Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or in Angel the Series. If I would then they’d be shacked up in one nice casa right now with 2.3 children, a dog and an SUV. They’d be blissfully happy, Cordelia would be dating Gunn, the Scoobies would be their neighbours and everyone would live off of Cookie Dough flavoured ice cream. Characters belong to Mr Whedon, Mutant Enemy (grrr argh), and all the dudes and dudettes at Fox etc. The plot or lack of plot more angsty rambling, belongs to moi. If any one picks it up for distribution I’d be surprised, but if you do want it, I’m happy for it to go anywhere as long as you tell me.
Authors Notes: This is my first fanfic in well over a year, and as usual it’s a PoV fic. I tried to get into buffy’s head over the whole meeting, and I ended up venting a lot of anger I feel at the way AtS is going, and how much I don’t like Angel’s new character. I am, however, incredibly satisfied with Buffy, I love the whole darkness in the show and the never ending angst! It’s cool, and I’m not too fussed about the B/S, A/C is much more worrying. Sorry if there’s errors, it’s completely un-beta’d and I just wrote it so work with me. Oh and I adore feedback *hint hint*. Enjoy!
Plot: Set after the meeting at the end of Flooded, anytime after. From Buffy’s PoV, don’t expect the usual fluffyness derived from the meeting, it’s a little dark, a little adult but now overly so. I’d give it a Pg-13 max for one swear word (unless I took it out and forgot).

Intense. That’s what I told the guys, it was intense, and y’know, they just accepted it. But it wasn’t intense, I mean the word intense insinuates that it was powerful but good, and it wasn’t. Oh God it wasn’t. Y’know now I wish (not for the first or the last time) that I was dead…well again. I wish that Willow hadn’t dragged my ass back to this hell, that I were still in my grave rotting away like the corpse that I was. Finished, everything was finished, my life, my job, my duty, school and Angel. Angel and I were finished, over kaput, done, adios yadda yadda. I was wasted, completely done. I had nothing, have nothing else to give. But here I am, Buffy Anne Summers, 1981-present, I don’t even get the luxury of a date of death anymore, I have nothing. But wait everyone says, you have Dawn, you have us and you have your life back. Great I say, and I smile and I excuse myself because I know if I stick around when I’m smiling my face is likely to crack and I’ll break. I won’t cry, I’d never cry in front of them, after all, I came back from hell and anything’s an improvement on that right? What’s better than eternal bliss? What’s better than knowing that your life wasn’t a waste, that you gave the ultimate gift to the person that you love the most, the person that is part of you?? I felt so good for once, not dirty and tainted like I’d done since the day my parents finalised their divorce, I felt right, like I was doing something that would finally break me from the shackles that haunt me. I gave dawn life, I gave her my life, and you know, it feels like my gift’s been returned void.

So, the meeting with Angel: I want to hate him, I want to so badly I want to be free of him and his lies and empty promises. He left me because he said that he wanted me to have a family, to have children, to have a life and a normal boyfriend. Well, that’s a big laugh isn’t it. Let me see, a life, well you know I had a death for about three months, does that count?? Oh what about the family, I have a sister that’s a klepto, that steals and swears and skips school (so the last bit sounds like I used to, shoot me, she was made from me after all). A sister that wants me to be old Buffy, just so that she feels less helpless, so that she gets her old life back. I have no Mom, no Giles, no family. The Scoobies have never been so strained, god I love Xander but he’s not my guy anymore. He’s not my white knight, he can’t save me, no one can save me. And Willow, Willow catches me when I jump, but she couldn’t save me if I fall. I want to fall so badly, I want to scream “Let me out” I want to die. I want to die. But I can’t. So, I have no family, no real family, I don’t have a boyfriend, I have sex (with Spike no less), I have no normal life (I’m a freaking corpse for God’s sake, I’m a poster child for normal), I have no job and I have no baby. That’s what makes me hate him, I have no baby of my own. I have no child growing inside me, filling me and making me believe. I have an empty womb and an empty heart, and he has both. I’m not that jealous over the mother, Darla as it turns out (bitch), but I am so mad. I hate him and his lies. He said he wanted me to have those things, but I don’t and he does.

