It's not my fault! I swear, it's not! I'm just...I'm possessed or something! I think it's the combination of being out of school, getting lots of feedback (it's going to my brain) and it being a really angsty time of the month for me ;) Whatever it is, here is yet another majorly angsty fic...Enjoy...Don't yell at me...
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Though I'm beginning to be glad; killing off the main character's really given me a lot to work with < g >
Author's Notes: Yet another Buffy-death fic. Yay! Sick of them yet? What can I say, it's all Joss's fault.
Spoilers: "The Gift" "IWRY"
Dedication: For Sam. Cause it's almost what she asked for...
Feedback: Please!

The funeral was during the day. I never forgave myself for that; that I couldn't be there, as I had never been there for her. If I had protected her, as I'd promised I would, maybe she would not have died. She was not supposed to die. That was the deal. I gave my life for hers; but I was selfish, and frightened, and everything was wasted. If I had been there, perhaps there would have been no funeral to attend.

If I had attended the funeral, perhaps she would have been at rest.

"Doubtful," she said, walking up to stand beside me. I hadn't said it out loud of course; she knew my mind better than I did. I didn't look over, but I could see her anyway. Her hair was straight, long and loose, and she was wearing a pale blue dress with tiny flowers on it, and a cream coat. It was windy, but not a hair on her head moved with the breeze; she was still, as if enclosed in a universe of her own making.

The world did not touch her; there was nothing to touch.

I didn't say anything. What could I say to her? Forgive me?

"There's nothing to forgive," she said softly, replying again to the words I had not spoken. "You didn't do anything wrong Angel. You couldn't have saved me."

"I should have tried."

"You would hate yourself more if you had. If you'd been there."

"I don't think that's possible."

"It is."

The graveyard was dark, and silent, but she wasn't shadowed. She repelled darkness, almost seemed to shine. It was painful to look at her; worse not to. At any moment she could be gone, and where would the light be then? Where would I be?

I didn't ask her not to go, though my soul screamed it, and I'm sure she heard. If I said it, she would reply, and that I could not stand. That I could not live through.

"Angel?" she asked softly after a moment, or an eternity.

"Yes?"

"Will you take care of Dawn for me? I.I know Giles will, and Willow, and Xander but.there might be other things after her. She has power, and others will want it, or want to end it. I need to know that someone will protect her."

"What about Spike?" I asked, irony and hurt in my voice in equal measure. I could feel my childe lurking at the edge of the graveyard. He had been there all night. Once our eyes had met; I had promised without words, to kill him if he came nearer.

Spike had been there, and still she had died.

"I am afraid Spike will forget, will.want to forget."

"And I won't?" It was a compliment, I supposed. I would be faithful, through eternity, no matter how much it hurt.

It would hurt, I knew that.

"You may want to, but you never will."

"I'll keep her safe," I promised. Willow told me how Buffy died; how Buffy's blood was Dawn's; how they were one. Dawn was all that was left of Buffy. How could I do anything but protect her. Buffy never had to ask.

"I know," she said softly. "But I wanted to anyway."

"Is that why you're here?"

"No."

I wanted to ask, but did not dare to. I wanted to look at her full on, to gaze into her eyes, but I did not dare that either. Would they be empty, or too full? Would they have death behind them, or life? Would it be her, looking back at me?

We stood in silence. I drank in her presence, that was not a presence. She gave off no body heat; there was nothing to indicate that she was there at all except my soul and my untrustworthy eyes. Was this how she saw me? I wondered, as a shadow, no real, live person? But she had always been able to touch me. If I touched this shadow, would she melt away?

"I'm sorry that when it came to it, I killed you for the world, but not her. It doesn't mean I loved you less," she said finally. I closed my eyes against the sight of her gravestone, and her, standing there, so serene, unmoved by the world about her. I opened them again, in a moment, unable to keep them closed. I was afraid if they were closed too long, she would be gone when they opened again.

I spent three hundred years in hell for her, for the world. Was it too long? Too hard a price to pay? No. I would do it again, if it would bring her back to life. I would go for a thousand years. For eternity.

When she goes, and the light is gone, what will be left?

"I know," I said in reply to her words.

"Do you?" she asked, and I felt myself drawn to turn, as if she were pulling me without a touch. My eyes were forced up, to hers, and I looked where I was most frightened to look.

Her eyes were the same. Her eyes. She looked back at me from them; strong, sweet, determined Buffy Summers. The pupils were different; stars danced where there should have been black. A universe danced in her eyes, but they were still her eyes.

"It was time," she told me quietly. "It was not an accident or a fault on your part or Spike's or Dawn's. It was fate; my fate. It's not something you can avoid. Fate isn't a road you can take or leave Angel. Wherever you put your feet, that's where fate is. That's where you were meant to be. And this is where I'm meant to be." One of her hands waved toward the gravestone, airy, just this side of substantial. I fancied if it moved quick enough, it blurred, I could see through the flesh to the darkness behind.

"I can't believe that," I told her truthfully. "I can't believe that you were meant to die like this. So soon. So." I could not say it, them, the words in my heart. I could not tell that I couldn't believe it because I loved her too much for her to be gone. I could not tell her that I didn't believe it because prophecy said I had a future, and I could not believe there was a future for me without her. I could say nothing, faced with her ghost, the chance to say everything.

She watched me, quietly, and knew all the words I could not say. A smile lit her face, small, tender. "Who said my road was finished?" she asked. "Who said my feet would not keep falling? Hey, I'm talking like a damn book here, the world is obviously a place of infinite possibilties. Expect the unexpected."

I did not know what to make of that; I had not the ability to make anything. I was too lost in my pain, in the knowledge of the goodbye that was coming, or that had been said already.

The smile faded, little by little, in the face of my despair. It boiled in me, like hate, but worse. Darker. More encompassing.

She was gone, or she would be soon; that was all that was left to me. All I knew. She was gone, and talk of roads and fate did nothing to make that better, not even the littlest bit.

"You don't understand," she said softly. "I'm sorry for that. I wish I could make it better."

Nothing could make it better.

She put out a hand to my cheek, and I felt nothing as I turned my lips to it. Felt nothing. Touched nothing. Nothing could make that better either.

"I love you," she whispered. My mind echoed it: I love you. I love you. I love you. Beyond death. Beyond fate. Beyond eternity. I love you.

I closed my eyes, because I did not want to see her go. And I did not open them again, because I did not want to see her gone.

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