Feedback: Don't make me beg, it isn't pretty.
Disclaimer: Yeah..I'm a cruel man who likes to torture innocent B/A shippers..
Summary: Angel thinks about Buffy. I guess between S1 and S2 ATS

I don't like to think of Sunnydale too often, even though my best and most treasured memories are there. Because with the good, invariably comes the bad. And believe me when I say there is a lot of bad.

But now that I've started, I might as well keep going. I don't like to do things halfway.

I think back to that fateful day, when the snow fell. She was right, you know, about everything. Making amends.fighting together. Too bad the last one didn't work out like we thought it would. And I only wish she still remembered those words as clearly as I do. Maybe then she would better understand who I've become and who I've always been. That day, I was just the aimless vampire who loved the slayer. That part hasn't changed, only now, I have my own mission, my own goals. Maybe she doesn't realize just how much of her is involved in all that I do now.

I have to wonder if she would have taken the whole Faith situation better if she remembered that day as well as I do. But it seems that she remembers the bad more than the good. Who am I to blame her for that?

Whatever lies the First may have told me that day, I know one thing was absolutely true.

I was born to hurt her.

How else do you explain how often I've hurt the one I love the most, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it? And it didn't just start with Angelus, though that was when things started to go really wrong.

No, it started when she found out what I was.was probably disgusted by what I was. I know she accepted that part of me eventually, embraced it even. But at first, it must have been a terrible, mocking blow for her and her friends to accept. That the slayer could love a vampire is surely a travesty of some sort.

I couldn't keep her from her death at the Master's hands. No matter that I wanted to trade my life in for hers. My immortality hurt her more than her own mortality did. 'What do you know about this? You're never gonna die?' Those words haunt me to this day, though at least I now have hope that someday, I will. I wonder if she'll ever know, or care?

Angelus. Just thinking back to all I did when I was him makes me shudder. And really, that one word is enough to sum it all up. As much as she accepted me back after my return from hell, I know she never could forget all that I did. But I know she did forgive me, and that made me love her even more. Look what that love brought her?

Hell. As I told Kate, been there, done that. And at Buffy's hand, of all things. But I don't blame her for it, I never did. Rather, I admire her for having the courage to do what was necessary, what was a result of my own actions. Still she blamed herself. Yet another thing to add to my list.

Topping off that list is the fact that I nearly killed her, nearly drained her to the point of death. Of all my crimes against her, I know that was the worst. I had my soul, yet still I drank from her, fed from her.

Seems no matter what I do, I'm hurting her. If I had stayed with her, not only would I have been a danger to her, but also would have kept her from really experiencing life. Yet by leaving, I broke her heart. Because for all that I sometimes question what she feels for me now, I know that underneath all the pain and all the bitterness, the love is still there.

Or is that the foolish side of me talking?

And I can't just blame the part of me that is a vampire for all this. I hurt her just as much when I was human. First by my inability to take care of both her, and myself then by taking away our cherished dream without even discussing it with her. I know now that it was the best thing I could do for her, just as I knew it then. But I should have respected her enough to explain it more clearly. If she ever found out about that day, I wonder if she would hate me or love me for it? Probably both.

It isn't that I consider her an innocent in all this. She did her share of hurting me right back, some intentional, some not. And she can't say I didn't warn her.

From the sounds of it, this is one relationship that I should regret, right? And if it prevented the hurt I caused her and those she cares about, I would go back and do it all differently.wouldn't let her get too close to me. But if only for my sake, I would rather keep all the memories, the good with the bad. Because as bad as it could be, looking back, those times make the good all the more beautiful.

The First may have been right.I was born to hurt her. But I also know that I was born to love her.

And maybe, just maybe, that will one day prove stronger than any hurt I ever caused her

Send feedback to Carrie

Back to the Fanfiction Archive