Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. They all belong to the creator, Joss Whedon, and anyone else who owns rights to them. This is just for fun, no harm intended.
Rating: PG-13
Distribution: My website, and anyone else who wants it, take it, but please let me know where it's going.
Author's Notes: Angel's point of view during his and Buffy's first kiss in the episode "Angel." Cut me some slack, people, 'cause I haven't seen the episode in months, and I did this from memory and from an online transcript.
Also, I wanna say thanks to my new beta-reader, Judith. :-)

I stayed in her bedroom all day, just like she had asked. I don't know if it was the way she batted her beautiful hazel eyes shyly at me, or if it was the way her smile seemed to light the darkest corners of my existence that made me stay. But I stayed. Seriously, I don't know what I was hoping for. The way her heart sped up whenever she got near me let me know that she felt something for me.

Part of me relished the fact that I had some impact on her. It was theselfish part of me, granted, but a part nonetheless. I enjoyed the feeling of being wanted again after so long, of affecting someone's life in some way.

I wanted the feeling of being loved by someone and I wanted to be accepted. And I liked the feeling of loving someone unconditionally for the first time.

It's probably the reason I stayed for her. I could've just as easily fled into the night, while she slept, skipped the country, and never shown my face again. So I stayed. I wandered around her room, looking at pictures. I picked up some books she had gathering dust and leafed through them. I even hid in the closet when her mother came to clean up for her.

I considered our relationship- or lack thereof- and came to a conclusion. A conclusion, of course, that I had a hard time remembering when she came back that night.

I felt her presence way before I heard her footsteps. I always do. It makes me wonder if it's one of those vampire/Slayer things, or if it's just a connection we have. Either way, I would imagine she would've felt it too. I had no idea how I had hidden my true nature from her for such a long time.

The door to the bedroom opened and a small figure stepped inside. "Angel?"

I was glad the lights were off, or she would've seen the slight smile that lit my face when I heard her voice. "Hey," I answered coolly.

Buffy smiled and turned on the desk lamp. "Brought you some dinner," she told me. "It's a little plate-less, sorry."

I accepted the bag of food and glanced down at it. I didn't need it. It's not what I had craved for all day. But it's the thought that counts, right?

"So!" Buffy said. "What did you do all day?"

My eyes turned to look at her beautiful face. "Uh, I read a little," I answered offhandedly. "And just thought about a lot of things. Buffy, I."

Just as I was getting to start the carefully planned speech, I saw her eyes widen. She glared at me and then stalked toward her desk. "My diary? You read my diary?" She grabbed the little book and dropped it back into its place in the drawer.

Her outburst made me blink in surprise. I hadn't read her diary. I wouldn't even dream of violating her privacy that way. As I pondered the reason why she might have thought I read it, she started to justify the things she had written.

"That is *not* okay! A diary is like a person's most private place!" She walked back toward me. Anger burned in her eyes like fire in a fireplace. "I... You don't even know what I was writing about! 'Hunk' can mean a lot of things. Bad things. And, and when it says that your eyes are penetrating, I meant to write 'bulging'."

The corners of my mouth started lifting, but I fought the smile the wanted to take over my face. So she wrote things about me in her diary. Good things. "Buffy," I tried to interrupt before she said anymore.

"And 'A' doesn't even stand for 'Angel' for that matter," she continued, "it stands for... 'Achmed', a charming foreign exchange student, so that whole fantasy part has nothing to even do with you at all..."

Fantasy?

"Your mother moved your diary when she came in to straighten up," Iexplained. "I watched from the closet. I didn't read it, I swear."

There was a moment of silence, in which she simply stared at meincredulously. Finally, her mouth opened slightly. "Oh!" she exclaimed. I noticed her cheeks turned a bright shade of pink as she glanced down in realization of what she had just revealed to me. "Oh."

Deciding to spare her some of the embarrassment, I continued with what I had originally been trying to say. Except that now that I knew for sure what she felt, it was a lot harder to get through the carefully planned speech. I wanted so badly to let her know I felt the same way- hell, that I had been head over heels in love with her since the moment I saw her.

But I couldn't. Not now, not ever. Or so I thought, anyway.

"I did a lot of thinking," I managed to tell her in a composed voice that surprised me. "I really can't be around you, because when I am--"

She looked at me briefly with her wide, hazel eyes and shruggednonchalantly. "Hey, no big," she interrupted. "Water over the bridge, under the bridge." She frowned slightly, as if trying to get it right.

I couldn't let her distract me. I had to get this out now, or I never would. "When I am, all I can ever think about is how badly I wanna kiss you."

There.

I said it. I waited until I got a reaction from her and it was only a matter of moments before I finally did.

"Over the dam-- Kiss me?"

There they were again; the beautifully innocent eyes of the sixteen-year-old girl that she was. She was staring at me, shocked, silently inviting me to kiss her, tempting my battered heart into something that could never be. I was a vampire- even if she still didn't know it yet - and she was a Slayer.

What I had said had already been said and there was no way I could take it back, even if I had had the strength to do it. I wanted to dissuade her, somehow.

"I'm older than you, and this can't ever--" I explained weakly. "I have to go."

"H- how much older?" she asked me.

I swear it's those eyes. They wouldn't let me escape. I couldn't take my eyes off her. "I should--"

"Go," she muttered. We were now inches apart. Her lips her inches away from mine, and it was all I could do not to capture them with my own. "You said--"

That was it. She was too close and there was no way I could leave now. I finally gave into a temptation for the first time in decades, and leaned down to kiss her. Gently at first, then the kiss grew with such fervour that I couldn't get enough of her. My hands snaked around her waist and pulled her against me, just as her hands found my head and her fingers slipped into my hair. We separated only slightly just so that she could breathe a little, but our lips were back on each other's again.

That's when I felt my game face starting to slip. The passion of the kiss was so intense that I couldn't help but release my "inner demon", so to speak. The ridges formed in my forehead and the fangs grew. I had to pull away, so I wouldn't hurt her, and I covered my face so that she wouldn't see it.

My shame.

I was suddenly painfully reminded of why I had originally prepared a speech for her. I was reminded of why what I felt for her- and what she undeniably felt for me- could never be. So I ran.

I ignored her calling to me, asking what was wrong, and if I was okay. Instead, I turned to her, growled, and in one swift motion, jumped out her window. I chose to ignore the scream that followed me into the night, and the sense of betrayal that haunted me all the way home.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have had any hope for a relationship between us in the first place? Why had I let myself fall in love with her? Why had I kissed her?

Endless questions plagued my thoughts that night, causing me to sleep restlessly. The last image in my mind before I finally managed to sleep for an hour was that of her eyes.

Thoughts? Comments? Please let me know. :-)

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