TIMELINE: Completely AU
PAIRING: B/A of course...
SUMMARY: Buffy is dying...Angel is there...
AN: I had to write a short story for my English class and I used different character so hand into my teacher, but I wrote this with my fav. doomed couple in mind!
FEEDBACK: ALWAYS!

I waited patiently as the elevator ‘dinged’ and the simple mirrored doors opened to reveal the snow white hallways that seemed like a long tunnel that never ended. The white paint had been chipped in several places that revealed an off white color beneath it. Voices filled the halls as several people walked out of the rooms on both sides.

I had walked these halls almost every day for the past three months. Those halls were never any different. Except for the people coming in and out of it, I mean. The shiny white floor, always sparkling, the sometimes rushing workers into one of the rooms in the back, the way it was always freezing cold it was like ice, never changed.

I passed by the desk of nurses and they all look at me, knowing who I was and exactly what I was doing here. They saw me every time I came into this retched place. The three nurses gave me a sympathetic smile as I continued to walk down the same white hall.

I sighed, coming up to the door I had walked into for so long. Room 214. I didn’t knock, knowing that if I did, I would most likely wake the gentle, fragile woman I’ve known all my life. The love of my life to be exact. The cold doorknob filled my palm as I turned the door open to enter the chilly room.

And there she was. Lying, sleeping on the hospital bed, like everyday. My Sleeping Beauty, I called her. She always loved that movie when we were kids. She’d spend hours watching it, and begging me to be her Prince Charming, slay the evil dragon and rescue her from the tower by giving her a kiss to wake her from her slumber. Those were happy times. So young, so innocent we were. We never knew what lied ahead of us. What lied ahead for her.

The small, meek ‘click’ of the door closing brought me back to reality in an instant. Her usual blue eyes were closed as she was in her place of hope and dreams. Her shoulder length blonde hair was spread over the worn down pillow her head rested on. The light blue sheet was covering her up until her chest; with her arms out lying still beside her body. The room was deathly silent other than her breathing and the ‘beeping’ of the machines that she was hooked up to.

I sighed once again and turned into the bathroom to calm myself. I did this once in a while when I come and see her. It was hard to know that she was in there. She was in this horrible prison that she couldn’t escape from. She was in this alone. I couldn’t do this for her no matter how many times I had wished to trade our positions. To not have not had her with this horrible disease inside her.

I stepped up to the white sink and turned the right and left handles to let the water come splashing out. I took my hands and put them under the cool water and splashed my face several times. I turned the squeaky handles back off quickly wiped my face off. I ran my hands through my dark brown spikey hair as I stared into my reflection for a moment. I once again gathered myself and walked back out into her room.

When I closed the door, I noticed the bright blue eyes that I had missed so much. A smile came across her face as she saw that her assumption was right about who was here. The smile that I hadn’t seen in what felt like ages.

“Hi.” She whispered.

“Hey.” I said quietly as I walked over to where my hospital chair was permanently set right next to her bed. I bent over her slightly so I was able to place a small kiss on her temple and stare into those eyes that look like the ocean. I sat down on the chair hearing the ‘creaks’ of the wood and I took possession of her hand, like I had so many other nights and days.

“You sleep okay?” I asked looking at her beautiful face.

“Like a rock.” She tried to sound lighthearted but she couldn’t.

I quickly changed the subject. “I have a gift for you. Two actually, but only one at a time.” I could never contain a smile around her. She always made me laugh. No one else has ever made me laugh like she could.

Her whole face lit up like a Christmas tree when I mentioned the word ‘gift’. She fully sat up on the bed and grinned ear to ear.

“Some things never change.” I joked with her. I stood up and let go of her hand to fish through my right jacket pocket. I took out the small velvet box and took a tremendous sigh. I handed it over to her with shaky hands. My whole body was nervous of what her reaction might be.

She slowly opened the box to draw out the suspension of the moment. It was killing me slowly to know that she was doing this for fun and loving every second of it. She finally saw what the box contained and her whole entire attitude changed.

“I love it. This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten. How do you do that?” she wondered as if a realization had just struck her.

“Do what?” I asked her curiously not knowing what she was talking about.

She glanced around the room quickly not letting me see her eyes start to well, and then she looked back at me straight in the eyes, her tears be damned.

“Make me love you so much?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. I just moved over to sit on the edge of her bed and I took out the necklace I had given her and placed it safely around her neck.

“This guardian angel will help protect you and will allow me to be here with you even when I can’t.” I kissed her once again, remembering all those times that we had lost ourselves in such a simple act. When we kissed then, it was so pure and sacred, it was without a doubt magical. Even more so than the first time we’d kissed back in high school. I never thought anything would ever compete with that first kiss, but that, that blew everything out of the water.

The kiss ended and I cupped her cheek with my right hand trying desperately to keep the connection between myself and my other half.

She turned her head and looked longingly outside the window a few feet away. The sun was shining so brightly. It was a very beautiful day. The cloudless sky was calling at her like a drug she was addicted to.

She turned back to meet my face and placeed her small hands inside my own and felt a sense of peace within herself.

“How about a walk?” she asked with a silly grin on her face. She knew I could never say no to her no matter what the subject was.

I nodded my head yes and she squealed with joy. Sadly, I let her go out of my grasp for a moment while she put on some suitable clothes.

