Stage V: Acceptance

"This is when the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off. The person simply accepts the reality of the loss, and begins to move on. Although the survivors will probably never forget the one who is gone, the realization sets in that they have to say farewell, and return to the living." -  Arnot Ogden Medical Center's Guide to Dealing With Grief

Translation note: Angel whispers (roughly): "I love you, breath of my soul. Always." (The 'always' translates literally to "it will always be like this".)

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And so life went on... such as it was. I finally allowed myself to go on with it. The days that followed were difficult. There were still so many times when I had to stop what I was doing, and let a pang of pain pass. Or when I would suddenly smile or cry for no reason, overwhelmed by some memory or another of Buffy that stole upon me.

But I let them happen. I indulged those moments. The fact was, my heart was broken, and only time and patience with myself would allow it to heal. So long as I wasn't distracted in battle, or absent when my friends or a client needed my attention, there was no real harm in allowing myself to mourn. After all, as much as I might have genuinely believed to the contrary, grieving for my love wouldn't kill me.

Two months had passed since she died. Eight of the most difficult, arduous weeks in my entire existence. Then one night, I heard myself laughing at one of Gunn's tasteless jokes. The foreign sound of it took me--and everyone else--by surprise. In that second, I realized -- it was the first time I had laughed since I saw Willow sitting on the couch in the Hyperion's lobby on that warm May night when the bottom fell out of my universe.

I was finally moving on.

I excused myself from the meeting. No one asked where I was going, or if I was okay. Maybe they already knew. Maybe they understood what my laughter meant even better than I did, because I swear I caught them exchanging relieved smiles as I grabbed my coat and ran out the door.

It was time.

***

The drive to Sunnydale seemed to take only moments, those miles between LA and the Hellmouth quickly devoured by my focus on all the many things I wanted to say.

The walk to her grave felt different this time, too. Those memories felt less like a haunting, and more like a bittersweet blessing, urging me on.

The site was perfectly kept... not a single wilted flower or weed anywhere. Someone was watching over her. Maybe Dawn or Willow... Giles or Xander... maybe even Spike. More likely, all of them. Whoever it was, it gave me some small measure of relief to know that someone who loved her as much as I did was spending a lot of time there. She wasn't alone.

I set the bouquet of jasmine I'd picked from my garden amongst the others -- roses and lilies, daises and other wildflowers -- not a petal of which looked more than a day old, and I took a long, quiet moment to really look at the headstone for the first time.

"She saved the world. A lot."

There was so much that those words couldn't tell someone who never knew her. So much about true heart... courage and sacrifice... about a beautiful, giving soul who loved life. But then, how could this slab of marble possibly portray anything about the complex woman it memorialized?

We were the true testament of who Buffy was: myself, her sister, her friends... all the people who she touched and changed forever by her brief presence in this world. Everything around us owed its continued existence to her a dozen times over... every tree, every bird, every small night sound in the air around me. Those were the things that told her story.

I finally sat down on the soft grass. A few feet under me lay her body. Soft skin, golden hair, strong, lithe muscles... all now breaking down into the fundamental magick stuff that made up the universe. If I concentrated, I could feel that physical presence, the disturbance in the soil where she lay. It was usually such a loathsome skill, to be able to feel the dead... but right then, it made me feel better. It told me that she was here... somewhere... everywhere, and that she could feel and hear me, too.

"There's so much I never got to tell you, Buffy. So many things I wanted to share with you... to show you. I thought I'd come and maybe... I don't know."

I looked up at the crystal clear night sky... how it sparkled with a billion stars... and I imagined her smiling down on me from her place among them.

"I guess the point's kind of moot, now. Wherever you are, you probably already know all the answers to everything. But... I still need to say it."

I stared at her headstone again and pondered where to begin. 'How about the beginning?' I could almost hear her whisper.

"For a hundred years I wandered... lost... empty. No... not empty. I was full. Full of pain and regret and guilt... there was nothing but cold and darkness inside of me, as much as outside. But the first time I saw your smile... everything changed, just like that. It was like... the Powers gave me back the sun."

"You were so young... so innocent, and still... you taught me more about life... about living... than anything else in my entire existence. You taught me about courage... about laughter... love. You taught me what it meant to really be *strong*. To be *alive*."

I had to stop for a moment before I went on. These were things I had so long buried in the deepest recesses of my heart, and I found as they resurfaced, that they carried with them even heavier, sharper emotions that I had long forgotten. Here I was, laying my heart out on the grave of the only woman I had ever loved... and the simple fact was... it hurt. More deeply than an eon in Hell... more completely than walking away from her...more acutely than her tears when I told her that the Oracles were taking away our single, perfect day together...

