Disclaimer: Don't know who they belong to, but it sure isn't me.
Summery: Buffy and Angel get married then....
Timeline: Future fic
AN: I wrote this a couple of months ago for my creative writing class. I was going to send it out sooner but I wanted to fix it up first.

I knew I loved him since the moment I first saw him. I met him 18 years ago, but we weren't together for good until five years ago. Five years ago he came to me and told me that we could finally be together. All the reasons that he left 10 years prior for didn't exist anymore. He came to sweep me off my feet, just like in a fairy tale. With his words of love, I turned everything in my life upside down, but was worth it.

We met when I was 16. I was young and naive, and he was anything but. He was mature and so unlike the boys I was accustomed to dating, although he didn't have much experience with love. He thought that by telling himself over and over not to fall in love with me, that he wouldn't fall in love with me. Boy was he wrong. He fell so hard that you could hear the smack of the pavement from miles away. He thought he wasn't worthy of my love and he kept trying to push me away. He thought I was too young and that I should be with someone that could give me as much as I could give them, but he had already given me everything I'd ever want or need. I was drawn to him like flies to honey. I knew our relationship wasn't going to be easy, but I never expected it to be as it was. We were doomed from the start. Our relationship was painful and even if I wanted to, I couldn't count the number of nights I cried over him, over us. You can only truly be hurt by a person you really love. He worked up enough courage to leave me, telling me it was for my own good. Every day I wished for his return, but soon I began to lose hope in us. I lost my innocence with that hope. And most importantly I lost him. I never stopped loving him though.

Three days after he came back into my life we were married in Las Vegas. It wasn't the wedding of our dreams, but it was our dream to be together. It didn't matter that I was wearing a simple white sundress and that only eight of our closest friends were present at the ceremony. We loved each other and we had waited 12 years for that day. We exchanged gold claddagh rings before the Elvis impersonator that married us. After the simple ceremony we went to a simple restaurant for a simple celebration dinner with eight wonderful people that, by the way weren't simple. They were our closest friends and relatives, that we happened to love almost as much as we loved each other. I sat on his lap throughout the whole dinner, afraid to part his side, afraid that I'd lose him another time. I had lost him so many times, that I needed the physical contact to remind me that it was real, because I wasn't sure if I was really his wife. It felt like a wonderful dream that I would most certainty wake up from. I never did, my dreams came true. After twelve years of waiting, I finally got to be the princess being swept away by her prince charming.

We honeymooned in Ireland. He took me to where he grew up, in Galaway. He told me stories of his past and opened up to me like he never did before. He seemed like a whole new person than when he left me. I liked him better this way. I found out I loved his lopsided grin, the way his belly spazed every time he laughed, the way his chest gently rose and fell in peaceful slumber, and the way he got a mischievous look in his eye every time he did something he knew I wouldn't approve of. I loved everything about him. I loved to new him, the old him and everything in between.

One night I asked him what made him change so much during the time we were apart and he replied with the sweetest answer that I'll never forget. "We needed the time apart so that we could be where we are now. We needed to learn to rely more on ourselves rather than on each other and because I realized brooding isn't very attractive to you broads. I'm not going to dwell on the horrible things I did in my past anymore. From the moment I said 'I do' to you I promised myself that I would do whatever it was to make you happy." Believe me, he made me very, very happy. He always knew exactly what to say and he made me feel like I was the most precious thing in the entire world. I didn't deserve him.

He told me I came first, but his work came in as a close second. His work was important to him. He was noble type, always trying to save people. He'd get calls to come into the office or save the world at all hours of the day or night. It was rather annoying. We would sometimes be in the middle of something very important and he'd have to go running off to save the day.

One night he got a call, which wasn't anything unusual. He got dressed quietly, and placed a soft kiss on my lips as he always did before he left. He always thought I was still asleep, but I never was. As soon as he left my side I was up. I deepened the kiss that night, I didn't want him to leave. I always hated it when he left me, but that night I just knew he shouldn't leave. I had a gut feeling that if he left nothing would ever be the same.

I'd always be worried sick about him even though he always left a note on his pillow, because he knew I worried and didn't want me to. I loved waking up in his embrace, and if I knew he wasn't going to be beside me when I woke up, I wouldn't be able to sleep. That night was different. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was going to happen. I desperately tried to persuade him not to leave. I begged him to stay. I tugged on his arm, and I wouldn't let go. I told him what I felt, and he promised me he'd be careful. Unshed tears began to blur my vision and soon began trickling down cheek. I started screaming and grabbing handfuls of his shirt, trying to make him stay. I soon gave up as he held me as my body shook with sobs. I whispered the words 'I love you' over and over into the crook of his neck. He pulled away and told me that he had to leave, and that even though he understood that I needed him, the world needed him as well. I knew he would much rather be with me, but there were things he had to do and if he didn't do them, he couldn't be with me. I then looked up into his deep chocolate brown eyes and I said something I've never said to him before. I said 'good-bye'. We've never said that to each other. It means for good, or at least for this lifetime. At that moment, I lost all hope in us, completely. Not like I did when he left me years prior, that was gradual. This was completely and sudden and shocked me as well as him. As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them, I shouldn't have been so selfish. I should have been strong for him, because soon he then knew, and it scared him. The look in his eyes horrified me. I had never seen him that scared. He searched my hazel orbs for an explanation for my behavior, but all he found was fear. His chocolate eyes became an even darker shade of amber, and he knew this was it. He knew he wouldn't be coming back to me in this lifetime, but that we'd meet again in another. I then brought my hand to his damp face; he was crying too. I don't think he was afraid of dying. I knew that some part of him knew it was his time to go, that it was past his time and that he knew he was lucky to live long enough to fall in love. I think he was afraid of leaving me, afraid that I'd do something stupid after he left. Too many people left me in my lifetime, and he promised me that he wasn't going anywhere. I believed him. I put my true feelings behind me and assured him that I would be okay without him and that I always would be his girl. I knew he could see through me, he always could. He knew that I was only being strong for him. We sat together for another moment, both sobbing and then I pulled his face towards mine and gave him a last kiss. Our foreheads touched as he whispered the single most beautiful word, "always," and then he was gone, his black duster flying behind him.

