DISCLAIMER: I only wish Buffy and Angel were mine. The song in Buffy's part is 'Don't Be A Stranger' by Dina Carroll (it's a little scrambled), the one in Angel's is Catatonia's 'Strange Glue'.
SYNOPSIS: Angel and Buffy are thinking of each other.
TIMELINE: Midsummer post s4/s1.
SPOILERS: The Prom, Sanctuary, To Shanshu In LA
DISTRIBUTION: Tell me where it's going!
FEEDBACK: Please! It makes me sad to have an empty inbox.
RATING: PG-13
AUTHOR'S NOTES: When an artist or poet is inspired to create something from someone else's work, they say that it is 'after' whoever. So I'm classifying this as 'After Lex', because I was inspired by the line 'She needed. And thus she would have' in her fic 'Renewal'.
AUTHOR'S NOTES 2: This is CWC. (That's Curse What Curse. Feel free to come up with your own explanation).

********BUFFY************

I shouldn't be alone with you tonight
Desire was too strong to put up a fight
I don't understand the way I feel
But oh it feels so right
I really shouldn't be here tonight

Riley's home in Iowa. I'm home in Sunnydale. Willow's vacationing with Tara and I don't want to think about where Xander and Anya are. So, I'm alone. But not lonely, and for so long this year there wasn't much of a distinction. When I was alone I was lonely, and when I wasn't alone I was lonely, because the gang were gone and I was with Riley, who didn't know me. Doesn't know me, for all we've gotten close. He walks in the dark, but he doesn't live in it. It's not his natural habitat. Not like me.

Not like Angel. And that's what Angel never understood about me and normal guys - as long as they know about me being the Slayer, and if we're serious they have to, I have to protect them. I already protect the world. The thing about Angel was, it was nice to feel that maybe there was someone to protect me.

I know that despite the distance there is between us now, physical and emotional, he is still there for me. Whatever, whenever, whyever. I know he is because that's how I am for him. A year since he left and I'd drop everything if I thought he needed me, if he was in danger. Okay, it didn't seem that way last time I did that, with the Faith fiasco, but I was scared and angry and sure that's no excuse, but I thought she might be hurting him and that thought froze me.

And then he came and apologised. So sweetly, even after I'd blown up at him again. Scared, again, because I knew I'd deserved what he'd said, and if I was a better person, I would have stuck around to apologise in LA. Maybe once I would have done. College changed me more than I thought it would, and I know it's not all for the better.

It's been kind of a long summer and today I almost felt like idealistic Buffy again, the one who asked her vampire boyfriend for a drawer. Funny that I haven't brought that up with Riley yet, and that I change the subject if he looks like he might be going to mention it.

Because we're in university and I don't want the commitment? Sure, why not. Because I'm still scared of getting burnt again? Yeah, good answer. Because though I wake every morning desperate for a man's touch, it's not Riley I've been dreaming about? Think you've got it.

You're on my mind all of the time
I really shouldn't stay with you tonight
But the more and more I think of it
The more it just seems right
That's why I shouldn't be here tonight

Sometimes I think I can hear him when I'm hazy, between being asleep and awake. Probably a residue of my dreams, overactive imagination ... wishful thinking. And then I delay opening my eyes because it's good to hear him talk to me, always only to me, and laugh with me, and when I know for sure he's not there the illusion is shattered.

It annoyed me at first. That the minute Riley was gone he would make a reappearance in my head. Well, not strictly speaking a reappearance; for him to reappear would imply he was ever really gone. I welcome it, him, now. Our encounters in my groggy state sometimes feel more real than greeting my mother in the kitchen every morning, and I hold onto them because who knows when I'll get the real thing again?

I've accepted by now that I'm never going to truly get rid of Angel. In fact, it seems odd that I thought I might. It seems horrific that I wanted to. Part of me wants to permanently stay in this lazy summer unreality. I know that when classes, and Riley, and friends intrude on me - on us - he'll go and he might not come back. I don't want to make that break, even if he's only a figment of my imagination saying what I want him to say to me.

