DISCLAIMER: Angel's mine. He's chained up right here... oh, wait, no, I'm awake.
TIMELINE: After 'Epiphany'.
SPOILERS: 'Epiphany', general season 2 arc.
FEEDBACK: Think of it as your good deed for the day.
RATING: PG
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is short, because though I wanted to consider Angel's thoughts after Buffy didn't show in the dream, I'm planning a different POV fic and I only have so much material in me < g>.
ANTI-DEDICATION: Whoever decided to move the 'Epiphany' wildfeed to so late. Grrr.
Come from the blackness of a dream into the blackness of night-time reality and there's not much difference, even to vampire eyes. Especially when neither blackness is relieved with the sparkling blaze of a golden girl, a vital, fighting, *living* love.
She wasn't there.
I closed my eyes again and schooled my unnecessary breaths into long, calming droughts of air. When I was relaxed, I took a deep breath and fell into myself.
Mediatation is such an easy trick. Of course, I say that after long centuries of practice. Even Angelus saw the advantages of calm in a fight. Often didn't use them, but... I liked to keep my options open. With my soul, it became a way to try and reconnect with the God I sought, so hard and so futilely.
Lately it's been a way to disconnect from everything. Everything except myself, and all that entailed; for instance, Buffy.
I knew immediately that she lived. It's not just hyperbole when I say she's my light: deep inside my ravaged soul, I carry her with me as I believe she carries me, knowingly or not. The undimmed glow told my worried probe that she was alive.
But not well, then? Rather than helping me, the knowledge that she lived set me to worrying more. The worst hasn't happened, but something has.
Possibly just that she wasn't asleep right then.
Possibly just that she's blocking me out, frustrated with my behaviour and my admission of guilt over Darla.
(Darla. God. I changed the sheets three times.)
Another apology to make, more forgiveness to ask; more deserved than the my friends, because there's less she could have done. And my apology to *them* will be well-deserved. I've worked through about half of the Seven Deadly Sins in the last few months. Pride, I'm forsaking now. It'll be worth it. I'm determined to earn their trust back, and I'm in a position to persevere. Humanity will be a long time in coming, should it come at all.
I have to wonder - reluctantly, because though I've told myself fiercely it is *not* the object and certainly not the reason, it still shines ahead like a Holy Grail - I wonder if it will really make too much difference to my life. Helping becomes ingrained; however much I tried to throw it off, the instinct was there. Separating me from the demon. Eventually telling me that the helping; it really is all. Human, or as the vampiric demon/soul hybrid that I alone lay claim to.
So if my lifestyle won't change with the onset of a heartbeat and ability to truly know the light, experience the sun - what will?
And again and again, the answer comes back to me, the answer I was given by agents of Good and Evil on a day that never was: Buffy. The Slayer. The woman I love but am unworthy of, finally allowed to become mine. Surely it is among the plans of the Powers, for her to be happy if not me. I left her, I have no right to her, but I do believe (not without jealousy) that while she may find contentment and pleasure and satisfaction with her life and other people, other men, she can only find true happiness, real bliss, in my arms, as I only found it in hers.
Restless, I climbed out of bed, crossing to the balcony. LA can never be truly quiet, especially to my ears, but the predawn gets pretty close, the famous smog blanketing the noise of the occasional speeding car. I leaned against the wall and stared sightlessly over the city. LA is often beautiful, but never as beautiful as Buffy.
Spare the world a fallen hero spouting laden, amateur cliches. I must be tired.
I tipped my head back against the cold hotel, paying close, idle attention to the feel of the slight wind brushing my dead skin, the bitter taste of the morning air, the scent of vanilla-
Some unknown sense cautioned me to move carefully. Without looking up, I reached out tentatively.
Nothing.
Her scent hit me again, mixed with a hint of salt. Tears. I closed my eyes and concentrated on that smell, and after a short, infinite moment I felt her against me, curving her back to fit snugly against my chest. My arms slid around her not-quite-solid waist, and warm hands clasped mine at her belly. Her head turned under my chin, I rested it there, and she was gone.
I opened my eyes and gazed out over my city again. My thought of her beauty may have been childish, but it was right; even the *idea* of Buffy, the vision of her in my mind which somehow never compared to her in the flesh, looks better than most things I can imagine.
I walked back into the bedroom, lying on the bed, almost able to feel the slight indentation, the change of pressure she would cause lying next to me.
I closed my eyes again, hoping sleep would come quickly - hoping she would be there.
A lifetime will be worth more to me than eternity. But neither is worth much if I can't spend it with her.
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