I cried so much that night I made myself sick. I ended up in the bathroom with my head over the toilet throwing up between sobs. I didn't stop crying until I got the phone call the next morning. The guy on the other end of the line told me he had fell off the docks and hit his head and was found washed up on shore. This man told me he was sorry for my loss, but the way he said didn't sound sincere. He would never know the magnitude of my loss, no one would. I knew he was already dead an hour after he left me, I had felt his soul leave this world. To actually hear the words made it even more real. As soon as I was told, my knees went weak and the phone slipped out of my hand as the uncontrollable sobs started up again. I felt like I couldn't breath. I didn't want to live without him. Whoever had called me to give me the bad news apparently contacted Gunn, his best friend, who came over and found me on the kitchen floor crying. He held me until my sobs quieted and I fell asleep and then finally carried me onto my bed.

I didn't wake up until later that night, I could still smell his lingering scent on the sheets. I frantically got out of bed, it was all too much for me. I started making arrangements for his funeral. He deserved the best good-bye. I didn't let myself cry after that morning on the kitchen floor until after the funeral. I knew that once I started I wouldn't be able to stop. I had to be strong, for myself and our friends. If they knew how much of a wreck I really was, they wouldn't leave me alone. I had to keep myself busy in order to keep my mind off him, although it didn't work very well. My thoughts are always about him.

At least 100 people showed up for his funeral to pay their respects. Most of them he met though work. Some of the people that came hated him and rejoiced his death, some he saved, and some had only heard of him. People I didn't even know came over to me and told me how sorry they were and others completely ignored me. I knew everyone there knew who I was, although I didn't know who they were. After the funeral was over I cringed inside because I didn't know what to do next. He was my life, my savior, my hero and if he wasn't in this world why should I be. He is a part of me and I didn't think it was possible to live without him. I broke down in tears on his grave site for the first time since the morning I got the phone call. I sat there sobbing until the first rays of morning appeared.

I refused to leave my house for the following two weeks. My friends would try and cheer me up and bribe me into getting out of the house, but I wasn't two years old, I couldn't be bribed. I soon became sick. I was throwing up constantly and I wasn't eating right, I had lost weight and wasn't getting enough sleep; I couldn't remember a night that I didn't wake up with nightmares. My friends were getting worried and forced me to see a doctor. At first I refused, saying that half of me was gone and that part of me didn't want to live, but the other part wanted me to keep going because that's what he would have wanted me to do. I finally agreed to go if they would stop bugging me. I got a call a few days after I went to the doctor asking me to come in to get the results of a blood test I had gotten done. The results were something I never would have expected. I was pregnant. I was a little over a month along.

The doctor asked me if my husband would be proud. I replied with "he's dead" and then I started crying. I seemed to be doing a lot of that. I wasn't sure if they were happy tears or sad ones. I kept picturing my husbands face if I had the chance to tell him. He would have been so happy. I didn't know if I could raise a child without him, if I would want to. The doctor looked at me, telling me that I had options. The only option I could live with was raising this baby, telling him stories of his father and how much his father loved him although they never had the chance to meet. My husband left me with a part of him, the most precious gift and to this day I'm so happy for it.

Liam is almost three now. I named him after his father. I love him so much. He's a little replica of his father only with blond hair. He's got the same eyes, the exact same color and when he feels a strong emotion they tend to get darker, just like his father's. I can't look at Liam and not think of his father. He's a painful reminder, but I wouldn't give him up for anything.

I try not to spoil him rotten, but he's so hard to resist. I now know how my father felt when I wanted something, he could never resist me either. Liam's got everything a three year-old boy could ever want, a room full of toys, a loving mother and a handful of aunts and uncles that love him as much as I love him. But everything in the entire world couldn't make up for the loss of a father he never knew. He will never have a father, that's the one thing I can't give him. There's only one person that is his rightful father and even though I can hunt down a potential father for Liam and marry this guy and have more babies with him, giving Liam brother's and sisters, I wouldn't want to. There's only one man for me, and he's dead.

I keep imagining how my husband would react to how Liam has grown. He's turning into a wonderful young boy. He's polite, he takes care of me, he makes up amazing games and pretends he's a super hero, he can build four feet tower's out of blocks, he can make the right choices, he eats his vegetables, he remembers people he has only seen once before for a few minutes, and the list goes on. It might seem silly, but I sometimes pretend that he's here with me, raising our little boy, taking him camping, teaching him how to play baseball and to become a respectful man. More than anything I wish my husband was here with us.

They say that it gets easier everyday after a loved one dies. It doesn't. For me its harder, each day makes his death more real. I morn him everyday. I cry out to him everyday. I don't let anyone see how hard it really is for me.

I'm a good actress. I make it seem like I'm okay. I laugh and smile and hang out with my friends. I work full time and then go home and play with my son. They think I'm wonder-woman, they think that I can just forget my other half, but it is impossible. If I hadn't found out I was pregnant I would probably have done something incredibly stupid. I didn't have anything to live for. Liam has brought so much into my life. He saved me. He's the only thing I have left in this world to really live for, but I will embrace the day that I will finally meet my angel again.

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