God, did it hurt. But I plunged on.

"You know that I would give anything to bring you back. Even just for a moment. Just... to thank you for everything you gave me. And... for honoring me with your love. You changed my life, Buffy. You helped me want to be someone. I don't think that... even if we got to have a lifetime together, that I could ever find enough ways to show you what you truly mean to me... how much a part of me you are. Every step I take in this world... every soul I help... every battle I fight, every single act of goodness I perform... it's all because of you."

She was my Reason. She was the meaning that made every arduous step of my journey worth taking. And now... now I would have to do it all in her memory.

"I let you think, once, that I didn't want to be with you. I hope you know that wasn't true. That was never true. I would trade everything I have to be with you right now. And forever. But... I know that where you are, you're finally at peace. And I guess... that's enough. You deserve that rest. I love you, Buffy. I'll always love you, with all of my heart. And I'll never forget a single moment we shared. If I live until the end of time, I'll never, ever forget you."

I reached into my pocket and drew out my final gift for her... the twin of the ring that I gave her all those years ago, before our dreams dissolved into nightmares, and the future crumbled out from beneath us.

I traced the worn lines of heart, crown and hands... love... loyalty... friendship. In the end, we had them all. She would always have my heart. I would always be loyal to her memory. And I would always, always consider her my friend.

"Is duine a ghra thusa, anail le mo anam. Beidh se amhlaidh go deo," I whispered, setting the ring into the grass at the base of her headstone, and with one final glance, rose and walked away.

Again... without saying goodbye. I had never been able to really say it to her when she was alive, and I certainly couldn't now.

Because I knew, deep in the very center of my being, that Doyle was right. Somehow... someday...we would be together again.

***

I slept long and hard that sunrise, and Buffy came to me in my dreams.

It was nothing new to have her there. There had been many times when her presence in my sleep was the only thing that helped me hold on. Although other times, I admit, those nights were almost the final straw that broke the camel's back, because the feeling of missing her was so powerful.

But I remember clearly that this time was different. The sensations were so vivid... the scent of her skin... the sweet taste of her lips... the raging, devouring inferno of our passion as we made love.

My reward, I imagined, for letting her go. Beautiful, brilliant sensations to carry me through my lonely eternity.

"Angel..." she whispered... and she softly kissed along the edge of my ear, sending a tremor down my spine. I could feel wakefulness threatening... that lightening of the shadows of sleep that told me soon this dream would be over, and I would once again be desolate. I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut and refused to rise.

Just a little while longer... please...

"It's time to wake up, my love..."

No. Not now. Later. Later, I can get up and face forever alone. But right then I wanted to relish the feeling of her living heat against me... wanted to keep holding her, just like that. Just another day... another hour... another minute, and then I would let go.

Her kisses wandered softly... from my mouth, around my jaw, down my throat. I sighed, consumed half by this passion, half by the sorrow of knowing...

Would I really never feel this again?

"Buffy..." I whispered, tangling my fingers in her hair as she continued kissing downward, tracing each inch of my burning skin with tender care.

Even her memory set me on fire. Perfect, flawless, endless bliss as she finally rose above me, and took me deep inside of her, and we rode crest after crest of impossible dreams together.

When it was done... when the last of me was spent deep in the center of my love, the echo of her final cry still hanging in the air, I opened my eyes.

To find Buffy smiling down at me. "Don't tell me you really slept through that."

You may have heard that vampires have unbelievable speed and reflexes. Well, at that moment, I proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I stared at her for a split second, before I realized that I was awake when she said,

"'Morning, sleepyhead," and pressed a tiny kiss to the tip of my nose.

In the next breath, I was up, out of the bed, standing naked in the corner of my bedroom with my sword in hand.

Staring at Buffy, equally naked and now very, very confused, kneeling among my rumpled sheets.

There's very little in the cosmos that I'm afraid of -- no doubt a side effect of a few hundred years in Hell. Cordelia's coffee scares me. Chickens scare me. The idea that all of my mortal friends might someday die and leave me alone makes me want to fall apart.

But I had never experienced the kind of pure terror that I did in that moment.

Buffy's confused look changed to amusement, and she cocked a wry eyebrow at me.

"Not that the whole naked barbarian with a sword thing isn't really, *really* hot, but... what are you doing?"

Rage quickly leaked into my shock and fear. Whatever this thing was, how did it *dare* take this form? I brandished my sword menacingly at the apparition, and snarled, "Who are you? What do you want?"

Its expression shifted once again, now back to confusion, with no small dash of fear.

"What? Angel... this isn't funny," it complained, slowly rising from the bed.