He has a family of his own, a tiny baby and he has Cordy, Gunn, Wes and apparently Fred. He has his own gang, his own group and his own family. He has a son, a tiny eight week old son that he has to love and hold and kiss and protect and keep. He has a baby that isn’t mine, that didn’t grow inside me, that wasn’t made from *our* love, that was made from his love with another woman. He said sex, but Angel doesn’t have sex, I don’t believe he has sex. He makes love, and he made a baby. A tiny little person all of his own. And I hate him for it.

One of the reasons he left was so I could have a family, my own baby my own little person to hold and love. And I don’t have it. And I can’t help but wonder, if he’d stayed, would I have had his baby instead of Darla? He found a way round the curse, the vampire the demon and the death. He found a way to fuck her and get her pregnant, surely he would have been able to do the same for me. Surely I would have felt his baby growing inside of *me*, and I would have had a family of my very own, my own precious family. But he took it away from me, he left me for a city, for his own family and he left me to fight and die alone. And I hate him for it, I hate him.

But I felt that thing again, the feeling I get when I know he’s around. The feeling of unconditional love in my stomach as he kisses me and fills me with even more empty promises. As if he could, he doesn’t fill me anymore. I know that the things he says to me are empty, that I’ll never get all the things he wants me to have. I know, and I don’t even care. Then I realised, I never wanted those things in the first place, well most of them. All I wanted was Angel, and my own family, my own baby my own child, a home and love, unconditional love. I wanted to give life instead of taking it all the time, and I realised, it was Angel all along who wanted those things that he promised me. He wanted a family, he got one, he wanted children and he got his own son, he wanted to walk into the sunlight with a nice normal girl on his arm, and from what I hear between the Powers That Be and Cordelia, he’s got that covered too. He has it all, and he doesn’t even realise. Or does he??

He cried when he saw me, not the teary eyes that he used on me in high school, real tears that coursed like a river, just as wild and just as powerful. And he held me, and I felt like crying from the ache that I felt in my heart. I missed him so much, I always miss him, but I knew it all over. I wouldn’t get my happy ending this time either, and I was right. He stayed for little over 4 hours before he headed back to the Hypernion, he never invited me home with him, just kissed me and left me. As usual he left me. I asked him though, I asked him if he felt me go, if he could tell that I was dying and he looked down at the floor. He shamefully said he hadn’t, and I felt my heart breaking all over again, he’d forgotten about me and I’m not his girl anymore. So much for always huh?

Of course he said that he’d never stopped loving me, even when I was gone. He told me how he’d taken off for Tibet in some kind of half attempt to deal with guilt (yeah that’s the word he used,) that he hadn’t been able to protect me. I asked about grief and he said that it hadn’t come very quickly, even when he’d seen my corpse in the casket he’d refused to accept it. That’s more like my Angel I thought, he’d never give up on me he’d always wait for me, even if it was until the end of days. Then he said that he’d left and it had finally hit him, and he’d dealt with it. Got me thinking back to senior year, love goes full circle you know. I always thought that Angel would die if anything happened to me, but I was wrong. He dealt with it the same as I did when I sent him to hell. I thought that the grief would suffocate me, but it didn’t and I survived. Love isn’t something that’s all powerful, that can overcome the natural laws of the universe. It’s something very subtle, very temperamental, something unique to every couple and something strong.

Even if I did die, even if he did die, the love that we experienced those years before, the love that evolved into the one we share even today. Passion may be buried but I’ll always love him, even if I can’t bear to look at him now, cause all I see is the things he took away from me. And I can’t bear it, cause this finally will break me. I can deal with death, and I’m dealing with life, but I can’t deal with a broken heart, so maybe one day, one day in the future Angel and I will have a chance. It might not happen, The Powers That be have spited us so many times that it probably won’t, but the thought of it keeps me sane. I can look past the rut I’m stuck in now, look past the void, and maybe I see a distant light. Maybe?

I hate him, but I love him. I love him so much.

Send feedback to Lauren

Back to the Fanfiction Archive