A nightmare. A terrible, terrible nightmare.
And all he could think of was tiny, vulnerable Buffy,
cradled in his arms as she blamed herself for her mother's
death.

She had been alive, then. And she had still loved him. And
she didn't have Riley anymore.

If he had Shanshued then and there, there would have been no
hesitation. He would have gladly lived out those last few
months with her, if only to be with her for those last few
months. Instead, he had left, just as he always did. Left
her behind. Assuming that she would be there, like always,
when he got around to coming back.

If he had been there, would she have died?

"But it wasn't. It wasn't a dream, and my ignoring it made
it worse, because I couldn't let go. I couldn't let go..."

< I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never
forget... >

Wesley's voice continued on, roaring above the endless
stream of painful memories. "And it took me weeks before I
realized how much I'd wasted his death. I'd made it an
engine of my own self-pity. And that's not what he would
have wanted."

"Wesley," he said, his voice turning soft and full as he
impersonated his friend, "he would have said, go out and
have _FUN_. Don't stop living on my account..."

"Buffy wouldn't want that either, Angel. I know, that it's
hard. I know, that you want to grieve, and I won't begrudge
you of that. But at least accept that she's gone. Don't
prolong it."

And then Wesley was silent. He just sat there, staring at
Angel with a look that offered only comfort. Companionship.
No, "I'm sorry." No, "I know how you feel..." No, "You'll
feel better soon..."

A single tear escaped the gravity of his drooping eyes.
"Pack anything. I don't care..." he whispered, unable to
trust his straining vocal chords with anything more
voluminous.

Wesley nodded, and moved to stand.

"What was his name?" Angel asked, as Wesley's back retreated
into the yaw of darkness.

Wesley paused and sighed, heaved his shoulders back so they
stood straighter. Tall, proud. "He was this souled vampire
I knew, once. He got a little side-tracked." Wesley's head
didn't turn.

Angel's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open a little bit.

He choked a bit before he managed to acquire the air needed
to speak. "He came back, though, right?"

"Yes, he came back. But that wasn't the point of this
story."

Angel let his head fall back limply against the frig. "No,"
he whispered. "It probably wasn't."

continue