Is this what missing a person feels like? This ripping feeling in your gut, like you're being torn apart? I lived isolated from the world for so long that I learned how to be comfortably lonely. The loneliness becomes your best friend, your soulmate. You don't even have to think from day to day, because you're numb on the inside. God, I wish that was how I felt now. In my entire godforsaken life, no one ever told me that you feel physical pain when you leave someone you love more than yourself.

I can feel that particular connection we have, that link that we can't explain, and don't even try to. One more torture device from the PTB. As if they haven't done enough already. The connection...signal...whatever it is... flares up, like a tingle at the base of my skull. The pit of my belly warms without the aid of stolen blood, and I know she's near. As I finish the thought, the front door of the office opens. She walks up to me, her gait smooth and graceful. Her figure is the same; she still wears the same clothes, with her little jackets and pants and those tops, always made out of some gauzy material. Her hair is still the same radiant golden blond I remember, but it's longer now. The hollows of her cheek bones seem deeper though, and there's something in her eyes that didn't used to be there. It's a rude shock to realize that I put that something in those eyes. That it's heartbreak.

It was all worth it, though, right? She's moved on- I've seen them together. He seems like a good boy, not too extreme, very normal... very alive. And they laugh together. We didn't do that very often.

I open my mouth to greet her, and suddenly, words aren't enough. They don't adequately describe the emotional turmoil, or blinding love, or even the slight hatred I have of her right now. How dare she come to my home, to my place of work? What was between us is over now. If she knew what I do about us, about what we could have been, she would never torture me this way.

Her look is almost stony, and for the first time I realize that hatred and love intermingle on her face.

"I remember." The two words knock me back a step.

"You... you what?"

"Don't play the idiot, Angel. You know exactly what I'm talking about." Her voice is hard and bitter, and crystalline tears are forming in her wide green eyes. "You *knew*," she hissed, her face becoming pinched. "You knew what we could have had and you kept it from me. You made the decision without my input. You overturned my life! Again!" Her voice climbs in volume the more she speaks.

"Buffy... I was just trying to do the right thing-"

"The right thing? The right *thing*? I'll tell you what the right thing is, Angel. It's *not* giving up. It's standing by the woman you love. It's giving us a chance to prove to each other that we can make a relationship work." She stops for a second, and looks down at the ground. She starts sniff, and I quickly try to hand her a Kleenex box. She ignores it. As her face turns up to mine, her eyes bore into my soul. "Angel..." Her voice cracks. "We could've grown old together."

I don't have an answer for her. We stand there for what seems hours, just looking at each other, at what we've done to each other. Her face is an raw, open wound.

"Buffy, I lo-"

"Don't say it!" she yells, covering her ears. "Don't! I didn't move on with my life, find a nice, clean, wonderful guy that loves me, to-" her voice slides into a whisper, " to listen to you rip my heart to shreds." After a couple seconds, she cautiously takes her hands down and looks at me, hard. "You don't know me now, Angel. How could you *possibly* know that you feel the same way about me that you used to? When you left me the first time, I felt dead. Except for the pain. That was the reason I knew I was still alive."

"I'm sorry." It's the first complete phrase I'm able to say without getting interrupted, and I'm a little surprised I managed it. "I'm so sorry, Buffy. You know how much I... You know what our time together meant to me. What it still means to me. I've given you nothing but heartache and pain ever since I met you-"

"Oh, please." The harsh phrase makes me look up from the floor. Her face is still set in angry lines. "Spare me the self-flagellation. You gave me the best years of my life. You gave me a passion I've never found in anyone else, and God knows I damn well looked." She takes a deep breath. "I loved you more than anyone else in the world. More than my mother, or Giles, or any of the guys. You were it." She takes another deep breath. "And you blew it."

The bottom drops out from underneath me. I want to be deaf, so I can't hear what she says next.

"You took all of it, Angel. I can't love you anymore. I thought I could, but I remembered what happened between us. What you took away from us. Our future, Angel. I may be a selfish bitch, but I wanted something for myself." Her fingers quickly wipe away the blood-tinged tears that are, by now, pouring down my face. Her skin is warm against my cheek and I have to keep myself from leaning into her touch. The hand leaves, and the tear tracks are suddenly icy.

"There's a thin line between love and hate, Angel. Guess which side you fall on."

Her knuckles are white as she clutches her purse. I want to hug her, to comfort her, to tell the lies that say everything will be alright. Maybe I should stop lying to myself. It's me who needs the comforting. Somehow, in the space of a 22 year life span, she has gained more strength of character than I have in over two centuries.

There is no appropriate response. I have nothing left to say, and neither does she. Our pain, our passion, our all-consuming... my all-consuming love are what really tell the story. And those things do not need words.

The End

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