DISCLAIMER: Joss did it! Joss did it!
TIMELINE: After 'The Gift' and 'There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb'.
SPOILERS: MAJOR. If there's anybody left anywhere who doesn't know the big news, stop now.
SYNOPSIS: Not so much a meeting as a visit...
DISTRIBUTION: Ooh. A finished series. I think everybody's asked who's going to, but anyone else, feel free < g >.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: My original idea of how to end this series was pretty much shot to pieces with the ending of season 5. (It was going to be happy < g >.) I think it might actually work better this way, because there will not be a continuation of the series into 6/3... I just don't have the time or, really, the desire. Thank you everyone who's expressed an interest, in whether it will carry on, or by sending feedback; I would not have finished this series if you hadn't convinced me you were enjoying it.
FEEDBACK: Come on. Please. It's the last one.
RATING: PG
DEDICATION: This is for everybody who's read this series the whole way through. I know it was probably annoying to have to wait so long for these last few parts; I hope they were worth it!

You'd think I'd be used to dying by now. It's never quite the thrill ride various religions promise. Neither, this time, was it really the rest I'd hoped for... no bright lights or family (Mom) guiding me into the next world.

But neither is there nothing. It's not just blankness or blackness. I'm still me. I'm a me I can barely recognise, because the lack of worry and stress deal's worked out, but... me. I guess that's not so bad.

Angel once said he sometimes felt he lived in purgatory; I asked him what that meant and he explained it to me. The place where people go after they die, that's not heaven or hell, that's... before heaven and hell. That's just nothingness, really. You don't know where you are or where you're going.

I'm in purgatory, then. I'm a little resentful about that. How long have I spent Slaying? I always knew the work was its own reward, knowing I'd kept the world safe was enough, yada yada yada, but I thought there'd be *something*. The celestial equivalent of a big gold watch and a handshake before retiring to a place like Florida, only with harps and clouds.

I've put a lot of thought into this.

That was Before, though. I've already got it classified as then and now... real and not-so-real.

The not-so-real would be life. I remember, but without total clarity; the emotions are faded and I recall my life as if it were a stranger's. Only some things are as clear as ever - the biggest things, my family and friends.

Dawn. My sister, my daughter. Did I die for her, or the world, or me? All that matters is that she's safe. Alive and safe to live. I hope she does.

Giles, Watcher-father-friend. I hope he doesn't think that he failed me... I hope he sees that it was his influence that made me do okay. I think he'll be okay; he always understood me better than I ever realised.

Xander, Willow. The family I built myself. They never quite let themselves realise, I don't think... hell, I never really did and I should have. We knew I would die young, but we didn't talk about it, never acknowledged it. I never made sure, so that when I went, they'd know I loved them.

I'm getting almost emotional now, but it's not quite... true. It's like - before I was on one side of a paper wall, and the lights that danced on the other side, casting shadows that I could see but not make out, were truth, beauty, understanding... all that. Philosophy stuff. And now I'm on that side, and I see more than I ever have, ever could - but I feel less than ever, because now it's the emotions, the ties of being human, that are the indistinct, fluttering shapes.

A convoluted metaphor, but it's the best I can do. Even language is fading.

I saw something in the distance - relative distance, because it's approaching at a massive speed. No sooner have I seen it than it's beside me, and I can recognise my mother.

"Mom!" I threw myself into her arms. My mother... *there's* the emotion. This I feel vividly, holding her, being held by her, this cornerstone of my existence I'd thought lost to me.

Except... her embrace is not exactly as Mom's was. It's both infinitely more comforting and completely less, and I pulled away.

"Mom?" I said again, and she smiled at me. Mom-smile, with Mom- beauty and ethereal glow.

"In a manner of speaking," she said. I knew that manner wasn't 'woman who gave birth to me' when I heard that voice; a slight echo followed it, almost indiscernible, as if she weren't the only one speaking. As if many spoke through her.

Oh my God.

Literally.

I wondered if I should bow or curtsy something. I thought I should, and then I thought... whatever this was, God or Goddess or the Powers That Be...

Well, they'd screwed around with my life quite a lot and I wasn't quite ready to be worshipping.

"That is an interesting thought process, young one," she (She? He? It? Them?) said, sounding amused.

I almost glared, but I did refrain from that. Okay, I wasn't going to fall on my knees, but I wasn't about to be rude, either.

"I take this form to reassure you... to remind you of what awaits," she ('she' will have to do) said.

"What awaits?" I asked, a little dismayed. Awaits what? After how long?

"There is one more duty you must fulfil," she announced. She laid her hand on my cheek, and I felt immediately soothed... loved. "The vampire. Our Warrior."

Ah, yes. The *only* thing that is as real here as it ever, always, was.

If this is heaven, surely my Angel should be here?

"Even now, he learns of your death," she told me. "We have given you contact with him, over the past months, to lead you to this one moment. Without you to anchor him, he will fall again; and this time, nought will prevent it."

"Except me," I murmured, looking her in the eye. Yes, I understood now. All this time, we'd been dreaming of each other, with each other. Sharing each other's subconscious, so that now, when I came to his grief-stricken dreams for the last time, *he* could understand, and believe; that I was safe, and happy, and always with him.

She smiled, queenlike but in some way also homely. "Yes. You will give him to understand that he could not have stopped this."

I almost laughed... so like Angel, to blame himself. He hadn't even been there; truthfully, all that had kept me going some times was the times he had, in my dreams.

The dreams had been my strength; now one last dream had to be his. For so long... I once thought an eternity with him could never be enough. It follows that an eternity without him would feel like... well, an eternity.

