DISCLAIMER- I do not own, no, honest!
THEME- Angst, Buffy's POV
TIMEZONE- Alternate Season 4- based on alternate 'Angel', (S1)
SPOILERS- None for Season 5, various S1-4, alternate universe references
TITLE- Originally titled 'Rain', but this felt more angsty
FEEDBACK- I'm begging! water_stream@yahoo.co.uk
NOTE- This is a short fic I wrote in October, but have finally tweaked it. The song is on the BTVS album, 'Nothing But You' by Kim Ferron. It really does have meaningful lyrics linked with the fic, a perfect choice IMHO.
SUMMARY- Years later, Buffy thinks about the day she killed Angel, mistakenly believing he had bitten her mom.

"I think I'll go for a walk
Maybe out in the rain
Maybe let the tears fall down my face and not feel the pain"

Rain. I haven't seen rain for a while, this being Sunnydale it doesn't rain a lot. Which is why it's all the more special to me.

I have this irresistible urge just to run out into the campus lawn and get completely drenched- to wipe away my problems, to wipe away my responsibilities. To wipe away the past.

I won't, though. As much as I want to dance around in the rain, I don't want to leave my bed. I just want to sit here, sheet covers wrapped around me, looking out of the window into the thundering night. Willow is at Tara's room, so thankfully I've been left alone. It's not like I don't want her company, but she just can't understand why I'm always in this state, which would just frustrate her once again. She can't understand my depression.

Why am I so unhappy?

Why, when my life is finally settling down for the first time since I became the Slayer, am I so depressed? Maybe because my life is so organised, maybe because it's lacking something. Something that I'll only know when I find it. I wish she'd just accept who I am, I've been like this for years. Since…

"Maybe think about something

Maybe think about you
Yeah you can't hurt me now"

Since him. I'm never going to forgive myself for what I did to him. I was so damn impatient, stake now, ask questions later. But it *really* looked like he'd bitten my mom, it was so natural to jump to conclusions.

I walked into the kitchen after a study session with Willow, just to see him, full vamp face on, looking back at me in horror.

In horror, not glee or sadism or mockingly. I'd been wrestling with what to do about him since I discovered he was a vampire, but I'd let my love-type feelings get in the way. Seeing him, teeth near my mothers bloodied throat- it was something to hold onto, something solid which could solve my problem. A clear sign. Something I could trust. Resolved, I staked him before I could even draw breath. I looked him in the eye as I did it, mine were blazing with such pure hatred. I'll never forget the peace that flashed across his face as he turned into dust, his scent, his last word…

'Buffy…'

I watched him become ash, then rushed to my moms side without another thought.

The bastard had killed my mother for gods sake, what was I supposed to do? Throw him out of the window? He had entered MY home and MURDERED my Mom. There wasn't a seconds doubt as I staked him through the heart.

"You can't hold me down"

Of course, I was wrong. She wasn't dead, and Angel…didn't bite her.

Xander was congratulating me on a good kill when we walked into my moms hospital room. And she told me what had happened. My friend came round to see me, Mom was going to make a snack, and then she fainted. Confirmation of what I already knew- my so called friend.

Then she congratulated me on having so much tutorage, and suggested that someone should check on Darla, "poor thing" must have been frightened by her ordeal and ran away.

'Darla?'

'Yes, your friend who came round tonight'

Despair. A suffocating pit of despair. Giles started asking Mom something, but my hearing became blocked, voices turned muffled as I tried to process what had happened. I'd killed him. Angel. I'd killed the one person I'd opened up to for something he didn't do.

"And I've got plenty of time
Time to figure it out"

I turned nauseous, my stomach swelled in physical pain. I felt myself running down the hospital corridors, bashing open the doors to the toilets and throwing up. Willow came in and tried to comfort me, but I knocked her away, unintentionally harder than I meant to, and she fell back into the wall in a smash. I was still relatively new to the Slaying lark, and kept forgetting my own god damn strength.

I felt my guilt and fear well up inside me, and I was sick once more. And again. And again.

Then I sat on the floor next to the toilet and cried.

"Time to think about you and me
Whatever that was all about"

The following days after I killed him were… a trance. Everywhere I looked, I saw him- in the mirror, in my mind, in my room. I realise that we were barely even friends, let alone lovers, but it was like I'd done more than made a mistake- I'd done something horrific. A good vampire who'd saved my life, and I'd repaid him by sending him to eternal death. Not giving him a chance to explain, or to let things sink in… I deserved the guilt. I'd never killed an innocent before.