I started shaking. So hard that I could barely keep the sword in my grasp as it came closer.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed at it.

The Buffy-thing started as if I'd struck it, and gave me a dark frown. "What's the matter with you?"

I couldn't back any further away from this... monstrosity wearing my dead lover's face. And I couldn't collect enough of my sense to attack it... or, really, do anything but stand there, panting and trembling.

It kept coming toward me, one small hand outstretched as though I were a dangerous animal.

"It's okay, honey... it's me. Buffy," it insisted.

My brain suddenly kicked in, a cacophony of confusion and disbelief echoing in my skull. It couldn't be her, and yet... it looked like her. Every detail... every inch of her skin... every small movement of her body. It smelled like her... like us... a musk of love and sex, vanilla and honeysuckle. It sounded like her... those were her eyes. It was Buffy.

"No," I muttered, shaking my head. "No, it can't be. It can't be you."

She was barely a foot away, now, her posture tense, ready for anything. If this was some creature sent to take me out, it was going to succeed, because I was utterly unable to move.

"Angel, it *is* me. Please... tell me what's going on."

I lost it... choked on all the conflicting emotions and instincts fighting for supremacy inside of me. Desire to grab her and never let her go... to cleave the head from this thing that dared the sacrilege of taking on her form. I wanted to run. To scream.

Apparently, I chose the latter, because Buffy jumped clear back to the bed, and a few moments later, the suite door burst in to admit a very frightened Cordelia and Wesley.

I spun to stare at them, still holding the sword.

"OH! Naked! Too much naked!" Cordy cried, covering her eyes.

Wesley was unruffled by my nudity. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it, after all. "Angel, what happened? We heard you screaming." Then he noticed Buffy, and instantly turned a deep, bright crimson as he averted his eyes. "Oh, dear lord. I'm sorry. We thought... we didn't mean... Oh, my."

Buffy kept her eyes on me as she slipped into my robe. "It's okay, Wesley."

"Angel, what are you DOING?" Cordy yelped from behind her hands. "What is going on in here?"

I couldn't stop gaping at the Buffy-thing. "You two see her?" I asked the others, gesturing at it with my sword.

"Well, yeah!" Cordy snorted. "We've sort of had to see her constantly for the past month! Well... except for all the days you've been locked up in here. Then we only had to *hear* her. Which, believe me, is just as bad."

"Something's really wrong with him," the Buffy-monster told them. "He woke up, took one look at me, and totally freaked."

Wesley moved toward me, taking the same cautious approach that Buffy had. "Angel? Do you know who I am?"

I shot him a withering look. "Of course I know who you are."

"But you don't know who Buffy is?"

"I know who that *looks* like," I corrected him, "But it's not. It can't be." All of the adrenaline seemed to leave me in a rush, and I finally let the point of the sword drop to the floor as I forced myself to look away from the Buffy phantom. My voice was barely a broken whisper. "It can't be her, Wesley. It can't. She's..."

My friend finally reached me, and took the sword gently from my hands. "All right. It's all right. Why don't you get dressed, and we'll figure out what's happened to you."

I glanced up again at Buffy. Her expression was wounded, her eyes filled with tears of hurt and concern.

Could it be? Had the Powers, by some miracle, brought her back to me?

"B...Buffy?" I asked, not daring to hope. My mind kept telling me... this was impossible. She was gone. I had said farewell to her just the night before, at her grave. "You... you're... dead."

Her eyes went wide. "What? No. Really. I'm not," she insisted, gesturing down over her body, now sheathed in my black robe. "I swear. Look. Alive and well."

I still couldn't move from my spot against the wall, all of my energy spent keeping myself upright while my brain scrambled for some explanation for how this could be happening.

Was I dreaming now? I pinched myself... she was still there. Had I finally died too, and Heaven (or maybe a different Hell) turned out to be nothing more than my everyday life, but with Buffy in it? Was I poisoned? Under a spell? Hallucinating?

"What the Hell is going on?" I finally wondered aloud. "How..." I shook my head. "How is this possible? I don't understand."

Everyone seemed to relax a little when it became apparent that I wasn't going to kill them all. Buffy walked around the bed and approached me once more, and this time, though I watched her warily, I let her touch me. She gently took my hand, and...

It was real. There was that spark that always caught between us, every time we touched. That tiny current of living electricity that was our bond. It rushed through me, snapping my long-dulled nerves to screaming life. There was nothing else in the cosmos... no magick or being in creation... that could effect me the way that she did.

"It... it's you," I gasped. "It's really you."

She nodded, giving me a teary-eyed smile, and I could see it there in her eyes... that glow that they always carried when she looked at me.