She interrupts my thoughts, her voice commanding. "Go to him now. Show him. Comfort him."

I nodded; slowly, her image began to fade as the outlines of a room bloomed up around me.

Then her voice sounded, right next to my ear, even as she disappeared.

"This time is not for him only, little one. Take your own comfort where you will."

Like a free pass with a big rider; you can do what you like, but then you can't do anything again, ever.

Hadn't we already had that? One night, one night that was everything but which left everything in tatters that wound inextricably around us.

His bed was next to me, and he lay sleeping on it, the sheet at his waist. It left his bare chest exposed, and one of his bloody hands, showing the evidence of his grieving rage. He was only ever demonstrative at the biggest things... most times it was a touch, fleeting but sure, or the flicker of an eye; meant only for me to understand, but I think in practice only I ever noticed.

His face drew me the most. Even in slumber, it was twisted in anguish. His face was slightly grimy - maybe from coming back from Pylea, because it hadn't escaped my notice that this was his bed, in our... his dimension - and the tear tracks were unmistakable.

So many tears... my love. My loves. I never meant to make them cry.

I reached out to touch him, and to my dismay and horror my hand passed straight through his flesh. It was creepy on a level even I hadn't known existed... watching it. The actual sensation was only tingly, the normal feeling I got around him, touching him, only intensified, but not in a bad way.

The other sensation I was aware of was falling... as if my essence was going to sleep, even though I no longer truly had a body that required it. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them I was still in Angel's bedroom, beside his prone form; but this time my hand rested lightly on his cheek, traced his strong features, and I knew we were safely in the dream realm.

My touch awoke him pretty fast. He opened his reddened eyes, bleary with hours of crying, and their deep brown depths focused on me... at first unbelieving, then wanting nothing more than to believe I had come to him.

We reached for each other at the same time. I had a keen sense of his arms... the conscious, emotional part of me they'd granted reprieve to do this furiously memorising what it felt like to be wrapped in his cool, adoring embrace.

Surely not even heaven could hold this grace?

He was murmuring my name, over and over again in a feverish litany... his hands stroked over my hair, my back, my face, anywhere he could reach. He pulled away the barest minimum distance, still running his fingers over my face.

"It is you... Buffy, it is... love..." He looked like he believed almost against his will; suddenly, against mine, I got a flash of hell, of him being led to believe I was there only for me to disappear.

"It's me, Angel," I said softly. I know I couldn't push it... and also that They wouldn't. However long it took him to accept, we would wait, and I could luxuriate in the feel of him near me.

"You're dead," he said simply, his chocolate eyes betraying his wounds... the tear, deep into his soul, where I'd been. I could almost *see* it... and as I stroked him in return, somehow I was able to feel for that cut, for that loss, and soothe it with the evidence and promise of my presence with him.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be sorry," he said, vehement but quiet.

"It's not your fault," I told him, and I saw the flicker in his eyes; he wouldn't have brought it up, the guilt he was feeling, felt it to be petty and unimportant. He never did quite get that there was little more important to me than how he felt. "I had to. Do you understand? Not just for Dawn."

He gave a small half-laugh half-sob. "For you... I hope you're at peace, Buffy."

Suddenly desiring more contact, I leaned forward and kissed his forehead, resting my lips on the crown of his head. He stayed still, his chest heaving and his hands strayed tentatively to rest at his waist. "Never without you," I muttered. "I need you to be at peace, okay? I need you to go on."

I heard another muffled sob, and I cradled his face in my hands.

"This can't break you, Angel," I said. "You're more than me."

He raised his tear-stained face to mine. "You're all of me."

I shook my head wordlessly, gazing down on him... he knows what he can do, alone. I was just his impetus - it's humbling to think that I inspired him in the good he's done. He just needs to believe that.

"Carry on," I ordered gently, rubbing the tears away with my thumb, the way he's done with me so often. My hands seemed small against his face.

"I need time," he whispered.

"Yes," I said. "Mourn me, Angel. Then do your good stuff for me, all right?"

He nodded... slowly, a little unsurely, but I could feel his resolve, the steel in the core of him. Angel would be okay, without me.

Would I be okay without him? My hands trembled, as it came to me, that he had his friends - his family - and mine, to help him. And I would be without that, with only...

The memory of *this*, as he became the aggressor and kissed me. The feeling of this, kissing him, loving him, feeling his love as an almost tangible thing enfolding us... I kissed him back passionately, tasting him, my hands roaming across the hard planes of his body once more. My tongue swept into his mouth and I pushed him back on the bed.

I made love to him, softly, kissing away his tears, feeling his tongue rough on my skin licking at mine. His hands moved over me, caressing, ostensibly for my pleasure, but I know that he was memorising me... imprinting the feel of me in his mind and hands even as I did the same.

How can I exist without this? How did I live without it? This glory... being connected to him, together with him, his body and soul bleeding into mine until I can't tell what's him and what's me - until it doesn't matter, because we're one.

We finished on each other's names and hushed declarations of love. As I cuddled up next to him, we both knew it couldn't be long before this favour was once again denied us. He held me fiercely, clutched me protectively, with unbelievable tenderness, sorrow and love.

I hope he can remember that love because there, finally, it was. The bright light beckoned to me. Called to me, almost as loudly as he does. He's prettier than the light... but I understood that I had to go. I was a whispered 'I love you' and a feather kiss on his lips, tasting his sadness as he wept again, hating having to evade his hands as he reached helplessly for me.

Then I was gone.

Send feedback to Esmerelda

Back to the Fanfiction Archive