I exited her room, and walked back over to the nurses desk where I check out a wheelchair. The nurse that I’d seen more than the others was very happy to oblige. She was glad that Buffy was getting out of the room today.

I pushed the small vehicle back up to the dreaded room 214 that I knew all too well where my girl was waiting for me to return. I pushed the door open and saw her sitting on the bed buttoning up the last few buttons on the hospital shirt she’d retrieved.

She smiled up and me and sits down on the hard seat. She adjusted for a few moments, trying to get comfortable. Or as comfy as she could, anyway. She pointed toward the sunglasses that were sitting on the bed side table and asked, “Can you hand me my sunglasses?”

I nodded my head and turned my back for a moment to grab her sunglasses that I had bought her a few summers ago.

She smiled up and me and pointed toward the door.

“Let’s rock and roll.”

I chuckled at her attempt of being humorous.

We exited her room and walked down the same hallway that I arrived in not an hour ago and back into those same elevators. We entered the elevators and laughed at the elevator music, like we used to about different topics, like sports or movies or television. The simplicity of those times felt like so long ago when indeed it was not even a year ago.

The weather was absolutely perfect outside once we reached the outdoors and the fresh air. She looked around the yard like she’d just found the biggest treasure chest in the world. She looked up at me and smiled her best smile and pointed to a shaded area under the big willow tree.

I pushed her over and teased her by driving it like a racecar for a few steps. It made her laugh, which was my goal. We both did.

I helped her out of the chair and we sat under the tree with the shade protecting us like a big blanket from the outside world. Under the shade only she and I existed. Under the shade we were our old selves again. Under the shade we could only pretend.

She looked over at me and had a guilty look on her face. She had done something. Something she couldn’t hide any longer without giggling.

“What?” She wouldn’t answer me.

I prodded again, “What did you do?”

Still silence. Finally, I was starting to get a little serious, “Buffy?”

“Hungry?” she asked in a small, meek voice like a mouse.

She turned over to the wheelchair and grabbed a lunch bag from underneath it.

I looked over at her and was baffled that she just pulled that bag out of the chair like a rabbit out of a hat.

“How did you do that?” I was very curious to know.

“I have my ways.” She answered cryptically trying to avoid my magnetic brown eyes that she couldn’t lie to.

The rest of the afternoon was spent eating the sandwiches that she’d asked the nurses to request in the kitchen for her. She had been sneaky about it when I’d gotten there this morning knowing that today would be the perfect day for a lunch outing. The next two hours were spent talking about the past and my future. We remembered times in high school that seemed so huge then, and not even knowing why, now.

Around one o’clock, we headed back inside the hospital. She had gotten dizzy again and was needing to lie down.

I helped her into the wheelchair once more, steadying her as we walk from under our protection shield and back into reality. We both knew that our time together was coming to an end, and rather quickly.

I pushed her back up to her room and left for another moment to return the wheelchair to the nurse’s station and walked fast back to her room.

She already had her IV put back into her and was coughing a little.

I started to sit down in my permanent seat and hold her hand but she stopped me. I looked up at her confusingly and she barely mustered out, “Hold me?”

We both knew that it was the end and she wanted to know that I was with her. I slid her over a bit on the bed so that I could fit next to her, not well, but so that I could hold her like she asked me to.

She smiled up at me and felt our connection, our bond, our feeling of being whole with the other one so close. It always amazed us how we both felt like we were made for each other, how perfectly we fit together.

I pulled into my left jacket pocket and hand her another small box. I opened it and she saw the second gift that I was going to give her.

“Is it…?” She asked not completing her sentence.

“Yeah. It is.” I blinked once letting my emotional side set in. I pulled out the Claddagh ring that I had received a year ago, for when we were going to get engaged three months ago. Then she had been rushed to the hospital. It was a beautiful ring that my grandmother had given me when I graduated high school. She told me to give it to the one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. It was a white gold band with a few small diamonds in the crown and the heart was made up of an emerald.

I placed the ring that my grandfather had given my grandmother on their wedding day in Ireland in 1940, on my best friend’s hand.

“The crown represents loyalty, the hands represent friendship and the heart… well, you know. Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody,” I explained the folklore of the ring to her while placing it on her left ring finger where it rightfully belonged.

“The Irish, exchange this as a sign of devotion and use it as a wedding ring. My grandma gave it to me on our graduation day and told me to give it to the person that I was going to marry.”

She looked at the ring and kissed my hand that was right next to her face.

“Look inside it.” I softly told her.

She took off the rings and looked inside the band, and saw the word “Soulmate” written inside. She smiled at the word knowing that it was true in every sense of the word.

I smiled down at her and kiss her forehead as she placed the ring back on her finger where it never came off.

She had a peaceful look on her face as she closed her eyes and asked me, “Angel?”

“Yeah?” I answered, bringing my attention back to her and trying to soothe her.

“Are you my Prince Charming?”

I let a small smile creep out as she called me that. My subconscious knew that this is it. The pit of my stomach was a hurricane going at top winds lashing from side to side.

I remembered when we were little and she’d ask me that after watching her favorite movie, I would give her the same answer every time.

“Forever.” I replied as I put the necklace I gave her this morning in her cold palm as a reminder that I would be with her wherever she went.

After she would ask me if I was her Prince Charming, I would ask her, and I did know in her hospital room, “You still My Sleeping Beauty?”

“Always.” She answered, and not moments later the monitor next to her went flat.

Angsty I know... I was in the mood, hope you all like!

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