"It's me, baby. I swear," she assured me softly, and led me back to sit down on the bed before looking over at Cordy and Wesley, who still hovered in the doorway. "Guys... could you..."

Cordelia gave a worried scowl, but Wesley nodded and herded her from the room, my sword still firmly in his hand.

Then Buffy sat down beside me. I could feel the heat of her skin... hear her heartbeat as though it were my own. She looked deeply into my eyes.

"It's okay, Angel. I'm here. Everything's all right, I promise."

I don't know how long I sat there, trembling, gaping at her... experiencing a sensation I thought lost forever: the simple blessing of her presence.

She was there. She was alive. She wasn't buried in the cold, hard ground back in Sunnydale. She wasn't gone forever.

My Buffy was right next to me... exactly where she belonged. Exactly as I had wished.

"Oh god!" I cried, and before I knew what I was doing, I pulled her into my arms, crushing her against me, smothering her with desperate, grateful kisses. "You're alive! Thank God! Oh, Buffy! I love you!"

I broke down yet again. It seemed for the millionth time, I was overcome with emotion as I held her... kissed her, pressed my ear against her breast to hear the strong thumping of her heart. And I vowed--to her, to myself, and to the Powers That Be--that I would never, ever leave her side again.

***

Afterthoughts: Buffy

It was really scary to see Angel lose it like that. I mean... not in an "I lost my soul, psychotic nutjob mass murderer" kind of way, but in an "alternating between sobbing senselessly and laughing like a manic depressive on acid" sort of way.

I was way creeped, to say the least. But... I'll admit, at the same time, I loved all the incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking things he said to me as he cried. Especially the way, when he finally came to his senses again, that he looked deep into my eyes and promised that he would never, ever leave me again.

I could tell that he meant it. And I don't think I need to say how that made me feel.

After a while--a *lot* of kisses and reassurances that no, I really wasn't dead--we managed to get dressed and join the others. We all sat down and talked, and Angel refused to stop touching me for even a moment. It was so weird... me, Cordy, Wes and Fred had to rehash the past couple of weeks as if he hadn't been right there with us. The whole blind luck thing that I fell through the portal after fighting with Glory, and landed right on the roof of that boat Angel insists is a car. How I was really beat up, so they had to take me back to the castle for medical attention. (Honestly, I was *really* surprised that he forgot that part, considering how worried he was when it was happening.) How we spent a couple of days together while I mended. How his friend Lorne told us he could see that we had a common destiny, and this other green guy -- Numfar, I think his name was -- did this weird dance as he told Angel that there was nothing wrong with his soul. It was whole, intact, and completely un-losable. I still laugh, remembering that part. Lorne said it was The Dance of Joy.

Due to the mixed company, I skipped the part about how me and Angel screwed like bunny rabbits for two days straight after finding out about his soul. Then we came home. We told him about the big "Yay, Buffy isn't Dead!/Yay, the World Didn't End!/Yay, Xander's getting married!" party Willow and Tara threw, and how I had been here practically every day since.

Angel just sat there looking lost through the whole thing. When we were done, he told Wesley he thought the two of them should get together with Giles and discuss what he remembered. But he wouldn't tell me what that was. Even after we made love later, he flat out refused to say a word, insisting that it didn't matter.

Everything was different, somehow, after that night. Not that being with Angel hadn't been one incredible, amazing, mind-blowing moment after another all along, but... that night, he was so gentle... so loving, a couple of times I found myself crying right along with him. It was like being reunited all over again... times a thousand.

Funny... even all these years later, he still won't talk about it. I don't know why, I mean, it's not like we have any other secrets. He eventually told me all about The Day That Wasn't (which, considering he had already Shanshued at that point, wasn't all that important). He even shared some of his memories of Hell. And let's face it, when a guy has stood between your legs during three really long, painful labor sessions (the first of which left him with a black eye and three broken fingers) there's really *not* a whole lot of mystery left in your relationship. But he won't tell me why he thought I was dead, or what freaked him out so badly that afternoon.

Wesley and Giles know. But when I ask, Wesley just smiles and says he promised Angel he wouldn't tell, and Giles gives me this sort of mushy look and then grabs me in a completely un-Gilesy hug, and says it's not important. The Host is the only one who'll really give me any kind of answer. He told me one day that the power of love was nothing to scoff at. It could bring people back from Hell... or from the dead.

As usual, I have no idea what he's talking about, but... whatever. I guess it really isn't important. I'm not dead, and whatever it was that happened made Angel swear he would never leave my side as long as he lived. It makes him stop sometimes and look at me like I'm the most amazing, miraculous thing he's ever seen. So I figure, hey... it's all good, right?

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