Just for tonight, don't be a stranger
I want to take this chance, risk it all for you
Knowing what I'm gonna do
If only for tonight, don't be a stranger
I want it all from you tonight

Angel's always been my haven. Even when the body was evil, I could feel him, his soul, with me, though I had to deny him then to keep myself sane. After he came back from hell, we were so awkward, he was so unsure; that killed me, because it was never supposed to be that way for us. We are meant to hate each other or love each other, but always meant for each other. Nobody understands that because I don't know the words, but I do know. If we never see each other again, he's still with me and I'm still with him.

But I want to see him again; to reassure myself that hope is still alive or banish it completely.

*******ANGEL*********

It was strange glue that held us together
While we both came apart at the seams
She said your place or mine while we've still got the time
So I played along with her schemes
But I don't have the right to be with you tonight
So please leave me alone with no saviour in sight
I will sleep safe and sound with nobody around me

I'm thinking about Buffy more lately, for some reason. Well, I say that as if I have no idea why she's suddenly invading my thoughts again, when I've never been anything other than sure about her. About us, together, the doubts festered and split us apart; but about her, I was always positive.

I love her. The prophecy Wesley eventually translated right made me remember, brought the dull ache for her flaring back into life. When I'm not thinking about Buffy, I'm considering my shanshu, and if I'm not careful the two meet and mix with a throb of happiness. I have a future; I can give her one.

While she's out there making herself a new one with other men. With another man. Once I would have stepped back for that man, swallowing bitter tears. I did step back for that man, when he was faceless. Now he does have a face, and he makes her happy, but I will have a heartbeat, and I can make her happier.

When faced with my demons
I clothe them and feed them
And I smile, yes I smile as they're taking me over

I say that so confidently, that I can make her happy, though all evidence from the past indicates to the contrary. But I know, in a way I can't define, that it's true and so I don't question it. Buffy is mine and I am hers, irrevocably bound by destiny and blood. Buffy has fought her fate before, but she can't fight her soul, so I know that when I come back for her, she will be waiting. She is waiting now, whether she realises it or not.

And if I cannot sleep for the secrets I keep
It's a price I'm willing to meet
Oh, the end of the night never comes too quickly for me

Part of me protests at that, that she should be tied to me beyond any right to choose for herself, but that part is usually shouted down now by the part that says she will be my reward for battles well fought. She is worth far more than the humanity that will bring me to her, and I will be her reward, a gift of gratitude for years in the service of the Powers That Be.

I haven't told her anything - out of fear that she will reject me or that she will demand to be with me now, when I know we still have so much more to do before we can have each other, I don't know. But I wonder if, somehow, she knows, if not the details, the hope. I think sometimes I hear her, in the early morning when I return from the hunt. I sense her presence, waiting patiently for me, and she talks to me, soothing me with promises of love, images of a white picket fence and kids. A place that's ours, and me with the place that's mine, in her embrace.

I don't know whether it's a result of tiredness and endless fighting, or really a shade of Buffy herself, sent by the Powers to encourage a wavering hunter, but I take comfort in what she says. As long as I can have the form of her, I will accept it gladly. But I do miss the real, live version, the warm bundle of energy nestled in my arms.

I need to see her; absorb the reality to fuel my dreams for the eternity until we are together again.

******************

They felt the unconscious despair of Their strongest warriors and silently resolved to do what They could to alleviate it; the two would require whatever strength they could draw on.

******************

Why, I don't know
I'm in too deep to say no
Hold me close, don't let me go
I want to take this chance, risk it all for you
It's what I'm gonna do
If only for tonight, don't be a stranger

Both Buffy and Angel felt the pang of instant connection and it brought them sharply awake, to turn instinctively and stifle gasps of deprivation when the other was not there.

Breathing with difficulty, Buffy lay, incognizant of anything but the dim sense of Angel approaching.

Locked half with Buffy and half on the highway he was tearing down, Angel felt only a desperate need to be with her, mind to mind and skin to skin.

As he came into Sunnydale, Buffy stiffened with anticipation and sudden delight as he filled her head, soothing and exciting her at once.

He was inside her room and then their mouths were fused and their clothes were gone and he was inside her, taking and claiming her as their passion spiraled and she claimed him back, until they curled together, exhausted, and slept in each other's arms.

******************

By tacit agreement in their startling bond, they awoke hours before dawn, making love again before, in an eerie hush, Angel prepared to go back to the life he had built.

Silently, with eyes holding and lips melded tightly together, they exchanged love and certain vows that, someday, they would be building a new life.

Together.

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