I vented. I began to gain an obsession- I hunted out Darla, I was a woman with a mission. I found the entrance to the Masters lair and rashly entered it, with only a small bag full of anti-vampire devices in my hands. They hadn't expected me, so I had the advantage. I took them out one by one, the best workout I ever had. Darla attacked me with the same intenseness that Luke did, but I backhanded her and knocked her out in one go. She may have been as old as Columbus, but I had the deadly mixture of Slayer Power, adrenaline and vengeance in *my* blood. I was unstoppable.

And fighting the Master, the seriously ugly bloke who I had been scared of for so many months… but now he was just an old vamp trapped in a few metres of space. That vulnerability had gone, I'd been initiated into the dark, unforgiving world of evil fighting, and had realised that cosmetic worries were not important anymore. Killing the undead was much higher up on my list of priorities. I like to think of fighting vampires as my atonement, fulfilling Angels last wish. After all, he had once told me he wanted to 'kill them all', and by taking my job seriously I feel that I'm respecting that.

I ignored the Master's hypnosis crap and drove my stake into his body like it was cracker-bread.

Seeing their age-old Leader scream and die, the other vampires ran like ferrets. I didn't care, I'd only come there for Darla, killing the Master was just a way of getting the inevitable over and done with. I'd never felt so strong that night, and doubted I would again- but since then I have found that power and doubled it, against the unstoppable force of Drusilla and Spike, which ironically turned stoppable, the evillness of the Mayor and Faith, even fighting Ophelia.

But this time was the first time that I felt pure Slayer. I turned to my enemy, Darla, and noticed she'd regained consciousness. She wasn't too freaked by my show of strength, in point of fact, she looked content.

'You kill me, and I'll be with him forever' she said meaningfully.

'That so? I thought that people with souls weren't your type'

'They obviously weren't yours, either' she carelessly retorted.

I walked up to her and menacingly stood tall over that pitiful body she inhabited.

'So if you want a painless death, you tell me his history. Tell me why he wasn't a monster like you.' I said in a controlled voice.

'I like pain' she murmured, but I think she realised that I meant brutal, unpleasant pain because fear crossed her brow, and she quietly told his story.

Not like I automatically believed it, but I had to know. And she did tell me, as Giles' subsequent research backed up, everything. Angelus, the gypsies, the curse. When she finished, she closed her eyes and waited for me to stake her.

But death would have been too good for Darla.

'Take me to him' she said, imitating staking herself with her hand.

I leaned in close, smiled and whispered in her ear.

'Not possible, sweetheart. You're not going to heaven'

I reached in my bag, took out my bottle of holy water and poured it all over her body in slow, flowing movements. She screamed, naturally, but I was beyond caring. I watched her fizz and disintegrate, until there was nothing left.

And then I walked away.

"I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to say"

Weird, huh? That four years later, I'm still thinking of a guy I barely even knew. Like I said earlier, it's not just guilt, it's something more. Like we were destined for something deeper, but I threw it all away when I lifted that stake. I gradually started to socialise again, but his ghost has never really left me, and I don't think he ever will. I stuffed up.

I was at my lowest ever when I discovered the truth, and since that day I haven't really been able to claw myself back up. I work, I slay, I have friends that have supported me and had a few flings with college boys, but this bland existence is driving me crazy. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't killed him, if we'd be together and have a future, or if things would be worse than now. I'm just grasping at straws, trying to explain this hole in my life with an improbable possibility. Could I have honestly had a relationship with Angel? I'll never know, I guess that's why I can still dream. About his tender kiss, his warm touch, his velvet hair, his beautiful skin, his glowing eyes- his fragile soul.

I'm sure that he must hate me, but my torment is his revenge. Dare I say that I… loved him? No, I don't deserve that emotion. Besides, it was more of a teenage crush at the time. Love is deeper than one stolen kiss and shared glances. But would he? Could he? Would he have been the one? My heart screams yes, and since ignoring it that day, I've learned to trust my instincts rather than the facts. But my heart is wasting its voice. It's over. Dead. Long dead.

I don't talk to my friends about him, they've probably forgotten his name by now. I doubt they associate this depression with his murder. I don't know why I feel so bad all these years on, I mean, we'd never even dated, but I feel like my soul mate had died or something. Like I killed my soul mate. Is that possible? I'm so confused.

Maybe Angel was, though. There was so much sparkage between us, such a strong connection. I've never felt anything remotely similar since, not even with Xander, who I dated for the best part of a year and whom is still a close friend.

I know that I should let go, I'm holding on to a memory, I'm holding on to nothing.

"No I guess I never thought you were good for me anyway"

The rain is stopping, I can hear the pattering become irregular. I kind of wish I did go outside now, but it's too late, my opportunity has gone.

I'll cry myself to sleep instead, it'll feel exactly the same, anyway.

And these water drops will have meaning.

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